Grave Witch

Or really, to Falin’s back, as he didn’t pause but stormed through the station. Then I turned to the desk sergeant, whose name I was pretty sure was Holt.

“Where you been?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“My phone got stolen, remember,” I said to him.

“Yeah, well, we found your car—”

Finally something good. Maybe my luck was turning around.

“It turned up in a scrap shop. There wasn’t much left, but your insurance should be able to confirm it was the old clunker.”

I’d clearly thought positive too soon.

“That’s just great,” I said behind a drooping smile.

If I’d had any insurance on the thing, that might have even been helpful information. Sighing, I forced a better, more hopeful smile onto my lips. “Have you heard anything new about John?”

Holt frowned. “Still unconscious, but last I heard, they did a brain scan and it lit up with activity. He could wake up any day now.” Despite the optimistic words, his gaze dropped, his lips tugging downward.

I nodded to acknowledge the news. He’s still alive.

That is what is important. But I had to find Coleman.

Waving good-bye to Holt, I said, “I’m headed down to the morgue.”

I passed through a security check—no gray magic this time—before making it down to the basement. Tamara was leaning over a body when I walked into the morgue.

She looked up, her eyes widening and her lips parting as she saw me. To her credit, she didn’t drop the heart she was lifting out of the open chest cavity.

“Alex!”

“Hey, Tamara,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets and rolling my shoulders in. Knowing people thought you were missing or dead and then just walking in was awkward. I hadn’t realized exactly how awkward it would be. I pressed the toe of my boot into the ground.

“I, uh, I’m okay.”

Tamara looked around as if she was trying to figure out what to do with the organ in her hands. Her eyes had a frantic edge to them, which was strange to see mixed with relief. She placed the heart in a tray and stripped off her gloves. Then she stepped around the table and gripped my shoulders.

“I was so afraid you were going to come here in a bag.”

She didn’t hug me, not exactly. She was still dressed for autopsy. But she squeezed my shoulders as if touching was the only way she could reassure herself I was really standing there. She pulled back, dropping her feverishly hot hands from my skin. “You’re cold enough to be on my table. What happened? Where have you been?”

“Well, it’s kind of complicated.”

The relief in Tamara’s face hardened. “And you couldn’t pick up the phone? Alex, there’s a madman killing women in their beds. Didn’t it occur to you to let someone know you were all right?”

I winced. For quite a large portion of my time in the Eternal Bloom, I definitely hadn’t been all right, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I looked down and stared at the drain in the linoleum floor. “I wanted to come by, say I was sorry for disappearing. I didn’t mean to. I honestly had no idea how long I was gone.”

I glanced up, and Tamara twisted her lips, turned away. She grabbed a new pair of latex gloves out of the box, snapping them as she pulled them on. Then, without a word, she leaned over the body again.

I didn’t follow. I had an affinity for the dead, but I didn’t have the stomach to do Tamara’s job.

As the silence stretched I looked around. Even with my mental shields held tightly in place, I could feel the bodies nearby. Without drawing grave essence, I let my awareness sink into the female body on Tamara’s table.

I found exactly what I expected—a mostly empty cavity with a shredded shade inside.

“Another ritual victim?”

“Found by her sister this morning.” Tamara looked up, her eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? You’re gone for four days, and then you walk in here and say, ‘Sorry. It’s complicated.’ That’s just not acceptable. Friends don’t do that. They don’t—”

“I was in Faerie.”

“—just disappear and—” She stopped. “You what?”

“I told you it was complicated. I was in Faerie. I was there for only a few hours, but I lost three days.”

I’d told Caleb I wouldn’t share with the OMIH and the public where I’d been, but Holly and Tamara were my best friends. I’d been keeping a lot of secrets from my friends recently. Too many. Tamara was staring at me, so I stumbled on. “Everything is a mess right now. When this is over, I promise I’ll tell you everything I can over a couple beers.”

“That’s as crazy as Tommy’s story.”

Oh crap, Tommy. He’d lost close to three weeks in the Bloom. He was likely more than confused—and no one had warned him not to talk about what happened.

“What he say?”

“Oh, I’ve only heard rumors. Security stopped him on the way in, and he claimed he had no idea what recording they were talking about. Then he had no idea Governor Coleman had been assassinated. He’s been up in interrogation all day.”

Poor Tommy.

I gave Tamara a weak smile. Then I nodded at the body in front of her. “Who is she?”

“Oh no, you’re not changing the subject that easily.” She bent her wrists and pressed them against her hips. I just stared at her, and she blew air between her teeth. “You were really in Faerie?”

I nodded.

“Girl, what have you gotten yourself tied up in now?”

She shook her head and bent back over the body. “This was Julie Staton, a precog, but I hope she didn’t see this one coming.”

I grimaced, agreeing with her. Precognition, the ability to foresee future events, was the rarest wyrd ability.

There were no shields to block out precogs’ visions.

They were just taught how to cope with them, and then they spent a lot of time in counseling because their visions were always the future. If they saw a horrible event and tried to prevent it, the vision had already taken their actions into account. If Julie had foreseen ending up a soulless husk on Tamara’s autopsy table … I shivered.

Tamara shook her head, staring down into Julia’s chest cavity. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out what killed this poor woman.”

“No glyphs were carved into her?”

“Oh, there are the same glyphs cut into her as all the rest, but all the wounds are shallow, superficial. There isn’t even enough blood loss to explain her death. It’s like he cut her up and she gave up the will to live. The last three have been like this.”

“Emily, Caitlin, and Julie?”

Tamara nodded, and I frowned. I knew how Julie had died—her soul was sucked right out of her body. Like cracking open an oyster. I rubbed the scratches on my shoulder. So Coleman had six souls already. That left one more, and I had a feeling he’d take that one during the Blood Moon.

“You know the strangest part about these victims?”

Tamara asked, and whatever she did inside the body made a slurping, squishing sound. I cringed and looked away as she continued. “It’s the glyphs.They are all nonsense. No trace of magic at all.”

“So, you don’t think a spell killed the women?” I asked because she’d paused and I had to say something, and I couldn’t just say, “Sorry. You’re apparently not sensitive to fae magic. And, oh yeah, by the way, that’s a soul-sucking curse.”

“A killing spell would stain black. There’s nothing here. Now, Caitlin was wearing more gray spells in her necklaces, rings, and bracelets than I’ve ever seen in one place, but that wouldn’t have killed her.”

No, it wouldn’t have, but … “Caitlin was a norm, wasn’t she?”

Tamara’s answer was drowned out by the morgue door banging against the wall. I whirled around as Falin stormed into the room. His eyes landed on me.

“Let’s go,” he snapped, and then turned on his heel, shoving his way back through the door.

Okay. Guessing it went less than well with the chief.

“I’ve got to, uh …” I glanced at Tamara. Her eyes were wide again, but her mouth was screwed tight, concerned.

I pointed in the direction Falin had gone.

“Alex,” she called after me, and I turned back as I reached the door. “Whatever mess you’re in, be careful.”

Chapter 25

Roy ambushed me outside the morgue doors.

“Alex, where have you been? I’ve been looking all over the netherworld for you.”

Of course he had. Because if I disappear for three days, I have to answer to everyone. Even the dead.

I pasted on a smile I didn’t feel. “Hi, Roy. Now isn’t a good time.”

“But you’ve got to do something. They’re talking about releasing my body for burial.”

And how exactly was I supposed to prevent that?

“Believe it or not, I have more important things to worry about right now than a body that’s already dead.”

Roy shoved his glasses farther up on his nose. “I watched him inside my body for twelve years. Twelve years.” Roy stepped forward, accenting the words with his hands.“And now they are going to bury me under his name. No. No—I refuse.” One gesture went wild, and his hand shot out, wrapping around my wrist. “You have to do something.”

My eyes flickered to where he gripped my arm. “Let go of me.”

He didn’t.

I locked down my shields, closing every small gap.

The color didn’t fade from Roy, and he didn’t become any less solid. Crap. Apparently I was way too close to the world of the dead.

Does that mean I’m only partially alive?

“Roy, I’m going to say this once, and only once.” I kept my voice level, quiet. If I started screaming at someone no one else could see, I’d attract attention. “They are not going to release your body this evening. If I don’t find Coleman today, if I can’t stop him before the Blood Moon, he is going to complete his ritual. Then he’ll take whatever nightmare he creates and conquer Faerie. I won’t be able to reach him in Faerie, and I will die. Who will help you claim your body then? Huh? Who will get your story told?”