The Chamber of Sins

Emily smiled and covered her mouth with an exaggerated gesture.

"Do you like it?" Emily performed, rolling her eyes like a freshly in love teenager.

"You know I do," Lionette said, her hand covering Emily's. She retreated after a moment while looking around. Yet Emily kept Lionette's hand on hers.

"Don't!"

"But your reputation?" Lionette frowned, peeking at the diners.

"Let them be. Just be with me tonight," Emily said.

Lionette nodded, her eyes checking the level of her red wine. A movement in the street caught her attention. A homeless man was pushing a cart full of cardboard and plastic bits. He didn't seem bothered by the scratchy sound piercing everyone's ears. Lionette peeked at his long dark beard and the long wide robe. Then, as if he could sense her eyes studying him, the man stopped and glared back. The woman squinted her eyes, and in the next second, her blood stopped running in her veins, and her extremities got numb.

Lionette sipped the full content of her glass, and without saying a word to her companion, she trotted outside. Wearing only a soft silky dress, she felt the cold, springy wind bitting hungrily from her flash.

She ran to the other side of the road and put her hand on the man's shoulder.

"Gabriel? Is it you?"

The man turned, and the woman realised she had made a mistake. The street man glared at her, debris caught in his beard; the fishy scent turned Lionette's stomach. The woman receded and covered her mouth as she let a torrent of tears wash her face. She was lying on the sidewalk, the cold affecting her body, when Emily found her a minute later.

Emily helped Lionette to stand up. The woman's face looked pale.

"I thought I saw him," she mumbled.

"Saw whom?" Emily asked, confused.

"Gabriel, the little one's father," Lionette whispered while leaning against the restaurant's degraded wall. Her eyes kept staring at the empty ally, refusing to believe that the man wasn't Gabriel. She knew what she saw, and he indeed was a master of disguise. He disappeared many years ago, and she thought he had gone to Heaven.

"Do you want me to take you home?" Emily asked. Lionette agreed.

Late in the night, after Emily fell asleep, Lionette stood at the edge of the bed and recalled the night's events. Even if the dense beard and the unctuous hair partially covered the man's face, his eyes were burning through her skin.

"It was him. It was Gabriel. That bastard pulled a trick on me. He is back, and I need to find him."

Robert was pacing in his room, checking his phone repeatedly. Lefebvre had promised to come by the mansion to help him with the ghosts. Margo was lying on the bed, counting the boy's steps.

"One thousand and two hundred," she announced as Robert ignored her completely. Margo smirked and said, "One thousand two hundred and one."

"Would you shut up?" Robert flared.

The phone rang, and Robert exhaled, relieved. He peeked at the ajar bathroom door, and he answered. Diffused forms were wandering inside the dark room, crowding into each other. They made Robert nervous and very keen to get rid of them. He wouldn't imagine another night with twelve ghosts staying in the same room with him.

"Yes? I will wait in my room. My brother Adrian will come to you. Thanks," Robert said as he glared at Margo.

"Hide if you don't want to leave this world," the boy said.

"You said he couldn't see us," Margo said.

"He has a device," Robert completed, annoyed.

"Then I will come back later," Margo replied and disappeared with a fizzle pop as the bedroom door opened, and Adrian entered, followed by the priest. The little brother left the room without asking unnecessary questions, not before glaring around.

Lefebvre greeted and started unloading a bunch of metal things from his backpack. A few minutes later, a massive device appeared under Lefebvre's skilled hands. He put on some huge goggles and connected them to the device.

He turned his head and body one hundred degrees until he noticed the ghosts stuck together in the boy's bathroom. Full of hope, they were seeking oblivion, wishing an unrepentant departure to wherever their sins would send them.

There were four women, seven men and a small boy. Lefebvre sighed, seeing the pitiful image in front of his eyes. The child hid behind the door frame, his evanescent body disappearing, except his head with dark protruding orbits glaring hypnotically at the man. Lefebvre waved his hand, inviting the boy to come closer. Reticent, the boy stood hidden. Finally, a tall man came forward, eager to leave the Earth forever.

His mouth moved silently, muttered sounds hardly coming out. Lefebvre pointed the recorder towards him. It was a special one - it could translate the fragments of sounds into a proper sentence. The device would record the ghost's speech, and with the help of a computer and special software, it would be able to decode it. The spirit spoke for over ten minutes, giving enough time to the little one to get more confident and step forward.

The boy took his hand, and Lefebvre shivered under his touch.

"Listen, everyone. The soul-lifting process is going to be an arduous one. Stay in line, come close to this device and say your name and place of birth; the date, location, and motif of death are crucial too. I will first take care of the child, then the women; the men will come last. Now, if you don't have any objection, let's get to work," Lefebvre ended his speech and checked the little boy glued to his leg. The male spirit who spoke first retired quietly and disappeared through the bedroom wall.

Margo only returned long after the priest and the ghosts had left. She had stopped in the park and sat on a swing. The sky was incredibly dark, and Margo wondered if Heaven was above it, as the childhood stories would say. She swang like that for an hour, listening to the quiet night and admiring the shiny little stars sending morse code messages to the ignorant mortals. The weather was pleasant, only a few clouds erasing the stars from the sky from time to time. Faint whispers got to her ears, and her first impulse was to hide.

Roars of laughter cut through the silence of the night.

"Shh, do you smell that?" a grave voice asked.

"What?"

"Something is here, and it's not from this world."

The stranger's words made Margo tremble. She scouted the landscape for a place to hide, but the children's playground was plain, without trees or bushes, only benches and swings.

"Where?"

"Go find it and bring it to me," the man replayed as he sniffed the air.

Margo panicked and hid behind a bench.

"I wonder what it could be. An immortal? A ghost? Maybe an angel?" The female said, accompanied by smirks of laughter.

What are they? Margo thought, worried. She didn't have time to move. Then, a hand with long, sharp nails in a dirt colour grabbed her ankle. She closed her eyes in fear.

"Look, honey! Dinner is here. Hi, sweetheart," the female said.

Margo felt her body pulled from behind the bench and flowing in the air. She screamed and opened her eyes. She glared at someone's wings. What a lovely colour, she thought.

"What happened to your wings?" she asked, trying to keep her eyes open. Finally, she looked up, only to see someone's chin.

"Who are you?" she inquired. She didn't get an answer straight away and closed her eyes, afraid. While the sweet tiredness got to her body, her mind was striving to figure out why the feminine voice from the park seemed so familiar.

Margo moaned and opened her eyes hardly. Two pairs of eyes were staring at her. She stretched her hand and moved one face from her sight. It was Robert's, and the boy protested loudly.

"You are taking all my air," the girl said.

"You are DEAD," Robert barked back. "You don't need air."

"How do you know?" the girl rolled her eyes and stood up. She recognised Robert's room.

"Thank you for saving me," she addressed Derek.

"Saving?" Derek seemed confused.

"Yes, saving. Last night, in the park?"

Derek goggled at the girl.

"I think you dreamt. I did not save you last night." Derek declared and turned his back to the girl.

"Whatever," Margo shrugged. "We need to talk," she addressed Robert after a moment of silence.