“Do you sense it?” she demanded again. She waited, pulling in short, sharp breaths as she fought the urge to start tearing things about, smashing things, breaking things. Destroying anything she could get her hands on.
Her back was to her mum and dad and she needed to keep it that way. She couldn’t look at them and hold on to her anger, and she needed her anger to stay on her feet. She needed her anger to keep breathing.
Tristan closed his eyes and she watched a tiny crease appear between his brows as he concentrated. Suddenly he snapped them open and Dylan didn’t even need to ask. She knew.
“Show yourself!” she screamed. She tore past Tristan and into the living room. She stopped in the middle of the floor space, needing the room because she felt like the walls were squeezing in on her. “I know you’re here!” she yelled.
“Dylan!” Tristan sounded afraid. Dylan didn’t care. She’d say worse than that if it would get the Inquisitor here, in front of them. It was damned well going to give her parents back! She and Tristan had done everything it asked of them; it had no right to punish them like this.To punish her mum and dad, who’d done nothing!
“I’m talking to you! Show yourself!”
Tristan blindsided her, wrapping her in his arms from behind and clapping a hand over her mouth.
“Dylan, I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I’m sorry, but you can’t do that! It can send us back to the wasteland. It can separate us, make you a wraith. It could make me disappear, Dylan!”
She didn’t care. Fury and heartache boiled up inside her, making her irrational and nihilistic. “Show yourself!”
Tristan’s grip on her suddenly tightened. He drew her back against him, imprisoning her with his arms. His entire body was strung tight. “It’s here,” he hissed. “The Inquisitor is here!”
Just like that, the fire snuffed out within Dylan. Her anger disappeared and all she was left with was pain. Pain, and fear.
“Where?” she whispered.
She didn’t see it… then she did. Between one blink and the next it stood before them. It looked exactly as Dylan remembered: the slight blur that made it hard to fully focus on, the eyes that seemed to see right down to her soul. A creature of nightmares, it exuded menace. It didn’t move, just stood there, watching and waiting.
It was almost impossible to break the silence, but Dylan forced her mouth open with grim determination. She would fix this. Her parents would not pay for what she’d done.
“Why?” she said.
She felt Tristan’s tension behind her, knew he wanted her to exercise caution, but Dylan needed answers.
The Inquisitor didn’t speak, it just inclined its head in a slight tilt, as if it didn’t understand the question.
“Why would you take them? They didn’t do anything!”
The Inquisitor didn’t seem fazed by the heat in her voice. It considered her, then answered calmly, “I took them because of you.”
Dylan gaped.
“We did everything you asked of us!” she said. “We upheld the bargain.” She shook her head, both in denial of the Inquisitor’s words and the tears that wanted to start up again. “We closed the holes, we killed the wraiths. We made a deal with you and we haven’t broken it! You had no right to take them!”
“You have not fulfilled your bargain,” the Inquisitor disagreed.
“But we have!” she shouted.
“Dylan,” Tristan murmured warningly, then, to the Inquisitor, “Is this because of the wraith that got through? The one that killed the animals? Because it’s dead. We couldn’t find a tear in the veil, but the wraith is dead.”
“Not by your hands,” the Inquisitor said mildly.
“Please,” Tristan pleaded, echoing the desperation Dylan felt. “Don’t do this to Dylan’s parents.”
“It’s done.”
“But you can undo it,” Dylan gasped. “You can bring them back!”
It had to be able to. It had to. She couldn’t accept anything else.
“I’ll do anything,” she said.
The Inquisitor stared at her for a long moment, as if considering it, then it slowly shook its head. “You have upset the balance,” it told them. “There is no tear in the veil, no other ferryman has tried to come through with their soul, but the wasteland is not holding. This is because of you. A wraith managed to claw its way through, an entire vehicle of children was swallowed by the wasteland and thrown to the mercy of the wraiths. And that is not all. The safe houses are failing, a ferryman was lost amongst the mists.” For the first time Dylan heard emotion in the Inquisitor’s voice. Fear: she heard fear there. “You have upset the balance and it is my job to reset the equilibrium. I made a bargain with you, and I will hold to it. But if your souls are to be allowed to remain here, then I must take two others with me. I chose.” It looked towards the bedroom where the bodies of Dylan’s parents lay.
“But why them?” Dylan gasped. “You could have taken anyone! Murderers or paedophiles. You didn’t need to take my mum and dad, they were good!”
She should feel ashamed, she realised, trying to barter other souls to be taken in her parents’ stead, but had been serious when she’d told the Inquisitor she would do anything.
“You would steal the life of another for your gain?” the Inquisitor asked. It shook its head. “No.”
“Please,” Dylan begged. “Please, there has to be something.”
“There is only one choice,” the Inquisitor said. “Your parents or yourselves.”
She didn’t give herself time to think.
“We’ll do it,” she said. “We’ll go back to the wasteland in their place.”
The Inquisitor fixed her with its unnerving gaze, reading her. She let it. It could look right down to the bottom of her soul and it would see the same thing: absolute resolve.
“Take us,” she told it.
CHAPTER 16
There was a carpet beneath her knees. Susanna was dimly aware of it and she knew that meant she was in someone’s house. Someone’s world. She’d been given a new soul to ferry. Something deep within her was urging her up, commanding her to get on with her duty, but she ignored it.
The urge became pain. Her nerves spasmed as tiny electric jolts shocked her system, until her whole body felt like it was in agony. Still Susanna fought.
She’d lost him. She’d promised Jack she’d see him safely across the wasteland, and she’d lost him. Susanna sobbed, one hand clutching at her chest as if that would help ease the ache in her heart.
She had failed him.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” she whispered, over and over again. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He didn’t answer. He’d never answer her again.
“Dylan? Dylan, is that you crying? Are you all right?” The voice was slightly muffled, as if it was coming from another room, but the name was enough to penetrate Susanna’s paralysis. She lifted her head and saw she was in a child’s bedroom. A teenager, she amended, seeing the posters on the wall and the smattering of make-up on a dresser. It wasn’t a big room, but there was enough space for a bed against the wall, a desk and the dresser. There was a full-length mirror embedded in a narrow wardrobe and the door hadn’t closed properly, a piece of purple sleeve holding it slightly ajar and angling the mirror just enough that Susanna could see her reflection.
She was a pitiful sight, on her knees with her hands tensed into claws, gripping her thighs; her shoulders hunched, curling protectively in on themselves. But it was her face that really shocked her. Susanna didn’t get a lot of chance to examine her reflection in a mirror, but she’d never seen herself like this. It was still her face; she hadn’t undergone a change, but her nose was running and her cheeks were blotchy. Her eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles under them, like bruises. Her hair clung to her face in messy tendrils. It should still be soaked from the lake, but as the wasteland had disappeared, her hair and clothes had dried.
She looked like hell, like she’d had her soul torn from he
r body. Susanna wasn’t sure that that wasn’t true.
The door opened and a man’s voice – the same one that had spoken before – called, “Dylan?”
He stopped dead in the doorway as soon as he saw Susanna. Middle-aged, he looked fit and healthy, grey just starting to tease his temples. James. The details of the new soul began to trickle into Susanna’s mind as the haze of grief started to fade. His name was James and he had a wife, Joan. His daughter, Dylan, lived with them along with her boyfriend—
Susanna’s mouth dropped open as she realised who the soul was.
And the surprises kept on coming.
“James? Is it Dylan?” A woman’s voice came from down the hall. Joan. “She should still be at school.”
James didn’t answer her, he just continued to stare at Susanna.
“James?” Joan’s face appeared over James’s shoulder. She looked a little older than he was, her face thin but drawn with lines. Her eyes were sharp as they landed on Susanna. “Who are you?”
Susanna opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
What was happening? How could this be? It was impossible, for one thing. No ferryman was ever assigned two souls – the wasteland was too dangerous for that; it often took all of Susanna’s skill just to keep one soul safe. So many times, she hadn’t been enough. Like today…
She cut that thought off, concentrating on the puzzle in front of her.
There were two souls, and Susanna knew them. They were Dylan’s parents. Which meant – she glanced around the room again – this was Dylan’s bedroom. What had happened…?
Where the souls’ final memories should be was a curious blank spot. Susanna had never encountered anything like it before.
“What are you doing in Dylan’s room?” Joan asked. Her tone had a little more edge this time, was laced with suspicion, and she tried to squeeze around James. He held her back with an arm. He still hadn’t spoken, was gazing at Susanna with something that hinted at understanding… though that couldn’t be right.
“Are you a friend of Dylan’s from school?” Joan eyed the room like Dylan would magically appear. “Where is she?”
“I—” Susanna didn’t know what to say. She should have transformed into Dylan, she knew – that was the obvious guise, the tie that held the two souls together ‒ but it wasn’t as if she’d fought against the transformation. It simply hadn’t happened.
“Are you a friend of Tristan’s?” James asked quietly.
Shocked, Susanna focused her attention on his solemn face and nodded slowly.
It seemed to be the answer he was expecting, but not the one he wanted. Something close to despair moved behind his eyes. He turned to look at the woman beside him and the emotion deepened until Susanna could feel it, squeezing her already broken heart.
“You know Tristan?” Susanna asked.
It was a stupid question. She knew he knew Tristan; she had his memories. Both of their memories. James nodded.
“Do you… do you know what he is?”
They couldn’t, surely they couldn’t, but there was something strange happening here.
“What? What are you talking about?” Joan asked sharply. “You still haven’t answered my questions!”
He knew something, but Dylan’s mother was completely in the dark, Susanna decided. She stood up, her legs wobbly beneath her.
“My name is Susanna,” she told them. The truth: this time she would lead with the truth. “I’m a ferryman, like Tristan is. Was,” she amended. “Our role is to ferry souls across the wasteland, to deliver them beyond. I don’t—” She wrinkled her brow, sifting through flashes of memories from both their lives, but there was still that mysterious missing piece of the puzzle from their final moments. “I don’t know how you came to be here, but if you’re seeing me – and I’m seeing you – then…” She grimaced. “Then your souls have departed your bodies.”
“You mean we’re dead.” James said. It wasn’t a question. There was no stunned surprise. Instead, he seemed resigned, like she’d confirmed his suspicions.
“Yes,” she replied. “That’s what I mean.”
There was a moment of silence before Joan made a noise that was half laughing snort, half derisive exclamation.
“What on earth?” she said. “What is this nonsense?” She fixed Susanna with a beady look. “What are you doing here and where is Dylan?”
Susanna considered her then felt inside herself, to the core of power ferrymen held that allowed them to manipulate souls, to ensure their compliance – and therefore their safety. It was early in the journey to be digging into her box of tricks, and she’d never had to try to sway two souls before, but—
“Joan,” James murmured, turning to his wife and taking her hands.
Susanna paused, pulling back the words infused with compulsion. They tingled on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be unleashed.
“Just listen to what she has to say.”
“But—” Another splutter. “Did you hear her? It’s nonsense!”
“It’s the truth,” Susanna said quietly, adding just the tiniest trace of push. She sensed James was going to do most of the work for her.
“James,” Joan appealed to her husband. “Surely you can’t believe this? Look at us, we’re still here, in our flat. For goodness’ sake, if we’d—”
“Try,” Susanna interrupted. “Try to connect with someone. Phone a friend, or speak to someone on the street. Just try.”
They didn’t really have time for all this delay – the order every ferryman had was to get their soul moving, to start the journey that would only get more perilous the further along the road they travelled. But Susanna knew instinctively that Joan had to accept her fate before they could begin. She needed to acknowledge what had happened to her – even if it didn’t fully sink in yet.
“I’m not going to just—”
“Do it, Joan, sweetheart. Call Great Aunt Gladys – you said you needed to anyway.”
“James—”
“Just do it, OK?” A hint of steel that had Joan bristling until James softened it with a quiet, “Please.”
Looking like she was humouring a couple of lunatics, Joan whipped out her phone from her cardigan pocket and starting poking at buttons. It was an ancient thing, with a keypad instead of a touch screen, and Susanna chafed at the delay as Joan painstakingly tapped in the number. At last she held the device up to her ear, waiting.
“It’s not ringing,” she said eventually. “I don’t think it’s connecting. Maybe I have no signal.”
“Use the landline,” James suggested. “Dial 999, they have to answer. That’ll give you your proof.”
Instead of doing as he said, Joan stared at James long and hard.
“Why do you believe her?” she asked.
“I saw something,” he told her, eyes full of an old memory. “When I threw Tristan out. It was like… as soon as I separated them he collapsed and Dylan was bleeding and—” James shivered. “There was something holding them together. It reversed when I brought Tristan back to Dylan, and they told me it was the train crash.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Something happened ‒ Dylan wasn’t the same, and she had Tristan with her. They wouldn’t tell me any more than that, said it was dangerous for me to know.”
“They were right,” Susanna said. She was surprised that James had been allowed to know as much as he did. Although, perhaps that went some way to explaining why he was here, in front of her now.
“But—” Joan shook her head, as if in denial of James’s words. The dawning horror on her face said that she was starting to believe, however. Then her jaw firmed. “No.”
She spun on her heel and stormed down the hall. James followed with Susanna close behind. She reached the door to the living room just as Joan was lifting the handset of the landline telephone. She pressed a single button three times with her thumb then listened, the handset nestled against her face.
Susanna waited for the inevitable, but Joan wasn’t going t
o be defeated that easily. She yanked the phone away from her head and tried again.
“Joan,” James said quietly, but she ignored him. “Joan, sweetheart, please.”
“No!” She shook her head, tried once more. Her grip on the handset was white-knuckled, her hand shaking slightly. James left his position in the doorway beside Susanna and crossed the room, gently taking the phone from his wife. She let him, and she made no complaints when he drew her into his arms.
“No.” Susanna heard her sob into James’s shoulder. “No, no, no. It can’t be right. It can’t!”
Her denials sounded hauntingly like the cries Susanna had choked out just minutes ago and the ferryman had to lock her knees and steel herself against the wave of grief that threatened to take her under once more. Holding onto the doorway, she heard James murmuring into Joan’s ear, too low for Susanna to make out. It didn’t seem to help, because Joan just sank deeper into his embrace, leaning on him fully, and the handset clattered to the floor.
They stayed that way for a long, long time. Susanna was loath to intrude, but this flat wasn’t a safe house, and the wasteland would be unforgiving if they lingered here any longer.
Susanna couldn’t fail Dylan’s parents the way she’d failed Jack.
“We need to go,” she said.
“A minute,” James demanded, looking over his shoulder with a reproachful frown.
“No.” Susanna stood firm, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. We have to go. If you have questions, I’ll answer them – when we’re somewhere safe.”
“We’re safe right now,” James shot back.
“No,” Susanna said. “We’re not.”
Automatically, she drew down inside herself, ready to compel the pair – would it work on two souls at once? However, James saved her once again, drawing back.
“We need some time,” he said. “We need a chance to take it in.”
“There’s no time for that,” Susanna said. “We need to go! We’re in the wasteland and—”
“What is this ‘wasteland’?” James asked.
“Not now,” Susanna said, looking him straight in the eye. “I’ll answer your questions when we’re safe. Please,” she grimaced, “we need to go.”
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