The Dead Pools

by Michael Hesse

  Though the ritual was a symphony, the spell itself was song. The words themselves were secondary, lyrics designed to focus the gathered energies. I cannot recall what I spoke, they came from somewhere else, someplace else, beyond me. I felt them though, shifting the underlying meter, adding cycles and forms.

  Fog crawled across the water in the bowl, building evanescent forms so fragile they swayed under the pressure of my breath. I hadn’t chosen a destination for my sending only a target so I was pleasantly surprised to see the walls of the jail appear before me. I’d been right then. His spirit still resided on this side of the veil.

  The energies swirling inside me reached their crescendo. This was the moment, before the last note faded and the energy released. There was no backing out. I was committed. Stepping forward, I reached down and touched the water and was torn free.

  Chapter 11

  Ghost Walk, Sunday

  Son of a bitch! My father should have recorded this spell in red or given some other indication of how much it hurt. Agony doesn’t quite cover the sensation of having your soul ripped from your body. It’s cold; not doctor’s office cold, rather teeth of winter, arctic cold. It’s the type of cold that plays tag with the Northern Wind. It splays its claws underneath your skin turning your blood into a cherry Slurpee. That’s the type of cold I’m talking about.

  But the cold is only the beginning. It’s what hits you first before the pain sears its way into your brain. Add in a putrid sickness festering inside your gut and rich disorientation and the fear. Oh, don’t forget about the fear. It’s a locomotive drilling down midnight tracks straight for you.

  All this happens at once. There’s no time to step away or reorient your planar identity or whatever other bullshit advice was in the book. It just happens and you deal with it if you want to survive long enough to return to your body.

  I caught a glimpse of my vacant body. It was standing there motionless, just a dumb sack of meat in front of the altar. I wondered idly why it didn’t crumple and fall before I was whisked away . . . twirling, swirling, streaming towards an amber sun reaching out to catch me in its grip.

  That was the danger, I knew. The amber providing the gravitational pull that ripped my soul from my body could easily become a prison. If the words had been wrong, if my intention wasn’t clear, if the gods frowned upon my expedition, I would be locked within its honeyed glow forever.

  No, I screamed, fighting against my headlong flight. Pushing and wrenching, thrashing against the downward pull, desperately trying to change the vector of my demise. Off in the distance I caught a glimmer set against the endless night; a silvery thread curving around the amber sun. It was the pulsing energy of my spell, a shining comet cast out into the dark. I pulled myself towards it, reaching out to grasp its evanescent tail.

  I rocketed aside, flung upon a new path, riding an orbit using the energy of my fall to whisk me away from the amber sun. I was picking up speed, sliding around my erstwhile prison, hurtling outwards into the welcoming dark. So, this is what the book meant by reorienting my planar identity. Could we make that a little clearer, Dad?

  Moments later I was thrust into another prison, but this one I recognized. Less than a day ago Ramirez and I had occupied a cell like this one, at least in design. But where ours had been Spartan in its plainness, this cell had been hellishly transformed. Dried blood splattered the walls and a bloody outline marked the spot where Ortiz bled out on the floor.

  As a spirit I could see the emotional residue smeared throughout the room. Yellow fear and scarlet pain oozed from the walls mixed with dried blood like macabre finger-paints. Even the air was infused with violent emotions. Sickly streamers of green envy and black hate hung about like wisps of smoke or venomous snakes ready to strike.

  There was no doubt that I was in the right spot, but where was Ortiz’s spirit? That was the focus of the spell. He had to be here somewhere. Could he be hiding in the deep pools of shadow that filled the corners of the room?

  I moved deeper into the room to investigate, surprised that the act of moving felt similar to walking in the material world. Though when anchored to the real my ghostly feet weren’t suspended a few inches above the ground. But as far as the mechanics of moving about in spirit were concerned, I went through the same motions: one foot forward and then the other. It wasn’t without resistance, however. Highly charged emotional currents buffeted me like Chicago winds. I had to make a conscious effort to press forward or be swept away by their intensity.

  Three cinderblocks near the door had been piled into a makeshift altar complete with black candles. A bowl filled with a dark viscous fluid sat between them. Above the altar burning glyphs and sigils were painted in smoky whorls. The exact meaning behind the unfamiliar symbols was unknown to me, but I could feel their malevolent intent. Whatever branch of magick they were drawn from should have been pruned long before it grew.

  Shuddering, I turned from the altar and examined the rest of the room. Like our cell, this one had a shelf running along the far wall. But where our shelf had been lacking anything but a thin blanket, this one had been fitted with a padded mattress. It seems that in Fulton County, not all prisoners are equal before the law. Even the toilet had a seat above the bowl.

  The shadows near the back of the room were particularly deep. If Ortiz were hiding somewhere in this cell, that was the most likely spot. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I taunted, but nothing responded. Nothing? Something.

  I caught a fleeting movement out of the corner of my eye. There was something in the rear of the room, something dark that moved in the shadows. It was difficult to be certain, to tell one shade of black from another, but I was certain that I’d seen something there. I glided forward to investigate further.

  “Juan Ortiz?” I called as I approached. “I’m not here to hurt you, I only want to talk.”

  Drawing closer I could tell that there was definitely something there. The pool of shadows in the corner trembled and contracted, as if it were trying to hide. Yellow fear dribbled onto the floor like a puddle of piss. There was definitely something there.

  I held up my hands, hoping to show that I meant no harm and slowed my approach. Cornered animals are exceedingly dangerous. The same goes for people, even more so. When there’s no possibility of escape, things get dicey quick.

  “Juan Ortiz?” I called out again, but softly, like I was speaking to a frightened child. I slowly reached out—

  No! The ball of shadow exploded in front of me, shooting upwards towards the ceiling and then streaking to my left. Startled by the sudden movement, I stepped backwards, my hands automatically snaking through the glyphs of a protective ward.

  The pull was immediate; wrapping my spirit in a pearlescent cocoon of defensive energies. I was reacting on instinct and hadn’t meant to cast the spell, but it roared around me nonetheless. Inside my body I would have had to work much harder, but in spirit only intent was needed to trigger the flow. Good to know.

  I would have been even better to know that before I stepped across. What else had my father’s book failed to warn me about? I could almost feel the next shoe ready to drop.

  I couldn’t tell you what Ortiz looked like before his death, but now he was a shamble of a man. His spirit was black as coal, a ragged silhouette cowering against the far wall. There were holes in the black form, frayed patches where parts of him appeared to have been torn out. I had no idea what could have done that. I didn’t even know it was possible.

  I damned Father’s book for a third time. It seemed its secrets were hidden by more than his ciphers.

  “Juan Ortiz?” I asked again and took a careful step towards him, blocking access to the rest of the cell. Fresh spirits were often confused, sometimes angry, but I’d never heard of one being frightened like this before. Perhaps the defensive cocoon had been a smart move after all. Most spirits can’t physically harm anyone, even the most malicious tend to get their kicks inspiring fear, but I wasn’t buried b
eneath layers of blood and bone any longer. I had no idea if Ortiz might be able to damage me, but one glance at his shredded form convinced me something could.

  I held my hands out from my sides. If I wore my body, the gesture would convey that I was unarmed and wasn’t a threat. Hopefully he’d see it that way, but it also served another purpose as well. With the protective spell wrapped around me, it further reduced his ability to flee. I wasn’t sure what the spell would do to an unbound spirit, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  The silhouette swayed back and forth, edging first one way and then another as it searched for an escape before it turned its baleful eyes on me. One glance into those dark pits showed me how badly I’d misread the situation. I’d seen the evidence of Ortiz’s fear and allowed it to color my perceptions. Conveniently forgotten was the man who’d sat behind the dark altar moments before his death.

  The creature that fled into the shadows might be a whipped dog, cowering before its tormentor, but it wasn’t a coward. Ortiz wasn’t a dumb mule caught smuggling drugs across the border, he was a player. For men like Ortiz there were only two types of people: those stronger that deserved your respect and those weaker that deserved your scorn. By insisting that I wasn’t a threat I’d unknowingly put myself into the weaker category.

  That was a mistake number one. Number two was blocking his exit and number three was activating the spell, but not using it. To Ortiz, drawing a weapon and not using it was an empty threat. It meant that I was afraid and that made me weak. In his world restraint didn’t exist. The strong took and the weak gave, that’s why they existed. Quarter wasn’t asked or given. In Ortiz’s world there were only wolves and sheep.

  I knew the moment that Ortiz made his decision. Red fog billowed through the torn sections of his ragged form. The deep pits of his eyes narrowed as he readied himself. I could almost see the countdown in his head: one … two … bam! One moment he was crouched against the back wall and the next he was a black smudge hurtling through the air.

  I ducked like I would in the physical world, reacting with moves that had been beaten into me during countless hours of training. But this wasn’t the physical world. That mistake nearly cost me my life.

  Back in the real, fighting isn’t about inflicting pain, that’s a method. The goal of a fight, any fight, is to break your opponent’s will. You can use pain to do that; you can pound him bloody with your fists, bomb his cities into rubble, but unless you’ve broken his will, the fight isn’t over. An unbroken man will pick himself off the floor and shoot you in the back. He’ll keep coming until one of you is dead.

  Ortiz was already dead, but he was unbroken and I’d unwittingly provided him with a means to escape. As an unbound spirit the connection to his body was severed when his body died, but I wasn’t. My body still lived in the real and though detached, I was still tethered to it.

  When Ortiz jumped me he wasn’t aiming at me. He was trying to get over me, around me to locate my tether. Once he found it he could follow it back to my body and slam the door shut. The spells I’d drawn to protect my body only defended against outside attack. Ortiz was attempting to slip through a back door. The same back door I needed to use to return. The only thing protecting my body was me.

  I realized what was happening as Ortiz’s spirit sailed over me. I might have misread the game from the start, but I understood it now. I turned back as Ortiz slid to a stop and franticly scrambled for the tether he knew had to be there. The emotional fog that confused me at first saved me now. The thin silver line leading back to my body was lost in the psychedelic scramble of the cell.

  Never turn your back on someone with the will to fight. I wasn’t the only one making mistakes today. In his rush to escape, Ortiz misread the situation. Figuring that I was one of the sheep he thought I’d be overwhelmed and fall back. He’d forgotten that the sheep employ dogs to protect themselves.

  I launched myself at his back. Don’t talk to me about honor. There ain’t no honor in a street fight. The son of a bitch was trying to steal my body and I wasn’t going to let that happen. He never knew what hit him.

  White light exploded from the protective spells wrapped around my body and sent us both flying across the room. Momentarily blinded I struggled back to my feet, glad that as a spirit my head hadn’t been smashed against the stone walls of the cell. In that respect I was a better off than Ortiz.

  While I sailed partially through the masonry, Ortiz’s spirit was bound to his cell. For him the walls reacted just as they would in the physical world. It must have hurt when he hit because he was slower getting to his feet than I was. On the other hand, he’d been turned away from the light, so he didn’t suffer from the same temporary blindness I did. I guessed that we were about even.

  He struggled back to his feet as I pulled myself back through the far wall. At least I’d kept him away from my tether. My victory was short lived, however. The detonation of my protective spells had drained them completely. For the moment I was defenseless. The explosion had also thrown Ortiz against the front of the cell; right next the altar with the Hellion script blazing across the wall.

  If it was still active it would give him a well of energy to draw upon, while my reserves were draining fast. Detached from my body and the natural world, I only had the energy bound within my spirit to work with. If I depleted it, I’d be just as dead as if Ortiz stuck a knife through my heart. Worse, my soul would be extinguished. There’d be no return to the Spiral Dance. I’d cease to exist.

  Ortiz must have realized this at the same time I did. He reached towards the altar and started drawing energy. I’d never seen it happen before. Until now my understanding of magick was based in how it felt or what I’d been taught. When I drew energy to power a spell it felt like I was pulling it up through my left arm, like I was sucking it through a straw. But I’d never seen it before. All of that happens on the spiritual plane, invisible to the human eye.

  In spirit, things worked differently. Ortiz reached out toward the altar and I could see the draw. Black and purple flames sprang from the Hellion script, twisting in the air above him before raining down in a curtain of negative energy. A draw like that should have destroyed him, burned him to a crisp like a candle in a pool of gasoline. Instead he was laughing.

  This can’t be good.

  Chapter 12

  Ghost Walk, Sunday

  Behind the curtain of dark energies Ortiz’s laughter quickly turned to agonized screams as he struggled to contain the forces he’d summoned. It was a futile struggle. You can’t cup a hurricane in your hands. You can’t ride the lightening. No man walks into Hell’s furnace and returns unscathed.

  It’s a fundamental law of the Art that magick transforms the user. It’s one of those sayings that are bandied about without ever being truly understood, but it’s a lie. Magick doesn’t transform. Magick strips.

  A sculptor confronting a block of marble doesn’t transform it into art. He doesn’t create. Only gods create. The true artist becomes the tool in the hand of the divine. He strips away all the detritus and debris hiding the art from sight. As soon as he tries to exert control, the chisel slips.

  Magick is the chisel. It refines. It defines. It doesn’t create. A man’s magick uncovers his true self, for good or ill. It’s normally a tedious process, glacial. Mastering it requires a lifetime of effort, but there are always those who try and accelerate the process.

  Without a body to diffuse the draw, Ortiz discarded the chisel and Hell brought a sledgehammer to his soul. Behind the cascading energy I saw Ortiz struggling against the power, but it was like trying to hold back an earthquake by stomping your foot. It can’t be done.

  He reminded me of a lump of wet clay pummeled and torn by unseen hands, pounded and fashioned into new shapes. Gone was the ragged shadow I’d found cowering at the back of the cell. Gone was anything even remotely recognizable as human. New shapes struggled to impose themselves: a clawed hand broke through the surface, a multifaceted insect’s eye
stared blankly, but each in turn was pulled back into the chaos of the kneading clay.

  The only constant was the mind-shattering screams coming from the heart of the fires. The wailing cries broke against the walls in waves, rebounding and echoing throughout the tiny cell.

  I should have turned and run. I could have scurried back down my tether and abandoned the mission while I had the chance, but I couldn’t move. I was both drawn and repelled by the events unfolding in front of me. There was something seductive about it, something that kept my eyes locked in place. Like witnessing the carnage of a high-speed crash, I couldn’t turn away.

  Something about it called to me, beckoned. There was power here. Power that I’d never witnessed before. Power of a magnitude that I’d never imagined. I could draw on this power. I didn’t need to energize my defenses with my soul’s feeble flame. I could tap into the raging maelstrom while Ortiz was focused upon his own survival.

  It wouldn’t take much to end it here and now. I could steal a whisper of that energy, turn Hell’s fury upon itself and end the game once and for all. I could do more than that, I realized. Ortiz was just a pawn. He was inconsequential. With the power he summoned I could change the rules, free the witches from the cages of their camps. I could be a Moses leading my people to the Promised Land.

  It made so much sense. I could see the arrow flight of my life, each point, each decision leading me directly to this place and time. It was inevitable. It was what I was born to do. And it was fitting. The good I could do with that power was immeasurable. In the right hands it could change the world. All it would take was a little draw, a sip really, nothing of consequence. It was tempting, so very tempting.