Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Elder thanaturgic beings speak of an arcane technique known as “bilocation,” wherein an object formed of Endless Dark may exist in two places at once.
—Newgate Prison planning notes
As night fell, we raced north on Eversholt Street, buzzing in and out of traffic.
Chuey pushed Old Lada’s little engine hard, and in the back seat, Cassius, Church, and Lady held on.
I blinded myself twice more with Madam’s darkshine bow stroke, trying to find the wraith.
“North is not a destination, bro,” Chuey said.
“Where we going?” “Give me a minute,” I said.
I got out Henry’s field manual and flipped to the section on shadow patterns, reading frantically as Chuey took a hard left, throwing me into the door. The manual said patterns had depth, like a z-axis, that required concentration to perceive.
“How the hell do I translate these patterns to a z-axis?” I muttered. Chuey hit my leg. “You said these patterns were like gleaming notes, right? Well, we hear notes in stereo, man, even 3D audio. Notes have dimension. Figure it out.”
I shoved the manual back in my pack and bowed a revelatory stroke. Bright amber light filled the car. I peered hard at the shadow of my legs on the floor, homing in on the two-up-two-down pattern I shared with the wraith. It took a minute, but I began to see some depth in each gleam note.
Then I hummed the short melody those notes made, fixing it in my head.
When I thought I had it, I pulled the darkshine stroke again, filling my eyes with the violet light.
No storm of flickers this time. No flickers at all.
Probably out of range. But I hoped maybe I had the process down well enough.
I turned to Chuey. “Highgate Cemetery.”
“You gettin’ enough oxygen, bro?” Chuey cut right on Kentish Town Road. “You want to go looking for a wraith in a cemetery?”
“So far, it’s mostly hunted me topside. I was in the Strata a long time, then surfaced at Highgate and came straight back to the Horse. My scent is freshest between the two.”
Chuey shifted into fourth. “Your funeral.”
I bowed the darkshine stroke several more times but came up empty.
A few minutes later, we skidded to a stop at Highgate Cemetery.
We jumped out under a half-moon, and I played the stroke again. This time I saw a single flicker, distant and dim.
I pointed northwest. “I can see something.”
“Honestly, bro,” Chuey said, “I don’t know if you’re lucky or cursed.” “Why must those be opposites?” Cassius asked.
Church and Lady slung their satchels over their shoulders and pulled out their weapons. I nodded to them, and we all took off on foot toward the catacombs.
As we ran, I dug in my pack for the Orcus thread.
It flared amber and crimson, and thrummed in my hand like a plucked guitar string.
Strange at first, but familiar, too. I looped twelve hand-lengths around my left palm and tied it off with a slipknot to make it easy to access when the time came.
I had no idea how to do this, but the ward was shrinking, and I wasn’t sure we’d get another chance at the wraith before the barrier collapsed into the Iron Horse.
We passed a sign that read circle of lebanon—a sunken ring of mausoleums around a giant cedar tree.
“Remember,” I said, “we’re trying to catch this thing, not kill it.”
“Once we subdue it,” Cassius said, “be quick with your binding.”
We raced through a dark tunnel and came out near the circle of mausoleums and Strata stairs. The air got suddenly colder. At the center of the ring near the great cedar tree, sniffing the wet ground where Cassius and I had emerged from the Strata, lurked the wraith.
It had become misshapen, bone and muscle bulging against its fur. In several places its hide had torn open, its wounds steaming in the unnatural chill.
The wraith slowly raised its head, locked eyes with me, and growled.
With trembling hands, I lifted my lantern and pulled my bow across one rod.
Thanaturgic light flittered from my quivering lamp, but showed enough of the wraith’s shadow to catch the two-up-two-down gleam notes that we shared in common.
The soul inside it had once been human. I suddenly couldn’t shake that truth. Lowering my light, I took a step back. The wraith’s lips curled back over glistening teeth.
“Jack,” Cassius shouted. “Steel your mind against it.”
I called to mind a memory of Henry—drying glasses. It was enough to clear my head.
“I’m assuming,” Chuey said, “it’s a lot scarier than the dog it looks like to me?”
I needed to get him a reflection band. “Just be careful, huh? Let’s net this thing.”
We crossed a footbridge over the recessed circle of mausoleums, and stepped out into a ring of raised earth. Cassius got in front of me. Church and Lady fanned left. Chuey fanned right, unfurling the net as he shuffled across the wet grass.
The wraith let out a roar that shook the branches of the great tree. Cassius countered, crying out “Bratros,” then started a frightening chant.
I pointed my bow at the hound. “Go.”
Cassius stepped forward, drawing the wraith’s gaze away from Chuey. Lady rushed around and slammed her baton hard on the creature’s rear leg. Good thought—cripple it.
The beast howled and scampered around the tree.
Cassius circled, taunting the wraith with the tip of his sword, trying to keep it turned away from Chuey. The wraith lashed out with a taloned paw, knocking Church to the ground, and lunged to bite his neck.
Cassius drove his heel into the creature’s side and sent it sprawling against the giant cedar. It rolled to its feet, brayed viciously, and bared its teeth.
Then it fixed its eyes on me and stalked forward, growling like a slow-cycling Harley, the sound vibrating in the dirt beneath our feet. I took a few steps back, drawing the wraith forward, and cued Chuey.
Chuey rushed in, net ready, but got too close. He just couldn’t see the danger. The wraith swung around fast and bowled him down. Before Chuey could react, the hound was clawing through his leather jacket and tore a gash in his chest.
I slammed my bow hard across two rods of my lantern. An intense light flared out with a brassy chord, shining across the wet grass and up into the cedar’s sprawling branches. The hound shut its eyes and turned its head away.
Cassius ran in and booted the creature off Chuey. Church came in behind him, cane-knife flashing in the light of my lantern, and slashed the wraith’s left shank—another attempt to cripple it.
The creature reared and screamed.
Chuey scrambled to his feet, grabbed the net, and let it fly. It whistled through the air and wrapped around the wraith’s torso. The beast roared and chomped its massive jaws down on the iron cords.
I struck my lantern again with a revelatory stroke, focusing on the wraith’s neck where I’d seen its binding threads before. They flashed beneath its bloody, matted fur.
“Get on top of it!” I screamed. “Hold it down!”
Church and Lady threw their weight on the beast’s rear quarter. Cassius jumped on its back, trying to pin it to the earth. Chuey gathered the end of the net near the wraith’s head and wrapped it around the beast’s muzzle.
I quickly swapped my bow for my khopesh, rushed in, dug through the bloody matted fur for the braids around its neck, and cut them.
Violet light flashed. I ripped out the braiding and threw it aside.
Then I sheathed my knife, pulled the slipknot on the Orcus, and began to unwind it, the thread now vibrating hard like a plucked E string.
I suddenly got it. It was living thread. Part of a woman’s soul. On instinct, I hummed a line from my song—a few notes about fighting the isolation after my brother died—and the thread quieted a little.
But at the sight of the Orcus, the wraith howled and reared up on its hind legs. My friends went flying, Cassius slammed down against a stone, and the net spilled to the ground.
I was thrown back, too, pinwheeling my arms to keep my feet planted and losing hold of my lantern and thread. In the strobing light of my tumbling lamp, the Orcus trailed away on the air like a gossamer ribbon, catching yards away on a low branch of the cedar tree.
Cassius was face down, moaning. The wraith pounced, snapping its teeth at the back of his head. I didn’t have time to reach the thread and get to Cassius, too. And all my friends lay on the grass yards away.
I rushed the beast and dove, shoving it back toward the catacombs. It scrambled around and faced me as the semblance inside it started pulling away from its flesh.
The hound screamed again—less a roar than the sound of human agony—but went silent when it saw my shadow, thrown by my lantern lying a few feet away. It charged. And before I could snatch my knife, it sank its massive fangs into the largest occlusion in my gleaming pattern.
I collapsed to the ground. Intense heat shot through me as I began to shudder, my scar glowing bright amber. The wraith had somehow pinned me in place with its teeth in my shadow. My spirit began to bleed memory . . .
. . . my brother Dan’s funeral . . .
. . . Dad’s silence around me . . .
. . . my priest trying to explain God’s timing . . .
In my blurred vision, I saw Cassius and Church beating and stabbing the wraith, trying to drive it away from me. But it wouldn’t let go. My chest burned, and the pain was spreading into the rest of my body.
The old pressure surged like it never had. My head was pounding so hard I thought my skull might crack.
I’d all but given up when the wraith began to quake. A bluish haze rose around it—its semblance was cankered, riddled with scars, and now torn completely free of its flesh.
The creature grew still and stared into my eyes, like it didn’t know who or where it was. Then it simply fell over on its side.
A sudden wind blew out from the mausoleums and up over the Circle of Lebanon, swirling into a funnel and narrowing in on the wraith’s body. From inside the gale, a voice cried out.
Then the whirlwind exploded. Wind and light ripped through the leaves of the cedar and knocked everyone to the ground. Rocks and twigs lashed my face and arms as I watched the light disappear into the sky.
When the storm of light and sound had passed, the wraith’s torn and blistered flesh lay splattered on the grass and headstones all around us.
I tried to move but couldn’t. Lady crawled over the wet grass and knelt next me. I tried to tell her what I was feeling, but I couldn’t speak. I thought maybe this was it.
All I wanted was to be able to tell them how much they all meant to me.
How I loved the way Church made people feel important.
How Lady made everyone feel loved. How Cassius made people feel safe.
And Chuey . . . I wish I knew enough words for Chuey.
He’d have a killer comeback that’d make everyone laugh.
He’d saved me with dumb jokes my whole life.
“His soul’s been torn,” Lady said.
“Let’s get him back to the Horse,” said Church.
Lady dug into her satchel. “He doesn’t have that much time.”