Powered by Ghosts

by Kaje Harper

  “You have a local necromancer?” Then what am I doing here? Why isn’t he or she feasting and fixing the problem?

  “We do. But his wife’s dying, just barely hanging on these past months, and Pasternak hasn’t had eyes or time for anyone but her.”

  Silas imagined if Darien were dying. “Why isn’t he harvesting the ghosts and feeding any Healer he can find, then?”

  “He had Healers in, but they say there’s nothing more they can do. The cancer is all through her. It would kill her to force it out.”

  “Oh. Poor man.” He could imagine the helplessness of that. How tempting it might be to tell the world to go hang, just to have every moment left with your beloved. Holy hells, where are those thoughts coming from? He’d never been one to put love over duty. But as Darien exchanged concerned looks with him, he knew perfectly well. I’ve barely had him a week, and already I’d tell the world to go hang for his sake. That man’s ruined me. He didn’t regret it, though.

  Clarice said, “It’ll be a relief to us all if you deal with things. The poor woman can’t hold out much longer, but I doubt he’ll be more useful after her death than before, at least for a while. Those two were always standoffish, better than the rest of us hedgewitch types, but I wouldn’t wish her lingering death on anyone.”

  “Well, I can take up the slack, for now. Maybe make a trip back later, if he’s still incapable.” Last week’s battles had left him depleted and he wouldn’t mind a few bites of ghostly energy. He could even teach Darien the power transfer runes, and maybe feed his man up a bit off the leftovers. This trip is looking up.

  Clarice said, “We’ll be glad of it. It’s late but I can still come up with a bit of supper, if you gentlemen want some.”

  “We ate before setting out. Thank you.” He ushered her out and closed the door behind her.

  Darien dropped to sit on the bed with a bounce. “Nice mattress. This trip is looking better all the time. I thought we’d have to spend the time sneaking around, or doing without.”

  Silas stalked over and bent to kiss him quickly. “This is a work trip. Not play.” As if I wasn’t thinking the exact same thing.

  Darien snared Silas’s coat collar and hauled him down for a better kiss. Silas allowed it. Reveled in it. Being pulled in and bent to meet Darien’s mouth sent a perfect shiver down his spine.

  Eventually he broke free and straightened. “As much as I’d like to take you up on that, night is the best time for ghost work. Let’s get our bags unpacked and then I’ll head out.”

  “We’ll head out.”

  I don’t want you around a cluster of ghosts in the night. “What help do you imagine you’ll be?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m coming.” Darien set his jaw mulishly, and Silas was reminded that despite looking like a man in his late thirties, Darien actually was just twenty-one.

  “All right,” he said mildly, because Darien was the sort to try to follow him if told no. “But it’ll probably be boring for you.” Hopefully.

  Grim jumped up on the bed and kneaded the covers, before settling down. “Where to first?”

  “The administrator of the mental hospital was the one who complained loud enough for it to get back to our Guild, and he’s footing the bill. He’s expecting me at eleven.”

  Grim tilted his head, green eyes blank for a moment. “Bit over an hour then. Time for a nice nap.” He set his chin on the bed and closed his eyes. “If you two don’t disturb the peace and quiet.”

  Silas chuckled, and went to unpack his clothes.

  Chapter 2

  An hour later, Silas led the way out onto the darkened streets of the small town. Behind him, Darien— still too thin after his long ordeal with his own ghosts— shivered despite the warm coat Silas had bought him. Silas considered telling him to stay home after all and go to bed like a sensible person, but it would probably work as well as it had the last two times.

  At their feet, Grim hissed and danced his paws on the ice. “Pick me up, young apprentice. You wanted to be useful.”

  “Not as a pack mule for a cat,” Darien muttered, but he bent and scooped Grim up, letting the big cat drape himself like an oversized fur stole around Darien’s neck.

  Probably warmer for Darien too. Silas gave Grim a subtle nod.

  The mental hospital was a fifteen-minute walk across town from the boarding house. They could have driven, but Silas wanted to get a feel for the place. As they strode the quiet streets, he sent out a questing spell, hunting ghosts. His search slipped fingers of power under doors and through the cracks around windows, tasting the air for that power signature of the dead or the possessed. Far too often, the strands of his search web quivered with a find. Here, and here, and here.

  “This town is lousy with ghosts,” he murmured to Grim. Then said louder to Darien, “Your shields are solid, right?”

  A flicker of gold appeared around Darien and Grim yipped and leaped down. “Thanks boss, way to scare the kid.”

  “I wasn’t scared,” Darien denied. “Just showing him they’re up. Sorry. I’ve pulled them in.” He bent to reach for Grim, who dodged.

  “Never mind. I can walk from here.” Grim stalked ahead of them.

  Darien whispered, “Did I hurt him?”

  “I can hear you,” Grim called over his shoulder. “And no. I’m not that fragile. You just got bumpy.”

  “Bumpy,” Silas repeated, because Darien still looked worried in the harsh glare of the streetlight. “I see more shield practice in your future, apprentice.”

  Darien kicked at his ankle. “My shields are better than yours already.”

  Silas snorted but didn’t deny it. Other than a real problem with pulling his shields under his skin, Darien had taken to the exercises like a duck to water. For which I’m eternally grateful.

  He spotted the driveway to the hospital up ahead. “Here we are. He gave me the numbers for the lock.” The big iron gates had some kind of electric lock on them, but there was a human-sized gate in the brick wall with a padlock that opened to his touch. He let them though and relocked it.

  Darien shivered. “They keep people locked in here?”

  “For their own safety, I imagine.” Silas couldn’t deny the thought of being locked away behind the high wall and iron bars was not appealing. How often in the past were folks with talent imprisoned for being unnatural?

  Darien said, “Didn’t they used to consider people like us crazy? I vaguely remember…” His voice trailed off.

  “Yes. But these days they’re mostly amused by us, and the Guild tries to keep unbalanced sorcerers somewhere safer than this.” Safer for everyone. Silas led the way to the side door as instructed. “Here we are.” He rang the bell.

  Grim faded back into the darkness under the shrubbery. “I’ll wander around. Check things out.”

  Silas gave him a little wave behind his back as the door opened.

  The man standing there was portly and imposing, with muttonchop whiskers that belonged to another era and a pristine white coat over a dark suit. He eyed Silas down his nose. “Are you the necromancer?” he said in the tone he might’ve used for Are you the rat catcher?

  It was tempting to call a ball of power to dazzle him, or have Darien shove him with his shields. Just a little. But the price of remaining unmolested as practitioners was seeming minor and harmless, so Silas just nodded. “That’s me.” He didn’t give the man his name or his hand.

  “I’m Dr. Cole.” After another long perusal that seemed to judge the cut of Silas’s coat and the price of his shoes, the man stepped back. “I suppose you’d better come in.”

  They followed the man down a polished hallway smelling strongly of disinfectant, to a paneled office. He sat down behind the big desk but didn’t invite them to sit. “So. Necromancer and… assistant?”

  Silas inclined his head.

  “You understand, I’m dubious about what you’ll be able to do for us. All that magic stuff is so… frivolous and overblown. But my employee
s are certain the place is haunted. We had to move all the patients out of the top floor West, because the cleaning staff would not go up there to tend the rooms.”

  “Sounds like a good place for me to start, then.”

  “I suppose so. Yes.” Dr. Cole gave them another slow look. “We asked that local fellow, Pasternak, a month ago, but he never found the time. Your employer suggested he’d send someone better.” The little drawl of the word “better” in Cole’s mouth suggested he doubted that applied to Silas.

  Employer. Hah. But that mundanity was part of the Great Spell too.

  Darien took breath as if to argue on Silas’s behalf, and Silas stepped on his toes, saying “The proof of my skill will be in the results, will it not? Tell me what’s been happening.”

  Cole’s lip twisted. “Some foolishness. I don’t know any details. Noises and such. The staff are a bunch of nervous nellies, jumping at the least odd sound.”

  “Only noises?”

  Cole shrugged. “I didn’t concern myself with the details. I’m expecting you to take care of it, so we can get our essential work done again without all this superstition. That’s what you promise in return for your fee, correct?”

  “It’s what I’m here for,” Silas agreed. “Would you show us the way?”

  “I’ll call someone.” The doctor touched a button on his desk. No sound was heard, but a moment later the door opened and a young woman in a cap and apron popped her head around the edge.

  “You called, Doctor?”

  “Yes. Nancy, show these gentlemen to third floor West.”

  Silas noted that the woman swallowed and her eyes widened, but she dipped her head. “Yes, Doctor.”

  Cole flapped his hand at them. “Off with you, then. Show me what you can do.”

  Silas was just as pleased Cole didn’t want to come along. He seemed like the type who’d try to kibitz. Maybe he was more spooked by the ghosts than he wanted to let on. “I’ll let you know when we’re done.”

  Nancy led them toward a flight of narrow stairs and on up. At the second landing she paused and gestured. “One more flight up, sirs. Then West is to your left.”

  “Thank you.” Silas paused. “Can you tell me a bit about what’s going on? Doctor Cole was rather vague about it all.”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t say.” She looked away.

  Darien said in a warm tone, “Help a fellow out, would you? The doctor called my boss here to come in and take care of things, but all he would say was ‘some foolishness.’ That’s not much to go on.”

  She turned to Darien. “Oh, well, if it would help.”

  “It sure would.”

  She wrung her hands, twisting her apron between her fingers. “It started with noises. People crying, from rooms we knew was empty. Thumps, like, in the hall behind us, and we’d turn and there was no one there.”

  “Sounds scary.”

  “I guess. I mean, this place has been here a long time. Stands to reason there might be a ghost or two. But this was more. It started… throwing things.”

  “Really?” Darien sounded intrigued. “What things?”

  “A nurse said it threw a bedpan at her head, when she’d just set it on the table a moment. And the man in that room was catatonic. Sure bet he didn’t do it. My friend that cleans the floors said it knocked over his bucket. Flooded the floor, and he was ten feet from it. Couldn’t be an accident.”

  Silas said, “Has it hurt anyone?” Poltergeists were unusual, but not rare. Most were harmless. Some weren’t.

  She eyed him, seeming more wary of him than Darien. “No, sir. Not to speak of. One of the aides said it tangled her feet with a blanket and she fell, but she barely bruised a knee.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nancy glanced up the stair. “Can you really get rid of it? You don’t need me no more, do you?”

  “I hope I can,” Silas said. “And no, thank you. We can take it from here.”

  She flashed another anxious look up the next flight, bobbed her head at each of them, and hurried off down the staircase.

  Darien said quietly, “Do you believe her?”

  “Oh yes. That’s not an unusual poltergeist pattern. Noises first, objects later.” He turned for the stairs. “Shields up, now. Come on.” He could see the gold glint of Darien’s powered shields out of the corner of his eye as they climbed.

  At the top, the door opened into a dark hallway. He called a ball of light in his palm instead of flicking on the switch. “Ghosts don’t like bright light. It doesn’t hurt them, but it tends to drive them away. For some reason, poltergeists are less sensitive, but I want to see what we have here.”

  He could hear Darien swallow. “You think it’s more than one?”

  “There’s a good possibility.” He led the way to the middle of the hallway and turned in a circle, sending his search spell out. Ping, ping, here, here, here. “In fact, it’s a certainty.”

  “What happens now.” Darien lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you have to bring them to the River one by one?”

  “Yes. But for a free ghost, it’s a quick process.” Usually. “If any of them have possessed a patient, that’s going to be a bit more work.”

  He’d felt Grim approaching through the strands of his seeking spell so only Darien jumped when Grim said out of the darkness, “This place stinks of death.”

  “Don’t do that,” Darien muttered.

  “Do what? Walk like a cat?” Grim head-butted Darien’s shins in a friendly way. “There’s a scullery window ajar on the ground floor, if we need a fast exit.”

  “Good to know.” Silas dug in his pocket for his chalks. “Time to get to work.”

  He chalked a simple circle, without the lock. “Darien, keep your shields up and tight. I’m going to start luring them in and sending them on. Keep an eye out for anything moving.”

  “Will I be able to see the ghosts?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s at least one poltergeist. I’m doing this out here in the hallway where there’s nothing for it to throw, but it might drag an object closer. Sing out if you see something.” Carefully, he thinned his own shields down to let some of his power shine through. Here, ghosts. Tasty food for you. Come to papa.

  The first spirit to approach barely twitched the strands of his searching net, its energy faint and spent. It crept close, nosing at his scent, and when he grabbed it, he couldn’t even tell whether it had once been man, woman, or child. With his other hand he scrawled the circle’s lock, took a breath, and pulled it down with him to the River. Washing it clean was the work of a moment, and the breath of power that sparkled across his skin in return was barely more than it cost him to bring it there.

  He made his way back to his circle and caught Darien staring at him. “What?”

  “It’s just odd, when you do that. The way you leave your body somehow, and go… elsewhere.” Darien shivered. “It makes you look vulnerable.”

  “To a degree, I am.” Silas reached out and erased the lock, taking down his outer wall. “That’s why I work in a circle for this. My shields go with me, to whatever Otherworld I’m in. So I need a wall to protect me from magical attack here. And Grim watches my back while I’m busy.”

  “What am I? Chopped liver?” Darien frowned, sounding… something. Frustrated, angry, worried? Silas couldn’t parse his tone. “We could’ve spent the car ride here talking logistics, instead of you letting me rattle on about my last few years and take naps.”

  I like knowing things about you. Hearing about Darien’s father ignoring him over in France, and about his college studies, helped him understand his man. “You needed the sleep. You’re still getting your strength back.” He held up a hand to forestall Darien’s justifiable grimace. “No, you’re right. But now’s not the time for a lesson. You can help me by keeping an eye out for people, or that poltergeist. As a necromancer, my circle spells are effective protection from ghosts and demons and power attacks, but won’t stop a flung bedpan.”

/>   “Right. Bedpans.” Darien folded his arms. “When we’re done here, you’re going to give me a lot more information.”

  “Absolutely. I hadn’t expected to bring you along—” He cut off, as Darien’s face darkened. “All right. Ghosts first, though.”

  This time, when he thinned his shields, he felt not just one but several spirits moving toward him, like a phalanx of moths to his flame. Why are there so many? To be sure, dying in a mental hospital might be trauma enough to make some resist crossing over, but he could feel a dozen or more, many of them strong and new.

  He fell into a rhythm. Call, grab, close, transport, wash away, absorb, return, repeat. The thrum of power built as he worked, like a battery charging. Most of the ghosts screamed or fought him, when he took them to the River, as if crossing terrified them. For many, there was an odd similarity to their pain, a dark empty space that they tried to run from in terror, a hunger that they feared. He was combing the last of a very clingy one from his fingers into the River when he heard Darien call distantly, “Silas. Silas!”

  Expending a little power, he pushed the ghost into the River and hurried back home, barging through the fog between the worlds as fast as he could. He broke through into his circle, dragging a breath into his body, and glanced around. There was a thump behind him, and he whirled to see Darien knock aside the broken leg of a chair, brandished in the air by a tall, skeletal woman with long blond hair. No, not woman, ghost.

  She was so dense, so well formed to his Othersight, that for a moment he’d mistaken her, but her arms and legs stretched and deformed in nonhuman ways. He wondered what Darien saw. With a swipe he took down his circle and called a thread of power. “Stop!” He used the power as a whip, snagging her wrist as she raised the chair leg. His power couldn’t touch the object, but she was his to handle. He yanked and she dropped the leg and whirled to look at him.

  “Be still.” He pushed power into the command. It held her, but only just. She wavered, fighting to move, although whether to charge him or run away he wasn’t sure.