Chapter 14
An hour and a half later, showered and in clean clothes, I sat under the dim lights in the ICU.
“I could really use your advice,” I whispered from the uncomfortable folding chair beside John’s bed.
Pale and waxy, John made no response to my plea.
Not that I expected him to. He’d been unconscious since Tuesday. It was Friday now. I sat there, gripping his hand, but it made no difference. He had no idea I was there.
I stood and laid his hand back by his side. “You’ll wake up,” I told him, but even to my ears my voice sounded uncertain.
I turned to go and nearly ran into Death.
I gasped, backing up a step. Not that being out of reach would matter if he was collecting souls. “Are you here for me or …” I glanced down at the bed.
Death shook his head. “I’m here for you.”
For me, as in for me. Like for my soul? My hand moved to the scratches on my shoulder. I hadn’t thought it had progressed that much.
Death shook his head again, and a small, sad smile tipped the side of his mouth. He reached out, but his hand dropped short of touching my face. “I’m just moral support. I know how hard this is for you.”
He stepped away, clasping his hands behind his back.
I remembered to breathe again. The air rushed out of me in audible relief, and Death cringed at the sound. He stared at John.
I didn’t want to stay. I didn’t want to focus on John’s lax features or his mustache, which wasn’t betraying his emotions with small twitches.
I also didn’t want to leave him alone, and Maria hadn’t been in the waiting room when I passed through.
Has she given up hope?
I sank back into the chair and took John’s hand.
Death said nothing. Neither of us said a thing.
A nurse walked by, jotting notes on her clipboard.
She gave me a tight smile before moving on.
“Have you looked at him?” Death asked, breaking the silence.
I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“Look at him. See.” He put emphasis on the word “see” just the way he had last night.
Which meant he wanted me to use my grave-sight.
After the hours of blindness, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to use that part of my magic again for a long time.
We’d overloaded the shields in my bracelet last night, so I already felt brittle and could sense the corpses several stories below in the hospital morgue. But Death wouldn’t have suggested it if it weren’t important.
I opened my mental shield only the smallest amount.
It was enough. The gray patina of grave-sight washed over my vision. John’s soul glowed crimson with yellow swirls. I dropped his hand and jumped to my feet. His soul should have been pale yellow. Just yellow.
I stared at him and realized it wasn’t his soul that was crimson; it was his skin. The yellow of his soul was slipping through between crimson stains, and the darkest stain was around the wound in this throat. I reached with my senses, already knowing what I’d find. Darkness.
Dark magic.
I looked up at Death. “The bullet was spelled?”
He nodded. Damn. Coleman—it had to be him. After all, both bodies I’d seen on Tuesday tied back to him.
He’d well and truly intended that bullet to kill me, one way or another.
“If I find him …”
I didn’t have to specify who “him” was. Death understood.
He nodded. “If he’s destroyed, all his spells will dissipate.”
As if I needed another reason, another life, on the line. I sank into the chair beside John again. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
Not that sorry mattered. What mattered was finding Coleman. I released John’s hand and scrubbed the tears from my cheeks. I looked at Death.
“Do you know who he is?”
“Don’t do this, Alex. Don’t ask me.”
“You do know. Please—”
He leaned forward, cutting me off as his lips pressed against mine. He touched me nowhere else. There was just the soft yet unyielding pressure of his lips on mine, and I felt as though every nerve had moved to my mouth.
Then he was gone.
I pressed the tips of two fingers over my mouth and blinked at the empty air in front of me. He kissed me? I stood there as though I was waiting for him to materialize again. But he didn’t.
I knew he wouldn’t. The kiss of Death—a shut-up kiss. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, answer my questions.
I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together, remembering the feel of the kiss. He hadn’t been cold. He hadn’t been warm, either, but he hadn’t been cold. It had been nice. A tingle of excitement trembled from my mouth down to my stomach. Okay, maybe it had been more than nice.
I let out a sigh and opened my eyes. It didn’t matter.
All that mattered was finding Coleman before he claimed another soul.
———
“You’ve been quiet,” Caleb said as he pulled into the driveway. He’d been the only one at the house when Falin had dropped me off, so he’d gotten drafted into the job of driving me to the hospital, but I’d been too wrapped up in my own thoughts to talk to him most of the ride home.
“Yeah, sorry. I have a lot on my mind. Hey, if I ask you something, will you promise not to take offense?”
Caleb frowned at me, and I realized my mistake.
Caleb looked as if he’d just graduated from college, but he was older—a lot older. I wasn’t sure exactly how old because you just didn’t ask things like that of a fae. You also didn’t ask the fae to make a trivial promise.
“That’s not what I meant.” I took a deep breath. I’d been friends with Caleb ever since I’d started renting the upstairs loft from him my freshman year. He acted so witchlike, I sometimes forgot that the way I worded things could be very important. “What I meant to say is that I want to ask you something, but I don’t mean any offense by it.”
“Al, if it takes this much setup, you’re probably going to have to trade for it.”
I nodded. I’d been prepared for that. “If a fae was creating a dark ritual, and he was using glyphs I’d never seen before, like maybe they are particular to fae magic, would you be able to tell what the spell did by reading the glyphs?”
“Me? No.”
Damn. Being fae, Caleb couldn’t tell an outright lie, and there was no wiggle room in “no.” Of course, he’d only said he couldn’t.
“Would another fae be able to?” I wasn’t sure the glyphs were of fae origin, but I’d never seen or heard of a witch spell that worked like the one Coleman was using, and I was pretty sure Coleman himself was something fae—something other.
Caleb’s frown grew harder. “Maybe. Al, whatever you’re tied up in, you need to walk away from it. These questions are dangerous.”
“Okay, tha—” I caught the “thanks” before it slipped through my lips. One of the rules of the house when I’d moved in was that I was never allowed to thank him.
Thanking a fae acknowledged a debt, and Caleb didn’t want the temptation to collect. “I’ll see you later,” I said instead, sliding out of the car.
“Be safe, Al,” he said, shoving his car door closed.
I waved good-bye as he trudged to the main part of the house and I headed for my loft. I was thankful it was Caleb rather than Holly who’d been around to drive me to the hospital. Holly would have wanted juicy details.
And would be sorely disappointed. My mind flashed back to the expanse of chest that had been on display this morning. Well, maybe not completely disappointed.
I’d just let myself in after walking PC for the second time when movement in the corner of the room caught my eye. It was a man. I dropped to a crouch, pulling the dagger from my boot. Then I noticed the man was luminescent.
I sheathed the dagger. “Roy, what are you doing here?” Which was a dumb question, as I wasn’t going to be able to hear him. Adrenaline was still making blood pound inside my ears, so I could probably be forgiven a dumb question or two.
The ghost turned. “Alex, I’ve been looking all over for you.”
I was too stunned to move. I just blinked. Then I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. My mental shields were in place, my extra shields were blown, but that shouldn’t have affected how far across the chasm my psyche was reaching. I looked around. My grave-sight wasn’t active, but I could see the fact that Roy’s hair was brown, his jeans blue.
“I think I need to sit down,” I muttered.
Roy frowned at me. Then he went into charades mode. He walked to my circle and stood in the middle.
He threw his hands out as if to indicate all the area around him. Then he moved his fingers like a flapping duckbill, which I guess was supposed to tell me he wanted to talk.
I leaned down and released PC from his leash. The small dog immediately begged for lunch.
“Just talk, Roy. I can hear you.” I didn’t fully understand why I could hear him, but I could.
His thick brows scrunched behind his glasses. “Are you sure? Because before you—”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Oh, cool. Well, I thought you should know that the police have brought in two more grave witches so far.”
“Yeah?” I said, filling PC’s food bowl. I’d already known the police were looking for second opinions.
“Well, both have disagreed with you.”
I dropped the bag, and kibble scattered over the wood floor. “What? Who were they? What did they say?”
Roy shrugged. “They both agreed that the shade couldn’t be raised, and that the body was resistant to grave magic. This morning’s witch used that word— ‘resistant.’ But neither found any trace of a spell or the symbols you saw on the body.”
“Of all the incompetent—” I cut off because I didn’t have words for the frustration I felt. Everything that had happened in the past four days had been balling in the center of my being, and the ball had just grown large enough to suffocate me. I couldn’t breathe. My chest burned, like my lungs were clawing through my ribs, searching for air.
Roy’s eyes went wide. “Maybe I should just …” He pointed over his shoulder and vanished.
Of course he fucking vanished. Roy could vanish.
Death could vanish. Coleman could mask his dark, tainted presence. And what could I do? I could have a seizure and get my soul sucked out by a fucking spell.
Someone knocked on my door, and I jerked it open without looking through the curtain.
“What?” I yelled.
Falin cocked his head in confusion, his lips drawing together. “Did I come at a bad time?”
“No, I—” I cut myself off and massaged my temples with my thumb and pointer finger. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“It’s barely noon.”
I glared at him “I suppose you’re here to tell me the experts disagree with my analysis of Coleman’s body and you want me to stay away from your case?”
“How did you—” He stopped. “Never mind. I think the so-called experts are wrong. May I come in?”
I gaped at him, and the pressure in my chest became more manageable. “Really?”
He frowned at me and let himself inside. After shutting the door, he turned and stared at the explosion of kibble that PC was doing his best vacuum cleaner impression on. There was way more kibble than one seven-pound dog could—or at least should—eat in one sitting.
“Oh, um, there was a …” I trailed off. Why was I trying to explain the condition of my house? Because his apartment had been spotless. I silenced the internal voice as I searched for where I’d stashed the broom last. “So, I’m guessing this isn’t a social visit.”
“No. You never saw any of the actual bodies in John’s cases, did you?”
I shook my head and dumped kibble, with as few dust bunnies as possible, back into the bag of dog food. I’d seen Bethany’s shade, but her body had remained inside the black body bag.
“You said I would find glyphs on the new victim’s body. Can you describe them?”
I tossed the bag of dog food on the counter. “I can do better than that.” I grabbed an unopened bill and a pencil off the counter. Then I sketched the glyph that had appeared most frequently on the victim. I’d had nightmares about the glyph last night. I definitely knew what it looked like. I left the last mark off. Some glyphs were powerful enough in their own right that norms could use them. As I didn’t know what this glyph did—and it had been used in dark magic, so I was guessing nothing good—I didn’t want to accidently cast it.
I held up the not quite finished drawing. Falin leaned closer. His brow furrowed as he looked at it; then he pulled an envelope out of the inner pocket of his jacket.
He flipped through something inside and then withdrew a photo and tossed it on the counter beside us.
I picked it up and stared at it. The photo was a closeup shot of a torso. Carved into the exposed flesh was the glyph I’d drawn.
Falin took the photo back. “You couldn’t have seen that under all the blood.”
“Whoa—are you accusing me of something, Detective?”
His frown etched itself deeper into his face. “All the evidence from last night’s scene disappeared. Every candle, both champagne flutes, the ropes she was tied with, the sheets from the bed, everything. Gone.”
“I had nothing to do with that. Hell, you were with me all night.”
“I know that!” He shoved the envelope back into his pocket. “What I want to know is this: what are you, Alexis Caine?”