Robin Thorne confronts the ghost of the man who ordered their mother's murder. The death of an Overseer is accounted for.
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only those no longer present can clearly see the past and the future
June 5th, 2024
The Trolley Yards, Three Portlands
Adam Rowe had a summoning circle too. It was just slightly less ornate than Annabelle Lee's.
It was a hula hoop wrapped in aluminum foil. Five large rubber bands were looped around the hoop to form a pentagram. There was a candle at each point of the star, as is proper; less properly, the candles were from the clearance bin at a Walmart in Maine, at least according to the sticker still attached to the nearest one.
The young necromancer lowered his hands and opened his eyes to look at Thorne. "Well, I think I know why your friend Annabelle couldn't summon Corwin's shade."
"Why is that?"
"He's in hell," Adam said, so matter-of-factly that it sounded positively normal.
"That's unsurprising, but why does it matter? Do we have to do a katabasis or something?"
He shook his head. "No, not that kind of hell. As best I can tell, the Foundation created an artificial pocket dimension that acts as a sort of miniature Underworld — a place where shades accumulate and can passively manifest. I couldn't get a very good read on it, but I think he's the only shade in there. I'm also pretty sure it has infinite depth."
"They trapped his ghost inside a bottomless pit," Thorne said.
He nodded. "Essentially. It's a very effective way to prevent an unfriendly necromancer from summoning his shade. The linkage between name and shade is still there, but is stretched so far that it can't be drawn upon."
They thought about this for a moment. Then they asked, "Is he suffering?"
He shrugged. "I can't tell. I doubt he's having fun."
They scoffed. "What a reward for a lifetime of service."
"They built a special hell for themselves just to stop leaks. Can you imagine what they do to their enemies? You know, people who do what we're about to do?"
"Yeah, I think I get the picture." They rubbed the gem of their necklace between their fingers. Oh yes, they knew exactly what the Foundation was capable of.
Adam leaned against the nearest wall, frowning as he studied them. The necromancer could clearly sense Thorne's mood, at least well enough to know that it wasn't good. That was the problem with dealing with wizards, especially ones that worked as mediums: if your thoughts weren't as disciplined as a monk's, then they could read your aura like a book.
"What do you really want from this ghost? Closure?" he asked.
Thorne stared into the gem. It held no more answers, they had checked, but they could pretend that the eye reflected within it was their mother's looking back at them. "Information about my mother's death. A confession. The identities of the other conspirators."
"So, information he would have had for some time before he died?"
Thorne released the gem, allowing it to fall back into place against their chest. "Yeah, probably. He died a few years ago, I don't know exactly when."
Adam clapped his hands together and rubbed them back and forth, grinning like a mad scientist as he did so. "Doesn't matter, that should be enough time for our purposes."
They looked at him blankly. "Which are what?"
"To summon a ghost of Julian Corwin, of course." He tried to crack his knuckles to punctuate this point, but only succeeded in making his joints ache.
"A ghost?" Thorne blinked, trying to not let their confusion show through while they attempted to remember their introductory necromancy classes. "Are there more than one?"
"Lots, actually." He bounced up and down on his heels like an overeager puppy, absolutely giddy at getting to share a cool fact about necromancy. "A ghost is just a mnemonic imprint of a person in a moment of extreme emotion. People all die eventually, and they usually don't like it, so that's typically the strongest and most common imprint. But any moment in someone's life can produce a ghost. Liminal shades are less likely to be encrypted in the same manner as the terminal shade."
His enthusiasm was as infectious as it was informative, and Thorne smiled appreciatively. They had been expecting a typical wizard lecture, like the kind they had received at ICSUT, full of arrogance and disdain. But Adam wasn't like that, he was just really enthusiastic about his chosen profession. Thorne understood immediately why Annabelle Lee had recommended him. They nodded encouragingly. "So what's the trick? Why aren't people summoning these other ghosts all the time?"
Adam didn't need the encouragement. He was practically glowing with pride. "Terminal shades are more useful and easier to summon. I'll need a very clear memory of the person from near the moment a liminal shade was produced — the closer the better."
That made sense to Thorne. "I assume if it's too early the shade we summon won't know what we want?"
"Precisely."
Thorne sighed and shook their head. "That's a problem then, because the most recent memory of Julian Corwin I have access to is from before I was born."
Adam didn't bother to question how Thorne had access to memories older than they were. "Is there anyone else we can draw a memory from?"
They shook their head again. "There's an old man in Minnesota who definitely won't help us. That's it, as far as I know."
He persisted. "What about someone who isn't alive?"
"Can you do that?"
He shrugged. "Yeah! Theoretically, anyways. Let's find out!"
Thorne rubbed the gemstone again, contemplatively. "I think there might be someone."
It was a long shot on top of another long shot, but maybe, just maybe, the man who had shot Florence had met Corwin — and if he hadn't, then the person who had bound him with a geas might have. Thorne wasn't sure how many ghosts Adam could chain together to get to Corwin's, but at this point they stood to lose nothing by trying.
Adam looked at them expectantly. "Can I have the name?"
"Billy Mitchell McCool." The name sprung from their lips without hesitation. The name of the man who killed your mother wasn't something that anyone was likely to forget. Thorne had memorized it when they were 17, on that terrible night when Virginia Kartal and Jesse Davis had explained that Florence wasn't ever coming back home.
Adam didn't bother with any theatrics. He pulled a box cutter out of his pocket, pricked his thumb, and smeared a drop of blood across the edge of the hula hoop.
He took a step back, took a breath, and said, "Billy Mitchell McCool, I'd like to speak to you please."
There was no gust of wind, no sudden drop in temperature, no dimming of the lights. One moment, Thorne and Adam were alone in the tiny room. The next, the pale specter of a man stood before them inside the hula hoop, looking around in confusion. It was hard to make out his face — his appearance was blurry, his features smudged, as if seen through a foggy window. But it was obvious this was the man from Florence's final memory.
Thorne stepped forwards to address the shade. "My name is Robin Thorne. You killed my mother."
The ghost hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice."
"I know. I hold no ill-will against you."
The ghost looked at them quizzically. "Why summon me then?"
"I think you might be able to help me bring the people responsible to justice."
He shook his head. "So did she. I wish I could help you. I tried to tell her. But I can't. Whatever contract they had me sign won't let me tell you anything"
Thorne stared at the ghost. "Sir, you're dead."
"You think I don't know that?" He laughed bitterly. The sound sent chills down Thorne's spine.
They pressed on. "No, but that contract only bound you while you were alive. The dead can't be bound by the oaths of the living."
The ghost blinked in surprise, which is how Thorne learned that a ghost's eyelids are translucent. "You mean… I can tell you what happened?"
"You can tell me everything," they said, leaning in for emphasis. "Starting with this: have you ever seen this man before?"
They pulled the oneirograph of Corwin out of a suit pocket and presented it to the ghost of Billy Mitchell McCool. He tried to grasp it with spectral fingers, only for his hand to pass through it entirely. He settled for leaning closer to examine the image.
"Yes!" He straightened up, becoming more opaque with the strength of his emotions. "He's the one who gave me the contract! He lied to me! He told me I would get to see my daughter!"
Thorne couldn't help it. They grinned. The gambit was paying off. "His name is Julian Corwin. He's the reason you're dead. He's the reason my mother is dead."
The ghost of Billy Mitchell McCool clenched his fists. "Can you make him pay?"
They shook their head. "No. He died years ago. But I think I can get his allies, with your help."
He was already nodding. "What do you need me to do?"
"I need you to remember everything you can about Julian Corwin. Recall the moment you met him, with as much clarity as you can."
"That's it?"
Adam returned to interject, now sporting a Mickey Mouse bandage on his pricked thumb. "Not quite. I'll have to use those memories as the anchor to summon Corwin's shade, so Robin can interrogate him."
Thorne continued from where he left off. "With his confession, I can find and arrest the remaining participants in the conspiracy."
"What will happen to me?" The ghost looked apprehensive, if such a thing were possible.
"Nothing worse than what's happened to you already," Thorne said. Which was strictly true without actually being an answer.
Adam glared at them briefly, then turned back to clarify for the confused specter. "It's hard to say. This kind of summoning has rarely been done. Ghosts are made of memories, and using yours like this could consume you."
"So I could die again?" The ghost asked.
Thorne returned Adam's glare with one of their own before addressing Billy Mitchell McCool. "No, you're already dead."
Adam gave a frustrated sigh and stepped closer to the shade. "As a shade, all you have are your memories. You have no form or will without them, and they're fragile. Once they're gone, you'll never get them back. This could damage you to the point that you might never be able to manifest again. Or you could lose yourself, and become something entirely different. Something you might not recognize."
"There are some things I wouldn't mind forgetting," the shade admitted. "Will it hurt?"
Adam hesitated before answering. "Maybe. I don't know. I'm not even sure it would consume the memory. Maybe it'll be fine, and we're worried for nothing." He smiled sadly. "But probably not."
Thorne stepped as close to the hula hoop as they could get without crossing the circle. They looked the ghost dead in the eyes. "If there was another way to get the answers I needed, I would take it. This is our only chance."
Adam glowered at them, clearly upset with their exploitative tactics, but for once he didn't interject.
The ghost was silent for a long time. He stood there in complete stillness for almost thirty seconds before he said, "Will you do something for me, Robin Thorne, if I do this?"
"Name the deed, and if it is in my power I will see it done."
"Make sure my daughter is okay, please."
"I will," Thorne replied without hesitation. "You have my word."
Billy Mitchell McCool smiled. "Then whatever the outcome, I can live with it. Or not."
Adam nodded. "So long as it's your choice. This part is going to be a lot harder. And grosser. You might not want to watch, Robin."
Thorne gave him a look. "I appreciate your concern, but I have to deal with dead bodies on a weekly basis. I think I'll be fine."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Then he pulled a dead pinky mouse out of his pocket.
"What the fuck?" Thorne's look turned disgusted. "Why do you have a dead mouse in your pocket?"
"A live mouse would climb out," he replied. Holding the mouse in one hand, he pressed the box cutter to its abdomen and slit it with a smooth, practiced motion. Thorne decided at that point that they actually didn't want to watch. Not looking at gross things is the better part of valor.
A minute passed. A minute full of some truly awful squelching noises.
Finally, Adam said, "You can look now." He was holding a tiny heart in his hands. The rest of the mouse was gone.
He approached the shade of Billy Mitchell McCool and held the mouse heart up in front of him. "Open your mouth, please. And I'm really sorry about this."
The shade looked at him with stunned horror, but did as instructed.
Adam put the heart inside the ghost's mouth.
"Sorry," he said again. "Think about Corwin, if you can."
The ghost nodded. Thorne was pretty sure that he wanted to vomit, but was stopped by the realities of being a specter.
Adam stepped back from the hula hoop, lowered his head, raised his hands, and began chanting in a language that Thorne didn't know. It took them a few moments to realize that it was Pig Latin.
"Emoriesmay ofyay ethay eadday, allcay otay ethay emoriesmay ofyay ethay ivinglay," Adam intoned. He lowered his hands, raised his head, and spoke, in English this time, "Julian Corwin! Show yourself!"
This time, the temperature did drop. Frost formed around the edges of the hula hoop. Thorne's breath crystalized in the air. The lights flickered, although that was probably due more to the state of the building than anything else.
An ethereal wind began to howl within the tiny room, tousling Adam's hair. The ghost of Billy Mitchell McCool raised a single hand in farewell, then dissolved into nothing, bits of ectoplasm being carried away by the wind.
No shade appeared within the circle to replace him.
Adam let out a pained grunt and dropped to one knee. "He's fighting the summons!"
With only a moment's hesitation, he drew the box cutter again and drove it into his palm. He stifled a scream as he swung his clenched fist in a wide arc, splattering blood across the circle. "Julian Corwin! Answer me!"
The wind picked up, sending the hammock in the corner spinning and fluttering. The temperature continued to drop.
Still, no shade appeared.
Clutching his wounded hand against his chest, Adam stood and took a step towards the circle. He gritted his teeth in a snarl. "I won't be bested by you, you old bastard. Julian Corwin! COME HERE!"
As he shouted the last word, he reached into his pocket again and pulled out a handful of sparkling blue-white powder — Seance Dust. With an underhand throw, he tossed it into the circle. The wind caught it and sent it tumbling in a swirling vortex that shimmered and glinted with a pale blue-green light.
Then the wind stopped, and the vortex of Seance Dust resolved itself into the shape of a man.
Julian Corwin. Exactly as he had been in the dead gunman's memory.
The shade stared at Adam contemptuously. "Who are you, and how have you summoned me?"
Adam stared back, struggling to catch his breath. "I am Adam Rowe, son of Eustace Rowe. I have used my cunning and my power to bind you, shade, and I bind you to speak truth or not at all."
Thorne reached into the pocket of their suit and surreptitiously clicked on the tape recorder they were carrying, then stepped forward to stand next to the necromancer. "You will answer our questions, Julian, or you will be made to answer them."
Corwin turned his contempt towards them. "Who are you to presume to ask me questions, when it is not even your power that holds me here?"
When Thorne replied, it was in the tone of high wizardry — a mixture of arrogance, grandiosity, and indifference that told the listener they were dealing with someone capable of commanding forces beyond their comprehension. "I am mage, I am detective, I am child of a murdered mother. I am Robin Thorne, and by my name you shall know my purpose."
The ghost's eyes sparkled with recognition. "As you say, little Thorne. I am afraid your quest is futile. By the necromancer's art you may move my tongue and stay a lie, but my words remain my own. My answers will not satisfy you."
"I will be the judge of that, just as I shall judge you." They crossed their arms and willed power into their voice, so that it reverberated unnaturally. "Julian Corwin! Veteran of Solomon's War! Overseer of the Foundation! You have led many men to victory and sent many men to death, and there are some who call you a hero for it. Not I. I name you thrice-accursed for the crimes of murder, subterfuge, and treachery."
Corwin's shade flew backwards as if he'd been hit by a truck, quickly coming to a sudden stop against the other side of the hula hoop. He could not leave the circle.
Adam leaned over and whispered in their ear, "Are you trying to make him mad?"
"Yes," they whispered back.
Adam nodded. "Okay, just as long as we're on the same page."
The shade rose, recovering from whatever affliction Thorne's curse had inflicted. He titled his chin up and stared at Thorne with naked hatred. "Murderer I may be, and subterfuge I have committed, but I am no traitor. I have always done my duty, nothing less."
"I know," Thorne said. "That's why you killed my mother, right?"
Corwin frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Thorne sighed. "Don't play dumb with me, Julian. I already have enough evidence to prove that the Foundation murdered Florence Thorne. I don't actually need your cooperation."
He looked troubled by this. "What do you want from me then? A confession?"
"Yes, actually," Thorne said. "But more than that, I want to save the Foundation."
Both the ghost and the necromancer looked at them in astonished disbelief.
"You expect me to believe that you want to save the organization that caused your mother's death?" Corwin shook his head. "I am not as gullible as that, little Thorne."
"Think about it," Thorne said. "Foundation-American relations have been steadily deteriorating since Florence's death. If I go to Director Frost and tell him that the Foundation assassinated the head of the Three Portlands field office, that will be seen as an act of war levied against the United States of America. The Domestic Security Council would have no choice but to respond. I don't actually care that much for the Foundation, but I would like to avoid being responsible for the next occult war, if I can help it."
"There's an easy way to do that," Corwin said.
"You're right," Thorne agreed. "You can tell me who voted for it, so they can be arrested and prosecuted. The rest of the Foundation can be spared."
Corwin threw back his head and laughed derisively. "You really think you can arrest the Overseers?" He shook his head. "Tell me what evidence you think you have, and perhaps I will give you the answers you seek. It's not like it will make any difference."
"My evidence is the testimony of my father, your protégé, Director Cody Westbrook."
Corwin's ghost went completely still. So surprising was this information that it caused the specter to flicker, wavering rapidly between different levels of opacity. When he finally stabilized, Corwin wore a mask of grim acceptance.
"It all makes sense now," he muttered. "I always wondered what it was that caused him to aid your mother's defection. He was protecting his child."
Thorne knew that wasn't true, but saw no need to correct the former Overseer. The misapprehension only served their purposes.
"He told me that it was an official operation, sanctioned by the Overseers," Thorne said. "I want to know which ones, and I want to know why."
"I never should have trusted him. Certainly not a second time." He sighed and looked at Thorne sadly, and it seemed to them that some of the cold fire had left his eyes. "There's no stopping you from revealing this information to your superiors, is there?"
"On my word as a magus, there is no power in this world or any other that will keep me from seeking justice for the murder of my mother," Thorne swore.
"Justice, or vengeance?" Corwin didn't bother to wait for an answer. "Very well. Although I doubt you will be able to arrest them without starting a war, perhaps knowing the identities of those responsible will at least minimize the scope of the conflict. My duty is to the Foundation, first and foremost, and I have no illusions about our ability to win a war against America. I can tell you what you want to know, little Thorne. But I would ask a favor of you first."
Thorne sighed. Another favor. Of course. "What is it?"
"Whatever may happen, for good or ill, don't let it destroy Site-64. They're good people there, and they had nothing to do with this."
Thorne blinked, surprised by this apparent altruism. "You're right, they are good people, for the most part. But I don't know if I can promise that."
Corwin nodded. "I understand, but will you try?"
"I will."
"Then you shall know the identities of your true enemies." Then, he broke one oath to fulfill another. "Twelve, it was his plan and his proposal, he wanted your mother dead before he was ever an Overseer, when he was just Operations Director Gabriel Sands — his is the only name I can give you, at least of those who voted in favor. Ten and Two, they've always been the hardliners, they didn't need any convincing. Eight, she thought that without your mother, the UIU would be more cooperative. Five, who never gave a reason. And Six, who wanted revenge for his predecessor."
Thorne frowned. "What do you mean, he wanted revenge for his predecessor?"
"Do you recall your mother putting an end to an illegal genetic experimentation and trafficking ring financed by a man named Bastien Lachance?"
At the name, Thorne felt a flash of anger from the memory gem. They nodded. "My best friend, Renee Morin, was one of the girls she rescued."
"Bastien Lachance was Overseer Six."
Thorne stared in disbelief. "You put a pedophile on the Overseer Council?"
Corwin shook his head. "Not knowingly. The Council had no awareness of his personal projects, nor his reprehensible proclivities. Our identities are as secret as we choose, even to each other. No one knew Bastien Lachance was Overseer Six until your mother vaporized half his head. The anonymity protected him from his enemies as Overseer, and he was arrogant enough to think that made him invincible."
"So you killed her for revenge," Thorne said.
"Yes and no." Corwin sighed. "I haven't told you who the seventh vote was."
Thorne had noticed that, and they had already guessed the reason. "It was you, wasn't it?"
"Yes. I was the tiebreaker. It was the hardest decision of my life. It never sat right with me, what we had done to her. At the time, I told myself it was necessary, but in truth it was only ever counter-productive." He shook his head again, exasperated at the memory. "When her defection became known, I did my best to shield her from reprisals."
"Until you voted to kill her," Thorne said, voice full of ice and venom.
"I had no choice!" He protested. "She was too great of a threat. An Overseer was dead by her hand."
"By accident!" Thorne shouted. "She didn't even know Lachance was an Overseer."
"Do you think an Overseer of the Foundation is unwarded against magical attack?" He asked rhetorically. "She cut through our best thaumaturgic defenses without even noticing."
Understanding dawned on Thorne. "And you were afraid she might do the same to you."
Corwin nodded. "Your mother was a true battlemage, of the kind that turns the tide of entire wars. And she had spent the last decade recruiting and training the best evocators she could find to serve in her wizard SWAT — your Mobile Occult Operations Team. But even worse, she hated the Foundation, and not without cause. The parastrike capability we had hoped to build with her was instead aimed against us. Something had to be done." He looked Thorne directly in the eye. "So I voted to kill a woman who had saved the world on more than one occasion. God help me, I voted to kill a hero."
They clenched their fists. "There's a word for people who kill heroes."
He hung his head in shame. "I know what I am. If I am damned for my sins, then let me be damned. Better I than someone else."
"No, Julian." Thorne took a step towards the shade. "Someone else would have made different choices. At least six other people did make a different choice." They pointed accusingly, using forceful jabs of their finger to punctuate their next words. "You did not make a noble sacrifice. You lived a life of atrocity, and bought the lie that it was good and proper to do so. You sold your soul to the Foundation, and in return they built a private hell to keep it in — a complete waste, as it turns out, since it failed to prevent us from summoning you."
Corwin looked up and stared back defiantly. "Hate me if you must, but the world needs the Foundation. We're the only ones willing to do what is necessary, no matter how repugnant. You stand there with clean hands and a clear conscience and condemn me for wielding the butcher's knife on your behalf. You have no idea how many apocalypses we kept from happening — how many we keep from happening through continuous effort."
"What apocalypse were you preventing when you MURDERED MY MOTHER?"
The ghost recoiled at the force of Thorne's anger. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't bring her back," Thorne spat, and in that moment they truly understood why Florence had hated the Foundation so much. "Sorry doesn't undo the damage you've done. You and twelve other self-appointed tyrants, deciding who lives and who dies. You are so goddamn arrogant, thinking that you can control reality itself and order it to your whim. But you're just a bunch of paranoid old men, terrified of losing even an ounce of your power, because you know if you do then you will be judged by those you've wronged."
He opened his mouth to respond, but Thorne cut him off with a wave of their hand and a forceful, "Be silent."
They turned their back on Corwin and looked at Adam. "Adam, what's the worst thing you can do to a shade?"
The necromancer hesitated, almost afraid to answer, even more afraid to not. As a rule, he tried to be kind to ghosts. He also tried to avoid pissing off his clients, especially when they hadn't paid in advance.
"You'd be better served by asking my father," he admitted. "He probably has some forgotten Prometheus Labs prototype device for torturing ghosts."
"Seriously? Why?"
"To torture ghosts. He's not a nice man."
Thorne nodded. They knew all about fathers who weren't nice men. "What about you?"
"I like to think that I'm rather nice."
"Too nice to put him in a device?"
"Yes." Adam bit his lip. Truth be told, he was rather concerned about what Thorne might do if he stood in the way of their vengeance. Now that they knew how to summon Corwin, there was nothing stopping them from going to another necromancer with fewer scruples. He, at least, could try to talk them down. "But maybe I can do something else. I don't have a ghost torture chamber, but I could put him in a lightbulb. What you choose to do with it is your prerogative. And will be on your conscience. So before you do anything with it…" He paused. "Just do me a favor and really think about it. Please?"
"Well, what could I do with it?"
"You could turn it on. Then it would continuously electrocute him to produce light."
"Sounds like hell," Thorne said. "I'll take it. And I'll definitely think about it."
those who see clearly speak in riddles; those who speak plainly cannot see
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