Grave Witch

The soul sprang from the body, and I collapsed to my knees. Above me, glowing faintly blue where the darkness didn’t touch her, was the soul. She screamed, still weak from fighting but filled with my power. I’d never understood how ghosts came to be, but I was looking at one. And this one wasn’t sane.

The ghost wailed, lashing out at the gray man. The spell had come with her. The glyphs on her body were now dark patches surrounded by thick twisting tendrils.

Just like the scratches. But unlike the spell on me, I could see this one growing, and it was growing fast.

The gray man reached out, and his fingers closed around one of the dark glyphs. He pulled, and the ghost screamed louder, tearing at his arm. He kept pulling, ripping the glyph free with all the tangled roots it had grown. Once free of the ghost, the dark glyph dissipated.

The gray man grabbed another of the dark symbols, and Death joined him.

With neither of them guarding against the other magic in the circle, the knotted tendrils were gathering again. It’s time for me to get out of here. I pushed to my feet. My knees buckled, and I stumbled, nearly falling again. Righting myself, I took another step. That one worked better. A dark tendril moved within a foot of me, and I broke into a jerky run.

I crossed the edge of the circle but didn’t stop until I’d reached the far wall. Then I collapsed against it and drew my shaking knees to my chest. Death and the gray man were still in the center of the circle, still pulling dark glyphs off the ghost, but they were almost done.

With each glyph they destroyed, the ghost grew brighter, more solid. But she didn’t stop screaming.

Several cops were on their knees, their hands over their ears. Another had fainted. Two still had their guns drawn and pointed, but they were staring at the ghost.

Falin was on the other side of the room, and he was the only person looking at me. My vision was starting to blank out, my grave-sight shutting down, so I could only just see the silver of his soul burning under his skin.

But I didn’t have to be able to see him to know he was pissed.

Death pulled the last glyph from the ghost. The gray man saluted him with his cane, turned, and then sank a hand into the ghost. She didn’t stop screaming until both she and the gray man had disappeared.

Death turned and smiled at me, and the trance the cops had been in broke. One yelled for him to freeze.

The other opened fire.

I tried to jump to my feet, but my legs didn’t listen, and I slammed into the wall. My breath whooshed out, and I blinked. My vision was darkening. But I could see Death. He looked surprised, his hand covering his stomach.

Time moved in slow motion as he pulled his hand away, his palm soaked in crimson.

“No.” I meant to yell, but my voice barely carried.

The sound of the cops yelling turned to a buzz in the back of my head as Death fell to his knees.

My body felt unreal as I struggled to stand. It took three tries. I had no breath, no strength, but I had to make it to Death. He can’t die. He’s Death.

A shadow moved in the doorway beside me. “Damn boys can’t do anything right.”

The raver collector sashayed into the room, her nails clicking as she strummed her fingers together. “I guess this is your fault,” she said.

I just blinked at her—I wasn’t good for much else. I was out of magic, out of strength. The raver shook her head, making her neon dreads quiver.Then she marched across the floor. She pulled Death’s arm over her shoulder and half carried, half dragged him out of the circle.

Somewhere behind her a gun clattered to the cement.

“Come on.” The raver grabbed my arm and dragged me, while still carrying Death, through the doorway and back into the dusty storeroom we’d entered when we first arrived. I stumbled after her.

“Well, get to it,” she said, depositing me against the wall and, at least momentarily, out of sight of the cops.

“I, uh, what?”

“You swapped life essences.Take it back.” She moved Death closer.

I reached out, brushing his dark hair back behind his ear. I’d always wanted to do that but never had the nerve. My fingers trailed over his cheek, and his skin was blisteringly hot to the touch.

His dark eyes opened and locked onto mine. “I’m sorry, Alex.”

I almost laughed. He’d been shot and he was the one sorry? I shook my head.

His hand moved to mine, pressed my palm against his face. “You’re trembling.”

I blinked back the moisture blinding my eyes. “Don’t worry about me.” The words burned the back of my throat.

“Get on with it,” the raver snapped.

I nodded. I had no idea what I was doing, but I hadn’t with the soul, either. I could only hope I hadn’t used up the last of my luck.

I didn’t have any power to reach with, but it turned out I didn’t need to. I opened my mind, myself, and just as it was with a corpse, my heat, my life essence, flowed back into me. Warmth filtered into my body. Not much warmth, just enough to accent the cold.

Then the pain hit.

My world went red. The pain was everywhere, everything.

I was dying. I could feel every cell in my body dying, withering.

Strong arms wrapped around my body, and I realized I was shaking. No. Convulsing.

“It will pass,” Death whispered, his hand pressed in my hair. “It will pass.”

Death lowered me to the ground, and I lay there, gasping. The pain had passed, but I could still feel my body dying all around me.

I’m dying.

I must have spoken the thought out loud, because Death shook his head.

“You’re mortal. You’ve always been dying.”

“It’s time to go,” the raver said.

Death glanced over his shoulder at her.“I have something left to do.” He turned back to me and smoothed away curls that had fallen in my face. His fingers, while not blisteringly hot, still felt warm. I was coherent enough to realize that Death feeling warm to me was a very bad sign.

“The consumption spell on your shoulder—” he started, but the raver cut him off.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m oath-bound to aid her, like she aided us. Now listen,Alex. I can’t pull the spell free while your soul is still inside your body. You have to track down and destroy the one who cast it. That is the only way.”

Peachy.

He wasn’t done yet. “The spell is malignant and contagious, but very specific in whom it targets. Your soul is strong. It’s fighting. But if the spell wears you down or spreads too far, I’ll come for you. I won’t let it consume you.”

He’d kill me? Better than being eaten, I guess.

He leaned forward until my world was filled with his face. His dark eyes were warm, his breath close enough to caress my skin. “But please, Alex, find the one who cast it.”

The raver cleared her throat. “This is so sweet I’m going to end up diabetic. Now let’s get out of here.”

Death frowned, but he stood. Then they vanished.

Chapter 13

I lay in the darkness trembling, trying to find the strength to sit up. I couldn’t find it. So I lay there on the dusty floor. In a borrowed dress. With a roomful of pissed-off cops on the other side of the wall.

“What the hell are you doing in my crime scene!”

Scratch that. The most pissed-off cop of all was now in the room with me.

With my grave-sight gone, I was completely blind, but I didn’t need my eyes to recognize that voice—Falin had yelled at me enough in our short acquaintance that it was ingrained in my memory.

I’d have liked to be nonchalant, but I’d exchanged essences with Death, been attacked by a malevolent spell, created a ghost, gotten my own essence back, and then had a seizure. The past ten minutes had been rough. I wasn’t up for snappy comebacks. Hell—I was barely up to breathing.

So I just continued doing exactly what I had been doing. I lay there and trembled.

“Get up,” Falin commanded. “Get up.”

He reached down, grabbing my elbow, and his gloved hand burned my arm like a branding iron. I yelped, the pain making my eyes sting with tears.

Falin jerked back. “Damn, you’re freezing.”

I heard his steps move farther into the room, circle back. When he spoke again, I could tell he’d crouched near me. “What the hell happened in there? Who was that man, and where did he go?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Answer me,Alex Craft, or so help me …” He left the rest of the threat to my imagination.

“I can’t.”

There was a long pause after I spoke. Then he said, “Fine.”

His hand locked on my arm again, but this time his touch wasn’t blisteringly hot. My temperature couldn’t have risen that fast; how did he … Body temperature wasn’t what I should have been worrying about. Something hard and metallic snapped around one wrist, then around my other wrist.

Handcuffs? Oh crap, he’s arresting me.

“Get up,” he said again, and dragged me by my cuffed arms to a sitting position.

I tried to get my feet under me, but there was no doing it. My legs were like jelly, and I couldn’t stop shaking.

Falin seemed to realize the futility as well, because he leaned me back against the wall.

“I’ve seen you after raising a shade before. You weren’t this bad off.”

“Wasn’t a shade.” But I couldn’t say anything more.

The oath bound my tongue. I drew in a deep breath and leaned my head against the wall. My cheeks felt sticky.

Tears were still leaking from my eyes, mixing with the dust. I moved to scrub the gritty mess away, but my hands were cuffed behind my back. The effort almost toppled me to the floor. Falin’s hands steadied me.

There was a rustling sound in front of me; then fabric fell around my shoulders. Falin’s tux jacket? He tucked it around me. I didn’t feel any warmer for his effort.

“You can’t see a thing, can you?” he asked.

“It’s dark in here.”