Muted sounds filtered into the conference room, an occasional, sharper sound serving as mysterious punctuation. Cat flinched at the second, louder sound, her legs curling up to her chest, an almost defensive posture. Large, bright eyes flickered from one side of the conference room to another, and her muscles tensed before Sol's voice filled the small room, deep and gentle and full of confidence.
"Don't worry, Miss Baker," the huge man said, his heavy fingers lacing together, "You're perfectly safe here."
"Shouldn't we go and see...?" Cat began, leaning toward the door.
"My agents are prepared for any eventuality, Miss Baker," Sol said, his voice like warm, heavy syrup, “And I assure you that Miss Blackwood, in particular, is likely more dangerous than anyone in this room. Now, I believe Miss Staten had a question for you."
"What? Oh...oh. Right." Cat cleared her throat, and some of the tension left her body, "Um. Right. The ghosts. I...well, I used to see a lot of them. Especially down on the waterfront and by the old hospitals. They usually looked kind of lost or distant, or...or angry, I suppose. And there were...well, more than you'd expect. Young women on corners, looking lost and alone as people walked through them. Sometimes they were kids. And I could feel...I knew how the ghosts felt. A lot of them were afraid. They made the air feel different." Cat swallowed, her eyes going down to her glass of water.
"And now...now there aren't as many. When I walk through the city, even by the old mortuary, there's just...nothing. Like nothing was ever there. There's...holes. Down on the waterfront, no matter where I went I could feel some kind of...of presence, you know? Even if I couldn't see a person, I'd feel...yearning, or sadness, or something. Now it's just..." Cat waved a hand, "Like nothing. Like when you go out into a brand new development and nobody's ever lived or died there. Just emptiness and quiet. There's not even an echo, just...nothing. Like they were never even there."
Cat's eyes stayed down, her fingers drumming on the side of her water, her expression distant. Her brow furrowed, red-gold eyebrows drawing toward one another, the corners of her mouth turning down.
"I...think the first ones I noticed were...um. They had been around for a long time. There used to be a man down by the water, where the old docks used to be. He was dressed like someone from those pictures of the gold rush, and he would just look out to sea, and I could feel..." She trailed off, "I could feel like he wanted something, more than anything in the world. I never knew what it was, but when I focused on him there was this...this burning sensation in my chest," Cat pressed a fist over her heart, and her voice cracked a little, "Of needing to go. He...he was the first, I think. You can still go down to the bars by the Market and hear stories about him, but he's not there anymore. There's just…emptiness.” She swallowed. “Emptiness, but…not peace.”
------
The larger man let out a long, satisfied sigh, and the power he had gathered around his hands, his heart, his head, slowly dissipated. Even at that, his hands left trails silver-blue light in the air behind him like tiny comets as he closed the book, old paper falling together with a heavy thump.
"There," the larger man said, "I think that should get the message across."
The smaller man seemed agitated, his long, birdlike legs taking him up and down the narrow room. His feet, in mismatched socks, sank deep into high-piled carpet, leaving thin footprints behind. He raised his hands and waved around his head as though he swatted at imaginary flies and he made a low, insistent sound in his throat.
"No, no, no, no, no," the smaller man said, his voice almost a keening wail, "You did it wrong! Or...or...or...something heard. Something that shouldn't have heard, shouldn't be here, shouldn't have come, shouldn't-" Thin hands balled into fists, clutched at the sides of his head and the smaller man fell to his knees, his eyes squeezed shut, his voice a pained, terrified sound.
"Peace, my friend, peace," the larger man said, his voice rich and smooth, "Our purpose is not yet complete. You must stay with me. You must talk to me - what did you hear? What do you feel?"
The smaller man turned, his shoulders hunched, his eyes wide as he looked at the larger man, "Do you know what heard you? She'll come, she'll come for us, she'll come for us and eat us all up."
The smaller man stopped, threw his head back, and cackled.
--------
Magic lingered in the air, the after-effects, the wake of the possession spell wrought on young Amanda swirling in Morgan’s senses, chill serpents of vicious will. As the spell faded she felt the echoes of that power coil around her heart, her lungs with an almost physical tug. Her chest rose with a quick, fast breath and she turned, her eyes focusing through a window, deeper into the city. Slowly, carefully, Morgan re-engaged the safety on her pistol, slid it back into her holster as she let her breath out in a long, slow stream.
Jacob, meanwhile, cradled his daughter, one hand supporting her small head from behind. He didn’t look at the scrawled letters, only down at his little girl as her chest rose and fell. His hands shook as he brushed hair out of her eyes, but his breathing had slowed from panicked, deep-chested inhalations to something more even. Still, he only looked down at the small form, having made no motion to pick up her fallen chair, or to pick up the handgun he’d tossed to one side.
“Emma,” Morgan said, still looking out the window, her voice equal parts thoughtful and earnest. “Please stay with Jacob, he may need someone to help him back to the real world once he recovers. Have someone our doctor, make sure that Amanda is all right, but don’t take her to a hospital. Someone knew she’d be here, we can’t assume the roads are safe.” She paused, cleared her throat, and her voice hardened. “I…think I know where that came from. I expect I’ll be back shortly.”
With that, Morgan strode toward the door, yanking her long coat off the rack, and disappeared into the hallway. The sound of the door hadn’t faded when another set of fast footsteps rang out, this time rising from a staircase nearby, the one that led down into the Priest & Hawthorne archives. A few moments later the silver-maned head of Shiloh Grey rose into view, a thunderous expression on her proud features. She stopped in the doorway, surveyed the scene near Jacob’s desk.
“Holy mother of God, what the hell happened here?” Shiloh asked, then shook her head, “Never mind, we don’t have time. Has someone called a doctor? Good. Is Rob in the conference room?” Without waiting for an answer she strode past Emma and Jacob, her long legs devouring the distance as she moved.
“You!” Shiloh said, pointing at Robert as she came in, her voice a schoolteacher’s snap, “That wand you’ve been taking pictures of, where is it?” She walked into the room, her blue eyes scanning the table, “Oh, good, it’s still here.” Shiloh looked up, saw the incredulous expression on Robert’s face, “Don’t look surprised. I hacked your phone a year ago, since it was faster than waiting for you to email me the pictures of whatever artifact you were looking at. Did you think I spent all my time down there looking at books and counting stone fertility icons?”
“Miss Grey, I hardly think-“ Sol began, but Shiloh cut him off with a sharp gesture, her hand a flat blade.
“Listen to me. Do any of you recognize this?” Shiloh reached over, gingerly touched the wand with two fingers, tracing the outline of a large symbol etched on the wand, “No? All right. This symbol, this is an icon from an ancient cult contemporary with the Picts back in Britain. You see it on burial mounds and grave markers, signs marking where the dead or spirits lay.” Her fingers moved to another one, “These are…they’re an old language, but they mean “to seek and reveal.” And this,” she traced another line, “These are…mmm…” she looked at the wand again, turning her head, “…Almost like conductors. They’re runes of transport, as though the person holding this wand would do something that fed into another working.”
“And why is that of urgent import, Miss Grey?” Sol said. Meanwhile, Cat looked up, her eyes wide, obviously not quite certain what to make of the archivist’s sudden entrance.
“Normally, no reason at all,” Shiloh said, still examining the wand, “But the Burke Museum was going to do a new exhibit on the occult - ghost stories, why we tell stories in the dark, all that. One of their deliveries - a crate of “magical artifacts” from another museum in Britain - went missing a couple of months ago.”
“Miss Baker,” Sol said, his attention focusing on Cat, “When would you say you noticed the gold rush ghost go missing?”
“Um,” Cat said with a start, “Um. Maybe…maybe six weeks ago?”
“Oh, hello,” Shiloh said, turning her head to look at the small woman sitting at one end of the conference table, “Sorry. I didn’t notice you were there. What’s this about ghosts?”
Cat swallowed, pulled her knees back up under her chin. “I. Um. I see them. Or I did. I…something took my sister’s ghost, and…”
Shiloh dropped the wand, planted her hands on the table, looked over at Cat, “Took? You saw a ghost, and it disappeared? Torn apart?”
Cat nodded.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Shiloh said, and stood up. She pulled in a breath, looked around, paused.
“Wait a minute. Where’s Morgan?” Shiloh said.
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