Echo City

by Layla Lawlor

Manannán mac Lir is a sea god in Irish myth, associated with the Isle of Man. His wife is Fand, a sea goddess in her own right and possibly a pre-existing Manx goddess who was rolled into the primary Irish pantheon later. My original idea for where Muirin fits in the Irish pantheon comes from a story in the Ulster Cycle (the Irish national epic), called Serglige Con Culainn, a.k.a. The Wasting Sickness of Cúchulainn or The Sick-bed of Cuchulain.

  In the story, the sea-goddess Fand and her sister Lí Ban are described as traveling in bird form, with a flock of fellow bird-women who travel in pairs, joined by silver chains.

  This was merged in the book with the story of the swan maiden, who changes shape by putting on or taking off a feather cloak that turns her into a bird. Changing into animal shapes by donning animal skins is a common theme in Celtic mythology, as in the story of the selkie, for example.

  Otherwise Muirin is not a real mythological figure; she was invented for the book.

  Floyd Bennett Field

  The abandoned airport turned park, where Millie shows Kay how to cross over into Shadow New York, is a real place in southern Brooklyn off Flatbush. The old runway is a pedestrian promenade and the old airport terminal is a visitor center. There is also a campground (named for Amelia Earhart) and a community garden.

  When I visited the park in 2011 while researching this book, most of the buildings were abandoned, some overgrown and vanishing in forest, but there was nothing to stop anyone from walking around wherever they wanted, including inside any of the old hangars that weren't locked.

  I expect that it's continued to undergo renovations (which seemed to be in progress when we were there) but it's one of the more fascinating places I've been, and there's no cost for admission. The experience of walking on the old runway alone is worth the visit.

  You can find pictures and historical information at Forgotten New York (forgotten-ny.com).

  If you enjoyed this book

  I also write paranormal and sci-fi romance, and I have a sci-fi webcomic called Kismet that updates weekly. You’re invited to check out those projects as well!

  Writing as Lauren Esker

  Shifter Agents

  Full-length paranormal romantic suspense about the men and women of the Shifter Crimes Bureau.

  1. Handcuffed to the Bear

  2. Guard Wolf

  3. Dragon’s Luck

  4. Tiger in the Hot Zone

  Boxed Sets

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  Standalone Paranormal Romance

  Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

  Keeping Her Pride

  Warriors of Galatea

  Sci-fi romance

  1. Metal Wolf

  2. Metal Dragon

  3. Metal Pirate

  4. Metal Gladiator (coming soon!)

  Writing as Zoe Chant

  This is a paranormal romance pen name shared by several authors who write together. As Zoe, I've written the Bears of Pinerock County and Bodyguard Shifters series.

  Bodyguard Shifters

  1. Bearista (Derek and Gaby’s book)

  2. Pet Rescue Panther (Ben and Tessa’s book)

  3. Bear in a Bookshop (Gunnar and Melody’s book)

  4. Day Care Dragon (Darius and Loretta’s book)

  5. Bull in a Tea Shop (Maddox and Verity’s book)

  6. Dancer Dragon (Heikon and Esme's book)

  You may also enjoy Bodyguard Shifters Collection 1, collecting books 1-4.

  Kismet (written as Layla Lawlor)

  A space opera series of graphic novels set in a 27th-century mining colony. Spies, assassins, mobsters, and customs agents! The webcomic has been running online since 2002.

  Book 1: Hunter’s Moon

  Complete graphic novel, online for free at www.kismet.com/huntersmoon

  Book 2: Sun-Cutter (currently updating on Mondays)

  Archive: www.kismet.com/suncutter

  Updates Mondays on Tumblr at suncutter.tumblr.com

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  Website: www.laylalawlor.com

  Hollow Souls preview

  This Halloween, the dead will rise.

  Kay Darrow didn't want the magic life-draining sword that's decided to claim her, but sometimes it comes in handy.

  Like when the restless dead decide to get a little more restless than usual.

  Ghosts, cultists, and the Wild Hunt are about to make this a Halloween no one in Ithaca will ever forget.

  If they live to tell the tale ...

  Preorder now!

  September 29, 2020

  Hollow Souls - Chapter One

  Five days before Halloween, I was in a cemetery at midnight, watching a bunch of teenage cultists attempting to raise the dead. What was my life even.

  "I was in a cult once, you know," my grandmother whispered at my shoulder.

  Pitching my voice low enough that we couldn't be heard over the chanting, I whispered back, "No good will come of asking about this, will it?"

  Grandma Geraldine made an absent gesture with the hand holding the binoculars. "I'll tell you at home."

  Fair enough. I adjusted the strap of the sword around my hips (no one but me could see it, but that didn't stop the scabbard from digging into my thigh) and peered through the brush. Unlike some people, I'd never seen a cult in real life before, let alone a cult doing the full chanting thing, and I wanted to watch.

  At least they were dressed for the weather. No diaphanous gowns, not even a creepy black robe. Most of them were dressed for the late October weather in a mix of hoodies and jackets with jeans or the odd bit of dark gothwear peeking out from underneath. The only thing that made them stand out was the black ribbon binding together their joined hands, woven in and out, connecting them in a ring.

  Well, that and the fact that they were standing and chanting nonsense syllables around a tombstone.

  My dead roommate Drew's tombstone, to be specific.

  Rude.

  I scanned the circle of kids, looking for one in particular. I still couldn't get over how young they looked to me from the ripe old age of almost twenty-two. Though honestly, it was an experience gap as much as an age gap. Unlike them, I'd had a crash course in things that go bump in the night and all the reasons why it's a bad idea to try to raise unquiet spirits in cemeteries around Halloween.

  "Binoculars?" I murmured, and Grandma passed them to me.

  With the binoculars' help, I finally managed to spot the kid I came here looking for. She was a thin wraith of a girl with a Girl Scouts of NYPENN Pathways hoodie hanging on her like a sack. Without the binoculars, all I could see was the reflective letters on the shirt and, above it, the pale blur of her face turned down toward the smoking brazier on the grave. With the magnification I could see that her lips were moving, but I couldn't make out individual voices among the rest.

  "See anything weird?" I whispered to Grandma Geraldine.

  I could open my third eye if I really had to, but only if I wanted to spend the next twelve hours huddled in a dark room with a killer migraine. That was the main reason I'd asked Grandma to come with me. What she calls second sight isn't as powerful or versatile as mine, but I could use someone else who shares my ability to keep a finger on the pulse of the uncanny.

  ... well, that and she said going to graveyards at night made her nostalgic for her youth, a comment I had prudently decided to leave alone.

  "What do you mean by weird?" she whispered back.

  "Anything glowing or sparkling, anyone floating, anything like that? Any ghosts in the vicinity? Or anything else that's not normal?"

  "I'm sure the red-haired young lady's parents would be interested to know she's wearing a skirt that short. Her legs must be freezing."

  "I'd think you'd be more interested
in finding out where she bought it."

  Geraldine smiled at me angelically. "I never said I didn't appreciate her flair for style. It's more practical for a seance on a summer night, that's all. There's a time and a place for—" She stopped and frowned, reaching to take the binoculars back from me.

  "What's wrong?"

  Geraldine's expression was hidden by the binoculars, but I could see her chewing at her lower lip. "That bit of ribbon around their hands—does it seem to you that it's glowing, or is that just me?"

  Well shit. Without my second sight I couldn't see the glow Geraldine was talking about, but I could see something else, all right. Or more like feel it.

  There was something gathering in the space above the grave, in the center of the circle created by the teens' clasped hands. It seemed to make everything behind it waver, like heat shimmers on a hot road. It might have been caused by the coals in the brazier, except it also seemed as if that particular patch of night was darker than it should have been. It wasn't even that it looked dark so much as it felt dark, like a black hole sucking down all the nearby light.

  But it wasn't an absence as much as a presence, as if something was being concentrated there, in the air above Drew's grave.

  In some tiny, credulous corner of my brain, I'd been afraid of this, but I had managed to convince myself it was incredibly unlikely; otherwise I'd never have brought an 80-year-old woman with artificial knees as my monster-hunting partner. Teenagers must perform fake rituals at Halloween ever single year. But whether it was because they had managed to source their ritual from a more-reliable-than-usual website, or because Drew wasn't precisely dead (though also not precisely alive), it actually was doing something.

  That just figured.

  "Stay here," I murmured. I stood up quickly, shedding twigs and dead leaves, and snapped on the brilliant LED lantern-light I'd brought with me. Its clear white beam lit up the cemetery and the kids, who all froze in deer-in-the-headlights poses. One or two of the especially oblivious kept chanting for a beat or two longer, before they realized they were going on alone and opened their eyes.

  And theirs wasn't the only attention I'd managed to get.

  Somehow, through some sense I hadn't even known I had, I could feel whatever was over the grave becoming aware of me and turning to look my way. Whatever they'd made contact with was clearly not Drew, and I could feel its malevolent intent focusing on me and Grandma Geraldine.

  "Get out of here!" I bellowed. Fear lent volume to my voice. I hoped I sounded like someone official, a cop or a night watchman, and not like the scared college student I really was.

  The kids shrieked and scattered in all directions, trailing bits of ribbon. Someone kicked over the brazier, and burning herbs scattered across the frost-shriveled grass on the grave.

  In the air above the grave, that dark anomaly began to—not disperse exactly, but uncoil, as if it was expanding to fill the space the teens had occupied. And I realized too late that I'd probably done the stupidest possible thing you could do during a summoning ritual. I had broken the circle keeping it contained.

  If I unleashed a demon on the greater Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, my monster-hunting teacher Muirin was going to kick my ass from here to Pennsylvania.

  "Take this!" I snapped at Geraldine, tossing her the flashlight. As that sense of dark presence spread like a thunderhead on a hot day, I charged toward the grave, drawing the sword.

  Thanks to Muirin's training, I could now draw it on the run and swing it into a guard position without cutting off my own legs, though I stumbled as I tried to coordinate sword, scabbard, and feet all at the same time. The blade ignited without my conscious instruction, lighting up with a hungry blue glare that cast no shadows and sending a shivering, icy chill down my fingers. The sword drew its strength from its wielder, as well as any life-energy in the surrounding area.

  It was no more effective than a regular edged weapon against non-supernatural enemies—a very sharp weapon, granted. But magical foes, of which unfortunately I had quite a few these days, were a different story. I had watched it literally drink them, sucking away their energy until they wisped away to nothing.

  I didn't know what this cloud-shadow creature was, but I figured there was a pretty good chance the sword could handle it. I grasped the hilt with both hands and swung it through the dark heat-shimmer over Drew's grave.

  The sword blazed up in a brief flare of searing white fire, before dying away to a faint glow like a fading firework, partly obscured by a smeary purple afterimage in my vision. I swung it back and forth a couple of times just to make sure, but I didn't need to. Whatever had been there was gone.

  I realized I was standing on Drew's grave and jumped back. Not that Drew would care—he'd probably make a bad joke about it—but it seemed impolite.

  The sword's glow died completely. I tamped out the guttering coals from the brazier with the toe of my sneaker and looked around for the teens.

  Gone. All of them.

  Including Gail Hollis, Drew's little sister.

  Dammit.

  The teens, like most non-magical people, wouldn't have been able to see the sword, and right now their minds would be working overtime trying to convince them that anything else weird they might have seen wasn't real. Normal, average human brains worked like that. My roommate Fresca had looked right at a van-sized tentacle monster and convinced herself that she was seeing a large white dog. Repeated exposure to the supernatural tends to wear down the Somebody Else's Problem field that it projects, but these kids wouldn't have had enough experience to be able to do that yet. At least, I really hoped they didn't. Because if they did, the problem was even worse than I'd thought.

  A bobbing white light marked Geraldine's progress toward the grave. "What shall we do with this?" she asked, and bent stiffly, with a grunt of effort, to pick up the brazier.

  I took it cautiously, and almost dropped it again when I discovered that it was warm to the touch, before reminding myself that anything is going to be warm when it's just had a fire in it. It looked like the kind of cheap, slightly dented incense burner you might buy in a secondhand store. But something in the ritual had managed to summon an actual, bonafide supernatural something-or-other. If it wasn't the ritual itself, it was this thing. Or maybe both together.

  "Guess we'll ask Muirin in the morning," I said, waving the sword over the brazier just to see if anything happened. There was nothing, no sparks, no glow. Which didn't necessarily mean it was completely inert, but probably did mean it was unlikely to kill us, since the sword was attuned to that kind of thing.

  "What was over the grave?" Grandma asked. "Or is this one of those questions I don't want to know the answer to?"

  "Couldn't you see it?"

  "No. It was more like a ..." She hesitated. "A ... nothing? It's very hard to say. I suppose I do feel there was something there, but I couldn't say why, exactly."

  I'd hoped that Geraldine had been able to see more than I had. "That's about what I saw too. It's gone now, though." At least I sincerely hoped it was gone. Whatever that was, it was unlike anything I had fought before.

  And it was powerful.

  I couldn't stop the shiver that crawled up my spine as I looked around at the dark cemetery with its rows of gravestones. There are things that live in places like this. And Halloween is when they like to come out to play. The boundaries between worlds grow thin at this time of year, Muirin had told me. Things slip through.

  I tried to tell myself that the sense of movement out of the corner of my eye, half-glimpsed in the black shadows between the trees, was nothing more than leaves ruffled in a nighttime wind.

  "All's well that ends well," Geraldine said brightly, patting my shoulder.

  "Yeah, except I get to go back home and tell Drew that not only did I not manage to talk to his sister, but Gail and her friends are somehow doing actual magic." I sheathed the sword, having to try twice; my hands were shaking. "I'm sure he's going to love tha
t."

  Hollow Souls - Chapter Two

  "I thought you were going to get her away from those people!"

  "I couldn't even catch her, Drew," I said, looking up from the cup of coffee radiating heat into my cold fingers. Coffee at 2 a.m., why not. I didn't think I'd sleep tonight, despite the aching exhaustion scraping the back of my gritty eyes.

  Maybe when I'd been doing this longer, I would get used to it. What happened tonight would have rolled off Muirin without the slightest lingering trauma or worry. Even Grandma had gone straight to bed, though I had noticed when I went up to change out of my dew-soaked jeans that there was still a light on under her door.

  The brazier was bundled in a towel in the back of my car; I didn't want it in the house.

  As for me, I could still feel that malevolent intelligence in the cemetery looking at me, the vicious intent behind its regard. If Grandma had felt that, I didn't think she'd be tucked up all cozy in bed.

  I'd gotten rid of it with the sword, I told myself. It was gone, whatever it had been.

  At times like this, I wished I could go back to the days when I didn't know things like that existed in the world. I reminded myself to check the wards around the house before I went up to my room.

  Drew was sitting crosslegged on the countertop beside me, wearing the black trench coat and black jeans he'd died in. I had been looking at him carefully ever since I got back, but as usual, he looked no different from when he'd been alive, from the dark floppy hair to the black nail polish on the slim hands draped over his knees. His elbow was half in, half out of the coffeepot, and he was pale even for a shut-in white geek, but that had always been a Drew thing and not a ghost thing. I didn't know what might constitute warning signs for someone who was dead and noncorporeal to begin with, but I hadn't seen anything to make me worry so far.