Grave Peril

"Spooked off, maybe," I answered, as quietly. "Or maybe some sort of glamour. At least they’re out of the way."

I glanced at the sword, and at the long, slender spike of metal set into its cross guard. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I thought I could see flecks of red still upon it. Probably rust, I reasoned. Sure, rust.

I set the candle down upon the floor, where it continued to burn pinpoint-clear, indicating a spiritual presence. A big one. Bob hadn’t been lying when he’d said that the ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn was no two-bit shade.

"Stay back," I told Michael. "Give me a minute."

"If what the spirit told you is correct, this creature is dangerous," Michael replied. "Let me go first. It will be safer."

I nodded toward the glowing blade. "Trust me, a ghost would feel the sword coming before you even got to the door. Let me see what I can do first. If I can dust the spook, this whole contest is over before it begins."

I didn’t wait for Michael to answer me. Instead, I took my blasting rod and staff in my left hand, and in my right I grasped the pouch. I untied the simple knot that held the sack closed, and slipped forward, into the dark.

When I reached the swinging doors, I pressed one of them slowly opened. I remained still for a long moment, listening.

I heard singing. A woman’s voice. Gentle. Lovely.

Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

I glanced back at Michael, and then slipped inside the door, into total darkness. I couldn’t see – but I’m not a wizard for nothing. I thought of the pentacle upon my breast, over my heart, the silver amulet that I had inherited from my mother. It was a battered piece of jewelry, scarred and dented from uses for which it was never intended, but I wore it still. The five-sided star within the circle was the symbol of my magic, of what I believed in, embodying the five forces of the universe working in harmony, contained inside of human control.

I focused on it, and slid a little of my will into it, and the amulet began to glow with a gentle, blue-silver light, which spread out before me in a subtle wave, showing me the shapes of a fallen chair, and a pair of nurses at a desk behind a counter, slumped forward over their stations, breathing deeply.

The soothing, quiet lullaby continued as I studied the nurses. Enchanted sleep. It was nothing new. They were out, they weren’t going anywhere, and there was little sense in wasting time or energy in trying to break the spell’s hold on them. The gentle singing droned on, and I found myself reaching for the fallen chair, with the intention of setting it upright so that I would have a comfortable place to sit down for a little rest.

I froze, and had to remind myself that I would be an idiot to sit down beneath the influence of the unearthly song, even for a few moments. Subtle magic, and strong. Even knowing what to expect, I had barely sensed its touch in time.

I skirted the chair and moved forward, into a room filled with dressing hooks and little pastel hospital gowns hung upon them in rows. The singing was louder here, though it still drifted around the room with a ghostly lack of origin. One wall was little more than a sheet of Plexiglas, and behind it was a room that attempted to look sterile and warm at the same time.

Row upon row of little glass cribs on wheeled stands stood in the room. Tiny occupants, with toy-sized hospital mittens over their brand-new fingernails, and tiny hospital stocking caps over their bald heads, were sleeping and dreaming infant dreams.

Walking among them, visible in the glow of my wizard’s light, was the source of the singing.

Agatha Hagglethorn had not been old when she died. She wore a proper, high-necked shirt, as was appropriate to a lady of her station in nineteenth-century Chicago, and a long, dark, no-nonsense skirt. I could see through her, to the little crib behind her, but other than that she seemed solid, real. Her face was pretty, in a strained, bony sort of way, and she had her right hand folded over the stump at the end of her left wrist.

If that mockingbird don’t sing, mama’s going to buy you …

She had a captivating singing voice. Literally. She lilted out her song, spun energy into the air that lulled listeners into deeper and deeper sleep. If she was allowed to continue, she could draw both infants and nurses into a sleep from which they would never awaken, and the authorities would blame it on carbon monoxide, or something a little more comfortably normal than a hostile ghost.

I crept closer. I had enough ghost dust to pin down Agatha and a dozen spooks like her, and allow Michael to dispatch her swiftly, with a minimum of mess and fuss – just as long as I didn’t miss.

I hunkered down, kept the little sack of dust gripped loosely in my right hand, and slipped over to the door that led into the roomful of sleeping babies. The ghost did not appear to have noticed me – ghosts aren’t terribly observant. I guess being dead gives you a whole different perspective on life.

I entered the room, and Agatha Hagglethorn’s voice rolled over me like a drug, making me blink and shudder. I had to keep focused, my thoughts on the cool power of my magic flowing through my pentacle and coming out in its spectral light.

If that diamond ring don’t shine …

I licked my lips and watched the ghost as it stooped over one of the rolling cradles. She smiled, loving-kindness in her eyes, and breathed out her song over the baby.

The infant shuddered out a tiny breath, eyes closed in sleep, and did not inhale.

Hush little baby …

Time had run out. In a perfect world, I would have simply dumped the dust onto the ghost. But it’s not a perfect world: Ghosts don’t have to play by the rules of reality, and until they acknowledge that you’re there, it’s tough, very, very tough, to affect them at all. Confrontation is the only way, and even then, knowing the shade’s identity and speaking its name aloud is the only sure way to make it face you. And, better and better, most spirits can’t hear just anyone – it takes magic to make a direct call to the hereafter.

I rose fully to my feet, bag gripped in my hand and shouted, forcing my will into my voice, "Agatha Hagglethorn!"

The spirit started, as though a distant voice had come to her, and turned toward me. Her eyes widened. The song abruptly fell silent.

"Who are you?" she said. "What are you doing in my nursery?"

I struggled to keep the details Bob had told me about the ghost straight. "This isn’t your nursery, Agatha Hagglethorn. It’s more than a hundred years since you died. You aren’t real. You are a ghost, and you are dead."

The spirit drew itself up with a sort of cold, high-society haughtiness. "I might have known. Benson sent you, didn’t he? Benson is always doing something cruel and petty like this, then calling me a madwoman. A madwoman! He wants to take my child away."