When the club arm descended again, the cat darted faster than a streak of light, his claws tearing at the man’s neck. Blood welled, but it was dark black and already coagulated as if the blood in his veins had long ago stopped circulating.
Why didn’t the cat run away? The door was closed. Was it locked? There was no window. But how had the cat gotten locked in the room with a zombie?
My questions would have to wait. Lynx might be mangling this piece of rotting flesh, but even minus parts, the thing wasn’t slowing down. It stalked Lynx with a single-minded purpose.
From the intensity of the fight, it was clear that unless the cat could slice the zombie into tiny pieces, he’d eventually run out of energy and then his life force would be headed here.
That would be very bad. And unfair. This cat had been trying to help me. But I was stuck here where I couldn’t help him. Swinging my jacket sleeve with its bits of remaining life force wasn’t going to slow this zombie down. It might even feed him. What was needed was to toss this creature where he deserved to be—the land of the dead.
Could the answer be so simple?
“Lynx!” My shout was probably nothing more than a hollow moan on his side, but the cat heard.
His eyes flicked to me, full of fear. Blood and mess covered one side of his face. He’d been hit with some zombie part that had splattered or exploded.
He hissed. I understood it as, “Run, Shadow!” Yellow eyes were wide, evaluating every possible option.
“Bring him to me.” My wailing desperation pushed against the weave. I was trying too hard. Martin had taught me to sneak through the weave, not batter it into forming a hard resistant shell. “Bring him here, near me,” I whispered.
Lynx evaded the club arm again, stumbling and panting. The zombie launched his entire body at Lynx’s new location, but the cat twisted, an impossible feat for a normal human, climbed part of the wall and flipped back and out of the way.
Eventually, just by accident, the zombie might come in contact with the edge. The question was, which would have more power over the zombie, the In Between edge or the living world edge?
Lynx snarled, an incoherent threat. He went full cat, but the change cost him precious seconds.
The zombie caught him under the belly, tossing him callously into the hospital bed. It careened one direction and the cat went the other. Even as he hit the wall, Lynx rolled and swiped in one motion. The bed fell over, revealing blood-spattered sheets.
The spatters formed a map of intricate designs, the dots forming a pattern. I had seen another sheet with a lot of blood. The one in the laundry room had been wadded up, though. If there had been a pattern, it had been meaningless. This time, the spatters clearly formed at least two star points. “A pentagram!” Someone had tried to summon something from this side and had ended up creating a zombie, or calling one.
Lynx loosed another feral scream, dodged and raked his claws down the arm that swatted at him.
If we didn’t do something lethal and quickly, Lynx would be joining me.
“To me,” I said softly, already working the fabric of the edge more fully into the room. Only the knowledge that I could be blown to bits kept me carefully massaging it inward rather than hitting out in frustration. The fabric wasn’t interested in our lives or our deaths, other than to separate one from the other.
The cat must have misunderstood my request because instead of tricking the zombie into the edge, he backed himself in my direction.
“No, cat. This is not an escape for you!”
I unbraided the bundle and waved it at the zombie. I looped it tightly around my ghost finger and tied a quick knot. “Life energy. For free, monster.” Holding it against the edge caused the bubble to undulate away from me. I advanced.
The zombie came for the cat. The cat sprang away, already having realized the zombie was not quick to change direction.
A lumbering step brought it right to the edge.
I steeled myself and slammed the hand holding the braid through the weave right at the monster’s dead face. There was no hair left on his head to grab, so I wrapped my dead fingers around his ear.
The weave parted just enough. As soon as the fabric bands touched the zombie, the beast emitted a hollow, surprised groan. The moan of despair must have been worse dirt-side because the cat flinched.
Red-hot pain splintered up my arm, but I pulled that one zombie ear as if we could change places.
The dead welcomed one of its own. The edge immediately expanded, embracing the entire body.
I screamed. I had yanked too hard. The head tore off completely, dangling from my fingers. I gagged on another scream. The eyes of the foul, disembodied head blinked at me once as its body spun off in another direction, shards of the edge flaying it. The head morphed in my hand, losing the bloated tissue and fading to gray ghost. The neck dripped ghost essence.
I shrieked. The dull, cruel eyes of the man who had sent me here stared back at me sightlessly. If he had been after my life force when I ended up here, he had failed. And whatever that pentagram had tried to do for him, it had failed as well. Finally, he paid the ultimate price.
I flung the head away from me, a cold ghost moan trapped in my throat.
The bald orb slammed into the already battered weave. Rotted essence shattered, splattering.
It is possible that the phantom juice from the man who had killed me protected me ever so slightly when the fabric rebounded, cutting me into pieces and spraying the pieces every which way. I lost myself completely. The gray disappeared into an unrelenting black as my essence spun uselessly away.
Chapter 18
Kyle found me. Or at least he found my ghostly hand still wrapped around the braid.
It was the music that penetrated my awareness first. Kyle played his ghostly guitar, a cross between a funeral march and a war song. The sorrowful lyrics of Done With Bonaparte called me to my floating hand. Never mind that according to the song, the soldier lost an eye, not a hand. On short notice, details apparently weren’t all that important.
“It sounds better when accompanied by an accordion,” Kyle apologized as I returned to consciousness.
I stared at the ghost guitar, hanging onto the music and vibrating with the receding notes. “You sure can play.” My voice was raw, almost a croak.
“I thought I’d have to leave music behind once I died. Then after we talked, I feared my music might go bad, and I’d start sounding like that thing by the lake. I followed you to ask you about it. You don’t stay out of trouble long, do you?”
I shook my head, and it nearly rolled off. Collecting myself took another minute. “If you were musical before, no reason you wouldn’t be now.”
He strummed the strings. “If everything else had to be taken away, thank God there’s still music.”
I was in complete agreement, because something in the magic of the song had just returned me to me.
Kyle looked up from strumming, but glanced away as soon as he caught my eyes. “I’ve thought about it, and I want to give you the message for Paula. Just in case you find a way across.” He took a deep, unnecessary breath. “I’ve been stashing money for our daughter. It was supposed to be a surprise for Paula after she had the baby. But she won’t know where to find it. It’s in a false bottom in one of my guitar cases. You’ve got to tell her. She might sell the thing and never find the money!”
“Kyle...” I hated to burst his bubble.
“I saw you grab that thing. There was a portal open!”
“Not really. The weave was just thin. When the zombie came in contact with the edge, it was sucked in here. I didn’t go back there. I can teach you what Martin taught me, and you can try to talk to Paula. Do you know if the guitar you play here—does she have the real one?”
His hand stroked the guitar unconsciously. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked.”
“It might help, because there’s often a link between the ghost thing and the real thing.”
; “What about a real portal? Amy had a portal open,” he said.
“At the lake? You saw it too?”
“I sit there a lot. I hide if the hounds come. Even among the rocks, if you sit in the right place, the view out across the lake is clear. I saw the whole fight. When the violin started wailing, she went berserk. You ran for cover, but she knelt and drew something in the air. Next thing I knew, she jumped in the lake and vanished. She didn’t swim away or sink down, she just disappeared.”
If I’d needed to breathe, I’d have choked. “I saw her kneeling and talking to someone. The portal was open then. Later, I was too focused on surviving to pay attention to her! You’re sure she went through the portal? Things do sometimes slip through the weave from dirt-side, but I haven’t seen anything return there yet.” Given that my body was waiting for me over there, I wanted badly to believe it was possible.
“I wasn’t sure it was a portal until I saw you yank that zombie through.”
“The lake or river is reputed to be a portal. But how did she know how to use it? And if she has a way across, what is she doing here?”
“She was damned anxious to leave after that violin started plinking those death threats. But so was I. I’d hide from that crazy sound no matter what.”
I nodded vehemently. “You’re right. She was scared, and not just because she lost her energy source. I don’t know exactly what she meant, but she said Troy’s ring kept her hidden ‘from him.’ Maybe she meant the demon because as soon as she lost the ring, that violin noise headed our way.”
“But if she had a portal, why hang out here? Why did she wait to escape whatever she was afraid of?”
“I don’t know. Martin says to cross and stay, you have to have a body. She was arguing with someone when we first arrived at the lake. She was angry because they had to start over, and there wasn’t enough time for that. The girl had disappeared.” The only girl I could think of was Espy, but I had no proof Amy had anything to do with her. I didn’t even have any real proof that Espy had been in danger in the first place.
“If Amy is part demon, maybe she’s waiting for someone to draw the right pentagram to hold her intact,” I said. “Or maybe she was satisfied with staying here as long as she had Troy’s energy to hide behind. No, that doesn’t make sense. No one would willingly stay here. I know I’d return in a heartbeat.”
“So why aren’t you gone? You said your body is waiting.”
“I still don’t know if or how I can cross. There’s a guy dirt-side who is able to hold the weave open for a short time, but no one has ever had a body waiting so we don’t know if his talent will allow me to cross.”
“Maybe you can use Amy’s portal.”
It wasn’t possible for me to sweat, but I definitely had the shakes. “Using anything of hers might not be a good idea. And we don’t know for sure that it was a portal. Or if it still exists.”
“We should check it out.”
I could have used more downtime, but we were both curious, and my own silly words had left me optimistic that a portal, a real usable tunnel, existed at the lake.
We floated our way back to the water.
Waves, just like before, lapped gently at the gray shore. The fog was thick today, sometimes obscuring even the nearby rocks.
“If she held a portal open, it required energy.” I kicked a useless ghost leg against a few pebbles. “There’s no obvious opening here now.” My hope died a bit. “And we still don’t know where a portal might lead if there is one here.”
“Where else would a portal lead other than home?” Kyle asked.
“Hell?” I guessed. “Martin thinks this might be the legendary River Styx, but if it is, he believes it should also contain portals to other places as well.” I floated along the shoreline, hunting for a glimpse of color, sniffing deep in case there was any taint of demon. “Wasn’t the River Styx bound by a marsh? This is too rocky to be considered a marsh. But whatever it is, I don’t really believe Amy voluntarily jumped into a portal to hell.”
We both agreed on the spot where she had been kneeling, but there was nothing visibly different about the area. The water retained its mirror surface, and the shoreline was an unbroken, relentless gray with pebbles, large boulders and the occasional patch of sand.
I was afraid to lean too close to the water lest something from the depths reach out and drag me under, but if she had drawn something, she had to be following a pattern. I listened for hounds, and checked the large rocks out on the lake. There was no music now and nothing but curtains of fog across the open water.
My knees left no impression on the ground, nor was there any obvious pattern to be found. If Amy had formed any kind of link, it had to be under the water. “She’d need energy to forge a final connection. We ghosts don’t have anything else to offer.” Gingerly, I dipped my hand into the water. The gray lake could have been a black hole for all the visibility it offered, but as soon as my hand broke through, the water rippled, just like any of the other gray. The bottom was only a few inches down. “A rock!” The stone glimmered back, a wet blackness amid the gray.
“There are rocks all over this place.”
“It’s black. Not gray. It has a black blotch on it, which is close enough to real color. It just happens to be black.”
Kyle slung his guitar over his shoulder and knelt next to me. Braver than I, he put his face nearly on the water, flicking his finger to break the surface. “You’re right. There are more, too.” He spread his hands, causing the water to ripple and reveal. The motion was almost as if he were smoothing cloth into a circle. Amy had held her hands almost the same way.
I leaned closer. “They’re black on the top. The base is either under the sand or fading to gray.”
“There’s seven of them.” He pointed, leaving one hand skimming the surface to keep the water from settling.
“How did she link them? Obviously it took energy, but how did she do it?”
“We have to try it,” he said, his voice bright with excitement.
I sat back. “If she’s on the other side of this, we don’t want to open up a chat line and have her hop back on top of us.”
“Who cares? We have to try it!” Kyle forgot himself and grabbed my arm.
I gasped as his emotion flowed through me.
He released me immediately. “Sorry. I forgot. I forget all the time. But I have to talk to Paula. If there’s a portal here, maybe I can reach her.”
I shivered. “Let’s find Martin. He knows a lot more about this place than I do. These rocks aren’t going to up and walk away.”
When my gaze swept out across the lake, I wished I hadn’t spoken so soon. The mermaids had returned. Either our presence or Kyle’s emotion had beckoned them. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before hunting down Martin, I needed energy. More than that, I wanted to check on the cat. Worry gnawed my guts, affecting my ability to manipulate the edge because it responded to my emotion.
I drifted near the weave, hoarding bits and pieces the way Martin had taught me. The edge showed the hospital just like it usually did, but even with my best efforts, Lynx was nowhere to be found.
Had he escaped from the zombie room?
I shuddered. Good thing Kyle had come along when he did. Good thing some other monster hadn’t found me before I stitched myself back together. And if the murdering zombie ever gathered enough pieces to form a ghost, I’d find a way to feed him to the hellhounds.
Bastard. He didn’t sport a nose ring anymore, but I’d recognized his cold dead eyes. They hadn’t been any more alive when he was still breathing.
I fingered the braid from Lynx. Instead of seeing him, the hospital corridors remained in soft focus. I connected here easily. Martin connected to his canyon. Kyle could see his wife, but since he hadn’t died near her, the link wasn’t likely to be strong enough for them to communicate. Even if he had died in her arms, they might not be able to speak. Some people sensed us. Most didn’t.
; Would the portal allow Kyle to convey his message if we could somehow activate it? If Roberto were there, it would probably remain open long enough for them to communicate. For all I knew, we only needed Roberto. But I was short a phone and a number.
I puffed back and forth, contorting my body this way and that; a ghost version of stretching. It didn’t limber my mind any. If Amy knew how to open a portal, why stay here? Why steal from Troy?
Troy’s ring was still on the side of the living. Maybe the ghost ring was the catalyst for opening the portal for her. Maybe she didn’t have enough energy on her own.
I fingered the braid. Even if we could open a portal, it didn’t mean I could go through.
But we could try.
Chapter 19
It took most of a day to locate Martin. When we told him about the rocks and Amy, a low buzzing filled the air. At first I feared there were bees from hell on the way, but it was just Martin with a new song.
“If it’s Amy’s portal, you may only have one chance to use it before it runs out of gas. That’s if the magic works when someone else activates it.”
My heart sank. “You mean, we can either try to reach Kyle’s wife or try to reach the living me?”
Martin buzzed some more. “I don’t know that it will work at all. It’s not your circle. If she has the magic to create it, you may not. Any spell is limited. Magic has to be recreated with original materials or boosted every so often.”
My fingers clenched around the braid. “Not just any energy works to open them?”
“If it is a portal, then it must be the River Styx.” He shook his head, muttered and wafted back and forth, leaving swirls of himself that he picked up on the way back. “You are in the hospital. But how can we link Amy’s portal, if it is a portal, to the hospital?”
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