by A. J. Locke
“Unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head. “This sounds more dangerous than I can even fathom. So is that how you avoided having to create anchored ghosts to feed him?”
Tielle hesitated and exchanged a look with Micah, and I got a bad feeling about whatever they were going to say next.
“The process still involves ghosts,” Micah started. He would not make eye contact with me. “Because Ethan’s body needs a constant source of energy in order to remain intact. But instead of taking them from here…”
“We took them from the Afterlife,” Tielle finished.
“Took them from the Afterlife,” I repeated slowly. I sucked in a gasp. “By any chance…did you take them from the In Between?”
“Yes, we opened a necromancer circle, then used runes to draw ghosts out,” Tielle said.
“I can’t believe this,” I whispered. “I know about the In Between because I was there briefly. But how the hell do you know about it?”
“You don’t get to be a woman in my position without knowing what lies beyond the living world, Selene.”
“So then you knew that ghosts who were circled away and ghosts monsters never find peace in the Afterlife. That they end up in the In Between.”
Tielle’s silence was answer enough.
Then something dawned on me. “You’re the reason then,” I said, eyes wide. “You’re the reason all those ghosts are back on this side. When you opened that necromancer circle you got more than you bargained for. You’re the reason all those ghosts that were circled away are back.”
“Yes.” Tielle did not sound happy. “The power of the circle we opened was one we were not prepared for. It overwhelmed us. Before we could regain control of it, a number of ghosts that we were unable to capture were released back into this world.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” I said. “That’s why you cared so much about Harvey Whittle and the other victims of the crossover ghosts. They were hurt because of your mistake. Why the hell didn’t you tell me when we were meeting after that woman exploded? You gave me the ghost’s names, but you didn’t tell me that you already fucking knew where they came from and why they were here.”
“You had enough going on,” Tielle said. “But I knew you wouldn’t leave things alone, that’s why I told you as much as I did. But another reason is that there have been further complications that we did not want to get you involved in.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, I’m involved now. What complications?”
“Selene, aren’t you glad to see me?”
I turned to Ethan. I had almost forgotten he was there since I was so overwhelmed with rage toward Micah and Tielle. Ethan looked heartbroken. I didn’t know how to answer his question though. On the one hand, of course I was happy to see Ethan, but he was standing there in a body built by Alchemy that needed ghosts to be maintained. It didn’t matter that the ghosts were from the In Between. I had a tight, twisted feeling in my stomach and wasn’t sure if I wanted to throw up or just pass out.
I walked up to Ethan and put my arms around him, trying to do so without hesitation or flinching. Ethan hugged me back, and even though there was an awkward feeling to it, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that I wasn’t hugging a tangible ghost, but a solid human body.
“I am glad to see you,” I said when we pulled back. “But this is such a messy situation I just don’t know how to handle it.”
Ethan’s smile faltered. “I wanted Micah to tell you, but he insisted on waiting longer.”
“Why?” I turned back to Micah and Tielle, who had walked over. “I’ll ask again, what complications were there?”
“Show her,” Tielle said to Ethan.
I turned to him with a slight frown and watched as he lifted up his shirt and turned around. I gasped when I saw that embedded all the way down his spine were flat, circular runes. They were a little bigger than quarters.
“Instead of having to make Ethan absorb anchored ghosts every day in order to maintain the body, the ghosts we took from the In Between were put into these runes and will remain attached to Ethan’s body, which is in a sense, them being anchored,” Tielle said. “Thus, he will have a constant connection to them and will not need any more.”
I couldn’t speak because my mouth was hanging open. Ethan dropped his shirt and turned back around. His expression was once again uncertain. I turned back to Micah and Tielle.
“I don’t know if I can really process all of this right now.”
“There’s more,” Tielle said.
Of course there was.
“The creation of Ethan’s new body was a success…but there was a side effect we were not ready for.”
“The circle we opened has not closed completely,” Micah said. “So there are still ghosts that are coming back over to this side. We have PTF officers stationed around it to capture any that come through, but some have been able to evade them.”
“Shit. Where is the circle?”
“Central Park,” Micah replied.
“Do you know why it hasn’t closed?”
“We aren’t sure,” Tielle said. “Which is part of why we’ve been keeping Ethan hidden.”
“From more than just me, right? Do your colleagues in the Paranormal Sector know about all of this? Do they know what you did to create Ethan’s new body?”
“I could not have gotten the funding and resources for this if they didn’t know,” Tielle said tightly. “Think what you will of me, but I do not endeavor to do things the same way Renton did. This project was green-lit by the Paranormal Sector in an effort to give Ethan back the life that was stolen from him, and try to showcase that good can be done with Alchemy.”
“But are they aware that things have gone awry?”
“Yes,” Micah answered. “They sent more PTF officers here to assist us with rounding up the ghosts that crossed back over. We’ve been able to capture the ones from your tip-offs, along with several others.”
“Can the PTF tell the difference between a crossover ghost and a newly risen ghost?”
“The dead witches that work for us have created a rune that can tell the difference,” Micah said. “It detects the energy on the ghosts that is unique to the other side.”
“I see. So your people know about the mess you created and are trying to help you cover yours and their asses. How nice of them.” I rubbed my temples in an effort to chase back the headache that was brewing.
“Do you all realize what this means? You have perfected the means to give a dead person back their body. If you call trapping ghosts from the In Between in runes perfecting, but let’s say you do. Once this gets out, every ghost is going to expect you to bring them back to life. This is playing God, and it’s dangerous.”
“Nothing of the sort will happen,” Tielle said. She sounded so sure of herself I almost wanted to believe her. “The circumstances under which Ethan regained his body are different. He did not die, he had his body—and therefore his life—stolen. That was why we were allowed to do this.”
“You really think the thousands of grieving families out there will care about Ethan being a special circumstance? All they will see is a young man who was once a ghost and now has a physical body again, living a new life. And when you deny that same miracle to their son, daughter, mother, father, wife, husband, friend, whomever…the backlash you will face will be tremendous. You have to have factored that in.”
“We considered all variables, I assure you,” Tielle said. I knew her well enough to know she was thorough, so I was sure she had thought about what I had just said, but obviously it didn’t create enough of a factor for her not to pursue the experiment with Ethan. That was a little bit frightening. Especially since she had the support of the Paranormal Sector and—I assumed—the non-paranormal government.
“This is unbelievable. On the one hand, you and the people you work for relentlessly hunt down and strip reanimators out of the fear that they will reanimate people, but this they have no problem
with?”
“I told you it was a special circumstance. You of all people should be grateful that the Paranormal Sector was willing to allow us to help Ethan this way. The other option would have been to send him to the In Between!”
“This is all just a mess, a hot fucking mess.” I felt sick. “How could you think any of this was OK? Especially when it involved using Renton’s practices? Why would you do this?”
“For Ethan!” Micah said. “For you!”
“Oh no, don’t you dare act like this had anything to do with me. You all saw the destruction Renton caused using Alchemy and took it upon yourselves to try and make it right instead of shutting the whole damn thing down like you should have. And you ended up in a shit hole yourself. This is beyond ridiculous.” I raked my fingers through my hair and tried to calm down, but I was beyond that at this point. “I don’t know what to think right now, I really don’t.” I turned to Ethan. “Do not ever get me wrong, Ethan, I am happy that you’re still here. But the way you’re here…I am not sure I can ever accept it.” I started walking away.
“Selene, where are you going?” Micah’s voice conveyed how hurt he was, but I didn’t have the capacity to care about that right now.
“Anywhere but here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Would misery like some company?”
I looked up from my beer bottle to see Kyo floating through my doorway. After leaving Micah, Tielle, and Ethan, I had gone home. I had contemplated going to some dive bar and slinging back a few, but I was in no mood to be surrounded by people. So instead I’d grabbed a couple six packs and came home to drink alone.
“How’d you even know I was home?” I wanted to be alone, but I wasn’t unhappy that he’d shown up.
“Keeping tabs, remember?” He winked at me.
“Stalker,” I muttered, to which he laughed.
“Such words for the person who keeps saving your life.”
“You helped me out one or two times, don’t exaggerate. You’re still a stalker.”
“I prefer to think of it as protector. Never know when more knife-wielding ghosts will come after you.”
“Knowing my luck, it should be any minute now.” I eyed him. “No energy runes?”
“They depleted and I didn’t bother trying to procure new ones.”
“Want me to…?”
“No need.” He sat down next to me. Well, he hovered in the sitting position next to me. “I’m fine like this for now. Besides, it looks like you have the weight of the entire world crashing down on you.”
“Sure feels that way sometimes.” I don’t know why, but the moment Kyo sat near me a flush of heat went through my body and my palms started tingling. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
“Did you figure out why those ghosts were after you?”
“I thought I did, but it turns out I was wrong.” That wasn’t even what was on my mind. I was still churning over everything I had just found out. My relief that Ethan was OK was greatly outweighed by the other revelations.
“So what has you sitting here throwing back beers?” He glanced at the empty bottles on my coffee table.
I sighed. “Things I really don’t want to talk about. Because if I do, I’m afraid my head might explode and I’m not sure I’ll be able to come back from that.”
“The mystery of Selene deepens.”
“I’m not a mystery, my life is an open book. A twisted, fucked-up mess of an open book.”
“Selene.”
When I turned to him, he looked concerned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked softly. I sat there staring into his dark eyes, feeling slightly off balance from the alcohol and plenty off balance from everything else that was going on. Looks like I didn’t need to be without my reanimation power to feel like this.
How did I even begin to answer that question? Should I even try?
Maybe I should just drink three more beers, then go to bed and cuddle with Luna. She was currently having the nap of her life on my bed.
I didn’t answer. I took a deep breath and turned back to my beer. From my peripheral vision, I knew he was still staring at me.
“You know,” Kyo said, voice low. “Sometimes when someone is going through dark times, they need someone else to fight for them, to cut through the darkness and bring them to light. They need help getting their head above the water so they can breathe again. But that isn’t always the answer. Sometimes what they truly need is someone to sit in the darkness with them, hold their hand, and let them know that if the darkness should pull them under, it pulls them both.”
His words struck such an unexpected chord in me that I did not know what to say. I could hardly say I knew Kyo well, but there were times when he felt more like an old friend then a ghost I’d met in the In Between when I was briefly dead.
The faintest of smiles tugged my lips. What a way to make friends.
“No? I get nothing for that? I thought that was pretty profound.” His grin was back.
“Who are you?” I said, not grinning back. “Between our time in the In Between and meeting here again I feel as though I know you, but I don’t. How did you die? Were you a necromancer? What unfinished business made them force you over?”
“Whoa, question overload,” Kyo said. He held his hands up as though warding off my questions. “All this because of my moving words?”
“I never said they were moving.” Even though they were. “I just want to know more about you.”
“Where do I even begin?”
“How about telling me how you died? Was it the Rot?”
“Selene, could you help me if I needed your help?”
I was caught off guard since it wasn’t an answer to my question.
“Uh…well…what?”
“Could you help me if I needed it?” His gaze was steady.
I don’t know what my reply to that would have been because all of a sudden a ghost floated through my living room wall and fixed me with a sinister stare. I didn’t recognize him, nor did I recognize the female that now entered. I jumped to my feet, as did Kyo. All of a sudden I was aware of the presence of ghosts and realized it was not just these two. I turned around to see three more ghosts come into my home through various walls. A few even came through the ceiling. In a very short time Kyo and I were surrounded by about a twenty ghosts. Jack, Vivienne, and her two buddies were among them.
“What the fuck,” I said. My rune gun was in my bedroom and I was ready to run for it. None of these ghosts were wearing energy runes, which was how they’d gotten into my house, so they wouldn’t be able to obstruct me. Though why the hell they had even shown up when they had no power against me was a mystery I didn’t have time to solve. Just as I was about to set off in a run toward my bedroom, an extremely loud pounding came on my front door. Seconds later, the door flew off its hinges and crashed to the ground. Then someone stepped through, and when I saw who it was there was no explanation for the emotions that jolted through me.
“You know, you’ve proven to be very hard to kill. But lucky for you, I am up for the challenge, doll.”
It was the ghost of Larry Bianchi.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Larry strolled into the room, walking through the ghosts he had brought with him. Unlike them, he was wearing several energy runes, hence the ability to break my damn door down. That sly smile I remembered was on his face.
I was trying to get a grip on myself. The last ghost I expected to be faced with was Larry Bianchi. Then again, it shouldn’t be that surprising. The last time I’d seen Larry’s ghost he’d been forced out of Ethan’s body and into the Afterlife through a necromancer circle, meaning he’d ended up in the In Between, where he had a few months to grow stronger. He either got sucked back here when Tielle initially opened the circle, or he slipped back over due to the fact that the circle wasn’t fully closed.
Kyo was on alert. He looked from me to Larry with a questioning look on his face, but seemed to know that now was
n’t the time for questions. I appreciated that he seemed ready to go to battle, but without energy runes I wasn’t sure what he could do to help. The gang of ghosts around us remained eerily silent, but I could feel their stares boring into me and it was extremely disconcerting.
“You.” I showed no fear to Larry because I wasn’t afraid of him. It was a shock to be faced with him again, but I had taken him down once and I would do it again. “So you’re the one who’s been trying to off me. You son of a bitch.”
Larry laughed. “How I’ve missed hearing you call me that from those sugar lips.”
“I remember you,” Kyo said. “From the other side. You’re an asshole.”
“And you’re in my way,” Larry said. He brandished what I could only assume was a small sword because it was too big to be a knife and too small to be an actual sword.
“How long have you been back, Larry?” I asked. The ghosts around me started to move and that made me uneasy. I could immobilize a ghost with my necromancer power, but this many? I wasn’t sure. Especially since crossovers seemed able to resist my hold.
“Long enough to know that I can’t put too much faith in others,” he said. “I was told that you were stabbed and the deed was done, but apparently I was lied to.” His glare shifted behind me and I knew he was sending that look to the trio that attacked me in the park.
I gave a snort of laughter. “You’re beyond pathetic. You sent others after me to do your dirty work because you’re afraid of me, aren’t you? Last time you dealt with me, you got your ass handed to you. So you thought you’d send some of your fellow crossover ghosts to kill me to get your revenge. Utterly pathetic.”
Larry’s smile disappeared and his expression tightened. He never did like being goaded. “You ruined my and my brother’s lives, then you send me to that hellhole wasteland for all eternity? You deserve so much worse than death. No, you deserve torture first, which I will be happy to give by carving up that pretty face, and then gutting you inside out.”
