Isheanesu is tired. Since Wendy’s first conflict with Tin at the CZS, when he was hit with the light of first creation, Isheanesu has been pale. He was partially evaporated by the light and what remained of him was a truly ghostly form that made Wendy sad when she really looked at him. It was easy for her to forget his condition when they talked like they always had, but she would always have quiet moments where she would stare at him remorsefully, full of regret that she had not worked faster to help him. He tried very hard, for her sake, and for everyone’s, to continue as usual, but everyone knew what was looming.
Falon, Adam and Manuel have spent a lot of time with Isheanesu lately, though only Falon is able to see him. She often allows him to possess her so that he can speak with the three of them directly, and Falon’s talents as a medium have grown exponentially since she first discovered the ability during their conflict at the CZS. She had caught glimpses of the ghost of her father, Phil, as she and Young arrived in Durham and he told her about the unspeakable agony that he suffered, dying and being brought back to life over and over again.
“My head is a bomb,” he’d said to her when Young had finally stopped the car on an empty backroad with the campus of the CZS looming in the distance.
“You can see him now?” Paul said in the front seat as Falon got out of the car.
She ignored his question and stood before the spirit of her father.
“What happened to you?”
“I ain’t got much time,” he said looking pained and panicked at the same time. “I know you came looking because you knew I was in trouble, I love you for that. You are my world Falon and I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you more. But ain’t nothing left to save. Get away from this place. Please.”
Falon watched as her father was suddenly pulled toward the CZS campus.
“Please go Falon…” he yelled to her and he may have said more but he was at too far a distance.
Paul was standing next to her when she looked away from the building. Adam and Manuel were there too, but they were asleep in the backseat.
“We have to find out what they’re doing to him!” Falon yelled hysterically.
Paul calmed her and Wendy arrived shortly after for their assault on the CZS where Wendy facilitated the possession of them all in order to do battle against the evil at the campus.
Falon has been very receptive to the new skills she learns from Wendy and Aile’s ancestors and she has been searching for the spirit of her father when she is alone.
Currently, Ishe is speaking to Adam and Manuel while possessing Falon. He speaks about the use of incantations, how they borrow energy and matter from the various realms of existence and using them carelessly could have catastrophic implications.
“A medium is like a conduit of energies,” he explains with Falon’s mouth as she sits in the control room of her mind watching the interaction through her eyes on a large screen and listening to the conversation that is mostly an educational lecture. “They see ghosts because they are natural conduits of spirit energies specifically, and with concentration, using incantations, they can become a conduit for all kinds of forces. The two of you are not natural conduits so you must be extra careful. The use of energies across the realms of existence could leave you vulnerable to possession from beings of those realms, or you could exhaust your bodies. Do not abuse the incantations, do not abuse yourselves. Always be mindful of your own spirit, your own body and learn to feel the effects that they have on you spiritually and physically.”
“It’s hard to say the incantations unless I’m possessed,” Adam says. “I guess it’s pronunciation, but I can’t imagine doing any of this stuff without one of you inside me.”
“If you want to master it, it will take time,” Isheanesu says. “But there is no need to learn it if you are willing to be the vessel for a spirit that already does. That is a personal choice to make. But the three of you have come a very long way in a short time. You are more than prepared to face this insidious organization masquerading as a humanitarian group. How long will you all stay with Wendy?”
“I’m leaving soon,” Manuel says. “I think we’re both gonna work for Paul’s detective agency when that’s up and running.” He looks to Adam who nods in agreement. “That’ll give me time to wrap up things in North Carolina. I think I can get my ex to agree to a weekend a month with my son. Honestly, she’ll be happy to hear I’m moving to Tennessee.”
“I’ll probably stay a little longer before we move,” Adam says.
“I’m staying for as long as Wendy will let me,” Falon says with her mouth. “Y’all know where to find us when you need back up.”
Ishe leaves Falon’s body and she sees him almost panting for breath, though he isn’t because he doesn’t breathe. He is visibly exhausted, though, like his faint energies have been taxed and he falls to his knees.
“I think it’s time,” he says gravely, and Falon dashes to the house to find Wendy, leaving Adam and Manuel looking at one another with confusion.
Inside, Aile is standing over a bubbling pot with the spirits of her ancestor Fang and sister Stephanie.
When Fang first appeared to Aile at the IBF, she had been there for less than a year. Aile started to use drugs after Stephanie died and she ended up at a facility in Columbia, South Carolina because she used drugs to rid herself of visions of her sister’s ghost. She eventually met Alia before they were transferred to the IBF in Georgia, and Fang arrived shortly after, asking her for help defeating an escaped monster that belonged to Princess Iron Fan. Aile was happy to ignore Fang as she did the spirit of her sister, until Alia left the IBF, and she and Elia were attacked by a Red Dragon. Since that time, Aile has worked with her ancestor Fang and her sister to prepare for other monsters that Fang occasionally found and lured to the IBF for Aile to destroy. When Eakran left the IBF, and Alia, and the man Darker traveled with him, Aile moved in with Wendy, whom she’d met after the spirit of a doctor kidnapped the body of her patient.
“It’s time,” Falon says frantically to the three women who know exactly what she is referring to when they hear her.
“Go get Wendy, hurry,” Aile says to Stephanie, while she and Fang follow Falon outdoors where Isheanesu is still on his knees.
Stephanie finds Wendy and Paul in her office on the first floor. They are coordinating regular, future visits between Georgia and Tennessee when they would meet to exchange information they had gathered about the COHH. Wendy, like Aile, had been a medium her entire life, though it was only a few years ago that she was visited by her ancestors, Anesuishe and Isheanesu. They asked her for help reining in the powerful spirit of their ancestor who had married a witch named Miriro long ago, and when the powerful man died, she used his spirit energies in their afterlife for various attempts at conquering and ruling the world. Miriro made an appearance when her ancestors revealed themselves to Wendy very apologetically because they’d hoped that no other living relative would have to sacrifice their lives to defeat the witch. But Miriro had grown very powerful when a descendant of her child with the Chimutengwendes was born, a boy that she called Rhode. Rhode has been missing since the incident at the CZS where Miriro had possessed him and used his abilities for the enemy; the CZS hoped to take Wendy and use her as a weapon in an intergalactic war.
“It’s time, Wendy,” Stephanie says.
Wendy is about to dash out of the room, but Paul gets her attention.
“What’s going on?” Paul asks, standing behind her.
“My uncle, Ishe,” she says looking back at him. “He’s dying.”
“I thought he was already dead.”
“Even the dead can die,” Wendy says. “The last of his energies are going back to the universe and I’ll never see him in this life as I knew him. We are saying goodbye to him now, you should come. He is a big fan of yours.”
“He is such a good man,” Paul says, remembering their time together during the possession at the CZS. “I can’t believe we’ll never get to work together again.”
Outside, they all kneel around Isheanesu and though many of Wendy’s friends can’t see, many of the spirits of her ancestors are there to say goodbye to Isheanesu aswell. Anesuishe hugs him until the faint form of his spirit evaporates and she is a weeping mass after his disappearance.
Wendy had come to know Isheanesu very well, and because she had learned a lot from him, she would always hold a piece of him inside of her.
Meanwhile, at the secret headquarters of the Consortium of Human History…
Wendy’s Great uncle, another of her ancestors, has been with Tin since the incident at the CZS. He watches everything that Tin sees from a dark spot in the man’s consciousness. Great uncle is Wendy’s spy, and he has seen so much since he left her. He will have many stories to tell her when they finally reunite.
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