Okay… then I need to look up if it’s possible for a ghost to influence someone from far away.
The pages flipped approvingly. Wait, since when did books have feelings? Even faerie talisman ones? I was definitely reading too much into its rustling pages. At least it wasn’t calling me an amateur any longer.
According to the book, ghosts could temporarily possess someone if the force used to summon them was particularly strong, or if there was another powerful source of necromantic energy nearby. Same with attacking people in spirit form. What those two faerie-necromancers had done was no common skill. Most necromancers couldn’t leave their bodies behind without using a circle on themselves as a tether.
But my brother hadn’t seen any spirits. He’d heard them, if I believed him, but had been completely oblivious to that ghost following him. I flipped through the book again, but it only covered the Gatekeeper’s talents, not other supernaturals or even general necromancy. I’d heard of telepathy… but that was a mage talent, and a rare one. And there weren’t any mages in our family.
I looked up to see Morgan watching me oddly. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. You always used to do that at home. I could drop something on your head while you were reading and you probably wouldn’t notice.”
“Hmm.” I didn’t particularly want to stride down memory lane, not with our present dilemma swamping everything else.
“Uh… I was gonna ask what you’ve been up to since I left, but… I guess you answered that.”
Where to even start? He’d left the summer before I turned sixteen, and not long after, I’d gone slightly off the rails in my own way. Rather than drunk and disorderly behaviour, my own teenage rebellion had involved hooking up with a local half-Sidhe. Actually, I didn’t mind too much that Morgan had missed that part, considering the trouble I’d had keeping Mum from finding out. But he’d missed Hazel taking up her position as Gatekeeper when she’d turned eighteen. He’d missed all our exam results and leaving school and my university graduation… okay, only Hazel had shown up for that, since Mum had been in Faerie.
I put the book down and said, “Does that mean you’ll enlighten me on what led you to turn up here looking like death warmed over?”
“Maybe.”
I grimaced. “There’s not a whole lot to say. You know I’ve been at university. Hazel’s more or less Mum’s full time assistant, but I think she hoped I’d stick around and help, too.”
He snorted. “Obviously.”
“You left me,” I said, annoyed at his flippant tone. “You know why I’m mad at you, right? You left me to deal with the faeries’ bullshit on my own. If this necromancer ability of mine hadn’t shown up when it did, I’d be dead.”
“How in hell is that my fault?” he wanted to know.
“Look, even if you discount the fact that I’ve had to save you from certain death since you came here, our family’s being targeted by more than Hazel can deal with.” I swallowed. “You—I get that you didn’t know any of that. But you used to have my back, Morgan, and you left me alone for eight sodding years. You can’t expect me to forget that.”
“Guess not.” He paused. “I really don’t have anything to report. You know what I’ve been doing. Running into trouble. Running away. Same old.”
“When did the voices start?” I asked him.
“When did I ever say they stopped?”
I lowered the book. “You said you were being haunted for a few weeks. Are you telling me this isn’t the first time you’ve heard voices?”
He shrugged. “Mum wouldn’t listen and said I was talking crap. Hazel didn’t give two shits and you spent all your time tailing the two of them around. So…”
“You’ve seriously been hearing ghosts your whole life?”
He shrugged again. “Yeah. What I said.”
“I would have believed you. We lived in the Sidhe’s property next to a village full of supernaturals. Not having magic is unusual.”
“It’s done now.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “Not if you’re hearing murderous ghosts.”
“They’re not murderous, just creepy,” he said. “I can’t always hear what they’re saying. It’s more… odd words, occasionally, and flashes of images.”
“I’m gonna ask the necromancers,” I said. “This is way out of my area, but you really should have told someone.”
“Mum thought I was just trying to get attention,” he muttered.
I winced. He might well be telling the truth. Considering all the other stunts he’d pulled to draw her away from Hazel and her Gatekeeping responsibilities, though, no wonder she hadn’t listened.
“Do you actually have any spare clothes with you?” I asked. “Because if you want to make a good impression on the necromancers, you might want to try not dressing like a vagrant.”
He looked down at his ragged clothes with an expression of vague confusion, and climbed to his feet. At least he’d sobered up, but how’d he gone for years hearing ghostly voices and never thought to consult a necromancer? Telepathy might not be an option, but it didn’t sound like he was reading minds. Not of the living, anyway.
What in hell is wrong with our family?
9
At nine, Morgan and I left for the guild. While I wore my cloak, he’d pulled out a spare outfit identical to the one he’d already been wearing, only cleaner. Hardly worse than what I’d been wearing when I’d first been to the guild myself, so I didn’t nag him. River messaged me saying he’d speak with Morgan while I took the exam I’d almost forgotten about. I also needed to speak to Lady Montgomery about last night’s incident, but I’d deal with one crisis at a time.
“Last chance to change your mind,” I told Morgan as we reached the high street. “I’ll be in the shit if you refuse, but I’m fairly sure I am anyway.”
He eyed the black-cloaked figures approaching the guild. “Nah, I’ll go ahead with it. Not like I had other plans today.”
“Sure.” I hadn’t really expected an apology, but it’d have been nice to have some acknowledgement of how much of a shit show he’d managed to turn my life into in the space of two days. Between him and Hazel, it was no wonder I’d had trouble making and keeping friends when we’d been kids. I spotted River speaking to two other necromancers I didn’t know, and walked over to him.
“Hey,” River said, nodding to Morgan. “Ilsa, Lady Montgomery is busy, so she’ll speak to you after you’re done with the test. The council have offered to take your circumstances into account and postpone it, if you’d prefer.”
I shook my head. “I’ll get it over with. What about Morgan?”
“These two have generously offered to do some introductory tests to determine if he has necromantic powers or not.”
Okay. I took a deep breath and nodded. “Sure. Talk to you later, Morgan.”
He merely grunted in response, looking around the entrance hall as though suddenly regretting his decision. No ghosts or undead could follow him in here, so any trouble he got into was entirely his own fault.
It was a wonder I managed to focus enough to answer all the questions on the test, but I’d read enough of the handbook to easily be able to write detailed answers. The moderator was nice enough to let me leave early, but Lady Montgomery put a wrench in my plans to sneak off and check on Morgan by waylaying me outside the testing room door.
“Er—hi,” I said. “Is my brother around?”
“He’s still undergoing testing, but he shows clear signs of being a psychic sensitive.”
I stared at her. “A… psychic?” I asked. “You mean, like a telepath or something similar?”
“Similar, but rare,” she said. “He seems to be able to pick up on any ghosts in the vicinity and hear their thoughts. If he’s psychically sensitive, it might be that the voice he heard wasn’t anywhere near him.”
“Oh.” That made a lot of sense. “But—where was it? I guess he doesn’t have the spirit sight.”
&nb
sp; “Not so far, but he can definitely sense spirits.”
“He picked up on the creature at the cemetery yesterday,” I said. “I think he did, anyway. And he says he’s been hearing one ghost fairly consistently all the way from Oban. I didn’t know ghosts could travel long distances, but if it’s been in the same place the whole time…”
“Very few ghosts would be able to project their thoughts over such a long distance,” she said. “I’d be inclined to say he was mistaken, but he definitely has potential. I think the spirit sight might come naturally to him with a little encouragement.”
“What—you want to train him as a necromancer?”
“Personally? No. Some of the others feel differently.”
They do? Wow. I hadn’t given him enough credit, apparently. “I didn’t know you could encourage necromantic talent if it isn’t already there.”
“Oh, it’s there, all right,” she said, sounding less than thrilled at the idea. I didn’t blame her in the slightest. But who knew, maybe being a necromancer-in-training would encourage Morgan to get his life back on track. “Considering he’s already been targeted, this might be the safest place for him.”
I couldn’t argue there. “Sure. Is there anything else you need me to do today?”
“River will come and find you later for training, but you’re free until the exam period finishes.”
I’d finished half an hour early, so I went in search of the archives. There, I found Jas sitting at a table filling out a form. “Hey,” she said. “I’m working on a report. Are you looking for anything in particular in here?”
“I’m looking for someone who might have worked for this guild,” I said. “Several someones. Is there anyone on record with the surname Lynn?”
She frowned. “Not that I’m aware of. I was asked to look into the name after you signed up.”
Lady Montgomery really covered the bases, huh. So Jas hadn’t been assigned to me by accident—Lady Montgomery had probably asked her to report everything I said and did, on the off-chance that my actions threatened the guild or the safety of the city.
“Take it you didn’t find anything incriminating?” I asked.
“No,” she said, tapping her pen on the table. “You’re off the charts for a hybrid, but that’s not so unusual.”
“It isn’t?” I’d thought River was an exception.
“Very few of us have two necromancer parents,” she said. “The spirit sight can stay dormant for generations. Tons of humans in the old world had the ability with no clue about it, since the veil wasn’t always this screwed up. So most of us are hybrids in that sense.”
“Are you?” I asked.
“Sure I am. I’m more witch than necromancer, but I was a magical dud.” Her mouth turned down at the corners again. “So no coven would take me. I’m like, an eighth necromancer, but my spirit sight registers higher than my ability to use magic. So here I am, volunteering in the archives to stay on Lady Montgomery’s good side.”
“You’re her assistant?”
“On a temporary basis. I’ve been at the same level for a while.” She put down the pen. “I didn’t meant to offload on you… is there anything else you’re looking for?”
“On the subject of hybrids,” I said, “are there any necromancers with faerie ancestry on record? Aside from current guild members.”
“That’s not something we keep track of, since as I said, it doesn’t really mean anything,” she said. “Is this about that creature?”
I nodded. “There were two necromancers I ran into lately who broke the law in a major way. They’re dead, but they had the same abilities as the person who summoned that creature which attacked us. Only faeries have that ability, but I assumed they had formal training from somewhere. But they might have used aliases. They could use glamour, too.”
“We don’t track our member’s secondary talents. Generally half-mages or half-witches favour their other magical side over ours. And half-faeries, too.”
I’d suspected as much. Maybe this wasn’t where I should be looking, but there were hundreds of half-faeries in the city, and surely a portion of them had necromantic talents. River wasn’t that unusual.
Looked like I needed to start somewhere else if I wanted to track the culprit. Part of the issue with ghosts was that usual tracking methods didn’t work on them. And since the book refused to tell me how people summoned wraiths, except that it involved evil magic, I didn’t have a clue where to start looking.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked.
“I don’t suppose you have any books on the faerie ghosts? River can’t be the only person who knows about them. Sluaghs, wraiths… that type of thing.”
“That’ll be confidential. I believe Lady Montgomery keeps those in her office.”
Typical. “Thanks anyway,” I said, resigned, and left the archive room. Maybe I was better off using the book and hoping the gates of death didn’t swallow up everyone around me…
“Hey,” said River, stepping out in front of me. “Lady Montgomery sent me to find you. I have a free hour for training. Is there anything you’d like to work on?”
“For a start, is there anything on my current skill level which might help me find out which ghost is screwing with my brother?”
“Not if the ghost isn’t close by. Thanks to the iron within these walls, it can’t bother him here. I’ve been talking to Lady Montgomery about the situation and it might be best for him to stay here for the time being. You said he tried to walk outside last night…”
“Yeah, he unlatched the door while sleepwalking on the orders of a deranged ghost,” I said, smothering a sigh. “I can’t watch him twenty-four seven, but I don’t see how I’m supposed to track this thing when it might be hidden. I guess I’m never going to develop a similar ability?”
He shook his head. “If you were, it would already have happened.”
“I just don’t see who would try and target my brother. They don’t need to torment him to get at me either, considering I’m just as easy to find.”
A thoughtful look came over his face. “Did Morgan tell you whether he chose to unlock the door of his own accord or not?”
“What—you think he’s possessed?”
“No, he wouldn’t have been able to get in here if he was. Also, no spirit can possess a person for longer than few seconds without requiring a major energy surge. If I had to guess, the spirit influencing him has some sort of psychic element of its own.”
“It,” I said. “You mean, not human. Don’t tell me there are evil psychic Vale faeries on top of everything else.”
“Psychic abilities are even rarer amongst faeries than humans, if they exist at all. But it’s possible someone, or something, has picked up on his talent and is exploiting it. I’ll have to look into the matter further.”
“It’d help if he could remember what it actually said to him,” I said. “All he said is that it’s been bugging him for a week.”
“We can ask him later,” he said. “For now—I’m supposed to be training you in necromancer skills. Is there anything in particular you want to cover, or do you feel like you have all the basics down? If you’d prefer, I could teach you how to fight with a sword. We have a training room here.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll stick with the necromancy. I have binding and banishing spirits down… what about summoning them? We haven’t covered that yet.”
“It’s fairly straightforward. I’m afraid we’re going to have to go to one of the testing rooms again.”
“It’s cool.” It’s also quiet. Not that the freezing, haunted room was a particularly appropriate place for romantic trysts, but I’d take what alone time with River I could get. And if I could summon ghosts, maybe I could do the same for the creature haunting my brother.
We left the room and walked down the corridor, thankfully going into a different room to the one with the ghost of the old man inside it. This one was actually lit with art
ificial lighting, with a circle of candles in the centre. Still bloody cold, though. I found myself moving closer to River for warmth.
“So I can summon anyone here? Any necromancer or ghost?” I asked.
“No, just Guardians. Otherwise the spirit must be present within the city. I don’t know the precise range, but it’s only a few miles. And they must be recently dead. Even then, they usually don’t appear for long. The necromancers who specialise in helping to solve murder cases or summon deceased relatives to resolve family disputes generally find it easier to take their own props closer to the scene of death.”
“Makes sense. Wait, can I summon old Greaves from here?”
“Yes, you can. You know his name, that’s enough. I think you should read the actual text this time rather than copying the book.”
“Knew I wouldn’t be able to get away with cheating forever.” I opened the necromancy handbook, and felt the talisman move slightly in my pocket, perhaps in protest at my ignoring it.
“I wouldn’t say it counts as cheating considering your position as Gatekeeper,” he said. “But I think it’s wise to learn the text as backup.”
In case I lose the book? At the thought, coldness trailed down my spine. Okay, that thing had way too much influence over me even when I wasn’t touching it. I ignored the book and read over the text in the necromancy guide instead.
“The necromancer language isn’t an actual language, is it?” I said. “It sort of reads like Latin crossed with Scots Gaelic, but it’s pronounced like modern English. Did someone make it up?”
“You caught us,” River said, with a slight smile. “It’s not the words so much as the intention. Some of our older Guardians insist on using actual Latin with the proper pronunciation, but considering none of them actually spoke the language while they were still alive, I’m convinced they were just trying to mess with the new recruits.”
“Because it makes you look sophisticated and cultured, until you meet someone who’s actually fluent in Latin. I haven’t learnt Gaelic since I was in school, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it either.”
Hereditary Curse (The Gatekeeper's Curse Book 2) Page 8
