Rune Awakening

by Genevra Black

  “Ghost, this is Edie.” Cal opened the driver’s side door and climbed in, then looked at Edie. “You coming?”

  “Okay, so … possessed car,” she mumbled, mostly to herself.

  She couldn’t believe she was thinking it, but that actually wasn’t the craziest thing she’d experienced in the past couple days.

  “Have you ever seen Christine?” she asked skeptically, approaching the passenger door.

  As if in response, the door slammed shut just as she reached it, and the engine sputtered.

  Cal patted the dashboard affectionately, frowning at Edie. “Don’t be like that. Ghost only runs people over if they deserve it. And she’s not possessed … just really fuckin’ haunted.”

  Well, great. Remind me to stay on her good side. Edie opened the passenger door herself and slid in, thankful when she saw that the car had seat belts. She was also happy to find her bag in the footwell. She’d been too busy looking over her shoulder, wondering if Cal was going to kill her, to notice it before. He must have tracked her to the park and found it where she’d dropped it running from those zombies—uh, undead.

  “Uh, so … where are we going?”

  “We already talked about this, didn’t we?” he said as he fiddled with the radio. “We’re gonna go see someone who can”—he waved his hand, looking for the word—“orient you.”

  “You mean, like, train me?”

  He pursed his torn lips almost disdainfully. “Slow your roll, jack. You ain’t Luke Skyscraper yet.”

  “Skywalker.”

  “Eh?”

  Edie sighed. “Nothing. So what is he gonna do?”

  “She,” he corrected, putting Ghost in reverse and peeling out of the parking lot. He turned west toward the highway. “I’ve been in Vegas for the past ten years or so. I haven’t really been, uh, keeping in touch. I missed all the political bullshit out east, so you and I are almost in the same boat.”

  “Adjacent boats?” Edie offered.

  “Adjacent boats. I can give you the big picture, but not much else.”

  “So, she’s from the Aurora?”

  He snorted. “Hell, no. Weren’t you listening to a thing I said? Those dickheads don’t want anything to do with you. She’s one of the last members of the Reach. Or was, last I heard. Kind of in the same business you are. Death, that is.”

  “So she’s a....” The words still sounded so stupid when she said them out loud. “Necromancer?”

  Cal scrunched up what was left of his nose. “No ... not really.” He struggled to find the words to explain it for a few moments before shaking his head. “You’ll just see, okay?”

  Edie shifted in her seat and pulled her bag into her lap, opening it and trying to turn on her phone. It was dead; of course it was. She pulled out the charger and started to look for somewhere she could stick it in the console.

  Cal watched her from the corner of his eye as they turned onto the highway. “Whatcha doin’?”

  “I’m trying to find somewhere to plug....” She trailed off, realizing how stupid that was. Of course there wasn’t anywhere to charge her phone; the car was older than Gilligan’s Island, for god’s sake. There was barely a radio.

  Cal grinned wickedly. “We’ll have to entertain ourselves the old-fashioned way,” he said over the wind that whipped past their faces. He leaned forward and fiddled with the radio again, scanning through the channels with one hand while he steered with the other.

  “I can’t believe that thing still even works.”

  He grinned even wider, which was kind of a horrifying sight, if she was being completely honest. “It just takes a little elbow grease to keep her running, that’s all.” He stopped on a channel blaring Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” and leaned back in his seat, looking mightily satisfied. “That’s more like it.”

  Edie stared at him for a moment before shaking her head and resting her chin in her hand, watching the world blaze by the passenger side. Eventually, once the song ended and the DJ switched to something more mellow, she turned toward him.

  “So.” She struggled to be heard over the wind. “You never told me how you got your name.”

  He pursed his already pretty much non-existent lips and glanced at her. “How’d you get yours?”

  “Um ... my dad named me?”

  There was a pregnant pause as she digested the unspoken: her dad had named him, too. Nausea shook her again, and she had to take a deep breath to steady herself.

  Eventually, she spoke again. “Isn’t Calcifer the name of that guy from that book, Howl’s Moving Castle? Dad used to read that to me all the time when I was little.”

  “Yeah,” he grumbled, barely audible. “Cute, isn’t it? He raises a guy from the dead, erases everything about him, then names him after some asshole from a kids’ book.”

  “I’m sure he just thought the name was cool,” Edie tried, maybe more to reassure herself than him.

  Cal’s glare intensified, and for a moment, it looked like he might pull over and throw her out of the car. But his anger seemed to simmer and turn into a quiet agitation, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. “You can’t just name another person like that, like you’d name a dog. Goes to show the kind of guy he was, playing with other peoples’ lives like they were toys.”

  Clearly, she’d hit a sore spot, but it wasn’t easy to hear someone talk about her father like that—even if he apparently deserved it.

  “He thought he could do whatever he wanted. He was cocky, and in the end, that’s what killed him.”

  What? Edie’s brow furrowed. She wanted to say something, to protest, but her words became lost in her throat.

  Cal was quiet, too, his jaw clenched. She could tell by his silence that he hadn’t meant to let that slip out, or maybe he hadn’t known she was clueless to the truth. He did now.

  “My father died in a car crash,” Edie mumbled softly, as if trying to convince herself as well as him.

  The revenant sighed and flexed his sinewy hands against the steering wheel. “Of course that’s what they told you and your mom.” He clenched and unclenched his jaw like he was chewing on his words, then glanced at the pack of cigarettes lying on the dashboard. After a while, he grumbled, “Sorry, kid.”

  “So what’s the truth, then?” She pulled her bag close to her chest and clicked the home button of her phone, over and over again, even though she knew it was dead.

  Cal seemed to waffle, like he was trying to decide how much he should actually tell her. “I’m … gonna be honest with you. I don’t know the whole story. I know he went to meet with some Gloaming bastard and never came back.” He paused, then added quietly, “Still remember when I felt the sever.”

  Edie knew she shouldn’t ask; it would only upset her. But after so many years of wanting to know more about her dad’s last moments, she couldn’t stop herself. “Sever?”

  “Yeah. When I knew he had died. It hurt for a second, then it was gone. He was gone out of me.” He exhaled. “It felt fuckin’ great. Like I could breathe.”

  Maybe she should feel happy for him—and she did, in a way—but it hurt to hear someone talk about her father’s death like it had been a stroke of good luck. “So when he died, you were … set free?”

  Cal smiled a little. “I stole the car and was on the road within a couple hours. I’ve been in Nevada ever since.”

  “But you came back. To kill me.”

  His smiled died, slowly turning into a grimace. “Yeah, well, like I said … your powers were dormant until you touched something dead. It sent up a signal to anyone looking for someone like you, but especially to me. I was— It’s just like….” He sighed. “When I arrived, I assumed you’d be some big, bad necromancer. Not a dumb kid.”

  “Thanks.” She exhaled shortly. “And now the Aurora and the Gloaming are both looking for me, too?”

  “Now that they know what you are, sure. Those husks you were running from in the park probably came off someone sent to fetch you.”
He glanced over as they exited the highway.

  Edie looked at the exit signs and saw that they were driving out of the city, toward Shipshaven. She’d been here once or twice, usually with Mercy; it was a a seaside town with a few alternative night clubs and some occult shops on the wharf.

  “Anything else weird happen to you, besides the hamster thing?”

  “A couple things.” She looked back at Cal. “Some ... things have been following me. They look like dudes when other people are around, but they chased me home the other day, and I thought I saw— They looked like ... I don’t know. They were really long and white and skinny.”

  Cal frowned. “That’s gonna be a wraith.”

  “Wraith?”

  “They’re what vampires leave behind when they bleed an enthralled human dry.” He paused, making a vague gesture. “Sort of … Class F—”

  “Vampires? You can’t be serious.”

  He looked over at her, brow raised, looking almost as skeptical as she did. “You’re sitting next to a dead guy in a haunted Caddy and you’re gonna stop me at vampires, lady?”

  He had a point. But it was still hard to believe in something like vampires. She could only envision Dracula, or Edward Cullen.

  “Okay, fine. So if a vampire eats a human they’ve mind-controlled or whatever, it makes a wraith?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So I’m being hunted by vampires,” she concluded flatly.

  “Okay, technically, they’re called wights—” Cal stopped himself and shook his head. “Look, it doesn’t matter right now. What I’m getting at is, probably some Gloaming Lord is looking for you. Anyone else following you around?”

  There had been that man with the golden eyes. She’d never forget the color. It had been like the sun was pouring through his irises, a pure yellow-white. He’d saved her from the wraiths, but he hadn’t exactly been kind. She contemplated how to word the rest of her story as they turned down a side street, going about 25 past darkened storefronts.

  Cal was surprisingly patient. Finally, Edie answered him: “Well ... there was this guy, the same night those things came after me. He sort of saved me from them. He had these glowing yellow eyes, and he pushed me on the ground and sort of ... exploded at the wraiths or whatever.”

  “I can guarantee you that was an Auroran vivid.”

  “What’s that?” She looked back at him as they rolled to a stop outside of what appeared to be a book shop.

  Cal nodded, gesturing to the shop. He killed the engine and slid out of the car. “I’ll tell you later, but we gotta get a move on.”

  Edie followed suit, holding her bag close as she got a better look at the book shop, though it was too dark to read the sign.

  It was a Victorian-style corner storefront made of real, old brick, with a second story that loomed over the arched doorway like an awning. Jewelry and heavy-looking medallions hung in the windows: some sort of hammer-looking thing woven from iron, a round medal with runes etched into the surface, necklaces and pins shaped like running wolves and bears and boars. The books laid out in the window looked strange, too: old, the covers sun-bleached and the bindings frayed.

  There was a CLOSED sign in the front window, but Cal tried the handle. Unlocked.

  Edie turned to ask him what kind of shop this was, but he was already halfway through the door, motioning for her to hurry up.

  It was just as dark inside the shop as it was out, and musty, too. Before either of them could get a better look around, though, they were both distracted by the sound of muffled shouting toward the back—a man, it sounded like, broken up by long periods of silence. Whoever he was arguing with was either too scared to yell back or was managing to keep their voice down.

  Edie and Cal traded a look, and strangely, she could almost feel them exchange thoughts. Without speaking, they hurried deeper into the shop, Cal resting a hand on the revolver at the small of his back.

  “Probably in a back room or something,” Edie suggested.

  Cal simply nodded before motioning for her to follow him between the tall, old bookshelves.

  At the ends of the aisles, wooden tables butted up against shelves set with displays of jewelry, wooden and iron figurines, and many other strange and almost otherworldly-looking trinkets of glass and gold, silver and blue and green. They intrigued Edie. It was the kind of place that compelled her to stop and look at every display, like these things were calling to her.

  Maybe there would be time later, if they weren’t about to stop a murder in progress or something. She took in as much of the space as she dared while she followed Cal to the back of the shop.

  They came to a heavy purple curtain that, when Cal pushed it aside, revealed an ancient-looking door bound with worn iron straps and rivets, closed by a rusted latch.

  Cal looked at Edie, catching her eye as he drew his revolver. He nodded between her and the latch, and she took position, poised to lift it when he signaled. He seemed pleased that she followed direction so easily.

  “Ready?” he mouthed, before counting back from three on his mottled fingers.

  On the last count, Edie lifted the latch and pulled the door open fast. The second the path could accommodate his beefy frame, Cal slipped through, gun drawn.

  Should she follow? Edie had only ever seen a gun in person a couple of times, and those had been on policemen. She definitely hadn’t ever been in the middle of a firefight.

  She hesitated in the doorway, but Cal glanced over his shoulder and nodded for her, looking a little irritated.

  It wasn’t a good look for him. She quickly slipped through after him.

  The shortish hallway beyond was even darker than the shop, with no windows. There was a staircase going up to their immediate right, with cardboard boxes stacked several high beside and under it. At the far end of the hall was another doorway, leading to a room that glowed with soft lamplight. The smell of some sort of pleasant, wintery incense drifted from it.

  The conversation drifting out with it, however, was anything but pleasant.

  “I know that you know where she is,” said a man’s voice, rough with stress.

  “You’re mistaken,” came a woman’s voice, probably the other half of the argument Edie and Cal hadn’t been able to hear from the other room. The voice was accented, and calm but firm; irritation stewed just beneath the surface. “There hasn’t been a hellerune in this area for years—”

  “Her father,” spat the angry voice.

  “—and there isn’t likely to be another for a long time, if ever. I don’t have to explain that to you, Blade of Tyr.”

  Cal sidled up to the doorway, concealing himself near a stack of boxes. For a moment, it looked like he planned to wait out the argument and hide from the man as he left. But scuffling and a grunt from the other room spurred him into action, and he jumped around the doorway with Edie right behind.

  As they entered the room, there was an unearthly shriek and a cold, almost-blinding white light. A figure was thrown across the room with a blast of energy and hit a desk, splintering the wood, then crashed into the window beyond and cracked one of the glass panes.

  Edie’s gaze followed the figure as it sank to the floor. It was a man—a familiar man. She recognized the armor, the face, and of course, the golden eyes.

  Standing—or, rather, levitating—at the end of the room closest to the door, hand outstretched, was a being made of wispy blue and white light. An enormous woman, taller than Cal—taller than anyone Edie had ever seen—and built like a warrior. The top half of her moon-white face was obscured by a winged silver helmet, and ghostly platinum braids tumbled down her shoulders. A pair of sharp, almost knife-like black wings erupted from her shoulder blades.

  The blinding light fled from the golden-eyed man and back to the specter.

  And then, in a flit of wings and another wave of light, the unearthly image was gone. In its place stood a middle-aged woman of average height, in jeans and a long-sleeved tunic. Her outstretched
hand trembled. Tattoos blazed azure across her tan, freckled skin as she lowered her arm and took a deep breath. Her crystal-blue eyes were severe but tired as she gazed at the man she’d just thrown.

  Cal lowered his weapon, also looking at him. After a second, the revenant cleared his throat and said, “Guess that handles that.”

  The woman—or whatever she was—finally acknowledged them. She looked to Cal, and in her eyes, recognition quickly turned to puzzlement. Her gaze stilled on him for a few moments before wavering and finally turning to Edie. Something else filled her face then—an emotion Edie couldn’t identify. The woman’s eyes widened, her terse brows knitting and jaw clenching as she inhaled sharply. Across the room, the mysterious stranger—a member of the Aurora, Edie knew now—gave a groan as his body settled, no longer held by the woman’s power.

  “By the Allfather,” the woman murmured, “how you’ve grown.”

  “Hey, Astrid.” Cal tucked his revolver back into his waistband.

  The woman tore her icy gaze from Edie and looked at Cal again, drawing in another breath. “Calcifer … you came back.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  Edie hadn’t known Cal for long, but she’d never heard him sound so miserable. She hugged herself around the middle, suddenly feeling like a jackass for pulling him back to the East Coast. But it wasn’t her fault, right? He’d chosen to come, after all.

  Cal nudged Edie with a leathery arm. “This is the lady I was tellin’ you about. Astrid Fengrave.”

  The woman—Astrid—nodded solemnly and looked to Edie, coming closer. Her movements were hesitant, but Edie had the distinct feeling that this sensitivity and polite awkwardness were not usually the way she did things. In fact, there was something about her that really made Edie want to somersault away and run out of the shop and back down the highway at top speed.

  Cal nudged Edie again, tipping his head and muttering, “It’s okay.”

  “Yes, it’s okay,” Astrid said, stopping her advance toward Edie abruptly and offering her hand—large, freckled, worn from work. “I was wondering when, if ever, you might appear at my doorstep. You probably have no idea who I am, do you, Edith?”