by R. L. King
“He destroyed our bodies.”
Even in spirit form, a chill passed through Stone as he caught on to their implication.
Oh, bloody hell, no…
They were right. Brathwaite had destroyed the sacrifices’ remains—not directly, perhaps, but he might as well have by directing them to a place where the light of sunrise would turn them to dust.
And yet the echoes still lingered, as potent as ever.
Mundane echoes hadn’t been scattered by destroying their physical bodies.
James Brathwaite hadn’t been a mundane. In life, he had been a powerful and resourceful mage—one with access to long-forgotten, forbidden techniques.
No…
“You’re saying…he’s still here?”
“He is here. He is close,” said a man.
“Very close to you.” The last voice was a child’s, and had a hint of a giggle.
And in a sudden flash, Stone got it.
All at once, a single thought rose and submerged everything else: at that moment, the echoes, the crimes committed against them, the hazy room no longer mattered to him.
He had left his body unprotected.
Vacant.
When Verity’s elixir had cast his spirit into the astral realm, his physical form remained on the material plane, an empty shell. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, since even if mundane echoes could possess mages’ bodies, the protective circle would have prevented them from doing so.
But if destroying Brathwaite’s body hadn’t sent his spirit on—
The echoes watched him, expressionless, as he cast about for the silvery cord that connected his spirit to his physical body. “I’ve got to go back,” he told them, and heard the desperate edge to his voice. “Please—I’ll return. We’ll work this out, I promise. But now I’ve got to go.”
He didn’t wait for their answer. As soon as he identified the cord, faint and barely visible against the shifting fog, he took hold of it, gripping it in his fists like the lifeline it was. “We’ll talk again!” he called to them, and tightened his grip as he prepared to follow the cord back to his body. It should be a simple matter of merging the two together, at which point he would awaken.
For a moment, his astral body flowed along the cord just as he’d expected it to. The hazy fog began to lift, and he caught a distorted glimpse of the circular room, the altar in the center of the circle, and the brighter glows of his friends’ auras. The cord snaked down and disappeared into his still, prone form lying atop the altar.
Just another moment—
His astral form slammed hard into his body…
…and stopped, bouncing off as surely as if he had attempted to run into a solid wall. In his reeling mind, he heard mocking laughter.
Staggering backward, he nearly fell over. He looked wildly around him.
The echoes were back. The wooden-walled room with its tiered platforms was back. But this time, they seemed even less substantial than before. Voices swirled around each other, around his head.
“Punish the foul one for what he has done to us…”
“Remember us…”
“Aid those who come after…”
“Will you do these things, son of Stone? Will you give your word?”
Stone had no idea at this point if he could ever even get back to his body, but that didn’t matter. “Yes. Yes,” he called. “I will. I’ll do my best, I promise you. I’m sorry.”
Around him, the room grew hazier.
One by one, the faces, their gazes still locked on him as he stood surrounded by them, began to fade.
The men, the women, the children—the innocent souls his family had committed a monstrous act against—shimmered from view. Some went quickly, others more slowly, but they all went. Stone stood where he was, turning slowly in place, watching the astral fog swallow them. Shaking, he clenched his fists and bowed his head as a profound sense of completeness settled over him. He felt as if all around him, something was being cleansed.
At last, only one remained: large eyes regarded him out of the streaked, dirty face of a child. “Don’t let us be forgotten…” it whispered, and then it, too was, gone, leaving Stone standing alone and naked in a foggy chamber devoid of any substance.
“I won’t…” he growled. “I promise—I won’t.”
But before he could keep that promise, he’d have to kick James Brathwaite’s squatting arse out of his body.
And that wasn’t going to be easy.
40
“Such power!” Stone said with an unwholesome smile, backing up, a shield shimmering around him. “Ah, yes. This will do nicely. Fitting, too.”
He surveyed the fallen figures around them as they struggled to rise. “It’s unfortunate that you saw through my ruse so quickly, but no matter. It changes nothing. If you are wise, you will remain where you are and make no attempt to impede my exit.” The voice was Stone’s, but yet it wasn’t. Everything about it that made it uniquely Stone—his accent, his manner of speech, his cadence—had changed. While the accent was still British, the tones were deeper, more precise, and far colder.
“What the hell—?” Ian demanded, scrambling to his feet. “Dad—?”
“That’s not your dad, Ian,” Verity said grimly.
“What?”
“Oh, bloody hell,” Eddie said. He was slower to rise, and bent to give Ward a hand up. “No.”
“What’s going on?” Ian’s gaze shifted between his friends and Stone, his confusion obvious.
Instead of Ian, Eddie addressed Stone. “James Brathwaite, I presume?”
“What?” Verity didn’t know where to look. Like Ian, she shifted between Eddie and Ward, who stood next to each other with similar expressions of shock, and Stone, who looked smug and possibly mad behind his glowing shield. “Eddie, what—”
“He played us,” Eddie said. He didn’t move forward, but his whole body tensed as if he was preparing to. “The bastard played us for bloody fools.”
“Brathwaite? I thought he was gone.”
Stone chuckled. “Not gone, woman. Merely concealed. Waiting. I am nothing if not patient. When I heard Stone’s foolish plan to placate those pathetic wretches, I saw my chance.”
“Your chance for what?” Ian looked as if he was ready to attack Stone, but he held back for the moment.
“To take over your father’s body,” Ward said, glaring at Stone. “With his spirit absent, his body became an empty vessel.”
“What?” Ian’s voice rose with his anger. “And you let him do it, knowing that could happen?”
“We didn’t know,” Eddie said. “Mundane auras can’t possess mages’ bodies. Remember, we thought we’d sent Brathwaite on when we burned ’is body.”
Stone chuckled. “Thank you for that as well, fools. You thought you had rid yourself of me, but in truth all you did was exactly as I had hoped—you released my spirit from its confinement to this accursed house.” He took a step backward toward the exit, his steady, mad gaze never leaving the four of them. “And now, I will take my leave of you. In gratitude for the opportunity you have given me, I won’t kill you where you stand—if you make no attempt to follow me.”
“That’s not happening,” Ian said. “You’re not taking off with my father’s body. Get the hell out of it now.”
“He’s right,” Verity said, raising her hands to summon crackling lighting around them. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Stone laughed. “So you intend to destroy Stone’s body, then? Even if you succeed in driving me out—no simple feat, I must add—his lost spirit will have no vessel to return to.”
“Oh, God…” She realized he was right. It would take strong magic to punch through his shield—strong enough that they could risk doing serious injury to Stone if they managed it. Was Brathwaite somehow making use of Stone’s own magic, or channeling his own through his borrowed body? “Eddie—Arthur—what do we do?”
“Yes, what do you do?” Stone’s voice was
mocking now, a singsong parody of Verity’s. His gaze fell on her, crawling up and down her body in an uncomfortably lascivious way. “I must say, Stone is a lucky man, to have such a fine, nubile young wench at his command. Perhaps I should remain here for a while and sample a taste of your charms as well. It has been far too long since I’ve experienced the pleasures of the flesh.” His expression turned contemptuous. “Though I know not why he allows you to go about in such unseemly garments.”
“Wench?” Verity’s entire body clenched, and lightning flickered around her hands.
“Allows?”
“Verity—” Eddie warned. “Don’t.”
“This guy’s an asshole, Eddie, and he’s not getting away with Doc’s body.”
“Listen to the man, wench,” Stone advised. “The lot of you together could scarce touch me. You would be wise to slink back into your holes and let me depart without issue.”
“We can’t let him go!” Ian said. “If he gets away we might never find him. And what will happen to Dad’s spirit if it doesn’t have a body to return to?”
“It will die,” Ward said grimly. “Spirits of the living can’t remain in the astral realm forever. If he can’t return soon, the anchoring cord will fade, and his spirit will linger there until it dissipates.”
Stone smiled. “Indeed it will—and a good riddance to the accursed spawn of my betrayers.”
Verity got a sudden, desperate idea. The man seemed to like the sound of his own voice, and obviously didn’t doubt his own ability to deal with them if they attacked him—perhaps if they kept him talking, Eddie and Ward would have time to come up with something.
“What do you mean, your betrayers?” she asked. “Is that what happened? Did you have something planned with Doc’s ancestors, and they betrayed you?”
Stone had been backing toward the door, but at her words he stopped. “Indeed they did, wench.”
“Is it because they wouldn’t agree to your plan to use necromancy?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Truly, perhaps there is more to you than a mere foolish woman. How do you know of these things?”
Eddie caught on to Verity’s plan. “We found your journals. Stone’s ancestors were tryin’ to deal with somethin’ powerful and dangerous, and you thought you had the answer.”
“I did have the answer!” The madness bloomed in Stone’s eyes again, and the others flinched back. “My companions—I thought they were my companions—were weak. They made as if to follow my suggestion, but at the last moment they turned on me like the curs I should have known them to be.”
“How did they do that?” Ward asked.
“They incapacitated me as I worked my preparations!” Stone began stalking back and forth, but he neither moved away from the door, dropped his shield, nor took his gaze off the others. “They conspired together, Cyrus and his damnable fellows, to take advantage of me when I was at the most vulnerable stage of my ritual.”
“And they sacrificed you to gain your power,” Eddie said. “They rejected your dark ways for their own, which were almost as dark.”
Stone snorted. “They were not virtuous men, as much as they might have liked the dull-witted masses to believe they were. My methods, at least, did not require murder. The dead are dead—their souls have moved on to their rest. I merely sought to use the strength of their bodies to contain the fiend long enough to seal it away.”
“Who was this ‘fiend’?” Verity asked. “We found the sealed chamber—is that where he is? Who is ‘A’?”
“Ah, yes.” He chuckled, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “After all they have done, their efforts ultimately proved for nought. The fiend is loose in the world again, and if you should encounter him, you might wish I had given you a clean death here.”
“But who is ’e?” Eddie asked. “Is ’e a monster? A man? A powerful mage?”
Stone’s chuckle rose to a cackling laugh. “You are all such fools, and know so little. Is he a monster? Most certainly. A man? He plays at being a man, but I know better. He is a foul creature, best consigned to the pits of Hell.”
Verity glanced at Eddie, but she could see from his face that he hadn’t come up with anything, and neither had Ward. “Where will you go if you leave here?”
A slow, unpleasant smile spread across Stone’s face, making him nearly unrecognizable as their friend. “You know, wench, you do make a good point.” He spread his hands. “I have a fine, new body now—far more hale and strong and fair than my old carcass—and with it, a new face.” He raised his hand, first rubbing it over Stone’s jaw, then pointing toward the ceiling. “Perhaps I cannot return to my own home, but this one will suit me nicely, I think. The only flaw in my plan is that all of you remain to reveal my duplicity. Let us see if I might remedy that.”
Perhaps because she knew Stone so intimately, Verity saw the slight change in his expression first. “Down!” she yelled.
She barely got the word out before Stone whipped both hands around and unleashed a sheet of pure magical energy at her and the others.
41
Stone had never felt so truly, profoundly alone.
No sign of the echoes, the room, or the partition remained. He stood in the center of the hazy space, surrounded by the indistinct shapes of the circular ritual room, the altar in its center, and the glowing remains of the circle.
Do not panic, he ordered himself. If you lose your mind, you’ll never get back.
If he tried hard, focusing with all his effort, he could barely make out the glowing figures of his friends. They were still in the ritual room, staring down at his unmoving body, their auras alight with unease and concern.
They don’t know.
How could they know? They think Brathwaite’s gone. How would they suspect?
He tried again to follow the cord back to his body, mustering all the strength he could manage, but it did no good. Unlike his friends, James Brathwaite knew exactly what was going on, and he had no intention of relinquishing his freshly-gained new body to its original owner.
Hell, he’d probably planned this all along. He probably remained quiet to let us believe we’d sent him on, waiting for an opportunity just like this one.
Damn you, Brathwaite—you’re not getting my body!
He pounded again and again, but he might as well have been a small child battering a brick wall. As long as Brathwaite was in there, as long as he was focused on shutting Stone out, there was little he could do.
Like Brathwaite himself, he’d have to wait until the current occupant was distracted, then make another attempt. But unless Brathwaite deserted his body—highly unlikely—it would be much more difficult even then.
He stepped back, forcing himself to think. He couldn’t simply flail away like a madman—that would only deplete his strength, and strength wasn’t infinite here, even for a spirit as powerful as his. Brathwaite had somehow figured out how to access magical power even as a spirit, but Stone had no idea how he’d done it. Given time he might, but he didn’t have that.
He did have one thing working in his favor: a body maintained a natural affinity for its own spirit, even when the two were separated. Just as a physical body or even a construct wanted to remain in its own dimensional space, a living spirit retained a connection to its body. That was why even mundanes were difficult to possess, except by powerful spirits, and why mages were nearly impossible.
The only exception, and the reason Stone couldn’t help feeling foolish even though he knew he had no cause to, was if the mage’s spirit vacated the body voluntarily. Doing that created an empty vessel, and magic, just like nature, abhorred a vacuum. That was the reason mages almost always cast elaborate protective rituals when traveling the astral realms, and why most of them didn’t even have the courage to do it. Stone had taken a dangerous chance, but not a foolhardy one: normally, the protections around the house and the more minimal ones from the simple circle would have kept out any opportunistic spirits. But Brathwaite’s presence comp
licated things.
Stone growled, the sound echoing around the chamber. He did have that one thing in his favor—but he also had something equally potent working against him.
Time.
It was another reason why astral travel wasn’t common among mages: the spirit wasn’t meant to leave the body for lengthy periods. Normally, the separation of the spirit from its body only occurred at the time of death, and while mages and other mystics had long ago figured out how to perform the technique, none of them had ever discovered a way to prevent the silvery cord connecting the two from steadily degrading. How much time passed before it severed and stranded the mage’s spirit in the astral realm varied from mage to mage based on a combination of innate magical strength and willpower, but even the most powerful mages couldn’t remain separated from their bodies for more than a few hours.
Even staying away that long usually resulted in exhaustion upon returning, and if the spirit tarried in the astral realm long enough for the cord to fade completely, the connection severed and the spirit was left to roam, untethered, until it finally dissipated. No one knew where most such spirits ended up—whether they passed on to whatever afterlife awaited them, became one with the Universe, or merely faded away. Some of them (like Brathwaite, apparently) figured out a way to continue existing on the astral, but that was exceedingly rare.
Meanwhile, the body left behind, if not occupied by another spirit almost immediately after the cord severed, would simply slip into a coma and die. Spirits couldn’t occupy dead bodies—or at least that was the prevailing belief in magical circles. Brathwaite and his necromancy might cast doubt on that.
Stone glanced down at the cord leading to his own body. He could see it more clearly now that the fog had dissipated—that must mean the elixir’s power had likewise faded. It remained strong now, but that was no cause for celebration: another spirit already occupying his body would increase the cord’s degradation rate. Eventually, the vessel would accept the new occupant as the rightful one—and that wouldn’t take long.
