Chapter 40

An hour later I was whole and back at Tongues for the Dead. And at a complete loss of how to proceed. I could feel Death, could close my eyes and point in the direction he was because my soul craved its essence, which he carried in his body.

But even though I could find Death, I’d never get close enough to him to return his essence without the rider either making another attempt at killing me, or worse, harming Death’s body. We might be able to get close enough to douse him in the sleep tonic Rianna had created, but again, that took someone getting close.

The rider definitely knew me on sight. Rianna too. He hadn’t seen Holly or Caleb, but they’d still have to get close to splash the potion on him. We needed a delivery method like Briar’s foam bolts. Or Briar herself.

But asking her for help didn’t seem like my best option. After all, she’d cut me out completely with Martin, and her decision to go public had caused the rider to dump the body. I couldn’t let that happen with Death.

We also had to figure out what to do with the rider after I ejected it from Death. If I could get the rider into a circle it wouldn’t be able to jump into any more bodies, but could I go one-on-one with the thing? It had ripped into my soul the first time we fought. The second time I’d managed to siphon some of its energy, but I doubted I could drain it faster than it could tear me to pieces.

“I might be able to help drain it,” Rianna said from one of the armchairs in the lobby.

Holly and Caleb sat in the love seat, which left one chair for me, but I couldn’t stay still. The rider wasn’t only feeding on Death, he was sucking on my life essence, and I could feel the drain.

I shook my head at Rianna. “You can’t make Roy manifest, so you probably can’t drain the rider. Besides, if you were in the circle with me, you’d be a mortal body for it to jump into and I don’t know how we’d get it back out.”

Rianna frowned and Holly sat forward.

“Alex, that artifact the witch used when she was trying to merge the planes, do you still have it?”

“What’s she talking about?” Rianna asked.

Rianna knew about Edana and her reaper, but I didn’t talk about the artifact. It had been a set of panpipes when Edana had it, but once I’d picked it up, it had turned into a ring. As it was an artifact tied to the soul collectors and planeweaving, I hadn’t turned it over to the police but slipped it on my finger until we left the scene.

“It’s at the house, in my magic dampening box,” I said once I explained what the artifact did.

Rianna’s eyes brightened. “If it let the witch interact with collectors, it might let me interact with ghosts.”

“She was fueling it with souls. The artifact is bad news.”

“No, she was fueling her mega ritual with souls,” Rianna said. “She was clearly interacting at least partially with other planes with the artifact alone. I could at least try it, see if I can figure it out.”

I frowned. Working with magic you didn’t understand was always bad. Working with relics you didn’t understand? Worse.

“Just let me try.”

“It’s dangerous.”

Rianna huffed. “And walking into a fight you have no chance of winning isn’t?”

I had some chance, slim though it might be.

“It’s a shame you can’t shove the rider in a magic dampening box like you can an artifact,” Holly said, leaning forward to balance her elbows on her knees so she could prop her head in her hands.

“Yeah.” I stopped. “Wait. Can we?” I looked at Caleb. “You can build wards that can block grave essence and spirits. Could you put a ward like that on something as small as a box? A ward that would activate as soon as the lid closed and trap the rider inside?”

Caleb’s fingers twitched, as if he were working out the spells in his head. Slowly he nodded. “I think I know what would work, but how would you get the creature into the box?”

That was a problem.

We’d need some sort of spirit trap. Or a spell that could suck it inside. My hand moved to the shoulder where I’d once been infected with a soul sucking spell, and my thumb caught the thin chain of my necklace. I glanced at it and the thin glyph on the back that still showed specks of my blood.

Glyphs had been used in the soul sucking spell. And when I’d had them translated, one had been for a trap…

I looked at Rianna. “Do you know the glyphs Coleman used to trap souls in the body of his victims so his spell could consume them? Could some of those glyphs be modified to trap something from the land of the dead?”

She buried her hand in Desmond’s coat, which broadcast how uncomfortable the idea made her, but after a moment, she nodded. “I know a combination, but Al, I can’t activate the glyphs.”

I gripped my father’s charm. “I can.”

Or, at least, I hoped I could. It would take blood magic, but if my fae blood could save Death and stop the rider, it would be worth it.

“Okay, so Rianna, will you work with Caleb and carve the glyphs into the box so all I have to do is trace them?” I asked and they looked at each other before nodding.

“The box will have to be something sturdy,” Caleb said. “Something that once closed can be locked.”

Definitely.

“I still want to check out that artifact.” Rianna held up a hand. “You’re planning on walking in with an untested spelled box and glyphs you don’t understand. Don’t lecture me on using unknown magics. If I can’t interact with your pet ghost, I’ll give up on the idea.”

“Hey, I heard that,” Roy said, sticking his head through his office door. Not that Rianna could hear him—she wasn’t in touch with the grave.

Rianna and I stared at each other, neither blinking. Desmond looked between us and then walked across the room to sit beside my legs, clearly falling on the side against Rianna doing anything stupid. Holly and Caleb sat in silence, waiting for us to work it out ourselves.

“At least you’d have an ally in there,” Rianna said without looking away.

“It’s too risky.”

“You take risks for your friends. Let someone else take a risk for you.”

My eyes burned from not blinking. Finally I looked away. “Fine. But if it doesn’t work the way you think, you’ll stay outside the circle, right?”

She gave me a curt nod and Desmond growled his dissatisfaction.

“What about me?” Holly asked. “What can I do?”

“For now, will you give me a ride to the house to retrieve the ring. But when we go after this thing, will you maintain a circle?” Because if I went down or it infected Rianna, we needed a strong witch to hold the circle.

“And me?” Roy asked, sticking his head through his office door again.

The trap box was the best idea we’d hit on, but using it required me being alive. Which meant I had to survive regaining my mortality first. If I didn’t, a plan B, one that was actually planned for once, was a good idea.

“Those insatiable ghosts, would they be able to feed on the rider?”

Roy frowned. “It would consume any one of us.”

“But if there were several?”

“I’ll see what I can do, but no one is going to agree to be encircled with a collector.”

I guess I couldn’t blame them. “Could you get them to stand by in the land of the dead? In case the rider attempts to escape that way?” Though I had the feeling if it crossed completely into the land of the dead, it wouldn’t be able to make it back on its own. Still, better safe than sorry.

It said something about my friends that when I turned around no one was looking at me like I was crazy for speaking to thin air. Rianna had tapped into the grave to listen, but Holly and Caleb didn’t even bat an eye.

I had good friends.

“Okay, so everyone clear on what to do next?” Everyone, even the ghost, nodded.

“I’m not,” a new voice said as the front door of the office opened. “I see you’re alive, Craft. I heard a rumor you got your heart ripped out.”

We all turned to stare at Briar.

“Same rumor says it was torn out by that handsome guardian angel of yours and that you then stood up, picked up your heart, and fled the scene.”

Okay, now everyone was staring at me.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” I said, but my recently repaired heart felt like it might explode if it pounded any faster.

To my relief, Briar shrugged. “So you’re hunting the rider. Fill me in.”

“He’s in there,” I said, pointing to the community theater building.

“And how did you suddenly gain the ability to track the rider?” Briar asked, as she checked the bolt in her crossbow.

“Not the rider, the man he’s riding,” I said through gritted teeth. I was exhausted. I’d spent most of the day away from my life essence while the rider sucked on it, which definitely didn’t help. At the same time I’d had to work with Rianna, first learning the order in which the runes needed to be activated and then puzzling out the artifact—which had turned into a spear as soon as she touched it.

The plan was moving forward, the trap half set. I had the spirit box, which was small enough to carry one-handed but Caleb assured me could hold whatever size spirit or any amount of energy I needed to shove in it. Holly and Rianna had a double ring of circles ready to be erected behind the theater. Now I just needed Briar to stop asking questions and do her part.

“Well, I guess when you hear the screaming, you’ll know it’s done,” she said, stepping around the corner and striding toward the small theater.

“Just drop him. Don’t hurt him,” I called after her, but if she heard, she made no indication.

She was right about one thing. People screamed.

Caleb and I exchanged a glance, and then we both ran for the theater. We were headed against the flow as we pushed our way into the building that people were trying to escape as fast as possible.

Briar stood in the center of the theater, her badge over head, yelling her credentials and commanding everyone to remain calm. Clearly that failed, but her aim had been dead-on. Death sat slumped in a seat in the front row.

“You get his feet,” Caleb told me, and I nodded.

Caleb took Death by the shoulders and in that way we carried him toward the emergency exit. Briar opened the door for us, the alarm going off as she did, but the patrons had already evacuated, so it couldn’t make anything worse.

We carried Death’s unconscious body past the edge of the first inactive circle and into the center of the second. Then Caleb retreated, and Rianna walked into the circle, the enormous relic-turned-spear in her hand. When she channeled the grave through the spear, she could physically touch Roy. I only hoped it would be enough to protect her from the rider.

“Everyone ready?” I asked and got a chorus of nods. But am I ready? I had to be. “Remember, don’t drop the circles until the rider is trapped or destroyed, no matter what happens.”

This time the nods were more hesitant.

“Be careful, Al,” Caleb said.

“I will. Just keep the circles up.” I took a deep breath and then nodded to Rianna and Holly. “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

Rianna’s circle was the inner one, and it sprang to life first, followed closely by Holly’s. I didn’t bother erecting a third circle—my Aetheric magic was the weakest in the group. The two different colors of their magic barriers obscured the world beyond the circles but I smiled at Holly, Caleb, and Briar’s silhouettes. Then there was no more prep work.

“Moment of truth,” I muttered. I pulled my dagger from my boot. Then I knelt beside Death’s prone form and opened the spirit box before setting it beside my knees. Using the dagger, I opened a deep cut in my finger—I didn’t want it closing before I finished tracing the runes.

“Al?” Rianna sounded uncertain.

I hadn’t told her I planned to use blood magic.

“Just be ready, and don’t let go of the grave.”

She nodded, her knuckles turning white around the shaft of her spear.

I looked down at the man who held half my life, who’d become mortal to save me.

“No matter what happens, I want you to live,” I whispered to him despite the fact I knew he couldn’t hear. Then I placed my hand on his cheek, opened myself and gave his essence a push. It didn’t want to be in me anyway, it belonged with its soul. As Death’s cold immortality fled my body, my own living essence flooded back into my body.

Death’s eyes flew open, Briar’s spells no longer affecting him. He separated from the rider as well. For a moment they occupied the same space, but no longer the same body or even the same plane.

I gave myself one single heartbeat to smile at him. “Live,” I said, and then grabbed the box at my side.

The rider rose like a black tide, but I didn’t stand—that would just be farther to fall. I touched the first glyph on the box, saying the name Rianna had taught me and letting my blood fill the thin groove as I traced the intricate shape. Magic rushed through me and the rune glowed blue.

The rider descended on me, ripping at the wounds in my soul, trying to draw my living energy out of me. I couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t defend myself. I just had to endure as I activated the glyph.

The rider reared back, the head of Rianna’s spear emerging through its dark form. It bought me time as she pulled the spear back and drove it into the rider again. The creature descended on her, and Rianna screamed.

I looked up, still in the middle of the third glyph. Then the first seizure hit. The box fell from my hands.

Fuck.

I did the only thing left to me. As my body began to convulse, I threw open my shields and lunged at where the rider ripped at Rianna’s soul. Sinking my hands into the creature, I fell into the land of the dead, taking the rider with me.