The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books) Read Online Free PDF

won’t mind assisting Popule and Naw in investigating that quadrant.”
    “Oh. Oh, I see. Do I need to be armed?” asked the young man tensely.
    Popule brought two fingers to his lips, kissed them and pressed them to the cross around his neck. “Faith, Canon. All the weaponry you need.”
     
    Nicholas thought he knew the cathedral intimately, but the South Transept’s atmosphere seemed queer today while its shadows deepened.
    “See them now, Canon?” Popule pointed to the far end of the transept. “Blur your eyes and stare ahead. Don’t try to look at them directly. They’ll disappear.”
    Nicholas played with the keys at his belt. He wanted to call the mummers madmen and demand they leave that sacred house. But then he remembered the dean, all tucked in on himself against some unseen foe. Nicholas slit his eyes and focused ahead.
    Three silhouettes came into focus, just as if they had moved to stand immediately behind him when he was looking in a mirror. The figures were wraith-thin and stooped. They wore long robes, cloaks, and spiky crowns.
    “Still not scared?” Popule murmured in an aside.
    Heart drumming, Nicholas shifted his focus to the exclergyman. Popule rested his revolver against one shoulder. His strange blue eyes coruscated.
     
    Willy led the way and Ailen let him, knowing that Willy’s failure to save his possessed mother burdened him with a lifetime’s worth of guilt. Sometimes Ailen wondered if all Willy’s travelling pack contained was guilt – great sticky clumps of the stuff. Which was why the man had to lead the way now, face the demon first, and strive eternally for relief from that oppression.
    “What have we got, Willy?” Ailen brought up the rear, followed noiselessly by Thom. He liked to know the kid was with him. It gave him courage as the antechamber threatened to seal them in.
    “Angry raggedy sprite. You see the shadows?”
    Ailen looked. The shadows cast by the rippled stone of the numerous arches spiked as they passed. Bone fingers stretching.
    “Air too. You get a lungful of that sulphur?”
    Ailen grimaced. “One of the least appealing aspects of our job.” He glanced back at Thom.
    “What do you see, lad?”
    Colours danced in Thom’s wide eyes. “It’s a cross one, Mr Savage. I see red mist coming off the stones. Waves of it.”
    “Aye.” Ailen watched the mist tendril out. “What’s at the end there?”
    “Chapter House,” answered Willy over his shoulder.
    “A dead end.”
    “Not literally, I hope.” Willy showed his teeth. He stepped aside. “You going to pipe the nasty inside?”
    Ailen nodded. “Get ready to join in the song, Willy.”
    Thom stuck close, twitchy and bright-eyed. He clutched a handful of lavender stems from Naw’s stock for protection.
    Ailen put the mouthpiece of the dragon pipe between his lips. A small sighting lens was mounted halfway down the body; Ailen squeezed one eye shut and peered through it with the other. The mist transmogrified into clawing, fleshless arms. A hideous face loomed amongst the tangle of limbs.
    “Angry is an understatement.” He concertinaed out the wing sections of the pipe and sounded his first note. Long and low, a musical whisper.
    Something shifted in the atmosphere. Where the poltergeist had only been playing with them before, now it began to realize these men posed a threat. The face in the mist broke open, revealing spindly teeth. Ailen didn’t falter. Playing a second note, he kept the mist inches from their faces. His grandfather had calibrated the pipe at a frequency too seductive for the spirit to ignore. The men moved through the narrow arched doorway to the Chapter House and the mist followed.
    “Is that the last of it?” Willy pushed back his sleeves. “All right then. I’m going to block us in.” He stood in the narrow arch, raised his arms sideways and touched the stone to either side of him. He closed his eyes. “Nasty raging thing, this one. Don’t leave me too long.”
    “I