Immediately, I hope he’s right, but I hesitate jumping to that conclusion too quickly. “Maybe,” I admit, “but let’s not rush off too quickly. It might not be him.”
Timothy nods in agreement, then grabs my hand, ready to go.
“Maybe you should bring Malachi in. I tried, but I couldn’t find him.”
Nodding again, he wastes no time. A few seconds later, a new spot of life pops up in my awareness. I turn to the left and am still startled to see Malachi standing there trying to get his balance.
“Man, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.” He shakes his head and stalks over to us. He looks at me first. “Did you do that?”
Shaking my head, I shrug. “Guess I can only move myself between worlds.”
“Come on, come on,” Timothy pleads as he tugs on my arm. “Let’s go find my dad!”
Malachi’s attention piques. “You know where he is?”
Timothy nods vigorously, but I say, “Maybe.” Malachi’s express begs for a little more. “I can feel some sort of presence. Not souls, apparently, but whatever we are while we’re here. There’s someone else in here with us.”
Frowning, Malachi looks down at our little companion thoughtfully. “There may be others like him or you.”
I nod, knowing full well this might not lead to Mr. Bridger, and will quite likely put us all in danger. “We have to check,” I say.
Malachi isn’t thrilled about it, but he nods. “Everything still empty and grey for you?” he asks me. When I nod, he seems pleased. “Play lookout then. You’ve got the best view right now.”
I do as he says, glad I don’t have to be the defender. Despite what Timothy said about me being able to interact with the souls, I’m still pretty useless as a weapon.
After pointing our little group in the right direction, I sweep my gaze back and forth, forward and behind, every few seconds. I see nothing, but it’s difficult to gauge how far I’m seeing. This place is too weird to trust completely. Aside from correcting our course every so often, I watch for Devourers and ignore the little pulse of life.
“I remembered another story,” Timothy says quietly, “one from the end of the book.”
“What story?” I ask.
“You know how when a person dies, the Ka can stay behind for a while before it goes to join the Ba?”
Malachi and I both nod.
“Well,” Timothy continues, “in the story, the Ka of a priest got lost in the mortal world. He couldn’t find his body, because someone moved it or something. I don’t remember. Anyway, he got lost and couldn’t find his food and water and all his other stuff he was buried with. If the Ka stays with the living too long without that stuff, it turns bad.”
“Why does it turn bad?” I ask. I know why in real life…or whatever. Distinguishing real from not real is getting harder by the minute. In my experience, ghosts go bad when they have unresolved issue that remain unresolved even after death and they’re trapped in the world of the living instead of crossing over…coming here, I guess. I’m curious why the Egyptians believed that, though.
Timothy thinks for a moment, then says, “It’s something called the Journey of the Sun. They thought the sun went to the underworld every night, then bumped into Osiris’s mummy, I guess, and it gave them both new energy. Bas do the same thing. They come back to the bodies at night and it made them good again, which I guess kept the Kas from being bad. It’s kinda of confusing.”
“No kidding,” Malachi says.
“Anyway, the story said the priest’s Ka got upset because it couldn’t find its body and it started going bad. If the Ka goes bad, all his memories get lost, and priests knew a lot of stuff back then, more than regular people, so he was pretty worried. He had to go find this special person who could help him.”
He pauses for a moment and I quickly ask a question before he can continue. “What do you mean his memories would be lost?”
Timothy looks up at me, surprised I don’t already know the answer. “When spirits go really bad, they change into something else. They don’t remember who they used to be and all their memory’s go away.”
“Oh.” That doesn’t mesh exactly with what I’ve seen, but vengeful ghosts certainly do seem to forget everything but the one thing they’re pissed off about. Certainly they forget the rest of their humanity.
“Who is this special person?” Malachi asks. “Does she, or he, have a name?”
Considering the question, Timothy eventually shakes his head. “Not like regular gods. In the story she’s just called the Caretaker. I can’t really read her full name. It was a lot of different hieroglyphs, like five of them, and my dad only taught me a little bit before he died.”
Malachi and I look at each other. There are five hieroglyphs, one yet to be identified, in the string of hieroglyphs he’s convinced is referring to me. The connection to the Ka and memory is something to note, even if Timothy can’t translate the name.
“Will you tell Kyran about the story?” Timothy asks.
“Of course,” I tell him. “Thanks for telling it to us.”
Timothy smiles, then yawns. “Are we getting close? I don’t know how much longer I’ll stay asleep.”
Reaching out to sense the little blob of life in the distance, I try to pinpoint a distance. It definitely feels closer, but how close? It’s hard to tell. “I think we’re almost there,” I tell him anyway.
However long later, we still aren’t there, but something catches my eye off to the left and I turn to look at it. I blink, thinking maybe my eyes are just sick of looking at nothing. When I open them again, the hazy line of shadow is still there. I stop and stare at it. It’s almost like a horizon line, but of darkness rather than light. I can’t figure out what it might be until I see Malachi look down at his arm. He doesn’t seem to be in pain, but he pushes back his sleeve as though he can feel something on his arm.
Instead of the bright red flare of light I’ve seen come from his mark in the past, this time there is only a faint red glow around the edges of the circle. He seems confused, but I suddenly understand what the dark horizon line is.
“Run!” I shriek.
Malachi doesn’t question me. He slings Timothy into his arms and we sprint forward. Neither of us know where we’re going, and I’m half tempted to just take us all out of here, but the breadth of the dark line says it isn’t just a few Devourers coming for us this time. It’s all of them. If they’re coming in force like this, it’s not to pick off a few stragglers. They’re coming for war. Whether against us or Timothy’s dad and the souls he’s most likely protecting, I have no idea. It doesn’t matter now. We’ll all be killed and the Devourers will escape if we don’t reach Mr. Bridger first and get the Key.
“Echo!” Malachi shouts. “Run faster!”
I quit looking at the line of Devourers behind me and face forward. Malachi and Timothy are twenty feet ahead of me, and I can tell from the look on Malachi’s face that he doesn’t want to break any promises tonight, to me or Morton. He can only keep us both safe if I speed the hell up and don’t force him to choose between me and Timothy. I am not a runner. My chest already feels as if it’s about to explode, but I force myself to put everything I have into catching up.
As soon as I’m within reach, Malachi grabs my arm and picks up speed. I can barely keep my feet under me with as fast as he’s running, but somehow I manage it. Or he does. When Malachi’s mark is active, I can’t really explain what happens to him. There’s precious little I can explain, about much of anything.
“Daddy!” Timothy screams. I stumble trying to look up at him, then to where he’s pointing. Malachi yanks me back to my feet and practically throws me forward. A second later, he’s tossing Timothy into my arms and spinning around to face the army of Devourers pressing down on us. I forget about Mr. Bridger the second I see them all.
They aren’t orderly. There are no rows of soldiers, no observable order to their attack. Hordes of them simply barrel forward, crawling
over the top of one another to be the first to reach us, to feast on the souls who earned paradise but are about to lose it.
Timothy nearly falls over my shoulder with all his scrambling. He screams for his father again, reminding me of our purpose here. Spinning, I have to stifle a scream when I find myself face to face with a man trying to take Timothy from me. I pull back on instinct, but Timothy pushes away from me and into his father’s arms. Mr. Bridger hugs him to his chest tightly, but reluctantly tears his gaze from his son to level at me.
“Take this,” he orders and he shoves something into my hand. “The ritual will take both of you. Timothy here. You in the living world. Meet him back here once you’re ready.” His gaze drops to his son and phantom tears well in his eyes. “I know what Malachi is to you, but please,” he begs, “please send him with Timothy when the time comes. He can’t protect himself. Not with as powerful as the Devourers are now. Please.”
His request terrifies me beyond what I can express. Emotion closes my throat and makes my eyes swim with tears. I nod, regardless, because what else can I do?
“Thank you,” he croaks. Then he’s shoving Timothy back into my arms despite the boy’s pleas to stay with him.
“Wait! Wait!” I scream as I grab him. “The ritual, how? I don’t know what to do!”
He tears out of my grip. “It’s in the book.” Mr. Bridger steps out of my reach. His gaze shifts, staring directly behind us. It’s a fraction of a second, then his gaze is back on me. “Save as many as you can.”
“We’ll save you, Daddy!” Timothy screams. “We’ll save you! Stay here with us. Stay here!”
Tears slip down Mr. Bridger’s cheeks. “You can save them, sweet boy, but not me. I already made my choice. I love you, but I have to say goodbye now.”
He turns away and Timothy does everything he can to follow him. I can barely hold onto his little flailing body. I can’t see anything because I’m crying as much as he is. “Save him, Echo,” he pleads. “Save him! Don’t let him go! You can stop him! You can hold onto him and make him stay! Please!”
Maybe I could stop him, hold him like I held onto the soul the Devourer tried to eat. But it wouldn’t save him. It would kill us all. I can’t and don’t tell Timothy any of that. I hold him more tightly against my body and step back, back toward the souls his father begged us to save. I say nothing when Timothy screams at me to stop, to save his dad. I take another step even though he tells me he’ll hate me forever if I don’t save his dad. Even when he screams that he doesn’t care about the souls, I take another step. Into the mass of souls huddling terrified like a herd of helpless sheep.
They souls crowd in around me, but I can’t do anything but watch Mr. Bridger step up even with Malachi. I almost fall to my knees at the sight of them ready to face down the Devourers. Then, I feel like the world’s worst person when I see Mr. Bridger continue forward, past Malachi, and relief rolls over me that I won’t have to watch both of them die. Timothy screams even louder, cries even harder, hates me even more. He throws himself against my chest and sobs uncontrollably.
The only thing I can do is hold him and rub his back and promise I won’t leave him. I don’t know if that last part helps because I’m positive he despises me right now, but I repeat myself over and over again. Mr. Bridger has almost reached the Devourers when I realize I’m not the only one comforting Timothy. Dozens of hands are touching him, insubstantial white blurs all trying to reassure him. The souls of the worthy are facing their final death, yet they’re trying to soothe a terrified young boy. I don’t have to doubt their admittance to this place was deserved.
“You won’t win this fight,” Mr. Bridger’s voice booms through the space. “Turn away. Go back to where you belong. You have no right to be here!”
A horrible, ear-splitting wail erupts from the mass of Devourers. Timothy covers his ears and the souls shrink back. Malachi’s mark flares, painting the grey surface he’s standing on a bloody red. Mr. Bridger lights up a brilliant white. Even though his head is turned away from his father, something alerts him and Timothy whips around to stare at the light.
“No, Daddy,” he whispers.
“What is he doing?” I ask. The souls press in closer to us, clearly terrified by what they’re witnessing.
“What he did last time, but forever.” His body begins shaking as his tears renew.
I don’t know what he means. Mr. Bridger tore his soul from his body to stay here and keep the Devourers from getting both the Feather and the Key from him. He killed himself to protect this place and all the souls contained here. How can he possibly do it…again? My shoulders slump. Then I panic.
“Malachi!”
He turns, sees the expression on my face and abandons his position. As he runs for us, I put Timothy on the ground and press his face between my hands. “This is not going to be good. We have to save as many souls as we can. Gather them all in. However you can, pull them in close so Malachi can protect us.”
There is no arguing this time. Timothy slaps his hand to his chest and brings the feather to life. The souls suck in around us. They either answer the call immediately or have no choice in coming. It doesn’t matter. I have no idea what Malachi might be able to do with his mark. It’s meant only to protect me, I think, but there must be something. Anything to protect us from both the Devourers and the aftermath of what Mr. Bridger is about to do.
I reach down to pull Timothy in closer, and gasp. Grabbing his arm, I shake him to get his attention. His gaze focuses, though he seems confused. “Stop pulling them in,” I beg. “Don’t absorb anymore souls. We have to come back one more time. You’re already too easy for them to find! Any more and you’ll be like a beacon to them.”
He stares at me, uncertain and scared. “I don’t know how else to save them.”
Neither do I.
“Get down!” Malachi barks. He lifts his arm, the red light flaring out around us. I don’t know what he’s doing when he reaches his free hand up to cover the mark. I almost shout at him to stop, because that seems like a really bad idea, but he clamps his hand down over the mark and suddenly the light changes. It solidifies into a…shield.
The souls need no prodding now, they cram in under the half dome, knowing they won’t survive otherwise. They’re too insubstantial to actually crowd us. The feel of their energy swarming all over us is enough to make me feel as though I’m suffocating. I shove the panic that inspires down as deep as I can and fix my gaze on Mr. Bridger. He’s a single man—the fractured soul of a dead man—standing against an army of murderers. Malachi looks back at me, a hopeless expression on his face that says he doesn’t believe Mr. Bridger can possibly do anything to stop them. I almost wish I was as hopeless. The truth is even worse.
The light hovering around Mr. Bridger grows brighter as the Devourers suddenly launch their attack. They bury him in an instant and Timothy cries out. If only his final death could be so swift. I close my eyes against what’s about to happen and force Timothy’s face into my chest so he can’t see either. He fights me, but I whisper, “Don’t watch, don’t watch,” over and over again.
Despite my own advice, my eyes open. Timothy’s plea that I save his father loops through my mind. I think maybe I should have been able to, if I knew more, if I had trained longer—not spent so much time hiding from myself and my abilities. I can touch souls in this place. Doesn’t that mean something? Shouldn’t I have been able to do something more useful than hide behind Malachi’s shield?
The white light flares as Mr. Bridger screams in utter, incomprehensible agony. All the souls he absorbed and attempted to save scream with him. It’s their energy that gives him power, more power than what destroying his own unique soul is capable of producing. I know without questioning that they gave themselves as willing as he is. That means something, but it doesn’t stop their screams from piercing straight through to my own soul as their goodness in life is turned into devastation.
Light meets darkness as the unleashed
power flashes through the realm in the form of a frigid, icy wave of pure destruction. The screaming stops, but the silence is almost worse. I force myself to watch every second as Devourers are disintegrated, though only the ones in the first few ranks. I’m not even sure if they’ve been permanently destroyed, or just dismantled. Those further back are only thrown back—far into the distance…and not unharmed. The rest scatter back to the edges of sight, back to the dark corners they’ve created with their depravity.
In the center of it all, the mindlessly grey space has been forever changed. All that’s left of Robert Bridger is a white scorch mark, edged by the blackness he attempted to destroy. The last shred of whatever is it that’s been holding me together breaks.
29: Follow
(Echo)
As soon as we’re back, I hear an explosion of motion from the kitchen. Malachi. His voice carries through the little apartment as he demands someone check on Timothy, call his mom, hurry up! Then he’s barreling toward my room where I lay staring up at the ceiling. Kyran is talking to me. I don’t respond. I can’t. It will all come spilling out if I open my mouth. All the darkness, all the black shame, all the guilt for not being able to protect Timothy from witnessing something so horrible.
Malachi yanks me out of Kyran’s grip, then shakes me when I don’t answer his questions about whether or not I’m all right. He shouts for Griffin, but he’s already there, hovering, equally worried. Everyone is there. All staring at me. All waiting for me to say something. All waiting to see if I’ll implode or break or run screaming from the apartment.
“I’m fine,” I finally manage to say.
No one believes me.
“I just…can I have a few minutes alone?”
No one moves.
“Please?” I beg.
Finally, Griffin puts his hand on Malachi’s shoulder. Malachi pulls away. “I’m not leaving! Not after what she just went through. She is not okay.”
The Ghost Host: Episode 2 (The Ghost Host Series) Page 25
