The Ravaging in Between (The Reanimation Files Book 3) (30 page)

The arriving, confused, wailing ghosts, plus all the activity with the necromancers was distracting, and I needed to maintain total focus. It was exhausting. My legs burned from standing for so long, and my body was covered in sweat from the effort it took to stay in control of this power. My throat was begging for a drink of water that I couldn’t offer it yet, plus the strain was giving me a headache. I really hoped all the ghosts showed up soon. Surely none of them would be coming from too far. Else I’d be here all night.

Another hour passed. I was growing alarmed because my exhaustion was jeopardizing my hold on the dead magic. I could feel it slipping from my grasp. How many more ghosts were there? For the past twenty minutes or so, they’d been coming in a steady stream.

The strain was overwhelming, and it was as though the dead magic knew it. One minute I was in control, then before I knew it a surge of power went through me so strongly that I fell to my knees. My control broke. The dead magic was still being channeled through the runes I held, but it also rose off my body like a black wave and ensnarled every ghost that was close by and started to drag them toward me.

“I’m losing control!” I yelled. I struggled to get to my feet but it was a losing battle. “Don’t let the ghosts get to me!” Not for my sake but for theirs—although ultimately I guess it was for my sake too. The necromancers started scrambling to keep the ghosts away from me, but this dead magic was much stronger than their power. It wasn’t long before the first ghosts slammed into me. They were wailing before, but now they screamed in terror as the dead magic sucked them into my body.

Each time a ghost sunk into me, it felt as though I was being scorched with a ball of fire. It was all one huge, burning pain, and I couldn’t see a thing because the dead magic had manifested into a black curtain that wrapped around me. I was trapped inside a suffocating box of searing, blinding magic.

I tried to focus so I could regain control, but nothing worked. The dead magic was unbound and free, and what was even more terrifying was that the more ghosts I sucked in, the more I could feel the bind to Garrus. I heard his voice snarling in my head, felt his power pulling at me greedily. He was hungry for more and his strength was making the dead magic’s pull even stronger.

It all hurt so much, was so horrific, and my body was already wiped out from the hours I’d spent trying to hold on to the reins of this power. I was not sure how I could stop this without sucking down every last one of these ghosts. I didn’t want to continue making Garrus stronger, but I had no idea what to do.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I thought it was a ghost, but a familiar scent of cologne hit my nose and I realized it was Micah. I was still lost in a blinding vortex, but Micah was trying to combat it, even though the dead magic was doing everything it could to keep him away. He grabbed at my hand, but was pulled away a few times before he could manage to keep his hold.

When I felt something slip around my wrist, I realized what he was doing. He’d placed the bracelet back on. A surge of strength went through me and the dead magic immediately downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

But it wasn’t completely back under my control yet. The bracelet helped, but the rest was up to me. I felt stronger now—I could do this. I focused on the dead magic and started calling it back from the runes on the building. It didn’t want to recede, but my pull was insistent and growing stronger as the bracelet helped me regain control, and before long it started detaching from the runes. I channeled it back into my body.

Slowly, very slowly, the dark curtain started to disappear, and the magnetic pull that was drawing the ghosts to me decreased. I couldn’t see what was going on because I’d closed my eyes, but I didn’t feel any more ghosts slam into me. I hoped that meant that the necromancers had been able to keep them away, not that I had taken in every ghost that had been here.

The dead magic was a wild animal that did not want to be tamed, but it had no choice. I willed it back into the cage I had built for it, and the effort was not without its price. My body was weak; I was in physical pain as though I’d just been beaten senseless. But I was alive, and the dead magic was back under wraps after what felt like an eternity.

I slowly opened my eyes. The world around me was deathly quiet. I startled, and fell back onto my butt, because Micah was kneeling inches away and I had not been aware that he was still close to me. He looked scared as hell, but relieved once he saw me blinking at him. He reached for me and I willingly collapsed into his arms, letting him hold me because I had no strength to hold myself up.

“Are you OK?” Micah whispered. His voice trembled. I knew how that ordeal had felt but I couldn’t imagine how it must have looked. Like the stuff of nightmares, I bet.

“Fairly certain I’m not.” My voice was shaky too, and rough. I needed water and lots of it. I raised my head. “I lost control. I tried not to but it overwhelmed me. I didn’t mean to…those ghosts…” Tears stung my eyes. I was burned out and felt horrible for what I had done to those ghosts. It had never been the plan to turn them into ghost food.

“It’s OK,” Micah said. He pulled me back in and gently stroked my hair.

“No, it’s not.” I knew he was just trying to be comforting, but lies wouldn’t do anything for me right now. “This all went so wrong.”

“Selene.” I looked up to see Tielle standing behind Micah. I would have thought she’d look pissed, but she looked concerned.

“What happened? Did I…”

“About fourteen ghosts went through you,” Tielle said. “There were over thirty in the area or close by, but the necromancers were able to keep them back once you started to regain control. The ones that needed to go were sent through the necromancer circle.”

I looked behind Tielle and saw that the circle had been deactivated and the necromancers who’d been part of it were being examined by dead witch doctors to assess any damage that had been done to them. They all looked exhausted.

“Fourteen,” I repeated hollowly. “Oh God. They weren’t all crossover ghosts, were they?”

“No,” Tielle said, looking grave.

“Shit.” I ran a shaky hand over my mouth. There wasn’t a word strong enough to describe how I felt.

“I will handle it,” Tielle said. “It could have been a lot worse. We knew it was a gamble allowing you to do this with power you had so newly acquired, so the responsibility of what happened here falls on us. You did a good job.”

It didn’t feel like it though. My body buzzed with hyper-awareness. Garrus felt too close, almost as though he was in my skin with me. It was an uncomfortable feeling that I wanted to suppress. Feeding him ghosts seemed to make the connection stronger, and I was terrified to know what that could possibly mean.

Micah helped me to my feet, but I remained leaning against him and he kept his arm around me. Someone handed me a bottle of water.

“So what’s the outcome?” I asked once I had drained the bottle. My voice sounded less croaky. “I had to pull the dead magic out of the runes in order to get it back under control so I’m not sure if I was able to call in all of the crossover ghosts.”

“Let me find out,” Tielle asked. She beckoned someone over who gave her a clipboard.

“A hundred and twelve ghosts were recalled,” she said. “It’s close to the estimated number of ghosts we’d calculated, but I’m certain we did not get them all.”

“I guess the most important thing would be to know if all the ghosts who attacked someone were sent back,” I said.

“Yes, we will soon be able to determine that,” Tielle said. Just then, someone came running up to Tielle. It was Emilia.

“Tielle, I’ve just received word from some necromancers who are at the open circle in Central Park,” she said. “It closed!”

“What?” Tielle, Micah, and I said in unison. We turned our complete attention to her.

“Well, not a hundred percent,” Emilia said, some of her excitement dissipating. Mine did too. I’d been about to jump for joy over the knowledge that Garrus wouldn’t be able to cross over.

“What are you talking about?” Tielle asked sharply.

“The circle closed drastically,” Emilia said. “And we realized that as ghosts were being sent back, it was causing the circle to close. But since you’ve stopped now, it’s also stopped closing. It remains about ten percent open. Before, it was about forty percent open.”

Micah, Tielle, and I turned to each other.

“So the reason the circle remained open was because the crossover ghosts were still here,” I said.

“Incredible,” Tielle said, “I would not have guessed that was the reason the circle remained open. It is the simplest reason and I was looking for a far more complex answer.”

“This is great,” I said. “If we can finish sending all the ghosts back we can close the circle completely and I won’t die.”

“What?” Tielle and Micah said in unison. I forgot they didn’t know about the repercussions to me if Garrus crossed over. Tielle dismissed Emilia, then I told her and Micah the scary truth.

“How do you know this?” Micah asked. He looked stricken to say the least.

“Magda,” I said. “And I trust her knowledge.”

“We will have to try this again,” Tielle said. “If the circle is open ten percent, that’s enough for ghosts to continue crossing over. The only good news is that they won’t be doing so at the same speed as before. Once Selene has made a full recovery we will do it once more.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to give me a good amount of time on that,” I said. “Right now I am exhausted and starving. I sure wish I was going home to one of Ethan’s meals…” I stopped and my mouth hung open as I just realized something. I looked from Tielle to Micah, who were looking at me questioningly.

“We need to send all the ghosts back to close the circle but we forgot one very, huge detail,” I said. “There may be more ghosts out there that didn’t get drawn in. But they aren’t the only ones who are still on this side. The ghosts you drew out to save Ethan, the ones in the runes on his back…”

Realization dawned on Micah and Tielle.

“The circle will never close if they aren’t sent back too.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

“So how many ghosts are in those runes?” I asked. It was two days later, and I’d had enough food and rest to feel back to normal, or as normal as I could feel with an unwanted power inside me and a connection to an aggressive ghost in the In Between. Tielle, Micah, and I were in Renton’s bunker in a side room while Ethan was out in the main area.

“About twenty,” Tielle replied.

“Shit.” I sighed and glanced through the crack in the door where Ethan was chattering excitedly. Not to himself though; his mother, father, and sister were with him. There were plenty of tears, along with a lot of marveling at the fact that Ethan once again occupied a physical body.

“And tell me again why you brought his family to see him? Not to sound cold, but in light of everything it didn’t seem like the right moment to spring this on them.”

“We had no choice, the arrangements had been made before the plans to send the crossover ghosts back had been done,” Tielle replied. “I had received word from my superiors that they would support the success of the experiment and approved Ethan going public and rejoining society.”

“I wouldn’t say a necromancer circle that remains open and continues to allow ghosts to cross back over was a success,” I said.

“Their concern mainly lay with the success of the body,” Tielle said. “Making sure it held up and did not fall apart. There are ways to deal with an open circle.”

“I see.” I was not really surprised at the Paranormal Sector’s decision to call this a success despite the prevailing issues. They were opportunists, and the recreation of Ethan’s body would provide opportunities that they would be sure to exploit in order to advance their agenda.

Once Ethan’s journey was publicized, it would give them a boost in terms of what their power was capable of. It was a boost they very much needed after the Renton fiasco. To take his brilliant but grossly misused knowledge and research and use it to help the ghost of a young man who had his body stolen and then destroyed was a story they’d spin for a long time. I just wanted to see what they would do when other people started calling for new bodies for the ghosts of their loved ones.

As for the still-open circle, PTF officers armed with runes were to remain stationed around it to capture any ghost that crossed over. Once a certain amount was accumulated, they would be sent back. There were more crossover ghosts out than there were in Ethan’s runes, so Tielle still planned to have me repeat that fun rune-connecting thing again.

“We had informed Ethan’s family of the experiment days ago and told them they could come see him,” Micah said. “We couldn’t back out on that.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “They deserve to see him and vice-versa. I am just worried about the implications to myself. If that circle isn’t closed and Garrus crosses over, I am going to have a very horrific and painful death.”

Just the thought of it filled me with anxiety and I started pacing and running my fingers through my hair while resisting the urge to start pulling it out. “That’s a tough reality to live with. I’d really hoped I’d no longer have to deal with my life being in danger every moment of the day.”

“The experiment can be undone,” Tielle said softly. I stopped pacing and turned to her. “We can remove the ghosts and send them back. Ethan’s new body will be destroyed, but…”

“But what?” I prodded.

“We don’t know what will happen to his ghost,” Micah said. “It’s very possible that his ghost will not survive the dismantling of his body and it will just…”

“Go the way that Andrew’s ghost did when his new body was destroyed,” I finished.

The memory of Andrew’s ghost falling to dust was still haunting. It chilled me to think of that happening to Ethan’s ghost. Sorrow, guilt, and frustration weighed on me. No matter what, Ethan’s life and my life seemed like they were going to remain tangled in deadly ways.

Micah came and stood in front of me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Tielle and I talked about it for a long time,” he said. “We both care about Ethan, but we care about you too, and this is a very real issue. If that ghost crosses back, capturing him in a rune won’t do anything to save you.” His grip on my shoulders tightened and I could see the pain and fear in his eyes. “I almost lost you once, very recently. I am not prepared to go through that again, especially when there’s no loophole that can save you this time around.”