Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

"Do we have to be in the circle too?" Elizabeth indicated herself, Claire and I.

"She won't notice you as long as you don't make any noise or touch any of us. You should be fine." She completed the partial circle and returned to stand next to Deborah.

"Are you ready?" she asked her.

Deborah looked at her mother and then back at Blackbird. "I'm ready."

Blackbird dipped into her bag and produced a long thin spike of yellow bone. "Give me your hand."

Deborah looked warily at the spike and then hesitantly offered her hand. Blackbird took it by the fleshy part at the base of the thumb and stabbed the point of the bone into the flesh of her thumb, eliciting a gasp of pain and a corresponding flinch from her mother. Blackbird screwed the bone into the thumb.

"Shit!" Deborah hissed, trying to pull back the thumb, but Blackbird held it. She waited until the pain was livid on her face and then released her. She lifted Jerry's hand and pricked his thumb with the point, squeezing the thumb until the blood welled in a ruby drop.

"There, now mix your blood with his so she won't fail to see the connection."

Blood welled freely from Deborah's thumb, leaving a thin trail of drops across the cover as she reached to smear her own blood into that of her father's.

This done, Blackbird took hold of Deborah's shoulders and steered her around to stand with her back to the doorway. Deborah stood there, sucking her thumb.

Blackbird moved Elizabeth and Claire into the far corner of the room, away from her daughter. "Stay in the corners and keep calm and you'll get him back. Niall, the same applies to you. Don't attract her attention, understand?"

I nodded, manoeuvring back into the other corner, away from the circle.

"OK," she said, "are we all ready?" We all nodded in turn.

Blackbird took the hand of the man on the bed and used the tip of her finger to wipe the welling blood from his thumb. She held up the finger and then slowly licked the blood from the tip.

As soon as her tongue touched the blood, something changed. The lights began to flicker and buzz, filling the room with an uncertain green cast. Expectancy built in the air. I could taste copper in my mouth as if it had been me that licked the finger.

Blackbird spoke, and the words sounded thick, as if the metallic taste of blood on her tongue made the words difficult to form.

"By his blood I bind him,

By his seed I summon him,

By his flesh I find him,

She who holds him,

Accept the price of blood and pain,

And let him find his way home."

After each phrase, the temperature dropped until the room was as chill as an autumn dawn. The lights blinked, emitting greenish pulses that only served to deepen the shadows in the corners of the room. That last word — "home" — hung in the air, heavy with anticipation. It weighed in the room like a still pendulum, and then stirred. The sound of an indrawn breath brought everyone's attention to the figure on the bed. His chest rose and his eyes opened.

"Jerry?" Elizabeth's voice held sudden hope and she tried to go to him, but Claire held her back. Blackbird's sudden shake of the head was filled with warning.

"Beth?" His voice was hoarse after his long silence. It was as if he could hear her but not see her. His head moved and his eyes scanned across without seeing the figures around him.

At the sound of his voice, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Another presence had entered the room. The lights dimmed further as a tall figure paled into visibility in front of us at the end of the bed, just beyond the opening in the circle.

Swathed in grey, she stood, arms lifted wide apart. Her long hair shadowed her face, falling over the shoulders in a silvergrey mantle. The pleats in her gown fell to the floor so her dress draped the ground. Her head was bowed, as if in contemplation, her insubstantial form rippled in a breeze we did not feel. The room became still; not the heavy torpor that Blackbird had summoned but the brittle stiffness of hoarfrost under a starlit sky.

Elizabeth backed into the corner, feeling, as I did, the chill waves coming from the figure, her expression showing sudden realisation at the cold force we had summoned. My hand found its way, unwittingly to the handle of the knife under my coat. There was a light crackling sound and I saw the water on the floor around the bed had frozen, forming a ring of milky frozen droplets.

"Deborah?" Blackbird's voice was a whisper across the bed. "Let a little of your blood fall upon the floor inside the circle."

Deborah was transfixed by the woman. Slowly she drew her thumb from her mouth with a tiny sound, like a kiss. At the noise, the head of the ghostly woman lifted, scenting her. Deborah looked towards Blackbird, who nodded encouragement.

She held out her thumb and the jagged gouge welled visibly again with blood. A single fat droplet fell and spattered on the tiles.

The figure's head jerked across to focus on Deborah, who stepped back under the intensity of that gaze. The figure strengthened, coalescing, becoming more solid by the second. She allowed her arms to fall and the rustling of her gown gave her more substance. She stepped forwards towards the circle and, as she did, I saw that Blackbird had the vase held high, ready to dash it on the floor at the feet of the grey figure to seal the circle ahead of her.

At the same moment, a shadow crossed the frosted glass of the door. Like the grey figure it became more solid until the bulky shape of Sam was outlined in the glass. He pushed the door open and leaned in.

"There's something up with the power. They have an emergency generator, but- What the hell?"

Deborah twisted around to warn him back but the words never reached her lips. The grey figure swept around the bed and grabbed her hair, jerking upwards so she cried out. Without thinking, I pulled the Dead Knife from my belt and launched myself forward, and stabbed it into the grey woman's back.

There was a yell as Deborah was thrown backwards into the wall, bouncing off with a force that shook the room. Her feet skidded on the thin-crusted ice and she sprawled onto the floor. The grey figure whirled around, the force of it jerking the knife from my grasp and sending it skittering loose across the floor.

"You!" The tall grey woman turned her attention to me, apparently unharmed by the knife. She reached towards me and I backed away, trying to evade her grasping fingers as she reached to catch hold of my jacket. She advanced, backing me into the corner.

I slid down the wall trying to evade her. In the shadows of her hair I could see the feral gleam of her eyes and the white of her teeth as she realised she had me cornered.

"Nowhere to run, little brother." Her voice was soft, her tone sure. She reached slowly down to my face as if to caress my cheek with her clawed nails.

There was a crash from behind her. For a moment her smile stayed and then faltered. She whipped around to see the shards of the vase, the water from it sealing the circle behind her. Immediately, she started to fade. She knotted her hands in front of her face and let out an anguished cry, the scream of a predator denied the prey. It hung in the room as her form lost substance and dissolved. Sprawled in the corner, I watched the very last glimpse of her fade away. The room held its breath, waiting to see if she would return. The lights flickered and buzzed and the room blinked back to hospital brightness.

"Beth?"

The man on the bed was trying to sit up, weak but conscious and aware of those around him.

Elizabeth went to rush forward and was held back once more by Claire, who looked to Blackbird for the all-clear. Blackbird nodded and she released her. She rushed around the bed to where Deborah was lifting herself stiffly from the floor. As she pulled herself to her feet, her mother reached her.