Chapter 158: Her Children

Mrs. MacNeil stood in the center of the hall.

Seven Spirit Lodging Vessels. Seven residing spirits.

Down in the cellar in the material world, Richard could only faintly hear each spirit's breathing.

Below the veil, those spirits were no longer hidden.

The wolf from the silver ring hovered over her left shoulder, standing taller than a horse;

the bird from the Emerald Brooch spread its wings, a drop of water hanging from the tip of every tail feather;

the woman from the ebony comb worked her hands without pause, threading, hooking, and pulling;

the milky light around the Moonstone Pendant had settled into the distinct outline of a robed figure;

the Coral Earrings hung from Mrs. MacNeil's ears, a tiny throat suspended inside each one;

the silver-chained Pocket Watch hung across her chest, its second hand ticking;

the Bone Bracelet sat on Mrs. MacNeil's right wrist, the old woman seated within it.

"Eight."

Richard counted them silently.

Seven spirits, plus Mrs. MacNeil herself, made eight—matching the number of people who had come down into this hall tonight.

"Open the array."

Mrs. MacNeil spoke from the center.

The "floor" below the veil bowed slightly, returning the greeting to tonight's caster.

Mrs. MacNeil gave her right hand a slight wave.

The seven spirits scattered in seven directions, and seven faint silver lines ran from those seven points back to the center, where the True Name Stone lay.

She did not need to draw the array. It was already present in the hall, waiting for a qualified Secret practitioner to call it.

"Beautiful," Mr. Hutton murmured in admiration.

Having been stopped before the Practitioner threshold his whole life, he understood the view beyond Minor Adept better than anyone.

The moment the array took hold, the first sound came from beneath the floor.

The seam pressed down by the old woman in the Bone Bracelet was gently nudged from below.

The first figure seeped out.

It had no face. The front of the head was flat, the same color as the neck and shoulders.

Richard used Spirit Vision to identify them.

The first had a stubble-covered face and a brass whistle pinned to his chest—the mill foreman from 1881.

The second was very young, clearly a child laborer under fifteen, with a smear of coal dust still unwashed on his cheek.

The third, the fourth... patch after patch of the floor folded upward, folding into her children.

It was not just the twenty-three workers who had been devoured; the two recently missing children were in there too...

The fighting began, and Captain Field moved first.

Richard could see the fire in the captain's chest swell from a small stove into a massive furnace.

Deeper beneath the veil, the intensity of an Ether eruption was magnified by the environment itself.

Normally, the captain could sustain an eruption for ten minutes; here, he had perhaps three to four.

But for those three to four minutes, his output was pushed several times higher than usual, until the man himself seemed to turn into fire.

"Ready, ma'am," Captain Field's voice came from inside the blaze.

"Then go," Mrs. MacNeil said with a slight nod.

The two Enchanted Axes at the captain's waist were already in his hands.

He leapt from the floor, coming down right on the foreman standing at the front.

The axe fell, the first blow cleaving the foreman from the crown of his head to his jaw.

As the blade drove down, the foreman's shadow parted in two.

For the shadows below the veil, physical cutting did nothing.

The blade passed through and the shadow gave way; once the blade was gone, the shadow closed up again.

"...My tools aren't well suited for this," the captain said from the fire.

"You're only here to hold them back," Mr. Hutton said from the other side.

"Understood."

The captain changed his approach.

He stopped trying to cut through them and switched to the flat of the axe.

Driving the blunt side against the foreman's shoulder, he used the force of his Ether eruption to swat the foreman backward along with two figures behind him.

"Good. Keep driving them back like that and they won't get through easily."

"Understood."

"Sarah, your turn."

In the far corner of the cellar, the female hunter raised her double-barreled Hunting Rifle.

Bang!

A Silver-Lead Bullet left the muzzle, its path below the veil trailing a dark red light.

That trail was Sarah's own Ether, bound to the round.

The bullet crossed the room and pinned the child laborer square in the chest.

The child did not cry out; the shadows had no mouths.

But the movement stopped.

Bang!

Sarah reloaded faster than she had in the marsh, her left hand already feeding the third round before the first shot had even left the barrel.

The second round took the third figure on the left side of the circle in the chest.

The third round took the second figure on the right.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Six shots went out, and six shadows were pierced through the heart.

The pierced shadows did not disperse, but for the moment they could not move.

"...Just as I thought," Captain Field's voice came from the fire. "We can't finish them off cleanly this time."

The captain shoved the remaining shadows back as well.

But the dozen or so shadows left in the circle moved; three of them bunched together and lunged at the captain's waist from the flank.

Four more broke from the circle, bypassing the defensive line held by the captain and Sarah to rush the outer ring.

Their target was clear: get behind them and deal with Mrs. MacNeil and Mr. Hutton.

The mother's children were small, but they already knew which was the head, which were the hands, and which was the waist.

They came fast.

Yet Richard's Inspiration gave no warning.

The four flanking shadows had barely covered half the distance to the outer ring when a fine golden thread stopped them.

The thread hung from the mouth of the wolf on Mrs. MacNeil's left shoulder.

It fed from the wolf's jaws, running along the floor of the hall to form an unseen line.

The four flanking shadows caught against it and could not move.

The bird from the Emerald Brooch perched on the highest crossbeam in the hall.

Every narrowed eye along its feathers opened, countless eyes looking down over the room at once.

The bird was feeding everyone the enemy's positions.

Every spot those eyes caught was relayed back to the outer ring.

Trouble broke out on Edmund's side.

On the young priest's chest, the Silver Cross began to heat up.

Richard glanced over with Spirit Vision and saw that the ring of scripture at his feet—the lines the first-generation priest had recited over and over—was shrinking inward.

Something was gnawing on him.

"Ma'am," Edmund said, unsteady. "I'm going to use a consecration."

"No," Mrs. MacNeil answered at once.

"Why?"

"One consecration will drain half your Ether reserves. If you run yourself dry below the veil, worse things will happen."

"But it's gnawing."

"Let it gnaw," Mrs. MacNeil said coldly. "It isn't gnawing on you; it's gnawing on the monks behind you."

"They've been dead for hundreds of years. Being chewed on for a while won't kill them a second time."

Edmund's brow tightened, but he could only assent.

"Yes."

"Hold your ground," Mr. Hutton told him from the other side. "The people behind you can take the strain; don't try to cover for them."

Richard quietly committed that point to memory.

Below the veil, every Spell Formula had its effects amplified, and its price amplified as well.

The sixteenth shadow lunged from the west.

The indistinct robed figure from the Moonstone Pendant stepped out.

At that moment, Richard's Inspiration felt a brush from something exceptionally gentle.

The spirit from the Moonstone Pendant was actually "negotiating" with the sixteenth shadow in the Ether layer.

What they were negotiating, Richard could not hear.

But he could feel the sixteenth shadow slow down.

It had actually been talked down?

The time spirit in the silver Pocket Watch moved as well.

It drew a second thread of light from the watch and sent it circling around the captain, quickening his pace even further.

Mrs. MacNeil herself still stood in the center.

Her hands hung at her sides; she had done nothing, yet she had done everything.

The spirit in the ebony comb was weaving the children's paths.

Every inch of her work corresponded to a spot in the hall that one of the shadows had just crossed.

Once it was woven in, that shadow could never retreat along the path it had taken.

The Moonstone Pendant's spirit was still "negotiating."

It even split off several forms that drifted to the outer ring, negotiating one by one with the four flanking figures caught against the golden thread.

The figures it engaged stopped one after another.

The two throats in the Coral Earrings were still singing.

They sang a song that covered the ears, turning the twenty-five shadows toward the captain, toward Sarah, and toward Edmund's ring of light, while leaving Mrs. MacNeil and Mr. Hutton untouched in their critical positions.

The old woman from the Bone Bracelet remained at Mrs. MacNeil's feet.

She was the anchor, securing a steady footing for everyone in the room.

Mr. Hutton could hold his ground because she was there;

the captain could keep his fire burning because she was there;

Edmund's ring of light was gnawed at the edges without breaking apart because she was there;

Richard's own shadow was eyed by the children without being stripped away because she was there.

Seven spirits, along seven lines, spread out across the outer defensive ring.

Mrs. MacNeil stood in the center, her lowered hands never moving.

"Ma'am," the stable boy asked, unable to keep a note of panic from his voice.

"How long can you keep this up?"

"Until the second round," Mrs. MacNeil answered plainly.

"...There's a second round?"

"Yes."

"Don't be nervous," Mrs. MacNeil added. "Before the second round rises, Mr. Hutton's incantation will be ready as well."

"If it comes to it, I'll call the seventh."

"The seventh?"

Only then did Richard realize that after naming the sixth spirit, Mrs. MacNeil had not called the seventh by name.

She had only said, "You're here."

The seventh spirit—she had never spoken its name aloud.