“Why don’t you just ask her?”
“I need something more than what you’ve already seen. I need you to look harder.”
“Can’t do it,” Finbar said, shaking his head. “I won’t do it. Val’s a friend of mine. You can torture me all you want.”
“Can I?”
He paled. “Metaphorically speaking.”
Wreath smiled, and shadows crept up the chair, wrapping themselves around Finbar’s arms and legs before he could even struggle. Wreath went to the black bag on the table. “It’s OK. I know it would probably take a lot for you to betray a friend like that. So I’m taking the option away from you.”
From the bag, Wreath took a glass sphere, encased in a stone shell.
Quickly realising that he couldn’t break his bonds, Finbar settled back into the chair. “You’re bribing me with a snow globe?” he asked. “That’s a bit … insulting, don’t you think?”
“This isn’t for you.”
Now Finbar could see the darkness swirling in the sphere, and his face slackened and his voice cracked. “That’s a Soul Catcher.”
“Yes, it is. And its occupant is the Remnant who caused everyone so much trouble a few months ago. This is the little guy who possessed Kenspeckle Grouse, who went on to repair the Desolation Engine that destroyed the Sanctuary. This is not a very nice Remnant.”
Finbar licked his lips nervously. “You can’t put it in me. You just can’t, man. No, listen, that thing is, it’s evil, right? Once it’s in me, it’ll lie to you, tell you whatever it thinks you wanna hear.”
“It will tell me whatever I want to know, Finbar, which is not quite the same thing.”
“Aw, please, don’t do this.” The man was almost crying.
“I’ll take it out of you immediately after,” Wreath assured him. “You’ll black out; you won’t remember a thing.”
“I don’t want it in me. It’ll change me.”
“Only for a few minutes.”
Wreath turned the sphere in the stone, and stepped back.
The darkness drained out of the Soul Catcher as the Remnant flitted straight to Finbar. He turned his head and shut his eyes and clamped his mouth shut, but the Remnant would not be denied. Things that may have been hands prised his jaws apart. Wreath watched, fighting the urge to suck the foul creature back into its prison.
Finbar tried to scream as the Remnant, no more than a streak of twisted darkness, clambered its way down his throat. The scream choked and the throat bulged. Finbar’s body thrashed, but Wreath’s restraints held. Finbar suddenly went limp. A moment passed, and dark veins spread beneath his skin and his lips turned black. Then his eyes opened.
“Why is it,” Finbar said, “that every time I’m set free, I have to share a body that isn’t in the peak of physical perfection? Last time it was an old man. Now it’s … this.”
“I didn’t release you for a casual conversation,” Wreath said. “I just want to know what I want to know.”
“And why would I help you dig up information on my good buddy Valkyrie?”
“She isn’t your friend,” Wreath said. “She’s Finbar Wrong’s friend.”
“And there you go, man, making the mistake that everyone makes. I am Finbar Wrong.”
“No, you’re a Remnant.”
“To be honest with you there, a Remnant isn’t really much more than intent. It flies around being angry and doesn’t think too much about anything, y’know? It doesn’t have a personality, or a real consciousness to speak of. But when it inhabits a body, that all changes. It’s whole again. I am Finbar Wrong, but I’m also the Remnant inside him. We’re very happy together, as you can see.” He smiled, and the black veins receded and the darkness disappeared from his lips.
“It’s easy for you to pass for normal, isn’t it?” Wreath asked. “To hide the tell-tale signs that mark the possessed?”
“We can hide it when we need to, yeah.”
“And it’s good to be out of the Soul Catcher, yes?”
“Oh, yeah,” Finbar laughed. “That thing is even worse than being in that room in the Midnight Hotel where they kept us locked up.”
“Now that you’ve tasted freedom, do you want more? I can give you more. I can let you go.”
“A few moments ago you said you were gonna separate us immediately after.”
“I’m a Necromancer. I lied to make it easier on … you. The old you. Look into the future for me, and tell me what you see.”
“And what makes you think I’ll be able to see anything new?”
“Because you and I both know that Sensitives are wary about pushing themselves too hard. Seeing the future is a dangerous line of work. Minds can snap.”
“That they can.”
“But your mind is reinforced now, isn’t it? It’s stronger. So you can look further, and harder, until you see what you need to see.”
“This is all very true,” Finbar nodded. “But why should I trust you? The last people to ask me a favour put me in an old man’s body. Now, I’m not denying I had fun being Kenspeckle Grouse for a day, especially when it came time to hammer nails through Tanith Low’s hands, but they cheated me. They wouldn’t let me go when they said they would.”
“Scarab has never been a trustworthy man.”
“And you are? You’re a Necromancer.”
“Then how about this? You look into the future for me, or I’ll kill you. Remnants can’t survive in something dead, am I right? So the moment Finbar’s body dies, the Remnant inside him dies too. Do you want to die? Either of you?”
Finbar smiled. “You’re talking like there are two of us in here, man. There’s not. You had Finbar, you had the Remnant, and when you put them together, you get me. And I happen to think that the world would miss me too much if you killed me.”
Wreath smiled back. “I thought you’d see it my way.”
“I’m gonna need a few things before I start, though. Herbs, potions, a backrub …”
“You have three seconds to begin.”
“A very quick backrub, then.”
Wreath raised the cane, and Finbar laughed. “OK, OK! I suppose I could do without the luxuries, just this one time. You’re gonna have to back off – I’m not gonna be able to attain the required level of relaxation if you’re hovering over me.”
Wreath nodded. “Get it done, Remnant, or you’re going back in the bottle.”
“Chill,” Finbar breathed, closing his eyes. “My old buddy Val,” he murmured. “Are you going to show me why everyone’s so interested in you, are you? Are you going to show me what’s in store for you …?”
Wreath suppressed a sigh while Finbar prattled on, his voice growing softer and softer. He’d never had much time for Sensitives. They’d deliberately chosen a branch of magic where you reached out with your feelings instead of your fists. They were, in his opinion, a bunch of spaced-out, peace-loving hippies, and he’d never liked hippies. The 1960s and 70s had been particularly annoying times for him.