Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When a thanatist perishes, his vestiges’ bindings will lose potency in due course unless renewed by another thanatist.
—William Payne,
“Authority and Demise: Relational Bonds”
Wraith . . .
Even the word fired something inside me, something I hadn’t felt before. Part of it was reverence, like the feeling of Westminster around us with all its graves and history. But part of it was a dread I couldn’t explain.
“Did you know it was a wraith?” I asked Cassius.
Cassius finally sheathed his blade. “Unlike you and John, I do not possess the gift to peer into the shadow of a thing to divine its nature. But I have fought my share of Strata creatures, so that would have been my guess.”
I’d have to dig into the book the raptorial Lakshmi had given me about wraiths when I got the chance. “And you’ve fought these things before?”
“Four of the many binders I have served since old London have been darkthreaders—thanatists who hunt and bind wraiths and other Strataforms conceived in the Endless Dark.”
I’d read about the Dark and pulled out Henry’s field manual.
“The Endless Dark is a kind of primordial substance from which the Strata are formed, right?”
“Not exactly.” Kincaid mopped his face with a towel and turned toward me.
“When a person dies, if their soul doesn’t move on it arrives in the Endless Dark as a semblance.
Most semblances leave the Dark, seeking to add their light to other semblances, which builds and sustains the Strata.
But some semblances remain inside the Dark.
Their need isn’t for community, but to satisfy an obsession.
And they feed that obsession by hunting and consuming other semblances.
With each kill they become more dangerous, and usually more insane. ”
That bothered me. “When I looked into its shadow . . . I thought I saw something familiar.”
Kincaid crossed the Cosmati Pavement and hunkered down in front of me. “What did you see, Jack?”
“Part of its shadow had a pattern”—I paused, seeing it in my mind—“that shimmered like my own.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re sure?” “I read it like notes on a piece of music,” I said.
“Thanatists see shadows differently,” Kincaid said with a sigh. “But regardless, their rebirth creates a surge of power that opens a brief door into our world. It’s not uncommon for a thanatist’s return to call a wraith to the surface.”
I remembered the night of the attack outside Henry’s flat. “Just after I crawled back from the Meadows, there was a flash of light and a smell of ozone. Maybe five seconds later, the wraith showed up.”
“If such a summoning occurs,” the priest continued, “whatever emerges does so precisely because it shares something in common with the thanatist. It can then use that connection to track you. It has your scent, you might say.”
“Wonderful.” I stared off in the direction the hound had fled. “But who bound it?”
“In such cases,” Kincaid explained, “the wraith is spontaneously bound to the closest living animal or human. Its bands are more etheric than those created by a thanatist, but they’re just as real, and can only be cut with the proper blade.”
“It is not bound to you, Jack,” Cassius added, “but you and this wraith share something in common. So, if it ever finds you again, it will know how to really hurt you.” He tapped his chest. “Inside.”
“Perfect. Any good news for me while you guys are at it?”
“Your instincts were right with the candles,” Kincaid offered. “Living f lame can show much to a thanatist’s eyes. You’ll want to cultivate that skill.”
With the candles burning around us, I looked down at the priest’s shadow again. Around the distinct human darkness, I now noticed a thin gold rim—different in hue and depth from thanatist gold. Interestingly, there was just one occlusion—the shape of a steer’s horn held by supplicating hands.
“You’re not a thanatist, but you’re more than human,” I said. “And your shadow doesn’t have many occlusions?”
“I’m a holy man,” Kincaid said, smiling. “I do my share of repenting and forgiving.”
“Good advice for us all,” added Cassius.
Kincaid handed me his Zippo. “This may help until you’ve secured proper catalysts.”
“Thanks.” I pocketed the lighter. “If this wraith has consumed other souls, would it be considered an old soul?”
Kincaid’s brows jumped. “That’s not something a holy man can see.
Why do you ask?”
I finally told him about Henry’s journal entry and his search for an old soul to renew the ward.
“What you’re describing, Jack, is an ancient sacrament,” said Kincaid.
“A parcel of land is made inviolate when it’s imbued with a collection of souls that has persisted over time.
In scripture and historical texts, it’s why they’re often referred to with the pronoun we.
In thanaturgic terms, it would be referred to as a mature wraith. ”
“Then you can help us?” I asked.
“An immature wraith—a single soul—is formidable, but mindless in its obsession. A mature wraith, on the other hand, is self-aware, possessed of its own will.” Kincaid sighed again.
“Beyond finding and subduing such a powerful entity, you’ll need to understand how to bind it to the area in question.
Our archives here are extensive, but won’t be of any help.
The arcana you seek is both apocryphal and forbidden. ”
I half smiled. “You have any idea how many times I’ve had a priest tell me he has no answer for my question?”
Kincaid laughed out loud. Cassius and I joined in, our voices echoing loudly around the abbey for a few moments before fading.
The adrenaline of the fight faded with them, and a wave of reality washed over me.
I’d just fought a wraith and barely escaped with my life.
Now I was talking about performing an ancient sacrament with a wraith of many souls.
It felt like a death sentence. But I couldn’t walk away from the people who were counting on me, and that included Henry. Still, I was armed with little more than a lot of reading, an old Zippo, and a useless knife. We needed help.
On instinct, I pulled out the Zippo, thumbed it to life, and held it up to the dowsing stone. The rune in the stone brightened; it looked like a small infinity symbol, but incomplete at the apex of each loop. From it a pinprick of light flared down to the floor.
“You wish to go now?” Kincaid asked. “I need answers,” I replied.
Kincaid took a candle from the High Altar and led us past the Great Cloister to a door.
He keyed the lock and took us into a cold chamber with a low, vaulted stone ceiling.
The room had few furnishings: a small stone altar set with rows of votive candles, a bench, a high table laden with a few books, and a wooden chest against the right wall with an unlit lantern on it.
“The oldest part of the abbey,” he explained.
“The Pyx Chamber, sacristy of Edward the Confessor, built in 1066, the year that changed all of England. The Doomsday Book used to sit right there.” He pointed at the altar with his candle.
The dim light illuminated guards sitting perfectly still in the corners of the room.
Each man held a long, thin, dark blade in his lap.
With their dark leathers and hoods, and black wraps around the lower halves of their faces, they looked like executioners.
“Guardians of our steps into the Strata,” said Kincaid. “And our steps are only available to friends of the Abbey.”
Kincaid led us to a corner of the chamber just past the wooden chest, where an unremarkable stone staircase led down into the dark. “Have you been into the Strata?” he asked me.
I shook my head.
“It can take time to acclimate to the descent, so tonight I’ll lead you down.” “Priests can travel the Strata?” I asked.
“I’m also a wayfinder,” Kincaid replied, “able to lead others into the Strata, much like a thanatist. Where the soul is concerned, though, my call is to comfort and replenish.”
“At which,” Cassius added, “John is expert.”
Kincaid thanked him. “Listen, Jack, it’s one thing to have been reborn a thanatist, and even study to understand what that means. But it’s another thing entirely to enter the Strata. It can change you. Just the descent will force you to remember things you’ve likely put away.”
“Like childhood trauma?” I forced a laugh.
Kincaid didn’t join me. “I understand wanting to find the owner of the dowsing stone, figure out what happened to Henry, but you need to understand that going into the Strata is . . . Well, it can be difficult, especially in the beginning. Don’t push yourself.”
“Got it.” I didn’t though. Not really. And I kept going back over all my hum-reading in my head, searching for some tidbit that might suggest another way to the answers we needed. Because the changes were coming so fast, and I didn’t need to be revisiting parts of my own past.
But when he offered me his hand, I took it. Then with Cassius at my back, and feeling a bit like Dante must have felt, I began my descent down the stairs into the Strata.