Note: Yes, I will hammer the title of this chapter in until they’ve all gone. You know who you are, and you will suffer with me. The characters belong to MysteryBen and Artsy.
……………………….
“Everything hurt.” Lewis’ voice was quiet as he recalled the night in the cave. “By the time I realized I’d been pushed, I was already half-dead. I wanted to die, everything was broken and ripped and I knew I’d never come back from it. I’d never felt anything like it before. My head rolled to the side and I saw you staring at me, Vivi.”
Arthur buried his face in Mystery’s fur. He’d always suspected Vivi saw Lewis die, but confirmation still lashed his conscience. When he looked up, Lewis was no longer sitting down. He was in front of Vivi, holding her face in his hands and staring at her like he hadn’t just been sitting with her, hadn’t just been yelled at by her. Like he hadn’t seen her in a year.
“I could feel myself going. But the look on your face… I wanted to make it go away. I wanted you to not have seen what you saw. I wanted it with every fiber of my being. To have to hold a memory like that… it crushes a person. It changes them.” He brushed a lock of hair away from her face. “I didn’t want you to change like that.”
Arthur heard a sniff from Vivi. Again, he couldn’t help wondering what stories had passed between them, how Lewis knew about such memories changing a person, but it was not the time to ask.
“And then… I can’t explain it, but there was a flash, and your memories were in my hands. All of them, your whole life laid out right there. And you looked so frightening, like a zombie standing there. A very pretty zombie,” he added hastily, “But… lifeless. I took the last five minutes and placed the rest back in your head. I don’t know how I knew how to do it, but I did. I think I didn’t do the best job though, because you didn’t snap out of it, you just stood there. That’s when I realized I was standing in front of you, and not lying dead and impaled.”
He dropped his hands from her face, half-turning back to Arthur.
“Then Arthur came. He was bleeding, and I didn’t get why HE was bleeding, but he grabbed you and jerked you away. I don’t think either of you could see me at that point. And I didn’t know what to do, because when I turned around there I was lying on a spike, but I wasn’t in myself. And then I remembered I’d been pushed. Then…” Lewis paused, then leaned forward, extending his hands to either of them. Arthur felt the warm, bony hand settle over his forehead as he saw Lewis’ other hand rest on Vivi’s forehead. And then memories that were not his own poured into his mind.
……………………………….
Hours, days, then weeks spent wandering the cave floor, replaying every second, wondering why.
Why.
They came and took his body away.
Why.
He was left in the dark, alone and forgotten.
Why.
The only remnants, a spike covered in dried blood. A few shreds of cloth. A silver locket.
Vivi. That is why. That’s why he killed me.
And then the rage came, the all consuming, howling rage that lit the cavern, licking every spire and spike with pink flames of bereavement and fury.
Traitor.
And then he searched. He didn’t have to search long, they’d gone back home, back to their normal lives. Vivi looked a little thinner, a little more haggard, but was plunging ahead with her ghost hunting. Mystery seemed to tense up whenever he was near, but he couldn’t manifest to their eyes yet. And Arthur…
Arthur had a mechanical arm for some reason. He didn’t care why, he hoped it hurt. He wanted nothing more than for Arthur to suffer. He tried to kill him the day he found them, but could not manifest.
He had to learn how to do that. They’d been on dozens of haunts with so many levels of ghosts, and there had been plenty that were visible and able to manipulate the world around them. Surely he could learn as well.
And so he went to the Mundocani house. He watched the other spirits that stayed there—it truly was a magnet of sorts—and observed how they were able to manifest, manipulate their surroundings, and even create full blown illusions. One particularly powerful ghost had even created a temporary reality that faded once her energy had been spent. The image of the entity was blurred out, as if Lewis didn’t want them to see who it was.
This one he had cornered, begging her to teach him how to do that. She consented, being a vengeance-seeker herself. He needed a physical object to anchor his presence to, she said, and he would have to draw on the strength of memories attached to the object for his strength.
“Who is that?” Vivi’s voice broke into the memory.
“I will not say her name.” He said quietly. “She attached herself to the concept of her name, it calls her and feeds her power, and she is not a friend of the living. I can’t even show you her face, you might remember her and say her name. Trust me Vivi, it’s better not to remember this one.”
Finding an anchor was no trouble. He returned to the cave. The locket Vivi had given him had fallen from the pocket when they moved his body. He anchored his spirit to it, and left, the object now a part of him.
He practiced a few times, outlining exactly what he would do to Arthur once he had him. But he hadn’t counted on the strength of the pull from the locket. His thirst for revenge continued to be muddled by the urge—no, the need—to see her again.
So when the mansion went up that night, what was supposed to be a deathtrap for Arthur, he began to call them. The locket—now his own heart—beat with the call.
Come, Traitor.
Come, Vivi.
Come, Traitor.
Come, Vivi.
And that night they came, all of them, their heads bobbing in time with the call, with his heart. He could feel them in the upper levels of the mansion, and sent small dispersions of himself up to herd them deeper in.
He’d almost had Arthur. He’d seen it in the scum’s face, he knew. He recognized him, and he ran to save his wretched hide. He’d been so furious, he barely noticed someone had joined Arthur in running from his rage, until she threw herself directly in his path.
Vivi.
He could see with one look at her face, she didn’t recognize him, and all she could see was a monster about to kill her friend. She didn’t know he was a traitor. She didn’t know he was a murderer.
Vivi.
His heart was beating toward her. Where was his anger? It was gone. All he could see was her face staring at him, her hands reaching out to take the heart that was moving toward her… and then she was gone. Arthur was taking her away. Again.
And then it was back, and it was flooding the mansion with light and flame. He hoped it burned that filth to a crisp.
But Vivi…
He raced to the window. Arthur had made it out, and so had Vivi and Mystery. He’d frightened Vivi away…
…………………………………………………
He removed his hands from their heads, keeping his face down. “I was spent from so much activity. I could barely move for three days, but the first chance I got to manifest, I went straight back to Arthur. I told him just how long it would take me to get enough strength to wring his scrawny neck, and left. I figured he would throw together some gadget to combat me, so I rested, and did some mild haunting to stay in practice."
“The Mundocani place?” Vivi asked, subdued.
“Yes. I came back to Arthur once. He’d just walked into the house, and he was shouting about something. I wanted to scare him. So I pulled a few tricks, writing on the ground in ink and rolling his traveling alarm clock around.” He paused for a moment. “I didn’t know… but now that I do, I’m not proud of that Arthur. I wrecked you pretty badly that day. I saw…”
Arthur didn’t respond, biting his lip.
“At the end of the week, I put out the call again. This time, I made sure to only target Arthur, but he wasn’t coming. I could feel where he was though, and it only made me angrier. I couldn’t fathom why he was back at the cave, unless he had some sick trap set up for me, but I knew I could handle him. So I went to the cave.”
“When I got there Vivi, there was a half-eaten snack and an abandoned flashlight on the ground.”
Vivi stiffened. “Arthur would never—”
“I know.” Lewis nodded. “I found a notebook on the ground, telling me he knew I was coming for him, and that it was ok… just to please make it easy on you somehow. I still thought it was a trap, but I started wondering if I had all the information I needed. Still, I went on with every intention of killing him… but when I saw him everything was wrong. From his eyes to the smile on his face to the way he just calmly sat there, I knew on the spot it was not Arthur.”
“Whatever it was kept enticing me to kill him, putting itself right on the same ledge I fell from and inviting me to do the same to him. Something was wrong. I wanted Arthur dead so badly, but I had a reason. Why was this thing wanting the same? I had to know, and for that I had to hear from Arthur. So I told it what it wanted to hear, that I wanted to see Arthur’s face as he died, I wanted to see him KNOW who killed him and why. It was more than happy to oblige, and left.”
“Gods Vivi…” Lewis covered his face with his hands. “The state he was in… he couldn’t even speak. He was contorting on the ground like he’d forgotten how to move. It had been DOING things to him, and I forgot to be angry for a moment. And in that moment I knew something was more than a little wrong, it was VERY wrong. But that thing was waiting for me to kill him, and I got the sense if I didn’t act soon it would reclaim Arthur.”
“I’d never tried possessing before, but it was all I could think of to do. And the minute I was in… I saw everything Vivi… and more.”
Arthur’s eyes unfocused, and he hummed quietly, trying to distract himself from this part of Lewis’ story.
“Yeah, he’s broken from the fall from the cave roof, but only because it was the last straw. That demon had him a full day before I got to him, Viv. And it put him through falling from the cave the entire time in his mind. You pushed him. I pushed him. Mystery pushed him. His parents. The police. Sometimes he was just flying across the cave for no reason before he hit. But he felt everything over and over, for a whole day.”
There was silence, broken only by Arthur’s erratic humming. Then footsteps drawing close to him, and a pair of blue-clad arms pulled him into a sitting position and wrapped around him tightly from behind.
“Squire.” Her voice was choked. “Oh Squire.”
Arthur stopped humming, one arm releasing Mystery to cling to Vivi’s arm. He wanted to reassure her, say something to let her know that he would really be okay again someday, but his words weren’t working and his mind was still back in the cave, plummeting.
“At that point, the demon started attacking us. Arthur couldn’t really… so I took over and ran us away. It almost tore me out, but Arthur accepted me there. Saved me back. It dropped us from the cave ceiling, and that’s when we were saved by… well.” Lewis turned his gaze on the dog in Arthur’s arms.
Mystery was intently studying a small plant growing nearby. Vivi released Arthur from her embrace, still propping him upright against her shoulder. “I guess it’s… Mystery’s turn?”
Mystery continued to focus on the plant.
“Y-you h-heard her bud.” Arthur managed, letting go and scooting Mystery away from him a bit. “S-secret’s out, time to hear y-your story, so go on and get b-bigger or whatever it is you have t-to d…”
He hadn’t even finished his sentence when the dog began to swell, his body elongating and growing taller, wider, thicker all around. He began to sprout tails. Two, three, four, five, six of them. Ten seconds later, he stood before them at full size, twice as tall as Arthur when standing, just at the snout, the same somber expression on his face.
Vivi’s hands tightened on Arthur’s arm, and Arthur swallowed hard.
“S-so. I th-think you h-have the most to explain. Wh-what’s this all about?”
………………………………………………..
Note: Can anyone guess the other-fandom-ghost who made an appearance here? She won’t be cropping up again, but wanted to leave a reference there. Taught Lewis the ropes.