Ghostly Echoes

by William Ritter

  I looked up. The stranger was tall. Impossibly tall. I can recall in perfect detail the ruby-tipped tie pin affixed to his ebony necktie, can picture the sharp lines of his red lapel and his crisp starched collar—but as hard as I try to remember it, the man’s face remains no more than a distant shadow in the mists of my memory.

  “Hello, little mortal,” he said. “You’re early.”

  I swallowed and stood, looking up at where his face must have been—I’m almost certain he had one. “Just visiting,” I said. “I’ll be going back home straightaway.”

  “Of course,” he said, graciously. His voice echoed disconcertingly through my skull. He swept a hand toward the ferry. “Charon will see you out.”

  I hesitated, glancing at Carson, who was pushing himself upright weakly.

  “Ah. You wish to take this man’s soul with you, is that it?” The stranger took two steps and was at Carson’s side, looking him over.

  “Yes,” I said. “Please?”

  The stranger circled silently for several steps. Carson stiffened like a schoolboy under the headmaster’s gaze. “His place is here,” said the man. “Here, he can have anything his heart desires, unlock mysteries of creation. Would he really want to leave that all behind? I understand the world above was less than kind to him before he left it. Why ever would he want to go back?”

  Carson straightened. “For her.”

  “Hmm.” The stranger turned back to me. “You must love him very much that you would come so far to retrieve him,” he said.

  “It’s not like that,” I replied. “But he’s important.”

  “Every soul is important.”

  “Oh—I have this,” I said, rummaging in my pocket.

  “What’s that?” the stranger said.

  “A string from the lyre of Orpheus.” I pulled out the petrified relic. Jackaby had made many claims about the origins of his eldritch artifacts, but I had never before hoped so hard that he was right.

  The stranger did not reach for it. “And?” he asked. I could hear the grimace in his voice. “Are you looking for somewhere to dispose of it? Have you run out of refuse bins above?”

  I blinked. “You—you don’t want it?”

  “What would I want with a crusty scrap of sheep intestines?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “As a memento, I suppose. A reminder of Orpheus and his lovely voice.”

  “Little mortal,” the stranger said, “we don’t need a string to remember Orpheus. We have the idiot’s head. As it happens, I don’t especially want your little friend, here, either, so I’ll tell you what—I’ll give you the standard bargain. Leave. Keep your eyes forward without wavering until you’re both free from my domain, and he can follow you out. Don’t peek. Don’t doubt. Don’t hesitate. Do we have an understanding?”

  I swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “As for you.” The man turned to Carson. “You may follow in silence until you have crossed the final threshold, and then you will be free to leave—but know this. Should you hesitate, should you set even one foot back in the land of the dead, this realm will not relinquish you again.”

  Carson nodded.

  “Very good. Now then, I believe you will be needing these.” He gave a small gesture, and the blue-black tendrils surged out of the water and deposited my two lost obols into his hand. He delivered them to me.

  “Thank you very much, sir.”

  “Good-bye, little mortals,” the stranger said.

  The fires dancing across the surface of the river suddenly flared white hot and leapt above our heads. Then, just as quickly, they were out and the tall dark man was gone. I resisted the immediate instinct to look back at Howard Carson. Keeping my eyes forward, I climbed back into the boat instead and handed Charon two obols.

  “Thank you,” said Charon. Both coins glowed a warm red this time and then crumbled to dust between his fingers. “So,” he said. “Did you have a nice visit?”

  The boat rocked as we cast off. Charon directed the dragon-shaped masthead into the swirling fog. I wanted to turn, to see Carson sitting behind me. It was maddening to imagine going through all of that only to lose him on the way out—but I stayed strong.

  “I asked him,” said Charon.

  “You asked him?” I said. “Asked him what?”

  “About the waters,” said Charon. “I do not think that English has all the right words to explain it, but I will try, if you like. He calls it the Terminus. The End Soul.”

  “That thing is a soul?”

  “Yes. All souls have power, you see. Every person has a unique soul—a spirit—and so too does every place. Human spirits and the spirits of the places they inhabit can become bonded, and their bond makes both souls stronger. Your friend, Jennifer Cavanaugh, has such a bond—and it is powerful enough to allow her to remain above. The underworld also has a soul. It has the End Soul.”

  “So,” I said, “if we had fallen in, we would have become bonded to this Terminus thing the way Jenny is bonded to Augur Lane?”

  “Not exactly. In a way, you already are. All souls are bonded to the End Soul. What they can become is lost in the End Soul. They can become a part of the single energy that powers all eternity, but at the cost of everything that makes them unique. For some, those who are ready, it is a great reward. For others—those who would prefer to remain distinct—it is less pleasant. Does that make sense to you?”

  “I think it does,” I said.

  The dark waters lapped at the sides of the boat and shadowy shapes moved about in the mist all around us. We arrived more quickly than I expected back at the landing beneath the yew tree. The little trickle of water still snaked down from the entryway to drain into the river, and the glow of sunlight cut through the gloom from above.

  “Charon?” I said.

  “Yes, Abigail Rook?”

  “Thank you for asking. You didn’t have to do that for me. You’re really very sweet.”

  “That is kind of you to say, Abigail Rook,” said Charon. “I look forward to our next meeting.” He slid the boat snugly up against the mooring. “But I hope that I do not have the pleasure for a very long time.”

  “Likewise,” I said as I climbed out onto the dock. “Good-bye.” I almost glanced behind me as I said it, but I caught myself and managed to keep my eyes fixed on the opening up above. If Howard Carson was behind me, he made not the faintest whisper of a sound. I ascended the stairs and stepped up to the bright threshold of the living world.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Hell had been the lesser nightmare.

  My body no longer lay face-down on the cold earth where I had left it. It had been dragged back into the sunlight and now sat propped up against the roots of the great tree. Owen Finstern was crouching over my corpse. My ivory-handled knife was in his hand and a zealous fury was in his eyes. “Carefully, now!” he demanded. “Secure the clamp plate over the collimating lens assembly.”

  Jackaby stood beside the inventor’s machine. He had erected the device near the shadow’s edge and he was making adjustments at Finstern’s command.

  “Do it right,” Finstern barked. He pressed the silver blade against my lifeless neck. “Or the girl’s soul won’t have anything to come back to.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, Mr. Finstern,” Jackaby said. “Please. Calm down.”

  “I know precisely what I’m doing. Turn it on.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Jenny cried. She hovered between Finstern and Jackaby. “She helped save your life! Without our help those monsters would already have taken you captive. They’re hunting you!”

  “Let them!” Finstern roared. “I want them to come! I’ve been waiting for them to come since I was an infant! I said turn it on!”

  Jackaby moved slowly around the machine. “To what end, Mr. Finstern? What do you hope to accomplish here?”

  “My birthright.” He pressed the blade against my lifeless neck. The skin bent under the edge. He was one f
lick of the wrist away from ending me for good. “Do it.”

  With a whir and a click, Jackaby turned on the machine. The mechanism hummed. “Power?” he said. “Is that all this is about?”

  “It’s all anything is about. It’s the only reason you’re alive, or haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  Jackaby scowled. “What are you talking about?”

  “You haven’t got a clue, have you? She told me all about what you can do.” He tapped my body’s lifeless cheek with the knife. From behind the threshold I cringed. I wanted to hit him, but now would be the worst time to burst back into my body, leaping under the knife. “She told me how it works, your sight,” Finstern continued. “They’re building something powerful, you said. You figured out that much. Well, I know what it’s like, trying to work with powers you can’t see or touch or measure. You’re the missing element, detective. They need your eyes. The rest of us are working blind, but you can see it all as plain as day, can’t you? Energy. Potential. Power. You can observe it and quantify it, can’t you?”

  Jackaby swallowed.

  “You’re no good to them dead. They would have to hunt down the next Seer if you died. I figure that’s why they’ve kept tabs on you instead. That’s the only reason you’re alive. You’re a worthless storage container for a priceless power.” His eyes narrowed. “And I want it.”

  “You really don’t,” said Jackaby. “It is as much a burden as it is a gift. Trust me.”

  “Then let me lift your burden. It’s what my machine does. Nobody has to die today, Detective. I’m not a monster, in spite of what you think of me. You cross over. I activate the machine. Your soul waits safely on the other side while I absorb the power of the sight instead of letting it flitter away to just anybody. With your eyes I can propel my work forward and take my place in the company of those who actually appreciate my efforts. Everybody wins.”

  Jackaby said nothing.

  “There’s another way, of course,” Finstern added. “She dies. Then you die. Then I take it anyway. It’s your choice.”

  Jackaby looked across the threshold and seemed to notice me, my spirit, for the first time. His gaze locked on mine, and he looked as helpless as I was. He was seriously considering going along with it; I could see it in his eyes. After several seconds, he turned soberly back toward Finstern and to my limp corpse.

  My eyes blinked open.

  They were my eyes, although not the ones I was using at the moment. I stared from behind the ethereal barrier as my corpse turned angrily to face the mad inventor. Jenny, I realized, was nowhere to be seen. Owen Finstern did not seem to have noticed.

  “Go on, then,” Finstern said. “Cross the line!” He gestured toward the gap in the yew tree where I stood, using the silver blade to point. He looked as though he were about to say something else when the corpse at his feet suddenly lurched to life.

  Jenny was clumsy and stiff as she possessed my limbs, but the element of surprise appeared to be more than enough for the moment. She launched herself bodily at Finstern’s legs, and he was thrown to the ground. The knife flew out of his hands as he slammed into the dirt.

  “You shouldn’t threaten my friends.” They might have been my vocal chords, but it was Jenny’s accent that issued from my lips. She lashed out, punching him hard in the neck and landing a knee in his ribs.

  He coughed and deflected her next blow with a swat of his hand. He shoved her off of him, but Jenny clung to the inventor’s shabby coat, and the two of them tumbled gracelessly together across the earth until they rolled to a stop with Finstern on top. He raised a hand to strike her, but Jenny raised the silver knife at the same moment, pointing it squarely at his heart.

  Finstern dropped his hand and the two of them slowly stood. I felt a burst of pride at essentially watching myself win the fight. Jenny still looked a little unsteady in my skin, but she managed to keep the blade at his chest the whole time. “It’s over,” she said.

  The words had scarcely left her lips when a tiny object flew over the towering roots beside us and coasted in a wide arc directly toward her. It looked like an acorn.

  “Look out!” Jackaby yelled, but it was too late. The little nut missed Finstern’s shoulder by an inch and landed on Jenny’s chest—on my chest—with a flash of green light. She went instantly rigid.

  Finstern stepped uncertainly aside. When the blade failed to follow him, he waved his hand in front of her face. Jenny managed to move my eyes a fraction to follow him, but otherwise she remained as still as a statue. Finstern turned to see where the acorn had come from. Twin mountains, one slate gray and the other dull brown, rose slowly above the mess of giant roots. The shapes unfolded and I realized I was looking at a pair of enormous men made of living stone.

  “Elementals!” said Jackaby. “Oreborn. My word, look at the size of them! No quick movements.” I’m not sure whom he was addressing. Jenny did not appear capable of making any movements at all, and Finstern hardly warranted the warning. The giants could have him as far as I was concerned.

  The gray colossus reached down. His forearm was roughly the size and color of a fully grown rhinoceros. Around one massive wrist was strapped a huge steel cuff, and his fingers looked like articulated boulders. As he spread them out I realized there was a figure standing within. She stepped down from his palm as casually as a countess from a fancy carriage. Her elegant sleeveless dress was an iridescent blend of blues and greens that hugged her slim figure as though it were soaking wet. Around her neck hung a necklace with two thick beads, identical in color to the looming creatures, and around her waist was slung a navy blue belt. A knife was sheathed on one hip and an olive green pouch was strapped to the other.

  She raised her chin and the sunlight played across her strawberry blonde locks. I recognized her. The hard jawline and the faint asymmetry to her emerald eyes—she was the woman who had mimicked Jenny all those years ago. As she stepped into the clearing I realized why she had looked so familiar in Carson’s memory. It was the family resemblance.

  “Hello, brother dear,” she said to Owen Finstern. “It’s been a long, long time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Finstern’s face twisted in a tortured mess of emotions. Confusion, anger, and something like hope rolled and crashed into one another as his twin sister walked toward him. His uneven eyes were wild and wary, while the woman’s were bright and keen, but they were the same shape exactly, and the same vivid green. His unkempt hair was thin and ruddy orange while hers hung in graceful strawberry blonde waves, but otherwise the two were nearly identical. The curve of their noses, the cut of their jaws—there was no question that they were related.

  “Morwen,” he whispered.

  “Not recently,” she said. “Still, it’s sweet that you remember. I’ve missed you.” Her accent was American, without a trace of the Welsh tones that distinguished her brother’s speech.

  “How long have you been watching me?” Finstern demanded.

  “Long enough to step in before you got yourself killed.” She nodded toward Jenny—who was still locked in my frozen body. “It’s a hex, by the way. It won’t hold forever, but it will last long enough for our purposes. Our scouts in the Annwyn got word you had crossed over. You didn’t use the Rend, either—you managed to open a veil-gate. Father will be very impressed. Where did you find it?”

  “Don’t tell her anything!” Jackaby yelled. “She’s a nixie! They’re tricksters, Finstern! Liars by nature!”

  Morwen turned on her heel. “You’re being very rude, Detective! Can’t you see we’re in the middle of a family reunion?” She put a hand to her chest and clasped the gray marble. “Alloch, would you please teach Mr. Jackaby not to interrupt me when I’m speaking?”

  The ground shook as the slate gray giant closed the distance between itself and Jackaby in two wide steps. The hulking thing was twenty feet tall with hands that could palm a packhorse. Jackaby leapt aside, but the oreborn moved with remarkable speed for a landmass. It caug
ht him in one huge granite fist and lifted him ten feet up in the air. Jackaby struggled, his feet kicking in vain.

  “The stones!” he croaked as the oreborn’s fingers pressed into his chest. “The stones around her neck, Finstern—that’s how she’s controlling the elementals. They’re bound by the bracers on their wrists. Break the—” Alloch tightened his hold.

  “That’s better,” said Morwen. “Where were we?”

  “You were about to explain why I should help you,” said Finstern.

  “We’re kin, Owen.” Morwen gave him a smile that seemed to be trying just a little too hard. “It’s time you joined the family business.”

  “You left me to rot. You expect me to believe you suddenly want me back?”

  “Who do you think sent you the invitation?” The smile was beatific, but it never quite melted the frost of her cold eyes. “It was my idea to bring you in. I want you to join us, Owen. Father wants you, too. He’s been watching.”

  Owen’s eye twitched. He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Father?”

  “We want the same thing, brother. In fact, I’m looking forward to seeing you finish what you’ve started.” She nodded toward Finstern’s device. “It’s about time you got a little magic of your own, isn’t it? You’ve already proven yourself with science. Father was willing to bring you in on the merits of your work alone—now imagine what he would think of you with powers, as well. What a welcome you will receive as his rightful heir. Owen Finstern, the one true Seer and key to the coming kingdom.”

  “Rosemary’s Green,” said Finstern. “The gate we entered is on a mound in the northeast corner. One of their friends is keeping it open. I think he’s some kind of half-breed. I heard the detective call him Seelie when he thought I wasn’t listening.”

  An uneven smirk pulled Morwen’s lips taut. She clasped the second stone on her necklace. “Autoch, dispose of the little nuisance at Rosemary’s Green for us, please.” The second hulking elemental stalked off into the forest, back the way we had come.