by A. J. Locke
“And you used to kiss your mother with those lips?” I needed to get to my rune gun, but I was certain Larry would not allow me the opportunity.
Larry raised his weapon. “You know what they say, doll, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. Third time’s the charm.”
Oh, the cliché bad guy lines never ended.
“Didn’t your ghost thugs tell you how hard I am to kill? You sure you wanna do this?”
“Move!” Larry shouted. Guess he was sure.
Next thing I knew, the ghosts became frenzied. They couldn’t physically touch me but they could swirl around me, releasing the kind of haunting moans you usually heard from ghosts in a horror movie. All of a sudden I was caught in a vortex of swiftly moving ghosts who were coming from all directions from the floor to the ceiling, so it was extremely disorienting. Which, of course, was the point.
I soon lost sight of Kyo. Before I knew it, I was running for my life through my house and getting nowhere as I banged into walls and furniture. The worst part was not being able to pinpoint where Larry was so I could avoid the very real injuries he could inflict. He may not know about my glitch that helped me avoid death, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be at the mercy of him and his torture. Having my face carved up and disfigured did not sound like a good time.
I caught flashes of Kyo, and to my surprise, his white-hot flaming sword. I hadn’t realized he could manifest it outside the In Between. Then again, I had never asked. Some of the ghosts swirling around me screeched as Kyo cut through them with his sword. Kyo tried to reach for me, but I had to keep moving with these damn ghosts running circuits around me.
Suddenly someone slammed into me and I went crashing down.
Larry.
He was ready with his blade, but I brought my hands up and grabbed on to his forearm to keep him from stabbing me. When I touched him though, my reanimation power roared to life and slammed into Larry. Only it didn’t quite feel like it was just my reanimation power. It felt dark and deadly. It started to draw on his ghost energy, pulling it into my body. I suddenly felt a strong ghost presence other than Larry and the other ghosts that surrounded me. It was as though something was reaching through me to pull Larry in. A dark mist rose off my body and latched onto Larry, causing him to scream. I had no idea what was going on and I couldn’t stop it. Larry’s eyes grew wide and he struggled to pull away from me, but my grip on him was supernaturally strong.
We locked eyes, and I saw fear leak into his expression beneath the gleam of the weapon he was holding. Even with the energy runes he wore, he started to become incorporeal. His screams damn near deafened me as he struggled to get away. I was terrified. All I could feel was that strange, dark power chomping Larry up like a ravenous beast. Larry’s ghost energy flowed inside me so fast that it caused my body to buck off the ground. I was like a vacuum sucking Larry into myself.
Larry blinked out of existence and I was left lying on my back, breathing hard, covered in sweat, and staring up at the ghosts who no longer looked so menacing. They had seen the whole show. My body buzzed with energy.
The power that had sucked Larry in wasn’t done yet. It reached out like a moving shadow, like it was its own entity outside of my control. Before I knew it, it had latched on to every other ghost in the room and dragged them toward me. They screamed and thrashed, and I tried whatever I could to keep the ghosts away from me, but it was no use. In a matter of seconds those wailing ghosts, and the black mist, were pulled into me and my body bucked and thrashed. I felt as though I’d been hit by a Mack truck.
When it was all over I swallowed hard, which did nothing to ease the dryness in my throat. I was trembling, I was confused, and I was scared.
What the fuck just happened?
“Selene?” Kyo was suddenly there, kneeling down next to me. “I ran outside to chase a few of them. What the hell just happened? I come back in here and there’s some black shadow coming out of you and dragging ghosts into your body? What the hell?”
“It’s all right…I think,” I gasped. “I mean…I don’t know…I don’t…” I stopped and took a few deep breaths. I felt hyper-aware of my body. I had sucked a bunch of ghosts into myself. There were a million thoughts racing through my head, one of them being a very real concern about bringing on the Rot again. If outside contact with ghosts could bring on the Rot, I didn’t want to imagine what a ghost being inside me would mean. Yet I couldn’t feel Larry’s ghost energy, or any of the others. It was as though they’d been sucked through me and channeled somewhere else.
“Selene? Are you OK?”
I realized I had just been sitting there staring at him with my fists tightly clenched and an expression on my face that he probably found very concerning.
“You need to leave,” I managed to say. I was digging my fingernails into my palms as hard as I could to keep them from latching on to Kyo. “I don’t know how to control this and every part of me wants to do to you what I just did to those ghosts.”
Kyo’s eyes widened. “Selene, I can’t leave you alone right now, you need help!”
I stood up and backed away. I needed to put space between us. “And I will get help, OK?” I sounded frantic; but shit, I was frantic. I did not want to absorb Kyo. “But not from you. What I need right now is to not be around any ghosts, so please do not argue with me, just leave. I promise you I will be fine.”
“Selene…”
“Leave!” I yelled it so loud I heard Luna release a startled yelp from the bedroom. Kyo moved away and headed for the door but he looked concerned and upset.
“I’ll come back later.”
“Much, much later.”
Kyo nodded, then floated out the door. He lingered for a minute then finally moved away from the house. I released a huge breath and slid down the wall to the ground.
Luna trotted out to see what was wrong with her crazy owner now. She licked my calf as I sat there with my knees drawn up and my knuckles pressed against my eyes. This new power that was attached to my reanimation power wanted me to fucking eat ghosts like they were a tasty snack. I could not handle this.
But I hadn’t been lying when I told Kyo I would get help. There was only one person who could possibly help me, and even though I never thought I would go back there, apparently she’d perceived differently and she was right.
I peeled myself off the ground, made myself look presentable, and then did a hasty fix to my broken door. Afterwards, I drove off to Sacred Heart Cemetery to see Magda again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I tried to stay calm as I drove, but it was hard when this dark power felt like it was thirsting. This was insane, and frightening. I had no idea where it had suddenly come from, but all I needed to know was how to make it go away.
Magda was my only hope.
I finally made it to the cemetery and scaled the wall. The sun had just set and a cold breeze had picked up. It was a welcome touch against my skin, which felt feverish.
My legs knew the way to Magda’s crypt as though I had walked it hundreds of times, and I was soon pushing the coffin lid aside and descending the staircase, using the flashlight app on my phone as a guide. I was a knot of uncomfortable emotions as I walked the stuffy, narrow path. The enigmatic dead witch scared me, but I was also drawn to the vast knowledge she seemed to hold. Magda knew what I was now learning; that nothing was linear in the paranormal world. That was eye-opening and scary.
I saw the open area up ahead and quickened my pace. When I entered her workspace, she looked up from her runes and a smile tugged the corner of her lips. She did not seem surprised to see me.
“Speak.”
Where did I even start?
“I absorbed several ghosts into my body and if I don’t get help, I don’t think I will be able to stop myself from continuing to do it.”
“I see.” She dusted off her hands, got up, and came over to me. “Kneel.”
I knelt. Those sharp, dark eyes locked onto mine. She
held her palms up, closed her eyes, and slowly moved her hands over my body. After a short amount of time, she lowered her hands and opened her eyes.
“You have evolved yet again,” she said, voice low.
“And yet again it was something I did not choose. Can you help me?”
Her response was to point to the middle of the room for me to sit. I sat, and she went back to her table to fetch whatever she needed.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Those two minutes I was dead, I ended up in the In Between. Before they brought me back to life, another ghost tried to absorb me and retained part of my soul. Since then I’ve become resistant to being killed, and now there’s this ghost absorbing thing. Does it have to do with the missing piece of my soul?”
“It has to do with who has that piece,” Magda said. She came back over with several runes, some primitive, but sharp looking tools, and a slim black cord. She sat down cross-legged in front of me.
“The In Between is not just one thing, it is many things,” Magda said. “For some it is a temporary holding place, such as it was for you since your body was able to be revived.”
That was along the lines of what Kyo told me, but I didn’t tell her I already knew that, I just let her say what she needed to say. “For others it is a prison,” she continued. “And for some of those in that prison, it is a place to exert dominance and gain power. The Absorbers devour ghosts for strength, though to what end, who knows? When part of your soul was taken, a connection was formed that bridges the planes of existence. That Absorber is able to use you as a means to gain sustenance as you are able to use him as a means to keep you from being mortally wounded.”
“Just what I wanted to hear,” I muttered. “But why is this only happening now?”
“Your reanimation power returned,” Magda said. “Your true power over the dead. It has strengthened your connection to him to the point where you have gained his ability to channel ghosts into yourself. You now carry a form of dead magic.”
“I need to stop this. Is there any way I can get that piece of my soul back and be unlinked from the Absorber?”
“Not unless you wish to die permanently.”
I balked. “What?”
“I take it you’ve received a wound or two that should have rendered you in a worse place than you are now?”
I nodded.
“Well, if you were to unlink, whatever those wounds should have done to you…will be done.”
My eyes grew wide. “You’re saying the injuries I received will catch up to me because only the connection to the Absorber is keeping them from affecting me now.”
“Precisely.”
I couldn’t read her expression clearly, but I got the feeling she was very enthralled by my situation.
“Then what can I do?” I whispered. “I can’t live like this!”
“I never said I couldn’t help you,” Magda said. “What you need to do is learn how to keep your touch from absorbing a ghost when you don’t want it to.”
“I don’t even have to touch them. Once the power is active, it seems to just draw ghosts to me.”
“Control, child. All you need is control. Close your eyes, even out your breathing, and focus on your reanimation power.”
I did what she asked. Though it took some effort before I was breathing evenly and able to block out my frantic thoughts enough to focus on my reanimation power.
“Find what is different.” I heard Magda’s voice as though she was speaking inside my head. “You know yourself and you know your power. Find what is different, what was not there before.”
It wasn’t hard to find. In my mind’s eye, my necromancer power was blue, and my reanimation power was red. But there was a twist of black around my reanimation power and I knew that it was the energy connecting me to that ghost in the In Between, Garrus.
“Once you’ve found it, pull it away, make it its own entity.”
I frowned.
“Call it to you, draw it all together. Concentrate.”
My body felt overheated. Sweat dripped down my back and forehead. The mental toll of having to focus like this was giving me a headache. But I clamped down on all those unnecessary thoughts and did what she said.
I tugged on that black energy and coaxed it away from my reanimation power. I didn’t think it would work, but it did, though it was not easy. The black energy wanted to stay tangled up with my reanimation power, but after a while it did yield to my pull. It took a long time, but I was finally able to untangle all of it.
“It’s done.” My voice sounded like I hadn’t spoken in months.
“Good,” Magda said. “Now form a barrier around it, keep it within itself.”
“How the hell do I do that?” Form a barrier? Was I supposed to envision a tiny version of myself building a wall within my metaphysical body to keep the dead magic apart?
“Use the force of your will, use the strength and power you have deep down inside you. You cannot remove the dead magic, but you can control it. Believe it and make it so.”
Believe it and make it so. If only that mantra worked when it came to winning the lottery. I refocused and realized that just holding the dead magic apart from my reanimation power was creating a barrier. It was all in my mind. I had to keep a mental lock on it the same way I did my other powers. That’s why I could control when I charged a rune or touched a ghost and made it tangible. My necromancer and reanimation powers stayed dormant until I awakened them, and it would have to be the same with this dead magic.
The shields on my necromancer and reanimation powers felt natural and familiar, and I envisioned the same shields for the dead magic. I would not absorb ghosts unless I wanted to—which would be never—and this power would remain dormant until called for—also never. I could feel the lock being placed as though a key was being turned in a door. All the while I started to feel better and better. My body no longer felt overheated, though since I was in an airless, underground dirt hole I was still sweating.
When I felt like the cage was secure, I opened my eyes. Magda held up the black cord she had brought over. Only now it was entwined with pieces of runes of various colors. She had done all of that while I’d been focusing on separating and caging the dead magic.
Magda took my right hand and wrapped the cord around my wrist. I immediately felt a cool brush of magic slip under my skin. A shiver went through me, but I felt better than I had a moment ago.
“You are still a fledgling, so this bracelet will help you stay in control,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “I…I forgot to bring money…”
“Your money has no value to me,” she said. “You, on the other hand, intrigue me very much.”
“So you want…you want me as payment?”
Maybe we should have discussed the terms of compensation beforehand. Although in my desperation I might have agreed to it.
Magda’s throaty laugh rang out. “Your feet are far off the known path, I want you to let me guide you through the darker places you’re bound to go.”
I frowned. “I was looking forward to a little sunshine to tell you the truth.”
A smile that had nothing to do with humor curled her lips. “That is not the path for you, my child. It has already been chosen, and you have already started to walk it.”
Her words sent another shiver through my body. I didn’t want to believe her, but I could feel it. I was too far changed to ever go back to just being a working necromancer who helped ghosts settle their affairs. But what exactly was I going to be now? Jury was still out on that one.
“Again, thanks.” I stood up, but she remained sitting. “I’m happy to have gotten a handle on this ghost absorbing thing.” I turned to leave.
“Child.”
I turned back.
“I sense many things as I pass my time here, one such thing being a consistent opening between the living world and the In Between.”
“They’ve been unable to figure out a way to
close it,” I said. “Do you know how—”
“There is something important you must keep in mind,” she said, cutting me off. “I told you that unlinking yourself from that Absorber would kill you, but you should know that if that ghost were to cross back over into this world, it would break your connection.”
A horrible feeling spread through me. “So if that ghost shows up here through the open circle…”
“Then the part of your soul that he has will be in the land of the living, not the dead. And it is only because part of you is in the Afterlife that you have been able to cheat death. Therefore, if the ghost crosses back…”
“I’ll die,” I finished. “I’ve already received injuries that should have killed me.” I ran a shaky hand over my sweat-slick face. “Oh God, the news just keeps getting better and better for me, doesn’t it?”
“What will you do, child?” There was genuine interest in her tone and expression when she looked at me.
Leave. For now, I would leave and go home to my bed.
And pray that I would wake up in the morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I was happy to wake up to sunshine and not the desolate landscape of the In Between or wherever else I might end up next time I died. Luna was gently licking my face to get my attention, so I forced myself to get up.
For the first time in a while, I didn’t feel sore and achy. I’d been beginning to feel like I was an old lady trapped in a younger body after being in so many altercations recently. I closed my eyes and took a moment to concentrate on the shield I had built around the dead energy. It was intact, but it took a bit of effort to keep it that way. That was a little draining, but it would take some time before it became an easier hold for me to maintain. It would likely never become as easy as it was to control my necromancer and reanimation power, but I was just banking on it getting better than this. I was grateful the shields held in my sleep and figured that was mostly due to the rune bracelet Magda had made.
