The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker (22 page)

“Cantus of Extinction!” Alexi cried. Notes of music rose beautiful and fearsome as The Guard encircled Marianna’s body, Jane at her side. Wind whipped their clothes, and the music of the Grand Work crested in the air.

Percy forced herself to stand and give them energy, trying to siphon off her light, which still felt unwieldy in her body, offering it into the torrent of blue fire that Alexi wreathed around Marianna’s body, trying to suffocate the possessor. Michael breathed loudly, forcing them all to remember to do the same.

“Extinct? I’ll never go extinct,” Lucille shrieked, flapping Marianna’s jaw like a grotesque puppet. The blonde girl’s eyes rolled back in her head, ashen tears still streaming.

Josephine stepped forward, holding an image on a locket before Marianna’s shifting, gritty eyes. “Dear girl—”

Marianna’s mouth twisted and Lucille gurgled from within. “Your pictures are meaningless to me. I’ll kill this girl. And your dear girl, finally, finally dead.”

“Hush!” Alexi bellowed, a crackling bolt of fire sizzling Marianna’s body, causing her to lurch violently and vomit
more ash. It was good, perhaps, to see the offending substance purged, but Percy feared they were killing her in the process.

“We’re losing her,” Jane cried.

Percy panicked, her chest suddenly a white blaze.

A familiar ripping noise announced a portal. Aodhan came rushing out, either sensing danger from beyond or summoned by Percy’s reactive light. “It’s the Gorgon, Aodhan, taken over my friend!” Percy cried in his Gaelic tongue.

Jane eyed her beloved. “I don’t know that I can do this all m’self,” she admitted. “Please help if ye can.”

Aodhan floated close, brushing a transparent hand over the Irishwoman’s shoulder, staring grimly down at Marianna. He passed his other hand—glowing, healing—over Marianna’s eyes, which fluttered. She moaned but remained unresponsive. To Percy he admitted, “Alas, spirits such as these will take revenge at all costs. The body will die.”

“No!” Percy sobbed.

“Unless…” Aodhan’s expression darkened.

“Unless what?”

“I take her in. Into the Whisper-world.”

“Then she’ll certainly die!”

“Not exactly. For a hapless mortal, not a Guard, there’s time before damage is irreparable. Beatrice can help me. But you must come, my lady.”

“I could rescue her from there once healed, and return her to the living here?” Percy asked, speaking still in Gaelic.

“Translate!” Alexi demanded.

One of his hands clamped upon Percy’s shoulder, the other tightened around Marianna’s blonde-turned-serpentine curls. The Guard struggled to keep her possessed body still. It kept seizing up and going limp, ash snakes champing at whomever was closest.

Beatrice sidled into view at the threshold of the portal, gazing grimly down upon the situation. “So, it was her. I’m sorry, dear. We didn’t know. But like Orpheus came for
Eurydice, you may come, a god disguised. It’s nearly all in place. They won’t stop, things such as these,” the ghost explained, gesturing disdainfully to Marianna’s messy body. “Not until you settle it once and for all. Let the Healer and I deal with this. You and The Guard use the map and the doors. Knock, and the door will be opened.

“The time is upon you,” Beatrice said, addressing them all. Percy murmured the translation. “Your beloved Athens changes. There’s no stopping it. If you want to blame someone, blame a goddess and her hapless guard, but do not punish yourselves by doing nothing. Percy, you are the key. You must attend the destiny that awaits you.”

When Alexi heard, he roared. “I told you, I’ll not allow her in! Take me.” A bolt of blue fire hurtled from his hand toward Beatrice, his intent unclear. But she held up a hand and the fire congealed, clearly now hers to command.

The rest of The Guard gasped.

“It isn’t your choice, leader! You can’t go in or you’ll fall to pieces! Allow for the fact your wife is built for things you are not,” Beatrice bellowed, Percy fumbling the translation in choking murmurs. “Possessed as you are, a living Guard
cannot
step across—shall I regale you of ugly tales the goddess told me of those who tested this? It isn’t a matter for discussion! Your stubbornness, however massive, cannot stop fate!”

Marianna’s body convulsed, giving a horrific sound and a pathetic cry. The life was being choked out of her, the monster within desperate for someone to die. What was left of Percy’s friend was begging for mercy, her eyes still spewing ash—and now a new horror: blood. Jane wiped her cheeks only to see them wetted again. Percy wept, clutching her fists at her breast as if she could hold the light there and cast some spell of salvation.

“Cantus of Extinction,” Alexi growled, showering blue fire upon the mane of snakes, which squealed and spat. “Resume it.”

The Guard joined hands, but Aodhan voiced caution.
“Such a cantus may kill the girl. This is no ordinary possession.”

“It may
kill
her, Alexi. Please,” Percy spoke up, seizing his hand. The blue fire tingled up her wrist.

“Well, then, what do the spirits advise?”

“Tell Jane to give me a lock of her hair,” Aodhan stated, and floated back to the threshold of the Whisper-world, where his transparent body darkened to grey solidity. Percy furrowed her brow and repeated the request.

“This isn’t the time for romance,” Alexi growled.

“I’m not being romantic. I need a tether. Do as I say,” Aodhan insisted. Percy translated.

Jane stared at her beloved. A practical woman who thought to carry practical things, she pulled a penknife from her jacket pocket and without hesitation cut a long lock. Aodhan gestured for her to bring it close. She moved toward the portal, offering the lock in her open hand, and Aodhan’s hand became transparent across the threshold as it reached toward hers. A draft drew the hair across to where his hand was able to clutch and raise it. Both the lock and his hand glowed with healing light.

“We lost our gifts long ago, but they live on in Athens, and in you.” Jane was visibly moved as Aodhan kissed the lock and wound it about the leather band over his shoulder. The locket around Beatrice’s throat pulsed with Phoenix fire.

“Now the girl,” Beatrice murmured, gesturing to bring the victim closer.

“Take good care of her,” Percy said.

“Take good care of yourself,” Beatrice countered. “And wear grey. We can’t have mortal colour giving you away. Don’t forget.” She pointed a finger at Percy.

As The Guard encircled and gingerly lifted the body, Alexi placed himself between his wife and Marianna. “Percy, stay back.”

They got the body unsteadily onto its feet, ashen snakes snapping at them, catching a strand of Josephine’s hair and a corner of Elijah’s fine suit. A burst of fire flew from Alexi’s hands, flinging Marianna’s body toward the portal. Aodhan and Beatrice stood with waiting arms. They caught Marianna, their forms solid in the Whisper-world. Snakes flailing and sputtering, they dragged the body in. The portal closed.

Percy loosed a sob. The Guard’s shoulders sagged in a group sigh, failure threatening to consume their spirits. Backing away, Percy slid down the wall into a heap on the floor, shaking her head. “This is all my fault! I’m a disaster,” she cried, tears flowing. “I’m a danger to all who come near, to all who are close to me, to all whom I lo—”

“I’ll not hear another word,” Michael barked, immediately on his knees at her side. “This is beyond any fault of yours, and you must accept that or we cannot move forward with power—only fear, which is what the enemy would want!” He placed a firm hand on her collar, and she felt a gust of peace.

“Friends, thank you,” Alexi said quietly. “Give me leave to calm her. Don’t go far. Make yourselves at home.”

The Guard nodded and filed downstairs, Rebecca at the rear. Alexi moved to grab her arm. “Bless you, Rebecca. If you hadn’t felt the call when you did…” He faltered. Overcome with emotion neither of them did well expressing, she nodded curtly and exited.

Alexi eased Percy into his arms from the floor. Supporting her, he led her down into the parlour, where he swept a roaring fire into the hearth. He heated tea with another gesture, and forced a cup into his wife’s shaking hands.

“I am a danger to those I love,” Percy stated, guilt threatening to undo her sanity.

Alexi stared at her with both consternation and adoration. “This work means danger.”

“But I—”

“What, shall you go and leave us? Try and lure the danger elsewhere? It follows us, Percy, and you were sent to us. This is our lot.”

“I…” Percy’s mouth moved to protest, but she had no words.

Her husband’s face was grim. “The day I was chosen to lead The Guard, an ill force swept through this house, paralyzing my sister and frightening my grandmother to death. It was, perhaps, a warning, an early taste of the trials that would come. My parents left me this house and a bit of money at the age of sixteen. They never said why, but I know it was because I frightened them. They thought I was ill luck. That I doomed the family name.” He eyed her, his expression as tortured as she’d ever seen. “This work will make you question everything, Percy, and make you despair. But you must persevere.”

She nodded. They both had been dealt shares of pain, and she better understood his zealous protection. She’d chosen to take that doomed name, she was choosing him, this house, this life; and with her vow of marriage she’d promised never to abandon him.

He pressed her against him, stilling her shaking body with the embrace. “We must persevere,” he insisted. “I am at your side.”

“Thank God,” Percy said. “Yet…don’t be angry for what may be asked of me, what I cannot control. What must happen.”

Alexi stared at the fire and held her tighter.

Inside the Whisper-world, Aodhan and Beatrice were hard at work saving the body and soul of an innocent victim.

They ferreted Marianna away to a dim chamber where Beatrice mustered their hallowed fire, grateful her time at Athens had given her a store of power; otherwise she’d be useless.

At any other time, Beatrice admitted, brushing ash out of Marianna’s curls with a comb, her actions would have caught the attention of this entire spectral world. The molten, ashen liquid seeping from the girl’s facial orifices was a truly gruesome sight. But she and Aodhan went oddly undisturbed, for the whole arrangement of the Whisper-world was like a door hanging on one hinge. Beatrice didn’t blame the current Guard for their hesitation. Their new task went against everything they’d all fought for, their whole, thankless lives. She herself had fought destiny to only in the end acquiesce. Bleeding the Whisper-world onto Athens was dangerous, but it was the only way to regain balance.

Mortal and Whisper-world edges rubbed with freshly combustible friction. Long-sealed walls had cracked open, forgotten vaults now spewed fresh venom. Spirits never before mixed were now fighting and cursing along the river. All that remained a fortress unbroken was, unfortunately, the prison room where Darkness had corralled his sworn enemies. But that, too, was scheduled to soon crack open. So long as Mrs. Rychman kept her head.

Only a pile of restless ash evidenced their painstaking
work, oozing grimly from Marianna’s mouth with every healing burst Aodhan managed. He continually brushed the offending substance into a ceramic jar. Other jars lined the edge of a yawning hole like the stacked skulls of an ancient crypt.

It was bound to happen, Beatrice realized as she heard his distinctive howl. It would seem he’d been the monster’s lackey from time immemorial and he proved her champion yet.

“What’re you doing?” the Groundskeeper cried, shuffling into their grim workplace. “That’s my Lucy in there. You let her go. You let her out. That host is alive! What are you doing? You’re breaking every rule—”

“Be my guest and please retract your Lucy. We’re just trying to return her,” Beatrice offered graciously.

The Groundskeeper pointed. “You’re the troublemaker.”

“Why, so I am.” Beatrice bowed. “Are you going to help your beloved or not? We could make sure she never leaves this body.”

The Groundskeeper’s face twisted, staring at the fire that sparked around Beatrice’s neck and had leaped into her hand. He was clearly wary of her power. “No!”

“Then allow us to take care of this. Here are some of her parts—by all means, take them away.” Beatrice gestured to the arched hole in the stone behind them and all the jars.

“I’ll expect more,” he threatened, counting.

“Indeed.” Beatrice nodded, standing aside as he rushed to scoop Lucille’s remains into his arms. He soon scurried away, singing. “Lucy-Ducy wore a nice dress…Lucy-Ducy made a great mess!” His voice faded down the hall.

The two Guard went back to work. When the next jar was half full of ash, Beatrice lifted a rock, placed it inside and sealed the lid with twine and a burst of blue fire for good measure. She handed the hissing contents to Aodhan, who vanished, well aware of what do to with it.

From the moment the sun broke across the horizon, a heavy dread rose within those of The Guard who’d spent the night at the Rychman estate. Alexi was gentle, taking his wife into his arms, but the weight of failure was there between them as they woke, like a cold chill.

“All I can think of is Marianna,” Percy murmured. She nestled into his shoulder, his nearness her only comfort. “Let the world pass us by, Alexi, just stay and hold me.”

“Would it were that easy. I’d love nothing more. But the call is strong in my blood. There’s work to be done at Athens; our safe house no longer safe. We put our students at risk if we tarry.” He kissed her temple, then commanded, “Stay close to me today.”

Percy nodded. But, what if there were a door? Would she take it at a run, to speed this inevitable dirge onward? Uncertainty must drive her mad. She had to trust Beatrice: she’d know when it was time.

Josephine had prepared cold breakfast and tea, and the others sat quietly in the parlour, eyeing Percy with funereal expressions. She graciously accepted the tea Jane hurried to offer as she entered.

Alexi broke the dreadful silence. “Friends, you feel the weight of Athens as I do, do you not?”

Everyone nodded.

“The storm gathers,” Rebecca agreed. “We’ve a war to weather, friends. We must go and save those beloved bricks.”

Michael nodded. “May the congregation say amen.”

Their anchor of a building was on a fault line ready for a fearsome quake, a shifting mystery. Athens was proving to have a character of its own, and none of The Guard could be sure whose side it was taking, its changes taking their sacred number or no. A luminosity grew about the stately bricks that gave students pause, as if they could not trust their own eyes. The sad truth was that they couldn’t.

Staff and students were not sleeping, and many stated
they were seeing things like ghosts. The Guard could not disagree: the Athens spectres were plentiful and particularly active. Percy heard them babbling as if only recently dead, jarred into a new awareness of themselves.

Elijah was most taxed by the trying morning, adjusting the minds of the academy’s residents, who understood only that neither themselves nor the hairs on the backs of their necks could rest. All seven of The Guard crowded into Rebecca’s office. She handed Elijah her flask and no one even raised an eyebrow. “We can’t run a school like this,” she said.

Percy stared at the carpeting—a sensible and ordinary grey, like most of the headmistress’s wardrobe, grey like what she’d don in the Whisper-world—nightmares coursing her mind like a grim carousel. She’d stood silently at Alexi’s side all morning, and they’d examined each new door Beatrice had erected about the grounds, each emblazoned with some variant of the number seven.

“We have no choice but to close the school,” Alexi replied.

“I’ve done my best—a thorough wipe of every mind, but their fears will grow again. I can’t be everywhere at once,” Elijah said.

Rebecca shook her head. “I’ll gather them into the auditorium. I’ll tell them…”

“That you’re giving them an extra bit of holiday,” Michael said. “For being smashing students. I realize you never allow yourself holidays, Miss Thompson, but the world loves them. So do students. We’re not too terribly far from Christmas. It’s soon the season of love.” He pounded his fist on a bookcase and smiled, and the others couldn’t help but feel the stale air of the office seemed a bit easier to breathe.

Rebecca began to deliver sharp orders. “Alexi, have house wardens gather staff and students immediately into the auditorium. I’ll need everyone’s help to keep order. We must use
whatever means necessary—all our usual tricks—to convince students and staff that Athens is granting them an enjoyable respite, nothing more. Then, my friends, we will shut ourselves within these walls for a siege.”

Percy realized there was no specific task for her. She had no usual place in The Guard’s work, had no established methodology to aid them. Yet, she had work of her own.

The others walked ahead, falling in behind Rebecca’s brisk tread. Alexi led Percy to the side of the hallway and said, “Percy, I’ll meet you in your office.”

“No. Meet me in the sacred space. I must study that map.”

“Percy, I’ll not have you in there a—”

“Come for me when you’ve dispatched everyone,” she interrupted.

“I told you: you must stay by my side today.”

“Sitting alone and useless in my office isn’t by your side. Alexi, if the great maw of the Whisper-world is to open and bear down on us, I’d like to be prepared. That map is the only clue we have.”

Alexi sighed. He lifted his hand to touch her face, but he was stopped by the passing students glancing at them out of the corners of their eyes. “My desperation in wanting to see you safe trumps all,” he murmured. “But, go. I’ll come once staff and students are on their way. Just…don’t go in.”

“We’ve time yet,” she replied. It was a reassurance but no promise. Alexi clenched his jaw and his fists and stalked away.

Her tread was weary as she walked to the Athens chapel. She tried to think of how beautiful her wedding had been, of how much she loved Alexi and was lucky to have found him, and thoughts of how she had indeed been provided for brought some consolation. In a rear pew she found Mina Wilberforce staring in consternation at the windows.

The librarian glanced up as she approached, and pointed down the line of amber-glass angels. “There are seven. There
were six. How can one explain that? I pray its God’s work here, but I fear…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“Have faith,” Percy murmured. “Staff and students gather in the auditorium as we speak. Perhaps you’d like to join them.”

“And you?”

Percy eyed the chapel. “If the devil’s at work here, I think I’d best pray.” She couldn’t assure others of their sanity and have any remaining for herself.

“Indeed. Well, then. Bless you, dear girl.”

“And you.”

Left alone, Percy took a deep breath.

Darting up the aisle, she threw her arm forward, opening the dark doorway and descending the stairs into the centre of The Guard’s mysterious space, which she’d never entirely comprehend. Pulling the key from her chain, she bent at the centre of the floor and turned it in the feather. There came the usual grating sound, and the rush of blue fire to which she was now accustomed. She almost pressed her face down into it as the patterns again formed themselves on the floor; their tingling power was an intoxicant.

Instead, she rose and paced the perimeter of the map, determining the precise, rectangular lines of Athens; the courtyard in the middle, Promethe and Apollo halls, the girls’ and boys’ dormitories. Beyond that familiar floor plan, the flames were taller in some places, and she murmured, “Perhaps those are spaces of spirit world import? And surely this cannot be the whole of that realm. Surely there are parts to defy mortal sensibilities.” The red dot slowly traversed a circular space, the mark of a key still above it. Inside, the swath filled with blue.

Despite her better judgment, Percy moved closer. She bent to examine the circular area of blue—a space she hoped was filled with friends—and noticed that just outside its delineated lines of fire, there was moisture…and a murmur. A faint sound of rushing water. A river? Surely. Of course there would be a river.
The
river.

Alexi’s footfall on the stair made her jump. “Well?” It was quite obvious he disapproved of her initiative.

“I’ve determined what is Athens and what may be what you call the Whisper-world. The flame has different heights there; the spaces are more circular. Of course, the more my eyes get used to the map, the more I believe that we only see those spaces of the Whisper-world that extend off from Athens, only those spaces that are meaningful to our fight. I cannot believe such a thing as the spirit realm would be an addition to an academy.” She smiled wryly.

Alexi hummed. “The red mark circles that same sea of blue, perhaps patrolling our troops. And, look. Did you notice these?” He pointed to places on the Athens perimeter that bled outward. At each juncture, a brighter horizontal line floated. On the scale of the map, each was about the height of a door.

“Beatrice’s doors. We can see where they lead,” Percy exclaimed.

“We’ve no idea where they’ll lead,” Alexi argued. “Or what’s waiting on the other side.”

“We should leave the map open. We’ve no idea when any one of these doors might burst open. This map surely can’t be seen from the other side, else Beatrice would have warned us, and who knows when the information will be helpful.”

Alexi set his jaw but said nothing.

Percy didn’t bother to ask if he heard the ticking of a clock. She assumed he didn’t. But she did—ticking away the seconds of her life, or the seconds until battle. It was by far the most maddening development yet. She held out her hand, and Alexi took it, reluctantly leaving the key in the floor. They exited the sacred space, the flames licking low and steady behind them.

“Shall you pass time with me in my office?” Alexi asked. As they stepped out into the chapel, the dark doorway snapped shut behind them.

“Yes. A fire and tea would be lovely. And to think about—”

Alexi took and lifted her arm, indicated how badly her hands were shaking. When she just chuckled in response, he secured his arm around her waist and walked her toward his office. Neither said anything, simply nodded to passing students looking deliriously drugged as they carried their bags home for early holiday. Percy hoped these ghostly trials would be done by Christmas and that, as in Dickens’s
Carol
, they’d all be granted their due blessings.

In his office, Alexi lit candelabra and a fire in the hearth with a wave of his hand. He turned on his ornate phonograph, a bit of soothing Bach. Percy readied tea and held it out. He warmed it with a flick of his hand, and they sat, worlds away from the simple time when their biggest mystery was her visions—and the pleasant revelation that they
both
could see ghosts.

It would seem his office was a catalyst for visions. This time, Percy saw a portal. Beatrice stood within, seeming to indicate that it would soon be time. A bright blue transparent feather of flame floated before her face.

Alexi didn’t seem to notice Percy’s distraction; he was busy adding drops of alcohol into his tea from the flask Rebecca had given Elijah. “Were you always so fond of sherry?” she asked.

“Not nearly as much as I am of late.”

Percy nodded. She couldn’t blame him. Listlessly, she rose and went to the alcove that served as a makeshift room behind a protruding bookshelf. She lifted the lid of a small trunk Alexi had packed for them, and brought out their garments to hang on the adjacent coat tree. If they were going to wait out this war, at least they’d have some fresh clothing. She had, as Beatrice directed, brought a soft slate-coloured dress.