by A. J. Locke
“Play another,” I said to Carlos. About thirty minutes later I had watched all the videos Carlos had been able to find, and in three more I’d witnessed Jack absorb a ghost. I stood back and blew out a breath. The ill-ventilated room was already making me feel overheated and irritable, and those feelings were amplified by what I’d just seen. Leora weren’t the first ghost Jack had absorbed. He was already well juiced up on ghosts by the time he tried to kill me.
I gave Carlos the names of the other ghosts in the file, and after watching a lot of videos and feeling as though I would pass out from dehydration the longer I stood there, it was clear that each of the crossover ghosts were making it a mission to absorb other ghosts. Almost twenty ghosts had been absorbed, and I feared how many more would get sucked up if these ghosts weren’t rounded up.
“Seen all you wanna see?” Carlos asked. After his first shocked inquiry, he hadn’t asked any more questions, which was wise of him. The less he knew about the crazy shit going on out there, the better.
“Yeah,” I said. “How much for the info?”
“Four hundred,” he replied.
I winced. I was out of a job and had a month’s worth of bills that I was ignoring, but I guess saving the world was my bank account’s top priority. I gave him the money.
“Can you do something for me? For the next few days, continue to track these guys. When you have a real time location on where they are, can you let me know?”
“Sure can.”
“Great, my number is…”
“Don’t need it,” Carlos said, waving his hand at me.
“Oh right, you can just hack your way to it,” I said. “My bad. Thanks again.”
“Always great doing business with you,” Carlos said.
“Likewise. Use the money to put a window in here. Even a slit would help.”
Carlos gave another snort and I left, happily breathing in fresh air. Once I was seated in my car, I sat there for a while drumming my fingers against the steering wheel and contemplating my next move.
There was a pattern with the crossover ghosts. They were absorbing other ghosts as well as taking out the revenge that had been denied to them. But one of them had also come after me. Would the others as well? I did not relish the thought.
I called Micah and told him what I had found out. I told him where I’d gotten the info since he already knew about Carlos, but warned him not to mention his name to Tielle. He promised, and said he would see what knowledge about the ghosts absorbing other ghosts could lead to, then we hung up.
I was exhausted. The shenanigans at the PCC and the horrible knowledge it’d dropped on me, coupled with playing detective, had wiped me out. Time to go home, regroup, and figure out what to do next.
* * *
I had a sizable headache by the time I got home because I’d spent the entire ride thinking everything over and getting nowhere.
Once I was home and had taken care of Luna’s stomach and bladder, I collapsed onto the couch, lay my head back, and closed my eyes. My mental stress was causing me to feel even more off balance than I’d been feeling without my reanimation power.
It was getting dark, and every time I looked at a shadowed area it seemed darker and more sinister than it should be, almost like it was a tangible entity that would rise up like a wave and crash over me. I felt like I was behind a flimsy door and that dark wave was banging on it to be let in. It was right there on the edge of my psyche and I had no idea what it could mean.
I needed a drink. I opened my eyes and stood up, intending to head to the kitchen to find my bottle of rum, but that whole off-balance thing kicked in, and I plopped right back onto the couch while my head continued to pound. I also felt vaguely nauseous. It was like I was already hungover.
Alcohol would not be the best choice right now. What I could really use was some of Ilyse’s soothing tea. Tea couldn’t wipe my problems away, but it would give me some calm and I’d take any moment of peace that I could get.
I actually might have some tea here. Ilyse had given me a blend and I think I’d put it in one of my bags of runes, which was all I was carrying at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if I also found some loose change and a Metrocard in there.
I headed to my bedroom and started rooting through the stuff on the floor of my closet. That should indicate how much I needed some soothing tea, even if it had been under a junk pile for months.
Luna was curious about my junk and kept sniffing around and trying to run off with something that she could sit in a corner and savage.
As I looked through various pouches and bags, I came across the bag that contained my grandmother’s runes. She’d left them to me, but I’d saved them as a keepsake instead of using them. I felt kinda bad that my keepsakes had been sitting under a bunch of old clothes I’d meant to donate, but had never gotten around to.
I scooted out of the closet and upturned the bag of runes onto the floor. I gently ran my fingers over them and smiled. They felt familiar, felt like Grams. I missed her more than I had in a long time. With everything I’d been through the past couple months I really could have used her strength and support.
I put Grams’ runes away before I started crying. The loss of Ilyse was a fresh wound and the loss of Grams was an old one that still burned. Combined, they had the power to undo me. I didn’t want to break down right now.
I spied a dusty box that I knew contained pictures from my life with Grams but I resisted opening it. Going down memory lane would have to wait for another time.
I was about to give up on finding the tea when I spied the pouch that contained all the binding runes I had used to hide my reanimation power. I opened the bag and carefully took out one of the runes, staring at it with a mix of emotions. These runes had been so much to me over the years, first helping me stay safe, and recently assisting in my tussles with Larry, Michael, and Renton. And now…
Now I frowned and my trail of thought got lost. The binding rune in my hand felt slightly warm—which wasn’t unusual because of their permanent state of being active—but there was something else that was sending a tingle of electricity throughout my body. It felt familiar, it felt like me. I felt a connection to the binding rune and confusion ran through me for a moment until it clicked. Then I gasped, my eyes widened, and I was suddenly looking at the binding runes in a whole new light.
It was clear now why I hadn’t died permanently. It was because some of my reanimation power really did still exist. Inside these binding runes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I recalled what I had learned about the binding runes from Ilyse. She had told me that once my reanimation power activates the rune, the rune remains active, which is why I could only use each rune once to hide my reanimation power.
It was also because my reanimation power caused the rune to evolve into the powerful and dangerous thing I knew it was. All runes were activated by energy, but after a while that energy runs out; that’s why a ghost can only wear an energy rune for a certain period of time before it dissipates and they become intangible again.
But with a binding rune, even though I always took back the reanimation power I stored within them, a spark always remained to keep the rune active. It might only be a small amount, but it was undoubtedly the reason I was still alive.
I was excited—then hesitant and worried.
Would I be able to retrieve my reanimation power from these runes? If so, how the hell would I even do it?
I was none too eager to try and mess with these runes on my own because I was fairly certain it would lead to me blowing myself, my dog, and my house to pieces.
Or—with my luck—some random ghost would choose that moment to stroll through my house and touch the rune, and I’d find myself bound to a ghost again.
No, with this I had to be ultra-careful. The first person who came to mind to help me was Ilyse, and that wave of sadness was back. Then I thought about Tielle. Would she be able to help? I was hesitant to bring this to her th
ough, because I was not supposed to be in possession of binding runes. At the end of the day, Tielle was still the person who had tried to strip my reanimation power, regardless of the consequences to my life.
With the way things were now, I was almost sure she wouldn’t try to do it again, especially since I could potentially be the only one who could help with the current ghost problem, but I still wasn’t running to my phone to call her up. I’d try to figure it out on my own, and if all else failed, then I’d approach Tielle.
I put the binding rune back into the pouch, but placed them on my nightstand instead of back in the closet. Then I gave one last look, found Ilyse’s tea, and headed to the kitchen to make myself some.
* * *
A few hours later, around five-thirty, Micah showed up. We hadn’t really left things on a good note when I left the PCC, and I wasn’t in the mood to rehash it. However, before I could even say hello when I opened the door, Micah stormed in, dropped his messenger bag, and turned a very unhappy face to me.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that you were attacked in the Underground?”
I had almost forgotten about that with everything else that was going on, but it was in fact a big deal. And I still had no idea who’d done it. But I couldn’t blame Micah for being mad that I had withheld something like that from him. In my current state of mind, I just did not want to deal with it right now though.
“I guess Tielle told you.” I flopped down onto the sofa. My headache had finally receded, but I was still weary. Micah stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, but I preferred to be a bit more comfortable while being bitched out.
“Imagine how great it was to find out from Tielle that you’d been stabbed in the chest,” Micah said. “And that you didn’t die or end up in the hospital because part of your soul is missing, and that somehow means you can’t get seriously injured. I wasn’t even able to hide the fact that it was the first time I was hearing that. She assumed I already knew. Why the hell would you keep that from me?”
“I…I don’t know.” I sighed. I really did not want to deal with yet another difficult fight with Micah, even if I was the one at fault and had brought this on myself. I was tired of all the back-and-forth between us. One minute we seemed fine, the next minute we were butting heads over some huge, devastating revelation.
Where the hell had all the normal parts of our relationship gone?
“You don’t know?” Micah could not have sounded more incredulous. “Selene, we’re supposed to be working on fixing our relationship, on being closer again. I’m supposed to be the first one you tell something like this to!”
“I know Micah, but I didn’t and I don’t really know why, OK? I don’t have an answer that would make you happy. I just dealt with it on my own.”
“No, you went to Tielle. You dealt with it with the woman who—not too long ago—was your enemy.”
“Yeah, and she’s your new boss, so what’s your point?” I shot back. “You can be chummy with someone who once tried to hurt me, but I can’t? Look, I’m not saying Tielle and I are best friends, but Ilyse is no longer here so she was my best option for finding out why I wasn’t much affected from having a knife plunged into my chest. I’m fairly certain even with your new Alchemy knowledge, you would not have been able to give me the answers I needed. Tielle did.”
“But you still should have called me,” Micah stressed. “So I could be there for you.”
“I’m fine, Micah. I got through it without needing much hand-holding.”
Micah looked angry and sad at the same time. I didn’t like seeing that expression on his face and knowing I was the one who’d put it there. I liked even less that I had been doing so a lot lately, and vice versa. I felt like Micah and I were always two seconds away from doing something that hurt the other one. I was so sick of it.
“But what about the fact that part of your soul is missing?” he said. “Are you going to be OK?”
“I’m not sure. Tielle wasn’t able to tell me exactly what it means that part of my soul is missing. Except that I shouldn’t be alive, but I seem to be good at defying odds lately. All I know is I seem able to avoid fatal injury, which is never a bad thing.”
“Unbelievable.” Micah shook his head. “That’s…this is…”
“A lot to digest, trust me, I know. I am still trying to get a handle on it myself.” I hadn’t mentioned the part about where tidbits of my reanimation power were because Micah worked closely with Tielle, and I didn’t want this getting back to her before I was ready for her to know.
Micah blew out a breath and ran his hands through his hair. The silence stretched on for a while before he finally looked at me again.
“We found something,” he said. “Which was what I really came over to tell you.”
“What did you find?” I was happy for the change in subject.
“I told Tielle what you’d said about the ghosts absorbing another ghosts. She wanted verification on your information, but I told her to just trust you on it. Once I convinced her, she went back to the runes that had been used to try and draw the ghost energy out of the victims. She had a team of dead witches spend the afternoon analyzing the ghost energy, and it turns out there’s a reason why the ghost energy absorbed from those people couldn’t be used to track down the crossover ghosts. It’s because the energy drawn off of them wasn’t from one ghost but several.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Makes sense now that we know that the crossover ghosts have been sucking up other ghosts. So all those different ghost energies get mixed up in the crossover ghosts, then channeled to Harvey and the others.”
“Exactly,” Micah said. “They’re chock-full of energy from different ghosts. Which could be why none of our attempts at getting that energy out of them are helping. We don’t have the knowledge on how to release multiple strains of ghost energy from a body. Especially a non-para.”
“Shit,” I said. “So the more these crossovers absorb, the more stuffed the victims get, until their bodies literally can’t contain it anymore and they die.”
“Which is why it’s so important to round these ghosts up,” Micah said.
“I asked Carlos to continue monitoring them. When he has a real time lock on one, he’ll tell me, then I’ll relay the information to you. Then you can tell Tielle and have the PTF close in. But they will need the big guns for these guys.”
“We’ve realized that,” Micah said. “We’re taking steps to make sure the Task Force officers are prepared.”
“Great. So just keep your phone handy.”
Micah nodded, and we just stared at each other for a few moments. I felt as though the weight of our issues was pressing against us, and it was more likely that we would break than find the strength to overcome it.
Micah came over and took my hands. “Thank you for your help,” he said softly. “We’re dealing with a lot, I know, but Selene, I can’t help but feel as though you and I are moving further and further apart.”
I knew exactly why that feeling prevailed. “Have you forgiven me, Micah? For killing myself? Have you let go of that pain and anger? Can you look at me without thinking about it?”
Micah went still, and didn’t immediately answer. “I’m trying,” he finally said. “Every day. It’s hard, but I am fighting through it because I want us to be us again.”
“And I don’t know if we can be.” I looked into his eyes, even though it was hard to hold his gaze. “The things pulling us away from each other are not minor things. They’re chasms that are swallowing us up. I want us the way we were too, but we can’t force it. And right now it’s even harder because of everything else that’s going on. We need to be in a place where we can make each other a priority and focus on making things better, and we don’t have that opportunity right now. We have long-gone ghosts back on the streets wreaking havoc, plus your work with the Rune Development Department is time-consuming and a further wedge between us.”
“So what are you s
aying, Selene? You want to just give up on us? After everything, you don’t want to do whatever it takes to save us?”
“I want to feel like my heart is where it needs to be in order to try and save us,” I said. “And right now it isn’t. Maybe once this is cleared up, once I can truly relax and put this horrible year behind me, maybe then. I walk around feeling like my head is going to explode half the time from all the things I have to deal with. It isn’t easy to prioritize our relationship amid everything, and like I said, I don’t want to force it. I need to come to terms with my choices. I died, Micah, and before that…I killed someone. Your uncle. I haven’t even had time to think that through.”
“So I’ll ask you again,” Micah said, voice soft. His hold on my hands had tightened. “What are you saying?”
My chest felt tight, like my heart was going to implode. “We should take a break. Give each other some space.”
“Space.” Micah was trembling. I felt numb. I hadn’t thought the conversation would end up here, but I realized this was a talk we’d needed to have. Trying to juggle our burdens while only having spare moments for each other was not working. It was what led to this feeling we both had about being miles apart. I didn’t want Micah out of my life in any capacity, but for us to really have a chance at overcoming our setbacks, we needed time to come to terms with things on our own. It hurt like a son of a bitch to say all these things though.
“We can’t avoid seeing each other, I know that. But let’s take the pressure off fixing us, OK? For now.”
Micah was quiet for a while, and his grip on my hand never lessened. Finally, he looked at me, leaned in, and kissed me. My body warmed at the touch of his lips and it almost broke me to the point of saying “fuck it,” but I didn’t. I had to be strong about this if we were really going to have a chance.