Cold blood, p.14
Cold Blood, page 14
“No. No, I remember. I was—I am—dead. I was at my corner…where I died. Where I’ve been since… I haven’t been able to leave there, not until tonight. I haven’t been anywhere new in so long,” he said, with an edge of hunger Harlan didn’t like.
None of what he said was very useful. It didn’t give Harlan any idea of what had gone wrong with the wards or the ghosts. “It’s time for you to move on, Mr. Cavendish.” He inclined his head in the direction of the portal without releasing his grip.
Miles leaned over and peered down it. “Oh. Oh, that is beautiful! Is it…?”
“Yes. It’s for you,” Harlan assured him. Quickly, because he wanted to get this over with.
“Is it—?”
Before Miles could finish his second question, another bolt of pain struck Harlan. He lost his grip on the ghost when his left hand spasmed.
Miles didn’t pull away. He doubled over, screaming from the same pain Harlan had just felt.
The portal caught Harlan’s eye. The edges were…pulsing, flashing with bursts of bright purple, green and shades he couldn’t name because they weren’t meant for human eyes to see. “Hurry!” he shouted over the sudden rush of sourceless wind. “Get in the portal, now!”
“But what if I…?”
“It’s where you belong!” Harlan told him. He wanted to lie and say he knew there was a good place waiting for him on the other side, but he knew at least what he’d said was true—whatever was waiting for him, it was where Miles belonged—where he should have gone when he’d died and was only catching up to him now.
“Please. Hurry.” The portal was fighting him, struggling to open wider. Hot blood poured from his nose, pooling on his upper lip, then running down his chin and dripping on the floor. He was down on all fours now, with no energy or concentration to spare on anything but the portal. He had no idea what was wrong with it, only that it seemed almost…contaminated.
His whole body was shaking. His vision was going dark at the edges and his ears rang. He knew he might black out at any moment, and that he had to close the portal before he did—with the ghost trapped here on Earth or where he belonged. He’d never tried to open a gateway for the same ghost a second time. He wasn’t actually sure it was possible. He wanted to help Miles cross over, but his first priority was making sure he didn’t lose complete control of the portal.
“But—”
“Get. In. Now.” Harlan pushed his hands closer together on the floor, using the physical motion to reinforce what he was doing with his power to keep it from growing.
Miles looked at the opening, then back at Harlan. He was clearly afraid—and Harlan couldn’t blame him for that, no matter how inconvenient it was for him personally—but he finally stepped through and immediately vanished. As soon as he was gone, the portal tried to close on its own, the way it was supposed to, but something was still blocking it.
Harlan slammed a palm on the floor on either side of it.
The edges of the portal shivered, and for an awful moment it continued expanding.
Harlan screamed, frenzied and primal, pouring every ounce of himself—his will, his soul—into closing it.
The edges met and the portal closed, the sudden burst of energy knocking Harlan backwards and toppling a bookshelf behind him. He watched as books he hadn’t chosen and would probably never read bounced and skittered across the floor in every direction.
He realized he was smiling and wondered if he had a concussion—or the magical equivalent. He felt…fried.
He lay where he’d been thrown, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Its ghost wards were still intact. He groaned. They were blinding-bright, but even the effort of a regular blink seemed like too much, never mind one he had to concentrate on.
It took him several tries—which had never happened before—but he finally got the patterns to fade.
He sat bolt upright as something occurred to him. The wards on the floor, like the ceiling, were still intact. If he hadn’t opened the portal on the floor, if he’d made it in the air the way he normally did… He shivered, wrapping his arms around his knees. He’d barely been able to close it, even with the wards supporting him.
If he’d tried it on one of the outer, de-warded walls…
He started shaking, and he couldn’t stop. He felt, again, like his walls were physically gone and an icy wind was blowing through the apartment. He was beaded with sweat, his pyjama bottoms soaked through, even as his bare upper body rapidly cooled. He wanted to have a shower, crawl into bed and let the world take care of itself, just for one night.
A siren screamed past, sounding like it was right outside his window.
He groaned again, releasing his knees and allowing himself to fall back, his arms sprawled at his sides. He closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure if he’d made it easier or more difficult to get up.
Just sitting straight up again seemed impossible, but he managed to flop onto his side. From there he got one elbow under himself and used it to lever himself into a sitting position again. He slid both legs to one side and rocked forward onto his knees. Then he just had to push himself up with his hands, and he was on his feet. Triumph! And it had only taken four or five times longer than it should have.
He staggered into the bedroom, staring into the bathroom longingly. He knew he couldn’t risk showering. It would take more energy than he could spare.
He strongly considered just pulling on a shirt and staying in his PJs, but he forced himself to take them off and actually get dressed. With his pyjama bottoms off, he could see a nasty bruise forming on his left hip where he’d fallen. He quickly pulled up his jeans so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
More sirens passed. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in Toronto, but it did seem like more than usual—or maybe he was just noticing them more. He couldn’t fix the whole city—not tonight, not on his own—but he knew he couldn’t just sit quietly in his apartment either. He thought he could do the most good at the Centre, but he had to get there somehow. There was no way he had enough energy to walk, and he didn’t think his odds of getting a cab or bus on this night were very good. Maybe he also didn’t want to tie up a cab if someone needed it more than him. Taking the subway was out of the question. He could barely handle it on a good day, when ghosts weren’t running wild.
He didn’t want to call Charles, who was hopefully at the Centre and protecting the kids already, so that left Hamilton. That was, unfortunately, an actual call situation, not something he could do by text.
Hamilton answered on the tail of the first ring. “Finally! I’ve been waiting for you to call.”
“You…have? You said you were—”
“I told ‘em you’d need me tonight. What’re we doing?”
“Going to the Centre.”
“Great. I’ll be there in… As soon as I can.” Hamilton hung up with his usual abruptness.
Harlan’s brain felt slow and clunky, like there were rocks in its gears.
He didn’t have a coffee maker, and he didn’t think this was the kind of tired caffeine could help, but there had to be something he could do. He remembered that Charles had ‘left behind’ a box of energy bars. Harlan suspected he’d left them on purpose so Harlan would have something to eat when he wasn’t up for making something as simple as a decision and Charles wasn’t around to feed him. He devoured one in three bites and shoved a few more into his pocket.
Chapter Fifteen
Normally Harlan would’ve waited in his apartment as long as possible, but with his ghost wards destroyed anyway, he figured he might as well just wait downstairs.
He’d hoped to find Libby in her usual spot in the lobby, but she wasn’t there. Was she really, finally gone? Who or what had taken her? She hadn’t passed on the way she was supposed to, but he didn’t know what had happened.
He shouldered the heavy wooden door open and stepped outside.
Ghosts were on the move all around him in the darkness. Their usual haunting grounds weren’t holding them in place. They were free to roam the city.
Most of them seemed to just be travelling, ignoring the living they passed. Most of the living didn’t seem to notice the ghosts passing right by—or sometimes through—them, except for an occasional shiver or glance over their shoulders.
Harlan was relieved. He was so drained that the most he could have done was yell at a ghost and hope it worked. Maybe he wouldn’t actually be of any use at the Centre, but he had a feeling he was needed there, so he was going to try.
Across the street, a ghost lifted a woman’s skirt, holding it up while he had a good, long look.
She spun, crying out when she didn’t see anyone behind her. The ghost simply followed her around, not letting go of her skirt.
“Hey!” Harlan shouted, clapping his hands hard enough to hurt.
The ghost released her and started floating towards Harlan.
Harlan pointed a warning finger at it, and it drifted off—probably in search of a better victim, but he didn’t have the strength to deal with it right now. Harlan was just relieved it hadn’t taken more to make it leave.
He watched until it vanished, hoping it wouldn’t keep assaulting people, but he couldn’t go after every ghost he saw, not by himself. If this…phenomenon didn’t stop and the ghosts weren’t forced to return to the places they normally haunted, he and the other mediums would have to hunt them down one by one, but he had bigger problems to deal with. Hopefully he and the others would be able to figure out what had caused this disturbance in the ghosts and wards of the city—or beyond. How far had this effect spread? How far would it spread, if they couldn’t stop it or find the source?
Hamilton pulled up beside him, lights flashing but with the siren off. “Holy shit. What’s going on out here?” He peeled away from the curb as soon as Harlan got in, making Harlan feel like he’d left his stomach behind.
Harlan just shook his head. He knew it wasn’t a helpful answer, but it was the best he had.
There were so many ghosts prowling the streets that it made him feel like he was fraying at the seams. He couldn’t focus on just one voice, one presence, in the crowd surrounding him.
Hamilton screeched to a sudden halt, cursing, when the light abruptly changed right in front of them, going straight from green to red. “Fuck. They’ve been doing shit like this all night. I passed so many accidents on the way here…” He glanced at Harlan almost accusingly, but quickly looked away.
Harlan could see goosebumps on Hamilton’s arms—and a wild-looking ghost crouched on the pole holding the swinging traffic lights. “I’m sure you did,” he said grimly, wishing he had time to stop and fix this, but he knew that if he tried, they’d never reach the Centre.
They drove in silence, weaving in and out of slow-moving traffic. Hamilton used strategic bursts of the siren to help clear a path. They passed many other emergency-response vehicles.
Suddenly, Harlan’s eyes widened and he grabbed his armrest. “No. No, no, no.”
“What, kid? What is it? You’re scaring me.”
“Stop.”
“What?”
“Stop!”
“Brand, we can’t—”
“Stop for every ghost, I know. Stop the car. Now!” His skin was crawling. He had always thought that was just a saying, but it felt entirely too real. He had to close his eyes and focus on his breathing so he wouldn’t be sick.
“All right, all right, all right, I’m stopping—not that we’re getting anyplace in a hurry.” Hamilton pulled over as soon as he could—but not nearly soon enough for Harlan.
Harlan jumped out of the car, running blind, following only his psychic senses.
Hamilton followed more cautiously, but he ran and grabbed Harlan’s sleeve before he could go into the pitch-black entrance of an alleyway. “Brand! You’re running into a back alley during a fucking…ghost-pocalypse! This is exactly how Batman’s parents died! Stop. Think. At least tell me what’s going on.” He exhaled, then added, “Please.”
It was the ‘please’ that caught Harlan’s attention and made him pause. Had he ever heard Hamilton say it before? Not often, certainly.
He stopped pulling against Hamilton, ignoring a wave of panic when Hamilton took the opportunity to grab Harlan’s wrist. He hadn’t been able to catch much of Harlan’s sleeve, and it had threatened to slide out of his hand.
Hamilton’s fingers felt like a warm, living handcuff, and just as unyielding. And, he suspected, he’d need a damn good ‘key’ to get out of it. The words weren’t coming, just the dread, the urgency, closing in around him.
How could he make Hamilton understand? He couldn’t think past the sickening waves of wrongness pouring out of the alley. He couldn’t focus on Hamilton. He kept looking over his shoulder before looking back at Hamilton again.
Hamilton sighed. He set his free hand on Harlan’s shoulder, then let go of his wrist, putting that hand on Harlan’s other shoulder. “What? Just… Just tell me. Three words or less, Lassie. Then I’ll let you go—if you can convince me you need to do this. Right now.”
Harlan gulped, feeling like he needed to clear his ears after a pressure change, but it wasn’t a physical force bearing down on him.
He could only manage one word—“Possession.” He locked eyes with Hamilton, trying to will him to understand what was happening, how desperately he was needed, how little time they had.
“Poss—? Oh, shit.” Hamilton let go, almost unconsciously.
Harlan took a step back, then nodded. He wasn’t sure if Hamilton would stop him or not if he moved any farther away.
“I’m coming with you.”
Hamilton said it as though Harlan might refuse his help, but—coward that he was—he didn’t want to face whatever was in that alley alone.
“Please do.”
Possession was—fortunately—extremely rare. He’d seen videos of it at the Centre, read about cases in his textbooks, but he’d never seen one in real life or, as far as he was aware, known a medium who had. While some of the other mediumship students had been excited at the thought of such a challenge, Harlan could have quite happily lived out the rest of his life without encountering a spirit powerful and determined enough to attempt such a twisted act. Apparently, he wasn’t that lucky.
As he approached the gaping black mouth of the alley, all he could feel was wrongness. Against the natural order or…something. A violation.
He crept down the alleyway, Hamilton right behind him.
There. On the other side of a dumpster stood a white man in an expensive-looking suit, his skin sickly pale despite his light tan. His blond hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. Under better conditions, Harlan thought he might be handsome.
His arms hung limply at his sides. His head was rolled back on his neck, so he was staring straight up at the overcast night sky, his pale eyes just as clouded over, unfocused and unseeing.
As Harlan stepped closer, he saw that the man was leaning against the wall behind him—probably the only thing keeping him on his feet. Usually a ghost could only take over someone who was already unconscious or badly injured, but since the man was standing, Harlan suspected that he’d been taken fully aware. The ghost had subdued him somehow, but the man was still fighting feebly. Every few seconds an arm or leg would spasm violently or his facial muscles would twitch into a violent grimace or a pained ‘smile’. His knuckles were bleeding from hitting the wall. The sight of it almost made the energy bar Harlan had eaten come back up. He swallowed hard, clenching his fists.
The air in front of him—in front of the ghost and its prey—crackled and shimmered. The ghost had spread itself like a shroud, losing any trace of human form as it stretched wider and wider, engulfing the man.
For a moment Harlan could only stare, caught between horror and wonder. The alley was lit only by the spirit’s otherworldly glow, rapidly shifting through all the colours of the human spectrum and sending out sparks of shocking pink, green and violet.
Totally ignoring Harlan, if it had even noticed him, it pressed forward. It touched the man’s forehead, quickly wrapping around his face like plastic, but Harlan didn’t think the man would suffocate. Something much worse than simple death was about to happen to him.
“Hey!” Hamilton yelled, pushing forward to stand beside Harlan, his head sweeping from side to side. He couldn’t see the ghost, but he knew it was there.
Harlan had forgot Hamilton was with him. His shout scared the shit out of Harlan, but it was more than he was doing. If nothing else, it snapped Harlan out of his mesmerized state. He could feel Hamilton practically vibrating. He could tell his partner wanted to be in front of him, protecting him, not just beside him, but there was nothing he could do but watch Harlan.
Watch Harlan do…nothing.
He shook himself. If Hamilton wasn’t there, would he have been captured like the businessman? He didn’t want to imagine what a ghost could do with his body, his power.
The trailing, veil-shaped ghost snapped into a roughly human figure so quickly that there was an audible sound. Apparently, it had taken energy to force itself out of its natural form and flatten out.
It was still misty and indistinct. Harlan couldn’t make out any features, but it had a rough head-shape, wispy arms and a large central mass. It turned.
It looked exactly the same on the front as it did from behind, at least until an impossibly wide hole opened on its ‘face’, stretching wider and wider like the yawning mouth of the dumpster beside them. A wave of putrid decay spilled out, the scent of week-old death making Harlan’s eyes water as he choked, trying to fill his lungs with living air.
“Ha!”
Harlan wasn’t expecting the sudden sharp burst of laughter from Hamilton. If it had come from anyone else, he would have turned to look, certain the sight and smell had made the other person unhinged, but he wasn’t worried about Hamilton’s sanity. Well, he wasn’t worried about Hamilton losing his mind with fear, at least.
