Spirit Ascendancy

by E. E. Holmes

  Hannah nodded warily, as though she thought he might produce one and throw it at her head.

  He did in fact produce one, but he laid it with great care on the bedside table instead. “I like books myself. In fact, as an academic, I quite revere them. I hope you will consider reading that one. It will tell you everything that the Necromancers have learned over the years about the prophecy, and also a bit about what we stand for, and why you might consider working with us. As I said before, I will not force you.” He raised both hands as though in surrender and backed away. “But knowledge is power, and I think you ought to have all of it you can get your hands on before you make a decision, don’t you?”

  Hannah seemed to be trying to find something to argue with in this suggestion, but it was too logical. She nodded instead.

  “Marvelous,” Neil said, clapping his hands together and then extending one to Lucida, who took it and rose from the edge of Hannah’s bed. “We will leave you to get some rest, and also to do a bit of reading. And in the meantime, I do not want you to worry. We are doing all we can to find your sister and the others before the Durupinen do, and we will not let anything bad happen to them, if it is in our power to prevent it.”

  Again, Hannah nodded.

  Lucida and Neil were on the threshold of the door when she spoke, suddenly and loudly. “Lucida, would you… could you stay with me a little while?”

  Lucida beamed, and practically purred as she said, “But of course, love. You need only ask, and you know old Lucida’s here for you.” She slunk back across the room and flopped back onto the bed.

  “And… do you think… sorry, but is there any more food?” Hannah muttered.

  “Yes, of course. I’ll get Simon to bring you some, as soon as he cleans this up.” Neil actually laughed. It was a silvery, slippery thing, and it sent a shiver up my spine.

  Lucida turned and looked Hannah in the eye, and as she did, her own eyes looked at once paler and brighter than I’d ever seen them. They were huge, like harvest moons.

  “Now, pet, why don’t you tell me about…”

  And it all slipped out of focus in a whirl of blurred colors and warped sounds that faded with a pop as Milo, too weak to hold on anymore, dislodged himself from my body.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I just… couldn’t… do it… anymore.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know… I feel like I’m going to fade into nothing. Can you even see me?”

  I squinted in the direction of his voice, but could make out only the faintest outline.

  “Barely. Rest for a minute. Don’t try to talk.”

  We both lay unmoving for a long time, the only sound our exhausted panting and my occasional groan as my head pounded from the prolonged presence of too many thoughts. We were in the overgrown grass just outside our wagon in the traveler camp. It was dusk, and here and there around us, others had begun to light their lamps. It was like watching giant fireflies flare to life one by one. I watched them until they clarified from amorphous glowing blobs to clear orbs bobbing in the gathering darkness. Finally, Milo spoke.

  “I think I’m recovering a little. That worked better than I thought.”

  “Me, too. And we know she’s okay. For now, anyway,” I said.

  “So Lucida’s alive.”

  “Yup,” I said, shaking my head, which I instantly regretted as the pounding increased. “I knew I never liked her. I knew it. She always had that attitude, like she was above everything to do with the Durupinen, like our troubles amused her, you know? And now we know why. She was working for the enemy the entire time.”

  “And to think I was actually starting to like her. Bitch is going down,” Milo murmured.

  “Do you know what the most disturbing part of that was?” I asked.

  “That he actually managed to make himself sound like a benevolent savior after what he did to Annabelle and Pierce?”

  “Yeah,” I said, shivering even in the absence of cold. “Not to mention the fact that I was half-convinced myself by the time he stopped talking. Like I actually found myself thinking that maybe the Necromancers weren’t so bad. Like they were just misunderstood.”

  “The guy’s good, I’ll give him that,” Milo said. “He’s done his homework on Hannah. He knows what a nightmare her life has been, and he knows he can spin it to be the Durupinen’s fault.”

  “He doesn’t even have to spin it that hard,” I said with a rueful smile. “I spend half my time thinking about how this whole mess is the Durupinen’s fault. And then I remind myself of everything we’ve seen of the Necromancers for ourselves, and I can safely say they are definitely the worse of two evils.”

  “This… this is bad though, isn’t it?” Milo asked. I looked at him, and his face, as pale as it was from the exertion of the habitation, was clearly awash with worry. “I know Hannah’s a good person. We both know it. But good people can only be abused so much before they start to lose faith in things. If she has to listen to much more of that—”

  “No,” I said. “After what she saw them do to Annabelle? After Pierce?”

  “She never knew Pierce,” Milo said. “I’m not trying to be harsh or anything, but that man didn’t mean anything to her. She only cared about him because of what he meant to you, and I’m sure Neil will be able to explain his death away with his smooth-talking just like he’s making the Necromancers smell like roses.”

  “What about what they did to Annabelle? She saw her there, stripped down and tortured. How could she ever just—”

  “She barely knows Annabelle either. You heard Neil, she’s connected to the Durupinen. She’s one of the enemy too, and the more opportunity he has to demonize the Durupinen, the more reasonable his treatment of Annabelle will seem.”

  I opened my mouth to argue and closed it again. There was no point. He was right. I always hated it when he was right, but I especially hated it now.

  “If he turns her, it’s all over. This prophecy is going to come down with a vengeance on everyone.”

  “I know.”

  We looked at each other, our fear bouncing back and forth between each other’s gazes.

  “We’ve got to tell Ileana what we saw,” I said. “And I need to draw a sketch of that place they’re keeping her, in case it helps the Trackers find it. He definitely called it an old castle, but I don’t remember anything else he said about it. Do you?”

  “No. And I think I need to blink out for a while and get some beauty rest, afterlife-style, especially if we’re going to try that again anytime soon.”

  “Okay. You rest now. I can go see Ileana myself,” I said, struggling to sit up and swaying a bit. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. I still think the Necromancers are the bad guys in all of this, but it sure as hell isn’t as black and white as I’d like it to be. Between Lucida and the Necromancers, and now maybe even Hannah… the Durupinen are damn good at creating their own worst enemies, and we might even deserve them.”

  15

  Scribblings

  “AND YOU ARE SURE THAT IS EVERYTHING?” Ileana asked me. She was staring through a whirl of pipe smoke at the drawing and stack of notes I had given her.

  “Yes. I went back over it all with Milo. That’s every detail we could come up with between the two of us.”

  “And where is the spirit guide now?”

  “He’s been resting since we disconnected. He’s very weak. He couldn’t even rematerialize over here, or he would have come. It takes a real toll on him, or we would have maintained the connection longer, tried to find out more.”

  Ileana nodded, but her expression was full of disappointment. I could feel my defenses shooting up around me like wards.

  “Look, we did the best we could.”

  Ileana looked up, saw the expression on my face, and pulled the pipe from between her teeth. “I’m not criticizing you, child. I know you did your very best, and that you want to find your sister just as much as we do. But I’m troubled by
what you saw. Deeply troubled.”

  I bit my tongue, hoping she would go on and explain.

  She did not oblige right away. She handed the stack of papers to Dragos, who turned at once and exited the tent at a jog. “How well do you know your sister?” she asked bluntly.

  “I…” I didn’t know how to answer the question. In some ways I felt like I knew her better than I knew myself. In other ways, I didn’t know her at all. “I think that question is more complicated than you think it is.”

  “Can she be broken?” Ileana tried again.

  “She’s already broken,” I said, my heart swelling with a familiar, protective anger. I knew it wasn’t what she meant, but the word had triggered something in me bordering on irrational. I swallowed it back, but it didn’t go easily.

  I expected Ileana to demand an explanation of this statement, but it seemed she needed none. Apparently even the reclusive traveler Durupinen had enough ears to the ground to know a bit about Hannah. She amended her choice of words, and when she did, her tone was less harsh.

  “Do you think she can be swayed by rhetoric such as theirs?”

  “Yes, I do. It’s not that she’s weak,” I said, the words tumbling over each other in my haste to defend her. “If anyone else had been through what she’s been through—if anything she’s stronger than anyone. But she’s damaged. They’ve damaged her, all these years of being tormented by ghosts without knowing why. And the worst part is that none of it needed to happen. If only she’d known what she was, if she’d had someone there to explain it to her, she could have been alright.”

  “I expect that’s exactly what he’ll say to her, if she still remains unconvinced,” Ileana said. “What about you? How much of it did you believe?”

  “I know what the Necromancers are. The killed Pierce. They nearly killed Annabelle. And if it hadn’t been for the invention of airbags, they would have killed me, too. You should have seen the sick, sadistic casting they placed on the spirits they were using to imprison Annabelle; they were—I don’t know how to describe it—dismembered, or something. And I never trusted Lucida, not from the moment I met her. If I was the one they had there right now, they’d be wasting their breath.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “No, I’m not. So I’d tell your Trackers to get searching, and fast.”

  Ileana scowled. “You’re sure your drawing is accurate?”

  I snorted. “I suck at a fair few of my Durupinen responsibilities, but I was drawing long before the spirit world hijacked that skill set. It’s accurate. I promise.”

  Ileana actually smiled. “Very well. If that is all the information you have for now, why don’t you head over to the enclosure? Flavia and the others have been waiting for you to Walk again.”

  “I don’t think I can, right now,” I said.

  Ileana’s thick black brows contracted. “What do you mean? Clarify yourself.”

  “I mean, I don’t think I can Walk and spy on Hannah in the same day. It’s too draining, and it’s even worse for Milo. It takes everything I’ve got to share a body with Milo and reach out to Hannah like that. I wouldn’t last five seconds Walking outside of my body right now.”

  “Hmm,” said Ileana, reaching out almost absently between the bars of her raven’s cage to stroke the glossy feathers on his chest. He nipped at her fingers, but she ignored him. “It is a daunting problem. I think you must stop contacting your sister, for a time.”

  “What? No!” I said, more loudly than I intended. “How are we going to rescue her if we stop trying to find out where she is?”

  “You have given us a solid lead. My Trackers can make much of the information you have provided, I am sure, and you should be pleased with yourself for procuring it. But your focus must be to Walk.”

  “But if we can keep connecting with her, we might overhear something that gives away where she is. If we could just find her and get her out of there, we could foil this whole damn prophecy before it has a chance to—”

  “No, Jessica. It will not work like that.”

  “It’s just Jess, actually,” I shot at her as my frustration began to rise, “and why won’t it work like that?”

  “Because the prophecy is imminent, can’t you see that?” Ileana snapped. “There is no question anymore of stopping it. It is coming down upon us, as sure as the sun will rise in the east. Now all we can do is prepare for it as best we can.”

  “So that’s it?” I asked. “We’re just going to lay down and let this prophecy devour us? What the hell is the point of looking for Hannah if…” my voice died in my throat as a terrible thought occurred to me, even more terrible because of how sure I was that it was true. “Oh my God. There are no Trackers searching for her.”

  “Of course there are,” Ileana said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “But none with any intention of rescuing her,” I said, and it was like the dawn of understanding peeking over the horizon, lighting it all up for me. “Oh, sure, you’re looking, but you said it yourself: you aren’t a large or powerful clan. You aren’t going to engage with the Necromancers in any sort of battle, even if it might mean foiling this whole prophecy and crushing it into a myth. No, that’s too risky. So even if you do find her, you’ll just watch and wait.”

  Ileana’s shrewd gaze was sizing me up. I took her lack of outright denial as confirmation of everything I was saying.

  “That’s why you’re investing all this time and energy in me Walking. You don’t have a contingency plan. You aren’t allowing for any other ending to all of this.”

  “It’s not a question of what we will or won’t allow. It is coming.”

  “Yeah, it is, because you are holding the fucking door open for it,” I shouted. “And you won’t even risk some confrontation to prevent it, but I’m supposed to lay down my Goddamn life and hope that somehow, by some miracle, my sister might be able to do something to bring me back.” I laughed, though nothing in my life had ever been less funny. “It’s no wonder Lucida was persuaded to join the Necromancers. It’s no wonder they can make themselves sound like the saints in this scenario. Look at how quickly you all throw your own ‘sisters’ to the wolves at the slightest provocation!”

  “Jessica, I hardly—”

  “It’s Jess. At least learn a girl’s preferred moniker before asking her to die for you,” I spat. “I will not be Walking today. I’m not sure if I’ll be Walking ever again, to be honest. Do us all a favor, and don’t come looking for me, unless you have something worth sharing about my sister’s whereabouts.”

  And I turned my back on the High Priestess of the Traveler Clans and stalked out of the tent, not giving a single damn about a word I’d just said, except perhaps to dwell on a few more choice phrases I’d have liked to hurl through the pipe smoke right into her withered old face.

  I stomped back to our wagon, wondering as I did so how long we had before a pair of Caomhnóir showed up to escort us out of the encampment. How long would Ileana let us stay if I wasn’t going to follow her rules? I found that, upon further reflection, I didn’t actually care.

  Savvy was sitting in the grass just to the left of the wagon steps, which she had folded up so that she could lean her back against them.

  “Oi there, Ballard,” she called nonchalantly as she saw me coming. She seemed to be bent over something in her lap, but as she caught sight of my expression, she hastily stowed whatever it was away. “What’s happened to you? You look like you could breathe fire.”

  “What gave it away?”

  “The actual smoke curling from your nostrils. What happened?” she repeated, her smirk collapsing into lines of concern. “Didn’t you have any luck connecting with Hannah? What did you find out?”

  I explained, as quickly as I could, what Milo and I had seen during the corporeal habitation, and then about my conversation with Ileana.

  “So anyway, that’s why I’m so pissed. The Travelers are laying down like doormats and letting the prophecy steamrol
l right over us all.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hannah. They aren’t the least bit concerned about rescuing her. They’re just counting on me to save the universe with my weird new out-of-body trick.”

  “Hey, at least you can do the trick. Can’t hurt to have it as a back-up, can it?” Savvy said, as though she were trying to be reasonable. She reached an arm out to clap me on the back, and as she did so, a small dark something slipped from under her arm and into the grass at my feet.

  “What’s this?” I asked, looking more closely.

  “It’s nothing,” Savvy said, attempting to stow the item out of sight by snatching it up and sitting on it, but I grabbed the corner of it and yanked it out from under her. “It’s nothing. Don’t—”

  But I’d already recognized it. “Where did you get this?” I asked, my heart beginning to pound as I stared wildly around the clearing. “Did he come back? Is he here?”

  “No,” Savvy said quietly. “No, mate, Finn’s still gone.”

  ‘But where—”

  “I found it right here,” Savvy said, patting the ground at the base of the wheel, where the overgrown crabgrass was nearly knee-high. “He hung his bag right on that hook up there, so it must have fallen out when he grabbed the bag and stormed off.”

  I looked down at the little black book, one of many I knew that Finn Carey carried around with him. Its leather cover had been handled and thumbed so often that the sheen had dulled away in places. The edges of the pages were frayed and tattered, curled together in wavy clumps within the covers.

  “Just now?”

  “This morning. I was putting out a cigarette and I stepped right on it. The dew from the grass started seeping in, but it’s still legible.

  “You read it?”

  “Well, not the whole thing,” Savvy said, and she looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t realize what it was at first, and by the time I did, I’d already read too much of it to take it back, so I just sort of kept going.”

  I looked down at the book again. How many times had I seen him writing in it, and how many times had I wondered what was so important that he couldn’t wait to record it? A kind of manic recklessness overtook me. Maybe it was the anger still coursing through my veins at Ileana, or maybe it was residual anger at Finn for abandoning us, or maybe it was even anger at myself for forcing him to go, but something smoldering had caught fire within me, and I suddenly didn’t care that the book wasn’t mine, or that I had no right to read it. Somehow I felt that every word in that book, whatever it was, was owed to me. I pulled open the front cover.