Ghost-Hunting: Myrddin, Part 1
"You know, when most people say they're getting the help of a civilian contractor, they don't mean their girlfriend," Dovetail said, floating slightly above the ground in a way that made it look like standing on the ground was too plebian.
I had to admit, it was.
"And most things associated with doves are not, in fact, associated with punching people," Susan replied.
"I would never punch anyone," Dovetail responded, acting all demure while flying around with her stupid flying power. I wasn't jealous at all, no sir. "That's what teammates are for."
"Yes, and you are associated with your teammates," Susan said.
"Ladies ladies please, there is enough Myrddin for everyone," I said.
"Yes, I've noticed, you gotta lay off the potato chips," my girlfriend responded.
"Can't say I disagree," Dovetail said.
"Anyway, let's pay attention to our mission shall we?" I said, subtly changing the topic. "Destination, Cook County Hospital."
"I bet they have a great cafeteria," Susan said.
"Has to be better than the Protectorate HQ," Dovetail responded, still floating in place.
"I know right? I mean, it's either that or this idiot here brings along stale muffins on purpose."
"Little known tidbit, they make them like that so that I have a lethal option."
"See? I'm innocent!" I said. "Anyway, as I said, Cook County Hospital."
"Why are we here again?" Susan asked.
"The ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn. She lived over a century ago, the young wife of Benson Hagglethorn. Benson was an abusive drunkard, who hit his wife whenever he'd had too much to drink, when she looked at him in the wrong way, or when he got bored. They had a baby together, and one day, when the baby was crying, Agatha tried to keep her silent, holding a hand in front of her child's mouth so as not to anger her husband. Sadly, that is not the right way to handle small children. So, long story short, she flips out, grabs an axe, chops her husband into tiny pieces, then feels so guilty she removes her own arm."
"Damn… poor girl," Susan said, a sad look on her beautiful face.
"And poor hospital. Whatever it was that Skitter found, it seems like it has been riling up ghosts all over town, including Agatha. To make matters worse, she's hanging out in the maternity ward."
"That's… bad, isn't it?"
"Someone, or something, deliberately targeting newborn children? Yes, that's about as bad as it can get," Dovetail said. "Although I'm not quite sure why they would be doing it. Killing children is not exactly the thing supervillains tend to brag about. It is one thing to be able to brag about going toe to toe with a member of the triumvirate, or fighting with one of the Endbringers. Killing children this young is very different from that."
"In other words, they're either preparing or experimenting for something, seeing how far they could go. Which means that we should be preparing as well, so that it won't catch us off guard."
"Which, once again, is why you asked your girlfriend along," she said, completely without a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
"Look, do you know anyone else with a wide scala of ghost-hunting equipment? Because I do, but he's being a mopey doofus, and his rates are way too high," I complained. I was referring, of course, to Mortimer Lindquist, an ectomancer with an actual, real talent for contacting the spirits of the departed, that had changed modus operandi and started to tell people what they wanted to hear, rather than what the dead were telling him. Compared to him, Susan was downright skilled at noticing signs of ghosts, since ghost stories were one of the few categories of the supernatural that generally weren't explained by claims of everything being caused by parahumans. The exception, of course, being the ghosts of parahumans, one of which was currently combing through a few gigabyte of social media data with the help of an algorithm provided by everyone's favorite type of Dragon. The type that build mech-suits instead of eating virgins.
We entered the hospital, and Dovetail decided that she would be the best person for the job of informing the lady at the reception of our presence. Technically speaking, I outranked her, but sometimes people ignored the well-trained and highly experienced wizard, instead deciding to trust the elegant young lady floating in front of them.
"You getting anything?" I asked.
"You mean besides the fact that you're standing right next to me? Not really," Susan replied.
"Haha, very funny. Haven't you gotten used to it yet? I mean, you've got a witch living inside of your house and everything."
"Well, T is pretty good at keeping her magic from interfering too much, so I've been thinking you're just incompetent," she teased.
"Well, there's that, and a couple of other factors. First of all, she's a good deal weaker than I am. Second, there's something weird going on with all of her bugs. I'm not quite sure what's going on there, but here presence is, well, more spread out. Rather than your fridge blowing up, The light-bulbs in the building have a slightly lower lifespan."
"So what you're saying is that we should never, ever tell insurance companies about that?"
"Exactly," I replied.
Dovetail walked, scratch that, floated, back to us. "I got us access to the nursery, but we'll have to stay out of the way of, and I quote, 'the actual heroes'."
"Oooh, isn't that usually your line?" Susan asked.
"Legend is usually the one claiming it. I tend to disagree, firemen aren't even made out of fire," I replied.
"How classy of you," Dovetail said.
Making our way through the hospital, I tried to meditate, cultivate inner harmony, that sort of thing. Generally speaking, it was easy enough for me to cast spells without mental preparation, but it helped reduce the amount of fall-out from my magic. It wouldn't do to have someone's pacemaker or a heart-lung machine stop working because of my presence. I didn't want something like that on my conscience if I could help it.
Once in the nursery, Susan set up her gear, measuring the electromagnetic spectrum all around. Dovetail took out a Dickensian novel, literally, and I started meditating. From Bob, Lisa and an out of town Thinker, we were pretty sure that Agatha Hagglethorn would return here tonight.
***
"So, why's she here?" Susan asked, whispering.
"Because the director doesn't want us to do solo operations right now," I replied.
"Yeah, but, why her? We're inside, she's a flier, doesn't make sense."
"It's complicated," I said. "She said she wanted to come, and implied it had to do with her civilian life."
"It's personal?" Susan asked, looking just a bit too interested.
"In a way," I replied. "And please, try not to publish anything like that. She has a family."
"Fine," Susan said, sighing as the device in her hands started blinking. "Is this you?"
"I don't think so," I replied. "I have myself under control right now."
"Then she's here," Susan said out loud.
Across the ward, Dovetail looked up from her book, closed it, and hid it somewhere in the folds of her dress-like costume.
I opened my spooky wizard senses, and felt energies slowly coalescing into ectoplasm. Something was definitely here, entering from the Nevernever. Almost like we'd planned it, the three of us, as well as all the babies and the single nurse still in the room, went quiet as a voice started singing. I looked at the nurse, who looked back at me, and pointed at the door. Luckily, she was creeped out enough to take my advice.
As the song continued, the light seemed to recede, and I could hear footsteps in addition to the children's song. Slowly, Agatha Hagglethorn drifted into existence, softly singing to the children in the hospital nursery.
It was a good song, and a great singing voice. Susan, who was sitting down besides me, leaned against me, placing her head on my shoulder, and I could feel my eyes become sleepy.
It was a good spell, both subtle and powerful, but I'd been prepared for this, and subtle magic generally started breaking apart when you knew it was there, and slammed your own will against like a jackhammer. I was very good at being that jackhammer.
"Agatha Hagglethorn!" I stated, loudly, and she looked at me, she was both young and attractive, and had that battered look to her that made me want to protect her. Then again, I had my girlfriend falling asleep right next to me right now, so if I was ever going to resist her spell, then this was it.
"Who are you?" the ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn said. "Are you a vagabond? Here to hurt my baby?"
Well, that was insulting. Then again, to someone unfamiliar with cape culture, my burlap robe probably did look like a classic 19th century vagabond. I looked her over, and saw the stump of her arm, where she'd cut it off in the old story. It seemed like the rumors were true.
"Are you here to hurt my baby!" she yelled again, power floating out of her, into the room. I could feel her presence on my skin.
"Agatha, he's not here to hurt your baby," Dovetail's said, her voice trembling and her silk mask removed from her face.
The ghost turned around, looking straight at the half-terrified woman's face. "Mother? Mother, my husband, you promised he would be a good man," Agatha said.
"I'm sorry Agatha, your mother is dead. She died over a hundred years ago," Dovetail said.
The ghost looked confused, and now that I had the time, I could see the comparison, the similarities between Agatha and Dovetail.
"Sister? Jessica why are you here? My husband doesn't like it when we have unannounced visitors," the spirit said.
"I'm sorry Agatha, but Jessica is dead as well," Dovetail said, slowly walking up to Agatha.
"No, you have to be Jessica," the ghost said. "Jessica you have to help me, he's going to hurt my baby."
"Agatha… I am sorry, but your baby is not here anymore," Dovetail spoke softly.
"Jessica why aren't you helping me? He hits me, he hits me and you wanted me to marry him, you said he would be a good husband."
"It's alright Agatha. I know it's confusing, but Jessica is dead now, and your mother is dead as well. Your husband is dead and your baby is not here anymore," Dovetail said.
"Who are you?" Agatha said, tears streaming over her ghostly face.
"My name is Agatha," Dovetail said. "I'm Jessica's great great great granddaughter. Your sister called her first daughter Agatha because she felt so guilty, because she could not help you," Dovetail continued. "Agatha, you have to let go. You have to find rest, you can't stick around haunting people forever."
"Agatha? You're my niece?" the ghost asked. "Agatha, you have to leave now, before he sees you. He'll hurt you."
A nearby baby started crying, and ghostly Agatha's attention turned to it. "Hush little baby, hush hush hush," she murmured, walking towards the baby, which quickly calmed down. Problem was, it became too calm.
I stood up, and walked towards my teammate. "Dovetail, I get what you're trying to do, but it's not working, and we can't let her hurt these babies."
"Just… Let me try once more," Dovetail said, and she followed Agatha, who had taken the baby from its crib, and was holding it against her spectral body. Slowly, she was draining its energy.
"Agatha," Dovetail whispered. "Agatha, put down the child, she's not yours. It's alright, you can move on now, move on and be with your child, safe from him."
Dovetail maneuvered around the ghost, and tried to take hold of the baby, but the spirit wouldn't have it.
"No! No! You can't have my baby! Mine!" Mrs. Hagglethorn yelled. "You can't take my child away! I'm not crazy! Benson can't have him, he's the only thing I have!"
As the spirit's face turned dark, I decided that this wasn't going to work. "Dovetail, back away a bit," I said, and she trusted me, although I could see anger on her face.
Then, I used my staff to draw a glyph in the air, and drew Agatha Hagglethorn, and everything she was holding, into a pocket dimension.
Except, of course, for the part where Agatha was a ghost, and all I got was a sleeping child, and a few gallons of ectoplasm, just as I'd planned.
Almost immediately, Agatha Hagglethorn turned around with a murderous look on her face. "My baby!" she yelled, rushing towards me, her stump arm raised, as if it was holding a weapon. I almost laughed at the idea of her smashing into me with a nonexistent weapon, until I remembered that this was a ghost, and I didn't necessarily need to be able to see the weapon to get hit by it.
"Riffletum!" I yelled, focusing my will on my shield bracelet, and forming a translucent barrier between me and the spirit. She lashed out, smashing down with her arm, and during the swing, her cut off hand, as well as the axe she'd used back when she'd been alive.
The axe smashed into my shield, and I could only barely hold it in place.
"My baby is dead because of you!" the spirit yelled. "I'll kill you!"
The axe smashed into my shield again.
"I'll kill you with the axe! Kill you! Kill you!" It yelled, repeatedly smashing into my shield, and I could feel every hit reverberating through my body.
"Gotta get past my shield first," I taunted, and it only drove the ghost even angrier.
"I'll take my axe. I'll take my axe and I'll whack you twenty times like I wacked Benson. You killed my angel so I'll whack you!" the ghost yelled, her sentences becoming less and less coherent.
"No, you won't," Dovetail said, sprinkling ghost dust on the angry spirit from behind.
Upon contact, Agatha's immaterial flesh exploded into scarlet light, and the spirit started screaming loudly before dashing away, and disappearing into a puddle of ectoplasm.
"Thank you," I said.
"No problem," the living Agatha replied. "Did that destroy it?"
"I don't think so. It probably crossed over instead."
"You mean, like, died?" she asked.
"No, crossed over to the Nevernever, the spirit world," I explained.
"So what now, we chase it?" she asked.
"That's uhmmm, not a good idea, attacking it in its place of power like that. It'll be far more powerful."
"I see," Dovetail said. "Then what now? We wait until she comes back?"
"Possibly," I said. "Depending on the data Susan gathered."
The two of us simultaneously looked at Susan, who had fallen asleep in the corner. Worse, now that I paid some attention, all of the babies in the nursery seemed to be rather calm. Excessively so.
And then, as if some cosmic director decided that this was the right moment for optimal dramatic tension, the singing started up again, this time without the presence of a spirit to disable.
"That's bad, isn't it?" Dovetail whispered.
"It is," I replied. "It really is."
"I don't understand, I thought that she'd left?" Dovetail asked, her gaze slowly going through the hospital nursery, looking for any possible trace of our opponent. I could hear Hagglethorn's ghost singing, so soft it was almost inaudible, but that, the supernaturally silent babies, and a Susan that was actually sleeping before 2 A.M. was the only remaining trace of our opponent.
"She did, she went back home," I replied.
"To the spirit-world?" she asked, and I had to wonder, how much of what I'd told her did she believe? She was definitely on the up-and-up regarding, ghosts, but magic as a whole?
"To the Never-never," I said.
"So, if she's gone, why is she still here?" Dovetail asked.
"Because somehow, for some reason, she's able to affect this world from the other."
"Because of her high range? Or is this one of those 'shoot a bullet through a portal' situations," she asked, referring to a rather obnoxious cross-bow wielding small-time villain that had roamed the streets a year or two ago. Last I'd heard, he'd moved to a smaller city to try his luck.
"The second," I answered. "Given her presence here, her own private domain will be right on the other side."
"So, how do we get there?" Dovetail asked.
I thought about it. It wouldn't be that difficult for me to tear open a portal to Hagglethorn's domain. But then we'd have to fight her in her own domain. Plus, I'd quite possibly have to deal with my fairy godmother, which wasn't as fun as Disney made you think it was.
I wondered… what, exactly, was in charge of Disney? Some sort of pro-fairy lobbying group?
"We call in for reinforcements, then I open a portal," I replied.
"Myrddin… We can't wait," she replied. I looked around, the babies quiet, Susan sleeping in the corner, and the eerie singing still going around. "I'll call it in, but we can't afford to wait."
"Fine…" I said, as Dovetail spoke into her earpiece, asking for reinforcements.
"So, how do we go there?" she asked.
I held out my staff, and focused my will.
"Aparturum" I spoke, opening a portal to a different dimension, without using my parahuman abilities to do so. Before me, torn into the world, was a hole that led to an older version of Chicago. Everything was made out of wood. The houses themselves were old, reminiscent of my own apartment building, but lacking the concrete of my basement, or even any stone at all. The sidewalks, instead of being made out of stone tiles or concrete slabs, looked like the deck of a veranda. The roads themselves, strangely empty except for a few abandoned carriages, were cut out of a solid piece, far too large for any real-world tree to have been used. Street-lamps shone with clear pinpricks of light, and while some of them were lit by burning gas, others looked like early light-bulbs. The posts themselves however, looked like tree-trunks stripped of bark. It gave the area an eerie look, and it reminded me of nothing as much like a colouring book. Like someone had taken a picture of 19th century Chicago, and used only a single material to build it. It was fitting, for an axe-wielding ghost.
"Looks… flammable," Dovetail said with trepidation.
"Don't look at me like that," I replied, stepping through the portal.
Chicago in the Never-Never, or at least, this version of it, looked, quite frankly, amazing. Every house looked like a manor, and while the lights of the streetlamps didn't penetrate far, the low-level lighting made for a rather beautiful atmosphere, like it was an early evening, just before people went to bed.
Plus, there was the ghostly howling. Agatha Hagglethorn was angry, and in the distance, I could see the houses moving closer together. In her territory, the very terrain would be assisting Agatha in a fight.
"Wow," Dovetail said. "Just… Wow."
"Welcome to the other side," I said, as she floated upwards.
"Don't go too far away, spacetime gets fucky around here."
"Don't worry, I won't," she replied, inspecting the area, and leaving a trail of forcefields. It looked like she had some difficulties for a few seconds, but it quickly settled into a stream of slightly smaller bubbles than normal, compensating for that by increasing the number of bubbles. Her shard was probably connecting through the open portal right now, and while it would be interesting to see what would happen if I closed it, this wasn't the time to satisfy my curiosity.
"I think I see her from here," Dovetail said from above.
"What direction?" I asked.
"That way," she pointed. "Or at least, it's the center of the disturbance."
"Very well," I replied, running after her.
As we moved further into Hagglethorn's domain, the streets narrowed, and slowly, a roof appeared out of nowhere, slowly turning our large street into a narrow wooden corridor, lit by torches.
"Can't help but think that we're flying into a trap," Dovetail said.
"Probably," I replied. "But it's not like we have much of a choice."
"Wait… can you hear that?" Dovetail said.
I stood still, and Listened beyond the lullaby, and heard the baying of hounds.
"Crap, we've got hellhounds incoming," I said.
"Didn't she die during the Leviathan attack?" Dovetail asked.
"Different hellhounds, actual hellhounds."
We walked, or rather, I walked and she floated, forwards, trying not to think about the incoming army of hellhounds.
Eventually, the ever tightening passage ended at a set of fancy double doors, swung wide open. On the other side of the doors was a large room reminiscent of something out of a period piece, but once again, things were slightly wrong. There was a mahogany dining table, with high-backed chairs made out of the same wood, but those same grains were visible on the cutlery as well. There was an old wooden rocking crib, but the blankets inside of it were made out of carved wood that was only imitating cloth. Agatha Hagglethorn's ghost, her stump arm bloody, stood by the crib, hiding her emotions behind her singing, but there was no baby in her crib. Leaning against one of its legs was the axe, and I could see anger behind the tears streaming over her face.
She looked up, noticing our intrusion into her domain, and the sadness in her expression disappeared almost immediately, giving way for a crazed anger.
"WHERE IS MY BABY!" the ghost screamed out, jumping for Dovetail at incredible speed, her axe swinging in a large arc. At the last moment, Dovetail dodged the hit with a barrel roll, leaving a trail of forcefields that stuck to the axe. A normal weapon would've been reduced to a nerf bat, but I was pretty sure we would have no such luck with her spectral axe.
I held up my blasting rod, and shouted "Fuego", throwing a fireball towards the spirit, hoping that its purifying force would wipe away the dead woman's ghost.
There was a positive side and a negative side to the attack.
On the one hand, it hit, and the ghost's dress started burning, and her spectral flesh with it. On the other hand, she'd turned her attention to me, and I couldn't just fly out of the way. Her face filled with fear and anger, she charged me, using her single remaining hand to lift her axe above her head, ready for a swing.
"Defendarius!" I said, summoning a shield in front of me, which the ghost's axe smashed into.
The energies collided, and I was thrown back violently, as was the ghost. Right now, right here, she was much more powerful than back at the hospital.
"My baby!" Agatha yelled as she stood back up again, ignoring her burning flesh and her half-torn dress. I positioned myself so that the elaborately made up dining table, with a fruit-basket with wooden fruit, was between us, but she jumped it in a single go. This time, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to conjure up another shield.
Instead, I readied my other power, the one that relied not on years of training and natural talent, but on interdimensional space parasites. It wouldn't be as reliable here in the Never-never, but I didn't need to do anything subtle right now. I just needed a boom.
Using my staff, I drew a circle in the air in front of me, and opened a hole into a dimension that was filled with, in effect, fire. In theory, there was a highly flammable semi-liquid gas on the other side, at more than one atmosphere. In practice, it burned things.
Almost immediately, screams for her child were replaced with screams of pain, and once I closed off the stream, I saw Agatha Hagglethorn's ghost floating there, the axe burned to ashes, and her flesh the color of coal, smouldering every here and there. Wrapped around her, starting at the throat, was what looked like barbed wire, similar to what Taylor had described to me. Something had tortured this poor thing into doing what she'd done.
"Myrddin, we need to get out of here," Dovetail said, and as I looked around, I noticed why. The wooden nursery was on fire, and although physics didn't really work here, and we therefore weren't being smothered by the smoke, it would still get awfully hot here.
"Give me a second," I replied, walking towards Agatha's ghost, which was just floating there, silently screaming. "I'm sorry," I said, almost silently. It wasn't a real person, just an echo of one, but doing this to a woman? It didn't feel good. Using my staff, I opened another dimension. A tiny hole this time, and an explosive blast of air was released, and the ghost was blown into ashes, the sound of her song receding until only the crackling of the fire remained. It was silent, too silent, the baying of the hellhounds was gone.
I looked at our exit, and spotted an image out of my nightmares there. A beautiful face framed by curly, copper hair, and amber eyes in the shape of a cat's eyes. Perfect lips, a perfect nose, and ears that were probably pointed enough to draw blood. She wasn't alone, as she'd brought a trio of hellhounds, giant mastiffs built out of ashen shadows, which were brushing against her legs, silently glaring at me while baring their teeth..
"Harry my child, how are you?" she asked.
"Lea…" I replied.
"Oh, did you bring your girlfriend? She's cute," Lea said, looking at Dovetail.
"Myrddin, who exactly is this?" Dovetail asked.
"My fairy godmother," I replied. "She wants to turn me into one of those hellhounds."
"Master then. Anything else I need to know?" she replied, and I saw that she'd prepared her foam-launcher, floating out of range of the Hellhounds.
"Hush girl," Lea said, magic flowing into her words, and Dovetail went silent. Then, she took some time to look around the room, the fire had stopped spreading, but all of the wood was smoldering, and a thick layer of ash on the floor was matched by a ceiling of smoke.
"Reminds me of the good old times," Lea said, slowly walking closer to me, her body moving in all the right ways, her dress, a green strapless number, hugged tight to her unnaturally beautiful flesh. Compared to the charred remains of Agatha's ghost, it looked a lot better. As she spoke, I could see her canines, just slightly too sharp. "Harry, don't you think all of this violence is far too dangerous for thee? Running around town fighting spirits, werewolves and Endbringers? You'd be far safer at my side. After all, I just want to keep thee safe."
The worst part was, she was actually speaking the truth. Didn't even have a choice in the matter. As one of the Sidhe, she couldn't lie. Literally couldn't.
"I have to say, I'm not interested," I replied.
"Nonsense boy, come here," she replied, and I could feel my body move towards her, just as she came towards me. She grabbed me by the shoulders, and started massaging me. I had to admit, it felt good.
"See? So much stress with that job of yours, thou barely gets an hour of rest."
I wanted to protest, to pull myself away, but it was just so difficult to resist her workings.
It would be so much easier to give in, to go with her and leave my responsibilities behind. I wouldn't have to figure out how to teach magic to a teenager, I wouldn't have to deal with one apocalyptic event after another, I wouldn't even have to think about the fact that my boss and my teacher were dating, and that she was calling him Ebbyzebby. Just the thought of the two of them, snuggling and kissing was enough to send me into shock.
"No!" I shouted, pushing myself away from Lea, and readying my blasting rod.
"Hush now, my son. There is no need for violence," Leanansidhe said, all of her magic directed at me. I wanted to cast something, to blow a hole into that stupid perfect face of hers, but I couldn't bring up the willpower to go against her.
Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by an incredibly loud explosion, it's sound bouncing around the room. Almost instantly, the Leanansidhe started screaming, and I saw blood soak into her dress around her midriff. Released from Lea's spell, I looked at Dovetail, who was wielding a sawn-off shotgun, smoke coming out of the barrel.
"What are you standing around for, let's run!" she said as she was flying for the double doors of our entrance. One of the demonic dogs jumped for her, but she shot it out of the air with another loud bang, and it fell to the floor, whimpering and bleeding. Taking inspiration from her actions, I followed her, and the other two hellhounds, now wary of Dovetail's shotgun, started chasing me instead.
"Forzare!" I yelled, kinetic energy blowing the two hellhounds back, while Dovetail flew above me, keeping pace with my frantic run through the hallway. I was really starting to appreciate my extended morning runs with Taylor.
"Your foam!" I yelled out, looking over my shoulder to see the two hellhounds still following us, dodging past Dovetail's forcefield trail.
"Throwing it!" she yelled out, throwing the tank into the air behind us.
"Fulminos!" I yelled, a bolt of lightning slamming into the tank, explosively decompressing it, and blocking the hallway behind us.
"Where did you get that shotgun from?" I asked, jogging through the long hallway while Dovetail was floating besides me, graceful as always.
"Utility compartment," she replied, a sly smile on her face.
"Why would it be in your utility compartment?" I asked
"Because I shot her with a breaching charge?" she replied. "I'm pretty sure opening doors counts as utility."
"A breaching charge?"
"I mean, you said she was a fairy, and that one contained iron, so I thought, why not try it?"
"You got any surprises up your sleeve?" I asked. First the familial relationship with the ghost, then a shotgun, apparently there was a lot I didn't know about Dovetail.
She held a hand to her face, and I could see her look into the sleeve of her poofy dress.
"Let's see… Dragon's breath, Scimitar ammo, and some expanding slugs I'm not supposed to use."
"Does Image know about this?"
"Depends… are you going to tell them?" she asked.
"Probably not," I replied, as the hallway slowly morphed back into the streets of wood Chicago. "Why the fuck do you carry a Winchester around anyway?"
"Winchester!" she said angrily. "I'll have you know that this is a shortened MTs-255, 12 gauge with 5 rounds in the magazine, Russian make."
"Russian?" I asked.
"They know their shotguns, and they make sturdier stuff, which is pretty useful when you are around," she replied.
"Fair point. Why do you have it?" I asked.
"Because I'm a dainty young lady, and the streets of Chicago are dangerous?" she asked.
"Seriously?"
"What, you're asking me to go up against the likes of the Irishman with nothing but some forcefields and a foam sprayer?" she asked, half-joking.
The Irishman, so-called for his aggressively red hair, was some sort of Brute that had recently started working for Gentleman Marcone. Personally, I thought he looked awfully similar to Marcone's bodyguard and main spook, Cujo, but if that man had had powers, he would've used them from the beginning, and it wasn't very likely that he'd triggered in Marcone's employ, say what you want about the man, but he took care of his people. Maybe it was an even more evil twin brother?
"Say, Harry, wasn't it?" she asked after a few minutes.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Were those eyes around before?" she asked, and as I looked around, I saw eyes appearing. Mostly as glowing orbs in the shadows, but sometimes, out of the corner of my eyes, wooden planks turned into eyelids, which opened up only to show bloodshot eyeballs, and turn back into wooden planks when I looked directly at them.
"Fuck," I said.
"What's happening? Is this your godmother?"
"I don't think so… No, I think something is taking over…"
"Taking over?" she asked.
"This place, it was Hagglethorn's domain, the place is the way it is because of her presence."
"So, what you're saying is, something else is taking over."
"Exactly," I replied. "And it's still quite a distance to the portal."
"Will it be alright?" she asked.
"Probably, I poured a lot of power into it, so it should hold for a while."
"Good, because I think it's getting worse," Dovetail said.
Before us, the wooden streets of Chicago were slowly morphing into, well, the closest analogue I could think of was the big tumorous growth of flesh that Genoscythe had turned into, which didn't make sense, because Genoscythe was dead…
"It's Genoscythe," I said.
"What do you mean? Genoscythe is…"
"Yeah, exactly."
"So what you're saying is, that thing is a ghost now, and it's coming for us?" she asked.
"Possibly," I said, standing still. We were still about a hundred meters from my entrance. For the best of the best, that meant ten seconds of running. For me, it'd take about twelve, except for the part where the wood had been replaced by flesh, half of it skin, the other just a wet mush, with eyes in between it. Here and there, I still saw eyeballs, and the street-lamps had turned into long, fleshy scythes.
"This is bad," I said, taunting fate, as I heard the baying of hellhounds resume behind us. They were still a ways of, but Lea had recovered from Dovetail's hit, and was coming after us.
"Great," Dovetail said sarcastically, taunting fate even further, and a dark phantom appeared in front of us, blocking our path to the exit.
A spectral grin appeared roughly in the vicinity of the phantom's mouth, and it spoke in guttural, twisted tones.
"I was planning to go for the blonde first, but if you're serving yourself up on a platter like this…"
Around it, more scythes speared, -or was it scythed?- out of the ground, blackened flesh waving around.
"This is a rather negative turn of events, isn't it?" Dovetail spoke.
"Yeah… we're basically mega-fucked."
"Anything that works well on ghosts?" she asked, going through a small bandolier of specialty shot-gun slugs. From what I could see, she'd brought quite an array, hidden between the folds of her dress.
"Holy ground, sunlight, fire, that sort of thing."
"Good," she said, and I heard her loading up new shells in her tiny, but deadly, five-shooter.
"And you even brought me a tasty little snack," the nightmarish spirit continued. "Good, very good."
While he was speaking out, I heard something behind me, and as I whirled around, I noticed a scythe, sprouting from what had once been a window, but was now a bulbous mass of puss, trying to impale me.
"fuego!" I yelled, launching a pillar of fire into an even more twisted version of 19th century Chicago. As I admired the burning flesh, I heard Dovetail fire twice before the mouths spread throughout the flesh-scape started screaming, blocking out most of the other sounds.
The spirit, in the meantime, had blocked Dovetail's shots by sacrificing two of his scythes, and was slowly walking forwards, holding something small in his hands. A chain of some sort?
"It's not working," Dovetail shouted, as she loosened more slugs in the spirit's direction. She was alternating between different types of slugs, but the fiery ammunition she used was blocked by the flesh-scythes, while anything that penetrated through them did minimal damage to the incoming spirit's body.
"Agatha… spirits can only act when something directly relates to their deaths. Genoscythe is here for me. In the meantime, you need to escape," I said, hoping that I correctly remembered my ghost-lore. By now, our opponent was close enough that she would be able to go around it, and reach the portal that way.
"Harry, please don't pretend you can make it out of here on your own for my sake," Dovetail replied.
"It's not a done thing," I said. "My godmother can't lie, she does want to protect me. With some luck, I'll be able to play them out against each other."
"Fine… but you better not die on me, I don't want to deal with an angry girlfriend," she replied, flying off, escaping by going around the approaching shadow.
"Didn't think she was your type Myrddin," the shadowy figure said.
"And I didn't think you were one for the small talk, given the size of your corpse," I replied.
At that, the spirit lifted a spectral eyebrow.
"Well, it matters not, prepare to die!" he shouted, running towards me.
I half-turned, and held my blasting rod in front of me with one hand, drawing a sigil with my staff in the other. With some luck, Genoscythe was located everywhere around us, and not just in the phantom body in front of me, and I could hurt him, or at least reduce his power, by destroying the moving domain. Then, at the exact moment I completed the sigil required for my parahuman ability, I gathered my will, and released just about everything I had left in me. "fuego!"
From both of my wooden implements, streams of fire spilled forth, swiftly transforming the entire section of the Never-never into a blazing inferno. When I was done, everything smelled like cooked long pig, and the screaming had turned into a soft moan, just barely audible. The dark phantom, however, was only slightly singed, standing behind a blackened barrier of scythes.
"Bravo, but it's my turn now," it said, before soaring forwards at an incredible pace, mouth opened.
"Defendarium!" I said, trying to create a shield, but the day's fighting had tired me out, and the spirit broke right through it, latching onto my shoulder, and chomping into it with teeth that were way too sharp to be fair.
It started eating, and I started screaming. I wasn't sure how long I was there, but every bite hurt more, and I could feel it tearing into my very essence.
Eventually, I felt something heavy drop on top of me, and the nightmarish figure was torn away from me. Trying to get my bearings, I was barely cognizant of an unfolding battle between my assailant, and the remaining two hellhounds.
"Don't you see, my dear boy? Without my help, thee would have died. Please, let me protect you," Leanansidhe said, and I could just barely see her walking towards me through the pain.
"Go fuck yourself," I replied, as I noticed that her voice was missing its usual charming qualities. It looked like she was still hurting from Dovetail's hit.
"Really Harry, you should do something about that potty mouth of yours. Now, I think it's time that you lived up to your end of our deal," she said, right as the ground, or rather, flesh, started shaking.
I turned towards the portal, only to see that our reinforcements had arrived while Lea's hounds had been dealing with Genoscythe's ghost-form. Tecton, Cuff and Snaptrap were standing on this side of my portal, and Techy had just torn a fissure into the charred flesh of Genoscythe's dead power.
Lea turned and hissed, actually hissed, while Cuff darted forwards, and Snaptrap launched a grenade towards us with one of his singularities.
A wave from her arm changed the projectile's trajectory, launching it into what had once been a nearby building before it exploded into a cloud of foam, but Cuff had already launched a follow-up attack. A smooth disk of metal, Iron, sailed through the air, and while Lea tried to give a repeat performance, her telekinetic trick was ineffective, and when she noticed it, it was already too late for her to fully dodge. The disc tore through the side of her neck, spraying blood and making her scream out in pain. Knowing my luck, it wouldn't be fatal, but the wound, in addition to the fact that I had reinforcements, was enough to chase her off, holding a hand to her neck while trying desperately to remain graceful. I wasn't sure where she was going, but she seemed to be heading away from the place where her hounds had chased the nigthmarish spirit.
I was lucky, that it was Cuff and Tecton that were here. Tecton's power armor meant he was clad in a couple hundred pounds of iron, and Cuff was a metallokinetic that specialized in manipulating the metal, in this case iron, around her. The two of them were basically perfect counters to fae like Lea.
"You alright?" Cuff asked as she came closer. "Damn, you look like hell."
"You should see the other guy," I replied, as she used her effectively enhanced strength, lifting her body armor to make it lift me, to let me lean on her shoulder.
"Aren't we standing on him?" she asked.
"Maybe, I'm not sure," I replied as she half-carried me back to the real world, too tired and hurting to make a silly remark.
A few hours later, Susan parked the Beetle in front of my house, and helped me out. It was late, and we were the only ones around, but we'd survived the night, which was more than you could say about the ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn.
"We've got the place to ourselves?" she asked.
"Yeah, Taylor's helping a local hospital with a bug infestation tomorrow, so I'm pretty sure she won't come in to make potions halfway through again."
"Good, because we've got to get you into a bed," she replied, smiling. I returned it, before wincing at the pain in my shoulder.
Almost instinctually, I balanced myself as we reached the door of the house, ready for a fifteen pound furball to try its best to bowl us over. However, for some reason, the two of us were still standing.
"Wait… where's Mister?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I let him out this morning, he'll usually storm into me, wanting to go inside if I get back this late."
"Harry, it's a cat, cats are weird."
"But what if he's hurt? What if a dog attacked him?"
"You mean what if he attacked a dog? Don't worry about it Harry," she said, but I wasn't reassured.
A few seconds later, I saw the source of my discomfort appear. A woman, immaculately groomed, wearing tennis whites, and smiling. A vampire, Red.
"Calm down Wizard Dresden, I'm just here to deliver an invitation, according to the procedures outlined in the Unseelie Accords," she said. "Although, if you want to start a fight, I'd be willing to end it."
She smiled, flecks of dried blood still visible on her pristinely white teeth. Oh god how much did I hate vampires.