Arcane Dropout Read online

  Arcane Dropout

  Edmund Hughes

  This digital book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this title with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Edmund Hughes

  Kindle Edition

  Contents

  Arcane Dropout

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  Lee Amaranth never lied to any of his clients. He was open about just how rare ghosts were, manifesting perhaps once per million human deaths and often lingering for less than a month before dissolving into ambient arcane essence. He never intentionally provided fuel for anyone’s tragic postmortem fantasies.

  Lee always made an attempt at getting the people who hired him to understand exactly what it was they were dealing with. It didn’t matter which term they preferred: ghosts, spirits, wraiths, specters, spooks, phantoms—all just different flavors of the same phenomenon. They were imprints of people, more like echoes or distorted reflections than despondent souls. Bundles of tangled arcane essence along with a scattering of memories, all tied around a usually unachievable last goal or desire.

  Lee had learned early on that the job of a freelance mystic wasn’t to “put the departed to their final rest” or any such high-minded nonsense. It was to take people’s money, commune with a ghost if one was truly present, handle it if it was dangerous, and above all, provide closure.

  Closure with a capital fucking C. Time and time over, he’d learned just how elusive and impossible it really was. He’d turned down grieving widows, women desperate for him to commune with their dead husbands who’d never left behind a ghost to begin with. He’d turned down grieving parents, wounded people so heart-wrenching to interact with that he didn’t let his mind wander onto those memories without a good reason.

  Lee pushed the door to the aircraft hangar open and stepped into the cold, unilluminated space that lay beyond. The sight of the ghost hovering in the corner of the building’s sprawling, singular chamber was enough to make his jaw clench with anticipation, even though he’d known it would be there and had spent the better part of the previous day asking about the personality of the man it had once been.

  Was this how his clients had felt on those rare occasions when his services had allowed them to chase down an answer to that one last question?

  He took a breath and knocked on the door with his hand. It was a few degrees below freezing, and the sensation of his knuckles rapping against the cold, rusted metal ran straight through his bones.

  “Dennis?” called Lee. “Can I talk with you for a minute?”

  He saw the ghost slowly turn to face him, its face still frozen in the oblivious, empty expression common to lesser spiritual entities. It was whitish blue in color, with a somewhat holographic appearance, though small wafts of spirit essence still billowed around its lower half, like condensation in the freezing cold.

  “Dennis O’Malley,” said Lee, as he began walking forward. “You were a worker here, one of the unloaders for a few less-than-legal items from a certain cargo jet.”

  The ghost blinked several times in quick succession before raising his arms and adopting a posture that was significantly more hostile than what Lee would have liked to see. He reached a hand into his bag, sliding his fingers past the silver kris dagger, past the ritual powder, and settling on the new purchases he’d made earlier that morning.

  “Easy there,” said Lee. “I’m a friend. Here.”

  Lee pulled out a turkey bacon sandwich, a beer, and a pack of cigarettes. He held them outstretched in both arms, flashing an open smile as he watched the ghost scanning over the offering. There was awareness in those eyes, more than he’d seen in some of the spirits he’d banished. Enough to tell him that he had at least a chance of finding out what he wanted to know.

  “What is this?” muttered Dennis. “Are you the devil, finally come to collect my soul?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then…” Dennis took a wavering step forward. “Are you an angel? Did I do it? Am I finally being called up?”

  “Afraid I’m not that either,” said Lee. “I’m not even sure that there is an up or down when it comes to, you know, the afterlife. I’m just a guy who can see ghosts, old timer.”

  “Who you callin’ old?” snapped Dennis. “And what do you expect me to do with this shit?”

  He slapped an ethereal hand through the food and vices Lee was still holding. The chill of the ghost’s intangible hand making contact sent a fluttering chill through him but didn’t do much else. That was a good sign, especially if Dennis turned out to be less agreeable than he’d initially assumed.

  “I can help you with that,” said Lee. “Here.”

  He sucked in a slow breath, letting his eyes defocus as he breathed out. Pulling a ghost into his mystic stream was a simple matter of relaxation and will. It reminded him of looking at one of the 3-D Magic Eye books he’d enjoyed as a child, and the analogy fit remarkably well, given the overall effect of using his ability.

  Dennis O’Malley’s ghost gained color, form, and presence as Lee expanded his mystic stream outward to fill the nearby area. In every obvious way, he looked as though he’d been restored to life. Of course, the three gunshot wounds were still there, each one nestled above blood stains that ran down the cargo worker’s blue jumper like accidental splotches of red paint.

  He’d been a middle-aged man with broad shoulders, a receding hairline, and a face markedly more wrinkled on the left side than the right. He was now staring at Lee in confusion, his eyes darting about the aircraft hangar as though he was planning on making a run for it.

  “It’s just a little trick I learned when I was a kid,” said Lee. “It lets me interact with you. I can see you and talk to you without it, but this way…”

  He slowly held out his arm and tapped the beer against Dennis’s shoulder, which was made corporeal, at least temporarily, within the confined reality of Lee’s mystic stream. The man’s jaw fell open, and Lee couldn’t resist grinning back at him as he twisted the easy open bottle cap off the brew.

  “You can eat, drink, and even smoke, hence my gifts,” said Lee. “I figured you
were probably getting bored to tears just standing around in this hangar. Not enough people for you to mess with in here.”

  Dennis continued to stare at the beer. Lee rolled his eyes and took a sip of it.

  “No trick, it’s not poisoned, though I’m not sure it would even matter if it was.” He held it out again. “It’s a bitch to buy beer when you’re underage. Don’t let my efforts go to waste.”

  “Kid, I don’t know why you’re doing all this… and I don’t think I care. Thank you.”

  Dennis finally accepted the beer, which was a novel act in itself. Lee was still holding the bottle, and from his perspective within the mystic stream, it looked as though Dennis had pulled a twin beer out of nothing. It was a quirk of how his ability worked, creating an imprint of objects that the ghosts could take with them that was separate from the physical base they were created from.

  Lee clinked the neck of his bottle against Dennis’s, and they both took a sip. The old man let out a noise that was half laugh and half gasp, before downing the rest of the beer in a few eager gulps.

  “There’s also a sandwich and some cigs,” said Lee. “Take your time.”

  Dennis let out a small grunt. Lee lit a cigarette for the ghost, passed him the sandwich and another beer, and then gave him room to enjoy himself. Ten minutes later, Dennis slumped to a seat against the hangar’s wall and let out a satisfied sigh.

  “You want something,” said Dennis. “Damn it. What are you going to make me do in return for this?”

  “Answer a few questions,” said Lee. “That’s all.”

  “What happens if I don’t want to talk?”

  Lee reached into his bag and slowly removed the silver kris dagger. He didn’t pull it out of its ornate oak scabbard, but simply held it in one hand, making the potential threat clear.

  “If I have to, I’ll disable you with silver, absorb you, and hope that whatever memories come through with your essence can answer my questions,” said Lee. “But come on. That’s no fun for either of us, now is it?”

  Dennis shrugged. “I guess it ain’t. Fine, you win, kid. What do you want to know? Who our supplier was? Or who we were selling the drugs to?”

  Lee shook his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Zoe’s photo. It was from her junior year of high school, one of the last good ones taken of his sister before her disappearance.

  “Have you seen this girl?” asked Lee. “It might have been recently, it might have been a couple of years ago. Did she ever come through this airport?”

  “Kid, you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I could remember a face that well.”

  Lee nodded slowly. “Figured I’d give it a shot. In that case, what can you tell me about Primhaven University?”

  The ghost froze in midmovement, holding his cigarette a few inches from his lips.

  “Was she one of the kids that ran off to that old, frozen college?” asked Dennis. “Lots of them take a flight out and never come back. I’ve heard some ridiculous rumors about that place, I tell you. Stuff about a cult of ‘wizards’ and ‘witches’ teaching them god knows what. Crazy world we live in these days.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “I don’t, but I know a few people who might take you there, for the right amount of money,” said Dennis. “Given what you’ve done for me, I see no reason why I shouldn’t help you out.”

  Lee tried to keep the victory from showing on his face as he continued sipping his own beer. He’d spent five years waiting to hear from his sister, searching for any clue as to what might have happened to her. He’d tried to find out anything he could about the school and never managed to scrounge up so much as a central phone number, let alone the name or email address of an administrator or faculty member.

  “They say you have to be a fricking mage to get into that school.” Dennis shot Lee a look, then burst into laughter. “Ridiculous, all of it.”

  “That’s pretty rich, coming from a ghost.”

  “Huh,” said Dennis. “I guess it is. Say, are you some kind of mage, too? Is that how you’re doing this?”

  “Far from it,” said Lee.

  “Then what is it you think you’re going to do when you get there?” asked Dennis.

  Lee shrugged.

  “Get some closure.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Two weeks and a significant chunk of his life savings later, Lee was on a plane. It was a small plane, small enough to make him question how much rattling and shaking was really to be expected during takeoff and landing.

  He’d spent most of the time following up on the leads he’d found through Dennis. Few of the people he’d talked to in the small Alaskan town that was Zoe’s last known location outside of Primhaven had been able to tell him anything about the school or about her.

  It was essentially what Lee had been expecting. He remembered the way Zoe had spoken of the university, back when she was finishing her senior year and trying to figure out what would come next. She’d told him that it was a school for mages. Lee had known about Zoe’s magic, the Potential, as those aware of the supernatural called it, and she’d known about his mystic abilities.

  He’d had so many questions for her, and she’d only seemed to know as much then as Lee felt like he knew now. Her reasons for leaving for Primhaven had been selfless. Independent mages and sorcerers tend to attract attention, even when they keep their heads down. Zoe had done it to protect him, her little brother, and she’d gone out of her way to make sure he’d be taken care of in her absence, orphans as they both were.

  The plane started rattling again. It was cold inside the cabin, but given how far north they’d traveled, Lee expected it to be cold everywhere. The basic winter coat he’d relied on until that point seemed like something of a joke as the northern edge of Alaska’s frozen coast came into view. So much white, with the slightest hint of blue ice. The wind was a visible thing even from so high above, always carrying tufts of snow along with it.

  The pilot brought the plane into a slow turn, and Lee spotted his destination. One of the details he had worked out from Dennis’s leads was that Primhaven was built next to a small settlement known as Gillum, Alaska. The people he asked had seemed to know as little about Gillum as they did about Primhaven, but it gave Lee solace to know that he’d at least have somewhere to stay, assuming the place had lodgings for travelers.

  Gillum, from above, didn’t seem like much. A scattering of buildings, each with a snow-covered roof, and a few painted in bright pastel colors. Primhaven made even less of an impression on him. The campus was surrounded by a high, rather unnecessary-looking wall. The buildings within looked plain, decrepit, and extremely old.

  The plane shook hard enough to feel as though it was staging a rebellion as it touched down on the long, empty airstrip. Lee had been half-expecting it to be carved into the ice or something, but it was a proper tarmac and seemed remarkably well-maintained given how remote it was.

  The pilot came around to open the door for him. Lee thanked him and heard him grunt in response. He’d already paid for his flight and saw no need for further pleasantries, given that the man had made it clear that he had no intention of staying for longer than it took to drop Lee off.

  The cold felt like a violation of Lee’s personal rights as he stepped out onto the ice. He’d thought far enough ahead to bring warm gloves with him, but his hands went to his ears as he felt a sneaking suspicion that they’d end up freezing off if he didn’t find a hat at some point.

  He walked a few feet away from the runway, glancing back and forth between Primhaven to the north and Gillum to the south. His plan was to continue his investigation much in the same way he’d gone about it from the beginning. Ask questions, search for clues, and potentially find a way to get a tour of the campus so he could see it through his unusually perceptive eyes.

  Lee felt a familiar heaviness in his chest as he tried not to envision the outcome that had so often infested his nightmares. He’d come thousa
nds of miles to figure out what happened to Zoe, and part of him was terrified that he’d find her… as a ghost.

  Five years without so much as a phone call, an email, or a letter. Lee had heard nothing from Primhaven, either. It was as though she’d just stopped existing at some point during her time at the school, stopped having any presence or influence in the world.

  He pressed his hands over his ears and started walking toward the university’s gate. It was a large set of wooden double doors that looked a few centuries out of date, architecturally speaking. Lee wondered how the hell they managed to open it, especially after a snowstorm or ice build-up. He figured the answer was probably magic of some form or another.

  Could he just knock? Was that a valid strategy? Knock on the door and start asking questions? He was just a random stranger, not a registered student, not even someone who’d called ahead. No, he needed to be more circumspect. He needed to know what the general attitude of the university’s administration was before trying something like that. He needed…

  “Hello,” called a voice from Lee’s left. “Are you one of the new initiates waiting at the lodge in Gillum?”

  One thing Lee had learned in his time as a freelance mystic and supernatural investigator is that there are certain questions that you always say yes to, without thinking and without hesitation.

  “Yes,” said Lee. “Sorry, I felt like stretching my legs.”

  The person who’d surprised him drew closer, and Lee saw that it was a woman. She was heavily bundled up, with a thick hooded winter jacket and a scarf, but from what he could see of her face he guessed that she was in her mid to late thirties. Her skin was caramel in color, and she was tall and slender. Her arms were crossed and there was an authoritative quality to her posture that made Lee think that she was a step above a normal instructor.

  “You’re early,” said the woman. “Admissions don’t officially start until three pm. Are you already preregistered? What’s your name?”

  “Lee Amaranth,” he said. “Nice to meet you. I’m not sure if I’m preregistered yet? I didn’t realize that was required.”