by Karen Chance
"He better not be dead," I began, as Louis-César's flushed face appeared in front of me. I got no further because his hand reached out and caught me in a stranglehold that would have crushed a human's throat. He was saying something in a harsh tone that didn't sound much like his usual voice, but I couldn't understand him. I had a second to think, Oh, crap, before the familiar disorientation flooded over me and the blue faded away. I closed my eyes, not wanting to believe this was real, that I was going to have a vision now of all times, but there was no way to deny it. I was suddenly back in that same unwelcoming, cold, stone corridor, hearing voices filled with unimaginable despair.
I fell to my knees in shock, not at the surroundings, although they were far from welcome, but at the voices. I'd thought before that it was the people inside the torture room making the high-pitched keening, but now I knew it wasn't. The men chained to the wall had started crying out only when they saw me, and their tones, although desperate, hadn't sounded like this. This was a chorus of hundreds, thousands maybe, and they weren't alive, at least not anymore.
I realized that the icy cold of the corridor was less from the weather than from the positive miasma of spirits crowded into it. Never had I felt so many ghosts in one place at one time, like a spiritual mist permeating the walls and filling the air to the point of suffocation. It was despair made tangible, like a film of freezing grease on my face that ran down my throat until I thought I would choke on it. This time I was alone and, without the bully of a jailer to distract me, I could concentrate on the voices. Slowly they became a little clearer. I quickly wished they hadn't.
There was a definite feeling of intelligence, of many minds here, and none of them were happy. I thought at first that they might be demonic, there was that much—for lack of a stronger word—rage floating around. But they didn't feel like the few demons I'd met; they felt like ghosts. After a few minutes' soaking up their fury, I finally figured it out. Haunters are usually dealing with one of three main issues: they died before their time, they died unjustly—usually, but not always, murdered—or they died with something vital unfinished. Sometimes there are other contributing factors—ghosts, like people, can have many issues bugging them at the same time—but normally one of the big three is there. What I was sensing was thousands of ghosts who had all three of the big ones and a whole galaxy of contributing issues as well. If they'd still been alive, they could have kept every shrink in the United States working around the clock for the next century trying to sort them out. But they don't have psychiatrists in the ghost world. What they have is revenge.
A ghost created by vengeance issues either gets some satisfaction, gets some payback, or hangs around lusting for it until its energy runs out. Most ghosts don't have regular energy donors like I am for Billy Joe, so they fade over time, getting less and less powerful until only their voices remain, and then finally passing on to wherever it is ghosts go. I sensed that some in this throng were about to run out of juice, while others were as powerful as if they'd died yesterday, which maybe they had. The implication was staggering: wherever I was, it had been used for torture for decades at least, and probably for centuries, racking up enough spiritual dark energy to be felt even by nonsensitives. I doubted there was anyone, no matter how obtuse to the psychic world, who could walk into this chamber of horrors and not get a serious case of the creeps.
I looked around, but it was still just me and the chorus line. I didn't know what to do. I was used to my visions behaving in a predictable way: they came; they hit me like a freight train; they left; I cried; I got over it. But lately, my psychic abilities were branching out into new and uncomfortable areas, and I was feeling resentful that the universe had suddenly decided to change the rules. Especially since, if I had to get stranded anywhere, I sure wouldn't have picked this place. A cold wind slapped my face—they were getting impatient.
"What do you want?" I barely whispered it, but you'd have thought I'd taken a stick and stirred a hornet's nest. So many spirits descended on me at once that I got only flashes of color, flickers of images and a roaring in my ears like a hurricane had decided to blow through the hall. "Stop! Stop it! I can't understand you!"
I backed against the wall and realized only when I fell through it that I didn't have a body, at least not a corporeal one. After a stunned instant I recognized the torture room I'd visited before, but this time only the victims were there. I got up and took a few tentative steps forward. I felt very solid. My feet didn't disappear into the stone as I'd half expected, and I could see my arm. Thankfully it was mine instead of Tomas'; at least my spirit knew which body was mine. I felt the arm and it was solid, too. I could take my pulse. I was breathing. And yet none of the prisoners seemed to notice me.
The woman I'd freed at the casino was lying right in front of me, back on the rack as I remembered, except she wasn't burnt. She didn't look good, but I could see a faint rise and fall of her chest and an occasional flutter of her lashes, so I knew she lived. I heard a noise behind me and looked back over my shoulder to see a couple of thousand people, all standing quietly, watching me. The room couldn't possibly hold that many, but they were there anyway. And, unlike my experience with Portia's brigade, that didn't seem to be playing havoc with my senses. I could see them without my eyes crossing or trying to crawl out of my head; maybe I was getting used to it. "I don't know what to do," I said, but no one gave me any hints.
I turned back to the woman and saw with surprise that she was looking straight at me. She tried to say something, but nothing came out of her cracked lips except a thin croak. Someone handed me a dipper of water. It was slimy and vaguely green, and I looked at it dubiously. "This stuff is gross."
"I know, but there doesn't appear to be anything else." It shows you how out of it I was that it took me at least five seconds to connect the voice to the person.
I looked up slowly, then jumped back, sending the slimy water sloshing across the room in a wide arc. "Shit! Tomas!" I swallowed my heart back down to where it belonged. "What are you doing here?" He was holding a bucket with more of the disgusting water in it. He looked solid, but that didn't mean anything. So did I, and I'd just fallen through a wall.
"I don't know." I was inclined to believe him since he looked as shaken as I felt. I suppose even for a vampire this counted as strange. The water in the bucket was trembling in a grip that wasn't entirely steady, and neither was his voice when he spoke. "I remember you taking control of my body, and being unable to speak or react. Then, suddenly, we were here." He looked around in amazement. "Where is this place?"
"I'm not sure."
"Is this where you went before?" Something that looked like eagerness came over his features. "Is that Franchise?" He saw my surprise. "Raphael told me about the vision that upset you. Is this the woman you saw?"
"I guess." I was still staring at the bucket he was holding, because it had occurred to me that he shouldn't have had it. If he'd somehow piggybacked onto my vision, we should both be bound by the usual rules. We weren't actually here; this was a record, an image of something that had happened long ago. We should be nothing more to it than the viewers of a movie are to what happens onscreen. But there he stood, holding a heavy wooden bucket like it was no big deal. "Where did you get that?"
He looked bemused. "It was in the corner." He gestured with his free hand to a spot where the condition of the straw made it obvious that it doubled as a latrine. Of course, the whole room smelled like a cross between an open sewer and a butcher shop, one where the meat wasn't too fresh and unused bits were allowed to rot in the corners. I thought irrelevantly that it was unfair that I had to smell this when I didn't even have a body. My old visions had never come complete with scents and sensations, and I vastly preferred it that way.
"I can't give her that." Screw the metaphysics; I'd figure them out later. If Tomas could hold a bucket, obviously we could interact with this place, at least a little. And if that was true, maybe we could change a few things that had g
one—or were about to go—seriously wrong. My first priority was to get the woman out of here, but she wasn't going to last long without something to drink, and she kept sending longing glances toward the filthy bucket. I wondered how thirsty you had to be before something like that looked good.
Tomas smelled it and dipped his finger in for a taste. I remembered how acute his senses were when he made a sound of distaste and spat it back out. "You're right. It is about a third salt. It is merely another form of torture." He threw it down and the noxious stuff soaked into the dry straw. "I will try to find something else."
"No! You need to stay here."
"Why? Am I not merely a spirit here? What could happen?"
I looked nervously at the thousands of ghosts quietly observing us and wondered whether I should tell him. Normally, spirits don't frighten me. There are rare examples who, like Billy, can feed off the energy of humans to a limited degree, but I have always been able to repel them at will. Besides, most find that it requires more energy to attack a human than they get from the process, so they usually don't bother unless you irritate them. But things had changed. Here, I didn't have the protection of a body and all the defenses that went along with it. I was a foreign spirit on their turf, and if they decided to be annoyed about it, I might be in big trouble. Billy had told me that ghosts can cannibalize one another for energy—apparently it's a lot easier than using human donors. He'd been mugged more than once, and one time it had been so bad that I'd had to donate some power quickly or he might have faded too far to come back. Now here I was, facing several thousand hungry ghosts who had every reason to be steamed that I was intruding on their territory. So far they hadn't made a move, but they might not like us roaming around their castle. I didn't intend to find out.
"You don't want to know," I told him shortly.
He didn't argue, but his brows drew together as he surveyed the woman. He appeared genuinely concerned about her, which thawed my attitude towards him a little. It also made me wonder whether he was in equal danger himself. Billy Joe was back in our time, babysitting my body, but Tomas currently had no spirit in residence—which was another way of saying he was dead. Of course, he died every day when the sun came up, but this wasn't the usual way. I hoped we weren't going to find a permanent corpse when we got back.
"Let's get her loose," I said, to distract myself as much as him. We began trying to pry the woman off the rack, but it was harder than it sounds. Although I tried not to hurt her, I did some damage. The ropes had eaten into her flesh, and blood had dried around them almost like glue; when I pulled them away from her wrists and ankles, bits of gory tissue came off, too.
I glanced around the room, hoping to see another source of water, but there was nothing except the men chained to the walls. One was hanging from a lip of stone about nine feet off the ground. His arms were bound behind him, pulled up at a terrible angle, and weights had been attached to his feet. He wasn't moving but swung there like a limp doll. Another was lying in the straw below, moaning softly. I did a double take; he actually looked like he'd been boiled. His skin was a horrible mottled red and was peeling away in strips. The other emaciated men showed signs that the torturers had already had some time with them. Backs were beaten raw, hands and feet were missing here and there, and pieces of flesh had been gouged out. I turned away before I was sick.
Something nudged my elbow and I looked down to see a flask floating in the air beside me. I took hold of it gingerly, eyeing the watching crowd with some suspicion. But none of them made any threatening moves, and the container smelled like whiskey. I'd have preferred water, but the alcohol might dull her pain. "Here, drink this." I knelt by the woman's head and held the flask to her lips. She swallowed a little of the contents, then mercifully passed out.
I left Tomas tending to her and went to try to free the men, but it soon became obvious that it wasn't going to happen. The woman had been tied with ropes, I guess because chains don't stretch well; but the men were in iron. I glanced at Tomas. I didn't want to talk to him, much less ask for help, but there was no way I could get them free on my own. "Can you break these?" I finally asked.
"I can try." He came over and we both gave it our best, but nothing happened. It was all we could do to lift the heavy chains, much less manage anything as strenuous as breaking them. We seemed to have lost a lot of strength in the transition. Just pulling the woman loose had felt like I'd spent three hours on a treadmill set on high.
Overall, I decided, things weren't looking good. I didn't know where I was, how I was going to get back or when the torturers were likely to show up. A rat in the corner twitched tiny whiskers at me and I kicked the ladle at it. Oh, yeah, and if I did get back where I belonged, I'd be in the middle of a fight that I wasn't completely sure we were winning. Even for me this counted as a really bad day.
"This is useless, Cassie," Tomas said after a few minutes. "I am as weak as a human here, and my strength is fading quickly. We should help the woman while we can. There is nothing to be done for the rest."
I reluctantly agreed. It seemed to be my night for rescues. I eyed the ghostly army that was staring at me patiently. "Um, does anybody know how to get out of here?"
The ghosts looked at me, then at each other. Some shuffling was done until one was pushed out of the throng. It was a young man, maybe eighteen, dressed in an outfit that looked like a poor relation's version of Louis-César's. It was blue wool and he had a brown hat in his hand with a jaunty yellow feather sticking out of the broad brim. I guessed he'd been a dandy in life, since his cravat was very frothy, his wig was long and curled to within an inch of its life and his buff leather shoes had comical, big yellow bows on them. Pretty colorful for a ghost; based on experience, I guessed he'd been dead a year or less.
He gave a bow, and although it wasn't as courtly as Louis-César's, he used the same phrase. "A votre service, mademoiselle."
Great, just great. I looked at Tomas, who was kneeling by the woman, checking her pulse. "I don't suppose you speak French?"
He shook his head. "A few phrases, but nothing that would help here." He looked bitter. "I am rarely allowed at Senate headquarters."
"Since when do they speak French in Vegas?"
He looked at me impatiently. "The European Senate is based in Paris, Cassie."
"I didn't know you were with them."
"There are a great many things you don't know."
I didn't have time to figure out what he was talking about. I regarded the young ghost with some annoyance. As grateful as I was not to be back in Louis-César's body, I missed having access to his knowledge. "We don't speak French," I told him.
The young man looked confused, and some more shuffling was done. Another man, older this time and dressed more plainly in simple fawn-colored knee pants and a navy blue coat, was pushed forward. He hadn't bothered to cover his bald head with a wig, and he looked like the no-nonsense type. "I was a wine trader in life, mademoiselle. I often had reason to visit Angleterre; perhaps I may be of service?"
"Look, I don't know what I'm doing here. Or where this is. Or what you want. Some information would help."
He looked puzzled. "Your pardon, mademoiselle, but we also are at something of a loss. You are spirits, but not like us. Are you angels, sent at last in answer to our prayers?"
I snorted. I'd been compared to a lot of things in life, but never that. And Tomas sure as hell didn't qualify, unless fallen angels counted. "Um, no. Not really." The younger man said something and the older one looked shocked. "What'd he say?"
The man seemed embarrassed. "He fears for his lover's life, that she will die as he did, as we all did, in this place of everlasting suffering. He said that he would not care if you were from le diable, from Satan himself, if you come bearing hope of vengeance. But he did not mean it."
Looking at the anger on the young man's face, I doubted that. "We're not demons. We're… it's complicated. I just want to get her out of here before the jailer gets back. Can y
ou tell me where I am?"
"You are in Carcassonne, mademoiselle, the very gate of Hell."
"And that's where? I mean, is this France?" The man looked at me as if I'd asked him what year it was, which had actually been my next question. Screw it. I didn't have time to explain to a ghost that, no, I wasn't actually crazy. At least, I didn't think so. "Never mind. Just tell me where to take her. They're going to kill her—she's got to escape."
"No one escapes." He looked let down. "Are you not here to avenge Franchise's death?"
I was getting a little peeved. I don't have a lot of patience anyway, and what I'd had was pretty much gone. "I'd rather she didn't die in the first place. Are you going to help me or not?"
Something I said got through to the young man, because he began to speak rapidly to his companion. The woman came around while they were arguing back and forth, and I patted her arm, since there was nowhere below her wrists that I could touch without hurting her. She looked at me with wide eyes but didn't say anything. That was just as well; neither of us was in any shape for twenty questions.
The older man turned to me, looking disapproving. "Even if we help you, she may die as others have done. Would you forgo vengeance because she lives a few days?"
I lost it. It had been a long day and I was absolutely not standing there getting lectured by a pain-in-the-ass ghost. I already had Billy Joe for that. "I am not the freaking angel of death, all right? I'm not here to get revenge for you. If you want it, go get it yourselves. That's what ghosts do. Now either help me or get the hell out of my way."
The older man drew himself up indignantly. "We cannot avenge ourselves, or we would already have done so! This castle has been used for torture for centuries, and something has been done to it, some spell laid, making it impossible for us to interfere. Do you really believe we could have stood by, letting such atrocities happen, if we had a choice? If you are not a spirit, then you must be a powerful sorceress. Help us! Help us, and we will be your slaves." He got down on one knee, and suddenly, the whole group was kneeling. This was completely unfair.