Rook

half,” confessed Shantay.
    “Indeed?” replied Myfanwy. “What’s this?”
    “Pepper spray. Don’t you want to put on a pair of gloves?”
    “No. What’s this?”
    “Taser,” said Shantay.
    “Amazing. Well, I guess we should do this then,” said Myfanwy with a palpable lack of enthusiasm. She put her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and they walked into the house.
    “Charming,” she said, and noticed Shantay looking at her strangely. “Well, aside from the massive blanket of fungus covering everything. But if you look beyond that, it’s really not in bad taste.” Shantay carried on staring at her. “Oh, shut up. Do you see any sign of the Barghests?”
    “No,” Shantay said in a stage whisper. She was holding her large pistol in her hand and looking very tense.
    “What is wrong with you?” Myfanwy whispered back. “You look like you expect someone to grab your ass.”
    “I’d be okay with that, as long as it was a person,” whispered Shantay. “It’s when it’s the decor reaching out to cop a feel that I get nervous.” She kept turning around, scanning the room.
    The air was hot and wet, as if they’d stepped into the lungs of some giant jungle beast. Baroque curves of fungus swept up from the floor and down from the ceiling, and Myfanwy couldn’t tell whether they’d crawled up from the cellar or poured down from the upper floors. In some places, the mold was a smooth, featureless blanket that clung tightly to the wall. In other areas, it was jagged and lumpy, as if it had been slapped on like mortar. There were also thick ligneous branches that coiled down and hung oddly in the air.
    A thought occurred to Myfanwy.
    “Why are we whispering?”
    “Because I’m concerned that eldritch forces will rip my face off,” said Shantay. “I don’t want to disturb anything.”
    “Oh. Okay.” Myfanwy looked around again. “So I should whisper too?”
    “Not if you don’t want to,” said Shantay testily.
    “No, it’s fine. Well, I suppose we should go upstairs?” Myfanwy suggested. “That’s where that damn chanting is coming from. Hold on a sec, though,” she said, an idea having just come to her. She went down on one knee, and with her bare fingers spread out, she reached down.
    “What the hell are you doing?” asked Shantay in horror. “Don’t
touch
it!”
    “Trust me,” whispered Myfanwy. “I think this will work.” As soon as she’d entered the house, she’d sensed the place tingling around her. She could feel the vitality humming through the room, but it was blurry, like a guitar string that has just been plucked. She couldn’t focus on it, and it nagged at her. So she laid her hand palm-down onto the floor and connected herself.
    Instantly, her senses snapped into place. The sensations she’d been picking up were crisper, more defined.
    “I see what the problem is,” she said. She had been looking for a single shape when in fact the impression consisted of many patterns merged together. It was as if a dozen layers of transparencies had been laid one on top of the other. They complemented one another but didn’t quite match.
    It was almost…
choral.
    “What the hell are you doing?” exclaimed Shantay, forgetting in her consternation to whisper. Myfanwy blinked and concentrated on looking out of her actual eyes. From under her palm, little ripples were spreading out through the sheets of mold.
    “Sorry.” She stood up, wiping off her hands on her pants. “I was getting some very curious vibes off this room.”
    “Like what?” asked Shantay.
    “It’s like a lot of voices all together.”
    “Voices?” Shantay repeated dubiously.
    “It’s got a distinctly human sound, but there’s something else mixed in.”
    “Great,” said Shantay darkly.
    “You’re a very glass-half-empty person, aren’t you?” observed Myfanwy.
    “That’s experience talking,” said Shantay. “In these situations, the glass is always half empty.”
    “Always?”
    “Always,” confirmed the Bishop. “Right until it fills up with some sort of spectral blood that grows into a demonic entity.”
    “It’s probably just as well that I went into administration,” remarked Myfanwy. “So, shall we head upstairs?”
    “Yeah, sounds good.” Despite their casual tone, the two women were looking about nervously. Shantay hefted her pistol and flexed the fingers of her other hand. Myfanwy realized that she was grinding her teeth. When they reached the stairs, both paused,