the rest of them focus.
He set a squat white candle in the middle of the table and lit the wick. When he was satisfied that it was properly alight, he asked me to turn off the lights, leaving the area illuminated only by the candle’s flame and the pale diffusion of distant neon through my window. The scent of vanilla drifted into the room. I felt a weak charge in the air and glanced sideways into the Grey, noting a thin, soft mist rising from the floor near where Carlos stood and spreading quietly, mingling a slight flower smell, like fields of chamomile in the sun, with the candle’s sweet smoke. Without any direction to do so, the four people seated at the table fell silent, no longer wiggling in their chairs or shuffling their feet as their breathing slowed and they stared into the tiny flame of the candle. I caught myself smiling at Carlos’s subtle aid in spite of the precarious situation. He’d never bothered with such charms when working strictly with me, but I supposed he never felt the need.
They began, again, with a prayer and no one objected, letting the final “amen” fade into the dark as they settled themselves to the task at hand. At first, Stymak just sat still, letting the silence pool and deepen, but as I inched closer to the Grey, keeping watch on both worlds, I noticed that he, too, was adding energy to the room, his cloudy white aura expanding as before, white light seeking outward, while the misty element curved around the room’s perimeters, creating a bubble around the seance. All the living people in the room but me appeared enclosed in gossamer webs of color that knitted into one another and wove with the white mist of Stymak’s energy. A few illegal fireworks went off outside, making the calm surface of the enchanted sphere shiver, but it didn’t break. In the distance of the Grey I heard the rattle of the Guardian Beast, prowling the edges of the world between worlds, but keeping its distance, as it had since the beginning. I wondered for a moment if it would close in if things became dire, but the thought was chased away as Stymak began to speak, his voice low this time but strumming on the threads of the Grey.
“We call on the presence of our loved ones who are lost, but not passed beyond, on the spirits that have come to us through them. We call on you to attend and help us restore order and peace. We call on those who have gathered these spirits against their will. We call on you, Linda Hazzard, and upon the hunger you have brought. We call you to come to us, to bend to our will. Come to our circle.”
The floor buzzed and the vibration grew, the walls singing with a tumult of ghosts. The air around the circle grew brighter and thicker, filling with faces of shadow and mist. Among the host, three were brighter and more colorful than the rest, though one flickered and fought to stay alight—the living souls of the three patients. In the rising sound I heard sighing and sobbing, and the howl of a wolf closing in, stalking toward us.
In the Grey distance I could see it coming, loping nearer on its skeletal legs, jaws agape and full of sharp teeth, the shape of Linda Hazzard dragged with it like a cloak trailing across dirty snow. With a roar, it leapt over the edges of the circle, tearing a hole in the protective dome, and the ghosts around the circle cried out.
The four people at the table gasped in unison, shuddering as the wolf landed on the table, raveling upward into the cloaking form of Linda Hazzard, her face as sharp as ice shards pulled from the mist of the Grey. At the edge of my vision I could see the red-hearted darkness that was Carlos reach out and tangle its own slim thread, unnoticed, around the trailing gleam of Hazzard and Limos where they had broken through the circle.
“Why do you call me here again, pest?” the ghost of Linda Hazzard demanded as the slavering jaws of the Limos wolf moved under the mist-skin of her discorporate face.
“We ask you to release the souls of our loved ones to return to their fleshly homes,” Stymak said, his voice still soft, but not pleading.
The ghost and its dread mistress laughed, letting out a howl and the chatter of teeth. “After tonight we shall have no further use for them.”
“But we do and we will not allow you to use them. Release them now, as we speak.”
“Paltry man, I have no use for you and your petty demands. You cannot hold me and I have much to do.”
The combined shapes of Hazzard and Limos turned to go back through the hole by which they had entered, but as the creature leapt up, the scent of chamomile shifted to the smell of burning hair and the void slammed shut with a grille of gleaming blackness. The wolf-thing continued through, striking sparks from the contact as if Carlos’s magic tore into its energy, but the ghost of Linda Hazzard remained imprisoned in the bright bubble of Stymak’s talent.
“No!” Hazzard shrieked as the two entities separated with a short spark of energy arcing and then blinking out between them.
The wolf form bounded away, snarling. The white light around the circle wavered, the colors of the sitters’ auras separating and flushing with panicked shades of yellow and green as the ghosts around them suddenly wrenched sideways and began flowing after Limos as if drawn with her like a ribbon through a keyhole.
Carlos pushed harder on the black energy reinforcing the enclosure of light. “Hold hard,” he muttered. “Don’t let her escape.” He turned his head toward me—a blackness denser than the rest—and said, “I hold dominion over the dead, but not gods. Pursue Limos.” Only Hazzard and the three bright flames of the living souls remained in the circle.
“Stymak, keep that ghost here!” I shouted, snatching up the shrine and turning to fling open my office door.
Stymak was pale and the candle on the table was flaring upward impossibly high, nearly scorching the ceiling as the wax sputtered and flowed like water. He wouldn’t have long to hold Hazzard and his knuckles had gone white as he clutched the hands of Lily on one side and Olivia on the other.
“Hold them,” he whispered to the circle. “Hold on to them and don’t let them go.”
I rushed toward the Grey to chase Limos as the colors of the circle struggled to close again, gathering around the three bright shapes that remained behind as the goddess of famine dashed away with the rest of the ghosts—her tribute—in her drooling jaws. Hazzard, trapped in the circle, dwindled to a thin spark, screaming for rescue.
I dove deeper in the Grey, clutching the shrine to my chest. It felt unusually solid, whereas most normal- world things became as hard to hold as smoke. The Limos wolf rushed toward the waterfront and the hot energy clouds of thousands of revelers, pushing her vanguard of ghosts in front of her now.
The wedge of spirits tore through the mist and light of Grey Seattle, shoving the brightness of living things aside like chaff before wind. The bright shapes fell and rolled and I could not pause to help them or even to confirm that they were people, bowled over by the ravenous force bearing down on the brilliant wheel of dangling soul fire over the blackness of cold water. I was falling behind, relying on my human speed in the Grey while she had no such limits. She was Hunger and moved like a prairie fire.
I concentrated on the Guardian Beast’s distant rattle of spines and shouted to it, “Now would be the time, you useless collection of bones! Come and help me catch this bitch or I’ll wash my hands of you and your stinking job forever.” Not that I could but I’d certainly want to after this. Ugly as it was, I had to rely on the friends and family that I had and the Guardian Beast qualified as much as anything.
It had never answered me before, never come when I wanted or needed it, but this time it let out a roar like a train wreck and swept through the silver mist world toward me, a wave of force and power that pushed me forward faster than I could run.
We raced toward the Great Wheel, tumbling everything aside before us. . . .
A fireworks shell boomed and a rain of red and blue stars spread over the night sky. Another boom and pink planets ringed in green bands appeared in the air, followed by whistling that erupted into showers of gold. Music poured from distant speakers, eerie and thrilling.
I drew even with Limos, barely keeping upright in the eldritch wind, and snatched at the thin coil of silver that bound the ghosts to her. She growled and snapped at me, cutting a gouge in my left forearm.
I gasped in shock, unprepared to be bitten by a spectral wolf.
She laughed, tipping her head upward and howling. Then she spit the ghosts out, propelling them toward the Wheel on the breath of her fury, and turned back to me, snarling.
I needed to break the thread that bound the ghosts to her as tribute. It would do no good to simply imprison them with her in the shrine, since she could use their energy to escape. She had to be severed from them. I feinted right, but still moving too fast from the Guardian Beast’s push, I tumbled into the wolf instead.
She rolled from my impact, and spun to snap at me again.
I ducked and dodged toward the line of energy between her and the ghosts that bowled toward the Ferris wheel, screaming and gibbering. I threw myself after them, tucking and somersaulting with my arms around the
