The dragon-headed figure- Draco or whatever he called himself- raised his arms. Tree branches, vines and plant matter mimicked his arms. His fingers made a wrapping gesture. Plant matter surround the spirit creature.
The creature hissed. It began to slice and attack the plants around it.
"No you don't, spirit." Draco muttered. He also added something under his breath in a language Noir didn't quite understand.
"Thou shalt not touch!" The creature replied back at Draco. "Collect the wrong! Collect the wrong!"
Draco shook his head. Noir blinked, then stretched out his senses, the same that let him see ghosts and the shades of the long dead. What he saw made him balk. A web of green vibrant energy crisscrossed around the plants Draco had controlled.
The web used the plants, puppeting them. The dark creature Noir could see as black nothingness. And the web of energy was something it couldn't pass. In fact, Noir was certain that the energy's... frequency, for lack of a better word, would hurt it.
Noir grabbed Draco's shoulder, unaware he had gotten close. "Is this the tainted spirit you are talking of? Why are you trying to kill it?"
Draco turned to Noir. "It trespasses- this isn't its land, Necromancer."
Noir could see Kyle's eyes in the Dragon-mask. Both of his eyes glowed with green energy. Noir could feel ghosts behind those eyes, a thousand generations of shades gathered behind it.
"What are you?" Noir asked. "I see too many souls for one body."
"Leave me be, this spirit needs to learn its place, Necromancer."
"Bah, I hate that word. Necromancer- I'm more of a necrokinetic. I understand the energies of shades and ghosts- and I think I know what this spirit is, Kyle. Let me speak to it."
"You may try, but I warn you: do not interfere if I decide it must die."
Noir turned to the dark spirit. He reached out a hand and put it toward the creature. It hissed. Noir closed his eyes.
Noir had long been able to see the ephemeral, to talk to it. He remembered something Marie had once told him.
"Yes, there is the dead, and the ghosts and the shades, but they aren't all there is to the darkness. The Eldest call it the All-and-Nothing."
"All-or-Nothing?" Noir had asked. He was still a child, barely seventeen.
"No, All-and-Nothing. Beings that are echoes of souls unborn or souls long dead or souls who can never be. Loa that walk between humanity and the higher truths of the worlds. The Loa always come to warn, and you need to hear them too. You won't know what they are- but they often come to ask repayment because others have forgotten to appease them.
"Respect the loa, Noir. They are the dead too."
Noir closed his eyes. He whispered to the creature, reaching out with his ghost senses. "Hello Ghede."
"You are Bokor?" Noir felt its thoughts answer him. Noir smiled.
"I am sorry, I have never met a Loa before. But my teacher taught me to expect you, Ghede."
The creature sneezed then sat down. Its head shifted and altered, turning into a shape more akin to a humanoid than the canine it had been before. Its glowing purple eyes furrowed at Noir.
"I am a Ghede. Too many at this crossroads forget us."
It glared at Draco, who didn't waver.
"Please, Ghede." Noir didn't have the proper offerings to give, and without knowing this Ghede, he'd have no clue what to give. "We apologize, your entrance-"
"Collect the wrong!" The Ghede hissed, outstretching its hand. "Collect the wrong!"
"I don't know what wrong you speak of, Ghede." Noir stood up. "Tell us, and we might set things right here."
The Ghede looked at Draco. "Yours would step down? You have long forsaken your claim here, Draco of the Neven."
"If you are a Ghede, then you know the agreement between us Spirit. You entered a house under my protection." Draco replied.
Noir waved his hands. "Put your damn plants away! You scared it, good job there. You can kill another spirit another day."
The Ghede hissed. "Freedom and speak of Wrong shall me."
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