The Returned

by Bishop O'Connell

  Wraith drew in a slow breath and tried to clear her mind. Actually, that was impossible. What she did was just let every other thought and idea drift by without taking note of it. This wasn’t easy either, but at least it was possible.

  When the chaos of her mind faded to background noise, she turned her focus inward, into the deepest part of herself. She’d like to say she found her friends there, all of them, but she didn’t. What she did find was more akin to a whisper or a lingering smell in a room. It wasn’t the person who’d been wearing the perfume, but it did bring memories to mind that were so vivid they were just this side of real.

  Almost of their own volition, her hands began to move. Drawers opened, and bins were emptied. Wraith watched, and it was almost like an out-of-body experience. She knew and understood the purpose of the clockwork that was being set together, and the metal housing around it, but only at the periphery of her mind. She found herself missing Fritz terribly, which meant she missed SK and Shadow too. It took effort, but she let the dark thoughts float by like gray clouds to rain somewhere else. Instead she wove the complicated formulation from the quantum information around her and threaded it into the charm coming into existence before her.

  As always seemed to happen when she wasn’t distracted or actively fighting against it, she felt herself drifting into the darker recesses of her mind. It was here that the memory fragments of her time after escaping the Order—those pieces she’d never been able to make sense of—resided. It was confusing, painful, and the home of her depression.

  Fragments of memory drifted around her, but some of them were different from the others. It took her a moment to realize they weren’t her memories but those of her friends: Shadow, SK, and Fritz—memories that had become a part of her when the Order had bound their souls to her. Wraith pulled the disparate pieces together, trying to form something coherent. The tatters joined, and a scene unfolded in her mind’s eye.

  The room was small and nondescript, cinder block walls painted a neutral beige. In the middle of the room, at the center of an incredibly intricate magical circle, she saw herself lying in a hospital bed. SK, Fritz, and Shadow stood around the bed, looking down at her still form with sadness and worry in their eyes.

  Strange machines were hooked up to her body, and a man in military garb whom she didn’t recognize was standing over her, inside the circle. On his shoulder was a circular patch. It bore two overlapping triangles—forming a Star of David—within two circles. The space between the circles was filled with Syriac script. In the center was the number 4.

  There was a flash of realization, followed by anger—Ovation? But this Four wasn’t Ovation. This guy had dusty-blond hair and was at least ten years older.

  “They’re active,” the man said.

  “Then shut them down,” a familiar voice said.

  Wraith looked over and saw One, also in a uniform, watching from near the door to the room. He motioned to another guy, this one with a 2 on his patch. Two went over and injected something into the IV that fed into Wraith’s arm.

  “I’ve almost got it,” Four said.

  “No, you don’t,” said a gravelly voice.

  Wraith looked over and saw a tall, thin man in the corner leaning on a wooden walking stick. Nightstick, the self-proclaimed and magically manifested protector of Wraith’s mind. He was drenched in heavy shadow, defying the bright lighting of the room. His black suit and tie were rumpled, and he wore a flat wide-brimmed hat. The only contrast to the inky blackness were the exposed white cuffs of his shirt, the accents of his two-toned wingtip shoes, and the lenses of his round, curiously opaque spectacles. He looked like something out of a comic book.

  “Who the hell are you?” Four asked, his eyes wide.

  Nightstick stepped across the room and through the circle as if it weren’t even there.

  From the confused looks on One’s and Two’s faces, only Four could see Nightstick.

  “I’m the guard dog,” Nightstick said in a low, threatening tone. “Woof.” He swung his walking stick up and cracked it across Four’s skull.

  The man stumbled back but stayed on his feet.

  “You can’t separate us!” Shadow said, and the lights dimmed. “She needs us!”

  “Terran!” SK shouted, and the room began to shake.

  “Hexan!” Fritz screamed, and the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling began exploding as a techno version of “Carol of the Bells” played over a loudspeaker.

  “What’s happening?” demanded One as he braced himself against the wall. “How is she fighting back?”

  “She isn’t,” another man, this one with a 7 on his patch, said from his knees, frantically trying to add to the circle around the bed. “The other souls are.”

  “GET OUT!” Nightstick roared, and reality itself seemed to shudder around him.

  “What the hell was that?” One asked.

  “I’ve got this,” Four said through gritted teeth as he drew equations in the air, leaving glowing marks, but they evaporated almost as quickly as he could draw them.

  “Sedate her!” One said to Two.

  “Any more and I’ll kill her,” Two said.

  “Jane, you have to calm down,” Four said in a gentle tone to the unconscious Wraith in the bed, sweat rolling down his face and blood beginning to drip from his nose. “We’re trying to help you.”

  Wraith sensed that Four wasn’t lying. But that just meant he believed he was trying to help. But his idea of help was probably vastly different from Wraith’s.

  Four drew still more equations in the air, but Nightstick gleefully destroyed them with a wave of his hand.

  “We’ve got to get her out of here,” Shadow said.

  “Four, do you have her or not?” One asked.

  “I do, but I can’t hold her,” Four said. “She’s too powerful.”

  “But she’s sedated and behind a circle,” One said.

  “It’s the others,” Four said, his voice wavering. “It’s not just the three. There are hundreds in there.”

  “And then there’s me,” Nightstick said and slammed his walking stick down into the ground, causing it to crack.

  “Dear God,” One said.

  “I’m losing the circle,” Seven said.

  “Evac, now!” One shouted.

  Everyone but Four sprinted for the door and slammed it shut behind them. There was a heavy thud as some kind of locking mechanism went into place.

  “Thanks for playing,” Nightstick said and swung his shillelagh at Four.

  Four’s head snapped back with a crack. He drew in a gasp, fell to the floor, and didn’t move.

  “Time to go, kid,” Nightstick whispered into the ear of Wraith’s sleeping body.

  The walls of the room began to shake harder, and the last of the lights exploded. But the glass didn’t rain down. It hung in the air for a moment before some kind of pressure wave radiated out from the hospital bed and into the walls, causing them to flex and crack.

  Wraith watched as the debris in the room began to swirl. The entropic equation came together, and everything vanished.

  Wraith opened her eyes and drew in a breath. On the worktable sat the finished charm. It was circular, a little bigger than a half-dollar. Brass and copper housings partially covered the intricate clockwork mechanism inside that ticked away rhythmically. As the gears turned, they wove together a complicated equation that spread out from it in a large circle.

  She swallowed, wiped at her eyes, and felt very tired.

  So they’d gotten to her too; tried to “fix” her like they’d fixed Ellie. But she’d gotten away before they could. She thought back to the image of Four falling to ground and told herself Nightstick was the one who’d killed him, not her. But then, she’d created him—a magically manifested sentient entity inside her own mind—to hold back the unimaginable power inside her. Was she really free of responsibility? Nightstick had only done what she’d designed him to do. He was just trying to keep her safe. In the end,
had there really been any good or bad guys in that room? Sure, Shadow, Fritz, and SK were just trying to protect her, but everyone else, herself included, was a murky shade of gray.

  Did that Four have a family? A wife? A little girl who would never see her daddy again?

  Wraith pushed her darkening thoughts aside, focusing on the here and now.

  She looked at her phone and saw that two hours had passed. It was almost time to meet Edward, Caitlin, and Henry. After taking a minute to compose herself, she found a length of black cord and affixed her new charm to it. Slipping it over her head, she let it drop beneath her shirt. The metal was cold against her skin.

  At least that’s what she told herself was the cause of the shiver running through her body.

  Slowly, she gathered her things, and before stepping back to New Orleans, she touched the amulet and closed her eyes.

  “Thanks, Fritz,” she whispered. “And tell the others thanks for always watching out for me.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Edward watched the car in front of him closely and kept his distance—having seen the brake lights were out—but he still kept glancing over at Caitlin.

  “Stop looking at me and watch the road,” Caitlin said, the hint of a smile on her face. “The car in front of you doesn’t have any brake lights.”

  “I know,” Edward said, turning his attention back to driving. A moment later he glanced over again. “Have I mentioned lately how sorry I—?”

  “Stop apologizing,” Caitlin said. She reached over and took his hand in hers. “No, this isn’t the honeymoon I dreamed of. I figured New Orleans would involve more music, drinking, and great food, with a little less dead rising from the grave—stop looking at me.”

  Edward turned his eyes forward.

  “But something bad is happening here,” she said. “We can help. That means we should, especially because so few others can.”

  “I do have reservations for a nice dinner tonight,” Edward said, intent on not looking away from the road.

  Caitlin gave him a wicked grin. Or at least he assumed she did because he was most certainly not continuing to glance over.

  “I’m okay with room service,” she said.

  Edward turned up the AC. “Understood.”

  Caitlin laughed and checked her phone. “Turn left, then it’s three blocks down.”

  Edward turned down the street and was surprised by the neighborhood. He hadn’t been expecting the scene of the crime—the big shoot-out six months ago—to be a war zone, but he had expected it to be a rougher area than it was. This was clearly a poorer section of town, and he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to walk through it at night, but it didn’t fill him with dread.

  The narrow strip of pavement had seen better days, but that was no surprise. These neighborhoods weren’t usually high on the list of those who managed road repair. One side of the street was lined with houses nearly on top of each other. They were in various stages of disrepair, though even the boarded-up homes didn’t look like they were condemned. People probably just left. Not that he could blame them.

  The other side of the street was a different matter though. There was an old factory building that had suffered a devastating fire. The windows were all boarded, and parts of the roof had collapsed. The whole building and several acres around it were inside a chain fence topped with barbed wire. Edward parked and looked at Caitlin.

  “That’s the place,” she said, checking the news article on her phone and comparing the picture with the burned-out factory. “This says the building was the base of operations for the Scarlet Enigmas. Some of their members were chased there by the Midnight Boys, shooting all the way. It turned into a miniature war zone for a while, and that’s when the Royal Skeleton Brigade showed up—who comes up with these names?”

  “Kids,” Edward said but didn’t look away from the building. He activated the charm on his glasses but still focused on Caitlin’s words.

  “Sounds like they set the whole thing up,” Caitlin said. “The Skeleton gang, I mean. They mowed down their rivals outside the building, and then—my God, they set fire to the place, with all those people still inside.” She shook her head. “By the time the cops and fire department arrived, it was over and everyone left alive had scattered. Final toll was nineteen dead gang members and three bystanders.”

  Edward looked at the houses and wondered how horrible it must’ve been for the people who lived there. He had no doubt their lives were plenty hard already, but that night it must’ve felt like a literal hell. The pain the innocent people here suffered must have been unimaginable; worse still for the families of the three who were killed for nothing more than stupid criminal squabbles and feuds.

  “You really think you can get anything from the scene of a crime that’s six months old?” Caitlin asked.

  Edward looked at her and smiled. He was still fascinated by the difference when he looked at her with the charm on his glasses activated. Without it, he couldn’t see her changeling features, which hadn’t become apparent until after her return from Tír na nÓg; Dante had said the visit was the cause. Her ears had a slight point to them, the way nonchangeling people’s sometimes did when you saw them from the right angle. Her facial structure had changed slightly, but it was her eyes that were the most different. They’d become more almond shaped, and while not the solid color or true luminescence of Dante’s and the other elves, the green had grown more vivid and did have a faint glow to it.

  Caitlin looked away and brushed her hair down over her ear. “You’re looking at me with the charm active, aren’t you?”

  He brushed the hair back behind her ear and turned her head so she was looking at him. “Sweetheart, you’re beautiful with that charm, without it, or even without my glasses entirely.”

  “You’d think I’d be used to it now,” she said. “More than a year of seeing my new face in the mirror.”

  “But after a lifetime of seeing a different one.”

  She nodded. “It’s sort of like hearing a recording of your voice played back to you. After only ever hearing your voice in your head, it’s so unfamiliar. You know it’s you, but it feels like you’re listening to a stranger. Or seeing one in the mirror.”

  He nodded. “You’re still you. None of it has changed who you are as a person, inside.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time. I guess that’s the good part. I don’t have to think about it unless I’m looking into a mirror, and most people can’t see it at all.”

  He opened his mouth.

  “Let’s have this talk another time,” she said. “We have more important things to focus on. So, do you think you’ll get anything after all this time?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t even know if this site was used for any of the magic. I doubt it, but it’ll take only a few minutes to find out, and we haven’t had any luck elsewise. It’s a long shot, but maybe we’ll get lucky.” He looked at her. “We can skip it and just go if you want to.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “No, it’s like you said—it couldn’t hurt, and we have plenty of time to talk about the other thing.”

  They got out of the car and scanned the area as they approached the locked gate.

  “All clear,” Caitlin said, looking around.

  Edward drew in a breath and focused his will, then whispered, “Agor.”

  The lock popped open.

  “Nice to know you can always fall back on a life of crime if your wizarding or psychiatric practice falls through,” Caitlin said.

  “I am a very dangerous man,” Edward said as he opened the gate.

  Caitlin chuckled as she stepped inside and started walking to the building.

  “Why are you laughing? Are you forgetting that I once took on a demon?” he asked as he caught up to her.

  “One time,” Caitlin said and winked.

  “How many—?”

  They both stopped as they came up to the building, seeing sc
orch marks and dozens of bullet holes on the walls.

  “Dear God,” he said. “It really was a massacre.”

  “Come on,” Caitlin said. “Let’s see what we can find and get out of here.”

  He nodded, and they started walking around the building. Edward scanned over it carefully but not needlessly slow. Any residual magic wouldn’t be obvious. It was old, and that meant it would be weak if it was still there at all, but colored smoke did stand out from the background.

  “Nothing?” Caitlin asked as they came to the last wall.

  Edward shook his head, then stopped when they came to a door. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  Edward looked at the door closer. There was dark red smoke, so thin it was almost invisible against the rusted metal of the frame, and it was coming from around the door.

  “I think there’s something inside.”

  Caitlin let out a sigh. “Of course there is. No way would it be on the outside of the burned-out building that’s ready to collapse.”

  Edward smiled. “I don’t plan to go exploring every dark corner, but we can at least take a look inside from the doorway. This magic is weak, so it can’t be far from the door.”

  “Or it’s huge and deep inside the building.”

  Edward opened his mouth to protest but realized she could be right.

  “I may not toss around magic,” she said. “But I do pay attention when you talk about it.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “Now, danger-man, pop the lock and let’s take a look inside so we can get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps. Might have something to do with the twenty-two murders that took place here, ten of which were the result of being burned alive.”

  “They probably would’ve suffocated before the fire ever got to them,” Edward said as he looked at the door.

  “Yeah, that doesn’t really make it any better.”

  “Someone beat us to it,” he said.

  “What?”

  Edward pushed the door open. “It’s unlocked.”