“You hadn’t figured that out yet? That seems strange for someone with as much knowledge as you have amassed in your years of study. It’s Sunny and Veronica. The emotion they have invested and importance they place on you have managed to hold you on the edge for far longer than is normal. It will not last though.”
She was right to laugh at him. Emotion was the strongest power and the currency of the spirit world. He knew that. It should have been obvious.
“You’ll have to excuse me. I’m going on four days now without fresh blood anyway. Our condition kills most of our body, just not our brain. It remains active, but it requires fresh blood to provide it with life. I’m already feeling the effects of my depravation. It’s like suffocating slowly.”
Now it’s Lucy’s turn to feel foolish, for a change. She should have thought about the effects of having no blood on him, but had been so caught up in other things she’d given it no thought.
“We can go for a long time without blood. Eventually the brain does shut down, but it can be awakened with fresh blood being forced into our system. But when the brain begins to decay it’s never the same. Brain damage affects us the same way it does the living.”
She is respectful of the weight of his problem, but she’s still apprehensive of him in a general sense. He can tell from the emotions she’s not guarding well enough that she’s not sure what to make of him.
“Veronica trusts you, Lucy, so I guess I should too. There are some things that I think you need to know, if you don’t already, about what’s going on in Pekin and why Sunny and I are here.”
He has her interest and complete attention now.
“It’s the storm that Paco was talking about. The one that’s already seriously affecting the spirit world, with the rise in unquiet activity, and is starting to be felt in the living world. The storm is why Sunny and I are in Pekin. It’s like a beacon to those of us who can sense the spirit world. I think it is intended to draw the attention of something else. Something darker, and more powerful than Paco.”
“How is it that you are sensitive to spirits?”
Lucy is interested in what he knows about this storm, but first she wants to know more about who is giving her the information.
“I’ve always been able to see them, to sense them, even before I was infected. It’s the same way with Sunny. She has else, though. Something about her. A more potent… I don’t know… magic?”
Garret could feel Lucy holding her thoughts and feelings close, not wanting to reveal too much of what she wasn’t ready to.
“Her magic, do you know the source of it?”
“Sunny has a natural magic. She had it before I found her, before I made her.” He’s a little shocked when he can feel that Lucy already knew that.
“She’s from Pekin. I found her about fifteen years ago while I was passing through, tracking a spirit that had gone north from Memphis. Her name was Sunday Cross, but she said she liked to be called Sunny. I found her alone wandering in a field after her father had gone crazy and killed her mother and sister.”
Lucy nods, finally deciding to share a little with him. “I know that story, and the family she comes from, actually. Sunny’s sister Anna lives in the sanctuary. She’s one of my materials. She can manifest in the physical world more easily than others, among her many interesting talents.”
Sunny’s sister is still alive and gifted like she is, even in death. The concept was amazing to Garrett and Lucy could see his mind in motion. She had to bring him back to the present situation and the tasks at hand.
“I would love to discuss Anna and the sanctuary with you in greater detail. I also want to know more of what you know about the coming storm, but now is not the time. Everyone needs to rest, even you if you can. If I can be allowed to leave this place, I will go to the sanctuary and call together the outer guard. As we know that Paco intends to perform the ritual on Rachel at midnight, I will assemble my forces and meet everyone at the funeral home after eleven. My forces may not be as strong as those that the sorcerer commands, but we are greater in number.”
Julie, listening from across the room, is hurt by the thought that now Lucy would just leave her here in this place. She runs to find V, hoping that someone here still cares about her.
“That sounds like a plan. I’ll have Sunny let you out.” Garrett starts for the door then stops. “When all this is over, you’re going to have to tell me what it is about Veronica that makes you risk your life.”
“I think you already know the answer to that question.”
***
I can see the little girl clearly, vividly. Her clothes are dirtier and her hair is more matted but it’s definitely her. Her little eyes still flit from side to side. She’s hunched over in the cage because it’s too small for her.
Nearby there’s a shriek, answered by hundreds more. Dozens upon dozens of the glowing orange eyes flicker off and on around her.
Her little bloodied hands are still wrapped tightly around the bars of her tiny prison, and now she squeezes her eyes shut not wanting to see anymore of the swirling black things that surround her in the darkness.
It’s growing darker now, and the pungent smells of decomposition are only growing worse. Now there are rotting bodies on the floor under the box that she’s confined in. Her fate is the same as theirs and she is in terror of the time that they will come for her.
She knows it’s soon. They told her that.
She lets go of a bar with one hand and points to the ground under her. There is Julie’s body. It rolls off to reveal Frank. She points again and there’s her own body, clutching onto the brass key.
She mouths words that have no sound and then points down once more and the corpse of Veronica Fischer rolls onto the pile.
The little girl is being ripped at by black clawed hands, reaching through the bars of her cage. She retreats but they come from all directions more and faster while bits of her clothing and her skin fall to the floor.
“There’s no time left. V, you have to save me!”
***
I wake up in a strange place and instantly panic hits me in the face. I’m already up with the pistol in my hand before I realize that the men on the other side of the room are Frank and Jules.
The realization that I’m in the Masonic Lodge comes to me and the reality of the last few days events serve as a splash of cold water to my soul. Waking up to the horror of what’s become of my life.
I should feel safer with Jules here, and I guess I do. I just don’t feel at ease, not while Paco still has Rachel. Not while he’s hurting her to grow stronger.
I’m beginning to wonder if my dreams are simply my subconscious, or if Rachel can really speak to me in my sleep. I’ve taken it for granted that my dreams were my own, but I really can’t be sure.
Garret and Julie are here, with us. I love them both and I’m very thankful to have them back, but their conditions both serve as serious reminders of my failure. Failure, like I feel when I think about Rachel. I can’t stop worrying about her, and hating that we left her there with Paco.
Walking across the room I search for and eventually locate the clothes that Frank brought in from the car for me. He packed me a short, tight black dress, specifically with me fighting in mind. At least he brought my boots and my leather jacket.
I find a mirror, and check how I look. I really wish I had makeup, but that’s more out of habit than necessity. Jules is on his way over to me, I’m sure because he can sense my thoughts. Before I can address his concerns the rotted wooden door at the top of the staircase swings open violently and thumps loudly against the wall.
Sunny calls down to us, her normal chipper self, “Let’s get up and moving! We’ve got four hours to have everything ready and be out the door!”
“WE’VE ONLY GOT TWO-HUNDRED
rounds of the spectrally cursed ammo left for the automatic rifles, then we’re back to tracers and armor piercing,” Sunny announces as she sits down a wooden ammo box, and then two metal ones next to it. “Lock and load, boys and girls.”
We all gather around the table as Jules starts to load magazines. “I believe that all the ammunition should go to Frank. He’s an excellent marksman, and he has little in the way of self-defense when it comes to Paco’s spirits.”
“Well fuck that!” Sunny exclaims indignantly. “I want to be able to defend myself too. It’s not my fault you brought a featherweight to the big fight. I don’t even know you. Where do you get off telling me where my equipment’s gonna go?”
“I don’t have time to debate the issue with you. We need what you bring to the table, but I will not hesitate to turn off your brain and drive you around like a radio controlled car if you continue to be so hard to get along with.”
We all stare stunned at Jules’ words. Thankfully Sunny is smart enough to know he’s not bluffing and drops the issue.
I can see in Frank’s mind that he’s about to tell Sunny to sit down and let the grownups talk. I tap him in his mind and shake my head at him. That’s not the explosion we need right now.
Jules and I try to formulate a plan for saving Rachel and stopping Paco. It keeps coming down to getting into the building and getting to Rachel alive, before Paco can flee into the spirit world. Neither of us can find a way to hold him there if wanted to flee, and Sunny’s magic is likely not potent enough to do it.
Jules excuses himself to make a phone call and Sunny comes back over to the table as Frank takes over with the firearms. She’s watching Jules, and when he walks out of the room she finally decides to speak to me.
“He can’t really do that can he? Turn off brains and drive people around?”
I look at her somberly. “You’d be amazed what he can do with people’s minds.”
She looks nervously back at the door he walked out and then watches Frank for a moment. I can see in her thoughts that she doesn’t think that this attack is going to be that big a deal. I find that really disturbing.
“Why aren’t you worried about this? You lost all your men and almost died yesterday.”
“The assault team were just breathers. They’re nothing. They’re replaceable. Besides, we almost had him last time. I had him out on the ground. I think one more good push and he’ll be done.”
Jules walks back into the room as she’s talking and from the doorway he rebuffs her logic.
“We got lucky last time. We had surprise on our side and hit in two waves, with everything we had, and still barely escaped with our lives. Without managing to free the spirit that’s the focus of his ritual.”
Now that’s a real confidence builder. I was unsure of our chances before. Damn.
I can feel Julie in the room with us. She’s not choosing to be seen. I wonder if she knows that she still radiates emotion and that any of us that can sense those kinds of things could feel her pain and know she’s there as easily as if we could actually see her standing next to us.
Jules stands next to me at the table and looks around from face to face addressing us all.
“If he’s allowed to sacrifice that spirit then he’ll be far too powerful for us to contend with. I don’t believe you realize the scope of what we are facing. It’s lucky for you that some of us do. I’ve already contacted one of our kind who focuses on spirits and the paranormal. If anyone can help us here it’ll be her.”
He called Serena. I don’t know if having her involved in this makes me more or less nervous. Frank has stopped working and is hanging on Jules’ every word.
“She has agreed to help in what ways she can, and I believe that with her assistance we might be able to hold him there and make him face us. We just have to be able to stand against him and be successful. That will be the difficult part.”
Everyone feels the same dread about our chances that I do. Everyone, except Julie. She materializes next to me with a sound of ripping fabric. It seems the girl is a fast learner.
“It won’t be just us.”
She certainly knew how to grab everyone’s attention. All eyes are on her as she looks to the space next her, listening, and then speaks.
“Garrett says that Lucy left last night to go to a place she calls her sanctuary to gather her soldiers. She’s having them meet us at the funeral home tonight after eleven.”
I knew Lucy ran a home, of sorts, for spirits. I didn’t know she had soldiers. I do know that she is as powerful as these ‘unquiet’ servants of Paco’s though, and if her soldiers are even close to the same, then we suddenly have a real fighting chance.
“Good.” Jules doesn’t sound any happier with our odds, but he doesn’t sound more upset. “We should all do our parts to prepare for the struggle at hand then. Child, can you bring Garrett back across to the physical world?”
You could see the word child ignite a fire in Sunny’s eyes, but she still had enough fear for Jules not to vent her rage at him.
“I’ve already spent most of the night trying, unsuccessfully. There are a few more things I can attempt, but I don’t have a lot of hope left.”
We can all tell that Sunny will do anything she can to help to “fix” Garrett. She’s with us in this fight to a point, but she doesn’t like having to work with us to stop Paco. She feels that she and Garrett should have been able to handle all this without us, and it’s my fault they can’t. My fault for getting Garrett trapped in the spirit world.
I share at least some of her opinions.
***
Frank has loaded almost everything we’re taking with us into a black suburban and the Charger in the crude makeshift garage. It’s fifteen after ten, and the building has grown quiet.
Sunny comes into the garage to see how far we’ve gotten, and I can tell right away that she’s not been able to help Garrett. It’s written on her face, I don’t have to try to read it out of her.
I put my hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her and ask, “Isn’t there anything else you can do?”
Clearly that was the wrong thing to say, though I doubt there was really a right thing that I could have said. She smacks my hand away and screams at me.