Ancestral

by Kirstie Keatings

  The spirit looked at her as she insulted him, his eyes full of anger which immediately gave away to Lila that he wasn't too bright – he was one of those driven by their hate and fury at the world they'd left behind, and his new master had only offered him guidance in where to direct that anger, probably with the empty promise that they'd help him live again once they were done with their task. It gave her an idea.

  “You know that whoever told you to do this can't actually help you come back, right?” she asked. “You're dead. Dead things don't come back to life unless their own body is still warm when they do. There's only one way to come back, and I can help you do that. I can get you a new life, one with your memories intact.” she promised, only half telling the truth. She could help the man move on – his memories wouldn't matter too much to him when he did, and even if it would have mattered, he wouldn't remember enough to be annoyed with her.

  She could tell by the subtle change in his features that he believed her, but that he was suspicious of her motives. “Why would you help me?” he asked, tightening his grip as if he'd forgotten that Rose couldn't feel pain in this world – which was why Lila hadn't made an immediate physical attack against him.

  “Because I'm selfish. That's my friend you've got there, I've already lost my parents. I'm sure your master told you all about that. I just don't wanna lose any more of my friends.” she feigned an innocent, lost look, one that he seemed to relish and believe – after all, to him they were just silly little girls, the kind he'd dealt with his entire life and now his death. Humming lightly, he released Rose, his warning glance telling her to stay where she was.

  “Fine.” he growled, his face twisting in a way which made Lila realise just how swollen and bulbous it was. She couldn't help musing that he was probably a victim of drowning, the darkness in his soul making his spirit resemble his corpse at the point of death more and more each day he lingered here. One day, if he as allowed to remain, he'd become nothing but a voiceless poltergeist who would spew water every time he opened his mouth. “But you help me first. Right now.”

  She nodded, maintaining her mask of innocence. “Absolutely.” she promised, then moved over to him. After he flinched initially, he relaxed again to let her do what she needed to do. Briefly speaking in Gaelic, she touched his forehead and pushed him towards his path to his next life.

  If he realised at any point that she was tricking him, he had no time to show it. Almost instantly, he began to flicker in and out of view as if someone had attempted to retune an old TV set. After a moment,he passed out of existence entirely, or at least as much as they were concerned. Giving a soft shudder, Lila pulled her fingers away from where the man had been, though they were now suspended in mid air. She could feel the shadow of his passing, and had to pull herself from the brink of melancholy.

  A hand touched her shoulder, breaking her free from her depressive trip and making her twist around rapidly to see who was there. Of course, it was Rose. How could she have forgotten? The man's expulsion from the spirit world had deeply affected her, more so than any other she'd done before. This was an oddity, since she really hadn't liked the man, but she had to put it down to the way the spirit worlds had collided at that moment. It was the only thing that made sense to her.

  Rose gave her a concerned look over, pursing her lips before talking. “You okay?” her tone was gentle, even if it contained her usual brashness which implied that she was fine, she didn't need looking after – the same tone many teenagers took when they'd been through a lot but didn't know how to express themselves. Being only a few years older, Lila understood perfectly. Nodding, Lila took a deep breath, shaking off the after-effects of the man's passing and looking around.

  “Okay, I'm guessing we really don't have a lot of time here.” she mused. Rose had already been unconscious for an entire day, and only the fact that someone specific was obviously intended for her body ensured that she wasn't already possessed – which she wasn't. The nurses and staff here at the hospital would have called Adam and informed him that his sister was up and about as he was her guardian. Looking around, Lila momentarily felt lost, and worried that her body had died in her absence. As the panic welled in her throat, she forced it down and inhaled deeply – an unnecessary task, since she didn't need to breathe here, but a comforting one nonetheless. Centring herself, she forced her mind to retrace her link to the physical, attempting to stop anxiety from rendering her useless. There was no time for a panic attack.

  For a heart-stopping moment, everything was blank, but then she found it. A small fluttering, indicating that she was still alive, though her condition must have been worrying to her companions. Without the soul in the body, it essentially went into a state of survival, the heart slowing, making the body colder and slowing the nerve impulses to the brain. It could easily seem as though someone were on the brink of death, though Lila knew she'd be okay, even without hospital intervention.

  It wasn't until she opened her eyes that she even realised she'd closed them in her search, and Rose looked anxious, unsure of herself. Reaching out, she rubbed her upper arm soothingly. “I'm okay.” she promised. “Just had to check what was going on in the real world so I know they're not pronouncing me as dead or anything.” Lila's laugh was nervous. Taking Rose's hand again, she used her renewed attachment to life as a compass, finding Rose's room without too much more effort. What they found there, however, made her heart flutter in panic. Souls surrounded Rose's physical body, obviously trying to decide if they wanted to claim it despite whatever the person in charge of them ordered.

  Lila thrust Rose forward, standing back to back with her between Rose's body and the souls. “Back off!” she warned. To Rose, she spoke quietly. “You need to touch your body and chant, 'Ego aeterno, a capite ad calcem.' and visualise yourself returning to your body. Do it now.” she instructed, then turned back to the spirits, feeling her magick tingle inside her fingertips. Just because she was part of one coven, it didn't mean she didn't have minor access to the other elements.

  Manipulating water, by far the easiest to pull together in this realm, which always seemed to exude a damp feeling, she used it to create a wall between her and the spirits, essentially blocking them from getting to Rose. She didn't hear the younger girl utter the words, the strain from maintaining magick when her physical form was so weak utterly exhausting. Suddenly, she heard a gasp behind her, looking round just in time to see Rose ripping out a ventilator from her throat. Lila winced. That had to hurt. The girl looked around to where she thought Lila was, croaking out a, “Go.” insistently.

  Lila didn't need to be told twice.

  Chapter Ten

  Dropping the wall of water, she barely took a moment to register the wave of tiredness which threatened to drag her into the realm of confused spirits, something it could take weeks to recover from, weeks she simply didn't have. Forcing herself to ignore it, she bolted down the hallway, acting on pure instinct as she followed the trail to her body. All around, she could feel the pressure of angry spirits following her, grabbing at her, furious at being denied a chance to live again. Once, she was grabbed and almost pulled back, but she had just enough time to perform the short rite which forced the spirit to move on, and then she was moving again, her feet hitting the ground with a loud booming noise which she would have been convinced everyone could hear in the living world if she didn't know so inherently that they could not, that the spirit world was completely invisible. Well, at least she had known this as fact; with the way things were going, the spirit world and the living world could very well -

  Oh. Lila skidded to a stop, looking around at the aimless spirits. It seemed that her pursuers had given up the chase, probably lost somewhere in the confusing turns that their minds conjured up for them. She swallowed hard, looking around. Oh no. She had just come to a startling realisation – their parents murders had been blood rites to corrupt their spirits, yes, but it had also been a murder of all five elements at the central point of sac
red pentagram, one which was centuries old. With the attacks on Rose, the way she'd slipped into Death so easily twice now, and the way that all of the different worlds seemed to be colliding, it really should have come to her sooner. She mentally kicked herself, forcing herself to walk on even though she was slightly stricken with terror. Secretly, she wondered if one of the others would have done better with her ability. Self-doubt was crippling, and she knew that she would kick herself over this failure for days, maybe even weeks or months to come – depending on the outcome of the battle they were now facing.

  By the time she reached the room where they had her hooked up to monitors, she had convinced herself that the only way to redeem this failure was to figure out who was betraying them, what she had to do to end this and right the balance between life, death and all of the elements which bound them. As the elected leader of the five covens, it was her duty to do so.

  Looking at the four figures huddled around her body, she tried to read their auras, but it was nigh on impossible to do so. Someone who was emotional shared a similar colour blend as someone who was thinking dark thoughts. There were differences, but she was nowhere near skilled enough to tell them apart at that moment. On this front, she was completely alone. She was going to have to trust her instincts; instincts which had failed her up til now. No pressure, then.

  Crossing the room to her body, she touched the arm, marvelling at how cold she was before she whispered the Latin necessary to return to the form. Immediately, she was hit with a wave of nausea and pain, and almost regretted coming back so soon. If she had the time, she would have checked back out and hung around playing pranks until her body had healed enough to return to painlessly. She wondered if that was what most coma patients did, hanging around to listen to what their loved ones had to say before they chose to return. Though, it was far more difficult for a civilian to return to their bodies without the short Latin incantation. Most spirit users were taught this incantation as soon as they reached the age in which their power would manifest – often as young as 5, sometimes from as young as 2, which had been the case with Lila.

  Coughing, she felt like her lungs were full of dust. As soon as she tipped her head to the side, she was assaulted by the witches around her jumping up and hanging over her, asking if she was okay, touching her hair, apologising for touching her hair and asking if it hurt. Holding up her hand as if to ward them off, they got the message and backed away, though they still looked anxious.

  “Rose is awake. Found her.” she croaked, sticking to short sentences. Adam's head shot up, his attention raptly on her. He seemed to waver with indecision, and she gave him a comforting smile. “S'okay. Go see her.” she offered, and his face relaxed into gratitude. He leaned down and gave her a gentle hug. “I'm glad you're okay.” he murmured, then left the room, walking purposefully down to the ward where they kept the coma victims. Lila almost wished she was a fly on the wall so that she could see the reaction of the nurses when he arrived without even being called or visited by a doctor to tell him the news. It was always funny to be a witch and have that kind of interaction – civilians were always a little confused by it, and while she had no ill will against them, there was always the comedy which came from having an in joke.

  Looking round at the others, she gave them an apologetic look. “I'm sorry I didn't just come straight back. It occurred to me that I had an opportunity to help Rose get back where she belonged.” she explained, then looked down at the wires and clips on her body, each monitoring one system or another. It made her shudder; she hated hospitals, and the most recent visit she'd had was to the hospital morgue to identify her parents bodies. The reminder was not appreciated. Reaching down, she started to rip wires and needles off of her body, the hairs in her arm ripping off painfully and the needles leaving a small trail of blood in their path which stopped bleeding quickly. She knew that the areas would bruise without help and made a mental note to make an arnica poultice when she got home.

  Home. For a moment she had forgotten that she wasn't going home right away. She had also forgotten that her car, the closest thing she had to home, had just been totalled, at the mercy of the tree they had collided into. Would it be salvageable? In her musings, she had completely missed the protests of everyone around her at the way she had removed herself from hospital care in less than a minute. She realised that this was the second time she'd had a concussion in a week, and for some reason this made her chuckle numbly.

  “My car?” she asked, her head feeling foggy, no doubt because of the medication in her system. From the looks the others gave her in return, she wasn't sure she wanted the answer.

  “Well.. it...” Troy began, and she really looked at him for the first time. He was a little battered and bruised, one arm in a sling and his shirt covered in blood.

  “Woah, are you okay? The blood...” she interrupted him.

  Troy glanced down at his shirt, looking confused. “Li, this isn't my blood. Its yours.” he answered, and she took another mental stock of her body. She hurt everywhere, so it didn't exactly give her an idea of what he meant. Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she attempted to stand, immediately giving a yelp. Troy was at her side seconds later, wrapping a strong arm around her. “You're nuts. Seriously. How are you even vaguely standing right now? You lost a lot of blood. Idiot.” the last word was said affectionately, so she didn't take it personally.

  Sadie, who had been standing at the edge of the room, jumped straight into action. “I'll get a wheelchair.” she offered, quickly heading out of the room. Lila glanced at her, then gave Troy an inquisitive look. He clucked his tongue before giving a half-shrug.

  “She's been kinda weird since we got here. She was with Rose, too. I think she's still struggling with the whole thing of losing her parents and then her mum's ghost being the one who originally attacked you. Its been a busy week.” he frowned, and she nodded. It made perfect sense.

  “She told me that her mum didn't die quickly.” Elsie piped up. “She overheard the doctors talking about how she'd actually died on the way to surgery. Lila grimaced. No wonder Sadie was freaking out. If she'd known that a hospital had been in charge of her parents and that they'd died anyway, sitting watching a friend who had been involved in a car accident would be permanently punctuated by the fear that they wouldn't survive despite the many different ways in which the hospital was protecting her from that fate. It didn't exactly inspire confidence. Not that this was the hospital's fault – they had simply been through a lot in the last week.

  Sadie returned with the wheelchair and Lila sat in it carefully, finally getting a look at what was stopping her from being able to stand. Thanks to the short and not exactly modest gown the hospital had provided, the material barely covered her, high above her knee, revealing a long, stitched cut along the inside of her thigh. When she pulled it a little higher, she noted that it curled round the front of her thigh and stopped a good few inches from her hip. It looked deep, but the fact that she was still alive told her that it wasn't an arterial cut. It also explained why she had felt such trouble in sensing the link between herself and her body while she had been in the spirit realm. She had thought that it was down to the odd changes implemented in the last week, but an injury like this was a more likely scenario, and also brought a sense of relief; she wasn't sure she was able to handle any more changes to what she knew. It was more than a little overwhelming.

  Looking around the others, she wondered what else she didn't know. The lines were being drawn, and she needed to know who her enemies were. Their lives literally depended upon it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Leaving the hospital was an exercise in patience – the nurses were less than happy to release Lila, never mind letting Rose walk out of there. However, they could do no more than have it written down that they were being discharged against the will of their doctors. Adam did worry about it, but Lila assured him that Rose would suffer no after-effects of her journey into the spirit world. She was
careful to call it that instead of calling it Death, which is what that place really was. When they'd met up, Rose had run up to Lila and threw her arms around her, then proclaimed that she was starving. After a quick meal at the hospital's cafeteria, Lila found a bathroom and Elsie helped her to change into one of the outfits she had. Elsie's clothes were too big for her, since the girl was a lot taller than her, but her own clothes had been destroyed in the car wreck so she had no choice but to deal with it. Not that anyone would be looking at her clothes in the near future. She had a cut on her forehead, bruising curling around one side of her face. In one corner of her mouth, he lip had split, not that she had any knowledge of this happening. Seemingly, she had been knocked unconscious almost immediately.

  At least she knew why they had suffered such bad luck recently. It wasn't random oddity, it wasn't something they'd done; it was something targeting them and actively trying to take them out. She fully believed the Nain Rouge's comments about a spy in the ranks, and she was sure Adam did, too. The fact that his sister had been attacked basically vindicated him in her eyes. Maybe it was naïve, but she couldn't imagine him putting Rose into that situation, at any cost.

  That left Elsie, Sadie, and Troy. Truthfully she struggled to believe that any of them were capable of this. Elsie was standoffish but otherwise extremely pleasant, Troy was too open and friendly to suspect, and Sadie was gentle and reliable, someone you could count on when it mattered. Her normal instincts had obviously been conflicted by the events they'd already gone through; She wished there were some way she, or someone she could trust, could look at the small group with an objective eye.