Page 92 of Hot Ghost Summer

Verdammt, come on!

Focusing, I stabilise enough that a steady yellow tongue emerges from the nozzle to lick at the sodden black fibres, and a stubborn line of orange creeps along the damp hem. A wet, protesting hiss is followed by the sour reek of heavy sweat.

It’s not enough.

The flame can’t hold its own.

I don’t have time for this. Theo needs me.

Desperate, I look around for anything that can help.

Bowen’s Plaza is silent, save for the quiet electrical hum of the camera mounted nearby. I stare at it, then down at the smouldering material in my hand. Even if I can get the T-shirt to take, there isn’t enough hunger in the flame to consume the bones. Not like I need them to be.

I need more.

More fire. More power. More rage.

Theo’s at home, using every last ounce of his energy to stave off a revenant, and I won’t let him fight alone.

With him as my fuel, I pull all residual electricity from the Transit van, the digger, and the camera batteries into my core.

As I amplify my own strength, a supernatural chill freezes the surrounding air, and my form shifts from a pale, translucent haze to a blinding solid mass of shimmering blue-white energy. I concentrate my energy in much the same way that the Synchrotron concentrates a laser beam, and a dark halo forms around me.

In an act of karmic irony, I shoot a brilliant bolt of captive electricity right into the heart of my murderer.

The strike fractures time. Ultraviolet light, threaded with pitch-black lightning and neon teal flashes, reaches him first. Then a concussive wave rends the air, sucking everything into a void.

Bowen’s bones don’t just burn, they unravel as if their atoms have forgotten how to hold themselves together, and wisps of crackling ash and blue embers burst outward. Weightless, they hang like clouds of smoke as residual energy moves through them.

In a sudden explosion of blinding colours, I’m expelled backward into the ley line that will take me home… to Theo.

twenty-nine

Electric Hearts

Hollis

Theo is exactly where I left him. Inside the circle of salt.

Unmoving, he lies awkwardly, with his head snapped back at an unnatural angle and his right arm pinned beneath him.

I hover in his electrics, watching.

Nothing. Not so much as a twitch.

Taking corporeal form, I squat low, the toes of my work boots nudging the outer edge of the containment perimeter. I don’t see Bowen anymore—no altered visual, no faded apparition pushing from under his skin, and no hideous destruction to the side of his face.

“Theo?” I quietly call his name, but he doesn’t respond.

Jim Bowen was obliterated. Professionally speaking. His bones were his link to the land of the living, and now that they’re gone his spirit should be too. So, why isn’t Theo waking up?

Careful not to disturb the salt, just in case, I manoeuvre him into the recovery position. He neither twitches nor groans at my handling, and my lips press into a thin line. I’m not used to Theo being so still—or quiet.

I keep the flat of my palm pressed against his back to satisfy myself that he’s breathing, but the longer he remains unconscious, the harder it becomes to wait.

Something isn’t right.

Maybe there’s internal damage I can’t see?