Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Is she talking to you?” Captain Williams stood so close she could feel the air warm between them. “What’s she saying about the necromancers?”

  “The pretty, pretty man wants to know about necromancers. He doesn’t care that you know the dead, but he will.” Her eyes went black and she glared past Ellie at the captain. “They care. They leave!”

  “He’s none of your business! Tell me of the necromancers?”

  “A newborn babe. An untouched woman. An aged man. The noose’s child. One of power. With what they’ve gathered, they deconsecrate and summon Darkness. Darkness creeps through windows and under doors and steals the breath from young and old and uses death to open the passage.”

  “Open the passage for what?”

  “For a greater Darkness. Darkness whispers to me always. Send me the dead. Send me the dead.” She clapped her hands over her ears. “STOP IT!”

  The shriek distorted Arietty’s face and drove Ellie back against the captain’s chest. Before he could react, she straightened and stepped toward the shade. She wondered if the dark shade in Gray Friars had been one of them as well only even further gone. The edges of Arietty Brown felt much the same. “It’s long past time you continued your journey.” Her voice shook only a little. “Come.”

  “To you?” Arietty scoffed.

  “Through me.” Taking a deep breath, Ellie opened herself to the light as her mother’s shade had taught her.

  “No . . .”

  “Yes.” Ellie took the shade’s hand, able to touch her for just this moment and draw her forward. But she’d never tried to save a shade so old. Or one who hadn’t been searching for what she offered. She dragged Arietty toward the light one . . . step . . . at . . . a . . .

  “They’ve locked the door,” the shade whispered as the light began to take her. “Only the dead can open it. You’ll fai—”

  Done.

  Ellie staggered as she released the light and once again found herself leaning against the captain’s chest. This time, she lingered for a moment, one hand clutching his uniform, her legs shaking.

  “Miss Harris . . . Ealasaid? Are you all right?”

  “She didn’t want to go, but she’d been twisted by unhappiness and pain and she was already listening to the Darkness. I couldn’t let her stay and become something to fear.”

  Ellie felt his chest rise and fall, his breathing matched to hers. “You opened a gate?”

  “I am the gate.” His hold on her shoulders changed. “They care. They leave!” Fingers trembling, she pushed herself away. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what? That was amazing.” He smiled, and she couldn’t help but return it.

  Then she remembered. “Tomorrow is the dark of the moon! I have to tell my father!”

  “Tell him what? That it’s necromancy? You said he knew. I suspected as much; it was why I was here.”

  “We know two things more.” Ellie poked a strand of hair back into its knot. “One of the bodies taken belonged to a man of power. If we can find out who he was, his shade can help us.” She frowned. “But I need his name. He’ll need a sense of self to help, and I’ll have to return that to him.”

  Captain Williams frowned as well. “And the second thing we know?”

  “That they deconsecrate and summon Darkness.”

  “Deconsecrate? They must be in a church!” He grabbed her shoulders again, blushed, released her and stepped back. “A church where they have no fear of interruption . . .” He frowned again. “A church without a pastor?”

  “Temporarily closed for some reason.”

  “For repairs!”

  “Still consecrated!”

  “Can you find it? By tomorrow night?”

  “Halifax isn’t Edinburgh, Miss Harris. I can find it.” He tucked her hand in his arm and led her toward the cemetery gate. “You find out who the man of power is, I’ll find the church.”

  * * *

  “But Papa—”

  “No! Enough, Ealasaid!” He pushed his hand back through his hair. “You’re too old to be continuing this fantasy. Your mother’s ghost did not come to you to grant me absolution in the matter of her death!”

  “This isn’t about—”

  “Stop it! It isn’t enough you’re sneaking off to meet young men—”

  “Papa!”

  “—but you have to bring your mother into it? You will not leave this house tomorrow, Ealasaid.” The finger he pointed at her trembled. “You will . . . You look . . .” He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, turned on his heel and headed for the back garden.

  “I never mentioned Mama,” Ellie whispered as the door slammed behind him. She climbed the stairs to her room and held the lamp close enough to the round mirror over her bureau to see her reflection clearly. She knew she looked like her mother. Even Dr. Evans had seen it. The shape of her face. Her hair. Her eyes. Her father’s heartbreak. That was all he saw when he looked at her.

  * * *

  When she tried to speak to him the next morning, he cut her off, told her again she was to stay in the house, and left. Ellie stared at the closed door for a long moment, stamped her foot because she was far too old to throw things, then headed for the kitchen and the pile of old newspapers.

  It turned out there were multiple newspapers in Halifax, not merely the one her father subscribed to, and the previous occupants of their house had kept all of them. Ellie moved them to the sitting room and settled down to read. By noon when Mrs. Dixon brought luncheon in, the papers were spread out around her over the floor and the furniture like a flock of gulls. The housekeeper raised a brow, but said nothing.

  By two, Ellie had the newspapers stacked again, and was pacing the length of the room. A cup of tea at three barely calmed her, and, at four fifteen, when she heard a buggy stop out front, she ran for the door.

  “We’re a body short,” she said, pulling Captain Williams into the house. “Four bodies from Camp Hill Cemetery and one from the Old Burying Ground, but the last taken from Camp Hill was sixteen-year-old Maria Campbell and today’s newspaper says they found her body down by the water. I think she was supposed to be untouched but wasn’t and that’s why they went for DeChampes. Dr. Evans said she was a saint. And the noose’s child was an accident. It really was a child, caught up in a loop at the rope works. Archie Tern was ninety-three but, unless he was also the man of power . . .”

  “We’re a body short,” Captain Williams repeated.

  “That,” said a quiet voice from the other end of the hall, “is because what happens in colored cemeteries never gets reported in white newspapers.”

  They turned together, Ellie still clutching Captain Williams’ arm, to find Mrs. Dixon standing by the kitchen door, drying her hands on her apron.

  “My brother-in-law, Tom Byers, he had the shine about him,” the housekeeper continued. “He’d talk to the wind and the wind talked back.”

  “An Air Master,” Ellie breathed.

  Mrs. Dixon smiled. “Don’t know he was a Master of anything, but that’s what Colonel Briant said you folks would call him. He was one too, an Air Master.” When both Ellie and Captain Williams continued to stare, although Ellie at least had managed to close her mouth, she shook her head. “When this is done, you lot on this side of the water should maybe start talking to each other,” she sighed. “Make a new life, stop wallowing in the loss of the old. But here and now, our Tom died two months ago, his body taken from the grave. His was the first.”

  “Is there a chance they killed him?” Ellie asked. “Once they had a man of power, it would be easy enough to get the others,” she explained when the captain turned toward her.

  “He was crushed under a slipped load, down on the docks. The net gave way . . .” Mrs. Dixon’s voice trailed off. “It was called an accident,” she finished at
last, but she sounded uncertain.

  A convenient accident, Ellie thought as Captain Williams stepped away from her.

  “They’ve set up in a small church on Bedford Row. It was damaged in a fire, and has been sitting empty for almost four years but it’s never been deconsecrated.”

  “A lot of small empty churches in this town,” Mrs. Dixon noted. “Folks always trying to save sailors who don’t want to be saved.”

  “But only one with dark wards,” the captain pointed out. “Your father and Dr. Evans . . .”

  “Don’t believe us.” Don’t believe me.

  “But then . . .”

  “Then we stop it. You and I.” She tucked an escaped curl behind her ear. “I deal with the dead, you deal with the living.”

  He stared at her, biting his lower lip in a way that made him look much too young for his rank. Finally he nodded, “All right.”

  Ellie expected Mrs. Dixon to try and stop them, but all she said was, “Be careful.”

  * * *

  “We have to go by Dr. Evans’ house,” Ellie told him as he helped her into the buggy. “Arietty said they’ve locked the door, and only the dead can open it. I only know one shade in Halifax not tied to a cemetery.”

  Anna was thrilled to go for a late afternoon ride, although Ellie possibly lied a little about Lieutenant Marshal being at the end of it. The problem, once she’d slipped away from her mother and sister and was in the buggy, was how to speak to the shade of her dead twin about necromancy and the coming Darkness without terrifying Anna out of her wits. By the time they’d reached Spring Garden Road, with Captain Williams making faces at her over Anna’s head, Ellie still hadn’t come up with a workable plan. And they were running out of time. She took a deep breath, turned and took Anna’s hand, looked past her shoulder at the barely visible shade—three of them on a seat meant for two left little room for a fourth no matter how insubstantial—and said, “One or more necromancers are going to try and open a door to Darkness tonight. The Darkness will feed on death, and a greater Darkness will follow. We have to stop them.”

  “Ellie, what are you talking about?” Anna’s fingers were hot around her wrist.

  Ellie ignored her. “We need your help. They’ve locked the door, and only the dead can open it.”

  “You’re frightening me.”

  “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Miss Harris, I don’t think—”

  “Not now, Captain.” Gaze locked with the shade, Ellie opened herself, just a little, to the light.

  The shade’s eyes widened, and then she disappeared.

  “Oh, no.” Ellie knew she hadn’t opened far enough to make a gate. Barely a peephole! She hadn’t meant to drive the shade into hiding, only to make a point. Then she realized that Anna’s fingers were icy cold, and it wasn’t Anna looking out of Anna’s eyes.

  “No one . . .” Anna’s dead twin sounded excited “. . . has ever asked me for anything.”

  The chestnut bucked as Captain Williams jerked the reigns. A cabbie swore, a pair of boys pointed and laughed, and Ellie said, “Will you help?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is Miss Evans all right?”

  The shade turned Anna’s body toward the captain. “I’m Miss Evans. Miss Alice Evans. I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced, Captain Williams.”

  “You died.”

  “As we were born, but I think it’s rude to bring that up now, don’t you?”

  Bedford Row was on the edge of Sailortown, only a few short blocks away from the Old Burying Ground but no longer respectable enough for a decent young woman.

  “You’re dead,” Ellie reminded Alice when she pointed that out.

  “Anna isn’t.”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Evans . . .” Captain Williams helped her down from the buggy and barely flinched at the temperature of her fingers. “. . . I will do everything in my power to keep you—both of you—and Miss Harris safe.”

  Alice flushed and giggled.

  Only a small wooden cross by the door identified the boarded-up building as a church. Three steps took them from the sidewalk to a small concrete pad. When Ellie reached toward the door, Captain William caught her hand and pulled it back.

  “The wards will kill anyone who touches the door. And I think . . .” He frowned. “. . . I think they’re keeping the dead locked in.”

  “But not out?”

  “Why would they?”

  “Alice?”

  “I think if she passes through the wards, she’ll destroy them.”

  Her father would have known, but her father wasn’t here.

  “I’ll come back for Anna,” Alice said softly, and stepped forward as Anna collapsed. Captain Williams caught her before she hit the ground.

  Ellie’s heart leaped into her throat. “Is she . . . ?”

  “Unconscious.”

  “Then you’d better put her down because . . .”

  Before Ellie could finish, Alice vanished and, with a smell of rotting meat, the door slammed open.

  It was late afternoon, early evening outside on the steps of the church. It was night inside.

  Captain Williams spoke a word behind her and six balls of fire sped past, settling into the lamps hanging from the charred ceiling.

  “Salamanders,” she breathed, reached back for his hand and pulled him with her over the threshold. His fingers tightened around hers as they saw what had been laid out on the ruined altar. The dry bones had to be Heather DeChampes. The rest hadn’t been dead long enough to be bone. Ellie gagged, felt the captain’s fingers tighten around hers, and said, “I’m not afraid of the dead. It’s the smell.”

  She pulled free of his grip and moved closer. The bodies had been set out at the five points of a broken pentagram. Broken to break the protection it offered.

  “They’re empty.” Anna, no, Alice, glanced at the bodies and shrugged. “There’s nothing there. They’re just . . .”

  “Glowing.” Ellie’s heart started to pound as five shades began to wrap like spidersilk around the bodies they’d once worn. “Captain?”

  “It’s not me, I thought it was you.”

  “It is not the girl who talks to the dead. Nor the Fire Master. Nor . . .” The deep voice paused as if unable to determine what exactly Alice was. “. . . the other. You bring the blood we need to seal the working. We need not wait.”

  They stepped out of the shadows near the walls, nine men in black robes, faces covered with hoods, in their hands the hooks on poles the stevedores used to guide the nets of cargo over to the docks.

  “Ellie!” The rising panic in Alice’s voice drew Ellie’s gaze back to the altar. The bodies had risen into the air, fully clothed in their shades and writhing in what looked to be pain.

  Two shots rang out but before she could turn again, Captain Williams growled, “You deal with the dead. I’ll deal with the living.”

  He was a soldier as well as a Fire Master.

  The center of the broken pentagram remained empty. There was still time.

  Ellie opened herself to the light and reached for the hand of Heather DeChampes. Their fingers had nearly touched when Alice . . . no, Anna screamed and fell forward clutching her stomach, blood spreading like a dark stain under her fingers. When her blood hit the altar, darkness bloomed and the gate to the light slammed shut.

  Point of his hook glistening, the necromancer swung again. Ellie ducked, the necromancer stumbled, and Alice shoved him into the Darkness.

  He screamed.

  Was torn apart.

  The Darkness grew.

  Teeth clenched, Ellie reached again for Heather DeChampes, but the emerging Darkness had pushed the shades too high above the altar, she couldn’t . . . “Tom Byers, Air Master. We need your h
elp.”

  “Destroy the Darkness.”

  “What?”

  His eyes reminded her of Mrs. Dixon. Kind. But with little tolerance of missishness. “Freeing us won’t stop it now. You must draw the Darkness into the light.”

  She could hear the Darkness whispering to her. Give me death. Give me death. “I can’t. It’s already too strong.”

  “You must. Do what you do, girl. And do it fast.”

  She heard Captain Williams cry out in pain. She couldn’t help him. She couldn’t stop death. But she could send it back where it belonged. Tom Byers held out his hand. Ellie dragged up her skirts, got the toe of one boot up on the altar and jumped.

  Strong fingers wrapped around hers.

  She opened herself to the light.

  It had never been so bright.

  The Darkness rolled over her. Through her. It burned. Froze. Hurt. She gritted her teeth and hung on. It was too much. She couldn’t . . .

  She would!

  Then it was gone.

  The cry of an infant. The approving chuckle of a very old man. The whoop of a young boy. The sigh of an untouched woman. And a squeeze of her hand and a kiss against her cheek as Tom Byers went into the light.

  Clinging to Anna, Alice screamed, drawn to the light with the other shades.

  Shades were meant to move on. But Alice was living the life she would have had. Her twin’s life at least.

  Ellie let the gate close and collapsed to the floor.

  Familiar arms closed around her, and she heard Dr. Evans call Anna’s name.

  * * *

  Sitting on the edge of her bed, Ellie’s father shook his head. “If Mrs. Dixon hadn’t sent James for us, the Darkness would have been defeated, but those who called it would have escaped, and Anna and the Captain . . .”

  “So it was physicians we needed, not only Earth Masters,” Ellie said in the pause.