Fire Spirit Read Free

waiting,’ said the laughing man. ‘We don’t have the patience of Job, you know.’
    â€˜Please,’ she wept. ‘I’ll do anything.’
    â€˜You bet your sweet bippy you will. Now come on, get on with it. Get them pantyhose off, and those pretty little panties, too.’
    She did as she was told, and now she was naked.
    â€˜Nicely trimmed topiary there,’ said the laughing man, and the expressionless man let out another grunt of amusement. ‘Now how about putting on that dress?’
    The dress was cheap, with stray threads and no lining, and it was too tight across her bust, but she managed to put it on and tug the hemline down to her knees.
    â€˜Well, look at you! Excellent! You look so much like her, I could’ve sworn she’d come back from the cemetery.’
    She said nothing. She was shivering, and she had no idea what the three masked men were going to do next.
    The scowling man trampled across the mattress and stood very close to her, on her left-hand side. He smelled faintly of camphor, like pain-relief liniment. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘She could be her double, almost. But – you know – prettier , if anything. Not so goddamned blotchy .’
    The expressionless man crossed over the mattress, too, and stood on her right. She looked from one to the other. They were both staring at her, but of course their masks were giving nothing away. She was so frightened that she was close to wetting herself.
    â€˜Well, now, the next thing you need is a drink,’ said the laughing man. He reached into the pocket of his coat and took out a plastic bottle of Sobieski vodka. He unscrewed the cap and held it up. ‘Same brand she always favored. Only eleven bucks the bottle, that’s why. Bring her here, fellas.’
    The scowling man and the expressionless man took hold of her arms and frogmarched her into the middle of the mattress. They all found it hard to keep their balance, so that they looked as if they were trying to stand upright on the pitching deck of a ship. The laughing man said, ‘Come on, now. Think you can do what she used to do? Think you can match up?’
    She couldn’t find the words to answer him.
    â€˜OK, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s have you down on your knees, shall we? Then we can see what you’re good for, or what you ain’t.’
    The scowling man and the expressionless man forced her arms so high up behind her back that the tendons audibly crackled and she had no choice but to kneel. Under her bare knees, the mattress felt damp and lumpy, and it stank of stale urine and dried blood.
    The laughing man came right up to her and held out the bottle of vodka. ‘Here . . . help yourself. She always did.’
    â€˜I don’t drink,’ she whispered.
    He cupped his hand to his papier mâché ear. ‘What? What did you say? You don’t drink? But you have to drink! That’s all part of the exorcism. Everything has to be played out exactly the way it was, right down to the very last detail. She never wore no underwear so you can’t wear no underwear. She always wore a red dress like that, or some other dress that was very much like it, so you have to wear one, too.
    He paused for breath, gasping behind his mask. ‘She drank . I mean, that was almost the whole reason it ever happened. She drank from morning till night. Sometimes she was so drunk she didn’t even know who anybody was. Sometimes she didn’t even know who she was.’
    He held out the bottle again, prodding it against her lips. ‘Come on, be a good girl, drink.’ But she closed her mouth tightly and turned her head away.
    â€˜Well – sorry about this,’ he told her, and nodded to his two companions. The expressionless man took hold of her hair and pulled her head back, while the scowling man squeezed her jaw so hard that she was forced to open her mouth, like a