by Stark, Jenn
Even as I said the words, I realized that no, in fact, a public park in the heart of Dublin was exactly where I would go to stage a confrontation of spectral forces. Even if he couldn’t leverage the ancient holiday completely, Conal still wanted a show, and this was the quickest way for him to get one. That show could be calm and orderly, or it could turn into a nightmare, but either way, he would have the audience he wanted. And he would do it in broad daylight, on the eve of Beltane.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
“Pretty much,” Simon said. “You remember where we stepped away from the park, the entrance where we headed across the street to Miranda’s? I’m there…and, oh. So are you.”
Simon stepped back a little as I pocketed my phone, with barely a fried split end to show for my astral traveling adventure. We headed through the park’s entrance.
“There are cameras all over this park.” Simon tipped his head toward a conspicuous gray box with a flashing red light. “I think everyone’s playing it cool for now until they get their assemblage together. I figure they’re going to emerge into the center of the garden at what’s called the common green.”
“Are they armed?”
“Ceremonially so only, from what I could see, but that actually makes me even more nervous. If they think that they have enough magical abilities at their disposal they don’t need to have conventional weapons, they might be a bigger deal than we suspect.”
“Or they might be really good at bluffing.”
Simon nodded. “Or that.”
We strode deeper into the park, and I noticed something else along the way. Namely, there were a fair number of decidedly non-touristy folk in the park as well, looking ever so slightly not casual. Not paramilitary, and there were no weapons in evidence, but they walked with a purpose that seemed pitched at a higher level than taking their midday constitutional.
Simon noticed it too. “Is that your personal army?”
“Will you stop calling them that? I didn’t ask for an entourage.”
“Which is funny, because you seem uniquely qualified to draw one to you.” I couldn’t argue the point. Simon had seen firsthand my ability to attract unwanted attention. And I did sort of understand the concept of guru attachment. I just didn’t like it being attached to me.
I sighed. “People want to belong to something larger than themselves, especially when they start to believe that they’re also bigger than they thought they were.”
“See? You can do this. I bet there’s an online training program for it. You’d be great.”
I sent him a withering stare that seemed to have absolutely no impact, but we kept walking. It didn’t take long to identify where Conal and his group of Neo-Celts had set up camp. A small gathering had assembled in an open amphitheater that I suspected was used for improv acting during happier times. Conal certainly seemed willing to command the show.
“Justice Wilde, you honor us with your presence,” he announced the moment he caught sight of me.
“Here we go,” Simon muttered.
I approached the Neo-Celts slowly, but not too slowly, like they were a skittish horse about to bolt, and focused on them with my third eye. About a quarter of them were true Connecteds, but the others had only sparks and sputters of ability, nothing cohesive. Was that why so many of them had fallen in line with Conal? They wanted to believe they were something more, or that they could become something more? And once again, was that so wrong?
I guess the answer to that depended largely on what Conal had planned.
Around me, I could feel the net of spectral opposition warriors draw closer. A quick scan of the green with my third eye showed me something else too. While the other mortals in the space, Connected and Unconnected alike, vibrated on typical frequencies, my personal army, as Simon had called them, kicked it up a notch. Tuned as tightly as they could be to me, their minds seemed to be drawing energy from some different level of consciousness…almost like a Zen Theta state. Typically, people didn’t hit Theta-level brain waves until they were deeply unconscious, but these warriors remained wide awake. Despite their thug-like, almost military bearing, now that I was focusing on them, they seemed remarkably chill.
Hopefully, they’d stay that way.
I’d advanced into the field midway when Conal hopped off his platform and walked toward me, Niall and a few others following behind. We were approaching each other like two duelists on a polite field of battle, but I didn’t miss the crowds that were growing.
“Simon,” I muttered.
“Traditional transmissions are all blocked, and we’re working on the arcane web,” he murmured back, looking like any millennial tapping on his phone. “That should be locked down in five minutes if you can keep him talking without going all fancy and shit.”
“You sure about that? What about the Internet being forever and all that?”
He snorted. “Not this time. Conal’s followers can see him, yeah, but there’s nothing being stored. If something does go down here, it’ll be like the Snapchat revolution.”
“It needs to be more like the Men in Black revolution,” I said, taking in the completely obvious plants of plainclothed Garda in the crowd. So far, there weren’t any uniformed police who’d joined the fray, but I had no doubt they were close. And there was only so long you could keep a Dublin law enforcement officer on the hook before he decided to see what the potential fuss was all about. “If this gets ugly, I don’t want a bunch of people comparing notes, even without video evidence.”
“We live in a video-evidence world,” Simon countered, not looking up from his device. “If it wasn’t recorded by all these people? It didn’t happen. Groupthink, opt-in hallucination, you can call it whatever you want. It’s not actionable.” He dropped to muttering for a few seconds, then grunted with frustration. “Yo, I need more time.”
“Then don’t move.” Focusing intently, I created an illusion that I was not one person, but two—and the second me looked like Simon standing tall and fierce. Masked by that illusion, the real Simon kept typing furiously. It would hopefully buy us the time that we needed.
Either way, I didn’t agree fully with Simon’s assessment of the threat here. The power of memory was a deep and dangerous thing. If an entire group thought they’d seen something, but was told they hadn’t, it was a breeding ground for conspiracy. If things went south here, the St. Stephen’s Green incident could live on with the same ferocity as JFK and the grassy knoll, and that wouldn’t help anyone.
Another figure moved in the crowd as my gaze raked across it, instantly recognizable to me, but still catching me off guard. I furrowed my brow. What the devil was the Devil doing here?
“Justice Wilde.” Conal, Niall, and his little retinue of guards stopped in front of me, forcing me to focus on the issue at hand. “The time for the Council to protect the Connecteds of the world is past. We thank you for your service, but it is time for you to step aside.”
“What is it you truly want, Conal?” I countered, and once again, I felt Kreios’s presence in the throng of Neo-Celts and tourists. I didn’t have his ability to force Conal to speak his truth, but when the man spoke again, his voice rang with an undeniable fervency.
“I want what humans have wanted since they first stretched upright on this earth and strode forth—self-dominion. Freedom. The right to evolve and grow and use the power that surges up within them,” he declared. “For too long have the Connecteds of the world bowed beneath the fears of the many. For too long have they cowered and scraped, hiding themselves in the shadows while the many walked in the light. But now, we are the many. We are mighty and strong. Now we are being called to use the gifts of our strength for the good of all, not just for the amusement or wealth or power of the few.”
Conal lifted his arms, and the arms of his small retinue lifted as well, the field suddenly going electric. Projections appeared one after the other around the park, dancing above the ground with a precision that had less to do with
magic and more with badass tech.
“Simon,” I hissed, not moving my lips, but the Fool only glanced around, taking in the images.
“Projections only, nothing recorded. All part of the show.”
Still, my stomach rolled as I took in Conal’s projections. There were easily a dozen violent images being played out on the green, each worse than the last. The Salem witch hunts, the Spanish Inquisition. The Holocaust’s atrocities. The Troubles. Stonings, beheadings, and fire—so much fire. The parade of injustice against those who were believed to be witches or men and women of magic, the forced servitude of alchemists and oracles, the debasement and blinding of those who only ever wanted to look toward the light.
“These are the atrocities we can lay at the feet of the Council, as much as we can lay them at the feet of the mob and the weak and venal governments and religious orders who looked the other way. You all stood by and watched, allowing the blood of the Connecteds to run like rivers, skin to scorch and blacken, families and communities to be torn apart, priceless lore to be ripped from the pages of history and set to flame. You.”
My conscience pricked at me, but the words surging up within me, demanding to be spoken, would do no good—not yet. Not when I still needed to understand Conal’s endgame. I hadn’t been a part of his original plan, I was sure of it, even if he was using my convenient presence to create the conflict he so craved. Like any good political agitator, he had a call to action in mind, and I needed to let him creep toward it—especially since Simon was still typing like mad beside me, for all that he gave the appearance now of standing straight and tall, his eyes on one of the projections.
Finally, one of them flickered. Simon chortled, but his fingers never stopped moving.
Conal narrowed his eyes on Simon and then snapped them back to me. “But the time for dwelling on the past is over, as is the time for Connecteds to bind themselves with the chains of the past. We seek a new beginning, honoring Mother Earth and all who would care for her!”
He waved his hand dramatically, and one by one, the images around the green winked out to be replaced by new images. People marching in the streets of major cities all over the world, carrying branches, flowers, and enormous depictions of the Tree of Life—some carved in wood, some flowing as long cloth banners, some catching in the sunlight as metal shields.
It’s just a parade, I told myself. Parades happen all the time. Parades are allowed, are encouraged, give people the opportunity to express themselves nonviolently. I could see what Conal made sure I saw as well. Not in every city, but in enough, there were men and women in the crowd watching the chanting and singing Neo-Celts, men and women who watched them with hard eyes and an air of expectation. The spectral opposition warriors, my unwanted deputies, ready to make sure those with the power didn’t wield it to the detriment of others. It would have been easier to be on the side of the people with flowers in their hair, frankly.
My eyes leapt from scene to scene as Conal’s exhortations grew more impassioned. “Look hard and well, Justice Wilde. These are the people your Council has not helped all these long years. These are the people who now no longer need your help. We are the Connecteds of the world, and we can help ourselves.”
Another shift in the crowd showed me the High Priestess, looking bored—because that was her look. But she was here. And the Devil was here, and the Magician as well, I knew, ranged around the Green Knight in a triangle, keeping him in the center. I didn’t know exactly how you could force a person to ascend, but the odds were not looking good for Conal to escape their net.
Only, I didn’t want this asshat to ascend. “You idiot,” I seethed. “You think that because you weren’t a part of any psychic community other than your own, you’re all that’s out there? The houses of cards have worked with Connecteds for hundreds of years. The Council didn’t need to help mortals find their magic. They found it themselves. You do your magic, your way, in accordance with your druidic upbringing. But the other Connecteds of the world deserve to find their way too.”
“In the dark?” he demanded. “In the shadows?”
“In their own time,” I countered. “Not yours. You with your grand robes and your privilege and your safety don't get to choose for the rest of the world.”
“And I say you are wrong!” He gestured to the displays of the dozen cities flickering around the green.
And then, of course, it happened. It happened so quickly that it was hard to say if it was orchestrated by Conal or simply if the first action was the catalyst for all the rest, but in each of the cities being shown in the projections, a horrifying chain reaction began. A shove. A curse. A thrown rock. A woman going sprawling, a man struck—
A battle joined.
Only this was a battle of magic.
Multicolored fire leapt in the streets of LA, the Neo-Celts of Rio de Janeiro suddenly bristled with weapons, and the lilting Irish chants in Paris rose in force and weight to become a screaming torrent of sound, driving everyone to their knees. The spectral opposition warriors leapt instantly into the fray, of course, and their own Connected abilities were brought to bear, to suppress, to stop, to quell—
I lifted my hands and swept them out, sharp and wide, issuing my orders with abrupt, unflinching intensity, touching their minds as they quivered on the brink of manifestation, shimmering in theta state. “Protect!”
In every projection, in every image…my spectral opposition warriors stopped. And were immediately overwhelmed, of course, because there were too many striking at them. But even as they were buried, crouched and cowering, their minds shifted, their energy grew, their protective power building and building—
While the mob only grew more frenzied.
“Conal!” I shouted. “You are starting this. You will end it.”
Because it all came down to him. He was the nexus point. He was the threat. The time for me to act was now.
“I will not stop,” he said, turning to me, his face swathed in glee. He wasn’t paying attention to the Council members who now stepped out of the throng, and he certainly wasn’t paying attention to the police officers moving more quickly through the people, people who’d begun chanting excitedly and gathering around the projections with eager delight. There was chaos in Amsterdam, a full-on riot in Moscow, and Cairo—
“I said, enough.” Now it was my turn to lift my arms, and all over the world, plain for anyone to watch, my warriors—unwanted, unbidden, untrained, untried, but mine nonetheless, their desperate attempts to follow me barely walking the line between panic and protection, but nevertheless walking that line, seeking the balance—lifted their arms too. The energy crackling in their minds coalesced into physical form, serving as both my vessel and my fuel. Blue fire leapt from man to woman and back again, crisscrossing the parade routes, stretching out over the larger city, while overtop it, red murky smoke steamed and danced. The fighting stopped, the raging and rioting stopped—everything stopped, for at least a moment.
Conal, however, didn’t stop.
“You dare,” he raged, and he turned in a quick circle, his arms flinging wide as his entourage fell to their knees—everyone except for Conal’s brother, who appeared turned to stone as he stared, wide-eyed, at his brother. Suddenly, new images appeared all around the green—doorways shimmering with silver carvings. My local band of spectral opposition warriors sprang into position, their hands crackling with my own shared blue and red fire, but horror transfixed their faces.
I could relate.
Conal’s mouth opened, but his voice was strangely garbled. “Too long has the tyranny of the foul and debased taken over this world, ruining it and defiling it. The time to step into the light is come!”
He spoke in a language that I suspected only I could hear…because I had heard it once before. The chittering, rumbling hissing of a company of shadows.
The doors that led to the In Between sprang open, and chaos poured forth.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Th
e dozens of different creatures that hurtled out of the twenty-one doors of the In Between swept through the green so quickly, I barely got my hands down in time to set up a protective barrier to protect the throng of onlookers and Garda officers. Unfortunately, that meant I’d trapped most of Conal’s followers in with us, along with my brave band of fighters.
“Simon,” I yelled as I turned, then turned again, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. “The Neo-Celts!”
“Got ’em!” Simon surged forward, breaking the illusory image I’d built around him and rushing straight for Conal’s band.
Meanwhile, the first wave of beasts hit me, a flurry of hissing wraiths with bright blue eyes, grasping claws, and hulking shoulders. I reacted a little too slowly, my mind fractured in a million different places. First I focused on the efforts of the spectral opposition warriors both here and working to contain the angry crowds on both sides of the fight in the streets of the major cities of the world. Then I skipped to the question of how in the hell Conal could have summoned the power to animate the sacred doors of the In Between. And finally, I realized my protective barrier was being breached despite my best efforts. Far too many of the throng of people surging forward to join the fray and not enough running for their lives the way they should be.
The first attacker from the In Between, a neon-red wraith, brought me fully back into the present moment as it reached out and raked me with a long, sicklelike claw. Its touch was as cold as loneliness, and I staggered back, reeling with the sudden wash of understanding that swept over me.
Hallowed, Hallowed, Hallowed, Hallowed…
I could hear them. I could see them. And, unlike the first time we’d met in the shadows of the In Between, I could understand the language they were speaking, the hissing excitement of what was to come.
