I chuckled. “You know what, I’ve never seen a mermaid. Selkies and sea serpents, sure, but never a mermaid. No seashell bras or singing crabs, either.” She stared at me blankly, so I continued before the ground swallowed me up. “We don’t know what’s actually down there… wherever ‘there’ is. We don’t have much to go on, aside from stories. It’s likely ruins by now.”
“Why would this Erebus fellow want you to search ruins?”
“Another question I don’t have the answer to.” I put my elbows on the desk and held my head in my hands. “My guess is, it’s filled with treasures and ancient, powerful artifacts. Erebus loves his rare toys.”
Mary frowned. “Is Miss Winchester unable to answer these questions, despite her knowledge repository?”
“I wish she could.” Melody was still a fledgling Librarian, and since any scrap of intel on Atlantis was as scarce as a hippo in the Mojave Desert, she had no idea what Erebus might be after. Whatever it was, it had to be pretty important if he’d gone to the trouble of getting himself a human body. He wouldn’t have gotten all dressed up if he had no place to go.
“Is that an artifact?” Mary came so close, a chill shivered up my spine as her spiritual form brushed my arm.
“What?”
“That.” She caressed the pendant resting against my chest. Getting a little too handsy there, Miss Foster.
I tugged it away from her translucent fingers. “This? Yeah, but it doesn’t do anything. Not at the moment, anyway.” Erebus had let me keep the Eye I’d stolen from the monastery, but he yakked on about needing rare ingredients to resurrect the dead eye inside. I got the feeling he wanted me to track down said rare ingredients, but I already had a lot on my plate. I wasn’t about to go schlepping after some fancy herbs or whatever just to revive an item we might not need.
“You used it to uncover Davin’s spy, did you not?” Mary drifted away from me.
I raised my eyebrows. “These walls must be very thin.”
“I told you, I frequently grow bored. And when bored, I listen. There is not much else spirits can do to amuse themselves, and the fleshies within this mansion do not care for it when we use them for sport. One weak heart and a poorly timed scare in the water closet, and it ruins the pastime for the rest of us.”
I had to snort. “And you wonder why we’re all terrified to use the toilet?” I paused. “Wait, did you just call us ‘fleshies’?”
“A colloquial term, yes. It is no worse than the names we have heard—ghouls, spooks, frighteners, wispies, and I will not repeat the curse words hurled at us when we appear unexpectedly.” She sniffed. “I prefer ‘specter.’ It sounds dignified.”
“All right, ‘specter’ it is. And, yeah, we used this thing to uncover Davin’s spy. Not that it did us any good, in the end,” I replied. “Davin got everything he needed. He’s been a step ahead of us this whole time, and it’s worse now that he has my map. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t stolen it.”
“Well, I am rather glad you are here. But that is by the by. Why did he take your map? What use could he have for it?”
I grimaced. “He’s looking for Atlantis, same as Erebus.”
“But why? What is it about some sodden ruins that has these two fellows in such haste to get to it first?”
“Yet another excellent question that I can’t answer,” I replied, shaking my head. I was just a teensy bit sick of those.
Two
Finch
Time and space had become abstract concepts. I might’ve been floating over Antarctica for a week or a few hours. I couldn’t tell. Though I supposed someone would’ve come to snap me back to reality if I’d been out for a week, Erebus being at the top of the list to chuck a bucket of cold water at my face, if not worse.
On Mary’s insistence, I’d returned to drawing the map. Surprisingly, she’d turned out to be just the kind of cheerleader I needed. Since she knew, more or less, where everyone was in the Winchester House at any given time, she’d nipped any further attempts at procrastination in the bud before I’d even risen out of my chair.
The cold grew worse. I might’ve been a floating specter in this icy domain, but the bitter chill was very, very real. And the colder I got, the less I sensed my physical body. It had turned into a vague memory—a solid hand holding a quill, scratching the nib across paper. I knew it was happening, in a way, but it was far removed from my mind.
Is this what it’s like for Kenzie? Not being a Morph, I had no experience as a Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger like her. But when she’d come to Greece, she’d had to throw her mind over a hell of a distance. This must be a similar sensation, though maybe without the burning eyes and numb extremities.
I thought of her for a moment and felt my hand twitch back in the study room. It was like an electrical charge passed through the blue tendrils that held me here, sent from the real world. We hadn’t had much time for goodbyes, with her mom and sister emerging from the bottle—the end result of Erebus actually upholding his end of a bargain with no small print for once. She’d gone straight into nurse mode to take care of them, and we’d chalk-doored to San Jose. I regretted not hugging her, at least, but I knew I’d see her again soon.
Focus! The cold served as a sharp reminder of the task at hand. Thoughts of Kenzie faded away, and the chill bit deep with freshly sharpened jaws of ice. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay here. Then again, I still wasn’t sure how long I’d been here in the first place.
My spectral form drifted over the smaller island of South Georgia, right up to an even tinier island on the far-left side. “Island” might have been too generous. This was the Pluto of islands—a cluster of rocks with a few bits of flat ground thrown in so it wouldn’t have an inferiority complex. As I inspected this island, my eyes burned brighter, and a dagger of icy pain stabbed my heart. Somehow, I could feel the burn, despite being separated from my body.
The Gateway between Life and Death… It wasn’t so much a voice in my head as a thought bursting into my skull.
Casper-Finch wheeled around, fleeing the tiny speck of an island. I soared lower than before, but still stomach-churningly high. Finally, I stopped between the main continent of Antarctica and South Georgia, right in the middle of that dark ocean. A spout of water erupted, breaking the near-black surface and startling me so badly I almost spiraled back to my physical body. A pod of whales had joined my scouting session, their silky bodies moving effortlessly through the water before they disappeared again.
Beautiful… I didn’t get much time to enjoy the sight. A second later, my eyes stung with blue light, blinding me. The brutal sparks filtered down to my chest and sent barbs of white-hot pain into my heart. I had no doubt that real-Finch was screaming, but I didn’t have the mouth for it.
Atlantis… A new thought burst into my head without my say-so.
The pain became unbearable. It splintered through every part of me. But I dug in my figurative heels. Davin was out there in the world somewhere, racing against us. He wouldn’t have given in to a little overwhelming torture, and neither could I.