Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black) (26 page)

He was not fast enough.

One had slipped in.

Jonathan whirled and, reaching blind for the latch, slipped it closed. Even as did so, he raised his other hand and incanted.

The Sluagh whipped around the protective circle, looking for the tiniest breach through which it could move towards its intended prey.

Relief flooded Jonathan as he realized the salt slowed it down, and the circle stopped it. However, he could see its agitated energy, its barely corporal presence, was moving the salt.

It was gradual and would take time, but it would succeed if given a chance. He thought of the hundreds pushing against the glass of the windows and shuddered.

He focused again on the incantation and a ball of seething fire, as green as a new leaf, writhed in his hand.

The Sluagh stopped dead and looked to Jonathan. He cast the summoned energy. It struck the revolting apparition and the flames, bright as the color of life, spread like a grass fire in the prairies.

The wretched sound undulating from its skinless mouth pierced Jonathan’s ears like rusty nails.

The thing capered and spun as the flames dissolved the un-life that held the physical pieces of the creature together.

It ate the image of horrid death away, leaving nothing but a shadow which sparkled like emerald embers for a second. A scattering of finger bones and a single tooth fell to the floor, blackened and broken.

Jonathan saw the way Wendell clutched the arms of the chair and figured he wasn’t alone in needing a drink.

He grabbed the bourbon off the desk, unscrewed the top, and downed three wallops.  Recapping it, he tossed it to his client.

Wendell clumsily caught the bottle as Jonathan coughed out a burning breath, and took a long drink himself.

“That was close.”

“Nice to know the circle’s working though, huh?” Jonathan pointed out.

“Uh—yeah. Yeah.” Wendell nodded, though his eyes remained on the faces beyond the windows.

The sound of nails on glass reminded Jonathan he still had things to occupy his time. He went to the next window, ready to do the same trick.

Standing in front of it, he couldn’t help but wonder, at the rate the vile manifestations learned, how much could go wrong on his second attempt.

Despite the sounds of strain coming from the unprotected window, Jonathan checked on the first window. The dirt did seem to repel the things, for the moment at least, buying him some time.

He had used. Capitulated to the power of his own need. The energy now tapped.

Because of it, Jonathan became invigorated. He clutched the White Dragon as it spiraled skywards and felt the infinite unroll within him.

The magic was a thorn bush growing through his mind with blossoms of honey.

“Keep an eye on this window.” Jonathan pointed, even as he crossed away towards the second. “Let me know as soon as the dirt seems to stop doing the trick.”

“Okay,” Wendell said, his voice high and tight. “Watch the window.”

Jonathan got close to the glass and called up the same Fire of Life spell that had worked so well on the other determined Sluagh.

As though a giant, invisible wall had been pushed out through the window, the creatures fell away.

He had no idea if he could cast that particular spell through the glass. He was actually willing to bet he didn’t want to try. However, right at that moment, there was no need to find out. No decaying faces or blackened fingers abused his windows.

“Charred lips, blackened fingers.”

“What?”

“Watch the window!”

“I am! I’m watching the window!”

“They’ve been burned. That’s why they’re just pieces. They cobbled themselves together out of the bits that didn’t completely burn. It’s why they still retain some semblance of a physical presence.”

“Sounds awful,” Wendell said.

Jonathan ignored him. “Okay, what have we got? Burned; no place for them; don’t like wood; Celtic mythology. Damn. What does it all mean?”

The energy to keep the fire burning had lost its worth as the Sluagh began to doubt his intention to cast it.

That didn’t mean Jonathan extinguished it immediately. He could think better if he wasn’t fighting the wave of longing that swept over him during the dark dusty eternities of not actively using magic.

“Um, are you asking me?” Wendell’s voice carried across the air and Jonathan released the spell.

“Burned. Wood. Celt.” Jonathan snapped his fingers. “Wickermen! The Celts burned their prisoners—the truly awful of their own, and their enemies—in the Wickermen.

“These are the souls of those tortured, evil people. Their aversion to wood is because of the cage which ended them. It kept them in and therefore has the power to keep them out.”

Jonathan watched as the Sluagh resumed their assault on the window.

He needed to buy some time, just a few moments to gather his thoughts.

He opened the flask, splashed the last of the holy water in it on the wooden frame of the window, and then quickly checked to make sure none had got on the line of salt at the window base.

He didn’t know if it would do anything, as the other cursed spirit had slipped over the barrier, yet had seemed repelled by the salt of the circle. A puzzle that would have to remain in pieces.

These manifestations of death fell a little beyond Jonathan’s standard ghost encounter protocol. He knew little of them, or the rules which governed their actions.

The salt barrier remained undisturbed by his actions. He figured it for the best. Carefully, he rubbed the water all around the window frame and then smeared it with the grave dirt.

The telltale sound of glass fracturing came from the other end of the room.

Jonathan frantically debated with his own instinct. He could remain to hold the Alamo as it were, or take the time to gather the components for the spell he planned to literally weave across the window.

Another line was engraved in the glass before his eyes with nails attached only by dried scraps of flesh and sinew to bony fingers.

“Wendell, I need you to get some of the dried leaves from the tray on my desk and bring them to me. Then, I’m going to need you to go into the closet and get four of the long, narrow, black feathers.”

“You want me to leave the circle?” Wendell asked incredulously.

“If we don’t do something, and do it fast, you’ll be leaving it one way or another. Your choice, man,” Jonathan said even as he gathered the energy to summon another of the green fires.

The energy leapt to his calling.

The thorns and blossoms entwined with his spine. The fire made the wretched things on the other side of the dirty glass pause, but no more.

They didn’t even retreat.

“Anytime now, Wendell!”

Jonathan heard his client rising. Automatically, he reminded him to not break the circle of salt. A moment later, Wendell stood beside him with a large handful of the grayish leaves.

“Good. Closet—on the right, near the door, feathers.” Wendell darted off. “The long thin black ones; not the broad stiff ones,” he yelled out. He then mumbled to himself, “We don’t need raven magic fucking up this casting.”

Jonathan knelt before the window, his face inches from the ghastly figures on the other side.

He could see the multitude of fractures and scratches in the windowpane and wondered if he had enough time.

He thumbed the latch and, placing his hand right at the top, dropped the sash two inches. Jonathan released the fire in his hand through the opening.

It flared as it caught the few Sluagh who had not been able to get out of the way fast enough. Jonathan could see their forms writhing as the fire ate at their animated, though dead, flesh.

Though he had only caught a few with the fire, it created chaos among them, and Jonathan managed to get the window resealed before another of the accursed creatures slipped in.

He didn’t think he’d caught any single one well enough to dissolve them completely, but a few more out there were now weakened, in pain, and would no longer be any threat.

If he could repeat the process a hundred more times without any getting in, he might beat the swarm.

“Wendell, did I fail to convey the urgency behind the situation?”

“Got them! Four, right?”

“Yes, four!”

Jonathan turned to grab the feathers and saw Wendell’s foot about to scuff the protective circle.

“Stop!”

Wendell froze.

He whipped his head around looking for the threat that Jonathan had seen. His gaze finally settled on the window he had been tasked to watch.

“Careful of the salt,” Jonathan said as calmly as he could.

Wendell looked down. Seeing the tip of his shoe just touching the edge of the circle, he exhaled loudly. Careful to step over the line, Wendell handed the feathers to Jonathan.

“Wish we had a live cockerel,” Jonathan complained, “but these will have to do.”

He realized Wendell was still standing by him, staring at the scorched bone and rotting flesh pressed to the glass.

“Circle. Sit.”

Wendell nodded, resumed his seat, and once more fixed his attention to the far window, allowing Jonathan to get on with his task.

He rested the feathers on the edge of the sash while he dug his knife from his pocket. He winced slightly as he heard another crack from the far window but didn’t pause. He dragged the sharp steel across his left hand.

He closed and pocketed the knife, then picked up the feathers with his cut left. Immediately soaked in his blood, he was able to press them, top, bottom, and to both sides, of the window frame over the smeared holy water, grave dirt, sulfur, and nettle leaves.

All the ingredients were there for him to cast a Revenant’s Net now.

J
onathan greedily started to weave the spell. His fingers moved rapidly and his tongue spilled the harsh sound of the conjuring.

He touched the frame, top to bottom, while moving his hand right to left every two inches. Where his fingers contacted the frame, a thin brown filament attached itself and then strung to the next point.

It looked effortless, he knew, but sweat soaked his back. He felt as if his spine was being replaced with blood pudding after only the fourth line.

When he had finished concentrating on weaving from top to bottom, all the way across the window, Jonathan’s teeth throbbed at the root from being clenched. Every one of his joints screamed like they were infected scar tissue. His tear ducts burned as though they had been filled with caustic oil. All this from the relentless, precise use of the energy.

That suffering was overridden for the moment by a garden of sound in his heart, a symphony of color tracking through his veins, and a blossom of multi-hued light in his mind.

Jonathan paused only for a moment to soak in this bath of intoxication before getting to work again. He now began to draw the lines of energy in the other direction, the weft to the weave. When he finished the net, it was with a grunt of relief. His shoulders sagged and he massaged his cramping fingers for a second.

He knew he couldn’t afford even that much time to recoup, despite how badly he wanted to just sit. He would need to use the desperate need of his own addiction now to simply keep him going.

He dropped the sash and the Sluagh rushed towards the open space. They pushed and grappled, sliding tongues, fingers, and even talon-like toes through the spaces of the net.

The net held against the assault.

Jonathan watched as the force of the swarm itself allowed for no retreat to those in the fore. So intent on reaching what they had come for, they didn’t stop to realize they were literally slicing the ones before them into ribbons.

If the accursed creatures had been nothing but the individual’s residual energy, each would slip through the net without trouble. They weren’t wholly metaphysical, though, and the parts comprised of their original organic matter got cut and sliced.

They couldn’t continue their existence without the flesh knitted-together to encase the malignant spirit. What fell through the magic weave rotted rapidly with a stench that made even Jonathan gag, and he had once waded through the excrement of a hobgoblin.

He couldn’t let this continue for long. Not just due to the smell, but because he feared the remains of the Sluagh’s flesh would fall on the salt barrier and break it.

Though unlikely, he worried the pieces inside might get inhabited by a spirit and simply reform. One more reason to make sure the salt stayed intact.

Jonathan also knew the limitations of the Revenant’s Net. It simply wouldn’t hold against this sort of onslaught for long. He had only managed to gain himself some time.

Once more, Jonathan called up the green fire. His body summoned the energy swiftly, eagerly, despite the feeling of ground glass in his bones.

He lobbed the fire through the net and the flame dispersed like buckshot, sending burning holes through those being pressed forward.

The type of energy used to create the net made it impervious to the effect of the life fire. The net’s effect on the fire, however, Jonathan found quite satisfactory.

Jonathan summoned another of the raging green flames and cast it. The flame scattered like a shotgun blast when it contacted the net. The third time he drew the energy through him, it left him feeling like a mackerel going down a pelican’s throat. However, the Sluagh had seemed to get the message that continuing to rush the window was ill advised.