The Return of Absent Souls (After The Rift Book 6)

by C. J. Archer

  I put my hands up and managed to stop myself smashing into the whitewashed bricks, but my wrists and arms jarred from the force. I gasped in pain, but smothered the cry that welled up my throat.

  "Leave the boy alone." The voice wasn't one I'd heard yet. It didn't come from outside the cell but from another prisoner to my right.

  "What'd you say?" Badger snarled.

  "I said leave the boy alone. He's just a child."

  I turned and pressed my back into the wall. My rescuer stood in a similar position, his arms crossed over his chest. He was perhaps late twenties, with fair hair and cloudy gray eyes circled by red-rimmed lids. He wasn't nearly as tall as Badger, nor as solid, and I doubted he could defeat either Badger or Dobby in a fight. My heart sank.

  "You going to make us?" Dobby asked.

  The man shrugged then winced, as if the movement hurt. He sported a bruise on his cheek, and his blond hair was matted with blood. "One must try. It's the decent thing to do."

  "'One must try.'" Badger mimicked the other man's toff accent to perfection. Dobby and the fourth prisoner, lounging on the cot bed, laughed.

  Dobby straightened his back, threw out his chest, and affected a feminine walk to where the man stood. The prisoner on the bed laughed even harder at the hairy beast's acting. "Oh, protect me from these brutes, sir," whimpered Dobby in a high voice. "You're my hero."

  The blond man lowered his hands to his sides and curled them into fists. I held my breath and waited for the first punch to be thrown. The man smiled instead. It held no humor.

  Dobby tugged on the lapels of the blond man's jacket, pretending to straighten it, then fidgeted with the high, stiff shirt collar. The gentleman wore no tie, and his hat and gloves were also missing. The fine cut of his clothes reminded me of my father, always so perfectly groomed. Even the fellow's aristocratic bearing was very much like my father's. Whether it was also an affectation this gentleman had developed, it was difficult to tell. I wasn't as experienced with the upper members of society and their ways as I used to be.

  "Finished?" the blond man drawled. I wondered why the gentleman had landed in jail and why he was defending me, a stranger. He'd get himself killed if he didn't keep quiet.

  His fun spoiled by the gentleman's lack of fear, Dobby snorted and moved away. He turned back to me and licked his lips. Badger wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and eyed me with renewed interest. He reached for me, but the blond man smacked his hand away. Neither Badger nor I had noticed him approach.

  Badger bared his teeth in a snarl. "You don't get to ruin Badger's fun!" He smashed his fist into the blond man's face, sending him reeling back into the bed.

  The prisoner lounging there had to quickly pull up his legs or be sat on. The blond man recovered, and with a growl of rage, lunged at Badger. But he swung his fists wildly and his blows merely glanced off the bigger, meaner prisoner. Badger responded with another punch to the gentleman's jaw. Blood splattered from the blond man's mouth as he careened backward and slammed into the wall. His head smacked into the bricks, and the crack of his skull turned my stomach.

  Dobby laughed, sending spittle flying from the slit in his beard. Badger dusted off his hands and watched as the gentleman folded in on himself and crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll. My heart sank, and it was only then that I realized I'd let it rise in hope.

  My rescuer was dead.

  A sickening fear assaulted me along with the memories of that terrible night five years ago when my mother had died. I could still hear my father's accusation, still feel the sting of his belt across my back, and the icy rain he'd sent me into with the order never to return home.

  Yet those awful memories could help me now. If the prisoners reacted to my strange ability as my father had… It was my only hope.

  I knelt alongside the gentleman's lifeless form and placed my hands on either side of his face, as I had done to my mother after she'd breathed her last. While I'd been overset by tears then, I wasn't now, and I could see the gray pallor of death consuming his youthful face. I stroked his jaw. It was still warm and his short whiskers felt rough on my palms.

  Someone behind me snickered. "You can't do nothing for him now, boy. Let old Badger comfort you, eh?"

  I didn't move and he didn't rip me away from the body, thank goodness. I needed to touch it. At least, I think I did. I'd only ever done this once before. What if I couldn't repeat it? What if my connection to my mother had been the key that time, and it wouldn't work on a stranger?

  I caressed his face as if we'd been the most intimate of lovers, and willed his spirit to rise. Please speak to me. Do this for me and help me to live. I don't want to die here like this.

  I didn't want to die at all. That in itself was something of a revelation, but I had no chance to think about it further. A pale wisp rose from the body. At first it looked like a slender ribbon of smoke, then it grew larger and took on the shape of the dead man. It was still as thin as a veil of silk chiffon, but it moved as if it held solid form.

  The spirit frowned at me from his floating position then settled his gaze on his own lifeless figure. He sighed. "And so it ends."

  My heart ground to a halt. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  The spirit blinked at me, as if surprised that we were communicating. "Not your fault. I brought it on myself. I'd had enough of living, you see." He sighed again. "My parents said I would amount to nothing and they were right. Couldn't even get in a good punch." He nodded at Badger, who was standing behind me.

  "What's he saying?" Dobby asked.

  "He's talking to the dead," Badger said. "Boy's mad." He snorted and spat a glob of green mucus on the floor near my feet. "Get up, lad. It won't go well for you if I have to drag you over here."

  The spirit's face twisted with disgust. "Wish I could have done something to help you, child. I haven't accomplished much in my life, but my hatred of bullies is well known. Just ask my father." He laughed at a joke I wasn't privy to. "That's something, eh? A legacy I can leave behind?"

  I didn't think it was much of a legacy, but I didn't say so. He was my only friend in that cell, and I needed him. "There is one thing you can do for me before you go," I whispered.

  "What's he saying?" Dobby repeated.

  "I don't bloody care." Badger's hand closed around my shoulder and he wrenched me away from the body. He fumbled with the front of his trousers again. I had only seconds.

  "Get back into your body," I told the spirit. I no longer kept my voice low. He needed to hear me, and it didn't matter who else did now. The die was already cast.

  The spirit didn't move. "How?"

  I wasn't entirely sure. When my mother had done it, she'd simply floated back down into her body when I'd asked her to. "Lie on your…self," I told him.

  Badger's fingers gripped my jaw, smashing the inside of my mouth into my teeth. "Shut it," he snapped. "I don't want to hear no lunatic talk. Do ye hear me?"

  "He's soft in the head." Dobby bent to get a better look at me. If Badger hadn’t been holding my jaw, I would have smashed my forehead into his nose.

  "Bloody hell!" The other prisoner leapt off the bed, his eyes huge. "He's still alive!"

  Badger let me go. He stumbled back and stared at the now standing body. It wasn't alive, but the spirit had re-entered it and was controlling it. Even though I knew what was happening, the sight still made my blood run cold.

  The body turned to Badger. The insipid, blank eyes of the dead man were as lifeless as they had been moments ago, and I wasn't certain how the spirit could see through them.

  The third prisoner crossed himself. Dobby mewled. Badger continued to stumble backward until he fell over his own feet and landed heavily on his backside.

  "What…me…do?" The brittle, thin voice coming from the corpse startled me as much as it did the prisoners. It was nothing like the spirit's smooth one. It was as if he labored to get the dead vocal organs working.

  "I don't know," I said.

  "Jesus christ
," Dobby muttered. He joined the other prisoner in the cell corner, as far away from the body and me as possible.

  "You…control…me." The body bent over the cowering, sweating Badger. The brute looked like he'd pee his trousers if the dead man got any closer. "Kill?"

  "Can you?" I asked. It wasn't a request but an honest question, since the gentleman hadn't been able to so much as punch Badger when he'd been alive. As the color drained from Badger's face, I realized how it must have sounded. I didn't correct myself.

  "Constable!" Badger screamed. "Constable, get this madman out of here!"

  Was he referring to the reanimated corpse or me? I laughed. I couldn't help it. Perhaps I was mad, but seeing the cruel Badger frightened out of his wits was the most gratifying experience of my life, and I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

  Unfortunately that wasn't long. The constable's face appeared at the slit in the door. "What's all this noise about?"

  "Get it out! Get it out!" Badger threw his arms over his face, like a child hiding under the sheets at night.

  "Shut up in there!"

  "He's gone mad," I said to the guard.

  Badger kept screaming at the constable to remove "the devil," and the other prisoner joined in. Dobby slunk back against the wall, away from us. Away from the door.

  The door that was now opening. "Bloody hell, don't make me come in there, you bleedin' idiot," said the constable, as he stepped into the cell. He wasn't armed, and his attention was distracted by Badger and the others. "What's got up your arse, anyway?"

  "Let's get out of here," I said quietly to the corpse.

  Like an automaton, the body turned stiffly toward the door. The constable took one look at those dead eyes and fell to his knees. "Devil," he muttered before launching into an earnest prayer.

  I almost didn't move, so stunned was I at the similarity to my father's reaction when he'd first seen Mama's corpse rise. But a nudge from the dead man got my feet working. I slipped past the constable and out the door. The body lumbered after me with jerky, awkward steps, as if the swift movement was too difficult for its dead, uncoordinated limbs.

  "Hoy there! Stop!" Another policeman ran toward us, his truncheon raised.

  The body pulled back bloodless lips and hissed. The constable dropped the truncheon then took off in the opposite direction.

  "Hurry," I urged the body.

  "If you wish." His voice sounded stronger, not as strained, and his steps were more sure now. He seemed to have adjusted to his deceased state.

  We ran along a corridor, past another two holding cells. Three more constables fell back from us with gasps and terrified mutterings. Only one challenged us, and the corpse under my command pushed him away. Easily. It seemed he was stronger, now he was dead, than when he was alive.

  "You there!" shouted the constable behind the desk in the reception room. "What's—?" He stumbled back as the corpse turned vacant eyes and white face toward him.

  The clang of a bell sounded from behind us, warning of a prisoner escape. Ordinarily it would signal for all available constabulary at the station to chase us, but none did. Their fear of "the devil" overrode any sense of duty.

  The dead man pushed me toward the door. We ran, but he stopped before reaching freedom. I stopped too.

  "Do not let them catch you, child!"

  "And you?" I asked.

  "When you are safe, release my spirit."

  "How?"

  "Speak the command. Now go!"

  The desk constable approached uncertainly, his shaking hand clutching a revolver. He swallowed heavily and pointed it at the corpse.

  I slipped out the door and into South Grove. The street was surprisingly empty, but then I realized any passersby would have scattered when they heard the bell. I darted into a nearby lane as a gunshot joined the cacophony.

  "I release you," I said softly. "Go to your afterlife."

  I never found out if my words, spoken from some distance, were enough to release the spirit from his body and send him on his way. I hoped so. He'd died for me, and I owed him whatever peace was in my power to give.

  I kept running, not daring to stop or steal anything, despite my hunger. I hadn't eaten in three days, and then it had been only some strawberries. My last experience at thieving had got me arrested. It was the one and only time I'd been caught. I prided myself on being one of the best thieves on the north side of London, but I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to trust myself again. For now, it didn't matter. I was too intent on getting as far away from the police as possible to think of food.

  When I finally reached Clerkenwell, I slowed. My throat and lungs burned, my heart crashed against my ribs. But I was far from Highgate Police Station and there'd been no sign of pursuit. I took the long route to the rookery, just in case, and stopped outside the old, crumbling house with the rotten window sashes and door. I glanced up and down the lane, and seeing no one about I pulled aside the loose boards at knee height. I squeezed through the hole and let the boards flap closed behind me.

  "Charlie's back!" shouted Mink, standing lookout near the trapdoor that led down to the cellar. The boy lifted his chin at me in greeting. It was as much as he ever acknowledged me. He wasn't much of a talker.

  "'Bout bloody time!" came the gruff voice of Stringer, from down in Hell. That's what we called the cellar. It was an apt name for our crowded living quarters where we ate, slept and passed the time. It was cold and damp in winter, hot and airless in summer, but it kept us off the streets and out of danger.

  "Thought you'd scarpered." Stringer popped his head through the trapdoor. His face and hair were dirty, and I could smell the stink of the sewers on him from where I stood near the entrance. He must have gone wandering down there again.

  "I got arrested," I said.

  Both Stringer and Mink blinked at me. Then Stringer roared with laughter, almost propelling himself off the ladder. "You! Fleet-foot Charlie, caught by the filth! Well, well, never thought I'd see the day. Oi, lads, listen to this—Charlie got himself arrested!"

  "How'd you get out?" asked Mink in his quiet voice. He was a serious boy, compared to the others, and watchful. He didn't join in with the annoying pranks they liked to pull, and he could read well enough too. I liked him more than the rest of the gang members, but that wasn't saying much. I'd almost asked him how he'd learned to read and where he'd lived before he found himself part of Stringer's gang, but decided against it.

  I didn't know any of the children's pasts, and they didn't know mine. Nor did I get too friendly with them. It would make it easier to leave, when the time came. No goodbyes, no sorrows, no ties; that was my motto. I moved on twice a year, every year, and had done so since that wet night Mama died. I couldn't have lived as a thirteen year-old boy for over five years if I'd stayed with one gang the entire time.

  "Bit of luck," was all I said to Mink. "Move it, Stringer, and let me past." I thumped his shoulder.

  He descended the ladder and I followed, leaving Mink to watch the entrance.

  "Charlie!" cried another boy named Finley. Mink, Stringer, Finley…they weren't real names but, like mine, they were probably near enough. "How'd they catch you, then? Dangle a clean pair of britches in front of ya nose?"

  The eight lads lounging in the cellar fell over each other laughing. Ever since I'd mentioned wanting to steal clean clothes to replace my reeking ones, I'd been the butt of their jokes. It made a change from them teasing me for refusing to strip off so much as my shirt in front of them.

  "Pigs were hiding near the costermonger's cart," I said, lying down on the rags I used as a mattress. It was cleaner than the actual mattress that had been dragged down from the upstairs bedroom before the roof caved in. Cleaner, but not free of lice. I scratched my head absently. "I think the costermonger told them to look out for me."

  "Serves you bloody right for getting slack," Stringer said, kicking my bare foot. I didn't rub the spot, despite the pain. It was never a good idea to show weakness, even among
boys from my own gang. Perhaps especially to them. "And for going back there. Again."

  One of the other boys snorted. "What you going there all the time for, anyway, Charlie? What's in Highgate?"

  "Idiot. Don't you know nothing?" Stringer leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. In that pose, he reminded me of the gentleman in the holding cell. Both blond and slender, there was a certain bravado and defiance about them.

  My heart pinched. I regretted that the man had lost his life because of me. I sent a silent word of thanks to Heaven, Hell, or wherever he'd ended up. I wouldn't forget his sacrifice, nor would I make the same mistake again and allow myself to be caught. Life was precarious for homeless children. And women.

  Stringer rubbed his thumb along his smirking lower lip. "He goes to the cemetery."

  I went very still. He must have followed me once. How much did he know? Did he see me visit Mama's grave? Or wander around the other headstones, imagining what the deceased had once looked like and how they'd lived? Did he know I liked to sit beneath the cedar trees and dream the day away?

  Finley pulled a face. "Blimey, Charlie, that's a bit mordid, ain't it?"

  "Morbid," I corrected him automatically.

  Stringer's smirk turned to a sneer. "Shut your hole, Charlie. No one cares what you been doing, anyway. You got caught today. You got slow." He leaned down and poked me in the shoulder. "Never forget that." He hated when I corrected them. It always seemed to bring out the worst in him. I supposed it was because it made him feel inferior to me, when in fact he was the eldest and the leader. Well, not actually the eldest, but no one there knew it.

  The boys were aged from eight to fifteen. Stringer was not only the eldest but also the biggest. He was already the size of a grown man, and there were rumblings about him leaving the gang of children to take up with a band of more ruthless men who lived in the neighborhood. Two of the boys had even approached me to take over from him, but I'd refused. It would probably mean I'd have to fight Stringer, and there was no way I could win against him. Besides, it was coming time for me to move on again. Mink in particular was beginning to look at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Sometimes I wondered if he already knew that I wasn't who I said I was.