Spirit Mask

The Mask will find its eyes, that's the saying. I was a second rate mage at best, pawing around for scraps from the Legacy Chain elite when the mask found me. It was staring from the curio store window and even I could tell it was something special. Maybe I was going to bring it back, maybe I was going to make a name for myself. But instead I kept it. A weakness the Mask more than understood

As the spirits started to find me, as the shadows started to gather around, the world forgot me. It was like I just slipped out of time, becoming less and less of a memory to anyone. Eventually the world just stopped keeping up with me. Cars changed, building changed, doors changed and the things people wore. But not the things people hid.

And the spirits, they told me their lies, their secrets, clung to me, slid under my lapels, swam beneath the brim of my hat. And they gave up the truth of men's monstrosity like a gem just for me.

While other people are changing light-bulbs and doing their taxes I am watching the threads of people's lives spun out to me from the tattered past into the leering future. When I show up people cringe, they pull back in fear but they aren't afraid of me. They are afraid of the things they have done. They are afraid because they know that I know.

Even as I stood I could feel them behind me, gliding closer like some shadowy shark pack. Spinning around would do no good so I just shifted the long cloak across my shoulders and flipped up the collar. Their voices, tiny voices breathing past my ear with wordless sighs. I spotted my hat at the same moment the scent hit me.

Cinnamon. Where had I smelled that before? The icy fingers of the spirits touched me lightly through the cloak, through the vest. Their fingers of cold dread clicked up the bones of my back as they whispered in the darkness behind me.

I reached out for my fedora and the shadow flung onto the wall by the setting sun did the same, almost. I snapped my head to the side and there I was in silhouette holding not a hat but… a note. The ransom note!

The ransom note had smelled of cinnamon! Just like the custom kitchen of the bereaved Mrs. Davenport, just like her missing daughter and with the rich and dashing Mr. Edvers to console her. He was a playboy white knight who would only move on without something to keep his attention, and his money.

Fitting the hat onto my head I gave it a sharp tug. She had been playing us but it was time to set things right. The small shadows scattered, their dark feet connected to mine, stepping as I stepped. I could feel their weight in my every movement.

The window opened easily admitting me to the fire escape, to the cool fall air spiced with tire rubber and dust and some far away damp trees. The city turned its flat topped teeth up at the coming night and the sun slid away behind the wavering war-walls. It was time to call in the troops; it was time to go to work.

Mystic, human, person, whatever those words once meant, they are just part of the story now, part of literature, something I will put away from time to time.

I wake up in strange places and ghosts whisper their secrets to me, point me toward the deeds of others. Sometimes I recognize the cars, 1934 smooth, rounded. And then sometimes I am here with steel and glass. But wherever I go the Spirit network is there.