Remember what you’ve seen.
I needed a word with the crumbling man.
And a phone.
Chapter Six
A Loathsome Lot
Grayford
I stretched my legs in the deafening darkness and wished for the one-millionth time that I could sit up. When I’d agreed to this, I’d pictured an empty fuselage, but by the time I had translocated to the aircraft’s interior, it was quite nearly full.
The loading of the tightly wrapped cargo pallets had been a feat of mechanization. Even from my distant vantage point across the airfield, it had been a thing of wonders to watch. The nose of the colossal craft had flipped up like the nose of a shark just before it bites, leaving the gullet of the beast wide and ready to receive.
Tightly packed merchandise and bulky machinery had been fed into the space below the cockpit. That left only a few feet in the back near the engines and a few feet between the pallets and the ceiling of the cargo bay. The other passengers had chosen the back space to congregate, so I’d found a dip in the pallets and settled in for the long flight.
The heat and pressure of the container space was enough to make my head swim, but I couldn’t waste time on a sea voyage, and my passport was still in process, as were my birth certificate and my social security number. I was alive again, and I wanted to be counted among my fellow man, but building an identity for a thirty-year-old man from nowhere was not without its difficulties. A lowly state for a man of my former holdings.
“You there.” A quavering voice called from the back of the plane. “Stowaway.”
Every half hour or so, the other passengers grew bored and resumed their taunts. It only took one idle call and the whole chorus struck up.
“Humans is crunchy and chewy and sweet.”
“Oh, are you too hot? Why don’t we remove some of that sweaty skin for you?”
“Flay it.”
“Peel it.”
“Rip it raw.”
The collection of entities gathered in the back of the pitch-black fuselage were a loathsome lot. In another venue, I would have culled the strongest among them and subdued the rest. I’d had plenty of experience with disquiet spirits and the repellant beings that exist at the edges of the living world. Phantoms, wights, and the last lingering dregs of the fey. They were none of them welcome in the light, and yet, unable to step away from it. They were fiends stealing life force from the living and trading it at the favor markets or squandering it in the grave dens.
“Drain him while he sleeps, and then he’ll make a meaty treat,” another voice gurgled.
Something with mass bumped the pallet I’d settled on. The plastic wrap cocooning the crates beneath me popped and snapped. The stench of rot filled the tight space around me, and suddenly the cargo of batteries, upon which I’d settled, lurched. Wood split, and I toppled over the edge and hit the floor of the back compartment. Sharpened fingers danced along my skin. Stinging lines tore across my arm.
Cackling filled the cramped darkness, and ghost light assaulted my eyes. It bathed the tiny space around me in a sickly, flickering glow. Spirits stretched and bunched their ropey bodies, twining and threading through the cargo hold, along the walls, but never outside the fuselage. We were still over the ocean, and that amount of moving water would pull them apart like taffy.
I got my feet under me and yanked my vest into place. It was an old habit, but it helped me gain composure. I’d relinquished my former garments, my death shroud as Melisande liked to tease. She’d insisted on a more modern look. Turn of the century fashion was as modern as I cared for, but I’d made a few concessions. Melisande had allowed me a vest, but it was smaller and shorter than my old one, and more closely fitted. I brushed the modern fabric of my trousers as I sized up my opponent. I’d rejected the infernal denim Melisande had offered me, and as much as I ached to please her, I would never don the pair of tennis shoes she’d selected. I am a boot man for all eternity. I straightened and attempted to rest my hand on my missing sword.
I knew how I appeared to these miscreants. I stood before them a hapless mortal. Maybe I was. The circumstances of my present condition were still unknown. If cut, I bled. If injured, I felt pain, and yet, I still did not feel finished. Had the good Lord, in His wisdom, left me incomplete? A pressure built deep in my chest and I exhaled to give it room. This was not the place for another outburst. I had to calm myself.
Why did this unearthly force rattle through my bones? I was no longer designed to wield it. I’d tried to expel it last night, but I could still feel it curled within me, ensconced in the deepest regions of my being. It stirred again, responding to my anxiety, and my chest began to itch.
“You would lay hands on me?” I caught them all with my glare, but only one responded. A giant blackguard with a toothless grin and rotting eyes leaned forward into the wavering light. Ectoplasm foamed at the corners of his wide mouth. When I’d first fastened eyes on him, I’d wondered how such a large and solid-looking entity had boarded the jet, but the biplanar substance dripping down his chin explained it quite well. Transmogrification. He couldn’t discorporate like me, but he could break his flesh into pieces and glue it back together with ectoplasm. That was necromancy and required a consistent supply of life energy. The type of energy I now possessed. If I didn’t handle this situation immediately, I might become the inflight meal.
“We couldn’t leave you in your nest for the entire trip, mortal.” The ghoul’s breath was as foul as his visage. “Tell me who you are and why yer travelin’ with the dead?”
“Yes. Tell us now. Tell us now.” A chorus of disembodied voices whined in my ears loud enough to drown out the constant rumble of the jet engines. I resisted the urge to swat at them like insects.
“I am Commander William Grayford of the Norfolk Ghost Fleet.” The new title felt wrong in my mouth.
“Commander…of a Ghost Fleet?”
Faces crowded into the sallow pool of light. Too many faces for the constricted space. My skin crawled with the pricks and jabs of their violating fingers.
“Stand back,” I ordered and did my best to ward off the tangle of entities twisting and looping in the space above my head. I needed air. I needed room to move. The web of curious faces tightened around me.
“What is a commander doing huddled at the back of a cargo plane?” The rotting smell soured the air again as his long-jowled, gray face swam into view. Of all the varieties of grave robbers I’d encountered in the shadowed lands of the spirit realm, this fellow was the least appealing. Ghouls were carrion feeders, sucking the last dregs of life energy from the recently deceased. They were lower even than wights, because they often desecrated the bodies of their victims in unmentionable ways. The creature I addressed looked more solid than most, which meant he was a frequent feeder.
“My business is none of your concern.” I did my best to ignore the gooseflesh rising along my skin. I was still getting used to my new body’s glandular response to outside stimuli. Decomposing wraiths with no respect for personal space were clearly a trigger.
“I think it is.” A waxy, bloodless hand swept toward me. I reached for my sword, but it was still gone. Of all the changes to my lifestyle, that was one of the worst. I’d had the right to bear arms my whole life. I felt naked and ill-prepared.
“I say again, stand back.”
Instead, my assailant’s wobbling mass of congealed flesh pressed close. I had no choice but to gangway for the brute’s massive body. I backed to the farthest corner of the fuselage and quickly assessed my situation.
“Kill it. Kill it,” voices cheered.
“No, break its legs off.”
“Tear it to pieces and share!” the assembly jeered.
My heart pounded out a swift beat as I sifted through my dwindling options. I could search the darkness for something to use as a weapon, but that would take time and leave me open to attack. I could translocate to another spot inside the fuselage, but I couldn’t be sure I’d re
incorporate inside the plane. What if I reappeared where the plane had just been—out over the ocean? I was inhabiting a living body, but what if the possession was incomplete. Could I still be torn apart by moving water? I’d not tested that theory past the gentle flow of a brief shower. The parts of me that still existed outside of nature could be lost to the crash of ions below. What would I be then?
Maybe there is a boat near enough to harbor me the same way the Ghost Fleet holds its prisoners back home. The inmates of the floating gulag were better off than the poor souls beneath the waves. Those diluted spirits would never regain their constitutions.
I scanned the miserable gathering of corrupted presences ferrying across the sea in the shadows of the mortal world. I knew their type. They moved from place to place, clinging to their sentience as if it were the only thing in creation worth having. They would never know what it was to live again, but in their state, anything was better than oblivion. If I wasn’t careful, I might become something very nearly the same.
My mind turned to another option. The force that moved inside me, the thing that was not meant to be encased in flesh and blood, it rolled beneath my sinew and bone. It was clumsy, indifferent, and incompatible with my corporeal form. Its origins were rooted somewhere in my psyche, but now that I’d regained the mantle of life, it was a dangerous and disconnected emanation. Dare I reach for it? I couldn’t control it. Of that I was certain.
Make yourself a cannon and fire upon the night. Pratt’s words came back to me. This was not a place for defenseless souls. I needed a weapon, not only for myself, but for Melisande’s sake. The thought of her unraveled me. As if sensing my dip in confidence, another entity materialized from the darkness, and the violent roaring of the engines hushed.
“Commander.” The man gave a quick bow, and his faded uniform came into view. A Union soldier, bristling with weapons, turned his back to me and faced the slavering wraith. “What are your orders?”
“Good man.” I nearly hugged the soldier. “Sword at the ready.” If I could have taken one of his weapons, I would have. Thank you, Mr. Pratt. I, no doubt, owed this timely assistance to his careful planning.
“Sir, I think our business is concluded,” I barked. The ghoul’s lumpy face drew back, and a foul guffaw filled the compartment.
“Our business has just begun, human.”
A fist wrapped in decaying flesh sliced down from the darkness. I flung myself back, and the soldier sidestepped just in time to miss the blow. The beast charged, narrowly missing me as I leapt to the top of the pallet of industrial-sized batteries. The pallet slid sideways and toppled free of its restraints.
The soldier struck with otherworldly speed, slicing through the sickly twist of sinew roping up the ghoul’s leg. A dark spray of stilled blood splashed the batteries. The monster wailed.
Another blow from the giant tore through the pallets, loosening boxes and scattering cargo. The machinery stacked in the center slid, and suddenly the weight of the entire plane shifted. I lost my footing as the jet pilots tilted the plane to compensate.
Wood snapped, and the batteries tumbled free. I grabbed a jagged piece of pallet wood and fought to my feet, but the ghoul was clearly accustomed to fighting more than one person at a time. His backward blow clipped me, and I slammed against the wall.
The soldier charged the brute while his torso was unprotected. His sword dove into the partially corporeal bone of the ghoul’s ribcage and lodged. A meaty hand came down on the soldier ghost, pinning him to the floor. The ghoul’s ability to shift its pieces from a solid to an immaterial state played us both badly. I jabbed at the monster’s back but inflicted only minimal damage. The soldier fought free, hacking at the ghoul’s earthbound parts, but to little effect.
With a deafening roar, the rotting juggernaut rushed my companion and fastened a crushing hand around his neck. The plane dipped suddenly, tossing us all to our knees, but his grip was locked in place.
I rammed the ghoul from behind and plunged the length of wood deep into his ethereal muscles. A rank odor issued forth from its decomposing flesh.
“Unhand him,” I shouted, climbing the sinking skin of his back. I yanked my belt free and wrapped the leather around his neck. I twisted until the sturdy strip cut through skin and muscle. The ghoul grunted and tossed the soldier to the back of the plane where the collection of degenerate wisps fell upon my comrade in a gluttonous group. His apparition shredded beneath savage claws and teeth.
“No!” My voice carried over the roar of engines and power rode it. I choked on the expanding pressure. The untamed force took shape in my chest and throat. I gagged as the lumbering ghoul tossed me to the floor. I writhed in pain as the amorphous energy coalesced between my skin and bones. It pressed against my heart and folded my lungs. If I released it in the plane, the jet might break apart. If I let its malignancy continue to grow inside me, it would surely rend my new body into pieces.
The nose of the plane dropped and everything animate and inanimate slid toward me in a rush.
Chapter Seven
Flashy is appropriate.
Melisande
“You look perfecta, Mi Amor. A work of art,” Celene cooed as she circled me. The black top—if you could call it a top—was stunning, though a bit fancy for my supposed purpose. Thin strips of stretchy black fabric zigged and zagged across my shoulders, waist, and upper arms like an abstract bit of stained glass. Between the strips, a web of thin black threads, no larger than spaghetti, hugged my body. I would have been basically nude on top, if not for my black bra she’d let me keep. The hem of the flat black shirt met the shiny black leather of my skirt exactly at mid-waist. If I moved even slightly, a pale peek of skin revealed the tops of my hips. I brushed my fingers along the strip of suddenly exposed skin. I felt sexy in the slinky, close-fitting fabric and the strappy heels she’d selected to go with it. Grayford would love it.
I clamped my teeth down on the swift inhale. The thought of him left a burning razor slice across my brain. My body shook as I tucked the scream down deep. I’d let it out later, when Celene wasn’t close enough to practically hear my thoughts.
“Here.” The redhead’s watercolor eyes shimmered as she slipped her fingers behind my earlobe. A prick. A small pressure, and then she moved to the other ear. “A finishing touch.”
Some part of me registered pain, but the message got lost on its way to my brain. All I could feel was a dull throbbing. I hadn’t worn earrings in over a year. The holes in my lobes had basically closed.
“Lovely,” Celene crooned. She lifted a graceful fingertip to her mouth. The smallest drop of blood clung to her finger. Pillowy, red lips parted, and a glittering raspberry tongue slid from between her pearly teeth. Celene painted a small line of my blood down her snaking taste buds. I should have been horrified or at least disgusted, but instead, I was fascinated. The way the delicate seeking tip of her tongue stretched low across her bottom lip; the undulating quiver of thick, wet muscle that followed trapped my breath. Warmth poured to my secret places as her tongue whispered promises.
I tore my eyes from her mouth and my lungs filled with air again.
“This seems a bit flashy.” The words rushed out of me.
“You are traveling with the Keeper of the Cauldron. Flashy is appropriate.” Celene’s tongue had slithered out of sight, but her crimson lips parted in a wolfish grin. She was dressed in a pearl halter top and suede animal print pants with impossibly high black heels that fastened around her ankles with diamond-studded buckles.
“I’m sure I need to freshen my makeup. Is there a mirror?” I leaned forward, peering around a corner of the closet for any reflective surface. Celene had already dabbed a bit of gloss on my lips, but if I was going to pull this ensemble off, I needed eyeliner and mascara. And, I admit, I wanted to see how I looked in that amazing top.
The tiny compact mirror she handed me was underwhelming. I held it out as far as I could, but I only got small glimpses of my reflection. From wh
at I could tell, the shirt looked fabulous framed by my long, dark hair, but my face looked tired. Shadows had begun to smudge under my amber eyes.
“Un momento…one last thing,” she chimed and grasped my wrist with the speed of a striking cobra. I tried to yank my arm away, but my host was stronger than she looked. Celene’s grip tightened like a ligature. “An upgrade.”
Her manicured fingers clutched the broken bracelet still circling my left arm and pried it off. I stared at my naked arm and the fight left my body like steam from a morning field. I was alone with dangerous things again.
“Isn’t this better?” She slid a sparkling cuff of fiery diamonds around my wrist and an intricate, circular clasp clicked in place. She tossed my broken bracelet on the ottoman, and a numbness settled over me. It wasn’t narcolepsy. It was defeat.
Chapter Eight
A Comfortless Embrace
Melisande
I wasn’t surprised when there was no phone in the car. There was a place for one in the stretch Maserati limousine, but still—no phone. I sat in the back as far from Celene and Mephos as possible. A youthful smile slid across Mephos’s flawless face as he seemed to drink in my discomfort. The inconsistency between his appearance and his demeanor was disconcerting. A man his age should be riding waves and fending off teenaged admirers on a sandy beach somewhere, not instructing a limo driver and pouring champagne for a woman that could have easily won a Miss Universe contest.
His young muscles flexed as he leaned over Celene. With casual shifts of her weight and long, languorous stretches, she invited her younger lover to worship her in stolen inches. A kiss on the neck transformed into a wet slide of tongue. A soft caress of breast turned into a teasing trap of nipple. Mephos the Innocent lowered his mouth to the pearly material of Celene’s top and sucked the tender tips of her breasts until her shirt was wet with his hunger.
Celene’s hand slid between his legs and she threw me an inviting look. I ignored the salacious summons. Their wandering touches and occasion moans were too intimate for an audience, or maybe that was exactly what I was—an audience, a spectator there to witness their display and clap like a pleased patron. I didn’t indulge them. Instead, I kept them in my peripheral vision as I looked out at the passing landscape.
A Shiver of Shadows Page 5