Page 32 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
“My ass,” I moaned in agony as I stared up at the mare rider straddling my prone form. Well shit. Guess I should have knocked back another cup of coffee. Grandpa would chide me for drifting off when meditating. “Did you enjoy flipping through my dreams?”
His facial features seemed more defined at the moment. A man with a strong brow.
“Your visions are strong, filled with pain. An orphan seer. So many emotions to feed on,” he replied in a voice that lulled the mind. I was just about to doze off when I felt my arm being jerked with such force I thought it dislocated my shoulder. Philrolled me to the side, stepped over me, and slapped some blue paint on the floor. I touched my brow, moaned at the pain in my shoulder and backside, and dumped the remaining salt on this side of the haint paint.
The bellow of the mare rider made me wince, the paranormal energy that exploded out of him searing into my brain. I felt the trickle of blood run over my top lip. With a grunt, I swiped it away and sat up, my head pounding as a flood of irate specters appeared, all screaming at the captured wraith. Little Timothy was among them, his face a mask of rage as he flung himself at the circle and got repelled backward.
“Don’t touch the circle,” I yelled to the ghosts that had come rushing in like the phantom cavalry to assist us. I pushed to my feet, wobbly at first, and swallowed a little blood as I stared at the mare rider stalking the perimeter of the circle, booted feet striking the cold tile hard. “That was really crummy,” I snarled at the rider.
“You are really crummy,” he replied with a thick accent.
“What is your name?”
Phil came to stand beside me, the camera now on the circle. I had no clue what the viewers could see now, but I was pretty sure they got to witness a floating Kee just a moment ago. I leaned into him a bit.
“I know yours, Archimedes Kee,” the rider replied, its face shifting steadily as it tried to find a break in the haint paint but kept failing.
“Then tell me yours,” I parried, unhappy this entity had that kind of knowledge but doing my best not to let my worry show. “It’s only fair to share.”
It chuckled. The noise soured the marrow. “Fair. You and your Houdon priestess magic know not of fair, for if you did, you would free me. I have done no harm.”
The ghosts around me took umbrage at that. They started shrieking. The sounds set off a mini-nuke blast of white-hot pain inside my head. I fell into Phil, who, out of pure panic, bellowed.
“Stop hurting Archie, ghosts!” His roar quieted the spirits gathered to watch the rider be dispatched. I hoped they didn’t get too rankled when we tried to talk him into leaving the dark side.
“Thanks, baby,” I said with a weak smile. “I’m fine. Oops.” Blood trickled down my chin. “Hankie?” Phil produced one. I pinched my nose closed and took a small breather, well, a breather huffing through my mouth that is. “Love you,” I nasally told him.
“Sorry, friend, we will not shout to make your nose leak,” Timothy apologized from the side. I gave him a measly smile under a bloody handkerchief then turned my attention to the rider, pacing, like a caged tiger.
I coughed up a little blood, swallowed it, and lowered the hankie.
“You’ve done harm to countless people in this hospital,” I said, dabbing at my nose.
“None have perished. I do what I was called forth to do,” it replied, murky features touching on Phil and then the ghosts, never once landing on the painted cell. Monique’s powers were impressive. I’d get read the riot act about the gris-gris bag, which lay on the floor, having got caught on my heel with my phone when Phil clean-jerked me out of the containment field. I bent to gather both and resigned myself to being yelled at later.
“Who called you here?” I shoved the little bag back into my pocket, the soulless eyes of the rider watching me keenly. “Why were you summoned?”
It made another pass, unwilling to touch the blue paint on the floor, it paused in front of the gathering of phantoms whoseirritation wafted off them in waves that made my brain pulse. Unhappy spirits played havoc with my head.
“Why do you care?” the rider asked, turning its foggy head to find me clutching my cell phone. “Do with me what you wish. I grow weary of the vagaries of human wants.”
“Tell me,” I pleaded, stepping closer to the circlet, its attention locked on me, which was what I wanted. I was the only one here it could communicate with, the only one who could see it, so I needed to be its tether. “You said it yourself. The priestess has power. If you wish to move on to a plane where you can be far from humans, then tell us who called you to this place.”
“A woman in rags toying with things she did not fully grasp but fueled with mana and mania, she resurrected me. In part. Her hatred was strong over the poor burials.”
That stilled the ghosts that were gathered like Romans at the Coliseum.
“Okay, so you’re not a demon,” I said and got a terse shake of a shady head. “You’re a partially resurrected soul.” I threw Phil and the viewers a look that said I had no clue, but we were just going to roll with it. Or maybe I looked like I had just pooped my pants. “You mentioned burials. What poor burials are you referring to?”
“The large hole where they dumped the poor after they had peeled them open, poked and prodded and removed their humanity. When the sick ones die, they have no money, so they are piled into a big hole and covered over. Then there are more. Always more.”
“Blessed spirits,” I whispered, searching my memory banks for any mention of a mass grave in my research of this hospital. Nope. Nothing. Nothing had ever been mentioned. I would have remembered that. Fuck. Fuck. I looked over at the wraiths now standing silently around the rider. Their ire seemed to have withered. “So a patient here called you from the other side?”
“Yes, but her invocation is flawed. I come back not whole like the Christ but half-shaped with no love in my heart but revenge for the peoples who harm the poor and sick of mind.”
“So this girl, this lady, whatever, called up a wraith to torment the staff?” I asked. The rider inclined its foggy head just once. “Torment for torment. Seems fair,” I mumbled while trying to follow this unexpected path.
“I fed on their dreams for many years, pushing some to insanity. Many feedings. Then the feedings ended. This place grows dark, cold…void of sleepers, void of food. I turn to the others that walk the grounds. Hunger for fear is strong. I take them when I can catch them, but they are fast, faster than humans, but their memories are weak. They do not sleep or dream, but the ones who come to visit…they sleep. And I feed.”
