Chapter Three: God-Damned Goofed-Up Hoodoo

The front door had clicked shut, followed by the unmistakable sound of the lock falling into place. The sharp shick sound of it makes Jonah shiver, makes his remarkably full stomach turn.

Alone and trapped in Hell House, as the media had begun calling his ancestral home. It was all the renovators would talk about while rebuilding the home Jonah's grandfather had once built. How damned the very ground was, and the demons that had once lived in it, with Jonah being the damndest. The blackest sinner. The teen ponders the novelty of it all; he had been born in this home, died in it, and reborn again in its wooden facade. Jonah's lot, his destiny, to have lived and died and reborn again behind that locked front door, never to leave.

Jonah guesses he'd been a fool to think he'd ever make it off this tainted property.

The medium stands from the too-familiar kitchen table and walks into the horrifically accurate reconstruction of his dining room. His laced boots click on the glossy wooden floor, and he splays a long, pale hand to the familiar wood paneling. Jonah takes a deep breath, holding it, and concentrates. His lungs ache but it's okay; he'd gotten used to not breathing for seventy-something years. The familiar colors, auras, shift behind his closed eyelids. Good to know he hadn't lost any of his powers, they were just a bit rusty. Lungs screaming, Jonah settles into the blackness of his own mind and soul. He settles into that special space inside himself, and he lets the colors flow and take shape. The house itself had always been a horrible red hue, and Jonah's surprised to see it's shifted into a soft orange, with purple around the edges. He can feel the breath of it, the soft hum and expanding shift that the house has always had. It is, after all, a living thing. Jonah pushes further, widening, opening, spreading through the wood and walls and wires and stones. Jonah is relieved enough to cry when his searching fingers find no other souls but his own in the house. There are no bodies behind these familiar walls, no ashes but his own in the basement.

Thank God.

While Jonah can tell there are no other ghosts present, Hell House finally free of spirits, he can still feel the static. He can still hear the faint sound of the house's pain, a searing sort of screaming sound Jonah had first noticed when he was four. The house and the property may be free of demons and ghosts but it will always and forever be unclean. Just like himself.

The thought makes Jonah laugh, an awful barking laugh that sounds too much like his father's for his own liking. Still haunted by those hands and those glasses and that laugh, that awful patronizing, horrible sound.

Dropping his hand back to his side, the humming abruptly stops. Jonah opens his eyes, letting the colors fade away into a blur. The resurrected teen has to remember to breathe again. He grimly wonders if Matthew is being truthful. Does he truly have to breathe, to eat? Will he feel physical pain, bleed, sweat, shit? This all just has to be a horrible dream. To live again, but only behind the doors of this wretched house.

But at least this time Matthew is here, and he will be, and now they can interact. Now they can be two live boys, two arguably "normal" people.

The fact that Matthew somehow knew enough black magic to bring someone back from the dead has not escaped Jonah's notice and oh boy, by golly does he intend to question the man about his damned and dark hobbies as soon as he gets home. For now, he'll just have to put together what pieces of this puzzle he can.

The basement still looks all too familiar, shadowed in the light shed from the rather minuscule windows close to the ceiling; the last time he had peered through one of them, he had been on the other side of the glass. Matthew had looked small and scared, surrounded by crowds of ghosts. Surrounded by the spirits of the people Jonah and his father had desecrated. Someone seems to have taken great pains in reconstructing the Aickman house in its full satanic glory; the wooden, smoked glass doors are perfect replicas, and they stand ajar. Down here, the chaotic orange energy of the house is even more palpable; Jonah doesn't have to close his eyes and concentrate to see it. The stink of black magic makes the air feel heavier, worse even now than it had been when Jonah was alive. Desecrating corpses was one thing, but bringing one back to life costs even more. The payment was blood, humanity, divinity, and for some reason Matthew had yet to disclose, he had decided Jonah was worth all that.

Jonah eases the door open with his foot, unwilling to touch anything given the current funk of sacrilege. The mortuary sure is in a state. That damned round dining room table, the one that had been so painstakingly saved from the fire, and had once been one of the main attractions for the brief few weeks this house was a tourist hotspot, lays in crumbled broken scorched pieces. Jonah kneels, and upon closer inspection sees the carvings: a bona-fide pentacle, some all-seeing eyes. An awful lot of Latin, and triangles pointing from the center of the pentacle to the sitter intending to trade in blood. Jonah gags slightly at the awful burned smell of it all; Matthew had done a horrible amount of research. Jonah can see shattered bowls, scattered herbs and offerings littering the floor. Blood is spattered on the table and floor, and vomit stains the cement floor. His eyes find the oxygen tank and mask, the defibrillator, and the boy laughs, a nervous reedy sound. Walking further into the room, glass crunches under his feet, and his eyes find the furnace he died in. Jonah wonders if Matthew knows how much of Jonah's own energy clings to the metal; without even trying, Jonah can see the red horror filling the small space he died in.

The medium finally notices the walls. Latin has been carved into the brick, perfectly, finely. Disgust rises, Jonah can taste bile; he's starting to lose his grip as the red is starting to seep all around, fill his mind. Visions flash like tintype prints: gray and decaying skin parting so simply underneath his scalpel, his father's hand holding his, a deceptively gentle touch as he helps Jonah carve such small letters into a corpse. White-clouded eyes and cotton-stuffed mouths with wired jaws. Blood painted pentacles and his own body that had never belonged to him, since other souls seemed to need it so much more badly.

How could he? How could Matthew taint himself in ways Jonah had spent his entire existence wishing he hadn't?

"Hey, Jonah,"

Jonah screams in a way that doesn't sound exactly human, ripping from his lungs in a way that makes him feel empty. The red is still there, still filling his eyes, and all of that damned blood- just stinks, just sticks, pounding-

Hands are touching him, hands have wrapped themselves around his shoulders, tightly, and Jonah strikes out with a sob, his fists striking something entirely human, solid, warm. He pushes harder, can feel the tears welling. The body he's fighting moves closer, trapping him, pulling him to the floor with it. The hands move to his chest and then his wrist, as if feeling for a heartbeat. Something moves in front of his face but all he can see is the blood, the rage. The hands cup his face, so gently for a malevolent spirit. The pads of thumbs are running under his eyes, tracing his cheekbones. Through the pounding in his head, Jonah can hear a voice.

"Jonah, hey, come back to me! Where are you right now, honey? Where have you gone?"

Honey?

"Hey, are you seeing? What are you seeing, are you…"

The voice trails off.

"Fuck. Christ, I guess I didn't consider that you're still one hell of a medium."

It's Matthew's voice. Jonah's sobs lessen, his hands unclench from fists into soft, fluttering things. The red is beginning to clear, and Matthew's voice has devolved into sweet nothings like "I've got you," "please come back," "you're okay," and "I'm sorry," repeatedly. Through hazy eyes, he can make out the man. His doe-brown eyes, with the crinkled crows feet, his lopsided mouth framed by that mustache. The same Latin from the walls shiny and taut littering Matthew's face.

Guilt is swallowing Matt alive. He'd returned home, unlocked the front door, and was greeted with a silent house. He'd searched the first floor, and then the second. He'd even looked in the bathroom, and Jonah's room, the bed made. He'd only been gone for an hour, two at most. How long had the medium been standing in the mortuary? It was the last place he had checked, of course, not expecting the teen to venture down into the depths of Hell House, to the room he had died in. He'd called Jonah's name, and the boy hadn't heard him, standing perfectly still in front of the furnace, the head tilted as if looking at the wall, his back to Matt. It's then Matt had noticed the silvery strands of ectoplasm, had turned the boy around by his shoulders to see the fluid flowing gently from his open eyes, eyes that had rolled back in his head.

And then he started fighting him.

"Matthew?"

The blue eyes were clear again and just as horribly bright as usual, staring at Matt. The boy was shaking slightly, but seemed otherwise fine.

"Hey, honey, are you okay?"

The two men are sitting across from each other on a floor littered with blood and broken glass. The boy nods slightly and the man rubs his face.

"So, um, what happened in here?"

Jonah's soft and vulnerable expression hardens into a mask, the same unreadable coolness Matt had seen the night before.

"Why, I don't know Matthew, why don't you tell me? Why is there Latin carved into the walls, so much dirtiness, so much damned black and nasty necromancy?"

Matt at least has the decency to flinch, and Jonah shakes his head angrily when the professor doesn't respond. Jonah stands and turns to leave.

"I'm going to go bathe, and I expect to have a talk after. I knew you had to have done something dire to bring me back from the dead, but I didn't realize it was quite this bad. This is so much worse than anything I could've dreamed."

Before Matthew could respond, the medium was already walking up the stairs. Matt holds his face in his hands, exhaling a drawn-out sigh.

Matt just didn't know what to do with himself most of the time. He found himself like this often, chain smoking and studying the scars on his hands. It had taken him years to get used to the sight of them, for the initial disgust and horror to fade and be replaced with something akin to loss, to a hollow ache that translated into the empty space the ghost had left behind. That space had always felt so real, and his thoughts would always drift to blue eyes and burned skin and the manic, burning energy of him. That space, that empty feeling akin to losing a loved one had never felt so vast as it did now, with his ghost no longer a ghost and very much alive, taking a bath in the upstairs bathroom.

Over time, Matt got used to the way he had been disfigured. He began thinking of it as marked instead, that he had been claimed. Written on like property. And what better way to serve this vast magic bigger than him but to take it up in arms, to learn what the conduit before him had? Jonah, born with a gift to perform the most horrible and beautiful and human of rites. Matt had sometimes felt slighted that he had to learn it all from scratch when Jonah had been born into it; Matt realizes now that the magic he so beholds might be exactly what disgusted his partner in life and death, and pain. How can Jonah even look at him, stand the sight of Matt so horribly selfish and disfigured? Matt snubs his cigarette out with a sigh, clenching his hands in his hair and staring around at the butts littering the ground around him through hazy eyes. He blinks to clear the tears away. Christ, had he been wrong.

The sound of the screen door opening and slamming startles Matt from his thoughts, standing to lay eyes on him. The boy. Jonah looks vulnerable again, and small; he's changed from day clothes into cotton trousers and a loose undershirt, all thin limbs and knobby joints. His black hair is wet and slicked to his head, the burning blue of his eyes staring down at the wooden slats of the porch. Again, Matt wonders if Jonah can even stand the sight of him.

"Hey, Jonah,"

A raised hand stops him. Jonah pads closer to the older man, settling to sit on the porch steps. Matt takes up post beside him, damn near wringing his hands. There's this vibe the medium gives off sometimes, a cold distance that makes Matt want to cry all over again. He really should've gotten the kid's consent before raising him from the dead. It was probably fucked up (cruel) of him to just assume Jonah would be happy to be back. The silence stretches between them, and both boys end up smoking again, staring into the night and trying to look anywhere but each other.

"Why?" Jonah's voice is still so surreal out loud. "Why would you do something like this? Such God-damned goofed-up hoodoo-"

"I didn't think it was wrong,"

Jonah's laugh is harsh again, makes the hair on the back of Matt's neck stand on edge. Matt suddenly realizes he might not actually know the human sitting next to him, alive and in so much pain.

"Didn't think it was wrong? Didn't think at all is more like it, literally anything needing blood and human remains and Latin caved into things is wrong!"

Jonah's voice is raised again, and Matt flinches, staring at his scarred hands and wondering why he didn't just take the final option, of joining him in death, as they should've always been, dead together.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry! Yes of course you should be damned sorry, Matthew!" Matt can't meet those eyes even as they rearrange his bones again, feel like they sear his flesh. How is this happening, Jonah Aickman sitting here yelling at Matt, angry? Anger, a god-damned novelty. "Why on this earth would you do something like this? Damn yourself to all eternity? Was this fun for you, carving into things so evilly? Spilling blood on my behalf and giving up your humanity in the process?"

Matt shakes his head silently, staring at the way Jonah's hands are clenched into fists at his thighs, the shaking evident even from here.

"How would it ever be worth it, Matthew? You blood-bound a demon to you! You dirtied your soul with this wretched blackness for what, a glorified roommate? I would've thought after everything you'd been through, what I forced upon you, you would've stayed fifty feet away from this damned…"

"I'm not blood bound to a demon, you're being dramatic."

Jonah looks back at him, and Matt meets his eyes only to realize their brightness, the unshed tears lingering close to black lashes.

"What? Yes you did, you damned stupid—"

"No, Jonah." Matthew is staring at him, into his eyes, and Jonah feels suddenly unsettled. Reading him had always been so easy, but now the medium isn't sure; the man's eyes, brown and black and bruised beneath, belie only a deep sadness, an ache and a pain; Jonah's anger feels displaced now, compared to the look Matthew is giving him. A look the teen can't place. No one has ever held his gaze this long; Jonah had spent most of his living life doing his best to look indirectly at people. He'd been told on more than one occasion that he was unsettling, and had watched people's eyes skirt from his and anywhere but. The only other person that had ever met Jonah's eyes like this, had looked into them and not looked away, was his father. But Matthew's eyes were so different. The scars covering his face shine silver in the back porch light, nearly invisible until stretched just the right way. How could this man possibly think what he did was right, with scars like that? Had Jonah ruined him so terribly?

Matt had expected a rebuttal, and was surprised instead to watch Jonah get lost in thought. The second they'd locked eyes, the teen had been long gone. And for the first time, Matt held that gaze and got to actually look at the boy without feeling the sear of his almost inhuman eyes. Such an intense shade of blue, really. Too bright, too much, just like the rest of him. Confused and angry, and still just riddled with pain. Matt knows he owes the kid a better explanation than the one he gave him this morning.

"Jonah, I'm not blood bound to a demon. You know damn well you aren't one. You were a ghost, are human. I'm blood bound to you. I did so very selfishly. I tried to ask you but you wouldn't respond, and as I said this morning, I had nothing left. Nothing left to lose. This isn't just some one-time, passing fantasy either. This sort of thing is my life's work, black magic or otherwise. I had more than twenty years without you, kid, I had to do something, and all I ever wanted led up to my decision. So I'm sorry that I've disgusted you, or scared you. If you would like, we can undo it."

"What? Undo it? That's impossible."

"You know it isn't Jonah. I could do it many ways. I could kill myself, or you. I can't break the blood ties, but I can unmake you. I could unravel your existence if I wanted. I could kill you. Or, if I were to die, we both would."

"No, wait, I don't mean—"

"No. I'm sorry Jonah but I just don't know what to do. I didn't know what to do when you left, I couldn't think of anything else. I've thought about it before and almost did, but I thought this would be better, black magic be damned, I figured I was damned already anyways…"

Jonah's come to cradle his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth, listening to the professor prattle on about loneliness and death. A loneliness Jonah had caused, of how he had already been sullied by Jonah's selfishness in cleansing the house, of freeing what was left of his soul.

Matt's diatribe ends when a thin hand suddenly darts out to clench his shoulder. Jonah looks as if he's struggling to say something, and Matt resigns himself to silence again, closing his eyes to focus on that presence, the hand perched like a bird. Silence descends a final time before the kid finally speaks.

"Matthew, listen. I shouldn't have lost my temper with you or questioned your life decisions, I'm just horrified you would do all of this black magic on your own. But I started it, I think, I did this to you, when you came to live here,"

"No, you know that's wrong too, the other ghosts started this fucked up hoodoo, you were trying to protect me,"

The hand clenches, shutting Matt up again. Jonah has shifted closer, their knees touching, Jonah's gaze boring a hole into the wood of the porch step. He fades away for a moment, and then back. Matt wonders what he's thinking.

"I was trying to protect you," his voice is the roughest of whispers, still tinged with anger, "and I failed. I failed you horribly Matthew, and now I'm still complicating your life, leading it into all of these unnatural directions. Now you've given it up, for what? I just.."

"For you, Jonah. And I didn't give anything up, I've started a new life with the one person I was missing." Matt's voice feels harsh, and the teen flits away, distancing himself again with the smallest of sniffles. Matt reaches for the kid, feeling awful, but Jonah just shakes his head again.

"Wow. You're really delusional. We've really done a number on each other, haven't we?"

For some reason, Matt starts to laugh. Jonah laughs too, wetly, the tears finally falling from his face.

"Listen, Jonah, we both have our regrets. I'm sure you regret all of the times you scared me half to death, and I regret forcibly thrusting you back into existence without your consent. The only thing I could do about it is end it all, now. You let me know if you ever want me to, but for now, I'm going to go make some tea and hope it clears out this headache I've got. Tomorrow, I'll clean out the basement for good, alright?"

Jonah nods.

Matt lights another cigarette. "Do you usually like picking fights?"

The teen laughs again, this one free from the wet sound of his sadness. He shakes his head and fishes into Matthew's shirt pocket for a cig.

"Not usually, Matthew. Only when I'm worried about you."

"Well, then. I promise not to worry you."

Jonah snorts loudly. "Yeah, sure. I'm still worried about how you put together a god-damned necromancing ritual, but I guess maybe later we could compare notes on the subject."

A smile finds its way to Matthew's face again, and it makes Jonah's breath catch. He really is ungrateful isn't he? Matthew clearly thought he was doing what was best, and it's over with now. What could Jonah even say to change it? Might as well enjoy having a heartbeat.

"Listen, kid, hearing what you know would actually be really helpful…"

Jonah is watching the way light reflects off of liquid, of the way the steam rises from his cup of tea. He traces a damp fingertip along the edge of the china, staring into the depths to see his own eyes reflected back. If he wanted, he could scry like this. But after the conversation he had earlier with Matthew, any form of magic might be a bad idea for a while.

The older man seems obsessed. They had come back in for the tea Matthew had promised, but instead of keeping him company, as Jonah had selfishly hoped, the professor had taken his mug of earl gray into his study, and locked the door. The only room in the house that had been locked since Jonah's rebirth. Jonah has a sneaking suspicion that Matt's "life's work" went far deeper than Jonah would ever approve. What sort of research had the man gotten himself into if he could bring a person back from the dead?

The entire thing made Jonah feel guilty and nauseous. But he can't deny his excitement to live again, to interact with Matthew, after their time had been cut so short by a predestined house fire. But he was beyond worried about Matthew; Jonah's father had a similar "life's work" that had led to eternal damnation and several deaths. No good could ever come from this sort of tainted life, and Jonah could only hope for the best.

And so he stares at his tea. He'd heard Matthew's footsteps on the stairs, had heard him change from his day clothes. Had listened as his breaths had evened and deepened and given way to snores. Jonah used to listen to him sleep, every night. Had waited in corners and stared upon the dying boy. Jonah never thought he'd be so near to him again, yet here they are. Separated by walls.

Jonah just absolutely can't stand it.

The boy stands, leaving his tea forgotten and cooling. He gathers his blanket around his shoulders, his bare feet soundless as he leaves his birdless room and walks the familiar path to the master bedroom. The room that used to be Father's. He's amused by the cracked door, at the open blinds casting moonlight upon Matthew, sleeping heavily. Jonah's eyes skirt away from the body in the bed, conscious of Matt's scarred and bare chest half-covered with a duvet. Instead, he studies the room. Rather bare, considering Matthew had been living in Hell House for some time before deciding to raise the dead. The teen settles on a chest at the foot of Matthew's bed, the wood rough under Jonah's bare legs as he gathers himself into a sleeping position, facing Matthew with a thin arm crooked under his head for comfort.

Jonah used to watch Matthew sleep to make sure the sick boy wouldn't die in his sleep. Now he watches him to ensure the grown man won't kill himself from misplaced guilt, from his loneliness. The medium can relate. Can sympathize with guilt and thoughts of suicide. And he'd be damned if he let this new life of theirs end abruptly, or violently, or tragically. Instead, he listens to Matthew snore, and feels a long foregone draw of sleep and oblivion.