Chapter 25
Roy ambushed me outside the morgue doors.
“Alex, where have you been? I’ve been looking all over the netherworld for you.”
Of course he had. Because if I disappear for three days, I have to answer to everyone. Even the dead.
I pasted on a smile I didn’t feel. “Hi, Roy. Now isn’t a good time.”
“But you’ve got to do something. They’re talking about releasing my body for burial.”
And how exactly was I supposed to prevent that?
“Believe it or not, I have more important things to worry about right now than a body that’s already dead.”
Roy shoved his glasses farther up on his nose. “I watched him inside my body for twelve years. Twelve years.” Roy stepped forward, accenting the words with his hands.“And now they are going to bury me under his name. No. No—I refuse.” One gesture went wild, and his hand shot out, wrapping around my wrist. “You have to do something.”
My eyes flickered to where he gripped my arm. “Let go of me.”
He didn’t.
I locked down my shields, closing every small gap.
The color didn’t fade from Roy, and he didn’t become any less solid. Crap. Apparently I was way too close to the world of the dead.
Does that mean I’m only partially alive?
“Roy, I’m going to say this once, and only once.” I kept my voice level, quiet. If I started screaming at someone no one else could see, I’d attract attention. “They are not going to release your body this evening. If I don’t find Coleman today, if I can’t stop him before the Blood Moon, he is going to complete his ritual. Then he’ll take whatever nightmare he creates and conquer Faerie. I won’t be able to reach him in Faerie, and I will die. Who will help you claim your body then? Huh? Who will get your story told?”
His hand dropped from my wrist. “You’re going after Coleman?”
“Yes.” I knew my face looked exasperated, and I didn’t care. Roy was wasting my time. I headed for the elevators. Falin had already left me behind.
Roy fell in step beside me, and for the first time, his shoulders rolled back and he stood straight. “Then let’s kick some body-stealing ass.”
———
My ghostly sidekick and I caught up with Falin in the parking lot, and I noticed Falin was missing two very important things: his badge and his gun.
Oh crap. “I take it we lack police support?” I asked.
“Get in the car.”
Right. I slid into the passenger seat, and Falin threw the car in reverse before I got the door closed. The car careened out of the lot, and he made a hard left, swerving into traffic. My hand flew to the armrest, my nails scoring the leather.
“Maybe I should drive? Just until you calm down?”
He glanced at me from the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything.
Roy whooped from the backseat, though I wasn’t sure what he was experiencing, as the car wasn’t actually tangible to him. I pried my arms off the armrest as Falin’s speed leveled out. He was still pushing a good twenty over the limit, but at least he stopped gunning it.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Power came from the top to get me on the case, and power came from the top to have me removed from it.”
As in my father had demanded he be suspended.
Crap. “Where are we going?”
“To Graham’s condo.”
“Do you really think he’ll be there?”
“No.” His lips tightened, but I knew he was right. We had to find out as much about Graham as possible, and we couldn’t ignore the chance he was preparing for the ritual at his condo. “After we eliminate the condo, we’ll take a closer look at these.”
He grabbed an envelope from between the seats and dropped it in my lap. Inside were several brown folders.
The tab on the side of the top folder read STATON, JULIE.
The most recent victim.
“Should I ask how you got your hands on the case files?” I asked, counting the folders. Seven, including Helena.
Falin’s smile crooked at the edge of his mouth, but he didn’t answer. It was just as well; I knew a suspended FIB agent couldn’t walk out of Nekros City’s Central Precinct with seven active case files—legally.
I flipped open Julie’s file. There wasn’t much inside.
Mostly just crime scene photos and handwritten notes by the lead detective. Detective Jenson. I frowned. Seriously? They gave the ritual serial murder case to Jenson?
I deciphered what I could of his notes and studied the photos.
Julie had been found in her own home, with evidence indicating she’d been tied to her four-poster bed. The setup was similar to how we’d found Helena only in the fact that the bed was in the center of the circle. No candles or champagne at this site. At least, not by the time she was found. Glamours created with the purpose of being temporary tended to last only until sunrise.
The file for Caitlin Sikes was next on the stack. Like Julie, she’d been found in her own home, in her bed.
Emily, too.
So Coleman was committing the rituals in his victim’s homes now that the warehouse had been discovered.
That meant tonight’s ritual would be in a private home.
Some woman, somewhere in the city, was slated to die.
But who?
“What’s the connection?” I asked, though the question wasn’t directed at anyone in particular.
Falin shook his head. No one knows. Well, that wasn’t completely true. The slaver had known, but she’d had her own agenda.
Four wyrd witches and three normal, nonmagical humans. Seven targeted victims, plus two more wyrd witches, counting Sally and me. What do we all have in common?
The car slowed, and Falin pulled up to a gated parking lot. Beyond the gate, Nekros City’s most elite condominium complex was visible over the manicured landscape. Falin stopped before he reached the guardhouse in front of the gate. His hand moved to the empty spot on his belt where his badge usually rested. His lips tugged downward.
No badge meant he couldn’t play the cop card and bully us into the building. He was just a citizen now, and I doubted the guard was going to let a PI and a private citizen through the gate.
I twisted in my seat so I could see beyond my headrest.
“Roy, you ready to do some scouting?”
“Alex?” Falin made my name a question. When I looked over at him, I found him staring.
Right. He couldn’t see ghosts. “Um, Roy, give me your hand.”
Just as I had for Lusa, I channeled a small bit of energy into Roy. Falin started, his elbow hitting the steering wheel. The horn beeped, and the guard stepped out of his box.
“Falin, Roy,” I said by way of introduction. Then I turned back to the ghost, speaking quickly. “We need to know whether Graham is home. If he is, come get us, and we’ll find a way past the guard. If he isn’t, poke around for any indication of where he might have gone.”
Roy nodded. He vanished, pulling deep into the land of the dead, where he could move faster. I turned back around.
The guard swaggered toward our car. Okay, how do we explain what we’re doing here? I had the feeling that explaining we were waiting on a ghost wasn’t going to cut it.
Falin pointed to the glove compartment. “Hand me the badge.”
Badge? I opened the compartment. A leather badge case sat on top of the car registration. Inside was a very authentic-looking badge. I rubbed my fingers over the lifted print. “I didn’t think you could have duplicates.”
“You can’t.” He accepted the badge and strapped it to his belt. “And we will be in trouble if he touches it to anything iron.”
It was a glamour construct? I didn’t have time to ask. Falin stepped out of the car and approached the guard. Maybe I’d been a little premature in sending Roy out scouting, but I’d thought it was a good idea.
The guard rested his hands under the wide girth of his belly, the gesture clearly meant to draw attention to the stun gun strapped to his belt. He shook his head at whatever Falin told him, his loose jowls shaking. I couldn’t hear what was said, but judging by Falin’s face as he turned, the conversation hadn’t gone well. Falin slid back into the car, slamming the door behind him.
“What happened?”
“He’s refusing to let us through without a warrant.”
So sending Roy hadn’t been all that premature.
Falin reversed the car, scowling.
“We can’t just leave,” I said. “Roy won’t be able to find us.”
Falin hit the brake. The guard, who had started back to his little guardhouse, turned back, his thin lips tugging downward. I ignored him. Roy would be back soon.
I focused on the case files spread over my lap and frowned as I scanned the crime scene photos from Caitlin’s house. For a norm, she had a lot of spell-crafting paraphernalia. Tamara said she had come in with gray charms. Had Caitlin made them herself? Not all norms were complete nulls; some could be taught to reach the Aetheric.
I moved on. I’d been present at Helena’s crime scene, and I remembered it a little too clearly. I quickly flipped through the photos, but my hand paused on one shot.
The photographer had caught an image of me in the circle with my eyes glowing bright enough to overexpose my face, so I looked as ghastly as the ghost Death appeared to be battling behind me. No wonder the norms had no idea what was going on.
I flipped through Bethany’s file before moving on to Michelle Ford, the second victim. The file listed her as a telekinetic wyrd witch, though beside that, in handwriting I recognized as John’s, was the word “uncertified.”
How could a wyrd witch end up uncertified?
We all came out of wyrd academies certified. Unless she didn’t attend a wyrd academy. Or she flunked out—the way I almost did because of my Spell Casting grades.
“That can’t be it,” I whispered.
“What?”
I looked up at Falin, opened my mouth. I snapped my teeth shut. That can’t be the connection. It would be too hard to trace. I shook my head.
Falin’s brow creased. “We’re not exactly rolling in ideas, Alex. If you’ve got a guess on the connection, I want to know.”
“It could be a coincidence, but the second victim was an uncertified wyrd witch, and Bethany and I knew each other from academy where we were in Remedial Spell Casting together. Helena used to tease that she couldn’t even cast a circle. The fourth victim was a norm taking magic for the non– magically inclined. And the fifth victim was a norm who apparently was dabbling in gray. Including me, that’s six out of nine people infected by the spell who use magic at lower than average magical aptitude.”
Falin’s eyebrow lifted. “I’ve seen you working magic. You do not have a lower than average aptitude.”
I was pretty sure that was a compliment. A small, silly smile spread over my face. Unfortunately, it wasn’t true.
“You’ve seen my grave magic, my wyrd ability. I’m talking spells that any wyrd or normal witch should be able to cast, but I usually blunder.”
He frowned at me, and I shrugged. “Like I said, it might just be a coincidence. I mean, exactly how does one single out a group of the magically inept?” I looked at the papers spread across my lap and closed Michelle’s file.“Even if we do find the connection, how do we know who he will target next? There are thousands of people in this city.”
I clenched my fist, bending the file in my hand. We weren’t going to find him. Not in time. We had less than five hours before the Blood Moon.
Falin held out his hand. I glanced down at the crumpled paper. Crap. I made a half-assed effort to smooth the report before giving him the file, assuming that was what he wanted. It wasn’t. He took my hand, his fingers lacing through mine, his gloves rough against my skin.
I stiffened, surprised. I stared at my hand caught in his. “What are you doing?”
He reached out and tilted my head back so I met his eyes. “We’re going to find him.” His gaze was intense, as though by his will alone we would find Coleman.
“Um, okay.” I wasn’t used to this. I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Is this a bad time?” Roy asked, appearing in the backseat.
I jerked back, pulling away from Falin.
“Roy—” I started, and realized I had no air. How did I end up breathless? I tried again. “What did you find? Was he there?”
The ghost shook his head. “The place is spotless. Looks like a model home or something. Furniture is still there, but not a personal item in the whole condo.”
I repeated Roy’s observations to Falin.
“Coleman took anything of importance. He doesn’t intend to return,” he said, cranking the car.
I nodded. It looked that way. Turning around, I grabbed Michelle’s file off the dash where Falin had tossed it. Now the only lead we had left was whatever we could learn from Coleman’s victims. For the first time since my grave magic emerged, the dead weren’t talking to me; they weren’t sharing their secrets. But we had to learn their secrets, had to find the connection, had to find the next slated victim. Coleman still needed one more soul.