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by Kaje Harper

  That didn’t sound like the kind of person who’d frighten dying men into ghosts, but one never knew. “We should get his take on the situation.”

  “I’ll give him a call,” she said. “Ask him to stop by.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to put him to the trouble.” Silas wanted a sniff around the man’s house, just in case. “Can you give me his address?”

  She raised an eyebrow, but just then Pip came scrambling into the kitchen, with Grim stalking behind him. Pip ran up to Darien. “You’re here! I was good a long time. I learned stuff. Oh, oops.” He sniffed at Clarice. “Oh good, you’re magic too. So I can talk. Are we going somewhere? For a run, maybe?”

  Clarice’s smile was back. “Who is this scamp? I only saw Sir Cat when you checked in.”

  Darien scooped Pip up, grinning as the pup licked his chin. Silas bit back a totally unworthy flush of jealousy. I don’t get to kiss him in public. No matter how accepting Clarice might be. Darien’s voice rang with pride. “This is my familiar.”

  I guess we really are stuck with the pup. “Pip’s with Darien, Grim’s with me.”

  Grim’s lip curled at being casually linked together, but he just said, “So, O Necromancer. What are our plans now?”

  “We’re going to visit the one other local sorcerer. If Clarice will give us his address?”

  He wasn’t sure if it was his most winsome smile, or the furry familiars, but she sighed. “I’ll call him first, and if he’s okay with it, I’ll pass that information along.”

  “Now?” He had a prickling sense that time was of the essence and he’d learned not to ignore his hunches.

  Jasper was apparently not averse to visitors, so half an hour later found the four of them pulling into the driveway of a somewhat isolated small house. The arched shape of a barn loomed beside it. When they got out of the car, a tall man with a mop of silver-frosted hair came bustling out of the front door to meet them.

  “Hello, hello. We don’t get many visitors in these parts. Welcome.”

  Grimalkin said, “Greetings. Is it all right if I take the pup here for a run? You have lovely fields, no doubt full of mice.”

  The man went to one knee, despite the chill of the ground. “Greetings to you too. Yes, hunt with my blessings. Although perhaps you’ll spare the songbirds?”

  “It’s the wrong season anyway,” Grim muttered, just clear enough for Silas to make out. Then louder, “Come along, pup. That was twenty minutes of fidgeting. You need something to settle you.”

  Pip bounced up and down. “Hi Jasper. You are Jasper? I’m Pip. I’m his. Darien’s. Can we hunt? I’ve never, but I think it might be fun. Is that okay, Darien?”

  The man laughed over the top of Grim’s long-suffering sigh. “Yes, I’m Jasper. Hello.”

  Darien smiled too. “Go on, have fun. Listen to Grim.”

  “Smartest thing the boy’s said in a week,” Grim huffed. “Come along, puppy.”

  They watched as the two familiars set off for the fields at a brisk pace, Pip half Grim’s size, his tail whipping back and forth as he ran. Silas turned back to Jasper. “Thanks for seeing us. I’m Silas Thornwood, necromancer, and this is Darien Green.” He wanted to add, “my apprentice” or “my student” or just “mine” but managed not to.

  “Jasper Jones.” The man looked them over. “Why don’t you come on in? It’s cold out here.”

  Jasper touched his doorframe to let them through his house wards. Silas took in the flavor of them as he passed. Competent spellmaking, low power, no brimstone. They were led to a shabby but comfortable parlor, divested of their coats, and urged to sit. “Can I bring you some tea? Or coffee? It’s too early for the brandy, more’s the pity.”

  Silas said, “Not for me,” and Darien shook his head.

  Jasper settled in a tall armchair. “What can I do for you folks? Clarice was uncharacteristically brief when she called.”

  “She said you’d noticed the plethora of ghosts locally? That you’d told your local Guild?”

  “Yes. Are you here to do something about them?”

  “I’ve already begun. But the number of them is all out of proportion. How long have you lived here? Has it always been that way locally?”

  Jasper steepled his fingers, tapping his lips with them. “You know, I’d say it was just this last… year? Maybe two. I’ve lived here for three years, since I left academia. I’m not the most observant fellow, but the stories about hauntings and poltergeists didn’t make an impression on me until lately.”

  “Where, other than the mental hospital, are those stories coming from?”

  “Just… general talk. There are a lot of older houses around here, but suddenly normal folk say they think Grandma is walking the upstairs hall, or they hear crying in the night. I’m a sorcerer, so I’m not tuned to the energy of ghosts, but I did encounter a poltergeist myself, in the bakery. I like the cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven.” The man flushed.

  Silas wondered if it was his liking for sweet pastries or something else that had brought up that color. Remember it later. “Tell us what happened.”

  “I sometimes wander there early in the morning, before dawn, and the baker lets me in for an early sample. A month ago, he confided that he was convinced the kitchen was haunted. And something toppled a whole stack of pie tins off a high shelf as I passed.”

  “You think it was a ’geist?”

  “There was no hint of a spell I could detect. No earth tremor. No passing truck. And the baker’s stories of his experiences were convincing to me.” Another touch of color rose on his cheekbones.

  Jasper and the baker? Of course, there could be several other explanations. Silas hoped it was something else, because a gay man who couldn’t hide better than that was badly vulnerable. “What did you do after he told you?”

  “I called Pasternak, naturally, but he never showed up. So I secretly laid a bit of a ward around the kitchen, to keep unbodied energies out. The baker told me he hasn’t been afflicted since then.”

  “Interesting.” Sorcerers could shield from ghosts, of course, even if they couldn’t truly see or remove them. “Did he have a guess who it was?”

  “He thought perhaps an uncle who died in the First World War, and was offended by a nephew who came in insulting our military and our advisers in Vietnam. He himself was a bit offended, but fed the young man because he’s his sister’s child. The hauntings began after that.”

  “Hmm.” In Silas’s experience, ghosts were rarely quiescent for decades before suddenly becoming active. The offenses that triggered them were usually tied to their own lives, not opinions of some petty squabble in Asia forty years later.

  Darien asked, “Where would the poltergeist go, if it was barred from the bakery?”

  Silas nodded. “Good question. We should probably find out.” With a poltergeist’s retained intelligence and agency, it might be able to tell them something. “Jasper, can you think of any reason for your local dead to start failing to cross the Veil? Have you noticed anything fearful, any hint of a demon or a dark sorcerer who might be terrifying the dying?”

  “Good lord, no. We’re a quiet place. No disturbances.”

  “Anyone new move to town?”

  “Well, I’m sure there have been a few. We’re not so small as that. But no one with power that I know of.”

  The sorcerer’s face and manner seemed open and honest. Then again, Silas was innately suspicious. “What brought you to a place like this?”

  “Privacy.” Jasper took the sting out of that with a chuckle. “I’m a writer now by trade, historical stuff mostly, and I also have my runecraft experiments. I need space for those.”

  “Runecraft?” Darien sounded fascinated. “Experiments?”

  “Why, yes. Would you like to see? It’s something quite unusual. I can tell you’ve a lot of power to you. I think you might find this fascinating.” Jasper leaned closer to Darien, smiling at him.

  He’s mine. All mine. Silas forced himsel
f to push aside the crazy feeling that Jasper was moving in on Darien. He’s in his forties, and probably not interested in men. Despite that blush when he mentioned the baker… He’s not flirting, he just sees that power glow that Darien has. Silas realized he didn’t want anyone else coveting Darien that way either. He forced enthusiasm into his voice. “I’m always interested to see new work.”

  A look of irritation from Darien made him realize he’d answered for himself, without being asked. “We are. I mean, I’m sure Darien would be curious. Right?” He turned to Darien with raised brows. See, I’m asking your opinion.

  Darien let him hang there a moment before saying to Jasper, “Yeah, that’d be neat.”

  Jasper passed them their coats. “We have to go to the barn. Follow me.”

  As they crossed the frosted path from the back door of the house to the barn, Silas fought with his instinct to go ahead of Darien, to push him back and protect him. There could be a demon in there. Or his “work” could be collecting ghosts. Who knows? Although the odds were it’d be some new envisioning of a dusty old spell. Everything about Jasper screamed academic.

  As they neared the barn door, he glanced around for the familiars, not spotting Grim’s plumed tail or Pip’s whipping one above the cornfield stubble. He cast a brief seeking spell ahead of him, but the barn was well-shielded. Jasper pushed open the door and tapped out the barrier wards. “Come on in.”

  Silas sniffed hard as he crossed the threshold, not caring if it showed. No brimstone, just dust and a hint of ordinary smoke. He sought for ghosts again, but found none.

  Jasper snapped on a light. Immediately two small cats appeared out of the recesses of the barn. They wove around Jasper’s ankles, crying at him in the voices of felines expecting treats.

  “Are they your familiars?” Darien asked.

  “Oh no, just ordinary cats.” Jasper bent to rub their cheeks. “Good kitties. Yes, it’s treat time.” He turned to Darien, speaking eagerly. “Now watch this.”

  Silas bit his tongue, because his main reason to comment was irritation at being ignored. Being ignored is useful sometimes.

  Jasper climbed a short ladder against the wall and opened a jar on a high shelf. The cats milled at the base of the ladder, meowing imperiously. Jasper shook something from the jar into a shallow bowl, capped the jar, and set the bowl on the shelf. When he came down, the cats ignored him, eyes on that high place. “Now,” he said. “This is the fun part.”

  With a blue chalk, he scribbled runes in a long rectangle across the floor, leading to the wall. Then he stepped back and pushed power into the rune structure. It glowed blue, like a long plank of wood. Then as he pushed more power it began to rise on one end. The plank of power became a ramp, rising until the wall end reached the shelf where the bowl lay. The cats paced back and forth at the floor end of the ramp, voices raised.

  “Okay,” Jasper said, his voice only a little suffused by the power he was using. On command, the two cats ran up the plank to the shelf and arranged themselves on either side of the bowl, gnawing away happily.

  “You used power to make a structure,” Silas said, deeply impressed. Power was energy, it acted on matter, but it was hard to make it stable and rigid for very long. Easy for a sorcerer to push a cat away if it jumped at them— action and reaction. Far harder to offer one a stable walkway. That was some subtle runework.

  “Yes. That’s been done before, of course.” Jasper didn’t take his eyes off the structure. “This is the new part.”

  On the high shelf the cats were finishing, licking their whiskers. As they did, Jasper made a gesture at the ramp and scuffed the runes holding it.

  Silas was ready for anything, for the spell to collapse, for the cats to somehow get trapped in its fall, but not for the ramp to hang there, stable, glowing, as the two felines raced down to the floor. The moment they were off it, the ramp winked out. There was a little whoosh of dispelled vacuum, as if some actual object had vanished.

  Jasper sat down hard on the floor, but his eyes were bright. “Power to object, energy to matter.”

  “What?” Silas frowned. “That can’t be done.” Can it?

  “Why not?” Jasper ran a hand over his head, but didn’t try to stand. “In the nineteen-forties we proved that matter can be turned to energy. Why not the reverse?”

  Darien’s eyes widened. “You made a reverse atomic bomb?”

  Jasper’s laugh combined exhaustion and delight. “No. Although in the mundane world, that might be necessary. Think about all the energy produced by splitting one atom. If you needed that much to splice one together, there’s not enough energy outside the sun to make a dust mote. But magical energy is far more malleable.”

  Silas stared at him. “Do the Guild elders know what you’re working on?”

  “Oh, they think I’m a crackpot. Or figure it’ll kill me off. All that power loss.”

  Silas had a nasty thought, and peered at him. Did his hair look grayer, or was that the barn light? “Power loss. How old are you?”

  “Ah, well.” Jasper stared down at the barn floor for an instant. When he looked back up there was something defiant in his eyes. “I’ll… be forty soon enough.”

  He looks five years older. “How soon?”

  “Um. Eight years.”

  “You’re thirty-two?” Darien gasped, raising a hand to touch the silver hair at his own temple. “That’s—”

  “You’re draining yourself for your experiments?” Silas demanded.

  “Science requires sacrifices. Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning, but she left us a gift of vital knowledge, X-ray machines and more. What are a few years of life, compared to a whole new runescience?”

  Silas recognized the glow of academic fervor in Jasper’s eyes. But still— “Surely this work should be done at a proper school, with support staff to feed you energy so you don’t have to rob your own.”

  “I hope it will be. Soon. But I must have an excellent demonstration. Last time, when it was just a theory, they laughed at me.”

  Seeing the gangling, floppy-haired sorcerer sprawled on the floor while two cats plastered his shirt with hair, he could imagine it might be difficult to get the hidebound sorcerers at one of the few research schools interested.

  Darien knelt down. “Do you need power now? I don’t know how to do the transfer rune yet, but if you explain it, I could try.”

  Darien, don’t offer to feed this crazy man your power. As drained as Jasper was, he might suck Darien dry, in a fumbled first attempt. There’s so much I need to teach Darien.

  Jasper stared at Darien. “You don’t know how?”

  “I’m new to this.” Darien flushed in his turn. “I’m twenty-one.”

  “You?” Jasper reached toward Darien’s cheek. Silas sucked in a breath and didn’t smack his hand away. Darien’s a grown man. He has shields and sparks. Darien knows not to allow touch.

  But he was deeply relieved when Jasper lowered his hand and asked, “What did you do?”

  “Ghosts. A whole crowd of them,” Darien told him. His voice was steady, but Silas heard the dark echoes underneath.

  Something like sympathy crossed Jasper’s face.

  “Which brings us back to our current problem,” Silas said loudly. Stop staring in each other’s faces and focus. “Jasper, how long have you been doing these experiments?”

  “Well, three years. It’s what I came out here to have leisure to do. Although I’ve only progressed to untethering the spell the last six months. There was a ton of theory work first.”

  Six months? Have you looked in a mirror? But Silas needed to focus on the job at hand too. “Could something you’re doing be affecting how the local dead cross the Veil?”

  Jasper frowned. “I don’t see how. I’m no necromancer to walk the Veil, or Healer, to touch the sick and dying. Nothing I do is connected to an Otherworld.” An annoyingly attractive smile crossed his face. “And feeding stray cats doesn’t seem terrifying to me.”

 
; “Anyway, that’s not long enough,” Darien said, squinting up at Silas. “Half of those hospital ghosts died more than six months ago.”

  “I suppose.” He wanted to ask Jasper to create another plank, while he took a walk through the world veils to see if it penetrated them. If the sorcery reached the Riverbank maybe ghosts were returning that way? Or could it be blocking them from the River? But he couldn’t begin to imagine the power that would take. Deeply unlikely, especially if it had just been six months. He couldn’t ask the man to kill himself sooner to answer a hypothetical question.

  “Do you need help recovering?” Darien asked Jasper. “Can we get you anything?”

  The poor guy did look wiped out, and Silas was still bubbling with power from ghosts consumed. “I’m pretty powered up, from last night’s work. I’d transfer you a bit, if you trust me for it.” I can protect myself.

  Jasper managed a wry smile. “Will you be offended if I say that around a— what did you call it?— plethora of ghosts and a strange necromancer, I’m not quite prepared to do that. Thank you very much.”

  Silas could hardly blame him. Power transfer was a moment of vulnerability, and Jasper clearly had more brains than strength, if push came to shove.

  “You can trust Silas,” Darien protested. “I swear it.”

  Jasper pushed to his feet. “If I get desperate, I’ll keep that in mind.” He nudged at the cats, still circling his ankles. “That’s your snack for the day, fluff-heads. Go catch some nice mice.”

  Darien scrambled up too. “I’d love to hear more about how you do that. I have these ideas about shields, and how they can be distorted structurally—”

  Silas broke in before they could get going. That intellectual fervor in Darien’s eyes was familiar from the times his boy dove into the dusty tomes in the library back home; pulling him back out was never easy. “Once we have these ghosts figured out, you two should have time to chat.” He gave Jasper a dark look. Although if you convince Darien to spend one more mote of his life power on something stupid, I’ll fry your liver. Jasper recoiled, although probably without knowing why. Good.