Plague of the Shattered Read online

  ALSO BY E.E. HOLMES

  THE WORLD OF THE GATEWAY

  The Gateway Trilogy (Series 1)

  Spirit Legacy: Book 1 of The Gateway Trilogy

  Spirit Prophecy: Book 2 of The Gateway Trilogy

  Spirit Ascendancy: Book 3 of The Gateway Trilogy

  The Gateway Trackers (Series 2)

  Whispers of the Walker: The Gateway Trackers Book 1

  Plague of the Shattered

  The Gateway Trackers Book 2

  E.E. Holmes

  Lily Faire Publishing

  Lily Faire Publishing

  Townsend, MA

  Copyright © 2017 by E.E. Holmes

  All rights reserved

  www.lilyfairepublishing.com

  ISBN 978-0-9984762-1-6 (Print edition)

  ISBN 978-0-9984762-2-3 (Digital edition)

  Publisher’s note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC

  Author photography by Cydney Scott Photography

  To my sister Courtney, the brightest, most unbreakable diamond of them all.

  Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig

  and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:

  maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,

  a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

  Something from far off it seemed

  deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,

  a shout muffled by huge autumns,

  by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

  Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig

  sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance

  climbed up through my conscious mind

  as if suddenly the roots I had left behind

  cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood—

  and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

  -Pablo Neruda, Sonnet VI

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1. Dream Portrait

  2. Friends and Foes

  Eleanora: 6 April 1864

  3. The Proposition

  4. Pros and Cons

  Eleanora: 1 May 1864

  5. Host

  6. Possessed

  Eleanora: 18 June 1864

  7. Diagnosis

  8. The Airechtas

  Eleanora: 27 June 1864

  9. Contagious

  10. Nemesis

  11. The Shattering

  Eleanora: 12 July 1864

  12. The Léarscáil

  13. Finding Frankie

  14. Tryst and Trust

  Eleanora: 13 July 1864

  15. Accomplice

  16. The Familiar Stare

  17. The Girl in Pieces

  18. Grave Robbing

  Eleanora: 21 July 1864

  19. Naming Eleanora

  20. Eleanora Rising

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  SOMETHING HAD SHIFTED.

  Lifted.

  She was no longer pinioned to the empty air, but free and floating.

  The Caller had done it. She had promised she would, if she could find a way, and she had actually kept her word. She would never have believed another Durupinen capable of keeping her word, not after all she’d been through, but the Caller had proven her wrong. Despite this knowledge, she did not move, at first. The profound shock of freedom prevented her, briefly, from exploring the boundaries of it. After so many years of captivity, she’d almost forgotten what it was to exist without the weight and restrictions of the Castings that had acted as her chains.

  What followed was a flexing and testing of energy, a re-learning of what it was to form, to move, to be. As she worked her spectral muscles, tested her strength, she felt her incredulity fade away, to be replaced by a growing, leaping excitement. At last. At last she could escape this infernal place and answer the call of the Aether. The insatiable pull of it had been her deepest torture these many years.

  She kept low to the ground, slinking along in the shadows, trusting, perhaps foolishly, to physical obscuration to mask her phantasmal form. She would not linger, that was certain. She would not risk being discovered and imprisoned once more. She would follow the pull, stronger than the tides, to the nearest Gateway home.

  Even as she thought it, her need for it expanded, a thirst she must quench or else risk shriveling into nothingness. Her incompatibility with this place, with the living world, would surely crush what remained of her if she didn’t Cross soon.

  Suddenly, she felt the pull of it: the Gateway. It was close, closer than she’d ever dared imagine. Could it truly be so easy to find after so many years of being thwarted in her desire to seek it? Might it merely be a ploy to ensnare her once more?

  She must know. She must follow it wherever it led, consequences be damned.

  Some chambers she could not enter; they were most likely warded against intrusion. No matter. Whatever miseries lay incarcerated within would not distract her from the lure of her goal. The Gateway tugged her onward, a sensation so strong as to be nearly physical, triggering memories of a form she had not possessed for well over a century.

  At last she could see it ahead, like a glowing orb lodged in the chest of the Caller, and she could not turn from it, she could not veer off course.

  Come, the Caller was saying, drawing her in. Come and find your way home.

  Yes. Yes, at long last she would traverse that final swift stanza of the tragic poetry that was her life on earth. The Caller was welcoming her, welcoming her into the arms that would close around her and embrace her through to her ultimate rest.

  There was a moment—a twinkling of an instant—when she knew that something was frightfully, desperately wrong. The door toward which she was barreling— utterly unable to stop herself— was not open to deliver her to what lay beyond. The Gateway was singing its song, but it was sealed against her.

  I have been deceived.

  And this thought, sagging with the weight of her horror, was the very last that she had before she Shattered.

  1

  Dream Portrait

  HER EYES WERE WIDE and dark and well-deep. Her hair was dark also, swept up onto her head in an elegant Victorian style. Her lips were curved into a wry little smile, suggesting humor and also strength of character. An intricate Triskele pendant lay framed in the hollow of her throat. She was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.

  And I had absolutely no idea who she was.

  Unfortunately, I often woke up this way, staring into the face of a stranger. It was an occupational hazard of being a Durupinen who also happened to be a Muse. As a Durupinen, I could see and communicate with spirits as part of my role in Crossing them over from the living world to the spirit world. As a Muse, that communication often came in the form of art; in my case, a sketch or drawing that I sometimes completed involuntarily. This time, for instance, I woke from my sleep to find myself crouched in a squatting position at the end of my bed, a charcoal pencil clutched in my trembling, aching hand, having just created the image of the mysterious woman on a sheet of paper taped to the wall.

  “Oh, hell,” I muttered as I flopped back into a supine position on the bed, dropping the pencil to the floor and shaking out my hand, which was now cramping up. I so did not need this today. I was beyond exhausted.

  It had only been a few hours since I’d arrived back at Fairhaven Hall, seat of the Northern Durupinen Clans. Thanks to a red eye flight and a drive from Heathrow to the Cambridgeshire countryside, I was jetlagged and r
avenous by the time we’d arrived at the castle. I’d raided the dining hall for pasties and then collapsed, fully-clothed, on top of my old bed. It may have been mid-morning, but I’d intended to get a few hours of sleep before facing any of the people I would have to see while I was here. Instead, only thirty minutes after I’d fallen asleep, here I was, bleary-eyed and shaky from the onset of a ghostly Visitation.

  The door creaked open. I half-expected the face I’d drawn to peek around it, demanding to know why I’d failed to do justice to her aquiline profile, but instead, my twin sister Hannah tip-toed into the room.

  I smiled watching how carefully she eased the door silently shut behind her, how she made absolutely sure to step over the creaky floorboard just beyond the threshold.

  “Jeez, you are so loud!” I said.

  Hannah jumped with a squeak of surprise and spun on the spot. “Oh, no! I was being so careful! Did I seriously just wake you up, Jess?”

  I laughed. “No, no, I’m just messing with you. You were quiet as a mouse. I was already awake.” And I gestured to my new artwork.

  Hannah’s gaze followed my hand and then her mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding! Already? We’ve barely been here an hour!”

  I shrugged. “I know. What can I say? The place is crawling with restless floaters.”

  Hannah came over to sit on the bed beside me. She reached out and rubbed my arm consolingly. “Do you want me to leave so you can try to get back to sleep?”

  “No, don’t worry about it. I can’t now. She’s made sure of that.” And I jerked an accusatory thumb over my shoulder at the portrait.

  “It’s a good thing you thought to hang the blank paper up,” Hannah said.

  “Yeah, well, I’m more prone to them when I’m exhausted, plus this place is swarming with spirits, so I figured, better safe than sorry.”

  “She’s really pretty,” Hannah remarked, leaning in to take a closer look. “Do you know who she is?”

  “No, we didn’t get that far,” I said. “But I’m sure she’ll be back soon. They usually are. And when she shows up again, I’ll be sure to inform her that if she wants any help from me, she’d better find me when I’m awake, or else plan to bring coffee as a peace offering. So, how is the old place?”

  Hannah smiled. “The same, really.”

  “Did anyone run screaming when they saw you?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘screaming’ exactly. But a couple of people suddenly remembered that they had somewhere else they needed to be as soon as they spotted me,” Hannah said with a sigh.

  In truth, the resident Durupinen at Fairhaven had good reason to be wary of us. A little over three years ago, Hannah and I had arrived there as new Apprentices, ready to learn how to control and use our gifts. It wasn’t long before Hannah was identified as a Caller, a Durupinen who could summon spirits to her over long distances and even use them to do her bidding. It wasn’t just the sheer power of this gift that put the other Durupinen on their guard; Callers were historically met with fear and mistrust because of an ancient Prophecy.

  The Prophecy foretold the birth of twins, one of them a Caller, who would be born of the illicit relationship between a Durupinen and a Caomhnóir, the guardians who protected us. According to the prediction, the Caller twin would have the power to reverse the Gateways and unleash an army of the dead back into the world of the living, allowing our ancient enemies, the Necromancers, to seize power. The other twin would have the power, through her own sacrifice, to stop this awful future from coming to pass.

  Thousands of years of Durupinen history. One set of twins destined to destroy or save the world. One guess which twins they were talking about.

  Jackpot.

  I didn’t like reliving that traumatic experience, so suffice it to say, we managed to prevent the rise of the Necromancers and the destruction of the Durupinen way of life. However, our role in the Prophecy left many Durupinen extraordinarily wary of us. Our time here at Fairhaven would likely feel more like a return to the scene of the crime than a happy little reunion.

  Hannah had certainly handled the news better than I had that we would be returning to Fairhaven again so soon. It was only about two months ago that we had been summoned back by the Council to face an ultimatum: either we cease our systematic dismantling of scam artists masquerading as psychic mediums, or we join the ranks of the Durupinen Trackers, where we would continue to take down the scam artists, but in an official (and supervised) capacity. We had agreed to become Trackers, and our first case had ended a little over six weeks ago, leaving us no reason to believe that we would have to set foot here again so soon. Unfortunately, the Council, and the intricacies of its political system, had other plans for us.

  Two weeks previously, our Aunt Karen had arrived at our apartment, armed with a box of cannolis and a sheepish smile.

  “Hi, Karen!” Hannah had cried, flinging her arms around her.

  “Karen! What are you doing here?” I’d asked, snatching the box with a whoop of glee.

  “Just wanted to see my favorite girls!” she answered, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “A lawyer really should have a better poker face,” I told her. “What’s up? Just come out with it already.”

  “Okay, well, I came over because I have something kind of important that I have to ask you to do,” she began, tossing her purse on the coffee table and taking a seat on the sofa. “And I brought the cannolis because I thought they might soften the blow.”

  “I knew it!” I said, my mouth full of ricotta. “I knew these tasted like guilt!”

  “What is it, Karen?” Hannah asked.

  “Well, every five years the Northern Clans have a huge meeting. It’s called the Airechtas, and every clan sends a representative to speak for them. They have votes on important issues, hold elections for vacant positions, and so forth. It is essential that every clan be accounted for. And I can’t go.”

  I swallowed before I was quite ready and started sputtering. “Why not?” I managed to choke out.

  “It’s the case I’m working on for the firm. I’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that if I can win this case, I’ll be made a partner.”

  “What?! Karen, you never said anything! That’s amazing!” Hannah cried.

  Karen smiled. “I didn’t want to jinx it. And it’s by no means in the bag yet. It’s going to be a struggle to the bitter end. But the first major hearing has been scheduled for the week of the Airechtas.”

  I felt a pit of anxiety open up in my stomach, making me instantly regret the cannoli. I knew exactly where this was going. “Can’t they just move the hearing?” I asked.

  Hannah gave me a very stern look. “You can’t just rearrange a trial to fit your schedule, Jess!”

  I flushed a little. “I’m just asking.”

  “I’ve been able to move things around before, but this judge is particularly inflexible when it comes to court dates,” Karen said. “He’s got a reputation for it. I can’t risk alienating him so early in the process. Too much is riding on this case.”

  “So, you want us to go to the Airechtas?” Hannah said, asking the question for her.

  “I hate to ask you,” Karen said, “but I don’t know what else to do. It’s quite simply not an option for any clan to miss it.”

  “You’re the Clan Elder, though. Are we even allowed to go in your place?” Hannah asked.

  “As long as I inform the Council that I am bestowing all of our voting rights upon you, and that you have permission to speak for our clan, there’s no problem,” Karen answered.

  “What will we have to do?” I asked.

  “That’s the good news!” Karen said eagerly, obviously pleased that I was even entertaining the idea. “All you would be required to do is show up, sit through the meeting sessions, and vote.”

  “Vote on what?” I asked.

  “On whatever issues are brought to the table,” Karen said. “Members will make propositions and suggest changes. They’ll
be discussed—usually ad nauseam—and then the assembly will vote. That’s it, really.”

  “Are we even informed enough to vote? Will we understand the issues that are being voted on?” I asked.

  “You know much more about what’s going on in the Durupinen world than many of the other clan representatives who will be attending. Some of them haven’t had contact with the Council since the last Airechtas,” Karen said.

  “Lucky them,” I muttered.

  “Anyway, the Council will explain each issue in great detail. They will provide you with all of the information you need to make an informed decision. And I know that you will vote wisely. I have complete confidence in both of you,” Karen added with a smile.

  “Okay, now you’re just buttering us up,” I said.

  “Who, me? Never!” Karen said, handing me another cannoli and flashing an innocent smile. “So, what do you say, girls?”

  I hesitated. On the one hand, it really didn’t sound that bad. On the other, nothing in the Durupinen world had ever turned out to be easy or painless, in our experience. Hannah didn’t give me a chance to hesitate any longer, though.

  “Of course we’ll go,” she told Karen. “You concentrate on winning that case and getting your name on the letterhead.”

  Karen reached across the coffee table and squeezed Hannah’s hand. “Thank you so much. I knew I could count on you girls. And I know it’s a big deal, asking you to go back there again. I didn’t do it lightly. If there were any way I could have done it myself—”