Anton Strout: Dead To Me

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, freeall 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.