Diary Of An Occult Resolution Assistant Read online

  I remember being here with two broken arms - well same one a year apart, having the time of my life with all the other children staying up all night and keeping the nurses on their toes. This time I saw the place through the eyes of an adult and it was a different sight entirely; the bright walls, cartoon-ish graphics and colourful nurses uniforms failed to hide the aura of the patients who smiled, cried, hugged or slept close to their loved ones. My first instinct was to leave, get as far away from here as quickly as possible as a wave of fear came over me; the compulsion to leave was immense. It was this that froze my feet to the hard tiled floor and in a second of complete panic I saw a crying lady; hands over her face, hunched over and sobbing so hard her body convulsed with every cry. I thought about approaching and offering support or to call someone for her, but I did not, could not, so just stood there watching.

  A nurse walked by, saw me and started talking, that broke whatever spell I had over me and my legs moved once more; she spoke and although I could not hear her words distracted by my continuing stare towards the crying lady. I thought she said they had lost two more children over night and, as I was obviously a patient on the hospital - that or I like wandering around in NHS pyjamas, offered to get me back to my ward.

  She called over an orderly who was wheeling a sleeping child on his bed into position in the ward. The orderly, a large, broad shouldered man dressed in a large thin coat that I have only seen on school science teachers or weird hardware store assistants. He docked the bed into place and turned to walk towards us as the nurse called him over.

  Ludo Opem, the name she used to attract his attention, smiled at us. When I saw his face he had more hair than anything I have seen outside of a bear enclosure in a zoo; a beard as long as his arm and dense as a rain forest. My sense of panic rose again; not because of some weird beard phobia - beardaphobia? fizzogaphoic?? But every time the direct sunlight from the windows shone on him as he approached his skin turned from red flushed pink and black gloss hair to grey and peeling rotting flesh and ragged greasy hair. From a beautifully calming smile to teeth chipped and yellow, hands of strong muscle and healthy tone to skeletal and clawed. I knew an ‘Other’ walking among us when I saw it, and here one was, firmly entrenched in a ward full of sick children, and from the aura that seemed to stretch from him to them via impossibly thin and pulsating musical threads, feeding from them.

  11:15

  I would like to say I stood my ground and raised Hell against the thing in front of me, but alas I cannot. To my shame I turned and ran back to the safety of the corridor. I did look over my shoulder, the thing known as Ludo simply shrugged its shoulders and went back to work on the children's ward.

  Ok, I knew I had to get help, and fast. So my phone was in my hand before I knew it and I had already unlocked the screen with a swipe of my thumb. It looks to the observer as a touch screen pattern lock; but as I use this thing as a diary, PA, phone, data safe and more importantly......music, I put a spell on it to only unlock the secured areas of the memory to my touch; one of the pitifully tiny number of spells I actually created by adapting a ward of protection that was generated through a moment like this and a swipe like that, it made a unique screen-lock symbol..

  The phone was answered almost immediately.

  "Not a good time" came a very wafting voice, clearly out of breath like when my foster mum calls when I'm on the treadmill.

  "Not good for me either." I said. "Small case of demon feeding in a children's ward here." I stated this very matter of factly as Xanthic has a habit of one-upmanship.

  "Big case of zombie infestation here." came the snappy reply.

  "Are they eating kids?"

  "No, locked in a basement of an abandoned building." there were other noises behind the voice, scraping like that of something being dragged across a hard floor.

  "Well I think I win this time. Stop playing with your friends and get here quick, we need to stop him." I was trying to stay calm, but the fate of the children had to be more important and I was also scared, angry and more importantly hungry. I was trembling with it all.

  "Him? Who's 'him'?" Xanthic asked.

  "I don't know just a demon, I ran without stopping to ask for his calling card.... we need to stop that thing."

  "I wasn't asking you. Are you sure you're on the right track? I could have sworn we were on the trail of a Vor or some kind and not a Demon."

  "No, its a demon, like the ones you showed me in your book." I referred to a leather bound reference book, written in the romantic script of a medieval monk who, according to Xanthic was aid to his own demon Master. I should also point out demon is not the same as Demon, for which I am sure you will begin to understand as I have at some point.

  "Hold your position and I'll be there as quickly as possible. I know you won't do anything silly." the phone rang off, and it was at this point I noticed how quiet it was as all though the phone conversation I could hear string music - the aura of Xanthic, strong even through mobile signal waves.

  *

  I had walked as I talked and found myself back at my hospital bed; a note saying I had missed rounds and to seek a nurse to change my dressings if I could find the time in my busy schedule. I placed this note back where I found it in the hope I could get what I needed from my stuff in the bedside table and be out of here before I was noticed. I had a small vial of holy water and an ancient page copied out of an original scroll from before any holy-book had been compiled; it wasn't an all powerful anti evil text, but as good as, even if it was scribbled out in green biro on the ripped out back pages of a library Latin to English dictionary. If I were to stand guard in the children's ward I'll need something stronger than my hands and luck. To my horror the Gent started talking to me, lecturing me about the stretched NHS and how important it was to be here for Rounds. He then called out loud which alerted a nurse to my presence.

  With a roughness I had only previously felt at the hands of the school bullies, I was ushered to bed, a curtain drawn around, then stripped, bandages removed, wounds and bruises inspected and fresh dressings applied. I was then ordered to bed and instructed that a very close eye would be kept on me in future and the dire consequences swiftly delivered unto me if I were to wander off once more.

  With a resolution to get back on the hunt as soon as my guards in scrubs were distracted, this is the modern NHS, they must have hundreds of needy people more important - or making more fuss, than I. I found an online text book on an open source ePub site, flicked through a few images of demons from old woodcuts to find something I could use or anything that may educate me on what I faced. But my eyelids grew heavy, the phone I was reading from fell against my chest and - as the Gent and BQ testified later but I will strongly deny until my last breath, I began to snore. The dividing privacy curtain provided as much soundproofing as a black sheet over an amp at a student party. It was for this reason I did not hear the squeaky wheel and heavy footsteps of an orderly pushing a bed along the corridor and into my ward. I also didn't see the curtain open around my bed and someone enter.

  23:20

  I dreamt I was sailing in an old leaky boat with the waves lapping at my side with cool briny air gently flowing over my body as I slept. It must have been night as it was dark, there were no stars, just a frequent set of comets leaving yellow trails across the night as regular as lane markers on a road. The aroma of fresh ocean spray started to go bad merging into a strong rotten fish smell punching through my nose and deep into my brain as effortlessly as a sledgehammer punching a shining bright pin into sand. I tossed, rocking the boat which look my eye over the side seeing fish starting to float to the surface of the calm ocean, rotting and breaking up as soon as they broke through the water into the air. My heaven was turning sour and I thrashed more widely trying to get up from my position and find the oars to escape the locality.

  My eyes opened. I gasped and went as cold as the arctic sea in Winter. I was on a hospital trolley, being wheeled down a corridor; the hard f
lorescent strip lights above me like the comets of my slumber. I could not move, from my peripheral vision I could see I was secured in place with safety straps to prevent my falling during transport which crossed at my chest, abdomen and legs, with two rectangular orange pads either side of my head keeping it in place with two bright orange Velcro straps laying on my forehead and across my chin.

  The smell of rotting fish caused me to gag and then I was suffocating on a cough I could not shake away. I tried to sit up to open my airway but this was a fruitless exercise and pain rose within in as I struggled to draw in the slightest of breath. A hand as leathery and wet as an sodden gardening glove brushed my forehead and a rasping dry voice told me to stay calm. Darkness rose behind my eyes. I did not know if I were seeing my last sight, if the oxygen in my body was finally spent or if I were succumbing to a drug or spell.

  Some time later.

  The pain in my head was that of an industrial vice crushing a peanut. Behind my eyes was a light so bright I should have been able to see the sand on the moon, if I could have opened my eyes. My throat was dry, too dry to call out for help and my ears were burning hot.

  I thought for a moment I was back home in my bed with a migraine that would have stopped an elephant; but my back was against something hard, my clothes were pulled in places where the fabric was being pulled and gripped, secured tight.

  I could not hear, I could not see, because of the blinding light behind my closed eyes, but it was the absence of sound that disturbed me the most. It was not a void of sound, but sound being obstructed from making contact with me. It was then I realised I had two large hands firmly gripping my head from either side, so hard I could not move it even though I had begun to force my weight to the left and right. I put my legs into the force and felt the hands slip, as they did I could hear chanting, Latin probably or a language just as old and twiddly, being spoken so harshly it was if a dog had growled the words at the back of its throat.

  I knew who had me, this much was as clear as the woodcuts of demons hanging from the walls like a grotesque family tree. A thought made itself singular within my head and that thought was how much I did not want to die, not here like this; in pain and alone. My body worked bypassing the brain’s processes and my thinking causing my hand to move. It slipped into my pocket grabbing the spell sheet and arced around hard and fast which brought the spell sheet and my open palm down in a slap that echoed off the walls against the wiry haired head in front of me. I was satisfied to hear a howl of pain and in that moment all pressure was lifted from my body and I rose, spinning around to face my attacker.

  He was sat on the floor, a wooden board covered in chalked runes, geometric shapes and patterns, none of which I knew or could decipher, between his legs. The marks were smudged through my movements as I laid on them. We were in a store room, one not frequented by many people, judging from the smell of stale uncirculated air and wild animal. The room was dark, a half light invaded around a dirty brown blind that I suspected was yellow at the start of its life. The items on the shelves were old, dust covered and from a previous time before disposable NHS tools and equipment. An array of sample bottles, chemical containers, each with a skull logo or a fish lying on its back in a polluted river; both telling me they would make bad drinking but might work as a weapon if I needed it. The rest of the room had odds and sods laying around,boxes of paper records, typed inventories, a microscope and a Bakelite radio.

  Ludo had been sat cross legged but now he was kicking his legs out, his left hand clamped to this head where I had slapped him, the skin there reddening and blistering. God, I thought, I didn't know holy texts had that much power in them - something to remember next time - if there was a next time.

  There was a distinctly hairy aspect to Ludo here. Gone his orderly coat, in its place a bare chest covered in tattoos depicting images and scenes of demon and humans in chases, battles, torture, and other things too detailed to comment on. There were horns upon his brow; ringed like that of a ram and curved from front to back so they so the points were aimed at his ears. Sharp teeth were displayed at me as he grimaced and swore.

  Ludo stood upon long legs with knees too high and ankles halfway between the knee and cloven hoof. Hair sprouted everywhere, it was brown like a coconut and just as rough, matted with dirt and grime; I hoped not with blood - it was hard to tell. The whole look reminded me of the body of a dead badger we found by the side of the road as children, but larger, more goat'esque and grotesque.

  "You Bitch!" it spat, "That hurt like the Father's kiss."

  "Huh?!!" was the best I could reply. My heart was beating a tempo quicker than any thrash metal band would have been proud to play to.

  I had no idea how to get out of this. My experiences with the weird and weirder in this world usually came with a hand to hold or a book to learn from. The most dangerous thing I had to deal with outside of school bullies in my adolescence, was standing up to a parking warden who ticketed me even though I had bought a ticket - to be honest Parking Wardens definitely count as weirder! Just look at their eyes.

  Shit, my mind wanders like that at inappropriate times. Ludo had started pacing towards me, like a cat stepping slowly closer to its prey, walking sideways as if slipping away but pulling slowly closer closing the circle and waiting for the opportune moment to pounce. In my pocket I could feel the bulge of the holy water bottle; I carry it in a stoppered vial on a short chain; it looks more ornamental than it should especially as it’s intended as a weapon, but it’s not until you need to use it for the first time that you actually think about how a squeezy bottle full of the stuff would be better in an emergency.

  My fingers felt for the chain and I pulled the vial out, aiming to replicate the attack I made with the spell sheet. Ludo jumped then, hands outstretched to attack, I saw his eyes turn from milky yellow cream into red orbs as colour flushed into them akin to dye mixed into moving water.

  A strong hand from nowhere grasped my wrist before I could bring it down and another other pushed Ludo back with a force causing his feet to leave the ground and propel him the short distance to a wall unit which showered the room with faded records from NHS patients long gone.

  "I like the attitude kid, " said a voice. I turned my head up and saw Xanthic smiling at me, his eyes hidden behind thick sunglasses even here in the darkened room. "But please don't hurt my friend there, he's a good chap really." he smiled a disarming smile like it was a weapon and put his other arm around me.

  "You look starved." he continued. "And I think I owe Ludo a drink at the very least for his bruises. Shall we go get an energising salad from the café at the entrance, or go to one of the fast food places for a lump of grease in a sugar filled bun?"

  Xanthic offered a hand to Ludo who was trying to stand, he shook his head like he was trying to free a bee from inside it and I watched as the redness bled back out from his eyes. He looked more human how, less hair than before; but still way more than most humans are comfortable with and all his joints seemed to be back in the correct anatomical positions.

  The only difference was a red mark in the shape of the glyph for "Peace" blazing on his left temple where I had slapped the spiel sheet down. I thought I could see the glyph for 'forgiveness' half hidden under his hairline, the two pictograms looking like a child's scribble or a drunken nights friendly graffiti on his face.

  "Where do you find these remarkable individuals?" Ludo growled as he regained his composure.

  "Lets get to somewhere......"Xanthic looked around, "More conducive to polite conversation, shall we. And if they can serve me a bucket of coffee more the better say I."

  We followed Xanthic from the room through a door situated behind me: How could I have not seen this earlier? I kept well out of the way of Ludo behind me, so much so I squeezed past Xanthic in the doorway bumping him into the frame.

  "Sorry Boss." I said trying to sound professional but not quite pulling it off.

  "Think nothing of it." he smiled gliding his
hands down his coat smoothing out any wrinkles added during the coming together. I saw something pink sit proud in his pocket. Normally Xanthic's clothes fit him like a shop mannequin, straight up and down with no curve other than the body below them. But here was a bump, something sticking out the fabric. I made a mental note to sneak a peek when the opportunity arose; you never know, the Boss may have brought me some grapes for my stay.

  Sadly, later, I found out it was not grapes. The freshly, if you could use such a word to describe things relating to 'them', removed hand of a zombie.

  Sunday 4th May

  10:20

  We were sat around a small plastic table, it had three uneven legs, not bad for a tripod.

  I could hear the familiar sounds of the orchestra's brass section ripple from Xanthic's aura singing at the back of my mind, enhanced by a deeper beat coming off Ludo like a heat haze which raised in volume and tempo upon contact which was difficult to avoid due to our uncomfortably close proximity to each other in the cramped café.

  With my personal soundtrack playing in the background I began to think I was more concussed by my injuries than I first thought as I was sitting on a wonky wire seat at a table with a self confessed demon and something that looks like, and smells like a rotting corpse every time the shadow passed away from him and he was left in the light.

  "Please explain to me what's going on." I asked. "Five minutes ago I was being held hostage by that thing there and almost murdered I might add, and now I'm having a cup of tea with him!"

  "Captive." said Ludo

  "What?" I spluttered.

  "Captive, not hostage." said Ludo. "You're only a hostage if someone has requested a ransom. And I never did......"