Douglas did not dodge.
He simply watched quietly as the hand passed through his shoulder.
There was no pain.
But a stream of warmth was drawn out of the place it touched.
Douglas could clearly see an extremely faint white wisp, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, being pulled from his body by that painted arm, then dragged back into the wall and absorbed into the faceless spirit.
The spirit's outline seemed to grow one ten-thousandth more solid.
"A continuous drain on magic and body heat."
Douglas immediately made his assessment, his tone as calm as if he were analyzing a bouncing, frolicking Peeves in class.
"Not a lethal attack, but a war of attrition. To get to the end, we either endure it or..."
He looked at Bill.
Bill was frantically pressing the shutter, his face a mixture of obsession and fervor.
"So ingenious! He used curses to confuse an aspect of the soul-the ba-with life force-the ka! These spirits are draining our ka to repair their incomplete ba!"
Several more arms reached out from the murals on either side, waving silently in the air like hungry tentacles.
Douglas ignored the madman beside him, who had already succumbed to academic fervor.
He raised his wand.
No light shone at its tip.
"Mirage!"
He cast an intricate charm in an extremely subtle manner.
The magic formed no barrier, nor did it attempt to attack the spirits.
Like a drop of ink falling into clear water, it silently blended into the surroundings.
The next second, something extraordinary happened.
The waving arms seemed to lose their targets in an instant.
They swept past either side of Douglas's and Bill's bodies, over their heads, and beside their feet, but could no longer touch them accurately.
To those Memory Echoes, these two living people