‘Dead?’ Aubrey gasped.
Fromm shook his head. ‘It was close at hand. But before Fromm could snare it, it was whisked away to its home.’
‘Home?’ George said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Reuniting with the other soul fragments, in the husk of a body they left behind.’ He pointed. ‘There, in the city.’
Other soul fragments. Husk of a body. Aubrey would have groaned if he had been able. Nothing was straightforward.
‘Can you take us to her?’ Caroline asked.
‘Ghost hunters hunt fragments, not body and souls united. Fromm doesn’t know where the body is. This fragment streaked past, back to the city, but then was gone.’
‘The pearl,’ Aubrey croaked. He reached for the vest Caroline had folded neatly on the ground, but he nearly fainted. His ribs were a sharp, red pain slashing along his side.
‘Here,’ Caroline said. She bit her bottom lip, endearingly, as she concentrated on finding the pearl while still supporting him. Aubrey found her efforts fascinating.
Fromm took the pearl and eyed it unhappily. Then he put it to his nose and inhaled.
‘All gone.’ He held the pearl up to the light. ‘Empty now.’
Aubrey was concentrating on breathing. George asked the obvious question. ‘Where?’
‘With all the other bits. To the body it left behind. It was the magic, in the basement. You reversed it.’
Through gritted teeth, Aubrey asked, ‘All of it?’
‘Most of it.’ Fromm sniffed the air. ‘Ghosts are coming together, all over. People will wake up soon, whole again.’ He slapped his chest. ‘Not much work for Fromm, now. Time to leave the city.’
‘Sorry,’ Aubrey mumbled, and Caroline shushed him.
Fromm chuckled. ‘It’s not so bad. People will need us, sooner or later.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Money?’
‘What?’ George said. ‘You didn’t find our ghost.’
‘Fromm brought you to it. You let it go.’
Von Stralick haggled, for form’s sake more than anything else, it appeared to Aubrey. While the dickering was going on, with some trepidation he took some time to assess his condition.
With the ease that came from plenty of practice, he closed his eyes and turned his magical awareness on himself, only to be shuttled from bafflement to disbelief to dawning hope.
Ever since the unfortunate experiment that had torn his body and soul apart, whenever he inspected his condition he always saw a fractious, unhappy state. His soul, loosened from the normal bond with his body, was being tugged by its golden cord, summoned to the portal behind which lay the true death. The spells to delay or impede this had various degrees of efficacy, but it was only the Beccaria Cage that had endured. With it gone he fully expected the mortal tug-of-war to resume, and he was already trying to construct variations on spells that had had some success in the past.
Instead, he saw an entirely different state of affairs.
His perspective was the usual out-of-body view, as if he were hovering a few yards over his own form. He could make out the others in the shade of the shrubbery as they talked and argued, but dimly, as if they were fish in a poorly lit aquarium. His magical awareness was not suited to observing everyday things.
His body was motionless in the shade. His soul was an almost transparent duplicate nestled inside, snugly. The left hand of the soul-self was holding a golden cord. The other end was looped around the wrist of his body-self. They were united, bonded as body and soul should be. Automatically, Aubrey looked at the soul-self’s right hand, but he couldn’t find the dangerous golden cord there, the one he’d become so used to seeing. It was a shock and he turned his attention around, looking for the portal to the true death, the doorway that had been hovering near him ever since the experiment.
It was gone.
This change was so fundamental, so dramatic that Aubrey had some difficulty in taking it in – and it took him some time to realise that something else had changed.
His body was encased in a fine silver mesh.
He concentrated and brought his attention closer, using his magical senses to inspect the shimmering web that was hovering on the edges of perception. Probing it, he detected powerful magic, magic of a patient and enduring sort, a spell that was made for lifetimes – and perhaps more. It had a flavour, too, that he was familiar with.
The Beccaria Cage.
As soon as he realised it, he saw that the silver mesh was the Beccaria Cage, but a Beccaria Cage that had expanded and encompassed his whole body in its protection – like a suit of armour. His body and soul were united, joined to such an extent that the golden cord leading to the true death had gone. The portal had vanished, the call of the true death was no more.
He was cured.
Twenty-five
The embassy had a fine doctor on staff, and she had a medical magician on call. Together they patched up Aubrey so that his ribs were merely painful instead of a knife in the side. While they worked, Aubrey swooped between exhilaration and a stubborn unwillingness to believe that his body and soul were actually reunited.
In between his mood extremes, he found time to appreciate the irony – that he could be a beneficiary of Dr Tremaine’s carelessness in cleaning up after himself. He would have laughed if not for his sore ribs.
Caroline and George were waiting for him outside the infirmary. Caroline was tapping her foot. ‘Well?’
‘They took good care of me. No lasting damage.’
‘That’s not what we’re talking about, old man,’ George said.
‘Indeed,’ Caroline said. ‘We’re not oblivious, you know. We saw that something happened in that basement.’
‘Something more than cracked ribs.’ George studied Aubrey’s face. ‘You’re looking surprisingly well.’
‘That’s a good way of putting it.’ Aubrey rubbed his chin. ‘I think I’m cured.’
Caroline gasped, then she smiled, tentatively, and Aubrey forgot any lingering pain. She reached out a hand, then seemed to remember herself and withdrew it. Disappointed, Aubrey consoled himself with hoping that she was holding her hands together as the only way of stopping herself from reaching out again.
‘You’re sure?’ she asked, with the slightest catch in her voice. To Aubrey’s delight, she put her hand to her throat and repeated herself. ‘You’re sure?’
‘The Beccaria Cage has disappeared. I think I’ve absorbed it.’
‘What?’ George stared. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Dr Tremaine’s residue. Just before it disappeared it lashed out at me. It broke some ribs, but it also affected the Beccaria Cage.’ He grinned. ‘Random magic sometimes has good outcomes as well as bad.’
‘This cage contraption is still working?’ George said. ‘Protecting you, I mean.’
‘My body and soul are bound together as strongly as ever.’
‘And this is enduring?’ Caroline asked. She looked hesitant, as if unwilling to believe what Aubrey was saying. Not sceptical, but simply unable to trust herself to be pleased.
‘Every indication is that it’s particularly stable. I’m confident.’
George grinned. ‘That’s good enough for me, old man. I’m convinced. At least, until the next disaster.’
Caroline nodded. She was standing straighter, Aubrey noticed, more restrained. ‘That’s excellent,’ she said briskly. ‘Your condition has been a concern for some time.’
‘Your concern?’
Her lips twitched, just a little. ‘ A concern. An issue. Something affecting our tasks. It’s much better that you’ve improved.’