Revenant

by Kat Richardson

  “I wouldn’t call it jealousy. . . . It’s more like . . . preoccupation.”

  “There is no point in it. I love you. I spent most of this past year without you because you had other things you needed to pursue. But there’s no one else I want to be with. Not for the moment, or in the situation, or if I can’t do better. No one at all. Ever. And you know it. You know it right here,” I added, touching the bright pink line of energy that always pointed me to him, no matter where he was, no matter how far away.

  He winced as I touched it and his energy corona flushed with a flurry of little sparks in green, black, white, and, finally, pink, like a Roman candle. “Ouch.”

  I frowned. “That shouldn’t hurt.”

  He blinked and shivered. “It doesn’t, exactly. It’s more like the sensation after you pull out a sliver.”

  I thought of Amélia’s ghost floating over him as he slept and I felt furious. “Oh, I’m going to kill that interfering little specter twice over.”

  “Who?”

  “Amélia—Carlos’s dead wife.” I raised my head and looked toward the ceiling, then around the room, just in case I could spot her, but she wasn’t in evidence. “I hope you’re eavesdropping, Amélia, because I don’t want this to be an unfair fight. I’m going to turn you into a pile of sparks and ghost dust and send you back to the ethereal nothingness if I catch you playing with his mind again. So keep your incorporate hands off!”

  “Is there something going on that I should know about?” Quinton asked.

  “Yet another meddling ghost getting up to nothing good, I’m sure, though why, I don’t know.”

  “That’s going around.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, aside from this interesting half a conversation, the vandalized ossuaries, and sudden surges of violence that seem to be my dad’s work, this morning someone broke into the tomb of King Sebastian.”

  “Who is that and how is it relevant to our problem with the bone mages?”

  “You remember I said something about there being people in Portugal who believe in the ‘Sleeping King’—O Desejado—who will return to save the country in its darkest hour? A sort of Arthur figure with a cult built around him?”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “That king was Dom Sebastião. He was a bit of a mess. His mother took off soon after he was born so she could be regent of Spain for the remaining twenty years of her life, so he was raised by his grandmother, Catherine of Austria—who was a bit of a hard-ass. He became king at the age of three in 1557. He was Jesuit educated and did a lot of important stuff, like establishing standard measures, reforming civilian and military law, creating medical and science scholarships, abolishing slavery of Brazilian natives, and mandating a school for navigators that taught them math and cosmology. Just that alone increased the number of ships that made it home from their voyages—and that’s a big deal for a seafaring nation. Portugal was an economic powerhouse in the Renaissance largely because of Sebastian. But he was kind of a misogynistic jerk—he never got married, and he was more interested in flouncing off to fight crusades against the Moors in north Africa than having kids or watching out for things back home.

  “Anyhow, he was killed at the battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578, but his body was never found, and he left no direct heir. It was kind of a boondoggle, and an expensive one as well, because Sebastian had borrowed money to do it. Phillip the Second of Spain became king of Portugal, and in 1582 some human remains that he claimed were Sebastian’s were entombed here in Lisbon at the Jerónimos Monastery. But most people were sure the body wasn’t actually his and that led to the idea that Sebastian was still out there somewhere, waiting for the chance to come back and save Portugal. Which he never did. That’s the ‘Sleeping King’ legend. But the tomb is still an important icon of its own and someone—or several someones—broke into it very early this morning.”

  “What did they take?” I asked.

  “No one knows if anything was taken at all. The body and contents weren’t very well documented and it’s all dust now, anyhow. But I’d be willing to bet—given the way these things work—that the dust of a legend’s bones might be as useful to some people as the bones themselves.”

  “So we put a kink in their plans, but not as much as we thought.” But something was nagging me even as I dismissed the case as trivial.

  “Assuming that the break-in was perpetrated by our unfriendly neighborhood bone-twiddlers.”

  “Not too likely to be the work of an unaffiliated group—what are the odds?” I asked.

  “Slim, I agree. So . . . is that the sort of thing Carlos was after? Because there were a few other stories, but they were older and farther afield. Oh, except for one thing that’s not in Carlos’s search, but it kind of gave me the creeps, so I bookmarked it for you.”

  He turned the screen in my direction, showing a very short news piece about a man found dead in the quake-damaged area where we’d seen what might have been a drache the day before. “It sounds like the pickpocket you chased down. . . . I’m sorry.”

  I stared at the story with its scanty details and bad sketch, asking for information about the deceased—a petty criminal who’d died of a heroin overdose.

  “Damn it. I feel like I’m responsible. If I hadn’t given him the money . . .” I said.

  “He’d have found it another place. You’re not responsible for his choices.”

  “No, but . . . I shouldn’t have. How is it connected . . . ?”

  “Maybe it’s not. Not every crime, no matter how appalling, is my father’s fault.”

  “No, but there’s something . . .” I muttered, thinking and going over it again. . . . There’d been two priests. . . . No. There’d been three. “Hang on,” I said as my mental pieces fell into place. “The priest this guy robbed was walking with a man in a black suit and clerical collar. They met another man in the same sort of outfit—black suit and clerical collar. An older man. I would swear that it was the same man who was in the middle of the circle last night—Griffin’s master. I didn’t see him well, but the general description and the aura were the same. Even if it wasn’t the same man, it was one of the bone mages—they have a fairly distinctive aura. We were that close to them!”

  “How does that make a positive connection to the robbery at Jerónimos?”

  “I’m not sure, except that it has to have been them—who else would want to break in to a tomb and disturb the dust of a fake king? But . . . it’s a monastery, isn’t it?”

  Quinton was puzzled. “It’s mostly a museum now—but there is a secularized church and members of the old royal family were buried there.”

  “Carlos said a lot of the bone mages come from the religious community. They wouldn’t be much noticed coming and going from a church of any kind and in this case, there would have been people in and out all day.”

  Quinton took back the laptop and looked at the report again. “Witnesses around the area said they saw a priest near the building about the time the vandalism must have happened, but . . . there are a lot of those in Lisbon.”

  “Black suit, clerical collar, old man . . .” I listed.

  “Sounds right.”

  “No way to prove it, but it has to be the same guy—or another bone mage.”

  “I didn’t think they were that common. It’s hard to maintain a low profile when you’ve got a large group.”

  “But it’s not a large group. It’s the same thing your dad is doing: He breaks his men up into smaller units and plants them in strategic places. The fact that they have—or had—a bone church here in Lisbon must be significant, but it doesn’t mean they’re high profile.”

  “Small, discreet units, spread over Europe?”

  “I’m thinking they’re modeled on religious organizations instead of military ones. It’s more likely there’s a handful of chapter houses near signifi
cant ossuaries and a moderate number of mages who move around.” I was speculating, but it fit and I spoke as the ideas formed. “Your father has some kind of deal with them—that’s how he got the shrine he brought to Seattle and how he’s been able to continue advancing the Ghost Division after you destroyed his lab. They know how to make those ghost boxes and how to pack a spell into something that allows a mage to use a dissimilar magic—that would be how Griffin produced a Night Dragon when that’s not within her normal powers as a bone mage, according to Carlos. But it’s likely that the Kostní Mágové’s physical resources are thin. Their wealth is in knowledge that your dad wants. But they want something, too. Last year, Carlos implied that they didn’t care about your dad’s goals, but had plans of their own and would use the Ghost Division and your father’s obsession to their own ends. What if this . . . thing they’re making is part of their price for helping your dad?”

  “That would imply it’s at least part of their own long-term goal.”

  “And therefore worth any price.”

  “That doesn’t explain why Dad would give them Soraia.”

  “What if they have persuaded him that this thing is useful for his goals as well? Necessary, even? Carlos said . . . What was it . . . ? Something about scorched earth . . .”

  Quinton looked grim. “I remember what he said. ‘They will starve and burn Europe to scorched earth.’ They lost Limos, so the starving part’s out, but there’s more than one way to start a fire.”

  “All these little actions . . . little horrors—riots, bombings, disease, uprisings—they’re the fire.”

  “But if what these guys are building can make it burn faster or hotter, they’re only a spark.”

  “That’s got to be what Carlos was after. Can you summarize all these incidents for him? Even the ones you think aren’t as likely to be connected?”

  “Yes. I’ll have to start on it right now—it’s a lot of material if I go back over the past eight months.”

  “I think you can just stick with what’s happened since you traced your father to Portugal.”

  “I hope this helps Carlos figure out what Dad and his cronies are up to.”

  “And I hope he shows up soon so we can discuss this business. This just gets worse.”

  “It does look pretty bad. But you’ve had dire cases before.”

  “They were mostly boring until I got killed.”

  “The first time.”

  “Actually, it was the second time. Didn’t I mention drowning when I was a teenager?”

  Quinton was appalled. “I think I’d remember that conversation and I don’t.”

  I blushed with shame. “I’m sorry. I should have said something before now. I think I’m up to death three or four, depending on how you count them.”

  Quinton swore. “How many times can you expect to bounce back?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think it’s not many—if at all.”

  He pulled me into a too-tight embrace. “No more dying, OK?”

  “I can’t promise that if you keep squeezing me like a boa.”

  He winced and loosened his grip only enough to keep from suffocating me. “I’m sorry. I know you can’t make that promise, but . . . just don’t die for a long time. I want to be an old, grizzled curmudgeon with you.”

  “So, you’ve been practicing?” I asked with a grin I didn’t feel, trying to lift the moment out of the deadly track it was heading into.

  “I am not a curmudgeon. I’m socially maladroit.”

  “You are not maladroit at anything,” I said.

  “Oh, you flatterer, you.”

  “I’m only trying to get you into bed.”

  “Then why are we still standing up?” Quinton made a bad imitation of an evil laugh and dragged me backward onto the bed he’d only just left. Somehow, neither of us landed on the laptop.

  “You know, this is going to be really embarrassing if Carlos comes in,” Quinton observed.

  “That won’t happen,” I said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “If you were more than three hundred years old, would you really want to watch us tumbling around like two squirrels in a knapsack? Besides, I’d kill him.”

  “You would never kill a friend.”

  “OK, no. But I might threaten him with sunlamps.”

  Quinton laughed, which was the most perfect sound I’d heard in eight months. We did our best squirrel impression and unmade the bed in spectacular fashion until I fell asleep, snuggled into the crook of his arm.

  I was so tired that I didn’t notice him get up and leave the room a little before ten o’clock. I was startled to wake in an empty bed to the sound of a woman sobbing, the room lit only by the dim glow of the laptop screensaver.

  Socorro, ajude-me! Help me! Help me!

  It is a concept so universal that the words needed no translation, carried as they were on the throbbing strains of panic. I sat up, looking for the speaker, but the words were in my mind, not in the air, and it took a moment to recognize that the damsel in distress was Amélia.

  “What? What do you want now?” I could barely see her, so faint was her manifestation. Even sinking toward the Grey, she remained as transparent as mist. She was in full panic, rushing from side to side in the room, whipping up an uncanny wind by her passage.

  Resgata-lo! Carlos precisa de sua ajuda. Ajuda-lo, eu lhe imploro! She spoke so fast, I couldn’t follow the exact words, only that Carlos needed help—a notion that seemed completely ridiculous at first.

  But he had needed my help in the past, more than once. As powerful as he was, Carlos was not invincible and with enemies from his past—not to mention the night before—still around and angry, it was possible that even he could be in danger.

  I scrambled out of bed and yanked on clothes, clumsy with the dress and flat shoes so unfamiliar compared to my trusty jeans and boots. “Where is he? What’s wrong?” I demanded, wishing I could grab her and make her stop her paranormal pacing. I tried to catch her, but she passed through my hands, even in the Grey, as if she weren’t there.

  But she wasn’t. I was in the presence of the impossible: the crisis apparition of a ghost—a woman long dead.

  “Amélia!” I shouted at her, exerting my will to force her to pay attention to me, even at a great distance. It made my body ache as if I’d been crushed in a vise. “Amélia, listen to me. Where is he? Where is Carlos?”

  Carmo.

  “What is that?”

  But she was too upset to answer in a way that helped me. I grabbed Quinton’s laptop off the floor and opened a search window, typing in the word as fast as I could and hoping I’d spelled it right.

  The Carmo Convent was one of the structures that had remained in ruins after the quake—the broken vaults of the soaring medieval church I’d seen from Rossio. Directions on the map showed the fastest route was to head for Rossio and then go past it, westbound, to the Santa Justa Lift—whatever that was. It was now ten o’clock and the lift closed at eleven. I’d have to run.

  EIGHTEEN

  I ran into Quinton walking up the stairs with a tray of food as I went leaping down. The tray toppled, spilling food everywhere.

  “I’m sorry!” I called as I ran past. “Carlos is in trouble. I have to find him.”

  Quinton turned and followed me. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No. Stay here in case I miss him or something else goes wrong. I’ll call the house phone if I need help. Don’t leave until I do!”

  I rocketed down the stairs, sounding like a troop of cavalry on the move. Although I’d spent a large part of the day in a car, it was better than the coffin. My legs didn’t protest my movement as they had before, though my lungs, working overtime from anxiety, were less easygoing. Since I’d done most of the route in the daylight only the morning before, I had no trouble most of
the way and turned left onto the Rua de Santa Justa one long block before Praça da Figueira. The blocks were narrower east to west, but there were still seven to go and ahead was the improbable sight of a slender, illuminated, Neo-Gothic tower rising into the air out of the middle of the road.

  The city was still warm, though cooler in the night breeze off the river, and there were people strolling the streets of the Baixa after dinner, or just going out for a late evening’s entertainment. A few heated arguments colored the air as I passed bars and late-night cafés. I heard the words “dragão,” “Sebastião,” “Montijo,” and “O Desejado,” but the words, while familiar, didn’t stop me. Even the debaters paused and stared as I ran past, panting, and skittered up to the doors of the tower only fifteen minutes after leaving the house below the castle.

  It was the lift, Elevador de Santa Justa, not just some mad tower out of an Edwardian science fiction story. White-painted ironwork and cement pretending to be Gothic traceries rose seven stories from the steps of black-and-white tile, connecting to an elevated walkway that stretched toward the hill where the dark bulk of the Carmo Convent loomed, casting a Grey pall cold enough to make me shiver. I had no idea what had prompted the people of Lisbon to erect an elevator in the middle of a street, but the steep rise behind it made the hills of Alfama insignificant and I thanked the lunatic impulse that had put it here.

  The operator at one of the two doors raised his eyebrows at me and asked for a ticket. Out of breath, I tried to explain why I didn’t have one and how badly I needed to get up to the top. He sighed and pointed at a ticket-vending machine, much like the ones we’d used in the metro.

  I bought a ticket and was just able to squeeze into the next lift. I barely had a chance to notice the well-rubbed woodwork and brass fittings of the car’s interior as it rose to the top of the tower. I was thankful to be so close to the doors when they opened that I could bolt from the crowd that had ridden up with me and run down the metal walkway decorated with the lacy shadows of delicate ironwork railings and chain-link safety mesh.