The Dead Seekers

by Barb Hendee

  The open anger in Sabine’s face turned to something colder.

  “We’ll see about that,” she said, turning away.

  “The captain’s given orders.” Orlov took three steps to cut her off. “If you’re found near the cells, he’ll have the right to ban you from the barracks.”

  Mari caught only a little of Sabine’s profile, but she knew the calm glare. Orlov had just made an enemy for life. She’d seen men hunger for strong drink, women, cards, and worse, even to the point of life’s end. Mari saw that in Sabine—her need for Bródy—though linked with a predator’s desperation.

  Sabine’s anger vanished as she stepped close to Orlov. “Let me speak to the captain, please.”

  When her breasts brushed his vestment, Mari dropped her spoon, letting it clatter on the table.

  “Was that necessary?” Tris whispered.

  Sabine didn’t turn to look, but Orlov glanced past her toward the table.

  “Come tomorrow,” Orlov told Sabine. “I’ll not bother the captain tonight. You can leave on your own . . . or with assistance, if you need it.”

  In a flash, Sabine swept around the sergeant for the door. Once it closed, loudly, Sergeant Orlov returned to plop in his chair.

  “Like talking to a serpent,” he said with a shudder.

  Mari couldn’t disagree, but she wondered. “Where is the barracks’ jail?”

  Throughout this place, she hadn’t seen anything resembling a prison.

  “City side of the stable,” Farrell answered instead. “Just one large cell with a stout door, and seldom used . . . seldom needed among our men. Bródy got off lucky, if you ask me, questioning the captain out there in front of everyone. He could have been run out or worse.”

  “He’s not alone this time,” Orlov put in. “Cotillard’s in with him, and he will be run out and charged as well.”

  “Cotillard?” Farrell repeated.

  Tris straightened quickly at that name, and Mari’s attention fixed on the sergeant.

  Orlov nodded. “I heard he tried to murder Kreenan on watch.”

  Mari stared at the sergeant, as did Farrell; when she glanced at Tris, he didn’t look surprised, though of course he couldn’t understand much being said.

  “Doesn’t surprise me, I guess,” Farrell added. “He’s been wanting that promotion so much since Curran . . .” He trailed off and looked to Mari. “Have you and the Dead’s Man found anything yet?”

  That caught her off guard, and she answered carefully. “Maybe. Not certain yet.”

  “Well, having him here might be helping,” Orlov cut in. “We haven’t had a death since you two arrived.”

  After that, they all ate with less talk and were close to finishing when the front door opened again.

  Stàsiuo walked in and the guardsmen all stood up. He didn’t look at anyone and headed for his small table. As he sat down, so did the men around the room. The same guard as the first night hurried to get the captain’s supper.

  Mari wondered a little about this. Certainly a captain didn’t have to eat in here with the rest. This one did so with his men every night, or at least for as long as she’d been here.

  When she looked back to Tris, he’d locked eyes with Lavich and nodded once.

  Lavich lowered his gaze and dropped his spoon in his bowl. He didn’t look happy when he stood up and headed for the door.

  “Excuse us,” Mari said, nodding to Farrell and then Orlov. “We’ve some things to do.”

  Both men nodded with short well-wishes in parting. With that, she and Tris left the common room. It was time to begin.

  Mari was vibrating all over in tension.

  —

  Not long after, Tris hid behind the stable’s rear end with Mari. She watched around the corner toward the courtyard, for she had the better eyesight at night.

  Guardsman Lavich was out in the open, pacing back and forth. At each passage toward the stable’s front end, he neared the place where Bródy had reported first sighting the spirit.

  Tris was guessing on two counts: first about the location for this trap, and second about his choice of bait.

  For the former, it was logical, if Bródy’s word could be trusted. Spirits were often drawn to where they’d died or where they could find those blamed for their demise. Lieutenant Curran, Guardsman Henrik, and Brianne had all been attacked in or around the stables.

  Tris leaned out to peek over the top of Mari’s head. He could see the closed northern gate by the braziers at its sides. The darker stretch between there and where he stood was more difficult for his eyes.

  For the latter part, Guardsman Lavich was tenuous at best for bait. This spirit was likely a dead refugee seeking revenge for being left undefended in the flight to freedom, likely but not certainly. But it was still unclear whether this spirit targeted men who had visibly refused to assist refugees. A large guess for as little as Tris knew of those who had died, let alone Lavich.

  Lavich was a close companion of Bródy, who had been attacked, and saved only by the distracting presence of Brianne. Yet Lavich had been frightened when Mari had informed him of the possible link between the spirit’s victims, frightened enough to be coerced into assisting tonight.

  Tris now found this whole arrangement somewhat desperate. He had not faced a spirit this potentially malicious in some time. He closed both hands and did not realize they were clenched until they began to ache.

  “Anything?” he whispered.

  “Quiet,” Mari whispered back.

  Lavich reappeared, closing on the gate’s braziers one more time. Other guards there looked over at him again. Hopefully none would leave their post to engage him.

  The night was growing colder, and Tris second-guessed leaving his cloak behind in the room. He could have flipped it off when necessary, but now it was too late.

  His hands still ached when Lavich returned to the front of the stable and then turned around to walk back in the direction of the gate again—twentieth—fortieth—

  How late was it now? Sometime near the mid of night?

  Lavich continued. The men here were trained for night duty in a chill climate, and he had probably walked the wall all night more times than he would remember.

  “What if it doesn’t come?” Mari whispered.

  Tris did not want that question—his own question—spoken aloud.

  Before he could shush her, a shout rang out in the night, causing his every muscle to clench. Two more distinct voices rang out, one from somewhere nearby, the last a deep baritone.

  A woman screamed.

  Startled, Tris failed to grab Mari before she bolted off in the dark.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mari raced around the stable to its inward wall. There, between the stable and the barracks’ nearest corner, was a door. Grabbing its latch, she found it wasn’t locked and jerked it open, rushing in. The last scream had come from inside, though it was too muffled to have come from someone in one of the stalls.

  Down a leftward passage in pure darkness, she skidded into an open area. The space smelled of old hay, dust, maybe dried mold, and worse. A sudden light, along with cries of fright or shock, caused her to turn around.

  Sabine stood off to the right before a mottled iron door, and she was gripping the bars of its small, face-high window.

  “No!” she screamed. “No . . . no!”

  “Do something!” a deep voice called from inside the door. “Get the keys!”

  Mari bolted straight at the door as Sabine broke into sobbing hysterics.

  “Shut up!” she barked, slamming a shoulder into Sabine.

  As Sabine sprawled across the floor, Mari gripped the door’s window bars, standing up on her toes to peer inside. Her eyes met with those of a frightened guardsman just inside. She’d seen him before but couldn’t remember where. His he
ad was shaved smooth, and when she shifted left, he cowered rightward, away from a glow inside the cell.

  Bródy knelt crumpled on the straw-strewn, stone floor, choking and gagging. Before him floated the white, half-starved ghost in tattered clothing.

  There was so much hate in its grotesque face, and the ghost rammed a bone-thin hand through Bródy’s forehead. Bródy screamed and straightened up on his knees, as if pulled by the ghost’s hand embedded in his skull.

  Mari wrenched on the door’s bars and then the handle; neither gave nor opened. Sabine was suddenly on her, trying to get to the door, screaming again. This time, Mari back-fisted the woman across the face and put her down. She rose up on her toes again.

  “Keys!” she shouted through the bars at the bald guard. “Where are they?”

  He twisted her way. “In the desk!”

  Mari dropped to her feet. The place was so dark that even her eyes saw little more than black shapes. She sidestepped, and some of the ghost’s light spilled through the bars, striking a desk nearby in the outer chamber.

  She ran for it, ripping out drawers and dumping what they held onto the floor. Hearing a clatter of metal in the third drawer, she grabbed a ring with three thick keys.

  Someone else stepped to the door, blocking the ghost-light.

  A snarl built in Mari’s throat, and this time she’d make Sabine stay down. But it wasn’t Sabine at the cell door. Someone taller there turned upon hearing her with the keys. Two white pinprick lights for eyes in a pale face focused on her.

  To Tris’s left, Sabine was struggling up again.

  “Get in there,” Mari shouted at him, and chucked the key ring.

  He caught it, but spun away from the door and called to Sabine. “Move back!”

  The white glow through the bars brightened for an instant and then erupted without sound through the iron door. Glowing mist lit the outer chamber and then gathered into that starved ghost hovering between them. It twisted like vapor, but it didn’t flee this time, and fixed on Tris.

  Mari froze, not knowing what she could do.

  Tris faced only the spirit, as if nothing else existed for him. Something in his expression changed in the glow of that ghost. He looked calm, maybe coldly emotionless. He backstepped twice and dropped the keys.

  What was he doing?

  He continued retreating, and it looked like he was going to run. Why? Drawing the ghost out was what he’d planned—what he’d wanted. She looked to the keys lying near the cell door as the ghost drifted after him in slow shifts toward the passage out.

  Then Mari knew what Tris was doing.

  The ghost had shifted its attention to him after whatever it’d done to Bródy. This would be what Tris wanted. He was drawing it clear of everyone and kept backing toward the way she—and he—had entered.

  Mari took two careful steps, halted, and then two more. Nearly to the cell door, she glanced the other way. Sabine was curled up and shuddering next to the wall. At least she’d shut up. Mari watched down the passage, and Tris suddenly moved out of sight.

  He was going for the door out.

  The ghost vanished straight through the passage wall in the same direction.

  Mari almost bolted down the passage. Instead, she turned, grabbed up the keys, and shoved the first in the lock. That didn’t work, but the second one did.

  Tris was out there alone.

  Why should that matter to her now?

  “Get up!” she ordered Sabine as she shoved the cell door open. “Get them out of there—now!”

  Sabine stared at her.

  Mari didn’t have time to wait and ran for the passage out.

  —

  Tris had barely stepped out in the cold night when the spirit reappeared four strides back and out of the stable wall. This was what he had wanted—to move it out of reach of anyone else and make it come for him. He had feared finding it only to lose it, for another ploy like this would not work again. It had not worked as planned in the first place.

  The spirit now fixed only upon him, its rage plain on its transparent face, still gaunt with starvation, even in death. By its present form, it had not relinquished the horror of its final moments before death.

  Tris had seen this many times before. Such anguish was often the cause for a spirit to linger among the living. Those who died in peace, happiness, or even simple sorrows were rarely seen again.

  What mattered first was that this one would do no more harm to anyone. Second, no one else, including Mari, should be near it when the portal opened. This spirit especially would not go willingly, peacefully, or even alone.

  Tris backed farther away from the stable—away from the door—and the spirit rushed him. As in the last time, its mouth gaped. Its lower jaw dropped impossibly low, as if broken loose somehow before death. He slipped one foot back in a half step to brace as the spirit’s right hand shot for his face.

  Spirits feared him, sensing him as abnormal, but sometimes, those like this one did not care. None knew until too late what he could do to them.

  Tris snatched the spirit’s wrist as if it were solid. Force from the ghost’s rush made his boots slide an inch on frozen ground. He quickly grabbed for its neck below the dangling jaw.

  The spirit’s sunken eyes widened more in shock and then fear as its rage faltered.

  Tris closed his hands more tightly, though it felt like trying to grip slick mud. His focus sharpened under that feel of death, and what he gripped became more solid. He pushed back, and saw terror grow in the spirit’s eyes.

  Shock was always short-lived, quickly replaced by maniacal panic.

  The half-starved specter thrashed and then lashed at Tris’s face with its other hand. His boots slid again, and he faltered this time. His arm, with his hand braced at its throat, began to buckle. The dead refugee’s face leaned in at his until even his own eyes began to grow chill under its close, cold presence.

  Tris saw every detail—bone beneath shriveled skin, broken teeth in the right side of its hanging jaw, and the lines around its wide mouth. Those hollow eyes filled up with frenzied hatred.

  It stopped pushing and thrashed backward suddenly to break free.

  Tris held fast and forgot everything—the world, the night, his life. He heard voices shouting, but they were so far away. Then any scant light in the darkness beyond the spirit vanished as something blacker than night appeared.

  Tris held on as the blackness beyond his adversary began to turn . . . to swirl.

  —

  Mari ran out of the stable, looked both ways, and spotted Tris beyond—through—the ghost. Again, he’d somehow gripped a spirit as if it had flesh, though it still glimmered, transparent enough to see how close it was to his face.

  Between him and her, night air grew darker, began turning and rippling inward, like thinned black ink dripped into a whirlpool’s edge. It spun inward toward the center, until that whirl in the air began to blacken, shadowing Tris and the ghost.

  Mari barely remembered what she’d seen the night he’d banished Brianne’s spirit, but she saw everything this time. Would he finally expose himself for what he had to be? Would those other spirits, those wisps that killed her family, appear again?

  Would he become the black thing again?

  “By the gods!” someone exhaled.

  Mari twisted, ready to lunge.

  Stàsiuo and several guards came trotting toward her, though all eyes looked beyond her. Lavich was among them, and Farrell. Had they heard the screaming?

  The captain’s mouth hung half-open at what he saw, expression shifting between disbelief and something like revulsion. When Mari turned back, Tris was farther away, driving the spirit ahead of himself. She heard someone behind her drawing steel.

  That strangely panicked her.

  These men couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t d
o anything. Instead, she ran toward the captain. Until it was over, she’d let no one get in the way.

  —

  Tris’s strength drained as he fought to push the spirit toward the portal. He had expected a difficult battle, but why was this one so much harder to banish than others? Behind it, the night swirled around a spot so dark he saw nothing within it. And then came the whispers.

  . . . my Tris . . . me Tris . . . I Tris . . . not you . . . Tris . . .

  Fear twisted the dead refugee’s white features. It screeched and thrashed, wrenched its wrist free, and slashed at Tris’s face. He ducked his head aside, still gripping its neck with one hand. On its backswing he caught its forearm and shoved with both legs.

  The spirit inched closer to the portal but not close enough. Fear mounted in its eyes, though it quickly fed into rage on that elongated face, more so as the whispers came again out of the portal behind it.

  . . . I Tris . . . not you . . . Tris . . .

  “No!” Mari shouted.

  —

  Not knowing if she wanted Tris to succeed or just to finally expose what he was, Mari stepped into Stàsiuo’s path as she reached for her dagger’s hilt.

  “Move, woman!” he barked at her.

  Farrell lunged in on the captain’s right. “Please, Miss Mari, get behind us.”

  “Get back, both of you!” she warned, drawing the dagger in a backstep. “You can’t help—if you tried, you’d end up dead. Or worse, you’d finish him.”

  Stàsiuo’s eyes shifted once, looking beyond her.

  “It’s already gotten to Bródy,” Mari added.

  The captain’s gaze returned to her. “What?”

  “He is the only one who can touch it,” she said, pulling her dagger. “Stay out of the way—understand?”

  The captain still stalled, and she took a quick glance back toward Tris. She saw only his feet, for the rest of him was blocked by that whirling mass of darkness. But she heard his harsh breaths in the dark, gasping and straining.

  Farrell took a step.

  Mari flashed her blade at his face.

  —

  Tris’s strength began to falter.