Chapter 6 – Undercurrent

Mabel returned to the shop. Malkin was asleep on the kitchen chair. He stirred at the sound of the back door opening.

“Did you remember the fish?” he asked, eyes still half-lidded.

“No herring, but a nice piece of plaice,” she replied, holding up the shopping bag. “Fresh from the sea.”

“Perfect,” said the cat, stretching slowly into motion. “And what of the mission?”

“A good result—if Amos’s reckoning is correct. But I have a problem. One I’m hoping you can help with.”

Malkin straightened, attention piqued. “Go on.”

“I need to raise a certain deity. One who’s… not welcome here.”

“And you want my help?” His tone darkened. “You know the history. The crimes he committed.”

“I do. But this entity—if it escapes again—it’ll devour the country. I need to release thousands of souls all at once, send them to their proper realms. And I’ll need a force greater than my own to compel the deity to release them. There’s one more thing… I’ll have to raise them properly, in the old way. Surrounded by people I trust. Can we do this?”

Malkin’s head dipped. He sighed, long and low.

“The last time I dealt with Charon, it wasn’t… pleasant. It was heated. I sent him back to the Styx in disgrace. He crossed a line—more than one.”

He looked up at her, eyes narrowing.

“For those reasons—yes. But I will not give him the time of day. And for the first time, Mabel, I must leave you to handle this alone. Too many bad feelings.”

“Of course,” she said gently, reassuring him. “I’ve already contacted Felicity. She’s coming tonight. I need her insight—and as backup, in case something goes awry. I’ve invited Sam, too. He needs to experience this.”

──✿──

“Why on earth would I want to witness the raising of the Greek personification of death?” Sam was heard to say.

“On-the-job training,” the cat replied.

Sam eyed him with the same suspicion he’d always reserved for Malkin. The cat smirked back.

“To understand better. To be ready when the time comes to end this mission. The more you know, the less surprise your face will give away to the opponent,” Mabel interjected.

There was a shift in the room—an invisible pull. The walls grew tight with anticipation.

“Here’s one for you, Sam,” Malkin added. “Keep calm. Treat what happens next with… disinterest.”

A flicker of rainbow static formed at the end of the table—just for a moment—and was gone. In its place stood a woman.

Felicity Redhill had entered the room.

She spotted Sam across the table. A broad grin stretched across his face.

“You’re Sergeant Dobson’s wife—I didn’t know you were a—”
Mabel nudged him sharply before he could say witch.

Felicity gave him a quick once-over.

“He’s about as daft as Frank,” she said with a wink. “Don’t worry, sonny. I won’t turn you into a frog—not yet. And for future reference, we’re Cunning Folk, not witches. Frank sends his regards, by the way.”

“Is he enjoying retirement?” Sam offered.

“No. Give him half a chance and he’d be back tomorrow. But that’s Frank.” She shrugged, then turned to Mabel.

“Now, Miss Shirley. To deal with Death, the water in the bowl must be ice cold. Prick your finger—just a drop of blood, an offering. Your ring hand on your heart. And your mind fixed on the last moment you saw him—at the Corpse Door.”

She nodded slowly.

“Say these words: I summon you with kindness, to make reparation for the sins of old, to repair the index of time. Hear the call of the Old Blood.”

Mabel did as she was told—the prick of blood, hand to chest, and then, with measured clarity, she intoned the incantation.

The room chilled.

The lights dimmed.

At the end of the table, time wavered—and from that distortion, a figure stepped through.

Thanatos.

Tall. Winged. Cloaked in shadow.
His presence was otherworldly—serene, but not soft. A faint glint of silver hung at his side: a key.

“Miss Shirley,” he said, his voice distant and rich. “A delight to see you all grown up.”

Malkin bowed. He was relieved to see Thanatos had come alone.

The deity inclined his head to both Malkin and Felicity.

“My blessing on you both. How may I be of service?”
His voice was noble, echoing faintly, like the wind through a forgotten chapel.

Mabel stepped forward.

“We believe a wrongdoing must be corrected. That death must reclaim the countless souls trapped in this realm. That a deity be restored to their rightful place. That the cosmos regains the memory it lost.”

She held his gaze.

“We believe we have found the precise path—to justice, to peace for the restless dead, and to the healing of a fractured divine order.”

“Reveal the wrongdoing. Name the victim,” Thanatos asked, his voice still and clear.

Mabel steadied herself.
“I believe the Sluagh is a perversion of the deity Mnemosyne—transformed against her will into a psychopomp. We respectfully suggest that Nyx may have had a hand in that transformation.”

She watched him closely, uncertain how he might respond to an accusation that touched on his own blood.

There was a long silence.

Then Thanatos spoke, calm and untroubled.
“Completely possible.”

The room exhaled. Mabel felt her shoulders ease.

“The whereabouts of the Titaness have long been a mystery,” he continued.
“As for my mother—again, entirely plausible. Her feuds with Zeus were… complex. Perhaps that was the cause.”

He paused, as if listening to something distant, something buried beneath the fabric of the world.

“The voice is faint—smothered in hate and regret—but still pure. No wonder she was lost to us. This must be put right.”
He turned to Mabel.
“Miss Shirley, can it be done now?”

“Certainly,” she replied.

“Then it shall be so. But we must do this alone. Only a deity may approach another in such a state. Your bloodline marks you as a Daimon—your presence will be tolerated.”

He glanced around the room with warmth.

“My blessing to you all. I will take good care of her.”
Then to Mabel:
“Are you ready?”

“I’ll just get my coat,” she said with a smile.

When she returned, Thanatos handed her a large leather pouch—heavy with coins. She looked at it, puzzled for a moment.

Then she understood.

“Off to pay the ferryman?”

A faint smile touched his lips.
“Of course.”

In the next breath, they were gone.

──✿──

Mabel and Thanatos appeared on the quay beneath the abbey. A full moon hung low in a cloudless sky. The sea, however, was swathed in mist—thick, clinging, expectant.

After a time, pinpricks of light began to pierce the fog, bobbing with the slow motion of the water. They grew larger and drew nearer, until the first boats of a vast armada emerged through the haze.

At its head was a small, battered skiff. At the helm stood the Ferryman—Charon.

He was the embodiment of grim duty. Ancient and weathered, his skin was like cured leather stretched over sharp bone. His eyes, sunken beneath a furrowed brow, held the dull gleam of stagnant water, reflecting millennia of shadowed crossings. A tattered cloak, the colour of forgotten graves, hung from his shoulders and rustled in a wind that stirred only in places between the living and the dead.

Charon guided the skiff to the quay and stepped ashore. He bowed low.

“Greetings, cousin. Madam—your servant.”

Mabel hadn’t seen him since the closing of the Corpse Door. She’d been no more than ten, but the memory remained sharp. So too did the complicated history between him and her kind.

“Good evening, Steven,” she said with calm precision.

Charon forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Miss Shirley. What a rare pleasure. My cousin says you require the removal of souls. Can they pay the price?”

Mabel held up the pouch of coins. He took it, weighed it in one hand, then shook it gently as if listening to the truth in its rattle.

“So many,” he muttered. “Has a battle taken place that I’ve somehow missed?”

“No,” Mabel replied. “A rescue. Captured souls—some good, most not. Are you willing to ferry them all?”

“Not all,” said Thanatos. “Hermes is prepared to take the pure souls to their resting place. As for the wicked, Charon’s armada will see to them.”

Charon extended a hand toward the sea. The mist parted, revealing thousands of boats stretching as far as the eye could see. The English Channel was unnaturally calm, still as a millpond.

Mabel bowed to the Ferryman, then turned to Thanatos.

“I’m ready,” she said.

──✿──

Mabel squinted, then shook her head. She hated phase-stepping—could never quite master it. It always left her with the sensation of travel sickness.

Thanatos had transported them to the cloister lawn, beside the tree she had once spoken with. Still shaking off the fug of disorientation, she approached it. Gently, she placed her hand on one of its branches and whispered a blessing for its help.

When she turned back, Thanatos was watching her with something close to pride.

‘Such kindness,’ he said. ‘You truly are worthy of the Old Blood. And such kindness deserves reward.’

The ring on her finger began to glow. The stone deepened to ruby red. A sudden warmth surged through her body—radiant and electric. In that fire, she felt the knowledge, the right, to phase-step—to be anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye.

The ring had accepted her.

She stood frozen. This was no longer borrowed power. It was hers. The gift, the curse, the cost—it was all hers.

‘How can I ever thank you?’ she asked, her voice smaller than she intended.

Thanatos smiled with quiet gravity. ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing. Some souls are essential to this world. They hold the line, even when the world forgets it needs one. You are one of them.’

He turned to the abbey doors. They shuddered at his presence, resisting. But a god’s will cannot be denied. With a reluctant groan, they creaked open.

A wind burst forth from the darkness—rank, fetid, and filled with ancient hate. Mabel and Thanatos stood firm against it.

‘Let’s go,’ she said, quietly.

They stepped inside.

Flashes of red light flared ahead—each one a pulse of warning. They moved down the broken corridor, past shattered glass and splintered pews, into the belly of the storm.

The main church was unrecognisable.

The altar lay crushed, the stained glass shattered. And in its place—it. The Sluagh.

A grotesque, swollen thing, veined and pulsing. Hands and faces writhed beneath its skin, pressed outward in agony. A great blister of tormented souls. And at its core—expectancy. It pulsed like a womb waiting to birth something terrible.

Thanatos didn’t speak.

Mabel stepped closer. The air was thick, oppressive. Each breath felt borrowed.

‘What do you feel?’ he asked.

‘Fear,’ she whispered. ‘Not like before. It’s deeper. Old.’

‘Will it stop you?’

She didn’t answer. Not yet.

She felt its attention now—an awareness behind the thing, like an eye watching from beyond the veil. Her limbs grew heavy. Her thoughts thickened. And then she heard it—not with her ears, but in her blood.

“You are mine.”

She staggered. The voice struck the heart of her. Her hands shook.

Faces in the entity’s skin turned to hers. One was her own—hollow-eyed, defeated.

‘I’m not…’ she whispered, but the words failed.

A coldness spread through her limbs. Her love, her strength—it began to dim, as though the thing were feeding on her doubt.

Thanatos spoke gently. ‘Remember who you are. You’ve looked me in the eye and lived. Do not forget that.’

Mabel’s eyes closed. She reached inward.

A spark.

A memory.

The face of her mother.

A circle of trees.

The promise she made to the dead.

Her fingers curled into fists.

‘No,’ she said, rising. ‘Fear is the last tool of tyrants. But I’m not alone. I walk with balance. And Death is not my end—it is my witness.’

‘I am,’ Thanatos confirmed.

She stepped forward.

The Sluagh howled. Its surface writhed violently. Red light bled from every pore. The floor trembled.

She raised her arms. Something moved within her—vast and ancient. Not rage. Not vengeance. Something rarer.

Love.

It gathered inside her, searing and brilliant. Her feet left the ground. Her eyes turned white as moonstone. The abbey blazed with light.

She released it all.

A blinding surge of love exploded from her, encasing the Sluagh in pure white.

It screamed. Twisted. Collapsed inward.

Then—burst.

A foul stench hit the air.

Silence.

Where the entity had been, thousands of orbs now drifted. Each one a soul, untethered, waiting.

From the west window, shadows flowed in—Charon’s minions, silent and inexorable. They sifted among the spirits, taking the corrupted, the unrepentant, the wicked. Without pause or pity, they carried them to the waiting armada of the underworld.

The rest—the innocent, the lost, the loyal—rose.

Above them all, Hermes appeared in the light of the eastern window, arms open.

The abbey church now lay cloaked in silence, its sanctified hush broken only by one fragile orb—flickering, faltering, almost extinguished. A dim light pulsed within, crackling with the final sputters of divine essence.

Thanatos, the Eternal Shepherd, extended his hand—not with command, but quiet invitation. The orb, limping through the sacred air, drifted forward as if pulled by ancient longing. It wavered, veered toward collapse—then found refuge in the cradle of his palm.

He stood motionless, solemn as stone. Lifting the orb to his ear, he listened—not for sound, but for essence. For the whisper of what once was.

“Ah… it is you,” he murmured with aching tenderness.

He bowed his head. “I honour your grace. Grant me the privilege to restore what has unravelled… to weave again the threads of the natural order.”

The light within the orb brightened. Pink threads swirled with gold, gathering brilliance. It quivered—like waking from a deep, painful sleep—then slowly descended to the ground.

It expanded. Narrowed. Began to take form.

A woman—no… a goddess, Mabel realised.

The orb’s glow sharpened into recognition. Before them stood Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory.

Thanatos bowed. And Mnemosyne returned the gesture with equal reverence.

When she rose, she turned to Mabel.

“It was your presence I felt in the dark, was it not?” Her voice came as an echo, slow to cohere.

Mabel bowed low. “Yes, O Mother of the Muses. It was me.”

“Step forward,” Mnemosyne commanded.

Mabel obeyed.

The goddess leaned toward her. Mabel held her ground—sensing no malice, only a sorrowful kindness.

Fingers brushed through her hair. Not flesh, but essence. A mother’s pride—soft, ancient, and filled with unspoken gratitude.

“How am I to repay you, dear child?”

Mabel opened her mouth—but the goddess continued, her gaze turning inward.

“I see greatness in you. And pain. A heart honed by solitude. Yet you’ve learned much, despite what was withheld. Defiant. True.”

She raised her hand, and with the lightest brush of her thumb across Mabel’s brow, the gift was given.

Mnemosyne had once borne the memory of the world.

Before Olympus, she had been a Titan—keeper of all that had ever been thought, said, or felt. From her came the Muses. From her came truth itself.

But memory had been corrupted—twisted by her role in harvesting the unforgiven dead. Now, released at last, she was returning to her true calling.

And a fragment of it—the sacred act of remembering—she passed to Mabel.

A quiet rush moved through her. It didn’t burn. It unfolded, like petals of knowing.

This was True Memory.

Not the thoughts of the living. Not the broken words of spirits. But the story behind the dead—what they carried, what they left unsaid, what still echoed in the world’s bones.

And it would not stay still.

Memory lived. It evolved. It sharpened with time. Deepened with sorrow. It was not a relic—it was a guide.

Until now, Mabel had worked in the dark. Sensing. Interpreting. Guessing.

Now she would know.

No longer would she walk blind through grief. It settled inside her—calm, vast, alive. True Memory, waiting to be called.

And now, she had the edge.

Not because she was feared. Not because she was stronger.

But because she could read them all—the dead, the haunted, the hiding—like a book written in silence and grief.

While others guessed, she understood.

And that changed everything.

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