by Lisa Daniels
She really isn’t a little girl anymore, he thought wistfully, finding it hard to reconcile the memories in his head at times with the very adult, very womanly necromancer in front of him today. Worse, he knew so much about her, and loved her, but it was just the normal kind of love. It didn’t mean anything beyond the usual connotations. He’d die for her, of course. He’d do anything to make her happy. Anything to make sure she had the best life possible, though he needed to balance that with his own needs and family commitments. He couldn’t exactly drop his entire family just to follow Ellie to the other end of the world.
But with this new opportunity presented, he might just do that.
These are dangerous thoughts. His mind became cold, freezing out the breadcrumbs his thoughts left, which he knew would lead to a place he should never, ever approach.
A place that sometimes invaded his mind at night, despite his best efforts to control it. A place that sometimes wondered, what if. What if, with all their time spent together, they liked each other a whole lot more than just bodyguard and client?
What if, over all the years, their affection had solidified into something so powerful, so tangible, that one day, everything might change?
Chapter Seven – Ellie
The dream was far more vivid than it had any right to be. One moment, Ellie had been just talking to Rosen, who for some reason was standing in one of the deadrings back home with her, and the next, Ellie had walked over to Mason, who said he wanted her help with something. She knew she shouldn’t help him, but her body moved of her own accord. When she reached him, there was a strange glow in his sea-green eyes, an almost beckoning smile on his lips. She’d approached closer and closer, until his face seemed to fill up everything, and her eyes were on his, and then his lips, and she knew that if she did that too much, it’d be obvious she wanted him that way. His face continued to grow bigger and bigger until there was suddenly no more room to move anywhere or do anything.
And that, of course, was precisely when she decided to wake up. Just before she got squashed by that damn face.
What a bizarre as heck dream, she thought, staring at the ceiling of her fancy new room, and then feeling slightly jealous of how rich Talia’s family was. It seemed with all the underground fighting her father did, he liked to keep things frugal back home. He never let Ellie see the money she earned in her fights, all to keep her dependent. She’d set up her own bank account anyway, got herself cash on the side, and gradually scraped enough to leave that life behind forever.
She didn’t quite expect to have such bizarre dreams, though. For a moment, she could’ve sworn the dream wanted to veer into sex territory, and that thought alone made her break out in a cold sweat, because the last thing she wanted to do was start picturing her bodyguard in any other capacity than what he was paid for.
Just no. Hell to the no. With breakfast out of the way, and a yawning Mason standing in the corner of the kitchen with ruffled hair and morning stubble, she needed to make a break for the precinct, where a few Stoneshire detectives had come over for an interview with her, intending to corroborate their information with whatever she had. Morgana Hargraves was first to greet her when they entered the interview room.
“We’re going to take part in some tests later to gauge what we should do with you,” she said, after a brief hug and a sideways glance at the glum Stoneshire detectives who looked as if they hadn’t slept for days. “Be a nice chance to use your powers again. I know you’re good.”
Ellie nodded to Morgana, still thinking of her as Crimson. She liked Morgana a lot better before she found out that Morgana was a damn narc.
Detectives Soho and Owles got straight to business, clearly wanting to get everything out of the way as soon as possible.
“The main thing we’re interested in is your information on Zaimov,” Soho, the one with a noticeable beer belly when he sat down, said. His companion, Owles, seemed to match his surname. His eyes were too large for his face, and perhaps vapid as well. “We’ll take what you have on the deadrings, but primarily we’re trying to hunt down Zaimov.”
Ah, of course. He was an elusive fish to Ellie as well, but she figured they would want to track down one of the most notorious criminals of the underworld. One that had hooks in almost anything to do with necromancer activity, and one who was conducting experiments, alongside her father, on revenants and guardian angels.
The best she could do was tell them about the experiments she knew Zaimov to be doing, and the recent debacle with the deadring when Regal lost control of an ancient revenant. She didn’t seem to think it that good information, but they eagerly jotted it all down as if it was incredibly juicy, and she supposed it probably did help them, because they went away with marginal smiles on their otherwise grumpy faces.
“Let’s get you to your training now,” Morgana said, gently steering Ellie toward a small building next to the police station that looked suspiciously like a morgue. Ellie soon found out it was a morgue, just for the small forensic department to manage, and that it was an additional one built after the hospital’s own morgue became too crowded and police forensics wanted to conduct their investigations toward any suspicious deaths or links to criminals. Here seemed to be a John Doe—some homeless person no longer with the world.
“This is a body that can be used for research purposes. No ties to anything. The soul itself is an interesting one. See if you can spot why.”
Ellie nodded, sitting in one of the chairs with Morgana, examining the peaceful-looking body. The face was old and relaxed in death, showing a lot of lines like deep crags. There was a certain waste to him, too, as if he’d spent years pumping his body full of poison before finally dying, from exposure, heart failure, anything that riddled the homeless and their perilous lives.
She closed her eyes under Morgana’s guidance, tapping into her magic at last. The Other Side greeted her like an old friend, with its muted colors and the beautiful cadence that the spectral realm offered. She heard the whispers of nearby spirits, and was surprised to see that the spirit directly attached to the old man hovered in the first layer. First layer souls were usually reserved for animal spirits, beings with a simple beauty in their essences. Very rare to find a human soul in this layer; they usually had enough moral complexity to warrant them a deeper level.
Approaching the spirit, she saw that it was a deep blue, with a tiny flicker of gold.
A guardian angel? Ellie thought in sudden amazement. Though the gold wasn’t strong enough to denote a full-fledged guardian angel. Maybe he was in the process of becoming one? “Spirit, tell me your name,” she said, addressing the ghost. The blue-ghost spirit shimmered, drifting toward her. Ellie was vaguely aware of Morgana’s spirit in the foreground, watching over them with a careful eye.
“Harold,” the spirit said, in that otherworldly voice, with a faint sustain to each syllable. “Harold Trembath. Have you seen a little boy? He was this high.” The spirit indicated a height that reached just above his chest. “He was a stranger to me, but I want to know—is he okay?”
Possibilities expanded in Ellie’s mind. “Did you help this boy?”
“He was in trouble,” Harold said sadly. “There was a police officer. He had a gun, the boy was holding… I think it was a water pistol. There was shouting, arguing, a shot. Then I was here, but that boy… is he okay? He only had a water pistol. What happened?”
Oh. A small wave of sadness went over Ellie.
“Since he remembers,” Morgana said softly, startling Ellie in the Other Side, “that means the boy is alive. Probably. I think this man isn’t a full guardian angel because he didn’t know the boy, so he doesn’t know where to go to find him.”
“I’ve been looking,” the man confirmed. “I can’t go too far from—from me. But he’s nowhere. Where is he?”
Ellie gently probed into the spirit’s mind, but found that his memory of the boy he might have saved was blurred. Not much use there. “Can we just animate him and help
him look?” Ellie asked Morgana. “This doesn’t seem right.”
“The science department says no,” Morgana said with a faint sigh of disgust. “Plus they want to be able to study this spirit. Most of us don’t even know about the concept of guardian angels or pre-angels. You also remember I had no clue what I had in my spirit, when I went to the deadrings.”
Ellie snorted. “Yeah, true. This doesn’t seem right, though.” She placed the spirit into his body with a few curt Commands, and slipped out to the normal world, where the body now sat up upon the table, looking around in a daze.
She hadn’t given the spirit as strict a Command as she would have done with others, because she knew these types were unlikely to lash out. Morgana nodded in approval. All Ellie had to do was showcase her flexibility and understanding of a guardian angel, but she felt uncomfortable the whole time doing so. The spirit obeyed simple Commands, but got distracted often, asking about the boy. Ellie asked him to draw the boy’s face, but as expected, the spirit didn’t remember enough to do so. Perhaps he had died only after meeting the boy for the first time, so his long-term memory hadn’t yet registered it. Either way, she didn’t want to operate with the spirit for too long, dealing with its translucent aura.
When Morgana felt she’d demonstrated enough skill to impress whatever boss existed, Ellie dropped the spirit—but felt something odd brush upon her. Like footsteps walking over her own grave. With a shiver, she entered the Other Side to discover the source of the contact. Morgana followed her as well, confused.
The magic sometimes invaded like this. Living so close to the realm of death, necromancers felt the touch of the Other Side, even when not actively using their magic. It permeated even into their normal life, giving them a glimpse of something, a disturbance that sent the little hairs on the back of her neck stirring. At first she thought maybe her mind was just playing tricks upon her. That was always a possibility, too. Sometimes there were little more than phantom winds… but no. Something stirred, beyond the soul bound toward the body. Something coalesced in the muted environment of the Other Side, forming into the all-too-familiar gold-blue essence of a guardian angel.
Ellie’s heart twisted unpleasantly at the sight. It was something she was never meant to see again. Someone who should have gone Beyond.
“Mother,” she said.
The shining soul stepped toward Ellie. The shine seemed less strong, somehow, than Ellie remembered. The spirit of her dead mother reached for an embrace, and Ellie accepted it, too surprised to resist, too surprised to do anything other than stare, really, as her mind imploded.
“How? You’re supposed to be gone. You sacrificed for me...”
“I should be gone,” her mother agreed. “But someone is disturbing the balance of things, Elinor.”
Ellie grimaced. She didn’t like her full name, though her mother had loved it. It sent another sting through her heart. Morgana hovered at a respectful distance. “What’s happening, Mother?”
“Many are under his control now. The darker of us, who want nothing more than death and vengeance. And people like me, who want nothing but to save.” She stepped back from Ellie, and her glowing face looked grave. “I barely escaped the call, thanks to that locket you carry with you of my ashes.”
Though the locket didn’t transfer to the spirit realm, Ellie reached automatically for it anyway, grasping empty air. She still carried her mother’s ashes around, though she should have really stopped at this point. It was nice, though, to keep something of the past. Something to remind her of the woman who once was.
“What call?”
Her mother, Wendy, shook her head. “A call,” she said, offering no further information on that part. “You must be careful. I will try to protect you. Try...” Her spirit faded in that moment, as if suctioned away by a higher power.
It left Ellie unnerved, to say the least. It also left her with a profound sense of something wrong about to happen, though she couldn’t place her finger upon it.
Leaving the Other Side, she waited for Morgana Hargraves to blink out of her trance, too. When she did, Ellie went straight to her suspicions. “I think something’s happened in those experiments my father and Zaimov were doing.”
Morgana nodded slowly. “They were conducting tests on the guardian angels, right?”
“Yes, and on revenants. I don’t know exactly what they were doing, but there’s no way my mother should even be here. She sacrificed. She should be out of their reach forever.” Ellie swallowed. “This isn’t right. Something’s not right about this whole situation.”
“We’ll tell Rosen and my sister,” Morgana said.
“If they’re bringing back guardian angels that have already spent their sacrificial energy… then we can expect something big to happen.”
Morgana chuckled, but without humor. “Bigger than the city-wide accidents caused by that revenant in Stoneshire? Or a revenant rampaging and killing criminals in an illegal deadring?”
“Much bigger than that,” Ellie said. They exchanged a look then, one with unspoken fears. If there was a big event planned, someone liked Zaimov would hardly keep himself quiet in the process. He would want necromancers to be top dogs, rather than the scum floating upon a pond. The only way to be top dog in that scenario was to kill rather a lot of people.
She left the precinct, leaving Morgana to inform the elusive Rosen Grieves, and Mason followed behind her, quiet and faithful, solid and dependable. Qualities she envied. He was a far better person than she’d ever be. Too good, too pure to ever be around someone like her, and yet here he was all the same. Here he damn well was.
“I wouldn’t put it past Zaimov to do something grand,” Mason said, confirming her worst fears when she told him everything, down to the suspicions itching her soul. “I just don’t know what he’d do. Someone like him isn’t content with being the boss of some reclusive necromancers, or earning millions through the deadrings and whatever drugs he’s managed to get his hands on. He pushed your father hard...”
Mason reminded her about the call he took with Regal. How her father had uttered that maybe it was better for her to be so far away, rather than near him. “It could be something to do with that. Maybe your father has an inkling of what Zaimov’s planning.”
“He damn well should. He was conducting experiments for that bastard!”
“You’re right. Uh, are you going to tell Talia and her father about this?”
“I have to. It may concern them, too. I also doubt Rosen Grieves is planning to keep information from her own family.”
Mason nodded grimly, his jaw set in a determined line. Returning to the Grieves estate felt like returning to face judgment. Talia, and her partially revenant father. A man too stubborn to die, prepared to strike a bargain with a demon itself to compensate for his damaged brain. There couldn’t be many cases of something happening like that, if ever.
Still, she went and told him anyway, while Talia listened on the side, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
The revenant-man, Rickard Grieves, absorbed all of her words with the barest flicker of emotion upon his features. He stood so tall, so nobly, that Ellie wasn’t sure she ought to bow or something, or add sirs to the end of her sentences. The man had his hands clasped behind his back as he listened, his back resting against his office desk. Talia fidgeted in one of the leather chairs in the room, her own bodyguard nearby.
“What you’ve told me,” Rickard said eventually, once Ellie had covered everything, “is what the revenant in me has been sensing within the Other Side for a while. His… vengeance, you could say, his overwhelming thirst for retribution, comes precisely from something this Zaimov did.” Rickard’s face twitched slightly, and a faint hue of red entered his eyes.
“Wait. What?” Ellie gaped at the man, at a complete loss for words.
“The spirit in me was not a revenant for a long time,” Rickard said softly. “It was quiet in its existence, until Zaimov found him, like so many others, and began twi
sting them, corrupting them into something darker, more shadow than their former selves.” The councilman paused. “He was creating revenants. He was looking for ways to control their destructive power for his own benefit.”
A ghostly snarl seemed to echo around those last words, and Ellie knew she was hearing the revenant itself muster the noise. Unable to control its own anger.
“His experiments were partially successful. The revenant inside me is capable of making a deal. It can commit itself to someone, in the same peculiar nature, I suppose, of the guardian angels I have been hearing so much about recently. The revenant wants to stop Zaimov. So I feel… compelled to do something about it.” Rickard grimaced. “Hearing even his name be mentioned is irksome.”
Talia looked at her father. Ellie watched them both, wondering if Talia thought at times if the man really was her father, or something just pretending. Ellie would wonder that, for certain, had she been in Talia’s shoes. Wondering how much of that face was a lie, a clever lie set by the beast within. Though he did seem normal to a degree, and in honest consultation with the thing he’d bargained with.
“That’s an interesting coincidence,” Ellie said slowly. “The revenant having a grudge against Zaimov.”
“Most of them do, nowadays,” Rickard replied. “The new ones, that is. He is of chaos, like them.”
“Any idea of his aims?”
Rickard frowned, now bringing his hands to the front. “Unclear. The only thing we can do now is wait and see, and deal with what happens.”
Well, that was just great, then. The worst feeling was just waiting for something to happen, knowing it might be bad, and also being helpless in the matter of it. Having an event so far out of Ellie’s own control annoyed her. Sure, she could do some preparation for it, but it was all unknowns. All speculation. Ominous whispers about Zaimov, her father wanting her to stay away after all his efforts to keep her close, a revenant saying Zaimov experimented on him… and her mother returning from a place where she should never have been touched again.
