Dead to Me

36

There were several S.D.L. guards throughout the room, and although they looked silly in their hokey Renaissance Faire garb, I took no chances, cutting a wide arc around them heading toward one of the doors.

As I closed on the doorway, the familiar scent of patchouli and cloves grew stronger in my nostrils. It was the same type of smell as the one Connor used to bind spirits with. My heart leapt in my chest, and by the time I actually stepped through the doorway itself, the air was sick with the smell. It was like being caught in a Dead Head’s hair.

The room was mostly dark and its architecture was generic in style but classed up by Greek columns on either side of the door. In the half-light of the after-hours world, I could just make out the banners of heraldry hanging high overhead in tribute to the Met’s permanent collection of arms and armor. Four mounted knights were on display as the centerpiece of the room, and the walls were lined with glass cases full of ancient armor, pole arms, lances, swords, and shields. Just thinking about the accumulated history surrounding me made my body quiver.

I was sure the majesty of such a display would have had even more of an impact on me if I wasn’t distracted by what was out of place in the room. At the far end, past the horsemen, several workers were operating a bulky mechanical contraption of some sort. It looked liked a cross between a Rube Goldberg device and one of those astronaut training gyroscopes, except this one had several wooden circles that twisted and turned around each other.

Closer to me were dozens of quasicorporeal forms. They floated listlessly within a smoky haze rising out of an arrangement of evenly placed casks along the west wall. I crept toward the haze quietly and luckily went unnoticed by the men at the far end of the room. Score one for dressing all in black!

As I approached the casks, their purpose became readily apparent as the familiar smell of patchouli hit my nose—the casks were full of the same substance Connor had given me a vial of at the Odessa, the very material he used to contain and control ghosts. The fumes rising from them kept the spirits floating above them contained. The cloud twisted and swirled, and I caught glimpses of the translucent bodies contained within. A constant low chatter of weakened pleas of tortured souls tore at my ears. It didn’t take long to pick out the distinctive lilt of Irene’s voice as I listened carefully, but it broke my heart to hear it. I had been hoping beyond hope, and against my instincts, that Irene wouldn’t be mixed up in this.

I stepped closer and suddenly Irene’s voice rushed at me with all the force of a subway car. Out of the mist, her face formed in the smoke. It looked drawn and pained, like that of someone who hadn’t slept for ages. Tears rolled down my face and soaked into the fabric of the Zorro mask.

“Irene?” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”

The form of her face nodded in response.

“How did you know it was me…?” I asked. The lighting was poor, I was shrouded in black, and what little showed of my face was shadowed by the traditional Zorro hat.

Her image grew more distinct in the mist and somehow she forced a smile.

“I would always know you, Simon,” she said, and there was kindness in her voice. The barest definition of fingers formed and the wisps of smoke brushed at my face. “You have an energy, an aura that’s wholly yours. Everyone does.”

This was a much different Irene than the one that had attacked me in my apartment. Connor wasn’t kidding when he told me about the rampant mood swings a degrading spirit could go through.

I chanced another peek toward the far end of the room. My eyes had finally adjusted to the light, and I could see the technicians unpacking hundreds of tiny clay jars next to the contraption. I could only assume it was a processing machine. Just then I noticed the wooden fish sat on top of it in a giant frame. I don’t know how I had missed it before—the damn thing was pulsing with a dull magical glow. There was no question that the totemic power of the Surrealist fish fueled the device. Faisal had made clear that it was the fish that gave the Ghostsniffing ectoplasm its extra kick. In the center of the processing contraption, a ghostly figure strained against invisible bonds that held him spread out across one of the wooden circles. I turned back to Irene.

“We can save our reunion for later,” I whispered. “I’ve got to get you out of here now. You’re on the menu tonight.”

I had to free her, free all of them.

I set about the task of putting the lids back on the casks beneath the swirl of spirits. As I moved down the row, I could hear Irene keening softly over the general wailing of the other spirits in the cloud.

“I’m sorry, Simon,” she said, her voice rising. “You must think me a monster after our last encounter. I simply don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Shh. You’re just becoming more and more emotional due to your condition. It’s not your fault. Connor explained it all to me. Now it all makes sense. You and the sudden rise of ghosts turning up with memory loss…all of you were being mystically rounded up before you could cross over, harvested to be used in their sick twisted scheme. Some of you were apparently harder for them to rein in than they planned for.”

I was having trouble with the casks. The second of the wooden lids wouldn’t fit. I stripped my gloves off for maximum dexterity and wrestled it into place. Eventually it slid in, but only after I thumped softly on the top. I looked at the workers, but there was no sign of reaction from the far end of the room.

“When Faisal’s mediums captured me,” Irene said, “they told me what sort of person I had been in life. All the horrible things I had done…”

“None of that matters anymore, Irene. None of it. Who you were before, that’s all gone now, burned away. The spirit I first met, the person you are now, that’s the best part of you. That’s the part that needs to keep in control if I’m going to help you.”

Phantom hands caressed me as some of the smoke cleared and the restless spirits broke free of their confinement. I tried not to flinch at their cold touch, but they were making it hard to focus on what I was doing. Once again, my hair was in mortal danger, but I didn’t even care. There were at least ten more casks to cover, and it was only a matter of time until I was discovered. I wasn’t sure if I’d have to take care of them all, but suddenly I had bigger problems to think about.

The answer was only one more cask away. As I fit the next lid into place, the booming chuckle of Cyrus Mandalay sounded from behind me.

“Avast, matey,” he said in a mock pirate voice. He cautiously stepped toward me. “I should have expected some heroics tonight. Leave a roomful of ghostly victims, and just wait for someone to try something. The question is, Zorro, who are you and how did you get in?”

“Well, Cyrus,” I said. I swung around with a flourish of my cape. “You can find out who I am if you can unmask me.”

I pulled the sword from my belt and hoped to heaven that the darkness helped it appear less plastic.

“I see you know me by name,” he said and smiled. Even in the half-light of the room, I could see the gleam of his sharklike teeth. That was a sight I didn’t miss from before he had gone into hiding. Back then I had actually thought he was a decent, albeit intimidating, guy. He had even had that section of the store for kids! It flashed in my head momentarily and it hit me. One image had always stood out in that children’s mural—the Daliesque turtle wizard melting a clock with his wand, an obvious sign of his allegiance to any Surrealist Undergrounders seeking him out—and I hadn’t put it together until now…

There was no time to beat myself up for making the connection so late in the game. I had pulled my sword and now Cyrus pulled a sword of his own, a cutlass, and I could tell by the metallic sound of it unsheathing that it was real.

“Be careful,” Irene whispered from behind me. I stepped forward in the hopes of keeping Cyrus the pirate away from the few casks I had sealed and he took the opportunity to rush me. He was unnaturally fast, and with one stroke he cleaved my pathetic plastic sword in half. I threw the remaining stump at him ineffectually, and in return Cyrus kicked me square in the chest. I felt something crack inside as I propelled backward, but I barely had time to register it. I spun myself to see where I was falling and braced for the impact.

Smashing through glass in the movies always looked effortless. The hero would run at it, leap in the air, and the glass would shatter on impact into a million pieces as he flew through it. I, however, stumbled forward toward an unavoidable collision with one of the museum’s display cases. When I hit it, I felt another crunch inside my chest before the glass itself finally gave way.

I crumpled to the side of the case to avoid as much contact as I could. I was less concerned about getting lacerations, more about making contact with any of the antiques inside it. I was duly concerned for both their safety and the safety of my mind should anything so historically powerful come into contact with me.

The sound of the museum’s alarm kicked in. I rolled over just in time to see Cyrus standing directly over me with his sword in readiness, and I had only a split second to make a decision. I could either sit there preparing for the cool sensation of air hitting the center of my brain as Cyrus cleaved me in two, or I could risk contact with one of the artifacts to defend myself.

I chose the latter, even though my brain and blood sugar would hate me in the morning. It was the one option that would allow me to even have a next morning. I reached blindly into the broken case to my right, and grabbed the first object my hand landed on. Fortune was on my side, it seemed, and I was thankful as I pulled a large shield from it. That was the best object I could hope for, really, but its historical significance was too powerful and my mind slipped into a series of visions as I struggled to control my powers.

It was 1934 and a handsome philanthropist was handing the shield over to the museum’s collection. The shield was shaped like a reverse tear-drop and was damascened in gold and silver. The director of antiquities thanked him for his most generous contribution. Time bent further into the shield’s past.

Now it was the fifteen hundreds, and I was a man working diligently on the shield between fits of coughing. He was slowly dying from the large quantities of silver dust than had accumulated in his lungs over his short lifetime. The images carved into this shield would be the culmination of his life’s work. Time bent again.

This time I was another man, a French king no less, suiting up to do battle against the threat across the English Channel. I felt pure awe when I realized I was Henry the Second, and watched as he strapped the shield to his arm as the final touch. I felt the weight of his people, of his kingdom, and felt his conviction that with God on his side, Henry would prove victorious.

Disoriented, but feeling somehow strengthened by my last psychometric episode, I came out of the vision and found myself curled under the shield, weary from the transference of power, but somehow fending off Cyrus’s wild swings. Chaos had broken out all around us. Much of the crowd from the temple area had pushed their way into the makeshift Ghostsniffing production area, and I could see members of Shadower making a dash for the casks while Connor barked instructions at them. The Inspectre, despite being surrounded, was holding his own and swinging the hubcap on the end of his scarf in a circle around him in an effort to keep the crowd at bay. We were seriously outnumbered. In my weakened condition, the shield I was turtled under was getting heavier and heavier.

I scrabbled to my knees and then my feet. I was quite impressed that I had continued to keep Cyrus at bay even though he had gone wild-eyed in pirate mode.

“Simon!” Jane cried. I turned my head toward the sound of her voice. She had ditched the mask and was struggling with a mob of her own at the far end of the room. She pushed them away and balled one of her hands inside the other and swung with all her might at one of the display cases, causing glass to fly everywhere. I winced in sympathy pains as she did it. I was surprised how quickly everything had escalated and even more surprised when I saw Jane grab a sword from the case and toss it toward me. I moved the shield firmly between me and Cyrus and grabbed for the sword, no longer caring what touching it might do. I had just been Henry the Second, for God’s sake. What did I have to fear?

I caught the sword at the same time Cyrus rushed me. His sizable frame drove me back across the floor, but before anything else could happen, I shifted into another psychometric vision. Already I could tell things were different—having been King for even a brief moment and bearing the weight of an entire kingdom on my shoulders somehow made the drain on my powers feel like less of a burden.

In my vision it was the sixteen hundreds. There were letters on a desk before me, all addressed to a Juan Martinez, renowned for his working of Toledo steel. All of Spain, all of Europe, demanded his craftsmanship. But he had merely been the blade master on this sword.

Time slipped and I became the sword’s hilt maker, a crafter of bronze-gilt, paste jewels, and pearls. None of these visions felt particularly helpful, although the kingly burden I had felt seconds earlier lingered. Before I could give it another thought, I was pushed forward through time once again.

The next vision came on stronger, and was far more recent. I was one of the night watchmen for this wing of the museum. The case Jane had just smashed was whole in the vision, and the watchman took a quick peek around to make sure no one was looking before removing the sword. He had handled this sword before. He moonlighted as a stage actor. But most importantly, he had stage combat training. As him, my limbs were full of the physical memory of that training. I realized as I came out of the vision that my body had retained it.

When I came out of the vision, I felt strangely, miserably drained. Then I noticed warmth running down the right side of my chest. Cyrus’s cutlass was digging against the exposed whiteness of my ribs. Maybe it was the shock of seeing that, or the adrenaline, or simply the fact that I might die, but the watchman’s training kicked in. I pushed Cyrus’s blade away using an effortless enveloping technique and then assumed a defensive posture.

A thought occurred to me. I didn’t have to fight Cyrus to beat him. I was only fighting to keep him from killing me, and with that in mind, I started to back my way toward Jane. I chanced a look toward the swirl of spirits and was relieved to see that they were dispersing in greater numbers as Shadower team finished covering the last of the casks.

“Hello, Marilyn,” I said to Jane. Her Monroe dress was a mess from the struggle and covered in spattered blood, but it still worked on her.

“Hola, Señor Zorro,”she said. The costumed fray was still in full swing around us.

I pushed away one of the many Dalís attacking her while keeping Cyrus at bay, but more baddies pressed into the room. They didn’t seem deterred by the continuing sound of the alarm going off. It would be only a matter of time before we were overtaken. Despite our valiant efforts, things had gotten more extraordinary than the Department of Extraordinary Affairs was capable of handling.

Several cultists had finally disarmed the Inspectre and were shoving him around the room. Some of the Shadowers were still holding their own, and Connor was standing in the remaining swirls of mist, shouting. The deceased and crossing over were his domain, and I imagined he was working overtime in that department right now. Despite Connor’s efforts, though, three cultists grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.

Feeling helpless, hopeless, I did my best to parry the incoming attacks. With one arm I countered every strike and with the other I kept Jane safely behind the shield. It was really only a matter of time before Cyrus wore me down, though. If it weren’t for the adrenaline rush, my body would have already collapsed from the energy expenditure of the visions, not to mention my blood loss. With the repeated blows of Cyrus’s sword, however, that rush was waning and the odds seemed insurmountable. Jane was doing her best to help hold our shield in place, but she looked exhausted.

My eyes caught a whirl of activity from within the spirits. They rose in a column above the casks, breaking free from the last of their restraints. They now rose wraithlike, swirling high overhead.

The sound of exploding glass rang out as every display case in the room shattered simultaneously, shards of glass flying everywhere. Luckily, the shield kept most of it from harming us. Then I watched in awe as the contents of every case sprang to life.

The released spirits began manifesting themselves in the same way Irene had done when she turned my bedroom into a whirlwind of emotional destruction. Full suits of armor broke free of their supports inside the cases. Each of them lurched off menacingly into the crowd, grabbing for the nearest weapon they could, and started singling out the Surrealists and cultists.

Even with all the danger around me, and my exposed ribs, I couldn’t help but be amused. Suits of armor lurched past me, some with the perkiest codpieces I had ever seen, intent on clearing a path through our enemies with mace, sword, or pole arm in hand.

Most majestic were the four horsemen in the center of the room, whose steeds charged off into the costumed crowd. Their lances knocked Dalí after Dalí aside and I felt sudden hope that there might be a chance for us to get out of this alive after all.

One of the swirling spirits spun with breakneck speed around Cyrus like an ethereal twister and suddenly shot itself straight into him. He convulsed as a spasm wracked his whole body, and he struggled for control.

“Simon,” Cyrus said, but it was Irene’s voice. She sounded strained as she fought him in the effort for possession. “Go…while I can control him.”

I could tell Cyrus was struggling hard, fighting her for control of his own body, but it was no use. Irene was full of fury from her captivity and was far stronger than him…for now. She forced his hand to open and the cutlass clattered harmlessly to the ground.

“Go,” she said, “and take her with you.”

“Irene,” I said, feeling a bit uncomfortable staring into Cyrus’s eyes as I spoke to her. “This is Jane. She’s…well…”

“I know,” Irene said, softening Cyrus’s face. “You don’t need to explain. I can see her energy…intertwined with yours. It’s okay. Life is for the living.”

The softness disappeared from Cyrus’s face, and as he began to win control of his body once more, he bent to retrieve his cutlass, his face contorted with the effort. Before he could grab a hold of it, Irene forced his body back to a standing position.

“Go!” she screamed. “He’s pushing me out.”

“Connor and I will find you after this, I swear.”

Irene smiled, but Cyrus’s sharklike teeth made it unpleasant.

“I don’t think you’ll need to,” she said. “Something feels terribly right about all this.” Irene turned to face Jane. “Take care of him. He’s a terrible amount of trouble.”

“You’re telling me,” Jane said with a faint laugh. Then with absolute sincerity, she said, “Thank you. I’ll try.”

Cyrus came to the surface again and I watched his arm as he balled up his fist. His face strained with the effort, the veins in his neck popping out like suspension cables.

“If you’re going to do anything,” Irene said weakly, “now would be the time…”

As Irene gave one final push for control over him, Cyrus’s face went slack and his arms dropped lifelessly to his side. Seizing the moment Irene had provided for us, Jane and I swung the shield, rushing forward. The shield smacked into Cyrus’s head, and it rang out like a gong. He fell to the floor. Jane stared at him for a second, and then we stepped over him, heading for the south end of the room. I think Jane gave him a parting kick on the way out, but I didn’t look back to see where. I don’t think I wanted to know.

Jane pulled ahead and took the lead. It wasn’t hard to do, considering I was holding my ribs as I limped after her, while also trying to remove the shield from my arm. She effectively dodged the galloping horsemen and avoided the retreating cultists, who were clearly spooked by the sudden turn of events. I found myself crying and laughing at the same time. These folks wanted Surrealism; they certainly were getting it. I doubt anyone had expected a night like this.

Connor frantically waved us over and we plowed through the crowd, using the shield to reach him. Two of the suits of armor had responded to his commands like he was the sorcerer’s apprentice, and stretched between their arms were Faisal “Don Corleone” Bane himself.

“Well, kid,” Connor shouted over the noise. “What should we do with him?”

I looked around the room. So much of what was happening tonight rested on this madman’s machinations. He was responsible for Irene and Tamara’s deaths, and who knew how many more? Even Jane had been at his mercy. Given that we had yet to put a stop to Faisal’s corporate headhunter, she still was. Though I had never killed anyone, in that moment I wanted to. Knowing the Department frowned on such behavior, I restrained myself, and yet I had to do something.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I yelled over the sound of combat. “There’s no way all these evil folk are escaping scot-free with all the alarms going off, but there’s a chance that we’ll be able to.”

Connor nodded. His hair whipped around wildly and his Bogart trench coat fluttered out behind him like a cape. “That still doesn’t tell me what we should do with Faisal,” he said. “I think the spirits want to rip him limb from limb, and I’m having a hard time coming up with reasons for them not to.”

“All we have to do is detain him until the authorities arrive,” I said.

“But you said it yourself, kid…we can’t stick around for that. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Faisal smiled as he hung midair between the two horsemen. Once we left, he surely would break free. There had to be a better way to keep the smug bastard in line.

“Jane?” I said as I turned. I presented the hilt of the sword to her. “Would you care to do the honors?”

She smiled nervously, reluctant.

“I don’t want you to kill him!” I said. “We just need to…detain him. I thought you might want a little payback. Don’t forget, he is trying to have you killed.”

“Might I remind you,” she said, “that he tried to kill you as well? That’s what he sent me after you for.”

“Then I suggest we do it together. Drastic times call for, you know—”

“Do something!” Connor shouted.

Faisal looked pained from the tugging and pulling, and I took a dark pleasure in that. Jane and I hefted the sword together and thrust it forward through his shoulder, driving him against the wall. We forced the sword as deep as we could into the wall, nearly to the hilt, and Faisal was effectively pinned. He hissed in pain, but he definitely looked incapable of moving.

“Let’s see our little butterfly wriggle free from this specimen board before the authorities get here now,” I said.

“Guess you don’t believe in handcuffs, huh?” Jane said.

“Don’t really carry them,” I said. “Most of the things I deal with can’t be held by them anyway.”

Connor clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge, kid,” he said. “I’ll go back and grab the Inspectre. You two kids make a break for it.”

I surveyed the destruction as Jane and I started off, and the art enthusiast in me winced at the thought of all the property damage. The Museum would certainly have its work cut out for it, including the task of figuring out just what the hell the now toppled Ghostsniffing machine was. We passed it on our way out, and I was happy to see all the clay pots were empty or broken.

The wooden fish stuck out of the debris, the glow of its power fading from it, and I stretched down painfully to grab it. I tucked it under my shirt, careful not to put it against the open hole along my ribs. It was a bit of thievery, but it didn’t belong to the museum’s collection anyway, and they would have enough to deal with tomorrow.

I gave one final look back as Jane and I raced out of the hall, but there was no trace of Irene anywhere now. Jane squeezed my hand sympathetically. The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps from the other direction snapped me out of it, and we headed off to find quiet and escape, arm in arm, thanks to the support of our army of the dead.