“Don’t call me that. Only she was allowed to call me that. You don’t have the right.”
The ghost considered, then nodded. “Then I will call you Looks Away. Great Sioux warrior. Noted scientist. May I address that man rather than the lover of the woman who died?”
“This is insane,” Grey said sharply.
Veronica turned to him. “Ah… Greyson Torrance,” she said slowly, a half-smile on her lips. “The haunted man. Oh yes, don’t look so surprised. In the worlds beyond the flesh there is much we spirits know. Much we can see. And do you want to know what I see when I look at you?”
Looks Away frowned as he studied Grey. “What is she talking about?”
“Nothing,” said Grey. “This thing just wants to mess with our heads.”
“Oh no,” said the ghost. “I can see a tarot card burning in the air above your head. The martyr’s card. It is your sigil now. You are the haunted man who walks one step ahead of the tireless dead.”
“Grey—?” murmured Looks Away.
“She’s lying.”
“Am I?” asked the ghost. “Did Carmilla not read your fortune?”
“I don’t know anyone named—.”
“Mircalla then. She spoke prophecy to you and its truth burns within you. I can see the flame. Be careful, Grey Torrance or it will consume you.”
“I don’t give a mule’s hairy balls about prophecy or card tricks or any of that guff. You want to know the future? Sure — it’s me putting a hot lead bullet through the brain of that twisted bastard Aleksander Deray.”
Veronica’s smile faded from her pale lips. “Then listen to me, both of you. And you, Looks Away most of all,” she said softly. “I will tell you now what I was too afraid to say while I lived. “Nolan was nothing but a pawn of Deray. My husband was little more than a slave. He worshipped Deray like a god. He crawled on his belly before the necromancer. They conspired together to destroy this town because the Maze here is ripe with wealth. Gold and precious metals. You’ve seen it, you know. The great Gold Rush was nothing compared to the veins of ore that were exposed after the Quake. Nolan discovered the vast riches here, and he knew how to find the ore. He knew how to smelt it and extract the purest metals. And he knew where to find ghost rock.”
“If you’re Veronica, then why didn’t you tell me this before,” demanded Looks Away.
“Because, no matter what else, Nolan was still my husband and I swore to keep his secrets. That oath perished with my vows.” She smiled again, and it was ghoulish and cold. “The vow was ’til death do us part, and we are surely parted now. I am beyond the bindings of my wedding vow and beyond the cruel force of his hand. There is nothing Nolan can do to me anymore. But I fear Deray, because he has mastery over the dead. He could raise my body as one of his undead slaves. He is worse than a murderer, worse than a monster. He is evil incarnate. Even the dead and the damned fear him.”
“So what?” asked Grey. “We already know he’s a miserable blood-sucking bastard. That’s why I want to park a bullet between his eyes. And we pretty much figured Nolan was his lackey.”
“Nolan was all that, but the presence of all that gold and ghost rock here in his basement weighed on him. It was not his — he was merely the treasurer for Deray. He coveted it, though. It ate at his mind and gnawed even at his devotion to Deray. He came to worship a different god — that of his own greed. And so he rebelled. He used the gold to buy the loyalty of many of Deray’s men. The deputies in the town, some of the hired gunmen. With enough gold you can buy any mortal man’s soul.”
Looks Away said, “You’re speaking about Chesterfield in the past-tense. Is he dead?”
“Not yet,” said the manitou. “Every man, woman, and child on this estate has either been killed, captured, or given over to the undead summoned by Deray. A few yet live. Nolan himself still lives, but his hours are numbered. As for the rest? Most of them have been raised through the black magic of Deray’s necromancy and bound to his will by the ghost rock he has fused into their flesh.”
“Good lord,” said Looks Away faintly, “that’s quite… horrible.”
Veronica nodded. “For love of you, my dear Thomas, I have come to you to tell you this. I came freely and willingly, even though I know I am abhorrent to your eyes. You look at me and you see only a wretched ghost. But hear me, I beg.”
“We’re listening,” said Grey thickly, and he did not correct her on the use of his given name.
“Deray has Harrowed in his service, and a legion of the undead. This is the army he will use to realize his mad dreams.”
“What dreams? He’s already richer than God,” snapped Grey. “What the hell else does he want?”
“He wants to conquer.”
“Conquer what?”
She shook her head. “I… do not know. His mind is closed to me as it is closed to all lesser spirits. What I know for certain is that if he is unchecked all will suffer. Your kind and perhaps even mine. Necromancy is an abomination that threatens the living and the dead in equal measures.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
“That’s impossible,” said Grey. “I admit that I’m not much for church and all that Bible stuff, but I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that souls are immortal. Eternal. How can he do you any further harm?”
“Oh, my love there is so much you don’t know, so much you can’t know until death opens your eyes. Magic is not merely a tool, it is a doorway. With necromancy, Deray can enslave the souls of the dead. He could take me and use me in ways the living could never imagine — not in your wildest nightmares. I have an eternity to suffer, and Deray has the power to turn forever into Hell itself. Believe me, it does not. Haven’t you heard of banshees wailing or ghosts moaning? Suffering does not end when the heart becomes still and the flesh cools.”
“By the queen’s garters,” breathed Looks Away.
“What is it you expect us to do?” asked Grey.
“You need to stop Aleksander Deray,” said Veronica, “by any means necessary.”
“How?” demanded Looks Away. “If he’s that powerful, if he’s able to force ghosts and demons and every damned hobgoblin that goes bump in the night to his will, then what chance do we have?”
“Almost none,” she said sadly.
“Well that’s encouraging as hell,” said Grey. “Thanks so much. Maybe we should take the gold, gather everyone in town and move to — oh, I don’t know — anywhere else.”
She shook her head. “You cannot escape what is coming.”
“I can give it one hell of a try.”
“If you run all will be lost. Deray is not doing all of this just to conquer the town of Paradise Falls. He cares nothing for this place. Surely you can see that.”
Grey said nothing.
“The future is not a window but a house of mirrors reflecting ten thousand possibilities. Worlds will turn on the wink of your eye,” said Veronica, repeating what Mircalla had said. “Worlds will fall in the light of your smile.”
Grey felt his mouth go dry as dust.
“What does she mean?” asked Looks Away, frowning at him.
Grey said nothing.
“Not all who walk in shadows are evil,” continued the ghost. “Not all of the lonely spirits of the dead wish you harm.”
And with those words she turned and walked away. The firelight danced along the swirling folds of her gossamer nightgown. Then she vanished into the distance and the darkness.
Looks Away took a single, uncertain step as if to follow, then he stopped and sagged back in grief and defeat. Finally he turned to Grey.
“We are already in Hell,” he said. “So I guess we must play our parts like good puppets.”