Poltergeeks (17 page)

  I hunched over as Marcus carefully pushed the blade of the shovel down into the dirt. The edges of a copper box became visible. He prised it out of the ground with the shovel and dumped it at his feet. He exhaled heavily and reached out to brush off chunky clumps of moist clay.

  "Wait a minute, kid," my father warned. "You touch that thing and you're going to be in a world of hurt."

  Marcus glanced at my father through the corner of his eye. "Protective spells again?"

  "Yep," Dad's ghost made a grunting sound. "That box is laced with sigils that I etched right into the metal. Kiddo, I'm a member of the dearly departed, so I can't disarm the spell. Looks like it falls to you."

  I blinked a couple of times and held out my right hand to feel through the layers of magic surrounding the box. "It's a very complex protective ward," I said, concentrating. "But it feels familiar somehow, like I've seen this magic before."

  My father's ghost nodded. "That's because I designed it to be recognizable to only one person – you."

  Marcus grabbed my wrist. "Be careful, Julie."

  I let out a nervous sigh as I closed my eyes tightly. Within seconds, my focus was immersed in multiple layers of interlocking magical energies that had been knitted together like a thick wool sweater. Strand after strand of emerald energy glowed in the darkness like individual lengths of neon, humming and throbbing as I carefully searched for a loose thread. After a moment, I'd found what I was looking for and I reached out with a whisper of magic, giving it the tiniest of tugs. The complicated protective ward surrounding the metal box slowly dissolved at my command and I gave another whisper of my magic for good measure.

  "I-it's disarmed," I said quietly, as a bead of sweat rolled down between my shoulder blades. "I don't know how I did it, but it's disengaged."

  "You drew on a deeper level of magic, kiddo," said my father with a twinge of pride in his voice.

  I smiled at him for a short moment and then gazed down at the box. I slid a brass bolt on the front of the box. I took a deep breath to compose myself and then carefully lifted up the lid. The interior was remarkably dry; in fact it looked like the contents had been hermetically sealed from the elements. I shrugged and decided that my father's magical ward must have been stitched together so tightly that not even moisture from the ground would be able to penetrate the box. Inside were two items: a thick book with a drab olive cotton duck cover and a smaller wooden box with complex runes and sigils engraved in its smooth, rich surface. I reached for the book and pulled it out of the metal box.

  "Your grimoire," I said with a bit of an edge in my voice. "Don't tell me, it's a Shadowcull's diary."

  "Sort of," my father said. "My grimoire was always intended to be yours one day. It contains notes on the arcane, strategies and techniques to defeat dark agents; a who's-who of the magical world. All the main players are listed in that book, not to mention whether they are an ally or someone to be watched closely."

  I unzipped my backpack and slipped both the box and the book inside. I reached for the wooden box and tried to open it but the tiny locking mechanism wouldn't budge.

  "It won't open," I said, holding the box up for my father's ghost to see.

  He nodded. "I know. Do you have your amulet? That's the only thing that will open it, and you'll understand why in a moment."

  I reached into the hip pocket of my jeans and pulled out the amulet. I gave it a small rub with my thumb and then held it like a poker chip over the tiny locking mechanism. There was a quick snap as the metal bolt disengaged. I opened the box.

  Inside was a two-inch wide copper band.

  "It's a bracelet," I said, sounding slightly deflated. "It looks too big to fit me, Dad, and I already have my amulet to use as a focus for my magic."

  "Uh-huh," he said in a knowing voice. "Put it on."

  I took out the bracelet and examined it for a moment. It was highly polished and resembled the colour of a freshly minted penny. There were no sigils or engravings on its smooth surface but there was an oval recess about two or three millimetres deep in the center. It slid easily over my left hand and dangled loosely from my thin wrist.

  "There's a hole in it," I said. "What's supposed to go in there?"

  My father pointed to my amulet that was dangling from my fist. "It's a Shadowcull's weapon," he said. "The bracelet is a focus, just like your amulet, but when the two separate pieces are combined, it acts as an amplification device for magical energies. Slip your amulet into the recess and you'll see what I'm talking about."

  I glanced at my amulet and then back to the oval recess in the bracelet. I shrugged my shoulders and unhooked the latch on the chain, then pulled the chain through the metal loop on the tiny charm. It popped into the recess with a click, and the band instantly tightened around my wrist. It was three sizes too big half a second ago and now it fitted snugly against my skin as if it had been custom-designed for me by a master craftsman. But that wasn't all. Not even close.

  I felt an intense surge blast through my body as the bracelet's power intermingled with my magical signature. It was as if the bracelet had injected adrenaline into the naturally occurring magical forces from within and my spirit literally vibrated with magical energy. I took a hesitant breath as I glanced up at Marcus. He stood there with a blank expression but that wasn't what grabbed my attention: his entire face was encased in a blanket of colors ranging from Indian Ocean blue to deep sea Mediterranean green. His aura stood out like a beacon, swirling and crackling with living energy and I had to stop myself from reaching out to touch it, the colours were too vivid to be real.

  I gazed out at my father and became speechless. Instead of the vaporous entity I'd spent the last hour with; his body had taken solid form as if he'd been coated with a shimmering film of light. I climbed out of the hole and gazed out in wonder at the cemetery. All around me were the spirits of the dead, all radiating different intensities of spectral waves as far as the eye could see.

  And I could hear things.

  The sound of a moth's wings beating with percussive rhythm like a helicopter blade slicing through the air. I shut out the sound of flying insects to hear dew forming on the grass beneath my feet. I looked down to see one tiny distinct droplet of moisture rolling down an individual blade of grass. I spun around as Marcus climbed out of the hole. I could hear his heart beating and the sound of his blood pulsing through his veins and I could even feel slightest variations in his body temperature.

  "You will know your surroundings, Julie," my father's ghost whispered. "Your instincts will be heightened to such an extent that you won't need to think about what to do next when your enemies come for you. And they will come, sweetheart. They will come for you because you represent the clarity of magic's purpose and because you wield a power they covet. Their agents will try and turn you because to have a Shadowcull in their employ would be a prize worth killing for. They killed me because I let down my guard, so take my advice to heart. Never, ever take that bracelet off. Never lose that amulet and finally, never let your weapon fall into the enemy's hands."

  "Anything else?" I asked as I ran my thumb along the smooth surface of the bracelet.

  He nodded again. "Yeah, if the amulet has been fixed on the bracelet for more than a day, you need to remove it otherwise the amplifying effect will basically melt your brain and you'll go nuts."

  "Seriously?"

  "Dead serious," he said, stony faced.

  I exhaled very slowly as my senses took in my surroundings. The shadows bent and flowed like liquid smoke as the clouds parted, bathing the cemetery in milky-blue moonlight. I could feel the vibration of traffic humming up and down Fourth Street beneath my feet and I heard the sound of a dog barking wildly in the distance.

  I turned to my father who was floating like a fishing bob when I felt an electrifying jolt of dark energy set itself on the cemetery like a violent clap of thunder. An unearthly groan filled the air and both Marcus and I dropped to our knees and covered our ears to drown out the sound. It ended as quickly as it began and then I felt the ground shake. All the colour drained from Marcus' face as he pointed to a copse of poplar trees less than a hundred yards from us.

  "Holy shit!" he croaked. "Whatever the hell that thing is, it's huge and it's heading toward us!"

  The air shook as the creature let out a roar that sent both Marcus and I tumbling into my father's grave.

  "I know your name!" the creature shrieked, as it lumbered forward. In seconds it was on us.

 
 

 
 
 

I couldn't scream. It was as if the very sight of the monster sucked out the air from my lungs. Every muscle in my body was paralyzed with fear as the undead creature smashed through a granite crypt like a freight train. Marcus didn't waste any time and he instinctively grabbed my arm and hurled me from my father's grave with all his strength. Oh, and the copper bracelet decided all of a sudden to start glowing with a blinding white light. You know, because the twenty-foot tall creature comprised of body parts from nearby graves and bound together by the same spectral energy I'd felt at school actually
needed
help finding us. We tore across the crest of the hill until I spotted my father materialize beside a large crypt that resembled a gothic bungalow. He motioned for us to follow him just as the creature started running. Yeah, it
ran.

  "What the hell is that thing?" Marcus shouted as he dove headfirst into a finely manicured hedge surrounding the crypt. I hurdled over the hedge and landed badly, twisting my ankle.

  "It's the same magic that was behind the attack at school!" I said, wincing from the pain.

  "But it's a zombie!" he choked.

  My father's ghost poked his head above the hedge and said, "It's not a zombie, it's about fifty yards away from here and you both are going to be deader than me if you can't think of something to stop it!"

  Marcus turned his eyes toward me. "What are you going to do?"

  "I have no idea," I said in a terrified voice. "I'm only trained in defensive magic."

  
"Y
eah, well start thinking offensive!" Dad said in a determined voice. "It's twenty-five yards from here and it looks hungry. You're going to have to confront that walking morgue, and if it were me, I'd be using emotional magic!"

  "My emotions?"

  "All of them! You need to reach down into the very pit of your soul and channel your emotions into a spell that acts like dark magic. Remember, the bracelet will amplify your power, so it's up to you now! Go kick some ass!"

  My heart was beating so fast I could feel the blood surging through my veins. I didn't want to stand up to that thing, but my father was right, we were dead if I didn't do something. I felt the copper band tingling with energy against my wrist and I took a deep breath. I clenched my jaw and reached out with my spirit to the elemental forces that surrounded me. As if it were in tune with my supernatural instincts, the copper band exploded with spectral energy and blazed like a fireball as I built my focus into a brick wall of concentration. I fixed my eyes on a cluster of large granite headstones in front of the monster and roared, "
Ballisticus!"

  A tremor shook the earth as the headstones tore out of the ground and sailed through the air at the creature, pummelling it like an artillery target and sending it tumbling. It crash-landed against the cement fountain we'd been sitting on moments earlier. I pushed myself out of the hedge, my body vibrating with power, and stalked through the cool damp grass and onto an asphalt path.

  "I'm not going down without a fight!" I barked, my body shaking. "I don't know what your beef is with me, but I'll torch this entire cemetery unless you give me back my mother!"

  The creature slowly got back to its feet. Its face was a hideous mask of the features of three or four corpses stitched together with magic. Each face writhed; it was as if they were communicating a strategy to take me down. Four sets of hideous lips in various stages of decay curled up into four separate rotting grins as its eyes fixed on me. The left side of the creature's body sported three arms; two male and one female. There was one perfectly sculpted arm on the right side and each arm sprouted from four distinct torsos, compressed together, that looked like they'd been ripped from their former owners. The tight, grey skin of the rotting husks that made up the creature's body was visible through the torn remnants of burial clothes.

  The creature opened all four mouths and let out a high-pitched wail that blasted through the air, sending me stumbling backward against the hedge. I scrambled to my feet and the creature rushed at me, a head-on collision waiting to happen. I held out my left arm and dug my feet into the ground as I summoned another burst of magic, this time calling up a pillar of force and blasting it straight into the center of the creature's mass. There was a loud splattering sound, and a rolling wave of vomit frothed its way up to my throat as I watched two of the arms and one torso ripped from the amalgam of decaying flesh. The faces looked surprised by my attack for half a second, and then they seemed to be communicating with each other again.

  "Emotional magic, Julie!" my father's ghost bellowed. "You're not reaching deep enough!"

  "I'm doing the best that I can!" I shouted.

  "Do better!" he shot back. "You're a Shadowcull and you haven't even scratched the surface of what you're capable of!"

  I gave my head a shake as I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet. Huge jets of earth and stone belched out from a dozen separate graves, toppling the headstones like they were dominoes. I gazed up, and what I saw next sent my heart racing.