“It’s worse than before,” I said, touching my nose and coming away with crimson droplets. It felt so good to get some fresh air into my lungs. Between the spook energy and the corpses, I couldn’t get out of that building fast enough. Even if I’d eventually have to return one last time.
Gareth pulled a single tissue from his pocket and dabbed my upper lip.
“Shit, I must look like a mess.”
“No, you look as good as always,” he said with a wink.
“Are you sure I look presentable?” I didn’t care for vanity’s sake, but I was about to cross the road back to civilization and into a cab.
“I’m positive.” He dabbed my nose a few more times and then nodded. “You look like you’re just out on the town.”
I flashed a quick smile and turned to leave. “Call me when you get a chance.”
“Sure, you got it.”
I turned back to the road but paused to peer over my shoulder and called, “Be careful!” Then I ran across the almost deserted street just as a cab stopped at the curb. I dropped the cloaking as I approached the taxi. Before climbing into the backseat, I waved at Gareth. He dipped his chin and headed for the building.
“You’re headed to West Serene Hills, right?” the cabbie called.
“Yeah,” I said, sitting back in the seat. “I mean, no.” Shit, I’d been so distracted I almost forgot about my personal passengers. “Actually, can you drop me off at North Serene Hills?”
“Lady, there’s nothing there,” the cabbie said in accented English.
“That’s where I need to go.”
“Okay, whatever you want!” He merged the taxi back into the dribs and drabs of traffic before giving me a quick glance in the rearview mirror.
As we passed the Spook Catcher Council Tower, I spotted Gareth standing in front of the gaping automatic doors. His gaze was focused on the police vehicles already speeding for the building. The sirens wailed loudly and their colors flashed inside the cab, but I looked the other way.
This wasn’t the first time I was fleeing the police from this wretched Tower.
“Looks like trouble tonight,” said the cabbie.
“Yeah, seems that way.” For me, there’s trouble just about every night.
Chapter Seven
“Can you wait for me?”
“I don’t know, Miss.” The cab driver, whose name, according to the ID card on the dash, was Mohammed, looked uncomfortable as he scanned our deserted surroundings. “This place is…spooky.”
I tried not to laugh at his accurate assessment. “I know, but I’m not going to be long.”
“I need you to pay the fare now.”
“Sure, of course.” I handed him a fifty—which was thirty dollars more than I owed him according to the meter, but I had to make sure he stayed. He took the bill. “So, you’ll wait?”
He nodded, but there seemed to be too much white showing in his eyes. “Don’t be long.”
“Thanks.” I turned away and jogged towards the chain-link fence surrounding the area I’d visited way too often lately. I was about to duck under the hole already separating the metal links when the screeching of tires made me pause. The taxi was on full reverse. “Hey!”
I’d only taken two steps before the cabbie shouted a hasty, “Sorry,” from the driver’s side window and sped away, leaving me alone in the long forgotten part of Serene Hills. Well, I wasn’t completely alone. There were bulldozers, cranes and several other machines I couldn’t name parked on the other side, and I did have the spirits still attached.
A cool breeze swayed strands of my hair into my face, and I instantly felt the tugging on my left hand. I wasn’t sure if the spirits were eager to get home or if the area was responding to me. This was where I’d connected to Hecate.
An itching sensation raced up my arm and before I realized what I was doing, I stuck my hand into the back pocket of my jeans. I pulled a strip of paper out and struggled to read it in the near dark.
What the hell is going on with you?
Ugh. I didn’t want to deal with the psychic demon right now. Sure, since I didn’t have my phone—a stupid decision, in hindsight—and the cab driver had just dumped me, I might have to reach out to Saul and hope he could come and pick me up. But that was something to think about later.
I had a promise to keep first.
So I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and hoped it was enough to comfort the good demon into thinking everything was fine.
As soon as my feet hit the other side of the fence, the earth hummed beneath my boots. The farther I moved past the bulky construction equipment, the more the ground vibrated, as if it recognized me. I’d always felt an unexplainable pull towards this spot because of the overabundance of spook activity but being physically linked to the power grid via Hecate strengthened the affinity.
The imprints I’d seen so clearly only days ago, when I’d walked down this deserted street with Lavie, were now nothing more than see-through images. The people were almost faded out completely and none noticed me. Their imprints were caught in a loop, which would soon fade to nothing.
Goose bumps raced over my skin, not from fear but from sadness. The cracked asphalt wasn’t completely removed yet, but was lifting at the edges. The crumbling shops were mostly leveled, and the debris had been cleared away and dumped to the side. The man-made hill contained so much of what made this area special. North Serene Hills was losing all its ghostly history to make way for a mini concrete city.
I have to do whatever it takes to stop these apartment blocks from being built.
I passed 669 Wallace Street and almost expected Burr Okell to pop out from the doorway. The Tailor was part of the Patch Watchdog, a mysterious organization that maintained the peace within the patches of reality by keeping them apart. The fact I could now cross into other patches, destroy them and even control my own wasn’t lost on me. Or that Burr had referred to me as his neophyte.
My feet carried me across the road, absently kicking at the loose asphalt. Would building on this soil affect my newfound power? The realization hit me harder than I’d expected. Being connected to this magical power grid via the strongest part—Hecate’s three-pronged crossroads—would surely have some sort of side effect on me. How would I deal with it being buried beneath a ton of apartments, cars and people?
I definitely can’t let this happen.
The next time I looked up, I found myself standing in the middle of the crossroads I’d just been considering. In the same spot where Lavie and I had tried to locate the ley lines. This was the same place Burr constructed a kid’s bedroom out of nothing, and where the stolen children were torn from the shadows.
This spot was a place of comfort, power, and I felt an affinity towards it.
The thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump started beneath my feet, matching my heartbeat. I held out my left palm. The pink line had appeared without the need to shed any blood, but there was something else—the warmth of spirits wanting to return home.
Spending all those hours at Papan’s bedside had given me time to read over my grandmother’s journal. I’d found out a lot of things, and one of them happened to be what she hoped to achieve by performing the Hecate Ritual on her infant granddaughter. It wasn’t just about protection and potency—she’d also wanted to streamline the process of spook catching.
By performing the ritual and forging a blood tie with Seere, she’d opened my connection to Hecate. By the time the familial line reached Grandma, she’d known the power was already immense, and would only strengthen when it passed to me. And that once I received the full extent, I’d be able to draw spirits and other spooks into my aura and then expel them through my palm. I only needed The Ecliptic if I wanted to banish them.
Thank you, Grandma.
I drew my boline and cut three separate lines along my palm, ma
king a triangle. The moonstone pommel glowed as much as the blade and small beads of blood dotted my now-scarred skin. I’d sliced the taut skin many times—the only way I could capture and dispel spooks via my left hand. All I had to do was cut three linked lines into my palm to mark Hecate.
The spirits I’d rescued from the Council slowly coalesced out of my palm and into the night. Their presence brightened the surroundings, highlighting the extent of change already marring the area. The dilapidated chapel the Church of the Goddess used no longer stood, having become a mountain of rubble ready to be carted away. Soon, the same would happen to the derelict building we used on a monthly basis for our hunter meetings.
The triangular cut healed as soon as the fifteen spooks were free. They swayed before me like a small, plump army ready for instructions. Their leader hovered at the front, examining me with those perfectly rounded eyes.
“You kept your promise,” it said, turning all the way around as if to survey the vicinity. “We are home.”
“Yes, you are.” I pointed down the street. “I’m sorry the chapel’s gone.”
“The building wasn’t as important as the ground beneath it.” The apparition floated closer. “Or as important as you, Sierra Fox.”
I shrugged, looking away so I wouldn’t have to see my reflection in its hollowed eyes. “I’m not that important.”
“Oh, but you are, especially now that I remember exactly who you are and what you mean to me.” The spirit vibrated, making the air tremble. The tail end no longer hovered over the ground, turning into small feet covered in black, polished shoes. The rounded body morphed into dumpy legs supporting a big gut leading into chubby arms and hands. When the shape changed enough to reveal a very round head, I stepped back.
“Burr, is that you?” His waxy skin gave him away as soon as he solidified in front of me.
“It sure is,” he said with a genuine smile, even if it looked painted on. “Say hello to my fellow Tailors.”
Burr turned enough to encompass the other ghostly shapes. Right before my eyes, each one transformed into an array of varied guises—some taller, shorter, rounder, stretched, male and female. But all had the same glistening waxy, sweaty skin and the drawn-with-crayon features.
As freaky as these sideshow hosts were, it explained a lot about why Burr never looked quite put together. He was a construct, a spirit who moonlighted as a human to help others.
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t. Instead, I concentrated on counting the simultaneous thump-thumps of both my heart and the earth. When I got to forty, Burr turned back to face me and the other Tailors evaporated, leaving behind a shimmer of magic that made my hair sway.
“Ah, Sierra, we have much to talk about tonight,” Burr said, rubbing his pudgy hands together.
“Yeah, we do.” I tried to get my chaotic thoughts into some sort of order. “How did you get to the Spook Catcher Council Tower?”
Burr looked thoughtful as he switched from rubbing his hands to scratching the back of his rounded head. “So that’s where we were! I had no idea. To be honest with you, I don’t have many coherent thoughts about what happened while we were lost inside that horrible metal construct.” His face contorted into a look of genuine disgust. “The only thing I do remember is the spectral current we were feeding from. As corrupt and artificial as the energy was, we could nevertheless draw from it.”
A memory flashed inside my mind—when Oren and I stood beneath the overpass near the Tower, months ago. We were trying to find a ley line to help locate my grandparents and had instead stumbled onto a whole lot more. This couldn’t be what Burr was referring to. “You’re not talking about ley lines, are you?”
“No. This was something else.” His beady eyes shone when he stared at me. “I suspect you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
I nodded. He had to be referring to the chaotic spooks trapped beneath the Tower. I wouldn’t let Lee down, and would do whatever I could to save the other girls without the rest of the CBD having to suffer. But none of this explained how the Tailors had ended up inside the building.
“When were you taken and then imprisoned? We only saw each other on Monday.”
“What day is it?”
“It’s Saturday,” I said.
Burr looked thoughtful. “It happened shortly after I returned from delivering the abducted children to their parents...”
“Who took you?”
“An ancient and very unethical being captured and imprisoned us within those metal confines.” Burr’s face darkened and he looked away. “It knows we are biological spirits unable to survive within such artificial constructions. Our place is always in the wilds, by the land and the in-between, but never within such human structures.” He regarded me. “If it wasn’t for you, we would have perished. As you saw when you found us, we were but mere specters of ourselves.”
“Is the rounded shape your true form?” I asked, feeling like an idiot for even bringing it up. But I had to know why such important spirits looked like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Burr smiled and his mouth stretched from ear to ear. “No, we don’t have any real shape. We are wisps, spirits with no form, but have the ability to construct ourselves in whatever way is needed at the time. The shape you saw was one we’ve taken from popular human culture—a configuration that doesn’t appear threatening. Did it work?”
“Yeah, your appearance works but you almost killed my friend with your strength.”
He frowned. “Oh, yes, I must apologize for that show of anger. We didn’t recognize him and he pointed a weapon, so we assumed he was foe. Good thing you were there.”
Yeah, I’ll have to tell Gareth that. He’d been hesitant about taking me tonight, but who knows what would’ve happened if he had gone without me.
“So you know who imprisoned you?”
Burr looked around, his eyes glowing. “The ancient being is also responsible for thwarting our every effort of mending rifts and splits we have experienced of late.”
“Are you sure?” My hands were getting clammy because with each word, my subconscious put a wretched puzzle together.
“Yes, I’m certain. This creature is not something one forgets easily.”
I wanted to know the entity’s name, but couldn’t bring myself to ask.
“Would you like to see how it took us? Though, I suppose it’s a he right now.”
I hesitated for just a moment. “I would.”
Burr closed the distance between us until we stood together, facing the same direction. He raised both chubby arms above his head, waved his hands in the air and lowered them as if he were highlighting a section. When his hands met in the middle, he wrapped his fingers around the segment and ripped away the layer—like cropping. He’d peeled a layer of reality, so that the section of street directly in front of us now appeared the way it had before the demolition began.
We weren’t a part of it. We were spectators.
The chapel stood inside the slice. “When did this happen?”
“The night after you ventured into the shadow patch.” Burr swept a hand over the image and Mace materialized only a few feet away, morphing from static phantom to man in seconds. “Sierra, watch.”
It’s him. It’s always been him! “Mace…”
“I believe that’s what he calls himself,” Burr said with a nod. “Now watch and listen.”
Mace nailed tall, dark and handsome with his lean body, penetrating come-hither eyes and shaggy haircut. I’d fallen for him the first time we met. My schoolgirl crush had been instant and when he showed an interest in me, I couldn’t believe my luck. He was the young and very good-looking scout for the Spook Catcher Council, and wanted to be with me. Too bad it turned out that he did the same with just about every girl he recruited, but I hadn’t known at the time. Not when he’d started taking me out to lavish dinners whic
h led to midnight walks in Hyde Park and before long became my sexual awakening. Back then, I’d been a stupid, innocent girl. I’d thought Mace actually cared about me. How was I to know he wanted what I’d inherited?
In the end, he hadn’t been so different from the teenage boys I’d kept my distance from during high school. Thanks to Mace, I developed a commitment phobia that only recently faded.
“Sierra, you need to pay close attention to what happens next,” Burr whispered near my ear.
Seeing Mace this way shocked me, and I’d almost forgotten what I was here to do. I had to let these memories go. They weren’t worth keeping. So I focused on the unfolding action.
Mace stalked around the chapel until he reached the closed doors. “Where are you so-called caretakers of the realms? Show yourselves willingly, or I’ll yank you out from the pocket patch you reside in.”
No one appeared. He remained alone in the night, pacing from side to side impatiently. “This land is no longer yours to watch over. You need to show yourselves so I can take you to a new home.”
The next time Mace walked around the crumbling structure, he pointed to the ground and lightning bolts slipped from his fingertips, scorching a circle along the earth. He paused at five different intervals to squeeze his fingers together and dribble droplets of blood. When he reached the chapel doors again, the scorch marks and the blood joined to make a blazing upside-down pentagram.
Burr stepped out of nowhere, a mirror of the construct standing beside me. “What do you want, phantom?”
“It’s about time you showed,” Mace said with an impatient snort. “I want you and your colleagues to hand yourselves over so I can get out of this hellhole.”
The Tailor shook his head, causing his double chin to wobble. “We don’t need to go anywhere with the likes of you.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m offering you a chance to come willingly.”
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