The Neverloving Dead (Haunted Hearts)

CHAPTER 6

THE KILLER

GETHIN

G ethin slid through the wall, passing an elderly couple asleep on their twin beds, a large air purifier humming away between them. He’d been alone for most of the night, the incubus, Patrick, having left hours ago to ‘hunt’, as he’d put it. Gethin knew he had to do it, but it still made him sound like Nosferatu. He didn’t like the way Patrick talked about ‘meals’ and ‘feeding’ and all that, like living folks were prey.

It was why he’d gone first with the whole dick-sucking thing, why he’d gone ahead with it at all, and why he’d told Patrick to fuck his mouth when he’d collapsed again. Between his horrible, humiliating murder and seeing Patrick use Stuart’s body as he had – without Stuart even knowing – Gethin had needed to feel like it wasn’t just another thing that was being done to him: that he, Gethin, had asked for it . He didn’t know how to explain it. His whole life, everyone seemed to think men were just meant to enjoy sex, however it happened.

Like he wouldn’t have any feelings about how it had happened to him .

Well, he did. And doing what he’d done with the incubus – Patrick , he amended again – had been one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. Keeping going. Not letting himself run from it. Reminding himself, over and over, what he was doing it for. Why he was here.

Since then, it had got easier to remember. Over the days, he’d felt the killer’s rapey energy slowly intensifying like the theme tune for bloody Jaws . It hadn’t peaked yet, but it would. And, just like Patrick had said, Gethin had to ‘build his form’ before it happened. Incubus he might be, but the priest had helped massively with that. Gethin felt better than he had in ages. Not just stronger, but hopeful.

Like he might actually be able to do this.

So, he’d given himself two tests.

The first, he’d completed not two hours ago: looking into Gayles , the LGBTQ+ bar where he used to work. He hadn’t managed much more than a glimpse before the energy there had got too much for him, but it had been enough to see a few faces he’d recognised. They’d looked happy. The music had been good. He’d spotted the pool tables, the stage, the friendly montage of photos along the back wall, even good old Jonno, who’d given Gethin his job there. It had felt nice. Lively and familiar. It had cost him, he knew that – but that was okay: he’d proven he really had got stronger. That Patrick’s theory worked.

And if he failed the second test tonight – finding someone – he could always ask Patrick to replace the energy later, couldn’t he? Gethin didn’t want to ruin the guy’s future, but he’d said the feeding hadn’t drained him much. In fact, he’d said he barely needed to replace the energy.

So he was clearly off ‘hunting’ for pleasure more than need.

Gethin drifted through what felt like the five hundredth wall into a dark lounge blinking with little LED standby lights, listening as he went. One thing he knew was he’d do this differently from Patrick. In particular, he wouldn’t suck jizz out of anyone who was asleep. He didn’t buy the incubus’ claim that being awake would traumatise the living, and he couldn’t see why it would necessarily be dangerous for the dead. He’d seen how easy it had been for Patrick when Stuart had masturbated himself almost straight into Patrick’s mouth.

If Gethin could just bring himself to be around a living man’s cock again, remembering the fun those had given him in life instead of his killer grunting and sweating over his dead body, he could do that too. Lean over. Catch a bit, leave a bit to land so it wouldn’t look strange. Get some control back over this whole bloody sex thing.

He forced down a sudden balloon of nausea, wishing his body would stop feeling it. Or his mind, or whatever. It was just a test, he told himself, to see if he could be near someone who was awake. If he could, there’d be no danger to him and no need to traumatise anyone.

He floated along a carpeted hallway, legs moving like he was actually walking, since he still couldn’t seem to go anywhere without doing that. After the bar earlier and all the shifts between solidity and non-solidity to pass through walls and not be drained by people, his energy was beginning to feel kind of thin. He could hear a television going somewhere down here, though, so someone was awake. Didn’t mean it was a guy, or that he was horny, but it was worth one last shot, wasn’t it? Not just to strengthen him against his killer, but also to prove to the priest you didn’t need folks immobile and unconscious just to get a bit of come from them.

His form flickered momentarily more solid – anger, again, at his killer. At the fact he could feel him in the background of everything.

He couldn’t let that put him off, though. That’s what this was all about. He looked down at his body, checking: no ribbons or rags of colour. Despite the tiredness and the emotions, he looked fine. Healthy.

The door was no obstacle. He passed straight through, making himself solid the instant he was free of it, which was pretty much Ghost Travel 101 – just in case you popped out next to someone and got all your energy drained.

The room wasn’t huge. Big enough for a single bed, a wardrobe, a desk area with a gaming PC and a pretty sizeable screen. In one corner, flush to the wall, was a vinyl settee and a tall granny-lampstand. There was no design to the space – nothing like Stuart’s room. It looked like it had been patched together, either by twenty different people or one erratic one. A man was on the settee, back towards Gethin, facing the screen. The Indian summer was continuing, so he was wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else. His hair was dark. Neat.

For just a second, Gethin thought it might be... then the guy turned his head a little to squirt some lube on his hand. He was much younger than Gethin’s killer – late twenties, early thirties maybe – a little overweight, with a warm, Mediterranean skin tone.

His hand went back to his dick, where Gethin now realised it had been when he’d floated in. The screen was playing porn. The boxers were pulled down. He was wanking.

Gethin could have sung with relief – not just that it wasn’t his killer, but also that he’d found someone after all these sodding hours. Really, he’d been starting to wonder how the hell Patrick did it. He guessed it must be easier for him, though. He probably had regulars.

A gentle fapping sound began. The man’s hand, going up and down, thick with the lube.

The noise stopped Gethin.

It was okay, he told himself. Just a sound. Just wanking .

Nothing to do with consent.

All the same, the balloon of revulsion began to billow in his gut again, the noise growing in his ears. Anger prickled over his throat, where the key had gone in. Where his blood had spilled from him. Around him. In rhythm. He huffed, trying to ease it.

Fap , fap , fap .

Fap , fap , fap .

So insistent it might have been the ticking of a clock.

Fap , fap , fap .

He mustn’t let it get to him. He had to get past this. Move on.

Fap , fap , fap .

Irritated, he shut his eyes, so as not to see the rapid movement of the man’s hand or the studied, spellbound look on his face as he watched the screen. He felt like an eel was eating his insides. One chomp with every fap . He had an urge to drop his solidity and fuck off back down the carpeted corridor, through the billion walls to the cwtch . He could wait for Patrick, couldn’t he?

Rely on him...

The thought was almost worse than the fapping. He’d never relied on anyone, had he? Never had anyone to rely on , and had never wanted to either. And he wasn’t about to start now, with an incubus who thought he was brainless.

He made himself open his eyes.

Look.

On the screen was a Viking – dressed in his birthday suit, leather boots and a skimpy chainmail crop top – and two Nordic-looking women in ‘Medieval wench’ outfits, both with their tits out, one sitting in the other’s lap. They were both facing the guy, legs spread, making out over the top one’s shoulder while the guy alternated which one he stuck his dick in and the women moaned in a way that probably wasn’t proportionate – though really, what would Gethin know? He’d never shagged a woman in his life.

Fap , fap , fap .

Fap , fap , fap .

He bit back the sickness. He could leave, he supposed. Try and find someone else. Only it had taken him the best part of two hours to find this guy, and he was in the midst of a session. This was probably his one chance.

Still...

You won’t have to get close till it looks like he’s about to actually come , he reminded himself.

Fap , fap , fap .

Fap , fap , fap .

“Yesss, oh yesss, fuck her,” the bottom woman whimpered as she fondled the other one’s boobs. “You’re so big . Fuck her hard!”

The Viking grunted, sliding into the top one instead, who widened her eyes and panted.

Gethin waited. He couldn’t feel any heat in the room, or smell what he supposed was probably quite a strong smell by now of sweat and cock, but he could see a gloss of moisture beginning to form over the man’s abdomen, a heaviness across his brow. Surely, he wouldn’t be much longer...

The guy squirted a bit more lube, wrapped his hand back around his dick and got serious, shifting his hips a bit. His arse squeaked against the vinyl, which must be sticking like a bastard. His hand sped. That was a good sign, anyway. Gethin watched his knob, readying himself, trying not to think of his killer’s dick.

He had to be able to do this.

To help him, he thought of Patrick’s instead, since that looked totally different: long and downward-curving, which had sent it easily down Gethin’s throat, practically pouring his ‘orgasm’ down there. Nothing wet, which had been a bonus. Just energy or whatever. As to Patrick, Gethin had tried not to watch him at the time, since he’d been busy concentrating on not dying; but at a glance, he’d looked surprisingly hot up there. Not Gethin’s type at all , but there’d been something in his face – something complicated and interesting. The way it knotted up like a ball of wool, then undid all of a sudden when he came. Like he’d found peace.

Also, it wasn’t always true what they said about tall guys – but in the priest’s case, it really was. Gethin wasn’t sure he’d ever had anything quite so sizeable down his throat.

Only then, Patrick had gone straight back to his book, face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle. Making sure Gethin knew he loathed him and hadn’t got anything from ghost-jizzing in someone so far beneath him, Gethin guessed.

The man’s hand was going like a piston by now, which at least drowned out the fapping. On the screen, the women were whining nasally, as if they were so turned on it was making them panic.

“Urrrrgh, yes, fuck me, fuck me too,” the bottom one begged while the top one writhed and moaned.

Back in the room, the vinyl squeaked again. “Yeah,” the guy on the couch huffed. “Fuck.”

Gethin moved closer, immediately noticing how much stronger the man’s energy was. He’d always kept his distance from Stuart while he was going at it. The drag was immense. How the fuck did Patrick manage? He tried to focus on the man’s knob, not sure which freaked him out more: the real-life cock, or the idea he might not actually be strong enough to withstand this. That he’d put himself in danger.

Jeopardised everything.

Christ on a bike, pull yourself together . He’d never stay solid if he kept having thoughts like that. He had to concentrate, dammit.

The man on the couch growled, gaze flitting between his dick and the screen. He was definitely about to come. Gethin leaned over, just as Patrick had, positioning his mouth a bit further back – maybe six inches from the tip – since there was no way he’d hold his energy any closer than that. You can do this , he told himself over the ridiculous pull. All you have to do is keep your head still and your gob open, stay solid and make sure some of it lands on him .

It suddenly felt like the world’s hardest to-do list.

The man grunted, hand jerking and slowing, and a second later, jizz spurted, firing out in a long, unexpectedly strong blast to the right. It missed Gethin’s mouth completely, landing in his eye. He blinked just as the second arc fountained out, trying to adjust his angle, bumping the man’s waist with his shoulder as he did.

“What the fuuuuuggghh .” The man’s free hand shot across his body, bashing the top of Gethin’s skull. “Jesus!” he yelped. The hand closed around Gethin’s head. “Jesus! Oh my god, Jesus!”

Gethin tried to move, but a black hole couldn’t have had more impact. His energy poured from him.

The man shoved hard.

Staggering backwards, instantly losing solidity, it was all Gethin could do to stay upright, to try to put distance between himself and the man. The man screamed, leaping to his feet, arms flailing, eyes wide, cock whipping come all over the place. His forearms sailed through Gethin, sucking energy from him so fast he might have been a lightning rod. “Stop!” he tried to shout. The more the guy panicked, the wilder the energy in the room seemed to be getting, and the faster Gethin was draining.

“ Diablo! Diablo! ” the man shrieked, swiping his arms around, kicking at thin air, filling the space completely.

Gethin threw himself to the floor, thinking to crawl along the carpet and head for the wall. Any wall. It didn’t matter which – he just had to get the fuck out of here. If the man hit him again... or even if he didn’t calm down. Or if Gethin didn’t...

He landed, stomach heaving, trying not to remember that the position, face down, draining, was the one he’d died in. Blood seemed to spill everywhere, blacking everything: the ceiling, the walls, the carpet. He huffed, grabbing his own throat. No blood , he told himself. You’re not bleeding .

On the screen, the actors started fucking again. Grunting.

The room rocked to one side. Gethin’s vision was whiting out. The huffing wasn’t working. He felt like he was trying to pull in air and couldn’t, just like when he was being murdered. He could hardly see the wall. His absent heart seemed to be pounding in his ears, pressure bursting there. Huge dark spots swam in front of him. He hauled himself towards the one patch of wall he could still see, beside the settee. The man was chanting, Diablo, diablo . He kept crossing himself, screeching. Gethin wasn’t going to make it.

His hand met the wall. Passed through. He pulled himself along behind it, colours streaming from him, willing himself not to fall apart here, now. “ Diablo! ” the man screamed again. He sounded way too close.

With what felt like superhuman effort, Gethin propelled himself headfirst at the wall, into darkness. He slid through, legs still pushing, trying to get the hell away. As he emerged, there was a second in which nothing seemed to make sense – everything seemed far too spacious – then he realised there was no floor, and his brain told him to fall.

So that was what he did – straight out of the side of the building towards the pavement below. He roared, fear taking over, draining him as he went, ribbons of energy spilling around him. He had the weird thought that to another ghost, he’d look like a tangle of streamers plummeting to the ground. He braced himself – not for the pavement, since he knew he couldn’t hit it in this form, but for oblivion, for failure. His last glimpse was of the bar opposite, Gayles , where he’d worked, and a man passing it.

The world seemed to stop.

Everything slowed.

His killer.

Gethin’s eyes throbbed. He came to a halt just above the pavement, suspended, his own energy circling him in scraps. He had to stay conscious. He had to try... had to watch...

His energy slopped. Trying to leave.

The man stopped, peering through the lit windows of the bar as if looking for someone. The black spots in Gethin’s eyes grew, just like the one on the ceiling in Stuart’s flat. Just like how he’d watched his own blood spread around him. The man wasn’t going to kill someone tonight, was he? With Gethin stuck here, useless as a waft of fucking wind.

Stay here , he told himself, desperately. Don’t sodding die. He thought of the five hundred quid. Of Matt. Of the feelings he’d sensed from the murderer over the past few days. They weren’t at the same level as they’d got to the last two times, but that could mean anything. It could mean he wasn’t ready to kill again yet, or it might mean he didn’t need to be so het up to kill anymore – that he’d accepted who he was and what he did.

He could be scouting for a victim right now. In Gethin’s old bar.

Another wave of rage rolled through, stronger this time, carrying with it the grating, grinding thought that he should never have given up the first time: that he should have kept fighting and not got himself murdered and violated – like it was his bloody fault. He heard again his mother’s voice, crying that he’d bring the devil on himself, that he’d deserve it. Everything that happened. The anger rose. Dear God. He had to not do this, he told himself. If he got angry, that would be it.

He'd die. Again.

He blinked, trying to clear his eyes, trying to focus on the man outside the bar. His vision blanked again. Fury. He was dying. He knew it.

Some vast, unseen power swept him up, hoisting him from the pavement. The next second, he was being dragged down a dark alley by the back of his collar. He looked for the light, expecting to find it at the end of the tunnel: to dissolve towards it...

“ What are you doing?” The whisper was waspish and low. Gethin recognised it instantly. “Have you been looking for meals ?”

Gethin didn’t reply. He could barely lift himself from the ground. Bits of himself were spooling off like vapour. He could just about make out Patrick’s black-booted feet and the hem of his robes, almost blending with the night. His thoughts were everywhere. He half-lifted his head.

Patrick looked sort of like Death, he thought. He could imagine the scythe, glinting in the night...

“You’re not strong enough,” the incubus snapped, like Gethin had lost all his energy on purpose. “ I’m the one feeding you.” He tutted. Then tutted again.

The hem lifted.

The boots gave way to thin, bare knees and thin thighs speckled with hair, the long, kinked cock hanging from the denser hair at his groin. The cassock rose further, Patrick pulling it over his head and ‘off’. Right here in the alleyway. Despite usually being as cold as a witch’s tit. Amazing.

Gethin looked up at it all: Patrick. Tall, pale, stark fucking bollock naked, towering over him.

Maybe it was Patrick, maybe it was just the prospect of getting some energy back, or maybe it was the fact Gethin mostly had good memories of dark alleys, but he realised he wasn’t afraid. Patrick hadn’t ever hurt him, had he? And he looked sort of magnificent, actually. Though from his expression, Patrick looked like he might kill him. Instead, he began wanking, the motion long and easy, looking down at Gethin.

“I’m going to feed you here,” he said, in a stern, tight way that for some reason felt really fucking hot. “You will lie there until I’m ready. You are not to leave.”

Gethin wasn’t sure where Patrick thought he might go. Except ‘on’, maybe. He did have the urge. Then again, he constantly had it. A large segment uncoiled, flowing away...

He realised he couldn’t really see his arm.

“Gethin.” Patrick’s gaze was fixed on Gethin’s mouth. He frowned. Scowled, maybe. “Focus on me.”

Gethin looked back down. The priest’s hand looked snug under the curve of his prick, shuttling to and fro like a loom. It had filled surprisingly fast. He must really like alleys , Gethin thought.

Another long wisp unspooled. Patrick’s hand went faster. His cock was absolutely cracking. One of those ‘secret weapon’ penises, which no one knows the quietest bloke in the pub’s been packing this whole time.

“You’re a liability,” Patrick muttered. “And now you’re going to cost me more energy. What on earth were you thinking?”

His balls swung free and dark.

“Focus on me,” Patrick said again.

Gethin was focusing on him. For all he could look away from the instrument in front of him, he might have been a snake in a basket.

Vaguely, the thought crept in that Patrick had said it had hardly cost him last time. And then that he’d called him a liability. “Stop patronising me,” he managed.

Patrick closed his eyes briefly, letting out the tiniest huff. The sound was bizarrely reassuring. Like it wasn’t just Gethin who still needed to do human things. Like Patrick wasn’t as superior as all that. “Then stop doing foolish things,” he mumbled. “Come here.”

Was he saying he was about to come? Gethin tried to collect himself. He had a distant feeling that actually he’d quite like to suck Patrick dry in this dingy alleyway, as he had at least a dozen other men in the past. Patrick seemed too good for it, so it’d probably do him good. Bring him down to Gethin’s level a bit.

He’ll never be down there. Godless filth.

The thought sprang from nowhere. His mother’s voice.

Strands spooled off him again, straining away . Patrick grunted, reaching down with one hand, grasping Gethin by the scruff of his shirt and pulling him into a messy kneeling position that left his knob in Gethin’s face. “Open,” he hissed, pressing it against Gethin’s lips. His hand was still going.

Gethin opened.

It would have been a relief. Truth was, he’d always loved getting a dick in his mouth, showing what he could do with it: it had made him feel like he had skills, even if they weren’t ones most people generally valued that highly.

Only this was nothing like a blowjob, really. His head seemed to belong on someone else’s neck. He could barely even stay kneeling. He tried again not to think of his murder, of being unable to move anymore, unable to push his killer away. Above him Patrick was silent, jaw solid, brow crumpled. Gethin thought of the ball of wool again. All tied in knots.

He did his best. He’d no strength to resist anyway. The man on the vinyl couch had stripped away most of it, then the fall and seeing his killer had done the rest. Patrick was the only one helping him. And he was already coming, holding Gethin’s head up to do it. As before, the priest’s whole face relaxed, all of it softening as he gazed down, like everything he’d been waiting for, in his entire life, had arrived.

Weakly, Gethin closed his mouth around the cockhead, trying to make sure none of the energy escaped, sucking as hard as he was able. It was awkward. As with last time, he felt it eke its way into his every starving cell, spreading like fire over a field, renewing him as it went. Unlike last time, he didn’t manage to hollow his cheeks or pull Patrick’s dick deeper, to turn the ‘feeding’ into something that he, Gethin, was doing, and not the other way around.

Patrick made a sound that could have been pleasure or could have been disgust. It was too faint to tell.

Gethin blinked back an unexpected burn of tears he knew he had no chance of actually crying – he hadn’t shed a single tear since he’d died. He was pathetic. He’d failed completely on every count tonight: he hadn’t proven the incubus wrong, he’d proven him right – he wasn’t strong enough and he couldn’t do it alone. Any of it. He needed Patrick, didn’t he? Feeding him from his sodding dick and staring down like Gethin was the biggest, most inconvenient loser in all of London. It was totally bloody humiliating.

“From now on, we do it my way,” Patrick said, pulling the cassock back over himself. “You don’t feed from anyone else until I decide you’re ready. And unless I’m with you.” He looked away when he added the last bit. Like he thought Gethin being there would lower the tone or something.

For once, Gethin only had the faintest urge to remind Patrick he was blowing men in their sleep, not solving world poverty. “Well, diolch , Patrick. Thanks. For the top up. And for saving me.”

Patrick made a half-hearted grumbling noise. Probably he didn’t think Gethin was worth saving.

Gethin looked back down the alley, towards the lights of the street, shrivelling a bit inside, trying to believe it wasn’t him – that it was just Patrick being superior, as usual.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. None of it did. All that mattered was his killer. The rest was just how things were. People looked down on him, didn’t they? Why should that be any different just because he’d died?

He got to his feet. His efforts tonight hadn’t been a total waste, anyway. In amongst the bad porn, nearly-dying, then being judged for being the feeblest ghost in the whole of bloody limbo while blowing the ghost who was judging him, he’d managed to do one good thing, hadn’t he?

“I saw him,” he said, turning to Patrick, who was looking at him with a weird expression. “My killer.”

The grey eyes sharpened. “You saw him? Where? Why didn’t you say so?”

“I was busy,” Gethin replied. “Trying not to die. Again. But he was there.” He gestured back down the alley, towards the street. “Outside Gayles . Staring into it. Patrick, I dunno, but I think that might be where he’s planning to get his next victim...”

Patrick just looked at him. Like he gave a shit, actually.

Which couldn’t be right. Probably he was just relieved at the idea Gethin might make some headway soon and fuck off into the next life.

Gethin held his hand up to the streetlight. It was better, but still see-through. He’d survive. For now.

“Then that’s where we’ll start,” Patrick said, tugging the cassock straight, which seemed to straighten his face at the same time. “At the bar.”

The bar? What was he on about? Neither of them could go into Gayles . “We?” he said instead.

Then, “Start what?”