“Hey, isn’t that Harry from the-” Jem started but I shut him up with a glare.
“Shush! They haven’t seen us. Come on!” I grabbed Jem’s arm and dragged him around the corner and out of view.
“Are you suggesting we should spy on Desmond?” Jem asked.
“Um, duh! How else are we going to find out what’s going on?”
“We could ask.”
“I need a stronger word than idiot,” I grumbled and yanked my brother along behind me. I knew better than to get too close to the bar, since Desmond had all kinds of wards all over the place. Besides, they were walking away. From the direction, I guessed they were headed up to the church. I really wasn’t interested in following them up the hill, so I hoped I was wrong.
“Nai, what are we-”
“Zip it!” I hissed. They had stopped, just outside of downtown in the park that was across from our neighborhood. I ducked behind a large tree and motioned for Jem to do the same.
“How long do you think that would take?” I heard Desmond ask.
“I can’t say for sure if the vessel’s even gonna be available, but the best we can hope for is a week.”
“If that’s the best we can hope for, then it will have to do,” said the old lady, who turned to Desmond. “If the wraith is indeed bound to the broken soul, we have little worry of losing the trail.”
“I’m more worried about the number of lost,” Desmond replied. “There is only so much our Guardians can do.”
“I understand my daughter has been teaching them wards and binding spells. At least, she has been teaching the young man. She says he’s a natural.”
I glared over at Jem, who just shrugged. He hadn’t mentioned the binding spells or this old lady. I wondered who her daughter was. I thought Donna had been the one teaching him, but this lady was old enough to be Donna’s great grandmother.
“A natural at Earth magic?” Desmond asked, looking shocked. “But that’s…”
“I told you them kids were different,” Harry grumbled.
“Regardless, that’s another problem for another day,” I heard Desmond say. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could imagine his sour expression.
“But at the moment it is to our advantage,” the old woman said. “We need not fear for the lost if our Guardians are doing their job, by whatever means necessary. We still have quite a bit to prepare. Harry may have the tools of exorcism lined up, but the coven will need to prepare a spell to keep from further damaging his soul.”
I heard Harry grumble something about the witches before they made plans to meet again later in the week. Jem opened his mouth, but I shushed him, knowing they were not yet out of earshot.
“Desmond’s gone, you can come out now.”
Both Jem and I jumped as we heard Harry’s voice behind us. He let out a sigh and shook his head. “You both have a lot to learn about sneaking up on folks. Well, come on then,” he said, turning to the street.
“Where are we going?” Jem asked. Harry just kind of grunted and nodded toward the church as his answer.
“Oh come on! Do we have to go all the way up there?” I asked. Harry stopped and rounded on me.
“Girly, I am seventy-eight years old and these aren’t even my original hips, yet you don’t see me complaining about a little exercise. I’m offering to let the two of you in on what everyone else thinks you are not ready to hear, however, I am doing so with the stipulation that you quit the constant griping.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but mentally slapped myself for being so dumb. “Fine,” I said with a wide smile as I prepared to leap out of the Cycle. “I’ll meet you up there.”
Less than a minute later, I stood outside the front doors of the church and watched Jem and Harry huff and puff their way up the hill.
“As interesting as that party trick was, you need to be a little more careful with your trails, kiddo,” Harry grunted, giving me the stink eye.
“Trails?”
“Magical energy that gives away your position,” he explained.
“But we’re masked,” I argued. “The Discordant can’t read us. Seth told me that a while ago.”
“Normally, your energy is neutral, but what you just did was outside your allowable measure. Just like when this fellow here casts spells.”
“Huh?” Jem looked terrified. “But Donna said…”
Harry swatted the air and scowled. “I ain’t needin’ to hear what the heathens said. Magical energy can be traced. Even your normal energy can be traced, but because of what you are, you ain’t got an emotional range that the Discordant can lock on. But you still need to be careful. That’s why you are told not to overuse your magic.”
I took out my notebook and wrote that down. Unlike the agents, I couldn’t tell if Harry was telling me the truth or not, but it didn’t sound like he was lying, so I put that information aside to research later.
“So, you know we’re different, but do you have any idea why?” I asked, getting to the main reason we were there.
“I’ve a couple of theories,” he said, ushering us around the back of the church to the small groundskeeper’s cottage next to the rectory. “I understand you were Catholics in your life?”
Jem nodded and I did too. There was no sense in trying to explain my beliefs or doubts at that point.
“Were your parents devout?” he asked.
“No, not really,” I answered, but at the same time, Jem was nodding his head yes. I gave him a questioning look.
“Mom always insisted that we go to church,” he said.
“Yeah, but that was us. She and dad never went,” I countered.
“They didn’t?”
“No, our neighbors always brought us to Sunday school with their kids,” I reminded him.
Jem’s brow scrunched up in thought. “Huh, I guess you’re right. I always assumed they went while we were at class.”
“Dad always said that he learned more about religion by digging into our past and mom hung out with the pagan hippies at the U.U. church.”
“Pagan hippies…” Harry looked back and forth between us. “Yes, that could explain… at least…”
“Explain what?” I asked. I was kind of tired of everyone always talking as if they had only themselves as an audience.
“Your mother may have been a pagan mystic,” he said, spitting the word pagan as if it was dirty.
“You mean like a witch?” Jem asked. “Mom never did any magic or anything.”
“But she was kind of a hippie weirdo,” I reminded him. “Remember how she used to flip out when I moved her quartz crystals around? And remember Aunt Gia? She wasn’t even our real aunt.”
Suddenly Jem’s eyes went wide. “Aunt Gia! That was the woman in my dream. Or vision, or whatever. She said mom was her student.”
“You had a vision?” Harry asked, sitting up straighter.
“It was more like an out of body experience. I saw mom talking to someone in the woods behind our house. She was saying that something had happened to her baby. Someone did something… Oh!” Jem broke off. “That was us! When our soul was split. She was trying to prevent it.”
Harry’s lip twitched. “As I thought. But who, if not your mother, was trying to split your soul?”
“Wait, what?” I jumped up. “Pete said that souls split all the time because people fall to Chaos.”
“All the time is something of an exaggeration and as I see it, there was no soul deficit at the time of your birth. Someone was trying to use the two of you to create a living portal.”
“A what?” Jem and I asked at once.
“A living doorway through which the Discordant could easily pass from their realm into ours.”
“That’s kind of gross!” Jem winced.
“Nothin’ like that Alien movie,” Harry said, shaking his head at Jem. “The idea is that one of you would bind the soul of the other, leaving a neutral shell that the possession spectrum Discordant, like our wraith here, could use t
o freely move into our realm without messy entanglements.” He narrowed his gaze and looked at us. “If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say Nai was supposed to bind your soul, Jem.”
A shudder passed through me as I was reminded of all the times our father told me that he expected more from me than Jem. If he only knew how creepy that really was.
Jem gasped. “Um… that can’t happen though, right? I mean, well, we’re not alive anymore and mom stopped it. Right?”
“Oh for god’s sake, really, Jem,” I huffed, not even caring about my blasphemy as he shrunk away from me. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than turn you into some kind of Discordant party bus.”
“I can’t much be sure what your mother did, or even if it worked if it was pagan magic,” Harry said with a shrug. “But yep, I’m guessing you two dying before you came of age was likely an unintended bonus for the side of Order.”
“Oh good,” Jem sighed, visibly relieved, but still pretty shaken.
“So what does that mean for me?” I asked.
“I don’t follow.” Harry frowned.
“Jem can cast spells and astral project and do a bunch of new age crap because mom might have been a witch, sure. That makes sense. Hell, that even explains why your holy water hates him. But what about me? I can’t do witch magic, but I can do everything a Warrior can. I’m pretty sure our father wasn’t a Warrior because Seth said the dead can’t create life.”
“No, but I don’t think that’s it at all,” Harry said, regarding me with keen interest. Too keen, if you asked me. “In fact… No, this is beyond even what I am willing to believe.”
“What? You can’t just say something like that and not explain yourself!”
“Calm down, missy! I ain’t as young as I used to be and I need a moment to gather my thoughts. Now,” he huffed out a deep breath. “Forget about your Guardian skills. Forget all about the Warrior skills you seem to enjoy so much. Put all of that aside and look at me. Concentrate on my emotional state. What do you see?”
“What do I see?” I asked. “What am I supposed to… Oh… OH!” I sat up straight as I noticed not just Harry’s odd mix of excitement and apprehension, but also Jem’s fascinated confusion. No wonder Seth looked at me so oddly when I felt the quiet of the riverside retreat the other day. “I have… all the abilities?”
“So it would seem.”
“That’s totally not fair,” Jem huffed.
“Whatever, witch boy,” I smirked. I had to admit, I felt all kinds of smug. It was all I could do not to run outside and yell to the whole town to bow down before me.
“It’s neither fair nor unfair,” Harry said to Jem. “Whoever split your soul was thorough.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that whoever intended for you to bind your brother’s soul and open the portal went to great lengths to ensure that you would not be stopped by reason, conscience, or a higher power. I’m sorry child, but had you lived, you would have been the prophesized antichrist.”
“But we didn’t live,” I noted.
“No, you didn’t,” he said, raising his eyes so that I could see the fear in them. “But I’m not sure if that didn’t make things worse.”
Chapter 10
The Philosopher’s Tomb
“Desmond, come in. I’ve been expecting you.”
“I didn’t think you were that type of psychic, Madame Rose,” I teased lightly as I entered the sunlit cottage.
“Harold called me, if you must know,” she replied, moving to the cupboard to retrieve two glasses, filling them from the ever-present pitcher of lemon sun tea that sat on the counter. “And of course Donna briefed me on your unconventional Guardian situation. So the only question is whether you are here to pick my brains about demon possessions or raising teenagers.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if there is much of a difference,” I muttered, earning me a chuckle. “As problematic as our Guardians have been, I’m actually here about demons,” I explained, taking the offered glass with a smile and a thank you. “Rather, I’m here to discuss a different theory on our possessed man. I was wondering if you might know of any mystics in the Ozarks, specifically near the Oklahoma-Missouri boarder.”
“I can’t say that I do, but I’ve heard stories about the region,” she said, shaking her head. “I take it that is where old what’s his name went missing?”
“Gary Marsden,” I supplied, “and yes, he was hiking, quite possibly looking for his next great archeological find.”
“Yes, Donna used to have a field day bringing that poor man shards of pottery from my workshop. She tells me you suspect he might have found something genuine this time?”
“Originally, yes. I thought perhaps he’d run across an artifact that made him susceptible to demonic possession. But to be honest, I think he found information that humanity was never meant to find.”
Myrna’s eyes widened for a moment before narrowing again. “No,” she said. “Surely we would have known if that were the case.”
“Well, that’s where we are running into complications,” I explained. “It seems as if our wraith has gotten itself stuck inside Mr. Marsden’s body. I don’t think I need to explain to you how a demon ends up in such a predicament.”
“Well, I have to admit, about a month after he was discovered to be missing, the chief of police asked me to do a reading.” She caught my surprised expression and blushed. “I have to make a living, Desmond. Social Security and the occasional Etsy sale of my pottery doesn’t go very far.”
“Fair enough,” I said with a smile. “I am simply surprised that the police officers here would be open to psychic evidence.”
“Oh, they’re not,” she assured me. “Any time that I’ve been able to provide a lead, they go out of their way to fabricate a tangible cover. But as I was saying, I was asked to trace Mr. Marsden’s energy signature. This wasn’t very easy to begin with because the man was not very social and had little if any ties from which I could draw a lead. I was able to trace him to a specific area, but then he disappeared completely. No search turned up any evidence of him until he wandered into town earlier this month. But now that you mention it…”
She trailed off and excused herself, returning a moment later with a laptop. Its sleek modern design was at odds with the cozy kitchen that was outfitted with retro-style appliances. She caught the surprise in my eye and scowled.
“Just because I’m as old as the dinosaurs doesn’t mean I’m out of touch.”
“I didn’t say anything at all, my dear. Need I remind you that I pre-date electricity myself.”
She made a tsk sound and pulled up a website. “The area I traced him to was near the legendary Spider Creek Caves. Fascinating stories, but they always seemed more like an urban legend.” She scrolled through a page until she found what she was looking for and pointed to the passage. “Yes, here it is. Spider Creek Caves are a series of tunnels that run through a remote and difficult to traverse region just inside the Oklahoma border. Named by early settlers of the region for their labyrinth-like layout that reminded them of a web-like trap. Few people have made it out of the caves alive and rescue parties have been wildly unsuccessful in their attempts to recover the missing in that area. There have been but a handful of explorers who have returned from the caverns, though none unscathed. All had claimed that they had made a pilgrimage to the center of the earth, where they discovered wonders too great to properly describe.”
“Interesting, but if these caves held the Ultimate Truth, the survivors would have been too out of their mind to even articulate as much,” I noted.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Myrna admonished. “Of the seven documented survivors of Spider Creek Caves, six were dead within a week, all of apparently self-inflicted head trauma. The seventh remains hospitalized and heavily sedated after falling into hysterics that no amount of therapy has been able to lessen.”
“Okay, well, that’s another story entirely,” I
said, logging the information. “I’m going to have this area investigated. It definitely sounds like a rift we need to shut.”
“But Gary Marsden,” Myrna said with a frown. “The man was always a little… touched, I admit. If anyone was going to accidentally stumble across forbidden knowledge and then find themselves possessed by a demon, it would be that poor soul. But what will become of him? Without the demon holding back his mind, he’ll go insane.”
“That is likely,” I admitted. “But I have seen his injuries and I believe that he suffered enough head trauma to cause damage and obliterate the memories of what he learned.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Permanently, no. I have doubts that the magnitude of that type of knowledge could be repressed by anything less than fatal head trauma. Temporarily, however, is entirely plausible. But you are correct in that the damage is done. I was hoping you might know if there is a way to permanently remove the knowledge.”
“I’m afraid I do not, but I will check with the coven. Do you have the… er… tool for removing the Discordant?” she asked with a grimace. Understandably. Even the concept of a corpus vessel could be unnerving.
“No, not yet, I’m afraid,” I explained. “Harry has petitioned the church for me. In fact, he said he’d have a reply today. I should probably get going so that I can check with him on that.”
“I suppose I’ll have to go with you,” she said with a sigh of exasperation. “There may be a slim hope for the coven to remove the forbidden knowledge, but exorcisms are the exclusive domain of the church, which means we’ll need some cooperation between the two. I’m going to assume that you’re already aware of Harold’s feeling on the young ladies.”
As I had used the trans-cyclical method of transportation, Myrna Rose drove us back downtown to meet Harry at the Five Penny. I soon discovered that Myrna shared her daughter’s inability to treat the road as anything other than her own personal raceway. I might have been technically immortal, but I was not too keen on the idea of finding out what it felt like to have my insides violently thrust from my body.
Splitsville (Rise of the Discordant Book 2) Page 14