Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

"This is my place," Oswald said, "and Ike Train was my man. He made the proper sacrifices to me, kept me fed, kept me happy. And you spoiled that, stranger, outside agitator, you ruined it, and now I have to cultivate another man. But you'll die. Not a sacrifice to me. Just somebody who got in the way." He gnashed his teeth, and they clacked together like gemstones. "You didn't have to burn Ike. He wouldn't have killed that little bitch Sadie you like so much. She has too many friends. We only kill the ones no one will miss. Well, usually. Someone might miss you, but I don't care."

Oswald was the reason Ike Train's deep down self had been so strange. I couldn't make a deal with Ike, because he'd already made a bargain with a creature like me. Well, sort of like me. Oswald and I had the same means, but different methods and motivations. That explained why nobody had ever discovered Ike Train's murders — Oswald had used his powers to protect him, and he probably did other things, too, like keeping the neighbourhood safe from danger, but the price he demanded was just too high.

As far as Oswald knew, I was just a guy, somebody who came to town and discovered his lackey's secret. He didn't know what he was dealing with. Fortunately.

Oswald stood up, letting his human shape drop, revealing the shambling earthen thing underneath, the creature of the dark and deep who'd lived here, on this spot, for centuries. Oswald was a local spirit, tied to this place, but he was an ugly one, who chose to live off pain instead of prosperity. He reached out to me with arms of darkness, endless limbs that stank of minerals and stale air. "Vocabulary word," he hissed, in a voice that could never be mistaken for human. 'Decapitate'. To cut off a head. Another: 'Decedent'. One who has died. "You."

Then he killed me.

While I was dying, I remembered the problem with having a body. The problem is pain.

I wasn't able to return for a few days. My new body was Korean, older, shorter, dressed in a plaid shirt and khaki pants. I'd needed to pick up some supplies, and they were tricky to get, since I didn't have money, and had to rely on the kindness of locals. I traded a lucky gambling streak for the truck, and the miraculous regeneration of some missing fingers for the stun gun.

I knocked on Oswald's door, late that evening. He opened the door, scowled at me, and I hit him with the stun gun. He was fully in his body then, so he went down shuddering, and I bundled him up and got him in the back of the truck, one of those little moving vans you can rent, though this one belonged to me for as long as I wanted it. I drove fast, hitting the highway and racing, because if Oswald woke up too close to his neighbourhood, he would shed that body like a baggy suit and come crashing right through the roof, and then we'd have the kind of epic fight that leads to waste and desolation and legends. Lucky for me Oswald didn't wake until we were miles and miles away from the place he called home, and he couldn't do anything but kick the wall behind the driver's seat with his very human feet.

I went north and east for miles and miles until I reached a good remote spot, down some dirt roads, out by a few old mines. It seemed appropriate, for Oswald's end to come in a place with underground tunnels. I couldn't abide him to live, but I could respect his origins. I parked, cut the lights, and went around back to slide open the door. Oswald was on his side, still tied up. "Vocabulary word," he said, voice thick and a little slurry. " 'Fucked'. What you are, once I get loose."

"You don't remember me, Oswald?" I said, climbing into the truck. "It's me, Reva. Last time you saw me, I had a different body, and you tore it to pieces and buried it in your lair. That wasn't very pleasant. I doubt this is going to be very pleasant for you."

He looked up at me from the floor. "Oh," he said, after a moment, then frowned. "You're like me. But you shouldn't have been able to take me, not in my place, so far from yours."

"It's true," I said, kneeling beside him. "I'm a long way from the place I began. I've got a vocabulary word for you. 'Reva'. It means habitation, or firmament, or water, or sky, or abyss, or god. Sometimes it's 'rewa' or 'neva' or other things, depending on where you are. It's a word from the islands, where I'm from. I used to be the spirit of an island, just a little patch of land in the sea, a long time ago. But you know what happened?"

I leaned in close to him. "The island sank. All the people who lived on it left, and I was alone for years. I could have just dissolved into the sea, but I made myself a body, and found myself a boat, and went with the currents."

"You abandoned your place," Oswald said, and tried to bite my face. "You're worthless."

"I didn't abandon it, it just disappeared, so I had options, Oswald. My people were travellers, and I became a traveller too. Anywhere I go is home, because I treat every place I go as home." I shook my head. "You're a monster. You poison the place you should protect."

"I do protect it. I keep it safe for the ones who belong there. I keep the trash out."

"You and me have different philosophies," I said, reaching over to open the toolbox I'd brought. There were lots of tools there, which I planned to use for purposes they weren't meant for. "My philosophy wins. Because you're so far away from home that you're just a man in a body now, and you don't have a choice."

He fought me, but he didn't know much about fighting without his usual powers, since he'd never left his street. I didn't try to cause him suffering, but I didn't go out of my way to prevent it, either.

By the time I was finished, he was altogether dead. Even if his spirit did manage to pull itself together again over the next decades, seeping out of the pieces of his corpse to reassemble, there was nothing around here but played-out mines, no people for him to make suffer, no sacrifices for him to draw strength from. I'd just made his neighbourhood a better place for the people who lived there. They wouldn't have Oswald's protection anymore, it was true, but the price he demanded for that protection was too high. I didn't regret a thing.

I buried Oswald in about ten different places, left the truck where it was, and started walking the long way back to the neighbourhood I now called home.

I didn't have any illusions about Sadie recognizing the real me in this new body, but I thought maybe I could be charming, and make her care about a middle-aged Korean guy. Stupid idea, but love — or even infatuation — lends itself to those. The thing was, once I knocked on her door, and she answered it, she didn't look the same. Or, well, she did, but the way she looked didn't do anything for me. My new body wasn't interested in her, not at all — this brain, this flesh, was attracted to a different kind of person, apparently. I always forgot how much «feelings» depend on the particular glands and muscles and nerve endings you happen to have at the moment. Having a body makes it hard to remember the limitations of being human.

"Can I help you?" she said.

"Ah," I said. "Reva asked me to give you a message. He said he had to leave town unexpectedly, and he's really sorry."

"Huh," she said. "Well, if you talk to him, tell him he doesn't have to be sorry. He doesn't owe me anything." I could tell from her face that she was hurt, and angry, and trying to hide it, and I wished she was from around here so I could talk to her deep down parts, and make amends, give her something, apologise. But she wasn't, and I couldn't.

"Okay," I said. "I'll tell him."

She shut the door in my face.

I walked downstairs, and stood on the sidewalk, and looked up the street. I felt as hollow as Oswald's house, as burned-out as the lot where Ike Train had lived. Why had I wanted to stay here? I wasn't needed anymore. I'd made things better. This wasn't my home, not really, no more than any other place.