Shadows of the Past

An occult detective/urban fantasy yarn from B.R. Michaels

Leto Kevalan has her life set to a series of alarms. At half past six in the morning, she wakes up. She has exactly an hour to get ready and be out the door, so she can arrive at work at exactly 8 AM.

Her fridge has only what she needs for the day. The same thing, every day. No pictures hang on the walls of her apartment, but she likes to imagine it exudes a homely feeling anyway. The only truly irreplaceable thing in the place is the bag hidden in her closet. In it is money in four different currencies, six passports, weapons, and other supplies for a quick getaway. Leto checks it every morning before leaving.

In an inner pocket of the bag, is a notebook with an old drawing tucked inside. The edges of the paper are worn from all the times she’s run her fingers over it. Leto stares at the depiction of her daughter in ink, carving every line into her memory. If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine running her fingers through soft hair.

Of course, she’s taken pictures of the drawing. But the routine is essential. Leto knows intimately what life can become if one loses track of time and wastes away. Having daily tasks to stick to is important.

Every day, except on Sundays, she walks to work. She takes the same streets and uses the same bus. It’s automatic in a way that is deeply comforting.

Scanning in with her badge, Leto is let into the Rutherford Museum service entrance and allowed to access her cleaning equipment. No one greets her or supervises her work. Every part of this building moves like a well-oiled machine. She doesn’t have to talk to a single person before clocking out at the end of the day—exactly seven PM.

It’s freeing.

Technology, she decided a long time ago, was a gift to humankind. Technology has many positive aspects, but none more so than its ability to remember.

As long as Leto keeps to the schedule, she can work and receive her automatic paycheck sent electronically. Computers don’t forget.

And neither does the past. Not really.

Hand brushing glass, Leto gazes at the display case in front of her. Her other hand clutches the mop she’s supposed to be using, yet the brooch in front of her captures her attention. In the pre-Revolutionary wing of the museum, the halls are littered with old scavenged household items from centuries gone by. So many clothes, tools, and trinkets that crossed the Atlantic Ocean with their owners to live in New England. There was so much hope back then.

Leto can almost taste the salt on her tongue and hear the sailors shouting in her ears when a cough draws her out of her mind. The present comes into focus not so gently, and she takes a deep breath to give herself a moment to gather herself.

Turning, Leto realizes there is only one other person in this stretch of hallways with her and tightens her hold on the mop. It’s a woman—strangely sharp features on a tall, willowy figure. She wears a dark coat to protect against Maine’s February temperatures. Leto didn’t hear her walking by. Wariness slinks up her spine.

“Can I help you, miss?” Best to be polite, all things considered. Even with her curse, Leto is not someone who can simply mouth off at anyone without consequences. She likes this job.

The woman smiles, the expression slightly awkward. “No, sorry. Just wondering if there’s something special about that brooch. You’ve been staring at it a while.”

And how long have you been looking at me? Leto doesn’t voice this question and resists the urge to glance at the brooch. “It’s beautiful.”

“I suppose so,” she murmurs. “But I’m more interested in the history.”

Leto mentally reminds herself of every stashed weapon on her person as she asks. “It’s just a brooch, isn’t it?”

She can’t parse the look in the other woman’s eyes as she answers. “Maybe.”

Fortunately, for Leto’s sanity, a group of tourists enters the hall, breaking the tension. She quickly moves on while the other’s attention is drawn away, going to find a different place to clean. As soon as she’s out of sight, all the nerves in her body leave.

Whatever she meant, it doesn’t matter. The moment Leto stepped out of view, she forgot all about Leto. The other forgot her, so there’s no reason to wonder why the woman was interested in her daughter’s old brooch.

Every night, at exactly nine PM, Leto goes hunting.

Not the kind of hunting rich men do with their custom rifles and trained dogs, or even the more practical kind that ends with the entire body of a deer being used. This type of hunting is done out of the light and in the back streets of cities. Leto is very experienced with this practice of hunting.

She sticks to the shadows as a precaution, even though no one who sees her will remember her. Leto has stood on stages, performed her heart out, and been forgotten the moment she’s out of sight. She knows what she can do, but something wary and watchful that lives in her tells her to be careful tonight.

So, she stays in the darkness as she hunts her prey.

Her target is seemingly a man. A short but broad-shouldered one with soft eyes and a superficial smile. Not for a second does Leto trust it. Not when every hair on the back of her neck stands up in warning and energy hums in her bones, waiting for a fight. She follows him through the snow-covered streets and watches him as he starts a hunt of his own. Hunger paints his face for all of a second before vanishing under a convincing veneer as he starts chatting up a woman waiting by a bus stop.

Leto doesn’t let her disgust or fear stop her as she rushes forward and grabs onto the man’s arm. “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

The brief confusion on his face is satisfying. “Wha—”

“You should be more careful in this weather,” Leto says, and watches as the bus turns the street corner. The woman he had been talking to immediately looks toward it with relief and prepares to board.

Barely concealed irritation splatters across the man’s face. Leto watches as calculating and hungry eyes turn to her. “Of course, sorry. Let’s get out of the cold.”

She prefers to take her prey down swiftly and by surprise, but pretending to be the prey works well enough. It’s a trick Leto has done many times, and knows the steps by rote. She lets the man guide her down the street until they pass the entrance of a back alley that he suddenly pulls her into.

The grin that spreads over his face is foul. Leto doesn’t let him get a word out before her silver blade is pulled from her coat and stabs him directly in the heart. It’s an anti-climatically silent and quick affair for something that could have gone very differently. He looks down at the blade as she rips it out, confusion overcoming his features before giving way to rage. It doesn’t matter, though, as Leto watches him fall back against the alley wall and crumple to the ground.

Blood pools, just a shade darker than it should be. She waits, watching the body. It usually takes a minute.

Dark wisps begin rising from the man, small at first, then all at once taking on the form of a shadowy beast rising above the human body. What could be smoke shifts, making the thing move like rippling water through the air, as bright red eyes stare her down. Shadows form a jagged mouth that snarls at her, moments away from lunging.

“There we go,” Leto says, tone wry. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Let’s get to the main event, shall we?”

It’s like being attacked by a cloud, like a lightless fog overtaking the alley. Leto keeps her ground, blade out and ready. Smoke swirls around her like a tornado, until a more substantial arm reaches from the dark for her. She whirls to the side and slashes out, cutting the manifestation. In this form, Leto can only hurt the monster when it solidifies enough to attack her. This makes it a risky fight for the both of them.

Fortunately, this is a fight Leto has gotten very good at. The shadow monsters always react impulsively when they’re dragged out of their host, instead of simply dispersing into the shadows where she can’t reach them. It’s like all higher reasoning leaves them the moment they leave a human body.

The attacks are relatively simple to predict in their unpredictability—Leto expects the awkward angles she has to dodge and weave around. They attack her blind spots, so she never stops moving and takes every opportunity to lash out with her silver blade. It’s the only metal that really does damage.

Nothing has endless energy, even supernatural constructs. Leto waits for the moment the shadows start thinning, when the smoke is less oppressive, to stab out her blade at a manifested hand aiming for her leg. It sinks into the monster, and she holds.

“I banish you from this world,” Leto chants under her breath in the Old Tongue, having memorized the words long ago. “You will slink back to the shadows and stay there. No more steps will you haunt, no more bodies will you host. Dust to dust, ash to ash.”

It takes repeating a few times for the spell to set in, and then the shadows are swirling at her feet before dissipating entirely. Leto steps back against the alley wall, opposite the slumped man, and takes a minute to settle her heartbeat. Her chest heaves for a moment before evening as she persuades her hand not to clench so hard on the dagger anymore.

The adrenaline crash is the worst part, and she weathers it until the aches of the fight set in. She gained more bruises than she remembered getting, not that it’s much of a surprise. Difficult to notice such a small thing in the middle of a fight for your life. Her body will heal all of it before the end of the night, anyway. Leto sighs and finally turns her eyes to the alley’s other remaining occupant.

All of this would be simpler if it were a simple possession, and the man were still alive. Unfortunately, even if she hadn’t stabbed him, the shadow monsters always kill their hosts upon taking them over. Now, Leto is left with an unexplainable corpse.

“A year, and nothing to show for it,” she mutters to herself, frustrated beyond measure. After a year of these unknown monsters popping up in this city, she’s no closer to finding answers to what they are or how they are created. Just chasing shadows.

Any other night, Leto might just leave the body. The only proof would be her dagger, which she keeps with her. Except that’s not true this night, is it? She had to play the hero, so now there’s a witness. The woman at the bus stop saw her, even if she won’t remember what Leto looks like. Considering the man will probably turn up on the news, it’s more likely the woman will remember some part of that interaction. Plus, who knows how many cameras the bus stop is in sight of?

Better to hide the body, make it a disappearance rather than a murder. Leto has tricks up her sleeves for such things, as unsavory as it is.

The price of magic is steeped in blood. Thankfully, the corpse has plenty to give. He fuels his own disappearing act, a simple Notice-Me-Not charm, as Leto fireman carries the man out into the woods. It’s a longer walk than it should be, considering all the cameras she has to avoid, but doable.

Dumping the corpse in the harbor would have worked if not for the likelihood of his body washing up somewhere where a person would find it. Leto would rather take her chance in the woods, where the snow will cover up the body for months before summer. By then, the murder will be cold. She will have time to erase the evidence.

It’s nasty work that takes her hours. By the time she’s home, Leto is covered in dirt and exhausted. Laundry and showering take precedence; she only gets to bed by nearly four AM. That leaves her less than three hours to sleep before work.

Suffice it to say, it’s not one of Leto’s best nights.

Dreams of shadows and panic follow her into the waking world, but she doesn’t recall the specifics. Trying to shrug the effects of nightmares off, Leto gets into her morning routine. She follows her alarms. She thinks of her daughter, who is long dead. She walks to work. She grabs a mop and misses all the blades hidden in her apartment. Only the weapons that can get past a metal detector are on her in the museum.

This means Leto is armed chiefly with wooden stakes that have runes of power carved into them and the odd spell bag. It’s not what she would carry around if she had the choice. Regardless, she gets to work. Her job starts an hour or two depending on the day before the museum opens for the public. Today, she only has an hour.

Standing by a discreet service door, Leto watches with apathetic eyes as people stream into the museum. There’s a few school groups, which makes her smile fondly.

Her musings are interrupted by a chill racing up her spine. Instinctively, Leto’s eyes find the source.

It’s another host.

Panic shoots through Leto before she can stifle it. There’s usually a week’s gap at least before another shadow monster pops up after she killed the last. The only reason she’s sure it’s not the same monster is that it never changes its tactics. Even if it can’t remember her like everyone else, surely it would understand it needs to hunt differently if it kept dying. It can be smart on occasion.

So, different monsters.

Leto stares at the thing hosting a small child and feels her stomach plummet to her feet.

She stalks the monster through the museum.

It’s possessing a child, something that has only happened rarely and makes Leto feel sick with fury every single time. The boy isn’t a teenager yet, still small enough to get away with trouble, which is likely the intention. He wears a sports hoodie and fancy tennis shoes Leto couldn’t hope to identify. There is no sign of any parents, so they’ve likely already been killed and eaten.

Had this shadow been lurking for weeks, and Leto merely hadn’t noticed?

The monster watches the crowds.

In Leto’s peripheral, she sees it examine exhibits, as if it’s searching for something. During her entire time hunting these monsters, they’ve only ever seemed focused on finding their next prey. The idea that this one might have a different goal is as intriguing as it is unnerving.

Technically, Leto is supposed to be ‘out of sight, out of mind’ when it comes to the museum’s paying visitors. Because of her curse, however, Leto can get away with staying full view as she discreetly follows the monster through the halls. The cameras will catch her, but as long as no one has a reason to search for her, security will forget they ever saw her out of place.

Being remembered is always a little hit and miss. Leto has tried countless ways to outsmart the curse over the centuries with people she cared about. Physical reminders worked best, for a time. Eventually, the curse overpowers all memory. It creeps in, taking all thought of Leto and erasing it forever.

Even... Even her daughter had forgotten her in the end. Cece had tried her best, but the curse had won out.

Technology has changed some things, if not the end result. The curse can’t affect electronics, which is a boon Leto had all but given hope on. Human memory is faulty and prone to change without any magical intervention. Machines have no such flaws. Leto has come to depend on it, even as she is weary of being hunted herself if her nighttime activities come out. Any officer would forget her soon enough, but the computers would remember.

It’s her salvation and her potential destruction all wrapped in one.

The monster is staring longer at each exhibit, minutes at a time. They’ve moved onto the pre-Revolutionary section, which is a coincidence Leto doesn’t like. She frowns thoughtfully, mind wandering back to the strange man she met yesterday in the same hall.

Leto doesn’t place much of her belief in fate, but she also knows better than to be naive when suspicious connections are staring her in the face.

It’s worrying. While strange, the tall woman from yesterday had not given off the same feeling the shadow monsters did when possessing a host. Leto won’t rule the possibility out, of course, except the idea of them hiding from her is a horrifying one. In the beginning, she’d spent a month studying them so this exact situation wouldn’t happen.

Leto resists the urge to swear fiercely and loudly when the child host stops in front of Cece’s brooch. The boyish features hiding a monster stare unblinkingly.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Just as Leto is figuring out how she wants to approach this situation, someone steps up next to the child host.

Only one person has managed to allude her spatial awareness in some time, and Leto is only partially surprised to see the strange woman from yesterday staring down the shadow monster. She nearly steps out into the hallway and intervenes, instincts warring inside her. For once, she’s not sure who’s in danger and who is the threat. Both, maybe.

Leto is too far away to hear the words exchanged, only able to see that a few are, and they’re not friendly. The child host sneers up at the woman, the thin veneer of innocence falling away. It catches her off guard to see it happen in public, and causes her to stay behind when the host walks off. She watches the woman instead, finally working up the nerve to do something.

Leto isn’t amateur-ish enough to say “you,” but it’s a near thing. Her surprise will make no sense to the younger woman, since she will not remember Leto from the day before. Back straightening with confidence, she approaches.

The woman looks at her, brows furrowed. “You.”

Leto’s jaw drops open in a way very reminiscent of an amateur. Her eyes widen comically. “What?”

“From yesterday,” the increasingly strange woman scans her over. “No mop.”

“What?” Leto looks at her empty hands as if they will give her answers. She was too distracted by the child host’s appearance that she left her cleaning equipment behind.

“What are you doing here?” Suspicion is permeating the woman’s voice, throwing Leto off further.

“You...” remember me? Shaking herself, Leto takes a second look at the woman. She can’t pin down her presence, something so far removed from the oily darkness of the shadow monsters. “Who are you?”

The younger’s hand is migrating to her jacket, cautiously reaching for something. Leto thinks fast, deciding in a split second how she wants this interaction to go.

“You’re hunting them, too, aren’t you? That’s why the child host was hostile towards you.”

The other freezes, taken aback. Black eyes stare her down, trying to see all her secrets. “What are you?”

“Leto,” she introduces herself. Her name would be easy enough to find in the museum’s systems if this woman remembers her, anyway. Gods, does she really remember?

“... Munin,” the woman hesitantly replies. “You’re here for the Tartarans, too?”

Tartarans. A suitable name for those shades. Leto wonders if Munin calls them that or learned it from somewhere.

“Not here, in the museum, specifically. But in this city? Yes. You’re new, though.”

Munin glances at the brooch, something complicated flashing over her face. “Yes, you could say that.”

Mysterious, Leto notes with only a little sarcasm. It’s not like she can throw many stones from her glasshouse when it comes to keeping secrets. “How long have you been tracking them? I’ve only heard of them in this city.”

“This is where the most sightings are,” Munin agrees. “But I’ve been tracking instances across the world for years. However, they’re all here now.”

That’s… deeply concerning. Leto looks at Cece’s brooch, something cold sitting in her stomach.

“What did the child host say?”

Munin’s face darkens. “That they’re here for the brooch, and they’re getting it tonight. They’ll kill as many people as they need to get to it.”

Night falls, and the monster comes back. Leto feels the darkness of the child host approaching with a power to it she’s never felt before. Munin has done her job in driving off any human security guards, so at least the casualties will be minimal.

The two strangers had agreed to put aside any questions they had for each other to focus on fighting the host. Leto doesn’t want a single shadowy finger anywhere near Cece’s brooch.

The remaining lights cut out, and the ever-present hum of electronics disappears. They cut the power, Leto realizes. No alarms will go off now when they break in.

Not that she was putting much hope in backup from the local police. But it also means the security cameras are down, so she and Munin can’t watch the child host arrive.

Locks will mean nothing to them, the metal warping under superhuman strength. Her grip tightens on her silver blade, the leather wrap of the handle digging into her palm. Leto had rushed home to get proper weapons before nightfall, knowing she had little time to prepare. Now, she’s grateful for the precaution.

The child host—the most intelligent of its kind, according to Munin—is waiting for them at the front. A sick smile slashes across its face as it leers at them.

“You’re far too late to stop this,” is all it says before jumping at them, shadows wreathing its body and turning it into a small but devastatingly strong beast. Leto barely dodges a stretched-out limb, the arm sharpened to a deadly edge by the tangible darkness. It slices through the floor like butter.

Munin shoots at the host, bullets of a silver alloy that slowly poison the monsters. With Leto as a close-range fighter, they manage to keep the host on the back foot until Munin makes a shot. The host stumbles to the floor, light from the silver corroding away at its presence.

“You’re… too late,” is all it mumbles out before slumping.

Leto feels a chill run up her spine and senses magic stirring around her. She whirls in the direction it’s coming from and realizes that other hosts must have targeted Cece’s brooch. Cursing under her breath, she takes off at a sprint with Munin at her heels.

She arrives at the pre-Revolutionary wing first, skidding to a halt as she takes in the scene with wide eyes. A ring of shadow hosts is holding hands around a magic circle drawn in blood on the floor. Leto doesn’t recognize the exact symbol, but instinctively feels the power coming from it. A distant part of herself complains about the cleanup she’ll have to do before she registers what object is lying in the middle of the circle.

It’s Cece’s brooch, which ignites a confused fury in her that makes Leto grit her teeth painfully.

“What are they doing?” Leto snarls at the circle of hosts, both enraged and baffled at the ritual.

“That is an unbinding ritual,” Munin says, not sounding pleased. Her gun is steady in her hand as she points it at the hosts. Leto has to grab her arm tightly and pull it down.

“Are you insane? If you disrupt the ritual now, the built-up energy will be unleashed and decimate everything around it!”

Munin curses loudly. “Then what do we do?”

Leto has to think fast, mind running through all the ways this could go wrong. “There will be a moment where the magic will be vulnerable. When the power they’re unbinding starts to manifest it will be open to attacks. If we damage it before the ritual is complete, whatever they’re doing will reverse.”

They turn to the magic circle and the ring of hosts, watching the low chanting as the lines written in blood begin to shine with ethereal light. Leto grimaces, not liking at all how the night is shaping out to be.

Shadows begin to waft off Cece’s brooch, something that nearly makes Leto break her own advice and attack the hosts. How dare they do this to one of the last tokens she has of her daughter? How did they even know they could do this?

“I think you need to tell me about your daughter,” Munin says, glancing between her and the brooch.

“I have no idea why this is happening. That brooch was a gift from me. I didn’t store any magic in it!”

Oily smoke converges over the magic circle, taking a vaguely humanoid shape. Leto readies her dagger until the shadows manifest into a recognizable face, and she nearly drops her weapon. A gasp leaves her, drawing Munin’s attention.

Her face is grim. “Is that your daughter?”

The glowing eyes of the woman manifest from pure darkness, zeroing in on Leto, a slow smirk forming on her beautiful face. Someone Leto once loved dearly stares down at her.

“… No.”

“What? Then who—”

“Finally,” the figure speaks, voice echoing off the walls. Every syllable quakes with power, stirring up a breeze in the closed hallway. “Every second in that trinket dragged on for centuries.”

“Impossible,” Leto murmurs. Munin is looking increasingly freaked out, gun up and pointed at the smoky construct.

“What is that?”

“How easily humans forget,” the woman grins wickedly, chuckling at her own private joke. “I am Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. I am the beginning and end of what makes up your little soul, mortal.”

“No trinket could contain a goddess,” Leto argues in vain, feeling severely out of depth as she stares at the visage.

“Still so quick to speak out, Leto Kevalan. Have I taught you nothing?”

“You cursed me for saying the truth, that wasn’t a lesson, it was cruel!” Leto’s fist clenches around her dagger, mind flooded with memories of so long ago. She had loved Mnemosyne once, before she learned the inherent heartlessness of a god. Even now, she can see no regret in the god’s face.

Mnemosyne finally notices Munin standing silently next to Leto, and grins wider. “Both of you together, the Fates must be weaving tales.”

“What?” Turning to Munin, Leto realizes the younger woman is frozen, eyes wide, even as the gun she holds is steady. Something like horror is on Munin’s face.

“Ha!” Mnemosyne’s chuckles echo throughout the hall, and static electricity buzzes against Leto’s skin. The god’s power is barely contained, and the unbinding spell is slowly unraveling. Do they have enough time to stop it? “Two humans bearing a curse of my making stand before me and don’t recognize it? This is too good to be true.”

“Curse?” Leto is staring at Munin, wishing for answers, but the goddess beats her to it.

“One cursed to be forgotten, one from a family cursed to remember everything. What an odd pair you make.”

“Oh,” Leto whispers, understanding flooding her. This is why Munin remembers her. Only a curse by the same god could overpower the other. And a family one at that… Leto imagines the curse to remember everything comes with the caveat of not having many good things to remember.

The realization is enough to pull Leto out of her state of shock and turn to Mnemosyne’s shadowy form with a hard look. There’s only one person who could have bound the goddess in her daughter’s brooch, even if the idea is still mind-boggling.

“Cece trapped you, didn’t she? In that brooch. She always said she wanted to break my curse, but to think that she went directly to you…”

Mnemosyne’s smile drops a few ticks and gives the false appearance of nonchalance. “Your daughter was a clever thing, trying to bargain for the breaking of your curse. She should have known better than to try to defeat a goddess.”

“She beat you,” Leto says, something warm spreading throughout her whole body. “Even when you took all her memories, she’s beaten you.”

Something ugly twists in the god’s face, ruining the flawless visage. “She failed. And you will pay for her failure. Again.”

That seems to snap Munin out of their fugue state, the gun rising higher. “You’re not gonna hurt anyone else ever again.”

A great, invisible force is thrown out from the magic circle, throwing both women off their feet. The ring of hosts is undisturbed, not a single one of them moving from their spots. Leto has to stop this ritual, no matter what.

She turns to Munin, who is struggling to her feet. “Do you trust me?”

The younger woman stares at her unblinkingly. Her dark eyes hide a frightful intelligence, one that looks straight at Leto. “Yes. Let’s kick her ass.”

Mnemosyne laughs. “Oh, a challenge? How cute?”

Leto glances at the magic circle, taking in how close to unraveling it is. If she disrupts it at the wrong moment, the pent-up power could wipe out the city and still free Mnemosyne. The goddess knows this, and the smug look on her face tells Leto she thinks she’s already won.

Around the circle, the hosts are stalwart pillars.

The shadow hosts—Leto thinks over the past year again, turning over what she knows. The hosts must have been drawn from the Underworld by Mnemosyne as a way to escape. But only the most powerful of them was intelligent enough to actually find the brooch. The goddess didn’t care about what monsters she was unleashing on humanity in an effort to free herself.

Leto doesn’t have it in herself to let that cruelty go ignored. She steps forward, patting Munin’s shoulder as she goes. The younger woman had told her hours ago that she had a second gun in her other underarm holster. One that has bullets laced with mistletoe.

“Mnemo,” Leto says, letting her voice gentle just a touch. The god’s eyes are fully on her now, amusement dancing in them. “We can end this peacefully.”

“Oh, no. I’ve waited far too long for that,” Mnemosyne’s eyes narrow with thoughtfulness, her face painted with another mean smile. Leto steps closer. “Unless, of course, you want to beg for forgiveness? Perhaps then I will think of sparing your life. For old time’s sake.”

“How generous,” Leto somehow manages to keep the sarcasm from her voice as she gets closer, within arm’s reach of the ring of hosts. She can’t kill the hosts without severe backlash, and the goddess knows it.

But then Leto ducks under the connecting arms of two hosts and enters the magic circle. Immediately, the storm of energy nearly rips her apart. Tears fall on her face as her breath heaves with difficulty, and her body shakes with effort to keep her standing. The pain is intense and feels like fire running through her veins. Distantly, she hears a gasp from Munin.

Mnemosyne’s eyes widen in surprise. “What are you doing? Killing yourself will not save you from my wrath when I get out of here!”

“You won’t,” Leto whispers, then cuts her palm with her silver blade, flinging the blood so it falls on the brooch. The goddess balks, fury painting her visage.

“YOU DARE—”

The magic circle all but glitches, energy threatening to spill out yet roughly contained. The spell is being slowed in its tracks by Leto reinforcing her daughter’s work with her blood. The same magic runs in her veins as Cece’s, and curse the gods themselves if she lets her daughter’s work be unmade.

“Munin!” Leto yells, hoping the younger had understood her signal. The woman doesn’t disappoint, shooting three shots at Mnemosyne’s construct. The goddess brushes two away with a furious swipe, but the third hits her dead-on, and she shrieks so loudly the whole museum shakes with it.

Mistletoe won’t kill Mnemosyne, of course. But with the legends attached to it, Leto knows it will affect her enough for her crazy gamble to work. Mistletoe killed a god once, and a story like that gives it power. At the very least, it will act like a poison to the goddess.

In a fury, Mnemosyne throws Leto as far as she can. Leto hits the museum wall with a bruising thud, dropping to the floor none-too-gently. Nothing is broken, thankfully, but she can feel her healing factor struggling to keep up. However, Leto doesn’t let the shock set in, instantly pushing herself to her feet and approaching the ritual again.

“I banish you from this world,” Leto yells over the god’s angry roar. Her words ripple through the air, drawing off the energy already in the circle. “You will slink back to the shadows and stay there. No more steps will you haunt, no more bodies will you host. Dust to dust, ash to ash.”

She says it again and again and again, until finally, Mnemosyne’s construct drains away. Furious eyes and an eternal scream are the last sights of her as the goddess is bound back into Cece’s brooch.

The shadow hosts all fall as one, the life taken out of them from the failed ritual. Each body sounds like thunder in the quiet as it drops. Everything is frozen in stillness, like the whole world is just as shocked as they are that they succeeded.

Silence reigns before Leto turns to Munin. They stare at each other blankly for a moment, taking it all in. Then they both burst into giggles, Leto holding her stomach at the pain of her sudden hysterical outburst.

“It’s not funny at all,” Munin gasps.

“I’m crying,” Leto says as tears trickle down her face, her laughter shaking her whole body. “I can’t believe—Cece, you crazy, brave fool.”

“She must have gotten it from her mother.” Munin’s humor starts to subside as she looks the older woman over. “She was trying to save you.”

“Cece should have saved herself.”

“Maybe she couldn’t live with the idea of knowing she could try and not follow through.”

Leto sighs as the aches in her body make themself known. Being thrown around by a goddess takes an extra moment to heal from. “Perhaps.”

Munin stares at her, something soft entering her gaze. “You’ve been alone a long time, haven’t you?”

“No one remembers,” Leto says, a wealth of meaning packed in those three words.

“I do.”

She turns to the younger woman, smile turning strangely fond. “I suppose you do.”

“And you’ve been hunting monsters all alone.”

“I’m good at it.”

“Doesn’t mean you should do it alone,” Munin whispers, voice dropping low. Now that the hosts and Mnemosyne are gone, the darkness of the museum has lost its fear factor. Leto has always found comfort here, where history is worshiped.

“What are you suggesting?”

“We should work together. You don’t need to do this by yourself anymore.” Munin reaches out and takes her hand, the warmth sending a pleasant shiver through her whole body.

Leto feels like she’s standing on the precipice of some great cliff, looking over the endless abyss. She’s always had more curiosity than sense. Cece really did get it from her. “Alright. Let’s hunt some monsters.”

B.R. Michaels is a speculative fiction author who can be found here.