by ToCauson
anyone. We have broken a phasewalker out of the vault, in a few days he will be strong enough to walk through the protective barrier and retrieve the journal. You are only stalling the inevitable.”
Mercy narrowed her eyes. “Looks like you’ll just have to wait then, because I’m not telling you anything.” Viper remained calm as though she hadn’t said anything. Then she stood up, walked around to the other side of the desk and lowered herself to the same level as Mercy.
Oh God. She really wanted to hit her, though she suspected that Viper would have no trepidation to hit back.
“Don’t test me,” she growled, “I could cause you unimaginable pain.”
Mercy smiled. “We can make a night of it. And do you know what the most amusing thing is? I know everything you need to know, but you’ll never be able to get it.”
She closed her eyes and a cold sensation washed over her. Her mind suddenly became blank, she couldn’t remember anything about the journal, or the location of the Lamina. Nothing. “You could get the most skilled clairvoyant in here to explore my mind, but all they would meet is dead ends. I’ve put up a wall in my mind, blocking the information even from me. No amount of torture or reciting boring poems can get me to talk, because I literally don’t know the information anymore.”
Viper pulled back her fist and rammed her knuckles into Mercy’s face, making the world spin. For a moment her mind seemed to go blank as though all knowledge of her existence was falling away as she desperately tried to reach out and maintain a hold of it.
Mercy. That’s my name. Yes, that was it.
Viper stepped in and laid a kick into the centre of Mercy’s chest, causing the chair to rock backwards until it collided with the floor.
Everything went dark. Her identity slipped away again, but this time she couldn’t keep a grip of it. It seemed to evaporate into the distance and didn’t return.
She found herself wondering who she was. Where was she? Why was she here?
Her breathing sped up as she fell into a state of panic, fear spreading over her. A red headed woman was stood over her. She looked angry, and was directing that towards her. Had she done something wrong? If she had, she couldn’t remember.
The red headed woman raised her boot, it seemed so big from all the way up there. Then it plummeted through the air. She didn’t even see it land, but she felt it. She felt it as she was plunged into the darkness.
13
SEA OF SPIRITS
Patience’s mouth opened wide as she gawped at the bloody x which had been drawn onto the wooden floorboard. She wondered why it was there, but that wasn’t at the front of her mind. What she was really thinking about was Mercy’s safety. Blood was never a good sign, that was pretty obvious.
Grim must have known what she was thinking. “I don’t think this blood was lost in an attack.”
“You mean Mercy cut herself?” said Patience.
“I think so. Remember when I took a sample of Bernard’s blood, and said that Mercy might be able to locate him. She might have done a similar thing here, leaving a trail for us to follow.”
“But that didn’t work before.”
“No, because it was being blocked. I feel confident we can make this work though.”
She remembered something. “You said that the admin of the Imperium was a clairvoyant so she could wipe the mind of any mortals that wandered in accidentally. She could help us.”
“Well, it needs a pretty powerful sorcerer,” he said, “it’s not as simple as plucking a memory and disposing of it.”
“We have to try it though.” He nodded.
Wasting no time, they climbed into Bessy and set off down the road. At first she thought they were going to the Imperium, but then they took a left turn rather than a right at the crossroad.
She tried to read Grim’s blank eyes. “Are we not going to the Imperium?”
“No,” he said, “I got a text from Mortus. We have to go see him.”
“We’re in a bit of a hurry.”
“He said it’s urgent. Besides, maybe he’ll help us rescue her.” At the word ‘rescue’, Patience sat back and smiled. In too many movies they would just sit back and focus on the main task, abandoning people to their fate. Not here. They were going to rescue her. No man, well woman, gets left behind.
They parked outside Mortus’ house, not waiting to slip in through the front door. When they couldn’t find him, they climbed down into the basement.
He was sat cross legged in the centre of the room, though his eyes were wide open and greeted them as they entered.
“About time,” he said, there was something about his voice that had pace to it, quite different to the drawl of his tone the last time they met.
“What is it?” said Grim, helping him to his feet.
There was an uncomfortable pause. “It’s Bernard,” he said, turning to talk to Patience, “he’s dead... I’m sorry but his spirit has recently passed through.”
Suddenly, time seemed to freeze as everything else became irrelevant, nothing else mattered. Not the Lamina, not Mercy. Nothing. Her uncle was dead.
Tears began to well up in her eyes as her stomach cried out, though she wiped them away once she realised that they were both looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” said Grim, this time his voice had no patronisation, only sincerity, “he was a good man, and lived a good life.”
Mortus bowed his head slightly. She could tell he wasn’t finished. “He wanted to speak to you,” he said, “as a spirit.”
“Is that possible?” her voice came out harsh and rasping, but she just felt fortunate that there were any sounds at all.
“Yes, it is possible for you to spirit walk with me and speak to your uncle. It is your decision though, some don’t take to it very well. I won’t be able to go in with you since all my power is taken up from sustaining you in that state, you’ll be alone.”
“I want to do it,” she said stubbornly. No way was anyone going to steal the chance to talk with her uncle for the last time, if not to answer her questions, then just to say goodbye.
“Alright,” he said, “sit down in the middle, there.” It was only as he stepped aside that she realised there was a chalk symbol like a pentagram etched onto the floor, though it had seven points rather than the usual five. She sat in the middle of it and crossed her legs like she had seen him do. “Just relax, don’t get scared because you are perfectly safe.”
“I thought you said some don’t ‘take to it’,” she said.
His eyes looked upwards. “Well, some are driven completely insane by the process, but I’m sure you will be fine.”
“I have to say you’re not filling me with confidence.”
Grim laughed. “Didn’t I say he would depress you?”
“Yeah,” she said, “but you never told me he would literally drive me into insanity.”
“It happens to the best of us.”
She took a deep breath and linked her index finger and thumb into a loop, wondering if she should hum.
She dropped the fingers when the two of them looked at her strangely.
“Ready to begin?” he asked. She nodded. “As I say, just relax. Nothing will go wrong, probably.”
He closed his eyes and screwed up his face, splaying his hands out in front with his fingers outstretched in all directions. After a moment, shadows began to reach from his fingers, moving towards Patience. She took one last scared look at Grim before a shadowy cocoon formed around her, blocking her off from the world.
In some ways, for a moment at least, she felt an ethereal sense of solitude, just sat there on her own. It no longer felt like she was crouched down in some dingy basement. She was completely and utterly alone with her thoughts. For a while she dreaded leaving this peace and heading into the world of the spirits, but she looked forward to seeing her uncle one last time.
She became drowsy. It might have been her imagination but it also felt like the cocoon w
as getting smaller, her breathing became tougher and her movements felt sluggish and restricted. There wasn’t even time to register that she passed out because she immediately jumped up again, awake.
Her eyes scanned the environment. It was very dark, with a crusted floor like scolded rocks, and a purple sky with meteors floating off in the distance. She looked up to see a blood red moon, like a deadly eye that watched her from above.
Patience climbed to her feet, and stood over a few patches of withered grass, before walking for a few minutes. It seemed like she was in the middle of nowhere, until she reached a wooden sign saying ‘ River of Woe’, pointing north. Seemed to be a depressing enough name to be the place where the dead people go.
She followed the sign and kept walking, finally seeing something in the distance. On closer inspection, it appeared to be a harbour of some kind. A huge queue of people reached at least a mile away from it, but Patience just pushed through all the people.
“Sorry,” she said, “coming through. I’m looking for someone.” All of the people were extremely pale, some of them with gruesome injuries still showing on them. They all stared at her, most likely because she was skipping the queue. It was a very ‘un-British’ thing to do, but rules and customs were there to be broken.
It took a while, but she managed to wade her way through to the front of the line. In front of her stood a large man, waiting at the side. He was topless, showing his huge muscles, larger than any man she’d ever seen in the mortal world. His eyes were red with a demonic glow, and his fingers curled into
