Splinter (Whisper Walker Series) (17 page)

She directed her gaze back at Drake, a coy smile cracking through the glare she had given me. “Like what you see?” she asked, tone light and airy. Playful, almost.

Drake realized she had caught him and hurried to recover. “Umm. Yeah. You’re lovely,” he said, blushing and grinning sheepishly.

I realized what I was feeling was jealousy. It had kicked up to a whole new notch with their little exchange, helping me identify the odd feeling. Why was I jealous? It was just Drake and a ghost.

Drake cleared his throat and got down to business. “Okay. How ’bout you just tell us what you’re doing here, how you knew my father, and everything. What’s this gift?”

“Well, I saw you through the Black Crossing only a little while ago. But you left in a hurry. I was trying to get to you before you left. In truth,” she seemed sheepish, “I forgot about the deal I made with your father until I saw you the other day.”

I interrupted, partially for my understanding, partially for Drake’s. “So, that weird place is called a ‘Black Crossing’?”

“Not ‘a.’ ‘The’ Black Crossing. That’s its name. It allows certain creatures to cross over, a crossroads. I don’t have time to explain all of that now. There are matters of greater importance.” She looked impatient.

“Um. Okay?” I said.

Samantha came over to the book on my lap and moved it over to the countertop. She started flipping through it, stopping finally and running her finger down the page. “Here.”

Drake stepped over to the book. He bumped into Samantha and jerked back from the startling cold. “Sorry. You’re so cold. But not. Like you feel cold when I touch you, but I’m not
actually
cold when I touch you. It’s so weird.”

She only seemed to be half paying attention to him. “Mmhmm.”

I looked where she was pointing.

DYBBUK

“
What is a ‘Dybbuk’?” I asked aloud.

“It’s an ancient malicious Jewish spirit that takes over a human’s body and forces their soul out. The Dybbuk then has control of the body. On rare occasions, a Dybbuk can be strong enough to split itself and take over multiple bodies. However, if the body with the main Dybbuk is killed, the Dybbuk is killed also.”

“Okay, weird,” I said, giving Drake a look.

“So, why does that concern us?” Drake asked.

Samantha turned and gave me a smile so cold it chilled me to the bone. “Because there’s one here. Close by. That’s what’s happening to your people.”

Drake gulped. “A Dybbuk is here? In our Guild?”

“Yes. I believe so. I felt it when I came through the crossing. I had intended only on telling you that you’re a shaman, descended from a line of the most powerful shamans in history. But then I felt the effects of the Dybbuk.”

“Okay, so some soul-killing, body-snatching spirit is on the loose. How do we figure out who it is?”

Samantha started wandering around the kitchen like she was getting antsy. “I need to get back, I’m feeling drained being here this long. If you have noticed anyone suddenly acting violent or withdrawn, it will probably be them. Remember. Kill the main Dybbuk and you might be able to save any of the ones that aren’t fully lost. You’ll know when you see their eyes if they are gone. Goodbye, Drake Adair and Kelsie. I look forward to our next meeting.”

Before we could say anything else, she winked at us and vanished.

“WELL, THAT WAS INTERESTING,” I said. “That answered most of our questions, and now we know you can see ghosts, too. I wonder why? You’re not seventeen yet, if that’s when the so-called ‘gifts’ manifest.”

Kelsie shrugged. “I don’t know. Why did she say you should recognize her?”

“She was that girl I saw in town the other day. The one that disappeared,” I answered, not telling her that Samantha had saved my ass in a cave. I’m not really sure why I didn’t tell her. Maybe I felt like Kelsie needed me to be a badass. Admitting that I’d almost died the day before from what I now knew was a ghost would likely lessen her opinion of me.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. I hunched over the counter and let my shoulders sag, resting my forehead on my clasped hands. This was too much. I turned seventeen, stumbled into a pit of souls, found out I’m some sort of long-awaited spirit wrangler – that almost got my ass handed to me by a spirit – and learned that I have to kill someone very soon. Oh, and my best friend is a mystic something-or-other that has weird dreams.

Life is great.

Kelsie slid off the countertop and dropped lightly to the floor. She came over and draped an arm over me, resting her chin on my shoulder. She didn’t say anything, just remained quiet for a few minutes. Eventually she spoke up.

“All right. So let’s go follow the Magistrate. Who obviously is either the Dybbuk or a piece of him. I’ll get us into the Briln town.”

I stood up and turned to face her. “Are you sure? It’s going to be dangerous. We’re probably both dead if we’re caught.”

She gave me a forced smile. “I’m sure. I know you won’t let them hurt me.”

Great. That doesn’t put any weight on my shoulders or anything. “Let me finish reading this section on the Dybbuks real quick. Then I’ll get ready.”

“Okay,” she said before leaving to get ready.

“Kelsie?”

She turned to look back at me.

“Don’t wear shorts this time. You’re cut up pretty good from this morning.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, whatever.”

I read everything I could find in the book pertaining to Dybbuks. There wasn’t much written, other than Dybbuks were dangerous but easy enough to kill. Just don’t let them know you’re coming. Seemed like they should have a better name. Dybbuk was just awkward to say.

I closed the book, wrapping it back up for sake of preservation, and put it in a safe location: under my mattress.

Kelsie and I stood outside the West Gate, waiting for the proper time. I knew how long it took to get to the North Gate now, after the other night. Having actually listened to me, Kelsie was dressed in snug pants and a leather shirt. All dark-colored, though where she’d gotten a leather shirt and why she even had one was beyond me. She was even wearing the pair of leather moccasins I had made her when she’d hinted she might want to go on a mission with me sometime. That had been over a year ago, and she hadn’t been out with me since, aside from the other night at the cave.

Time. I nudged her and then took off for the Gate.

We crept through the woods directly outside of the wall. There was a lightly overgrown path that we used. It helped us make better time. I was still walking at a brisk pace, slipping a little in the mud of the trail. We came around a bend when Kelsie stopped me suddenly with a hand on my shoulder. I raised an eyebrow in question; she held a finger to her lips. I turned my attention forward again and around a tree stepped exactly what you don’t want to run into.

I slowly moved so my mouth was by her ear and whispered, “Don’t move.”

There, in the middle of the trail, was a very large dog. A very large
mutated
dog. It was well over waist high and had one red eye and one green…nope, scratch that. It wasn’t an eye, just something gooey dribbling down.

Its whole body rippled with deformed muscles as it stared at us, drooling and growling. It crouched as I reached around slowly to my holster, grabbing my old Walther 40 caliber. The dog’s back legs started bending, and its snout went so low as to almost touch the ground. Then it lunged.

I whipped up my Walther as I threw Kelsie to the side with my other hand. Bringing it to bear, the canine was thrown to the side as a great booming gunshot echoed across the forest. The creature ended up on the other side of the trail with a smoking hole in its head, big enough to put my fist through.

“Whoa. Nice shot,” Kelsie said, coming up next to me and putting her hand on my arm. She stared at the corpse in awe.

I felt my chest puff up a little with the praise, before I remembered to tell her the truth.

“That wasn’t me,” I said, turning to look back at the wall. I scanned down the length and saw someone standing in one of the towers farther down in the direction we were heading and waving at us. I waved back, but couldn’t make out who it was from here. “That was all her,” I said, pointing for Kelsie’s sake.

I put my gun back in my shoulder holster and made sure to step well clear of the canine. I would come back later and bury it. Didn’t want another animal to eat it. It went in a circle when that happened. If one animal ate another’s infected/mutated flesh, they got whatever that creature had, plus whatever little twists their body threw in. That’s why there were so many mutated creatures and people still, even all this time after the War.

Now that the event was over, I allowed myself a moment to think about what had just happened. Not the mutant. I was used to that. I was thinking about Kelsie and how she had somehow reacted and, it seemed, known about the mutant before I did. It was uncanny. That was a skill that you weren’t just born with, it was learned.

I shrugged it off. Maybe she had just been paying attention to me more than I realized.

We pushed on down the trail; I was leading quicker since we lost time with that little event. Once I got nearly even with the guard tower, I looked up and waved at the girl in the tower.

“Thanks, Mica!” I hollered up to her. “I owe you one!”

She grinned down at us. “Yeah, more like two or three, Drake! Hey, Kelsie!”

“Hi!” Kelsie said, waving at her as we went by.

Once we were past Mica’s tower, Kelsie spoke up, “Who was that and how does she know me?”

I kept walking but answered too. “That’s Mica. She knows of you because I talk about you quite a bit. She’s one of the guards, obviously, and I hang out with her and the rest from time to time. It’s handy in situations like what just happened. You think she would have wasted a bullet for just anyone?”

We were behind by quite a bit. The Magistrate was long gone by the time we got to the North Gate. It was starting to grow dark, which was good for what we needed. I led us a ways down the path that led to the Briln Water Guild. About halfway there, I let Kelsie take the lead.

She led me down the trail a little more, then off into the woods. We moved quietly and carefully. We couldn’t risk shooting something this close to the Briln. Kelsie seemed to be zigzagging a lot.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I asked her in a whisper.

She turned and glared at me in the dusk. “Kind of. It’s been years since I was out here. Gimme a break. For all I know, the way I got out might have been fixed.”

“I hope not. That would mess this all up.”

We got to the wall, finally, but stayed out in the woods right outside their trail that ran around the perimeter. She had brought us up to the trail at the wrong spot. I was right behind her and ended up bumping into her in the dark when she stopped.

She looked down the trail both ways and then crossed it. She climbed up in the foliage at the base of the wall, looked around a bit, then came back down and moved along the trail to another spot. She did this three more times before I saw her start twisting the concrete blocks that made up the wall. Soon she had a hole large enough to slip through and disappeared inside. I checked to make sure the trail was clear and picked my way down to where she’d vanished. I climbed through the vegetation and up to the wall. I found that she had climbed through a very small opening between the head-sized blocks, stopping directly on the other side to stick her head back through. There was absolutely no way I would fit.

“That isn’t going to happen, Kelsie. My shoulders are far too wide. Is there any other way?”

“Nope. Not that I know of.”

“I know of one.” A voice spoke up behind me.

Dammit.

I turned slowly and nearly jumped out of my skin. Samantha was standing there, right behind me. In the dark, she almost glowed a little. “Oh, hey. Don’t do that, scared the hell out of me,” I whispered.

“Who are you talking to?” Kelsie asked, sounding alarmed.

“Samantha showed up. Says she knows another way in. I’m gonna go with her. I’ll meet you inside. Somewhere. Where’s a good place?”

We set up a place, and she gave me directions referencing the two Gates as anchors.

I turned and followed the ghost into the ever-growing darkness. “I thought you had to get back to somewhere?” I whispered to her while I followed.

“I did. I stayed for a little, and then decided you might need help. I kind of owed your dad a lot, so here I am.”

“Um. Okay. I guess. So where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see.” She continued forward. Even though her feet were moving, it seemed like she was gliding.

“The Main Gate? Are you crazy?” I demanded in a whisper. Samantha had led me right up close to the front Gate of the town.

“No. It’s a very good decision. Since it is the Main Gate, they don’t guard it as much. They don’t think anyone would be crazy enough to try to sneak in this way. See that door?” she asked, pointing to a singlewide door to the left of the Gate.

“Yeah,” I answered warily.

“That’s how you’re going to go in. I’ll create a distraction; you run quickly and get through that door. Once inside, continue left.” She gave me a reassuring smile.

It was easy for her to smile, she was a ghost. I may be awesome, but I sure as hell don’t like barging into enclosed hostile territory. It was like trying to get inside a cage full of wild animals. If one of them saw me, I was trapped inside and would be mauled to shreds in a moment.

I looked back at her to nod that I was ready, but she was already gone. I was starting to see that maybe she didn’t understand this whole communication thing. I got ready to run, watching her head up into the middle of the guards surrounding the outside of the Gate. Noises trickled down to me as she started doing something to wreak havoc. I took my cue and bolted for the door. I got up the slight hill to it, thankful that there was a bushy vine in between the guards and me. I tried the latch on the door and found it locked.

I looked to make sure Samantha was still raising hell. I didn’t know what she was doing, but the guards were in a tizzy. I got a real good hold of the latch and threw my shoulder into the door. It gave, but didn’t release. I drew back and did it again, wincing at how loud it was as the latch gave and the door crashed open.