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by Kaje Harper

Silas set his hands on Darien’s shoulders. “Your shields and mine. Let’s try to bring them up together in a dome. On three. One, two, three!”

  He’d had his shields low in his skin. Now he opened them out, powered up, aiming for the dome shape Darien liked. But between them, his shields met Darien’s gold, fizzing and sparking. The repulsion pushed them apart, lifting his hands off Darien.

  “Stop. Pull in. On two. One, two!” He pulled his shields to skin first, and staggered back a couple of steps at the punch from Darien’s against him.

  “Sorry—” Darien stepped away and flared his shields out in an arc, like a glowing cape snapped at the ghoul as it rushed them.

  Silas grabbed the shade and swung, putting his body between her and the ghoul and throwing a new shield wall up around both of them. The ghoul ripped through it as if it were paper and hit his body, bouncing off with an undulating cry. He felt it again, that unclean sucking inside him at the source of his power, and tried to punch inside himself, the rune for off infused with acid green. That sucking sensation dragged at the rune, tattering it, but then eased as the ghoul whirled away.

  “Are you okay?” Darien grabbed his arm. “What did you do?”

  “Tried a power punch. It didn’t really work.” The ghoul had only gone as far as the River’s bank and now it was circling back.

  Silas put Edwina Barstow’s shade behind him again. “Jasper? Any ideas?”

  “Can you shape your shields like Darien did? That was new.”

  “No.” Silas didn’t know how Darien did that stuff. I should’ve asked, should’ve learned instead of just teaching him.

  The ghoul approached, but at least it was moving more slowly this time. There was a hesitancy that suggested it was unsure. Probably not used to having anyone deny it a meal.

  Jasper said, “How about one inside the other? Silas inside Darien’s shields, since Darien can shape his.”

  “What do I do?” Darien asked.

  Silas desperately wanted a better idea, but there was no time. “Drop your shields for a second. Let me get close, then throw them up around us both if you can. If you can’t, shield yourself again.”

  “Come at me.” Darien held out a hand.

  Silas dropped his own shield, leaped two steps dragging the shade by its wrist, and took Darien’s hand. Then around them, the gold of Darien’s dome rose thick and bright.

  For an instant, heat and joy and surprise ran through Silas, as if those shields were liquid gold in his veins. Putting a circle around someone else was standard, but personal shields were your own. No one got inside them. But here they were… He tried to throw up his own dome inside Darien’s. For a second his power resisted, wanting to force the unfamiliar magic outside it. Then it yielded partway, doming him, tossing the shade away and separating his hand from Darien’s.

  “Ouch.” Darien shook out his fingers.

  Silas had no time to apologize. The ghoul swept closer, hands reaching toward Edwina Barstow. Silas leaped to get between them, pushing as close to Darien’s shield as he could, until the green of his own flickered along an interface and merged in a glowing disc of chartreuse. As the ghoul approached he slid along the perimeter of Darien’s dome, keeping that yellow-green fusion spot between them.

  The ghoul suddenly rushed them. Silas leaped left, keeping their fused spot in its way. It hit the mingled forcepoint and fell backward.

  Darien cheered, his voice thin and bright. “Hell, yeah.”

  The ghoul tried again, whipping around the perimeter to come at a different angle. Silas was able to get there and impose the chartreuse melding between it and Edwina’s shade. The ghoul bounced off and retreated again.

  Darien laughed. “Take that, you soul-eater. I can do this all day.”

  Jasper called softly, “Do you think we can find a way to trap it? Or will we settle for driving it away?”

  “Trapping would be good.” Silas circled inside the dome as it circled outside. “Darien, can you move us closer to the River? A step at a time.”

  “Got it.” The dome around them shifted left as Darien took a step. Silas slid with it.

  The ghoul shrieked, all its mouths opening. Silas felt more than heard the sound, but Edwina’s shade screamed, and he heard Jasper shout something. The ghoul rushed them, pushing in and sliding sideways. He managed to stick with it, keeping that vital piece of barrier in front of it step after step as it circled, shoved, probing with all those hands, backed off, darted around and shoved again.

  Silas gritted his teeth, struggling to hold his own. It wasn’t much of a power drain. Of everything a sorcerer did, personal shields were the most natural. But it required finding a physical balance point over and over, like wrestling or judo, and Silas had never been an athlete.

  The ghoul whirled away and circled them. Darien said, “Let’s get closer to the River, right?”

  “Makes sense.” The River could be the end of the line for both shade and ghoul.

  “Running on three. One, two, three—” On the last word, Darien broke for the River in a jog, shifting the dome with him.

  Silas kept pace a dozen steps, using his shield to push Edwina’s shade which seemed to be half-paralyzed, staggering slowly. He hit the back of Darien’s shield wall. “Stop.”

  The dome steadied, just in time as the ghoul swept down on them again. Silas tried to guess the point of impact and miscalculated. One of the ghoul’s hands shot through Darien’s dome and latched on to the arm of Edwina’s shade.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Silas sucked down his own power to reinforce a tall disc, pressing it to Darien’s and slipping it in front of the shade, not caring that it left his back unprotected. Darien had his back anyway. The chartreuse interface of power tweaked the ghoul’s arm sideways, and seemed to trap it, thinned to a thread and bent at an unnatural angle. The ghoul shrieked, voice raising the hairs on Silas’s neck, and tried to pull free, but it wouldn’t let go of the shade, and Silas’s power melded with Darien’s held it there.

  “Jesus,” Darien breathed. “Did we get it?”

  “I think so.” Silas leaned into his power disc, and reached over to grab Edwina’s free hand, pulling her closer to him, sharpening the angle of the ghoul’s arm. “I think it’s trapped.”

  “Now what?”

  Jasper appeared behind the ghoul, with the two familiars at his heels. “Fascinating. Look at that thing.” He bent as if to peer at the ghoul’s underside.

  “Some help here?” Darien asked, tension in his voice. “Suggestions?”

  Jasper walked up to the back of the ghoul and pushed at it with his personal shield. Well, at least he’s no coward. The ghoul’s bulk passed through the blue shield and Jasper jumped back with a swear word under his breath. Yeah, no fun being defenseless, is it?

  He walked left, checking out the ghoul’s trapped arm with his head cocked, and said, “Maybe you can walk it to the River that way, nice and slow?”

  “Maybe,” Darien said. “Silas?”

  “I don’t have a better idea. Extremely slowly, though. A glacial pace. If I slip this pressure the slightest bit, it’ll get free.”

  “A step at a time, then. Six-inch steps.” Darien glanced toward the River. “You call it, one by one.”

  The ghoul began fighting harder, wind whipping around its lower half. The dead meat stink grew stronger and its shrieking hit supersonic. Silas wondered if that meant it had enough intelligence to understand what they said. He hoped not. “Right. On the count of three, six inches toward the river. One, two, three—”

  The pressure against Silas’s shield shifted, but he was ready for it, going with it, and when they’d taken that step the ghoul was still pinned by the arm. He leaned on his power, pushing deeper into Darien’s, the chartreuse expanding. Take that, you foul thing. “Again. One, two, three—”

  Step by step, they dragged the ghoul toward the River. Twice they had to stop and regroup, when a boulder made moving together impossible. Jasper and the familiars walk
ed with them, behind the ghoul. Silas’s head began aching, and his shoulder throbbed. He probably didn’t need to shove his body into the shield but he didn’t trust his intent to translate without that. His fingers cramped around Edwina’s wrist. At least the shade wasn’t fighting him, gliding where he pulled her with no resistance, eyes fixed on the sparkling water ahead, but the ghoul kept up a frenzied resistance.

  Smaller pebbles crunched underfoot as they neared the shore. The ground became smoother and more level. Edwina suddenly said, “That’s where I’m going,” and made a lunge toward the water. Her arm stretched in Silas’s grip, for the first time warping out of human shape, and her other arm thinned in the ghoul’s grasp. Silas threw more power to his shield in panic, but the ghoul clamped down instead of letting go, and he still had it trapped.

  “Wait,” He told Edwina. “A few more minutes. We’ll get you there.”

  Jasper said, “Your shield wall’s at the water. If you rotate now, you can drag it in.”

  Darien laughed, a little manic. “Like occult dance lessons. Now we will pivot to the right.”

  “Like we’ve been doing,” Silas said. “Rotate clockwise, six inches, on three.”

  “You probably have to do more than get its feet wet,” Grim said. “Might have to go deeper.”

  “Let’s see what happens when we get it there first.” Silas couldn’t help hoping that the touch of the River might be enough to leach its power.

  They rotated, step by step, the quarter turn it took to bring Silas, ghoul, and shade to the water’s edge. The shade shivered and tugged at Silas. “Let me go.”

  “Not yet. It’s still out there.” The ghoul was plastered up against the yellow-green power that held it. Its mouths worked obscenely over the surface as if trying to break through. He wasn’t sure if it was less horrible or more, that they were filled with very human teeth and tongues. The untrapped hands shoved and clawed at the surface and its dark bulk was pressed against the bottom of the shield in a thin line.

  “It’s trying to touch as little of the water as possible,” Jasper said. “Can you push it deeper?”

  Can we? Silas wasn’t sure how their magic would hold, out over that silver water. And for all that he’d slid a hand into the silky surface many, many times, he really didn’t want to wade in it. The beat of the River’s call was strong enough here to make itself felt, even past the tension and fear of dealing with the ghoul. Do we have a choice?

  “One step at a time,” he told Darien. “I’m not sure how this will go.”

  “Is it safe for you to wade in there?” Darien asked. “I can feel it calling.”

  “Safer for me than you.” He at least knew the River and its power and its moods. “Make sure you stay out. Let’s try one step. One, two—”

  On three he drove against the ghoul, forcing it past the brink, and stepped into that shining water. Then the bank gave out from under him, and he sank hip deep. Edwina’s shade shouted, “Roger!” on a piercing note of joy, and yanked forward with stunning strength, forging against Darien’s golden power, dragging Silas with her. His fingers felt fused on her arm. His shield belled out with Darien’s, and the raging ghoul was shoved into the water with them.

  Silver splashed around him. They were a foot from the bank and it shouldn’t have been this deep but the water sucked at them, slippery and silky and somehow not wet but oily, ungraspable. He couldn’t find footing and his body went under. Something pulled on his arm, something else grabbed his shoulder. He felt a chill weight forcing him out into the depths, sinking him below the surface.

  The reek of the ghoul filled his nose as he went under. He held his breath and kicked with all his strength, flailing his free arm. I know how to swim, damn it. The fact this was the River was a panicky thought in the back of his head. It wasn’t water, didn’t respond like water. The slick flow of it barely resisted his movements at all. Must get to the bank. Which way is the bank?

  His head broke the surface for a moment. He heard voices screaming his name, but had time for just one gasp of air before the reeking weight of the ghoul settled over him, forcing him under as he clutched random handfuls of something. Darien, Grim, I’m sorry. His last thought was that he damned well hoped he was taking the ghoul with him, before the black spots in his eyesight took over his whole world.

  Chapter 8

  Darien ran along the bank of the River. Shit! Shit! Silas! It had been working like a charm, and then everything crumbled to hell. They’d dropped out from under his shields into the damned River. Ten yards from shore now, Silas’s dark head rose above the water, glistening with silvered drops. “This way!” Darien screamed. “Silas!”

  The dark form of the ghoul exploded from the water beside Silas and settled on him, and they both sank out of sight.

  “No!” Darien plunged for the water, kicking off his shoes. Something soft and bulky slammed against his knees and he fell, scraping his hands on the pebbles. He tried to keep his eyes on the spot where Silas went down, as he scrambled to regain his feet. “Grim. Fuck! Get out of my way.”

  “No.” Grim tackled him, claws digging into his thighs, then leaped to his shoulders. “You can’t go in there. You won’t last a minute.”

  “Silas is drowning!” The words ripped a hole in his chest, and he could hardly breathe.

  “I know!” Grim’s eyes glowed green and his voice shook for the first time Darien could remember. “But he’s a necromancer. He has a fighting chance. You don’t. That’s not water.”

  “But—”

  Jasper panted up beside him and grabbed his arm. “The familiar’s right. The River would take you.”

  “It took Si-ilas.” His voice cracked and broke. Let me go! Let me help!

  “Look!” Pip bounced against his knee. “Look there!”

  Darien rubbed his eyes. At first, he couldn’t make out anything against the bright silver waves, but then he saw a dark something break the surface out in midstream. “Silas!” He screamed it as loud as he could. “Over here!”

  The dark blob, if it was Silas, didn’t seem to be swimming, just gliding. It moved steadily away, smoothly, without a splash, toward the farther shore.

  “Fuck. Is that the ghoul?”

  Pip had his nose tipped up, nostrils working. “It’s Silas. It is. I smell him.”

  “Can we throw him something?” Darien looked around frantically. What kind of moron goes on an adventure to a river without a rope? Me, that’s who. “My shirt and yours, Jasper, maybe in strips—” It didn’t take a seamstress to know there weren’t ten yards of fabric in every stitch the two of them were wearing. Let alone how far away Silas was now. “Magic. Can you make a rope? You made a bridge. Silas does whips.”

  “I don’t—” Jasper tugged at his hair, staring at the receding blob of Silas’s hair. “Not ropes. The bridge takes runes.”

  “Look!” Grim said, leaning over the water’s edge.

  At the far shore, a figure rose out of the River. Edwina Barstow stood up, liquid silver gilding every inch of the nightgown she wore and running in rivulets from her hair. Bending down, she dragged Silas’s limp, soaked form from the water and laid him on the ground. She turned and for an instant looked across the water at them. One hand rose in a wave. Then she leaped for the river, a dive that became something else as her body shimmered and shifted, merging with the water as she hit it. The waves rippled on, undisturbed.

  “Silas!” Darien shouted as loud as he could, unable to take his eyes off the still figure on the distant shore. “Silas! Wake up, damn it!”

  “I can’t smell him,” Pip said at his feet. “Is he alive?”

  Grim said, “I think so. If he was dead, I’d know.”

  “Jesus.” Relief hit Darien so hard he sat right down on his ass on the rocks. Idiot. He scrambled back up. Not rubbing my eyes. Not tearing up so hard everything is blurry. Not. He scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hands and sucked in a long breath. Thank God he’s alive, but we’re not home fr
ee yet. “So how do we get him? Is there a bridge?” It felt like a stupid question, but he was grasping for straws.

  “I’ve never heard of a bridge over the River,” Jasper said. “And I read a lot of lore.”

  “No bridge,” Grim said. “At least none I’ve seen or heard of, and I’ve followed more than one necromancer down here.”

  “So what’s that far shore?” Darien asked. “Is it like this one? Could we maybe get there from the real world?”

  “It’s death,” Grim said, pacing back and forth at the water’s edge. “Or so one of my partners used to say. A mirror held up to this world, reflected across the river, where time runs differently and life doesn’t exist.”

  “But Silas is over there, and he’s not dead, so they must be wrong.” Darien stared hard at Silas’s unmoving form. Don’t end up dead, damn you, Silas. Don’t you dare leave me.

  “Necromancers can survive an absence of life longer than most. It’s how they can catch ghosts with their bare hands. But he feels—” Grim tilted his head as if listening to a voice inside. “—weaker already.”

  “We have to get him back here. Clearly.” Darien tugged at his hair. “No bridge. No boat. What about if we braided our clothes in a rope and I tried to swim across.”

  Grim and Jasper said “No” at the same moment. Jasper continued, “Diving into the River is suicide.”

  Grim added, “It would call you, lull you. You’d never make it halfway across before you stopped fighting it.”

  Darien wanted to say he could fight anything, for Silas’s sake, but the song of the river was heavy in the air. He could smell mown grass and coconut suntan lotion. Despite how afraid he was, his heartbeat had slowed to match the creak of rope swings on a lazy afternoon. “So no swimming.”

  “Maybe I could Fetch him,” Pip said. “I can try.”

  Darien’s heart leaped in hope. He knelt beside the little dog. “Yes, try. Can I do anything? Give you power?”

  Pip bumped his head against Darien’s wrist. “Put your hand on my head.”

  Darien did so, and felt Pip’s livewire tension steady and still under his touch.