by D. R. Perry
Wherever they were taking me, I could bet the food was worse than any PowerBar, even the oatmeal-without-raisins kind. Something soft and medicinal covered my mouth, and everything went dark.
Horace
I slapped a palm-full of my Psychic energy against the side of the car they’d dragged her into. I recognized the goon, too; this was the same Gatto gangster who’d answered the door for Tony’s Trojan wiener ruse back in Olneyville. I pulled my arm back again, intending to deliver another blow to the sedan’s chrome and steel hide but realized that’d be a waste of energy because I’d marked the car. I could track it later to wherever they took her.
I followed, feeling like a train in a tunnel, my handprint a rail and Bianca Brighton the light at the end of it. The car turned down a corner, out of sight, but that didn’t matter. Only an Umbral Magus could hide it from me now. I don’t know how many blocks I went before I felt a tug at my sleeve.
“Horace, we need a plan.” Ignacius caught up, then passed me, floating backward in front of me when he realized I wouldn’t stop.
“Find Bianca. Get her out of whatever trouble they’ve got in store for her.” I stared through him. “Good enough for you?”
“No.” Ignacius put his hands on his hips. “Wilfred’s out finding a Redford, and in case you haven’t noticed, the Gattos are solid. They’re also shifters. How are we supposed to fight them?”
“We don’t. It’s a jailbreak.”
“You can barely open a door in this state, let alone pick a lock.” Ignacius shook his head. “Horace, what are we going to do if they put her in a root cellar? I can’t burn a hole in the wall anymore, you know.”
“So I’ll go and get more help, and you’ll stay with her while I do.” I sped up, using my energy to push Ignacius aside. “Besides, I’m almost positive someone else can see us besides the mediums.”
“You mean the diurnal owl and the pussycat?” Ignacius snorted. “That’s like bringing a licorice whip to a gunfight.”
“There’s more to those two than you might imagine.” I glanced around. The streets had gotten grayer; they were filled with litter and had an aura of disrepair that countered the late-afternoon sun peeking through the clouds. “Olneyville again.”
“It figures, right?” Ignacius pointed at the peak of a roof. “Haven’t you been there before?”
“The Gatto Gang’s newest real estate venture? Yeah, I’ve been here.” I chuckled. “So, maybe Tony Gitano is the right guy to help us, but we need to do a couple of other things before calling in the cat and bird cavalry. Bet you can’t keep up.”
I surged ahead of Ignacius, leaving him behind for a few moments. I sensed him following me at a distance. Good. I’d need all the help I could get.
Bianca
I woke on a bare mattress in a room with ceilings so slanted, even someone of my stature risked hitting their head. When I looked around for a door, I found I couldn’t focus on one corner of the room. The only apparent way in or out was a round window in one triangular corner, which had to be the inside of a peaked roof. The cooing of pigeons and the hiss of a distant radiator were the only sounds besides my own breathing.
Scrambling around, I checked every corner for the bag containing my insulin and the other three PowerBars I always carried. It wasn’t there. I flopped back on the mattress, flinging one arm over my eyes. Then I cried.
I almost never did that. No matter how tired I got, or how much work I had to do on campus or with my courses, despair had become almost a foreign concept to me. Working with ghosts meant I knew there’d be something after death for me, something every medium understood. And I had plenty of friends amongst the ghosts and the solids. I also knew that things were better for incorporeals now than at any other time in recorded history. I wasn’t afraid of death for its own sake.
But I was afraid of failing everyone else. Richard Hopewell was smart. He’d have a Psychic medium waiting in the wings to bind me into a contract and turn me against them. With someone like me on his side, an Extramagus could learn everything the Tinfoil Hatters had been up to these months. And they’d have no one to tell them to shut their traps around me, either. No one would be able to see me except Olivia.
“Don’t cry, it’s only a ghost.” Horace was here. He only ever used that corny old joke when he found me weeping in the days after my accident when physical recovery was painful.
I moved my arm and sat up. My partner floated in front of the window, reminding me for all the world of a sheer curtain with the sun behind it.
“How did you find me?”
“Didn’t. Marked the car and tracked you instead.” Horace grinned. “Now that I know you're here, I’ll be back. With help.” I watched him sink below the lower curve of the window and hauled myself up, fingertips raking through the thick layer of dust on the windowsill as I peered after him.
A chill filled the air and I turned, putting my back against the wall.
“Youuuuuu…”
I stood my ground as something like a tattered old gray sheet rose through the floor. All the same, I had to choke down a lump in my throat the size of the hypnotoad before I could address my second visitor.
“Hi.” I took a deep breath and spoke again to the wraith. “My name's Bianca Brighton.”
“See…me?” It floated toward me until it hovered a bare inch from my face. I kept on reminding myself that it couldn’t do anything to me, only to Magi or other ghosts.
“Yes.” That was the understatement of the century. The holes in the wraith’s incorporeal form yawned like chasms into oblivion. I looked at its left eye, the only persistent facial feature it had. “I’m a medium. Maybe I can help you.”
“Not run?” Its voice came from what passed for its belly, under a scrap of what looked like faded blue gingham. “You run before.”
“I’m staying this time.” I folded my legs under me as I sat down on the mattress. “Anyway, I’m locked in. What about you? Why are you stuck here?”
The wraith’s voice dragged out in an exhausted-sounding sing-song sigh. “Letter.”
“That was why I came here the first time.” Before I could squeak out the last word, the temperature in the room dropped until it felt positively arctic. “Our professor sent us to get it out of here and away from the Gattos.”
“Waaaaatkins?”
“Yes.”
The wraith sighed again, but unlike its earlier utterances, its voice droned on. It sounded like the ocean at high tide, breakers cresting but without the shoreline crash. The only way to explain what I heard and saw is that the wraith ran out like water down a drain. I’d seen full-fledged ghosts move on, and it looked nothing like what happened to the wraith. Moving on was a moment of contentment, sometimes even triumph. The poor wraith diminished into a puddle of what looked like tired relief.
I bowed my head for a moment, even though I knew I still wasn’t alone. Another ghost approached; he was a familiar presence, although not as well-known to me as Horace.
“Am I late for something?” The ghost of Ignacius Harcourt floated through the wall behind me, then stopped and blinked as the remaining energy in the room dissipated. “Your fellow went for help, same as the windbag did earlier.” Ignacius floated around, then stopped in front of me. “He’s asked me to check on you before meeting back up with him later.”
“My fellow?” I wondered what he meant. “As far as I know, I’m the poster child for the lonely hearts club.”
“Ah, but you’re not alone. You’ve got Horace Lancaster, of course.” Ignacius held my gaze, then nodded. “I see. He never told you.”
“Never told me what?” I blinked, then rubbed my eyes, getting sleepy again as usual.
“I can’t say much more. That’s for Horace to do.” Ignacius sighed, his face lighting up with a smile. “Oh.” That smile snuffed out like a candle. “What’s wrong?”
“Um, Ignacius?” I sighed. “You’ve known me almost as long as Horace has. So, maybe you’ll understand.” I
curled up on the mattress, pulling my knees up toward my chest to try to keep warm. “He tells me practically everything. We’re best friends. So why won’t he even let me discuss Possession? Is he worried about making things permanent? I mean, do you think he doesn’t trust me?”
“You’re partners. You ought to know better than I.” Ignacius crossed his legs and sat, as if in a chair. I could just imagine the wingback chair he liked to sit in at the Nocturnal Lounge. “I’ll only say it’s clear that you two care a great deal for each other. Taking irrevocable steps in any relationship is hard. Perhaps he’s waiting for the right moment.”
“I wish he’d spill the beans already.” I shut my eyes. “And you’re the last person I’d expect to care about something like this.”
“You call me a person instead of a ghost, and you still don’t understand?” His voice sounded closer than it had been before.
“No. I’m Captain Clueless over here.” I yawned, hoping my fatigue wasn’t from lack of food or worse.
“We aren’t just echoes, nuisances, or cheap labor as far as you’re concerned, Bianca. You care about ghosts. It’s only natural for ghosts to care about you.” I heard a faint snort, then felt warmth blanket me, although no such thing existed in the corporeal version of the room. It would have been comforting if it hadn’t also been ominous. Physically sensing something from a ghost who hadn’t been a medium in life meant I might be closer to death than I’d originally thought.
“Why act like a sixth-grade go-between for Horace, then?” I opened my eyes. A translucent gray blanket, apparently made from ghostly smoke, covered me. I looked up at Ignacius. The corners of his eyes glimmered. Was he about to cry? “No, not like some school kid. Like a dad. But why?”
“Because I know what it’s like to wait too long, and I can’t help my own son with matters of the heart.” Ignacius’ features set into their usual expression of disdain, with a twist of wistfulness. “He can’t see me, but you and Horace can, so I’m helping you instead.”
I don’t remember what I mumbled. Whatever I said sent a shimmer of translucent tears down Ignacius’ face. I closed my own for a moment, then fought to open them again, worried that this might be the last time I’d see anything from my solid, living body.
Ignacius was gone. I was alone, just like Mrs. Donato had predicted. The blanket of smoke remained. I huddled beneath it, wondering what coincidence had in store for me next.
Chapter Eleven
Horace
I hurried. Ghosts, contrary to popular belief, couldn’t just vanish themselves from one place to another all over town like Gnomes or Imps. We had to get from point A to point B like anyone else. Passing through walls wasn’t always easy, either. The fact that I’d died at a relatively young age helped because I could vault over certain obstacles. No, not like Superman. More like some book character on a lonely island doing parkour.
Ghosts all along the streets stopped and stared. I let them, leaving them in the dust. I turned my back on the college as well. The only people who could help me were on the other side of the East Side, practically in Pawtucket. At my first glimpse of the clean, even lines of the Redfords’ house, I felt relief wash over me. The place had a sense of security around it, one I usually associated with the Nocturnal Lounge. That’s because it was a ghost-friendly place, of course.
I stopped at the bottom of the stoop next to Wilfred, who’d arrived before me. He seemed more transparent than usual. “Wow. Why do you look like a wraith bit a chunk out of you?”
“Had to outrun some trouble on the way over here.” Wilfred shuddered.
“Trouble?” I put one hand in his shoulder and transferred a little of my own energy to perk him up a bit.
“Thanks.” Wilfred sighed. “Some nosy old lady ghost started following me about a block away from the Senior Center. I had to walk through CVS, The Festival Ballet, and Seven Stars Bakery just to shake her. That audition for Swan Lake is no joke. Walking through the competitive vibes in there was like trying to navigate a hurricane in my old dragon form. And don’t even get me started on hiding in the artisan bread oven.”
“Oven-hiding sucks. Been there, done that, never again. But an old-lady ghost? Really?” I tried to remember whether any of the ghosts at the senior center had been old ladies. Of course, they had. It was the most popular hangout for extrahuman senior citizens. Duh.
“Yes.” Wilfred scratched his head. “Something familiar about her, too. Couldn’t put my finger on it, though.”
“Familiar from where?” It was my turn to scratch my head. “You know what, never mind. We’re here, and I know where Bianca is. Let’s do this.”
I hollered at the top of my ersatz lungs, knowing almost no one could hear me. I only sensed one medium in the house. A towheaded boy peeped through one of the windows on the second floor. I watched the smile fade from his face as the enthusiastically waving hand dropped. His brow furrowed, and I heard a click. He’d released the wards keeping most ghosts out.
Ed Redford stepped back as I floated up to the window and then through. I remembered how he’d been abducted, carried off to the Sidhe Queen’s demesne back at the end of spring semester last year. Poor little guy had to be at least a bit paranoid after something like that. I dragged Wilfred along with me.
“Can you pop the ward up again please, Ed?” I nodded at the window. “Wilfred said another ghost tried to follow him on the way over here.”
“Okay.” Ed shut his eyes, and a clack sounded as the wards snapped back into place. “What’s up, Horace? You look like you’ve seen more ghosts than usual.” The trace of a smirk pulled at one side of his mouth.
“Well, we’ve got trouble.”
“Right here in Providence City?” Rob floated up through the floor, then pulled a funny face to make Ed bust out a full smile.
“Trouble that starts with an S, and it’s a mess, and it stands for soul spindle.” Wilfred managed all that with a straight face. My mouth dropped open as a sign of my deep respect for his song-parody skills.
“More than the usual kind?” Rob glanced past Wilfred and me. “Soul spindles barely exist nowadays. Are you sure it doesn’t involve dragon arguments instead?"
“No. It’s bigger and badder than stuff getting knocked over when ghosts get upset. Soul spindles are serious business.”
“How so?” Rob turned his head, peering at me sideways. “They don’t affect us ghosts unless we choose to tangle with them.”
“Well.” I paused for a moment, trying to remember what it was like to take a deep breath before rattling off a list of jargon I hoped Ed could understand. “The soul spindle is keeping an Astral Psychic out of his body, we’ve got Extramagus problems, the Gattos grabbed Bianca, and I think there’s a medium helping the bad guys.”
“Holy sh—” Ed slapped one hand over his mouth and immediately blushed. A muffled apology came from the other side of his fingers.
“If there was ever a time for you to cuss, kid, this is it. Because--” Rob opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head. He shut his eyes and said, “It’s okay.”
Ed nodded, then took a deep breath. Rob wrung his hands. Wilfred glanced around, then leaned in the doorway. Literally, at least by a fraction of an inch. He peered at Rob for a moment, then looked at me. I nodded. Wilfred and I had both spotted the same thing at the same time. Evidence of compulsion. Someone or something was definitely keeping the old haunt from talking, but Ed had missed the entire exchange.
“We have to rescue Bianca.” Ed paced across the room between Wilfred and me. “Those Gattos went too far. I’m calling Tony.”
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “At least, not yet. We don’t have enough information to send the cat-man in, guns blazing.”
“But aren’t you afraid those goons will do something in the meantime?” Ed stopped with his hand an inch from the phone.
“Well, they took her for a reason. When I checked on her, they hadn’t asked her to do anything yet.” As I spoke, I not
iced Rob heading through a portrait and then the wall behind it. It was odd, watching him slink away like that.
“Great.” Wilfred snorted. “So, we’ve got no idea how much time we have.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon, though.” I pointed at the clock. “The Gattos are nocturnal, so we have a little time.”
“Okay, then.” Ed paced over to the middle of the room and closed his eyes. “Wait a minute. I already know about the Extramagus. That’s Richard. But did you seriously just mention a soul spindle?”
“Yeah.” I stared at the kid, waiting for him to open his eyes. “One of those is the reason Nate Watkins can’t get back in his body. We think the medium helping the Gattos is using it.”
“Oh, no.” Ed blinked, the lone tear trickling down his face reminding me of a sad cowboy. Which made sense, considering his dad had been one back in his early Under days, and this kid was his spitting image.
“Why am I suddenly getting a bad feeling about this?” Wilfred wrapped his arms around his chest, then shivered even though ghosts don’t feel cold.
“Mama has had a soul spindle for about five months now. She’s kept it down in the basement.” Ed wiped that tear away, his pint-sized jaw setting itself into a defiant line. “I overheard her say she found it down at Water Place Park.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “It showed up right before the night the magipsychic amalgamation trashed the senior center’s charity shindig.”
“Yeah, well, and after that is when I noticed it had been activated.” Ed blinked the last of the tears from his eyes, then swallowed. His nose was still red when he said, “So Mama’s on the wrong side. She’s helping Richard after all that?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” I wasn’t sure how to reassure a kid who might even know more than I did about this whole mess. “Possession can do crazy things to a Psychic medium if her ghost is stronger than her, you know.”
Ed’s eyes focused on a spot just above the top of the framed portrait. His voice sent a bolt of energy at the section of wall Rob had gone through earlier. “Rob. Get back in here.”