by E. E. Holmes
“Head for the central courtyard,” Finn said. “We’ll need all the help we can get, I expect.”
“And what are you going to do?” Savvy asked.
“Jess, Milo, and I will head straight for the courtyard. We need to show Hannah that Jess is alive, and we need to release the souls from that torch before someone destroys it.”
“And if she reverses the Gateway before we can stop her?” Savvy asked.
Every head turned to me. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
This was a dodge, and we all knew what the real answer was. If the Gateway was reversed, I would Walk. And if I Walked…
“It won’t,” Finn muttered fiercely. “It won’t come to that.”
I couldn’t say what I wanted to say to him, so I swallowed it, along with the bulk of my fear. There would be time for all of that later. I hoped.
A spirit, wailing like an injured animal, flew directly over our heads, dropping us brutally back into the reality of the moment.
“Wait at the edge of the trees for me. We’ll follow the Elemental out, and split up when we get to the castle. See everyone back in the central courtyard.”
We all looked at each other. It was the flimsiest of plans, but what else could we do? We had no idea what was coming, and so no way to plan for it. We would just have to wing it and hope for a miracle.
Finn dashed off back toward the príosún while the rest of us sprinted for the grounds, bathed in the light of a full moon. From behind a large knobbly oak, we watched as the spirits flew toward the castle. As they drew closer, they were swept into a sort of cyclone, which whipped them around and around before sucking them out of sight below the ramparts. An eerie glow emanated from the place I knew the courtyard must be. The light was tinged with purple, and even as I looked at it, I felt a desperate, half-formed desire to follow it, to see where it might lead…
“Don’t look at it,” Annabelle said, and we all tore our eyes from it to look at her. “It’s open. It will draw you in. Do you feel it?”
“Yeah,” I said with a shiver. I reached into the mental space around me for Milo and sensed him there, reassuringly close, resisting the pull. “Stay close, Milo, okay?” I felt rather than heard his answer. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Look at the Wraiths, though,” Savvy said, pointing. “It’s like they’re immune to it.”
She was right. Here and there, they hung motionless in the air or else continued their slow, steady pacing of the grounds, blind and deaf to all but the instructions housed inside them.
“The Gateway is calling, but there’s no one left in them to answer,” I said. “They’re already empty.”
And then the forest seemed to laugh. Every leaf, every tree, broke into a mad cackle. The grass sang with it, the air vibrated with it; it was an evil sound, all silver and shivery, terrible delight. Footsteps came pounding through the underbrush behind us, and we turned just in time to see Finn throw himself to the ground beside us, panting and coughing.
“Here it comes,” he said, completely unnecessarily.
And come it did, in the form of a billowing winged creature with a yawning maw of a mouth and eyes like fire. Flapping tendrils of stolen emotion streamed out behind it like tails on a nightmare kite.
We completely forgot for a moment that we were supposed to be following it, but instead sat frozen in crippling fascination as the Elemental swooped like a bat over the lawns. As it passed over the closest Wraith, the tendrils shot out like whips, wrapping around it and drawing emotion from it like poison from so many wounds. The Wraith made no sound or movement of protest, but sank senseless to the ground like a fallen leaf. The Elemental seemed to swell with pleasure, and in the laughter I could hear its voices.
Ah, the freedom! To fly, to feed, to gorge!
Such a glorious feast!
The tendrils unfurled in every direction, entwining with spirit after spirit, sucking them dry of every hateful thought they’d been weaponized with. The Necromancers on the grounds had spotted it now; we could see them scattering like insects, pointing and shouting as they tried to understand what they were seeing. Then a tendril reached out and caught the first of them, wrapping him in the most parasitic of embraces. The Elemental’s voice rose in enthrallment.
Fear me! Fear me!
The Necromancer did indeed fear it, if his screams of terror were any indication. He sank to his knees and within moments was cowering in the fetal position, arms over his head, begging for mercy.
“This is it!” Finn shouted. “Now! Move! Stay close to me!”
We pelted out across the lawn, staying to the shadows of the trees until we had to break across the open space. We were all tensed for an attack, but none came. No being, living or dead, had a glance or thought to spare for us. The Elemental flew before us, smiting all within reach, and those that had yet to fall were fleeing in terror, leaping over walls and hedges in their desperation to escape.
A Wraith nearby spotted us and flew forward, screeching like an alarm bell, but was silenced by the Elemental before it had gone even a few yards. I ran for all I was worth, my breath stabbing at my lungs as I tried to keep close behind Finn. On all sides, Necromancers fell like they were being struck by lightning. They were utterly powerless to resist it. As we rounded the central fountain, one of them lay crumpled only a few feet away. When he saw us, he didn’t shout or try to attack. Instead, he reached a supplicating hand out to us, moaning as the Elemental’s snakelike appendage wrapped tighter and tighter around him. I knew, as I watched him suffer, what he was going through. Maybe it should have raised a sense of empathy in me. It didn’t.
The castle loomed up before us, and though I’d walked in and out of it a hundred times before, as we raced toward it, it felt very much like sacrificing ourselves into the mouth of a strange beast. We reached the shadows behind one of the massive front doors and turned back in horrified fascination. The Elemental hung over the grounds, tendrils waving and snaking beneath its enormous winged body like a some kind of many-legged sea monster swimming in the dark water of the sky.
The confused shouting was now issuing from the windows and ramparts of the castle as the Necromancers inside alerted each other to what was happening on the grounds. More of them were sprinting up from the direction of the Caomhnóir barracks, and still others from around the back side of the castle. The Elemental ensnared each one as they appeared with a serpentine flick of its many tongues. The number of new victims did not overwhelm it; in fact, it only seemed to strengthen it further as it glutted itself.
“We have to stop it, Finn,” I said. “You’ve got to send it back to the príosún.”
“I say we leave it here,” Savvy said. She was staring in awed fascination as yet another Necromancer fell screaming to his knees. “It’s taking out all the resistance. Why don’t we just open the doors and let it in the castle? This fight will be over before it starts.”
Finn hesitated, and I knew why. It was tempting. And honestly, nothing gave me quite so much satisfaction as the thought of Neil coming face to face with the Elemental.
But Finn pointed to a rune carved above the front door. “The Elemental can’t cross the threshold of the castle. And we can’t leave it out here unchecked. Who’s to say it won’t forget all about our bargain and start attacking innocent people once we release them?”
Savvy furrowed her brow like she was trying to come up with a plausible argument, but it was Annabelle that spoke. “It’s done what we needed it to do. It got us into the castle. This needs to end now.”
Even as she spoke six Necromancers ran out of the door just to our left. They seemed to be attempting some sort of casting. One of them carried a candle, another was scattering pieces of quartz onto the gravel walk behind them. They began chanting in Gaelic, scattering salt in a large circle around them, but all was in vain. The Elemental turned and saw them, and let loose a raucous peel of laughter that rang through the trees and reverberated through the ground beneath
our feet. Its neck elongated so that its face, a constantly morphing kaleidoscope of images, floated toward them.
The nearest Necromancer dropped his candle in shock, rooted to the spot, paralyzed with horror. The Elemental’s face hovered just an inch from his, and each image that flashed across its planes was inquisitive, curious, even amused. Then it closed that last inch between them and kissed the Necromancer. He stiffened and began to shake, crying and pleading for the creature to stop in a muffled gasp of a voice. But the Elemental only lingered, sucking the mounting terror from the man’s lips like blood from a wound.
“Enough,” Finn muttered. “No. Enough.” And pulled the crumpled paper from his pocket, the one he had written the instructions from Carrick on. He bolted forward and raised his arms.
The Elemental pulled away from the Necromancer it was feeding on; he dropped like a stone to the ground and did not move again.
We have only just begun.
It wants to stop us, to banish us again.
But it cannot. We’ve only just begun. We are not sated.
We are never sated.
And even as it continued to feed on forms all over the grounds, tethered to them with bonds that sang with unadulterated terror, it flew toward us, mouth wide, flickering eyes wild and full of an animal greed.
I couldn’t move, and nor, it seemed, could anyone else. Our collective fear turned us to stone as we watched this nightmare being shot toward us. Finn could not complete the casting quickly enough; in seconds, we would all become just another handful of victims of the Elemental’s insatiable appetite.
A pearly form shot out in front of us, blocking the Elemental’s path. The speed at which it was moving blurred it at first, but as it stationed itself at attention I realized who it was.
“Carrick! No! Get away from it!” I cried upon recognizing him.
He did not answer. He did not turn to look at me. He just stood like a statue blocking the Elemental’s path to us.
Surely it could have gone around him, or through him, even, but it did not. It inhaled a slow, deep breath and sighed longingly for what it tasted there.
Ah, the delicious grief!
Such exquisite sadness!
It could not help itself. The Elemental stopped in its pursuit of us and latched instead onto Carrick, whose dark feelings were too intense for it to resist. All that I had learned of his love for my mother, of the forbidden nature of their relationship, every particle of it was so steeped in loss and pain. He must have been the most satisfying morsel the Elemental had ever come across.
“No, stop! Stop it!” I cried. “Finn, do something!”
But Finn had already started the casting again. The gluttonous sounds of the Elemental’s feeding drowned out his words, but then he raised a small silver knife into the air and swung it sharply down, driving it into the earth at his feet. The Elemental was thrown backward like it had been flung from a slingshot. As it flew through the air, its many feeding limbs released their victims and curled up against its body like the legs of a dead spider.
It’s scream filled the grounds, reverberating against the stone walls of the castle so that the glass in the many windows above us exploded in a shower of needling shards. We all threw ourselves to the ground and covered our heads as the pieces rained down upon us.
I raised my face just in time to see the trees of the forest part like jaws to swallow the flailing, shrieking form of the Elemental back into its shadowy depths. The screams died away, leaving just a lingering ringing in our ears and heaps of motionless bodies littering the grass.
“Carrick! Carrick! Are you okay?” I cried, stumbling toward his form, floating a few inches above the ground in a supine position.
He was shuddering and pale, but managed to nod his head. “Did it… attack you?”
“No,” I said. “No, you stopped it long enough for Finn to expel it back to the príosún. It’s gone now.”
He actually managed a small smile. “Good.”
“I… thank you.”
“Jess! We need to move! Now!” Finn shouted. I looked up to see him pounding toward me.
“Will you be alright?” I asked Carrick.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“Just tell me you’ll be fine, or I won’t be able to go in there,” I said. “Lie to me if you have to.”
“I’ll be fine.”
I accepted his words because that was the only reaction my brain would allow. He would be fine. Everything would be fine. Because it had to be.
Finn reached out as he ran by me and pulled me to my feet. We left Carrick hovering feebly behind us and together we sprinted for the open front doors.
“Look after him!” I called back to Anabelle and Savvy as we ran past them and into the castle.
“And yourselves!” Finn shouted.
The entry hall was barely recognizable. The beautiful tapestries, draperies, and paintings had all been removed and replaced with a number of strange relics: ancient armor, a giant gong and drum, and black ceremonial robes hanging on the walls like drooping reaper figures, bowing their heads in the shadows of my own massive and gruesome mural.
Finn was tensed for combat, but there was none to be had. Not a soul, living or dead, remained to confront us; all had fled out into the waiting arms of the Elemental.
“The most direct route to the central courtyard is through the Grand Council Room,” Finn said. “And we should check to see if the torch is still there.”
“Let’s go,” I said, my heart beating so fast it seemed to be humming. I felt for Milo again. He should be able to follow us anywhere, since our connection trumped the power of the wards. “Gather your strength to manifest when we find her,” I told him quietly. “She’ll need to see you even more than she’ll want to see me.”
I felt his flare, his glowing little ‘yes.”
As silently as we could, we approached the enormous wooden doors to the Grand Council Room, keeping to the shadowy areas under the galleries and skirting around the outside of the chamber. The doors were slightly ajar. Finn peered carefully around them.
“Empty,” he said. He started forward.
“Wait,” I said, and fumbled in my pocket for one of the soul catchers Flavia had made for me. I tied it clumsily around my wrist.
Finn glared at it like he wanted to tear it into a thousand pieces and light every one of them on fire. “You’re not going to need that.”
“Just in case,” I said.
He didn’t answer, maybe because he couldn’t, and we crept across the Grand Council Room, again keeping to the walls, afraid to leave ourselves exposed out in the middle of the echoing chamber. We climbed behind the Council benches, ducking under the supports and around the upended seats until we reached the place in the back wall that had crumbled away in the fire. It opened onto the central courtyard.
The moment I saw the scene before me, I knew it was too late. I knew it because I’d seen it before, scrawled in ash and my own life’s blood on the walls of the Fairhaven entrance hall.
The Prophecy. This was it.
23
Through the Gateway
HANNAH STOOD IN SILHOUETTE before the towering, glowing form of the Geatgrima, her arms outstretched in front of her and her hair whipping around in a fierce wind born entirely of spirit energy. I threw my hands up, shielding both my eyes from the brightness and my soul from the unbearable pull of it. Above us, spirits were being tossed and blown in a storm cloud of psychic power emanating from Hannah and from the Geatgrima itself. The ground under my feet was vibrating and pulsating, and yet, despite the utter chaos and devastation of the scene before me, the courtyard was utterly and impenetrably silent.
Beside me, Milo flickered into form, his face aghast.
“Hannah!” our voices cried out together as one as I rushed forward. The sound was swallowed in the eerie vacuum.
“Jess, no! Wait!” Finn shouted.
He lunged forward to stop me. He clutched at my s
hirt, but I wrenched it out of his grip, tearing the sleeve right off. I broke into the open just in time; two Necromancers leapt from the shadows and grabbed Finn, pinning him to the ground.
I started to run back toward him. I had no idea what I was going to do. Panicking, I stooped, picked up a jagged rock and swung it back behind my head, preparing to throw it.
“I really wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”
I dropped the rock in shock as I spun on the spot. Neil Caddigan stepped out from the darkness on the far side of the Geatgrima. His face wore a smug, satisfied expression.
“Hannah? Sweetness? Can you hear me?”
Milo had shot toward Hannah, who had given no sign she’d noticed we had come. But before he could make contact with her, he was thrown backward with violent force. He slowed to a stop halfway across the courtyard, floating just above the ground, utterly motionless.
“Milo! Are you okay?” I cried. He did not answer, but continued to drift as though unconscious, barely visible enough to be distinguished in the darkness.
I took a few cautious steps toward Hannah now, and Neil made no move to stop me. I was afraid to get too close, or to get between her and the Geatgrima. Her face was uplifted, and her eyes stared beyond the view before her, fixed unblinkingly on something I could not see. A strange, cold power was emanating off of her in waves that made me dizzy. Perhaps I could touch her, even if Milo couldn’t? I reached a tentative hand toward her, but pulled it back at once as a current like electricity shot through it.
“Well, well, well, Miss Ballard. I must say I’m surprised to see you. I had it on very good authority that you were dead. However did you manage to return to us?”
My hands contracted convulsively into fists at my sides. I clenched my teeth tightly as I answered, in an effort to keep the fearful tremble out of my voice. “I took a page out of Lucida’s book. Playing dead worked for her, though I notice it didn’t keep her out of the dungeons. Not that I’m complaining, but why did you lock her up?”