Three Stories About Ghosts

  “And you?” he asked the creature as he turned to look over his shoulder.

  “I re-join my people. The power I spent to bring your wife back to you was the last vestige of my people’s presence on this world. If the Sky Mother wills it, She will allow the link to continue.”

  John nodded. He had come here seeking answers and vengeance. He thought back to Preston College, to young Anna Hart, to her sister Kate, enveloped by Dean Walter’s ward. He considered for a moment whether the vision the being had shown them was a lie, but Trish seemed convinced, and something—a still, quiet voice in his heart—whispered to him: this was truth. Trish dematerialised into his mind, and with this newfound energy he couldn’t explain, he left Tamokameses behind and ran back towards the apparture room.

  Chapter Six

  JOHN SIPPED HIS black coffee as he sat on a table outside the café. He stared into the early morning sky as a waterfall roared to his right and the odd motor car drove along the near-deserted road. The server was chatting with the chef through a window. He breathed in another lungful of the brisk morning air and studied the humbling immensity of the stars.

  Urged by what he had felt of the Sky Mother—what he had felt to be the Sky Mother—he had hurried from the world engine at Oregon, but now that he was here, he forced his mind to calm itself, to approach the coming conversation with care. He tried not to glance over to the other side of the river where Agatha lay prone and hidden, covering him.

  Despite the Sky Mother flooding the world engine with unfathomable power, so much so that he was able to simply breathe it in from the air, he had still felt the reverberations of spells cast eons ago, echoing through the ages in their gargantuan scale. It had felt as though a celestial giant had torn a chunk out of the Earth, and even after hundreds of millennia, he had walked through the very heart of their workings.

  The exclusion zone around Damavand was nothing compared to that. Any magi could survive even a whole week there at a time, using their own wards to keep back the reverberations of the spells cast there forty-three years ago. In that cave, deep in the south sister mountain in Oregon, it felt like the Sky Mother had to bring Her own personal power to bear in keeping the three of them alive. He wondered at how Tamokameses and his servants had lived there for so long, but that was the least of his questions regarding the being he had trusted so easily.

  Doubt rose in him again, but Trish’s thoughts soothed him. Yes, he had killed her, but in bringing her spirit back, he had allowed Trish to see inside his mind. She was sure that he had been deceived by some unknown person, that he believed her to be an enemy. Trish’s real murderers were the cult of Nafarin, and as the vision showed, Kate Hart was alive, somewhere. He needed to focus.

  He had barely finished the thought when he heard Dean Walters’ shoes clack on the pavement behind him as he landed. He walked around him, took the seat in front of him, and smiled. John had to force every ounce of will to return the bastard’s smile.

  Dean Walters wore a charcoal grey pinstriped suit, but with his waistcoat unbuttoned, his tie loosened, and his hair dishevelled, which took John by surprise. His eyes were reddened, and he wheezed a little as he caught his breath. He picked up the iced chocolate drink John had ordered for him, downed it in five big gulps, folded his hands across the table, and leaned in.

  “John,” he said, “what’s the emergency?”

  “Nafarin,” John answered without skipping a breath.

  Dean Walters scoffed for a moment but leaned in closer as John composed his face.

  “You want a history lesson at one in the morning?” he asked, suddenly furrowing his brows and leaning back in his chair as he locked eyes with John.

  Before John could answer, his other guest, the one Agatha had invited, landed next to their table, dismissed her broom, and sauntered over to them, her air of complete superiority deservedly in its customary place.

  “Grand Master,” John said, turning to greet her. He would normally stand, but he had his wand balanced above his knee and pointed at Dean Walters under the table.

  Grand Master Coahopa, commander of the American Warden’s Tower and chief of the Choctaw Circle of Shamans, stood indomitable in a dark-blue trouser suit and white blouse, with ornate golden jewellery fashioned after totemic depictions of owls around her neck and wrists. Her face was as calm as it was dangerous, her amber eyes, narrow nose, and pinned up hair resembling the great horned owl that she embodied in life. She blinked and looked down at John with dangerous ease.

  She stared at him for a moment, glanced over to Dean Walters, and took a seat next to John without saying a word.

  “Thanks for coming,” John said, before turning to Dean Walters. “And you, thank you for getting up so late to see me.”

  Dean Walters nodded, looking between the two, confusion in his eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” he said before reaching over and taking a strawberry from the dish at the centre of the table. “I was awake.”

  John nodded slowly. “Lots happening at Preston College?”

  Dean Walters chewed on the strawberry for a moment, picked up a napkin to wipe his mouth clean, and nodded.

  “An expedition went out tonight.”

  “Yes,” Grand Master Caohopa said in her sharp voice, always concise and to the point. “First to Yellowstone, and then to throw off pursuit, an elaborate chain of apparture turns and flights, landing in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, three minutes ago.”

  Dean Walters looked surprised at that. “Preston College is being watched?” he asked, barely able to hide the incredulity in his voice.

  John had to fight down the urge to blast a hole straight through the man, but for the first time, he allowed the hostility in his heart to seep into his face.

  “Nafarin likes volcanoes, doesn’t He?” John asked. “According to the legends. Been up any mountains lately? With Kate Hart, perhaps?”

  Dean Walters bowed his head and stared at the table. His half-grey hair shifted in the wind, and he tapped his index finger against his empty glass for an age before looking up. John’s stomach lurched as he expected a burst of anger from him at any moment.

  “John,” Dean Walters said, locking eyes with him, “it will be a strange new world for you, I’m sure, not being responsible for mining ley lines any more, but think of the future of your country.”

  John’s heart shuddered as a chill ran its icy hand up and down his spine. He sat up straighter, keeping his right hand on his wand. To this point, he’d still been uncertain. How could this man, this righteous man, be a cultist to Nafarin? But, as all doubt scattered, he resolved to fight this darkness with all his might.

  “Nafarin is death to all.”

  Dean Walters scoffed and leaned forward. “You condemn that which has never even had a chance to be born on our world, John.” He raised a finger to emphasise his point. “How can you tell that He won’t be every bit as benevolent as the Sky Mother? And if not, so what? She feeds every pissant and backwater grass-hut shaman the world over, and look at Her now. Only the strong deserve mana, John.”

  John smiled. He leaned forward to match Dean Walter’s posture, slowly shook his head, and looked over to Grand Master Caohopa. “By our reckoning,” John said, turning back to Walters, “the Grand Master is a Mississippi water hag, like my mother-in-law, like my Trish.”

  Dean Walters stared, silent for a moment, but then curled his lips into a smile. “You married beneath yourself, John.”

  Trish’s mind flared at that, and John had to fight her anger.

  “Everyone deserves mana, or no one does,” he answered. “Do you know why my ancestors were able to tap every ley mine in North America?”

  Dean Walters shook his head, but a sharp look in his eyes betrayed his interest. The origin of the Trevelyan network of ley mines was the most closely guarded secret in all of the Americas. Every major power in the world wanted to know why the elders of all tribes, from Greenland to Antarctica, had allowed an Oxford Colonial family to consolidat
e and run every ley line in the land.

  “It’s the same reason why Nafarin is warded and contained. When we came to these shores”—John paused and his hand twitched on his wand as Dean Walters shifted his weight—“the people here were in the grip of a cataclysm the likes of which our minds cannot comprehend. Death on a scale that makes Damavand look like a minor skirmish.”

  Dean Walters didn’t respond.

  “The nations of this land battled Nafarin for generations. He was manifested here,and millions sacrificed their lives to defeat Him.”

  “Lies,” Dean Walters half shouted, drawing the attention of the server. “Every accursed shaman and,” he paused to spit on the floor, “pipe smoker across this land yaps on and on about Nafarin’s curses on mankind, but I say they lie!”

  John couldn’t help but to laugh. “The reason,” he continued, unperturbed, “that we tap every ley mine in the Americas is that we share it with the people who lived here before us, and run it for the benefit of all mankind. Do you want to know what they do with almost half the power of this continent?” He paused. “They keep Nafarin’s wards charged.” He watched for a reaction, but the Dean’s frown didn’t move. “If you serve Nafarin, you’ve done well. I look at the news, and see the East and West, turmoil roiling across every power, their minds turned to only their own needs. But the Wardens of this land, they see all. Are you ready for them?”

  Dean Walters didn’t even try to hide his disdain. He laughed.

  John’s clasped his wand handle as Dean Walters reached into his jacket pocket, but all he brought out was a cell phone. He unlocked it, placed it screen up on the table, and grinned as a video feed connected.

  “I didn’t want to have to do it this way, John,” he said with a sneer. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

  “Against the cult of Nafarin?” He laughed as he looked over to the Grand Master, her hunter’s eyes locked on Dean Walters, every inch of her ready to strike. “Yes, I’m against you.”

  Dean Walters nodded and gestured down to the screen.

  “You think,” he said, rising, “a school-witch can contend with the cult of Nafarin? Shame, Lizzie was such a sweet girl.”

  Everything seemed to happen all at once. Agatha, still wielding the violet power of the Khanate in her branch, shot an arc of violet lightning, perfectly aligned and aimed, that crashed off Dean Walter’s outer ward.

  A wand slipped from Dean Walter’s sleeve into his hands, but before he could raise it, John emptied his own wand in one concentrated point that knocked the Dean back and shattered his forward ward. The Grand Master extended her arms like wings unfurling, and shot two neon blue streaks of light at Dean Walter’s chest, but before they could land, he summoned a gust of air and threw himself two meters down the pavement away from them. The Grand Master’s spells blasted holes through the concrete pavement.

  Agatha’s next arc crashed into his side ward again, and this time the ward spat hot mana and fizzled out. In the space it took John to pull his spare wand, a broom materialised underneath Dean Walters and darted up and away to the north. The Grand Master matched the Dean in speed at summoning her broomstick, but paused to point at the cell phone still on the table. She locked eyes with John, snapping him back to reality.

  “Go!” she shouted.

  She darted away after Dean Walters. Above them, three more Wardens joined her in pursuit, and Agatha dashed towards him, closing the fifty meters between them in less than a second, and John jumped onto her broomstick behind her. They raced towards his mansion, the wards discharging clouds of tiny sparks under the onslaught of the rushing air, and John quickly raised his own ward to reinforce hers.

  The image on the cell phone filled his mind: Mrs. Murphy holding her ward as three black robed figures closed in around her. He went to call Trish, but she wasn’t there.

  “Sky Mother,” he begged, “please, no.”

  THEY DIDN’T WASTE any time, but crashed straight through the high, arched windows of the mansion’s living room, shards of reinforced glass exploding into the room in a shower of sparks, molten mana, and neon blue arcs of power. John and Agatha slammed to the ground on their feet and raised their wands in near unison. The room was empty and dark.

  The wind swirled the white silk curtains behind them and the remains of the venetian blinds clattered against each other. The sofas, coffee table and fireplace were as he’d left them, and he couldn’t sense anything but the Sky Mother’s power manifesting here.

  His heart leapt into his mouth as he thought the intruders he had seen in this very room had long since departed, their objective achieved.

  “Trish!” he shouted. “Trish, where is sh—?”

  “John,” she called from the next room. He ran to the door, darted through it without caution, and fell to the floor as he saw Trish cradling Lizzie, alive and safe, inside Mrs. Murphy’s ward. He tried to draw in a breath, but his lungs shook and his heart pounded as Lizzie met his eye. He thought he should thank someone, thank Mrs. Murphy, thank the Sky Mother, but all he could do was sit there, dumb, staring at his daughter, drinking in the sight of her, listening to the sound of her breathing.

  “Look,” Agatha said, pointing to the far corner of the room. The bodies of three black-robed cultists lay on the floor, large holes still smoking and glowing through their chests. The one lying face up was Professor Anders, a mana distillation engineer at Preston College. He guessed that another of the dead, lying face down, was Professor Collins, a herbologist and alchemist.

  But, how had Mrs. Murphy managed to—?

  “I’m sorry,” a metallic voice called from behind Mrs. Murphy’s ward. John stood, stepped around and saw Tamokameses sitting propped up against the wall, his hand covering a grapefruit-sized hole above his left hip. John walked over and knelt beside him. The wound should have killed him on impact.

  “What can we do?” he asked.

  Tamokameses tried to raise his head, but couldn’t.

  “I came, because I saw how you reacted to the image of the young woman. I thought I could try and find where they’d taken the world engine, but instead—”

  He shook, rasped what John thought was a cough, and screwed his eyes shut for a moment.

  “I”—he paused and turned to Trish—“I saw a chance to repay what I did, my debt to you.” He gestured over to Lizzie.

  Trish’s eyes welled with tears. “Debt paid in full,” she said with a sob.

  John placed a hand on his shoulder. “What would you have done had you found the world engine?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tamokameses half whispered in his metallic tone. “Interrupt them, do—Nafarin can’t be allowed to—” He stopped and shook again, raised his arm up to pull John closer, and even in his blank blue eyes, John sensed a desperate urgency.

  “I’ve—called help, but my people are too far away. Sky Mother is alone with you, and Nafarin. She must not—” He shuddered again. “Please help Her.”

  He went rigid, shuddered, and his eyelids closed.

  “Damn,” John said. He wanted more answers, but breathed a prayer to the Sky Mother as he left Tamokameses, the being who had taken his wife and saved his daughter, and turned his mind to the fight ahead. He took out his phone, dialled Laird Bellard, and as quickly as he could, filled him in on events since Budapest. The Laird, sensing actual war, had lost all of his mirth, and was focused purely on facts and John’s assessments. He promised to gather aid.

  John then remote accessed his apparture and opened a portal to Fort William. Laird Bellard kept a garrison there. “Thank you, Mrs. Murphy,” he said, turning to the school-witch. “I can never thank you enough.”

  She shook her head and stroked Lizzie’s hair. “It’s my duty, Mr. Trevelyan. I only held a ward.”

  He nodded to her. “We couldn’t possibly ask anything more from you—”

  “You don’t have to ask for a thing. I don’t know what that person was, but I’m not an idiot. I see the news, I f
eel the weakening of our Sky Mother like everyone else. I will not leave her side,” she said, gesturing to Lizzie.

  Two of Laird Bellard’s men stalked into the room, dressed in the red robes of Bellard warriors, their branches of power held ready ahead of them.

  “Mr. Trevelyan?” the lead man called in his thick highland accent.

  John thought he should answer, to try and explain what had been going on, but couldn’t spare the time. He gestured the clansmen over to Lizzie as he walked through Mrs. Murphy’s wards, picked her up into the tightest hug he had ever given her, kissed her forehead, and though it tore his heart apart, forced himself to hand her back to Mrs. Murphy. He couldn’t protect her where he was going.

  He left the room as Trish said her goodbyes. To his surprise, Lizzie didn’t ask many questions, and accepted that her mother was only visiting here, and as Lizzie sent a prayer of thanks to the Sky Mother for allowing her a chance to see her mother again, John’s strength finally cracked, and it was all he could do to stand there, outside the door, and keep the tears from breaking the flood barriers in his eyes.

  As the Bellard warriors took Lizzie and Mrs. Murphy with them back to the safety of Glasgow, John led Agatha back through the living room, into his study, and down the spiralled stairs at their far corner into his private armoury.

  “By Nafarin’s warded t—” Agatha said as they entered the basement armoury before catching herself. “Suppose I can’t say that any more. John, what in the Sky Mother’s love is this place?”

  John took in a deep breath as Trish joined them down the steep stairs in the basement armoury.

  Solid lengths of wood, from spruce, to chestnut, to oak and more, lined every wall, all glowing in a solid neon blue from the main Mississippi Ley Line, reflecting off the white walls. On shelves lining every wall, hundreds of wands sat ready for action, and thousands of condensed mana canisters sat in crates at the room’s centre.