"So can we pinpoint where the rest of the parts are?" I guessed.
Ian nodded at me. "You can."
I felt the color drain from my face. "Me?" I squeaked.
"You, and Cecilia," he added.
"B-but I don't know how to find anybody, and besides, that Black guy's probably just itching to get his long, cold fingers around my neck," I pointed out.
"Then we can use you as bait so Cecilia can find the body parts," he suggested.
I balled my hands into fists at my sides and stamped my foot on the ground. "I am not bait!"
A deep, echoing groan reverberated through the hall. We all spun around and faced the door. The groaning noise lasted for a few, long seconds before it faded into the distance.
"It's heard our plans," Cecilia spoke up.
Ian sat tense and erect in his chair. "But it still has to try to stop us."
Quinn took a step towards the door and reached out for the knob.
"Don't open it," Ian hissed.
Quinn turned to him. "Why not?"
Ian stood and his narrowed eyes glared at the entrance. "I smell death."
I watched the door and couldn't believe what I saw. A warp bubble appeared in the wood as if something round pushed at it from the other side. The bump grew larger and larger. Quinn stumbled back. Ian and Cronus moved so they stood between everyone and the entrance. They each pulled out their pack of talismans.
"You think these will stop him?" Ian asked his partner.
Cronus pursed his lips. "No."
A small smile slipped onto Ian's lips. "I'm sorry I asked."
The bulge in the door grew bigger and bigger. I wondered how I couldn't hear the cracking of wood as the door strained beyond reason. I jumped when a small hand slipped into mine. It was only Cecilia,. She looked up into my face.
"Help me raise a Barrier in front of that door," she ordered me.
My jaw dropped down. "But I don't even know how to raise one around me!"
The door groaned, and I looked to see space appear between the door and the frame. There was an impenetrable darkness behind the entrance, and it wanted inside.
Ian threw his dagger-like talisman into the door. The paper burst into flames and fell to the floor as ash.
"Damn it. . ." I heard Ian mutter.
"Help me or we'll all end up like that paper!" Cecilia hissed.
"I-I'll try," I agreed.
"Don't try, just do it!"
I shut my eyes and focused on that warm spot inside me. It was really hard to concentrate with all the creaking, groaning, and our acquaintances panicking around us.
"I hope you have a Plan B, Cronus," Ian told his partner.
"No," was the blunt response.
Warm spot. I had to find my warm spot. It was somewhere around the heart. There! I found it pretty much inside the organ. It was a small speck of warmth, and I latched onto it like a drowning man to a life preserver. The warmth pulsed and grew. I opened my eyes and blinked as I beheld a bright light not unlike the Blessing. It emanated from my chest and pulsed with its own life. Another light emanated from Cecilia's chest, but it was much larger.
Cecilia smirked at me. "Mine's bigger." I rolled my eyes, and my light faded a little. "Focus," she hissed.
I scrunched my eyes shut and felt the warmth grow again. My light was still weaker than Cecilia's, but it would have to work because we were short on time. The door bulged a foot into the room and the space between the frame and door was now a large hole. Darkness seeped into the room and floated like mist towards Ian and Cronus. Ian transformed his arms and swung at the mist. His clawed hands sliced through the air. The mist parted only to reform itself and continue forward.
Cronus took a few steps back and balled his right hand into a fist. My eyes widened as I watched a glowing light spring from his fist and form itself into a familiar red sword. He swung the sword and cut into the mist, but his swings did as little damage as Ian's swipes. The mist continued its march towards us.
"Push the light towards the mist!" Cecilia ordered me.
"How?" I asked her before I noticed she grasped the sides of her glowing light and pushed the ball-like form towards the door. "Oh."
I mimicked her action and pushed my own light from my body. A chill descended over me as I was separated from the warmth. Our balls flew past Ian and Cronus, and crashed into the dark mist. Light and energy crackled and static filled the air as the light fought with mist.
"Come on," I whispered. The balls of light were stuck in the mist. The darkness swallowed the balls and blocked them from my sight. "Come on! Get your ass out of there!" I yelled.
The balls must've heard me because light burst from the darkness in rays of brilliance. My arm flew up to block some of the light as the mist was blown away. The balls flew forward and slammed into the distended door. The wood creaked and groaned as the balls of light pushed the bulge back into the door, and the gap between the frame closed. The door reverted back to its original position, and the balls of light sank into the wood and disappeared.
We were safe. For now.
CHAPTER 9
There was a long silence from those of us in the room, followed by an intelligent comment from Ian.
"What the fuck was that?" he asked us. He turned to Cecilia and me. "Well?"
She grinned and shrugged. "Just some focused Barrier abilities."
"I didn't know a Barrier could leave the body of a mystic," Quinn spoke up.
"It's my own special recipe," Cecilia informed him.
Ian folded his arms over his chest and chuckled. "I knew bringing you along would be a good idea."
Cecilia eyebrows crashed down. "Don't get used to it. That might've scared away whatever that was, but it won't keep it away for the whole night."
Cronus turned to us, minus his sword which had disappeared, and studied me. I glared back at him. Some thanks for saving his hide. Cecilia turned her attention to Cronus.
"What was that sword you were holding? I've never seen mystics use that skill before," she commented.
I glared at Ian. "And why didn't you tell me it was Cronus who saved us from the lamia?"
"Cronus doesn't like to brag about his abilities," Ian replied. He turned to Cronus and jerked his head in our direction. "You may as well tell them the rest."
Cronus pursed his lips. "It was a Soul Sword," he replied.
Cecilia raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of it. What's it do?"
"It uses soul energy to form a blade," he explained.
Quinn grinned. "So it's soul-er powered-ouch!" Cecilia had whacked his shin with her stick.
"Stop wasting our time with corny jokes. We need to find those body parts and fast," she insisted.
"Not without me," Sebastian spoke up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. I was surprised to see his wounds weren't so many as I first saw and his legs held him steady. He strode to the foot of the bed and clasped one of the posts. "I can help you."
Ian shook his head. "You're useless without your Phantoms."
"If you find my Phantoms then you're going to want me around," he warned us with a smirk on his face. His eyes floated around the room and stopped on each of us. "You see, my Phantoms don't like strangers. They make them nervous. So if they see some strangers I can't say what the consequences would be."
"You can go look for your damn Phantoms on your own," Quinn snapped.
"No," Ian spoke up. He half-turned to Sebastian and studied the man with narrowed eyes. "He'll come with us. If we want to get this done quick we have to split up. Unless there are objections." He glanced at Cronus who shook his head. "Good. Then I'll pick the teams. Sebastian will go with Cecilia and-"
"I'd rather go with the fine Miss Enid," Sebastian spoke up as he nodded at me.
Ian frowned. "You're as good as dead weight, and dead weight doesn't get a choice."
"Then I'll follow you. You can't keep me with any particular group," he pointed out.
The expres
sion on Ian's face darkened. "Fine, I'll babysit you." He turned to our three friends. "Cecilia, you lead Quinn and Cronus on a hunt through the third floor."
"Why go up there?" Quinn asked him.
"The activity didn't start until the construction hit the third floor. That means all the body parts must be up there, and on the fourth floor," Ian surmised.
"And the attic," Cecilia spoke up. "There's something up there, but I can't tell what it is."
"Then my group will start in the attic," Ian replied.
"That'd be the most likely place for my Phantoms to hide, so I'll definitely be coming with you," Sebastian reaffirmed.
"Do what you want, but if you get into trouble you're on your own," Ian warned him.
Sebastian smiled and bowed his head. I glanced around the group and knew there was fear written all over my face.
I held up a hand. "Wait a sec. Why are we splitting into two groups? I can't find these things," I reminded everyone.
Ian smiled and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "You'll be fine. It's not-"
"No." I shrugged off his arm and stepped away from the group. The air around us was oppressive and terrifying. Tears sprang into my eyes and my body shook so hard it hurt. "I can't do this, okay? I'm scared out of my mind and I just want to leave."
"You'll be fine," Ian assured me.
"Look!" I held up my hands. They trembled violently. "Does that look like I'm fine?"
"Ian'll be with you, and we won't be too far," Quinn pointed out.
"You were just across the hall and I nearly got strangled!" I choked out. My tears slid down my cheeks. I wrapped my arms around me to stop the shaking. "I just want to go home."
"We can after this," Ian insisted.
"Not your home! My home!" I yelled.
"You know why-"
A loud, hard clack interrupted him. We all looked to see it was Cecilia. She knocked the bottom of her stick against the floor again for good measure.
"All of you get out. I want to talk to her," she ordered them.
"Ceci-"
"Don't Ceci me, Mr. Ian. Not now," she snapped. She jerked her head towards the door. "Everyone out. Now."
The men grudgingly obliged. Ian was the last to leave. He stood in the doorway with the knob in hand and looked forlornly at me. I could see I hurt him, but I was too scared to care. All I wanted was to get out of this nightmare. He looked at the floor and shut the door behind me.
The minute the door latched Cecilia turned to me.
"Stop being such a baby," she snapped at me.
I glared at her. "It's really easy to say that-"
"When I'm blind?" she interrupted. She clacked her cane on the ground straight over to me and stood in front of me. She was short, but her will loomed large. "You think because I can't see what you see that this is any less terrifying?"
"Yes," I replied.
"I might not see what you see, but you can't see what I see, either," she argued.
"You mean everyone's light? Yeah, that's gotta be really-" Whack. My head was jerked to one side by the force of her hand against my cheek. I reached up and gently touched the injured cheek as I looked down at the little girl in front of me. "You slapped me."
"Stupid little girl!" she hissed. "You think it's not terrifying seeing what I can see, huh? You want to know the real reason I didn't want to take you as my student?"
"You slapped me."
"It's because I didn't want anyone to see what I see. I didn't want anyone to go through those horrors for the rest of their lives," she explained. Tears appeared at the bottom of her empty eyes. They spilled over and slid down her chin. She clenched her stick between her hands as her body shook. "You want to see horror? Then see this!"
Cecilia snatched my hand. It was just a little tug, but it was like the time when the hag tried to take my soul. My soul shifted inside me. It was shoved into a different, darker world. The lights in the room dimmed, or my vision dimmed. I couldn't tell. Dark lines became more defined. The weird thing was the whole room didn't come into focus. It was just the dark spots. I could see the details of the corners and the outside world through the dark windows. The space beneath the bed was so clear I could see the dust bunnies left by a lazy cleaning lady. I looked up at the light above us.
That's when I saw them.
They appeared slowly, like I was straining to see something from a difference as it slowly approached me. They were flickering flames of round light that grew and grew until I could make out small eyes and mouths. The features were like shadows on tongues of fire. They twisted and tumbled, never holding still. My pulse quickened as their mouths opened. No sound came to my ears, but I could still hear them. Their soundless voices reached me and echoed inside my brain. The voices grew louder as more and more of the things noticed me. There were dozens of them spread throughout the upper floors. They called to me, whispered to me, pleaded with me.
I shook my head. "No," I choked out. "Please no." My pleadings wouldn't stop them. They just kept drilling into my brain. Their voices grew louder. I clapped my free hand over my ear and scrunched my eyes shut. "Please stop!"
Cecilia removed her hand and I collapsed onto my knees. My breath came out in ragged gasps and sweat poured down my forehead. I shook worse than before. The tears wouldn't stop. Cecilia stood over me as still as a statue.
"What. . .what was that?" I gasped.
"Those are the soul parts of those stuck in this house," she explained to me.
I looked up into her face and there was a look of infinite pity in her empty eyes. Her lips were turned down at the corners, and her tears, too, couldn't be stopped. She turned her face way and shut her eyes.
"I'm sorry I showed you that, but you really needed to understand," she told me.
I crawled over to her and clasped her shaking hands in mine. My eyes never left her pale, quivering face.
"Were they. . .are they in pain?" I asked her.
She didn't look at me when she nodded. "Yeah. It's the same for most earth-bound spirits. They just want to move on, but something keeps them here."
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "And we can do that? Get them to move on?"
She finally looked at me, and her face was full of questions. "Yeah, but you'd have to get on your feet and stop acting like a baby."
I searched her face for an answer to my deepest question, but couldn't find it. "How do you do it?" I asked her. "How do you keep going through with all these ghosts and demons and shadows? You can't even see the danger from a bus."
A small smile slipped onto her lips. "I don't get out much, so a bus isn't going to be a problem. As for your question-" she shrugged, "-I do it because somebody needs to."
I tilted my head to one side and frowned. "That's it?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"I don't know. I figured you did it for books," I guessed.
She snorted. "No, the books are my fee for teaching you. I don't get paid for coming out here and risking my neck."
I managed a smile of my own. "Wanna know a secret?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Not if it's about you and Mr. Ian."
I leaned in close and lowered my voice to a whisper. "I don't get paid for this, either."
Cecilia raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"Yep."
"He's too cheap to pay you?"
"That pretty much sums it up."
Cecilia turned her face towards the door. "Mr. Ian!"
That's when I remembered we had guests in the hallway. Ian peeked his head in as I climbed to my feet.
"You yelled?" he asked us.
Cecilia pointed her stick at me and nearly gutted me with it. "You don't pay her?"
He shrugged. "I give her food and board."
"You're a cheapskate, Mr. Ian," she accused him.
He grinned. "You know me better than a lot of people. Now are you two ready to go hunt ghosts before they hunt us?"
"One more minute, and close the door," she ordered him. I
an bowed his head and slipped back into the hall.
I furrowed my brow and jerked a thumb towards the closed door. "How come they didn't come in when I screamed?"
"Because you did that inside your head, and mine," she told me. She rubbed her temple with two fingers. "You are really loud."
"So you did what to us? A Vulcan mind meld?" I guessed.
She snorted. "No. We don't do things with the mind, we do things with the soul. It just came out in the mind because you yelled so loud."
"And. . .and that's really what you see all the time?" I asked her.
She shrugged. "I don't know what you saw, but I get some faint outlines of rooms with the shadows, and there's the souls, of course."
"And you can teach me to see those ghosts?" I wondered.
She studied me with her empty eyes. "Yeah, but only if you want to, and I'm only giving you this one warning: once you see those things there's no going back. You're stuck with 'em."
"Why?" I asked her.
"Because it become like a second nature. You just see them, and they might see you," she explained.
I swallowed a second lump in my throat. "I. . I'm willing to do it." I cringed as I thought of the soul-meld thing we'd done. "They won't notice me too quickly, will they?"
"No. They might not even notice us at all. They just looked at us because we had enough power between us to be a lightning rod for them," she told me.
I stood straight and looked her in the eyes. Such as it was. "All right, I'm ready. Tell me what I have to do."
She snorted and waved her hand as though to brush off my brave and bold announcement. "I've already told you what to do. It's just like looking for your warm spot, but instead of looking inside you look out," she explained.
My shoulders sagged and I blinked at her. "Seriously? That's it?"
She nodded. "That's it."
"Ladies?" Ian called through the door. "Could we get this done before I need Ceci's cane to get up the stairs?"
Cecilia rolled her eyes. "Mr. Ian is such an idiot."