“What are you going to do about it?” I asked. On one hand, Newt seemed a little too wrapped up in a long-ago clusterfuck. And yet, his crusading spirit had an idealism that touched my jaded old soul.
“I’m working on an article for a history magazine,” Newt said with a conspiratorial smile. “They want to know the whole truth. And I’m going to be the one who tells it.” He sighed. “It won’t bring anyone back or get reparations for the families, or even an apology. But there’s something to be said for just having the real story known.”
“Sounds personal.”
Newt gave a sheepish grin. “My great-grandmother told me stories about the disaster, about the night her father didn’t come home. Even as a kid, I could see how much it still hurt her. I guess I’ve been a little obsessed with it ever since.”
The wistfulness in his voice made me picture a chubby-cheeked kid consoling an old lady, and it drove home how deep the scars of the disaster went that the pain remained a century later. I understood why he wanted justice, for the miners and the scapegoats, and why even the fruitless act of speaking out mattered. My “truth” about the supernatural had cost me my marriage and some friendships, plus the customers who didn’t want a “wacko” working on their car. Truth might set you free, but it didn’t come cheap.
“Good for you,” I said. “Don’t let anyone talk you out of it.” Father Leo and I headed for the door. We’d gotten much more than I expected from the visit. “Thanks for the tour.”
When we were back in the car headed for the motel, Father Leo turned to me. “What did you make of that?”
“I think the ghosts are the least of our worries,” I replied, parking in front of our room.
As Father Leo selected the best weapons and materials for the fight, I searched online and in our lore books for anything about how to fight a shubin. “There’s next to nothing,” I growled, utterly frustrated.
Father Leo chuckled. “I didn’t expect there to be. But if it’s like a kobold, then it can be dispelled. We can’t destroy it—those creatures are forces of nature—but they can be sent back to their caverns and trapped there.”
“To be let out by the next dumbass who drills nearby, like that singing frog in the cartoon?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. And if that happens, we’ll send him back again. I don’t make the rules.”
We headed out after dusk. I wasn’t afraid of running into anyone at the old mine site, but I didn’t want our car to attract attention, parked on the overgrown access road. We hiked in, carrying our gear, shielding our flashlights to avoid notice.
When we reached the place where the Harwick’s main shaft had been, I could sense the change in the air as soon as we arrived.
“You feel that?” Father Leo asked.
I nodded. “It knows we’re here.”
“I think it always knew. It just wasn’t sure whether we were the enemy.”
Moving quickly, I made a circle of salt and iron filings around Father Leo so he could work his exorcism undisturbed. It’s not that he can’t hold his own in a fight—the Occulatum is a bad-ass monster fighting organization, after all—but I’m more of the brawn in our duo. That’s why I got ready to watch his back and give him all the time he needed to send the shubin down where he belonged.
The temperature plummeted, although the night had been mild when we headed out. Orbs appeared, faint at first, then glowing brighter. They danced and zipped like fireflies, then slowed and gradually took form. A baleful line of dead miners faced us. Coal dust darkened their pale skin, along with the soot of the fires that killed them. Strips of charred skin and rough clothing hung in tatters, stained by blood. They stared at me as if daring us to settle the long grievance keeping their spirits tethered to the place that claimed their lives.
“Shit,” I muttered. Father Leo ignored me, pulled out his rosary and prayer book, and began to chant. Maybe I’ve been at this too long, but I find the Rituale Romanum familiar and comforting.
“Exorcizamos te, omnis immundus spiritus…” Father Leo began.
The ghosts shimmered, closer now than they had been seconds before, and I readied both my shotgun and iron knife to keep them away from the priest. The spirits’ faces held no emotion, and I found that more frightening than malice or rage. They advanced, slowly but remorselessly, drawing into a circle surrounding us.
“Stay back!” I warned, gesturing with the shotgun. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you attack him.”
They revenants stopped, shoulder to shoulder, all around us. At least fifty of the miners’ bodies had never been recovered, and the Harwick had become their tomb. These were their ghosts. If they rushed forward at once, I couldn’t hold them all off, not even with my grenade launcher of salted holy water. I backed up a step, closer to Father Leo, ready to do whatever it took to protect him. Leo’s chant never faltered, and when I glanced his way, I saw his face raised skyward, eyes closed, with an expression of trust and serenity.
The ghosts surrounded us, and I wondered what they intended. They couldn’t get to Father Leo inside the circle, and I had a glass bulb filled with salt I could smash and then step into the scattered grains in an emergency, but we couldn’t hold the ghosts off forever like that.
“What do you want?” I yelled to the ghosts. “Vengeance? The men who took advantage of you are long dead, and now you’ve killed their descendants. There’s no one left to punish. You want vindication? The truth will be published. Everyone will know.”
The ghosts circled us in silence, dead-eyed and somber, just inches away. I shivered with the cold of the grave, under the judgment of their remorseless stare. Then the energy shifted, I felt a gut-deep, primal terror, and beyond the semi-solid ring of ghosts, I saw the shubin materialize.
The figure at the museum resembled the mine spirit, but no model could convey the creature’s true appearance. The shubin’s corpse-pale skin had a sheen like the sightless lizards found inside caves: a creature never meant to see the light. It stood hunched over, accustomed to the tight conditions in the mine tunnels. Unlike the mannequin in the museum, the real monster was naked and hairless, but heavily muscled. Its powerful arms and hands were built for rending, and its sinewed legs could run and lift. Most of all, I noticed the shubin’s red glowing eyes and its sharp, pointed teeth.
The monster appeared right in front of Father Leo and gave an ear-splitting shriek. It moved toward the priest, and I shot it, point blank in the chest, with a salt round. That made it stagger backward, but when the creature’s head came up, it fixed its baleful glare on me.
I shot it again, right in the face.
The rock salt ripped into its fish-belly white skin but did not draw blood. Maybe shubin don’t bleed. It hissed and looked like it wanted to come after me, but then Father Leo started on a new line in the exorcism, and the shubin flinched like the words were weapons.
I reloaded, this time with iron pellets, and blasted the creature with both barrels.
The iron hurt the shubin. Where the pellets hit, the skin shriveled like cracked leather, opening deep gashes. Between the pain of the buckshot and the discomfort of the exorcism chant, the shubin looked like it was on the edge of madness. It flung itself toward Father Leo, only to bounce back from the circle of iron and salt, repelled by the invisible barrier.
With an enraged shriek, the monster lurched at me before I could reload and knocked the shotgun from my grip as we fell onto the hard dirt. Its hands held my arms so tightly I thought it might break bone, but all I could focus on were the pointed teeth that snapped close to my throat.
I couldn’t break its hold, so I rolled us, figuring that we weighed about the same. Pinning the shubin with my legs, I twisted enough to draw my iron knife. Gripping the hilt in both hands, I fell forward with my full weight, driving the blade deep into the shubin’s chest.
The shubin screamed and flung me away with enough force to send me rolling. I smacked into the side of an old coal car and wondered whether my
tetanus shots were up to date. Then the shubin lunged at me, and I decided lockjaw was the least of my worries.
Father Leo said the shubin couldn’t die. I just needed to distract it—without getting myself killed—just long enough for him to finish the ritual.
“Chant faster!” I yelled, and threw myself out of the way. The shubin landed face-down in the dirt, and I dove on top of it, driving my knee into the small of its back and using my weight to keep it from getting leverage.
The shubin gnashed its teeth and bucked beneath me, trying to break my hold. I dug my fingers into its upper arms and shifted to increase the pressure on its back and pelvis. Its angry screams made my head throb, and the malice in its red eyes made me certain it looked forward to tearing out my throat.
Father Leo was in the home stretch of the litany. I really hoped the main Latin ritual would be effective because if he had to start over with another chant, I knew I wouldn’t survive. As Father Leo came to the end of the exorcism rite, his voice grew louder, filled with the authority of Heaven and Hell.
With a mighty lurch, the shubin mustered all its strength and twisted us once more. I brought my knees up, desperate to keep those teeth away from my neck. The iron had taken a toll—the shubin’s skin had split and tightened where the buckshot penetrated, and a gray shadow radiated from the hole my knife had made. The legends that said iron could make such a creature turn away were wrong. It might have weakened the shubin, but not nearly enough. The teeth skimmed my throat, and I swore its fingers were going to dig all the way to the bone as it held me tightly.
I spat in its face and then brought my head up with all the strength I could muster, smashing against its skull and nearly knocking myself out. Blood dripped down my forehead and into my eyes, but the move won me a second’s reprieve, enough to knee the creature in the nuts and push it away from my chest.
The shubin flung itself down at me, eyes wild, teeth bared. It had me pinned, and I knew that this time, I wouldn’t be able to get away.
“Sánctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dóminus Déus Sábaoth.” Father Leo’s voice rose in a triumphant finale, just as the shubin’s face hung inches above my own, poised to rip into my flesh. Instead, a fierce trembling seized the creature, and its head fell back, teeth bared, eyes wide and staring, as a guttural cry tore from its throat. Its whole body jerked as if it were being pulled at by unseen forces, and it screamed again in pain and frustration before it vanished into the night air.
I sagged back against the ground, utterly spent, in shock that I was still alive. I heard Father Leo drag his foot through the salt and iron circle; then he ran to where I lay and knelt beside me.
“Mark! Are you all right?”
“Peachy.” Everything hurt, from my head to my toes. I’d have bruises on top of bruises tomorrow, plus a split lip and what felt like a black eye from the fight with the shubin. “Is it gone?”
“It’s been sent back to the depths,” Father Leo assured me, with a glance toward the old mine entrance just to be certain. “When we get back, I’ll have the Occulatum reach out to the Hungarian church here and make sure someone comes up and does a blessing and banishing every few months.”
“But if the fracking continues—”
“The Occulatum has agents everywhere,” he assured me, offering a hand to help me up, and then getting under my shoulder when I staggered. “I dare say it can throw its weight around to have the fracking operation moved elsewhere.”
“There are mines all over this part of the state,” I reminded him. “No telling what’s down in those tunnels. They could go somewhere new and wake up something even worse.”
He patted me on the shoulder. “Then we have job security, you and I.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, but I brought a bottle of good whiskey—for medicinal purposes—and it’s in the motel room. That will make you feel better. I’ll join you in a nip. I think I feel a cold coming on,” he added with a grin.
We hobbled back to my truck. When I moved to go for the driver’s side, Father Leo cleared his throat and held out his hand for my keys. “I’ll drive. We’ve tested the Lord’s protection enough for one night,” he said archly, opening the passenger door and gesturing for me to get in. I felt shitty enough to let him get away with it since, usually, no one drives my truck but me.
An hour later, after a hot bath, a few stitches, and a change of clothes, I sat propped up against the headboard of my bed. Father Leo poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into one of those flimsy plastic cups, which even I knew was a travesty. I could tell it was good stuff, just from the smell. He tipped a generous portion into his own cup and raised it in a salute.
“Nice work back there.”
“You did some pretty fancy chanting yourself,” I replied. A swallow of the whiskey burned down my throat, and I started to finally relax.
“The ghosts were there to protect us,” he said, staring down at the amber liquid in his cup. “I think they’ve taken it as their mission to keep an eye on the shubin, since they’re all down there together.”
“Will you—should you—send them on?”
He frowned, thinking. “When the local priest says his blessing, those who want to will find it easier to let go. Some may not be ready. Maybe to them, they’re still taking care of their families, warning them, keeping the monster at bay.”
“Even after a century.”
Father Leo shrugged. “Even so.” He looked at me, studying me in that way he had of seeing right through me. “Those ghosts lost one purpose in life and found another. You’re a good hunter, Mark, but that shouldn’t be your main focus.”
“It’s not,” I protested. “I’ve got the body shop, I play poker with you and the guys, Blair and Chiara come over for movie night, Louie and I meet up for drinks, and things are…evolving…with Sara. It’s not like that.”
He smiled. “Good. Glad to hear it. And speaking of poker—you still owe the Charitable Fund from the last game. Again.”
I groaned. “I’ll pay you when we play next week. Cross my heart.”
I might hunt creatures few people believe are real, face down supernatural threats, and save the region from monsters and dark magic, but when it comes to poker, Father Leo is the real badass. Nice to know that crazy as my life can be, some things never change.
A Note from the Authors
This is a work of fiction, so any similarity to real people living or dead is entirely coincidental. The towns and landmarks mentioned do exist, but the businesses are completely fictional, and any similarities are also coincidental or used in a fictitious way.
The Harwick mine disaster (and the flying mule) did happen and is well documented online. The “pig people” of Radio Tower Hill is an urban legend in the Meadville area dating back to at least the 1970s. An ill-fated amusement park was briefly in business on Route 322, but it closed after only a few years in the early 1960s although the deteriorating buildings could be seen for decades and always piqued Gail’s interest. No gnomes have ever been reported (that we know of) in Greendale Cemetery, but it is a beautiful place and worth visiting if you are ever in the area. Lake Wilhelm exists, sans zombies, and is a really pretty place for a picnic. Hotel Conneaut is a lovely, historic hotel that is very proud of its resident ghosts, and they are mentioned on its website. The Eagle Hotel is reputed to be haunted, according to local ghost enthusiast websites. “Mad” Anthony Wayne’s body really was dug up, boiled, and re-buried, and the part about losing bits along the way back East is, if not documented history, at least a persistent legend.
Gail grew up in Meadville, and Larry grew up in Sandy Lake, so Northwestern PA is home turf for us. Although we’ve lived in the South now for quite a while, we make frequent visits back and have enjoyed the chance to explore and revisit favorite places when we do our scouting expeditions for this series, the Iron & Blood and Storm and Fury Steampunk series (set in an alternate history Pittsburgh in 1898), and two upcoming serie
s also set in Western and Central Pennsylvania. Rogue, one of our Storm and Fury novellas, is set in and around Meadville, Cambridge Springs, and Mercer back in the Gilded Age.
This is the third of at least four novellas in the Spells, Salt, and Steel series. Watch for new “episodes!”
About the Authors
Larry N. Martin is the author of the new sci-fi novel Salvage Rat, and co-author of both the Spells, Salt, and Steel series and the Steampunk series Iron and Blood: The Jake Desmet Adventures as well as the related series of short stories/novellas: The Storm & Fury Adventures. He has co-authored stories in the anthologies Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens, The Weird Wild West, The Side of Good/The Side of Evil, Alien Artifacts, Gaslight and Grimm, Space, Contact Light, and Robots.
Gail Z. Martin is the author of Vengeance, the sequel to Scourge in the new Darkhurst epic fantasy series. Also new are: The Dark Road, part of the Chronicles of the Necromancer universe; Tangled Web: A Deadly Curiosities Novel as well as Trifles and Folly/Trifles and Folly 2 in her urban fantasy series set in Charleston, SC (Solaris Books); and (under her romance pen name of Morgan Brice), Witchbane and Badlands.
She is also author of Ice Forged, Reign of Ash, War of Shadows, and Shadow and Flame in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven, and Dark Lady’s Chosen); The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn, The Dread) and the urban fantasy novels Deadly Curiosities and Vendetta. Gail writes three short story/novella series: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures, The Deadly Curiosities Adventures, and The Blaine McFadden Adventures. The Storm and Fury Adventures and Spells, Salt and Steel, are co-authored with Larry N. Martin.
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