Lupi 08 - Death Magic

now?”
    “Sure. Your message said something about a ghost that’s been bothering you.”
    Like all the Rhejes, the Etorri Rhej was Gifted. She was a medium—a powerful one—plus she knew a lot about ghosts and death and all that, and was able to put it in language that mostly made sense. “Not bothering me exactly, but I have some questions. Killing people to make death magic tends to throw ghosts, right?” It had to do with what the Rhej called transitioning and the power involved in that process. Lily didn’t really want to hear the explanation again, so she hurried on. “That may be where my ghost came from, plus there’ve been other ghosts seen in the city recently. And I know someone’s been making death magic.”
    “Ugh. Nasty stuff.”
    “It is. There may be a lot of it involved, too, so—”
    “How much?”
    “Ah—I don’t know how to quantify it.”
    “I see your point. I asked because . . . well, mediumship runs in my family, and has for a very long time. Mothers and grandmothers have passed down the Gift, the lore, and the stories for many generations. When you talked about a lot of death magic, I thought of one of the oldest stories. This would have been pre-Purge, probably by several hundred years.”
    “That’s a long time for a story to keep its shape.”
    “It is, but bear with me. The story tells of how an evil magician put a small village to death ritually to fuel a Great Spell.”
    “How many in the village?”
    “Fifty-five, I think. I can call my grandmother to make sure of the number.”
    Which could have changed a hundred times over the years. “No, that’s okay. I was just wanting a ballpark on how many deaths we’re talking about.”
    “Anyway, the evil magician ended up being killed by a rival magician—the Bán Mac. There are a lot of stories about him. You can find some in most folklore compilations. Apparently he rode all over Ireland on his ‘horse of flame’ seducing matrons, rescuing maidens, defeating evil magicians, and drinking enough ale to kill most men. Also tricking the little people and getting tricked,” she added, “because this was Ireland, after all. Most of the tales focus on Bán Mac, but the story passed down in my family tells about what happened after the battle. The area near the sacrificial site was plagued by instabilities.”
    “What kind of instabilities?”
    “Oh, the usual—water turning to blood, animals born malformed, cows going dry. And of course a lot of ghosts. But there were also reports of ‘divvil beasts’ and frequent earth tremors, and something about ‘time gang awry.’ I can’t say how accurate any of this is,” she said apologetically, “but there’s probably some truth in it. The solution is the point of the tale, to those in my family. The neighboring villages brought in a priest to lay the ghosts. He did that, but he also ‘poured Spirit onto the land to knit up its break,’ and the odd occurrences stopped.”
    “Hmm.”
    The other woman laughed. “You sure can pack a lot of skepticism into a single sound. I think you need to talk to a priest.” She laughed again. “I didn’t mean it to come out that way. What I mean is that the Church may know more about these odd occurrences at sites of death magic than I do. But even aside from that, you need to let the Church know. The Catholic Church is very good at laying certain kinds of ghosts. The souls of those killed may need the power of the Church to replace what was stolen in order to complete their transitions.”
    That made two people who wanted Lily to talk to a priest. “A priest Cynna knows is supposed to call me about some stuff related to the case. I’ll ask him about it.”
    “Good.”
    “The other thing I wanted to ask was if there’s any way I could talk to that ghost if he shows up again.”
    “I can’t help you with that. If you were a medium, I could offer suggestions, but mediums and non-mediums experience ghosts so differently that my training doesn’t really apply to you.”
    “Is there any way you could come to D.C.?”
    A moment’s silence, then: “I’m afraid not. I have a prior obligation I have to honor.”
    It was the brief pause that made Lily suspicious. “Some kind of mysterious Rhej business?”
    Another pause, then a chuckle. “You could say that.”
    “It’s what the Leidolf Rhej said when she hit me up for five hundred dollars before heading for the airport.”
    That seemed to make the Etorri Rhej’s