Cold Blood, page 26
There wasn’t one.
No. It wasn’t a hole, not an opening, but something. He could feel the flow of power Tom was still drawing from his prisoners. Unlike Hamilton, they had too much to drain all at once—or maybe Tom enjoyed torturing them.
If Harlan could break those streams, sever those ties, he’d cut off the source of Tom’s stolen power.
Before he could try to find a way in, to chip away at those streams until he could join their flow, then sweep up into Tom and take him from the inside, Tom slammed him with a wave of power that dropped him to his knees. He could taste blood and feel a little of it running from his left nostril.
“How are you doing that?” Tom demanded, and Harlan almost answered him as if he were in class.
Harlan only smiled in response. It had been stupid of Tom to break his concentration and ask the question—not that Harlan would tell him that.
Words and movement were only distractions this deep in the flow of power.
It bought Harlan another second, at most, but that second was all he needed. He realized that he, too, was connected to Tom by a stream. After all, the film containing his power had come from Tom.
Following the thread binding them together, Harlan changed his strategy. He realized that cutting Tom off from the mediums was too much to start with, too big. Now that they had a point of contact, he could feel that Tom had spread himself across the city, reaching out farther and farther—but also spreading himself thinner and thinner. That was where Harlan had to start.
He closed his eyes and focused on the energy moving between them. He imagined it widening and finally felt the membrane holding him back tear farther, letting more of his power spill out, driving him along in front of it, into Tom.
“No! What are you doing?”
Harlan smiled. He couldn’t blame Tom. He was so new at this. He was used to being right, knowing what to do, being in control. It had probably been years since he’d been this inexperienced at something.
Not that Harlan was in control. He was riding the edges of their energy, barely clinging on. He knew that if he fell he’d die and take the others with him, so he held on. He managed just enough control to keep Tom’s power from strengthening the barrier around Harlan’s mediumship.
Reaching deep inside Tom, he could feel the network of Tom’s stolen power draped over the city like a diseased spiderweb. There were vulnerable points, places it hadn’t quite settled yet, hadn’t fully taken root—the places he’d colonized most recently. Harlan knew that was where he had to begin. He chose one ‘line’ of power and followed it out to its tip, where it was weakest. He imagined it as a ball of yarn that had come unravelled, and he began rolling it back towards them. He pulled it through Tom and past him, into himself, and swallowed it down.
Tom tried to fight back, but he hadn’t spent his whole life earning his energy, working with it, learning to control it, honing it, fighting it and hating it. Harlan had never done anything like this, but he knew mediumship like he knew how to breathe—more than that, deeper. Breathing was automatic, something everyone did without thinking about it. This was his true, deepest self, something that was his and his alone. Tom had more raw power, but Harlan knew how to shape what he had, and now he was going to fucking use it against Tom, turning his own strength against him until he broke.
Stop! Tom’s voice was in his head. He ignored it.
Now that he’d freed one strand, Harlan traced his way back along the web, dancing from line to line as he sought out the next-newest. He found it and began digging at its tip, ripping it loose and drinking it down.
Tom was wary now, and he tried to stop Harlan when he raced out along the next stream of energy.
They struggled, but Harlan knew what he was doing—not really, but enough. He forced his way past Tom and out along the thread. This one was older, more deeply rooted, but when it did snap free, it released more power than the others, power that Harlan neatly stole before Tom could absorb it, then he was on to the next. Each strand was harder to free, but also gave him more strength to attack the next.
Harlan was only distantly aware of his body, just enough to know his heart was pounding and he was fighting for each breath. He knew he was on his knees, so he didn’t have to worry about falling, at least not very far.
He was gaining ground, slowly, but he wasn’t sure he could reach the tipping point before his body gave out. Stolen or not, this was Tom’s power, and it was already in place. Harlan was at a disadvantage. He was trying to undo what Tom had done, but until he was finished, Tom could draw on what remained to fight him.
Harlan grasped yet another tendril of power, tore it free and gathered it up into himself. This time, its energy didn’t feel like Tom, or at least not him alone. Something from Leo, her essence, was mixed in with it.
Harlan hoped it was a sign that Tom was getting weaker, but he couldn’t slow down and think about it. He had to keep moving—keep moving or be swept away and lost forever. Tom’s web was shrinking as Harlan yanked its loosely staked outer edges back towards them, but the lines were thicker closer to the centre—more deeply entrenched, more resistant. They didn’t want Harlan to take them. They wanted to return to Tom. If Harlan had thought removing them had been difficult before, now it was agony. He had to wrest every scrap of power he could from Tom so he could divert it to himself. It roiled within him uneasily, like he’d eaten rotten meat. It wanted back up, back out, and he kept having to choke it down. He was slowly pulling ahead, but now Tom was making up lost ground. More and more of the energy Harlan was unweaving was flowing back into Tom and staying there.
Far away, Harlan felt his body fall, but Charles was there to catch him. He felt a wave of solidity pour through him at Charles’ touch. It had nothing to do with mediumship. There were no ghosts around to control, even if Tom’s blood-circle hadn’t shut down Charles’ power. It had everything to do with trust and affection and the sheer belief that Harlan would succeed and Tom would fail—belief like Harlan had never known from anyone, especially himself. He could feel the strength of that conviction like a warm hand caressing his face, or something deeper—his soul?
He knew he could do it, because he had to, because Charles knew he could. He couldn’t disappoint Charles, couldn’t let him know that he wasn’t as strong or as brave or as good as Charles thought he was. He had to keep trying to be the man Charles thought he was.
Another vine of power sprang loose, almost on its own, and Harlan managed to snatch all its released energy before Tom had even realized it had broken.
Far in the distance, Charles shouted, “Yes!”
Tom shot out another roil of energy that made Harlan’s limp body twitch and jerk in Charles’ arms, forcing him back from the next thread, forcing him to regroup and gather his strength instead of pushing ahead. He surveyed the remaining web, briefly overwhelmed by its vastness, how tangled and twisted and knotted and evil it was. It felt like he had hardly removed any of it, and he realized that he needed to stop picking at its edges and go for the heart.
Gathering all the strength he had, all the strength he’d taken back from Tom, all the strength Charles poured into him, he turned it against Tom himself, pouring it all down the connection between them and slamming it open. He felt the bag containing his power burst, and he cried out in silent joy as he was finally set free.
Too late, he realized that Tom had changed tactics. He was still putting up a token struggle, but he was letting Harlan reel in the web while he worked on his actual goal—strengthening his connections to the imprisoned mediums—allowing Harlan to take the city while he consolidated his real power.
Harlan reluctantly released the spoke of energy he’d been chiseling at. The web could wait. He had to focus on Tom.
He could feel Tom draining the mediums faster now, knew they’d die if Tom continued taking so much from them so quickly, knew he had to stop him. But how?
Before he could make up his mind, Tom decided for him. He reached out along what remained of his network of power blanketing the city and reeled in the darkest spirit he could find.
Kill. Tom’s thought-command was strong enough to burn, strong enough that Harlan recoiled.
Tom turned the spirit on Charles.
It brushed Charles’ face with the tip of one spectral finger, leaving behind a dark ectoplasmic smear. Charles, who had never seen a ghost before he met Harlan… Charles, who would have been safe—should be safe—if not for Harlan…
He felt Charles twist and writhe as he held Harlan’s body, heard Charles cry out.
He suddenly knew, with unshakable certainty, that Charles had meant what he’d said. He wanted to be a part of Harlan’s life, even the dark parts. He knew Charles would rather die here and now than go on without having ever met him. That ghost shit followed Harlan everywhere, but Charles was willing to risk that to be with him.
The ghost pressed a hand into Charles’ chest, just above his heart. Charles screamed, and Harlan screamed with him.
Harlan’s power burned up its connection to Tom, out and past him and into the other mediums. He could feel that they’d given up after the days or weeks they’d been imprisoned, allowed Tom to drain their power so that they might live to see the next day, and he couldn’t blame them. It hurt so much less to surrender, but he didn’t have that option—not while Charles was hurting, not while Charles might die.
He lashed them with his power over and over, even the little girl, trying to rally them to join him and turn against Tom, even though he could feel his own life-force flickering and fading along with theirs. Weak. They were all too weak, and Tom was so strong and getting stronger with each heartbeat. Charles deserved someone strong, someone who could save him, but all he had was Harlan.
Harlan felt when the ghost’s icy fingertips brushed Charles’ heart, as if it was his own. He felt Charles’ light begin to dim.
He couldn’t let that happen. It didn’t matter what happened to him, didn’t matter if he died, as long as he saved Charles. The world was a better, warmer place with Charles in it.
He unleashed all his power at once, burning up everything he’d ever held back, leaving nothing in reserve, and he felt the other mediums break free and join him. He opened himself completely, turning their joint strength into a blunt weapon to smash against Tom all at once. Tom was stronger, but Harlan’s energy had been building up his whole life. Tom couldn’t bring his full might to bear against Harlan, to shield himself, before Harlan and the others struck with everything they had.
He felt something in Tom’s body break, something irreparable, and Tom’s power instantly faded away to nothing. No, not nothing. That power had to go somewhere. Energy was not created or destroyed. It burned its way into Harlan, filling him to the brim and spilling over and out of him, feeding back into the lines of power Tom had etched on the city and changing them so they were Harlan’s.
He felt the ghost touching Charles disintegrate, not moving on to the next world but simply annihilated from this one.
He felt warmth return to Charles’ still form.
There, poised in that crystalline moment, Harlan could see it all—how easy it would be to spin his own web of power and set it over the city. His would be neater, of course, less rushed, less…sloppy. He knew how to use his power in a way Tom never could have. He could tie every ghost in Toronto to him, using them as his eyes and ears and sources of power, a vast network all feeding back to him. It would be so easy, easier than trying to fight it. He could use it to protect the city, to keep anything like this from happening again and he knew it—knew it in his blood and his bones and his soul. All of this could be his, but he’d do it right. To help people, not to hurt them. To bind, not rip apart.
His awareness spread, larger than his body, larger than the Centre, down through the streets and sewers and walls of Toronto. He felt every ghost he passed and every living thing—for, what were the living but vessels for the spirit? He couldn’t control the living, not directly, but he knew he could use their fear, their helplessness, to direct them.
He felt himself brush something familiar. It slowed him down, drawing him into a single focused point again.
What?
A face. A familiar form. Libby.
Harlan laughed with delight, and the city laughed with him. He’d thought he’d never see her again.
Her mouth opened and she waved her arms frantically, but he couldn’t quite hear her. Not over the pulse and roar of listening to—of being—everywhere, everyone…
He forced himself down even smaller so he could focus on her and—
No, don’t do it what are you doing. Stop!
He blinked, in the way a city blinked. A brief hesitation before life moved on, messy and imperfect and beautiful.
Stop? Why should I stop? I’m trying to help.
Libby rushed towards him, but he wasn’t afraid of her. What did he have to be afraid of now?
She placed her cool hands on him and closed her eyes.
A vision swept over him. The cool blue knots and swirls of power he’d woven across the city flashed and disappeared, replaced by ragged, poorly spun skeins of knotted purple, red and black.
He recoiled from her and she smiled her sad, faded smile. He sent her a wordless wave of gratitude, but she was gone before he knew if she’d received it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
First, there was pain—white-hot, red-hot, black pain. He felt like he was being rebuilt from his core, agony spiraling out from his guts, through his marrow, until it finally reached his skin and there it was worst of all, but it could at least move out of him, past him, through him. It felt like every nerve ending was being scorched at once, but he knew from the pain that he’d survive.
He screamed. Maybe with his mouth and lips and lungs, maybe with something more. Something…else. All he knew was that he was screaming.
Some force—or maybe it was still him, just another part of him—slammed him back into his body, like hitting warm water after falling from space. He gasped and choked and tried to remember how to breathe, tried to remember how to be, to exist only as himself and nothing more and nothing less. He was aware of sound and movement on either side of him—aware only physically—but that wasn’t important…not yet. First he had to remember how to be human, in a human body. Real. Alive.
Vomiting.
The smell, the taste, was so visceral, so animal. Revolting. This, this is a part of me? Happening inside me all the time? Disgusting.
The scent, the act, was so primitive, so barbaric, that it taught him how to move again. He scrambled backwards on all fours until there was no risk of the vile liquid spreading far enough to reach his hands.
His hands…
They hurt. All of him hurt, but his hands were small enough to focus on, and right in front of him, on either side of where his head was hanging down until it almost touched the floor.
He turned one hand over. His palm was bloody and raw. His nails were ragged and broken and there was blood underneath them, like he’d torn at the concrete floor while he was…gone, while he’d been everywhere.
There was blood on the floor. It wasn’t his blood. It was dry and brown with age.
A wave of profound revulsion rolled through him at the sight, and that taught him how to stand, struggling to his feet like a newborn animal on shaky legs.
Everything else caught up to him then, a wave of sound that nearly knocked him over again.
“No, don’t stand up!” Charles.
“Harlan!” Morgan called.
“Jesus fucking— Someone catch him!” Hamilton’s voice, but too low.
Harlan moved just his eyeballs—even that hurts—and saw that Hamilton was sprawled on his side, trying desperately to get up, even though Harlan could tell he was still too weak to do so. Enough of Harlan was still connected to the web around them, the web he’d torn away from so he could cram himself back into his singular, weak body, that he could see just how much strength was inside Hamilton.
He turned to Charles and saw just as much strength, but a very different kind.
Morgan glowed like a beacon, so bright that he had to look away.
He blinked, realizing his eyes had been open too long. When he opened them again, the awareness was gone. Hamilton was just Hamilton, Charles was just Charles, he could look at Morgan and they were themself again, and he was just…him.
“Gotcha.”
He felt Charles’ strong arms around him, keeping him steady, keeping him from falling—like he always did.
He wanted to insist that he was fine, that he could stand on his own, but he couldn’t even summon the energy to do that.
He surrendered himself to Charles, letting Charles slowly lower him back down until he was sitting against a wall.
He leaned forward in sudden desperation, fighting Charles’ grip on his shoulders. “Tom!”
A strange expression crossed Charles’ face, one Harlan couldn’t read. He glanced over at someone—Hamilton, Harlan suspected—before answering. “You don’t have to worry about him.”
“What are you talking about? We—”
“He’s dead,” Charles said, very softly.
“What?”
Charles gritted his teeth, opening his mouth to speak but changing his mind and closing it again several times. “Never mind that now. You’re safe. We’re safe. Just…rest.”
Harlan tried again. “We have to—”
“He’s dead. You killed him.” Hamilton’s voice was also soft, but without Charles’ gentleness.
“I…” Harlan managed to shake his head, just barely.
“We agreed that we weren’t going to tell him that yet.” Now there was steel in Charles’ voice too. He sat beside Harlan, one arm draped protectively across his shoulders, drawing him close.
Hamilton shrugged. “I’m not gonna lie to him.”
“It’s not— Never mind. Harlan. What matters now is that everyone is safe.”
Harlan nodded, slowly. Safe. It was good to be safe. He felt a little giddy now that he was fully inside himself again.
