These kind of places unnerve me. It’s one of those suburban areas where all the houses are made of the same brick; all purpose built at the same time to feed some population growth. Even the pub is the same: The Rainwalker. I wonder what that means.

I find the place. It looks the same as everywhere else. Red brick and beige paint, but with a gold knocker that glows outwardly. I knock four times. Four times comes a knock from the other side, followed by an electrical hiss, a crackle, and a slow, creaking voice: “Yesss?”

“I’m here to make an exchange.”

I hear the door unlock and I push through into a dark, humid room, lit only by two candles in the centre of a drawn circle, where the woman stood. She was young for her voice, and I started.

“Do you have it?”

I dropped my rucksack into the crook of my elbow and showed her inside, then lay the contents on the edge of the circle.

“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Mine for hers.”
And then my blood spilled and the circle brought a soul back from the Black.