The brick still stands, but every single window has been blown out, glass still littering the sidewalk below. The wide arched antique panes of glass now nothing but rubble. The brick stands tall, blackened with soot that still seems to smolder. I remember buying this old wreck of a building years ago. It took forever to restore it – make it new again.
And now it was nothing. The roof yawned wide with big gaping holes, the support beams sticking out like toothpicks into the night sky, blackened and charred. It feels as if a piece of me burned to ash right along with my building.
Too focused on what remains of my livelihood, I don’t notice the man behind me until he’s a little too close for my liking. Closing in fast, I’m not sure how I can feel him, but just knowing that I can sends a chill down my spine. But chill or no, it’s not like he gives me a head’s up before he strikes, all fangs and claws.
Sloppy.
Aidan taught me how to duck strikes the hard way, so this bumbling man is a bit easier to evade than, say, a Wraith Guardian. I duck him and quickly reassess that he might not be as unskilled as I originally thought. His flailing attack puts me right in the scope of another man I didn’t sense. A man whose touch is pure ice – so cold it seems to burn through the thin fabric of my shirt.
I want to scream but I can’t. All I feel is coldness, all I sense, all I see, is the frigid ice of my own torture. Then a wicked specter of a chuckle floats to me on the high winds of the rooftop. It’s a bitter, mocking sort of laugh I know well – even if the only place I hear it now is in my dreams.
The last time I heard it, I was in my house trying not to die.
Then the cold is gone, and my body wilts to the pebbled surface of the roof. It can’t be. My nightmares can’t be real. There is no way this can possibly be happening.
But it can, can’t it? I performed a break, now didn’t I? All those souls, hundreds, maybe thousands of souls trapped over the ages. Stuck in the putrid home of a bone dagger.
And I set them free.
I set him free.
Micah. Goode.
Had I known when I wielded it that the blade trapped souls, I’d like to think I wouldn’t have used it. I’d like to think I couldn’t be that cruel.
But I know what I’ve done in my past to men like him. I know what lives I’ve taken when there was no other way to survive. When it would save a life. When it would stop an evil.
I know – for Micah – I would always, will always pick up whatever weapon I could use to stop him. And maybe this is my comeuppance. My punishment for knowing such a horrible thing about myself, and refusing to stand down.
But Micah isn’t alive, I know that much. His body – such as it is – is only slightly opaque. The colors just on this side of gray, his flesh just on that side of sallow.
But he can touch me, hurt me, burn me.
And we both know it.
“Did you miss me, Maxima? I sure missed you.”
The hope I held that I wouldn’t hear his voice again crumbles to dust. I thought the laugh would be the worst of it, but noooooo.
This motherfucker has to be able to speak too. Micah Goode is proof positive that no good deed goes unpunished.
“Nope, I didn’t. I figured the knife in the chest would have been a big enough sign for you, Micah, but even from the fucking grave you want to torture me. What is it? My birthday? Are you the Hell gift that keeps on giving?” I ask trying to keep him talking long enough to grab the small vial of salt stashed in my duffle.
But just like in life, he intercepts me, latching onto my hand as his clumsy friend wraps his cold arms around me and squeezes.
“I think I might like this better, Maxima. I’m not hungry, I’m not thirsty, but I have a need, and that is to make you pay.”
In all the time I’ve walked this earth, I’ve never seen a spirit like this one. When souls aren’t claimed, when they aren’t sent on by a Phoenix to be reborn or a Wraith to writhe in the pits of Hell, it isn’t like they just stay with their bodies chilling in their graves until someone gets to them.
Ghosts move, but they aren’t aware. They don’t interact with us – not really. Some might follow their family, their loved ones. Some wander, searching for that one thing, that last piece of unfinished business.
But Micah… he’s aware. He knows who I am and how he died.
He is vengeful.
Spiteful.
And drawn to me.
The cold steals my breath, and in my desperation, I haltingly mutter the only spell I can think of. Exillium. Banishment.
Micah’s spirit doesn’t leave exactly, but the spell – as halting as it is – does push him back a few feet, his shoes solid enough to make twin trails in the graveled rooftop. The weaker specter, the one holding my arms, lets me go, and I fall.
And I don’t waste the scant opportunity I’ve found. I rip the zipper open on my duffle, finding the vial of salt and the rope dagger. I manage to pour a handful of salt in my palm and run the braided metal and twine rope through the grains. Salt in the rope, iron in the blade. I may not be able to banish or even kill Micah Goode.
But I can hurt him.
From my knees, I toss the dart. And miss. The blade sails past Micah, hitting nothing but air. But my wide shot isn’t without its virtues, because even though the dart misses, the rope finds Micah just fine.
His howl is uniquely satisfying, but my good fortune doesn’t last. I pay too much attention to Micah and forget his bumbling friend. He spins me so now I’m facing him, and for the first time I see why he might be so awkward.
Half his face is gone, his body burned and crippled in his mask of permanent death. He doesn’t speak, only moans his happiness as he burns me again and again with his icy clutches.
“Ex—exillium,” I whisper through the bitter pain, praying the spell works even for a second.
But I don’t get that second – not with two players in the game. The grotesque spirit lets me go, but Micah latches on, and even in death he got to keep his talons. And his fangs.
He strikes with both, cutting into my arms, his fangs piercing my neck, spilling my blood onto the rooftop, unable to drink it. He swallows again and again, but the blood falls through him, drip, drip, dripping.
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
I don’t realize I’ve said the words aloud, until his hand scores icy fire across my cheek.
“Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth, you stupid bitch!” he screams, dropping me back down to the rooftop as he rakes his hands through his hair. Even as a ghost, Micah sure is vain. In his frantic pacing, I manage to slip my hand behind my back, latching onto the handle, drawing the athame.
“Aww, wassa matter, Mikey?” I slur, the pain and blood loss seeping into my bones. “Can’t finish the job?”
He growls, ready to hit me again until I throw the athame. This time I actually hit my mark – even if it isn’t his heart where I aimed. True aim or not, the athame remains lodged in Micah’s belly, the silvery blood staining the blade when he draws it out.
“How many people have you killed that way? And now you can’t get the job done. Must sting a bit, huh, Mikey?”
Micah drops the athame, moving to rush me, but he stops so fast the pebbles beneath his specter feet skid. His eyes go wide before his mouth twists into a rueful sneer, and just like that, Micah Goode runs for his life… or his undeath, if you want to get technical.
I want to look behind me, but as dumb as it sounds, I’m just too scared. I don’t have much else in my grasp except for the rope dart, and honestly, I don’t think it will do much for whatever it is Micah would rather run from than take his shot to kill me.
Heavy footsteps fall, slow at first and then faster, and still I can’t make myself look. Squeezing my eyes tight I brace for the killing blow.
A killing blow that never comes.
Warm hands fall on me where cold ones once were, and I know exactly who scared Micah Goode into running.
Openin
g my eyes, I prove myself right.
Ian came for me.
Chapter Eleven
MAX
I want to ask Ian why Micah ran. Was it just because I had backup? Or was it something else? Something wholly Ian that made Micah run for the hills.
I know he’ll be back. I know Micah isn’t done with me. He has an eternity worth of time and nothing better to do. It might be time to ask Gramma how to banish a ghost.
Ian murmurs, “Salutaris.” Health, to heal. It’s a spell I’ve never been able to get to work on myself, but when Ian murmurs the faint Latin, I feel the blood start to clot on my neck. The working doesn’t close the wounds entirely, but at least the bleeding stops.
“Fancy seeing you here, handsome,” I slur slightly, the healing spell doing nothing for my other wounds or the blood loss.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you leave town and not say goodbye, did you?” he replied clucking his tongue. “You and I have unfinished business, kinda like those specters I seem to have run off. You picking up strays?”
He seems awfully calm for a man who’s just seen a ghost. This isn’t his first time seeing ones like that, and I don’t know if I’m relieved he came to my rescue or miffed I don’t know this about him. I settle on relieved because, hey, I’m breathing right?
“Not picking them up. They found me.”
Ian’s lips form a tight line, but he doesn’t say another word. His silence edging me out of grateful and into miffed.
“Care to share with the class why two ghosts ran for the hills just seeing you coming?”
His lips turn down in the universal sign of ‘nope’ right before he grumbles, “Not particularly.”
“Tough shit.”
“I don’t know why, okay?” His voice is like a whip as he throws up his hands. “I have a theory, but it’s unproven and a shit one at that considering it’s based on nothing but a guess. You’re not the only one who doesn’t know their parents, Max.”
He has a point. I don’t know the entire scope of what I can do because the only Demons I’ve seen have tried to kill me. It’s not like I had the time to ask them exactly how my abilities work. And from what I gathered? Ian knows even less about his parentage than I do. His only benefit is he has a sibling he actually talks to.
“Let’s get you up and back to the apartment. I can treat you there,” he murmurs as he helps me stand on my unsteady legs. Then his eyes fall on the athame still silvered with Micah’s blood.
“You managed to cut him?” he asks as he inspects the blade, turning the corkscrew handle this way and that.
A flash of alarm has me standing on my own two feet and reaching for his hand.
“Don’t get your face too close. If you turn that blade just the wrong way—”
The added feature of that particular blade springs free, a specially carved rune in the underside tang of the first turn of the corkscrew – a preloaded spell that lengthens the blade from dagger size to short sword size. All of which that just manages to miss Ian’s face. But he doesn’t look surprised so much as peeved.
“How about you don’t mess with my weapons? I have a couple of secrets that don’t need to come out in the form of your death, mm-kay?” I mutter as I gently remove the athame from Ian’s grip, pressing the rune again to shrink the blade.
He lets me go and reaches for my duffle, giving me a pointed look as he removes both the athame and rope dart from my hands. “I take it this was your doing? Altering the weapons?”
“Some, but the athame came like that.”
“Interesting. Where did you get it?”
Why he’s asking this while I’m beat to shit on top of a building after being attacked by fucking ghosts isn’t just irritating, his tone is more accusatory than I’d like.
“Virginia. 1642. I picked it up from the refuse of a burned-out home. Left behind by my coven after they left me to rot. Any more veiled accusations you want to make?”
He only shakes his head, still eyeing the blade as if I stole it. As if it shouldn’t be in my hands. I suppose I did technically take something that wasn’t mine, but possession is nine-tenths on the law and all that. Whomever the athame belonged to, they didn’t care enough about it to keep it, left it behind in the ashes of one of our coven homes, so it became mine. Bigger things have been claimed with less.
My cell phone buzzes in my back pocket. I swear the thing is indestructible at this point. The number is one I sort of recognize, a Coeur d’Alene area code meaning it could be one of two people. My little sister or my mother.
I cross my fingers, answering, “Hello?”
“Ma—Max,” Maria whispers, her voice aching and strained, making my hairs stand up on end.
“Ria? Baby girl, where are you? Are you hurt?”
Maria was ten when I was cast out. Neither of us really know our fathers. In my case, that’s a good thing, but in Maria’s not so much. At least hers was a good man, even if he left this world much too soon. One of my biggest regrets is leaving her to the iron rule of my mother, even as involuntary as my going might have been.
“Man… came… took mom. Need help. Hurts…”
“Ria!” I scream, wanting to smash something when the call disconnects. I’d rip a hole in the world for that girl even if she isn’t a little girl anymore. Even if mom would rather pretend I never existed and Maria just followed her lead.
Even if she never really loved me at all.
I wrench the duffle out of Ian’s hand with probably more force than necessary, raking through the bag for a pendulum and an old road atlas from 1997. I use one of the throwing knives to pierce the flesh of the outside of my forearm coating the edges of the blade in the fresh, untainted blood. This blood doesn’t have spectral traces, wasn’t drawn by ghostly fangs or claws. It’s as clean as I can make it.
Smearing the blood on the pendulum, I pray this works. While we’re only half-sisters, the bloodline is surely pure enough and close enough that the casting shouldn’t be a problem. I spread out the paper map of Idaho on the pebbled rooftop, wishing that Google Maps worked with spells. Hell, the thing is magical enough on its own, how hard could it be to upgrade it a scosche for locating purposes? I mean, I can find the best Thai food in town, but locator spells are out of the question? Shenanigans.
“Max, what are you doing?”
“Shh! I’m busy.”
Swinging the pendulum, I gather myself and my power, focusing on Maria’s face, on my love for her. “Ea invenio, invenire soror mea.” Find her, find my sister. The trouble with casting a locator is every single one is different. The spell is tailored for each person, each relationship, each circumstance. It depends on who you’re looking for and on what plane of existence they’re on.
So, when the pendulum stops swinging, the magic in the spell halting the rose quartz crystal without dropping, without the pull to any one location, I fear the worst.
Tears track down my face, but I don’t have the time or inclination to wipe them away. Maria asked for my help, she went to me when there are about a dozen other people she could have gone to.
She asked me, and I’ll be damned if I let her down.
I try two or three more times before calm, warm hands find their way around me, softly pinning my arms down to my sides. At this moment, it doesn’t matter if the hands are soft. They’re stopping me, and Maria doesn’t have the luxury of time.
“Max. Max! How about we try a bigger map? Maybe she isn’t in Idaho,” Ian murmurs in my ear, and it takes a second to register before I stop trying to claw my way out of his arms.
I nod, and his arms fall away, flipping the pages to a larger scale map. If this one doesn’t work…
I set the pendulum in motion again, murmuring the spell over and over. “Ea invenio, invenire soror mea.”
The pendulum falls inside the confines of the state of Colorado, so I flip to the Colorado map and do it again. This time the crystal drops, the cut tip pointing to Denver.
I swe
ar to the Fates, if this stupid thing points right back to me, I’ll lose my damn mind.
Moving to the Denver city map, I swing it again, this time the pendulum is yanked out of my hands, the brass chain slipping from my fingers as the sharp crystal’s point embeds in the map, landing in the warehouse district.
It’s near Aether, and if I drive, I can be there in twenty minutes. Just snapping my fingers and traveling there isn’t going to happen. Not after Micah. Not after however many times I did that stupid locator spell. My car should still be parked behind the burned-out wreck of what used to be my shop. Since my keys are more than likely still in what used to be my apartment, I might be able to use magic to start it.
Maybe.
I rip the crystal from the map, stuffing it back inside my bag. I’ll need to get a new road atlas, but that’s the least of my problems right about now. I need to figure out how to get off this roof. Preferably without dying.
No one has time for that.
Standing, I try to pull the duffel up with me before my weakness makes itself known. I sway, nearly going splat on the rooftop. I guess it’s better than going splat on the sidewalk.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think you’re going?” Ian chides, trying to take the duffle handle from my grip.
I may be weaker than a day-old kitten, but he can fuck right off.
“I’m finding my sister.”
“No, you aren’t. You can barely stand up. Let alone help anyone else.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. Even I know it’s a lie. My whole body feels like it has been simultaneously frozen and set on fire. My bones ache, my skin feels raw, and that’s not even taking into the scabbed wound on my neck.
I feel like smeared dog shit.
But my little sister needs me, and that supersedes everything else.
“Do I look blind to you?” he snarks, and I kinda want to swing this duffle hard enough to smack him in the face. I want to, but I won’t. Because I’m a weak ass right now and I fucking can’t.
Daughter of Souls & Silence Page 7