Grave Witch

She lunged again, and I stumbled back. This is so not normal. I cut off the stream of magic giving the shade form, and her eyes bulged. The cold wind washed backward through me, but she didn’t fade. I shoved with pure power. Bethany’s scream kicked up a notch, then cut off with one last lingering note as the shade vanished. The sudden silence rang in my ears.

I gulped down air. When had I lost my breath? The cuts on my shoulder burned, and I pressed my palm against them. Damp. I dropped my hand back and stared.Three thin lines of blood dotted my palm.

Beside me, John let out a deep breath. “What made it do that?”

Crap. “I don’t know. Shades aren’t supposed to lash out.They aren’t that real, that … emotional.” I shook my head.“They’re just memories. No will, no pain …” Or at least that was what I’d been taught. I looked at the black bag. It was perfectly still, silent.

I wiped my palm on my jeans. Tonight I’d send some e-mails. Maybe someone over at the Dead Club discussion board would know what went wrong, but I’d surely never heard of a shade screaming. I turned to the other body.

Or at least I thought it was a body, though it certainly didn’t feel like one to my senses. I squinted. It was the right shape. An icy drop of sweat trailed down my spine.

I reached with magic, my hands hovering over the sheet.

My power slid around the body—or whatever it was—not touching it.

That is just weird. I bit my lip and probed with the sense that drew me to the dead. Nothing.

The power level of my circle surged, lifting goose bumps on my skin. My head shot up as the ghost bounced off my barrier. He turned and slammed his shoulder into the edge of my circle a second time, flickers of green and blue light exploding in the pale barrier. Not what I needed right now.

I drew on the small well of magic left in my ring and channeled a thin line of energy into the circle. The barrier quivered but held as the ghost hit it a third time.

He jerked as if stung, his form more transparent than before.

“What is it?” John asked, stepping closer to the gurney.

I forced my attention away from the ghost. If he hadn’t broken the circle yet, he probably wouldn’t. I had other things to worry about, like the sheet-draped form on the gurney. “You’re sure this is a body?”

John pulled the sheet back, and the skin on my arms crawled. Coleman’s face was pale and expressionless in death—and completely free of decay.

I blinked. Crumbled cement crunched under my boots. Rust covered the gurney. My grave-sight was functioning, but … “He looks exactly the way he did on TV.”

John nodded.“Pretty good for a two-week-old corpse, huh?”

I frowned. I’d seen two-week-old bodies before. Hell, I’d smelled them too.Without being embalmed and with the heat index hitting 104 on cool days, Coleman should have been a mess. Instead, he would probably have an open-casket funeral.

“What were the autopsy results?”

John pulled a small notebook from his pocket. “One of the bullets perforated the spleen. That was the kill shot. His body poisoned itself. No indication how the body was preserved this long without signs of decomp.”

He shook his head. “When the media gets hold of this, they’re going to spin it with him being some sort of saint. Incorruptible body and all.”

Great—just what the world needed: a sainted witch hunter. I let out a sigh, and my strength rushed out of me with my breath. Between Baker and Bethany, I’d been in touch with the grave too much today. I needed to wrap this up, get Coleman talking, and get paid.

I studied his unmarred features. Even if he wasn’t outwardly decayed, he should have been desiccated in my grave-sight. Everything natural decayed in my gravesight.

John lifted the sheet to cover Coleman’s face, but I held up a hand.

What is that?

Leaning forward, I motioned John to pull the sheet down farther. Thick blue and green lines curved over Coleman’s shoulders, filling the hollow of his collarbone.

“Are those tattoos? Let me see his chest.”

John frowned but folded the sheet down to Coleman’s hips. Vivid patterns decorated the governor’s arms and chest in a swirl of colors and shapes. The curving lines were like nothing I’d seen before, as if an artist had taken liberties in depicting characterized runes or ancient tribal art.

I leaned closer. “Not exactly something I expected to see on a public figure.”

John stared at me, not the corpse, and my stomach twisted.

“You can’t see them?”

He shook his head.

Oh crap. The patterns were undisturbed by the Y incision from the autopsy—a regular tattoo would have been ruined. I turned and looked at the marks from the corner of my eye. In my peripheral vision, I could almost make sense of the twisting patterns, but if I focused on them, they jumbled toward random. Magic glyphs?

“Did Tamara check the body—or whatever this is— for spells?”

John nodded. “She did a full workup. Nothing.”

I swallowed, and the fist in my stomach clenched tighter. Tamara was a natural bloodhound for rooting out spells. I’d never found anything she’d missed before, especially something this big. Not that I had a clue what the spell did.

Behind me, a door banged open.“What the hell is she doing with my body?”

My head snapped up, and I whirled around.

A man stormed into the room, his steps thundering through the sterile space. In my grave-sight, he was a blinding silver blur, his soul shimmering below the surface as though his skin could barely contain it.

“Damn,” John swore.

He shoved Coleman’s gurney back toward the cold room, but the spell on the body caught on the edge of my circle. Energy tingled over my skin, and the clenched fist in my stomach thrust upward, choking me as the circle fought to hold the foreign magic inside.

“John, no—”

Too late.

John shoved again, and the circle shattered. The backlash tore through me like spikes ripping through my veins. Bile filled my mouth. Oh, this isn’t good. My knees buckled.

Gravel bit into my palms, and I found myself blinking at the broken linoleum. John and I were going to have to have another chat about magic circles. I pushed off the ground.

Cold wind raked over me, through me. I shivered. Oh no. The grave essence from the other bodies in the morgue—it was reaching for me. Papers rustled in the gathering wind, and the equipment on trays rattled.

“What the hell is she doing?” the stranger yelled.

I ignored him. There wasn’t enough time to recast my circle. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on my outermost mental shield. I visualized a wall of vines growing around me, blocking the grave essence. The wind calmed, becoming a light breeze, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. Most witches formed shields of stone or metal, but I’d long ago learned that visualizing living walls protected me better against the dead. I turned toward the remaining gurney.

My hand trembled as I extended my arm and reached both physically and magically for the life force I’d stored in the corpse. It rushed into me, burning a wellused route to my core. My vision dimmed, my gravesight faded, and the chill gripping me retreated. Goose bumps lifted on my skin. The heat I’d regained was only enough to emphasize how cold I’d been while filled with the grave.

My shoulder itched, and I rubbed at the scratches before fumbling the shield bracelet out of my pocket. I hated this part.The charm bracelet’s silver clasp snapped closed, and the last of the grave essence reaching for me vanished. The psychic disconnect left me shivering and blind.

“I’ll have your badge for this,” the unfamiliar voice yelled.

I cringed. Well, we’d certainly pissed someone off.

Now if only I could see who. A wheel squeaked at my side, and I blinked furiously. Stupid adjustment period.

I squinted, but I couldn’t make anything out. My postritual vision was worse than normal, probably because I’d used my grave-sight twice today. Impatient, I knelt and groped for my purse. Under my fingers, the linoleum was once again solid, smooth. Where is that bag?

The shadows crawled apart, and I made out a blotch of red to my right. My purse. I snatched it from the floor and dug out my glasses case.

“This is an open investigation!”

I turned, willing my bad eyes to focus. The stranger leaned over Coleman’s gurney as if checking to see if we’d tampered with the body. A shock of platinum hair fell forward over his shoulder, and he brushed it back with a swipe of his hand. He looked up and straightened as John wheeled Bethany into the cold room.

He jerked the front of his suit jacket closed, stepping around the gurney and into John’s path. I frowned. The fitted suit showed off an impressive swimmer’s build while marking him as someone higher up in the police food chain than a beat cop. While I certainly didn’t know all the homicide detectives in Nekros, I thought I knew all the ones important enough to have pulled Coleman’s case.

John’s knuckles flared white where he gripped the metal gurney, but his gaze didn’t lift above the black body bag. I slung my purse over my shoulder. Now might be the time to make a discreet exit. John could sort this out.

I headed for the door.

“Witch, stay where you are,” the detective barked behind me.

I flipped around. Busted.

What was the name of the cop Tommy had been worried about earlier? Andrews? This had to be the same detective. I hadn’t meant to get John in trouble.

The detective balled his hands on his hips. His suit jacket gaped, exposing an expanse of pristine oxford shirt and the dull black butt of his gun.“If your pet magic eye compromised my investigation, I—”

Magic eye? He did not go there.

Thoughts of fading into the background fled from my mind, and I marched into his personal space. “Detective Andrews, is it?”

He turned, his jaw clenched, but he didn’t answer. He also didn’t back down.

I was tall, and in my ass-kicker boots I was pushing six feet, but this close, I had to look up to meet his eyes.