The Dark Shadow of Spring (19 page)

“Can’t you see them?” Alex demanded, looking at the others and then back at the ghosts. “They’re right there.”

“We can’t see anything, Alex,” Victoria said. The spectral detector in her hands glowed a deep, bright green. “I think it’s your Spirit Magic that lets you see them.”

“Great,” Alex said. “What do I do? They keep gesturing for me to join them.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, a written invitation?” Daphne growled. “This is why we’re here, you goon.”

“Right,” Alex said, taking a step forward.

“Be careful, Brother,” he heard Nina say behind him.

“We’ll watch your back,” Rafael said. “From back here.”

Alex grimaced at Rafael’s sense of humor and walked to where the ghosts hovered and shimmered above the graves. The humming noise was louder now and clearer, more like whispering voices.
Why is it always whispering voices these days?
Alex thought idly. At least these didn’t seem to be coming from inside his own head.

“What do you want?” Alex asked aloud. As he spoke, the ghosts suddenly began to move, as though confirmation of his ability to witness them caused in them a level of excitement that demanded motion. And as their motion increased, so too did the whispers in his ears that became loud enough to sound like language. Like the language of dozens of people speaking all at once.

“… you must must you the dark one you must the dark you must must the dark one comes and comes and you must the cave the cave the you must the dark one and the dark one comes the cave and you must must must beware the dark one the cave the cave the cave beware the dark one for you for you for you must the dark one comes the cave for you must comes for you the cave must must the dark the dark the you must…”

Alex stepped back as the import of the words settled into clarity in his mind. The ghosts were giving both a warning and demand — that the Shadow Wraith had come for him and that he should face it at the cave. Alex staggered back a step and looked away from the ghosts to face his friends. The ghosts shifted swiftly and were suddenly before him and around him, their cacophony of spectral sound continuing unabated.

“Stop it,” Alex said, his voice louder and more panicked than he had intended.

“What is it, Alex?” Victoria asked.

“They’re speaking to me,” Alex said. “Warning me. About the Shadow Wraith. And they keep mentioning the cave. I think they want me to go back to the cave.”

“Like hell you’re going back to the cave,” Daphne said, her eyes as forceful as her voice.

“Quiet!” Rafael said in a low voice as he scanned the shadows and sniffed the air. “Someone’s coming.”

“Hide,” Ben said as he ducked behind a tombstone.

Rafael, Daphne, and Nina followed Ben’s example and Alex was about to do so himself when he looked at where Victoria and Clark stood next to each other and realized the futility of the action.

“Sooo,” Clark said to Victoria, “should I hide behind you, or would you like to hide behind me?”

“Maybe we could take turns,” Victoria said with a small laugh. Alex laughed, too, as did the others, who quickly stood up from where they had crouched.

“Sorry,” Ben said. “Force of habit on our adventures.”

The ghosts had stopped their spectral dance and were now floating toward the shadowed edge of the cemetery where the trees were thickest. Alex followed their eyeless gaze and watched as five of the shadows resolved slowly into human forms. He knew who they were even before the moon revealed their faces, and he recognized the voice that called out across the graves.

“What are you children up to at this late hour in the cemetery?” the voice asked.

Alex spat, as much for emphasis as to clear his mouth. “What I want to know is why you children are always following us wherever we go. Don’t you have anything better to do, Dillon?”

Dillon and the other four Mad Mages — Anna, Mei, Earl, and Koji — stepped fully into the moonlight and strode across the cemetery grounds toward Alex and the Guild. “We just wanted to make sure you weren’t up to something nefarious again,” Dillon said. “Like those stunts you pulled with the birds and the insects.”

“We didn’t kill those birds and you know it,” Nina said, her voice filled with indignation at the suggestion.

“Well, it is the sort of thing that misfit freaks do in the night, isn’t it?” Anna said with a devilish look.

“We had nothing to do with those events, as you are well aware,” Victoria said. “Now, I would advise you to leave.”

“I love it when the horse talks,” Koji said with a smirk. “What kind of magic trick is that, Alex, to get a horse to talk?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Alex said, stepping forward as the Mad Mages stopped and assembled a few feet away.

“Are we messing up your little séance?” Dillon teased.

“What is that thing the horse has anyway?” Anna asked. “Some new toy her crazy father made for her?”

“Maybe they were trying to take pictures of the ghosts,” Mei said. “Silly horse, ghosts don’t show up on film.”

“What happened?” Earl asked in his typically slow and labored speech. “Couldn’t find any ghosts?”

“Oh, the ghosts are here,” Alex said, feeling his anger rise with each insult against Victoria.

“And you shouldn’t be,” Victoria said, her hair beginning to crackle and glow with magical energy.

“So leave,” Ben said, stepping forward to join Victoria.

“Before something bad happens to you,” Nina said, joining Ben and Victoria.

“Are you threatening us?” Anna said, a glow of magic beginning to surround her head.

“Hmmm,” was all Clark said, his voice a low rumble like threatening thunder.

“Take your pus-sucking sorry excuses for mages home before something comes out of the darkness and takes you away,” Daphne growled.

“If it’s a fight you want, it’s a fight you’ll get,” Dillon said, pulling himself up to his full height, which was half a head taller than Alex. “But first I want to know what I came here to find out, which is what you really know about what’s been happening.”

“What we know is for us to know,” Alex said through clenched teeth as a word began to form in his mind. A word he did not know he knew until it became clear. “And you don’t really want to know what we know.”

“What I know is that you and your little kids’ club don’t have half the magical power needed to cast the spells that have been used the past few days,” Dillon said.

“No,” Alex said, his lips becoming a snarl. “You’re right about that. But you’re wrong about other things. Like whether there are ghosts here. And what kind of power we do have.” Alex looked around and raised his arms toward the ghosts that still floated in their ephemeral way around the edge of the rough circle created by the two groups of young mages facing off.

“
Shun-Tu-Tan-Hoal,
”
Alex said aloud as he gestured toward the ghosts.

“Maybe you should be careful, Dillon,” Anna said in a mocking tone. “I think the little boy has lost his mind.”

Alex gestured from the ghosts toward the Mad Mages as he repeated the word he had spoken. Alex watched as the ghosts obediently spun toward the Mad Mages and swarmed them like a flock of vultures around a rotting carcass. The air of the cemetery dropped twenty degrees in an instant as the wind began to whip around the Mad Mages like a cyclone, picking up leaves and twigs and buffeting Dillon and his companions like a storm.

Then the ghosts did something that surprised even Alex, their form taking on a sudden solidity that made them not just visible, but able to affect and touch the world of the living. And touch the living they did, their ghastly faces contorted in screams of rage that echoed around the granite headstones as they pushed and pulled at the Mad Mages, tugging hair, slapping faces, pulling arms, and kicking backsides. Like a single wild organism, Dillon and the Mad Mages erupted into screams and fled, the ghosts chasing them to the edge of the cemetery before fading out of existence. The silence that followed was thick and absolute.

Alex stood blinking and wondering exactly what he had done.

“What in the name of Athena’s armpits was that?” Daphne hissed.

“I’m not sure,” Alex said, stepping backward to join his friends.

“You?” Ben asked. “You did that?”

“That was more than I was expecting,” Alex said.

“You controlled the ghosts,” Victoria said, taking Alex’s arm.

“You made them visible,” Nina nearly whispered as she took his other arm.

“And violent,” Rafael added.

“Mmmm,” Clark said. “Very violent.”

“The word just came to my mind,” Alex said. “I knew it would make the ghosts defend us, but I didn’t expect that.”

“Your Spirit Magic is growing stronger,” Victoria said.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good thing,” Alex said. “Not if it means ghosts telling me to go back to the cave.”

“Are you sure they said that?” Victoria asked.

“It was hard to understand them,” Alex replied. “It was like they were all speaking at once.”

“Maybe they were warning you not to go back to the gorping cave,” Daphne said.

“I don’t think so,” Alex said.

“Red?” Ben asked. “What does red mean?”

“What?” Alex asked.

“Red,” Ben repeated. “On the spectral thingy. What does it mean when it starts to glow red?”

“Oh no!” Victoria said, holding up the spectral detector so they could all see.

“Why is it red never means something good?” Rafael asked himself aloud.

“Red means malevolent spirits are present,” Victoria said, scanning the cemetery with the spectral detector. “There,” she said, pointing with one hand while holding the device in the other as the glass plate on the back began to glow a deep and menacing crimson.

Alex didn’t need Victoria to point out where the malignant ghosts were at — he could see them rising up from the graves in one corner of the cemetery, the only spot of ground not meticulously maintained, its grass overgrown, its headstones cracked, and a ramshackle iron fence, bent and broken, enclosing it. He knew who was buried there. The mages who had, in all the years past, committed great offenses against the magical community. Those mages who had turned toward dark and evil uses of magic. They had been buried in one place, and since no one mentioned their names, much less came to visit, the grounds of their internment were never kept to the same standards as the rest of the graveyard. And it seemed to Alex, as he watched their faces writhe in anger, that the ghosts of the long dead dark mages were not at all happy about their conditions.

“Oh no,” Alex said realizing now what had happened and what would happen if he and his friends remained in the cemetery a moment too long. Casting the spell to control the benign ghosts had depleted them of their power. It had been their collective power that kept the wicked spirits from rising.

“Run!” Alex said as he saw the first of the malevolent ghosts rush toward him and his friends.

“Always the running,” Rafael yelped as the ghosts rushing across the cemetery became visible to all of them. If there was one thing the Young Sorcerers Guild had practice with, it was running from trouble they had started. Before they had gone three steps, Ben and Daphne found themselves swept up in Clark’s wide arms as his long strides thudded across the cemetery. Rafael shimmered with a reddish glow ever so briefly as his clothes fell away and a strong-footed young dear took his place, dashing for safety. Fastest of all, Victoria had time to leap ahead and then turn back when she saw Alex nearly dragging his sister past the headstones.

“On my back!” Victoria said as she raced beside them, her rear hoof striking off sparks as it caught the edge of a tombstone. She reached down and swung Nina onto her back in a single swift motion.

“Thanks!” Nina panted as she flung her arms around Victoria’s waist.

Alex opened his mouth to say thanks, but it became a yell as the ghosts caught up with them. The suddenly frosty air whipped around them as they ran, leaves slicing at their faces. Alex could feel something pulling at him, tugging at his arms and legs, trying to slow him down. He looked down to see the hands of dozens of ghosts clutching for purchase on his clothes. He could see the ghosts attacking the others, as well. Slowing them down even as they neared the cemetery gate.

“
Shun-Tu-Tan-Hoal,
”
Alex said, summoning the magical energy of the land beneath his feet and forcing it into the word he had used before. It worked, but slowly, the malevolent ghosts seeming to dim and fade like the sky at sunset. He could feel their efforts to grab him diminish as he focused his willpower on controlling them and forcing them back to the graves from which they had come.

Then they were in the street, gathered beneath the bare branches of a hickory tree, its limbs only partially blocking the light from the street lamp and the quarter moon above.

“Sorry,” Alex said between puffs of breath.

“What are you sorry for?” Victoria said, hardly winded at all, as she lowered Nina to the ground.

“Thanks for the ride,” Nina said with a grin.

“The least I could do,” Victoria said.

“That would have been fun if it hadn’t been for the ghosts,” Nina said.

“Burning banshee butts, that was close,” Daphne said. “Thanks, Clark,” she added with a slug to Clark’s arm.

 “Mmmm, sure,” Clark said, shuffling his feet bashfully as he tried not to look into Daphne’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Ben said, slugging Clark’s other arm. “Thanks, Big Guy.”

“Yeah, anytime,” Clark said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“It was my fault,” Alex said. “Sorry.”

“How could you have known the Measly Mages were going to show up?” Daphne said.

“Not about that,” Alex said. “About the ghosts. If I hadn’t made the good ghosts attack the Mad Mages, the evil ones wouldn’t have been able to attack us. Sorry. I didn’t realize until it was too late.”

“We got to see Dillon and Anna and the others running for their lives and terrified to death,” Rafael said, still in the form of a young deer. He had somehow managed to skewer his clothes with his antlers as he had run. “That’s worth a little screaming and running anytime.”