Chapter 16

“Did we do the right thing?” I asked aloud without realizing it at first. Then I looked at Ruby. She followed a step behind and looked at me when I looked at her. “With the succubus, I mean.”

She arched an eyebrow. “What do you think we should have done?”

I shook my head and looked forward again. “I don’t know. I just feel like something more should be done to keep anyone else from falling into her trap.”

“You and I escaped,” she said. “You should be thankful that we did. I don’t want to think about what she would have done to us if we had failed.”

I nodded. She was right. However, she didn’t have to worry about that thing after we left the vaults. I did, and I wasn’t looking forward to the options that would be presented to me.

We remained quiet as we walked after that. The hallways were quiet and free of magical problems. I was beginning to think it was strange when voices drifted our way.

We turned a corner and found Walker, mom, and Jade standing in the middle of a hallway. I couldn’t imagine what would have stopped Walker until I realized that they were touching an invisible wall. They looked at it as if there was something there to see, and studied it as if trying to find a way through. I didn’t see anything and assumed it was probably another magical problem we would have to bypass.

Jade noticed our approach first and turned with a smile. “So, enjoy your time in the blanket?”

The others turned and looked at us. Walker frowned at my clothes, but mom only gave us a curious glance.

“Where did you get those clothes?” Walker asked with a slight growl.

I stopped, well out of physical reach, and glared right back at him. I wasn’t sure whether to tell him the truth and opted for a partial lie. “I used magic.”

He looked me over and then looked at Ruby. “You were supposed to prevent him from using Magic.”

She stared at him for a second and then shook her head. “The only way to do that would be to kill him.”

Walker snarled. “Don’t get smart with me. We both know there are other ways.”

I shook my head. “Not her fault,” I said. “No one’s fault. None of you were there to prevent it.”

Walker looked at me again. He studied me for a moment and I could tell he was going through possible things that happened while he, mom, Ruby, and Jade were all stuck in the blanket before I got sucked into it as well. Why didn’t I run? Mom. Why didn’t I try for help? Mom. Why didn’t I do something that would imprison him and leave my mom free? I probably didn’t know how or didn’t know the order they would reappear. No matter which way one approached it, he had the perfect leverage on me while in the vaults and he knew it. Then this grin creased his face. He looked at my mom, held her out at arm’s length, and looked over the teddy she wore. “I don’t understand, Seth. You upgraded your clothes but did nothing for your mother?” Then he looked at me and said, “I thought you cared about her.”

I stared at him for a moment and then looked at mom. She was smiling at Walker and didn’t seem to pay me any mind. I looked at Walker again. “Release her from that spell you have on her and I’ll ask her what she would rather wear.”

He shook his head again, his smile turning slimy. “Why don’t you want her to wear this? It is quite lovely.” And, he gave her a little spin as if wanting to see her from every angle, but he never even looked at her.

I stood there glaring at him. Damn, I so wanted to blast his ass with something. Maybe trap him in that stone prison with the succubus. Then I heard a giggle and looked at mom. She smiled at Walker and posed for him. It made me sick. Sure, I had sex with her not so long ago, but that was under different circumstances, and if I liked the guy she was giggling over, I would be happy for her. Walker, however, wasn’t interested in her for her. He only wanted to make sure I did what I was told, and didn’t try anything when given the chance. It made me hate him. And I didn’t hate people.

I decided to change the subject before I threw up. I looked past them along the empty hallway. “What’s in the way?”

Walker looked my mom over one more time and then looked at me. “What do you mean?” Then he looked at the invisible wall, and back at me. “Can’t you see it?”

Jade frowned at me too. “There’s a wall here, cutting off the hallway.”

I looked from one to the other. Then I turned to Ruby. “What do you see?”

She looked around and then at this alleged wall. “It looks like the end of the hallway, making it a dead end.” Then she looked at Walker. “Is there another way around it?”

He frowned and shook his head. “There is, but it would add hours to our schedule that we cannot afford. All I know is that this wall wasn’t here before.” He looked at me again. Yes, he had been through the vaults before, but how? When? He pushed past my questions when he added, “But the wall only seems to be here for those of us who cannot access the mirrors.”

I met his eyes. “Funny, this doesn’t look like a mirror to me.”

“No,” he said with an unfriendly grin. “it’s not a mirror, but then you don’t see anything, do you?”

I looked past him and didn’t answer.

He studied me for a moment and then said, “Let’s find out if this bars your way.”

I frowned and looked at him. “I can access the mirrors, but I don’t see a mirror here.”

“No, but any security measures would allow you to pass,” he said and waved me on. “Go through, and disable this obstruction from the other side.”

“Oh? As simple as that?” I asked.

He stepped closer to my mom. She snuggled up to him, and he smiled that disturbing smile at me again. “Do it.”

I looked around at the others. Everyone except my mom watched me. I wasn’t sure if what he said was true, but then I didn’t see anything wrong with the hallway either. I stepped up next to Walker and my mom, and then I took several steps past them. I turned back to them and shrugged.

None of them were looking at me.

“Walker?” I asked, “can you hear me?”

He frowned, pressed up against the invisible wall with his head turned as if trying to hear me better. “Seth!?” he called out as if trying to shout through one of the thick stone walls that made up the hallways.

I was about to move back to them when another voice rang out behind me. “Who are you?”

I didn’t recognize the voice and it had a quality to it that suggested it wasn’t coming from normal human vocal cords. I turned to look further along the hallway. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t see any movement. “Hello?”

I spotted what looked like a shadow. It wasn’t on the floor, the ceiling, or the walls. It moved through the air, which made it difficult to track. The voice returned. “Who are you?”

Instinctively, I cast my armor spell. I didn’t want this thing to touch me, but offering information cost me nothing. So, with all the courage I could muster, I said, “I am Seth Connors, Lord of House Ursae, and Head of Florence Manor. Who are you?”

The shadow was joined by another. It was unnerving to see them. It was wrong to see them. I didn’t understand what was happening, and a deep-seated part of me told me to run for the hills.

The shadows drew closer, and I couldn’t stop myself from backing away.

One of the shadows suddenly darted forward and hit me in the chest. No, it didn’t hit me. I had expected to feel some sort of impact, like being punched, but that didn’t happen. The shadow itself seemed to ... enter me. From that point, bone-numbing cold spread through my body. I began to shake, uncontrollably, as if I had fallen through a break in ice over a lake.

I knew the cold was a symptom of that shadow entering my body, so instead of fighting the symptom, I fought to expel the shadow. I closed my eyes, gripped my fists, and stood rock still. My muscles tensed between the need to shiver to keep me warm, and my will to remain still. I needed something that would remove a fluid, almost liquid substance from my body. The first thing that came to mind was a large colander, but I wasn’t sure it would do what I wanted. Then I thought of a filter. I wanted the filter to hold onto the one thing that didn’t belong in me – the shadow – and allow my body to pass through. I held onto that idea, imagining a huge filter standing behind me and willing it to move forward, passing through me like a tea strainer or something else that would allow me to separate one substance from another.

The filter passed through and I felt the cold leave my body. When I opened my eyes and looked up, the shadow was gone. In its place, held by the filter, was a translucent man.

The other shadow moved around the filter. Not wanting to experience a repeat of what the first shadow tried to do, I moved the filter, capturing another translucent man. With the speed of thought, I wrapped the filter and the two men with invisible gauze, pinning the two specters in place. Once I felt comfortable with the situation, I turned the filter with my prisoners to face me.

The two men looked like they were dressed. One in a suit from some early-to-mid decade of the twentieth century, and the other in overalls and a short-sleeved button-up shirt. Neither had feet, but they had hands and they fought to free themselves from my trap.

“Who are you?” I asked in a milder tone.

The specter in the suite fought his prison. “Let me go,” it said. “I must test you.”

“Test me for what?” I asked. “I can answer your questions if you’ll answer mine.”

He pushed with all his might against the bonds. “We have no reason to trust you.”

“Which suggests I have no reason to allow you to test me,” I said. “Give me a good reason to allow the test.”

“We don’t need a reason,” he said.

His companion stopped struggling and looked at him. “But, Glenn, I thought you wanted to find out if he was a member of our family?”

Glenn stopped struggling against his bonds too and looked at his companion. “You idiot. You just gave him my name.”

“Not your entire name,” his companion said.

Glenn grumbled and shook with what I thought was rage. “You gave him enough. Now, shut up!”

The other one shrank in on himself and tried to move away from Glenn. “I’m sorry, Glenn. I was just trying to help.”

I shook my head at the pure oddness of what I witnessed. “You two are ghosts,” I said.

Glenn glared at me. The other one, however, shook his head. “No, we’re spirits.”

I frowned and thought about that, but it didn’t make any sense. “What’s the difference?”

He looked at Glenn and said, “Do you want to explain it?”

Glenn grumbled and shook his head. “I doubt either of us could explain properly, given he’s not dead.”

“Well, we could help him with that,” said the simpler one.

“Whoa!” I said, feeling the need to speak up. “No. No, you’re not going to help me with being dead.” I looked from one to the other. “How about you explain why you’re here instead?”

Mr. help-me-to-be-dead shrugged his shoulders as if it made no difference to him, but Glenn simply glared at me. Neither of them said anything.

I sighed and rubbed my temples. “I know your first name,” I said to Glenn and then turned to the other one. “What’s your first name?”

“Eugene,” he said at the same time Glenn said, “Don’t!”

I nodded and said, “Thank you, Eugene.” Then I looked at Glenn and said, “From my understanding, I would need your full name to perform any kind of personal magic against you.”

“You didn’t even have our names before you did this,” Eugene said with a chuckle and nodded at the trap in which I held them.

I nodded and said, “That’s because we were both right here, right now. Glenn’s concern has to do with me doing magic against you no matter how far apart we are.”

Glenn sighed and grumbled under his breath. Eugene’s eyes widened as he said, “Ohhhh.”

I glanced at Glenn but remained focused on Eugene. “So, tell me Eugene, why are you two here rather than having passed on?”

He shrugged half-heartedly and started to say something, but Glenn shot him a glare and said, “Still your tongue.”

Eugene glanced at Glenn and said, “But Glenn, we’re dead. We don’t have tongues.”

I smiled and took a liking to Eugene. “I believe he wants you to stop talking,” I said.

“But he won’t answer your questions,” Eugene said.

Glenn’s face would have turned red with his anger if he had been alive. He looked at Eugene and said, “That’s the point. We do not answer his questions. He is supposed to answer our questions.”

“But you said we can’t trust him,” Eugene complained. “He’s just a kid. What is he supposed to tell us anyway?”

Glenn looked back at me and pushed against his bonds again. “We can’t trust him because we haven’t confirmed that he is a family member, much less the Lord of the Manor.”

“That’s what you were trying to do before I filtered you out?”

Glenn nodded.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve had nothing but one problem after another down here. The last thing I need is a ghost freezing me to death.”

“Oh, no. You wouldn’t freeze to death,” Eugene said. “Not unless you’re not a family member, and then yes, you would freeze to death.”

I didn’t smile this time. Instead, I focused on Glenn and asked, “And just how do you expect to learn whether I’m a member of the family or not?”

For a moment, Glenn said nothing. Surprisingly, so did Eugene. Either he wasn’t talking due to his better understanding of the situation or he didn’t know either. Then Glenn said, “It’s in your blood. Your bones.”

“My DNA?” I asked, and he frowned. “You were in me for a good number of seconds. More than long enough to get a sample to test.”

“Do I look like a scientist to you?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “But I’m guessing you were a Magus. And I understand that a ghost cannot use magic.”

“It’s not science or magic,” he said. “Only the dead can understand.”

“Then we’re at another impasse,” I said. Then I shook my head and thumb back over my shoulder. “And if I die, they’ll be stuck down here.”

He shook his head. “I don’t care about them.”

“You don’t care because they’re not family?” I asked, trying to understand. “What’s the point of testing to see if I’m family if I got through your security measure?”

He glanced past me. “I have to test you because I didn’t set up that wall. It’s not a security measure. I don’t know why you were able to pass through and the others cannot.”

I frowned at that, looked back at the others, and then looked for the closest doors. “I have to disable this restriction.” Then I looked up at the pair of them. “Do you know if any of these rooms have magical objects that do this sort of thing?”

“A family member would know,” Glenn said with a satisfied sneer.

“I am a family member,” I said. “I’m the last male of the line, to my knowledge. My biological mother died months before I even knew I was a Magus, and without telling me I was a member of this family or training me in anything regarding the Manor or the vaults.”

Glenn’s expression sharpened. Eugene looked as confused as ever. “If you haven’t been trained to be in the vaults, then why are you here?”

I thumbed back at Walker. “His name is Walker. His men are holding people I care about up in the manor. The woman in the night dress is my stepmother. She raised me. She’s also a prisoner. If I don’t do what he wants, then he’ll hurt her or the others. Doing what he wants includes bringing down this barrier.”

Glenn shook his head. “Not our problem.”

Eugene looked past me at the others. “But Glenn...”

“No!” Glenn barked. “We are not helping him. We have nothing to do with what they want or why they’re here.” Then he looked at me again. “Unless you’ll allow me to test you?”

I groaned and rubbed my face in thought. “Can you do it without the cold?”

“No,” Glenn said.