Dead Silver

by Max Florschutz

  Felix let out a chuckle. “The Wraith? You ain’t been in town a few days, and yer’ already askin’ about that?” He shook his head, a grin spreading across his face. “Who told you about that old legend?”

  “The girl who works the counter at my motel.”

  Felix laughed again, one of his hands idly scratching behind Mercury’s ears. “Did she go into much detail?”

  “Not really. Something about an ancient Indian warning?”

  “Something like that,” Felix said, shifting in his seat to face me. “Way back when ol’ Henderson—”

  “Relative of the current one?”

  “Yeah, great-great-grandfather, or close to it. Anyway, back when he wanted to set up the mine here, a native tribe—I don’t remember which one—owned the land,” he said, tossing one hand as he continued scratching Mercury. “Anyway, they tried to talk him out of it at first: Not because they lived on it, see, but because no one lived on it. Starting to see where this is going?”

  “A little, yeah,” I said, my eyes darting towards the faint flashes of sunlight I could see atop the rock around us. The loss of light hadn’t been something I’d considered before heading out.

  “Yeah,” Felix said, either ignoring my upward glances or dismissing them. “None of them lived on it because the land was cursed. Or so they said. They’d been granted it by the government during the land deals. Anyway, ol’ Henderson was a pretty nice guy, so he cut them a pretty damn good deal, and in the end, they sold him the land.”

  “And the Wraith?” I asked as the road turned upwards once again. I could see a dividing line ahead of us, separating the shadow of the rock around us from the sunlight of the higher world.

  “Children’s tale,” Felix said, grinning. “According to the natives, the land was cursed and those who wandered in it would vanish. Small wonder they sold it, right? Anyway, at some point, someone went missing, word of the curse got around, and stories started up. I heard plenty of them growing up. ‘Wander into the desert and the Wraith will get ya,’ and stuff like that. Hell, half the folks my age and older probably have a story about a ‘ghostly figure—’” he waggled the fingers of his free hand in the air as he said it, “—that’s stalked them in the backyard or been spotted in the desert, or whatever.” He let out another laugh. Not the nervous, semi-sure laugh of someone who halfway believed what he was saying, but a deep-set laugh, the kind that said he was certain that the story he was telling was exactly that—a story.

  “So you don’t think it’s possible there is a Wraith?” I asked.

  “What?” His face looked confused, as if my question had caught him off-guard. “You mean, could it actually be real?” He lifted his scratching hand from Mercury for a moment and gave me a shrug that involved both hands. “Sure, it could,” he said, his hand returning to scratch behind Mercury’s ears. I didn’t doubt that if she’d been a cat, she’d have been purring.

  “I mean, after all, there’s people like you and Rocke,” he continued. “No offense meant. Pull over up here, by the way.” He pointed at a nice, level spot alongside the road.

  “None taken.” I downshifted into first gear, letting the engine and gravity do most of the work of slowing us down.

  “But you’re both Unusuals,” Felix said. “I mean, Rocke hunts ghosts for a living. So who am I to say that there isn’t some ghostly presence out here?”

  “Especially if it’s old native land,” I said, shifting the wheel as I brought the Rover to a halt on the turnaround Felix had pointed out. “There’s a good chance the curse could actually be real.”

  At some point, someone had hollowed a turnaround out of the side of the butte, leaving a vaguely horseshoe-shaped cutaway just big enough for a car—provided you didn’t mind parking right up against an embankment of dirt and rock. I opened my door, checking to make sure that there was enough room for me to get out, then shut the engine off.

  “That aside,” I said as Felix opened his door, Mercury bounding out with a chorus of happy barks. “Do you think there really is a Wraith?”

  “Truthfully?” Felix asked as I opened the back door and picked up my staff. I twisted it in my grip as I pulled it out of the car, feeling the faint wood grain beneath my palm, as well as the faint pulse of energy deep within the wood. “No, I don’t.” He opened the door opposite me and grabbed his Camelback from the seat. “The desert’s harsh. People die out here all the time. You can get lost, break a leg, all sorts of things,” he said, slinging his pack over his back. “So no, I don’t think there really is a Wraith.”

  I nodded as I grabbed my own backpack from the back, already stocked with several water bottles. Personally, I hoped Felix was right. The last thing I wanted to worry about was a banshee or some other kind of ghost to deal with. I’d only ever run into one before, but the results hadn’t been anything that I was anxious to repeat.

  Then again, I reminded myself grimly, I only got tangled up in that because I was working with Rocke. And now here I was again, looking for him. I tightened my fingers around my staff once more, reassuring myself that it was there.

  Well, at least this time I’ll know what to do, I thought as I slung the pack over my shoulders. The last time I’d tangled with something ghostly, I’d learned that my staff—chock full of life force as it was—made a pretty good weapon against restless spirits.

  My pack secure, I reached back into the backseat for the last—and most vital—items of the trip: A plain shirt and a pair of jeans, both borrowed from Rocke’s luggage. I pulled both of them out, shut the door, and walked around the car to where Felix watched Mercury dart around examining everything in sight, a wide smile on his weathered face. I cracked a smile of my own as the dog darted about, barking at unseen animals and generally enjoying all the new sights and smells. I expanded my awareness a little, trying to determine what she was so fascinated with, but although I could feel the small lives darting away from her, hiding in burrows and between rocks, I couldn’t tell what they were. The desert was still alien to me, a new land filled with unfamiliar life.

  “Right,” Felix said, his eyes darting to the shirt and pants in my hands. “You ready to get this underway?”

  “Of course,” I said, crouching and expanding my awareness. “Mercury,” I said, and her ears perked up at the mention of her name.

  “Me?” she asked. I nodded, sending a sense of affirmation across my gift, and she bounded towards me, happiness rolling off of her in waves. She skidded to a halt in front of me, tail wagging back-and-forth so quickly I thought it might have been part of the reason she’d moved so quickly.

  “Here,” I said, holding out the pants and shirt. “We want you to find the scent on these and follow it.” Mercury didn’t hesitate at my instructions, burying her nose in the folds of the clothing and inhaling deeply.

  “People scent?” she asked, looking up at me.

  “Yes,” I said, trying not to wince at the barrage of senses she sent my way. “The strongest one. Did you find it?”

  “Yes,” she said, another wave of senses that I couldn’t quite comprehend rolling over me. “Found it.”

  “That’s who we’re looking for,” I said, rising back up. “The person who made that scent. Can you find him?”

  “Follow!” Mercury commanded, barking at me. I let go of the connection as she turned and sped off down the road, pausing every so often to sniff at the air.

  “Damn,” Felix said, his eyes wide under the brim of his brown Stetson. “Wish I could do that. And she understood all that?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding and wishing I’d brought my own hat. I could already feel the heat of the sun eating into my dark hair. Suddenly the shadowed areas around us didn’t seem so bad. “It’s kind of like speaking another language.”

  “Sounded like English to me,” Felix said as we followed Mercury down the road, her black-and-white form darting back and forth across the road in front of us.

  “To your ears.” I pulled my around and shov
ed Rocke’s clothes into it. “And that might be because I was speaking to a dog. It might not sound like anything at all to a bystander, depending on the animal.”

  We chatted about my abilities for a while, hiking along the road as it wound its way further and further south. Every so often, Mercury would stop and “request” that she be allowed to sniff Rocke’s clothes again, and I’d pull them out and let her refresh her memory while Felix double-checked the map. According to him, we were right where we wanted to be—or as close as we could get.

  The road began to wind back on itself, climbing higher and higher. Along with it came a faint, sharp scent, distant but still permeating the air. I wrinkled my nose as the metallic odor hit, and Felix laughed.

  “We’re south of the mine,” he said. “You’re smelling the smelting residue.”

  “All the way out here?” I asked, looking back as if I could somehow see the mine miles away.

  “It comes and goes,” Felix said. “A lot of weeks, we don’t even fire the smelter up. For most of us the smell’s a good sign.” I nodded, turning back to the path. Mercury had topped a rise up ahead, her tail vanishing from view as the road curved downward once more. Then there was an explosion of rapid barks and she came running back over the hillside, yipping excitedly.

  “—found it! Found people scent!” she said.

  “What’s she saying?” Felix asked, and I held up one hand to cut him off.

  “You found the scent?” I asked. Mercury barked again.

  “Yes! Same scent! People scent! Not much, but is!”

  “Are you sure?” I could feel a faint sweat breaking out across my back as I asked. Mercury gave me a puzzled look, and I could sense a slight hint of annoyance at my question.

  “Sure! Sure! You want people scent. I follow people scent!”

  “Good girl!” I said, giving her a quick scratch behind the ears, my attention already shifting towards Felix. “She’s found it,” I told him, rising as Mercury took off down the road, barking with enthusiasm. After a moment, we followed.

  We veered from the road almost immediately, Mercury leading us through scrub brush and desert grass that scratched against my jeans. From time to time, she would vanish into the scenery only to pop up again with a sudden leap and a quick bark to show us where she was. Her path was guiding us directly towards a large, solitary butte, jutting up from the desert like some sort of ancient sentinel, its weathered stones ancient and unmoving.

  Mercury’s barks intensified in volume as we grew closer to the mammoth cylinder of rock, speeding up as she darted ahead. Despite my eagerness to follow her, I couldn’t help but tilt back slightly as we drew closer, watching as the tower of stone seemed to stretch higher and higher into the heavens. Up ahead of us, Mercury broke free of the brush, darting up the sloped gravel at the base of the butte, still barking furiously.

  “We must be getting close,” Felix called between heavy breaths.

  “Yeah,” I called back. I was breathing hard, but not quite as hard as he was. I’d spent the last eight months getting in better shape—just in case something like this happened, oddly enough.

  My foot had just hit the gravel at the base of the butte when the barking stopped. For a moment I froze, Felix coming to a staggered halt behind me. Ice moved through my veins as my ears strained for any sound.

  “Mercury?” Felix yelled, worry lines creasing his face. His shout broke me free of my shock and I sprinted up the hill, ignoring the harsh burn erupting in my calves. I could hear gravel and dirt sliding behind me as Felix clawed his way up the hill.

  I reached the crest and came to a halt, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand as I scanned our surroundings for the missing dog. My heart pounded inside my chest, and horrible scenarios were popping into my head, each worse than the last.

  “Where is she?” Felix said, skidding to a halt next to me. The shadowed desert in front of us was empty, completely devoid of any signs of the black-and-white border collie. “Where’d she go?” Felix started down, gravel skidding away in front of him as he half-slid, half-stepped down the slope. “Mercury!”

  All right, think clearly, I told myself, taking a deep breath and holding it. There’s no sign of blood, and you didn’t hear any yelps, so she’s probably not injured. She’s just being quiet because—I snapped my eyes down towards Felix.

  “Felix, stop! Now!” Somehow my words got through to him, and his legs locked, rock and dirt spitting up underneath his feet. He stayed still, every muscle in his body tight, a cloud of dust drifting away on the faint breeze. He turned and looked at me, his expression somewhere between worry and horror.

  “What?” he asked, his expression sliding quickly towards worry.

  “Just listen,” I said, closing my eyes and reaching out with my mind. I felt the world open up around me, faint pulses of life all around. I felt the small ones closest to me first, little things like lizards and desert mice mixed with the calmer, wave-like pulse of the desert plants. Felix came into focus almost immediately thereafter, a much larger life sign, pulsing rapidly with every beat of his heart. I pushed my senses out further.

  “What—”

  I shushed him. In the relative calm after he’d come to a halt, I could’ve sworn I’d heard—

  There it was again. The faint whine of a dog, just barely audible. I opened myself further, and I could sense her now, up ahead of me, barely forty feet away. And there was something else, too. Something large—human-sized, at least—but flickering weakly.

  I opened my eyes, keeping my mind firmly focused on the lives I sensed nearby. “This way,” I said, moving down the slope and pointing with my staff. I could feel Mercury’s life in front of me, a bright, beckoning pulse of energy alongside the weaker pulses of what I was and wasn’t hoping was Rocke.

  “She’s alive,” I said, picking my way forward. I still couldn’t see her, but I knew she was close. “She’s not far,” I said, hoping to soothe Felix. I couldn’t feel his panic, not through my link at least. But I could tell just by looking at him that he was worried. Not afraid, except maybe for Mercury.

  “There,” I said, pointing with my staff. What had looked like a shadowed cleft between a series of boulders at the base of the butte was actually a narrow rift in rock face that led down into darkness. There was a sharp click at my side, and I blinked in surprise as Felix stepped up alongside me, a revolver gripped in his hands.

  “In there?” he asked, his voice low, gun pointed at the ground with the hammer cocked. I nodded.

  “Mercury?” he called quietly. “Where are you girl?” A long, plaintive whine echoed up from the hole, and I nodded at Felix.

  “One second,” I said, pulling my pack from my back with one hand, the other keeping a firm grip on my staff. The zipper let out a faint, metallic buzz as I pulled the pack open, a sound that seemed several times louder in the desert’s empty silence. My fingers closed around hard, lukewarm metal, and I pulled the flashlight out, catching the zipper with my thumb and finger and sliding the bag closed as I did. I slid the bag back across my shoulders and nodded at Felix. The flashlight flicked to life, beating back the thick shadows around the opening in the stone. I stepped forward, ducking my head as I moved inside.

  The ground sloped down just past the entrance, a slick assemblage of smooth dirt and loose rock that thankfully compacted rather than slid, my boots sinking deep into the mixture. A few pebbles skittered down the slope, and I followed them with my eyes as they bounced down and came to rest in a shallow, bowl-like depression halfway down. I panned my flashlight back and forth over the slope, catching dozens of matching disturbances all up and down the grade. Footprints.

  “Someone’s been in here,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. It still seemed to reverberate back at me from the walls, and I heard another whine from deeper in. I played the beam further, grimacing as the cave’s darkness swallowed it. The beam barely cast any light on the nearby walls at all.

  This thing was supposed to
be bright, I thought, making a mental note to buy a new flashlight as soon as possible. Until then, however … I held my staff up and focused, feeling a faint sense of satisfaction as the wood began to light up with a warm, pleasant glow that flowed out of every. The cave began to brighten around me, its smooth rock walls coming into view. Even my flashlight seemed to brighten a little bit. It took some energy, but I was all right with that for the time being.

  Emboldened, I stepped forward, my staff raised in front of me like some sort of ward. I stepped down the soft, sandy slope, standing up straight as I did. I could see a bend in the cave ahead of me, and just past that, I could feel the two life sources: one strong, the other flickering.

  “This cave is weird,” Felix muttered as he followed me down the slope. I didn’t say anything. I was too busy keeping my mind focused on what was ahead of me. The cave narrowed for a moment, turned, and—

  There, curled into a little monochromatic ball against the wall of the cave, was Mercury. Her eyes locked with mine, and then with Felix’s behind me, and she darted towards her master, tail between her legs.

  But I didn’t care. My eyes were already scanning the rest of the room. It was a circular stone cavern almost fifteen feet across, and in the middle of it, tied to a plain wooden chair with his hands behind his back and his face puffy, bruised and encrusted with dried blood, was Jacob Rocke.

  Chapter 8

  “Mr. Decroux?”

  I tilted my head back as the voice cut through the quiet hubbub of the Silver Springs General Hospital waiting room, looking up at the thin man in the white lab coat standing in front of me, clipboard in hand.

  “I’m Doctor Morris. You were the one who brought in—” his eyes darted to the clipboard, “—Jacob Rocke, correct?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. It hadn’t been easy, either, even with Felix’s help. Rocke wasn’t exactly a lightweight, and his half-conscious state hadn’t helped. I’d spent the whole frantic drive back to Silver Dreams worried he was going to slip away at any moment. “How is he?”