In death, Edmund Adianoeta looked as detached as the paintings of him. For someone as lauded as he, his appearances had been few and far between—unlike his descendants, he’d come from humbler beginnings.
Under what would later become the family’s estate, the few surviving ruins of his mother’s farm must have been buried.
Alongside the catacombs—somehow.
The ghost appeared entirely in grayscale within the house. He’d crossed one leg over another and sat down on an ornate chair with a high back, his right elbow steadied on the armrest as his chin rested upon a closed fist. “Candlelight would be ill-advised here, for it may draw attention. I suggest settling until first light. Tripping would be easy with a floor this unkept.”
“I understand.”
Nikola had not intended to seek a light source in the first place—despite the ghost’s words, he found he could make out the shape of most objects in his surroundings. Indeed, odds and ends were scattered through the floor, everything from shattered pottery to pieces of fabric. It was as if a cyclone had passed through the inside of this house.
“Where are we?”
“The first house I ever rented, back when I was a student with my coven,” Edmund Adianoeta’s ghost whispered. “My landlady died, and no one ever evicted me. But none cared for this place after I left, either. It seemed as good a place as any to reconvene, and Maria has never been here.”
Nikola nodded. He could see the age of the place, that was for sure.
“Do you actually wish to know?” the ghost blurted out. Awkwardly—inexplicably, even a hint of fear shone through. Why would it be afraid?
“About what?”
“How I made my family as they are today.”
Nikola considered this. “I confess my curiosity,” he watched the ghost and its reactions. “But I’ve no particular interest in the details, not when they involve the unforgivable.”
“There were decisions on my part that I am not proud of,” the ghost admitted. “Looking back at it is… painful. So I might owe you might thanks, if you let me avoid the matter. But I am amicable about speaking of anything else.”
“How are you here, now? I’d never heard of a ghost this… realistic.”
That was the burning question, was it not? Clearly, the sacrifice had been related. The timing was too suspect, and Maria Adianoeta had concluded the killings by calling out to her late husband.
“I have lingered in limbo for a long time—of my own doing. It is not a perfect solution, but faced with oblivion or the fate assigned to me, it was preferable,” Edmund Adianoeta sighed. “I realize how you must see me. Ghosts are echoes, remnants of the dead who have long since unraveled. But I assure you, I am Edmund Adianoeta. Not a ghost carrying echoes of who he was. I am me.”
Nikola’s eyes widened. “That is not possible.”
“Says who, boy?” Edmund laughed. “I see something labeled an impossibility, and that becomes my life’s work. That is and always has been how I operate. Limits aren’t known because nothing is possible beyond them—limits are merely the threshold of what others have been capable of doing in the past.”
“But…” Nikola fought the urge to insist. Such a thing was impossible. People were not unlike machines, their minds a construct brought forth by nature’s unfathomable handiwork. And like machines, they broke down. Death claimed them all sooner or later, and with that, they ceased to be. Returned to the Earth from whence they came.
“When Ursula died, I was besides myself. I thought as you do, once. But I refused to accept it. What sort of father wishes to stand and watch while their child dies, not an ounce of their power being enough to keep them on this world? I told myself, then, that I would never allow this again. My family would remain whole, as whole as I could keep it, for eternity.”
“At the cost of other lives,” Nikola countered. There was no grand conspiracy to certain forms of magic being considered taboo—they simply went against human decency. “That’s it, is it not? Countless others must have ceased to exist so your family could live for longer.”
“In the end, the method I developed is not anywhere near that tragic, boy,” Edmund scoffed, his arms now folded over his ethereal chest. “My mother’s well held that which enabled the fountain—it was not it, mind you. A catalyst. Water drawn from it, through the grate, had to be mixed with blood—and as you know, in a sacrificial context, this means the last of the blood a human heart ever pumped. The mixture would have to be poured periodically into the fountain to keep it from drying out.”Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Nikola thought back to what Maria had asked of her husband’s ghost—of her actual husband, apparently. “But something went wrong, I take it.”
“You tell me. They should’ve had more than enough for millennia.”
“How many descendants of yours live today?” Nikola’s brain slid into its inquisitive mode so swiftly he almost winced—actually being free to think about anything was such a rare opportunity that letting his mind run free felt like pulling on an atrophied muscle. Perhaps Edmund’s issue lay in a miscalculation. “Were you accounting for that, back then?”
“Of course I was. I expected it to last, maybe twenty-three to twenty-seven centuries, and that was with 25 descendants taking their regular doses. The most I’ve ever had—the ones living now and imbibing in it—are a mere 17.”
Nikola went quiet, then, rather than thinking of a response. The realization caught up to him. “Your wife was curious as to what my blood would have done for them, had Clarisse not left me to drown in the well. I confess I wonder what that was about.”
“Each time they refresh their vow at the fountain, to continue living, a small part of that which the sacrifices were good at goes to them. It changes with each cycle, some effects better than other. It is simply part of the process,” the ghost eyed him up and down. “In your case, I suspect it was sensitivity. Having a penchant for interacting with the supernatural, by itself, is not rare. But I suspect no one ever told you that?”
“Hm,” Nikola thought of what to say—should he be keeping any details to himself?—but settled for speaking truthfully. “Back home, there are few occultists. Even working for your grandson’s newspaper, with all the people I crossed paths with, I barely knew of any. Let alone spoke to them beyond occasionally using one as a source when I needed something to back my opinions.”
“Were you aware, though? That you’ve good sight for this things?”
“I was,” Nikola confirmed. He thought back to what Maria Adianoeta had called him—jittery. At the time, he truly hadn’t made the connection. Knowing someone was involved with the occult was different from any sort of expectation that they were occult, and Nikola lacked the experience to tell that type of feeling apart from just regular feelings of unease. “Though, in truth, it never mattered before.”
“I can see that. But I would guess you could have been good at this, had you been born elsewhere. It might be too late for you now,” Edmund looked off to the side, longingly. “The dying blood of someone like that would do wonders for sensitivity among my family.”
Nikola had not thought it possible for him to be baffled, not at this point into the night. “Are you suggesting you would have preferred for me to be killed by them?”
“Obviously,” Edmund shrugged, reminding Nikola that this man had once been Maria Adianoeta’s soulmate. They’d been said to be birds of a feather. “Though seeing as they chose to unbind my spirit and ruin everything, it might have worked out for the best. For me, in any case. I don’t mean that personally, boy. But beyond my need to fix this before my family gets dragged off to Hell, you matter not to me.”
“I suppose that is fair,” Nikola tipped his head—he had to ensure he didn’t get too complacent around this ghost. This man. Edmund Adianoeta assisted him solely for his own benefit. “If we are to be upfront about this, I’ve little interest in you as well, although the experience could do well in a column sometime. If I can get anyone other than your grandson to hire or even believe me, after this.”
“He went and made the paper, did he not?” Edmund laughed, fondness somehow reflecting in his glowing eyes. “I only watch sometimes—and John left for lands too distant for me to follow. I admit I was curious as to how you ended up here, yet were not among the dead. My sight is far from limitless in limbo—but still better than it is now, I suppose. This form, this* ghosthood, is suffocating. I am as boxed-in as a a man, a mortal man.”
Nikola chose to ignore that tirade. “Your words on ghosthood could also serve. That part might be less believable than your wife arranging for mass murder, somehow.”
“Do you truly only care for what you may get out of this?” Edmund raised an eyebrow.
“I like being alive—no offense meant to present company. I work—worked, presumably—for your grandson, and followed him here because I was paid to do so. I have few concerns beyond being able to afford to stay afloat, honestly.”
“You do nothing else but work?” the ghost appeared appalled. “No wonder you are this dull! You need hobbies! Things to do in your free time. Personal projects. Anything.”
“I would have those, were I not at risk of starvation the moment I run out of paychecks,” the columnist shot the dead patriarch a glare. “I wouldn’t expect you to be out of touch, honestly. But in any case, I’ve told you what I expect. If you wish for me to be of aid in whatever it is you’re scheming, I want assurances.”
The ghost started laughing. “I wouldn’t be able to get you killed at this point even if I dedicated my life to it, boy. You’ve it in you, now.”
“You keep referencing that,” Nikola noted. “I cannot help but notice you’ve yet to elaborate.”
“It’s simple, and the reason I sought to get you out of there,” Edmund stood to twirl, and bowed with extended arms as magician that just finished a trick upon the stage would. “You see, young man, while my wife was busy summoning my bound spirit, that which I bound to the well took the chance to latch on to something else and flee.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, yes. It latched on to you.”