Grave Visions

by Kalayna Price

  “When was the last time you were in the living room before you heard Jeremy scream?”

  A living person would have had to think about it. The shade answered without hesitation. “About forty minutes earlier.”

  “And did anything strike you as odd then?”

  The question required the shade to extrapolate on the memory, so there was a chance she wouldn’t answer, but I lucked out. Or, more likely, she’d noted the oddity at the time. “Jeremy was anxious. He had two half-started projects laid over the coffee table and was channel surfing. That was why I went to my room early. He was all over the place.”

  It sounded like Emma wasn’t the body I needed. I turned to Jenson. “Is Jeremy the second body?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ll have to be fast.”

  I didn’t bother pointing out that if he’d brought out both bodies in the first place it would have been faster, but instead went through the steps of putting the shade back in her body and reclaiming my heat. I didn’t release the grave. Not yet, at least. Nor did I drop my circle. I’d have to break the barrier to allow the boy’s body into the circle, but with my shields down I needed the circle to protect my psyche.

  So I waited.

  Jenson emerged a few moments later pushing another gurney. I waited until he was almost to the edge of my circle before dropping the barrier. The cold wind that had been contained with me inside escaped as the circle fell. Jenson stopped, his eyes going wide as the wind rustled his short hair. Equipment rattled somewhere farther off in the room and I could distinctly feel that there were eight bodies still in the cold room—three females and five males. I pushed back against the grave essence clawing at me from those corpses. If I let too much of my attention touch them, we’d have a whole lot more shades than we needed.

  Jenson had stopped moving when my power escaped the temporarily released circle. I focused on him. “I recommend getting that body in here so I can finish,” I said between gritted teeth.

  The detective hesitated like he wasn’t sure he wanted to get any closer. Then he seemed to shake himself and he pushed the gurney until it was beside Emma’s. I nodded in acknowledgment and waited for him to retreat from the circle. But he didn’t move.

  “Behind the chalk line unless you want to be locked in here with us.”

  Jenson looked from me to the faintly drawn circle, and then scurried safely behind the line. That was all I was waiting for. Tapping into the power in my ring, I siphoned it into the circle, making the barrier spring to life around me once again. I all but sighed with relief when the essence clawing at me cut down by well over half. Jenson also looked considerably relieved as the spillover from the land of the dead was once again contained.

  I turned my focus onto the new body—Jeremy, theoretically. Letting my senses stretch, I reached with my power, letting my magic seep into the corpse. What I found made me frown.

  “He hasn’t been raised before, right?” I asked, taking a step closer to the gurney.

  “Of course not. Who the hell would I have gotten to raise him, and why would I be talking to you now if I had another witch?”

  True. On both points. Jenson and I were not friends, and Tongues for the Dead boasted the only grave witches for at least a hundred miles, but . . . I siphoned more magic into the boy’s body.

  Shades were just memories given shape with grave magic. In the same way that every cell held a complete strand of a person’s DNA, every cell held a complete lifetime of memories, but it took either a whole lot of magic or a massive amount of those strands of memories woven together to form a shade capable of communicating. As bodies deteriorated so did the number of those strands available to use.

  This body had so few I’d have believed it was little more than ancient bones if I hadn’t been able to feel that it was a fresh corpse. The only other way I knew of to lose so much of what made a shade a shade was magic. Every time a shade was raised, it wore out some of those strands of memories, which made it terribly irresponsible for grave witches to raise shades for entertainment reasons and why there was currently a bill in front of the Senate making such rituals illegal.

  But if Jeremy had never been raised . . .

  I closed my eyes and poured more power into the body, letting magic fill in the gaps in the shade. The cold in my body sank deeper, like ice moving through my blood, freezing my bones. Still I pushed harder, feeding the body more magic.

  A shade sat up from under the sheet, thin, weak, even in my vision that was so far across the chasm stretching between the living and the dead. Outside my circle Jenson leaned closer, squinting at the nearly transparent shade.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the shade.

  The shade’s mouth moved, but the only sound inside my circle was the whisper of distant wind and my own heartbeat. Reaching deep inside myself, I pulled on my reserves of power, forcing them into the shade. He solidified ever so slightly. I asked my question again.

  “Jeremy Watts.” Even packed with as much magic as I could summon, his words were a barely audible whisper.

  “Why can’t it speak?” Jenson asked from outside the circle. “And why is it so see-through?”

  I frowned, shivering. Apparently while the shade was barely audible to me, for those not in touch with the dead he was completely silent. Not much I could do about that though. I had nothing left to throw into the shade to strengthen him. I was already expending as much of myself as I dared. If I tried to make the shade any more visible, I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough strength after the ritual ended to walk out of this room.

  “The shade is weak. Faded. Whatever happened, it . . . drained him,” I said to Jenson, and then turned back to the shade because I wasn’t going to be able to hold him long. “How did you die?”

  “Snakes. I was covered in snakes.”

  Well, that confirmed what Emma had said, and I repeated it to Jenson before continuing. “And where did the snakes come from?”

  “Everywhere. The couch. The electrical socket. The windows. Then the hammer in my hand transformed into a snake and wrapped around my arm.”

  I turned to Jenson to see his reaction before remembering he couldn’t hear the shade. I repeated what Jeremy had said, and Jenson’s face darkened. I could guess what he was thinking. He’d been afraid fae might be involved, and snakes that appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared just as mysteriously—not to mention objects that transformed from inanimate to a deadly creature—sounded a hell of a lot like glamour.

  I questioned the shade for several more minutes, asking questions Jenson threw at me in rapid succession and repeating the shade’s answers. Jeremy confirmed that—to his knowledge—no one besides him and Emma had been in the house when the snakes appeared. It was his day off work, and he hadn’t gone anywhere that day or even seen anyone besides Emma in the twenty-four hours prior to his death.

  By the time Jenson ran out of questions and turned away with a discouraged sneer, I was trembling so hard I nearly fell over my feet standing still. I reached out with my mind to put the shade back, but then paused.

  “Emma said you were anxious and distracted before the snakes appeared. Why?”

  Despite the fact I hadn’t yet pulled back my magic, it was starting to wear thin and the shade had faded further, so I had to strain to hear him over my chattering teeth.

  “I took Glitter.”

  “Glitter?” Like the sparkly craft supply? That didn’t make sense. I glanced at Jenson, who turned back toward me, an equally confused look on his face. “What is glitter?”

  Jenson just shrugged, but Jeremy answered me. “A drug. A guy gave it to me at the club Art Barn. He said it would up my creativity and focus.”

  I repeated this for Jenson, whose frown only deepened. My expression matched his. “You said they ran a tox screen?”

  He glanced at the file in his h
and, scanning pages before nodding. “Yeah, none of the usual suspects popped in his blood work.” He closed the file. “I’ll have them rerun it—to look for both more exotic venoms and this . . . Glitter.”

  I nodded. It sounded like a plan to me. I was just turning back to the shade when outside the morgue and down the hall the elevator dinged to announce it had arrived in the basement.

  Jenson’s face drained of color, a hint of panic making his eyes a little too wide.

  “Shut it down,” he said, stepping forward, but my circle stopped him, denying him access to the gurneys.

  I shuddered as he collided with the edge of my barrier and sent magical shock waves through me. Withdrawing my magic, I released Jeremy, but I couldn’t help feeling we should have gotten more information from him. We would never get another chance. As flimsy as his shade was this time, I doubted I’d be able to raise him again, regardless of how much magic I summoned.

  As the depleted shade sank back into the body, my living heat followed the well-worn path back through my psyche into my very being. For a single moment it filled me with warmth, and then it seemed to freeze, falling like an icy rock into my center. I cringed, knowing what was coming. Focusing on my shields, I let the vines grow closed around my psyche again. As the gaps closed, the world went black, my vision fading and then winking out altogether. I fumbled blindly for my charm bracelet and my extra shields. With my shields in place, I dropped the circle, and then hesitated. I hated having to rely on my other senses as my eyes were useless, but with as much magic as I’d expended, I wouldn’t be seeing anything for several hours—not with my natural eyes, at least.

  I heard Jenson approach and push one of the gurneys out of the circle, one wheel squeaking as it rolled. Outside, in the hall, high-pitched voices spoke animatedly, drawing closer.

  “You want to glamour yourself invisible until you’re out of here?” Jenson asked, his voice a hissed whisper.

  “Uh . . .” I started and then stopped. Jenson knew I was fae. He’d realized it before I had. Hell, he’d sensed the change as soon as the spell my father had bound me in had first started breaking down. He could tell I was Sleagh Maith—the ruling line in Faerie—but I had no idea how much more he knew. From his comments over the last few months, it was clear he thought I’d intentionally been hiding my nature. But the truth was, despite Sleagh Maith’s reputation for being great at glamour, I had no clue how to do anything with my fae heritage.

  When I didn’t answer—or, presumably, disappear from sight—Jenson growled under his breath. “Well, then, help me with that gurney so we can get out of here.”

  I frowned in the general direction I assumed the remaining gurney sat. While my friends were aware of the consequences my grave magic imposed on my eyes, I didn’t exactly advertise, and complete blindness meant I’d really pushed myself. Still, I had my pride, and the main room of the morgue was far from cluttered. It was a straight shot from the circle to the cold room. Jenson had a head start on me, so if I moved carefully, he’d be back out to take the gurney before I ran into the doors . . . Hopefully.

  With that thought in mind, I reached out, groping for the push bar of the gurney.

  The steel was cold against my palms. And then scorchingly hot.

  Then the world fell out from under me.

  Chapter 3

  “Craft.” A voice said, piercing the darkness. “Craft, can you hear me?”

  A stinging pain flared along my cheek. I flinched, or tried to, but my eyes were already closed and something cold and hard was behind my head. No, not just my head. All of me.

  Another sting—someone slapping my cheek.

  I pried open my eyes, but couldn’t see anything beyond the contorting mix of colorful energy swirling in front of my face. To make matters worse, grave essence clawed at me from all sides, threatening to overwhelm me as the chill searched for a place under my skin.

  Squeezing my eyes closed against the chaos, I focused on my shields. Whatever had just happened, it had blown through my outermost shield. Not good. Concentrating hard, I imagined my barrier growing to an impenetrable wall once again. As the gaps closed, the cold wind tearing around me died, the grave moving farther away. When I opened my eyes again, the room was eerily black, but then it had been before I . . . what? Fainted?

  “What the hell just happened, Craft?” Jenson asked at the same time a woman asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Not sure,” I said, answering both.

  My brain felt thick, like my head had been stuffed with cotton. I struggled to a sitting position, releasing an embarrassing grunt with the effort, and the room spun around me. Pulling my knees to my chest, I groaned, and pressed a hand to my forehead. What had happened?

  I groped blindly for the gurney so I could steady myself and stand, but then I froze, palm inches from where I guessed the parked gurney sat. The skin across my hand tingled painfully, like electricity was jumping from the metal.

  “Hey, Jenson, what is the iron content of stainless steel?”

  The detective’s answer came slow, like he wasn’t fully following why I asked. “Pretty high, but it’s an alloy.”

  Which, by his tone, I took to mean it shouldn’t have the same effect on fae as pure cold iron. It was universally known that iron was the most effective weapon to use against the fae. What most humans didn’t know was why. I’d recently discovered that iron interrupted the magic between a fae and Faerie. Short-term result was usually sickness. But a long-term severing? Death.

  I flexed my hand without closing it on the gurney. Pain shot along my skin, and I pulled back. The steel might be an alloy, but it was definitely affecting me.

  The two women I’d heard in the hallway were in the room now. I didn’t recognize their voices, and I wasn’t about to push the topic of iron when I was trying my best to pass for human. Scooting farther away, I staggered to my feet, the effort leaving me dizzy and breathless.

  “You gonna make it?” Jenson asked. He stepped closer until I could feel him hovering, but he didn’t offer me a hand.

  I nodded, sucking down air like the oxygen content wasn’t quite enough to sustain life. What is happening to me? I didn’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d bet it had something to do with Faerie.

  The two women were talking softly, too quiet for me to make out what was being said, but I could guess my untimely swoon was the topic. I hated being blind, and the added confusion of having passed out in the middle of the morgue didn’t help. Frustrated, I cracked my shields. My physical eyes were currently useless, but with my shields cracked, my psyche looked across the planes. It created a confusing jumble of realities splashed with colors and pitted with decay, but I could see enough to navigate.

  It also made my eyes glow with an unearthly light. Strangely, no one gasped or stumbled back, which was the typical reaction to this particular trick. That was a refreshing surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. Then I remembered the necklace I wore. It was a fae-wrought chameleon charm, bound to me with blood magic. Unlike a witch-made perception charm that would allow me to control exactly what people saw—but would have to be targeted and would burn magic quick—this charm simply made people see what they expected to see. I needed it on a daily basis to prevent people from noticing that my skin shimmered—it was a fae thing and as I hadn’t figured out glamour yet, one I couldn’t control. It apparently also masked my glowing eyes. No one expected to see it, so they didn’t. Definitely an added benefit.

  It took me several blinks to work out the mess of information my psyche had turned into a type of sight, but I was getting rather used to seeing across planes, so after only a moment, I scooped my purse from the floor and turned to Jenson.

  “We were going somewhere?” Because I still needed him to sign paperwork, and I wasn’t letting him slip away until he did.

  Jenson shot a glance from me to the two morgue techs who were both watch
ing us. Then he nodded. “Let me put Mr. Watts away and we can grab a coffee.”

  That sounded like a plan to me.

  • • •

  There was a café down the street from the precinct, so we walked. Which was a relief, as I didn’t feel like explaining why I couldn’t drive. I might be able to see well enough to walk around, but I definitely wasn’t trusting myself behind the wheel.

  Once Jenson had signed my client agreement, and thus I’d covered my ass legally for any fallout from my ritual, I closed my shields and let the darkness surround me. I hated being blind in public—it made me feel vulnerable. But I was just sitting in a booth nursing a coffee, and Jenson seemed to be in no hurry himself. If I needed, I could always open my psyche again, but giving my eyes some time to heal would be best.

  So, we sat in silence. Me with both hands wrapped around the hot coffee as I tried to encourage some of its warmth into my body, and Jenson on the other side of the booth, most likely still staring into his mug, which was pretty much all he’d done since we arrived. It was almost companionable. Almost.

  “Will you turn over the case?” I asked once the waitress refilled my mug for the second time.

  “I should. No good explanation outside of magic for a horde of serpents showing up like that and then vanishing just as mysteriously. The hammer, especially, is damning, isn’t it?”

  Admittedly, glamour had been my first thought. But that didn’t explain what had happened to the boy’s shade. Both Emma and Jeremy had been killed by the snakes, but only his shade had been damaged. He’d also been the first attacked. That seemed significant.

  “How about that drug, Glitter. Have the police run across many cases with it before? I’ve never heard of it.”

  The table thrummed as Jenson drummed his fingers over it, but he didn’t answer immediately. I wished I could see his expression, or if he’d nodded or shook his head, because it didn’t seem like I was going to get a verbal answer. Then he grunted and said, “I can talk to narcotics, but new street names for the same old designer drugs pop up on occasion, so it might be nothing. But you’d think the blood panel would have caught that.”