by T. S. Mann
With that, she and Brother Falcon left the office together and headed off towards the break room, where the bodies of the Sullivan brothers awaited.
“Okay,” Electra said to the paladin. “We need Matt and/or his brother to help us find St. Angel. And they justifiably distrust us since technically we just killed them. So, here’s what we’re going to do.”
The Ruins of St. Mark’s Church
Deadworld
When the shades were just a few yards away, Meredith grabbed Luke by the collar and forcefully yanked him back into the church. The shades made it as far as the threshold where the doors once stood before slamming painfully into some invisible barrier. They screamed and hissed and chittered madly while clawing at the barrier, but it seemed to hold up to their assault.
“What! The Actual Fuck! Are Those!” Luke yelled almost hysterically.
“It’s okay,” Meredith said, grabbing him by the shoulders to calm him down. “It’s okay. They can’t get in here while this is still my haunt. That’s the whole point of having a haunt – to keep a safe space that shades can’t get into.”
Luke put his hands over his face and took several deep breaths. “I’m sorry. It’s just … it’s been….” He looked up at her. “I’ve had a really rough time for the last few days.”
“Yeah,” Meredith said sarcastically. “I’m sure it was much worse than being dead for the duration instead.”
He swallowed and felt himself blush slightly as he remembered the girl’s situation.
“Right, yeah. Sorry. Fair enough.” He took one more deep breath. “Okay, so what are … shades?”
She glanced back at the shrieking gibbering creatures still clawing at the barrier in futility.
“Come over here with me. They’re kind of dumb, and if they can’t see us, they’ll get bored and wander off.” She led him off to the side of the sanctuary out of view of the doorway.
“I told you that a ghost is what you get when someone who was on the verge of going strange dies before they can actually finish the process. Our souls imprint on nearby things and places and people that are important to us, and that lets us stay in one piece after dying. We still have all our soul parts.”
Luke glanced at her dubiously. “Soul … parts?”
“Yeah. You know how people have been arguing forever about what happens when we die? Like, do we go to heaven or hell? Or get reincarnated? Or maybe there’s just nothing? Well, the truth is … it’s all of the above. It turns out your soul is made of a bunch of component parts bundled together. And for most people, when they die, those pieces fly apart and go in different directions. One bit gets reincarnated into a new body based on your karma or whatever. Another bit goes off to an afterlife of some kind depending on your beliefs and how well you lived up to them. A third bit that contains everything you learned over the course of your life flies away and merges with this thing called the Akashic Record that contains every bit of knowledge that’s been gathered since humans first started thinking.”
She glanced back towards the doorway. As she’d predicted, the shades had grown bored once their chosen prey had moved out of sight and were moving away, but Luke could still hear their mad gibbering howls in the distance.
“But there’s another part of your soul. The part that has all the bad stuff left over when you die. Your fears and hatreds and regrets. All that ends up here in Deadworld. Deadworld is basically a copy of the world we walked around in when we were alive.”
“Except, well, it’s a shitty ruined copy as you’ve probably noticed. The negative soul bits form into copies of the original person only twisted and insane. And also sort of … cannibalistic. They spend eternity wandering around Deadworld on the prowl for actual ghosts that they can torture and consume to make themselves more powerful. But they can’t get into haunts, so I’m safe in here while the church still stands in the real world.”
She made a face. “Although going crazy from boredom after a few years alone in an abandoned church is also a possibility.”
Luke nodded. “And you say you have information that can help me, but you’ll only share it if I … do what exactly?”
“You’re a necrotheurge. I don’t know everything that word means, but I do know you can manipulate the soul ties that connect me to the church … and to you and your brother. If you use your magic to sever my link to the church and take that bit of death energy to strengthen my link to you two, I won’t be stuck in Deadworld anymore. Or at least stuck here all the time with the crazy cannibal shades. I’ll exist as a ghost in Liveworld.”
She hesitated. “To be honest, I don’t know exactly what will happen then, but I know it’s got to be better than this.”
“You’re being really cagey on what you do and don’t know,” Luke said suspiciously.
“Yeah, sorry,” she replied. “When you come back as a ghost, it seems you get a lot of information about the ins and outs of being a ghost dumped into your head automatically.”
She let out a giggle. “Or I guess you could say – automagically. It’s kind of frustrating to be honest, and I’m still working through it all. So anyway, do we have a deal?”
Luke shook his head in consternation. “I don’t even know how to do what you want!” he exclaimed in frustration. “And how do I know that if I give you a direct link to me and Matt, you won't … I dunno, have some weird power over us. Like being able to possess us or something.”
She shrugged diffidently. “You don’t, I guess. Honestly, I don’t know either, so I can’t make any promises even if you were likely to believe them.
“All I can say is this: We were friends back when I was alive. Well, sort of friends, at least. I mean, we had sex a few times back when we were in a cult together. That should count for something, right?
“And anyway, I’m a ghost, but you’re a necrotheurge, a death-mage. I assume if I did something you didn’t like, you’d be able to … oh, trap my soul in a cigar box or something and just get rid of me, maybe?”
He sighed and thought back over what little he knew about magic, both from the telepathic crash course his father had given him and from years spent reading fantasy novels of every kind. He raised his arms up and took a deep breath.
“I, Luke Sullivan, by the power of my magic and my dominion over death, do command that the ties that bind Meredith…”
He stopped and froze, slack-jawed and horrified as he suddenly realized that he’d never bothered to learn Meredith’s last name even after multiple sexual encounters. The ghost rolled her eyes.
“Tucker,” she said curtly.
“Right, that the ties that bind Meredith Tucker to this church shall be severed and transferred to myself and to my brother, Matt Sullivan.”
He paused again, as he struggled to come up with an incantation to trigger the magic. Finally, he cried out. “Make it so!”
A wave of magical force emanated from him to cascade over the room. Meredith smirked.
“You are such a nerd, Luke. But it’s kinda cute, and it works for you.”
“Thanks,” he said in a clipped tone. “Now then, I’m pretty sure that whatever the hell I did worked. So, what’s this vital information you have for me?”
“Okay, here it is. And this is very important.” She leaned in close to peer deeply and intently into his eyes. “Remember Stephen King.”
He stared at her in bafflement. When it became clear she had nothing else to say, he finally snapped.
“Remember … Stephen King? That’s it? That’s what I get for helping you out with what are probably forbidden dark magicks of the soul? What about Stephen King?!?”
“No idea,” she said unrepentantly. “But I know it’s gonna be important somehow. Remember. Stephen. King.”
Luke glared at the ghost, but she just laughed again.
“And for what it’s worth, Luke,” she said as she reached up to pat him on the check. “I did warn you it was probably going to be annoyingly cryptic information.”
&
nbsp; CHAPTER 17:
BACK AMONG THE LIVING
Sometime later in the Break Room…
Luke’s eyes fluttered open in response to the unpleasant sensation of someone patting him firmly on his cheek.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said groggily. “I’m awake.”
He looked around the room while trying to determine if his encounter with Meredith had been a vivid nightmare or an actual out-of-body experience. He was inclined to assume the worst, but he honestly didn’t know which of those two options was the worst.
By this point, all three of the boys had been hefted up into chairs in the break room. Matt had been stripped of his anomalous Patriots jersey and Luke of his trench coat, but they were otherwise unharmed. Each of the three found that their hands had been bound with odd golden ropes that shimmered in the light. Apparently, the rope was enchanted to block their use of magic, not unlike the chain that Lindsay had used on Luke but without the agonizing pain.
There were two other people in the room: the musclebound black guy who’d burst through a brick wall some time earlier and had just slapped him awake, and the beautiful but vaguely-sinister-looking woman in an all-white costume that made her look like a background character from The Matrix. Ethan quietly identified them as Brother Falcon and Electra Dellamorte. Luke suppressed the urge to snicker at the names, as he figured such a response would not be well-taken.
Matt was still looking around the room in amazement. “We’re … alive?”
“Wow,” said Falcon. “Nothing gets past you, does it.”
Matt looked at him in consternation. “You stabbed me! Through the heart!”
From across the room, Electra spoke up.
“Matt, I know you've had at least some combat training by now. I assume you’ve been told that it takes a certain level of power and experience to form the level of intent needed to harm or kill someone with magic, right?”
Matt nodded slowly, still suspicious of the woman who had betrayed him earlier.
“Well,” she continued, “the opposite is also true. All paladins are taught how to kill with magic, but we’re also taught how to strike with our full power but without the actual intent to kill. The result is that the target doesn’t die or even suffer any serious injuries that should be fatal. Instead, they just get put into a death-like stasis for a while. It frees us from the fear that we might accidentally kill an innocent person or a fellow paladin in battle.”
Matt furrowed his forehead and then looked up at Brother Falcon. “So, when you tried to stab me back in the church …?”
Falcon smirked. “I guess you could say my sword was set for stun. You wouldn’t have died, just like you didn’t die when I finally stabbed you in here. You would just have been mostly dead.”
The boy frowned. “What the hell does ‘mostly dead’ mean?”
“NO!” Luke shouted angrily before Brother Falcon could respond, startling them all. He glared up at the paladin. “I have been through too damned much today to put up with a goddamned Princess Bride joke from the likes of you!”
Falcon made a surprisingly petulant face, as if angry he’d been denied the chance to crack a joke he’d been practicing possibly for years. Matt turned his attention back to Electra.
“We … are taught,” he said slowly. “Not they are taught. I guess it wasn’t a one-off thing, huh. You really did betray Doc and the rest to go back to these Unity Blade assholes.”
Falcon growled in response, but Electra didn’t rise to the insult.
“I had no choice, Matt. Right now, your father represents a danger to the entire human race. He needs to be dealt with and quickly, and the Invisible College has neither the training nor the will to do so. And I know you don’t see any reason to aid us, but we really do need your help.”
Matt just stared at her. “Where are Doc and Bryce and all the others?” he asked sullenly. “You know, the ones who were trying to help us while you were off figuring out how best to stab us in the back.”
“Metaphorically, that is,” Luke muttered, “since you actually shot me in the front.”
Electra ignored that. “Doc is meeting with the leader of the Unity Blade. Bryce, Widget, and all the rest of the College members are in stasis like you just were.”
“Mostly dead,” Falcon said with a smirk.
“The Unity Blade controls this facility,” Electra continued, “but before we took over, Doc did something to the architecture to hide your father and Lindsay from us. Every second they’re hidden is another second that we move closer to the end of world as we know it. We must find them quickly, and since you two are Mickey St. Angel’s sons, I’m pretty sure that you could see through the protections and lead us to him and Lindsay.”
“I’m not going to help you find our dad so you can murder him!” Matt said angrily.
“I’m not planning on murdering anyway, Matt,” she answered soothingly. “If we find them both quickly enough, we can transfer to chaos fragment into Lindsay and then banish her back to the Beyond. Your father would be fine.”
Matt wavered while Luke studied Electra in intense silence.
“I just don’t know if I can trust you,” Matt finally said.
“You could always make her swear a magical oath,” Ethan suddenly said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if she were serious about helping you.”
“You shut your traitor mouth!” Falcon barked angrily.
“You can’t really be a traitor to a cause you never voluntarily joined, tough guy,” the boy replied with a sneer.
“How did you end up with these guys anyway?” Luke asked Ethan out of sudden curiosity.
“Oh, the usual story. Boy gets picked on at school by macho jocks. Boy agrees to prove his manhood by spending the night in a creepy, supposedly-haunted, abandoned farmhouse out in the sticks. Boy warns macho jocks not to read from creepy old book that jocks find in the basement. Portal to hell. Redneck zombies. Strangeness. Etcetera etcetera. Then, these Unity Blade jerks showed to clean things up, and they ‘invited’ me to join their little cult of maniacs.”
“We saved your sorry ass, Shrike!” Falcon snarled.
“And then you pretty much said you’d throw me to the wolves if I didn’t join you,” the boy replied bitterly. “And it’s Ethan.”
“Enough!” Electra snapped as she rubbed her eyes. “The past is in the past, all of you! I remind you, the fate of the world is at stake!”
“Well, okay then,” Luke said easily. “I guess that means you’d be fine with swearing that oath Ethan was talking about.”
Electra hesitated while Falcon’s rage exploded.
“HOW DARE YOU MAKE DEMANDS ON THE HONOR OF A PALADIN!” he roared as he stepped forward and slugged Luke hard enough to nearly knock him out of his chair.
“FALCON! THAT’S ENOUGH!” Electra cried out in a fury, even as Matt angrily shouted an expletive and tried to rise from his chair, only for the bigger man to roughly shove him back into it.
“No, Electra!” Falcon said as he pulled his sword from its extradimensional pocket scabbard. “We don’t have time to beg for their help like weaklings!”
He then grabbed Luke by the arm and placed his sword against the boy’s hand before turning his attention back to Matt.
“So, here’s how it’s gonna go down, boy! You are the one whose gonna swear an oath to us! An oath to lead us straight to your daddy without tricks or delays! And you’re gonna do it before I finish counting to ten, or else your little shit of a brother loses a body part! And then, I’m gonna start counting to ten again, cuz he’s got plenty more things for me to cut off! ONE!”
“Hey! Hey!” Luke shouted in fear while struggling ineffectually against Falcon’s greater strength.
“TWO!”
“Whoa! Whoa!” Matt stammered. “Just calm down, okay? You don’t need to do this!”
“THREE!”
“Falcon, enough!” Electra commanded. “This isn’t the way!”
“You’ve been gone too long
to know what our way is! This is war! FOUR!”
“Don’t force me to stop you, Falcon,” she responded. “Because believe me, I will.”
“Bitch please!” he spat. “You got lucky back at the bar, but I’m ready for you now. I never trusted you, and I’m shielded against your bullets! FIVE!”
Electra was silent for a second as the three boys shouted for her to help or for Falcon to desist.
“SIX!”
“… lucky?” she finally asked in a low icy voice.
A natural sense for danger caused Falcon to turn back towards, but it was already too late. His eyes widened at the sight of Electra Dellamorte, now four feet off the ground with her arms outstretched like a bird of prey and her legs tucked in for a kick that was much too fast for the paladin to avoid. Her foot struck him upside the head with such force that he was knocked away from Luke and did a complete 180-flip to land on his stomach already out cold. His sword clattered to the ground next to him.
“Shields against magic bullets don’t do jack against feet ... bitch!" she said to his prone body. “And only an idiot can’t see the difference between luck and skill!”
She took a cleansing breath to get hold of her emotions and then turned back to Matt in a calmer voice. As she did, she produced a knife that she held poised to cut his bonds.
“I can’t promise that I won’t kill your father if there’s no other way to end this crisis, Matt. But I’m willing to vow that I won’t do so unless you agree that there’s no other way. Is that good enough?”
Matt hesitated before finally nodded his agreement, and she reached down to free him from the magical restraints. Meanwhile, Luke rubbed his jaw and looked over to Ethan. A mutual understanding seemed to pass between them, but neither said anything as Electra freed them as well. Luke stood first and quickly retrieved and donned his magic coat before tossing Matt his jersey.
“So, before we head off to find dear old dad,” he said, “Matt, have you had any luck coming up with that ‘brilliant idea’ he talked about?”
