Stink Blob

Blake was about to go back to the forest to find the four men when a snarling hissing sound began to emanate in the vicinity of the Tiger Temple.

It had to be a ghoul. He knew the Overlord had left the area so there was nothing that could have made that kind of noise except a ghoul.

With some trepidation, Blake headed towards the temple's green roof. He landed on top of the roofline and slowly poked his head in.

At first he could not see anything. The place barely had any lights, just a single dim bulb in the corner near the steps as a safety precaution against trip hazards. It was enough, however, to throw a bit of light on the interior.

There was a replacement oil painting of Jazzie on the wall that covered the tiny alcove. The tiger was also new but this one was made of brass instead of ceramic.

Blake zeroed in on the tiger's garnet eyes.

It was glowing an unearthly red.

"Come on out." Blake called as he slowly descended into the interior of the temple. "I can see you."

For a moment, the tiger remained where it sat, staring at Blake. He returned the gaze without hesitation.

A few seconds later, it blinked.

Coiling itself out of the tiger, the thick noxious reddish black fumes roiled and billowed out of the tiger's mouth and onto the floor in front of the altar.

"Crap, Ray. Is that you?"

The black fumes hesitated. It extended fingers of black smoke towards Blake. He slapped it away with exasperated fingers.

"Keep your nasty hands to yourself. What the hell happened to you man? You smell terrible."

The black fingers of smoke closest to Blake dissipated, withdrawing back into the roiling black mass of cohesive fumes. The hazy face of a barely recognizable Ray Street began to emerge.

In life, he was quite good looking, with shoulder-length dreds, deep bronzed skin and a ruggedly masculine face with startling pale green eyes.

In death, he could barely maintain the outline of his head, concentrating what little strength he had to maintain visual connection with Blake through his eyes.

"You look terrible, man. You hungry?"

The black fumes with a pair of light green cat eyes stared at him without saying a word.

Blake sighed.

"Come on Ray. Follow me and I'll get you some food."

The black noxious fumes moved forward and tried to get closer to Blake, but there was a tiny thread of smoke tying him to the bronze tiger.

Blake moved closer to inspect the smoke trail. It was a spirit thread that was keeping Ray Street chained to the statue.

Blake grabbed his ax and with a wide swing, cut through the spirit thread.

CLANG!!!

Ray Street flew up into the rafters, no longer bound to the brass tiger.

"Let's get out of here." Blake announced as he flew up into the ceiling and out through the rooftop.

He did not looking back to see if Ray Street followed or not. He wasn't a babysitter and if Ray preferred to remain inside the temple, it was on him.

As usual, the dark alleyway that was next to the Asian nightclub was filled with people sitting around, chattering, smoking, and eating.

The nightclub was playing seventies disco music tonight so there were quite a few disco-era folks in their bell bottoms and glittering tops outside, dancing along to 'Saturday Night Fever'. It made Blake want to pull out his bass and thump along to the music, but he had a stinky ass cloud of gas he had to deal with.

He hovered over to the back corner near the cart filled with hot foods from the Asian food vendor and motioned for Ray to come nearer.

As he did before, Blake reached into his bag and took out the silver lighter and two sticks of incense. He lit the incense and stuck them onto the far side of the food cart, away from view of the woman and her customers.

Immediately, all the food that was on her cart became available to the two ghouls.

"Eat up. She's got some of the best food around. I always used to come here after band practice because it was good cheap food."

Ray moved closer and began gorging on the spirit food that had been generated by the smoke of the incense.

Blake handed a skewer of beef strip to the noxious gas cloud with eyes that was Ray. He was about to grab another one for himself when he suddenly felt another presence near him.

"Hey, can I have a bit of your food?"

Blake turned to the voice.

"Holy shit, John. You're dead!" Blake muttered.

"You know me?"

Blake sighed. He had been hoping he could find John, but not in spirit form.

"I was there when you took my band mate Adam Stuart to the temple. I saw you and Jazzie—er Jasmine, hanging out at the temple while Adam got shoved under that bell to get exorcised."

John's shade sighed.

"I was called the day you died. I had to help the paramedics carry you out of the bathroom, man."

Blake grabbed a white meat bun and handed it to the cop.

"Try this. It's really good."

The old cop took it with grateful hands.

As they ate the various things that the Asian woman had on her cart, Blake reiterated what had happened on his end while John told him what had happened to them after they had gotten attacked at the bottom of the mountain pass.

"And who's that black mess?" John pointed to the fumes that was Ray.

"He's our drummer, Ray Street. Same thing happened to him that happened to me, Terry, and Adam."

John stared at him with curious eyes.

"I was also there the day he hung himself. I didn't know he turned into smoke."

Blake sniffed.

"He's just lazy. It's easier to keep yourself in fumes than it is to visualize yourself as the person you once were."

"I'm not lazy." Ray Street growled.

John blinked in surprise.

"The stink blob can speak!"