Ethereal Entanglements

by Lee French

  “Yes. I heard the driver tell a cop on the scene that the woman stumbled out in front of his car and he didn’t have time to stop. He also said he saw mist. Someone else saw mist near the man.”

  “Could you tell…if they were alive or dead?”

  Drew stayed still and said nothing. But the muscles in his jaw flexed.

  Claire’s heart thumped too loud in her ears. “Tell me. Tell me!” She hugged herself and shifted away from him, already knowing the answer from the small sigh he let out.

  He sighed again. “I don’t know.” She thought he lied, maybe to save her sanity. “The woman was being loaded into the ambulance when I left. They were hurrying, so she might be okay. I didn’t get a good look at the man. Paramedics blocked my view. But there was a lot of blood and his feet weren’t moving.”

  Regular people died because she failed as a Knight. Only ghosts and possessed things were supposed to die. So far, she’d only ever seen regular people as innocent bystanders or annoying witnesses. Worse, these regular people died because of her, because she couldn’t handle the situation, because she panicked.

  She fell forward and threw up. Her gut churned and pushed everything out until she heaved up burning yellow bile. Somewhere in the middle, Drew started rubbing her back, reminding her she had a witness. When her stomach finally stopped rebelling, she lurched to her feet on shaky legs and wobbled away from the steaming pile of gross. Maybe she should leave Drew behind too. At this rate, staying close to her would get him killed.

  Tears streamed down her face and sobs wracked her body. Drew wrapped his arms around her and pulled her off the tree. Cradling her in his lap, he held her close and made soothing noises. She wanted to stop crying so much.

  “I’m the worst Knight ever,” she managed to blurt out between hiccups.

  “I doubt that. I mean, look at Avery. He was tainted for years and couldn’t even figure out Justin’s last name, let alone come up with a way to destroy the Palace. That’s pretty incompetent. In one day, Justin almost succeeded. One day. Whatever else is true about Justin, he’s definitely a good Knight. And he’s your mentor, so you can’t go too far wrong. Except maybe by not listening to him, I guess. Which is a weird thing for me to say, isn’t it? I’d like to stab him with a rusty spoon, but I can’t deny he’s good at his job. And actually, to you, I can admit that being possessed isn’t so bad. Kay and I are already getting used to each other. I can teleport now. Honestly, I can only complain so much.” He grinned. “And when I do, it’ll be in Justin’s presence.”

  Claire wanted to laugh. It came out as a strangled sob. “How can you just accept it?”

  He raised his brow. “Rusty spoon, remember? But given the choice between venting my anger while you flounder or sucking it up so you have a shoulder to lean on? That’s an easy call to make. Later, I’ll go back to fantasizing about punching him in the face. Which, if I ever tried it, I think I’d break every bone in my hand without even hurting him.”

  Sitting up, Claire wiped her face again. “You’re a really good friend.”

  “When you only have one…”

  “Yeah.” She mustered a weak smile, but it fell flat. “I killed someone today.”

  “By accident.”

  “By not doing my job.”

  Drew shrugged. “I can’t make it all better, I can only be here for you.”

  “I just felt so much pure terror.” She hugged herself and decided to be glad she hadn’t gotten a good look at either of those people. Not seeing them dead or dying also helped.

  “Kay thinks we might have messed with the ley line more than was obvious. The fear probably came from that, and it affected you because you were the focal point. Lots of scary things happened down there, so fear is a pretty natural thing to boil up. Since you were the one directly connected to it, you got the brunt. Neither of us wants to go back to investigate, though. We’d get swept away.”

  Claire wiped her face with her sleeve again and noticed all the fresh rips, dirt, and blood. If Marie saw this shirt, she’d freak out. “Can Kay see if something is weird with me?”

  “I haven’t been able to see this stuff until this morning, and I wasn’t paying a huge amount of attention to your aura beforehand. I’m checking it out now, though, and I’ll let you know if it changes a lot.”

  She crossed her arms. “That’s not a good excuse to stare at my chest.”

  Drew chuckled. “No, it’s not, but can I get points for trying?”

  His smile provoked weak echo from her. “Sure.” Her stomach rumbled. “Ugh, I’m hungry.”

  “Means you’re not twisted up in knots anymore. Which is good.” He stood and offered her a hand up.

  Staring at his hand, she wanted to climb into a hole again. “I killed someone and I just cracked a joke.”

  “Claire.” He paused and seemed to grope for words. “I can’t say you should feel good about this. But it was an accident. You didn’t walk up to someone, punch them in the face, drag them into traffic, and throw them at a car. You panicked about something terrifying. All this stuff—the magic, dragons, ghosts, those echo things? It can screw with your mind, and that’s not your fault.”

  “You’re so…reasonable.” She took his hand and let him pull her into a hug.

  “I’m logical. It’s why I’m good at math and science. You’re physical. It’s why you’re good at gym class.” He paused and squeezed her. “Dammit. I just realized I’m going to have to go to school possessed on Monday. Kay is going to be a pain.”

  Claire huffed a weak laugh. “At least there’re things you know more about than he does.”

  “One can hope.” He pulled away with a smile. “C’mon. Let’s get ourselves some lunch. Not think about all this ghost and magic crap for a while. Take a walk. Get a good night’s sleep. Deal with it in the morning.”

  The idea felt indulgent and she didn’t deserve it. She ought to find that woman and offer to make amends with her family somehow, and the same for the man in the suit. Those ghosts in the Nine Cans basement needed to be dealt with. A dozen other things nagged at her. The longer she waited to figure out how to destroy the Palace, the greater the chance Caius would see it coming. But she needed to breathe, too.

  She stuck her hand in Drew’s. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

  Chapter 22

  Justin

  Police cruisers with flashing lights cordoned half the intersection at Third and Davis. Avery’s car stopped behind a parked cruiser and opened its doors. Justin reached into the back seat for his gear.

  “Leave it,” Avery said. “Without the armor, you’re anonymous. This doesn’t look like active paranormal activity, so you should be fine. You go talk to Ki and I’ll find out what happened. If you need it after all, it’ll be right here. And Stirin will let you in to get it if you come running back and ask.”

  The car’s engine rumbled. Avery smirked. Justin suspected the car had said something disparaging. They left Stirin behind and jogged closer. Avery held his badge for the uniformed patrolman guarding the scene.

  “He’s with me. Let him through.”

  As the “he” in question, Justin nodded politely in greeting and walked with Avery to the corner. A tow truck worked on a car with a bashed-in front end. Blood in the crosswalk pointed to where it had hit a pedestrian. Avery gestured for Justin to head inside Nine Cans while he approached an officer and another man in a suit standing by a blood stain on the sidewalk.

  Justin turned his attention to the broken glass door with dried blood on the upper edges, but not the lower ones. Shards fanned around the door, pointing to something smashing from the inside to the outside. With Avery’s implicit permission already given, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  Nothing seemed out of place other than an overturned chair, and no one else was here. The police must have already come and gone. Ki leaned over the bar, his expression so glum Justin barely recognized him. The Ki he knew always had an easy smile and a horrible joke.
“Justin,” Ki said with a nod. “So unfortunate.”

  “It’s definitely not good. What happened?”

  “Two kids. One Knight, one possessed. They walked in and asked about the tunnels. They were looking for the ley line, and what they did with it…” Ki rubbed his face. “I got tingles just watching from a safe distance.”

  Justin hopped onto a stool across from Ki. He knew exactly who had come here, but wanted to be wrong. “These kids—one boy, one girl? Redhead with glasses and a brunette in green?”

  Ki nodded and slumped more. “They said they weren’t doing anything evil. And I didn’t really help, I just showed them the ley line. They could’ve found it and figured out what to do on their own.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” Justin laced his fingers on the polished cherry bar, horrific scenarios running through his head. The ley line here dwarfed the next largest one in the region. “What exactly did they do?”

  “Tapped it with an ancient ritual.” Ki sighed again. “I oversaw a tribe of Chinook using one like it, a long time ago. They…I shouldn’t tell you about this, Justin. I’m bound by a blood oath to protect my people. Which I’ve tried very hard to do, it’s just a lot harder without any power. And your order is why I have no power, which technically makes you my enemy.”

  “I understand.” Justin tapped his thumb on the bar, wishing he’d known about the lesser seals much sooner. Freeing dragons seems to have been the right choice. Freeing other creatures might also be the right choice. He didn’t know how to reconcile that with the mission of the Spirit Knights, but he did know what he’d seen with his own eyes.

  “If I knew where to find the right seals,” Justin said, “and could be sure it would only affect you and not some lunatic who’d avenge himself by slaughtering people, I’d break it for you.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.” Ki patted his hand. “The seal holding me back is in New England someplace. Anyway, this was before your order. We had some ghost problems, like everyone did, and we tried to make a regional protection. For what we needed, it worked well enough. It was broken by accident, and then volcanoes and earthquakes and tidal waves. Many lives were lost, and I could only save a handful.”

  Ki let out a heavy, bone-deep sigh of regret, but then he waved to dismiss the subject. “These kids weren’t using the right crystal for that. We used a green jasper laced with silver. What these two had was a green stone, but much less complex and translucent. I didn’t get a good look at it. She also had charged dirt and possessed blood.”

  “I could waste my time finding someone else to explain why that matters in the slightest, or you could just pretend I’m a complete idiot and tell me.”

  Ki chuckled. “Dumb as a rock, eh?”

  “About this, sure,” Justin said with a snort. Since Ki used a pun, Justin couldn’t get too upset over a simple little insult. The guy had been rattled. Making a joke showed he was recovering.

  “Magic resonates with crystals, which is why witches like them so much. The color and composition of a crystal informs how you use it.” Ki pulled a teardrop pendant out from under his shirt. Jagged lines cut across the blue stone in silver, black, white, and yellow. “This is an example of jasper. It can come in any opaque color with any minerals forming lines or shapes within. Technically, it’s not a ‘crystal,’ as such, but it works well, often better than a translucent stone, because of its inherent complexity.

  “Back then, we used a green stone with silver inclusions because we wanted a particular effect. Also, the leader of the group had an affinity with green, which meant she could do more with less, as it were. Using a simpler stone, I don’t know. The dirt and blood are just guiding constructs, a sort of road map for the power to follow. I’m not sure what that map led to, other than some sort of protection and bloodlines. They didn’t tell me what they came to do, and once they’d done it, the ley line went berserk. Echoes of the past popped up.”

  Justin nodded. “So they ran.”

  “So they ran,” Ki agreed. “I don’t believe anyone saw the young lady crash through my front door, which, I might add, was unlocked. She could have opened it. But insurance will cover that, and once I have a chance to relax, I won’t harbor any bad feelings about it. If you’d seen the pure fear on her face, you wouldn’t be too upset with her either.”

  Frowning, Justin tried to imagine Claire in the throes of abject terror and failed. She had Knight sensibilities. Knights felt fear and sometimes retreated, but rarely did they flee in panic. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

  “We all do strange things under stress, and she took the brunt of the backlash. She tried to defend us against the echoes and failed. I think one did something to her, and she couldn’t hurt it much. Anyway, the important thing here? I have no idea what the kids did. Blood and bone rituals are old, old magic. Your order’s founder used that. It’s not my area of expertise. I’m more about the heart and soul. The mage I assisted went on vision quests with Raven to gain the knowledge she had. I assisted with the working because…well.” Ki smiled with very fake innocence. “Raven was mad at me. Let’s just say I thought something was funny and she disagreed.”

  “I believe that.” Justin suspected Ki had little else to say on the subject, and he could always ask Anne for more about the crystal thing. “Thanks, Ki. Claire’s my responsibility, so I’ll take care of it.” He shook Ki’s hand and stood. “By any chance, did you notice if Claire had any taint of corruption?”

  Ki’s brow flew up. “That girl? Oh, heck no. That was the purest, shiniest Knight aura I’ve ever seen, yourself included. If she’s tainted, I’ll eat my boot. Both boots. Without ketchup. I can’t discount confused, misinformed, gullible, or taking bad advice from the wrong places, but I can affirm that girl is so clean she’s practically resistant to corruption. When she walked in, she had the usual sort of knightly aura. When she fled, pure as the driven snow.”

  “Huh.” Justin glanced out the front window to see Avery standing by himself, tapping on his phone. “Did you notice when he was tainted?”

  “I definitely noticed it when I saw him, yes. And I can tell you’ve experienced some of that since I last saw you. Changes your perspective, doesn’t it?” Ki flashed a dark, toothy smile. “It’s not my job to keep your house in order.”

  “No, of course not.” Justin had a feeling Ki would enjoy watching the order implode. He also wondered what the “usual sort of knightly aura” entailed. Sensing he had no more good will left to spend on this conversation, he chose not to ask. He could always come back another time. “Do you need us to poke around in the tunnels while we’re here?”

  Ki waved to dismiss him, but stopped the gesture halfway through. “Actually, yes. I don’t have a tour group scheduled for another two weeks, but something about that whole episode concerns me. Claire was hurt, though I didn’t get the details. While I’ve had a number of tourists over the years who’ve reported chills, abject terror, and other minor discomforts, I’ve never had anyone complain of genuine pain. Granted, she was upset, but it might be wise to take a peek.”

  Nodding, Justin hopped off his stool. “I’ll get Avery and we’ll check it out.”

  Chapter 23

  Claire

  Claire sat alone at the kitchen table in the cottage, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Another sandwich on another plate waited for Drew at the empty seat beside her. She wanted something more interesting to eat, but settled on this as something she couldn’t screw up. Her first bite already sat in her stomach, threatening to make her barf again.

  Drew scurried in the front door, holding his coat shut over a bulge and grinning. “There were a bunch in the fridge. Grandpa Jack won’t notice two missing.” Drew revealed two beer bottles and set them on the table in front of Claire.

  Knowing Justin could return any minute and catch them in the act made Claire even more nervous than the idea of getting them. Grandpa Jack drank this stuff to relax. She’d known a few foster fathers who
used it for the same purpose. The ones who got drunk were a nightmare, but she didn’t intend to get drunk, especially not like that.

  Instead of sitting, Drew rummaged through the kitchen drawers. “How can they not have a bottle opener? Everyone has a bottle opener. Eh, this is close enough.” He brought a flat screwdriver to the table and pried the cap off one bottle. Wisping mist escaped with a pop as the bottlecap came off.

  Claire took the bottle and sniffed it. Thankfully, the bitter smell of hops and yeast reminded her of too many different men to inspire a specific memory. The first sip hit her hard enough to made her cough and gag. “This stuff is gross. Why does anyone drink it?” She took a bite of her sandwich to force the taste away.

  Drew hesitated in applying the screwdriver to the second bottle before he’d done more than scratch the metal cap. He touched his tongue to the tip of her bottle without taking a drink. His grimace said he’d gotten enough to satisfy his curiosity. “Grandpa Jack likes it. He has a beer every time he watches football or hockey. Maybe his taste buds are dead.”

  “It’s probably an acquired taste kind of thing.” Claire lifted the bottle and, knowing what to expect this time, choked down several gulps. She belched. “It’s not so bad if you bolt it.”

  “I’m not opening the second bottle.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Claire, there’s something I want to ask you.”

  She gulped another series of gulps from the bottle and set it aside. Nothing had happened yet, so she thought maybe it wouldn’t affect her much. In that case, beer would be a waste of time and suffering. “What?”

  “We talked to Anne, and she pretty much agreed we were doing the right thing for the locket stuff. I just…” He picked up the half-empty bottle and fussed with the label, his eyes averted from her. “I want to be sure I’m not helping…the wrong team. I mean, what we’ve already done seemed fine, aside from how disturbing it was. And I’d like to have Anne check you over and make sure it worked like it was supposed to. The thing is, I’m a little confused about the stuff with the Palace and seals. You sound, you know, like…like a tainted Knight. I’ll do anything for you, Claire, but I don’t want to cause the apocalypse.”