Unwelcome guests

  Alice was still asleep, as befitted someone who held the education system and the matter of finding a job in contempt. She was sleeping soundly, and although the sun had risen several hours ago, the clock was closer to pointing at noon than six in the morning. Most of her neighbors in the apartment block had long been at work, simulating toil in their offices. Alice slept, and Marcel knew that waking her after a night spent on her spiritual training was, for him, like suicide for the living.

  He had been sitting on the edge of the bed for a good fifteen minutes. He was staring intently at the witch's face, hoping she would sense it and finally wake up on her own, but the plan wasn't working at all. On the other hand, no one was getting hurt, so he was never in a hurry with this waking business. He didn't intend to leave the room either. He was too terrified of what was sitting on the armchairs in the living room. Being a dead spirit numbed you only to a certain extent, and only with time. Either not enough time had passed since his death, or he hadn't reached a high enough degree of desensitization.

  Suddenly, he heard quiet footsteps slowly approaching the bedroom. Well, like it or not, he had to act. He placed his hand on Alice's shoulder and tried to shake her, but he had too little energy. He managed to touch her, but not strongly enough to wake her up. He tried several times, and nothing. He decided to do something else, something that would probably cost him dearly, but here he couldn't afford to choose between a good solution and a bad one, as he saw only bad ways out of the current situation. He chose the lesser evil and pinched Alice's nose shut.

  The girl jerked awake, feeling like she was suffocating. Startled, she immediately sat up, took a deep breath, and looked at Marcel reproachfully.

  "I'll kill you," she said in a voice that was angry but also tired.

  "I'm already dead," Marcel snarled, looking her straight in the eyes as if challenging her. "You told me to wake you up."

  "When, for fuck's sake?"

  The anger shifted into pure fur, and the energy around her accumulated at an alarming rate. Marcel felt panic rising in him, but escape wasn't an option with Alice. She'd drag him back to her bedroom faster than the best exorcist in the Vatican. Nevertheless, as he pondered this, the energy field became so dense that the phone lying nearby literally exploded.

  "Fuck!" Alice screamed. "That's the third one this year!"

  Though she was clearly even more upset, she managed to regain control and dispersed the energy herself. Marcel, however, decided not to risk his semblance of life by further irritating Alice, so he answered hastily, "You have guests in the living room."

  "What?" Alice wasn't quite sure what she had just heard, as she was too busy dealing with her phone. "What guests?"

  "Dead ones," Marcel snarled and vanished into the wall behind the bed. He'd done his part; let her handle the rest.

  Alice pulled on her robe, slipped on her slippers, and walked out of the bedroom, still quite sleepy. When she entered the living room, she clearly sensed she had guests. It was two children, not very big, rather mutilated. That much she could read from their energy field, but it was enough for her.

  "Good morning," she said, walking calmly into the room. "How can I help you?"

  The moment she finished her question, her eyes saw two almost fully materialized spirits sitting in her favorite armchairs. They were indeed the souls of children, but what the hell had happened to them? The shock at the moment of death must have been so great, and the pain so intense, that the mutilation carried over into the form they appeared as spirits. Two burned bodies with grotesquely exposed eyeballs and full sets of teeth. And that smell of burnt flesh...

  "Good God, it stinks in here," she grumbled, when suddenly one of the spirits vanished from its spot and appeared directly in front of her face.

  "A good God didn't help us, though we prayed for a long time," said the second spirit, but the voice didn't come from its throat, and its jaw didn't move even a millimeter. The first spirit vanished and reappeared in the armchair.

  Alice stared at it intently for a long moment, until she finally decided to repeat her question: "What can I do for you?"

  "Nothing," the answer reached her mind. It was hard to tell which one of them (and from the voice, it was clear they were both girls) had actually given that answer. Well, it didn't seem like this would be easy, but for children, they were incredibly powerful.

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  Alice wasn't quite sure what she should do in such a situation, so she decided the best course of action was to finish waking up. She went into the kitchen to make her morning coffee and prepare some breakfast, but before she could open any cupboard, she felt a terrible pain in her chest. She felt as if something was tearing her apart from the inside, that her heart wouldn't last another minute.

  "Stop it," she whispered, because her voice was stuck in her throat. In response, she only heard the children's laughter, and then everything started to go dark before her eyes. She was losing consciousness; a moment longer and she would collapse limply to the floor.

  "No," her subconscious said firmly. "If you faint, they will kill you."

  Easier said than done, harder to control it all. God damn it, just when she thought she was doing great in this fucked-up life, she had to get her ass kicked in a way most people experienced at most once in a lifetime. She was only in her twenties, and it would be hard to count how many times she'd already had to fight for her own survival. If only she valued her existence that highly, but no. She was fighting for something that was going to be taken from her anyway. She snarled.

  She felt power growing deep within her. Deep, so those two harpies couldn't seize it. She used it to reinforce her barrier and regulate her own energy flow. There was just one problem: she had used up most of her reserves. Of course, compared to a year ago, even this meager reserve was a lot, but back then she didn't glow, as Marcel had called it. She also didn't attract things like this. Pity it wasn't a good time for analysis. Suddenly a thought appeared in her head:

  If you can't use something, create something new.

  Great advice. Just great. If only someone would explain it, that would be wonderful. What exactly was she supposed to do?

  And then, as if on cue, another absurd thought appeared in her head. Well, in moments like these, even absurdity had a right to exist. She closed her eyes, and the pain in her heart grew stronger. She saw the wall around her cracking, heard the mortar snapping, bricks falling to the ground. No, she couldn't see it like that. She was just giving them room to maneuver. So she imagined the wall reversing in time, how everything that had been destroyed returned to its place. Yes, that was better. The pain began to subside, but not for long. Another attack, and again she saw everything collapsing, and through the resulting gaps, long, claw-tipped hands were sliding in. What was this all about? One of these hands managed to grab her, sink its claws into her hest, tear it, wound her. Then Alice saw the hand that had long been buried in her chest, crushing her heart.

  What was she to do? If only she could cut it off... Yes, she could. She was holding a sword in her hand. So she swung, but the wall was falling faster and faster, there were more and more hands, and she was growing weaker and weaker. She no longer had the strength to lift the sword; there wasn't enough power left in her to defend herself any longer. Defend herself in that way.

  But what if not in that way, but in another?

  It was like a revelation. As if someone had flipped a switch whose existence she had completely forgotten. She simply grabbed the hand crushing her heart, grabbed it and held on with all her might. She imagined the inner surfaces of her palms as leech mouths, biting into the victim's body and sucking. She sucked the power she hadn't felt before. She sucked the power whose taste she didn't yet know. The attackers weren't human, weren't spirits; they were entities similar to spirits, but different. Alien to this world. She couldn't define that subtle difference, but she knew it existed. She knew, and even... well, she was tasting that difference like a food critic.

  Somewhere in the distance, she heard a wild scream. Power flowed, the wall grew thicker, the hands began to retreat, but she had no intention of letting that one go so easily. No, this was her reward, her nourishment. Suddenly, she felt a strong blow; it was the other one (it didn't matter which of the little bitches was the other).

  “Did you think it would be that easy?”

  She started pulling more energy, as much as she could. Her power began to grow rapidly, even as blow after blow fell upon her. She was managing, she had to hold on. Any moment now… yes. She found the core of that spirit. She sensed it; it seemed different from a human one, but still round, full of wonderful, pure power. She began to absorb it. As soon as the core penetrated her being, as the experience, knowledge, and skills of that thing were assimilated, and the feeling of duality eliminated, Alice understood that the attacks from the second girl had ceased. It all lasted quite briefly, though in her mind it stretched for long minutes.

  The second girl couldn't leave. Alice's mind instantly erected a barrier around the entire apartment and trapped the spirit inside. The other one raged, pounding against the barrier, but the barrier proved strong enough not to yield. Alice couldn't deny herself a sadistic smile. Oh, how satisfied she was at that moment. The victim had switched places with the predator. The hunt continued, but it was more pleasant.

  "Murderer," snarled the second girl.

  "You're talking about yourself, right?" Alice located the source of the voice, still not opening her eyes. She reached out, but the spirit escaped at the last moment.

  "About you. You killed her."

  "You killed her." The witch tried again and again failed. She had to provoke her more. "You didn't protect her. You were supposed to be her shield, but instead you ran away. You can't blame me for taking the opportunity you offered me."

  "Shut up. Liar. Murderer."

  She caught her. The entity thrashed as hard as it could, but it was useless. Suddenly, it made a tactical shift and began attacking wildly. Oh, if the first one had been this smart, Alice wouldn't have stood a chance, but now it was too late for any tactics. My dear girls, you've lost the entire battle.