Chapter 16

Murder. The word ricocheted around my head and then rattled down my spine, making my whole body shake.

“I didn’t—” I wanted to say I hadn’t killed anyone, but I had. The fact it was only in defense of myself and those I cared about didn’t change that I’d killed. Nor did it stop the nightmares.

But I hadn’t murdered anyone. And that I could say.

“Really? What do you call what happened to this girl?” Briar tossed the photos across the desk again. “You created a prime ghoul and allowed it to kill, more than once, judging by the fact at least three cemeteries are infested. That’s murder by magical proxy.”

“No.” I’d had quite a few magical issues in the last few months, but creating a prime ghoul—the first that would bridge the way for more of the creatures to cross over from the land of the dead—wasn’t on the list. There were only two ways to create a prime, one involved a grave witch who was actively in contact with the grave to die and her body be possessed. The other was for a grave witch to, either by accident or design, allow a creature from the land of the dead to cross through her and into a dead body, turning it into an animated cannibalistic corpse. I’d felt the dark things in the land of the dead before and I stayed the hell away from them.

“Ms. Craft, I’ll be honest. While seeing you locked away for your crimes is important, what is on the top of my to-do list right now is finding and destroying the prime. Tell me where to find it and I’ll let my superiors know you cooperated. You want that, trust me, because I’m in a hurry, which means I won’t hesitate to dose you with a compulsion spell and then ask my questions.” She fingered a vial on her belt, just in case I doubted she’d use such a spell. “A lot of paperwork goes with compulsion spells, and paperwork pisses me off. I suggest you cooperate, because you won’t like me pissed.”

That I believe. Unfortunately I didn’t have the answers she wanted.

“You have the wrong person,” I said, trying to keep my voice level and not provoke her.

“Like hell I do. Your file speaks for itself, and besides, not only are you the practicing grave witch in the area, but there is witness testimony.”

“That’s impossible,” I sputtered, any semblance of calm evaporating. I’d never even seen a ghoul, let alone created a prime—and creating monsters was the type of thing a girl wouldn’t forget. “Who’s your witness?”

“I won’t reveal my sources, but the story was corroborated. Or do you deny using the dead to attack a group of witches?”

I blinked at her dumbly, waiting for my brain to scale the wall of shock and give me a clue. No use. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I would never do something as stupid as tangle with the creatures on the other side of the chasm. Except ghosts of course, but they hardly counted as they were souls not meant to exist in the land of the dead.

I stopped. Ghosts.

A month ago I’d been kidnapped by a group of magic drunk skimmers who’d wanted me to rip a hole into the Aetheric for them. I’d manifested every haunt in the graveyard as a distraction.

“I’m assuming your sources are either in the mental ward or jail,” I said and Briar glowered.

“So you don’t deny it.”

“I don’t deny utilizing a handful of ghosts to escape armed kidnappers, who, by the way, had recently attacked a unit of ABMU officers after going mad from direct contact with the Aetheric. No, I don’t deny that. But they were ghosts. Ghosts. And ghosts can’t become ghouls.”

Briar frowned, but it had an edge of justification in it. “So you did, in fact, use your grave magic to utilize the dead as a weapon.”

“No, I created a distraction. And I did it only so I didn’t get my head blown off.”

“And I’m sure you have an excuse you find equally justifiable for why you created the ghoul. Now where is it? For so many graveyards to have ghouls it must not be trapped behind cemetery gates.”

“I told you, I didn’t—” I started to say, but paused as Briar reached into her jacket. I braced to dive out of the way if she followed through on her threat to hit me with a compulsion spell. But it wasn’t a potion or charm she pulled free but another photo.

“Look at this boy,” she said, dropping the photo in front of me. “He’s already transitioning. In a couple of hours he’ll pass beyond saving. Then there are only two paths for him. One, the transition finishes, he dies and rises as a ghoul, or two, he’s terminated before he finishes changing and his body is destroyed so he can’t come back. And that would be my job.”

She tapped the photo, forcing me to look at the boy and all the machines hooked up to his body.

“I hate terminating kids,” she said, fixing me with a dark stare. “So prove something decent exists in you and tell me where the damn prime is because there are only two ways to save this boy. One is to kill every ghoul that so much as scratched him—not an easy task as they don’t come out in the day and tonight will be too late for him. Or I can cut the chain from the top. Kill the prime and all the other ghouls lose their anchor and lay still like good corpses. Which do you think I prefer?”

“I didn’t create the prime. Check your lie detector. I’m telling you the truth.”

Her lips curled back, revealing gritted teeth, but she lifted her wrist to check the charm. “Unbelievable,” she muttered. “Either you’re pathological or using a counter charm. Hand over your bracelet and any other magical items you have on your person.”

This couldn’t be happening.

When I didn’t immediately comply, Briar fingered something in her pouch and said, “Remember, Ms. Craft, I wield the full authority of the MCIB in this investigation. If I think you are actively hindering my investigation or pose a threat to me, the OMIH, or the general population”—in one swift movement she swung the crossbow off her back and leveled it at my chest—“I can disable you by any means necessary.”

I gulped hard enough that I felt the movement all the way to my pounding temples. For the second time in an hour, I was on the wrong side of a crossbow. At least it wasn’t loaded with a steal-tipped incendiary round this time. I hadn’t seen her make the change, but the crossbow was now loaded with a bright blue foam bolt that carried a nasty concoction that felt like an immobilizer, a sleeping spell, and a draught that could temporarily block a witch’s ability to channel Aetheric energy. The last was a heavily regulated spell, and I had no idea who or what she thought she’d face that she’d need to combine all three. After all, a witch who can’t move and is unconscious wasn’t going to be casting any spells. But I guess I had to give Briar Darque one thing—she was certainly thorough with her overkill.

She twitched the crossbow, just the smallest jerk of a motion, but I got the message loud and clear. She would shoot me if I didn’t comply, and quickly.

I needed no additional prompting.

The obsidian ring where I stored Aetheric energy went on the desk first. Then I unclasped my bracelet as directed, and tossed it on the desk. As soon as it broke skin contact, I lost the benefit of my extra shields. I almost never took off the bracelet unless I was inside a circle. Even this morning, when I’d used my meditation charm on Nina Kingly, I’d never lost skin contact with the shields. Well, at least I’m not on the street. Then I’d really be in trouble. Inside, the building’s wards kept grave essence from assaulting me, but the wards couldn’t do anything about the fact I was a living, breathing, nexus in which the planes of reality converged. My personal mental shields kept my psyche grounded in mortal reality, but there was always a little slippage, tendrils of my mind that tied parts of me to the other planes. The shield bracelet helped me ignore those other planes. Without the added barrier, my psyche’s favorite two planes, the Aetheric and the land of the dead, stopped just hovering in my peripheral and swam across my vision.

To add insult to injury—not to mention my aching head—the cacophony of magic radiating off Darque intensified as my ability to sense magic heightened without the buffer the external shields provided. I winced, she wasn’t carrying so much magic that it would overwhelm me, but the magic grated at my remaining shields, announcing itself and vying for attention. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the worst of it. The real issue, the dangerous one, was the breeze making my loose curls flutter across my face. A breeze that shouldn’t have existed in a building with no open windows.

The land of the dead. I was way too close.

Darque was saying something, but I zoned her out as I took a deep breath and concentrated on centering myself. With my eyes closed, I ran a quick check of my mental shields. My main shield of living vines was solid, but I urged the vines just a little closer, tighter. I couldn’t maintain it that way indefinitely, but it wouldn’t start taking conscious effort to hold it for at least an hour. I did a quick scan of my inner shields, the ones that protected my core. All were intact. I erected my new shield—the opaque bubble that let my psyche look but not touch. Though I’d been working on it the better part of a month, the shield wasn’t ready for extended use because it still took conscious effort to maintain. Once I finished constructing and integrating the shield, it would be tied into the same part of the subconscious that reminded me to blink or to breathe. But I was far from that stage with the new shield. Which meant I wouldn’t be able to maintain it longer than a half hour or so. I hoped like hell that Briar would return my external shields before the barrier failed.

Taking one more deep breath, I released it slowly, mentally running one more check on my shields. Then I let my focus lift back to my body and opened my eyes. The wind from the land of the dead had ceased and the magic surrounding Darque no longer threatened to throw me into sensory overload. Unfortunately, I’d missed everything the woman had said in the interim.

“What?” I asked, looking up at her.

“I said do you have any other magi—Fuck!” Darque stumbled half a step back before catching herself. “Do you want me to shoot you? What the hell are you doing? Your eyes are glowing like lanterns.”

My vision was still adjusting to the overlay of the swirling colors of raw magic from the Aetheric and the patina of rot and decay from the land of the dead superimposed over mortal reality, so I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw her force herself to ease her finger from the trigger of her crossbow.

I lifted my hands in supplication. “The charm bracelet holds my extra shields. Without them the light show is unavoidable.”

Her eyes narrowed and she studied me as if waiting for an indication I was prepping an assault. If I didn’t have a crossbow pointed at my head, the situation might have been funny. After all, while my eyes glowing like night-lights may look unnerving—I’d been told that more than once—I wasn’t remotely close to being a threat. Not even with my planeweaving. Oh, I could drag her weapon into the land of the dead and let it rot, but first I’d have to reach it and she’d plug me before I made it over the desk.

“I have one more bit of magic on me,” I said without lowering my hands. “It’s a dagger. If I pick it up to put it on the desk, are you going to shoot me?”

She looked like she just might, but all she said was, “Move slow.”

I did. Since the dagger was already in my lap, there wasn’t even much moving involved.

“That’s it?” she asked and at my nod, she motioned me to stand.

Without lowering her crossbow, she used a spellchecker to sweep me for spells. As she reached my boots, I remembered that the hilt I carried the dagger in was also enchanted. Crap, this chick might just be unstable enough to shoot me where I stand if she thinks I lied. Who the hell would authorize her to carry, let alone make her an MCIB investigator?

But the spellchecker didn’t change color or make a sound as it passed the fae-enchanted leather. I almost let out a sigh of relief—except then she’d realize she missed something. Once she’d waved the spellchecker over every inch of me, she stepped back.

“Okay, let’s try this again. Tell me about the prime.”

“I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t even realize we had ghouls until you told me.”

Briar watched her wrist as I spoke. Then she let out a string of curses, some of which I’d never heard before. Once she finished, she tucked her crossbow behind her back again. “Get your charm bracelet, your eyes are freaking me out.”

I was more than happy to comply. Grabbing the chain of charms, I clasped it around my wrist and immediately the pressure in my head eased. Unfortunately, while the overlay of other planes thinned, they didn’t vanish, as if my psyche was reluctant to let go. I pushed them away, and the wisps of color and signs of decay retreated to my peripheral once more. The room darkened. Not a full fade to black or even a graying out, but it dimmed as if one of the lightbulbs had gone out. Better than I expected.

I reclaimed my obsidian ring from the desk, but when I reached for my dagger, Briar stopped me.

“Not that,” she said, grabbing the dagger before I could pick it up.

As soon as her fingers closed on the hilt, her face tightened, her eyes widening as her lips thinned. Her hand spasmed open and the dagger clattered back onto the desk.

“Fuck. What the hell was that?” she said, ducking her head as she rubbed small circles in the soft spot just above where her jawbone met her ear.

I stared, dumbfounded. I’d always known the dagger had some form of awareness, and recently it had bonded with me to the point it followed me around in Faerie. Despite that, no one had ever had a problem touching it. Not that I walked around handing the dagger to people, but most of my friends had held it at one point or another. No one had ever had the reaction Briar just did.

Of course, Briar Darque isn’t a friend. And the dagger hadn’t liked her since she walked through the door. Still, what exactly had it done when she touched it? I’d never know if I didn’t ask.

Briar’s glare morphed into an uncertain frown at the question. “What do you mean what did it do? It screamed the most disharmonious wail I’ve ever—” She stopped, her brows creasing. “You couldn’t hear it, could you?”

I shook my head and Briar gave the dagger an appraising look. For a moment I thought she’d try to pick it up again—and I think she considered it—but her hand flexed in the air above it before dropping to a pouch on her belt. She pulled out a bag with an OMIH crest stamped on it. It wasn’t until she broke the seal on the bag that I realized it was a magic-dampening evidence bag.

She wasn’t seriously…? But she was.

“I’ll have to confiscate this,” she said as she flipped the bag inside out and put the inert side over her hand like a glove.

“You can’t just take my dagger.” Actually she probably could. Hell, for all I knew, I was still under arrest despite the fact I’d proven I hadn’t created the prime.

“You’ll get a reimbursement slip for the dagger’s value. But I’ve never seen an alarm spell quite like that. The guys at the lab will want to try to reverse engineer it.”

She’s seriously taking my dagger because she wants the spell? That was ridiculous. No, worse than that, it was government sanctioned theft. Hell, it wasn’t any better than some of the bullshit the FIB pulled. And lucky me, I currently answer to both.

She picked up the hilt through the charmed plastic, and her body went rigid, her shoulders hitching.

“Son of a—” She jerked back, dropping the dagger again. This time it landed pointed side down and the blade sank through the solid wood of my desk.

“Great,” I muttered as Briar continued to curse. But she didn’t stop me as I grabbed the hilt and pulled the blade free. It slid through the wood as easily as if the desk were room temperature butter. Sometimes having a blade that could cut through anything was less than convenient. Its slightly alien presence fluttered at the edge of my mind, urging me to attack Briar while she was still off balance.

And that was the reason carrying it was always a risk.

Propping one foot on my chair, I shoved the dagger into its enchanted sheath. I could still feel it in the back of my mind, but it was a hell of a lot easier to ignore it sheathed.

“Did you enchant that thing?” Briar asked. She’d recovered from the dagger’s second mental assault and now watched me with a predatory wariness, her weight balanced, ready for a fight.

I put my foot back on the ground and turned to face her, my hands in front of me and my body open and, hopefully, nonthreatening. “It was a gift, and your lab won’t be able to replicate the spell. It’s fae-wrought, the magic imbued in the otherworldly metal.”

She cocked an eyebrow, her expression evaluating as she studied me. Then she shifted her weight back so she didn’t look like she would lunge over the desk at any moment. About time.

“You’re full of surprises, Alex Craft, and definitely not what I was expecting.” She picked up the file she’d dropped on the desk earlier.

“Since you entered my office armed to the teeth, do I want to know what you were expecting?”

Her lips curled in something that passed for a smile only if you considered a tiger baring its teeth a sign of friendship. “Your OMIH files are very interesting, more because of what is missing than what is in them. You have no known next of kin, no birth records, and yet you have all the required paperwork to be a legal citizen. Even your academy records indicate nothing about your past as your fees were paid by an anonymous benefactor.” She looked up, searching my face for a response.

A response I didn’t give. I’d been through this particular line of questions before. When I’d changed my name my father had buried any and all paperwork that could tie me back to him. And when he buried something, he was thorough.

“Fine, we’ll ignore the mysterious past in which there are no records of your existence before you enrolled in academy at eight, and we’ll move on to more recent events.” Briar flipped the page. “Your file reads like a cover-up, full of redactions and missing reports. A notation mentions you being involved in an event at the governor’s house in which his daughter was maimed, and yet, while a record of the police being deployed exists, there’s no official report—or unofficial either. Nor is there any record of your rumored arrest on that night. More peculiar though, is that the first responders have no memory of ever reaching the governor’s house.”

I remained perfectly still, focusing on keeping my face blank. The event she was talking about had occurred three months ago, under the Blood Moon, and was when my life was turned upside down and inside out. And the governor’s daughter? Yeah, that was my younger sister. The blood I sported on my hands when I went to Faerie I’d earned trying to keep her alive.

“Another notation suggests that you might have a connection to a series of holes into the Aetheric. But again, there are no official records that mention your name. A warrant was apparently issued for your arrest by the FIB—which is more than odd as you’re a witch not a fae, but regardless, records of that warrant are also missing. Oh, and you’re rumored to have been involved in both the Coleman case and the Sionan River murders. Both of which are classified as closed despite the fact no one was ever apprehended. At least a record of those cases exist, though both were sealed—”

I didn’t miss the “were” in that.

“—But guess what. Once I got the order to have them unsealed, all details were vague and you weren’t mentioned. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“That you base your judgment on rumors?”

Her glare could have pinned me to my chair as easily as one of her crossbow bolts.

“No, I’m thinking you have some very powerful connections who are covering your tracks. Something is rotten here, and it surrounds you.”

I couldn’t deny that someone was covering the truth about what had happened—my father most likely, so I sidestepped because I had to admit words like “rumored” and “involved” coupled with missing records did make me look suspicious. “I assure you, any involvement I had in the events mentioned involved working the case, not the crime.”

She glanced at her wrist, checking her lie detector spell. Her jaw clenched as she shook her head. “I don’t suppose you have a suggestion of who might know more about the prime ghoul?” she asked as she gathered the photographs she’d scattered over my desktop.

I didn’t, though there were a number of possibilities. While she was correct that I’d been the only local grave witch for most of the last four years, recently Nekros had been a hot seat for grave witches. Not counting Rianna—because she’d no more create a ghoul than I would—I could think of a half dozen grave witches who’d passed through Nekros in the last three months and not all of them were what I’d consider good guys. There were two in particular who I knew for a fact were bad news. But they were both dead—okay, one had started out dead, but now he wasn’t walking around anymore.

Ashen Hughes’s ghost might still be in Faerie, but even if I knew how to find him, I doubted I’d get any help out of him. The fact that he worked for a slaver who’d tried to soul chain me and sell me to the highest bidder and I’d sort of separated Ashen from his already dead body pretty much put a damper on our relationship. And as for Edana? Well, she’d screwed with reality and to stop her, I’d ripped reality from around her. Not even dust was left of her now.

But even as twisted as those two grave witches had been, I couldn’t think of any reason why they’d create a prime or how ghouls would have benefited either of their plans. A prime could be controlled to a certain extent, until it started killing people to create more ghouls. Then the hive mind mentality of the creatures overwhelmed the witch’s will and you ended up with a nest of corpse-eating walking dead. You’d have to be an idiot to create one.

“I have no idea.”

Briar snorted and turned toward the door, her dark braid whipping behind her. She hesitated at the threshold and glanced back over her shoulder.

“You might not be responsible for the prime ghoul, but there is something weird going on with you, and as soon as I deal with the immediate threat, rest assured that I intend to find out what.” Then she stalked out of my office.