Chapter 7 Chapter 7

Kaelen stood across the street from Flint's Den watching people go in and out.

Every time the door opened, noise came out with it. Laughing and shouting and glasses hitting each other. It was packed in there. Just how he needed it.

Rook stood next to him in the dark. She kept looking between him and the tavern. Arms crossed tight.

"You're really going in there."

"Yes."

"Kaelen, there's so many people in there. I've been here an hour and fifty men went in at least. Maybe more."

"I know."

"If anyone in there knows your face, you're not walking back out."

"They don't know my face."

"How can you be sure."

He looked at her. "Because if they did, I'd be dead already. I'm standing here talking to you."

Rook looked down and kicked at something on the ground.

Quiet for a moment.

Then she looked back up and her eyes were wet but she wasn't going to let them go anywhere. "Just be careful. Please don't do something stupid."

"I'll try."

That almost got a laugh out of her but it came out sad instead. "That's not actually an answer."

"It's all I've got."

He crossed the street.

The door was thick wood with iron banding on it. He pushed it open and went in.

The noise hit him straight away. Men talking over each other, laughing too loud, someone shouting across the room about dice. The smell got him next. Stale beer and sweat and smoke all sitting on top of each other and something greasy frying somewhere in the back.

He kept his head down and moved through the bodies. Men pushed past without looking. Nobody cared about another face coming through the door.

He found the back corner where the light didn't get to. Small table, one bad leg. He sat with his back to the wall.

Men everywhere. Bar was three deep. Tables full. Some standing around with nowhere to be. Cards going near the fire. An argument happening that didn't seem to be about anything real. Women moving through the room with drink trays and eyes that looked straight ahead, stepping away from hands without making a thing of it.

Kaelen kept still and watched.

His eyes kept going to the floor near the hearth. The boards there were darker than the rest. Old stain that will never come out no matter what. That was where Erl went down. Knifed two years back over money he owed Vane's people.

A girl came to his table. Young. Eyes that were already tired. Apron that had seen better days. "What do you want."

"Water."

She looked at him like he'd said something wrong. "Water. In here."

"Water."

She shrugged and went and came back with a cup of water. He put a coin on the table. She took it and left.

He didn't drink. Just held the cup and watched.

Two men at the bar going hard at each other about a horse. One said "I told you that horse couldn't run out of a burning barn." Other one said "You said that after. Before the race you said she was a certainty." First one said "I changed my mind." Second one said "You changed it after you lost my money." They shoved each other. Someone nearby told them to go outside with it.

The dice game near the hearth got noisy. Somebody won. Somebody lost badly. A third man started shouting about cheating. A punch got thrown, missed, hit the post instead. The man grabbed his hand and swore.

Loud in there. Really loud.

Good.

Kaelen closed his eyes.

He reached for the echo.

It was down deep in the wood. Under years of boots walking over it and drink soaking into it. But it was there. Sitting there.

He touched it and felt Erl's last moments come up through the floor. The shock first, then the pain, then the confusion of not understanding what was happening to his own body, then the fear, then the dark coming in from the sides. Kaelen held all of it and pulled.

Room kept going. Nobody noticed.

He pulled harder.

Something shifted.

At the dice table, a man stopped with his hand up and didn't throw.

"Did you hear that."

The man across from him said "Hear what."

"Like someone gasping. Right next to me."

The other laughed at him. "Throw the dice."

"No, I heard it." His face had gone off colour. "It sounded like someone getting knifed."

The laugh went off the other man's face. "Don't say that."

"I'm not trying to be funny."

Then the smell hit the room.

Blood. Sharp and copper, sitting right at the back of the throat.

A man at the bar put his head up. "What's that smell."

Someone said "Something on the fire."

"No. That's blood. That's what blood smells like."

Heads started turning. Conversations fell off one by one. Something was wrong in the room and nobody could say what yet.

Then the stain on the floor came alive.

Right there where the boards were always dark, the wood went wet. Dark red spreading out slow, catching the firelight. Three seconds it sat there. Looking fresh. Looking real.

A woman screamed.

Then everybody did.

Men threw themselves back from tables. Chairs went everywhere. People went down and got stepped on. Someone screamed "It's Erl! That's Erl!" and another one just screamed "Out!" and the whole room turned into one thing pushing hard for the door.

Kaelen got up slow from his corner. Head going hard behind his eyes. Vision blurring at the outside edges. Blood in his mouth from somewhere.

He went with the crowd. Didn't push, just let it carry him. Nobody looked at him. Nobody saw him. They were all looking at the floor and the door and screaming.

He came out the door and the cold hit him. He stood there and breathed it.

Behind him the place was still going.

He walked. Down the street, round a corner, into an alley. Made it halfway down before his legs decided they were done. He got both hands on the wall and leaned there.

Nose bleeding. Head feeling like it had something inside trying to punch its way out. Stomach turned over and he bent forward and threw up in the gutter.

Slid down the wall and sat in the dirt.

Footsteps came into the alley. Running. Light.

"Kaelen. Kaelen."

He tried to say something but it didn't come out right.

She found him and dropped down beside him. Her face went completely white. "Oh no. No no."

He looked up at her. Still blurry. "I'm fine."

"You've got blood all over your face and you can't sit up straight."

He wiped his nose on his sleeve. Came away red. "It'll stop. Give it a minute."

"What happened in there? I was across the street and people came out screaming. Running into each other. I saw grown men crying in the street, Kaelen. Big men."

"It worked."

"What worked."

"The echo. I made it real enough to see."

Rook stared at him. Her mouth opened and nothing came out for a moment. "You made an actual ghost. That people could actually see."

"Real enough. Long enough."

She sat back and just looked at him. After a while she said "That's the most frightening thing I've ever heard. And I've heard a lot of frightening things in this city." A pause. "You're frightening."

"I know."

She got him off the ground. He leaned on her more than he wanted to. She was small but she held. They walked slow back through the dark.

"Vane's going to hear about this by morning."

"That's why I did it."

"They're going to be scared. Properly scared."

"Good."

"Is that what you want though? To just scare them?"

"I want them to feel what Erl felt. What my family felt. What every person they ever hurt and walked away from felt."

She went quiet. Then after a bit "Does it always hurt this bad when you use it?"

"Yes."

"Then how do you keep doing it."

"Because the other thing is worse."

"What other thing."

"Them forgetting. Getting to just live their lives like none of it happened. Like my family meant nothing. Like Erl meant nothing. Like it was all just business."

She didn't say anything after that.

They got to his room. He sat on the bed and held his head in both hands and waited. The spinning slowed and stopped. Bleeding had quit. Head still hurt but it was the kind of hurt that sits still.

Rook stood by the door. "You need anything? Food or water or something."

"Sleep."

She nodded. "I'll come back tomorrow. Check you're still here."

"You don't need to."

"I know." She closed the door behind her.

Kaelen lay back. The ceiling sat there above him the same as always. The pounding in his head was going down to something he could live with. Sick feeling was nearly gone.

He lay there and thought about the room. The way it looked when the echo got loose. That dark stain spreading across the floor in the firelight. Men climbing over each other to get out the door. Screaming.

He said it quiet.

"One step down."