I raised an eyebrow.
What? the voice said defensively. You are my niece, after all, and I am not a monster. Now can we please go? He’s close. I feel him.
I shook my head. “We can stop him. The reaper.”
One cannot stop Death. And what’s this “we” business?
“But what if we can? What if we banish him back to, well, wherever reapers come from?”
The voice was quiet. Then: You want to use the banishment spell. It won’t work.
“Why not? Think about it. Why else would the Grimoire have given me that particular spell?”
The Grimoire is not prescient, the voice said. It could not have known this would happen. No, the spell is meant for something else. Something that you desire deep down, in your subconscious, maybe—
But I had stopped listening. This could work. It had to work. I’d banish the reaper, and then Ryerson’s soul would have no choice but to return to his body.
You know there are about a million things that could go wrong, right? You’re messing with death.
I did know that. In fact, all of the ways this could go badly were packed so tightly in my head that it was impossible to pick out just one disastrous outcome to focus on. Which was strangely comforting.
Reapers don’t just reap one soul, the voice warned. Even if this works, it could have dire repercussions.
The fact that the slightly homicidal ghost living in my head felt compelled to be the voice of reason probably should have given me pause. But all I could think about was the box of potion ingredients sitting in my car.
“I’m going to grab something from the car,” I said to Oreo and Golem. “It might help Ryerson. In a few minutes, a reaper will show up to take Ryerson’s soul. Think you can stall him?”
Golem nodded enthusiastically. Oreo barked once, which I took as a yes, although he looked way more doubtful. I wasn’t even sure that golems and hellhounds could see reapers—or touch them, for that matter—but it was the best I could do.
I ran to the car and grabbed the box of ingredients. I was halfway up the driveway when the hellhound’s howl ripped through the night. I flew through the front door and skidded to a stop just inside the kitchen. Because there, tapping impatient skeletal fingers on the toaster oven, was a man.
Sort of.
His face was long, cheeks sunken nearly as deep as his eye sockets. Too-long hands and fingers tapered out of the sleeves of a dark-blue smoking jacket. The left side and sleeve of the jacket were shredded, as though he’d been in a fight with a tiger. Or a wolverine. He wore black pants, loafers, and an unamused expression. His form shimmered at the edges, gray mist bleeding into the air around him. His frown shifted from the hellhound standing between him and Ryerson’s body—a strip of dark-blue velvety fabric hanging from its teeth—to me.
How can I see him? I said.
Because you’re possessed by a ghost, the voice said. And I can see him.
“Call off your hellhound, witch,” said the reaper. “I have rounds to make.”
“He’s not my hellhound to call,” I said. “And there are no souls for you to reap here.”
The reaper looked pointedly at Ryerson’s body, as if to say “what is that, then?”
I glanced at Oreo. “I need five minutes.”
Oreo barked once. From his place near the open refrigerator, Golem clapped happily. Or at least, he tried to around the fistful of pickles he was popping into his mouth like Tic Tacs. The reaper stepped forward, straight into the puddle of pickle juice dripping between Golem’s three fingers. The reaper grimaced. Golem held out a fistful of pickles to the reaper.
“Don’t taste like cookies,” he warned.
I pointed at the reaper. “Bad guy.”
Golem’s eyes widened, his fistful of pickles forgotten. Then he grabbed the reaper by the velvet lapels and threw him into the wall.
“Good Golem.”
I reached for one of the lower cabinets, hoping for pots, while the reaper pushed to his feet. His mouth tipped down in an annoyed frown, but he didn’t look particularly wounded. With a snarl, Oreo leapt through the air. I dropped to my knees as he sailed over me, searching the cabinets for pots.
“I am a reaper,” the reaper announced, “You cannot wound me.”
That was okay. I didn’t need him hurt. Just distracted.
Remember you need to boil the ingredients, the voice said helpfully.
“Thanks,” I said through gritted teeth as I tried the last cabinet and hit gold. Or rather, copper. I grabbed a pot and dove for the doorway as the reaper, a little unbalanced by the hellhound trying to separate one of his arms from his body, staggered into the dishwasher, repeating his mantra.
“I am a reaper. You cannot wound me.” He sounded a little less sure of that now.
With the pot in one arm and the box of ingredients tucked under the other, I ran out of the kitchen and into the first room I came to. A bedroom.
Ryerson’s bedroom.
Under any other circumstances, I would have taken a moment to appreciate the fact I was standing in Ryerson’s bedroom. Instead, I slammed the door, twisted the lock, and ripped open the box. Plastic went flying as I tossed the ingredients into the pot.
That’s too much sandalwood, the voice said. And not enough stinging nettles. You need at least two more handfuls of graveyard dirt.
From the other side of the wall came the sound of crashing glass. I hastily dumped another handful of dirt into the pot.
If you’re just going to throw things together, it won’t work, the voice admonished. You need to measure.
A crash sounded from down the hall, rattling the walls and raining drywall dust onto the carpet.
“We’re running out of time,” I said.
Yes. So you better get this right the first time because there won’t be any do-overs.
I growled in frustration, mostly because the voice was right. I forced myself to slow down. To empty the pot and start over. To ignore the soundtrack of crashes and thumps and breaking glass, and painstakingly measure a pinch of liverwort, a dash of warm sheep’s milk, a braid of sweetgrass the length of a frog’s tongue. The voice chimed in with helpful tips, like, That sweetgrass is much too short. Have you seriously never kissed a frog before?
Finally, we were both satisfied.
Good, the voice said. Now boil it.
Somehow I doubted the reaper would be okay with me using the kitchen stove, so I set the pot on the old oak dresser, invoked a rune, and set the whole thing on fire.
“Ainsey!” Golem called. “Bad guy strong!”
“Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered, careful to avoid the flames as I peeked into the pot. Tiny bubbles percolated along the bottom.
A watched pot never boils, said the voice in a singsong voice.
Good point.
I threw open the bedroom door and dashed into the hallway to find the hellhound breathing heavily while Golem dropkicked the reaper through the wall.
“Good boy,” I told Golem. He grinned and offered me a smooshed pickle.
“Maybe later.”
The reaper stepped through the fresh hole in Ryerson’s wall, brushing drywall dust off the smoking jacket that hung in tatters from his skeletal frame.
“I am a reaper,” he said, his voice a little croaky. “You cannot wou—argh!”
Oreo drove him back through the wall then trotted out a moment later with one of the reaper’s shoes dangling from his slobbery jaws. He flopped down in the hallway to chew on the loafer.
The reaper stumbled out. “I am a reaper,” he rasped then paused to cough up a lungful of drywall dust. “You cannot—stop that!”
The reaper batted at my hands as the rune I drew flared to life, and I flicked it at him.
He blinked at me. “A confundium rune? Really? Those last on the likes of me for maybe a minute at mos—hey, have you seen my cow?” He spun in a circle. “Has anyone seen my cow?”
“Cow?” Golem perked up, his obj
ective completely forgotten in the face of lost farm animals. “I help you find it!”
While Golem and the reaper squeezed into Ryerson’s tiny bathroom in search of imaginary livestock, I dashed back into Ryerson’s bedroom. His dresser was engulfed in flames that licked up the walls, threatening to spread to the ceiling and drapes.
But the potion was boiling.
I put the flames out with a rune then wrapped my hand in Ryerson’s pillowcase—all of his shirts were a little crispy—and grabbed the pot. A wave of dizziness threatened to send me, and the potion, to the floor and I grabbed the doorjamb, waiting impatiently for the vertigo to subside. I’d expended a heap ton of magic tonight, and reaching the bathroom a few seconds sooner would all be for nothing if I spilled the potion before I got there.
If the reaper was right, I had only a few seconds before the confundium rune wore off. Still dizzy, I managed to reach the bathroom doorway without dumping the potion on the floor. Golem was gone, which meant he was probably searching other parts of the house for the wayward bovine. The reaper stood in the middle of the bathtub, shaking his head and looking confused as to how he had gotten in there.
He’s coming out of it, said the voice.
I pulled in a breath and with it as much magic as I could muster. I had put it through a lot in the last twenty-four hours, and it was sluggish, but it came.
Take your time, advised the voice. You need to get this exactly right or there’s no chance it will work.
Right. Here goes nothing.
I splashed some of the potion over the reaper’s ruined suit and then spoke the words I’d memorized, pushing all of the magic I had left into the incantation. And then …
Nothing happened.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true.
The reaper’s blood-red eyes met mine and narrowed. He stepped evenly from the tub, all traces of confusion gone.
It’s not working, I said, panicked.
You did everything correctly, the voice said. It simply didn’t work. I told you that might happen.
No. I backpedaled into the hall, putting distance between me and the advancing reaper. I needed to think, but my head was pounding, and a tsunami of nausea rolled through me. I’d used too much magic.
No. It didn’t work because I don’t have enough magic left.
Perhaps, agreed the voice.
But you do.
Excuse me?
The reaper stepped into the hall. I backed toward the kitchen, using the wall for support, and almost tripped over a slobber-filled loafer. Oreo was nowhere in sight. He’d probably either poofed back to hell or followed Golem. For a hound of hell, he had the attention span of a goldfish.
I saw what you did in Sao Paulo, I told the voice. The aftereffects, anyway. You’re powerful. You could take me over and complete the spell.
I will not try to banish a reaper.
Wouldn’t. Not couldn’t. Why not?
No way will I anger a reaper. That’s like ghost suicide.
I thought you said it was a soul’s choice whether to remain on Earth as a ghost?
Yes, but that doesn’t mean a reaper can’t force you to go with them. They usually just don’t care enough to force the issue. I’d like to keep it that way.
Please, Aunt Myrna.
It was the first time I’d called her by her name. Reminding her that, like it or not, she was family, and family helped each other.
No.
Or maybe not.
My heel caught on the kitchen doorsill, and I almost went down. The reaper was right there. Three steps away. Two. His gaze shifted from me to Ryerson’s body.
Fine, I said. Do this for me, and I’ll help you complete your Grimoire spell.
I couldn’t believe that after everything we’d been through, here I was, pleading with her to take me over.
But I was out of ideas.
The reaper swept past me.
You don’t know what my spell entails, Aunt Myrna said.
Do I have to hurt anyone?
Not technically, no.
Fine. Then I’ll do it.
My aunt was quiet, like she was thinking it over. The reaper knelt next to Ryerson’s body, and my heart slammed into my chest. I could try to fight him off, but if Aunt Myrna refused to do this, I was just delaying the inevitable.
Now or never, Auntie.
Oh, fine. But just remember when it comes time for my spell, I warned you.
“It is time,” the reaper whispered, reaching one long, spindly finger toward Ryerson’s chest.
Now, Aun—
Everything went black.
34
The girl’s body fit my soul like a glove. I closed our eyes, just for a moment, to bask in the feel of magic coursing through our veins. It had been too long since I’d felt this rush, the surge of power flowing through me, and I deserved a moment to enjoy it.
I was doing the girl a favor, after all.
True to her word, she had faded back into the recesses of our mind. She didn’t fight me for control. Not like last time.
She was trusting me.
It had been a long time since anyone had done that. Of course, she didn’t have much of a choice. Not if she wanted to save her boyfriend.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have the power to do it herself. It was that for some reason, she could only skim the surface of her magic. She didn’t even seem to realize she was capable of more. So much more. In fact, she seemed to believe the magic I used when I took control of her body was my own. But a witch’s soul doesn’t keep its magic after death. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
I opened our eyes and let my attention settle on the reaper kneeling next to the pretty one’s body, a spidery finger tapping the center of his chest. Calling to his soul. Letting him know it was time. His soul wasn’t in there, we both knew that, but it was close by. I felt it. And once it answered the reaper’s call, not even Ainsley would be able to save him.
The reaper narrowed his gaze at me. “You don’t belong here, Soul.”
He extended his free hand toward me, and I felt a tug. His fingers curled into a fist, and my soul jerked forward, nearly out of this body.
I stumbled back, batting away the fear that tried to take root.
This had better work.
Without a word, I pulled on Ainsley’s magic, let it flood down our arms and into our hands. The rush of magic was dizzying. Intoxicating. Addicting.
A witch could get used to this.
The potion had already been dispersed, so I spoke the incantation, infusing the words with focus and intent and the tidal wave of magic rising up inside of us. Once that magic wave crested, I dropped the dam holding it back. The tide of magic roared over a very surprised reaper, swallowing him up, and with a hiss and a pop, the reaper vanished. The magic receded, and I raised an eyebrow at the blue circle of magic burned into the linoleum floor where the reaper had been kneeling.
Well, what do you know? Ainsley was right. We’d banished a reaper. Just like that. Which was all well and good, until it wasn’t. Because messing around with death magic? That came with consequences. I knew that better than most.
Not that those consequences were going to stop me from doing death magic, either.
I nudged the body with the toe of our boot, but it was still just that. A body. No soul in there, at least, not yet. I stepped over it and strode out the back door, onto a concrete patio overlooking a small yard crowded with several large oak trees and framed by a wooden privacy fence. A shimmery form stood at the edge of the patio, arms crossed, gazing out into the trees. Agent Ryerson’s soul. Waiting.
His back was to us, so I saw the moment his spine stiffened with awareness. He knew we were there. He rolled his shoulders, forcing them to loosen, and then turned to meet his fate.
“Hi there, pretty boy.”
Clearly, he wasn’t expecting that. He had probably been expecting the reaper. Someone to tell him how to pass on to the nextworld.
�
�Ainsley?” He stepped toward us. “You can see me?”
“Sure can. How’s about a kiss?” I puckered up.
He blinked. I could have told him he didn’t need to do that anymore, but old habits die hard.
He stared. “You’re not Ainsley.”
“Pretty and smart. I’m starting to see why my niece likes you.”
Again with the blinking. “I can see your true form. It shimmers around her edges. And what do you mean, your niece?”
“I’d love to explain it to you, but we don’t have much time.” Even without Ainsley fighting me, it took effort to hold control over a body, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could do it. “Do what I tell you, and you’ll have your witch back in no time.”
His expression was cold. Lethal. “If you hurt her—”
Our eyes narrowed. “Don’t you threaten me, dead man. I just saved your sorry behind. You should be on your knees, thanking me.”
That pulled him up short. “What the hell are you talking about? There’s no saving me. I’m dead.”
“You were dead. But your girlfriend figured out a way around that.”
“That’s impossible.”
“That’s what I told her. She’s not a very good listener.”
Some of the menace faded from his expression. “No, she’s not. So why don’t you tell me who you are and what you’re talking about?”
“I’d love to explain,” that was a lie, “but I doubt you’ll remember any of this anyway, and we really should get you back inside your body. You know, before it goes all rigor mortis or decomposes or the reaper finds a way back.”
With that, I turned on my heel and walked back into the kitchen. A moment later, he followed. We looked down at his body.
“Okay,” he said doubtfully, “so what now?”
“Hell if I know. What? It’s not like I’ve done this before.” I shrugged our shoulders. “I assume you just crawl back in there.”
He frowned. “I was shot in the chest. Say you’re right and I get back inside my body and wake up. With physical damage like that, won’t I just die all over again?”
“Good point. Okay, so we fix the damage first.”
Pretty boy knelt next to his body, examining the bullet holes. I doubted there was much those tiny little holes were going to tell him about the damage inside, so I stretched our hands over the body and murmured a spell. Instantly, the clothes and skin on the body flickered and then faded into transparency, allowing us to see his muscles and bones and organs.
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