Paranormal Investigations: No Situation Too Strange (12 page)

My Sri Lankan neighbour opposite must have heard the disturbance of heavy demon feet in the corridor.  Her door opened on the security chain, she looked out - her face taking on a look of horror - and then she slammed the door tight shut again.  I can't say I blamed her.  It's what any rational human being would do when confronted with ten demons.

I took what I thought looked like an aggressive stance in the hallway.

"I trained in stage combat under Canadian fight director Andy Fraser!" I yelled.

The demons looked at each other, bemused.  Who would have thought they had a sense of humour?  The biggest put his hand up and the others stopped.  He advanced, tossing the axe from hand to hand.  It caught the light.  That did not make me feel good, but as Anne Boleyn and Margaret Pole knew - a sharp blade is better than a dull one.

"I have a stage combat certificate!" I screamed as he closed in on me and I sent a punch safely past his face.  Dammit, in real life you actually had to hit them.  That I hadn't trained for.  I split the difference and kicked him hard in the knackers.  At least, I think they were his knackers, you couldn't really tell with demons.

I'd hit him where it hurt anyway which bought me enough time to run back into the flat and slam the door behind me with all my weight.  Part of an axe blade appeared in the woodwork, narrowly missing my head.

"Boys!" I called out, "We've got visitors, and not good ones!"

"You don't say!" Trevor said.

As I ran into the living room slash kitchen and slammed the door behind me I heard thumping coming from the window.

"Fairies at six o'clock!" Trevor yelled.

A group of fat fairies with dragonfly wings, like the ones I had seen in the sweetshop, were using their terrier sized bodies as battering rams.  Another fairy tried to smash the glass in the window with his head.  It's eyes were crazed as it tried again to head butt the glass.  They really were mean.  That or really stupid.

"Cherubs,” Bob said with disgust, “it would be cherubs.   Will the window hold?"

I shook my head.  "It's not double glazed.  Quick, turn the sofa on to its side and block it!"

We managed to up end the sofa, but it didn't fill the entire gap.  If nothing else, it made us feel better.

"And the other one!"

We pushed the other sofa to the internal door and blockaded it as best we could.  There was no way it would hold out to ten bad assed demons for more than the two seconds it would take them to shove it out of the way.

The three of us gathered in the centre of the room by the kitchen work top.  Trevor had left his cricket bat at home, but he was quick to find replacements and issued us all with sauce pans and frying pans, keeping the biggest one for himself.

"Come on if ya think ya hard enough!" Trevor yelled out, waving my best wok in the air.  Now I knew why trolls were the only creatures not afraid of fairies, too bloody stupid.

“I don’t think they need the encouragement, Trevor.  What's their plan of action?" I whispered to Bob, "What will they do?" As I spoke the lights went out.

"Cut the power," he replied, "so the technology won't affect them."

"Great."

"It's okay," he said, "these pans are all stainless steel - just keep hitting them and don't say anything to them in case they trick you."

"Great, I can whack the fairies with my Russell Hobbs, what about the ten nasty demons coming in the other end?"

"Demons?  Oh... I don't know."

"Where's the ring, Bob?" I asked as another crack came from the door.

"I've got it.  It's in the sock tucked into my belt."

Why do things always sound louder in the dark?  My ears became very adept at hearing the cracks begin to appear in the glass and the splintering of my front door under demon axe.  I think I clutched Bob's hand.  How on earth had I got into this mess?

Police sirens blared outside.  They weren't coming to help - police sirens were always heard going up and down Cat Hill.  Even if they did come, what could they do?  This was my area - the paranormal - not theirs.  They would be blissfully unaware that any of this existed, the worst thing they would have to face tonight would be an abusive trick or treater in a dodgy mask.  If this
was
my area, then why did I feel so woefully inadequate to face it?

I wanted to cry, but that would be of no productive use and I couldn't allow the luxury of panic.  I bit my lip and tried hard to think of anything that might be of use. 

Nothing.

"Trevor," I said to the darkness, "have you got any ideas of how to defeat the ten big and nasty demons about to come through the living room door?"

"Whack 'em hard!"

Just then something was pressed into my hand.  Salt.

"Throw it at the fairies," Bob said, "one of them will have to count it."

I looked at the bag of salt in my hand.  Hold on - salt.  "This TV show I watch," replace 'watch' with 'addicted to', "it's about the supernatural and they use salt to keep the bad guys out.  Would it work in real life?"

Unless Jensen Ackles had lied to me, salt might be able to buy us some time. 

"It might." Bob said, "but there isn't a natural threshold here so it had better be a circle."

I reached for the lighter that I kept in the drawer, then felt my way to the candle cupboard.  I was shaking as I tried to light them and did burn myself twice, but managed to get a selection of tea lights going.  Whether the lavender scent would relax us I didn't know, but it was certainly very nice to see again.  A golden glow now covered the kitchen, the living room end was still ominous in darkness.

Bob issued the salt and the three of us began to make the biggest circle we could around the edge of the kitchen, well okay - it wasn't exactly a circle but there were no maths teachers there to tell me off so what the hell.  Even though I had bought every type of salt offered by Budgens it wasn't enough so we had to go back over our wobbly circle, thinning the line down so the salt went further.  It was perilously thin in some places.  Would it hold?  Would it even work or was TV complete fiction?

The window smashed and the sofa was pushed out of the way.  I braced myself for action.  I had fought a ghost with a vacuum cleaner, I told myself, I could fight a fairy with a saucepan.

I took a line out of Trevor's book and shouted, "Come on if you think you're hard enough!"

They obviously did.

*

The fairies flew quickly to us, their buzzing wings golden under the candle light.  Their teeth sharp in their evil grins.  There were about twelve of them I could count, all buzzing in the air by my kitchen counter.  The expressions on their faces were pure malice.  There was going to be no good way out of this. 

One of them was at the front, the leader of this band I supposed.  He looked down at our salt line, his expression giving nothing away.  I didn't know if he couldn't cross it or if he was merely playing with us.  He didn't speak but I knew what he wanted, so did Bob.

"I'm sorry," Bob said tremulously, "but you can't have it and that's an end to it."

The fairy looked like he didn't think that would be a problem.

Behind them, the second sofa was flung out of the way.  I felt some sense of glee when it hit and grounded one of the fairies.  Demons began to pour into the room. 

"Come on bozzo!" Trevor called, "I've got steel and I'm gonna use it!"

Trevor was dancing close to the line of salt.

"Be careful," I whispered, "don't break the line and don't go over it."

"Like I need salt ta protect me!"

"Well, Bob and I would appreciate it if the salt circle was left intact."

A candle flickered.

The lead fairy looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Join with us."  His voice was enticing, like something very, very nice that I really, really liked.  "Be a friend Leo."

Bob grabbed my hand.  Without realising it I had taken a step closer to the fairy.

"Don't listen," Bob whispered, "they speak the words you want to hear.  They are all lies.  They plunge into the secrets of your soul and manipulate them for their own end."

Where were ear plugs when you needed them?  I wasn't sure I could ignore a voice as nice as the fairy's.  I wasn't sure I wanted to.

"I don't think I can
not
listen to him," I said to Bob, "you're going to have to help me."

"Poor little orphan girl," the fairy went on, "life dealt you a bad hand.  We can make it better.  We can help.  There are many questions you want the answer to.  We know the answers.  We can help mend your soul."

Bob pulled me back again, I had taken another step forwards.

"Please Bob," I cried, "do something."

So he did.  He began to sing 'Love Shack'.  Bob couldn't sing, he had the worst voice I had ever heard and for some reason he appeared to be singing it in an Asian accent.  But it did the trick.  With a song that rubbish and singing that bad it was hard to be wooed by the nice words of the fairy.  I felt strong enough to resist.

"I wanna bash ya head in!" Trevor yelled at the demon who was seven foot to his two and a half.

Trevor held up the wok high and ran out to hit the demon in the knee, scattering a line of salt as he went.

Bob stopped singing.

The fairies bared their teeth.

The demon swung his axe at my head.

I closed my eyes.

CHAPTER TEN

Spain, 1034

If I had ruby slippers, at that moment I would have clicked my heels together pronto. 

I closed my eyes tightly and the last thing I saw was the blade of that ugly axe glinting under candlelight two inches from my face. 

I didn't feel any pain.  Maybe that was because it was a sharp axe.  I could but hope.

It was like waking up from a dream.  My consciousness came back and I was simply aware of
being
.  I took a moment.  As I became more conscious, I realised I did not know where I was - like when you wake up after sleeping somewhere new for the first time.  My brain registered that I was lying down and that my hands were on something warm and soft.  I felt with my fingers and it appeared to be a warm, grainy substance.

My eyes opened and then closed again.  It was bright.  Slowly I sat up and breathed in, the air was warm and clean and pure - almost overloaded with oxygen.  Shielding my eyes with my hand, I opened my eyes again.  It took a while to get used to the light.  After blinking several times I began to make out some shapes on the far left.  The view ahead of me looked barren of feature.  I looked down to my feet, I was still in my slippers, and sand was all around me - fine, white sand.  I turned three hundred and sixty degrees.  To my left were verdant green trees, behind me what looked like mountains on the horizon and in front of me what appeared to be a flat desert landscape.

The sun was high in the sky and beating down viciously so I instinctively sought the shelter of the trees.  I was tired so I sat down and leant my back against the trunk of the tree.  It was not an English species and it was definitely not October. 

"I don't think we're in Barnet anymore Toto." I said to myself.  I really did need to get a dog just to make that line work.

I really didn't know what to think - I knew which scenario Sherlock Holmes would say was the most likely - after all, an axe had just been about to split open my head like a watermelon.

I was dead.

This was some kind of afterlife.

I spared a thought for Bob and Trevor.  Well, Bob really.  Trevor had brought this on himself so good luck to him.  Bob, I worried about.  He was the one they wanted.  What would they do with him?  Once they had the ring he would be of no use and would be killed.  A lump rose in my throat and I tried to suppress the small feeling of despair that was rising in me.  What use would that be now?

My eyes closed and I began to relax.  It was amazing how tiring it was fending off demons and fairies.  During the attack I had been fuelled by adrenalin and now had crashed.  I hadn’t even had a chance to eat my pizza, my last meal.  I was hungry.  Was it possible to be dead and hungry? 

At least I was beyond the demons and fairies now - how's that for looking on the bright side?

I must have fallen asleep because when I came to later, the light was beginning to fade.  It was the end of the day.  In the distance I heard a strange sound, when I listened more carefully I realised it was the beautiful Muslim call to prayer.  Somehow it felt better to be somewhere where people believed in God - even if it was not my God (and I had yet to decide whether I actually had a 'God').  Where was I?

Aching a little I stood up and flexed my muscles.  Nothing seemed to make sense.  I did not have a single idea as to what I should do.  I suppose I could walk towards the sound coming from the mosque, but to what end?  Why were things not clear?  Wasn’t there meant to be a light I could walk towards.  All I could see was the sun.

"Hello sweetie," came a voice from behind some trees.