Drink cures all ills.

And she was ill, she knew. She was ill and drink was the only thing that could cure it. So she drank, and for a while she felt better. She drank some more until she could safely say she was hammered. When she went back into the house she could hardly see where she was going. She bounced off every wall and every piece of furniture on the way to bed. Laid down, the room spinning.

Thought about throwing up, but if you're a proper drunk and not just fucking about at it like some kid going to Wetherspoon's on the weekend, you didn't throw up. Throwing up was a waste.

So she didn't moan. She didn't puke. She didn't feel bad, because this was her being better. She was better when she couldn't see and she couldn't hear the voices or see the dead people that watched her until she fell asleep and waited for her when she woke up.

She went to bed so drunk she didn't hear Miles trashing the house, and if she had, she wouldn't have cared at-fucking-all.

She went to bed drunk and she was better. She woke up drunk, but it wasn't better anymore. Becky came calling, and it was worse in every way.

Chapter Thirteen.

Thursday 13th November Beth sat down in the chair that would be her guest's so she could see what they would see. The kitchen table, covered in a red check cloth. A thick candle sputtering, spewing the occasional plume of black smoke into the air. Her deck was on the table, next to the candle. She wouldn't use her cards tonight, but people liked to see the workings of a medium. For some, it was their religion, but true Spiritualists went to church, or sat in circle, or maybe meditated. Most of her clients liked to see the works. Like junkies, kind of. They didn't believe it was the real shit if they couldn't see the works on the table.

She sniffed the air. Cut flowers in a vase on the kitchen sill, a leftover tang of lemon dish liquid. Sandlewood candle.

She held her hand in front of her mouth and breathed. Just toothpaste. Maybe some people, they'd like to see a medium with a few rotten teeth, but she wasn't some storybook witch.

There was a soft knock at the door. She stood, smoothed her skirt. Checked her hair in the mirror in the hall. A small fairy figurine had fallen from the battered table she rested her phone and keys on. She righted it before opening the door.

"Becky," she said, smiling. Smiling was always easy. It was just acting, after all.

"Beth. Thanks for seeing me."

"Not at all. Come through."

Beth led the way into the kitchen and waved at the seat she'd just vacated. Becky took the seat. It groaned as she sat down, but it had held her without breaking the last two years that she'd been a regular customer. It'd hold her tonight.

"Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

Beth saw for the first time the newspaper clutched in Becky's fist.

"You haven't seen it?"

"No."

But she felt that sense of dread building. Like a stack of cards. Like the top card was about to go on the deck, and it was a heavy card. A tower on a tower, ready to bring it tumbling down.

Becky laid the paper out and the breath rushed from Beth's lungs. She had to remember to breathe.

"Fuck."

"It is you!"

But she ignored Becky and read the article below the picture of her shaking hands with Coleridge.

By Sam Wright Sources close to the police investigation into the recent spate of murders among the spiritualist community in Norfolk revealed that police themselves have turned to local medium Elizabeth Willis for assistance.

The police investigation into the killings has yet to show any signs of progress. The killer has been at large for four weeks, since the murder of Yvonne Stanton, of Cromer.

The deaths of Frederick Smith, of Norwich, Unwin George, of Winterton, and Henry Meakings, of Bacton, have all been linked to the killer. Though the police have yet to release further details, speculation has begun that there is an occult aspect to the murders...

Elizabeth Willis...

She pushed the paper away. "Bastard."

He'd killed her. He didn't need to stab her. Someone had taken her name, taken her photo, found out who she was.

Did a spirit need to read the paper?

No. He didn't. He knew her already. Did the article matter? Did the photo matter?

Of course it fucking did. It put her right there with the rest of them. Before, he'd had no reason to hurt her.

Now she was working with the police. Now he had a reason.

She felt the house of cards tumble.

"Bastard."

"It's pretty cool, right?"

She shook her head. Becky wouldn't understand. She didn't need to understand. She wanted to get rid of her, but she was a regular, and Beth didn't exactly have people tossing cash through the door.

"It doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry, Beth. I thought...I thought you'd be pleased. It's pretty cool. I'm just...sorry. I didn't think you'd be upset."

"It's okay, honey. It's fine. I'm just having a tough week. It doesn't matter though. It's fine. Really."

She put a smile on, and it must have been a good smile, because Becky, sweet junkie Becky, she smiled right back.

"We'll see if he'll come through, OK?"

Chapter Fourteen.

"Let me put the kettle on. Some camomile tea, just to settle you."

"With honey?"

"Of course with honey," said Beth, with her easy smile, showing a lot of white teeth. Not a rotten one in her head. Half of mediumship was acting. For some, that was all there was. But even if you knew your beans, you still had to put on a show, and it didn't matter what you had going on in your own life, it had nothing to do with work. For some it was a vocation. For others it was a job.

For Beth it had been both, but now it was money, and she needed the money. What else was she going to do?

She made the tea while Becky whined in the background. Beth tuned it to white noise, listened to the kettle rumble instead. She sweetened one camomile with three spoons of honey, one with a healthy shot of whiskey. Single malt for preference, anything else when her purse was stretched. She had a bottle of Speyburn Single Malt she was saving. She didn't know what she was saving it for, but it was good to have a bottle for emergencies.

Mostly she drank the local supermarket's own brand. There was a time she would've covered the taste with a mixer, but no more.

Just so long as it was past five. Her one rule. Never broken.

Hardcore.

She laughed softly to herself, then remembered Becky, waiting for her tea.

"Here. Now, shall we see if your old dad's knocking about tonight?"

"Please. My mother..."

"Don't tell me. You know how this works. If you tell me what you want to hear, you've got no proof it's spirits talking, remember?"

Becky flushed brightly all the way down to the top of her heaving chest.

"Sorry. Sorry, Beth."

"No need for that. Okay. Close your eyes. I need to focus."

Becky nodded, shut her eyes tight, like she was squeezing her eyeballs with her eyelids.

Beth shut her eyes, too. She took a deep pull on her tea. Breathed in the air. Let the first whiskey of the day hit her stomach.

The door to the kitchen squealed against the tiled floor as it opened.

Becky shivered. Same as she always did. She was well schooled, though. Whatever happens, don't look, Becky. By God, don't you look.

But Beth looked. Her son, eight years old and bright as a button, looked around the door at her. She beckoned him in. She didn't need to tell him to be quiet.

"Spirit! Come to us! Come! Francis Hart, father of Becky Hart, are you there?"

Beth made her voice hard as she could. Like she was ordering spirits around. Like such a thing could be done. Becky would never know. She didn't need to know, but more than that, junkies like Becky, you could tell them, show them, open their eyes to the lies, but at their core, they didn't want to know.

Beth's son nodded. He was ready. He opened his mouth and a deep, resonant voice came out. It was nothing like the voice of Becky's father, Beth didn't doubt. It was the best imitation a little boy's voice box could do of a grown man.

"Your mother don't know what's good for you, girl," Beth's son said. "You listen to your heart. Time you grew up, sweet. You're not a baby no more. You stand up to her. You hear?"

Becky's eyes, tight shut though they were, welled with tears. She nodded.

Beth flicked her hand at her son. Shooed him smartly out the door, and like the sometimes good boy he was, he left.

Beth put her comforting smile on for when Becky opened her eyes.

But then Beth's smile fell from her face.

Her son came into the room again, but this time his back was to her. He stared up at something she could see.

Then she saw. There was a man forcing Miles back into the room. A man with dark hair and acne scars and thick deft hands. One hand was holding her son's T-shirt tight in his fist. The other was holding a wicked blade.

Chapter Fifteen.

"You see me?" he said.

Beth half-stood, then sat. What the hell could she do? She nodded.

"Beth? You okay?"

Becky's voice shook. She felt it. She felt how wrong it was. It was freezing in the room, a deep cold that sank right to the bone. The tea on the table didn't steam anymore. Then there was a cracking sound as the tea froze. Then the water in the pipes.

But Beth couldn't pay the distractions any mind. The killer was here, right in her kitchen, and everything hung in the balance.

"Good," he said. He flicked the knife through the air. Naked, Beth thought, and hot on the heels of that she realized there was something wrong with his feet. Like they'd been broken and set wrong, or his legs had too many joints. She couldn't figure it, and it hurt to look at him.

But that didn't matter.

"I can touch you where you live," he said. "You understand?"

Black eyes. Black blade. Like a man born of night. But something else. He wasn't a man. She understood perfectly that he was something she could never understand. He was beyond flesh, beyond spirit. Beyond evil, even.

Primal.

A beast.

But that didn't matter.

The knife, moving toward her son's throat. That was all she could think about.

"Beth?" said Becky. Becky couldn't hear him. Beth ignored her.

"I'll stop," she said. "Anything. Please. I'll stop."