Chapter 11
I leaned against the gate and smiled in the general direction of the guard’s silhouette. I could only hope Falin saw me waiting for him, or I’d be begging for a ride. I had serious doubts I’d have much luck in that department.
I shouldn’t have worried. Not twenty minutes after I was jettisoned from the party, Falin’s convertible purred up to the gate. The stiff set of his jaw as he drove made me think he probably wasn’t thrilled with leaving the party before dinner. What could I say? I’d never been on a date before. I didn’t know the rules.
“Where did you go?” he asked as he took a turn a little too tight.
“Investigating.”
“You got us kicked out.”
I scooted lower in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest. “It was bound to happen anyway. Maybe you missed the memo, but my father and I don’t get along. And what was with you using my real name? You were asking for my father to kick us out.”
Falin grunted, which I interpreted as either amusement or disgust.
“Can I ask you a theoretical question?” I didn’t wait for his answer. I was asking my question now, because after tonight, he might never speak to me again. “If there was a spell sucking on someone’s soul, how would you stop it?”
He slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop in front of a red light. I waited.
The light turned green, but the car didn’t move, and he still didn’t answer. Okay, what’s with people not talking tonight?
The plush leather groaned under me as I squirmed, and the driver in the car behind us blared his horn. The convertible jetted forward.
“You’re not talking about a soul being ejected. You’re talking consumption?” His voice was guarded, and deadly serious.
Considering it was my soul, so was I.
I nodded and waited, but he didn’t say anything else.
“Well?”
His cell phone chirped at his side, but he turned toward me, the streetlights highlighting the severe lines of his face.
“Why do you expect me to know the answer?”The phone chirped again and he pulled it from his waist one-handed.
“Andrews,” he barked into the phone as greeting.
Because you seem to know too much? I didn’t say it. Instead I rubbed the scratches on my shoulder and turned to look at the darkness outside my window, giving him as much illusion of privacy as I could in the small car. If my father isn’t Coleman, then who is? There had been too many people too close together when I’d picked up that wave of dark magic. It could have been any of them. I shook my head.
“I’m not far. I’ll be there in a moment.” Falin’s phone snapped shut, and he flicked a switch, filling the night sky surrounding the car with blue lights. “Change of plans,” he said. “There’s been a murder. I’ll get one of the officers at the scene to drop you off.”
———
I’d thought Falin’s driving was reckless before, but the flashing blue lights freed him to press the car’s speedometer to the max. In no time, we were pulling into a gravel pit filled with cop cars. I swallowed hard. My night vision was beyond wrecked from years of using grave-sight, and the flashing blue lights didn’t help, but from what I could see, this place looked a little too familiar.
“Uh, Falin, is this an abandoned warehouse?”
“Yeah.” He threw the car in park and jumped out, slamming the door behind me. “Stay in the car.”
“Wait! I—”
“Stay in the car.”
I slumped back into my seat, readjusted my skirt, and propped my booted feet on the dash. I fished the spellbook out of my boot and tossed it in my purse. Then I waited, counting under my breath. I hit number fifty. He has to have made it inside by now.
I looked around but couldn’t see much. Well, it’s now or never. I slipped out of the car and pushed the door closed silently. Then I walked toward the lights at the end of the gravel lot.
The building had enough security lighting around it that I didn’t run into anything, but the corners where the light didn’t reach were eaten by shadows. I avoided those as I made my way to the yellow crime tape.
“Alex, girl, is that you?”
I turned at my name. A man, probably a cop, swaggered in my direction. Or maybe it wasn’t a swagger.
Maybe his knees were weak. I stared too long, struggling to decipher the shadowed features into a familiar face.
“That is you,Alex. I hardly recognized you all dressed up.”
The voice finally clicked. “Detective Jenson. How are you?”
He shrugged, but his face was paler than it should have been. Jenson hadn’t been in the homicide unit for more than five years, but his eyes were already defeated.
He’d been John’s partner since transferring to homicide, but no one expected him to stay with the unit much longer.
“So, you’re dressing up to see crime scenes these days? Touch of fame get to you?” Jenson said, and I couldn’t tell whether it was the shadows that made his smile look like a sneer.
Generally I liked Jenson. He was at Tuesday dinner at John’s once in a while, and he usually respected the help I provided the cops. The wind shifted, bringing with it the putrid smell of vomit.
I wrinkled my nose. “It’s bad in there, isn’t it?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the building looming behind him. “I saw Detective Andrews a minute ago. You screwing your way into crime scenes now that John’s in the hospital?”
I blinked and curled my fingers into my arm to ensure I didn’t slap him.
“I don’t believe we were talking about my dating habits, Detective.”
“I haven’t heard much about you dating anyone.” He leaned forward.
The scent of vomit wasn’t just on the wind, it was on his breath. Whatever was inside the warehouse was bad, but I wasn’t going to stand there being insulted just so he could block out what he’d seen. I stepped back.
“Good night, Detective.” I walked away without glancing back. The asshole—where did he get off thinking he could …
I shook my head. I had too much to worry about to waste time thinking about Jenson. I needed a better look at the facade of the warehouse. But I knew already.
The claws of dread had sunk deep into my skin, and I just knew. This was the same warehouse Roy had taken me to. And, I knew that whatever was inside was worse than Jenson imagined.
I stumbled around to the back of the warehouse. A security light buzzed in the humid air, illuminating three boarded-up loading docks—the center dock with loose paneling. I planned on turning back once I confirmed where I was. Really, I did. I’d felt the magic that had occurred in that warehouse. I didn’t need to see whatever was inside. But standing in front of the middle dock were three people I could make out clearly, as if they were standing in bright sunlight. One of them was Death.
Considering that the cop standing between the three figures and me was shrouded in shadows, I was seeing Death’s companions on a psychic level. Which meant they were all soul collectors. Death was the only collector I’d ever seen. I’d never even heard of a grave witch who’d had contact with more than one collector at once.
I ducked under the tape.
I was halfway to the dock before I remembered the officer guarding the perimeter, and I remembered him only because he caught my elbow.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You have to stay on the other side of the—oh, Miss Craft. I didn’t recognize you.”
I looked at the officer, who I guessed was younger than me and probably fresh out of police academy. New cops trended toward two categories: everything exactly by the book or unsure and wet behind the ears. I was seriously hoping this young officer was the latter.
“Evening, Officer,” I said, smiling at him. “Detective Andrews brought me.”
It was true. Falin had driven me here. The officer could take it any way he wanted.
The young officer released my arm. “Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Craft. No one told me you’d be on the scene. If you haven’t seen her yet, it’s easier to get in the front.”
Her? “I’m just going to poke around a bit, thanks.” I flashed the officer another smile. I had to say one thing about working a recent scandal—everyone in the department knew my name and that I raised the dead. But if he checked my story, I was going to be so busted. I quickened my steps.
Death looked up at my approach, but the other two collectors didn’t appear to notice me. Or maybe they didn’t care. Well, if people can’t see you, no point hiding.
The three collectors couldn’t have been more different.
As usual, Death wore faded jeans with a tight black shirt. I’d always assumed black was the dress code for a collector, but the woman to his right wore a bright orange tube top with a pair of white PVC hip-huggers and knee-high boots. Her dreadlocks, dyed the same bright orange as her top, fell to the middle of her back. I’d heard of female collectors before, but she looked more as if she was headed for a rave than to collect souls.
In contrast to the raver’s brightness, the third collector was drab. He wore a gray-on-gray suit complete with a wilted flower in his lapel. His gray hair was slicked back from his face, and at his side he carried a cane, a silver skull serving as a handle.
As I drew near, Death touched the woman’s arm, silencing her before I was close enough to overhear their conversation. She glared at him and then followed his gaze to me. She dismissed me with less than a glance, but the man in gray strolled into my path.
I hesitated. Death had a tendency to walk through mortals, giving them a chill, but collectors were solid to me. Letting Mr. Gray run into me to prove the point wasn’t a great a plan. I stepped out of his way, my eyes locked on his. His eyebrows lifted, and I noticed that the face surrounded by all that gray was youthful.
The woman put her hands on her waist, her bright nails pressing into her skin. She glared at Death. “What—did you advertise?”
He ignored her and held out his hand. Holding hands wasn’t normally in our repertoire. A social norm among collectors, maybe? I didn’t know, so I accepted his hand.
His icy fingers closed around mine, his palm sending shivers up my arm despite the humid air.
He tugged me forward, closer to his side. “Why are you here, Alex?”
I could ask him the same question. Actually, I already had a pretty good idea. “Did you collect the victim’s soul?”
The raver growled, a sound more at home coming from a tiger’s throat than anything human-shaped. Of course, human-shaped didn’t mean human. She looked down at my hand in Death’s, and her lips curled back.
“You’re a fool.” She stepped back and looked at the gray man. “You know what? I’m out of here. You fools can deal with it yourselves.” She vanished.
What was that about? I glanced at Death. His lips, so often smiling, were drawn in a serious line, and his eyes held no spark.
I leaned close enough that his chill permeated the air around me, causing goose bumps to lift on my flesh.
“What is going on?”
His tired eyes were a heavy weight on my skin as he studied my face. Then his gaze slid lower, tripped over the scratches on my shoulder, and hesitated before climbing to my face again. “I think you can help us.”
The gray man shook his head. “I want no part of this.”
“Then we all leave, and that’s the end of it,” Death said, but his fingers tightened around mine.
The cane swung like a pendulum below the gray man’s clasped hands. He shook his head, but it was a slow, unsure movement. “No. No, I guess we can’t do that.” The cane stopped. “You’ll take precautions,” he said, his gaze flicking to me.
Death nodded, and his grip on my fingers changed.
He stepped around to face me and guided my arm so our hands were clasped between our bodies.“I need you to swear you won’t tell anyone our part in what will happen. What you learn tonight.”
He leaned, his face only inches from mine, intimately close, but there was no hint of teasing in his eyes. “It might be dangerous. You don’t have to agree,” he whispered.
I swallowed. Dangerous and I can’t tell anyone? The age of hiding and secrets among witches was supposed to be over. The OMIH encouraged sharing knowledge so we’d advance. But twice Death had stalled collecting a soul because I’d asked. And he’d saved my life.
He’d never once asked anything of me. I could do this, whatever it was, and whatever the stipulations. I nodded.
Death smiled, but the way his lips tightened and the corners of his eyes pinched betrayed that it wasn’t a happy smile, more concerned acceptance of my decision.
His hand moved to my face, sending shivers down my neck. “Your oath.”
I opened my mouth just as footsteps stopped behind me.
“Miss Craft, you okay?” the young officer from earlier asked.
Death frowned at him, which the officer couldn’t see.
I probably looked crazy standing here talking with invisible people. I turned.
“I’m fine, thank you. I’m … preparing to go inside.”
He nodded, but the suspicion didn’t fall from around his eyes.
I waited until he was out of earshot before I turned back to Death. “I won’t say anything.”
The gray man scoffed, and Death shook his head. His hand fell from my face, wrapped around the fingers in my free hand, and then lifted it until I was staring at my own obsidian ring.
“A true oath, Alex,” he said.
Damn. I hate binding oaths. Everything was in the wording. If I made the oath too encompassing, I’d be bound not to discuss anything I saw. Too limiting and we’d have to negotiate. Taking a deep breath, I tapped the power in the ring, then added the magic to my voice.
“I swear on power not to discuss without your permission what I see tonight as it relates to the secrets of soul collectors.”
He nodded. “I accept and promise to share what secrets you require to aid you this night.”
His power met mine, cool mixing with heat. I could almost see it twisting, changing. Then the power-spun oath sank under my skin, and the binding settled on my mind, my heart, my soul. I closed my eyes and arched my back, feeling the slight heaviness of the oath. I’d get used to it soon.
Death dropped my hands and turned. He nodded to the gray man, and they both walked through the paneling and into the warehouse. Yeah, great, guys. I can’t exactly walk through solid objects. Actually, I wasn’t about to grumble much. I hadn’t asked Death for anything in exchange for my oath, but he’d promised me aid. I could only hope that extended to the spell sucking on my soul.
The panel was still pried open from where I’d snuck inside before, and I wiggled through the opening, trying not to snag Tamara’s dress. The last time I’d been in the warehouse, it had been midafternoon, and sunlight streaming in had illuminated the crates scattered in my path, but in the twilight, the warehouse floor was dark.
Death and the gray man were already on the other side of the room. A little bit of light leaked from the inner door where I guessed the body was located, but it wasn’t enough to help. I reached out with my hands, taking slow steps, but I made it only a yard before bumping into a crate. Dammit.
Death looked up and, realizing the problem, moved to my side. He knew about my eyesight, though, in truth, even someone with great night vision would have had trouble in the dark warehouse. Death took my hand.
“Step where I step.”
Easier said than done. Not to mention that being led around by someone who normally didn’t worry about solid objects meant he kept forgetting I needed to be warned when small objects I could step on or over were in my path. And he didn’t take into account the fact that my dress would snag if I brushed against a crate. By the time we reached the door I was thankful my boots had saved my ankles and shins, but I had serious concerns about the condition of Tamara’s dress.
The gray man waited right inside the door, twirling his cane as if it were a skull-tipped baton.“So, your little girl is going to go in there and work magic?”
Death frowned at him without answering. Then he looked at me. “Are you ready for this?”
I had no idea what I’d see inside, but I could feel the malevolence of whatever spell had been worked. It seeped out of the room like spreading darkness. It made my skin crawl, as though my flesh was trying to get farther away from the magic. Some part of me screamed to turn around, to run. I ignored it. Nodding, I stepped around the gray man, around Death, and into the scene of a dark ritual murder.