"You awake in here?" Blackthunder opened the door to the back of the van. Cold air greeted Noir, he could smell burning. She got into the van, her face cross.
"Nice accommodations, officer." Noir replied.
"Not an officer. And technically you aren't being held, smartass." Blackthunder undid Noir's handcuffs. "However, I'd feel justified after that stunt you pulled in there."
"You people need to listen to me-"
"We people," Blackthunder interrupted, "Can at least call the sheriff's office. This is still private property. So, try some respect, got it?"
Noir glared. "Not an officer. Not arrested. Got it. Anything else or are you going to listen to what I have to say?"
"How about you answer a question or two for me." Blackthunder sat down on a bench across from Noir. She took out a joint and tossed it at him. "You were carrying too."
Noir gritted his teeth. "I've got a license-"
"Federal offense, we don't care about whatever the state here says, remember?" Blackthunder smiled. "I don't care what you toke up on, I live here. Its a bullshit law. I ain't ATF. The USMS has more important shit to handle. And this pregnancy has kept me from having a smoke for way too long."
Blackthunder brushed some of her hair from her face. Noir picked up on the silence. She pointed out that she had him dead to rights, really, on a bunch of counts. Yes, he could dodge it, but it'd mean using favors. He'd have to work hard to undo what she'd thrown at him. She didn't say it out loud. She didn't have to. Noir got the message.
"You want to know what I am." Noir thought aloud. "What did I do in there? How did I know what I know?"
"Bingo." Blackthunder popped a starburst into her mouth and chewed on it. She pointed at him, nodding in the affirmative.
"As I told you before, my name is Noir Badarte. I am... a expert at this sort of thing."
"Expertise from what?" Blackthunder started to jot notes down on a small notepad. "Your human, eh? Or claim it?"
"Claim?" Noir shook his head. "Yes, I'm human. I cast a spell, more or less. It had a negative effect before. When I released the spell and ended it, the hive-geist stopped its berserker rage."
"You a mage then? Registered with the Conclave?"
"Uh, never heard of... no I'm not a mage. I don't know what a Conclave is. I've been trained as a Bokor, I deal with dead people mostly."
"Necromancer then." Blackthunder gave him a cold stare. "Hive-geist? Why would your spell drive it into a rage?"
"I prefer necrokinetic. Its more apt." Noir sighed. "Poltergeists are insane, more or less. Often they devolve into a sort of bestial state. This place... In this place multiple poltergeists have merged into a single entity. They remember being beings, and anything that would effect one causes the opposing effect out of the others. I pushed them toward dissipating-"
"And they push back, flying into a rage because of it." Blackthunder nodded. "You think you understand this Hive-geist then? You have any idea how long the USMS has been containing this thing? What did you see that we didn't notice, Mr. Badarte?"
"Christmas morning."
"What?"
"How many years have you people been coming here, thirty, fifty years? Why haven't you, in all that time, tried to just give the kids a Christmas morning?" Noir smirked. "I need that box. I need to give them a Christmas morning, you understand me, Ada?"
"Don't use my first name, Necromancer." Blackthunder got up and exited the van.
Noir blinked. After a moment, he heard her call back to him.
"You coming? Lets get you your damned box."
Noir followed her.
* * * * *
Noir opened the wooden crate, which in the light of the house seemed burned. Opening the box caused the poltergeists to stop. Each ghostly child form stopped, their deformed and melted heads fixed on him.
Noir asked the question.
"How can I help you spirit?" He cast the spell on the box, jumping back at the poltergeist walked to the box full of toys. Noir smiled as each drop of ectoplasm evaporated, leaving him the only one able to see the children, each holding toys aloft.
"Is that laughter?" Blackthunder said aloud. Other USMS agents stared at the sight of, what was to them, floating toys. Then each toy fell softly to the ground.
"Merry Christmas," Noir said, smirking. "They're gone. They'll never come back. They've moved on."
Noir hugged Blackthunder. "Hey!"
"Genius! I'm a genius! Aha!" Noir started to cheer and shout at the top of his lungs. "How about that spirit? Eh? This DEATHWALKER did it! HA!"
Blackthunder shook her head. "Disir."
Noir paused. "What?"
"She wasn't a Christmas spirit, necromancer. Disir. Thats the name of the three of them. They always show up in threes." Blackthunder turned to the rest of the USMS agents. "EHC unit, our job is done here. Start documenting. Necromancer, get the hell out of here. You did what you wanted."
"Uh..."
Blackthunder's eyes narrowed in anger. The petite, pregnant woman's dark ruddy skin reddened in anger at him. "You got to have your gloating, and you got to have your dead fun, ok? Now leave. You aren't doing any more harm here, got it?"
Noir couldn't think of a reply to that. He left, walking away from the ruined house. As Noir walked by the USMS and External Hazard Containment vehicles, he saw an ambulance. A pair of black body bags were being loaded, while a pair of police worked on putting caution tape up.
His stomach roiled. His clever bit with the spell was worse than he could imagine. He'd inadvertently killed two people when he cast the spell. The poltergeist kept going, not stopping while Noir had been knocked out.
The Necromancer walked away, trying to understand all that had happened that night. Noir realized that the Christmas spirit, the Disir might've been three separate female things. "That would explain a lot. Three... Three is supposed to be a magic number isn't it?"
"It is." Three voices said the words in unison.
Noir turned around, looking at the three Disir women. Each stop at the same height, each covered in glowing white christmas lights. They'd all dropped the ornaments he'd seen before. "You could've explained what you wanted, I've heard of a Disablot before."
"It is Mother's Night." The first Disir spoke.
"The Wrong has been righted," The second Disir continued.
"And we have been honored." The third finished. All three Disir smiled. Noir didn't understand the significance of that.
"Uh, you're welcome?"
"Death is not a ending, this you know," The first began.
"And life cannot be without knowing death," the second continued, "day and night, night and day."
The third finished it. "But love is the tiny death, you kill yourself for another. Our gift to you, Deathwalker: your little death is not in vain. We see the road ahead."
"Grim nights with no sleep," the first added.
"And justice that needs a hand, but swords cut both ways," the second continued.
"But their is a light at the end. Your choice to decide if it is death or life." The third finished. Then the three Disir walked away, leaving snowfall in their wake.
Noir blinked. He decided, perhaps, it was time to try to get something to eat.
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