Contractbound

The candles that he had used earlier for divination were still burning. He decided to use divination again to find a way. After all, it was his most reliable power so far. The stared at the burning candles and concentrated hard. He repeated a question in his mind.

"How to deal with a ghost?"

The room became dark and quiet. The burning flames became brighter and brighter and little by little a blurry image appeared in the flames. Graham saw a figure of a man, and recognized right away that it was himself! The Graham in the flame was being attacked by a macabre apparition, but when the apparition got close enough, he splashed it with his own blood and sizzling smoke rose from the body of the apparition, but it didn"t die. The image stopped there and gradually disappeared.

Graham thought about what he had just seen and a.n.a.lyzed it.

"From what we"ve seen, Val, I think a Contractbound"s blood is effective against ghosts." he rested his chin on his hand and continued speaking, "Maybe because we are in blood contract with the Deities. But it didn"t seem to kill it based on the image."

After he had finished his divination, he didn"t put out the candle flames. He still wanted to do one more divination.

"I guess it"s an overkill to divine this one using this whole setup," he said in self-criticism.

He concentrated and repeated a question in his mind. It was a trivial question, but since he was not familiar with the place, he needed to ask it anyway.

"Which restaurant is the best around here?"

An image slowly formed in the flames. It was still blurry, but it was clearer than the image from the earlier divination results. It was of a restaurant that looked busy enough from outside. The blurry sign could still be read and it said "Oma"s Kitchen". The image then switched to the inside and Graham could see that a lot of people were eating the same food: beef stew or apple pie. After that, the image disappeared little by little.

"That restaurant looks promising. We should try it out before going back to central later," he said gluttonously.

Once he was done with his divination, he cleaned up the table and put away the candles. He then made a special preparation to deal with the ghost. Once his special preparation was all done, he felt very weak, so he rested for an hour and a half to recover his energy.

"Val, I"ll handle this ghost," said Graham while stuffing everything he needed inside his medium-sized briefcase, including the hotel bed sheet.

Graham put Valentine"s knife inside his coat in a position where it could be taken out easily. He had coated the knife in his blood to fight against the ghost. He went out of his hotel room and locked it. He didn"t really know where the abandoned house was, so he planned to ask the receptionist boy.

On the first floor, the young receptionist was watching something on television when he saw Graham walking down the stairs looking at him. He turned down the volume right away and greeted his guest with a smile. Graham came closer and asked him,

"Kid, do you know where there is an abandoned house in the middle of a field?"

The boy looked visibly unhappy being called a kid, but he didn"t say anything about it. He only responded to Graham"s question politely after thinking for a while, "I think you mean the Bauwens" house? It"s about 300 meters away from here to the north."

"Do you know how to get there?" asked Graham in his low voice.

"Why do you want to go there?" asked the boy with genuine concern.

"Why?" he asked, pretending not to already know the answer.

"People are saying there is a ghost there! I"ve never seen it myself but some other people have. It"s better not to get near the building." the boy warned Graham. He sounded worried about his customer"s safety.

"A ghost, huh?" he asked calmly, and then lowered his voice and spoke closer to the boy, "I actually came here to deal with it."

The young teenager looked surprised, but hearing Graham"s serious tone, he decided to trust him, "It"s a bit difficult to get there unless you know the area well. I can take you there."

"Sounds good." Graham immediately took up on his offer.

"Let me ask my-- the manager first," said the boy. He then went back to the room behind the desk and disappeared from Graham"s view.

The boy came back some minutes later. He had got changed to more casual clothes. He looked much younger now that he was only wearing a jacket with a t-shirt underneath and a pair of denim pants.

"Okay, I"m ready, Mr. Hymes," said the boy.

"Just call me Graham. What should I call you, kid?" said Graham casually.

"Not kid, definitely. My name is Stefan," he introduced himself while walking around the reception desk, and then said, "Let"s go."

Graham followed Stefan out of the hotel and to a small alley next to it. The alley led them to another street with fields directly on the northern side. Stefan walked across the street to the field and followed a path through a lot of tulips.

"So, Stefan, tell me more about this ghost," Graham said while looking around. He thought that the view would be much more beautiful when the flowers were in full bloom.

"It started a month ago. Old Lars was working in his field where the house was visible. Then he said from the house something came out. It looks very scary! Like you could see through the skin, so the b.l.o.o.d.y organs were visible. Old Lars ran away as fast as he could after that." he answered with enthusiasm, like a student who was able to answer the teacher"s question.

"What happened to this Old Lars?"

"He is fine. But he doesn"t dare to go near the house anymore. He asked someone to work on his field that is near that house," he paused, and then as if he had just remembered something important, said, "Oh, and there is that carriage driver. He saw the ghost in the middle of the street and drove so fast he hit a pole."

They kept walking and taking turns occasionally. Graham would have been lost without Stefan. The view around them slowly changed. The field became ridden by tall gra.s.s that was knee-high. In the distance, an old, abandoned house was visible. It was much bigger than the one in his divination, but it was the same building nonetheless.

"We"re here," Stefan said, watching the house from afar. "They said the ghost is there."

"Thank you. I"ll take over from here," he said sincerely.

Graham went ahead to the house carrying the briefcase on his left hand. His right hand was ready to take out the knife at any moment. The house got closer and closer and he could see its detail. It was a very old architecture style, similar to the Town Hall and the library. They must have been built around the same time. The house had two floors, and all the windows had been broken; it would be easy to break into. The stone walls, although old, still looked very st.u.r.dy. There were overgrown vines on some parts of the house.

Graham entered the house through one of the broken windows; his right hand was already holding the knife. The inside of the house gave off an eerie vibe, and the smell was musty and suffocating, even though the windows were broken open. All the furniture was broken; almost none was left intact. The chandelier had fallen down to the stone floor. There were portraits on the wall, but all the faces were torn out. There were some doors that were closed, while the others had fallen off their hinges. The doors looked st.u.r.dy, so it might not be easy to break them open.

Graham went around the house very carefully, with his eyes glowing red under his contacts. He had never dealt with ghosts before, so he didn"t know if they would make noise while moving. He could only watch his surroundings vigilantly. He was walking past the broken chandelier when suddenly he heard a high-pitched shriek.

"Aaaaaaaaa!!!"

Graham covered his ears, but the sound still stunned him for a second. He felt chill from behind his back, so he dropped his briefcase and quickly rolled away to his right.

Clash!

Something hit the broken chandelier. Graham turned around quickly and saw an ethereal figure crashing into the chandelier, then walking through it like it wasn"t there. The figure was floating in the air, emitting a dark aura.

Graham waited for the right moment and when the figure was close enough, he lunged at it with his knife which was covered in his dried blood.

Puff!

He hit the air. The ethereal figure had dodged his attack. Graham quickly backed away and slit his palm. Fresh blood poured from his open wound and he quickly splashed it on the rapidly approaching ghastly figure.

Sizzle!

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"

It was stunned! The fresh blood injured the ghost, and it shrieked in agony. Graham was stunned again by its wail. He quickly regained his composure and kept a distance from the ghost. He then drew a circle on the ground with his fresh blood from the wound that already started to heal.

The ethereal figure was visible provoked even though it had no face. Its tall, floating body quickly lunged at Graham and wasn"t stopped by the circle of blood on the ground.

Wham!

Graham barely managed to dodge but it hit his right shoulder.

"Urgh!" he wailed. It felt like he had been hit by a truck.

He splashed his fresh blood on the ghost again and it made a sizzling sound when it came into contact with the ghost. It wailed again while not being able to move from the pain. Graham was stunned but he quickly regained composure and charged at the ghost.

Stab!

His knife hit the ghost and it was visibly injured!

The ghost phased through the floor and disappeared from Graham"s sight. Graham jumped and stood inside the circle of blood he had drawn earlier, adding some more blood to make it a complete plate. The ghost couldn"t attack him directly from below, so it tried to attack him from behind. Graham was prepared and splashed blood on it, which he followed up by stabbing the ghost.

The ghost"s attack became faster the more it was enraged. It wailed from time to time to stun Graham, who would then splash his fresh blood all over it. It was injured but didn"t show any signs of dying. After all, it was already dead, so it couldn"t die again. Graham ran quickly to his briefcase and opened it while the ghost was still writhing from being splashed by his blood. He took out his specially prepared anti-ghost mechanism.

It was the bed sheet from the hotel. He quickly ran over to the ghost and splashed some more blood on it. He became rather weak from using too much blood, so he had to finish the battle soon. While the ghost was stunned, he quickly wrapped it in the bed sheet and tied the opening in a knot. The ghost was trying to phase through the sheet but it failed.

Sizzle!

"Aaaaaaaaaa!!!

The sizzling sound and the wailing of the ghost could be heard again. Graham had sprayed his blood all over the bed sheet, so it would hurt the ghost to even touch it, and it prevented the ghost from escaping. It had taken him long enough to finish splashing his blood all over the sheet, and even longer to recover the lost blood. But, as a Contractbound, he recovered much more quickly than normal people.

Graham came closer and observed his work. The blood-stained bed sheet was twisting and squirming, the ghost inside still trying to escape. It was not successful, however. After making sure it was safe, he closed his briefcase and cleaned the dust off his clothes.

"Ghostbusting, successful," he said with a proud smile.