Spirit Ascendancy

by E. E. Holmes

  “I forgot you didn’t know! You were out of it for so long,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “Everyone’s okay. Or at least,” she amended, “no one is dead.”

  Her face suddenly took on an expression of guilt that must surely have been mirroring my own, and she didn’t go on. Without even looking up from his notebook, Finn picked up the thread. “Everyone made it out. Some people are injured, of course.”

  “Olivia?”

  “She’s fine. So is Peyton.”

  “So do we know who’s—”

  “Fiona is in the hospital wing with some bad burns, along with quite a few others. Lucida didn’t go into too much detail; she was a bit distracted by the fact that you were teetering on the verge of death. But we know Seamus is in really rough shape, and so is Bertie.”

  Savvy shook her head sadly. “Stupid prat. Never would have thought he had it in him, but he ran back into the castle when he saw I was unaccounted for. Two of the other Caomhnóir had to go in after him to pull him out, and he didn’t go quietly. Sort of makes me feel bad for treating him the way I did. Mind you,” she added, scowling around defensively, “he is generally useless, I stick by that. I don’t know what he thinks he could have done if he’d found me in need of help. I must outweigh him by about three stone. But still, it’s nice to know he would have given it a try, eh?”

  “That’s his job,” Finn said, bluntly, as though it were understood that Caomhnóir would run headlong into burning buildings to pluck us from the jaws of death. I tried to picture him doing the same thing for me, and realized with a pang of guilt that I didn’t doubt for a moment that he would, no matter how much he loathed me personally.

  “Maybe, but it’s not a job he’s cut out for,” Savvy said. “Still, he’ll be alright. They all will, as soon as they open up the Gateway and do a bit of…”

  She broke off, a flush creeping into her cheeks and staining them crimson. She didn’t need to finish the sentence. We all knew how the Durupinen would deal with the injuries left by our escape, especially now that Marion was in charge, and it wasn’t a subject any of us wanted to discuss.

  “Well, I’m just glad everyone’s going to be alright,” I said, steering the conversation away from dangerous waters. “Has Marion put out a bounty on our heads? The Durupinen’s most wanted, a million pounds, dead or alive?”

  Milo coughed. Savvy and Hannah exchanged a dark look.

  “Oh, my God, I was kidding!” I cried. “Please don’t tell me we’ve got a bounty on us!”

  “She’s offering a reward to whoever brings us in,” Hannah said. “Not all of us, actually. Just me.”

  “Why just you?” I asked.

  “Don’t be jealous,” Hannah said with the slightest of smiles.

  Now it was my turn to have no sense of humor. I glared at her and she went on quickly. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s the prophecy. I’m the dangerous one, as far as she’s concerned.”

  “But what’s the point of adding a bounty when the Caomhnóir and the Trackers are looking for us anyway? It’s their job. They don’t need some reward to motivate them to find us.”

  “The bounty isn’t for the Caomhnóir or the Trackers,” Finn said, slapping the cover closed on his notebook and looking up at last. “You’re right; they will be hunting for us, reward or not. The bounty has been added to tempt us, not them.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Milo said.

  “Sure it does. They know that we’re all together. If we all have a bounty on our heads, we’re all equally in danger, and so we stick together. But if the bounty is only on Hannah, there’s a better chance one of us will be tempted to betray the others and turn her in.”

  “None of us would ever do that!” Milo said.

  “People have done worse for less,” Finn said. “Marion is counting on it.”

  No one had any response to that. I crammed the rest of the pastry into my mouth and stood up, suddenly filled with a panicky sort of energy, a need to do something, anything, besides waiting around for the Necromancers or the Caomhnóir to come busting down our door.

  “Did Lucida give us any kind of instructions? Where we should go? What we should do?” I asked.

  Hannah nodded. “We’re supposed to lay low and try to stay in the flat as much as we can. The idea is not to attract attention.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “That’s it.”

  I groaned and started to pace. The room, already depressingly small, seemed to close in on us instantly.

  “And what about Annabelle? Does she know we’re here yet?”

  Everyone stared at me blankly. “We haven’t gone down yet, Jess,” said Hannah.

  “You haven’t? I was out of it for three days and you never bothered to check if Annabelle was home?” I asked incredulously.

  “She’s in hiding. We couldn’t just go down and bang on her door,” Finn said. “You’re the only one she knows, and you’ve been in no fit state to contact anybody.”

  “Well, I’m okay now, so what are we waiting for?”

  Hannah bit her bottom lip fretfully. “I don’t know, Jess. Lucida told us not to contact anyone. I’m not sure if she’d want us to—”

  “Hannah, I’m not talking about making social calls on all our new neighbors. Annabelle is here hiding out from the Necromancers. She’s the one who warned me about the possibility of them in the first place, and she’s in almost as much danger as we are.”

  “I agree with Jess,” Finn said.

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” I muttered. Only Milo heard me. He betrayed only the slightest of sniggers.

  “This Annabelle is a liability if we don’t let her know what’s going on,” Finn went on. “If we don’t warn her about the Necromancers, she could get careless and lead them right to us. If she’s caught, we’re as good as caught, too.”

  I ignored the fact that he clearly had no concern for her well-being and jumped in before anyone else could argue with him. “Exactly. So let’s go down to her flat and see if we can find her. The sooner we tell her what’s going on, the safer we’ll all be.”

  No one voiced any objections to this plan, so I headed for the door.

  “Hey!” Finn called after me. Both his voice and his expression were alight with panic now. “You can’t just go charging down there! What if the Necromancers have already found her? We need to be smart about this, Jess!”

  I turned on my heel. I should have known that was too easy.

  Finn went into battle commander mode. “Milo you float down there and check things out. If she’s home, and alone, Jess and I will go down. If not, we stake the place out and wait for her to return.”

  Milo rolled his eyes. “Not even a please. So typical.” And he sunk through the floor.

  Or rather, he tried to sink through the floor. He suddenly stopped, knee-deep in floorboard, a curious expression on his face.

  “Huh.”

  “What is it?” Finn asked.

  “This is as far as I can go,” Milo said.

  Finn crossed the room and knelt beside him, examining the floor. “Are you sure?”

  Milo’s look was positively wilting. “Yes, I’m sure. Don’t you think you’d be sure if you were stuck in the goddamn floor? I’m meeting some kind of barrier, and I can’t get through.”

  “What does it feel like?” Finn pressed.

  “Like one of those wards back at Fairhaven. It’s like the air just becomes thicker, and then sort of sticky, and then just… solid.” He struggled for a moment trying to push his way through, then rose up again, pale from his efforts. “Yeah, I’m definitely not getting through that way.”

  Finn was still staring at the floor as though an explanation might be written on it somewhere. He began to run his hands over the boards.

  “Couldn’t this be because we warded the place against Lyle when we first got here?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Hannah said. “Milo has been getting in and o
ut with no problem for the last few days. It’s just like at Fairhaven. As long as I’m in here, he can cross back and forth freely.”

  Finn stood up. “Does Annabelle have any connection to the Durupinen?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Her family used to be a Clan family, but they haven’t been for decades. Their bloodline hasn’t produced a complete Gateway in at least a couple of generations, so it’s been closed off. But she knew quite a bit about them from her grandmother, and I think she still has some connections, because she was able to find out where Fairhaven was.”

  “Do you think she would know how to put wards on her apartment?” Finn asked.

  “I have no idea. She definitely knows a lot about spirits. She’s not totally connected to them like Durupinen are, but she can still sense them and communicate on some level. She knew how to contact Lyle, and send him to me with a message, but I don’t know if she can do wards. She’d need access to a copy of the Book of Téigh Anonn, wouldn’t she?”

  “Possibly her family still has one?”

  Again I shrugged. “I’m just not sure. She never mentioned it, but it’s possible.”

  “Okay then, we stake it out. We’ll take turns waiting for her to come in or out, and we’ll approach her when she does. Shouldn’t take too long.”

  We all looked at each other and agreed. It was as good a plan as any.

  §

  It was also the most boring plan in the history of plans.

  A stakeout sounds much cooler than it is in real life, as anyone who has ever actually been on one can tell you. There’s a film noir mystique around the term, but really it’s a glorified name for waiting around and doing absolutely nothing until you want to scream from the monotony. Hour after hour we sat and watched; hood-up on a bench across the street; under a nondescript black umbrella, sheltering in a doorway; at the window, staring blankly into the street for a glimpse of wild red hair. Hannah and I were only allowed to take shifts with Finn, “for our own protection,” so we couldn’t even joke with Savvy or gossip idly with Milo to pass the time, but instead sat in tense silence, jumping in fright every so often when he leapt up at yet another false alarm. With each passing hour there was no change— not a twitch of the curtains drawn over the windows, not a flicker of a light. Nothing.

  Finally, after two days and Savvy’s increasingly whiny protests whenever her shift came around, Finn gave up. Halfway through his breakfast, he pushed his plate away and stood up.

  “Hannah, can you Call Milo back from the post? It’s time to try something else.”

  Hannah nodded, closed her eyes a moment, and Milo materialized almost at once.

  “About time!” he said. “I was ready to scrap this plan yesterday. I legit thought I was going to die of boredom, but then I remembered I sort of covered that already.”

  Savvy made the sound of a rim shot while Hannah giggled. Milo took a little bow.

  “We needed to give it a chance,” Finn said, a tad defensively. “But either she isn’t using the flat anymore, or she hasn’t left it in two days. Either way, we aren’t getting anywhere. Time to see if we can get in.”

  And he marched across the room to the window and threw it wide.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “We can’t send Milo, so I’m checking it out myself,” he said in a maddening tone, the kind that implied I was some kind of idiot.

  “Out the window? And what are you going to use to get down to Annabelle’s window, your keen Spidey-sense?”

  He looked at me like I was insane. “Huh?”

  “Oh my God, you really did live under a rock, didn’t you?”

  “I’m going to use the fire escape.” He pointed out the window, through which I could see the rusty metal railings.

  “Oh. Good idea.”

  He hoisted himself out of the window in one smooth motion. Awkwardly, I followed him. Within a few seconds, Hannah and Savvy had also crammed themselves out onto the rickety old landing. We were all wearing pajamas— Savvy actually had fuzzy purple slippers on. I’m sure we looked like the losers in a slumber party game of truth or dare.

  “Did I say this was a group outing?” Finn growled.

  “I’m the only one who knows her. I have to go,” I said, arms crossed. “Otherwise you’re just a random man trying to sneak into her flat. She’s already on the lookout for the Necromancers. There’s no way she’s going to trust you without me.”

  “Right, then. Jess should come, but the rest of you go back inside,” Finn said begrudgingly.

  “I’m not missing the fun! C’mon mate, I’ve been nothing but dead bored for two days! Give a girl a break, can’t you?” Savvy said.

  “I’m not staying up there by myself if everyone else is going,” Hannah said firmly.

  The landing made another ominous creaking sound. “Fine, fine, just be careful, and don’t come in until I tell you the coast is clear,” Finn said, shaking his head. I could practically see the exasperated exclamation “Women!” in a thought bubble over his head.

  We stood huddled on the fire escape in the early morning chill. The side of the building overlooked a narrow, dingy alley. The sun had not yet risen high enough into the sky to reach it, and shadows clung to the bricks and draped themselves over the rubbish bins below. A sliver of brightness cut across the end of the alley, where a bit of the sidewalk and street were visible. Cars darted past, along with the occasional pedestrian, but no one spared a glance in our direction.

  Between the rusty bars under our feet, we watched in silence as Finn peered in the window and tested the latch.

  “I can’t see anyone,” Finn said. “The flat’s empty.”

  “How do you know there isn’t someone in one of the other rooms?” Savvy asked.

  “It’s a studio,” Finn said. “There’s just the one room, and the loo door is open, so unless she’s hiding in the closet, she’s not home.”

  “She’s got to come back sometime,” I said. “Let’s just come back later.”

  But Finn wasn’t listening. He fiddled for a moment with the window sash, and before we could say a thing to stop him, he’d opened the window and climbed through.

  “What the bloody hell is he doing?” Savvy said.

  “I don’t know, but we better follow him,” I said, and started climbing the rungs down to Annabelle’s fire escape. It trembled and screeched with every movement as we all descended and followed Finn through the window and into the apartment. It was a good thing Annabelle wasn’t home, because we certainly weren’t going to sneak up on anyone like this.

  “Finn, what are you doing down here?” I repeated as first Savvy and then Hannah clambered in behind me. As we crossed into the room I experienced a strange sensation, like we were pushing our way through a dense sort of barrier. Sure enough, when I turned to look back at the window, there were runes scrawled beneath it. The same was true all around the room. Annabelle had practically covered the walls in runes and symbols. Some had been painted on with black paint; a half-dried can of it still lay abandoned in a corner. Others had been scratched into the flowery wallpaper with something sharp. The effect was creepy in the extreme.

  “I don’t recognize some of these symbols,” Hannah said, walking slowly along the wall to examine them. “They aren’t usually used in wards, at least none of the ones I’ve seen.”

  “Maybe she’s put some other kinds of protective castings on the place, too?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Hannah said slowly, her tone dubious. “Some of these don’t even look like runes.”

  “What are we looking for?” I asked Finn as he opened the closet and poked his head into the tiny bathroom.

  “Anything that might tell us where she’s gone.”

  “Well she can’t have gone far,” Savvy said.

  “What makes you say that?” Finn asked.

  “Her keys and purse are still here, mate,” Savvy said, pointing to a small table by the door. A brown leather purse was resting on top of it, beside
a small glass bowl containing a set of keys, a cell phone, and a heap of spare change.

  Finn joined her by the door. “It’s locked from the inside.”

  “There’s still a cup of tea over here,” Hannah said.

  I crossed the room to the tiny kitchenette. A nearly-full cup of tea sat in its saucer, a spoon resting across the top. The teabag was still in it, obscured by a milky film that had formed over the top of the liquid. I stared down at it, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “This isn’t right,” I said. “Something is really wrong here.”

  “Can you feel it, too?” Hannah asked. “It’s giving me a headache.”

  I opened my mouth to say that wasn’t what I’d meant, but then closed it again. She was right. Something in the air was buzzing and pulsating. If I stood totally still, I could feel it tugging on me, back and forth, like a gentle undertow in an invisible sea.

  “I feel it,” Savvy said, her eyes closed in concentration.

  Without really understanding how I was doing it, I focused in on the pulling sensation, trying to find the source of it. My eyes came to rest on the far corner of the room, where a double bed stood neatly made with a patchwork quilt. Strangely, even in such a tiny room, I hadn’t even noticed it before. It had hidden itself, tucked away in the periphery of my vision, as though it were trying to stay out of sight. But now that I’d seen it, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was at once the most normal and most bizarre thing I’d ever seen.

  “The bed,” I said.

  “What bed?” Hannah asked.

  “That bed! In the corner, it’s… don’t you see the bed? Look exactly where you don’t want to look,” I said.

  But they were already staring at it, each face mystified at the very sight of it. No one had realized it was there until that moment.

  “It’s… what’s wrong with it?” Savvy whispered. She took a careful step forward with all the concentration of someone navigating through a mine field, half-expecting each footstep to bring swift destruction.