Kitty
Leaving Talia is terrifying. It’s stepping away from safety into certain death, but she’ll live without me. My brother may not. Peter may not.
I don’t know how I get there. I think for a moment that I shouldn’t be able to do this. I shouldn’t be in the grey place at all. I have to be able to go into a mirror and use the sigils. But here I am.
As I walk, terrified, purposeful, I feel others around me. I can’t quite see them; it’s like the movement in the corner of my eye that disappears when I turn to face it. I don’t think on it. It’s not like this whole thing can get much scarier. My heart’s already beating out of my bloody chest as it is.
I was wrong. Hearing Matt scream is more than scary, and I’m running before I can think it through, my heart breaking. “Leave him alone,” I yell.
I don’t see them in the distance. I don’t run toward them. They appear in front of me. I think fast and jump between Matt and Anderson, holding out my hand. All I think is that I want Matt to be safe, and Anderson is blasted backward on his arse.
“Holy shit,” I murmur. Matt groans, and I turn to glance at him. “You okay?”
“Think so.”
Anderson is getting up again, leaning on his knee to push himself to his feet. Behind them—my heart hurts—are Peter and Sam, floating in mid-air. They’re silent and still, and I’m so fucking terrified that he’s already killed them, that it was all a trick to get me here, and he killed them anyway or that I took too long, and he killed them as punishment.
“Ms. Wilson,” he says, and I want to be sick. He brushes invisible dust off his coat.
“What do you want?”
“I thought I explained this,” he says, and he’s like a disappointed teacher. “I want your power.”
“What for?”
He actually rolls his eyes, but still, it’s genteel, like he’s irked that I’m bringing him down to such an uncouth level. “Does it matter? We both have something the other wants. Let me complete the ritual to remove your magic, and I’ll release your family. It’s quite simple.”
“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“What interest do I have in two powerless humans? Of course I’ll send them back,” he says with an easy shrug.
“Kitty,” says Matt, his voice low and warning. I hold up a hand to hush him. We don’t have a choice.
“Fine,” I say. “Send them back now.”
“When you step into this binding ring, I shall.”
I look at the floor. The mist rolls away at his gesture, and I see a circle of sigils marked there in dull red. “Shivam’s notes were very helpful,” he says.
I clench my fists and step into the circle. Matt lets out a wordless shout and rushes to grab me, but the moment he reaches past the line, he disintegrates. “Matt,” I scream, but as I turn, the sigils flare, and I’m surrounded by a whirring ring of energy reaching to my knees. “What did you do to him?”
“I did nothing,” he says, not even looking at me. “If he’s lucky, he’ll rematerialize somewhere else, being a ghost already.”
I grit my teeth and fight back tears. I can’t admit how fucking scared I am, not if I don’t want to break down crying. “Let my family go back,” I say.
Anderson rolls his eyes and gestures. Peter and Sam move and stretch as if they’re in their beds, and I can barely breathe through the lump in my throat. I’ve been holding this back for so long, but I know there’s a chance I won’t survive this. I need to know that they will.
Peter blinks as they begin to fade, and his eyes go wide. “Kitty,” he says, but just as quickly, he’s gone.
“Did you send them back home? They’re safe?” I ask. As if the bastard can’t lie to me.
“They’re back in their beds, none the wiser,” says Anderson. “Now, your magic.”
“It’s going to kill me, isn’t it?”
Anderson laughs, once, short and sharp. “I have no idea. Do you really think I go around doing this all the time?”
“I don’t know, do I? I thought you were my boss. I thought there were other reapers like me, that we were trying to do something good for people. I thought my father would be better.”
“Well,” he says as he opens a book. “If it’s any consolation, you were doing good for some people.”
“What’re you really going to do with my magic?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m stalling him. There’s no help for me. I’m afraid. Something deep inside me tells me it’ll hurt, and I’m afraid.
“I’ll use it, for God’s sake,” he snaps, his composure breaking for the first time. “To have the kind of power you do and waste it, mourn over it, there’s the real sin. You have no idea how rare it is to be able to simply create in the moment! What couldn’t I do with your power?”
“So you’ll, what, take money from people because they’re grieving? Why should you get to do that?”
“Why not?” he says, and it’s like he genuinely doesn’t understand.
“Because it’s not fair. We have this power. How can we not use it to do good?”
He laughs. “Just like a child. People are not born equal. Some have great minds, some have money, and some have other sorts of power. That’s how it is.”
I grit my teeth. “And me being your daughter. That means nothing?”
He turns back to his notes as if I’m beyond his interest, and I seethe. I clench my fists and jaw as Anderson starts to work around the circle, drawing other sigils. I look past him into the mist, desperate to find something I can work with, some way out of this. I squint to see shapes that seem to be coalescing, but it’s hard to tell whether that’s my hopeful imagination making patterns out of the ever-changing wisps or if it’s really someone coming for me.
And then I cry out and fall to my knees as pain spears through my side. I clutch my waist, and my hand comes away wet, but not with blood. Shaking, I can see a thick, silvery liquid dripping to the floor, running over my fingers, and I’m horrified and captivated. It clings to me, viscous, only falling at the last moment.
Anderson’s staring when I look up, and for a moment, I hope wildly that he’ll realise how horrible this is and let me go. I catch his eye. He turns away, draws another sigil into the floor, and this time, the pain is all the worse for my expecting it.
I start to panic as the magic drips from me faster. As I search around for some way out, my magic starts to swirl with me, jerky movements, as if it’s alive by itself, not just silver blood. It rises up like snakes and seems to beat on our invisible cage, crying out wordlessly, and beyond, the mist seems to writhe in concert with my magic. “Stop this,” I cry to Anderson, but he’s writing again, writing another one. “Stop, please, stop. Don’t do this, Dad!”
Then there’s a blast of red light and a roar like a battle cry. Anderson flies across the floor, and Mum appears, her skirt snapping at her heels, her magic a ball of fury in her hands. And Talia. Talia!
“What are you doing?” I say, terrified that she’s trapped here too, that she’s dead again.
“I don’t know,” Talia yells back. She scuffs at the sigils on the floor with her foot, then the heel of her hand. She stands, tugging both hands through her hair when it doesn’t come off, then glances at me.
“Talia, go, it’s too dangerous,” I beg. Anderson is fighting with Mum and Shivam, but Talia’s not magical. The thought of her getting caught in the crossfire is more painful than the magic draining from me slowly.
Talia holds both hands in front of her, staring at her palms. She clasps them into fists, then hurls them toward the sigils at her feet with a shout. It’s not magic, not like I’ve been taught. It’s magic like I used to do when I was a kid, when I was just finding out I could bring the dead back to life. It’s wild and blue and beautiful, and I think she’s swearing to channel it.
The sigil goes up in flames with a shriek, and I fall to my knees, free of the binding circle. “Kitty!” she cries and rushes to lift me.
“No, wait,” I beg, reaching to the ground. My magic is streaming back to me, reaching out for my fingers as I reach for it, flowing into me so hard, it makes me dizzy with relief.
“Are you okay?” she asks, half cradling me on the floor.
“Yeah,” I say, and I laugh, hysterical. “Yeah, I am. You’re magic, Talia.”
She laughs too and shrugs, and then a blast of magic whips past our heads, and she pulls me to the ground, tucking my head safely under her chin.
I hear Mum scream and fight Talia to let me go. Mum and Shivam are lying on the floor, the mist swirling around them, and Anderson advances on us. “Did you know?” he says, wiping a smudge of blood from under his nose. “That magic weakens when you die?”
Talia and I scramble to our feet, and it’s my turn to push her behind me. I crouch and form a sigil of my own in the air over my cupped hand, and Talia snarls her fury until her own untamed magic almost engulfs both of her forearms.
Then Anderson gasps and stumbles. His forehead creases in confusion. “Did you know,” says my mum behind him, her arms outstretched to both sides, “that if you use magic to kill, the dead come back for their revenge?”
Anderson looks uncertain for the first time. He glances around him, and the shapes that I’ve been noticing are looking more solid, more humanoid. I squint into the mist, and my gut swirls because I’ve been working for him. I’m as much to blame as him, and they’ll want me too.
“Kitty, you have to open the doors,” Shivam shouts, and I see he’s struggling to write sigils in the air. They keep dissolving halfway through. “It’s got to be you. Nobody else has the power.”
“What do I do?” I ask. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t even know where to look. I don’t know if I’ll be a target even if I succeed.
“Matt,” Talia says softly.
I turn to where she’s looking, and I see him as if through warped glass, pressing up against the boundary, trying to push through. I can only recognise him because he’s the closest, and because as he pushes, the mist bends around him, letting us catch glimpses of his contorted face, his black hair.
My fear settles down. Matt’s with them, and that’s all that matters. I don’t care what the other dead want with me, if they’ll take their revenge on me as well as Anderson. My best friend is trying to push through, so that door, if you can call it that, will open.
I hold my hand up, and my magic flows the way it always did, with just my decision. The grey place bends to my will. There’s a ripping sound, and the dead march through. I set my jaw and step forward to stand by Anderson, who’s now whimpering and struggling to free himself from whatever bind my mother’s put on him.
I expect to see all those I’ve exchanged. Those I’ve killed. I’m looking for the teacher who took Talia’s place, for the addict who killed someone by accident, for the old man who wanted his wife to live. The people I’ve exchanged for the Society and those I exchanged by myself, working instinctively with my magic.
I don’t see any of them. I don’t see anyone I recognise other than Matt, who runs up to wrap me tight and drag me out of the way.
Anderson pleads with them as they surround him, silent and so, so numerous. Talia rushes up to me, and I’m sandwiched between her and Matt as the vast pack of ghosts wrap around Anderson. His voice continues, begging, and I’m waiting in terror for screams, but they never come. The sound…drifts away, and with it, the dead.
Shivam walks toward the tight huddle of silver forms, and I can see his teeth clenching. Anderson is the reason he’s here too. He pauses before he reaches the pack, his gaze catching mine, and he gives me a short nod.
“Why not me?” I can’t help but ask. “Why am I forgiven?”
He laughs bitterly. “You know that last sigil you could never get to work quite right?”
I frown. “Yeah.”
“That’s the one that took their money,” he says. “Anderson…” He sighs and stops. “I lied. It was never necessary. Your magic always fought it.” He holds my gaze one moment longer, then sets his jaw and walks into the pack of the dead, through the other ghosts as if they’re no barrier at all. The mass becomes amorphous, and with a crack that makes us all jump, it’s gone.