Authors: Alyson Noël

Tags: #Paranormal, #YA, #Alyson Noel, #Riley Bloom

Whisper (2 page)

BOOK: Whisper

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T
he first thing I noticed when I landed in the
ludus
was the noise. It was loud. Insanely, annoyingly loud. So loud I was unable to sift through it, unable to determine which world it belonged to—the physical, the unearthly, or both.

The second thing I noticed was the smell. Just because I was dead—just because I no longer breathed—didn’t mean I couldn’t smell. And that particular smell, well, it was awful—unbearable, revolting, and putrid in the very worst way. Like all the worst smells in the universe had been blended together and pumped into the very spot where I stood.

I moved, hoping to find someplace quiet, desperate to get a whiff of something a little more pleasant. My shoes alternately slip-slopping through the mud and skidding over large patches of weeds still damp from the morning rain, as
I tried to get a better look at the same crumbling ruins I’d seen from above. But all I could make out was soggy earth, crumbling walls, and … well … that’s about it. There were no people, no ghosts, no wild animals—neither living nor dead, and absolutely no reason whatsoever for why it should smell so horribly foul.

I glanced back toward Bodhi, half expecting to find him and Buttercup perched at a table, enjoying their own elegant five-course meal, having totally forgotten about me—and relieved to find Bodhi still balancing on the railing right where I’d left him. Smiling and waving and urging me on, sending me a telepathic message that quickly wound its way to my head.

Don’t worry.
The reassuring sound of his voice swirled deep within me.
You can do this. Just ask yourself: What’s the one thing most ghosts share in common?

I paused, hooked my thumbs into my blue denim belt loops, and thought long and hard. Cracking a smile when I replied:
Terrible fashion sense?
Remembering some of the truly horrendous ensembles some ghosts chose to wear, despite the fact that they were perfectly capable of manifesting just about anything else.

Bodhi laughed. I was hoping he would. It broke up the tension and helped me relax.
Well, yeah, there is that,
he replied.
But what does that horrible fashion sense prove?

It took me less than a second to get it, and, unfortunately for Bodhi, my answer must’ve sounded like a shout in his head:
It proves that they’re stuck! It proves that they’re stuck in the time that they died in and refuse to move on!

Exactly,
he confirmed, adding a

to go along with it—a telepathic emoticon that made me smile too
. They’re stuck, and Theocoles is no different. He doesn’t experience the ludus in the same way as you. So far, you’ve only skimmed the surface. In order to see what he sees, you have to go deeper. You have to see it as it used to be
.
Though I’m afraid my guidance ends here, I’m not allowed to tell you how to do that.

I frowned, wondering if it was the Council who forbade him from helping me, or if he came up with that all on his own. Bodhi was never much for giving away the tricks of the Soul Catcher trade, or any other kind of helpful hints or advice that might actually help me do my job. Everything I’d learned so far, I’d learned on my own, the hard way—through trial and error and hands-on experience. And while he still hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know, maybe that’s exactly what a good guide does—reinforces the knowledge you’ve already learned.

I froze, shocked by the words that replayed in my head.

I’d referred to Bodhi as a
good
guide.

Practically from the moment we’d met I’d been petitioning for his replacement. All we ever seemed to do was fight
and bicker and argue—only agreeing to work together when we were knee-deep in trouble and all out of options.

Which is why I couldn’t fathom my sudden change of heart. Where had it come from? At what point had I stopped seeing him as my number one enemy?

And then I remembered. Remembered the day I’d seen him with his new girlfriend Jasmine. Remembered how strange it made me feel to watch him read poetry to her, pausing a moment to manifest a flower—a jasmine for Jasmine—that he gently weaved into her braids.

I shook my head, ridding myself of the thought. I had a big, bad gladiator ghost to deal with, and wasting time thinking about my ever-evolving relationship with Bodhi wasn’t going to change that. So I returned my attention to the
ludus,
knowing I had to find a way to see it in the same way Theocoles did if I had any chance of meeting him. Problem was, I had no idea how those crumbling old walls might’ve looked in his day. I’d died well before my history class got around to studying the Roman Empire.

I continued to pace, trying to see it in the way it once stood. Manifesting a roof, replacing the bed of weeds with a dry, dirt floor—but sadly that’s about the best I could do. I mean, excuse me for saying so, but I died in the twenty-first century—a child of the new millennium—a verified member
of Generation Mini Mall. Recreating an ancient gladiator school was a little out of my league.

I gritted my teeth, pushed my scraggly bangs off my face, and vowed to try again. Noticing a small pile of rocks that shone like bones in the moonlight, I bent to examine them—tracing my fingers over their deep crags and crevices, I closed my eyes and thought:
What am I missing? Please show me—show me everything there is to see!
And when I opened my eyes and looked all around, I couldn’t help but gasp in surprise.

The universe had answered my wish.

But instead of finding myself face-to-face with Theocoles, I found myself surrounded by hundreds of angry, raging gladiator ghosts.

I
cowered in the dirt, my arms circling protectively as I lowered my head to my knees, attempting to make myself smaller, less of a target, doing my best to avoid the rampage of angry ghosts. Punching the air with their fists, they shouted and roared a long list of threats at some unseen enemy—the words spoken in a language that, much like them, had died centuries before, though the message rang clear. Every last one of them was so consumed by their memories, they were blind to everyone else.

Spying an opening in the crowd, I jumped to my feet, only to be knocked down again by a huge, hulking monster of a ghost who thundered right past me. Not even bothering to stop or slow down when his shoulder plowed smack into my jaw.

“Hey—watch it!” I yelled, rolling my eyes and shaking my head as I struggled to my feet once again. “I mean, I
get that you’re like a gazillion times bigger than me, but do you really have to be so
rude
?”

I scowled, thrust my hands on my hips, and glared at his retreating back. Willing him to turn and give me the apology he most certainly owed me, but he just kept going, as oblivious to my presence as he was to the noise that blared all around. A noise that was not only loud and unpleasant, but also, or at least in the beginning anyway, impossible to make out. Though it wasn’t long before I was able to break it into more manageable chunks. Instantly recognizing it as the sound of hunger and pain and uncontrollable rage—in other words, the sound of enslavement. I’d heard it before.

It was continuous. Unceasing. The only relief coming in a quick burst of laughter that ended as soon as it started. Though I couldn’t imagine what could possibly be worth laughing about in that horrible underground prison of sorts.

Brushing the dirt from my jeans, I set off. Having seen just enough of the
ludus
to know I didn’t want to linger any longer than I had to, I was more determined than ever to get down to the business of finding Theocoles so I could cross him right over and get the heck out.

Though finding the champion gladiator was not nearly as easy as I’d thought, mostly because I didn’t have much of a description to go on. What little Bodhi had told me—
big,
strong, tough, scary, intense
—amounted to no more than a generic stream of words that could be easily applied to any one of the ghosts that haunted the place.

At first glance, they all looked the same. A bunch of overly muscled, filthy, dirty, greasy-haired men who’d been sliced apart and sewn back together so many times their skin resembled a cheap leather purse. Each of them bearing a pair of hands that were so big and meaty and brutal looking, they could easily kill with a flick of a wrist.

It was like a never-ending parade of warriors, one fearless fighter after another. And just when I’d started to separate them as individuals, one would shift, I’d quickly lose track, and they’d all blur together again.

I guess I’d been so focused on dealing with Theocoles that it never occurred to me there’d be so many other lost souls lingering in the
ludus
as well. Though I should’ve known since most ancient sites that played host to horrendous acts of violence and repression were known to be haunted by angry spirits demanding justice before they’d move on.

I slunk around the place, at first keeping close to the walls, doing my best to stay inconspicuous, stay out of the way, assuring myself that if I could just steer clear of the jabbing elbows and swinging fists, it would all be okay. Making my way down the corridor, I poked my head into a series
of small, narrow rooms I guessed to be the gladiators’ bedrooms. Though unlike my own recently redecorated room back in the Here & Now, which consisted of every modern comfort and convenience I could dream of (and I mean that literally since I manifested everything in it)—these were pretty much the opposite—pretty much the definition of
bleak
. Consisting of dirt floors, severe wooden bed frames that were shoved against either wall, and, well, not much else. Though, not surprisingly, the rooms were all empty.

That’s the thing with ghosts—they don’t really sleep, and they pretty much always refuse to rest. They’re way too caught up in reliving their pasts to make time for any sort of leisure activity like that, and these ghosts were no different. Prowling the halls, yelling and screaming—it seemed like the more I looked, the more their numbers grew, leaving me to wonder if I’d ever locate Theocoles among the restless swarm.

Knowing I had to start somewhere, I began tugging on tunics and poking at elbows, each time asking the exact same question:
Do you know where I can find Theocoles, the one they call the Pillar of Doom?

And each time getting the exact same reply: a blank-eyed stare, which only confirmed what I already knew—I was pretty much invisible as far as they were concerned.

I turned a corner, made my way down a series of short corridors, and had just began trudging down another when I froze in my tracks. Gasping in horror when I found myself standing in the doorway of a room so grisly I had to clamp a hand over my mouth just to keep from screaming.

I peered into the dark, my eyes moving from the rough, bloodstained walls to the heap of severely wounded gladiators who lay on old, splintered planks. Their bodies thrashing against the thick, iron shackles that imprisoned their ankles and wrists—moaning and grumbling and howling in pain—a chorus of agony so awful, I couldn’t help but shiver in fear.

It was a torture chamber—an ancient house of horrors—of that I was sure. Though it wasn’t long before my eyes adjusted and I saw I’d misread the whole thing—it wasn’t that at all.

It was a hospital, an infirmary, an ancient sanatorium run by a tiny, dark man I guessed to be the doctor, or medic, or whatever they called them back in the day. And I couldn’t help but cringe as I watched him tend to the gladiator’s wounds with a bizarre array of pastes and salves and other grotesque concoctions that smelled even worse than the infections that oozed out of them.

Still, even though he did his best to heal them, to my eyes it remained a scene lifted straight from a horror
movie—a scene I was desperate to flee. Bolting as fast as I could, I tackled the stairs two at a time, pushing my legs beyond all reasonable limits, wishing there was a way to outrun the shocking images that blazed in my mind.

Finally reaching the landing, I paused against a sturdy stone column that fronted an open, shade-covered room that, judging by the number of gladiators sitting on long wooden benches, hunched over shallow wooden bowls, greedily slurping some kind of horrible, lumpy, gray porridge, I guessed it to be a cafeteria. And while unlike the hospital, there was no blood and gore, it was still pretty gruesome in its own way, leaving me to wonder, yet again, at the logic of some of these ghosts. I couldn’t even begin to fathom why anyone would ever willingly choose to stay in such a gawd-awful place.

Spying the practice arena just a few feet beyond, I made my way toward it. My hand pressed to my forehead, shielding myself from the sudden rush of heat and glare, I took a good look around, noting how just like the barracks, the hospital, and the cafeteria before it, it was also crowded with spooks.

Their long, wooden practice swords sliced through the air, as their round wooden shields jabbed and punched at some unknown opponent before them. My eyes darting furiously, searching for Theocoles among them, figuring if
he was to be found anywhere in this
ludus
it would be here. As the undefeated champion, it just seemed to make sense.

Problem was, I was so clueless as to how it all worked, it was impossible to tell who was the best one among them—the one good enough to be champion—the one worthy of being called the Pillar of Doom—when they all looked so determined, so fearless, so eager to destroy whatever unlucky opponent stood in their way. All of them sharing that same ruthless eagerness to kill, to slaughter, to shred and destroy—burning like a flame in their eyes.

I was just about to give up, just about to head over to the Colosseum and try my luck there, when I saw something so unexpected, I forced myself to blink a few times to make sure it wasn’t a mirage of some sort—make sure I hadn’t somehow dreamed it all up.

It was a girl.

A beautiful dark-haired girl standing on a balcony that overlooked the arena.

The only other girl in the place besides me.

Though unlike me, she was dressed in a way that was far more appropriate to the time. While I was in jeans, a (super-cute) tee, and my favorite ballet flats, she wore a gorgeous silk gown that draped and swirled and trailed over the ground.

I studied her closely, taking in her smooth olive skin,
her sweep of long, glossy, dark hair—the front of which was fastened at the crown by a shiny jeweled clasp, while the rest was left to tumble over her shoulders and down to her waist in a riot of waves.

Running a hand down the front of her elaborate red gown, she focused hard on the gladiators below. Her long, slim fingers picking at the embroidered gold sash at her waist, looking so elegant, so beautiful, so graceful and refined, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she might be doing in such a sad, filthy place.

Or at least that’s what I thought until I looked a little closer and noticed how she focused on one gladiator in particular. The intensity of her gaze telling me he was someone special, not just to her, but to the arena in general.

I followed the length of her flashing brown gaze, my eyes lighting on a gladiator who rose above all the rest. He was taller, stronger, his movements both brutal and graceful.

He was a savage fighter. There was no doubt in my mind. But unlike the others who grunted, and punched, and kicked up great clouds of dust, this gladiator was different.

This one had the poise, and presence, and arrogance that could only belong to a champion.

And I knew in that instant, I’d just found Theocoles.

BOOK: Whisper

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