Grave Witch

———

I jolted awake. A scene of myself, thin and vaporish outside my body with dark glyphs sucking away my soul, still played in my mind. A dream. But not one that faded in the weak morning light that streamed in through a large sliding-glass door. I rubbed my bleary eyes and then blinked, staring at the unfamiliar green microfiber cushion in front of my nose. Where am I?

Falin’s apartment. But I was alone on the couch.

I sat up—probably a little too fast. My vision swam, but then it cleared again, bringing the one-room apartment into focus. A grin broke over my face. Seeing is a glorious thing.

I looked around. There wasn’t much to the small apartment. The couch I’d slept on took up most of one wall; a dresser with a TV on top was directly across from it. A computer desk was tucked away in one corner, and a small card table with two chairs around it took up the other corner.There was a door on the opposite wall from the couch, and the smell of coffee—and is that bacon?—emanated from it. There was also a door on the same wall as the couch, and I hoped it was the bathroom.

I pushed to my feet. My legs protested, quivering under me, but they held. My whole body was tight, sore, as if I’d gotten a strenuous workout, and my movements were far from smooth. I wanted a hot shower, but I didn’t think that was an option. I made a quick stop at the bathroom.After washing my face, rinsing my mouth, and trying to do something with my hair before pulling the mess of dirty blond curls back into a ponytail, I headed for the kitchen.

Falin was standing over the stove. He looked up as I shambled in. “Morning. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. I …” I stopped. Falin had showered, and his damp hair hung loose over his shoulders. The blond strands had seeped moisture into his oxford, which was unbuttoned and gave me a clear view of his chest.

I couldn’t tell if the skin over his cut muscles was as smooth as it looked or if he had fine blond hair, but I could imagine my hands sliding from his chest to his abs and finding out.

Falin frowned at me. “Can you see this morning?”

Oh yeah. I could see. I could definitely see. I nodded, tearing my gaze away and making a beeline for the coffee maker so he wouldn’t notice the color in my cheeks. I ran into a problem—I had no idea where the mugs were.

“Cabinet over your head,” Falin said before I had to ask. “How do you like your eggs?”

I poured my coffee. “Listen, it was really nice of you to take care of me last night.” And to not arrest me. “But I think this has gotten awkward enough. If you point me toward the bus line, I’ll get out of here.” I had a lot to look into, and PC had to be pacing anxiously, waiting for a walk and food.

“It’s just breakfast. Have some food; then I’ll drop you at your house before I head to the station.”

The food did smell amazing. I couldn’t seriously refuse real food, and having a full stomach could only help my investigation into Coleman. I rubbed the scratches on my shoulder. But after I changed and showered, there was a detour I needed to make. I was on an unknown timeline, and I had someone I needed to visit.

Just in case.

I smiled at Falin around the rim of my mug. “All right—breakfast.”

Chapter 14

An hour and a half later, showered and in clean clothes, I sat under the dim lights in the ICU.

“I could really use your advice,” I whispered from the uncomfortable folding chair beside John’s bed.

Pale and waxy, John made no response to my plea.

Not that I expected him to. He’d been unconscious since Tuesday. It was Friday now. I sat there, gripping his hand, but it made no difference. He had no idea I was there.

I stood and laid his hand back by his side. “You’ll wake up,” I told him, but even to my ears my voice sounded uncertain.

I turned to go and nearly ran into Death.

I gasped, backing up a step. Not that being out of reach would matter if he was collecting souls. “Are you here for me or …” I glanced down at the bed.

Death shook his head. “I’m here for you.”

For me, as in for me. Like for my soul? My hand moved to the scratches on my shoulder. I hadn’t thought it had progressed that much.

Death shook his head again, and a small, sad smile tipped the side of his mouth. He reached out, but his hand dropped short of touching my face. “I’m just moral support. I know how hard this is for you.”

He stepped away, clasping his hands behind his back.

I remembered to breathe again. The air rushed out of me in audible relief, and Death cringed at the sound. He stared at John.

I didn’t want to stay. I didn’t want to focus on John’s lax features or his mustache, which wasn’t betraying his emotions with small twitches.

I also didn’t want to leave him alone, and Maria hadn’t been in the waiting room when I passed through.

Has she given up hope?

I sank back into the chair and took John’s hand.

Death said nothing. Neither of us said a thing.

A nurse walked by, jotting notes on her clipboard.

She gave me a tight smile before moving on.

“Have you looked at him?” Death asked, breaking the silence.

I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“Look at him. See.” He put emphasis on the word “see” just the way he had last night.

Which meant he wanted me to use my grave-sight.

After the hours of blindness, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to use that part of my magic again for a long time.

We’d overloaded the shields in my bracelet last night, so I already felt brittle and could sense the corpses several stories below in the hospital morgue. But Death wouldn’t have suggested it if it weren’t important.

I opened my mental shield only the smallest amount.

It was enough. The gray patina of grave-sight washed over my vision. John’s soul glowed crimson with yellow swirls. I dropped his hand and jumped to my feet. His soul should have been pale yellow. Just yellow.

I stared at him and realized it wasn’t his soul that was crimson; it was his skin. The yellow of his soul was slipping through between crimson stains, and the darkest stain was around the wound in this throat. I reached with my senses, already knowing what I’d find. Darkness.

Dark magic.

I looked up at Death. “The bullet was spelled?”

He nodded. Damn. Coleman—it had to be him. After all, both bodies I’d seen on Tuesday tied back to him.

He’d well and truly intended that bullet to kill me, one way or another.

“If I find him …”

I didn’t have to specify who “him” was. Death understood.

He nodded. “If he’s destroyed, all his spells will dissipate.”

As if I needed another reason, another life, on the line. I sank into the chair beside John again. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

Not that sorry mattered. What mattered was finding Coleman. I released John’s hand and scrubbed the tears from my cheeks. I looked at Death.

“Do you know who he is?”

“Don’t do this, Alex. Don’t ask me.”

“You do know. Please—”

He leaned forward, cutting me off as his lips pressed against mine. He touched me nowhere else. There was just the soft yet unyielding pressure of his lips on mine, and I felt as though every nerve had moved to my mouth.

Then he was gone.

I pressed the tips of two fingers over my mouth and blinked at the empty air in front of me. He kissed me? I stood there as though I was waiting for him to materialize again. But he didn’t.

I knew he wouldn’t. The kiss of Death—a shut-up kiss. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, answer my questions.

I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together, remembering the feel of the kiss. He hadn’t been cold. He hadn’t been warm, either, but he hadn’t been cold. It had been nice. A tingle of excitement trembled from my mouth down to my stomach. Okay, maybe it had been more than nice.

I let out a sigh and opened my eyes. It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was finding Coleman before he claimed another soul.

———

“You’ve been quiet,” Caleb said as he pulled into the driveway. He’d been the only one at the house when Falin had dropped me off, so he’d gotten drafted into the job of driving me to the hospital, but I’d been too wrapped up in my own thoughts to talk to him most of the ride home.

“Yeah, sorry. I have a lot on my mind. Hey, if I ask you something, will you promise not to take offense?”

Caleb frowned at me, and I realized my mistake.

Caleb looked as if he’d just graduated from college, but he was older—a lot older. I wasn’t sure exactly how old because you just didn’t ask things like that of a fae. You also didn’t ask the fae to make a trivial promise.

“That’s not what I meant.” I took a deep breath. I’d been friends with Caleb ever since I’d started renting the upstairs loft from him my freshman year. He acted so witchlike, I sometimes forgot that the way I worded things could be very important. “What I meant to say is that I want to ask you something, but I don’t mean any offense by it.”

“Al, if it takes this much setup, you’re probably going to have to trade for it.”

I nodded. I’d been prepared for that. “If a fae was creating a dark ritual, and he was using glyphs I’d never seen before, like maybe they are particular to fae magic, would you be able to tell what the spell did by reading the glyphs?”

“Me? No.”

Damn. Being fae, Caleb couldn’t tell an outright lie, and there was no wiggle room in “no.” Of course, he’d only said he couldn’t.

“Would another fae be able to?” I wasn’t sure the glyphs were of fae origin, but I’d never seen or heard of a witch spell that worked like the one Coleman was using, and I was pretty sure Coleman himself was something fae—something other.

Caleb’s frown grew harder. “Maybe. Al, whatever you’re tied up in, you need to walk away from it. These questions are dangerous.”