by E. E. Holmes
I tried to swallow again. My mouth was so dry that my throat felt lined in sandpaper.
“This was another great hurdle in my work. Neil had a willing participant in Lucida, who was eager to assist in his process, but I had no such accomplice waiting in the wings. And so, I would have to resort to other means to lay my hands upon the right person. I began my research into Durupinen living in the city of London and, lo, and behold, whose name should I stumble upon but yours?”
He smiled, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically, looking quite mad. “It was just so bloody poetic. The very woman who nearly destroyed us, used to restore us to power once again! I was giddy at the thought of it. But I tempered my excitement with caution. You had been through a great deal, and would not, I thought, be so easy to lure into a situation where I could carry out my plans. You were sure to be well-protected. I had to find an indirect means, a scenario that would make our crossing of paths seem a matter of coincidence rather than design. A little further digging into your life in London revealed the perfect avenue.”
“Tia,” I said through gritted teeth. “You were only using her to get to me.”
“And I feel just terrible about it,” Charlie said, with a theatrical pout. “Just desperately guilty, you know. She really is a very sweet girl, if somewhat naïve. However, I could not have been better placed to make her acquaintance, as she was taking classes at the very school in which I was already enrolled. A few quick phone calls, a heartfelt meeting with my adviser, and I found myself sitting right across the aisle from one Miss Tia Vezga, who fell almost at once for my unassuming brilliance and introverted charm. I took my time—I could tell that she was quite guarded, and she soon confided in me exactly why that was. She’d had her heart broken, poor dear. Well, I told myself, if it was already broken, what were a few more cracks?”
“You bastard,” I hissed. “She trusted you.”
“And still does,” Charlie said, nodding solemnly. “A fact I will use to my advantage when this is all over. But enough with the tedious insults and the interruptions. You’re ruining the climax of my story.”
“Well, go on, then,” Catriona sneered. “We can both see how dearly you enjoy the sound of your own voice.” Her tone was mocking, but the energy beneath it was tense—jumpy. I knew that she, too, was using Charlie’s long-winded explanation as a chance to figure a way out of this mess.
“Over time, I worked my way into that battered little heart, and soon she was telling me all manner of details about her life and, more importantly, her friends. At long last, she seemed ready to let our paths cross, and so I arranged for us to meet at the Portobello Market.”
“And you knew that I would be intrigued by you at once because of the spirits,” I said. “How could I resist getting to know more about the guy who attracted so many spirits? That’s why you brought the Necromancer daguerreotype with you that day.”
“Actually, there you are mistaken,” Charlie said, shaking his head ruefully. “That was a misstep on my part. You forget, I have not been gifted with the Sight. While I knew the importance of the portraits, I did not realize that they attract spirit attention of their own accord. I did not realize that I had set myself up to catch your attention in such a manner. Imagine my panic when I arrived at the museum to discover you and Shriya, discussing your interest in conducting the paranormal investigation of the museum. I feared that my connection to the Necromancers would be discovered before I could perfect my process.
“Because, you see, I realized I wasn’t content to simply experiment upon you. There were still questions in my process that needed to be answered, but I could not answer them without attempting the process and seeing what happened. This was risky, because for each attempt I made—”
“You would need a Durupinen to experiment on,” Catriona snarled. Her brows had contracted together into a fierce line over her narrowed eyes. She looked angrier than I’d ever seen her. I felt like I could have spit flames myself.
“Flavia. Phoebe.” I choked.
“Collateral damage,” he said with a shrug. “It couldn’t be helped.”
“Couldn’t be helped? Lucida went through the process with her Spirit Sight intact. Why, to this day, does her Spirit Sight remain unaffected while Phoebe and Flavia’s have been twisted and destroyed, if not for your own incompetence?”
“Oh, well, as to that, I’m certainly not to blame,” Charlie said, widening his eyes innocently. “I’m afraid you’ll have to lay that blame at your own feet, Jessica.”
I laughed, one sharp, short, mirthless bark of laughter. “You attacked two women, nearly destroyed them, and you’re blaming one of the two women you currently have tied up? I can’t fucking wait to hear the logic behind that conclusion.”
“I had no intention of attacking anyone. Or at least, I had no intention of destroying anyone’s gift. But, as I’ve just told you, there were still kinks to be worked out, and your discovery of the ghosts at the museum had tightened my timeline. I had no choice but to go forward, despite the gaps in my knowledge.”
“How did you find them?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I discovered them when I was searching for Durupinen in the area. There are many, you know, but not many that would make good choices for targets. As you know, most Durupinen are wealthy, well-connected, their lives heavily intertwined with other Durupinen. It would have been foolhardy in the extreme to attempt an abduction of any such Durupinen. But there were a few that might be described as black sheep. Your friend Savannah was one, but her frequent trips to Fairhaven meant that her cousin was really the easier target. A poor country bumpkin visiting the big city—it was so easy it almost wasn’t sporting of me.”
“And Flavia,” I said. “She was a student at the university. You targeted her the same way you targeted Tia.”
“She was a much feistier customer,” Charlie said, a hand rising unconsciously to his bicep. “I thought she would be another easy target, cut off as she was from her clan, but I underestimated the fire of the gypsy spirit. But no matter. The effort was worth it, in the end. Through my experiments on Flavia and Phoebe, I was able to work out the final kinks of the Camera Exspiravit. It was ready for my real target.”
“What about the other half of your experiments?” I asked.
Charlie looked genuinely perplexed. “What do you mean, the other half?”
“I mean, if you had a Durupinen, you must also have had someone who you were trying to gift the Sight to,” I said. “Who did you use?”
“Oh,” Charlie said, waving his hand dismissively. “It was easy to find a couple of willing volunteers amongst our Candidates.”
“And what happened to them?” Catriona asked. “The Durupinen you discarded have been terribly affected. We do not know if we will ever be able to fully restore their gifts to working order.”
“The Candidates, too, were afflicted with some rather… unfortunate side-effects,” Charlie said with callous indifference. “But they, unlike the Durupinen, had at least volunteered willingly.”
“You’re sick,” I blurted out, unable to help myself. “Those men are supposed to be your brothers, and you used them like lab rats.”
Charlie’s expression hardened as he surveyed me from behind his glasses. “I do not expect you to understand. There are things worth sacrificing for.”
“Oh, yeah, real brave of you, sacrificing other people for your precious cause,” I said, looking him up and down with disgust. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand sacrifice, or you would have offered yourself up, wouldn’t you? Instead you let others suffer for your mistakes so you could benefit from their pain. You make me sick.”
Something dark and violent shivered across his face, and for a moment I thought he was going to leap across the room and attack me. But as quickly as it appeared, it had gone, and his expression was mild once more.
“As I said,” he replied softly. “I do not expect you to understand. But the days of dangerous experiment
ation have passed. My process has been perfected, the Camera Exspiravit is ready, and the guest of honor has arrived.” He gestured to me.
Catriona looked at me, panic in her face, and then back at Charlie. “Leave her alone, will you? She’s just a kid. Use me instead.”
I stared at her, but Charlie was already shaking his head. “Oh, no, indeed,” he said amusedly. “That won’t do at all. If I’m going to be gifted with the Sight at last, I want to take it from her: the girl who nearly destroyed it all. I realize it isn’t very scientific of me, but there’s a touch of a romantic in here somewhere,” he sighed, tapping his own chest. “I simply can’t resist the sheer beauty of it, knowing that each time I gaze upon a spirit, I stole that very gaze right out of you, Jessica Ballard. As a matter of fact, I can’t wait a moment longer.”
He stood up and began to walk toward me. Catriona rolled protectively toward me, but Charlie aimed a sharp kick at her, so that she rolled away from me with a cry of pain.
“I’m not going to be a party to this,” I said through gritted teeth. “I will not assist in the rise of the Necromancers. I haven’t been damaged like Hannah, or poisoned, like Lucida. There’s nothing you can say to me that will force me to help you with this.”
“Your words are highly amusing, given that you say them while trussed up and tied like a pig for slaughter,” Charlie said wryly. “I know enough about you to know that you would never cooperate with me of your own free will. That is why I had to get you here the way that I did. And that is also why I’ve saved just a bit more of this, for when I’ve got you all set up and ready to take a pretty picture.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe with a red plastic cap on it. He flashed it at me, then placed it between his teeth and bent down over me.
I shouted and struggled in vain as he hefted me easily from the floor and carried me over his shoulder across the room. He staggered and grunted as I flopped around, desperate to throw him off balance. As he shifted his position to lower me into a chair, I found his ear brushing against my cheek, and so, I used the only weapon available to me. I bit down on his ear until I tasted blood, until I felt the cartilage giving way.
Charlie shrieked, twisting violently away from me and dropping me onto the chair. My ribs collided with the arm rest, knocking the wind out of me. I heard the syringe hit the floor and roll away.
“You crazy bitch!” Charlie roared and, before I could recover my breath, he backhanded me across the face as hard as he could.
Catriona was shouting and Charlie was still swearing, but all I could see was blackness and then lights popping behind my eyelids like fireworks of agony. When I opened my eyes again, dizzy from the force of the blow, it was to see Charlie hunched over, both hands cradling the side of his head, which was covered in bright, wet blood. On the floor between us was the chunk of his ear I had just bitten clean off. I stared at it for a moment in macabre fascination.
“Jesus. JESUS,” Charlie was half-sobbing. He shrugged out of his flannel shirt, and held it up to his ear to staunch the bleeding. I struggled against my bonds again, desperately hoping the struggle had loosened something, but my feet and hands were still bound impossibly tight. I stared wildly around the floor for the syringe, but it was nowhere to be found. Gradually, Charlie gained control of himself, slowing his breathing from agonized pants to long deep pulls of air. At last, he laughed.
The sick fuck actually laughed.
“That,” he said softly, “was unbelievably stupid.”
The adrenaline pumping through my veins was driving my heart rate up so that it felt like it was buzzing rather than beating, a mad swarm of bees let loose in my chest.
“What exactly did you hope to accomplish by pulling a stunt like that?” Charlie asked, still laughing. “You are still tied up. You can’t possibly have thought you’d actually get free that way?”
“Guess I just wanted to give you a little something to remember me by,” I said. Hannah once told me I would probably die one day from an overabundance of snark. Maybe she was the one who should be the Seer.
“Oh, I’ll be taking something to remember you by, I assure you,” Charlie replied. With a grunt he tore the sleeve from his shirt and tied it around his head as a makeshift bandage, freeing up his hands to set to work. As Catriona and I watched, he positioned several large lights on telescoping tripod stands around the room. Then, he rummaged around in a black canvas bag and produced a handful of white taper candles, which he fitted neatly into wall sconces around the room. Then he reached into the bag again and produced a small, shabby, but very familiar book.
“The Book of Téigh Anonn!” Catriona gasped. “Where did you get that?”
“I have my sources,” Charlie said enigmatically.
He began wandering the room, muttering Castings under his breath. I could feel ripples of energy around the room, a trembling of the air as his words took their effect. As he worked, momentarily distracted from me, I closed my eyes, feeling out into my connection, desperate to get help, to connect with Milo, but the silence was deafening. Whatever Charlie had done to the room—or to me—had rendered the Spirit Guide bond useless.
His Castings complete, Charlie put the book aside and pulled something small from his pocket. For one panicked moment, I thought it was another syringe, but a moment later I watched as he pulled the cap off a permanent marker.
“Time for a bit of artwork,” Charlie said with a smile that was really more of a leer. “Nothing you can’t handle. I see you are sporting a bit of ink already.”
He brushed one long, slender finger up the length of my arm, tracing a few of the lines of my sleeve tattoo. He followed the leaves up my shoulder to where they turned to birds, and brushed his hand gently across my collarbone, following their progress of flight. The feel of his touch made me want to leap out of my own skin. Then he moved his fingers up my neck, along my jawline, and cupped my cheek, his lips parted, and I thought for one wild moment that he was going to kiss me. He leaned in close to my face, so that his lips practically brushed against my ear.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” he whispered, pushing my head to the side, to expose the curve of my neck, and setting the tip of the marker against it.
And as my head was forced to the side, I could see past his shoulder, into the doorway of the basement. I could make out, through the slight haze of the sedative, a shape, a slightly blurred and yet familiar form, creeping stealthily toward us.
Her face was fierce—so fierce, so full of hatred, that I almost didn’t recognize her. She caught my eye for just the briefest of moments, raising a finger to her lips. Then she raised her arm, and I glimpsed a flash of metal.
And then Tia Vezga plunged the syringe into Charlie’s unsuspecting neck.
He fell forward on top of me with a cry of surprise and the chair toppled over. The back of my head struck the stone, and I felt one of my arms, still tied behind my back, twist at an impossible angle and snap. I think I might have cried out, but the shock and adrenaline had eradicated my senses. Charlie and Tia continued to struggle on top of me as Tia’s thumb drove the plunger down through the barrel, driving the sedative down into his body. Charlie roared and flung his torso back, sending Tia tumbling off of him and across the floor. She leapt to her feet with surprising agility, arms up in a defensive pose even as she sobbed hysterically.
Charlie attempted to rise to his feet but lurched and fell on top of me and the chair once more. He raised his head, his glasses askew, saliva dripping from his mouth, to glare at Tia.
“You… you… how did…” he slurred.
Tia shook her head. “How dare you,” she whispered. “How fucking dare you.”
Charlie made one last, enormous effort to raise himself, to say something coherent, but he failed at both. With a gasping groaning sound, he collapsed on top of me and fell still.
There was a long, silent pause while we waited to see if he was really unconscious. Then Tia stumbled across the room, fell to her knees, and dissolv
ed into uncontrollable tears.
“Oh, Jess! Oh, my goodness! Are… are you all right? Did he hurt you?” she was whimpering. Her hands hovered above Charlie’s limp body, as though she were afraid to touch him now.
“I… I think my arm might be broken,” I said through clenched teeth. “Can you help me get him off of me?”
Still heaving with sobs, Tia shoved Charlie’s crushing weight off my chest and then, with a grunt of effort, righted the chair back onto its legs. Then she hurried around behind me to begin pulling at my bonds.
I jerked my head over my shoulder toward Catriona. “Untie her first,” I said.
Catriona, still coughing from the kick to her midsection, called, “I’m fine, I’m fine. Get her untied first.”
“Yeah, I know you’re fine,” I said. “At least, you’re more fine than me, and more useful than me if he wakes up or if, God forbid, he’s got any other Necromancers hanging around.”
Catriona grunted her approval and rolled over onto her stomach so that Tia could reach her hands. Tia stumbled over to her and began working at the knots.
“Tia, how did you find us?” I asked.
“Charlie called me and cancelled our brunch date,” Tia said between shuddering breaths. “He sounded… weird. He said he needed to do some stuff for Shriya, and that he was really sorry, and that he would call me later. I was already halfway to the restaurant when he called, so I just ate by myself and then decided to order him a meal and bring it to him, as a surprise. He had shut off his phone, though, so I didn’t know where he was. I stopped by his flat, but he wasn’t home. So, I took the chance that he might be down at the museum. You hadn’t come home yet, so I thought you might be here, too. I saw that the van was gone, and the front door was locked. I tried your phone, but that went to voicemail, too. Then as I was leaving, I spotted the van in the alleyway. The side door was open. I… I heard voices coming from the basement, so I followed them.”