C.H.A.R.O.N., page 17
“Can it be done? The hike?” Travis pressed.
“Sure—on a nice day when it hasn’t been raining for a week if you’re a mid-level or better hiker,” Chris said. “I’ve done it—in a dry summer when I was in good shape, and it still took a lot out of me.”
He gestured in the general direction of the roads. “Now? It’s a death trap. Even if most of the people in town weren’t older and not athletic, all this rain is going to have washed out trails, and it’s prime for mudslides and rock falls. No chance we’re getting people out that way.”
Chris fixed them both with his gaze. “You get what this means? We’re trapped in town with those monsters, and if they don’t kill us, the flood when the dam breaks will wipe South Fork off the map. If you’ve got a solution, you’d better pull it out of your asses, or we’re all going to die.”
CHAPTER NINE
“We’ve been in town less than three days, and it’s go-time,” Travis said once he and Brent returned to their table with a fresh pot of hot coffee.
“These things never come with an instruction manual,” Brent agreed.
Travis’s phone rang, and he felt a surge of relief to recognize Simon Kincaide’s ringtone. “I’m hoping you’ve got answers because it’s getting rough over here,” he said.
“It’s lore. That means I’ve got opinions, few of which agree with each other,” Simon replied. “I also tapped into our network, so I have input from several witches, a necromancer, psychics, and a couple of other mediums.”
Travis trusted Simon’s skills as a psychic medium, and knew that his friends were equally reliable and powerful in their own gifts. A few might even be immortal. “I’ll take anything you’ve got,” he told Simon as Brent leaned in to listen.
“I found a ritual to dispel ‘conjured spirits,’” Simon went on. “That phrase can have several meanings, but it usually carries the sense of a witch summoning the spirit from somewhere or perhaps creating them from elemental materials. Which is pretty close to creating a thought form out of will and imagination.”
“Close—but is it close enough?” Travis asked. Magic could be as nitpicky as the most legalistic lawyer, and he didn’t want to risk all their lives on a “maybe.”
“The witches I bounced the idea around with all thought so—and they’ve got more than a few lifetimes of magical experience among them,” Simon replied. “It’s a combination of a cleansing, banishment, and exorcism, with the goal being to obliterate the spirits completely, not just send them back to wherever they came from.”
“Give me the gist of it,” Travis said. “It better be simple—we’re a long way from the nearest botanica to get supplies.”
“Fortunately, you can raid the kitchen for what you need. Salt, sage, rue, dill, rosemary, and thyme repel spirits—and the grocery store spice rack varieties will work just fine in a pinch. Combine those in a cup—best if the cup is silver, but anything will do. “Salt water cleanses, so if there’s any way to hose the haunted area down with some, it will help to weaken the tulpas,” Simon suggested.
Brent elbowed Travis. “Would road salt and rainwater do?”
“They should. Then cut juniper branches—boxwood if you can get it—and make a fire,” Simon advised.
“Here’s the tricky part—get the people who have seen or created the tulpas to draw the monsters. Everyone who fears them also contributes energy to sustain the thought forms. The more pictures, the better. Burn the pictures on the juniper-boxwood fire, and pour the powdered plant mixture over it while you say the cleansing/banishment/exorcism. The more people who believe what you’re doing will destroy the tulpas, the better because these are thought creatures,” Simon warned.
“Fuck,” Travis murmured. “Tammy’s art project at the library.”
Brent nodded. “Wyrick had his patients do the same thing. I wonder if he meant to create a failsafe in case the tulpas got too much to handle.”
“It explains why the fire and salt rounds made them vanish but didn’t keep them away for good,” Travis said.
“I’ll email you the litany,” Simon told them. “Tweak it as the power speaks to you. But it should have the essential elements.”
“Thank you. What about the Shubin?”
“Yeah, he’s more of a challenge because he’s not conjured. Odds are good he’s some sort of twisted elemental energy, so he can be weakened and bound, but not destroyed,” Simon replied. “They’re hard to get rid of because they like the deep places—if not mines, then caves—that people can’t access. Salt, iron, and holy water weaken them. There’s also a rather obscure text I found that uses a proxy for a binding ritual.”
Simon paused. “The proxy is a carved figure made from coal. Cannel coal, if you can find it, which has been associated with protective magic for a long time. In mining regions, ‘Cannelmancy’ was a folk magic usually worked by women to appease the deep spirits and keep the miners safe. You don’t hear much about it these days, but it might be something you can use. I’ll keep digging, but that’s all I’ve got right now. Sorry.”
“No reason to apologize—it’s more than we had before,” Travis assured him. “It’s getting dicey here—if we get cut off, you’ll know we lost signal. Light a candle for us—we’re going to need it.”
The call ended, and Travis slipped his phone into his pocket. Brent fiddled with his coffee cup, and Travis could tell that something was bothering his partner.
“What’s on your mind? I mean, besides the end of the world—again.”
That raised a rueful chuckle from Brent. “I’ve just been thinking, with all this talk about tulpas—is that what Danny is? Did I somehow ‘make’ his ghost because I missed him so much?”
Travis felt a cold breeze, and the salt shaker abruptly fell over. Brent glared at the fallen shaker. “That doesn’t prove anything, for or against. Tulpas can affect physical things, just like ghosts.”
The glass shaker rolled back and forth. “Don’t spill salt,” Brent said. “It’s bad luck.”
Travis could sense Danny’s spirit, weaker than it had been before Cooper City but growing stronger. “Relax. Danny’s a ghost, not a tulpa. I can see him, and the energy is different from the tulpas.”
“You’re sure?”
Travis nodded, and the salt shaker righted itself, untouched. “Positive.”
Brent grinned, elated at the news. “I’m glad. It’s good to have him back.” He closed his eyes, and his smile faded as he realized the danger.
Please, Danny. Don’t risk it. You’re just coming back. Let us handle it, he thought to the ghost.
Travis still felt Danny’s presence, but he could not hear the mental conversation.
“What’s wrong?” Travis nudged, worried by the one-sided argument he could hear.
Brent opened his eyes. “Danny wants to help. He isn’t as strong as he was before Cooper City, but he wants to rally the miners’ ghosts to hold off the tulpas. I don’t know if they could hurt him. He’s only now come back. I can’t lose him again.”
Travis shut his eyes and opened himself up to his gift, not just sending spirits but channeling them as a true medium. He felt Danny’s spirit inhabit him and withdrew his own consciousness to a corner of his mind where he could observe, but not interfere.
“Brent. Let me help.” Travis’s voice changed, no longer his usual speaking tone, and Brent’s head snapped up, catching something familiar.
“Danny?”
Travis nodded, channeling Danny. “I can’t stay long. Your friend will need his strength for other things. But I need to help.”
“I’ve missed you so much,” Brent said, blinking back tears as his voice grew hoarse. “Don’t ask me to deal with you vanishing again.”
Danny/Travis chuckled sadly. “I fought my way back to you, and I don’t intend to leave. But I also don’t want to see you on this side any time soon. So let me protect you. Protection goes both ways. It’s what brothers do,” Danny’s ghost reminded his twin.
Brent clenched his jaw, and it looked to Travis as if his partner fought a silent internal war. Finally, he nodded.
“Okay. I get that. But don’t go sacrificing yourself again. Once was enough.”
Travis felt Danny’s emotions, a flood of sadness, love, and fond exasperation. “I’m already dead. If the grief demons didn’t destroy me, those mangy shadow dogs aren’t going to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that they can kill you—and Travis too,” Danny argued, and Travis knew that while Brent could be reckless about his own safety, he was almost as protective of Travis as he was of Danny.
“That’s cheating,” Brent countered.
Danny/Travis shrugged. “Whatever it takes. Do we have a deal? I need to let him go.”
“Okay,” Brent replied grudgingly. “But—be careful, and don’t do anything stupid.”
“Who, me? That’s my older brother’s job,” Danny jibed, joking about the minutes-difference between their ages. “I’ll see you after.”
The ghost disentangled himself from Travis’s consciousness, leaving him breathless. He reached for his coffee, dumped in more sugar, and knocked it back.
“Travis? Is he gone?”
Travis nodded, but he waited another minute before he looked directly at Brent, giving his partner a chance to compose himself. “Yeah, it’s me again. Danny was telling the truth. I don’t think the tulpas can hurt the ghosts, but the spirits running interference for us could help a lot. He missed you as much as you missed him,” Travis added, knowing how bereft Brent had been during the months when he feared Danny’s ghost might be gone forever.
“Yeah, yeah. He was always the sappy one,” Brent grumbled, voice rough. “Thank you for doing that. I know it takes a lot out of you.” Despite his worry, he couldn’t hide his relief and joy at Danny’s return.
Travis took a deep breath, monitoring himself as he had learned to do when working spells or using his abilities. “He wasn’t difficult to channel, and he didn’t overstay his welcome. I’m fine.” Which is good because we’ve got a long night ahead of us.
“Did you think about what Vinnie and Jackson told us?” Brent asked.
Travis paused for a sip of coffee. “I think they’re probably right about Wyrick. As for the ‘meditation’ he had them use—it’s standard stuff. Nothing magical about it, although by taking them into a hypnotic state, he lowered their mental barriers. That would make it easier to feed energy into creating the tulpas.”
The police scanner shrilled, silencing the conversations in the bar. “We need flashers and sawhorses on Mead Road near the miner monument,” Calabrese’s voice crackled across the connection. “Got a new sinkhole. Stay well back from the edge—it’s probably going to get bigger.”
“Didn’t Tammy tell us that the mines went under the memorial?” Brent asked.
“Yeah. She said they basically were underneath the whole town.”
“Let’s see if Mike can commandeer a salt truck to spread on the roads and slow the tulpas down while we work the ritual to get rid of them.”
“Dumping a load of salt down the sinkhole probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either,” Travis mused. “Especially with the amount of water that’ll be going down with it.”
The lights in the bar flickered wildly, and Brent shot a look at Travis, who shook his head.
“Not ghosts,” Travis said.
In the next moment, the bar plunged into darkness.
“Everyone stay where you are,” Chris’s voice rang out. “I’m going to get the generator fired up. It’ll just be a minute.”
They heard his footsteps head for the kitchen, and then the crowded room fell silent. Without the hum of voices, Travis could hear the rain beating on the roof and windows, steady and hard. It felt as if the patrons held their breath until the generator chugged to life and the lights came back on, dimmed but glowing.
The door swung open, and Nonna stomped inside, rain streaming from her black trench coat and umbrella. Tammy followed a few steps behind, bedraggled and apologetic.
“I need to talk to you.” Nonna furled her umbrella and pointed it like a wand at Travis and Brent in the back corner.
“There was no talking her out of coming, no matter what the storm was doing,” Tammy said to the room at large.
Brent and Travis rose as she approached, and Brent offered Nonna a chair. She sat, but Tammy stayed standing, out of the way.
“Figured you might need these—there’s power in them,” Nonna said, putting a soggy cardboard box on the table. Travis wiped off the rain and peeked inside to see a stack of hand-drawn pictures.
“Brought you these too.” Nonna withdrew a container of black dust from the large carpetbag she carried and a figure carved from coal of an old man in a bulky coat with a big hat. Travis wondered if it was the piece she had been carving at the library.
“You ever heard of cannelmancy?” Nonna asked.
Travis’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, but I don’t know much.”
Nonna’s thin lips twitched with a pleased smile. “Cannel coal is special—a perfect conduit for power. My family came from a coal mining area in Italy. The magic follows our line. Our men go below, and our women work spells and pray to the old gods to bring them back into the light once more.”
“If you can do coal magic—cannelmancy—begging your pardon, why are the shadow creatures still here?” Brent asked.
Nonna reared back and then sighed. “I lost my nerve. Ten years ago after a cave-in I tried to use my magic to save the trapped miners. It wasn’t enough. They died. After that, I told myself folks were better off without my meddling. But now, things are bad enough that I can’t make it worse. So, I’m here to help.”
“Thank you.” Travis appreciated the old witch’s candor. “We need all the allies we can get.”
Nonna withdrew an envelope and slid it across the table. “I’ve been working on a spell for a while, hoping I’d never have to use it. But even though I was running away from my failure, I could see what was happening. The shadows in the dark, the people going missing, and the Shubin—”
“You know about Shubin?” Travis interrupted.
Nonna rolled her eyes. “My people were miners and mine witches. We knew the Shubin were terrible enemies and treacherous allies. We sacrificed to them and made offerings. And we made sure they understood that if necessary, we could bind them.”
Travis reached for the envelope. “And you know how to bind them?”
“I have my great-grandmother’s spell book. Her description of how it was done in her day. The last time, as far as I know, that anyone made it happen,” Nonna said.
“Can you do it?” Brent looked from the envelope to the old woman.
“Not alone. My coven sisters are dead or too frail to attempt the working.” Nonna looked to Travis. “But you have real power. The ghosts listen to you—and they are reliable allies. There are two more who have abilities we could draw to our team—if they have the courage to try.”
“Father Prochazka,” Travis said.
“And Krystyk,” Brent added, looking surprised as if the idea had just occurred to him.
Nonna nodded. “Yes. They have small magics, but still real.”
“Like my Night Vigil,” Travis murmured.
“How do we reach them?” Brent held up his phone. “There’s no signal. The towers must be down.”
“They will come,” Nonna said with an enigmatic smile.
Travis leaned over to his keyboard and logged in, then looked up. “Internet’s out. We’re on our own.”
Brent looked to Tammy. “You told us about an old railroad tunnel. Can we get people to safety that way if the roads and bridges are down? It hasn’t stopped raining. The rivers will rise higher—and if the dam gives way, nowhere in the valley is safe.”
“Tony and I talked about the tunnel,” she replied. “There’s no telling what’s in there—the sneaks like the dark. But assuming there aren’t monsters, it’s a hike up a steep, unfinished road and a dirt trail through the tunnel. School buses won’t make it, and most of the people in the shelters can’t climb.”
“We can’t stop the rain or fix the dam,” Travis said. “Let’s focus on the Shubin and the tulpas—if we get them out of the way, moving people to safety will be less likely to get us all killed.”
“I don’t know if this helps, but my friend Aimee’s been teaching free yoga and meditation classes to the people holed up in the library,” Tammy piped up. “Tonight, she’s having people imagine their fears about the sneaks—and then picture them blowing away on the wind.”
“I might have suggested that,” Nonna said. “If imagination and will can create a creature, it can unmake them as well.”
“That helps a lot,” Travis told Tammy. “Having people dispel their fear and picture disintegrating the tulpas really can make a difference.” He noticed the large, police-grade walkie-talkie clipped to Tammy’s belt. “Can you reach the folks at the library with that?”
“Should be able to.”
“I’ve got an addition to your ‘positive thinking’ exercise at the library, but the timing matters,” Travis said. “When we get ready to banish the tulpas, having as many people as possible chant their disbelief in unison might carry some power to send them away.”
Brent gave him a bemused look. “Like ‘tulpa, tulpa, go away, don’t come back another day’?”
“Oh, how about ‘hell no, tulpas go!’” Tammy suggested, then grimaced. “Forget that—we can’t have the kids swearing.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of ‘tulpas leave—we don’t believe,’” Travis said. “Short, to the point, and it rhymes. Maybe if you explain what we’re doing, Chris can lead the bar in a couple of rounds too.” He checked his watch. “Give us half an hour, and have everyone start chanting at ten.”
“That would work,” Tammy said. “Liz has a walkie-talkie too. She’ll be up for it—and there are a lot of older people at both our centers, so you might get some of the original veterans who were involved in Wyrick’s program.”
“You and Liz are awesome,” Travis said.
