She slid on her Gauntlets, just in case this all went horribly wrong. For the sake of the girl and the structural integrity of the house, Sorcha hoped that everything would go smoothly. She prepared to use Aydien just in case.
Unlike Merrick, her Sight was a blunt object. The Deacon had no way of judging the strength of the poltern, hiding within the girl as it was. It would be an important thing for her to know. If she tried to remove a powerful geist from within the soul of a child, she could rip the girl’s psyche into nothing, but if it was a small one, she might be able to manage it.
First things first. “Whatever you do”—she glanced over her shoulder at the Pretender—“do not move unless something comes at you.”
He opened his mouth, ready with some smart remark no doubt, but closed it when he saw her stern look. Sorcha flicked her head back and activated Shayst. At the flare of green fire, the girl’s eyes grew impossibly large in her head, glittering like dark jewels. Sorcha felt the Otherside’s presence as an ice-cold breeze on her skin.
“Time for you to leave,” Sorcha growled between blue lips. The stench crashed about her, filling her nostrils and her enhanced senses in repulsive waves. At her back, she heard Raed choke back an oath. Every vile ounce of air was ordering her primitive brain to run, to flee before the horror of the geist. But training and experience were a stalwart defense against this assault.
With a flick of her wrist she brought one Gauntlet, burning with barely contained green light, up in the direction of the girl. The reaction was instantaneous. Dust whirled up around them and the air was suddenly full of tiny spinning debris. Little pebbles bounced off her exposed skin, but there was nothing much else in the room for the geist to use as a weapon. Except for one thing.
The huge cast iron pot wobbled in its place as the poltern screamed through the throat of the girl. The wind grew louder. The walls themselves seemed to swell like sails on a ship and the stench made Sorcha’s stomach churn like the worst kind of sea-sickness. And the pot, that pot that she and Raed had only been able to move together, swung upward in the grip of the geist. It flew at Sorcha, clanging and spinning, end over end.
She’d hoped the poltern was a small one, but had been prepared for the worst. As the pot tumbled through the air toward her, she seamlessly closed her right fist around Shayst, and with the other hand summoned Aydien. The pot smashed into the blue shield she’d summoned and bounced off, like some toy thrown by a child in the grip of a tantrum. The warmth of the rune filled the room, momentarily driving off the freezing miasma surrounding the geist; the unliving creature she had now convincingly identified as at least a level six poltern.
Little Anai was thrashing about in her chains like one dog being worried by another. Spittle and phlegm flew from her snarling mouth, while her eyes of reflecting darkness burned with utter hatred at Sorcha.
The Deacon had no choice now. As quickly as possible, she closed her fist on Aydien and once more summoned Shayst, the green light flashing from her left hand. The ripping of power from the geist was abrupt and unforgiving, but if she did not deny the poltern its strength as quickly as she could, the geist would turn on its foci. The rush of the Otherside into her was heady and delightful as ever, sending her pulse racing and blood surging through her veins.
“Ancients,” Raed whispered, going to where the thick cast iron pot lay upended on the floor. “It’s dented!”
The state of the cookware was the least of Sorcha’s worries. Anai was slumped on her side, tangled copper hair falling over a face slackened by unconsciousness.
“But you got the thing out of her?”
Slowly the Deacon shook her head. “No. There is a good reason why we work in pairs. Without Merrick, that is quite impossible. I cannot see where it is hiding to root it out.”
“Then it will be back?” The tone in the Pretender’s voice was sad. He could undoubtedly comprehend what the girl was going through.
“Yes, I am afraid so.” Sorcha bent and with the corner of her shirt wiped the spittle from Anai’s mouth and pushed her hair back behind her ear. “She must be incredibly strong to hold out so long against such a powerful poltern. If she survives, she would make a fine Deacon.”
“What?”
“The poltern are attracted to those children with talent. If the Order find such little ones, they are often brought into the Abbey for protection—most later become Deacons.” She glanced up at him in the half-light, and despite herself her voice was a little shaky. “It was how I became a member of the Order.”
“But if she is so powerful, why did the Prior not take her in?” His question was deliberately pointed.
“I think Aulis had other plans for her, or even”—Sorcha paused before being able to give voice to her darker fears—“or may have even caused this to happen.” She stood up and looked down at the girl. “Please do not give Aulis the title she doesn’t deserve. She is no Prior of the Order.”
“And the girl . . . Can you do anything for her?”
She was sick of feeling powerless; it was not the natural state for a Deacon. “No. She will wake with the poltern still in control. I have only given her some rest—hopefully enough to hold out a little longer.”
As Merrick descended the steps beneath the Priory, he felt the cold envelop him, banishing the warmth that had flooded him when he was near Nynnia. Writing decorated the walls to each side of him. Taking a deep breath, Merrick stopped at the last step to look at the scrawls. It was a protection cantrip, one that Sensitives were taught in those final months of training, and it was made in blood. This explained the blind spot in his awareness.
Once beyond the ring of the cantrip’s protection, his Sight flickered down the corridors, and it didn’t take long to find the body. The cellar was at the end of the corridor. The Deacon jogged toward it, his throat already dry. The door was locked, but Merrick carried his tiny toolkit everywhere out of habit so it took only a few moments with the brass implements to flick the mechanism open. The Sensitive must have been truly terrified because she had also barricaded herself in.
Merrick had to shove hard against it to get past the barrels she’d used. He knew that she was dead long before he actually saw her. Yet, the moment he burst in, for a blink of an eye, he considered that he’d been wrong. A pale shape flickered in the corner, the face turned toward Merrick in abject misery. The glimpse of her shade lasted only a moment, a full apparition that blinked back to the Otherside as soon as she had been seen. Whatever her name, she’d waited to be discovered.
The young Deacon was curled up in the dusty corner of the cellar. One of her hands, lying limp and red by her side, showed where she’d taken her own blood to write the cantrip. Her eyes were wide and bulging under cropped blond hair, while the Strop she’d been using hung slack and askew around her neck. It was charred as if it had been held over a flame.
Merrick shifted aside his cloak and glanced down at his own Strop, still firmly in its case. Until now there had been no call to use it, but as this whole mess was unraveling he was certain that would change.
Kneeling next to her, Merrick carefully slid her eyelids shut, avoiding touching the Strop. Only an Abbot could touch another’s talisman without repercussions. His attempt at dignity made no difference to a corpse, but not having to look into her ruined eyes made him feel a little more comfortable. He examined the scene as his training had taught him. She was wearing the emerald cloak, but underneath she was dressed in a light shift, the kind of thing a Deacon might well sleep in. Therefore she’d obviously got up hurriedly, stopping only to grab her cloak and Strop.
Cautiously he opened her curled, bloody left hand. The tips of four fingers were sliced almost down the bone in ragged cuts that indicated she’d been in a hurry—desperate for her own blood to save her. A small knife was discarded only a few feet away, its dull blade darkened with blood. It was not much of a weapon, more like something used at the dinner table than for eldritch spells. He could see no other wounds immediately visible.
Merrick pressed his own finger to her flesh. She was cold, but it was clear she hadn’t died in the initial attack. She could have come upstairs at any time for help—and yet she hadn’t.
Sitting back on his heels, the living Deacon ran his eyes once more over the scene to seek out anything he may have missed, but the body before him seemed to have already revealed all it could. The Strop was another matter. Such an intimate item, so personally connected with another Sensitive, and she had actually died wearing it. Merrick was not foolish enough to pick it up, even though it looked destroyed.
A noise, the slightest noise in the ether, made him spin around on his heels and reach for his saber. It was nothing mortal. Some other part of the dead Sensitive still lingered in the dimness of the cellar. Carefully Merrick
