“I cared, Toby. I care. That's why this hurts so much.”
“So you feel me now, do you? Look what I had to do to get your attention, to get your focus.” He gestured to poor, old Bob, his latest victim, and she hoped his last. She wondered if maybe instead that would be her.
“Why didn't you just talk to me, Toby?” she pleaded. “Why did you have to do this?”
He shook his head. “I did talk. You never listened. I used all the senses, but you were closed to me. You shunned me. I tried to reach out, but you never reached back. You don't know what it's like, Mel. You don't know what it's like to go through life and feel totally ignored.”
“You're not the only one with problems, Toby.”
He scoffed. “Damn right I'm not. There's six more who've caught your paralysis. Just like you, they can't see or hear or feel. All I did was show how bad it is, made it … more tangible.”
“Well, I got the message—”
“Did you, though? It was a simple message. Why is that I had to hammer it home?”
“I'm paying attention now, Toby.”
“For all the wrong reasons.” He sighed. “And maybe, you know … maybe it's too late.”
“It's not too late, Toby. No one's dead yet. You can undo this.”
He looked despondently to the floor. “It won't change anything though, will it? You'll never love me, not like I love you.”
“I'll love you less if you let these people die. They're innocent, Toby. I'm the guilty party here. Punish me, not them.”
“I don't want to punish you, Mel! That's not what this is about.”
“I get what it's about, but I need you to let them free.”
“I'm not even sure I can,” he said.
“How did you make them like this? The charms?”
“The charms were for you, Mel. I knew you'd pay attention to those. I knew even Don wouldn't refuse to hand this case to you.”
“Then how did you do it, Toby?”
Eckhart made a gesture like a stage magician. “Magic.”
“I never knew you were into that.”
“Well, like I said, you never listen. And everyone's got a little magic in them, Mel. You should know.”
Chapter 38 – Stand-off
“Put the gun away,” Eckhart urged.
“No.”
“This isn't going to end like that, Mel. Not with lead.”
“I hope it ends with you reversing what you did.”
“And what, just pretend like nothing's happened?”
“I can't do that,” she said.
“You could do it before. One awkward word, then let's all just go back to normal. No happy families, just two co-workers, typing up reports no one'll read, living meaningless lives, soon to be forgotten. Well, I won't be forgotten, Mel. People will remember me.”
“Not for the right reasons, Toby.”
He smiled. “Are there any? We don't remember the heroes in this world, Mel. We only remember the villains.”
“That's not true.”
“Open your eyes, Mel! This is the world we live in.”
“Tell me how you did it, Toby. Tell me how to save them.”
“Go back in time,” Eckhart said with a laugh. “But first, put the gun away.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and Melanie refused. Then, with a suddenness that surprised her, Eckhart made a gesture and spoke aloud a single, indecipherable word. The gun slipped from her hand and floated over to his, growing swiftly smaller as it did. By the time he grasped it, it was nothing more than a little gun-shaped charm.
“You know, my family used to make these,” he said. “Not guns. Charms. Then they too were forgotten. The modern world steamrolled over the past, just like you did. No one had time for that. We only wore trinkets for show. The meaning was gone … forgotten.”
“I didn't know—”
“You didn't listen! I told you some of this before. Then it went back to you, always back to you. And you know what, Mel? I didn't even mind. I wanted it to go back to you. To me, you were all that mattered. What's worse is that despite all this, I kind of feel like you still are.”
Melanie didn't know what to say to that.
“I know there's probably no hope for us,” Eckhart said. He paused and looked at her, mouth open just a little, as if he was hoping she would correct him. “No Romeo and Juliet here, huh? There might be two dead partners, but … never lovers.”
He had barely uttered those words when there was the sound of a gunshot. Melanie jumped, thinking Eckhart had somehow fired that little trinket. When she regained her wits, she saw Don enter the building, gun raised. Eckhart stumbled backwards, clutching his chest, then fell to the floor in a pool of blood.
Chapter 39 – Solution
Melanie ran to Eckhart. Part of her had some sliver of concern for him still, even now, but much of her just needed him to tell her how to undo what he had done.
“No, no, no,” she cried. She held her hand down on the wound, feeling the blood leak out around her fingers.
“I guess I was wrong,” Eckhart said. “It does end with lead.” He held up the tiny gun to her. “Here. Finish me off, will ya?”
“Please, Toby. Tell me how to set them free.”
“I can't.”
“Please. Some of them are just kids. Don't let it end like this.”
“I mean … I'm not sure how.”
Melanie shook her head, dumbfounded.
“I didn't learn how,” Eckhart said.
Melanie held his head up. “You have to know.”
He smiled. “This is the first time I've been in your arms, you know.”
“Focus, Toby. There are six people whose lives are in danger.”
“It doesn't matter, Mel. This world … we're all just passers-through.”
“It matters to them, Toby. It … it matters to me.”
Eckhart coughed. He sounded weaker already. Even his hand on her arm was growing limp.
“Stay with me, Toby. Tell me how to undo it.”
“I said I can't.”
“Then tell me how you did it.”
“You can't fix everything, Mel.”
“I just need to fix this. Please, Toby.”
So he told her, though it was a struggle for him. He told her of the symbols used, and the words, and how to correctly intone them. He taught her the gestures, which seemed similar to some taught by Melanie's grandmother. He gave her the secrets of magic that others might withhold, or might require that she take a pledge of secrecy for. He told her everything, because finally, to him, she was listening.
“Remember me, Mel,” he said, and those were his final words.
Eckhart's hand slipped down, and Don placed his own on Melanie's shoulder.
“He's gone.”
Melanie gulped back her tears. She knew she would never forget him, though now the memories were scarred. She also knew the case wasn't closed yet. She still had work to do.
Chapter 40 – Undoing the Damage
Not all the damage could be undone. Some scars couldn't be unmade. She felt her heart was a little colder, her faith in people a little sapped. Eckhart had done a bit of paralysing there. But this wasn't about her, even if he had said it was. For her, it was about those six innocent people, dragged into someone else's problems.
She got permission from Don to take the six charms from the evidence locker and bring them home. She laid them out with her own ones and spent some time working through the words Eckhart had given her, and finding the opposites for them. She had to rely a lot on intuition, and the help of a journal her grandmother kept, which she dug out of the attic. She consulted the Tarot several times throughout the process, recognising her Knight of Swords, seeing Death come up here and there. It was definitely the end of something all right. She just hoped it wasn't a literal end for those poor people too.
By the end of the day she had developed a ritual that seemed like the opposite process that Eckhart used, assu
ming he hadn't been lying to her. She desperately wanted to call Mr. Constant for advice, but she knew he wouldn't comment on magical techniques. He had already told her plenty in his roundabout way.
During the ritual, she felt that sense of otherworldliness again, a connection to something higher, even the sense of finding the kernel of herself amidst the chaos. The charms came to life, or she found the hidden life within them, and she decharged the ones used by Eckhart, while seeing the victims in her mind's eye, gradually regaining feeling.
She had Don on call, because she wasn't sure she had what it would take. Don never sounded so happy in his life. All six victims had fully recovered. Physically, at least. The magic was undone, but the memories were still there.
There was no chance Eckhart would be forgotten.
Chapter 41 – A Place in the World
If life was strange during that week, it was surreal the week after. She typed up a report that she would have normally given Eckhart to do. She typed his name in far too many places, in all those places where there was only a blank in her mind before.
Don was different too. What lack of confidence he had in her was gone. She'd proved herself in a way that it seemed he never thought she would, and yet he gave the impression that he always believed in her, that he knew she'd eventually pull through. Some cases required subtlety, and some required a bulldozer. She'd be there for those.
She paid a visit to Mr. Constant, eager to glean some extra little nuggets of insight from him. She felt she'd need them. Out of all her senses, that sixth one was tingling like crazy. In the Vowels, there'd be no end of cases where she'd need an esoteric edge.
Mr. Constant held a book on his lap while Melanie talked. For some of it, it almost seemed like he'd already heard it all, like he knew all along. He was the master of silence and secrecy, a master magician. You kept his cards close to his chest.
“It's funny,” Melanie told him. “This past week, I've felt lost. My whole life, actually. I know it sounds odd, and maybe even a little selfish, but it kind of feels like my entire history was pared down into the events of last week.”
“That doesn't sound odd to me,” Mr. Constant said with a glimmer in his eye.
“I never felt I fit in. Not even in the OIU. Well, maybe I'm not supposed to.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I've wondered about my place in this world for so long. There are so many threads that make up my background, linking me to different places, different peoples. I used to think that was a problem, that it diluted everything, so that I never truly belonged. But now I see it makes up the tapestry of who I am. Maybe I'm not supposed to be just a round plug in a round hole, or any other shape. There are enough people like that. Maybe my place is somewhere in the middle, wandering the crossroads, walking a bit of all paths.”
“So you've learned a bit then,” Mr. Constant said, nodding proudly.
She smiled. “Maybe that's where I can help the most.”
THE END
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Explore the Hibernian Hollows further in the novel Hibernian Blood.
www.deanfwilson.com
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About the Author
Dean F. Wilson was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1987. He started writing at age 11. He is the author of the Children of Telm epic fantasy trilogy, the Great Iron War steampunk dystopian series, the Coilhunter Chronicles science-fiction western series, and the Hibernian Hollows urban fantasy series.
Read More from Dean F. Wilson
www.deanfwilson.com
Hibernian Charm (An Occult Detective Urban Fantasy) (Hibernian Hollows Book 2) Page 8