The Zalt Household

Alistair shook his head, scowling. "It isn't just you."

Dmitri had faced enough guns to be able to dodge a full on hit, but the bullet still grazed him. He felt a searing pain in his abdomen, and clenched his teeth against a volley of swear words. The bullets were silver. Of course they would be. He held a hand to his stomach, to press the pain out more than anything. Looking back at the necromancers, he smirked. He would have to resort to using his powers. Hopefully, he could get them both to look him square in the eye. With hardly a hint of pain in his voice, he mused, "You humans, always resorting to weapons." He was looking at the Naughtian, first, hoping he hadn't lost the part of tradition that would save him.

~~

Ivanna gasped as she heard the gunshot. This was it, she feared, Dmitri would die right here. To her surprise, though, he dodged, and the bullet just barely hit him. She breathed a sigh of relief, but was still worried about him.

Zalt offered a manic grin when the word 'humans' came up, his eyes lighting up figuratively at the prospect. "A vampire? Such a rare creature squandering its lack of life on one corpse. I sense more to this story."

The Naughtsian, keeping eye contact, replied, "Not as rare as one would think. Most of them are in the less civilized parts of the world, though they do surface once in a while." He moved to aim his gun back at Dmitri, ready to pull the trigger for a second shot. "Weapons are easier to use for reach, my friend. Any advantage is a good advantage."

---

Back with the Fairchild brothers, Luke glanced at the staircase. "Think we should go investigate what's taking so long?" he asked.

"Not sure you should," came the voice again. "Necromancer and all."

Alistair glanced up the stairs. "Well, we could, I suppose..."

Lucas flashed a glare over his shoulder and turned around violently. With his teeth gritting and his hands balled into fists, he said, "Alright, stop tossing us around, whoever you are. You've had your fun, let us get our pay an' get on our way."

Dmitri frowned when the Naughtsian called him less civilized, but he didn't let it bother him too much. Instead, he retorted, "If humans weren't so weak, you wouldn't need advantages." After he spoke, Dmitri initiated his hallucination. In the Naughtsian necromancer's eyes, Dmitri disappeared, and reappeared next to him, where, in reality, the other necromancer was standing. Hopefully, the Naughtsian would shoot, and at least incapacitate the other necromancer. He readied himself to work his magic on the other necromancer, as well, in case the first didn't help his situation at all.

"Can he hear us?" whispered another voice, seemingly younger than the first by the sound of it.

"Dunno... Never has before..."

Alistair glared at Luke. "Keep calm, would you? We've enough to worry about without you shouting up at the whole bloody house."

Luke glanced around the room again, a jerky motion sprung by paranoia and anger. He turned to glare at Alistair, opening his mouth to complain. His words were stopped by the dim light of realization. "You can't hear it, can you? Voices, two of them?"

---

The barrel of the gun flashed and Zalt stumbled back a few steps, grabbing his shoulder in pain and stumbling to the floor when he lost grip on his cane. His aura's ability shot through the roof with the injury, prompting the Phian necromancer to lash out at Dmitri with death energy. It was an action of reflex over any sort of actual thought action; if it had been calculated, it wouldn't have existed at all. He knew death energy was not effective on the undead.

"I think 'e's talking about us, John," said the younger voice. "Sure don't think it's in 'is 'ead."

Alistair gave him an incredulou look. "Two voices? And what do these voices sound like, pray tell?"

"Apparently one's called John an' the other one sounds like a teenager," Luke responded, finding himself in about the most awkward position he had ever been in in his life. Using his only recently discarded temporary name to describe disembodied voices that may or may not be proof that he was going insane.

Alistair frowned. "You hear these voices often?"

"Oh, always thinks 'e knows everything. Never hears a word no matter 'ow much his mum scolds him. You ought to box 'is ears, Lukey. Would do 'im a world of good," said John with a snigger. "You can bet Mum never taught 'im to be such a prick."

"No, I'm not a bloody nutter," Luke snapped in response. "Or at least wasn't. Don't know 'bout now." His hands began to shake. His heart knew that people sometimes just snapped when the pressure was on too high. They'd talk about hearing voices and those voices telling them to stab people. Now that he was finally out of that hell hole of a work house, the last thing he wanted was to be locked up like an animal in an asylum somewhere.

"When'd 'e start hearing us?" the younger asked. "You been trying to get through this whole time, John." He appeared then right next to Luke, peering up at him with a curious expression, as though examining a specimen under a magnifying glass. His eyes were blue, but of a slightly darker tint than Alistair an Luke's. He was about to Luke's chin in height since, it seemed, he was scarcely 15 an hadn't finished growing. He had the sort of gawky teenage look about him. His hair was light blonde, which seemed all the more stark against the deathly paleness of his skin. He wore workman's clothes, but well-tended, the sort of clothes that were picked for practicality, but kept up for comfort.

"You sure you aren't? Whatever bump that took your memories might have knocked a few screws loose," Alistair answered with a frown.

With a startled gasp, Lucas stumbled back a step, away from the child. His first reaction was to punch it, though a sense of embarrassment at swatting at hallucinations stopped him from going through with it. With his teeth gritting in an attempt to hide his worry over the entire situation. Trying to recompose himself he said, "Not ruling out the possibility."

After a few seconds, he moved to reach his hand where the boy stood, trying to tough the figment. Or at least confirm it wasn't there if his fingers passed through it.

The boy stared at Luke who passed through him with each swipe. "'ey, don't freak out, Luke," he said. "We always been 'ere, since... well, since forever, really. You just never 'eard us before." He grinned.

Alistair looked at his brother with a frown. "What are you doing?"

Lucas continued to stare at the ghostly teenager in front of him. His mind kept debating if he should acknowledge him there, though he decided it would be best to ignore him for the moment. With a twist to look at his living brother, he asked with a gesture toward the boy, "You don't see 'im there?"

Alistair shook his head. "Whoever are you talking about?"

"Ignoring us won't make us go away, Luke," came the other disembodied voice again. "We're going to be sticking around."

Luke glanced at the boy one last time before returning his hands to his pockets and replying, "Nothing. Must 'ave just been a trick of the light."

"A trick of the light?" Alistair looked skeptical. Luke seemed to have heard too much for it to be a trick of the light.

"Y'know, 'e probably can' 'ear or see us because 'e's a fake," the teenager said conversationally, looking at Alistair. "'e pretends 'e can talk to ghosts, bu' 'e really only shouts some mystic mumbo-jumbo at drafty rooms. You, though... Don't know how, but you can see us."

"Yeah, trick of the light," Luke responded, trying to assure himself about as much as he was trying to assure Alistair. He was most definitely seeing something, though he was certain it was some sort of trick or his mind. Something to hide.

With another glance at Alistair, he asked, "You sure you're not seeing or hearing anything? Or sensing or whatever it is you do."

"Oh, there is some minor spiritual energy here," Alistair answered stiffly, head slumped forward a bit as the effort of standing began to tire him, "But no voices."

"'e can' sense a thing," the boy said. "We've watched 'im a long time. 'e just likes the prestige of being able to contact the dead. Likes to feel like 'e can get one over on the rest of the world. It was that Professor that set 'im wrong. Mum an' Andrew always tried to box 'is ears, but being dead and all we don't 'ave the 'ands to do anything really."

"Who's the professor?" Luke asked out loud, though flinched slightly when he realized Alistair could hear the question as well.

Alistair gave Luke a suspicious look, as he slumped a bit more. "How do you know about the Professor?"

Lucas glanced around the room. "Voices mentioned 'em," he replied with a shrug. "An' don't think they'd mind too much if you found a chair to sit in..."

"'oo are these bloo'y voices, then?" Alistair snapped, finding that these voices of Luke's knew much too much. "They've no righ' t' know my business!"

The boy sighed, shaking his head. "It's bad enough tha' you don' know us, Luke, but Ali should be 'appy to know we've been looking out for 'im. An' you for tha' matter."

"Mum doesn' approve of the way Ali's life 'as gone," came the voice of John again. "That Professor really steered 'im the wrong way."