Silver and Dust

Death Inevitable

When night fell in London, it was all at once, followed by graduating degrees of shadow. Quill Kipps should know, given the fact that he rarely missed a night. The one he was watching as the night-cab sped along some back street in the direction of their case was in between true black and that velvet-violet of midnight with a sliver of moon. He watched that sliver of moon as it shimmered on the Thames, and as it was caught in silver and iron baubles spinning around and around in an unearthly wind, and as it finally forsook them as they entered the old Grey's factory, site of at least two Specters and five confirmed deaths. The agent sighed, cursing the stupidity of his supervisor, as the group made its way through musty halls and cobweb-dusted rooms, deeper and deeper into the death trap that was the Problem.

Quill's hair was the most colorful thing in the group of monochromatic children, all of them seeming to be made of shadows and silver dust. The thirteen-year-old agent carefully surveyed his group once more, completely ignoring the middle-aged supervisor already in a circle of iron chains. That man was unimportant at the moment, and was only a liability should issues emerge. There were, in total, four others who actually bore some relevance to this haunting, actual agents who could fight the ghost. Twins, Julia and Michael Barrington, were at the front; they were the oldest, at fifteen, and the most experienced. A small, dark-skinned girl named Violet was close behind, carefully taking notes from the older psychics.

"Quill! Where's your head today?" That was the last member of the group, a girl Quill's age. They weren't precisely friends, but life-and-death situations gave them a sense of closeness. Her name was Ruby, and she was his favorite of all of them. She gave him a worried glance through light eyes, flicking her hair behind her shoulders as she moved past him. He noticed the tight grip on her rapier handle, unusual for the generally pacified girl. She was the slow thinker, researching before fighting; he only hoped that it wasn't her undoing.

It was a slow walk to the room that the bodies had been found in. The floor, scuffed by many feet and swathed in thick spiderwebs, soon bore a circle of iron chains inside of which stood Violet, Michael, and Julia. The former was still scribbling readings down in her notebook, though the twins were peering off into the darkness; their Sight would be useful here, where mortal vision failed. Ruby was tracing her fingers over the walls, trying to glean some insight on the ghosts. Her Touch, volatile at best, could help them find the Source long before the ghost could be sensed.

She pulled dust-stained fingers from the concrete and shook her head; nothing. So the hours wore away and the night grew darker, until the only light in the room came from the lantern Quill clutched. All of the agents were safely within the bands of iron; if the ghost appeared lacking warning, it was the only safe place in the room.

Just after the clock hit ten, a chill descended upon the weary group. Greenish fog began to swirl in unnatural light, startling those on the outer edges of the circle. Chairs were folded, rapiers drawn, tea gulped down. Five stood at the ready, all facing outward. All facing the ghost. Quill realized that ghost-lock accompanied the freakish cold, a ghost-lock that could have pulled even agents to their deaths. This was how it hunted and killed. A deadly trap to scourge the earth of the living.

Shaking his head, the flame-haired boy took a step closer to the circle's edge. A faint apparition, smoky and insubstantial, had formed at the entrance to the room. Ruby was staring at it with glassy eyes, almost under its power. He nudged her in the side and she shook the effects of the ghost's power off, shifting the handle of her shimmering rapier. The Phantasm stood there a long time before it moved again, flowing down the hall. Ruby stared after it, seeming not to hear Quill hiss her name. The other three were frantically looking around for the reported second ghost; Ruby was far out of their range of sight, as was Quill.

For a second, he turned back to his bag, but he heard her footsteps before he could even unzip it. Ruby was halfway across the floor, running towards the hall. The Phantasm had lured her in.

He yelled an explanation at Julia, who nodded, and raced after the blonde girl, hoping to get to her in time. If he didn't the ghost would, and he was not going to carry her body out of that warehouse. She was light and fast, but so was he, and he finally caught up with her in the twisting maze of corridors they had raced down. She was stopped dead in the middle of the tiny room, staring at the swirling smoke barely in a tangible form that stood only feet away. The rapier was slack at her side and her eyes were glazed with ghost-lock. The Phantasm was moving steadily closer, its wispy edges frosting the ground beneath it. Quill had two choices; find and seal the Source, or fight the ghost. He rapidly chose the latter, leaping forward in a feat yet unknown to man, but the ghost had moves as well. It was far closer to Ruby in that moment, and that moment was the defining time. Quill was motionless as he looked into its eyes, realizing too late that ghost-lock had stolen upon him. It was with frozen horror that he watched the pale ghost roll forward and envelop Ruby; the silver of the rapier dissolved it too late.

The girl had never looked so fragile than in that moment. Her blonde hair was blown back on an intangible breeze to reveal a pointed face and terrified eyes. Their pale blue dulled, as did her skin, until her ashen body crumpled to the floor beneath her. It was only then that Quill could wrest himself free of the malignant hold upon him, crying out as he fell to his knees by the girl's body. Her skin was already turning faintly blue and she lacked a pulse; there was no mistaking it, Ruby Seinfeld was dead. And it was his fault.

His team came too late, seeing the boy with hair like fire weep for the girl he had not saved. It was a blur as the others found the Source, as DEPRAC came and took the body away. Quill only really came to consciousness as he and the remaining Fittes agents, still silver and shadowy dust, drove in a silent cab back to the headquarters. It was sunrise.

Sunrises, Quill Kipps realized, were the hopelessness of adults and the wishful thinking of the children. They were illusions of warmth so often followed by cold. They were the glorious sun that rose, a golden glow suffusing the atmosphere before the giant ball of fire rose from behind the horizon. Sunrises were the thing that everyone was united in, agents and adults, wishing for its hasty return. A sunrise was the illusion that you were safe for one more day, that everything was going to be fine. They were all too similar, beautiful in their treacherous lies. A sunrise was what Ruby had wanted to see one last time, but never got to.

It was in that moment that Quill's faith in the children began to waver, as the sun crested a freezing London to chase away the ghosts. In that split second, the sunrise turned dark for him. No one else, he vowed to himself. No one else.