Madame Celeste Gearhart's Arc

Chapter 17 of 24

Mei-Ling settled against the dock rail to wait, and Celeste turned back to the bench. The totem still trembled under her palm. The valve held for now, but the coiled vial pulsed too fast. A hundred spirits pressed against one wall. Waiting would not save her. She had to bleed some off before the vessel split. She needed a place to send them, a body to carry them out of the totem and away. Celeste pulled a fresh block of carved wood from her shelf. It was small, unfinished, only a rough head and shoulders. She had meant it for a lesser charm. Now it would be a drain. She pressed it against the totem's side and turned the valve one careful notch open. The sap surged. Spirits poured from the master vessel into the smaller wood. The block warmed in her hand. The totem's shaking eased. She had emptied perhaps a third. But the little wood was never built to hold this. It cracked down the center. Green light leaked from the split, and the light took a shape. A hooded figure rose from the bench, skull-faced, its eyes burning green, bone beads clacking at its throat. A second form followed, this one a drifting purple flame with white eyes and a ragged feathered cloak. They were not her bound dead anymore. They had slipped the leash in the transfer. "You crammed us in the dark," the skull-faced one said. Its voice scraped like a rusted hinge. "We are Baron Shadowveil. We do not sleep at a witch's word." "And we do not go back," hissed the purple flame. "Baron Nightshade remembers the crush of that vessel." Celeste did not flinch. She lifted the master totem in both hands and aimed the resin flower at them. "You slipped one cage. You will not slip this one." She turned the valve wide and spoke the command hard and low. "Answer only me. Return." The two spirits fought. The skull-face lunged for her throat. The flame swelled toward the window and the waiting captain beyond. But the sap caught them both. The vial along the totem's side flared white. Green and purple light bent back, dragged across the room, and streamed into the resin flower. The two Barons screamed and folded inward. The totem swallowed them whole. Celeste shut the valve. The trembling stopped. The vial pulsed slow and steady now, no longer straining. She had bled off the overload, then pulled the escapees back before they reached the dock. The vessel would hold. Through the round window, Mei-Ling straightened at the rail. She had seen the green light, the struggle, the calm that followed. Her patient smile was gone. The totem was not going to burst on its own. The captain touched her sword hilt and stepped down off the dock, toward the water and her waiting crew.