by Gareth Otton
“No,” Tad said, deadly serious as he stared down both Lizzie and Stella. “Neither of you do. Not when you both refuse to stay away from the danger. We had a lot of close calls last night and things are only going to get worse before they get better. So you will both get dreamcatchers, because we’re not leaving this up to chance anymore.”
“What about you?” Stella asked, unable to think of a better argument. “We’re not the only ones throwing ourselves into dangerous situations.”
“I have other ways to get stronger,” Tad answered. “It’s long past time I had a little chat with Ashley Evans.”
Most in the room looked confused by what he said, but Stella smiled in understanding.
“I think you might be right. He’s been dodging us for too long.”
“This is ridiculous,” Miles muttered, looking at the faces in the room and not liking what he was seeing. “You all sound like you’re gearing up for war.”
The silence in answer to his statement said more than words ever could. Luckily they were interrupted before anyone had to answer as a doctor arrived who wanted to check on Lizzie now she was awake.
Leon stepped out of the room, promising Lizzie he wouldn’t go far. Miles went with him, and Stella wasn’t far behind, only stopping long enough to tell Tad she would make the arrangements for the tattoos. Tad was the last one to leave as he went to collect his sleeping daughter before going.
Jen didn’t so much as stir when he picked her up. She’d had a long night... as had he. However, he had no plans of sleeping any time soon. Instead, he had a lot of things he needed to do. First, he’d take Jen back to the Burmans, and then he was going to get some answers from Ashley Evans.
Christmas might be cancelled, but he was determined this would be the one and only time he’d let that happen.
8
Saturday, 24th December 2016
09:18
Evans maybe Ashley’s last name, but his mother was a Harington. Her family were minor nobility who augmented their wealth by investing in oil. Their family home was a manor set deep in the English countryside. The ancient stone building was consumed by ivy and surrounded by beautiful gardens. It was filled with stately rooms, and even boasted a grand ballroom, making it the epitome of an English manor. As such, it had become the backdrop for many movies and therefore easy enough for Tad to ferret out its location and get a feel for the place.
The chill of the December morning assaulted him as he appeared in front of the manor, but the burning drive that guided his actions helped him ignore the cold. Instead, he strode up to the house and was about to knock on the enormous double doors before a better idea struck.
“Let him know we’re here,” he said to Growler, who got the meaning immediately. Planting his feet as though bracing himself against a strong wind, Growler called on Dream and barked the mother of all barks. Tad had been ready for it and used Dream to shield himself from the sound. The manor wasn’t so lucky.
Windows rattled, doors shook, and dust fell from ancient stones. What little sound there was from the surrounding countryside went silent, and Growler wore a smug expression as he enjoyed the aftermath of his work. The expression brought a brief smile to Tad’s face that only lasted until a loud click sounded a moment before the front door was thrown open.
Ashley opened the door himself, but this was not the Ashley Evans Tad was familiar with. The skeletally thin man with his slick black hair, pale skin, beady black eyes, and expensive suits reminded Tad of a vampire. However, today the vampire was wrapped in a knitted jumper covered in dancing reindeer, candy canes, and Christmas stockings. There was a Santa hat covering his head, and the only concession he made to his normal attire was his black trousers. The clothes were expensive and tailored for the man, so it wasn’t the ugly jumper tradition most people embraced at Christmas, but the bright colours on a man normally adorned in black was shocking enough.
“Holcroft. You’ve got some nerve coming here. It’s Christmas for God’s sake.”
“You owe me answers,” Tad said, recovering from his shock and letting his anger guide him.
“This is hardly the time or place for this conversation. Frankly, you showing up here like this makes me less inclined to speak to you. The word inappropriate doesn’t—”
“My house was burned down last night and my family was nearly killed because I wasn’t strong enough to protect them from the men who attacked us. Now, if you keep closing that door, I promise you will experience that same sensation before I go. I’ll leave nothing but ashes in my wake.”
Tad’s threat might not be serious, but his anger left him more than ready to take some kind of drastic action. That determination echoed in the tone of his voice, and Ashley’s eyes widened as he took an unconscious step back. Tad seized the opportunity and crossed the threshold, stepping into a foyer that had been decked out with so many Christmas decorations that the place looked like Santa’s workshop. Again, this was not what Tad expected when he came here today.
“Hey… You can’t just… I mean…” Ashely struggled to get over his shock, which wasn’t helped when a dog the size of a small lion stepped through the open door and nudged him aside. Taking a second to compose himself, Ashley finally finished his thought. “I am sorry to hear you were attacked and I feel for you, but that is no excuse to threaten me or push your way—”
“The war is no longer coming, it’s here,” Tad interrupted. “My house was just one of the many attacks across the country. Now, I’m done waiting for the answers you promised. You have information that could help me understand myself better, maybe even have helped me save my home last night, and I’m not leaving until you give me those answers.”
For a moment only, Ashley was lost for words, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water and his eyes wide. When he got control again, he let his tension out with an explosive sigh.
“My God. What’s the casualty count?”
“Not as high as it could have been were it not for the dreamcatchers, but there was significant damage. I don’t have exact numbers.”
“Just before Christmas as well, those animals.” He shook his head and looked back over his shoulder at where Tad could now hear the sound of youthful voices laughing in the distance. He suddenly realised that for all that he hated this man, he had never taken even a second to look up whether Ashley had children.
Yet I came in here ready to tear this place down to get answers, he thought to himself, horrified at his actions.
“Very well, if I can’t get rid of you, let’s at least talk in here.”
Without waiting for a response, Ashley walked in the opposite direction of the laughter, leading Tad through a series of ornately decorated rooms before arriving at a tall, narrow door which opened into a room that was comically small for a house this size. It was barely large enough for the single desk and chair, let alone the filing cabinet in the corner and the ancient computer sitting atop the desk. The thing looked like it was due for an upgrade at the turn of the century.
“Not what you imagined of my home office?” Ashley asked. “It’s my wife’s idea of a joke. She insists that I leave my work at the office, and if I must bring it home, then I should get it out of the way as soon as possible. By her logic, if I am uncomfortable then I will be more likely to finish quickly.”
As if to put the theory to the test, he sank into the only chair in the room, leaving Tad with nothing to do but stand awkwardly on the other side of the desk. However, treating Tad this way wouldn’t chase him off. Instead, the lack of courtesy only hardened him to the calmer thoughts he’d been entertaining after seeing a softer side to Ashley Evans.
“You’re going to a lot of effort for nothing,” Ashley said when Tad didn’t immediately speak. “There’s not much to know, and what little there is won’t help you.”
“I don’t believe that, otherwise you would have offered the information sooner.”
Ashley laughed scornfully. “Oh, is that what you t
hink? Has it ever crossed your mind that I don’t like you? I might have enjoyed keeping this information from you as long as I could.”
Part of Tad wanted to scream at the man, but that part wasn’t in charge right now. Last night’s events left Tad angrier than he had ever been, and he had hardened that anger into a deep focus. Therefore, his normally angry outburst at the man’s annoying words was smothered by the larger anger that reminded him of his promise to stop acting in ways that would get his friends and family hurt. He needed to look at this logically.
Ashley was winding him up, poking the bear just to get a reaction. The only reason Tad saw for doing that would be if he had something to hide.
“Enough dodging. Tell me what I am that makes me different from other dreamwalkers.”
Ashley sighed like Tad was trying his patience, but finally he answered.
“We are animancers.”
He said nothing else, almost like that was explanation enough. Again fighting down his temper, Tad growled, “And what is an animancer.”
“An animancer is someone who deals with spirit energy. When that spirit is in a human body, that doesn’t mean much, though it does result in the aura we see when we look at people.”
“Emotions, right?” Tad asked, wanting to confirm that much at least.
“Amongst other things. If you learn to read it properly, it can tell you a lot about a person.”
“Like what?”
“You ever hear of people who claim to heal by clearing chakras and ensuring energy flows correctly around the body? Well, when they aren’t charlatans, they are probably animancers reading and manipulating auras. This is nothing like what your daughter did with that teacher mind you, this is more akin to helping the body be the best it can.”
“What else?” Tad asked.
“With the aura, not much. Maybe some reflections about how people think, it’s not too bad about catching lies as well… though again, nothing like what Stella can do.”
Tad didn’t like how much this man knew about the people he loved. It was hard not to see it as a threat coming from him. It was also something that was firing up his anger, and again Tad would have snapped on any other day, but right now he felt like the man was only feeding him bits of information so he could keep the most important facts aside.
“What else?” Tad asked. “And not just auras.”
“There isn’t much else when the spirit is inside the body. In fact, the only time I have heard of someone doing something to a spirit inside their body against the spirit owner’s consent is when you extracted Mark Patterson’s spirit and placed it in an unending nightmare. But I assume that has more to do with your dreamwalker abilities than your animancer ones.”
Tad flashed back to an apartment in Edinburgh, one that reeked of old take out food and spilled beer. He also remembered the screams of the man who killed Tad’s childhood friend and crippled his daughter. He couldn’t bring himself to care about his actions that day.
“He’s still screaming,” Ashley said, like he could read what Tad was thinking. “You should deal with that soon. It’s cruel to leave him in that state, no matter what he’s done. With his soul still tethered to his body, it will survive in Dream until his body dies. But with his soul not limited by its body, madness can never take hold. He is as sane now as when the nightmares started more than a year ago. Like I said, that is needlessly cruel.”
“Speak to me about cruel when it is one of your children that he’s crippled,” Tad spat, and the already disapproving eyes of Ashley Evans turned frosty.
“That’s the second time you’ve threatened my family—”
“That wasn’t a threat, it’s a statement. Mark Patterson is the man who broke my daughter’s back. He doesn’t get to have his soul back until she can walk naturally again. I think that’s more than fair… and you’re dodging the point. Don’t make me ask again, because I’m out of patience. I’ve had a shit night that has come at the end of a shit year, so do yourself a favour and answer me so I can leave.”
Ashley clearly wanted to respond with harsh words, but one look at Tad told him to reconsider.
“Like I said, there’s not much more that we can do to spirits inside the human body, but when they are outside the human body, that is different.”
“How?”
“Well, for starters, they are no longer protected by a connection to life. That opens them up for manipulation by people like you and me. Obviously we can see ghosts, but it also lets us connect to them, draw from their energy and make their strength our own. We can also see the threads that connect them to the next life and we can force a ghost to move on.”
Another memory jumped to Tad’s mind, one of him forcing his oldest friend to move on. He was in a better place with Charles’ death and his part in it, but there were still times like now that it made him shudder.
“Ah, I see you’ve experienced something like that before. It’s not pleasant, is it?”
“Better than destroying a ghost,” Tad said.
“On that I can agree.”
“Is that something you can do as well?”
“In a way. It’s not like how you do it as a dreamwalker. Where you overload the power of Dream that keeps them connected to this planet, an animancer steals the strength of a ghost until it can no longer maintain that connection to the next life. You lose that connection, you lose your ability to exist, and they simply fade away.”
“You’ve done this?” Tad asked, again hearing the mournful note in the man’s voice.
“That’s none of your business,” Ashley snapped. “And we’re done. That’s all I have to tell you, Mr Holcroft. Now please, leave my—”
“That can’t be everything,” Tad interrupted. “There has to be more.”
“There isn’t. I already told you this knowledge wouldn’t help you.”
“No, there has to be more. What about my eyes? When I have a ghost in me, I can see again, but when they aren’t with me I’m blind once more. That’s not something that a dreamwalker can do as ghosts can only speed up the natural healing process, not temporarily fix things. That has to be animancer related.”
“Maybe it is,” Ashley agreed. “As I cannot merge with ghosts, I have experienced nothing like that. But if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that your body is drawing upon their strength to boost the strength of your spirit, and that compensates for the malfunctions of your body.”
“How can it do that? Surely if the body is broken, it’s broken, right?”
“Yes and no. Science will tell you one thing, but animancers know different. The spirit handles a lot more than you think. Things like emotions. Science tells us they result from chemical reactions within the body, but the truth is that the spirit feels the emotion and it triggers the chemical reaction so that our bodies can feed us that information. The same sort of thing happens in all bodily functions, and where the body is weak, sometimes an excess in spirit energy can bridge the gap. Now, I’ve answered all your questions and—”
“You’re still hiding something,” Tad accused. “Like how come I couldn’t start seeing auras until a year ago?”
“As with all things, animancy is a skill that needs to be practiced, it isn’t simply gifted to us. My guess is that you had been doing more with your animancy at the time and you noticed auras as a result.”
Tad thought back to when he first started noticing auras. It was back when he was searching for missing Proxies. He assumed it was because his dreamwalker abilities were growing, but maybe it was because he was dealing with more ghosts as he also took up the slack for the missing Proxies.
“All this information is something your parents should have taught you when you were a child. Unlike dreamwalking, animancy is hereditary, so if they did their jobs correctly, then you would have known about auras when you were a boy and would have grown up with this knowledge.”
“I never knew my parents,” Tad admitted. “They died when I was young and the people who
adopted me thought I was crazy when I talked to ghosts, so growing up didn’t have many answers for this sort of thing.”
“Cry me a river,” Ashley replied. “I wasn’t asking for your life story, I’m just saying that if you had been learning about it from a young age, you would have seen auras earlier.”
Despite his desire not to lose control, Tad couldn’t help but ball his fingers into fists as Ashley casually dismissed some of the hardest memories of his childhood. He remembered little his biologicial parents, but his memories of growing up with his adoptive parents were unpleasant. It was bad enough that he was blind, but acting crazy as well... His adopted parents didn’t handle that well. It was one reason he first agreed for Jen to come live with him, because he knew normal people couldn’t understand what a Proxy lived through and would think Jen mad.
“So what else is there?” Tad asked. “Most of what you told me I already knew or could have worked out on my own. There must be something—”
“There’s nothing more,” Ashley interrupted. “It’s not very exciting. The truth of the matter is that most of it comes through time and practice, as with all things. You hone your skills until aura reading becomes a powerful tool, and you start to efficiently utilise the power you pull from ghosts. Mastery of those skills can allow an animancer to thrive, but it isn’t any more exciting than that. It just requires someone to teach you the basics, and then there’s lots of practicing.”
“Then teach me,” Tad said. Animancy may not have been what he expected when he came here, but if it made him even a few percent more effective, then it was something he wanted to learn.
“What? No, I will do no such thing.”
“You owe me—”
“I owe you nothing, Mr Holcroft. My deal was with Stella, and that was that if she allowed me to stay to help with the ghosts in Cardiff, I would share my knowledge about what you are. I have done that. I owe you nothing more. If you think I will waste more time teaching you, then you are mistaken. As I already said, I don’t like you, Mr Holcroft, and the less time I spend in your presence the happier I’ll be.”
