Advent Calendar Challenege: Day 4

[froodle]

Today's prompt was "black flame candle", submitted by lipstickcat


"Oh no," said Marshall. "No. I can't deal with this again."

"Dash," said Simon slowly. "Where did you get these candles?"

"That deconsecrated church over by the ghost-train station. Why?"

Mars spun 'round to face his untrusted non-associate.

"The one with the weird red-brown stains on the inside of the windows that everyone pretends they believe is rust?" he demanded. "The one nobody goes into because it's cursed, and I don't mean regular-cursed, I mean Eerie-cursed, as in it's such bad news that the Mayor and the Yoshizawa Consortium don't go near it?"

"Maybe," Dash allowed.

Marshall put his face in his hands.

"You are unbelievable," he said, his voice muffled. "I know you've seen all the old movies; I was sat right next to you when you watched most of them. What kind of an idiot takes religious paraphernalia from an evil old church and uses it for Christmas decorations?"

"You said, get candles," said Dash. "You didn't say where I should get them."

"I assumed you would steal them from the World o' Stuff!"

"You assume those would be any less cursed!"

They watched the black flame for a moment. It burned steadily, the blackness so deep it was like looking into a hole in reality, a hole with a tiny core of orange at it's centre.

"I don't hear any-" Simon began.

The front door slammed open. Outside, in the darkness, someone laughed.

"Oh," said Dash.

Marshall glared.

"If we survive this," he said. "On Christmas day, you are doing all the washing up." He glanced over at Simon. "No helping him," he added.