by R. L. King
Stone didn’t even see the others in the circle anymore. His shocked gaze was fixed on Poppy’s face, watching her attractive features subtly shifting to give the impression of whichever spirit spoke through her. If he hadn’t known what was going on here, he would have considered her a masterful actor, adjusting her face to the requirements of the series of roles she played. “Who are you?” he whispered. “What’s your name?”
Poppy’s features shifted again, revealing a frightened, wide-eyed face. “Please!” she screamed, pounding both hands on the table without releasing her hold on Stone or Ian. “Let me out! I beg you, let me out!”
Stone tightened his jaw. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “I’m not responsible for any of this. It wasn’t me. But I want to help you. I want to set this right. Please—tell me what you want.”
“Blasphemer!” said a male voice.
“Murderer!” said another man.
“A thousand curses upon your blood!” said a woman.
“What’s happening? Why have you done this?” pleaded a child.
“I only wanted honest work…” sobbed a teenage boy.
“Bloody hell…” Stone breathed, his tension growing. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell them.” He felt himself losing control; the sudden urge to break free, to run, to get away from this place and never come back gripped him so hard he could barely keep himself from succumbing to it. All around him, he felt the increasing pressure of unseen forces crowding around him, collapsing his aura, their centuries-long hatred almost visible in the air. Every last one of them wanted him to die in agony—wanted his entire family to suffer eternal torment. He’d never felt this kind of hatred directed at him in his life, and now it washed over him, threatening to submerge him. “I…can’t—“
With obvious effort next to him, Poppy gathered herself, her whole body growing taut. “Enough…” she grated through clenched teeth. More sweat beads sprang from her forehead, and her stiff, electric-blue Mohawk began to wilt sideways. When she raised her head again, her eyes no longer glowed. She squeezed Stone’s hand and took several breaths, then said in her own voice, shaking but strong and confident, “Enough. Please. Spirits, friends, you’ve come here to commune with us in good faith. Please. Alastair Stone is a good man. He doesn’t share the sins of his forbears. He is strong and powerful, and he wants to help you. Please—tell us what you want. Tell him what he can do.”
Stone swallowed, watching her as she blinked several times, twitching her head back and forth. In the table’s center, the candle flames likewise whipped to and fro as if caught in a windstorm, though only a faint breeze blew through the room. The smoke from the incense burners was so thick now that he couldn’t see the others across the table, and the temperature had to have dropped at least twenty degrees since they’d begun the séance. He waited in silence, turning his attention back to Poppy as she struggled with the waves of angry spirits jockeying to be heard.
“Put us to rest…” she whispered.
“What?” Stone leaned in closer. “What did you say?”
“Put us to rest…all of us…You must…”
He stared at her. “Put you to rest?”
“All of us…We must have proper rest…We must be…remembered…”
“Remembered…” Stone murmured.
“Their bones…” Eddie said softly from across the table. “They want to be properly buried, on ’oly ground…identified…”
Stone swallowed. There were potentially forty-one sets of bones in those alcoves, and the ledger they’d found identified many of them only by initials, nicknames, or partial names. How was he ever going to—
Nobody said this was going to be easy… a little voice in his head said.
But even so—“I—” he began, looking at Poppy in desperation. “I—don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if it’s possible to identify them all anymore. The records—aren’t complete. Are they saying if I can’t do that—”
Poppy’s head jerked again. Her eyes glowed once more, and her expression went sly. “There is another way…” It was the gravelly voice that had begun their interaction with the spirits.
“Another…way?” Stone leaned forward again, gripping Poppy’s and Verity’s hands, his attention fixed on Poppy’s steady gaze and unpleasant smile. “Tell me, then. Please.”
“Sacrifice.” Her smile broadened, and its effect on her normally cheerful face was chilling as she met Stone’s gaze with her eerie yellow eyes.
“Sacrifice? Of what?”
“The Stones committed this atrocity. If you cannot lay us to rest and set our souls free from this hell, then Stone blood must atone for the sins committed against us.”
Across the table, Eddie gasped.
“Stone…blood?” A shot of ice ran through Stone’s veins. “What…are you talking about?”
Poppy gripped his hand tighter, but her face was still twisted into the spirit’s grim visage. “You took our lives. If you can atone in no other way, then we will have yours in return. We shall see if you speak truth, or if your words are as empty as those of your accursed kin.”
“Poppy,” Ward said in a strangled tone. “Stop this. Now. End it.”
Poppy threw her head back and laughed in the man’s voice, the sound echoing into the great room’s rafters. The wind picked up, blowing the candle flames and the incense smoke around even harder, but the candles didn’t go out.
“Stop it,” Eddie demanded. “Break the circle, Poppy!”
Stone felt the medium’s hand jerk in his, but whatever force held them together had intensified to the point where it was no longer possible for them to separate. He too tried to pull free, but it was as if someone had glued their fingers together. All around the table, the others were doing the same thing, with the same result.
And then, suddenly, the laugh cut off, as abruptly as if someone had flipped a switch.
Poppy’s chin dropped down until it rested on her chest, her head shaking back and forth like a dog after a bath.
“Something…else…is here…” she got out between gasps.
20
“Something else?” Stone instantly switched to magical sight, trying to spot anything new around the table. He didn’t see anything, but he did feel it: a gathering of magical force around them, spinning and whirling. It settled over Poppy and poked at her.
“It’s trying to take ’er over!” Eddie shouted. His hands were still gripped fast in Ward’s and Aubrey’s, but he raised their joined arms in clear alarm.
Stone wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he was certain whatever was here now was not any of the unfortunates whose remains were shut up inside the brick alcoves. He couldn’t see the growing magical energy, but he didn’t need to: it pressed against him, malevolent and brimming with power, trying to find a way past Poppy’s formidable mental defenses.
A thought came with a sudden shock: “Could it be whatever was in the sealed room?”
“Whatever the ’ell it is, we’ve got to stop it!” Eddie yelled. “’Elp ’er! If it takes ’er over—”
Stone didn’t wait to hear what might happen if the strange, potent force took control of the medium’s body. Gripping Poppy’s and Verity’s hands tightly, he reached out to Calanar for power, focusing on augmenting Poppy’s fading shield with one of his own. “Help me,” he snapped.
From all around the table, he felt Eddie’s, Ward’s, Verity’s, and even Ian’s energy gathering. Their auras joined together with a singular shared purpose: protect Poppy from the force trying to get in.
Poppy slumped forward, her head hitting the table with a thunk, still twisting and bucking as if overcome by a seizure. Pink froth bubbled at her lips, and her long fingernails dug into Stone’s palm until they drew blood.
He barely noticed. As soon as he felt his friends’ energy joining his, he focused on melding it all together, forming it into a barrier he hoped the new intruder couldn’t pass. “Go…” he snapped, casting his gaz
e around and trying to spot whatever the thing was. “Get out! We won’t let you have her!”
At the outer edges of his awareness, he sensed more entities nearby. The echoes? He thought so, but now they seemed frightened—as frightened of this interloper as he and his friends were. “Get out!” he shouted again. “Whoever you are, you won’t take over this woman’s body. We won’t allow it. So go!”
He shifted some of his power away from the shield; now that the others were augmenting it, he had to take a chance. They wouldn’t be able to hold it forever, and this thing could be strong enough to wait them out, chipping away at them until their own endurance faded. He had to go on the offensive.
In his head, he felt rather than heard laughter, but it wasn’t the gravel-voiced laughter of the echo. It still sounded like a man, but it also carried a brittle edge of insanity. Stone clenched his hands tighter around Poppy’s and Verity’s, holding the medium’s arm against the table to prevent it from thrashing around. He couldn’t see Ian on her other side, but he seemed to be doing the same thing.
“Dad, do something!” his son shouted. “I can’t hold her forever! She’ll break her arm!”
Rage overwhelmed Stone. How dare this intruder make such an audacious attack within the walls of his ancestral sanctum? The echoes might have reason, and they might have justification, but whatever this thing was, it wasn’t one of the sacrificial victims. Not with magical power like that! The hatred was every bit as strong—he could feel that, too—but any guilt Stone might have felt burned away at the thought of it causing harm to the woman he’d brought in to attempt peaceful negotiation. The echoes had agreed to a truce, so even if the intruder was one of them, it had broken the agreement.
“Get…out!” he thundered, forming a pure blast of magical energy from the Calanarian force flowing through him, and sending it lashing out in an unfocused blast aimed at the vortex whirling around Poppy. He kept the conduit open, letting the force rip through his body until it lit him up with the familiar combination of pain and ecstasy.
For a moment, he thought it wouldn’t work. Its power met his and resisted—but only for a few seconds, and then, with no sound, no surge of energy, it vanished as if it had never been there.
All around the table, the force holding the séance participants locked together also vanished, and all of them sagged back in their chairs. Poppy, who had been wrenching at Stone and Ian like a madwoman, slumped and went still.
“Bloody ’ell!” Eddie got out. “Is everybody all right? I—Poppy!” He leaped from his chair and hurried around the table.
Stone had already acted, though. He gathered the medium in his arms—she wasn’t light, but between his newfound strength and a hard shot of adrenaline, he barely noticed her weight—and lowered her to the floor.
Verity used magic to snatch a pillow from a nearby sofa and put it under her head, and Eddie and Ward both raised light spells, revealing their own pale faces and those of the others.
“Holy shit…” Jason breathed, dropping to his knees next to her. “Is she alive?”
“We need to get ’er the ’ell out of this place,” Eddie said. His voice shook as his gaze darted around the room. So far, the other echoes seemed to be keeping their bargain: despite Stone’s and Ian’s presence, they had not renewed their assault.
Verity was scanning Poppy’s aura. “She’s taken quite a shock,” she said grimly. “I think she’ll be all right—I’ll take care of her. But Eddie’s right, we should get her out of here. If that thing comes back—”
Everyone except Stone and Verity scanned the area nervously.
“Sir,” Aubrey spoke up for the first time. He was breathing hard, his face pale and sweating from fear, but he swallowed and his voice came out firm. “We can take the young lady to my flat, if you like. Will that be sufficient, Miss Thayer?”
She looked at Stone. “Doc? How sure are you that you got rid of it?”
“I—don’t know,” Stone said. And he didn’t know. How could he, when he didn’t even know what it was? He sensed he’d driven it off, but he didn’t think he’d destroyed it. “I—think it will be all right, though. So far, this madness all seems confined to the house itself.”
Poppy moaned. Her legs moved, and she raised one bloody hand to her forehead.
“It’s okay…” Verity said. “You’re all right.” To the others, she added, “Let’s get her out of here. Jason, can you carry her? I think all the mages are pretty tired out right now.”
“Yeah. I got her.” Jason bent and hefted her with little effort, and together the group trooped out of the great room and into the entrance hall toward the door.
Stone brought up the rear, magical sight active in case any of the echoes decided to try any sneak attacks, but none did. They made it outside and up the stairs to Aubrey’s apartment without any further incident.
As Verity and Eddie tended to Poppy and Aubrey adjourned to the kitchen to make tea for everyone, Stone stood in the middle of the room, heart still pounding and adrenaline still pumping. He didn’t think he could sit still now if his life depended on it.
Ian approached him slowly, as if not sure he should. “Dad? You okay?”
Stone studied his son who, like the others, looked pale and tired. Not for the first time, he wondered if it might have been best—or at least safer—for Ian never to have found out about his magical heritage. He wondered how regular mundane problems might compare to being targeted by a flock of vengeful echoes, or some powerful force that had apparently been imprisoned along with them.
He offered a bitter chuckle. “Damn good question, isn’t it?”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Am I?” He glanced down at his left hand, which was covered with dried blood from where Poppy’s nails had pierced his palm. “Fair trade, wouldn’t you say, compared to what Poppy got?” Nonetheless, he summoned a simple healing spell and sealed the wounds, then drifted toward the bathroom to wash his hands.
Ian was still waiting when he came out, joined now by Jason. “What was all that about back there?” he asked.
“Did I understand that right?” Jason added. “Those things…those…echoes wanted their bones to be moved out of there and buried?”
“Yes.” More than anything right now, Stone wanted a drink—and not the tea Aubrey was offering. “They want their remains to be removed and buried on holy ground—at a cemetery, or a churchyard, or—I don’t know—perhaps they’ll settle for having a priest pray over them. But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Why not?” Ian asked.
“Because they must have been put down there nearly three hundred years ago.” He spread his hands. “You saw the ledger, where all of them were listed. I doubt my ancestors even knew who most of them were. They didn’t care.”
“Al—” Jason began.
“Well, they didn’t.” Stone paced back and forth, bleeding off restless energy even though his body and mind were both exhausted. “That’s fairly clear. They prowled the streets, looking for people no one would miss, and either lured them into a trap or simply snatched them. It would have been easy, with their level of magic. Those poor sods would vanish without a trace, and no one would ever see them again.” He sighed, gripping the back of a nearby chair. “The only ones we might have a chance of tracking down are those with a full name listed—and after all this time even that will be difficult.”
“What about Poppy?’ Ian asked. “Could she—I don’t know—contact them individually and ask them?”
“I don’t think it works like that. We’re not even sure they’re all still here. Surely some of them must have crossed over by now. And at any rate—” He waved toward the sofa, where Verity crouched next to the unconscious medium while Eddie and Ward hovered nearby looking worried. “—it’s not like she’ll want to go anywhere near my house again, even if I were to ask her. Which I wouldn’t.”
“So…then…what happens?” Jason looked troubled. “I know I’m just a mundane and I
probably missed half of what went on back there, but did that one guy—the one with the deep voice—say something about…sacrificing yourself to get rid of them?”
Another chill ran through Stone. “Yes,” he said grimly. “That’s exactly what he said. That if we can’t properly lay the remains to rest, it will take the blood of a Stone to convince them to vacate the premises. And I doubt they’d settle for a finger-slice, or even a pint or two.”
“He wants you to kill yourself,” Jason said. “Al, you can’t—”
“Of course I can’t. And neither can you,” he said sternly to Ian.
Ian raised his hands. “Hey, no problem. Wasn’t going to offer. It’s a nice house and everything, but I’m not dying to run a bunch of ghosts out of it.”
“But if that’s off the table and we can’t identify the remains sufficiently to do as the echoes ask, then that leaves us—well, me, anyway—with a problem.”
“What’s that?” Jason asked.
“Well…I’ve got to work out what to do—what I want to do—about the house, and the echoes. If they won’t leave and the options they offer us aren’t feasible, then I’ve got to find others. And as far as I can see right now, I’ve only got two: I can work out a way to fight them, either on my own or by bringing in help, or I can concede.”
“Concede?” Ian demanded, eyebrows lifting. “You mean, just—go away and let them have the house?”
“It’s an option. Not one I like very much—this place is my ancestral home, even if my ancestors were a reprehensible bunch, and it’s part of your inheritance. But on the other hand, it was built on the literal backs of forty-one brutal murders. Possibly more than that. Do I even have a right to claim it?”
When Jason started to say something, he held up his hand. “That was a rhetorical question, at least for now. I’m far too shattered to think clearly about anything at present.”
Verity rose from her crouch and approached, with Eddie and Ward behind her. “Think about what?” she asked. “Sorry to interrupt again.”