Memoriam

A rip appeared in the fabric of space, like a scalpel cutting across virgin skin, through which the harsh screaming of wind poured forth, followed by tendrils of oily black smoke, which clung to the ground of the cemetery as it trickled in all directions. A moment later, Kelly Brooke stepped through, sealing the nihil behind her with a gesture of her hand, and the afternoon tranquility was restored. More or less.

England was England , even in Sheol. There was no sun, the light blotted out by a heavy ceiling of bruise-coloured clouds, the same overcast sky which dominated every part of the Underworld. But here it didn't really seem any different from the Manchester she remembered. In Texas , where everyday was unbearably bright and blue, the effect was far more noticeable. Here, it almost seemed to welcome her home.

The graveyard was definitely a Haunt, she could sense that much, which meant there would be other shades wandering through the shadows of gravestones and mausoleums. Kelly considered wrapping herself in darkness before going in very much further, but decided that forthrightness was the best way to approach the English ghosts residing here. From what she remembered of her twisted, unreal teenage years, the cemeteries here were something of a neutral ground. Everyone wants to visit their grave sooner or later, after all, and in times of need, the protection of the Haunt was open to everyone.

Kelly just hoped they were the friendly sort.

At least she'd finally managed to shift her corpus away from the red and black clothing she'd awakened with, changing instead into her favorite black top and dark blue skirt, which Steph had committed across the Shroud not too long ago. It felt good to be wearing clothing that seemed real, even if they were little more than relics of the garments she once owned. They felt more solid than the ectoplasmic clothing she had been wearing before, which hadn't even belonged to her. Those belonged, as Nehru pointed out, to her enemies.

The Brooke family mausoleum was toward the rear of the cemetery, a vine-covered but still intact remnant of centuries past. Every member of the family - at least, every member who could make it and who was in good standing, which was broad enough that even she fit in - had been interred there over the years. Stephen promised he had warded the site as well after her funeral, to make sure that no one could easily break in and defile her crypt. Magi and demons could make good use of her corpse, and Kelly certainly appreciated his aid.

Pausing on a small hill, where a few clumps of grass still flourished, Kelly sensed the approach of another ghost. Actually, it was three of them. One was a young man in a blousy black shirt and jeans, who looked chagrinned that he hadn't escaped the 80's alive. He carried a blue and white Stratocaster guitar slung over his back, like a sword. The second was a tall black man dressed in elegant clothes in grey and violet, who seemed like a more recent addition. He kept his hands in his pockets. Both were led by a willowy red-haired woman using a walking stick, dressed in a torn and flowing white dress of medieval design. Where her skin was bare or the dress torn, Kelly made out an endless, crawling script of sigils adorning her body.

An Oracle.

To Kelly's senses, she was clearly the eldest of the three and the most powerful. The lady in white smiled softly upon seeing her, measuring her strength in a lingering gaze and noting the inky blackness of her eyes. The three ghosts slowed to a stop at the base of the hill, with the two men being mindful to stay slightly behind and to the sides of the woman, like guards.

"Good afternoon, young lady," the woman said gently, "What brings you to our Haunt?"

Kelly nodded slightly in deference, watching the three of them closely. There was at least one more spirit lurking on the periphery of the meeting, no doubt watching her closely. "My name is Kelly Brooke," she replied, "I'm buried in this cemetery and I should very much like to see my tomb."

"The Brooke family mausoleum," the white lady smiled, "Yes, you have the aura of magick about you, and you wear the shadow of the Keen Eyed one like a suit of armor, just like the young sorcerer who attended your burial. The crypt is intact, if you have fear for it. None of us have trespassed, nor have any others within our knowledge. Your warlock's protections hold strong against spirit and mortal alike."

"He is a friend of mine," Kelly agreed.

"A very kind young man," the white lady remarked, "And one with the gift of sight as well as sorcery. He introduced himself to us and obtained my leave to place his spells upon the Brooke crypt. That kind of courtesy is rarely found amongst the dead, let alone the living." She smirked. "And from America of all places. Britain has fallen far from grace if the New World has surpassed us in manners."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Kelly replied, "He is simply...special."

The woman eyed her thoughtfully for a moment, nodding. "He knows the old ways as well. The proper tributes and sacrifices. I have not seen a mortal show such respect to the dead in many years. More years than I can certainly count or remember now. Still, we will not intrude further upon your pilgrimage, young lady, so long as you observe the peace and sanctity of this holy ground. You have no doubt traveled a great distance through the Maelstrom to be here, and I will not waste any more of your time on idle talk."

"You're very kind," Kelly smiled faintly, giving a small curtsy.

"Merely polite. I lived in a more respectable age."

Touching the shoulders of her companions, the white lady turned and began walking away. The two men eyed Kelly suspiciously but followed along behind her. They disappeared behind a series of older, crumbling crypts, though the fourth presence was still watching her. Kelly scanned her surroundings, seeking out the sentry, but there was no sign of him. Probably enshrouded or otherwise concealed from view.

Clasping her hands behind her back, Kelly walked on toward the crypt. She had been here quite a few times in her youth, playing amidst the graves and spirits, though she didn't remember ever seeing the white lady or her guards. Given the lady's age, they were most likely new residents, having assumed stewardship of the Haunt from the previous residents. Possibly refugees. Kelly wondered where the ghosts Donovan, Seamus and Patricia had gone, and whether they even still survived given the Great Maelstrom and the Stygian Legion's resurgence.

It felt strange to be here again, walking the same cobblestone paths she had walked as a young girl. And now to be one of the sad shades haunting the silent rows of tombs. Kelly's heart sank as she thought back to her childhood. For all the darkness and confusion of those years, she had at least been young and alive. Not yet jaded and corrupted by drugs and alcohol. Not yet hating her mother. A bright, vibrant girl, with a long future of possibilities before her.

And now she was this.

Somehow, even with the sense of doom that always seemed to hang over her, Kelly had thought she might one day reconcile with her mother and her sisters. She'd even dared to hope, after moving in with Jesse, that her karmic debt was paid and the future would be brighter than anything she remembered. Instead, she was walking through the place where she was buried, seeking to pay her respects to her own former self. Her eyes, once a soft brown, were now jet black, and her skin was the translucent white of bone. She ran her fingers through the leaves on the small shrubs which lined the walkway, just as she used to do, but her fingers found only air.

Stopping with a pained grimace, Kelly lashed out and slapped the bush with the full force of her will, sending a ripple through the leaves, several of which went flying. For the briefest instant, she felt the wind on her skin and the leaves against her fingertips, but then the sensation was gone. The tantrum left her feeling hollow and even more despairing, but at least she wasn't completely separated from the sunlit world.

"I hate you," she whispered to her murderers, her voice cracking, "If I don't fucking accomplish anything else in this world, I will see you suffer as I've suffered because of you."

Sighing, Kelly continued down the path, trying to contain both her rage and her gnawing frustration. She didn't try to dismiss it, as she would have when she was alive. The emotions allowed her to focus so she wouldn't become insubstantial or lose track of time. She was coming to remember the old tricks of ghostly existence. Concentrate on your emotions, bottle them up inside of you, and stoke the fires as high as possible for as long as possible. Keep the intensity up, for it's the only thing that keeps you from fading away.

Looking up from her feet and swishing skirt, Kelly saw a small, dark creature watching her from farther down the path. It appeared to be a black cat of some sort, albeit one the size of an average dog, scrutinizing her with wide, pale eyes. Its enormous, brushy tail swished back and forth in the grass as she came closer, trying to get a better look at the creature. The cat wore a collar of jade around its neck, but it was otherwise unadorned. It was a plasmic entity, Kelly realized, and one under the control of a wraith no less.

"And who might you be?" Kelly asked the cat.

"And who might you be?" the animal replied, without moving a muscle.

She smirked. "Kelly Brooke."

"Kelly Brooke," the plasmic echoed, dipping its chin slightly as if grinning, "Born November 11, 1980 . Died December 2, 2003 . Aged twenty-three, just. 'Rejoice in her memory, and be radiant.'" It paused, its voice growing softer and slightly sad. "'In any man who dies there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. Not people die but worlds die in them...'"

She felt a lance of pain through her core. The plasmic's second quotation belonged to Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a Russian poet her father had enjoyed, and was the memoriam placed beside his name outside the family crypt. Kelly remembered reading it over and over again during the funeral, and later tracing the chiseled lettering with her fingertips. Her mother had wanted to use a Biblical quotation, of course, but Kelly and her sisters had insisted upon using Yevtushenko's poetry instead, finding it a far better tribute to the charming, insightful man they all remembered.

Pain turned to agony when she realized the first was her own epitaph.

"What the fuck do you want?" she demanded of the creature, raising a fist.

It stared at her innocuously. "What the fuck do you want?"

Kelly was about to strike him when the animal bolted back into the shrubs. In an instant he was yards away, dashing across the field of graves, and he vanished into the shadowed woods on the edge of the cemetery.

Kelly kept an eye out for the plasmic as she approached the Brooke mausoleum, a squarish temple of marble and vines, adorned in cherubim and prayerful women, almost cliché for all the significance it held for her. The outside walls held the epitaphs of the dead Brookes, reminding her of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. At present, only two walls were completely covered by inscriptions. Her memorial and that of her father would be located on the third wall on the far side. Around the boundary of the crypt, there was a faintly glowing line of flowing, arcane script and thanatological symbols. Steph's ward, its presence made visible here in the spirit world.

Over the years, Kelly had read most of the inscriptions on the tomb. They formed a mantra of her early childhood, the whispers of long-dead ancestors echoing down through the decades to reach a little girl in her violet summer dress. From what she remembered of their genealogy, the Brookes were known for being impious and a little eccentric, a trend which had continued through her father, Douglas, and herself. The mausoleum was an artful dodge into the history books, a surprisingly Christian monument to the lives of impudent men and women, which blurred the tracks of their indiscretions from any who sought to uncover them.

Of all the Brookes, only Kelly's mother and sisters didn't fit the family mould.

Approaching the crypt, she swiped her hand through the air to confirm that Steph's wards did not affect her, then crossed the threshold to inspect the tomb's condition. There was a sense of disconnect inside the ward, as if sounds from the outside world were muted. Even the ever present low rumbling of thunder that dominated the Underworld was strangely absent. On top of this, Kelly sensed a slight chill throughout her ectoplasmic corpus, along with a sense of comfort. She was very close to her burial place, the strongest nexus of her lifeweb aside from Stephen's shrine and her ruined house.

Her father's watch was here, too, buried with her. That alone lit up her ghostly senses.

Kelly scanned the inscriptions lining the closest wall. A phrase or two stood out among the rest, catching hooks in her memory. The rest were a scrawl of forgotten blessings and snatches of lovely old poetry. Robert Frost. John Donne. Shakespeare. More than a little Poe, which was understandable considering the Brookes' nature. These formed the foundation of Kelly's thought, resonating throughout her life, and now they wounded her to read them. Brushing her hands over the weathered lettering was like gripping a knife blade, leaving a bloody smear in her fingers' wake. She, too, was one of the lost.

Coming around the corner, Kelly turned to face her own inscription. It was separated from her father's by a single block, the epitaph of a half-remembered aunt who died last year. Her brow furrowed slightly. Even with the Atlantic Ocean between them, she couldn't believe her mother hadn't mentioned the death to her, let alone dragged her back to England for the funeral. The date was before she told her mother about Jesse, so that was no explanation. Kelly let her thoughts wind back over the past few months. The dark circles under her mother's eyes when she visited last year. Her brittle irritability, so different from Elizabeth Brooke's normal didactic scolding. Not that she'd noticed at the time. Kelly had stopped listening to her mother years ago. They'd completely lost track of each other.

Lifting her eyes to her father's epitaph, then looking back at her own, Kelly felt smothered by sadness. Mother had lost her husband and her daughter, and she'd been too wrapped up in herself to notice her grief. The remembered agony of her father's death swam through her, making her nauseous and angry all over again. She hadn't given her mother credit for having these feelings, Kelly realized, nor had she ever really taken into account her parents' love for one another. Elizabeth and Douglas Brooke were two wildly different people, certainly, but they had always been affectionate and committed to each other, even when Kelly's "problems" came between them.

Kelly knew the pain of losing her father and being snatched away from her lover, so she could imagine what kind of grief her mother kept bottled up inside, hidden from her errant, obstinate daughter.

Tired and angry with herself, Kelly walked around to the mausoleum's entrance and passed through the closed doors into the darkness beyond. With her sharpened senses, the interior of the crypt was dimly illuminated in marble grey. The main room was dominated by three large sarcophagi holding the remains of the early Brookes who first settled in this area, but she was seeking one of the lesser sepulchers in the side chambers. Drifting through the dusty gloom, Kelly reached out with her awareness, seeking the lure of her father's pocket watch.

Finding the fetter was simple enough, and soon she was standing in the east wing of the mausoleum - the only place to show recent activity - staring at the simple bronze plaque upon which her name and lifespan were inscribed. Kelly Brooke. November 11, 1980 to December 2, 2003 . The sum total of her existence encapsulated by plain numbers. Her corpse and the watch were within, past a few inches of marble, but Kelly hesitated in the face of her own death. She felt paralyzed by the absurd vanity of ghosts, wondering what condition her body was in. To what level of putrefaction had she reached? Was her p'o still sleeping within the body? More to the point, which was more real - she or the corpse?

This had never been a problem for her before, even when exhuming the corpse of Typhane a couple of years ago. Kelly could consider Typhane to be another woman in many ways, albeit one bound to her in spirit. And in any case, the sorceress' soul lived on inside of her. The mummy was but a hollow corpse, an inanimate object no different from a broken twig or a faded flower. In fact, Kelly had often felt like she was Typhane, pouring over the scrolls and relics the ancient sorceress left behind. The long nighttime hours spent going over Typhane's grave goods in her sanctum were little different from warm Egyptian nights a thousand years ago. The spirit and the work carried on.

But these were her remains, not Typhane's.

In retrospect, Kelly really would have preferred cremation.

Steeling herself, she dismissed these thoughts from her mind and took a few deep breaths for calm. Though thick with dust and earthy smells, which Kelly could taste only faintly, there was an antiseptic, clean feeling to the crypt which set her mind at ease. Pulling her skirt to one side, she kneeled and kowtowed on the cold, marble floor before her vault. Straightening up, Kelly lay her hands on her knees and studied her name for a moment. She read the name and the dates several times over before whispering prayers.

"My heart, my mother; my heart my mother! My heart whereby I came into being. May nothing stand to oppose me at my judgment, may there be no parting of thee from me in the presence of he that keeps the Balance. Thou art my ka, which dwells in my body, who knitted together and strengthened my limbs in life. May thou come forth into the place of happiness whither we go. May those who make the conditions of the lives of men not taint my name, and may no lies be spoken against me in the presence of God. Let the listener God be favorable unto us, and let there be joy of heart to us at the weighing of words. Let not that which is false be uttered against me before God. For how great we shall be when we rise in triumph!"

Taking a deep breath, Kelly thought of her mother and hesitated. Sighing softly, she closed her eyes and crossed herself. Her voice was a murmur. "God, our Father and Mother, your power brings us to birth, your providence guides our lives, and by your command we return to dust. Those who die still live in your presence. Our lives change but do not end. I pray in hope for my family, relatives and friends, and for all we dead known to you. May we rejoice in your kingdom, where all our tears are wiped away. Unite us together again in one family, forever and ever."

A slight frown creased her features and she climbed to her feet, dusting her skirt off in an unconscious and unnecessary gesture. Thoughts and wonderment ran through her mind as she faced her own name and, shaking off all fears, reached through the marble to touch her father's pocket watch. Unlike everything else here, it had solidity to her. The ornately inscribed metal felt cool and delicate under her fingertips. "Mother, forgive me," Kelly breathed, "I'm going to visit you, Erin and Tricia before I leave England . But first I want to fall asleep in dad's arms one more time, like I used to. I'll see you tomorrow. I promise."

Closing her eyes, Kelly slipped into the pocket watch, and into peaceful Slumber.

2

The Brooke family residence was a large two-story house in the London suburb of Woodfield, where artisans, businesspeople and influential families had intermingled since the 19^th century. The house itself lay at the end of a curving lane, concealed from the street and its neighbors by a row of trees and hedges on either side of the path. The house was an Edwardian relic, and the Brookes were one of the most recent additions to the neighborhood by virtue of Douglas Brooke's commercial success in engineering and architecture. As a child, Kelly had considered the place to be palatial. But after living in the States for years, the plot of land which the house occupied seemed miniscule compared to the ranches of Arizona or the oil-fed mansions of Texas . But then, London had always been a microcosm of the western world, the ghosts of dead eras standing shoulder to shoulder.

Walking up Queen's Avenue, Kelly kept a sharp eye out for other ghosts. She kept herself enshrouded from sight here. The sprawling Necropolis of London was just to the south, occupying the tightly packed city core, and she'd already seen numerous shades flitting about on their own personal business. She had much preferred Manchester over Woodfield in her youth. London was overrun with spirits, many of them unfriendly relics of past brutalities, whereas Manchester and Liverpool had a certain rough-hewn plainness largely uninviting to wraiths. In life, most people tried to get out of those boroughs. The same apparently held true in death as well. But Woodfield was a mark of prestige for her father's accomplishments, so Kelly couldn't really complain about the neighborhood.

Trekking up the driveway, Kelly felt the chilly reminder of her life in every glance at her surroundings. From this house, she had departed with a hasty farewell for a whirlwind tour of Europe and America , desperate to get away from her mother's cloying presence and the residue of a teenaged train wreck of a life. Coming back here as an adult, to tell her mom about Jesse Sylva and the success she enjoyed with BTG, had been a chore, as much as she still craved her mother's love and approval. To leave as she had, dejected and bitter at Elizabeth Brooke's acrimony, dragged Kelly's spirits down. Mother had considered her relationship with Jesse to be another reckless act of defiance, and a sinfully deviant one at that, no matter how much Kelly tried to explain her feelings for the young woman.

Elizabeth Brooke belonged in Texas , Kelly thought. Her Bible-thumping protestations would fit in perfectly there.

Sighing, Kelly slowed to a stop in front of the house and tried to shake off the remembered anger surging through her. Her mother had been depressed and embittered since the death of her husband, keeping her pain tightly controlled but for those rare occasions when she could unleash her frustrations on her daughter. Kelly turned and looked down the length of the drive, almost expecting to see her car still parked there from that last visit. She walked back in that direction a short distance, her shoes clicking against the red brick, mentally retracing her steps on that gloomy afternoon.

Kelly's sisters had turned out perfectly natural, her mother had vehemently argued, so why must she be such a disgrace? Having sex with other girls and calling it love! Pish! Wouldn't she ever outgrow her spiteful disobedience and settle down as well?

Kelly swallowed back on angry tears.

Didn't it matter to her mother that she'd finally been happy?

Erin had come out to talk to her, of course, while she was walking back to her car. Her older sister had always been the mediator of the family, maintaining something resembling normalcy within the household. It was a role for which their father, as prone as Kelly to taking a passionate stance on every issue, was poorly suited. Kelly smiled softly to remember her dad's explanation one evening, years earlier. "It's Pax Erinana," he'd joked, wiping away Kelly's tears, "Everything will be settled by in the morning. Your mother and sisters love you, just as I do, and none of us want any more shouting matches. We're down three plates of fine china as it is."

A tear trickled down Kelly's cheek as she looked up at the house. She laughed softly.

"Kel, you have too much of dad in you," Erin had explained that afternoon, after the revelations about Jesse Sylva, "Half of the time, she's not even arguing with you. She's talking to dad, asking him why he had to leave us, why he didn't take better care of himself all those years. We stayed with her for weeks after dad died. Mum was heartbroken. But you know her, she covered it up by being ferocious toward everyone. You're just...a convenient outlet."

"Do you think I'm a 'freak'?" Kelly asked, quoting her mother.

"Fuck no," Erin laughed, giving her little sister a hug, "Look - I just said, you're like dad. You're clever and you're different, and that's what we loved about both of you. Mum is just old-fashioned. And right now, she's still hurting. We all are." She shook her head, smiling softly. "Besides, compared to the stuff you used to be into, this is nothing. I hated the way you used to abuse yourself. But you look happy, Kel. That's new for you. Go live with Jesse. I never expected you to settle down and get married like us, and especially not to Robert."

"Especially since Rob's gay," Kelly remarked, starting to smile.

"Right." Her older sister laughed. "Like I said, mum's old-fashioned, but she loves you. We all do. Give her a little time and this will pass. All right?"

A little time. Something she didn't have.

Smiling sadly at the memory, Kelly turned and walked back toward the house again, hands clasped behind her back. Long black hair swished against her fingers as she ascended the steep slope and surveyed the exterior of the house. It was much as she remembered it, albeit in a somewhat poorer state of repair. The lawn was neatly tended to - as it should have been, since her mother hired workmen from the East End to maintain it - but the garden in back, which she always obsessively tended to, was being overrun by weeds. Kelly couldn't be sure of the actual condition of the place, her vision was marred by the taint of Oblivion, but she'd seen across the Shroud often enough as a girl to recognize the house had suffered since then.

Judging from the empty driveway, no one was home just now. Going inside the house via the rear wall, wincing at the disorienting sensations this produced, Kelly explored the interior at a thoughtful pace. At first she ignored the rest of the house, seeking the refuge of her father's study, which lay open and largely untouched since his death. The desk was neatly blank, seeming hollow without the ever present pile of blue prints and paperwork, and it looked as though someone - most likely Tricia - had been using it as a study area. The liquor cabinet was bone dry, probably her mother's doing, and the place had an overly polished, unlived in quality to it now. So unlike the imaginative disorder in which Douglas Brooke so often left it.

Kelly slowed to a stop in front of the leather sofa, gazing down at her feet. On the floor, beside an unfamiliar dark stain in the oriental rug, there lay the tattered first edition of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine which she had so often read despite its deteriorating condition. Of all the books in her father's study, it had always been her favorite, and one of his as well. It was translucent, the pattern of the rug peering through its reddish-brown binding. Pushing her skirt aside, Kelly knelt down and collected it. The book literally came to life in her hands, regaining color and substance under her loving touch. Glancing around at the bookshelves, she tried in vain to locate its physical counterpart, of which there was no sign.

Someone must have tossed it, she realized. Her mother.

Wounded, Kelly hugged the book to her breast, like a little girl with her favorite teddy bear. The moldering smell of the book hadn't changed a bit. It felt ancient and incredibly delicate in her arms, but it also reeked of history. And of affection. Knowing how she enjoyed it, her father had wanted to make a gift of it before Kelly left England , but she'd gently refused. It reminded them of each other, and to her mind, it belonged with all the other old, well-loved books she'd perused in his study. It was simple deduction to realize what happened to it. When she'd visited after the funeral, the book had been open on the table by the couch, with an untouched cup of tea beside it. Someone must have knocked them over, and both were consigned to the rubbish bin.

Cradling the book in her arms, Kelly glanced up as she heard the front door unlock.

It wasn't her mother, but Tricia, who entered with her keys jangling in her hand. Kelly's younger sister had grown into a slim beauty in the past few years, and resembled their mother most strongly. Her brown-black hair swung against her shoulders in a ponytail, and she was dressed in casual clothes. The young woman was both a reminder and a contrast of Kelly at this age, having just started university with the sulky fearlessness for which the Brooke daughters were known. Tricia glanced around, looking straight through Kelly in the study's open doorway, and bounced off toward the kitchen in back. Her brow furrowing, Kelly trailed after her with silent footsteps, shedding the black shroud of the Tempest which muffled her presence.

"Tricia," she murmured hopefully, when she caught up.

The young woman was rummaging in the refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of diet soda, but she glanced over her shoulder when Kelly spoke her name. There were dark circles under her eyes, the mark of a harried college student. Tricia's eyes were a soft brown, just as Kelly's once were, but they were blind to Sheol. Shrugging, the girl took a draught of her soda and left the kitchen, brushing past Kelly without batting an eyelash.

Kelly followed her sister into their father's study, where she flopped down behind the desk and booted up the computer. Trailing to a stop in the middle of the room, Kelly mournfully watched Tricia stare tiredly at the bookshelves and sip at her soda, waiting for Windows XP to start. She debated whether or not to make her presence known to the young woman, and whether it would do any good. The living - a phrase that burned across Kelly's thoughts like acid - too often reacted with fear to the presence of ghosts, even those with gentle ambitions. Tricia was much like their mother; the most religious of the three sisters, though with their mother's worst personality traits curbed by the influence of Erin and, when they were alive, Kelly and their father. The last thing the family needed was another Decalogue spouting miscreant.

Awkwardness stole over Kelly, watching her sister. Tricia was wholly unaware of her. She was merely a cold spot in the room the girl might never notice, an echo. Any thoughts of confessions or apologies seemed ridiculous at this point, the dead speaking to the deaf. Tricia's crucifix necklace glittered gold in the light from the computer screen, but her eyes were sad when they scanned the room. There was a weary air about her that was palpable on Kelly's side of the Shroud. Regret pouring off of her in waves.

Kelly tried to think of how long she'd been dead. Two months? Three? Time was so unglued in her shadow existence, it was hard to tell.

Setting The Time Machine on the desk, Kelly knelt down beside her little sister. She thought she had gotten accustomed to being ignored by the living. And by her own family when she was still alive. The self-deception became immediately evident now, cutting painfully through Kelly's heart. It felt nerve-wracking to be so close to someone, close enough that her breath should touch the girl's skin, that she could bump into her with a slight wobble, and to hover there without garnering any attention whatsoever. With strangers, it occasionally seemed like an advantage, if not something of a morbid game. With Tricia, it was merely torture.

This close, Kelly could examine her sister in exquisite, uncomfortable detail. The reflection of the screen in her brown eyes. The silken spill of her hair, the ends brushing against the back of the leather chair. The creamy, made-up smoothness of her skin. With Windows waiting, the girl started opening documents. An unfinished essay, Kelly noted, and an assembly of notes to be translated into the dialect of academics. Kelly smiled softly as Tricia set up her work space. The girl's hand worked the mouse so quickly, she couldn't keep track of it.

As she watched, the young woman opened up an e-mail and newsreader program, waiting for messages to download instead of going back to her essay. Frowning in disapproval at her own curiosity, Kelly scanned the screen to see what she was looking for. Tricia had a newsgroup open, and Kelly's brow furrowed as a message came up on screen.

From: Trillian (tbrooke@hotmail.com <mailto:(tbrooke@hotmail.com>)
Subject: Can't Forgive Yet
Newsgroups: soc.support.depression.family, alt.support.depression
Date: 2003-03-07 18:20:33 PST

Last December, my sister was killed in a car accident, in Texas of all places....

She caught only a glimpse of the message before Tricia clicked through a chain of responses to the post, various people offering their sympathies and their comments. Kelly caught references to their mother being on Zoloft, to her own "lesbian relationship", to their father's death a few years earlier, and "Kelly's fucking arrogance, waving money in our faces like that". An expression of pain etched itself on Tricia's features as she scanned each successive message, the weight of grief and anger settling upon her. Kelly could feel the emotions churning inside of her younger sister, and after a few minutes she reached out to clasp Tricia's hand and pull it away from the mouse, so they wouldn't have to read any more.

Of course, her hand caught nothing but air. Tricia never noticed.

Feeling sick, Kelly moved away from the desk and tried to compose herself. Ectoplasmic tears blurred her vision and trailed down her cheek, only to be reabsorbed into her corpus. Her sister's attention fell upon a particular message, which she broodingly read several times over. Kelly didn't move to read it as well, preferring not to know the full extent of the young woman's sadness and frustration. It was feeding into her own already, Tricia's pain bleeding over across the Shroud and into Kelly's mind. The inrush of emotion left her nauseous and unsure of herself, but she moved to stand by the desk just the same.

"I'm sorry, Tricia," she whispered, "I never meant it like that. I just wanted you, Erin and mum to know I was happy and doing well. It wasn't to shame any of you with my superiority or wealth or any stupid shit like that. You bloody well know money doesn't mean a thing to me." Kelly laughed hoarsely. "Especially now. And while you take after mother in a lot ways, I hoped you'd understand about Jesse. I made your lives difficult for so long, I thought talking about happier things would put your mind at ease..."

Tricia kept staring at the message, lightly tapping the mouse button.

Kelly felt her eyes dragged toward the screen.

From: Cloister (hamlet@eudoramail.com <mailto:(hamlet@eudoramail.com>)
Subject: RE: Can't Forgive Yet
Newsgroups: soc.support.depression.family
Date: 2003-03-09 11:38:12 EST

Trillian,

Your sister loved you. You might be angry at her, and your father, for being gone. Your sister might even have really been "a manipulative, guilt-tripping brat." But it sounds like she had a lot of personal problems, too, judging from your post. People with mental illness of any kind are notoriously hard to deal with, but that doesn't mean they're bad people, nor do they mean to cause problems. And if she made the effort to go to your dad's funeral and tell you about her girlfriend, she must have cared what you guys thought and how you felt.

You're going to be pissed off and sad and frustrated. That's all part of the grieving process. It's healthy and natural. You're never going to see your sister again. That's hard enough to wrap your brain around. But you, like everybody that loses a loved one, have to deal with all the feelings and issues that can never be resolved. She's gone, but you still remember her, both all the good things and the little irritating crap people (especially relatives!) do that gets under your skin. You can't talk make up with her now, you can just make amends and get on with your life. Because I'm sure you loved her, too...

Both sisters started as the doorbell rang.

Blinking in surprise, Tricia took a shaky breath and quickly closed the program, afraid that someone else might read the messages. Kelly fell backwards as she brushed past her, hurrying to answer the front door. After a moment, during which she tried to steady herself, she followed after her sister.

Tricia stood in the foyer, holding the door open with one hand, and peering about into the front yard with an expression of mild confusion and annoyance. Frowning, Kelly circled around behind her sister to take a look for herself. The lawn was empty, and there were no other cars but Tricia's in the brick driveway. Still, there was a presence close by, though Kelly couldn't identify it, nor explain how she knew it was there. Aside from touch, the senses of ghosts are unusually keen, even across the Shroud. Kelly felt like a cat who picks up on something too faint for its hearing - at least the hearing of its human masters - to pinpoint, but which get its hackles up nonetheless.

Blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, Tricia muttered something under her breath and shut the door against the unusually warm, humid air outside. She turned and shuffled toward the study again, running a hand over her brow to wipe away a thin layer of sweat.

With an eye on her little sister, Kelly made a quick circuit around the house, searching for the source of her anxiety. In a way, it felt like an eyelash or a piece of grit in her eye; not enough to incapacitate her, just to irritate and distract her. Whatever it was, it was staying on the edge of her awareness, stalking them. Eyes narrowing, Kelly drew the small, snub-nosed relic revolver which Steph devised for her and held it close. It was almost ludicrous to think that the firearms training courses she'd had in college could possibly prove useful in the Underworld, but such were the ironies of her existence.

After a few minutes, Kelly completed the circuit, coming to stand between the study and the front door, where she could observe Tricia from a distance. The girl was working away at the computer again, and Kely found the rapid fire clacking of Tricia's fingernails on the keyboard very reassuring after reading her newsgroup posts. The presence seemed to have faded slightly, but the irritation remained, rubbing raw a corner of her mind. There was something overly familiar about all of this, a chilly sense of déjà vu, despite the stubborn refusal of her memory to explain why. Too many gaps in her past, most likely. The forgetfulness of a ghost combined with the garbled incoherence of her childhood recollections.

Kelly felt a change in air pressure, if there was such a thing in Sheol.

She turned to glance back at the living room, when a flash of silver arced across her vision, exploding pain across her left shoulder and arm. Screaming, she fell backwards toward the study, raising the pistol in her right hand, her left arm refusing to accommodate the two-handed stance she'd learned years earlier. There was a discoloration on the front door, very much like a long scratch from a knife, where something had passed through. A faint vein of blackness dribbled out of the mark before going inert.

Hissing through her teeth, Kelly glanced down at her left side. There was a black, burning gash through her shoulder, from which the translucent, ectoplasmic soul-stuff of which she was composed bled at a fearsome rate. Her left arm was useless, flopping against her side, and she concentrated through the pain, channeling her essence into the area to seal the wound. Strings of ectoplasm bridged the gap between her neck and arm socket, restoring some limited functionality to the arm, but the wound refused to seal completely.

A soulsteel blade, she realized.

There was no one visible inside the house. Either they were hidden, or they were circling around outside. A ghost or other spirit, most likely, possibly a spectre. Scanning her surroundings, Kelly fell back into the study, where Tricia continued to rap out line after line of her essay, oblivious to her sister's plight across the Shroud. She held close to the desk but avoided the walls, guarding Tricia as best she could. The presence remained, just as strong as before, lurking on the outside.

A sudden heaviness came over Kelly, which the part of her that believed she was still alive associated with shock and blood loss. The rational part of her mind argued against this absurdity, but her vision dimmed as strength ebbed out of her limbs. Growling, Kelly tightened her grip on the revolver, keeping it up to sweep the room for any sign of her assailant. She knew the tell-tale signs of a ghosts' Arcanoi, especially the modern magicks of the now-defunct Guilds. Struggling to shove off the false slumber, she began to tug on the Tempest to cloak herself from sight once again.

A shadow flashed in the corner of her eye, and Kelly whirled about, firing. There was a muffled bang and an inhuman scream of pain and rage, and the shadow spun away to the side. Jerking back, Kelly cried out as the soulsteel blade cut superficially along her right arm, firing a second shot which found only air.

Tricia continued typing, wholly oblivious.

Stumbling backwards, Kelly shouted a curse and spun about to find the room still empty. Her attacker was using his insubstantiality well to his advantage, allowing him to lash out from any direction and then vanish through the walls. Grimacing in pain, Kelly tried a different tack. This attacked seemed well versed in the modern Arcanoi, but she remembered older magicks. Keeping the pistol up, she took a moment to concentrate, channeling the icy blackness of the Maelstrom through her corpus. A cloud of inky blackness vomited forth from her eyes, mouth and ears, filling her father's study, which only she could see through - or so she hoped.

Everything was still for several minutes. Kelly strained to detect any indication of the attacker's location. All was silent.

"Little Kelly Brooke," a male voice hissed, "Little hungry ghost. You have no idea how surprised I am to see you. Now where could you have gotten a pistol with silver bullets?"

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Your father?"

Gritting her teeth, Kelly calmly replied, "You'll have to do better than that. For years, I searched the Underworld for my father. He's not here. He's already passed on to Heaven, or to his next life."

"Arrogant, know-it-all bitch," the voice spat, "You can't know that for sure. And where do you get off lecturing me? The Kelly Brooke I remember was a screaming, crying little brat who wet herself in the night. Seamus, Patricia and Donovan didn't teach you all that, for sure. They were pathetic little shades hiding behind their gravestones. If the storms hadn't cut them down, I surely would have."

Kelly didn't answer, searching for the source of the voice. It seemed to be coming from near the door, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly where.

"Nothing to say now, baby girl? L'enfant malheureux?"

Grunting, Kelly muttered, "Stick your head out so I can blow it off."

"Spent much time in America , have we?" the voice mocked, "It was the only place you could go to get away from me, wasn't it? I would've followed - I thought about it. But I see someone else beat me to the prize. You've still got my tread marks on your soul, little ghost, and those of another. Do you still get wet when you dream about me, you little cunt? Does it make you jealous that your sisters were sweeter than you? Why do you think your baby sister is so fucked up anyway? She likes it and she doesn't even remember."

Kelly's voice was cold. "You're just one of many nightmares I've had."

"The pleasure is all mine, I'm sure," it sneered, "Your other 'friend' had the right idea, though it shames me to admit my mistakes. You were a skinny thing, flesh and bones, a plaything to run around in. College girls are ripe, and no one's watching them day after day. One disappears for a few hours, nobody notices. I ride your sister raw. She's not as easy as you were, Kelly, but she makes a better rag doll."

"I thought you were gone," Kelly whispered, "Fucking bastard. You're the one who skinrode me all those years, aren't you? Seamus and Donavan swore you were gone."

The voice laughed. "And you believed them?"

"What are you now?" she demanded, "A spectre? A doppelganger? There can't be much of you left anymore."

There was a low chuckle. "I tell you most solemnly, you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. For I have seen you again, and your heart is full of joy, and that joy no one shall take from you. I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies, he will live. And whoever lives and believes in me, will never die. Glory be to me, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, a world soon to end. Amen."

"I will take that as a yes," Kelly muttered.

"I died before you were ever even born, baby Kelly," the voice grinned, "I was a junkie before it was hot to be a junkie. I did everything. Hell, I made you a junkie, too, before it was all done. What makes you think I'm ever going to give that up? You're still nothing more than a pussy to me, little hungry ghost. But I've got your sister and you're just a moldering corpse now, so I don't need you."

"You realize I'm not going to let you hurt her again," she growled.

"Like you have a say."

Eyes narrowing, Kelly focused in on a particular spot, just to the right of the open door, where the voice seemed to be emanating from. "I almost forgot about you," she murmured, listening intently, "I tried very hard to forget you and what you did to me. In dreams, while awake. What little memories you allowed me to have. You got me run through a mill of psych evaluations and antipsychotic medications, and you still kept using me until I hated being alive."

"I'm the one who saved you," the voice protested, sounding amused, "When you tried to have your sugar candy pills all at once. Why do you think you lived so long? Tell me, did suicide finally win in the end?"

"I was murdered, actually," Kelly replied, taking careful aim.

"So that's where the righteous indignation comes from. You're becoming less like your father and more like your mother every day. You drip Catholic guilt and arrogance."

The pistol wavered indecisively. "I'm not Catholic anymore."

"You could've fooled me, little girl," it crooned, "Now, come out of your darkness and join me in the living room, like you used to. I want to see that shadow hanging over you."

Frowning, Kelly fired two rounds from the pistol. The first missed, but the second produced a cry of rage. Moving through the darkness, she circled around to the door and caught a glimpse of a figure in the entranceway, clutching its left side and climbing to its feet.

"You bitch - !" it yelled in a furious, guttural voice.

Two more shots. The first punched a hole in its chest, driving it backwards into the living room. The second clipped the thing's skull, sending a spray of black ectoplasm into the darkness there. Its screaming became a gurgle, and it threw itself behind a wall to escape.

Kelly followed after it. "These silver bullets go through walls, remember?"

She came upon in the living room, its breath gurgling through its chest as it lay on the floor, sprawled on its back. It was recognizably a man, bearded and dressed in a turtleneck sweater and blue jeans, with long, wavy brown hair. Its eyes were pitch black, just the same as hers, but where she'd shot it, a viscous black liquid, the substance of spectres and the Tempest, poured out instead of plasm. It formed a fetid pool as it dribbled out of the shade's ruined skull and chest. But she could see it was already trying to heal. The soulsteel blade, dull black etched in silver, and molded in the shape of a medieval sword, was still in its hand.

"What is your name?" Kelly demanded in a tight voice, pointing the gun at its head, "You never told me."

"I don't have one," the spectre gurgled. She realized it was laughing.

Releasing a held breath, Kelly countered, "You must have had one once."

The spectre shook its head, chuckling. Black strings of what looked like tar were starting to stitch together its chest, falteringly and in patchwork. The same thing was beginning at its skull, pulsing thickly in the dim light from the windows like some rotting carcass of a brain. "I don't remember, little girl," it croaked, the intact half of its face grinning, "We never do. We have no lives, we have no souls. We just are, as an indisputable fact. And if you think you can kill me with that enchanted toy of yours, you're wrong. I don't care what you do to me. Whether today, tomorrow or in a thousand years, I'll be vomited back out of the Labyrinth to try again. We don't die. We can't. We are death."

"I'll take my chances," Kelly muttered, and started shooting.

3

Tricia was still typing when Kelly came back into the room, gritting her teeth against the pain in her shoulder and carrying the spectre's soulsteel blade. Sighing, she crossed over to the leather sofa and sat down, cradling her wounded arm. She couldn't heal the damage done by soulsteel on her own; she'd have to Slumber for that. And that required a long journey back to the cemetery in Manchester , which she hardly felt strong enough for just then. Besides, that would mean leaving home, and she'd done that often enough already.

Tricia was still typing when Elizabeth and Erin Brooke came home, talking quietly. The youngest sister glanced up from the computer screen, her eyes red from exhaustion, and dragged herself away from the essay to say hello. Kelly closed her eyes, smiling softly, as the three women exchanged greetings and caught up on the events of their day. For such a brief moment, she could pretend she was still alive, and that any moment now her mother would come in to ask her what trouble she'd gotten into this time.

It didn't happen, of course.

After a few minutes, the three women disappeared into the deeper parts of the house, their voices and footsteps fading. Sighing, Kelly opened her eyes again on an empty room. The pain in her shoulder had abated slightly and she'd regained some use of her left arm, but not much. Moving the arm in its socket produced searing pain, like electric shocks, down the arm and into her left side. Grimacing, she set the sword on her father's desk, next to The Time Machine, and wandered off into the house in search of her family.

Emotionally, Kelly was numb, though not so much that the sight of her mother and sisters sitting around the dinner table having tea and biscuits didn't bring a sad, affectionate smile to her lips. The three of them spoke in subdued tones, Elizabeth Brooke speaking the least. Love, worry, regret and grief hovered around them. Leaning against the kitchen counter, clutching her arm, Kelly closed her eyes and let the emotions wash over her. More than anything, she wanted to reach out and ease their sadness, and to be comforted in return. Kelly wanted to belong again.

"How are you getting on with your paper, Trish?" Elizabeth asked.

"Great, mum," Tricia nodded, smiling wanly, "It's going great..."

Erin 's voice: "Are you all right, love? You don't look well."

"I..." Tricia's voice trembled slightly, tinged with embarrassment. "I haven't felt good lately. Just kind of...run down, you know what I mean? Almost a bit sick."

"You look it," Erin replied, concerned.

"What's troubling you, Trish?" their mother asked tiredly, "Is it Kelly?"

Kelly opened her eyes. Erin was feeling of her little sister's forehead, checking for fever, and their mother was nursing her tea with her back turned to Kelly. There was grey in her mother's hair for the first time she could remember, gleaming in the dying sunlight from the windows. Elizabeth Brooke had been fighting a war with time her entire life, with creams and dyes as her weapons. She had refused to age and encouraged her daughters to do the same. The sight weighed down on Kelly's soul.

"A little bit, I suppose," Tricia murmured, batting away Erin 's mothering touch.

Hurt lanced across Kelly's thoughts as she studied her younger sister, thinking of what the spectre could have done during her absence. She knew Tricia wouldn't admit to them to any of the strange dreams and fragmented memories of what he'd done to her, nor any of the bizarre experiences she must have had, of waking up in strange places with bruises and wounds she didn't remember getting. If she did, she'd pin them on a different culprit - something far more mundane and comprehensible than nightmare visitations. Tricia knew full well what Kelly's innocent - and brutally honest - explanations had gotten her. She would not repeat the middle sister's mistake.

It had been remarkably easy to dispatch the spectre, Kelly thought, for all the damage it had done. It would've been even simpler if she were still alive and could wield her magick. And, of course, none of this would ever have happened if she'd deigned to spend what little time she had with her family.

"I know you don't feel comfortable speaking about Kelly in my presence, Tricia," Elizabeth said in a suffocating voice, "I have said a lot of things about your sister, not all of which were true." A small laugh. "She had a knack for making me angry about even the smallest of things."

"I know," Tricia nodded. She didn't look up from the table. "Me, too."

With a pained look, Erin watched the two of them, quietly sipping her tea.

"Your sister was not a bad person," their mother continued, though it sounded difficult for her to do so, "Regardless of anything she might have done or I might have said about her. Kelly was ill, we all know that. She never meant to do anything wrong. She just went down a bad path because of...bad dreams and paranoia. But she was a good girl, and no matter what else, she was my daughter and I loved her. Don't listen to me if I say anything different." She chuckled softly. "Even now she has a way of stirring up feelings."

Kelly felt a tear trickle down her cheek.

"You've been thinking a lot about her," Erin whispered.

"That's obvious, dear," Elizabeth replied, a tad curtly, "We all have been. And your father, too..." She sighed. "I never did the right thing for your sister. I wasn't right with her, and she let me know it constantly. As much as I wanted to help, everything I did just hurt her more. It makes me think I've done a poor job with you girls as well."

"Mum, no," Erin interjected, giving the older woman a hug, "That's rubbish. We all feel...well, you know how we feel about Kelly, and about dad. We love you, and I know Kelly did, too. I think she just didn't know how to get any closer to us."

Their mother took a deep breath, but said nothing.

"I'm still here," Kelly whispered.

"Spare me, okay?" Tricia muttered, getting up from the table, "Kelly was a bitch."

Shock flashed across Erin 's face. "Tricia!"

Kelly's brow furrowed as the young woman poured her tea out in the sink, turning to glare at her mother and older sister. "'Kelly was sick'," Tricia snapped, her voice faintly mocking, "That's all either of you ever say about her. That's all dad ever said, too. Well, she wasn't sick! She was smart, and she did whatever the hell she wanted to do and you guys let her get away with it because you felt sorry for her. Well, I don't feel sorry for her. She at least got to have a life of her own away from this house. I didn't. I still fucking don't, and I'm twenty years old for God's sake! Kelly was a brat. She just had the good sense to get the hell away from here."

Tricia started to storm off, but Erin jogged after her, catching the girl in the living room. Kelly couldn't hear precisely what they were saying - their voices were hushed and angry - and she wasn't sure she really wanted to know. Her mother still sat at the table, half turned with one arm resting on the back of the chair, staring wearily after them.

"I'm sorry, mother," Kelly murmured, "And I do love you."

It sounded trite and ineffectual even to her own ears.

After a minute, Erin came back into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. "Sorry, mum," she sighed, sitting down next to Elizabeth , "She's just upset."

"In many ways, your sister's right," the older woman replied, sipping her tea.

"Kelly did have a lot of problems," Erin argued.

"I know she did," her mother agreed, "A lot of which I'm sure I caused her. Before your father decided he should 'protect' her, who do you think was there every night when she had nightmares? Who took her to the hospital the night she tried to kill herself?" She sighed. It was a dry, whispering sound. "Kelly was a disturbed child, usually in subtle ways we kept from the two of you. Your sister was also very bright and very caring when she wanted to be. Tricia's quite right, Erin. I kept you girls on a leash all those years. Kelly was just the only one willing to fight with me over it. It was in her nature to do so."

Erin was silent, and slightly stunned.

"I'm not ignorant, dear," Elizabeth smiled thinly, "Though I'm sure Kelly thought I was. I knew I was making mistakes. But I was too damn stubborn, and your sister had a habit of turning every family gathering into an argument."

Finishing off her tea, their mother chuckled. "I admired her for it. Kelly had too much of your father and I in her for things to have gone any other way. Sadly, every time I tried to tell her that, we got into an argument over some piddling thing or another. I disagreed with a lot of what she did, and Kelly could make me more angry than anyone I've ever known, but I still loved and respected your sister. And may God have mercy on my soul for being a 'bitch queen' all that time."

Laughing softly, Elizabeth rose to her feet, cup and saucer in hand, leaving Erin to stare uncertainly after her.