Лорел Гамильтон - A Caress Of Twilight

"You could have helped if you'd let your shields down just a little," Rhys said.

"Fine, I'll try to be braver next time. Now what did you see?"

Frost sighed loudly enough for me to hear him. "I could feel the remnants of a powerful spell, very powerful. It clung in stinging echoes to the place."

"Could you sense it as soon as we got inside?"

"No, I did not wish to touch the dead, so I searched with other senses besides touch and vision. I, as you say, dropped my shields. It was then that I sensed the spell."

"Do you know what spell it was?" I asked. I'd turned in my seat enough to see him shake his head.

"I do." Rhys's voice turned me back around to him.

"What did you say?"

"Anyone who concentrated could have sensed the remains of magic. Merry could have seen it, if she'd wanted to."

"It would have told her nothing, as it told me nothing," Frost said, "but it would have made it harder for her to endure what she saw."

"I'm not arguing that," Rhys said. "What I mean is that I got down and looked at the bodies. Nine of them dropped where they stood, but the rest had time to fight, to be afraid, to try to run. But they didn't run like they'd run if, say, wild animals had attacked them. They didn't go for the doors, or break a window, not as soon as they saw what was happening. It's as if they couldn't see anything."

"You speak in riddles," Frost said.

"Yeah, plain English, Rhys, please."

"What if they didn't run because they didn't realize that anything was in the room?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Most humans can't see spirits of any kind."

"Yeah, but if you're implying that spirits, noncorporeal beings killed everybody at the club, then I can't agree. Noncorporeal beings, riders, whatever, they don't have the… physical oomph to take out that many people like that. They might be able to do one person who was very susceptible to their influence, but even that's debatable."

"Not noncorporeal beings, Merry, but a different kind of spirit."

I blinked at him. "You mean, what, ghosts?"

He nodded.

"Ghosts don't do things like this, Rhys. They might be able to scare someone into a heart attack, if the person had a weak heart, but that's it. Real ghosts don't harm people. If you get true physical damage, then you're dealing with something other than ghosts."

"It depends on what kind of ghosts you're talking about, Merry."

"What do you mean by that? There is only one kind of ghost."

He glanced at me then, having to turn his head almost completely around because of the eye patch. He often glanced at me when he drove, but it was a movement without meaning because his right eye was gone; he couldn't see me. Now, he made the effort to look at me with his left eye. "You know so much."

I'd always assumed Rhys was one of the younger sidhe, because he never made me feel like I was in the wrong century. He was one of the few who had a house outside the faerie mound, electricity, a license. Now he looked at me as if I were a child and would never understand.

"Stop that," I said.

He turned back to the road. "Stop what?"

"I hate it when any of you give me that look, the look that says I'm so young and I couldn't possibly understand what you've experienced. Well, fine, I'll never be a thousand years old, but I'm over thirty, and by human standards I'm not a child. Please don't treat me like one."

"Then stop acting like one," he said, and his voice was full of reproach, again like a disappointed teacher. I got enough of that from Doyle. I didn't need it from Rhys.

"How did I act like a child? Because I wouldn't drop shields and see all that horror?"

"No, because you say there is only one type of ghost, like it's the only truth. Trust me, Merry, there are more than human shades running around."

"Like what?" I asked.

He took a deep breath, flexing his hands on the steering wheel. "What happens to an immortal being when it dies?"

"They're reincarnated like everybody else."

He smiled. "No, Merry, if it can be killed, then by definition it's not immortal. The sidhe say they're immortal, but they aren't. There are things that can kill us."

"Not without magical help there isn't," I said.

"It doesn't matter how it's done, Merry. What matters is that it can be done. Which brings us back to the question, what happens to the immortals when they die?"

"They can't die, they're immortal," I said.

"Exactly," he said.

I frowned at him. "Okay, I give up, what did that mean?"

"If something can't die, but it does, what happens to it?"

"You mean the elder ones," Frost said.

"Yes," Rhys said.

"But they are not ghosts," Frost said. "They are what remains of the first gods."

"Come on, guys," Rhys said. "Think with me. A human ghost is what remains of a human after death, before it goes to the afterlife. Or in some cases, a piece gets left behind because it's too hard to let go. But it is the spiritual remains of a human being, right?"

We both agreed.

"So aren't the remnants of the first gods just ghosts of the gods themselves?"

"No," Frost said, "because if someone could discover their name again and give them followers, they could, theoretically, rise to 'life' again. Human ghosts do not have such an option."

"Does the fact that the humans don't have the option make the elder ones less a ghost?" Rhys asked.

I was beginning to get a headache. "Okay, fine, say that there are ghosts of elder gods running around. What has that got to do with anything?"

"I said I knew the spell. I don't, not exactly. But I have seen the shades of the elder let loose on fey. It was as if the very air turned deadly. Their lives were just sucked out of them."

"Fey are immortal," I said.

"Anything that can be killed, even if it reincarnates, is mortal, Merry. Length of life doesn't change that."

"So you're saying that these ghosts were let loose in that club?"

"Fey are harder to kill than humans. If the place had been full of fey, some might have survived, or been able to protect themselves, but, yes, I am saying that that's what did it."

"So the ghosts of dead gods killed over a hundred people in a nightclub in California?"

"Yes," Rhys said.

"Could it have been the Nameless?"

He seemed to think about that, then shook his head. "No, if it had been the Nameless, the building wouldn't be standing."

"That powerful?"

"That destructive."

"When did you see this happen the first time?"

"Before Frost was born."

"So a few thousand years ago."

"Yes."

"Who called the ghosts up then? Who did the spell?"

"A sidhe who has been dead longer than England has been ruled by the Normans and their descendents."

I did quick history math in my head. "So before 1066."

"Yes."

"Is there anyone alive today who could do the spell?"

"Probably, but it's forbidden to do it. If you're caught, it's an automatic execution, no trial, no commuting the sentence, you just get dead."

"Who would risk such a thing to harm a crowd of humans on the edge of the Western Sea?" Frost asked.

"No one," Rhys said.

"How sure are you that these elder ghosts did this?" I asked.

"There's always the possibility that some human magician has come up with a new spell that resembles the effects, but I'd bet a great deal that it was the elder ghosts."

"Do the ghosts take the lives for their master?" Frost asked.

"No, they keep the lives, and they feed on them. Theoretically, if they were allowed to feed each night unchecked, they could become. . alive again, for lack of a better word. They need the aid of a mortal to do it, but some of the elder ones can be brought back to full strength if they get enough lives. Sometimes one of them will convince a cult somewhere that they're the devil and get them to sacrifice themselves, and that could work, but it would take enormous amounts of lives to do it. Taking the lives from the mouths of the victims is quicker, no wasted energy, like trying to drink blood from an offering bowl."