Author’s note: Admittedly, this is the first time I’ve written anything like this, and after some deliberating, I though that I’d perhaps put a rating on this. I don’t know it if it’s needed, and it’s more for one swear word and some gore than anything else.

My feelings concerning the story are chaotic. I don’t even know if I like it… However, if you do critique, please be as harsh as you can - that’s needed.

"Apparitions are not the dead called to life, but merely imprints of their old selves, Summoned for a set time to pass on a message of a spirit. A particularly strong one might even manage to portray whole days before its death, and refuse to accept the fact that they have passed on. However, they eventually disappear, either by their own will or that of the Summoner, and, called again, they shall display the same scenes all over again, exhibiting everything with the same words and feelings.”

Lesander E. Leise

Advance Study to Necromancy

***

Andrei had phoned me over an hour ago, and probably if it weren’t so bloody cold outside, I would have been there already. But no. My car had refused to budge, with Al, my next door neighbor – my only, rarely sober neighbor, since I lived on the edge of the suburbs – muttering incoherently under his breath of something being frozen under the mask. He then wandered of, whistling a merry tune, leaving me knowing not what was frozen, but the consequences of it being turned into an icicle: I had to walk my high heeled self to the bus stop.

I figured that would save me the time of waiting for a taxi, but it seemed I had overestimated the city’s public transport, and overestimated it dreadfully. And so here I was, huddling under my coat, waiting for my bus – and between Andrei, constantly filling me on the details of the case and Carla, my agent, demanding why I was not yet at Ruby Square, I wanted to scream.

The people at the bus stop inched away – at least those who identified me, though most did. To tell the truth, that stopped bothering me about a decade ago, and I’d be more offended if they did indeed not recognize me. Ignore your friendly neighborhood paranormal? Never. I grinned to no one in particular, but then frowned.

The world was always changing, as Andrei philosophically put it, and he’d know, having lived on that world for quite some time. Ever since that bill stating that Excorsists, Necromancers, and what-not existed, we could go out in the open. Hell, even a vampire could stroll down the street and flash a fanged smile at a god-fearing nun – though there was only one vampire whose smile could be classified as gorgeous, and he was mine. A werewolf could, too – everything could, I guess - but weres are just ugly on the principal.

And the government started to run schools, instead of sending suicides to kill us. Well, rumor had it that had something to do with some Master Vamp getting pissed at her respective hundredth assassin-wannabe, and her putting pressure on our dearly loved authorities, but still. In my days, for Exorcists, they put a demon in front of you and said: kill it. If you did, you passed, and if you didn’t – well, you never got the chance to be miserable about it. And no one ever told you to smile nicely at the Suspects’s family; no one bothered to teach you etiquette when it comes to that particular family.

Good times, good times.

My cell phone rang, again, just as the damned bus arrived. Late.

“No!” I breathed into the mouthpiece after just five seconds. The cursed snow was getting into my eyes, and it was most unpleasant, let me assure you. “Don’t you dare let them unchain her, Carla! Remember the Robertson case?” I winced slightly, not liking to speak of that little episode out loud. Two policemen splattered on the walls, thank you very much, with blood everywhere, and only because the suspect had been unshackled. “I don’t give a damn what the parents say, I-”

“She killed her parents, Lissie.”

That perked me up a little, it really did. As I stepped into the long-awaited bus, I recalled that only the brother of our suspect was left, and underage, gods below and above be thanked. And as minorities, likewise non-immediate family, could not sign warrants for neither an execution nor unchaining, I smiled to myself. I don’t know whether it was that smile or the barely audible topic of my conversation, but I suddenly found my half of the bus blissfully empty, with the rest of our tolerant community squeezed in the back. Then, just as I flashed a grin at a murmuring a prayer old lady, I was struck with a sudden thought. No papers could be signed, none at all, not unless…

“Carla, darling, there isn’t some idiot Necromancer running around there, is there?” Three more stops, no, two. I dug my fingernails into my palms, and they being long and pointy, it hurt. Long, pointy, but, admittedly, pretty. I spent a fortune on them. “Carla?” I asked, hearing tenseness in my voice. Damned warrant. Call an Apparition, make the victim of a murder – over-age victim, that is – state that the killer did not indeed want to kill, conveniently not talk of demons, and voila. Hope dies last, though, or so they say, and I still hoped…

There was silence at the end of the line for about ten seconds, and she didn’t have to say anything for me to know the answer to my question. “There’s always one around, don’t worry, I’ll hoax him or something…”

He. I was about to bet Nightgale, she was pretty good as Necromancers went, but Evan wouldn’t worry Carla. “Norman Whitman?” I asked hopefully, but received a negative answer. That did it.

“Tell him that if he screws up my case, I’ll give him living hell! Tell him not to dare screw up my case! Tell him that I’ll have Andrei eat him!” I was screeching, and even though I usually made a point of keeping my voice down to a whisper – that voice was an important part of the job, after all, almost as important as bleeding people do death – I didn’t bother trying to contain myself. A window even shattered, letting snow hurl into the bus, and panic erupted among my unfortunate passengers. “Tell him that!” I said, and ended the conversation.

My stop. I stepped out of the bus, a sound of genuine relief following me, and, high heels be damned, sped toward Ruby Square. Snow. It was snowing and it was cold, and I was racing on thin sheets of slippery ice. Damn it. Damn it.

Cell phone. I fumbled a bit in my purse, looking for what I has dropped in there just seconds ago. My hands shook, I was so angry, and as they did, the knives strapped against my wrists fidgeted uncomfortably. Having pressed, after two tries, the bright green button, I heard Andrei’s voice.

“Mary Wilkins, aged seventeen. Suspect since last Monday, and since the killings were done two days ago, the demon seemed to have a moderate amount of times to get accustomed to the mortal world. We don’t know his name, we don’t know his class, but it’s probably nothing you can’t handle. Most likely the idiot girl called it herself, wanting to spook her parents a bit – she has the tiniest amount of witch blood in her veins, just enough to make a Summoning.” Andrei knew me too well – he had, after all, half my life, about fifteen years, to do so – and was already one last time summarizing the case for me. But I was in no mood to take that into consideration. “Though how they all manage to open the Doors of Hell, I wouldn’t guess. Idiocy is good and flourishing. She-”

“Goodkin’s there!” I hissed. I was furious, livid. I hated the man, gods know I did. It was the damned Robertson case again. “He’s there! He’s screwing up my case again! He-” I tripped, sprawling on the snow. Cursing, and not without difficulty, I got up and brushed the flakes off myself. I was soaking wet now.

“Love, you okay?” Apparently the beginning of my rant had ended in a yelp. For a moment I felt warmth spread in my stomach, hearing his concern – but then I remembered the topic of our conversation.

“Of course I am,” I snapped, quickly looking around, relieved that no one has seen me hall. Anyone need material for some second-rate gossip magazine? Come and tag Lissie Larens for awhile, we guarantee you won’t loose your precious time. “Goodkin, damn that bastard! Goodkin! What the hell did I ever do to him?”

His voice sounded amused, I swear it did. “Well, love, for one thing there are the Robertsons…”

“He had it coming!” I screamed. Maybe I did sound pathetic, shouting into a phone in the middle of the street, but if there was anything that could really piss me off, it was Goodkin. “He Apparitioned the dead mother of the Suspect, and made her sign the warrant of unchaining him, the idiot! Did that, when she was clearly unstable emotionally, wanting to free the son that had stabbed her to death! And he did so without an Exorcist’s, that is my, consent!” I clenched my fists. “I could have banished the demon and get it over with, but no, Mr. Goodkin had to get fancy with the blubbering he calls spells and-”

He ignored me. Idiot. “If I remember correctly, love, you and that hellish temper of yours had screamed out a considerable number of profanities, ones that included both his person and that of his mother. You did so – and still do, I might add - both in private and public, and I distinctively remember that article in which you called Aram Goodkin a moron who should crawl back to the hole from which he came from. Moreover, you-”

“Shut up, Andrei, and go to Hell.”

“Been there, love, until you came and rescued me.”

"I hope you rot.”

“Love you too, Lis.”

“Rot!” I shrieked and hung up. And I hoped he did, too, the immortal jerk. I hoped that he choked on his feeder’s blood and shriveled up and died, and took that git, Goodkin, with him.

Suddenly I smiled the first sincere smile in the whole day. It wasn’t official yet, me and Andrei, but it soon will be. Carla’ll have a fit of giggles. I stopped dead. A few days ago, so would I, but then everything changed. Funny how a person’s priorities and whole world can change because of just three words and one kiss.

He said he loved me, those three days ago. I think I told him that too, but I don’t exactly remember. Waking up the next morning, though, with him beside me – that I did.

But there, now. One priority had definitely not changed, and that was the nice sum I would get for banishing the Ruby Square demon. And certainly I would not get that check if I stood like an idiot in the freezing cold. My stride became suddenly purposeful as I told myself that Goodkin would neither screw my case nor get my paycheck.

If I ever had any doubts concerning finding the actual house on Ruby Square Boulevard, the vanished immediately as I found myself on the corner of that and Poultry Lane. As it was, with police tape stretched around the imposing enough building, with policemen stationed every few meters and reporters lurking everywhere, it was impossible to miss it. Kudos for discretion.

Well, maybe I shouldn’t complain that much, since the mentioned valor was not my best side. I lost precious second rummaging in my bag again before triumphantly pulling out a mirror. I ignored the ringing cell phone – one glance told me it was Carla – and set to checking my hair, combing with my fingers unruly white locks. I frowned at my awfully red nose, but being the sensible person I was, I knew nothing could be done about that. Flashing one last sample killer smile, I straightened and stepped into the spotlights.

Lights, reporters. Questions, and people tugging at my clothing, and policemen that tried to keep everything nice and orderly. The assaulted me from all sides. Bliss.

“Is it true that Mary Wilkins killed not only her parents and brother, but also the whole household?”

“Do you have any idea how much money Arthur Wilkins will inherit?” Now, that was an interesting question, spoken right after a supposedly confirmed information of Arthur’s murder. “And just how big is your fee, Ms. Larens?” Insolence, but it did wonders to my morale, and so I gave the numbers. He goggled.

“Are demons really going to take over the world?” asked one particularly bright woman, and the man that accompanied snapped a picture right in front of my face and my red, red, nose. As the camera kept zooming on me, I asked her who she was reporting for. “STV,” she said, looking absolutely thrilled. Well, so would have I if I were not I, and had a chance to talk to myself, no fake modesty included. I was New York’s best Exorcist, and believe me, it was not easy to live up to my reputation.

I glared at the camera. Some station’s tapes will soon have to be bleached white – I’ll ask Andrei to wipe them out. Image is very important, and that big red nose was not part of a positive one.

“Lissie!” Carla’s image cut through my thoughts. Quite properly, perhaps, considering the situation at hand. Short and well-built, Carla was not only my agent, but also my best friend and a moderately good witch – thus the comment about hoaxing… or perhaps hexing? Right now, obscuring my vision with hundreds of black curls, she caught me by the arms and steered me to the entrance of Ruby Manor. She led me out of the spotlights and straight into hell.

Ruby Manor. It had the ring of a place I would have liked, and maybe I would have, in its previous state. It was nice and spacious, and if not for the giant draped windows, the rooms would have been naturally light. A few days ago, even the décor and furniture might have been generally nice, though from the shreds that remained of them, I deciphered too much of peachy.

Slowly, my eyes began to get accustomed to the dimness of the chambers. Yes, shreds. And there were claw marks, long, long slashed that left paint on the scorched floors. I paused. Great, Lissie found herself an Elemental demon.

“Where they burned around, or just…” My voice was once again a whisper; I did not want to scare the demon off.

“… or played around with?” Carla squeezed my hand. “Consider your fee doubled, they can afford it. Burned.”

I nodded, once. Carla looked at me, the emotion in her eye one that I couldn’t quite decipher. That moment came and went, however, and I was not to find out if under any other circumstance I would have brooded on it a while longer. I tensed I was led to a particular pair of doors, knowing what was behind.

Some demons stink, others don’t. This one seemed to have taken a bath, since – it was quite an unsettling thought – if I didn’t know it was in here, I’m not sure I would have sensed its presence at the entrance. Later on it became more pronounced, the goosebumps appeared on my flesh, and the air seemed to crackle the slightest bit. We entered, Carla and I, she grasping at my arm. We entered what appeared to have been a bedroom, a teenage girl’s room, but what now was living hell.

Mary Wilkinson was, thank the gods above and below, still chained in the far corner of the room, ankle and wrists shackled to the wall. As with her house, she might have been pretty, once, with that milky complexion.

Now her eyes were black; she had fangs and claws, and was shrieking unmercifully.

I squinted and was about to tell Carla to tell someone to shut her up, gag her, to do anything to stop those ear-spitting screams, when I started to screech, too. And if the Apparitions floating under the high ceiling had been anyone’s but Goodkin’s, they might have perhaps shattered.

His didn’t.

They floated up above, ghostly memories of what they had once been. And they spoke, they told their story, both the father and mother of the Suspect. I didn’t see the brother – who was thus far alive, from what I understood – but if the medics had any sense, they’d drug him into unconsciousness.

“My poor baby, my poor, poor baby,” crooned the woman, almost invisible under a shawl of deep, deep purple, one that had scorch marks. A mess of blonde hair poked out here and there, and shimmering droplets of blood could be seen, but that was all. “My poor, poor baby!”

I glanced at that ‘poor, poor baby’, the one who killed her, shackled to the wall. She – or the demon inside her – was glaring at me, taunting me. I hissed at it, and white lips curled into a sneer. I smiled brightly back, turning toward the man. His monologue was more constructive, albeit….

“I told her not to go out with that boy, I told her that. Said she’ll make her mother miserable, she would, but did she listen? No, of course not, she never listens. She’s always the smarter…” His narrative suddenly changed. “Well, missy, this time you’ve gone too far! Come back home this late – and, what? What did you say? Listen here, I am your father, and you live in my house, and-

At this point I thought that perhaps Mary should be the slightest bit grateful to the demon that told her to murder them, and that perhaps the demon didn’t have to do a lot, just a suggestion here, another there… If those two Apparitions where anything like their originals, then I couldn’t blame any of them, even the idiot girl for calling her fate. Perhaps my thoughts we visibly scribbled over my face, because Carla was once more at my side, hissing at me to do something and not listen to the rubbish. I blinked once, twice, and said that I always had a soft spot for soap operas. But then my friend changed her tactic.

“Goodkin is taking your paycheck,” she remarked, raising an elegant, arched brow at me. That snapped me back into reality, though the Necromancer’s name alone would have been sufficient. Not need to throw the paycheck at me, really. I curled my lip and strode purposefully to my biggest enemy, who was kneeling at the other side of the room, muttering something under that huge nose of his.

I loomed over him, casting a long, long shadow. For once I didn’t yell – that wouldn’t make him get out of that trance of his, it wouldn’t make him break his concentration. They say that physical violence is a paranormal’s last choice, and perhaps that is true. I slapped him, and he jerked awake.

“What the-” he started, and I, amidst Apparitions, a loose demon, a shrieking Suspect, in a house where a double murder had been committed, giggled happily. I just couldn’t help myself – the sound of my hand against his cheek was so nice. His expression was, too, and the anger that was flushing him. “Larens,” he barked, tense already.

“My case, sweetheart,” I said sweetly.

“I was here first.” He was breathing heavily, bead of sweat crowning his balding head. Wincing he got up from his knees, and inspecting the shimmering . “First,” he echoed, not yet entirely himself. Poor Necromancers had to suffer from major headaches after Summoning their Apparitions – them being splintered and shattered to pieces as we spoke, did nothing to help. “First…”

True, but I was not about to admit that. And I was evil enough to take advantage of it. “Carla, darling?”

Goodkin whirled around, as if sensing the danger. Git, trying to screw up my case. Trying to get my demon! Bastard. Insolently calling Apparitions, very well knowing that it was not welcome. I smiled at him again, just as he was made to fall back on his knees. Carla knew her job, and her hexes were deadly when need be. I asked her to it once, just for fun – I came around three day later with a very bitter taste in my mouth. I felt no remorse when it came to Goodkin, though. . At this moment – as he slid to the floor, black and blue forming on his forehead, where he had made contact with the floor - I positively adored Carla.

“One of these days, Lissie, my conscience will kick in,” she retorted dryly at my paeans. “And then, then you will be-”

“… doomed, yes.” But I wasn’t really listening, already focusing on the matter at hand. I could concentrate when the situation demanded it, block out everything else. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Carla usher everyone out of the room – wide eyed, gaping someones, including three policemen and a psychiatrist, who let themselves be led like sheep – and then finally leave herself, having turned off the lights. “Condemned to failure,” I muttered.

The police couldn’t do much when it came to demons, but trap they could. Some spells were very handy, especially when in competent hands - I paused to admire the ones in front of me. A steady, pulsing green on the metal, sunk deep into the steel.

I squatted next to the girl, trying to see a human being instead of shreds of one. These days it was coming harder and harder, but I needed that for what was later to come. Perhaps that was in Carla’s gaze, then. The fact that I was getting so used to it, that it all became somewhere, at some point, casual. A routine.

The Suspects opened the Doors of Hell. They went there, and asked the demon to come. They gave him flesh from their right hand, and more then not, the demon would acquiesce. What the idiots didn’t expect is that in their body, soul, it wouldn’t be the pitiful being in Hell. It’d be able to control them.

I took a deep breath. Masses of gold locks were glued to the Suspect’s unnaturally pale skin – wonderful complexion she had, a blush would be like blood against milk – with blue bruises here and there. There were those dark, endlessly deep needling holes, too, ones that a causal observant wouldn’t see. They were burns that ate her flesh, that reached down to her soul; I knew what they meant – the demon was trying to claw its way out of the host.

“Mary, everything will be just fine,” I said coaxingly, reaching out to touch her forehead. She flinched visibly and tried to avoid my hand, shrinking against the wall. Then, for a second, the girl’s eyes changed. For a moment, for just one moment, they were blue again, color surfacing, and it was Mary Wilkins I saw, but a seventeen year old, terrified out of hers senses girl.

“I killed them,” she whispered, looking around wildly. Her eyes widened and she stared and stared at me, making choking sounds, and her lips trembled. She rattled at her chains, and opened and closed her mouth, and-

Her eyes turned black again, locking hers in mine, and she let out a growl, unbarring a set of pretty whit teeth, though with two longer ones protruding from the sides. I straightened and took a deep breath. There was no Goodkin to yell at – his body had been removed from the chamber, courtesy of Carla – and no Andrei to lean on. He used to come with me, Andrei, to my séances. He used to hold my hand as I did what I had to. But then I told him I could handle it, ordered him to leave, and he believed my lies.

Mary let out a shrill scream as I unsheathed the first knife and slashed at her palm, letting a dark crimson, sticky liquid seeping down; the hand was conveniently shackled just above her head. Her lips, now blue, parted, and the metal groaned as the tried to pull free with inhuman strength.

But she was human, she was, and I knew I couldn’t forget that as the pool of red out our feet spread out. As the blood was soaked in her navy blue shirt and jeans, and as it circled my heels. Drip, drip, drip.

And her screams. She felt it, the pain, and the demon, safe inside her, didn’t. He laughed at me, kept taunting, wanting me to make a mistake… Wanting me to kill her, because if she did, he’d be free.

Mary Wilkins whimpered. She howled, too, while she could, but as time passed by, there was no sound left in her. Her breathing became shallow, ragged, and her hand was a bloody mass. Yet with it she had summoned, and I had to clean it.

The sticky blood oozed down to the floor, and scraps of skin fell, too. It was a characteristic sound, barely audible yet so familiar to me. I knew that if the lights were on, I’d see those chunks, floating in the liquid. I’d see the vapors, not only feel their heaviness, smell their sickly-sweetness. That was why I liked it to be dark when I did my work. I relied on my instincts enough not do need light to know where to aim with the daggers.

I worked, skinning her hand, with the girl all the time conscious and aware. Tied, she couldn’t move, couldn’t do a thing, just scream, with the being – thing – in her watching, observing me through her eyes. It was the demon that made her stay awake, open her eyes and feel the pain, but it was her body that he used. His role was minimal. He was just there. He might be whispering something to her in her head, or might be just waiting. The spells bound him, preventing him from doing anything for the time. He was just there, and he watched.

I worked, crooning all the way through, just like her mother, saying, “Everything will be good, Mary, everything will be fine.” It was more for myself that her.

From somewhere far, far away, I hear my cell phone signal the arrival of a text message, but paid it no heed. To the concept of skinning, if not sight, I was used to, but to the smell I would never be. It was rotting flesh that I had to discard on the pile next to the girl, putrid, putrid flesh. I fought nausea, knowing that I had to get to the bones of her right hand. On it would be scribbled, burned, the information I would need to Banish the demon. I wished Andrei were here.

I cut, swallowing hard. Mary had entered Hell to get her demon; she’d have to come back there to be free. Still, few Suspects, even if they survived a Exorcist’s séance, were ever entirely ‘free’. Most went suicide, some ended up locked in asylums. The funny thing was, the same fate lay in store for the Exorcists.

Mary’s lips were parted, and she barely breathed. Her skin was no longer pale; it was grey, tinted with yellow, but most of all it was sweaty and bloody, and wet in touch. I had no contact with the demon, other then the glimpses through her eyes, but soon that would change.

Soon the girl would have no right hand, just the skeleton of it. Soon I would be able to stand up, perhaps throw up in some corner, cry a little, and the drag myself to the basin that Carla had ordered to be put. I’d then carry the basin to the girl, I’d see her thrash about as the demon, probably for the first time, started worrying. I’d sink the bones into the water, perhaps take a deep breath, one that’d I’d later rather I hadn’t, and wipe the remains of the hand dry. I’d read the single word, etched many times on the bones of her fingers and palms, starting from the wrist. The spells on my daggers would save her from death of blood loss, sealing the cut through arteries shut even as I slashed at the veins.

I’d read silently the inscription. I’d mouth, at first, but then force myself to say it aloud: Lefrimel. I’d watch the demon push through Mary’s skin, a ghostly, transparent being, watch it speed with full force at me. Perhaps I’d even see the girl go limp, loose consciousness, but I’d not have enough time to savor the sudden silence, the lack of the girl’s screeches in my head. It’d – Lefrimel, because that would be his name – leave Mary Wilkins, yes, but go at me instead.

And I’d have to chant formulae instead of defending myself. I’d have to whisper at it weakly, order it to go back to Hell in barely audible tones, knowing that if I failed, he’d do to me what I’d done to the girl. The demon would attempt to split me into half, tear my flesh into shreds and crush my bones. And it could, if it only it got to me before I managed to Banish it. But I couldn’t – wouldn’t! - let that happen, and I didn’t, did I?..

I wouldn’t know. Somewhere in the middle of scraping the soft tissue off Mary’s fingers, I realized that something was wrong, terribly wrong. The girl was already limp, unmoving; she was quiet. I dropped my knife and blinked. I reached out for the girl’s other hand, to feel for her pulse.

It wasn’t there.

I massaged the cricks out of my neck, and stared. Mary’s face was worn, bleached, yet peaceful. Lefrimel? Where was Lefrimel? I took a deep breath, and when I realized that I could do it without smelling rotten flesh, I started to panic. I lowered my hand, and stole a glance at it as I did so; it was a pale, pale hand, with blue bruises and those deep, reaching the soul holes, eating at my limb. In fact, it was completely in those holes and claw marks, the ones through which Lefrimel had escaped…

Memories. Locked. Ones that should not be there. Ones that were untrue, so ridiculous they were. Untrue. Untrue!

I sank to my knees, or perhaps I was already sprawled on the floor. I was empty, as empty as Mary, deprived of not only the demon, but my life, too. Two corpses, we were, and we lay beside each other, together. I stifled a scream, knowing that I would make no sound. I was dead. Dead.

The demon had risked and inhabited an Exorcist. He had switched hosts, more powerful that I though. He fought with me and won, because I was unsuspecting, vulnerable. Because I had gone to read the text message that had arrived in my phone, in the end. Because I was mouthing: ‘Take care of yourself’, because that was what Andrei has written. Because I was happy when doing so, and too caught up in the routine, too confident, to sense any immediate danger.

But I couldn’t be! It couldn’t, it couldn’t, it couldn’t…

I had fought, and lost, and let go of the cell phone. It had smashed into pieced when contacting the floor. Perhaps Carla sensed something, and entered the room. Maybe she saw me fall, topple to the ground, lifeless as my phone.

But then everything disappeared, dissolved. Everything – Mary, and her skin and blood and bones, and the whole too, too – everything but Aram Goodkin, who appeared out of nothingness, out of the sudden darkness; he stood somewhere below, surrounded by a golden glow, and I watched him from up above, consumed in the shadows.

No. No!

My lips parted. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. Instead, I started trembling, shaking, my eyes widened, and I whirled around only to face blackness. Aram’s glow was flickering, diminishing, and he himself was beginning to blur. I noticed that something lay at his feet, and made myself concentrate on it. It was a corpse; it was my corpse. It was torn, ripped, and its eyes were open. The right hand was rotten, decaying.

I resisted the darkness, and even though the light burned me, I reached to touch her – my – cheek. Aram’s hand caught my unsubstantial arm before I could do so, and he shook his head, sadly, sorrow in his clear blue eyes. And the darkness started pulling me away from him and my dead body.

I clawed at him. I wanted to stay, not go; I wanted to the light, not darkness. I wanted to be alive, not dead, and so I tore at his flesh, leaving marks on his face and arms; I made him bleed. Desperately, I clutched the hems of his clothing, willing myself to stay, willing him to take me back with him. I hung on, not wanting to let go. He shook his head.

Don’t. Don’t do this to me!

Aram Goodkin freed himself from me, stepping back into the lightness, and my grasp lessened, until at last I held on to only emptiness. The light turned into fire, and the flames pushed me back into the darkness, to a brightness that lay hidden, poking out behind. Circles blazed at his feet, and the runes etched inside burned. I stared at him, pleading, but he shook his head again.

“Elisabeth Anne Larens, you will rest in peace.”