Ashes And Grave

by Aiden Bates

  “You’ve protected me twice now,” I pointed out. Maybe my pride was just very slightly prickled by the admission. But I needed him to be confident going into this. Enough, at least, that he didn’t choke from the responsibility.

  “You are not a child,” he said. He snorted. “You are used to having the weight of other lives on your shoulders, perhaps. I am not. Especially not ones so innocent. At least, those that can yet be saved. Children that have already died—those I have dealt with. But for those, there is little urgency. The worst has already befallen them.”

  I made the last turn. “You’ve encountered children? I mean… that have died?”

  He nodded, staring out the window. “Yes. Many times.”

  It felt like a burden, one that he might carry with him all the time and I didn’t realize. Which… I didn’t know why, but for someone I had only known a couple of days now, I felt as if I should know Mikhail more than I did. It was moments like that, when he revealed some new part of himself—usually, a part that I imagined must be painful—that I realized all over again that I really didn’t know him well at all.

  I knew his character, maybe. That I was beginning to feel sure of. But I didn’t know his pains. He knew at least a few of mine, and now I knew a few of his. But both of us held so much back, hid so much of it.

  A strong urge to change that swelled inside me. It pushed at the front of my brain, and at my tongue, trying to get me to say more, to ask more. But this was objectively, absolutely, the worst time for that.

  We pulled up to a small house on one of the outer streets of the city, opposite the coast, that had the numbers given to me by Vilar across the overhang that guarded the door. “This is the place,” I said. “Any sign that he beat us here?”

  Mikhail leaned to look out my window, then glanced at the back seat. “Take a quick look. We’ll go in. Alert me if you find anything odd at all.”

  I didn’t hear Gabriella’s response, but Mikhail’s attention returned to the front door. “She will give us some warning, just in case. If we are very lucky, Rav has not located them yet or has not been able to muster what is needed to harm them. We should be as quick as possible.”

  We got out, and rushed up the walkway to the door, where I gave a quick knock and waited.

  Mikhail leaned toward me. “Gabby doesn’t notice anything out of place,” he whispered. “We may have acted quickly enough. That would be fortunate. There is a local guardian spirit, too; a man who died many years ago in this house. He watches over it still. Gabby was able to contact him. That also is fortunate.”

  Markon and Vilar had told Markon’s mother that we were coming, and that it was urgent they all come to the weyr. I didn’t know what kind of convincing had to be done, or what they had told his mother about why, but when the door finally opened, it was to reveal a woman of about seventy-some-odd years dressed in a track suit not that different than mine, Vilar and Markon’s three girls, and four suitcases.

  “You must be Nix,” the old woman said. She offered me a hand. “I’m Thelma, Markon’s mama. And this is…”

  She looked to Mikhail. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten the introduction. “Mikhail Baranov,” I said, introducing him, and then smiled down at the girls. “These are Louise, Breta, and Miranda. Girls, meet Mikhail.”

  The three of them, Louise the youngest at six, then Breta at nine, and finally Miranda at twelve and on the cusp of becoming a pain in Vilar and Markon’s necks if the bland, mildly offended look on her face was any indication, all chorused greetings in various degrees of enthusiasm.

  “We’re sorry to rush like this,” I told Thelma as I offered to take her suitcase and collected it from her, “but we… want to make sure that we get back in good time.”

  Thelma showed no outward sign that she was at all alarmed. She shooed the girls out of the house, and followed us to the minivan to herd them into it. When the back hatch was closed, though, and the girls secured inside, she drew me to the back corner, and her hands shook as she took one of mine. “Markon told me. Are we safe?”

  “Not… here, ma’am,” I admitted. “Not yet. But you will be. The man with me is a very skilled necromancer, and he knows what we’re dealing with and how to manage it.”

  She cast a nervous look into the minivan, but at least didn’t declare that she wouldn’t be riding with a master of death and decay. Still, she grew a bit stiffer. “All right,” she said, resigned if not put at ease. “You trust him? This Mikhail fellow?”

  I suppose I hadn’t expected the question. It caught me off guard. I answered automatically, and surprised myself when I did. “Yes. Uh… yes, I do trust him.”

  Thelma took a calming breath, and squeezed my hands. “Well… then I suppose that’s good enough for me. Markon speaks highly of you, you know. So do the girls.”

  I knew the girls, of course, and had since they were brought to the weyr to join Vilar and Markon’s family. But I didn’t realize they had any opinion of me. “I hope I live up to their descriptions of me,” I said. “We should get going.”

  She patted my hands, gave a nod, and went back to the door to get in.

  When I got into the car, I checked with Mikhail—just a questioning look. He seemed somewhat less nervous. Now I thought he seemed almost a little sad. But he smiled at me all the same, pleased with something.

  I frowned as I realized maybe why. “Did Gabriella…?”

  His smile widened only a little bit, and he looked away. “Let’s just get these young ladies home safe.”

  Damned ghost-spy.

  When this was all over, there would have to be some new rules established.

  14

  Mikhail

  If I had enough time, I would have offered to detach the household spirit at Thelma’s home and taken him with us. Often, the best defense against a spirit is another spirit. However, Gabby had a few particular skills that we had developed together over the years. With the children collected, and us already back on the road, and at least one spirit at hand, we were well positioned.

  The children, at least, seemed unworried. Led by Thelma and the radio, Louise and Breta sang happily, while Miranda tapped away at her phone, seemingly oblivious to the world or any potential danger.

  I wondered if any of them knew the truth about what had been going on. Perhaps their fathers had spared them, hidden the goings-on of the weyr, and simply sent them on a visit to their grandmother.

  Whatever the case was, it seemed that we would reach the weyr without incident, and I began to breathe easier.

  But of course, no sooner had I begun to relax than Gabby slipped into view beside me. “Boss, we’ve got a problem.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, and sighed.

  “What’s up?” Nix murmured.

  “Big hole opened up in the ether ahead,” she explained. “Real Moby Dick moment, I don’t know what’s coming but I could feel it.”

  “Speed up,” I told Nix. “A lot.”

  He shot me a worried look but pushed the gas until the minivan began to shake.

  Behind us, the singing turned nervous, and then quieted.

  “The car’s shaking,” Breta warned us.

  Miranda even spoke up. “Why are we going so fast? Dad says this thing is a bucket of bolts, it’s not supposed to go over seventy.”

  “Just eager to get home,” Nix said. “Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”

  “Come,” Thelma told the two younger girls. “Snuggle up close. We’ll be home that much faster and I’ll make some muffins.”

  “Chocolate chip?” Louise asked hopefully.

  “Boss,” Gabby muttered.

  “And blueberry!” Breta added.

  “Boss,” Gabby said again.

  “Any faster?” I asked.

  Nix shook his head. “It’s all the way to the floor, this thing is a bucket of bolts.”

  “Brakes!” Gabby shouted, a split second before the road ahead of us crumbled and a plume of smoke, dust, and underworld
billowed out of it.

  “What the—”

  I didn’t hear what curse Nix used, because the tires screeched, the minivan lurched, and when it seemed we were headed straight into the sinkhole, he jerked the wheel to one side.

  The girls screamed. Thelma prayed to the gods, howling for the mercy of Juno and Rhiannon. I held tight to the oh-shit handle above me. Gabby swirled around me, pressing to my chest as she manifested enough force to press me against the seat.

  The minivan didn’t so much roll as snap sideways, pitching into the air to tumble once before it hit the ground and continued to roll, sending us straight for the opening into the earth.

  “Go,” I managed to shout at Gabby as I reached into my reservoir of magic and poured into her.

  She didn’t argue with me. Her pressure left my chest, exposing me to the jostling of the vehicle. I jerked against my seatbelt, my head slamming against the back of the seat. I closed my eyes, and put all of my focus on giving Gabby as much power as I could.

  A hand found my arm, but I didn’t process who it was until the vehicle slowed and stopped, just a few feet shy of the hole. Gabby stood outside my window as the minivan teetered on the two passenger side wheels, rocking slightly as she braced it. She gave a grunt and a push, and the vehicle dropped to all four wheels with a crash.

  Steam billowed from the crunched hood. All of the windows were cracked, tiny pieces of glass suspended in the thin film that had kept us from being showered with razor shards. Six sets of lungs bellowed panicked breaths.

  I looked at the pressure on my arm to find Nix’s hand gripping me tight enough to leave bruises. He’d reached across to get hold of me. His other hand was white-knuckled around the handle above his window.

  “Everyone conscious?” I asked.

  “We’re okay,” Thelma said, in a tone that was almost more of an instruction than a report. “We’re all okay. Right, girls?”

  A chorus of nervous, uncommitted confirmations came from the three children.

  “What the fuck is that?” Nix breathed, looking through the broken windshield at the hole outside.

  “Get the girls out,” I said. “Get them to the weyr. Fly them there if you have to.”

  I pulled at the door handle and tried to shoulder the door open. It was stuck. “Gabby?”

  With what strength she had left, her spectral hands sank into the outside of the door and with a heave she pulled it free.

  The girls jumped. Louise and Breta screamed. Miranda said things her fathers might have taken exception to. Thelma whispered more prayers.

  “It’s okay,” I said, turning to look at them. “Just a little magic.”

  “I’ll get the other doors,” Nix assured me. “What is it?”

  I didn’t want to answer in front of the girls, and gave him a look that said as much. He seemed to get it, because his eyes turned to flint, and he gave a nod before he turned and shoved his door open to get out.

  I stepped out of the minivan and onto the road. Gabby moved to stand beside me. To Nix and the girls, it likely just looked like a great gaping hole in the road, spread all the way across. To Gabby and me, it looked like what it was.

  A swell of underworld, protruded into the world of the living. Voices whispered from within it. Something rumbled, deep down below the hole itself, rising up like she’d said—like some great leviathan from the depths.

  “No one is this powerful,” Gabby said. “This can’t be Ivan, can it?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, and reached into my messenger bag to dig around for a particular bone fetish I’d brought along just in case I ran into something I couldn’t easily handle bare-handed. My fingers didn’t find it.

  I looked back at the minivan. It must have fallen out while we were rolling. I rushed to the door, checked the floorboard. Behind me, a low, booming growl echoed up from the world of the dead.

  Under the seat? In the back seat? Shit. Nix had everyone out of the van, at least.

  “Mikhail?”

  “Go without me,” I ordered. “How far is the weyr?”

  “Quarter mile,” he reported.

  I closed my eyes, and felt for the subtle hum of magic that the fetish gave off. It was in the back, somehow tumbling beneath all the seats to reach the trunk. “Take them,” I said. “Fast as you can. I’ll catch up.”

  He was on the far side of the van when I got to the back hatch, the children huddled close between him and Thelma. “Get the trunk?” I asked.

  Nix gave a nod and pulled it open with one hand, metal screeching in protest as it peeled more so than rose up. It was there, a cluster of hand bones from a long dead mage bound together into a rough eight-pointed star. I collected it and waved him on. “Go. I’ll hold whatever it is off.”

  “What is it?” Thelma asked.

  That would only panic them further. I tucked the fetish into my pocket to hide the macabre-looking artifact from the girls. “Go with Nix,” I said, “don’t stop for anything, no matter what you see or hear. You may hear your name, the voice of a loved one, you may find yourself thinking there is no point in running, that it is already too late. Lies. Trust nothing except your feet to carry you to the boundary of the weyr. Am I clear?”

  Thelma swallowed, pulled the girls close to her, and nodded. Nix gave me a troubled look, and then something more intense. His hand twitched toward me. He lurched, as if a powerful force pulled at him, taking a step before his jaw clenched and his lips pressed thin. “I’ll come back when I deliver them.”

  “It would be better if you did not,” I told him. “If I surv—when I am done, I will join you.”

  He bared his teeth, but I waved him on. “This delay endangers us all.”

  With that he tore himself away, and shooed the girls and their grandmother back. “All right,” he said, “who wants a dragon ride?”

  No one was enthusiastic, it seemed. He began to shift, his black scales sprouting, his body swelling, until he no longer fit his clothing and had to remove it to complete the transformation. He was large enough for the four of them by the time he stretched his great wings out, and knelt with one foreleg extended so that they could climb atop him.

  I only watched long enough to see that they were situated on his back, between his shoulder blades where they gripped the ridges and muscles at the roots of his wings. He swung his head around, but I was already turning to deal with the breach.

  Gabby was still there, watching. Her arms were wrapped around her, and she seemed cold, as if that were possible. “What do we do?”

  “Close it up,” I said. “Deal with anything that comes through.”

  “Obviously,” she said. “I mean in general, boss. You gotta call for backup. This is too much.”

  I had a hard time arguing with that. I would call Laryn the minute I had the chance. If this was Ivan after all, then he had grown considerably in power, besides having freed himself somehow from Tartarus. Perhaps those two things were linked.

  I took the fetish from my pocket and held it tight in my left hand as I muttered to it, focusing my attention on the hum of magic that nestled deep inside the bones. They had belonged to Ari Yusef, a contemporary of my master, who had been a powerful mage in his day; a prodigy who had mastered necromancy and healing both, uniting the magics of life and death. The magic there roused at my call, answering as my familiar voice called to it.

  That magic flowed into me, bolstering me, sharpening my mind and even granting new instincts as Yusef’s knowledge echoed out of the bones.

  I watched Nix retreat, trotting off as he picked up speed with the girls and gradually disappearing into the night.

  A spectral hand of darkness, easily as large as myself, curled fingers around the edge of the hole. The growling grew closer, louder. It shook the local ether as I held the fetish out toward it.

  “Oh, you unfortunate soul,” I intoned in the Latin that Laryn had always preferred his students to use, threading magic into the words, letting them shape my intenti
on, “you who suffered in life and find no rest in the peace of death, I address you. I command you. The world of the living is no place for our kind. Retreat, therefore, back into the abode of the dead. I command it by the laws of Hades and Anubis, by Thanatus and Czernobog—begone from this place.”

  The magic took form, echoed in the high and low ether. Gabby put a hand on my shoulder, holding tight to me as the current of power pressed against the dark spirit coming from the pit and tugged at her in its wake.

  The black fingers of the shadow dug into the asphalt, pressing furrows into it. Not the etheric expression of the road—the actual road itself, physically. Black smoke billowed off as if blown by a powerful wind, and funneled down the hole, returning to the underworld, but the shadow continued to pull itself up. The smooth top of a bulbous head began to emerge, followed by eyes that sucked the light from the world like stars that had been turned inside out. “Hun-gry,” a rasping, booming voice hissed. “We... hun-ger...”

  “Very bad,” Gabby muttered, pulling at my shoulder. “Come on, boss. This is way more than we can—”

  “I unravel you,” I commanded, thrusting the fetish toward the darkness as I took a step back from those grasping fingers. “I unbind you, I carve away the threads that are stitched into the seams of your spirits.”

  I pushed magic through the fetish now, and the power sang through the bones like a knife edge sliding along a whetstone, sharpening before it spun out into the ether and dove with a thousand razor edges into the hungry ghost, carving away chunks of the spirits that had been grafted together to create it. Shadows peeled off, shrieking and snapping with black maws as the underworld retook them.

  Still, it rose. There were hundreds of them seething inside it. The work of a dozen necromancers, at least, they had been gathered perhaps from all across the ether, plucked from the depths of Tartarus, and sewn together with the blackest of magic. A maw full of rotting teeth revealed itself, and a second hand came languidly out of the darkness to slam down on the road as it dragged itself free.

  Gabby was right. I couldn’t manage this on my own. Not with her help, not with a dozen ghosts like her.