“A gas leak?” she suggested. “Or carbon dioxide poisoning? That would make sense.”
It would make sense, but something told her that that wasn’t the right answer, that there was something else – something ominous – at play.
In which case she needed to leave it well alone.
She knew things now, things she shouldn’t. There were other creatures pulling the strings in the wasteland, beings with more power than her. If one of those things – an Inquisitor, or something else – had a hand in stealing the lives of Dylan’s parents, then Susanna needed to be smart and not stick her nose where it definitely didn’t belong.
If there were blank spaces in her knowledge of the souls, then she was just going to have to learn to live with it.
“We should go,” she said. “There’s a good distance still left to travel today.”
* * *
They’d long left the urban landscape behind. Susanna was glad about that, but it also meant that the next safe house was a little more… rustic than the last. It was a tumbledown shack, a bothy. The roof was still intact and there were four solid walls. The door, though, Susanna could see as they moved closer, was ajar and the wood looked rotten, bloated. It hung at a drunken angle, and she doubted it closed.
“Here we are,” she told Joan and James wearily.
It wasn’t the walk so much as the emotional strain that had tired her out. She felt raw inside, and everything was an extra effort. She was also tense and uncertain around Joan and James – it was harder than she’d anticipated to ferry two souls. And she’d expected it to be pretty hard. Two bodies to protect, two sets of feelings to take into account, and two streams of thoughts and opinions on what was happening. They outnumbered Susanna and she couldn’t quite settle into her role.
Of course, the turmoil of Jack and everything that had happened might have something to do with it too.
“Here?” Joan asked. She looked as tired as Susanna felt. She eyed the safe house with distaste, though. A memory nudged at Susanna: Dylan pulling that exact same face in the woods with Tristan as they hunted the rogue wraith just outside a small village. What was it called again? The Bridge of Allan, that was it. Dylan had stared at the little bunker with disgust and now, seeing the same expression painted on Joan’s face, it was easy to see they were mother and daughter.
This time, Susanna took the wise decision to keep that thought to herself.
“It’s not much,” Susanna said, “but it’ll keep us safe from the wraiths, and that’s all that matters.”
At that moment, a shadow passed across the single small window in the front face of the bothy.
Susanna blinked. Had she imagined that? She must have. Still, she watched the window – and the small gap in the slightly ajar door – carefully, hunting for movement. She didn’t see anything but then—
“Is there someone else in there?” James asked.
“What?”
“Is there someone inside?” He pointed. “I saw something move.”
Crap.
“There… there shouldn’t be,” Susanna murmured. “It can’t be another ferryman, or a soul.”
She’d sense them if it was, for one thing. But also, ferrymen didn’t share safe houses. They coexisted side by side – on top of each other sometimes – but through a quirk of the wasteland, they each had their own places to wait out the hours of darkness. Like a hundred sheaves of paper in a pad, nestled together.
“Is it one of those creatures?” Joan asked, voice high. “Maybe we should find somewhere else to stay? Another… what do you call them? Safe house. Another safe house.”
“There’s no other safe house within reach,” Susanna told her, creeping closer to the bothy. “It’ll be dark soon.”
Really soon. The light was dimming and the buffer between safety and danger was paper-thin. They needed to get inside. Susanna shifted another foot forward, then another.
There it was again. Something dark, moving with incredible speed. It was too shadowy inside the safe house and the thing was going too fast to be anything other than a blur, but still, Susanna knew what it was.
“It can’t be,” she said to herself. But it was. It zoomed past again, close enough to the window for Susanna to hear the scrape of its ragged body against the glass. A low whine pierced the silence, followed by a growl.
How the hell did it get in there? The safe houses were so-called because they were meant to be exactly that: safe.
“OK,” she said slowly. “I think there’s only one. Think of it like a trapped bird. We just need to get it out.”
And hope it stayed out. If there was something wrong with the safe house, they’d be fish in a barrel when night unfolded and the full cohort of wraiths arrived.
Speaking of which, it was getting cooler and dimmer by the second. They needed to get inside.
“But you said they were dangerous!” Joan whimpered.
“They are,” Susanna agreed. “But there’s only one of them.” She hoped. “I can deal with one easily enough. Just… just stay back. But close. Don’t go wandering. As soon as the wraith’s out, we need to get in there.”
“But if it got in—” James said.
Yeah. Susanna had the same thought. But they didn’t have a choice.
“If there’s something wrong with the safe house, if it’s stopped doing its job for some reason, we’ll still be safer in there than we would be out here. We’ll just have to try and barricade the door, get it totally shut if we can. They can’t fly through walls.”
That Susanna knew of. Because they weren’t supposed to be able to bypass the safe house’s charms either.
She edged closer. The wraith wasn’t battering at the window or snarling at the door. Susanna didn’t think it had seen her; it was too consumed with whizzing back and forth. It reminded her of a trapped fly. How long had it been in there?
Her first thought was to simply yank the door open and hope the wraith would fly out of its own accord, but even before she had a hand on the iron door handle she knew that wasn’t going to happen: the wraith wouldn’t come out for the same reason the others that were lurking nearby hadn’t swooped down on them yet. It was just too light. But if they waited until it was dark enough for the wraith to want to leave, it wasn’t going to be just one wraith they were dealing with.
She’d have to grab it, drag it out.
The thought of putting her hands on one, purposefully, made Susanna’s muscles convulse in a full-body judder. Wraiths were vicious, mindless things. It would attack her. It wouldn’t understand that she was trying to free it, to save it – and wasn’t that a laugh?
Like she’d said to Joan and James, she could handle it, but getting scratched and gored and bloodied was never fun.
“Stay back,” she reminded them.
Susanna eased the door open. It resisted at first, then jolted loose with an ugly screech. She winced. So much for subtlety. The wraith either heard the noise or caught the movement – or, more probably, both – and it gave a furious shriek. Susanna ducked back as it flew straight at her, and for a hopeful second she thought it might soar out after all, but as soon as it hit the dull light filtering in through the doorway, it veered violently off course, returning to the thicker shadows at the back of the single room. It flew back and forth, hunting for an escape route that wasn’t there.
“Easy,” Susanna murmured. “Easy.”
Was she trying to gentle a wraith? Apparently she was.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She couldn’t hurt it. Same thing, really. Besides, it wasn’t as if the damn thing knew what she was saying.
For some reason, the memory of Jack singing to the wraiths at the boathouse popped into her head. That moment had been terrifying, but also surprising. The wraiths had been soothed out of their murderous frenzy by the music, she was sure of it.
Susanna wasn’t much of a singer, though. She’d likely just make the thing angrier if she warbled at it, out of tun
e.
“You need to stay back!” Susanna’s sharp tone sent the wraith into a flurry of frantic flying and hissing along the back wall, but James had been steadily creeping closer and she caught him out of the corner of her eye, near enough to the front door to get himself maimed if the wraith decided to make a sudden dash for it.
“I can help,” James offered. He took another step, craning his neck. “I just want to see—” He stopped speaking, gaping at the wraith, which chose that moment to make another rush at the exit. It swerved away from the light again at the last second, but the sudden action gave James a much closer look than he intended. He scooted back, catching a foot on the uneven paving slabs leading up to the bothy, almost falling over. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s what I saw on the video before.” The wraith snarled in frustration and James paled further. “It’s a demon,” he whispered.
“It was a person,” Susanna said. “Once.”
There was nothing remotely human about it now, though.
Although…
The incident at the lake wouldn’t leave Susanna’s head.
“Can you sing?” she asked James.
“What?” He stared at her, bewildered. Susanna understood, it was a completely random question. Still…
“Can you sing?” She grimaced. “In tune.”
“I… well, I’m not bad.” James shrugged his shoulders. He turned slightly and looked towards Joan, who was doing exactly as Susanna had asked: keeping well back, but close enough for Susanna to get to her quickly if anything happened. “Joan’s the singer.”
He lifted his voice enough for her to hear him, and Joan cocked her head slightly as she regarded them quizzically.
“A song,” he called to her.
“Are you serious?” Joan took a handful of steps forward but halted when she saw the wraith through the doorway. “What on earth for?”
“It’ll settle the wraith,” Susanna said. “Hopefully. If we can get it to calm down, I can grab it.”
“All right.” Joan looked at them as if they were crazy, but another wail pierced the growing dusk and she shuddered at the eerie sound, a look of grim determination settling over her features. She opened her mouth and started to sing. It was very different to the songs Jack had sung Susanna. Softer. Melodic. It clearly struck a chord with James, because he made a sort of choked sound and his face took on an anguished look.
Curious – and keeping one eye on the wraith to check for any lessening of its panicked movements – she sped through James’s memories.
There.
Joan, younger, standing with her back to him, something in her arms. She was singing the song, albeit more quietly, and rocking slightly. James called out in the memory and Joan turned, allowing Susanna to see the tiny child in her arms. Baby Dylan.
It was a bittersweet memory to James, and Susanna dropped it as soon as she felt his intense love, his racking guilt that not long after this he’d disappeared from both of their lives. She felt sorry for him, having regained his family just to have it snatched away from him again, but he’d made his choices, the same as every other soul that Susanna had ferried.
“Look!” James whispered, yanking her back into the here and now. “It’s having an effect.”
It definitely was. As Susanna focused on the wraith she saw that it was weaving, its movements slower, almost drunken. It was meandering towards them, as if the song called to it somehow.
As if it remembered music.
If that was the case… that meant that there was still something in there. Some tiny part of the person it used to be. A tiny candle of hope flared within Susanna, but she snuffed it out for now. She wouldn’t let herself even think on the possibility… yet.
“Keep singing,” she urged Joan when the woman’s voice dropped down, indicating an end to the song. “It doesn’t matter what. Sing that song again if you want.”
She didn’t, starting something with a higher pitch that rose and fell in a gentle rhythm. Susanna caught her breath, half-in half-out of the door, waiting to see how the wraith would react. It didn’t seem to object to the change in tone; if anything, it shifted closer.
Inching forward, Susanna kept her eyes fixed on the wraith. The things didn’t really have faces as such, so it was hard to gauge its expression, but she’d swear it looked calmer, more peaceful.
This was as good as it was going to get. Armed with nothing more than her bare hands, Susanna crossed the threshold into the safe house. The wraith noticed, but it didn’t seem to care. It was too busy weaving dreamily, almost dancing in the air. Taking her shot, Susanna grabbed it around the middle, pinning its ragged, wispy coat to its sides. It was similar, she presumed, to trying to catch a crow or a raven. It was too big at first, unwieldy in her grip, but once she had it gathered and snug, it stopped struggling.
Until, that is, Joan stopped singing.
“You’ve got it?” she asked.
As soon as the wraith realised the hypnotic music had ceased, it started writhing and thrashing, claws extending beneath its body and gouging slashes into Susanna’s fingers. Its teeth started snapping down, trying to tear at her knuckles. Susanna had a firm grip on it, but as it struggled it seemed to become less substantial. As tight as Susanna tried to hold it, it managed to find wiggle room – and it was wiggling madly.
It was going to get free.
“Sing!” she ordered Joan. “Quickly! Anything!”
Joan didn’t hesitate. She launched straight back into the song she’d been singing as if there hadn’t been a break. The effect on the wraith was instantaneous. It slumped into Susanna’s hands, almost as if it was sighing with relief.
“You recognise that, don’t you?” Susanna whispered to it. “Whatever’s left of you, you recognise the music.”
Not wanting to push her luck, Susanna walked quickly to the door of the bothy, and both Joan and James skirted sensibly back out of the way.
“Inside,” Susanna told them, adding, “but don’t stop singing. Not yet.”
They were quick to obey. The low wailing from the far shadows that Susanna had been resolutely ignoring was growing to a caterwauling. Soon, the air would be thick with wraiths who’d be delighted with a ferryman foolish enough to stay outside after sundown. Knowing she didn’t have much time, Susanna flung the wraith upwards, as she imagined someone might release a bird. There was no flutter of wings, but the wraith took to the air.
It didn’t go far, though, rising up and turning to swoop back down almost before Susanna could back hastily across the safe house threshold. Despite the noise from its brethren, it wasn’t snarling and Susanna realised that it wasn’t the lure of two souls that was drawing it.
“Stop,” she called to Joan. “Stop singing now.”
Joan’s voice – which, now that the song was over, had just been humming the tune – cut off between one breath and the next. The wraith lurched in the air, seeming to come out of the enthralled daze it had been caught in.
And then it dived at them, claws out and teeth bared.
This time it was as hungry as any other wraith, but though Susanna braced to defend Joan and James, she didn’t try to shut the door. Not yet. She needed to know if the wraith could come back in, if the safeguards around the bothy had fallen.
Readying herself for pain if the wraith got through, Susanna half turned away and scrunched her eyes shut. Please, please, please, she thought.
The wraith slammed into the entryway of the safe house… and was sent somersaulting away into the darkening sky.
The protections held.
Relieved, but still confused – how had it got in there in the first place? – Susanna drew in a deep breath.
“We’re safe,” she told Joan and James. “They can’t come in.”
It wasn’t a minute too soon, either. The distant wailing was coming closer, turning to hissing and growling and screaming as the last of the light leached from the sky and the wraiths were released from their shadows.
&nb
sp; “I don’t understand,” James said quietly as he came up to stand behind Susanna. “How did it get inside?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
Strange things were happening in the wasteland lately, not least of all the fact that Susanna had been given two souls to ferry. She had a niggling feeling that it was somehow linked to what she’d attempted to do – what Dylan and Tristan had succeeded in doing – and she knew that puzzling it out should be first and foremost in her thoughts. She needed to understand all of the nuances of the wasteland to protect her souls after all.
But that wasn’t it, though.
There was something else.
Something she hadn’t dared let herself hope for.
The wraith had recognised the music, there was no doubt about it. It had wanted to be close to it, had become less beast-like, less ferocious. More… human. It had felt more solid in her hands, too. Susanna rarely touched the wraiths – and never voluntarily. But she had more practice than she’d like grabbing them and tearing them away from souls, hauling them free of her own flesh. They always felt… not quite there. Not quite corporeal. As if, should she squeeze too tight, grip too hard, her fingers might sink right through them.
The wraith she’d held in her hands – while Joan was singing – had felt as solid as Susanna was.
The music had triggered a memory. That memory had pulled the wraith out of the ghost-like, mindless existence it was trapped in. Just a little, but enough to prove that it could be done.
A song, trilled out by a stranger, had caused that reaction. Had reached the wraith.
If it could do that, surely Susanna could reach Jack? Could call out to the human part of him buried deep, deep inside.
It went against everything Susanna had ever been told, but as she stood in the doorway of the safe house and watched the wraiths swirling and swooping outside, Susanna decided that didn’t mean anything. Not any more. What she knew, what she’d been told, wasn’t necessarily the truth. Or all of it, anyway. There was a possibility that Susanna might be able to help Jack. And no matter how unlikely it was, no matter how slim her chances of success might be, she was going to try.
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