“Fucking hell,” Jack clipped out.
“My guess, and Lewis might be able to confirm,” Lorna stated, “is that’s the way this has to go. Brenna, through you, has to do something, what, we don’t know yet. Or, perhaps, both of you need to do something. That’s what we’ve got to find out. All the players are here, we just don’t know what they have to do to release the children.”
“And how do you find that out?” Jack asked.
“We talk to the wee ghosties and hope they know,” Angus answered.
“And if they don’t?” Jack pushed.
The quartet looked amongst themselves then their gazes came to Jack. But it was only Angus that shrugged.
They had no idea.
“Bloody brilliant,” Jack muttered.
“So you need to call them,” Belle noted, her eyes going between Lachlan and Lorna.
“Aye,” Lachlan answered.
“And if you do that, it’ll be gently?” Belle asked.
“No harm will come to them, Belle,” Lachlan replied softly.
Jack felt Belle straighten at his side and she declared, “Well then, let’s do that now.”
“Fucking hell,” Jack repeated on a mutter.
“We have another problem,” Cassandra remarked and Jack’s eyes cut to her. “When we figure out how to send the children to the other plane, which we will do, Belle, I promise,” she said to Belle then went on. “We still have the reincarnated soul of Caleb Caldwell walking around. He intends harm. He’s proved that and we need to neutralise him.”
This was precisely what had been preying on Jack’s mind since Dempsey shared his news on Belle’s cottage steps that morning.
“Caldwell is reincarnated in my brother Miles,” Jack told them what they needed to know but he didn’t relish saying and felt all eyes on him.
“You sorted that, lad?” Angus asked quietly and Jack felt his eyes narrow.
“You knew already?” he shot back.
“Got the niggle when I first met him,” Angus replied. “The diary I told you about, local lore we’ve been hearing, Cass and me pieced it together. We can’t be sure, unless Cass touches him, but that’s our guess.”
Jack thought of Miles’s visit earlier that week, targeting his Belle who was unprotected and he felt a burn start in his stomach as he asked bitingly, “Did you think maybe to share that niggle in an effort to protect the inhabitants of this house?”
“Laddie, you’ve made it clear you aren’t thrilled about all the goings-on and Joy is a sweet lass. We’re not sure of that kind of information, information about your brother, we share it with you without any proof to back it, do you think you’d pat us on the back and give us a medal?” Angus returned.
“Maybe not but I would have taken measures to protect the inhabitants of this house,” Jack fired back.
Angus had the good grace to look uncomfortable as he muttered, “Point taken.”
It was done, all was well so Jack decided to move the conversation on.
“It’s highly unlikely you can confirm this as it’s highly unlikely that Miles will ever return to The Point. This I know since he’s vowed not to do so again,” Jack reported.
“He might not have a choice if Caldwell takes over his host. He won’t even know he’s doing it,” Lorna put in. “Therefore, we need to seek him out and neutralise him.”
“And uh, how would you go about doing that?” Belle asked cautiously.
“A spell, or, more accurately, a potion,” Cassandra answered. “The good news is, I have some. The other good news is, I’ve used it before and it works a charm. The bad news is, it’s like medicine. You don’t take it once and then, poof, entity gone. You have to take it once a month for the rest of your life in order to keep the spirit inside latent.”
“Fucking hell,” Jack muttered yet again.
“I think Miles is unlikely to do that,” Belle remarked and Lachlan stood.
“Then he’ll have to be convinced to do it,” he stated firmly and both Belle and Jack went still then Jack’s body went solid when he saw Angus’s demented smile.
“Lachlan has another gift. My laddie here has a way about him. He can convince folk to do a lot of things,” Angus declared.
“Do you hypnotise them or something?” Belle asked curiously.
“Yeah, they go into a trance, a trance caused by his fists,” Lorna muttered.
“Holy heck,” Belle breathed.
“There’s another option,” Cassandra put in at this point and Jack, holding close to his dwindling patience and trying to ignore his increasing unease, looked to her. “We kill the soul he carries.”
Belle gasped and Jack’s body petrified but his mouth moved to say two words.
“Absolutely not.”
“It won’t kill him,” Lorna added quickly.
“How could it not?” Belle asked, her voice rising with each word.
“He’ll change, definitely,” Cassandra explained. “From what we can tell, though, only some of his less appealing traits will be gone. Though, we can’t know that, of course, since he was born with Caldwell in him. But it could be he is how he is because he carries Caldwell’s soul. If we release that, he could just be… him. Whoever that is,” she ended on a mumble.
“It’s a ceremony,” Lorna stated. “Mega power and mega cool. But, to be honest, the traces of a soul being torn from you isn’t the most comfortable thing and, usually, you’d have to be captured because no one volunteers. And you’d also have to be bound to endure the ceremony because it can get a little intense. But the good news is, it holds no lasting effects. Except, of course, if the personality being torn away makes up most of your own. Then you can end up being a little, erm… addled.”
Jack frowned at Lorna then transferred his frown to Cassandra.
Then he declared, “You are not performing this ceremony on my brother.”
“Lad, we get you,” Angus said quietly. “But what you need to get is that, even after those children are released, Miles carries the trace of Caldwell. If he doesn’t agree to take Cass’s potion for the rest of his life, Caldwell could conspire to do harm against you, Belle and your kin. Your brother wouldn’t even know it.” He saved his kill shot for last. “Your brother probably doesn’t know what he’s already done.”