Grave Witch

We drove in silence for a while. As the skyscrapers vanished behind us the low hum of magic slowly infiltrated the air around the car. Not active magic, but the feel of the Glen.

The Glen, or Witches Glen, as it was called in some circles, was a clump of suburban sprawl surrounding Magic Quarter. The Quarter not only was the best place to shop for spells and supplies but also included the city’s only private witchcraft prep school, a fae bar, and our local headquarters of the Organization for Magically Inclined Humans.

The convertible hit the bridge crossing the Sionan River, and the thrum of magic intensified. The Sionan River separated downtown Nekros from the Quarter and the Glen beyond. If you went west of the Sionan and weren’t headed out of town, you were either magical or in the market for magic. Whether witches had originally built in the Glen because of the magical resonance, or the hum had grown from decades of magic being worked in a concentrated area, no other place in the city felt the same, and I relaxed as we drew closer.

“Who hired you?” Falin asked as he turned into my neighborhood.

“A client.”

“His name?”

I didn’t answer. Under normal circumstances, I didn’t give out my client information. I definitely wasn’t going to just hand Casey’s name to Andrews. Not only was she family, but if word got out … My father and I might not see eye to eye on, well, anything, but I didn’t walk around intentionally trying to cause scandals for him.

Falin pulled into my driveway, and I swung open the door before the car rolled to a stop. I didn’t make it all the way out.

Falin grabbed my arm, his gloved fingers closing around my wrist.“Who hired you to examine Coleman’s body?”

“That’s confidential.”

“Who knew you were looking at Coleman’s body?”

“Besides you?”

His frown pulled his face down, making the shadows under his cheeks sharper.“Ms. Craft, while I’m sure your charming personality endears you to many people, is there anyone you know who would want to kill you?”

I froze, a chill crawling down my spine. “The sheriff thinks the shooting had something to do with the Holliday trial.”

“That is one possibility. Who is your client? Who knew you were looking at either body today?”

I shrugged his arm away and climbed out of the car.

The list of people who knew I was at the morgue was short: just the cops who’d given me a ride, John, Tommy, Falin, and, of course, Casey—and maybe my father, if she’d told him. No one on the list was likely to fire a gun into a crowd in front of the Central Precinct. The shooting had to be connected to the Holliday trail. Some nut didn’t want a shade to take the stand.

“Thank you for the ride, Detective,” I said, slamming the door behind me.

Unfortunately, slamming my door didn’t keep him from opening his.

He slid out from behind the wheel. “Who hired you? Don’t force me to get a warrant for your client list.”

More threats? Okay, so I had been poking around his case. But, seriously?

I turned, ready to feed him a line of legalese about clients and privacy, but the words died on my tongue as a frigid wind lifted the hair off my neck. The temperature was still pushing the mid-nineties, with no breeze to speak of to cool the night. So, the tickling gust of cold air along my back was way out of place.

I spun around in time to see a shimmering pair of slumped, plaid-covered shoulders and thick glasses before the ghost disappeared. The ghost, the same ghost, from the morgue and then the hospital. Here. In my front yard. I cracked my shields just the slightest bit, so that my grave-sight overlay the world but didn’t replace it. As the patina of decay washed over the yard the grass was simultaneously healthy green and withered brown, but there was no sign of the ghost. He pulled back deep.

Tightening my shields again, I frowned at the spot where the ghost had been. I was vaguely aware that Detective Andrews was speaking, but I waved him off and headed for the stairs to my loft.

“Ms. Craft!”

“Good night, Detective,” I said, all but running up the driveway. I was thankful he didn’t follow me.

I bypassed the front door—I rented the efficiency over the garage, so I had my own entrance. A path of evenly placed stepping-stones veered from the sidewalk, snaking around the side of the house. A spell on the flat stones made the pathway twinkle softly. As I stepped on the first stone the next lit up. The spell had been a birthday gift from my housemates last year when they realized how much damage my grave-sight had done to my night vision. I was more grateful than I let on.

The streetlights failed to reach the side of the house, and, as I hadn’t planned to stay out so late, I hadn’t turned my porch light on, so the glimmering stones were my only source of light. Two steps after rounding the corner of the house, I stopped. I couldn’t have been far from the stairs leading to my loft, but the next stone was only a small sliver of light. I squinted. Something dark enough to absorb the spelled light covered the stone.

The bit of light that escaped illuminated a pair of large paws sporting wickedly long talons.

“I’ve told you about blocking the path,” I said, stepping off my stone.

The path dimmed, leaving me in what my bad eyes perceived as total darkness. I reached out, my hand finding the cool, stone head of our resident gargoyle, Fred, a three-foot, granite, winged cat. It had taken a liking to the spell on the stepping-stones, which was a real nuisance in a time like this. Using the gargoyle as a pivot point, I stepped around the hulking stone body until the path lit under my feet again. The glowing stones led right up to the base of the stairs.

My sore muscles protested the one-story climb, and by the time I reached my door, my body felt like an overstretched rubber band. A sticky sweat made the scrubs cling to my skin as I fumbled my keys into the lock. As I turned the doorknob a chill crawled down my neck. The ghost?

I spun around.

The ghost stood directly behind me, but I caught only a glimmer of his shape before he vanished again. What is going on?

Frowning, I pushed open the door, feeling my wards slide over my skin as I stepped inside. PC, my loyal—and recently very expensive—companion greeted me with a wagging tail and an enthusiastic yip. Hairless Chinese cresteds were pathetic in a cute way on good days, but with one of his forelegs in a bright blue cast, he was downright pitiable. I scooped him up awkwardly, my own brace in the way.

“Sorry I’m so late,” I said as he licked my chin. “But look, we both have a cast now.”

Okay, yeah, that wasn’t really a selling point. I set him down and watched him hobble around. He was moving extremely well for having broken the leg only a week ago. The cast would be off in a couple of days—long before the ER doctor would agree it was time for me to take my brace off. Magically enhanced medicine worked fast.

After watching PC a moment more, I turned back to the door and twisted the bolt lock. My house wards locked down with the bolt, buzzing lightly, and my thoughts circled back to the ghost. I wonder if the wards will keep him out? They weren’t specifically designed to keep out ghosts, though ghosts were mostly willpower and energy, so if he was malicious, they just might bar him. He’d tried to tell me something at the morgue, but now he hid whenever I noticed him. What did he want?

And why the hell am I being haunted?

Chapter 4

“Rise and shine,” an overly enthusiastic voice announced as the inner door of my loft opened.

I pulled the pillow over my head.“If you aren’t a sexy man bearing coffee, go away.”

“Well, I don’t think I’m bad,” said Caleb, my landlord and good friend.“And this may be a fresh-brewed cup o’ joe. Black. No sugar.”

I pulled one side of my pillow away so I could peer up at him though sleep-blurry eyes. “Are you my fairy godfather?”

His lips twisted as he leaned down to scoop my robe off the floor. He tossed the robe at me. “Get up,” he said in mock agitation, but I could hear the laugh rumbling under his deep voice.

Fairy godfather was a long-running joke between Caleb and me because he was, in fact, fae.

“So, what time is it?” I asked as I reluctantly rolled to my knees and shrugged on the robe.

“Eight forty-five.”

I groaned. I’d been asleep less than four hours. When I’d gotten home, I’d had to recharge my ring, and then I’d spent far too many hours searching the Internet for an explanation of the way Bethany’s shade had acted and for any mention at all of glyphs like the ones I’d seen on Coleman’s body—or whatever was posing as Coleman’s body. Folklore was full of stories of the fae stealing a mortal and leaving a stock—wood or stone glamoured to look like a person—in their place. But if the fae kidnapped Coleman … ? It didn’t seem to add up.

More sleep would probably help.

I collapsed back against my mattress. “Give me another hour,” I whispered, my eyes drifting closed.

Caleb held the mug out, letting the delicious scent of dark-roasted coffee waft through my senses.

“You know,” he said, “Holly left over an hour ago.”

Holly, my final housemate and an assistant DA, believed in early mornings regardless of how late the night lasted. “Holly is a workaholic.”

“And there is a cop downstairs who says he’s your ride.”

My ride? “Damn it—the trial! I have to get to the courthouse.”

I rolled out of the bed, snagging the steaming mug of coffee from Caleb as my feet hit the ground. Not that I had time to enjoy the dark, bitter taste—I was too busy running around the one-room loft searching for the clothes I’d picked out to wear. Caleb at least had the decency not to laugh, much.

———

My introduction to Ms. Legal on the courthouse stairs consisted of an assessing glare under severely plucked eyebrows and the question, “Miss Craft, really—don’t you own an iron?”

Twenty minutes later, I stood in the women’s restroom, doused in dewrinkler, my hair pulled uncomfortably tight in a chignon, and with three inches of makeup caked on my face.