Spirit Ascendancy (33 page)

“Carrick! Carrick! Are you okay?” I cried, stumbling toward his form, floating a few inches above the ground in a supine position.

He was shuddering and pale, but managed to nod his head. “Did it… attack you?”

“No,” I said. “No, you stopped it long enough for Finn to expel it back to the príosún. It’s gone now.”

He actually managed a small smile. “Good.”

“I… thank you.”

“Jess! We need to move! Now!” Finn shouted. I looked up to see him pounding toward me.

“Will you be alright?” I asked Carrick.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.

“Just tell me you’ll be fine, or I won’t be able to go in there,” I said. “Lie to me if you have to.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I accepted his words because that was the only reaction my brain would allow. He would be fine. Everything would be fine. Because it had to be.

Finn reached out as he ran by me and pulled me to my feet. We left Carrick hovering feebly behind us and together we sprinted for the open front doors.

“Look after him!” I called back to Anabelle and Savvy as we ran past them and into the castle.

“And yourselves!” Finn shouted.

The entry hall was barely recognizable. The beautiful tapestries, draperies, and paintings had all been removed and replaced with a number of strange relics: ancient armor, a giant gong and drum, and black ceremonial robes hanging on the walls like drooping reaper figures, bowing their heads in the shadows of my own massive and gruesome mural.

Finn was tensed for combat, but there was none to be had. Not a soul, living or dead, remained to confront us; all had fled out into the waiting arms of the Elemental.

“The most direct route to the central courtyard is through the Grand Council Room,” Finn said. “And we should check to see if the torch is still there.”

“Let’s go,” I said, my heart beating so fast it seemed to be humming. I felt for Milo again. He should be able to follow us anywhere, since our connection trumped the power of the wards. “Gather your strength to manifest when we find her,” I told him quietly. “She’ll need to see you even more than she’ll want to see me.”

I felt his flare, his glowing little ‘yes.”

As silently as we could, we approached the enormous wooden doors to the Grand Council Room, keeping to the shadowy areas under the galleries and skirting around the outside of the chamber. The doors were slightly ajar. Finn peered carefully around them.

“Empty,” he said. He started forward.

“Wait,” I said, and fumbled in my pocket for one of the soul catchers Flavia had made for me. I tied it clumsily around my wrist.

Finn glared at it like he wanted to tear it into a thousand pieces and light every one of them on fire. “You’re not going to need that.”

“Just in case,” I said.

He didn’t answer, maybe because he couldn’t, and we crept across the Grand Council Room, again keeping to the walls, afraid to leave ourselves exposed out in the middle of the echoing chamber. We climbed behind the Council benches, ducking under the supports and around the upended seats until we reached the place in the back wall that had crumbled away in the fire. It opened onto the central courtyard.

The moment I saw the scene before me, I knew it was too late. I knew it because I’d seen it before, scrawled in ash and my own life’s blood on the walls of the Fairhaven entrance hall.

The Prophecy. This was it.

HANNAH STOOD IN SILHOUETTE before the towering, glowing form of the Geatgrima, her arms outstretched in front of her and her hair whipping around in a fierce wind born entirely of spirit energy. I threw my hands up, shielding both my eyes from the brightness and my soul from the unbearable pull of it. Above us, spirits were being tossed and blown in a storm cloud of psychic power emanating from Hannah and from the Geatgrima itself. The ground under my feet was vibrating and pulsating, and yet, despite the utter chaos and devastation of the scene before me, the courtyard was utterly and impenetrably silent.

Beside me, Milo flickered into form, his face aghast.

“Hannah!” our voices cried out together as one as I rushed forward. The sound was swallowed in the eerie vacuum.

“Jess, no! Wait!” Finn shouted.

He lunged forward to stop me. He clutched at my shirt, but I wrenched it out of his grip, tearing the sleeve right off. I broke into the open just in time; two Necromancers leapt from the shadows and grabbed Finn, pinning him to the ground.

I started to run back toward him. I had no idea what I was going to do. Panicking, I stooped, picked up a jagged rock and swung it back behind my head, preparing to throw it.

“I really wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

I dropped the rock in shock as I spun on the spot. Neil Caddigan stepped out from the darkness on the far side of the Geatgrima. His face wore a smug, satisfied expression.

“Hannah? Sweetness? Can you hear me?”

Milo had shot toward Hannah, who had given no sign she’d noticed we had come. But before he could make contact with her, he was thrown backward with violent force. He slowed to a stop halfway across the courtyard, floating just above the ground, utterly motionless.

“Milo! Are you okay?” I cried. He did not answer, but continued to drift as though unconscious, barely visible enough to be distinguished in the darkness.

I took a few cautious steps toward Hannah now, and Neil made no move to stop me. I was afraid to get too close, or to get between her and the Geatgrima. Her face was uplifted, and her eyes stared beyond the view before her, fixed unblinkingly on something I could not see. A strange, cold power was emanating off of her in waves that made me dizzy. Perhaps I could touch her, even if Milo couldn’t? I reached a tentative hand toward her, but pulled it back at once as a current like electricity shot through it.

“Well, well, well, Miss Ballard. I must say I’m surprised to see you. I had it on very good authority that you were dead. However did you manage to return to us?”

My hands contracted convulsively into fists at my sides. I clenched my teeth tightly as I answered, in an effort to keep the fearful tremble out of my voice. “I took a page out of Lucida’s book. Playing dead worked for her, though I notice it didn’t keep her out of the dungeons. Not that I’m complaining, but why did you lock her up?”

“She has… outlived her usefulness,” Neil said with a casual shrug. “I did not think she could be trusted to cooperate if it seemed your sister would be harmed. As it turns out she harbored an inconvenient spark of affection for her little protégé.”

“She’s had a funny way of showing it,” I said. Behind me, I could hear Finn grunting as he struggled against his captors. I turned just in time to see one of them deal Finn a savage blow across the face. He crumpled to the ground, stirring only feebly.

“It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen each other. Outside of David Pierce’s office in the spring, if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t it?”

I saw red. It obliterated all fear from my body. “Don’t you dare say his name,” I growled. “Don’t you dare.”

“I regret what happened to him,” Neil said, with a theatrical sigh. “He needn’t have died. I gave him countless opportunities to tell me what I wanted to know, but he was a very obstinate man.”

I swiped angrily at the tears that had sprung into my eyes. “Fuck you,” I spat.

“Tut, tut, Miss Ballard. Language,” Neil said, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “As I was saying, I thought we would have found you sooner, but you’ve been rather more adept than I expected at keeping yourself hidden. I applaud you, truly. Your protector was obviously well-chosen, though,” he laughed delicately, gesturing toward Finn, “he doesn’t look like he’ll be much use to you now.”

What I would have given to have the power to protect Finn the way he always protected me, to possess the skills to tear the men holding him limb from limb. But I didn’t. He was trapped. Milo was unconscious. I was alone. The soul catcher suddenly seemed to weigh a hundred pounds on my wrist. As if she might assuage my sense of utter despair, I called to my sister.

“Hannah?”

“She cannot hear you. She’s far beyond where you can reach her now,” Neil said.

“Stop this,” I said to him.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Neil said. His long black robe made no sound as it trailed through the grass behind him. “You’re too late. The reversal has begun.”

Even as he said it, I could feel the energy from the Geatgrima shifting and morphing. Soon the pull would become a push, and unknown horrors would come bursting out of it.

I tore my eyes from it, afraid it might lure me forward somehow, and as I did, my gaze fell on a shape crumpled at the bottom of the stone dais.

“Finvarra!”

She was lying slumped against the bottommost step, her shining silver hair spread like a death shroud, obscuring her face. “What have you done to her?”

“We needed her to unlock the Geatgrima,” Neil said, in the slow and condescending tone of one speaking to a child. “There are only a handful of places on the earth where the fabric between the worlds has worn thin enough to make the reversal possible, and so it was always inevitable that we would need to find a way in. If the Northern Clans had been willing, even for a moment, to entertain the possibility that we would return, they would surely have fortified this place against us. But their hubris was their fatal flaw, like in every great tragedy. Only the High Priestess of a given clan has the ability to activate a Geatgrima. And, most conveniently, her own Council had already locked her up for us. It was rather like finding her gift-wrapped, bow and all.”

I glanced down at Finvarra again. I could not tell if she was breathing or not. I realized, with a jolt of horror, that Carrick had most likely left her alone to come after me, determined to protect me as we unleashed the Elemental on the grounds. And while he was gone, perhaps only minutes after we had left her down in the dungeons, the Necromancers had come for her. I piled it onto the teetering stack of things that were surely my fault, a stack that threatened to topple and crush me at any moment.

“I searched for you for so long,” Neil said, and in the moments I had shifted my gaze to the Finvarra, he had edged closer, his head cocked to one side as he examined me. “I knew you must be out there; all of the signs pointed to it. The Durupinen themselves were on high alert from the moment your mother disappeared. You can’t imagine how carefully we hunted, how patiently we waited in the shadows for the right moment to make our move.”

I did not answer. My throat had gone dry as my panic began to rise again.

“Naturally, I had to know for sure what you were. I arranged to meet you, through our mutual friend Dr. Pierce. I corresponded with him for months, waiting for the chance to see for myself what you could do. I was the one who appealed to the college board to allow the investigation of the library. I found them to be highly persuadable, once I had donated enough money to their institution. I was also the one who planted the spirit there that would prove what you were.”

My mind flew immediately to Evan, for whom I had not been able to spare a thought in weeks. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. How could Evan and Neil be connected? But then my eyes fell on Neil’s long black robe, and it clicked.

“William—the ghost who tried to cross through me in the bathroom—he wasn’t really from the Swords Brotherhood, was he?”

“Very astute, Miss Ballard. You’ve seen by now how we can control them.  A simple casting in a quiet corner of the library, and William provided me with all the proof I needed. It was much easier to test your abilities than your sister’s, since she was locked away. When I had ascertained you were indeed the pair we had been waiting so long for, I contacted Lucida. And of course, she dropped in on you that very night.”

I could feel the anger splashing itself across my cheeks. To know that he had been pulling the strings for so long caused a wave of hatred so intense that it sickened me.

“We had to bide our time, though,” he went on, sighing. “We had to give you both the chance to test and grow your abilities. We needed to determine which of you was the Caller, and therefore which of you we required. We were lucky that your sister’s powers were so very well developed, so impressive in scope, for it made our decision easy. She was the one we needed to capture; you were the one we needed to destroy.

“This day is our destiny. You know that, don’t you?” he asked, rubbing his hands together like a black-mustachioed villain in a melodrama. The gesture was so stereotyped that I very nearly let out a hysterical laugh. “The Necromancers have never really been vanquished. When we were first torn down, at the height of our power, we rebuilt again almost at once. But this time we chose to rise again slowly, cautiously. We learn from our mistakes, unlike your precious sisterhood. We knew that to gain the power that must surely be ours, we could not seize it outright. We waited. We lingered. We steadied our hand and bided our time, knowing that this day would come, for it was foretold that it would. And here we are.”

“Yes,” I said, and felt my hand twitch beneath the soul catcher. “I’m just sorry that it’s not going to work out for you like you had planned.”

Neil laughed, and the sound was slightly mad. “Is that so? I admit, you’ve come much further than I ever would have thought possible. Your use of the Elemental to enter the castle was inspired. We were thoroughly unprepared for an attack of that sort, and there is no doubt it was highly effective. Truly, I applaud you. I thought you out of my way, but the fact remains that you are too late. The moments in which you could have stopped her, could have convinced her to turn back, have come and gone. She will emerge from this trance only when the reversal is complete. I must thank you for your stunt. Your supposed death was a highly motivating factor in convincing her to go through with this.”

He stepped off the dais and reached around the far side of it, pulling a burning torch into view and holding it high above his head. “We’ve been up to our own tricks too, though, haven’t we? What do you think of my temporary Wraith army?”

“They’re an abomination, and you are a sick twisted lunatic,” I said.

Neil laughed as though I’d told a hilarious joke. “You don’t mince words, do you? You must broaden your mind, Miss Ballard. Your sister did. With a little persuasion, she came to see the possibilities in our experiments. It was she who Called the spirits you saw on the grounds tonight. It was she who trapped them here,” and he waved the torch back and forth, feeding the flame so that it sparked up into the night. “We won’t need them soon, of course. When the reversal is complete, we will have countless Wraiths at our command.”

He tossed the torch aside, and it landed on the stones in a shower of golden sparks. I started toward it, crying out, but the flame continued to burn. Even as I watched it lying there, faint voices seemed to float up with the embers, crying out for help.

I turned away from him and his maddeningly amused expression. “Hannah? It’s me. It’s Jess. I’m here. I’m here on this side of the Gateway with you. You need to stop this now.”

Neil was laughing in apparent amusement at my attempts to speak to her. I did not care.

I reached down for her hand. A force, so strong that it felt like a solid wall, deflected my outstretched fingers, which buzzed and tingled with the energy. I tried again, but there might as well have been a pane of glass between us. I couldn’t touch her.

“Hannah, I’m here. Milo’s here. Everything Neil and Lucida told you is a lie,” I said. She gave not the slightest sign that she could hear me, but continued to concentrate, transfixed, on the Geatgrima. Her arms, I realized, were smooth and unblemished; the many scars that had once adorned her wrists and arms had vanished. Those reminders of horrors past were gone, swallowed up by the rising tide of spirit energy emanating from the Geatgrima. In fact, everything about Hannah’s appearance had altered dramatically. Beneath the unearthly glow of the trance she was in, her complexion was flawless, her hair shining. She had already taken back some of what the spirit world had stolen from her, and she was barely recognizable.

Neil’s voice cut through my shock. “Let’s be fair Miss Ballard, it wasn’t all a lie. I may have manipulated a few facts in my favor, but I think I was more than generous with the truth. Your sister has been badly used by the Durupinen. She deserves her revenge upon them, and we are only too happy to help her achieve that. The Durupinen have been powerful, but they are limited. Painfully limited. They are weak. They never dared to explore their power, never dared to ask what could be. They accepted their mortality and their drudgery to the spirit world. They lack the vision that ought to accompany such power. But we saw beyond that. We saw infinite possibility, and we were not afraid to reach out and take it for ourselves. When the Gateway has reversed, we will at last have the ability to learn about what lies beyond. We will unlock the great mysteries that have confounded philosophers and spawned religions. We will no longer have to answer to unnamed forces that determine whether we live or die. We will be gods, Miss Ballard. Gods on earth.”

“We’re not weak,” I said. I felt the weight, the significance of the “we.” I was a Durupinen, and it was time to live up to everything that title should be, even if others before me had not. “We have a calling and we have risen to it. You are the weak ones. You can’t resist the temptation. That’s why the Gateways have never been entrusted to you, and that is why you are going to fail.”