Judgement (The Twelve) Read online

  Rage whispered, “He answers the description but is he the one?”

  “Test him.” Heartless asks.

  Chris was getting fed up with being ignored, fed up and angry. “Look….whoever you are. An old man was murdered not fifteen feet from me. Why doesn’t that bother you? Why bring me here instead of calling the police. What the fuck was the thing that killed Wally and how the hell did I burn off its hand?”

  Patch whistled, “He really burn one?”

  Speed head jerked up and down like a hummingbird, “Saw it with my own eyes. Fizz, flash to ash! Hand was there one second gone the next, fizz, pop, flash.”

  Chris stared around at the group, “I want answers!”

  Huntress stepped forward to lay a hand on Anvils shoulder, “Take him on a hunt.”

  Anvil thought it over, “Yes a hunt. Good idea.”

  Chris’s head was swimming, “What the hell is a hunt?” Without knowing it he’d let his mouth hang open in confusion.

  Heartless smirked, “Best shut that mouth kid makes you look kind of stupid!”

  Patch took Chris under her wing. For some reason he didn’t immediately leave. He wanted to know more about these weirdo’s but more importantly, himself. They fed him a meal after he admitted he was starving. Patch commented on his personal hygiene and offered the use of a shower. It was an old bathroom with black and white tiles and an old gas fired heater on the wall, connected to the shower. He felt as if he was stuck in the sixties! But boy did that hot water feel so good.

  Anvil bought him a pair of jeans, new socks, combat boots, army fatigue tee shirt and a leather jacket.

  “You guys love leather.” He joked but accepted the new clothing gracefully. Anvil didn’t return the smile just walked away.

  Chris found them waiting for him in the living room. He was given over to Patch again, who he liked best of all. Also joining them were Huntress, who was going to be their tracker, Rage and finally Anvil. Chris had a ton of questions. All had gone un-answered and he was beginning to feel like a prisoner again. An hour later they took him from the building, which turned out to be a detached boarded up two storey pre war house set in its own grounds, surrounded by a crumbling brick wall and a dense over grown foliage that passed as a garden. Anvil stated it was one of many they owned all over the country.

  “We live in them until they fall down then move on.”

  Chris glanced back at the house. It was an old red brick pre war construction, with its original wooden sash windows, “That’d take at least seventy years or so, you’d all be dead by then!”

  No one answered, but he was given some strange looks. Okaaaay! That didn’t make any sense just like everything else Chris had seen or heard today. It was still pouring with rain only now it was daylight. But as they set off everything turned the same dull grey colour.

  Chris whispered to Patch, “what the hells happened to the colour?”

  “The In Between is the place we move in. It’s just out of sight from a normal human. The blind can sometimes see us.”

  Chris pondered that answer. It seemed that his questions only created more questions and that any answers actually made no sense. As they walked through the old backstreets in a run down area, occasionally one of two people or a car would pass them by without so much as a backwards glance.

  “You sure they can’t see us?” Chris asked as a man hurried past, head down, collar raised on his overcoat.

  Patch sidestepped to avoid him, “No one but the Shades and The Dark.” (She whispered the last name as if someone or something would over hear her.) But we can still make contact and that’s not nice. They sort of slice through us, to them it feels as if someone’s walked over there grave, to us it stings. Of course a soul can see us, but they can’t touch us thanks be to God.”

  That made a whole lot of sense! Not. But Chris had another question to ask, “Where are we going?”

  Anvil answered. “Back to the road where you used to live, where the old man was killed.”

  Chris didn’t like the way he said, used to live. But before he could ask another question, he found they had arrived at the junction with his old road and a narrower side street. Christ they had travelled far and fast. His home was down near The Thames in Soho and he was sure their house had been all the way across in Hammersmith when they’d started out.

  Chris was about to ask how that was possible, when Huntress placed a hand on his shoulder. Quietly she pointed with her bow down the road. Through the greyness of the pouring rain, Chris could see police tape criss-crossing the road in front and behind his home and Wally’s. A tent was erected over Wally’s cardboard box. Poor Wally that was the driest he’d ever been. Men in white suits moved back and forth between two forensic police vans and the tent. Three squad cars blocked the road. Two on this side one on the other. Several uniformed policemen and woman stood around in the rain, talking amongst them selves. But it wasn’t any of them that Huntress was pointing at.

  The hair on Chris’s neck stood on end! Standing there in the rain was poor old Wally. He wasn’t covered in blood now; maybe the rain had washed it off, maybe he hadn’t been as badly injured as Chris thought. Maybe he’d just been hysterical and imagined it all. But if that was the case, why hadn’t he been taken to hospital and why were the police ignoring him. Surely they should at least let him sit in one of there cars, out of the rain. Then Chris shuddered, the rain was passing right through Wally and bouncing off the wet road service.

  “Is Wally a…Shade now?”

  Anvil shook his head, “No He’s just a soul. He may ascend at any time if he’s led a good enough life and he’s ready to go but if he’s been really bad he descends. If its touch and go he will pass over to another place, some call purgatory. There he will remain until he’s…..judged. He will either ascend or descend or will be reborn to try again. That is the normal status quoi. But if a Shade takes his soul, then The Dark will turn him into a Shade. His soul will be trapped in a putrid slime covered shell here on Earth, forced to do evil. That cannot be allowed and that is where we come in. We destroy Shades where ever we find them and release the souls.”

  “Chris shook his head, “Why can I suddenly see these Shades and dead people? What’s going on?”

  Anvil looked Chris up and down, “Puberty. Your hormones change as you develop. What are you fifteen?”

  “Almost seventeen.” He replied indignantly.

  Patch giggled,”Yer like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly.”

  Huntress called for quiet, “Look here it comes!”

  Chris was about to ask what, when he saw the same Shade that had taken Wally’s life, or at least it looked the same. The thing slide down the side of a building head first. It was fixed on Wally, like a cat stalks a bird. It moved slowly, carefully. Clinging to the wall like a slug. The thing reached the pavement, slid off the wall onto its belly. Slowly it came upright. It was the same Shade, minus a hand. Approaching Wally’s ghost, the Shade stretched out one of its bone thin fingers towards him. Nothing was said but Wally turned to look at it. Then head cast downwards he started to shuffle slowly across to the Shade. Chris could see that Wally’s transparent soul was crying now.

  Huntress had one of her black arrows in her hand. Chris hadn’t seen her take it from her quiver. Slowly she placed it on her bow and started to draw back on the bow string.

  Patch whispered to Chris, “A young Shade, an older one would know better than to return to the scene after a confrontation with us.”

  Anvil whispered, “Leg or arm.”

  She let go with a twang, “Leg.” The arrow flew true and struck deep in the creatures left thigh. Instantly its hold over Wally was released and Wally turned to shuffle away. For a second Chris thought Wally he saw him and raised a hand in farewell before vanishing upwards in a beam of white light.

  Rage pounded the ground with a fist, “Good he’s ascended! Now let’s get that slug!”

  Anvil was already moving, faster than Chris th
ought possible, he was already fifty feet nearer to the Shade, which was screaming in rage and pain as it tried to pull free the arrow.

  Huntress smiled, “Barbed arrows can’t pull them out. Also they’re blessed with Holy water. Must be burning like hell.”

  Rage took off after Anvil, moving like a large ape. Patch took Chris’s hand, “Best stay back.”

  But Chris wanted to know what the hell was going on. Carefully he removed his hand from Patches grip and without thinking suddenly found himself next to the Shade. He’d covered over two hundred feet in three seconds in this strange grey In Between place.

  Chris shouted at the screaming Shade, “Why did you kill Wally!”

  The thing turned its sunken pale face towards him; red dots were its eyes should have been stared at him with hatred. It sniffed him and turned its head at an angle to look him up and down, sizing him up.

  It screamed once more directly in his face before blubbering, “You took hand before I take meat and soul!” The voice sounded like it was coming from a throat filled with water or mud.

  Rage muttered, “Not hear Shades speak very often.”

  Chris remembered what it had done to Wally and shouted, “The old man you killed had a name. He was called Wally and…….” Chris swung a punch, lightening fast towards the centre of its face, “He wasn’t meat just a harmless old man!”

  Anvil was a split second away, hand stretched out to stop Chris, “NO!” He bellowed.

  It was too late, the Shades head exploded into burning ash, quickly followed by its body. The ash hissed in the rained before being washed away by the downpour.

  Anvil lowered his hand and just stood there staring at Chris. Rage also had stopped, he was looking at Chris’s hand, “That’s going to hurt.”

  Chris looked down; his hand was a boiling mass of blistering burns which were already fading. He knew what was coming next and gritted his teeth in preparation for the pain to come. It struck so bad; it drove him to his knees. Chris tried not to cry out but couldn’t help himself. After three of four very long seconds, the pain quickly disappeared, leaving him breathless.

  Patch and Huntress joined them. Patch knelt before Chris, “You okay?”

  He managed a nod as she helped him to his feet.

  “Good”, said Rage and promptly hit him with the back of one mighty hand. Chris flew through the air at least ten feet, to land hard in the gutter.

  “Rage!” Patch screamed, running to Chris’s side.

  “He will heal. You saw, should do as Anvil order.” Rage rumbled.

  Chris’s head swam and he tasted blood. He felt a bone in his cheek pop back into place and it hurt as his nose straightened with a horrible crunching noise. Again Patch helped him upright. He grimaced as several ribs mended themselves. Then felt a slight pull as he popped back into real time together with Patch.

  A police officer glanced to his left, then his head snapped round, “Hey you, what you doing here….”

  Anvil strode over to him, waving a hand, putting them back in the In Between. He ignored the fact a blow like that would have killed anyone else, “You ruined the op.”

  Another police officer in a paper white boiler suit asked, “What you see Fred?”

  The uniformed officer looked confused, he thought he’d seen someone on the ground not more than twenty feet away, but he couldn’t have. No one was there and there was no where to hide.

  “Nothing, mind playing tricks is all.”

  Chris spat blood from his mouth,”Ruined what?” He whispered.

  Anvil stood over him, “No need to whisper, they can’t see you, you’re back in the In Between.”

  Huntress had replaced her bow across her back and answered Chris’s question, “We wanted it alive or what passes for alive. Anvil would have tried to get information from it.”

  Chris looked back at the police officers, “They didn’t see anything?”

  Patch rubbed his arm,” They never do. How did you take us back into real time Chris?”

  Chris mumbled to himself, “I never knew and I don’t know.”

  “What?” Huntress asked.

  Chris looked across to the police, “All this time and this has been going on around me.”

  Anvil was staring at Chris, “When you destroyed it. Did you release the soul?”

  “What? I just thought by destroying the Shade you….”

  Anvil s face grew stern,” So you avenged that old tramp and allowed him to ascend but you also did something I didn’t know was possible.”

  Chris glanced at Patch who know looked horrified, “What?”

  “You killed a soul.”

  Chris didn’t answer her just stared at Anvil, “But the Shade needed killing or destroying or whatever the hell you call it for what it did to Wally!”

  Anvil slapped the head of his double headed hammer into the palm of his other hand, “And we would have, after torturing the Shade. I wanted to find its nest.”

  “But I destroyed it.”

  “Yes but you’re not one of us. Only one of the Twelve can release a soul.”

  Chris didn’t understand anything, especially how he’s moved so fast or how he’d killed the thing, if killing was the right word. “This is a God awful nightmare!”

  Anvil sighed, “You weren’t to know.”

  Patch gently punched him on the arm,” Don’t blaspheme.”

  She looked so serious. Chris laughed almost hysterically, “I’m mixed up with some weird people who hunt dead things called Shades that kill people, eat them and steal their souls and work for something called The Dark, which apparently you’re scared of and you don’t want me to blaspheme?”

  Rage ambled up to tower over him, “Got a problem with that?”

  Chris decided now wasn’t the time to argue and shook his head.

  “Good lets go eat.” Rage slapped him on the back, which sent him flying again.

  As they walked away, Patch whispered in his ear, “We can heal faster than a human but you heal yourself quicker than we do. Did you know that?”

  Chris thought back to his step father, “It never used to be like that.” He remembered the beatings and much, much more. Some things don’t heal at all.

  Patch laughed, “Things change as we get older, or rather when you get older. I died and was reborn, you stop growing any older. I’m really eight hundred years old going on seventeen and apart from the eye patch I think I’m still pretty. Do you?”

  Chris could only stare open mouthed,” You died eight hundred years ago!”

  “Yes but I was reborn. It’s not like I’m a zombie or anything and before you ask, yes there are zombies but not many, thank God. We have enough trouble with The Dark, Shades and the occasional ghoul. So do you think I’m still pretty?”

  Chris was amazed the way she could change track in mid sentence. All he could do was nod in agreement.

  “Good, tell you what though. Anvil wants to keep you. You’re something new, something different. You can do things we do and some that we can’t, but I like you. Stay awhile pleaaase just for me?”

  Chris found himself nodding as he wondered what was happening to him!

  Chapter two

  Back at the boarded up house, Chris sat on the settee in the dusty damp living room, his head in his hands. Priest sat next to him, taking up the rest of the settee.

  He was speaking to Chris, “When you destroyed the Shade, did you see anything else?”

  Chris shook his head as Priest persisted, “No secondary flash? No ghost like image? No faint scream or moan?

  Chris still shook his head. Priest thought this through, “Hum strange. I always thought that if a soul was to die along with the Shade, you would see or hear something. I wonder?”

  Anvil cut into his thoughts, “He can’t go back. The police will be looking for him as a suspect.”

  Priest nodded, “Anything in your…..home that can ID you?”

  Chris shook his head, “Nothing at all.”

 
“Does any charitable agency know you, The Salvation Army perchance?”

  Chris thought hard, although he ate at several different hostels. He never once told anyone where he lived. He shook his head.

  Priest looked up at Anvil, “Good our friend is a nameless vagabond. He will stay with us of course?”

  Anvil grunted, “Damn right he will. I need to find out what he is.”

  Chris didn’t like the idea that Anvil wasn’t giving him a choice whether he stays or goes and he didn’t miss the reference to Anvil wanting to know what he is, not who he is. For that matter who or what was he? Chris thought of himself as a victim living rough but free as a bird. But truth be told he didn’t like living in a bloody box. Now, what the hell…..sorry God… here he was, a prisoner of some very strange people, immortal if they were to be believed. All had died and were reborn with superhuman powers. They tracked down monsters called Shades, which if he hadn’t seen with his own two eyes, would never have believed they existed.