Tano’s empty streets echoed loudly with Poesie and Naya’s footfall. Despite being the slighter girl, Naya’s steps were somehow louder. The local phantoms noticed this about Naya all the time. They noticed it now, and Poesie noticed that they noticed.

The living population was thinned with nightfall, and with that the departed population blazed ghastly blue in the sun’s absence. There weren’t very many recognizable Shades in Tano on a typical night–very often the poor souls just drifted across the continent aimlessly, depending on how much of their cognitive faculties they’d retained after death–and this night was typical.

Poesie avoided looking directly at the things if she could help it. Naya, on the other hand, always wanted to make eye contact with them. Provided they still had visible eyes, that was.

Poesie’s best friend veered closer to a very well-defined Shade floating by the side of the street. It was spinning slowly, as though forever suspended in gallows. Before Poesie could pull her hand back, Naya passed her hand through the incorporeal thing the same way children play with dry ice mist.

“Naya,” Poesie said shortly. She didn’t mean to snap at her, but she couldn’t help it. Of course, Naya was unaffected, and showed it by giving Poesie a nonchalant glance.

“Oh, relax,” the blonde girl said, “most people go their whole lives without getting Possessed, right?”

“You’re increasing your chances,” Poesie said sternly. Her heart was palpitating too hard. Seeing Naya enact this stupidity always did that to her.

“Oh, I’ve got you with me,” Naya said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “I’ll be fine.”

Poesie stopped walking and grabbed Naya’s hand. She pressed Naya’s it against her rib cage, just below her left breast. She pressed hard, hoping the beating of her heart would be obtrusive.

“Please,” she said quietly, “at least stop doing that sort of thing when you’re around me. I can’t handle it.”

Naya’s expression softened from friendly disdain to aching affection. She looked into Poesie’s eyes and kept her hand where it was. “Oh, Poesie. Okay, fine, I’ll stop. Let’s go.” Naya gave her a peck on the cheek, then put her arm around Poesie’s shoulder and led her along.

Good.

“I hope I can find a boy who loves me as much as you do someday.”

“So do I, but I’m not holding my breath.”

Naya huffed.

Eventually hugging became uncomfortable in the muggy night, and the pair unpeeled from each other as they walked.

Just as Poesie was about to ask, Naya spoke first, and when she did Poesie wished she’d spoken sooner. “So how are things with you and Francesca?”

Poesie groaned. Fucking Francesca.

“Oh, no,” Naya said disappointedly.

“Oh, yes.”

“What happened? I thought everything was great.”

Poesie snorted. “Technically it was never great. It turns out she was only pretending she liked girls to anger her parents.”

Naya frowned. “She said that she loved you.”

“Yeah, she said a lot of things.”

“You filled a whole journal of poetry just about her.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Burned it.”

Naya scrunched her brow and tilted her head just like an upset toddler. “Poesie,” she whined.

“I,” Poesie said, holding up one index finger, “could not fucking sleep with that thing in my house. I couldn’t stop thinking about everything I’d written in it. It had to be destroyed.”

Naya shook her head. “Well, I would have been able to appreciate the poems for themselves. You couldn’t have slept if it was in my house?”

Poesie shook her head. She knew Naya would say something like this. That was why she needed to burn the damn thing without telling her. If she’d brought this up before burning the journal, then her friend might have convinced her to preserve it. “No, Naya. That wouldn’t have worked. I said it had to be destroyed because it had to be destroyed.”

“Well that’s a sad thing. I thought some of the poems in there were very beautiful.”

Poesie tilted her head in Naya’s direction with one brow firmly arched. “Can you really say a thing is beautiful if you have to add ‘very’ as an adverb?”

Naya rolled her eyes. “Oh, now you’re just being a writerly nitpicker. Come on,” Naya grabbed Poesie’s hand and dragged her off course–or at least it felt off course, Naya still hadn’t told her where they were going.

The detour turned out to be Naya’s home. Again, with no explanation, Naya told Poesie to wait outside while she crawled into her bedroom window. The blonde returned with a book and shoved it into Poesie’s hands.

“There,” Naya said, dragging Poesie back on course, “I have too many of those things anyway. My family won’t stop giving them to me. It’s ridiculous.”

Poesie flipped through the pages once Naya gave her a chance to and found each page was empty. A journal. Poesie smiled and held it against her stomach. “Thank you, Naya. It’ll be nice to have another blank slate to work with.”

“Think nothing of it. I go through those things pretty slowly anyway, I write so small.”

They walked through Tano’s darkened streets quietly for a while. Some familiar apparitions floated by like drifting blue flames. They mostly ignored the girls. Naya pointedly ignored them. Her effort to not pay attention to the Shades now was palpable.

“So,” Poesie said eventually, “can you tell me where we’re going yet?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No. And stop your whining. You don’t have to wait much longer anyway.”

“You don’t think waiting ever takes long. If you made it to nineteen without reaching puberty you’d say, ‘Oh, all things in good time.’”

Naya squinted in her direction, but then she smiled and looked ahead again, less than offended. “Not reaching puberty until nineteen actually sounds pretty good. I might have the cognitive wherewithal to handle it by then.”

Poesie squinted at Naya and resisted the urge to sigh. You were supposed to be offended by that, dear heart. “I love you, but you’re ridiculous.”

“That’ll be why you love me, I think.” Naya inclined her head at Poesie. “Everyone in your family is so straight-laced. I guess your dad knows how to relax, but he’s still straight-laced.”

Poesie didn’t have a response for that. Naya was right.

When they finally came across living people, they were paladins.

They were sitting outside Tano’s police headquarters playing cards by lamplight. It was a typical squad of three, and they would each be imbued with one of three psychic blessings granted by the angels: one Telepath, one Exorcist, and one Mender. Their stark white coats with gold trim they wore open, as it was too muggy out to act presentable. One paladin looked up at Poesie, recognizing her as Dom’s daughter, and raised both his eyebrows. She pulled her Paladin Call out of the collar of her shirt and he nodded, then looked back down at the game. Henceforth, the squad behaved as though the girls weren’t even there.

They were on the outskirts of town when Naya rubbed her hands together and skulked down the pathway of a recently unoccupied domicile. Poesie made a face, muttered to herself, then followed her friend inside.

The front door shut heavily behind her. The latch slid home just as heavily.

Although the house was not derelict, it still had the atmosphere of a ruin. Whether it was kinetic energy, the heat and moisture of sweat and breath, or the movement of the human soul, Poesie had always thought there was something, some kind of energy or force that made a house a home. This place didn’t have that. It was a house all right, but it hadn’t been a home for some time.

“Who used to live here again?” Poesie asked Naya, who by this point was all the way up the foyer stairs. Her voice didn’t echo as she thought it might have before she came in. The place was still completely furnished. Not a thing moved out.

“It was Falco Ricci and his family," she whispered down the stairs. She sounded like she was afraid of scaring away a tiny animal. “They moved away when their baby died.”

“That’s right!” Poesie said. She’d forgotten about the local tragedy until Naya mentioned it again. She had never actually met any of the Ricci’s. “So sad to lose a child. Do they know what happened?”

Poesie caught up with Naya at the top of the stairs before Naya responded. “Nope. The doctor didn’t know either.”

“Mmm.” Poesie wanted to have more to say than that, but she didn’t. She was barely an adult herself. She couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to lose one’s child.

No, that wasn’t true. Her youngest sister Contessa was three, and she loved that little one like she loved Naya, and her other five sisters. If she thought about losing any of them, her heart crept down into that heavy, anxious domain of anticipatory grief that all youth hate to touch.

As Naya took her hand and stopped her just outside one of the upstairs rooms, Poesie couldn’t help but wonder if this emotional squeamishness was a mark of weakness. She would have to ask Dom about that tomorrow.

“We’re here,” said Naya.

Finally.

“Look,” Naya said, pointing into the bedroom, “isn’t it amazing?”

In following Naya’s finger, Poesie’s heart plunged into the frozen depths of grief she’d just been ruminating on.

There, in the center of the bedroom, was an infant.

It was dead.

It was also transparent and floating six inches from the ground.

“Oh, Great Gallant,” Poesie said, signing the raising of God’s visor in front of her face, then holding her fist over her heart with the same hand.

“I know,” Naya said, as thrilled as Poesie had ever heard her be, “it’s Perfect, isn’t it?”

“Naya,” Poesie nearly shouted, “in what way is a dead infant perfect?”

Without missing a beat, Naya countered, “scientifically.”

Poesie sighed, then forced herself to look again. There was very little sunlight filtering in through the closed drapes, so the Shade was as visible as it could be, though it was still transparent. It's eyes were shut, as though in sleep. It spun slowly, horizontally, the same way a beast roasts on a spit. It seemed to be at peace.

And It was a fully defined Shade. Not a wisp of ghostly vapor.

“You’re right.” Poesie said, marveling at the poor thing–or was It poor? “It’s a Perfect Soul.”

“An infant.” Naya said. “Made a Perfect Soul.”

Poesie nodded, even though Naya wasn’t looking at her. “I expect this has a great deal of implications.”

“You’re absolutely right it does.” Naya’s dream was to be an umbralogist, and if she continued to excel in her schooling, she would probably attain that occupation. “Most umbralogist’s deny theological theory about sin versus virtue manifesting as conflicting soul-matter. Most of them agree with the theory that the soul is made entirely of willpower. But how can that be true if this infant made a Perfect Soul, and most elders die without developing a soul at all? There has to be more to the development of the soul than just willpower.”

“You think babies aren’t willful?” Poesie asked.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Naya turned around and frowned at Poesie. “You know what I mean. Perfect Souls are rare. It’s believed the soul is earned through strife. Through victory and rising back up from defeat.”

“That’s very poetic.”

“And like I said,” Naya continued as though Poesie hadn’t interrupted her, “even most elders don’t develop Perfect Souls, or any soul. How is it this infant had a Perfect one before It died?”

“Because some people are lucky, and most people aren’t?” Poesie said, shrugging.

Naya sighed. “You’re not taking this seriously at all. This is an awesome discovery! If I had a doctorate right now, I’d get an award just for finding this thing!”

Poesie almost sighed but stopped herself. That would only make Naya more upset. She put a hand on Naya’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry. You’re right. This is really incredible; I’m just worried about getting in trouble. We’ve been gone too long already. My parents are going to start worrying about us.”

Naya looked up at Poesie, blonde wisps falling across her eyes. “Yeah, you’re right.” She smiled then, thankfully. “I should probably do the talking. Your mom is more forgiving of me than she is of you.”

Poesie frowned and smiled ruefully. She didn’t respond. There was no point in denying that one either.

"So we're assuming my mom figured out we left at some point?"

"I think we should.

"Yeah, you're right."

Next, Poesie heard what she could only describe as a chipmunk yawning from across a placid pond. When she looked up, the spirit of the baby was stretching–as though It needed to—then moved as though rubbing It's eyes and smacking It's little lips.

Then the sweet little thing looked at them and smiled. Morbidly, It was reminding her of Contessa.

“I hope It never Possesses anyone.” Naya said. “It looks so innocent. I really want It to be innocent, you know?”

“My intuition tells me this one isn’t malign.” Poesie assured her. “We can safely assume It will be adorable forever. Come on, let’s go.”

“All right.”

They left the phantom baby to It's giggling and made their way downstairs quietly. When Poesie extended a tentative hand towards Naya, her friend interlocked their fingers. She wasn't too mad at her. Thank goodness.

Once downstairs the sound of a watery giggle resounded throughout the house. The tiny phantom floated down through the ceiling then through the air to follow them.

“Oh, you’re cute.” Poesie said to the thing. “But please don’t follow me home. My father will have a fit.”

It responded by giggling some more and wringing It's hands in front It's mouth.

Poesie stopped. “Oh no,” she said, “It really is following me. This isn’t okay.”

Naya looked at the thing with a soft smirk. “What are you going to do, reason with It?”

Poesie gave Naya a flat look

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I!”

“Poesie, there’s no controlling It without exorcism and you’re not a paladin, so…”

Naya didn’t finish her sentence. Poesie saw the hairs on Naya's arms go rigid from growing gooseflesh. She shivered, wrapped her arms around herself, and looked at Poesie with a sudden shock of anxiety.

“Naya.” Poesie said. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of answering, Naya took a step back from Poesie.

No, Poesie thought, she isn’t looking at me. She’s looking past me.

Poesie turned around, and dread washed through her, sickening and cold.

The same half-soul from earlier stood just a few paces away.

But he wasn’t looking at Naya. He was looking at her.

“Lenore,” It said.

In the dim light of the abandoned home she could make It out more clearly than she could on the street earlier; It's defined features were angular, distinctly masculine, and on the left side of It's chest was a long gash. In life, this thing had been impaled by something like a broadsword.

This wasn’t good. When Possessing a Host, a revenant’s form and abilities were influenced by the circumstances of It’s death. If It took her, It would be armed, and Naya wouldn’t stand a chance.

The Shade took a silent step towards her, It’s incorporeal wound opening and closing like a vertical eye.

“Lenore…” It muttered, It’s voice a mournful, distant gust.

It rushed into her, fast as the wind.

The infant Shade started to cry.

Poesie had heard from survivors of Possession what the host was supposed to feel; flu-like nausea, tightness of the flesh, and mind-wrenching, sinew snapping pain.

Poesie felt nothing.

Behind her, Naya’s normally sweet voice distorted into a miserable, keening whine.

She turned around and looked at Naya. Her eyes were bloodshot now, bulging and desperate. Her skin rippled as though infested with insects. She was looking at Poesie as though she was the only other person in the whole world.

“Poesie!”

The invading spirit transformed Naya’s body in an instant. Her slight stature tore into the form of a six-foot man with a sound like bones peeling away from raw meat. Her young, shrill scream morphed into the throaty moan of a grown man.

“Naya!”

A bright flame flashed as Poesie screamed, consuming the revenant’s body. When it dissipated, he was clad in the uniform of a paladin of the Divine Crown. The white cloth was gray from ash and smoldering around the edges as though still burning.

The revenant looked into her eyes with all the furious hate of a tortured animal. It seemed there was no room in It to feel anything else.

When a Shade Possessed a Host, becoming a revenant, most of them Returned with a Yearning that needed fulfillment. This revenant had died violently, so the odds were high It was a Vold, a violent revenant. If It didn’t harm or kill on a regular basis now, It would wither away as though from starvation.

These urges would be flaring up starting now.

“Lenore!” It screamed, and plunged one hand into It’s wound, then impossibly tore out what looked like a length of rigid fire. A torrent of sparks spilled out of It’s chest, scattering in a great arc between It and Poesie.

The circumstances of this thing's death must have been something.

Poesie was able to recognize the weapon once the flames enveloping it settled. Her father had the exact same kind mounted over the fireplace at home. It was a Schiavona, a specially crafted basket-hilt broadsword only issued to paladins of Altiya. It was their heritage, meant only for use in killing things like this Vold.

Poesie reflexively unclipped her wooden sword from her belt and assumed her stance.

The flames wreathing the revenant’s blade did not dissipate.

Shit, she thought, I have to get out of here. I have to get out and find the paladins. Naya needs the Exorcist.

The revenant charged.

It slashed It’s blazing sword between Poesie and the front door, forcing her away from the obvious exit. For the briefest of moments she thought of rushing into another room, but she didn’t know her terrain. This house had been abandoned for months, in all likelihood, and she didn’t know what kind of hazards she was dealing with in here. Also, she couldn’t turn her eyes away from this thing. It would kill her the second she left an opening. She also didn’t trust that she had the nerves or the multi-tasking skills to fence with one hand while opening a door behind her at the same time. Dom never covered that skillset.

Come to think of it, why hadn’t that come up yet? Had papa only ever killed revenants out in open fields? Surely not.

Never mind that now.

She could call for help, but the paladins were no longer nearby, considering that last spot where she remembered seeing them, and sound probably wouldn’t travel very far to the outside of the house anyway, considering all the sound absorbing material inside, and how heavily the doors had sealed. Screaming wouldn’t help her. Neither would the whistle.

She needed to stop this thing herself.

Poesie dodged behind a couch, but the Vold was above her at once holding It’s blazing blade aloft.

Poesie dodged out from behind the couch as the revenant chopped the furniture neatly in half. Sparks spewed across the floor as the couch halves collapsed. The room filled with a scent like singed hair. The Vold dragged It’s weapon out from between the burning cushions and set It’s sights on Poesie again.

Great Gallant, I hope you’re still in there Naya.

As if on cue, the revenant’s face mutated back into the face of Naya, emerging from the revenant as though through swamp scum. “Poesie!” Naya screamed, with a voice that was only half her own, “help me!” After her scream faded, Naya's face sank back into the revenant's hateful visage.

Poesie felt a little rush of relief wash through her, but she didn’t let herself enjoy it. This wasn’t over. She could still lose Naya to this thing. Believing in herself too much would be a mistake.

Poesie gave herself a few mili-moments to glance around the room. There was a fireplace to her left. Perfect. She ran toward the fireplace and the Vold slammed It’s sword into the floor just behind her heel, mid-movement. Poesie grabbed the poker from the rack beside the fireplace and brandished it in her sword hand, holding it like a rapier. Her wooden sword she held in her left hand.

The Vold yanked It’s blade out of the floor and held it forward. It’s stance wasn’t as good as Dom’s, but this thing had been trained to kill revenants in life. It would know how to fight.

“Lenore,” the Vold seethed.

“My name isn’t Lenore.”

But the Vold wasn’t listening to her. Trying to talk back to It was probably pointless.

She still would though.

“Who the hell is Lenore anyway?”

The Vold growled. It’s muscles rippled with Naya’s efforts to take back control.

That’s it!

“Naya-” she started, but the Vold closed the distance between them and interrupted her with a swing meant to sever her head at the jaw. Poesie sidestepped the next two slashes then guarded the third with the poker. “It can’t fight me if you take back control! Fight It!” The Vold whipped It’s sword back then down again in a blazing arc, aiming to bisect Poesie down the middle, but she strafed to the side and slammed her wooden sword into the back of the Vold’s knee. It collapsed, but only briefly, then swung the blade inches from Poesie’s retreating face, nearly singeing her nose.

“Fight back Naya, you can do it!!”

The Vold forced Poesie back with two quick slashes, then she dared to turn her back on It. She ran up the staircase of the foyer, quick as a fox on the tips of her toes. The Vold followed fast, tearing It’s sword through the shafts of the banister all the way up. Once at the top, Poesie fell back into her stance and the Vold sliced the banister all the way off its foundation in a spray of blinding sparks.

“Lenore!” It roared, and charged at her, swinging wildly, all discipline abandoned. Poesie sidestepped three thrusts while backing away from the enraged monster.

For the first time Poesie caught eyes with the Vold, and this time she held them. As the thing tried to kill her, she finally determined which flavor of rage was driving her enemy. It was that of a betrayed lover.

Her enemies' anger, very suddenly, was sickeningly familiar.

“Oh, I get it now,” Poesie nearly shouted, the flaming tip of the sword darting clumsily around her face. “I remind you of someone who used to fuck you, so you want to cut me to pieces. You’re one of those people!”

As if to punctuate her accusation, the Vold screamed—the most human sound it had made so far—and sent a thrust that could have severed her spine just below her breastplate. Poesie pushed the blade aside with the poker as it rushed towards her, driving the weapon deep into the graining of a doorframe behind her.

The poker snapped in two. The top half clattered somewhere on the ground level.

Naya pushed her face out of the Vold’s face once again. She came out screaming, “Poesie stop joking! Just stop this thing, I don’t care how!” Naya’s eyes went unfocused and she sighed, a sound like a bloated corpse being lanced, and her face became the face of the revenant again. It seethed that name once more.

“You wish I was Lenore,” Poesie hissed, “she obviously didn’t know how to finish you.”

Poesie slid underneath the revenant and launched an uppercut into It's chin with the tip of her oak blade, pushing up with the full force of her body. The revenant fell backwards, but the basket of It’s sword tugged on It's wrist, the blade still lodged in the doorframe.

Poesie dropped her weapon. She would need her bare hands to finish this.

I’m sorry Naya.

Poesie grabbed the Vold’s other arm, pulled it down to her, then snapped it over her knee in one motion. The Vold screamed a different kind of scream.

I’m so sorry.

Still pulling on the Vold’s arm, Poesie planted a strong kick into the side of It's knee and that too broke with a wet crunch.

Poesie’s stomach flooded with acidic grief, but she knew she wasn’t finished yet. She was already beginning to weep.

She slid behind her struggling victim and hammered her elbow down, this time breaking the wrist of It’s sword hand. Poesie was able to slip the things limp hand out from around the schiavona hilt and haul the bastard on her back.

I’m so, so sorry!

With a painful, mourning lurch in her belly, Poesie pushed the Vold over the banister and held fast to It’s back as they fell together to the ground level.

They hit one half of the bisected couch hard, breaking it. Poesie felt little more than winded. She couldn’t say to the state of her opponent though.

Great Gallant, she hoped she had done this in time.

Poesie dragged the moaning ex-paladin across the room and used It’s shoulder to push open the front door. From the instant the door cracked open she was hollering.

“Help us!”

All of her fortitude and grace left her as she stumbled out the front door. She collapsed under the heavy weight of the broken body and needed to crawl out from under It to pull out her whistle. The three notes sounded at once with designed, majestic audacity.

Vaguely, she noticed the Shade infant was still crying. It must have been crying the whole time.

Poesie had to blow the three notes until her lungs felt shriveled before the Paladins appeared. The Exorcist stood at attention some distance away that Poesie couldn’t determine, while the other two paladins dispersed. One ran near the Vold, blade drawn. The third paladin went straight to Poesie and put one hand on her shoulder. This was the paladin who had confirmed whether she had her whistle earlier in the night.

He spoke, but she didn’t hear a word. Such was the numbness setting in over her senses.

All she could pay any attention to was the Vold, and the Exorcist’s work.

The exorcism began without a physical gesture from the paladin. He stood sentinel in the same spot where he had stopped moments before. On his end all of the work was internal.

The Vold was screaming.

Even with It’s limbs broken, It writhed as It fought the will of the Exorcist, pushing Itself up on broken limbs. Poesie knew the thing wasn’t screaming from the physical pain now. Now came the scream of resentment and anger that It was losing It’s Host. Soon, if the Exorcist could do his work right, then all the physical pain would be Naya’s to bear.

Poesie felt fresh tears dripping off her face.

“Fight it Naya!”

The Vold screamed one last time, then It’s mannish roar twisted into Naya’s agonized wail as the Shade was ripped out of her body. The incorporeal wretch was pulled into the Exorcist like a cloth into a hurricane. The monster would be siphoned into a cube of quartz next, and there it would stay.

Poesie crawled over to her fallen friend and kneeled beside her. Naya’s wail reduced to a whimper like a cooling teakettle. The broken blonde girl stared up at the night sky. It wasn’t clear at a glance what she was comprehending then, if anything.

She started to reach out to Naya but thought better of it. The paladin told her to not touch her after she already made the conscious decision to stay her hand.

Poesie put her forehead in the grass and sobbed. She didn’t hear the words of comfort.