Godric could hardly believe he'd actually done it. That he searched the address he'd scribbled sideways in his journal was natural. That it was a real place and quite nearby was coincidence. After word he'd driven towards it, telling himself he'd just drive by. But then he'd driven up the empty driveway and stopped.

The place was two stories. Old. Built partially of wood and partially of stone at the top of a vague rise. Few other houses seemed to be near.

"Why this house?" he muttered to himself. "Who owns it? Remember the Rifleman? But he couldn't have lived here. It's not that old, surely..."

He patted his pocket for the finger bone. It was still there, stuffed inside an old pill bottle.

Despite transgressive qualms Godric reversed down the road and left his car out of sight down some dirt track maybe half a click away and then walked back, still in his blue work uniform. Pulled on old leather work gloves that had sat unused in the glovebox for five years.

Every gust of wind an against the car made him start. Every vague crunch became the houses owner creeping up in him with a rifle. He smiled at himself every time. There was nothing and it was a perfectly pleasant morning.

Godric cut through the bushes to the driveway without seeing anyone around and stood before the house, shifting his eyes from window to window. It looked empty—but shit—what did he know about it?

Godric looped around the exterior then, trying to peer into each window. First thing was a shadowed living room that was only sparsely furnished. Nothing visible but a couch.

Durst turned from this and almost kicked a piece of broken clay that skidded out before him—almost gave him a heart attack. But it was nothing, a bunch of broken, jagged pieces of some clay planter had been swept up against the wall along with dirt and twisted remains of dead thyme.

Godric moved on with a sigh. Found a backdoor next to a kitchen window, there were other doors within, leading deeper into the house. He wrapped the corner and then came to other side of the living room. There was the glint of what seemed to be a white chair through one of the windows. Maybe bookshelves next to it, and a couch across from it.

"Fuck me," he muttered. Pulled the notebook from his back pocket and double-checked the passage—it matched.

Godric wound back round to the front of the house. Should he knock and see if anyone comes? Or just try the door? He returned to the side of the house with the broken planters where the couch was visible. Peered through the dirty, flecked window again but still couldn't see the chair—yet it must be there. If only he could reach through the wall and snatch the book...

Godric cursed and walked to the front, took off the gloves, set them down on the step out of sight from the door, and knocked. No one answered after a minute, and he knocked again. Still nothing.

"No one's around..." Durst muttered. "Okay. Fuck this. We're doing it. Open a window and crawl in—grab the book—and crawl back out. Simple as."

Yet Godric only stared for minutes more.

"Maybe I ought only go in and find out who wrote the book? Look for my own copy online? Yes," the thought stuck, "I could do that... But I probably wouldn't get the copy for days, and today's the third night..."

He pulled the gloves back on.

Leather-clad fingers tried pressing the window up. It opened a fraction of an inch and there was no screen beyond. Durst exhaled—pushed with both hands and it slid until it was as high as it would go. Durst put his hands on the frame, and leaned, maybe the book might be in reach...

Too dark to see.

"Fuck."

Godric twisted a little—trying to look around—and his side smashed the frame. This sent a jolt of claustrophobia through him and he paused, staring.

"Do it, you little bitch!" he muttered to himself.

Tried to lift his leg over the frame—lost balance and slid in, face first. Collapsed down and knocked the white bucket chair out of place with his shoulder. For a moment he stared at the floor—wondered how many of the worlds imprisoned burglars had been first-timers like him.

"Shit!"

He'd indeed heard something. Yes, he was sure of it.

Knocking against wood.

Slow. One at a time. He pressed up and pulled himself all the way through and got to his knees, staring at the nearest door. The noise wasn't getting closer, and it wasn't here, but in another part of the house.

A faint voice too, small, like that of a young boy, "Help me..."

Durst's blood went cold—"What?"—it shot through his mind.

The knocking became a pounding, and the voice came again, yet louder, "Please help me! I'm in the basement! I heard you come in..."

"Oh shit..." said Durst.

"Please!"

Durst rose to his feet, frozen, and breathing stale air. It was like a house once filled with smokers that was now empty—only their stains lingered on every surface. Their stench forever in the air.

The knocking came again and this spurred him to make for the shadow-gripped kitchen with a slow, careful step. It was after he opened the door that he noticed the house stank of more than smoke too. Like charcoal and sulphuric rotting flesh. Reminded him of Mary's office.

"H-hello?" Godric almost coughed. The nerves of having done something wrong—bad and transgressive—kept his voice low.

"Yes!" the voice shouted with incredible relief. It was coming from another door at the opposite end of the kitchen. "Please. It's been so long... Let me out of here..."

Without even noticing that he was shaking Durst went for the door and pulled it open. A wood panelled stair led down to another door—the air in that narrow drop was charged with the stink. Stronger than any place else and Godric stood staring for a long time. This was wrong—something­ was wrong.

"Please!" came the voice after a while, and he took a step on the stairs.

"Yes!" the voice almost sang. "Down here!" The tapping on the wall came again, the wood moaning from the pressure.

But Durst stopped and only stared.

"What are you waiting for?" said the voice. "I've been kidnapped..."

"W-what's your name?" said Godric.

Silence reigned for a time before the answer came equally as hesitantly as the question was asked.

"Lucy..."

The voice lost its masculinity, and Durst recoiled a step back up the stairs.

"Please come..." it pleaded. "I want you to come so I can know who you are." The voice became masculine again, and tapped on a particular section of wood above the door—a section that was cracked.

"Please... There's a little hole to see through behind the panel here... Come and see me. They've held me prisoner for days now... You'll let me out once you've seen me..."

With an unsteady hand Durst reached for it without moving from where he was on the step, and with an unsure finger, hooked the crack and pulled the panel back.

"Hello?" said Durst.

Behind it, between two joists, was a hole pulled apart by hands clad in brown leather as though the wood were made of rubber. Eyes rose in the darkness to meet his. Eyes deadened by shadow and peeking out from the brim of a hat—Sotor the Second—gleaming with a hateful joy.

"Give me my fucking finger!" the voice shouted.

Durst started back and the cracked panel of wood fell away entirely. Hits the stairs with a slap. The eyes rose out of view behind the hole and the mouth still pierced by the stake opened and closed in hurried, angry speech.

"Only in this place do I have the power to speak," the head began. "I know it's you who possesses my last remaining bone. That knave with the shaven head gave it to you. I can see you whenever your near it, uh-huh," assured the voice. "It's in your pocket right now. I can see it better than you..."

Godric slipped his hand into the fabric and came out with the pill bottle. "Yes..."

"The door is locked, but I am trapped here for more reasons than that. It is good you came. I can feel the rest of myself... I know where my bones lay. You must take that bone and put it with the rest of me... I will not exist in bondage and be made into a footnote of someone's else's legend."

"Why?" said Godric, utterly terrified. "Why should I?"

"You'll have a better night tonight..." said Sotor before chuckling. "If I am whole."

"Something will happen then..." Durst muttered, and then looked at what little of that face loomed from the shadows at him. "You're the man by the hole... The disturbances... The body without a head. It was your skull in the basement that Steve..."

"Yes," it hissed. "I was asleep then. Resting in a further plane. Now I'm awake and everyone in the museum is to die."

"What!?"

"They need not be slain so blithely, however. Their fate is not certain. If my finger is given, I can break their spell."

"The book..."

"Won't help you," said the voice assuredly. "That spirit may have over-powered me... For we are linked in a way... But it will be helpless tonight. The book won't help you."

"You are trapped in there, aren't you?"

Durst said nothing and the mouth dropped and glaring eyes fixed on him again, shouting, "Your heard me!" the eyes became desperate—anguished, "It's true! They hold my soul in bondage and will use me to their own ends... Find me in the fourth basement."

"Wait... What will happen... Once your whole again?"

The eyes only stared at him with angry intent. A deep laughter drifted from the hole—cruel and capricious.

"You killed Mr. Sala..." said Godric. "Why should I help you?"

The laughter grew and deepened.

Durst's skin began to crawl and he muttered, "No... You're evil. You made the statue topple upon him..."

The voice came slow, "It is a good trick."

Durst sprinted up the stairs as visceral horror washed over him at the sudden epiphany he'd been communing with the dead.

"We'll see you at the fucking museum!" Sotor yelled, it echoed preternaturally in that stair. "You better have my fucking finger then or you'll die!"

Godric ran for the living room in blind panic. The doorknob began to rattle below, the wall vibrating from something hitting it with the whole force of it's body, a voice yelling, "We shades of the past are more powerful than ye! We loom over. Dictate you. Shall crush you all yet! Your shadows are small! Ours are infinite and majestic and we can crush you like stone!"

Durst hardly registered the words.

If not for the massive presence of the white bucket chair, he would've forgotten the reason he came entirely. He paused, snatched a grey clothbound book that sat on the third shelf, second from the left and titled Spiritual Necromancy. Knocked several books to the floor in doing it and didn't stop to replace them and was out the window as a final scream came the basement—something pounding on the door with its body.

Thought he still heard it even as he sprinted—the maddened shouts—he ignored them and ran all the harder.

The fact the book was there—exactly as described—did not dawn on Durst until he was almost at his car. Didn't even crack it open until he was parked by Eddie's, breathing and thinking about what the fuck he'd just seen. Gulping coffee he opened it to page 74.

"It has been passed down since the Reign of Solomon that a spirit can be controlled by whomever takes possession of it's remains, so long as they have all it's distinct remains that exist upon this earth. Most of the remains will suffice too—with a piece or two missing—but their control of the spirit can be damaged if those missing remains are reunited after the operation has been performed (See: Chapter 1 and particularly Mamugna's quote on the nature of Psychic Fields). You must understand that if you are to defend yourself from the slings of an unholy Magus who has wrested this power from the almighty.

It must also be noted that the power used to inflate life back into the spirit—to take it from a being that is essentially a transient, wandering thing with no more awareness of itself than a hound, yet still driven by certain instincts—can leave the spirit with undue power and consciousness as this power is quintessentially evil. If control is lost the spirit will regain its own agency for a time and make use of what power the operation imbibed to whatever the spirits own whim dictates. The ego could then be considered to live again, for a time. You must also understand that the entirety of this process is evil and akin to necromancy—to perform it with the remains of any is among the greatest evils and only the Devil's own will have the sheer force of will to see it through, for their name has already been struck from the Book of Life and they are closer to this realm than most.

The operation can be reversed by the uninitiated however, even if the operator loses control of the spirit. You see, if the spirit is confronted with its own negative image (by which it is meant to refer to bones or other remains—usually the skull; which is the seat of the mind and an undeniable symbol of death) it will lose its consciousness and self-awareness and return to its former state of transient, disassociated wandering. This is because seeing its own remains reminds the spirit that it is dead. It will in effect—and in one terrible flash—relive its death and die for a second time. This is a grievous blow to the transient ego and may even result in the identity being shattered irreparably—depending on the nature of the individual death—forever ending its transience and forcing the soul to confront Saint Peter.

It has also been postulated that the extent and nature ofthis second death is a matter of subjective personality and will be mostdevastating with spirits that in life possessed great arrogance or pride. Theyare the most reluctant to admit their powers could be limited by deathoriginally; thus, the proof of their own skull has a terrible effect. Whereasspirits once belonging to the meek and humble will not be so greatly devastated,and the haunting may reoccur in time."

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2400 words.

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