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“When you said we were going on a field trip,” Tony said, looking around the morgue, “I thought we’d be, I don’t know, learning how cheese is made. Or going to the aquarium.”
“Because those are terribly relevant to soul magic,” Stephen said dryly. He murmured a quiet thanks to the morgue attendant and then they were alone. Turning to the storage drawers, Stephen found the correct one and opened it, pulling the corpse out into view. It was a boy. He couldn’t be more than fifteen.
Tony crossed his arms and focused on Stephen. “Soul was pretty clear that I couldn’t resurrect people.”
Stephen cast him a surprised look. “That’s not what we’re here for,” he said. “Given what you now know about the Mystic Arts and souls, haven’t you wondered why a city the size of New York isn’t full of ghosts?”
“Actually, no,” Tony admitted. He kept his eyes on Stephen. “I hadn’t really thought about it.” Which seemed foolish now, being the bearer of the Soul stone. Damn it.
Stephen frowned. “My apologies. I really should have given you a more thorough introduction to related magic. It’s not likely to be exactly the same, but at least you’d have context.”
Tony waved off the apology. “It’s fine. Ghosts?”
“Right. Given that roughly 200 people die every day in New York City,” Stephen continued, “we see several new ghosts every week. They don’t accumulate because helping them to move on is one of the duties of the Masters of the Mystic Arts. With Soul’s help, you should be able to do the same.”
Tony took a long look at the boy on the extended slab. “I know I said I was up for something more hands on,” he said, “but this is… He’s just a kid, Stephen.”
Stephen stepped up beside him and laid a hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. The touch was warm in the cool morgue air. “I’m sorry,” Stephen said quietly. His regret was cool, almost soothing in a strange way, like a cold compress. “I didn’t think… Between med school and the Mystic Arts, perhaps I’ve grown a bit too comfortable with death. I should have warned you, let you adjust to the idea.”
Tony rubbed at his goatee, eyes still on the boy. “He left a ghost?” Tony could see Strange nod out of the corner of his eye. “Is he… angry?”
“No.” Stephen’s thumb moved, rubbing tiny circles into Tony’s back. “He’s confused. He wasn’t trying to linger, he just missed his chance, so he’s not really connected to the living world, either. He’s not even aware that we’re here. All he needs is for the way to be opened again. He needs our help, Tony. I know it’s not the same as helping the living, but it’s just as important.” When Tony turned to look, Stephen’s gaze was fixed on a point next to the body, but up a little. That had to be where the ghost was, though Tony couldn’t see it. After a moment Stephen turned and met Tony’s gaze. “I can make a portal for you if this is too soon.”
A portal for Tony, but not for Stephen, because he’d be staying to help this kid get to the afterlife. Because someone needed to. Tony set his jaw. “No. I’ll help. Show me how?”
“Ghosts occupy a plane of existence very close to our own, between our reality and the astral plane,” Stephen explained. “I’m not sure about the other planes, but you should be able to see this one via Soul. This of it as…” Stephen cast about for a metaphor for a moment. “You know those prints that appear three dimensional if you refocus your eyes correctly? It’s a little like that, at least for me.”
Tony squints at the spot Stephen had been looking at earlier, but nothing seems different. Help me out here? he asks Soul.
The stone is, but suddenly there’s someone there. Tony was expecting him to be washed out, translucent, but he’s not. He looks exactly like a living person, except that he’s haloed in an orange glow. Tony swallows hard. “I see him.” He’s abruptly grateful for the continuing presence of Stephen’s hand on his back, a warm anchor to reality.
“Good,” Stephen murmurs. “He’s trying to reach for something; can you see it? Or feel it.”
Tony starts to say no, but Soul interrupts: Not with his hands. With his soul.
After a moment, Tony sees it. The orange glow is trailing off in one direction, extending away from the boy. “I see it.”
“You want to give that reaching element more energy,” Stephen says. “Not much; you’re drawing from your own reserves. He only needs enough to feel where he’s meant to go.”
Tony can’t quite make it happen just by focusing. In the end, he raises a hand and points one finger, and a thread of orange spools out of it and towards the boy. Soul cuts the thread before it makes contact. You’re not trying to make a connection, it explains. Just to donate a little energy.
The thread disappears into the boy’s orange aura. For a moment, Tony thinks it didn’t work, but then the boy looks up from his body and turns in the direction that the orange trail is pointing. He takes a hesitant step, then another. On the third, he vanished, blinking out as if he was never there at all. Tony lets out a breath.
“Well done,” Stephen says. With a final press of his hand, he steps away from Tony and carefully slides the drawer closed, sealing the boy’s body away again.
“I was kind of expecting a white light,” Tony admits.
Stephen smiles, just a little. “So did I, the first time. But in reality, we’d have to get a lot closer to death to see any representation of the other side, and the Masters still aren’t sure if the images we see when we make that approach are cultural, physiological, or definitive.”
Tony snorts. “Even the Mystics don’t know everything, huh?”
“Not even close.” Stephen casts a portal for them and together they step into the Sanctum.
Tony waits until the chill of the morgue has entirely dissipated and Stephen is pouring tea for them before voicing the thought that’s on his mind. “Soul warned me not to make a connection when I gave the boy some extra oomph.”
Stephen turns an interested look on Tony. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Tony says. “Which begs the question: what could I do with a connection?”
Stephen sets the teapot down with an uneven clink. “I don’t know.”
Tony blows out a breath. “Yeah. Me neither.”
Soul’s silence is less than comforting.