 Sue, I hope you're listening to this. I didn't start it. I swear. I was simply helping Marina prepare for her audition. She's a neighbor, a friend, and an aspiring actress who's trying to get her foot in the door of the terrarium that is the theatrical world of Victoria City. It was a harmless enough task. Just read the other characters' lines, sip your beer, and try not to laugh because the play is a work of art. No matter how silly the dialogue sounds. And I think I managed quite well. We sat in her living room reading the signs aloud while rain thrashed against the poor window and the wind howled somewhere in the vents, typical Victorian weather. Prepare to kick the bucket, thou filthy rat of a person, I exclaimed, cringing inside. The lights started flickering. There was nothing unusual about it. The utility poles in the area were older than the House of Windsor, and the storm was strong enough to send toddlers and small pets flying. Combine these two facts, and you'll be surprised that we still had power. I'd better get candles, Marina said, going to the kitchen. I thought it was very wise of her, and I drank my beer. The power finally went off, again, nothing unusual. When the cries began, the lingering, unintelligible moans of some sad old person coming from nowhere in particular, buggered me, I thought, and closed my eyes. How else could I react? It's your turf, Sue, and Alex's too, I guess. You know, I never liked the job. I managed to successfully avoid it for a decade until now. For a moment, I seriously considered leaving, but decided against it. First of all, I live literally next door to Marina's, and most likely I would have heard the stupid cries and stayed involved anyway. And second of all, I like Marina. She's a kind, talented girl who doesn't deserve any of these inconveniences. Marina returned to the living room, holding a pack of thin candles and a lighter. What's this? She frowned, searching for the source of the sounds that were steadily getting louder. I got up from the couch, told her to leave the candles and get out of the apartment and shuffled past her into the kitchen. Soon enough, the cries were going to reach the volume of an average AC-DC concert, and then our eardrums would be screwed. The kitchen was as dark as a hell pit, but my night vision is naturally pretty good. Occasionally, lightning flashes were also helpful, and combined with the cries, set the right mood for the evening. I found salt, pepper, and a small jar of dry oregano in the second cupboard I opened. There wasn't enough salt, so I pulled out a bag of sugar as well. Marina didn't get out, of course. For some reason, they never do what you tell them to do right away. Instead, she stood in the middle of the living room, gaping around and covering her ears under the waves of the cursed moans. They were now close in volume to the bonfire night celebrations. I dumped the seasonings on the floor and lit the candles. My phone's dead. Marina made an impressive attempt to shout over the maddening noise. What's happening? It'll be fine, I yelled back. Get out. People often tell me that I make a convincing professional face when I want to. Usually by that, they mean my I won't take any of this crap expression when I put my eyebrows in a straight line and make my eyes look both bored and intent at the same time. I guess it works, because Marina glanced at me and finally fled to the front door. She tried to unlock it, and when it didn't budge, she desperately threw herself at it a few times. It stuck, she spun around, panicking. Now that was something unusual. Sue, you know this, of course. For everyone else, spirits require a significant amount of energy to manifest in our world. Their resources are limited. So naturally, it makes sense for them to choose one main channel of manifestation to concentrate on. Typically, visual ghosts don't screen your eardrums off, tactile ones don't stick out of the walls with their transparent bodies, and audio apparitions don't mess with doors. This bloke was strong, all right, but strong or not, the first thing to do was shut him up. The moans were becoming quite unbearable. I gestured for Marina to return to the living room and what about my business? I tore the bag of sugar open and poured a generous heap into the first corner of the room, then salted and prepared it, added a bit of oregano on top, and finished the composition with a loony from my pocket. Looked pretty artistic, if you ask me. What the hell are you doing? Marina shouted, staring at me as if I were a lunatic. I waved dismissively to let her know I'd explain later and went to another corner. There was no point trying to speak over this ear-splitting noise, a jaunt of dark, a heap of white, something fragrant, something bright. As it turned out, I had only three coins on me and had to use a paperclip from the script for the last corner. It was shiny enough to do the trick. When all the corners were ready, I closed the living room door and poured a thick line of sugar under it to close the gap. The moans subsided immediately and we both breathed easier. What was that? Marina hadn't yet fully recovered from the shock. In apparition, I said, figuring out the best way to set up the candles. A ghost? Marina chuckled nervously. I nodded. She narrowed her eyes at me. How do you know all of that? I had a very long life, I said after a pause. Marina didn't look satisfied with my answer, but she probably realized it was the only one I was willing to give because she didn't inquire further. Instead, she walked to one of my installations in the corners. What does this do? She asked, crouching down to take a good look at it. It locks the apparition in the room with us and temporarily disables it. I replied, It's not gone then? I shook my head, still here. The front door being stuck bothered me, but not too much. I figured it could be a powerful old spirit, a rarer, but not an unheard of situation. Sue, you and Alex probably saw plenty of those in your days. So what now? Marina asked, standing up. Now we find out what it wants. I finally decided on the candle placement, a simple rhombic structure. Now, Sue, I know that you, being the bookworm-ish pentagram fan you are, would disagree with me. But I considered the five-element structure redundant for the simple ritual of communication. Alex, if there's a small chance of you hearing this as well, sought off. I arranged four lit candles on the floor in the center of the room and sat cross-legged on the north side of the rhomb facing the door. My bum didn't appreciate the chilliness of the laminate flooring, and I really think that floor heating needs to be a more common thing. What should I do? Marina asked. She seemed anxious, clenching and unclenching her fist subconsciously, not a good sign for a mortal observer. Just chill, I said lightly. Have a beer. I think there's some left in my bottle. It'll be over soon. It didn't cheer her up, but Marina sat on the couch. The downside was that she immediately started fidgeting with her foot right at the edge of my peripheral vision. But I ignored it for now, at least she didn't get in the way. I placed my palms like an open book on my lap and started chanting the third circle. It's upsetting, actually, the ease with which the words came to me, given the effort I made to forget them. For Marina, it was probably a weird scene, me sitting on her chilly floor and singing ominous Latin gibberish, but she took it all right. Didn't freak out or nag me with relentless questions. I was soon dying for a cigarette, craving the bitter vapes in my lungs and the dry taste of tobacco in my mouth. Smoking helped me tolerate plenty of rituals in the past. It's shame I quit. On the third repeat, the moans returned. They weren't as loud as before, but quite noticeable. Dev, Marina started worryingly. Is this normal? I tried to use my professional face on her again, but it didn't work well with all the chanting I was doing. Marina stood up, evidently distressed. Thankfully, she didn't freak out completely just yet. Then the symbols began to appear on my palms, burning deep into my skin. They were rough and abrupt, straight lines connected in sharp angles. The words felt ancient, coming from somewhere dark and wet and filled with burning cold. I had no idea what they were saying. It wasn't English, obviously, or Latin. It wasn't even Sumerian. Not that I'm an expert is the only thing I can say in Sumerian is excuse me. Can you please tell me where a public washroom is? The smell of burning flesh filled the room as the symbols on my hands dug deeper. Marina was now circling around, eyeing me with increasing fear. Dev, she sounded on the verge of panic. Dev, what's going on? The hell if I knew. I couldn't stop chanting at that point, couldn't move a limb or break the ritual. It simply wouldn't let me. It was no ordinary apparition, audio or multi-channeled. That part was very clear now. The candle flame fluttered wildly, as if we were in the middle of a hurricane. Things started rising in the air, pages of the script, books, a vase filled with dead roses. The living room door shook under thunderous bangs. A figure appeared beside the door, flickering sickeningly. And Marina jumped away from it with a deafening shriek. I couldn't blame her. The bloke looked unsettling, thin and old, with a face distorted in pain. He sat in a wheelchair, opening and closing his toothless mouth as if he were trying to say something. But all we could hear were moans. The window behind me suddenly shattered, letting the rain and cold inside. Marina's scream reached an unexpected peak when she looked in that direction and backed away in complete horror. I could move my head, but I was pretty sure that something screwed up was coming into the room from the night outside. That something made me chant louder, almost at the limit of my poor vocal cords. My throat hurt, my ears hurt, with the cacophony of the cries, the banging, Marina's screaming in my own voice. My hands burnt. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as that something from outside apparently started crawling towards me. Not very fast though, thank goodness, it took its damn time. Marina had stopped screaming and was forcefully pressing herself against the opposite wall as if she was hoping to just squeeze through it. She clearly couldn't take her eyes off the thing behind me. I raised my voice a notch, bringing agony to my throat just to get her attention. When she finally met my eyes, I darted mine to the candle closest to her, willing her to stop the ritual. She didn't understand at first. All I could do was repeat the move, stare at her, then look pointedly at the candle, all the while feeling that thing getting closer to my ass. When I honestly thought I was done for, Marina finally broke herself away from the wall, rushed forward, and kicked the bloody candle. It rolled across the floor, the flame went out, and I finally regained control over my body and voice. Everything stopped at once. The noises vanished with a pop in my ears, all the flying stuff dropped down. The vase dropped with a shatter, covering the floor with ceramic shards and splashes of water. The flickering old yit flickered away. I lay down and decided to stay like that for a bit. The cold laminate didn't bother me that much anymore. If anything, it's Sue the burning sensation in my hands. Behind me, the wind mercilessly flapped the curtains around. Marina sank on the floor in front of me, panning. I didn't want to speak ever again. I wanted to close my eyes and drift away. I wanted a cigarette and a retirement plan and to be as far from any supernatural shite as possible. As usual, no one really cared about what I wanted, so I sat up and cleared my throat, testing it. Then I took my unfinished beer and drained it in one gulp. It eased the pain a little. You alright? I asked Marina, my voice hoarse and weak, like after a few weeks of severe laryngitis. What was that? What could I say? The first rule of the business is to look as confident as possible. Never let a civilian know that you made a mistake or don't have a faintest idea of what's going on and why. Well, I had an idea of what was going on. It was a mistake to open the two-way communication channel. I decided to ignore the question. We'll try not to communicate with the apparition again. I paused looking at the mess on the floor. Sorry about your window. Marina didn't look like a person who had the energy to care about a broken window. What was that thing that poured inside? She asked. It was a good question. I shuffled to the window. There were no traces of anything except the glass shards on the floor and pools of rain water on the windowsill. The storm was still raging outside. The whistling wind threw a handful of raindrops right at my face through the hole. A perfect continuation of the evening. What did it look like? I asked, turning to Marina and wiping my face with my palms. The symbols were now fading. I hoped my skin would heal itself soon. Like darkness? Marina took a moment to collect her thoughts. Very thick darkness, totally void of light. It poured inside like goo. I nodded. It seemed something hijacked the apparition to sneak into our world. I opened a channel to talk to the spirit and this thing used it. Well, trying to use it. I corrected myself. Good job with the candle. The problem remained. If I unlocked the room, the apparition would continue moaning, messing with the doors and what not, driving us both insane. That infernal thing gave the spirit enormous powers to get my attention and lure me into performing the communication ritual. It was the first time I'd seen an apparition used as a taxi to our world. I didn't even know it was possible. I sighed and rubbed my face. Why was it my problem? I thought that you, Sue or Alex would handle it much better. I was never good at this. I wasn't even half decent. More often than not, I was just a brute force keeping civilians away while you two Akeds figured out your spiritual ways. I reckoned it was my bloody luck that made me a part of this. The only solution, as I saw it, was the one that I was going to do anyway. Without rid of the apparition, it would leave the thing without its one-way ticket. Normally, I would just talk to the spirit, learn what it wanted, and act accordingly, but it wasn't an option, was it? I looked at my palms. The symbols were almost gone. I still had no idea what language that was. Apparently, the thing did all the talking. The miserable old git couldn't insert a word. Only moan. Marina gave me an exhausted look. Can I leave? She asked. I wish she could. Sorry, I said. I don't think the thing will let you. We need to remove the apparition first. Why me? Marina sounded as if she was holding back tears. The question itself was pointless. I asked it myself thousands of times, and no one ever answered. In the current circumstances, however, it made sense. Why Marina? Our building definitely wasn't haunted. I wouldn't live here otherwise. Marina never mentioned that she had any supernatural encounters before, and frankly, she acted just like it was her first time. So a family spirit was out of the question. Is there anything new that you brought home recently? I asked. Anything unusual? She frowned. How recently? I thought for a moment. A day or two. She furrowed her brow, trying to think. A pack of beer? I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. I said unusual. Marina shook her head. No. Nothing. I only went out once in the past three days to 7-eleven. I got the signs yesterday. I needed to prepare. We stared at each other for a moment. Then I began to pick up the pages of the script that were now scattered all over the living room. Who gave you this gig again? I asked. The agency. Marina got up on her feet. I don't think it has anything to do with this, Dev. Many of people would have read the script by now. It's experimental, but it's still a large production. And I didn't hear that anyone was haunted. Experimental, I said, shaking water off one of the pages that had fallen near the broken vase. And you're auditioning for the main part? Well, yes, I am. Marina sounded a bit defensive. I told you they've lost their female lead and needed someone really quickly. So they pitched you for the leading role. Well, Alex believes I'm well suited. Marina looked hurt. Who? I froze picking up the last page. It must have been a coincidence. Alex, the new guy. She suddenly blushed and her eyes dropped. To be fair, I think he has a crush on me. He kept asking if I had someone to rehearse with. I licked my lips. They felt like they'd been brushed by sandpaper. Do you know his full name? Yeah, Marina shrugged, Alexander Munka. My jaw dropped. He didn't even use an alias, the bastard. But then Alex always considered me stupid. I guess I just proved him right. I leafed through the script, reading more carefully this time. It was no surprise that the dialogues made so little sense I should have noticed it right away. But fool that I am, I just read all the pseudo old English nonsense out loud without giving it a second thought. It was only now I finally saw that some of the words and the male characters lines had been specifically placed to form two stanzas of the gray gates summoning. They repeated three times over the course of the play. I performed the bloody ritual without realizing I was doing it. I face palm to myself and stood like that for a while. If Marina or anyone else really had said the stanzas, nothing would have happened. But I'm a different matter. Me saying them made the ritual work. Alex targeted me purposefully, Sue. I remember the look on that asshole's face when we last saw him that night in 1937. I wouldn't put it past him to use me and my friends as tools for his dark shenanigans out of pure spite. I'm pretty sure, Sue, that you're next. Dev? I flinched. I'd completely forgotten that Marina was still there. We were back to square one and unwanted ghost, a frightened civilian, and me, probably the most unsuitable person, to deal with it. I had to banish the apparition. I know what you'll say, Sue. It was unethical. There would be no wholesome story for the moaning bloke, no fulfilling purposes, or finished mortal deeds. But that was the whole problem. He had none of those. He just happened to be the closest apparition when I read the gray gates. I dragged him into our world, making him a perfect ride for whatever Alex was trying to unleash. Do you smoke? I asked Marina. And she shook her head. Of course she didn't. Why did I even quit? It's not like I'm going to die of lung cancer anyway. Alright, I said, it's going to be messy. Don't panic, cover your ears, and if you fear blood, look away. Marina frowned. Wait a minute. But I already opened the living room door, smudging away sugar, which brought back the moans. I needed a knife, preferably an obsidian one, but beggars can't be choosers. Oh, the thing knew what I was going to do the moment I pulled the chef's knife out of the knife block. It knew, and it wanted to destroy me. The moans became howls. The lightning struck outside, and I barely managed to duck when the other knives flew at my face with vicious speed. Both of them hit the refrigerator, leaving visible dents in the metal and dropped on the tiled floor. The steak knife nearly cut off my ear before it got stuck in the wall, wobbling slightly. All hell broke loose around me. Drawers and cabinet doors burst open, and their contents flew out. I covered my head and ran, dodging flying cutlery and dishes. I was almost in the hallway. When the cursed toaster got me between my shoulder blades, that one hurt. In the living room, Marina was crouching behind the couch, covering her ears, eyes huge and round and completely terrified. But despite all the horror, she was still trusting me, trusting that I'd be capable of fixing it all. I guess she had no choice. The candles went off, there was no time nor need to light them again. I slashed my right palm as deeply as I could, making the moaning old git scream in agony. An armchair rose into the air, moving chaotically towards me. I dipped my index and middle fingers into the wound and began to draw a pentagram on the laminate floor with my blood, chanting the last two stanzas of the gray gates. Marina shrieked. In out of the corner of my eye, I saw the old git flicker next to me. He was moving now, stretching his scrawny palm hands towards my shoulder. I felt his freezing touch. I was moving my hand as fast as I could, blood running down my arm. The pentagram was done. I had to draw the runes around it now. Above me, the armchair was getting uncomfortably close. Its landing on my head would be much more painful than the toaster. The old git's fingers grabbed my t-shirt. I felt the force dragging me away from the pentagram, tearing my shirt, but I already put the runes in their places. The last word of the third round of chanting rang in the air and everything stopped. The armchair fell down. With a loud thud, I barely managed to roll over to the side to escape it. The room was in havoc. I don't think there was a single thing left undamaged now. Marina was exceptionally pale. We just sat there in silence until the neighbors started banging on the front door. I don't particularly want to talk about the very unpleasant conversation with our landlords that followed, or the cleaning or bills for the damaged property. Suffice to say, Marina doesn't want to hang out with me as much as before. Alex vanished again. There's no traces of him in Marina's agency, which brings me to this. Sue, I hope you're hearing this, and I hope it's not too late. I've no other means to reach out to you. I've no idea what Alex is trying to bring into the world, but he must be stopped. And I'm not the right guy for the mission.