But it’s been a while and I don’t want to forget.

  As Evie screamed and Gina moaned, Shane marched down the landing with the phone held out in front of himself. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in Heaven.” He tossed the phone aside. He didn’t need it. “Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

  The darkness swirled, evaporating more and more. It had Evie around the throat and she was gagging and turning blue.

  “And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”

  A black hurricane formed on the landing. The pressure released itself from Evie’s throat. She crumpled to the ground, gasping.

  Shane threw out an arm. “Run! Get out of the house.”

  Evie’s eyes bulged as she looked at him, and for a moment it looked like she was going to refuse to leave him. But then she clambered to her feet and raced down the stairs. Gina had propped herself up against the wall and was clutching her chest.

  The darkness flowed around Shane again. He felt his flesh pulling away from his bones, the evil trying to tear him apart.

  But he was ready to finish this.

  At the top of his lungs, he shouted, “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ev—”

  Something lashed out of the darkness.

  Shane’s neck suddenly turned cold as the air left his lungs. He clamped a hand against the left side of his jaw and felt hot blood gushing between his fingers. He tried to speak, but his throat seized up. His legs buckled.

  As he hit the ground, he knew it was over.

  The darkness spread out around him, ready to pull him into an empty, soulless place.

  “For ever and ever,” said Gina in gasping voice. “Amen.”

  The black cloud came apart like dust in a fan, reduced to the smallest molecules within a split second before disappearing. It made no sound, gave off no threats. It was just gone.

  Gina crawled along the carpet towards Shane.

  Then she began to cry out for help.

  “It’s okay, Mr Mogg. I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

  “Thank you,” he managed to say, before he passed out from the blood loss.

  Shane woke up in the hospital. He was alone, until he pressed a buzzer and a nurse came. She checked his vitals and told him he was lucky to be alive. Then she rushed off in a panic. He had a feeling he wasn’t the only person close to death today. In fact, the hospital sounded chaotic.

  Ed arrived half an hour later, looking exhausted, her pink hair caked in dust and grime. But she had the most wonderful of smiles for him. “I swear, if you had died on me, I would’ve done the ritual and brought you back just to give you hell.”

  He moaned, the vibration causing his neck to ache. “Don’t joke. How long have I been here?”

  “They brought you in about six hours ago. You’ve had surgery. They’ll probably move you to a ward soon.”

  “My throat was cut?”

  “Actually, it was your jugular. I raced you to the hospital myself while Tommy squeezed your neck and tried to stop the blood.”

  “Tommy?” He shook his head as he reminded himself who the lad even was. “He and I have a conversation ahead of us.”

  “Go easy on him. He’s just a kid.”

  Shane nodded. From what he’d seen of Tommy, the kid at least seemed to care about Evie, and he had stuck around when he could easily have made a run for it.

  Kid still got my sixteen-year-old niece pregnant though. He’s not going to be getting away with that lightly.

  “Where’s Gina? Evie?”

  “Evie’s in the waiting room with her mum. Gina’s in another hospital bed somewhere around here. She’s got broken ribs and concussion. That old chick is tough.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “She told me about Mandy. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I was ignoring your messages because of everything that happened, and I was just in a bad headspace after getting locked out of my place.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I was a bad friend. You’re my favourite person in the whole world, and there’s a bedroom waiting for you at my house.”

  She smirked. “You sure? I’m kind of messy.”

  “Hello, have you met me? Yeah, I’m sure. I’m tired of being alone. Come and stay with me. It’ll be fun.”

  “We can be alone together.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I can’t believe you turned up when you did. Did you not go to your parents?”

  “I did.” She sat down on the end of his bed. “But I headed back when I heard you apologise in one of your voicemails. I knew then that something must have been really wrong.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said without difficulty. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re apologising for, but you’re forgiven. You’re not as bad as you think, Shane.”

  He turned his head, and a tear slid down his cheek onto his pillow. “I’ve been doing sketchy shit for far too long.”

  “What do you mean?” She frowned. “Shane?”

  “You know how you’re always wondering how I got so many contacts?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “It’s blackmail. I blackmail people, Ed. Been doing it for years.”

  “You’re shitting me? You write articles about alien abduction and Avril Lavigne clone conspiracies. What exactly are you blackmailing people about?”

  “It was more from my time before I joined Splatt!”

  “When you worked for one of the big rags?” She shrugged and looked away. “I suppose that’s the name of the game in mainstream media, right?”

  “No. Actually it’s the reason I got fired. I didn’t do it to get stories and help my career, I did it because I was angry. After Em and Mandy died, I wanted the joyriding kids brought to justice. But the police ballsed up the investigation. They never found who did it. The officer in charge of the investigation was the first person I blackmailed. I caught him visiting a brothel and videoed him. I threatened to show his wife and explode his life unless he did me favours when I needed them.”

  “Jesus, Shane.”

  “I know. Anger is a hell of a thing. Anyway, after I joined Splatt! I toned things down, but I still have dirt on various people and use it when I need it. So many people have been living on edge because of the situations I’ve forced them into. I’m a bad person, Ed.”

  “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Fix it. End it. Fess up.”

  “Forget that! Stop blackmailing people, of course, but don’t punish yourself. What good will that do? Just be better. Be the good bloke I know you are deep down. Show me the man you were before life took a great big dump on you.”

  He tried to smile but couldn’t. “How bad is it? Out there?”

  “It’s a shit show. The news is reporting it as some kind of atmospheric gas, causing illusions and erratic behaviour. They’re not mentioning the word ghosts at all. Kids are getting hurt all over though. The hospital is overrun. It’s bad.”

  “We need to stop it.”

  “We will.”

  Shane shook his head, barely able to feel his body beneath the clean white sheets. “How? How do we stop it?”

  “Same way you got rid of your psycho mum. People need to start exorcising their ghosts. Figure out a way we can make that happen and we have a chance of controlling this.”

  “My mother’s really gone?”

  Ed shrugged. “She hasn’t come after Evie again. All the signs are good. Looks like English is as good as Latin. Gina told me about the Lord’s Prayer. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. But I’ve seen crucifixes and holy water do the trick, so why not prayer? That thing trying to hurt Evie was unholy, so it makes sense.”

  “Ironic, considering how religious your mum was in life.”

  “It wasn’t really her,” he said. “It was like the worst parts of her. She was a tyrant, but she had good traits too – a whole personality. She used to love singing, cooking… Sometimes, when she was in a good place, she would play board games with us. We had fun. All of that was missing, though, when I looked into her eyes. I saw only madness and judgement and anger.”

  Ed nodded. “The bad bits?”

  “I wish I could understand it.” He clenched his jaw and endured a wave of pain that washed over him. He gripped the bedsheets.

  “You okay?”

  He gasped. “Just a bit broken, but I’ll live.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “We need to find Vita,” he said. “He’s responsible for this. He can’t get away with it.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, about that. There’s another reason I came racing back, besides your whiny voicemails. My guy, the one I sent the video to? He came back to me. I know exactly where Vita is.”

  Despite the agony, Shane managed to sit up in bed.

  Chapter 17

  Shane couldn’t believe this had all fallen upon him and Ed. Even if they called the police, nothing would happen. No crime had technically been committed, and even if there had been, any prosecution would involve admitting the Clip Switch massacre had been caused by ghosts.

  Of course, that wasn’t the narrative being spun by any of the big news outlets. During the last four days, anyone claiming a ghost had killed a member of their family had been dismissed as grief-sick at best, or deranged conspiracy theorists at worst. No, the teen death toll had been caused by subliminal messages in a spate of strange online videos – all of which had now been deleted from Clip Switch’s servers by a mysterious hacking group. Mass hallucinations and suicidal impulses were the hot topics of the day.

  Alongside freedom of the Internet.

  Evers Nealy and other tech moguls were piling on the pressure, lobbying to have the Chinese Clip Switch app banned outright. Outraged parents and slimy politicians were all too happy to jump on the bandwagon. A bill was being brought before Parliament to classify social media as an adult-only service, the same as gambling. Shane didn’t really care about any of that.

  He cared about the monster who was truly responsible for the deaths of Stefani, Hannah, Jess, Millie, and countless others. The man who had put Nomon’s Ritual online.

  Vita.

  It had been exactly one week since Shane had sat down and received that first email from Jester. Seven days to finally get the answers he needed.

  Why would somebody do this?

  Ed’s phone chirped, and she pulled it from the pocket of her denim jacket. “Huh,” she said with a smile. “Evie’s posted another video.”

  Shane leant over, clutching his sore ribs, and looked at her screen. On it, Evie was performing a short Latin prayer that Gina had written down while in a hospital bed. It was an exorcism of sorts, with the ability to dispel the darkness. Several of Evie’s videos had gone viral, and kids all over the Internet owed their lives to her for helping them get rid of their ghosts. She already had over three million adoring followers. Hopefully, the new ritual would continue to spread, and the crisis would all be over.

  “She’s a good kid,” said Ed.

  “Yeah,” said Shane. “She is.”

  Rather than go to pieces after the attack, Evie and Sarah had insisted on helping with the crisis. The two of them were closer now than ever, and Shane would be there for them both whenever they needed him. A lot of old wounds had finally healed.

  “I think this is the house,” said Ed, coming to a stop outside of a house that had once been a small chapel. It still had a stained-glass window in the centre of its triangular frontage, but its spire had been removed. The nameplate on the front door read: Bella Casa.

  It was a cute little place, with overgrown wildflowers in wrought-iron planters either side of the front doorstep. It was also the kind of place that had a cellar made of stone.

  Ed’s contact had cleaned up the audio on Vita’s video and managed to decipher the roar of the crowd in the final few seconds. People were cheering, but also chanting.

  Boing Boing!

  It was the triumphant catchphrase of the Baggies – the collective nickname for fans of West Midlands football club West Bromwich Albion. The chanting made it clear Vita had recorded the video within shouting distance of the Hawthorns stadium.

  From there, it hadn’t taken much. Shane had searched for nearby properties with cellars, basements, etc., while Ed had searched for Italian nationals living in the area. It might have been a difficult task, if not for the fact Ed quickly discovered an old website advertising private language lessons for Italian and Latin. The company was named Bella Vita, and the registered business address was right next to the Hawthorns. Operations had wound up eight years ago after the company was dissolved by its only employee – someone named A. Valentino.

  Shane was sure they had their man.

  “Do we knock?” Ed asked, glancing around at the street. They were on a busy main road with rows of housing on both sides. At the end of the thoroughfare, the Hawthorns’ blue and white Smethwick End rose above the rooftops.

  “I suppose we do.” Shane rapped on the old wooden door three times.

  No one answered.

  “Fuck it!” He tried the door handle, a large brass ring. It turned with a resounding clunk! and the door swung open on squeaking hinges.

  “Hello?” Ed called out. “Mr Valentino?”

  “In here.”

  Shane and Ed shared a look. It was surprising to get such a casual answer, and so quickly. If this was a man responsible for killing a thousand teenagers, wouldn’t they be a little more… evasive.

  “Um, can we speak to you, please?” Shane yelled, not knowing exactly where to direct his voice. His throat was sore from the swelling. His stitches bulged around his jugular and throbbed constantly.

  The hallway was short, with doors to both the left and right. A large wooden cross sat up high on the longest wall facing the entrance.

  “You’ll have to come through.” The voice was firm but unsteady. Mr Valentino sounded like an old man.

  Ed moved to the door on the left and wrapped her hand around the door handle. Before she turned it, she looked back over her shoulder at Shane.

  Shane nodded. “Go on.”

  They went into the next room, which was an open-plan space – a living room leading into a tiny sunroom at the back. To the right was a hatch looking into a kitchen. It was a small, stuffy space, and very much lived-in.

  The carpets were old-fashioned with a gaudy brown pattern. The wallpaper was peeling in places. All of the furniture was dark wood.

  In the corner of the room, an old man sat in a fabric recliner, a blanket across his lap and an oxygen cylinder beside him on a small trolley. As he looked at Ed and Shane, he showed no fear. In fact, he seemed to have been expecting them.

  This is Vita?

  There was no sofa to sit on, only a pair of wooden-backed chairs around a solid, wooden coffee table. Shane eased his healing body into one, Ed the other. For a moment, Shane just sat there, studying the old man in front of him.

  He looks about eighty. Just like Gina said.

  Shane decided to get it over with. “Brother Antonio, I’ve been waiting to have this conversation.”

  The old man’s eyes widened ever so slightly. He reached out and pulled a plastic face mask from a side table and put it to his mouth. After taking in a long suck of oxygen, he straightened up a little in his well-worn chair. With an Italian accent, he said, “It’s been a lifetime since anybody called me that.”

  “You’re no longer a monk?”

  “Ha!” His skeletal frame rattled with laughter. “They wouldn’t have me. I lasted less than three years at the monastery.”

  Shane sneered. “What was your crime? Fornication with a nun? Mass murder?”

  “I attacked the abbot. My temper was a beast of its own back then, but the man deserved it. A vile creature. I have many regrets, but that’s not one of them.”

  “What about Gina D’Amato? Is she a regret?”

  A wistful smiled crossed the old man’s creased face. He had barely a hair on his head, but his dark grey eyebrows were thick and bushy. “One of my greatest. Is she well?”

  “She’s resting at home with two broken ribs and concussion, thanks to your actions. Why did you send the video to her?”

  “I came here for her,” he said, his withered hands clenching in his lap. “I came to this rotten country in the hope of finding her. She and I had unfinished business.”

  “You shunned her. You betrayed her.”

  He nodded weakly. He was a creature barely alive, rotting where he sat. The entire room smelled stale. “I did, but I thought there would be time to atone. Instead, she fled in the night never to be seen again. Her loss changed me.”

  Ed cleared her throat. “If you came here to find her, why didn’t you?”

  “I did. I found her almost immediately. But she had married by then. She was in love. Broken-hearted, I gave up my right to her rather than risk her happiness.”

  Ed rolled her eyes. “How noble.”

  “You had no right to her,” said Shane. “She didn’t even know you’d sent her the video. She thought it was just part of her feed. Had you hoped on a reunion?”

  “Yes.” A hand went to his mouth as he wheezed. “I hoped that when she saw the ritual, she would know immediately that I was the one behind it. There are very few people in the world who know the words. Most are long dead.”

  “That’s not true,” said Ed. “Thanks to you, a lot of people know about the ritual now.”

  “Why?” said Shane, wanting to leap up and slap this decaying old man in the mouth. Did he even care about what he had done? “Why would you release it onto the Internet? To impress Gina? There has to be a better reason than that.”

  Antonio’s face screwed up. “There’s a hundred million reasons for it. I may have left the monastery, but my relationship with God is unbroken. Humanity is sliding into the abyss and it is up to the faithful to do something about it. Our children have become sexual objects, our neighbours have become our enemies. The world is run by false idols and driven by greed. Billionaires hoard wealth while others starve, and deviants target our children. Women drink and vomit in the street. Morals no longer exist, and that awful website, Clip Switch, epitomises it more than anything else.”

 

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