Spirits Rising (3 page)

“I can try a few things.”

“Exactly
what
are they?”

"Remember the green, misty people in
Lord of the Rings
? “

He nodded.

“Like them, only with flesh instead of green mist.”

“Oh.” He looked back at the Vikings. “Rum-drinking spirits. Great.”

A thought struck me and I turned to the young man at my side. “Manny, where did they get the liquor?”

Manuel turned red. “Um, ah, see, um—”

“Your mother will skin me alive if she finds out I knew you were drinking and didn’t tell her,” Jeremy said.

“Come on, man. I’m sixteen.”

“It’s illegal for you to purchase alcohol. I know for a fact that this isn’t your father’s. Who bought this for you? And, if you bought it yourself, I want to know who sold—”

“Shut up, you two,” I said, grabbing Jeremy’s arm. I pointed. “Look.”

The Vikings had stopped their drinking. A broad, bearded man held up a hand, and the bone, shell, and bead ornamentals dangling from his clothes clicked against each other. He did not speak, but the gesture was clear. The others responded instantly. All chatter ceased. A cold breeze blew my hair, even though no windows were opened. Chills went through me. I knew that feeling. Oh, Christ above, I knew that feeling. “I think we have a rather large problem.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “You think? We have a gang of Viking zombies in a Pentecostal deacon’s basement. We might as well break out the pentagrams and the goats.”

“They aren’t zombies. They’re solid ghosts.” My hands shook and my back muscles shuddered, as though I’d been in a freezer. “There are more coming. Lots more.”

I tentatively stepped towards the leader.  I flicked my gaze at the basement window and then back at him, giving what I hoped was a quizzical look, hoping the facial gesture was universal across time.

The Viking leader leaned towards me. I didn’t understand most of what he said, but one word stuck. I swallowed hard. “Did you say
skraeling
?”

He shushed me before nodding his head, eyes widening. The men around him stiffened into attack postures. Axes, swords, and clubs slipped out from scabbards and belts.

“Manny,” I said as calmly as possible, keeping my voice low, “is there a room down here with a lock on it?”

“Yeah, the bathroom.”

In the same steady, low tone, I instructed, “Lock yourself in there and don’t come out until I call.”

“Why? What’s a
skraeling
?” Manny asked.

I looked at Jeremy’s confused face which seemed to be asking the same question. “Know what a Beothuk is?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not stunned or anyt’ing,” he said with teenaged exaggeration.

Everyone in St. Anthony would. The Beothuk were an extinct group of aboriginal peoples, who died out a couple centuries ago. Their ancestors were the reason that the Vikings didn’t stay a thousand years before.

I took a deep breath. “I think their ancestors are outside.”

The man pointed at the window, and pushed a protective arm in front of me. Spirit energy surged through me and I gasped in a breath, nearly collapsing under the pressure. My own soul and mind screamed in agony.

As he withdrew from me, I heard his whisper, “
Skraelings
.”

When a thundering horde of drunken Vikings rush a person, it’s only natural to flinch. Unfortunately, I flinched so much that I tripped over several cardboard boxes and fell on my ass. Pamphlets fell out of a box and covered my legs with messages of doom, destruction, and hellfire.

I stared at the pamphlets, stunned. David was a lot of things, but I couldn’t see him going door-to-door taping tracts to everyone’s house, and making sure I got the extra special “burn in hell, you witch” ones. For pity’s sake, the man had a job.But, there was no time to ponder the personal virtues of David O’Toole, when there was a Viking spirit infantry assault happening three feet from my face.

With the exception of heavy footsteps thumping on the wooden stairs and the creak of the closing aluminum door, I couldn’t hear the spirits. I’d expected their charge to involve drunken singing, shouts, and chants. Wasn’t that the stereotype? They were quiet, though I knew they were still there, even beyond their lingering presence touching my soul.

I looked up at the basement window and saw the shadows of boots passing by the window as the Viking spirits hugged the house.

I turned back to Jeremy and Manuel, the former’s mouth hanging open and the latter pasty white.

“Jeremy, we need to figure out where they’re going.”

Jeremy stared at me like I was a raving lunatic, his blue eyes wide. “Why?”

“Because,” I said, in that slow, steady tone reserved for terrified dogs, “a dozen spirits just manifested themselves into solid form in a kid’s basement. They were interacting with their surroundings. That means they can hurt people.”

Manny had not moved like I’d told him. “I’m serious, Manny. Into the bathroom,” I snapped.

He looked at me, up the stairs, and back to me. “Dad says you’re a devil worshipper.”

I rolled my eyes. “No. I just happen to be buddies with the spirit side.” I blew out a breath. The supernatural pressed against my soul but I pushed it to the side. I focused on the steps necessary for everyone’s safety.

“All right, first, Manny get yourself in the bathroom and lock the door. Don’t open it until you recognize the voice on the other side.”

He nodded automatically, staring about the room. “Mom’s gonna kill me,” he repeated several times as he surveyed the trashed basement.

Boxes of crackers littered the floor, their contents crushed and strewn everywhere. A tetra pack of wine lay on its side, most of the contents spilled on the carpet. The amber-coloured Newfie Screech still dribbled from its bottle, splashing on a DVD case. Pizza and what looked to be crushed pieces of ketchup-flavoured potato chips were strewn everywhere. . The beige carpet would need a good steam cleaning to remove the stench and stains of alcohol, let alone the red smears from the food.

“Good Lord,” I said. Irene really was going to kill him. But there were bigger issues to worry about than Manny’s perma-life grounding.

“Manny, get lost. I mean it,” Jeremy said, his tone stern. “We don’t know if these things will come back, and they still might hurt you.”

Manny shot Jeremy a sullen teenaged look, but did as he was told.

“Jeremy, we should probably call for some help,” I said.

He looked back up the stairs, shaking his head. “I can’t call in and say a group of Vikings are rampaging through town. That’s a trip to the evaluation board.” He frowned then said, “Gangs.”

“Huh?” Shadows blocked out the dying twilight from the window. Say what you want, those Vikings were silent as the grave, no pun intended.

“Gangs are the ‘in’ thing right now.” His voice grew stronger. “Yup, gangs it is. Come on.” He motioned with his head for me to follow him.

With Manny locked in his bathroom, Jeremy and I cautiously crept outside. I scanned the several-metres-wide space between the side of Manny’s house and the neighbour’s neatly stacked woodpile: no sign of either the Vikings or anyone else; however, the chills stabbing down my spine announced the presence of something my eyes could not yet see. Nausea threatened the contents of my stomach.

“Why would these ghosts, or whatever, show up at Manny’s house?” Jeremy asked, his tone low, hand on his holstered gun. “Let me call this in and—”

Just then, a red, four-door Camry turned into the driveway.

My heart sank. “Christ almighty,” I sighed.

Jeremy snorted. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

We quick-timed it to the driveway, where a well-dressed man stepped out of the car. His hair was cut short and he wore a crisp dress shirt, tie, and slacks. The cold, evening air that swirled around me was from the stare he gave me and not from the other side. David O’Toole stood next to his car, its door still open, and stared at us. For a bigot, he was rather handsome. Silver streaked his brown hair. He slammed the door and looked at both of us cautiously.

Jeremy was the first to acknowledge him with a nod. “David, we were just about to call you.”

“Constable Garratt,
Miss
Mills,” David said with a heavy emphasis on the Miss. Jackass. “Can I help you?”

I gulped down my anger. This jerk might be the one helping to make me feel oh-so-welcomed.
Bigger issues right now, Rachel
. I pushed aside the desire to scream at him; instead, I exercised great maturity and said in a tight voice, “Manny called me.”

David sighed. “What have you got my son into now?”

“
Excuse me?”
I said, taken aback.

David narrowed his eyes at me. “People like you encourage bad behaviour in our young people. There’s enough going on with the all the drugs and gangs.”

Anger rose inside me, and several regional town hall shouting matches, err . . . meetings, came back to me. I jabbed a finger at him. “Look, my dad is a Mountie and there is no way I’m going to let teenagers die on the highway because they’re too scared to call their parents.”

Jeremy cleared his throat before David could answer. “Your son called Rachel because . . . um, gang members broke into your house and he was too afraid to call the RCMP.” Jeremy coughed. “She called me.”

David’s eyes went wide. “Gang? Manny is in a gang?”

“No!” Both Jeremy and I said. We traded a glance.

That was when the
other
hit me.

Echoes of words in an unknown tongue, screams and rage and terror filled my mind. I clamped my hands against my temples, trying to brace against the blistering pain. My vision darkened and I collapsed to the ground, my own shrieks sounding distant and muffled.

“Rachel? Rachel, what’s wrong?” I could barely hear Jeremy over the screams of agony in my head.

I gasped several times before successfully choking in a lungful of air. The blackness that spread over my vision faded and I could see again. Whatever had come over from the other side hadn’t left; I had merely adjusted. Whatever it was, it was powerful and there was a lot of it.

The Beothuks.

“Rachel? Are you all right?” Jeremy asked, crouching next to me, offering me his hand.

I nodded and whispered, “Trouble’s coming.” I took his offered hand and let him help me to my feet.

The flash of fur and swords caught my attention. Two of the Vikings I’d seen in Manny’s basement, crouching low, ducked behind the woodpile before sprinting across the road towards the dock where the whale-watching tours launched off with their overeager city tourists who’d never been on a boat before.

David’s eyes widened. “Wha—stop!”

I waved him silent. “They don’t speak English.”

That surprised him. Everyone spoke English in St. Anthony; it was a small town. “Who are they?”

“We found them in your basement. They said something about Skraelings and took off. They’ve been outside ever since.”

“What’s a Skraeling?” He looked at me.

“It’s a Viking word. People believe they were referring to the people who came before the Beothuks.”

David snorted. “Well, you Newfies killed off all the Indians, so we don’t need to worry about them.”

Right. I’d forgotten he wasn’t a Newfoundlander. That’s why he didn’t talk with an accent. And why he was such as asshole.

“That was rather hateful,” I said, keeping my voice low and steady. “I was adopted by a white man and a Cree woman.”

“I wasn’t saying it was a good thing.” His words might have not had hate in them, but his eyes did. “It’s not like they are going to rise from the dead before Judgement Day, at least.”

“Ah.” Jeremy’s voice shook. I looked up the road where he was pointing. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

Sneaking down the road, in full red paint, was something that looked rather like a Beothuk.

An instant later, Hell unleashed its terror.

Instinct took over. The three of us dropped flat to the gravel driveway as arrows, axes, and garbage cans flew overhead. The caterwaul of the caribou-hide-clad painted people pierced my soul. I’d never been around so many strong spirits before and my mental defences were not established well enough to handle the surge of other alongside the abject fear of having an arrow embedded in my skull.

Jeremy reached a protective arm around me, partially shielding one side of my body against his. Through the shrieking in my brain, I could faintly hear him on the radio, calling for help.

“Blessed Redeemer, save us,” David prayed.

I struggled against losing consciousness. I focused on the physical world around me: the howling wind, Jeremy on the radio, the crashing waves against the wharf. I rebuilt my defences, one brick at a time. After this, I’d need a quiet place to meditate to recover from the psychic bombardment. For now, I needed to stay conscious.