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A nest of spectyrs was particularly dangerous, a fact that Sorcha became aware of as the contents of the attic began flying at her head. Ducking and diving was making it rather hard to concentrate. What appeared to be a lighthouse lens tipped over, knocking her off her feet and exploding glass all across the floor.

With one hand Sorcha called on Shayst, the Sixth Rune of Dominion, and the attic flared green. Shayst sucked away the spectyrs’ power, at least those she was lucky enough to hit with the rune. That power became hers, enough that she could lever the lens mechanism off her and crawl out.

Out of the corner of one eye she saw Merrick step toward her, his hands reaching for his Strop, the talisman of the Sensitives.

Sorcha could taste his fear. “Don’t you dare go Active!”

Though every Deacon had both talents in them, a Sensitive using their Active power was ridiculously dangerous and ultimately pointless. He made a face at her. “I think I have something better.” He called on Masa, the Third Rune of Sight, and their shared Center blurred, deepened, and now Sorcha saw double. As the contents of the attic tumbled, as the spectyrs wheeled, hissed, and threw them at her—she was able to see everything before it happened.

The Active ducked and rolled as a tall machine with long lines of cogs and wheels toppled from the wall. It was hard to imagine what the widow Vashill was thinking outside. It couldn’t be good.

A twisting cluster of spectyrs dived at her, their skulls screaming for vengeance, ready to burrow into her body and take it for their own. Sorcha dropped onto her back, raised her Gauntlets; one lit with the blue fire of Aydien, holding off the larger mass of spectyrs, while she concentrated Shayst on the immediate attackers.

A line of sweat broke out on her lip as she drained them of their strength, and in the back of her mind was the joyous hum of delight.

Take it. Take it all. Take everything. The insidious, tempting call yammered in her head, because it felt so very, very good.

Sorcha was so busy draining the spectyrs swarming on the ceiling, she almost missed the stragglers that were darting and blundering through the crates in the attic.

Sorcha! Merrick, still standing motionless in the corner, howled, but she had only two hands and two Gauntlets. Though she dropped Shayst and reached for Chityre, she wasn’t quite fast enough. The spectyr came barreling out of the shadows, its jaws wide and snapping.

She heard Merrick yell—this time physically, but she saw nothing else, because they were on her then. The nest turned everything black, and her throat became abruptly unable to utter anything at all. Sorcha scrabbled at her neck, choking. Despite everything she had learned, primitive physical reactions were impossible to deny.

As she rolled across the floor, unable to use her Gauntlets to get more air into her lungs or summon a rune, the screaming of the damned wailed in her ears. It was the sound of the unliving calling her to them, and she was aching to go.

Then dimly, on the edge of consciousness, she felt Merrick. He slid across the floor to her, throwing himself into the middle of the snarling, vengeful geists. A Sensitive was supposed to stay out of the melee, out of harm’s way. But her partner broke through the swarm and put his hands on her.

The Bond flared, suddenly stronger and more important than anything hidden in shadow. Merrick was in her head, she was in his, in ways that no Deacon Bond should allow.

Yet Sorcha didn’t care about that,ecause up against their surge of power the nest backed away. She could breathe. Gasping, with Merrick wrapped around her, she released the rune Pyet.

The attic was full of flame, blessed cleansing fire that flickered and danced in the polished brass of the Tinker’s craft. The spectyrs wailed loud enough to rupture normal human eardrums, shriveling as the geist power that held them captive was burned away.

Together, she and Merrick got all of them—all bar one.

“Wait!” Her partner called, but she was already up and chasing the fleeing geist. This one was not going to hang about and be sent back to the black embrace of the Otherside. It flashed away from her, phasing out and passing through the crates, before heading for the far brick wall.

“Sorcha!” Her partner’s voice chased after her, but she refused to acknowledge him as she dashed after the spectyr. Damn it, after weeks of inactivity, she wasn’t about to let any of the undead get away from her.

Sorcha raised her right hand, spread her Gauntleted fingers, and called Voishem. The air bent around her, twisting, breaking into the space between things. Brick, stone or wood could not stop her now.

On the heels of the geist, Sorcha slipped through the wall and into the adjoining attic. The Bond, though, held tight, and she still shared Merrick’s sight. In fact, once through the wall, the influence of those cursed weirstones was mercifully dampened.

This second attic was completely empty except for two crates by the far window. It was full of enough dust that Sorcha was surrounded by dancing motes, and for an instant she was confused by the flicker of light. The spectyr she half expected to have moved on was in fact huddled at the far end of the new room, crouching in shadow. All of her training as a Deacon told her this was very strange behavior for this kind of geist.

Though her heart was pounding, this was the one remaining problem from the whole vicious nest. She wasn’t afraid of it. Still, she kept her Gauntlets raised as she approached the cloaked form. Stopping two feet from the spectyr, Sorcha waited. It had been a long time since she had tried to communicate with a geist—usually the mistake of a newly minted Deacon—but she opened her mouth and said the first thing that came to mind. “Why are you here?”

Slowly the spectyr pivoted toward her, like a circus ringmaster revealing the final act in his show. Despite all her power, all her training, Sorcha swallowed hard.

In the dim light of the attic the transparent skull in a gray shroud flickered, a reminder of every humans’ fate. Suddenly Sorcha was no longer thinking of it as a simple, single geist. It was a part of the great void that waited for them alclass="underline" the Otherside. She had danced there for a while the previous season—but her memory of that time had faded. Now, as the geist faced her, flashes of it returned. Sorcha wanted desperately to smoke a cigar in that moment—remind herself that she was still among the living.

She cocked her head, Gauntlets half raised, waiting to ignite a rune and send the apparition tumbling back to the Otherside. The spectyr mimicked the gesture, and then its bone white jaw creaked open.

“Sorcha!” The voice was like the wheezing cry of a dying man, stretched out and desperate in the silent warehouse attic. The Deacon could not have been more surprised than if the geist had started a song and dance routine.

“Sorcha?” Merrick’s voice came from below and was an eerie echo. She heard her partner’s boots on the stairs and was reassured that soon he would be here.

“Sorcha,” the geist repeated, raising a shimmering hand and reaching out to her. “You must save him, Sorcha.”

In many of the religions it was said three repetitions of a name were required for a binding. As a Deacon she didn’t believe in such foolish nonsense—but, oddly, a chill still ran up her spine. She smothered the rune that she had been meaning to cast—because she guessed who the apparition meant—and now she had to know.

Sorcha remained stock-still as the spectyr’s hand touched her face. She let it—something that went against every ounce of her training. Beyond reality and time, the Otherside held knowledge that no human could ever possess, so the greatest Deacons of the Order had often taken chances to snatch what they could from the void. This was her moment.