Free Haunted Legends by Ellen Datlow, Nick Mamatas

fumbling about in his gowns with his other hand that makes me shudder.”
    Ruth speaks quietly. She’s more alone in her head than she’s ever been. “Father Thomas only wanted what
he
wanted. He said I was delusional. He had no idea what I was talking about. How can the church not know about the devil? How can the church not care about me if I reach out to it?”
    Lass breaks free from Basil’s arm. It’s the first time Ruth has ever seen them not conjoined. Lass lifts Ruth’s chin with a finger and looks into her eyes. Lass’s pupils are flecked green and brown and gold; it adds a depth to her stare Ruth has never seen before.
    “The church is self-serving,” says Lass. “I know, because I’ve been abused by Father Thomas and his kind, too. He washed away my sins, once.” Lass grins. “And limped for a week for his trouble. But this isn’t the devil, this is the Spring Heel. There’s a difference, I know. Be true to yourself, Ruth, and perhaps the Spring Heel can help you if you call to him.”
    “I say, summon the devil?” says Basil. “What fun.”
    “But why would I want to call so hideous a creature?”
    “And where do we find him?” says The Runt.
    “We must look to the rooftops.” Basil points upward and stumbles through the effort. “I’ve heard tell the Spring Heel can leap the moon.”
    •  •  •
    If the Spring Heel came that night, he was little more than a shadow that shrieked once across the high clouds. It’s four in the morning and Ruth is no nearer to discovering herself. Lass, when back connected to Basil at the arm, loses all the lucent insight she’d displayed earlier. It’s as if Basil is leaching her personality, and Ruth has long since grown impatient questioning herabout the Spring Heel. Basil is so drunk he can barely breathe. The Runt stands twitching in his sleep in a nearby doorway.
    Ruth pauses at the park gates. To the east, a hint of dawn lingers behind the black treetops. It could be dawn, or an onrushing fire to consume the world, thinks Ruth. She shivers, though she’s not cold. There was a time when she’d see only the beauty of the dawn, not fear what the new day might bring. There was a time when demons and monsters were just the stuff of nightmares and fairy tales, of fears that flew before the light of day.
    But now
he’s
out there, somewhere, this ghostly devil dancing on the trees or the rooftops or the clouds or the moon. Perhaps he’s close by, watching her from some high eyrie. Perhaps he’s ready to swoop down and carry her off to some unspeakable Hell. Ruth reaches beneath her skirt and scratches at a rash developing on her labia. She sighs. Every man that’s ever used her has taken her partway there anyway.
    •  •  •
    It’s signing-on day, and the DSS on Lord Street is full. Ruth sits silently waiting while Basil and Lass queue for handouts. Ruth’s chair bleeds rubber foam to the piss-stained carpet from an ugly gash in its plastic. It can barely support her weight, but then neither can Ruth. Her vision is spinning and her neck is warm. She’s been sick down her dress, and there’s likely more to come.
    Above a sign that says
Benefit Fraud Is Everyone’s Problem,
an old television set hangs from the ceiling on dulled chains. Ruth peers up at it, squinting to focus. The colours are washy and
wrong,
and the picture fights roll and black static.
    On the screen, some wanker in a sharp suit spreads news of a world bent on Ruth’s exclusion. Her world is the park, the bins behind Easy Rider, the mission’s soup kitchen, and little else. Hers is a rock pool that’s barely heard of the ocean.
    Ruth closes her eyes, but the television plays on behind her lids. The Spring Heel leaps in; his screen entrance could be Spider-Man camp, all comic book perspective and improbable acrobatic acts had Ruth not seen for herself his leaps and bounds.
    Spring Heel’s face fills the screen on Ruth’s eyelids. His own eyes bulge, all spider