Ambush

"Yeah, uh, just." Autumn felt troubled by the apparition. Almost every other ghost she had seen was native to the Vancouver area. First Nation warriors, Russian Fur trappers, Anglo and French Canadian settlers... she'd seen older ghosts. But this one had looked like he was on the wrong continent. And he'd seemed to know about her, and want to talk to her.

"It was another ghost?" Tori asked, suddenly curious. "They're appearing more often, aren't they? That's why I think we should be looking for a portal to another world. We already know one exists, right? Maybe we can figure out how to get the ghosts to stop bothering you."

"It was different this time," Autumn said. She shook her head. "It's fine. But don't go doing anything crazy without telling me first, okay?"

"Okay," Tori answered, but she didn't sound sincere. Autumn looked at her sharply, but didn't say anything more. Tori's phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket, "Oh, hey, it's my foster mom. I'll text you later!" And Tori sped off to the edge of the field, where a large dingy van had parked. What seemed like a two dozen kids had piled out and were now busy chasing each other or wrestling on the manicured grass strip in front of the school. Really their were only seven, but they moved around so much that it seemed like twice that much or more.

Autumn kept jogging her last lap. She hadn't even realized practice was over, but she wanted the time to think. At last she headed back inside, took her fifth and last shower of the day in the dark, abandoned locker room, and headed out.

Just when she was about to leave, another viking-like warrior appeared. This one's face was impassive, his beard gray where the other had had red, his eyes dark like pits. In his had was a dagger, covered in silvery blood. Before Autumn could react, he'd stabbed her.

Autumn gasped and convulsed as a cold chill wrenched through her body. She pulled the dagger from her abdomen. It disappeared like a wisp of smoke as she let go, but the pain was real enough.

The warrior was already moving again, his eyes like stone, hist movements quick and efficient. He brought up an old, chipped sword to slice through her skull. But Autumn was already moving.

Two ghosts, so similar in one day, so different from any others. And although this wasn't the first time a ghost had tried attacking her, it was the first time that one succeeded.

Autumn dodged out of the way of the warrior's sword, sweeping her hand up to block him. She gripped his wrist in one hand and jabbed at his elbow with the other. The move was meant to break bones, and sure enough she heard a crack, although distant and muffled. This ghost was more solid than any she'd encountered before, and where she'd never really noticed the way it felt to touch one, the warrior's skin was icy cold, burning cold. Autumn got up under the ghost's guard and smashed her elbow into his nose, then whirled away to catch her bearings.

The ghost didn't seem to react to a broken bone, merely adjusting his grip. Silvery liquid dripped from his nose, and his eyes seemed to glow darker.

Suddenly the other ghost appeared, clutching his side, the one from earlier. He bowled the gray-bearded warrior aside. Brutally they wrestled on the ground, a dagger between them.

Autumn wanted to run, but she didn't want to expose her back either. She checked her side, where the dagger and pierced her. The skin wasn't broken, but a strange sort of dark-gray bruise had spread tendril-like feelers, a cold burn emanated from the spot, and her breath came in gasps. A film covered her eyes for a moment, so that all the world shimmered in clouds of gray silk. in shock she realized that she could hear the two ghosts clearly, shouting at each other in a language unknown to her and yet familiar, grunting in pain as they struggled. Finally the gray-bearded warrior succeeded in kicking the younger ghost off and drove the dagger into his heart. In a sudden up-rush like a sandstorm the younger ghost disappeared, leaving Autumn abruptly alone again to face the menacing being.

Autumn's vision wavered, between the gray-silk world, a world tinged with green and gold and red lights, as if lit under the branches of many trees, and the real world. At last her stomach settled, and she reached desperately the the meditation exercises they taught at her dojo. She pressed her hands together before her and bowed slightly to her opponent. With every focused breath the pain left her consciousness, and the three-viewed world congealed. Before her was a graying warrior, probably early forties, with stringy black hair. Jagged scars cris-crossed his arms. He picked up his sword from the ground and pulled a shield forward onto his arm.

Autumn breathed, focus, she told herself. The world gave a slow pulse, like a heartbeat, and at last she felt ready. Time seemed to slow down. The gray-bearded warrior was rushing her, but Autumn had moved to the side, sweeping his legs out from under him as he passed. His boots connected painfully with her shin, but she ignored it. Before he could regain his balance, Autumn had smashed his sword arm, his collar bone, his knee. The warrior tumbled to the ground. Autumn kept her distance; her floor work wasn't the best, and besides she remembered what had happened to the other warrior.

Somehow the man had kept hold of his sword, but as he stumbled back to his feet, Autumn's eye caught something on the floor. She could see the dagger again, the one that had destroyed the first ghost and sliced through her side. She lurched forward and picked it up, turning and blocking the sword swinging towards her face just in time.

The last light of day was just fading, and the ghost seemed more solid, if anything, in the growing darkness. Autumn knew she had to end this quickly. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, and their was only so long she could ignore the pain in her side before she knew it would cost her concentration and leave her open.

The warrior came forward once more, slowly, slowly waiting for her to go down. Autumn couldn't afford that. She engaged the warrior, forcing him to bring his shield up against her dagger thrust. His sword swung round on a diagonal as he blocked, but Autumn caught his elbow. The dagger skittered over his shield, but she held on and kicked his knee, the one she had weakened earlier. The warrior fell, and switching her on his sword-hand, she managed to knock the sword out of his grasp. He clawed at her face, but Autumn ducked away to avoid it, then switched the dagger to her left hand and plunged it into the ghost's side.

In the seconds before her, too, disappeared in a sudden uprush of particles, Autumn caught a disturbingly satisfied look on his face, the only emotion he'd shown the whole time.

Silence is loud

            “NO, no just an um… a thought.” Autumn felt like her cheeks were on fire. And a cold sweet had broken out over her entire body. She did not like being put in these situations, even with her best friend Tori.

            That wasn’t exactly true either. There was a guy on the boys’ basketball team named Alexander Hironaka. He was tall, 4 inches taller than Autumn at least, and he was very attractive. His father was Japanese and owned a business in town. Alex’s mother was Italian and had a nice little Italian restaurant in North Vancouver. It seemed he had inherited only the best qualities from his parents. He had angular features slightly softened by his Asian heritage with slanted brown eyes that were almost olive. Yes, Autumn groaned inwardly, she had looked at him for a long time.

            It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell Tori about him. It was just it didn’t feel right to talk about it right now. It was her secret crush and she was afraid as soon as she told someone that the magic of it all would just go away. Also those who found out she liked them in the past tended to avoid her. She really liked and trusted Tori. She also knew Tori, and trusted her to go up and tell Alex to ask her out.

            Autumn was about to say something else to Tori when she saw something that completely made her forget about everything else. A warrior stood in back of Tori. He was huge, no he wasn’t he only looked huge. He was a little shorter then Autumn but was wearing armor and leather and fur that seemed to make him bigger. Scale mail peaked out from under a large cloak. He carried a wooden shield, a serpent on the front of it. An intricate axe was in his other hand. His face was covered by a helmet a long yellow beard poked out from under it. Some of the beard was braded. If his helmet had horns on it he would’ve looked like a Viking, and her was yelling at her.

            He was a ghost, Autumn knew that much, but she couldn’t understand what he was yelling at her. He threw down his shield and axe and used his hands to try to help his cause. He kept making so many strange motions that Autumn couldn’t make anything out of it. If there was one thing that Autumn could tell it was that warrior was desperate. He picked up his axe and slammed it into his shield. It looked as if the axe blade neatly cut of the serpents head. He turned to he still franticly yelling. Autumn went around Tori so she could touch him and see if she could understand what he was saying. She reached out a hand but before it touched anything the warrior disappeared and Autumn was left grasping at air.

            “Autumn… are you okay?” Autumn looked back at Tori. She could see worry in her eyes.