Author's note.
Gonna be a slow one this chapter my apolgies readers. The hiatus between chapters is lacking too - life just does pile up especially with college and other things keeping me so busy, as well as other writing projects I'm working on simultaneously.
But I'm really excited for the next chapters, I'm hoping to really fire up the story soon! I hope this chapter is enjoyable.
INTRO: "Brighter than the Sun" By Brick and Mortar.
The great escape from what may have been called the greatest terror attack in Manx, or even British history, did not seem so great at all, no more than it was a humble slinking away into the night. The roaring and gurgling of the rushing river besides us spoke louder than the tale of our flight.
The burning wound in my arm began to sting more and more over time, something I should probably have given greater worry. Sepsis was clearly setting in already. I winced trying to move it.
To our left was a short wooden fence bordering swathes of dark farmers fields which rose up into sloping silhouettes where streetlights rested at the summit. To the right, the river separated us from a thicket of trees and an army of sheep huddled together in a pack.
"We'll have to get back to some kind of civilization.. Makes it easier for us now that you've lost my gun.. I'm not very happy about that, Mr. Jones."
It didn't take much more walking until suddenly, the dark almost incomprehensible shadow of Patrick swerved to the left. There was the rustling of grass as I witnessed him trampling off of the dull, dark, muddy path into the duller, darker and somehow less muddy verge of grass.
"There's a shortcut back up to town."
"No," I protested, "that's private land. Trespassing."
He must have turned to me then, as I could feel his glaring daggers at me.
"As a Detective, I must break a few laws in order to get my work done. Besides, I'm sure the owners would understand."
"Hey, I'm a Detective too and I don't want to-" Patrick had already vaulted the fence. I could do nothing but scoff and follow him. The grass squelched underfoot, cold water soaking through my shoes within moments, invading my socks with soggy discomfort. Crossing the field was slow, tedious and silent. No cars passed on the road above. No wind blew in the skies. This tranquilty held danger. It was a kind of introspection I wasn't used to. And if I was used to anything, it was my hometown's chief landmark. Such a staple of the town, you'd forget it even stood there before - hundreds of feet above the rooftops as it looked down upon the lowly houses of the folk below. In the funnel's place had been left an emptiness beyond description. I couldn't stop myself from staring at the vacant dark space down in the valley of the river. Watching the red and blue flashing lights occupying the place that machinery and human constructs had once claimed, all now gone.
I tripped over a hole in the ground, hidden by the wet grasses and filled with mud of all kinds. When I came back to my feet from the floor I found my arms and legs covered in a cold stew of sickly brown, like a chocolate icing I would not even wish upon my worst enemy's birthday cake.
I tried my best to throw the worst clumps of dirt from myself before stumble-jogging after Patrick ; who, swift as ever, was now hopping over a steel gate, his boots clapping to the asphalt on the other side as he landed.
'How is he so damned fast?' I lamented inwardly, 'this really sucks.'
Within moments, I stood beneath the light of the streetlamps on the lonesome road. Away it stretched, down the hill to our left where the town abruptly came to an end, illumination of the streetlights only spreading so far before darkness overcame it. The road as well as everything disappeared past that line. Consumed by the night.
My arms and feet were covered in grass and mud in contrast with the harsh red which flooded from my shoulder. It continued to sting awfully.
"We have to lay low somewhere a while." Patrick muttered, withdrawing a cigarette from some pocket within his jacket, bringing it to life with the strike of a match on a matchbox within a few elegant motions of the hands.
"My flat's a no go.. Not two floors above the scene of my Landlady's brutal murder." I replied, wincing.
"Surely there's another empty house to hideout at... how about the place of that Grandma you killed?" Patrick added, taking a puff of his cigarette.
"I did not kill her!"
"Well, you're the local. You must have some kind of idea."
"I didn't know you smoked."
Patrick just shrugged, a cloud drifting above his head as he handled the little cigarette in between his pointer and middle finger.
Tongue in cheek, I focussed on thinking. I wracked my brain. I even briefly considered running away to Kellin's group invitation. Placing my hands in my pockets absent-mindedly, I felt a metal object against my hand. It jangled as I rummaged further into my pocket.
That was when, like a fisherman reeling in the prize fish sure to win competitions, my dirt-splattered face lit up in glee as hooked on my finger was the spare key to Joshua Errant-More's flat in Ballawattleworth.
"A key. Not yours I'd assume."
I nodded. Patrick flicked the cigarette to the ground and stomped it out on the toecap of his shoe.
"Lead the way."
And so I led.
It took around ten minutes for us to traverse the two residential estates spanning the distance between this road and Joshua's flat up in Ballawattleworth. Without much chance of normal people driving around at this time of the very early morning, we walked boldly in the middle of the streets.
By now, whatever time it was in the night, every light in the town had been extinguished. Every window dark and every streetlight sizzling and dead. Not even the birds sang. The silence was eerie. No sounds I could hear, nothing but for our low breathing and the fall of our footsteps on the road beneath our feet. Eventually, we emerged from the other side of the dark jungle of houses, into the light of a streetlamp overlooking a roundabout, frozen in time.
"TO CRONK Y VODDY, KIRK MICHAEL," A large, dim sign said, standing besides the hedged entrance to a road leading away from the roundabout and into absolute nothingness, as the warm amber light cut off abruptly, overtaken by the dark. Dozens of houses lay behind us and fields with sheep and meadows of dark, swaying grass lay ahead. We had arrived in Ballawattleworth. The light from the blue signboard at Mace's convienience store was visible from here.
"Not much further now." Patrick said, voice hushed.
"How do you know?"
"I'm not totally clueless, Jones."
Eventually, we arrived back to the narrow tree-bordered street that was Magher Drive, the shadowy line of flats towering above us like a great wall as we came to the front door of our destination. The three small mailboxes hung on the walls, same as always. Number 19, 20 and 21 almost seemed to shine in the weak light of the lamps still on behind us on the main road. Patrick faltered in his walk, lagging behind me as I reached towards the door handle.
"It looks like someone's home."
My head snapped to the right.
"There," Patrick pointed out, "the bottom floor window."
And he was right. From behind the nets and curtains, a dim glow filtered out from between the cracks. My eyes widened and my jaw tightened. This was the window leading to the main lounge of number 19.
"It must be Joshua... The man at the centre of all of this.." I whispered back to Patrick.
"It's not," Patrick replied, "I've not heard from him since he hired you."
I stopped. I clenched my fists. I stared at him as he sauntered past me and posted himself up, leaning against a wall opposite the front door.
"How many secrets do you want to keep from me, Patrick?"
"Get this door open." Patrick ordered.
"No." I stepped towards him. "You had contact with one of my clients, a client who I might add, happens to be a huge missing piece in my investigation!"
"It's my investigation now, Mr. Jones. And I suggest you continue to make yourself useful. Open this door."
I was right up in his face now.
"This is going too far. I'm not sure what's happening right now, and you're not making it any easier. You reveal things, then keep the bigger picture obscured. You order me around, then act like my friend. Then you'll treat me like an idiot, or a child. But you forget that I'm the one with a client, and a job I'm getting paid to do - and there's one job I'm doing. Which is finding incriminating evidence relating to flat number 20. I don't care about any magic secret clubs or conspiracies, all I want is for someone to be put behind bars and to get paid at the end of the day, so you tell me straight right here what's going on!"
By the end of the tangent, I was yelling; loud and clear. It echoed across the road, my teeth were gritted and I found myself pinning him to the wall by his collar. He pushed me away and brushed himself down, trying to make himself neater... as if his suit wasn't torn, muddy and crusted with mysterious stains..
"Getting rowdy, I see," he looked me in the eyes, his glare stabbing me, "fine. If you seek answers, I shall answer..."
I gestured for him to go ahead.
"Well, you may have been led to believe that Joshua belonged to the Sorcerer Organisation based in Ramsey."
"Explain yourself." I goaded. Patrick merely gave a frustrated sigh, as if dealing with a toddler.
"As I was about to say... that was a bad link, Mr. Jones. Because really, Joshua Errant-More worked for me."
It felt like time had stopped. My teeth clenched and unclenched, my brows furrowed and I stared into space as I tried to piece the logic together in my head. That was when suddenly the door flew open, brash white light flooding out. Standing there was a girl wearing some kind of night gown, holding a flashlight in one hand as her other held the door open.
"Gibbs.. What the hell happened to you?" Sandra stood at the doorway, her eyes wide and pinned to my left arm.
"Glass." I responded meekly.
"Come on, let's get you inside," She said, leaning out the doorway and glancing down both ends of the drive, "it's not safe to be wandering with an open wound like that right now.."
Without taking a moment longer, Sandra ushered us both into the building, slamming out the cold behind us as I set foot once more through the door of number 19.
.
.
[XXX] I haven't eaten a meal in a while..
.
.
Joshua's old flat was lit up by the light of at least a dozen candles, from yankees to tealights, scattered all about the room. Sandra sat me on the sofa, swaddled me in a blanket and in my hand I had been treated to a mug of hot chocolate, brewed from the kettle on a gas stove in the kitchen. As I took small sips of the wonderfully warm liquid, Patrick paced back and forth between each end of the room. Sandra was sat cross-legged on the sofa next to me, facing me with anxiety.
"I've tried calling 999 loads, but it won't go through." She lamented, placing the handset of the landline phone down with a clunk.
"Have you tried using your mobile?
She shook her head.
"My phone's dead."
"Gibbs has a phone."
I nodded, whipping my old iPhone from my coat pocket triumphantly. Sandra's expression flipped from anxious hope to anxious disappointment, her lips turning up reflexively. Then some kind of earthy smell hit me. I looked down.
"You've got to be kidding." My phone was completely destroyed! I knew this not only from the droplets of mud hanging from the charging port, but also from the smashed up screen, the strips of dead pixels; red, green and blue running from the cracks and pieces of the motherboard exposed.
"It doesn't matter," Patrick said, snatching my phone from my hand and pocketing it, "I doubt the emergency services will pick up anyway. They must be flooded with calls."
"What am I going to do? I have a lot of evidence saved on that phone." I fidgeted, itching my knuckle.
"Let me deal with that, I'll get the data off of your phone tonight," Patrick said, rummaging around in his pocket and withdrawing a phone of his own. A flip-phone. He handed it to me, "in the meanwhile, use this. My burner."
'It's in pristine condition' I mused, rolling it over in my hands as Patrick returned to pacing the room.
"Is there anything else I can do?" Sandra asked nervously.
Patrick stopped and nodded.
"Go make some sandwiches," he turned, half smiling, "I'm sure we're all hungry. We'll need some energy."
"It sounds like you're just trying to get rid of me." Sandra said, pushing her hair out of her face as she started rising to her feet.
"In a way, yes. I am. What I'm about to explain to Mr. Jones is some incredibly classified information.." Patrick turned to me, glancing up and down at me with his eyebrow raised in some semblance of concern, "and I'm sure he'll be happy of some kind of first aid attention. That wound will become direly infected otherwise."
Sandra nodded quickly, filled with some kind of new resolve, she rushed out of the lounge - lantern in hand - shutting the door carefully as she entered the kitchen. The room was now considerably dimmer, the light that was present flickering and fluttering and sending shadows flailing and dancing across the walls. Patrick squatted down in front of me; face dark, eyes serious as his cold gaze met mine.
"You want to know everything I know? So be it. I guess if I want your continued co-operation, I'll have to clue you in."
"Did you just roll your eyes at me?"
"Cursed Energy is a type of energy born from negative energy. Fear, rage, hate, sadness, anxiety.. All of these ideas, beliefs and feelings can give birth to Cursed Energy. And in turn, Cursed Energy gives birth to Cursed Spirits, who feed off of that negativity. Every human on Earth has cursed energy of some kind, which leaks out into the world around them. A very small fraction of these people are able to harness that energy in any way. And only a fraction of those are able to use it in any effective way which could affect daily life.. As we speak, there are only about Two thousand two hundred people in the world who can use Jujutsu and see cursed spirits. out of that number, One thousand five hundred are from Japan. Are you seeing a pattern?"
I rubbed my temples. It seems to always be going back to Japan.. In some way, shape or form, everything I find out about this group. About the supernatural weapons they use - It all ties back to Japanese origins.
"Is this something to do with that barrier you were waffling about to yourself on the bus ride from the hospital?" Patrick nodded.
"The reason why there is such an unbalanced scale of the amount of people who can use or see Cursed Energy and Spirits. Tengen's Barrier. Think of it like a plug in a bath. Yes, some water may have escaped down the drain before the plug was used. But this plug, this barrier, it disallows Cursed phenomena from existing outside of Japan. Spirits, Energy and people who can see and use Jujutsu are effectively locked to the shores of that nation."
"That can't be true," I argued, "look at the last few weeks. All I've been dealing with has been cursed in some way or another.."
"I don't have an answer for that."
"Your employers?"
"Neither do they.. Why do you think I was hired? To get to the bottom of a few petty murders? No, this is much bigger than that."
"You can't just discount people's deaths here.."
"The higher ups have no idea that Tengen's Barrier might be failing. I was employed because the organization who discovered my latent abilities were scared - scared that Jujutsu Society would implode if evidence of the barrier's failings were to get out."
The room seemed to get darker. Candlelight sparkled in the reflection of Joshua's CRT TV.
"Tengen's barriers optimize cursed energy and that far fewer cursed spirits and sorcerers appear in the rest of the world compared to Japan." Patrick made a rolling gesture with his palm, "that's basically the gist of it.. If cursed spirits and sorcerers are concentrated in japan, you only need to worry about cursed spirits in japan instead of the entire world."
"But they're popping up here. Of all places.." My head was starting to ache a little taking in all this new information. Patrick withdrew a cigarette from within his jacket pocket once again, simultaneously spinning a match in his other hand - striking it and lighting the cigarette in a single fluid motion.
'He really is a big smoker...' I thought.
"Not as many people smoke these days.." I murmured to myself. Patrick blew out a cloud of stinking smoke.
"It helps to neaten me up whenever I feel tangled." Patrick replied. Then I remembered it. As I looked at his cigarette, a small white cylinder with the golden colored filter, an image flashed in my brain just briefly. An image of a bare, empty room. Light flooding in through curtainless windows. A crushed cigarette stub on the windowsill.
"You've been to these flats before me." I whispered.
"How else do you think I was able to employ the services of Joshua Errant-More? Yes, I visited this place before.. I was sent to look for signs of Cursed Spirits popping up anywhere. Obviously they have started popping up." He gestured upwards, "everything that happened in those flats above us was in relation to the activities of the group we're chasing at this very moment... So yes, Errant-More was under my payroll," Patrick continued, "living as close to one of the suspects as he was, I decided getting him under my finger was my first port of call. That is until you came into my perception, Mr. Jones. I decided your interference would be most beneficial to my work here. Which is why I sent Joshua to hire you. And then something happened to him."
"I still don't understand, but again I can't help to question why all of this is happening here of all places. The Isle of Man? Nothing so strange or odd ever happens around here."
"It's another question which needs an answer.. But this group must have it's reasons."
A couple of seconds later, the room was once again filled with blossoming golden light as Sandra sauntered out from the Kitchen, lantern hanging from her wrist.
"Think fast!" She hollered, tossing square shaped objects covered in tin foil at both of us. The one aimed at me bounced pitifully off of my shoulder as Patrick caught his one swiftly with a single hand.
"Ham sandwiches." He commented, uncovering the crinkling silver surface, revealing the fresh bread underneath.
Sandra nodded, placing the lantern back down on the wooden coffee table she returned to her seat next to me with a little green box in hand.
"Not much stuff in here. Only a single roll of bandage and a couple sanitizing wipes.."
I shrugged, waiting for this to be over with.
Quickly, she tore the remains of my sleeve off, ditching the charred and muddy bloody fabric to the ground like some kind of dead thing.
"Ow!" I winced.
"This really should be stitched up." Patrick said, finishing his cigarette and crushing it on the fireplace mantlepiece, extinguishing it before starting on his sandwich.
"Not much else we can do, stranger." Sandra replied, bringing the sanitizing wipes to my left shoulder. Fresh blood began to leak out as she dabbed and wiped the laceration. It stung like hell. More so than getting the original injury ever did! I grit my teeth, hissing through them.
"Jesus Christ..."
"Any other curiosities on your mind, Mr. Jones?"
"Yeah.. Just one." I said between pained gasps, "how did you know I was the one guy you needed to find?"
"Simple. I heard there was a wayward detective somewhere in this town - wasn't really well liked, had some kind of strange rumor surrounding him. Traits in common with people who can use Jujutsu and don't quite know about it yet. I had Joshua hire out all two other private detectives in town, other than you," He took a huge bite from the sandwich, almost comical, "of course, you're the only one who's walked back out of here alive. An impressive feat, no doubt."
"After that, I did some research into your name, found your class in high school; your best friend too. Not too hard." Patrick continued, waving his sandwich in my general direction, "all to get to you. On a big hunch, I'll admit, but it turned out to be a good one. You have a well of Cursed Energy which is truly fascinating to me!"
"So you don't really care about him, as a person?" Sandra said, eyebrow raised as she continued harrying away at cleaning my left shoulder.
Patrick shook his head, and smiled at her in some kind of sardonic way.
"Leave the talking to the sorcerers, okay sweetheart?"
My face darkened, I glared at him with all the vitriol I could summon. He must have caught up on my intensity when he caught eye contact with me. He seemed to withdraw as he returned to pacing.
"Before our first meeting, I intended to bring you along with me on all of my work, hoping to assess your potential for wielding Cursed Energy.. But since you seemed to have figured out some things on your own, most important of all - the whereabouts of the group we've been looking for since the turn of the decade. In Ramsey. And you even got an invitation from one of their members. Quite beneficial indeed.."
I ran my thumb and forefingers along my brow, pinching the bridge of my nose in deep thought. I had been considering Kellin's offer for the whole night, in the back of my head. Only now was I sure that I would have to take that offer. For the sake of the case. I nodded slowly at what Patrick was saying.
"In which case you'll have to get yourself up to Ramsey very soon.. You can take however long you need, rest, eat... whatever you need to prepare. I can teach you some fundamentals of Cursed Energy control, then we'll send you on your way."
"Right." I nodded, "Wait, I'm not going alone, am I?"
"In a sense." Patrick shrugged, his charred back turned to me. "Just get a few numbers onto it. It's quite simple. When we're surrounded by enemies, communication is a powerful tool."
"Just need to wrap your arm up," Sandra muttered, wrapping the bandages tightly around my arm. I felt the cotton reel bind and compress my shoulder, the deep cut coming together slightly, "whatever you do from hereon out, that's gonna leave a nasty scar." Her grey eyes met mine, they were riddled with worry, sparkling in the candle light. She half-smiled at me. The bandage wrapping was complete.
"I'm leaving." Patrick said, pocketing the remaining half of his sandwich as he motioned toward the door, "before this Ramsey plan comes into effect, I have a few things to look into. Such as getting a replacement gun.."
"Sorry.." I laughed nervously, itching the back of my neck.
"If you need anything, that Police Chief is the man to call. His personal number's in the phonebook."
I turned the phone over in my hand.
"Uhh, okay."
Patrick gave a tired smile and a nod.
"I'll be back at 11:00 P.M on the 29th of June. Be ready for my arrival." And with that, and a slam of the door, Patrick left us.
Sandra shuffled back.
"So, how're you feeling?"
"Exhausted." I replied, putting on the weakest smile I could muster.
A few days to prepare.. Does this really mean peace?
ENDING THEME : "SAVAGES" by That Hansome Devil