Poltergeeks

by Sean Cummings

  "You will know your surroundings, Julie," my father's ghost whispered. "Your instincts will be heightened to such an extent that you won't need to think about what to do next when your enemies come for you. And they will come, sweetheart. They will come for you because you represent the clarity of magic's purpose and because you wield a power they covet. Their agents will try and turn you because to have a Shadowcull in their employ would be a prize worth killing for. They killed me because I let down my guard, so take my advice to heart. Never, ever take that bracelet off. Never lose that amulet and finally, never let your weapon fall into the enemy's hands."

  "Anything else?" I asked as I ran my thumb along the smooth surface of the bracelet.

  He nodded again. "Yeah, if the amulet has been fixed on the bracelet for more than a day, you need to remove it otherwise the amplifying effect will basically melt your brain and you'll go nuts."

  "Seriously?"

  "Dead serious," he said, stony faced.

  I exhaled very slowly as my senses took in my surroundings. The shadows bent and flowed like liquid smoke as the clouds parted, bathing the cemetery in milky-blue moonlight. I could feel the vibration of traffic humming up and down Fourth Street beneath my feet and I heard the sound of a dog barking wildly in the distance.

  I turned to my father who was floating like a fishing bob when I felt an electrifying jolt of dark energy set itself on the cemetery like a violent clap of thunder. An unearthly groan filled the air and both Marcus and I dropped to our knees and covered our ears to drown out the sound. It ended as quickly as it began and then I felt the ground shake. All the colour drained from Marcus' face as he pointed to a copse of poplar trees less than a hundred yards from us.

  "Holy shit!" he croaked. "Whatever the hell that thing is, it's huge and it's heading toward us!"

  The air shook as the creature let out a roar that sent both Marcus and I tumbling into my father's grave.

  "I know your name!" the creature shrieked, as it lumbered forward. In seconds it was on us.

  Chapter 19

  I couldn't scream. It was as if the very sight of the monster sucked out the air from my lungs. Every muscle in my body was paralyzed with fear as the undead creature smashed through a granite crypt like a freight train. Marcus didn't waste any time and he instinctively grabbed my arm and hurled me from my father's grave with all his strength. Oh, and the copper bracelet decided all of a sudden to start glowing with a blinding white light. You know, because the twenty-foot tall creature comprised of body parts from nearby graves and bound together by the same spectral energy I'd felt at school actually needed help finding us. We tore across the crest of the hill until I spotted my father materialize beside a large crypt that resembled a gothic bungalow. He motioned for us to follow him just as the creature started running. Yeah, it ran.

  "What the hell is that thing?" Marcus shouted as he dove headfirst into a finely manicured hedge surrounding the crypt. I hurdled over the hedge and landed badly, twisting my ankle.

  "It's the same magic that was behind the attack at school!" I said, wincing from the pain.

  "But it's a zombie!" he choked.

  My father's ghost poked his head above the hedge and said, "It's not a zombie, it's about fifty yards away from here and you both are going to be deader than me if you can't think of something to stop it!"

  Marcus turned his eyes toward me. "What are you going to do?"

  "I have no idea," I said in a terrified voice. "I'm only trained in defensive magic."

  "Yeah, well start thinking offensive!" Dad said in a determined voice. "It's twenty-five yards from here and it looks hungry. You're going to have to confront that walking morgue, and if it were me, I'd be using emotional magic!"

  "My emotions?"

  "All of them! You need to reach down into the very pit of your soul and channel your emotions into a spell that acts like dark magic. Remember, the bracelet will amplify your power, so it's up to you now! Go kick some ass!"

  My heart was beating so fast I could feel the blood surging through my veins. I didn't want to stand up to that thing, but my father was right, we were dead if I didn't do something. I felt the copper band tingling with energy against my wrist and I took a deep breath. I clenched my jaw and reached out with my spirit to the elemental forces that surrounded me. As if it were in tune with my supernatural instincts, the copper band exploded with spectral energy and blazed like a fireball as I built my focus into a brick wall of concentration. I fixed my eyes on a cluster of large granite headstones in front of the monster and roared, "Ballisticus!"

  A tremor shook the earth as the headstones tore out of the ground and sailed through the air at the creature, pummelling it like an artillery target and sending it tumbling. It crash-landed against the cement fountain we'd been sitting on moments earlier. I pushed myself out of the hedge, my body vibrating with power, and stalked through the cool damp grass and onto an asphalt path.

  "I'm not going down without a fight!" I barked, my body shaking. "I don't know what your beef is with me, but I'll torch this entire cemetery unless you give me back my mother!"

  The creature slowly got back to its feet. Its face was a hideous mask of the features of three or four corpses stitched together with magic. Each face writhed; it was as if they were communicating a strategy to take me down. Four sets of hideous lips in various stages of decay curled up into four separate rotting grins as its eyes fixed on me. The left side of the creature's body sported three arms; two male and one female. There was one perfectly sculpted arm on the right side and each arm sprouted from four distinct torsos, compressed together, that looked like they'd been ripped from their former owners. The tight, grey skin of the rotting husks that made up the creature's body was visible through the torn remnants of burial clothes.

  The creature opened all four mouths and let out a high-pitched wail that blasted through the air, sending me stumbling backward against the hedge. I scrambled to my feet and the creature rushed at me, a head-on collision waiting to happen. I held out my left arm and dug my feet into the ground as I summoned another burst of magic, this time calling up a pillar of force and blasting it straight into the center of the creature's mass. There was a loud splattering sound, and a rolling wave of vomit frothed its way up to my throat as I watched two of the arms and one torso ripped from the amalgam of decaying flesh. The faces looked surprised by my attack for half a second, and then they seemed to be communicating with each other again.

  "Emotional magic, Julie!" my father's ghost bellowed. "You're not reaching deep enough!"

  "I'm doing the best that I can!" I shouted.

  "Do better!" he shot back. "You're a Shadowcull and you haven't even scratched the surface of what you're capable of!"

  I gave my head a shake as I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet. Huge jets of earth and stone belched out from a dozen separate graves, toppling the headstones like they were dominoes. I gazed up, and what I saw next sent my heart racing.

  Suspended high in the air like rotting marionettes were twelve corpses. Their burial garb was matted with smears of dirt and fluttered about as a cold wind kicked up dust devils beneath their dangling feet. Each pivoted toward me and then slowly floated to the ground. My mouth was bone dry and I tried to gulp but my throat was like sandpaper. Ice cold malice filled the air like a poisonous fog. I felt a tinge of something faintly familiar, and very focused on its task.

  The creature dropped down onto the grass. There was a flash of photo-negative energy and the creature's body parts exploded apart in a blast of eerie green light. I was just about to exhale in relief when I saw twelve ribbons of spectral energy weave across the cemetery toward the rotting husks.

  "Oh my God!" I whispered. Another jolt of panic shot through me. Each of the twelve corpses stretched out their arms. Their jaws opened wide and their hollow eyes rolled over to my position in front of the hedge. Slowly, deliberately, they began to stagger forward.

  "Run!" I shrieked. I leaped over t
he hedge, completely forgetting about the pain in my ankle.

  The creatures lumbered on, their lifeless eyes staring straight ahead and yet they somehow managed to keep in a line. The copper bracelet stung like sunburn against my skin and I grunted through my teeth as I leaped over another hedge, Marcus in tow.

  "You can't outrun them, Julie!" my father shouted as he floated backwards about thirty feet in front of us. "This is dark magic we're dealing with and those things are going to keep coming after you, even if you make it back home!"

  I came to a sudden stop. How in the hell was I supposed to take down a dozen revenants? My only exposure to the living dead had been through movies and TV, and now my father was telling me that I'd have to somehow come up with a spell to destroy them without getting our heads ripped off.

  "They're latched onto my magical signature," I barked. "And that means someone is controlling them."

  Marcus squatted and rested his arms on his knees. "So this is just another spell?"

  "You bet it is," I said, as I stretched out my hands to see if I could triangulate the spell's source. "But where there's a spell there's always a path of flow for magical energy. It's pointless to duke it out because the spell will just spawn more of them."

  "And there's probably a few thousand graves in this cemetery," my father said. "If it were me, Julie, I'd take an overhead view and see if you can tap into its location."

  My jaw dropped at my father's suggestion.

  Contrary to popular belief, witches don't hop onto the backs of their corn brooms and take to the skies. That said, science doesn't always apply to magic and because of this, witches have been known to defy gravity when the need arises. In short, we don't fly; we float.

  Two simple words make up the Volatilis spell, but magic words and phrases, like my amulet and now my copper bracelet, are merely a focus that allows magic to flow through a practitioner. A spell like the Volatilis is something only a seasoned practitioner can actually pull off and, like all magic, it takes intense concentration and the practitioner runs the risk of crash-landing if they're fatigued. I was already feeling the throbbing pain of a twisted ankle and the blast I'd sent at the creature had weakened me. To make matters worse, I'd never before attempted the Volatilis and I knew of no witch who could do it.

  The extended line of undead creatures plodded along, tripping over headstones and clumsily getting back to their feet. They were about two hundred yards from us. I gave my father a pained glance. "You can do it, Julie," he said with an air of authority. It was almost as if he knew what was going to happen next.

  I took a deep breath and grabbed Marcus by the scruff of the neck. "Put your arms around me."

  "Um, sure?" he said in a nervous voice as he wrapped his bony arms around my midsection.

  "Close your eyes and don't ask questions," I said as I tried to ignore the fact that this was the first time any boy had put his arms around me and that it was actually kind of hot. "Just trust me, okay?"

  I squeezed my eyes tight and reached for my magic. The copper band hummed as I shut out the sounds of the night and dug down as deep as I possibly could. It was time.

  I lashed out in a voice that blasted through the air. "Volatilis Levitata! Volatilis Levitata! Volatilis Levitata! Volatilus Levitata! Volatilis Levitata!"

  I opened my eyes to see a whirlpool of magical energy above my head. Thin tendrils of magic reached over my shoulders and down to my feet like strands of spun gold, and I had to stop myself from reaching out to touch them. I pulled Marcus close to me and I tried to stifle my utter shock that the spell seemed to be taking hold. My feet were slowly lifting off the ground and I grated my teeth together as Marcus' weight threatened to short circuit the Volatilis. I pushed my focus deeper, drawing on all the supernatural energy in the graveyard to fuel the spell. It worked; we floated higher and higher into the air.

  Marcus buried his head into the nape of my neck. That was actually kind of hot too, well, except for the fact that he was shrieking into my shoulder. I glanced at the copper band and had to turn away from its blinding white glow. It amplified my magic, pulsing with the power of the spell that carried us higher and higher.

  "This cannot be happening!" Marcus wailed. "Human beings cannot defy gravity! No way this is real!"

  The spell's magic poured through the supercharged atmosphere and into my body as I pushed forward, floating through the air like a human balloon as I looked for a safe place to deposit Marcus. "It's happening! I don't know how I did it, but it's really happening!"

  "Good luck to Stephen Hawking if he tries to figure this one out!" he whispered in amazement. "Just don't drop me, okay?"

  "Not a chance. I've got to get you to a safe place."

  I looked around for my father and spotted him hovering beside an enormous poplar tree. The creatures were well behind us as I ducked into the dense foliage and deposited Marcus safely on a branch that looked like it was thick enough to support an elephant. I decided that it was time to use my peripheral focus to see if I could detect the path of flow for the dark spell that Hudibras was using to animate the corpses. The air was prickling with supernatural force, raising every hair on my body. I shut my eyes tight to allow my spirit to feel the waves of magic drifting through the cemetery.

  I reached out through the complex tendrils of energy, sending my senses rocketing out of the cemetery, soaring over buildings and rooftops at blinding speed. Below me, entire neighbourhoods appeared and disappeared as my focus stormed past familiar city landmarks in the blink of an eye. I whizzed along sidewalks, dodging pedestrians and parking meters and cars at busy intersections. I barrelled skyward, over treetops and lampposts at breakneck speed until I spotted a sign that read 'Welcome to The Beltline'. Less than a second later my focus was hovering over a row of high-priced apartment buildings so I scanned the pebbled surfaces of each rooftop, ignoring the ventilation ducts and elevator shafts until I spotted it: the Baphomet Sigil.

  The air carried the taint of malice and I could taste the bitterness of Hudibras' dark spell, but he was nowhere to be found. Suddenly I felt myself slingshot at near-warp speed through a magical wormhole until my mind realized it was back in the cemetery. I concentrated, letting the energy flow through me as I shaped my peripheral focus into an enormous magnet for dark magic. I grated my teeth together and pushed my newfound magical Sight to its breaking point, reaching out further and further across the rows of graves until I found what I was looking for.

  I opened my eyes and gasped.

  Below me as far as the eye could see was a tightly woven blanket of energies that pulsed and hummed in the darkness. Miniscule threads of purple light intermingled with thick strands of blues and greys that resembled the vapour trail of a jet plane. Plumes of ghostly mist shimmered and stirred like a bubbling stew, enveloping smaller, less dense clouds of energy, blending and swirling together as if they were all in an enormous pot.

  I held out my left hand – my copper-banded hand, the hand of a Shadowcull – and clenched my jaw as I latched onto a trace of the malice. My body pivoted in the air, as if I were a needle on a compass, directing me to the source. Within seconds, I spotted it. Like a giant shining worm slithering across the pavement after a thunderstorm, the dark spell's path twisted through the maze of spectral energy. Even at one hundred feet in the air, I could taste its hatred.

  It felt ancient, something that had been rotting beneath deep layers of dust and time. I could smell the faintest traces of burning coal and I could hear distant bloodcurdling screams. Terrified women's voices begged and pleaded as a chorus of self-righteous sounding males quoted biblical scripture. They spoke an older form of English, caustic and bitter, heavy with an accent that hadn't been heard in hundreds of years.

  My mind flooded with images of damp stone walls and loose hay scattered across a plank floor. I could hear the hissing and crackling of fire and my nostrils filled with the smell of smoke and blood. I saw chains dangling from a wall and the image of an emaciated woman,
old and bent double like a labourer who'd worked a lifetime in a stone quarry. The oil and smeared soot on her wrinkled face did little to hide the bruises and cuts around her eyes and mouth. Another image flashed, the old woman now lay stretched across an enormous tree trunk and her wrists were bound to her feet. Kneeling in front of her was a thin man with an almost regal bearing. He was clad in a doublet, a red velvet jerkin and hose that stretched up from his buckled shoes over his knees. A thick cloak was draped over his narrow shoulders and his cold, accusing eyes bore into the old woman like a pair of blades, cutting through her cries of pain like a butcher hacking through flesh and bone. I fought back bile because I'd latched onto a simmering hatred so bitter that it seemed to poison each breath I drew into my lungs.