by Lisa Daniels
On James.
“It’s not technically against my job description to be able to help my clients relax,” Albert continued with a twinkle in his eyes, and the kind of smile that scooped up Rosen’s attention, “so if we do have some time out in the future, perhaps we can have a few drinks and not have to worry about assassins on every corner.”
She considered his words, feeling a rush of affection toward him in that moment, unraveling some of the tension. “Maybe. Not right now, but maybe afterwards. Since I hear you’ll be stuck with me for a while yet.”
Unless he’s killed in the line of duty. And if they followed the trail of Laogh McKenna, her negative presence and bad luck might taint their souls for years to come if it wasn’t handled correctly. There was that old saying: breaking a mirror meant seven years of bad luck.
Very much the same with a soul like this one. Except it was the broken soul that caused the misery.
The officers Jett set on the case came back after only fifteen minutes, each rather grim. “There appears to be a significant number of people being admitted into the hospital at the moment…”
“Is there?” Jett seemed surprised, and they quickly drew up a list of all the accidents.
Fifteen in the last three hours, and one of note was what sounded like a mass attempt at suicide—six people walking off the edge of a building. The others were car accidents, two people choking to death on their fries, and someone who suffocated during a sex game gone wrong.
The mass suicide pointed Rosen on the way the most. “Where did these accidents happen?”
“Mostly the Rayna road,” one of the officers said, shaking his head. “I swear it almost seems like a candy trail… the deaths and accidents are all spread along it.”
“And that’s the candy trail we’ll be following,” Rosen said, injecting more confidence into her voice than she felt. People responded better if they believed that they were in safe hands. “Because that’s the direction Laogh McKenna’s heading in.”
“How is this possible?” Officer Jett frowned. “Surely all this has to be coincidence.”
“Another report,” one of the officers said. “Huge crash on the road, multiple cars exploding, including a gas tanker. You won’t be able to use the main road if you’re going to chase.”
That seemed to settle the matter. With a last exchange of words, Rosen and Albert left with a few duty officers, intending to follow this candy trail and figure out where it led. Hargraves waited for them outside the precinct.
“I feel like this is my responsibility,” Hargraves said. “If Sten wasn’t so stubborn… if I’d put my foot down...”
“He’s a senior, right? He probably wouldn’t listen to you anyway,” Rosen said. Albert gave a low chuckle by her side, and she nudged him hard with her elbow in the ribs, getting him to emit an oof.
With small discussion, since Hargraves was registered with the precinct as a forensic anthropologist, they arranged to set off. They went inside the disguised police vehicle, since they decided it would be better to go undercover, edging along the side roads that avoided the devastation caused by severe bad luck.
“All we need is that viral outbreak and our day’s complete,” Rosen said, opting to go in the back seat with Albert and Hargraves. The two officers manned the front of the SUV.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to chase after Laogh?” asked Hargraves. “I mean, this is a lot of accidents piling up. It’s almost like her powers have been amplified since obtaining that body.”
“That would be correct,” Rosen said, rubbing her knuckles against her forehead. She scanned her phone, and then showed Albert. “Oh, look. Record number of measles being admitted into the hospital in the past hour. Children in a school that happens to be on that same street.”
Hargraves sighed, before hitting the back of her head against the seat and letting out a frustrated growl. “No one took you seriously. What happens if we destroy the bones now? Because I’m tempted to do it, protocol be dammed.”
“Nothing,” Rosen said. “Because she’s got herself a nice, juicy living body. But if we expel her from that body, then destroying them will be worth it. Have you called any necromancers?”
“I have. They won’t be here until tomorrow, though. There’s one from Greenland, and the other from Ireland coming. Though I’m starting to think we should have just used your family...”
“Yeah...” Rosen said, feeling a small stab of irritation. None of this would have happened if people believed her. Hard enough doing her job without the added responsibility of convincing idiots. “Now we need to figure out what Laogh’s purpose is. What she’s doing… because I assumed she’d head for Lasthearth. That’s where her living family members are. And that’s what I think her spirit’s fixated on. But this seems to be heading to the center of Stoneshire rather than a direct zoom south.”
They remained silent, puzzling over this connection, until Albert cleared his throat. “Are any of the Tremaines visiting Stoneshire?”
Rosen was on it instantly. She pulled up the main Tremaine office in Lasthearth and used the contact number there, getting patched through to the receptionist. With a short explanation of who she was and what she was doing, she asked the receptionist if any of the Tremaines were visiting.
“One moment, miss.” She listened with bated breath, before the cheerful female voice got back to her. “Yes. Patricia and Edward Tremaine are staying in Stoneshire, in the Eluvite Hotel.”
Edward Tremaine. Son of the councilor in Lasthearth. “Thank you for your help. If you can warn them we’re on the way to speak to them...”
“I will. Good luck, miss.”
With last goodbyes, the call ended, and Rosen relayed the information. The passenger officer adjusted the SAT-NAV to pull up a route to the hotel that avoided the main roads. Rosen relaxed in her seat. “Hopefully we’ll get there before the spirit.” She looked at Albert, surprised to see him smiling softly at her. “Are you okay?”
“As alright as I can be, Miss Grieves,” he said, and the way he growled her surname sent a little shiver through her spine. Not that she’d ever admit it to anyone, but she liked him addressing her as Miss Grieves. There was a certain lilt to the way he said it. Like her family name, even her legacy, was something worth saying.
“I’m sure you’d prefer a nice, quiet life, sipping some cocktail or another on a sunny beach, rather than chasing ghosts through drab gray streets,” Rosen said, smiling in apology. “I promise you my work’s usually a little quieter than this.”
As soon as she said that, she thought of the accident that almost took her life, and a cold flush went through her body. Things in Lasthearth hadn’t exactly been quiet for a while. But he didn’t need to know the full details.
“That kind of life is too boring for me, Miss Grieves,” Albert admitted. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have something to protect or a purpose to my actions.”
“Doing nothing is the point.”
“Life’s too short to do nothing all the time.” He paused. “Though at the same time, it’s also too short to keep rushing along at max speed, like you seem to do.”
Rosen nodded to his words, before her phone vibrated, and her heart did an awkward lurch when she saw James’ name turn up. It killed her mood instantly, and the dread in her stomach wasn’t right. She knew it wasn’t. She should be happy to see her partner’s message, not terrified. Yet the terror consumed her nonetheless. Making sure no one could peek at the message, she hunched over and opened it.
James: Since you won’t say it, I will. We’re breaking up. I’m not staying at that estate, and I want you out of the apartment. I’ll move your stuff for you. It’s clear to me you don’t intend to do anything about this relationship at all. You don’t care. You just want some stay-at-home pet that doesn’t ask any questions. Well, guess what. I’m out.
A horrible, sick churning upset her insides, and her mouth felt dry and full of ashes. She stared numbly at that messa
ge, both devastated and angry, and before she knew it, her fingers were flying over the tap-screen, belting out a message both angry and pleading. Which she deleted seven or eight times, until all she sent him in the end was: Ok.
Just okay. Though it wasn’t.
She tried to put herself back in the mindset of chasing down the rogue spirit, but her guts felt weighed down by the equivalent of an anvil, and she could barely keep her cool.
“We’ll probably reach the hotel before the spirit. Laogh shouldn’t understand modern technology too well, and she might end up making the car crash if she figures it out anyway,” Rosen said, mustering all her effort to make her voice sound normal. No one seemed to notice anything different, and took in her words with a small measure of relief.
This was turning out to be the most exhausting trip she’d ever taken.
Chapter Eight – Albert
They made it to the hotel an hour or so later. The decision remained not to approach the spirit directly on the street—they had to wait for the other two necromancers to arrive first. The choice sucked all the same, because now an unprecedented amount of accidents were rocking the city, and many people likely didn’t understand why. Speculation reigned in the news about whether or not the tanker explosion might have been some sort of terrorist attack.
Edward and Patricia Tremaine accepted them, although they appeared slightly baffled at the sudden attention of the precinct and the anthropology department. They were even less happy at Rosen’s suggestion to move them to the anthropology lab, but they accepted without too many questions.
It was the best place to be. By the bones. Ready to destroy them in the blink of an eye, and to hope that Laogh made her way back to the institute to do so. Might be a shame, Albert figured, if they all died horribly because the cook accidentally poisoned the food or something in the canteen. It seemed they were all thinking on the fly here, dealing with something no one really knew how to deal with. Now that the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, they were playing a catch-up game against it.
They continued to watch the news, seeing where Laogh’s path of bad luck led, and it seemed she was still heading toward the hotel. Maybe spirits weren’t that reliable at finding people, though Rosen believed that the hotel itself probably held some significance to Laogh.
“Well, our family does own the hotel,” Edward Tremaine admitted, when they probed him for answers. “Owned it for nearly seventy years now.”
Which, of course, made it even less clear whether Laogh knew exactly where the relatives were, or was just heading toward landmark areas the Tremaines and whoever else was related to her owned.
The one thing Albert noticed, however, was that Rosen appeared to be oddly evasive and listless. Security bustled around the institute like little ants. The bones were under maximum lockdown, and the Tremaine family didn’t want them destroyed. Not when they generated so much revenue to their family.
Perhaps Rosen was just upset because all of this might have been preventable if they had listened. If they hadn’t brought a spirit medium to a dangerous soul.
When Rosen ducked into her room, tired of updates about car crashes and people choking to death on grapes, he followed suit, only to be surprised when she cracked open one wine bottle out of a crate of six, poured herself a mug, and then gulped it down without any care how it might look like.
“Uh… Miss Grieves,” Albert said, standing politely to attention, watching the dark-haired necromancer attempt to drown herself, “you may need to be careful with just how much you consume. You need to be clear-minded in case the spirit makes a sudden run for us.”
“I don’t think she will,” Rosen said. “She’s definitely not changing her path. They’re stationing cops at the hotel, but that won’t do much good. Even if they unload on her, all they’re doing is killing Esther Leroy’s body. They won’t do a thing to what’s inside. So she’ll keep moving even if she’s nothing but bones.” She chuckled to herself. “Well, that was proven already.”
Albert said nothing, and Rosen waved an airy hand. “The Tremaines want to know why we don’t just send ‘em home. But the thing is—they’re bait. They’re not going anywhere. They’re gonna stay right here until that spirit’s knocking at the door.” She smiled, but it was dark and lifeless, somehow. As if the caring woman from before had suddenly been filled with apathy instead.
“Miss Grieves,” Albert said, reaching for her glass, which she’d filled up again. She yanked it out of his reach.
“No. I need this.” She glared at him, and he glared back. “Everything’s screwed up, so might as well take some time out for myself, right?”
“They’re listening to you now.”
“Only took a potential disaster to get them in line, didn’t it? This… this stupid hate for necromancers. Yeah, okay, some of us are monsters, but not all of us are, are we? Some of us try to do nothing but good, but they keep—they keep spitting in my damn eye.” She sniffled, then tried to hide that with a cough, but Albert knew a breakdown when he saw one.
“If you’re not going to stop drinking, then at least slow down,” he said, and he got an eyeroll in return. “I wouldn’t say these people were targeting you specifically because you’re a necromancer. I think some people just don’t like to listen. It’s not all about your power.”
She gave another snort, and he sat down in the other chair, pouring himself a drink as well. “Regardless, I’m annoyed, so I want to distract myself for now.”
He noted how she kept glancing at her phone more than usual as she drank, and made small talk.
“Expecting someone to call, Miss Grieves?”
A guilty expression stole over her smooth face. “No. No one.”
“Then why are you constantly looking at your phone?”
The silence that followed that question stretched on for an awfully long time. He kept himself quiet, waiting for her to break the silence, to talk about whatever bothered her. He really wanted to know. He thought it was simply about this case, but she didn’t need to keep her eyes glued to her phone so diligently.
“I’m… waiting to see if James… read my message. Replied,” she said, barely above a whisper. She swallowed, then stared down at her drink as if it contained fascinating life forms within it.
A small nugget of disappointment teased inside Albert. Right. The boyfriend. The pointless other half of a pointless relationship that neither of them seemed willing to break up, even though they clearly weren’t going anywhere. If they could just be honest to one another… his eyes trailed over her wrists, her hands and short nails, and the little crinkles upon the side. “Did he send you a message, then? Is that why you’re suddenly acting all kooky?”
“I...” Rosen shook her head as if trying to clear it. “He broke up with me.”
“Oh.” That was good, right? She’d been complaining about that from the start, after all. “Wasn’t that what you wanted, though?”
“No, of course not! Who do you think I am?”
“Someone who didn’t want to be with their current boyfriend,” Albert answered, steeling himself. “That’s who I saw.”
She squirmed a little longer on this subject, before slumping over in a miserable, dejected heap. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
“It’s what I said to him. After he sent me the break-up text. Didn’t even have the balls to say it to my face. Or at least wait until I was back from this crazy mission. Why would he do that? Why would he just… send me a random text announcing it?”
“Would you have done the same, Miss Grieves?”
“No!” she shouted, before moderating her voice, appearing apologetic. “No. I’d tell someone to their face.”
“Is that why you kept yourself in that relationship for so long, when you didn’t want it?”
Aggressively chugging down her drink, Rosen fixed Albert with a murderous stare. “That’s not true. I do want it. I did.”
James, or just the fee
ling of being in a relationship? Albert drank some of the red wine himself, now reflecting on his own questions. He shouldn’t be interfering, whatever he thought of the relationship. That wasn’t his place. Even if he did feel inexplicably happy that she’d broken up with a man she no longer loved. He should stay quiet now. Find a way to water down all that alcohol, and stop her from attempting to give herself alcohol poisoning.
Instead, he found himself saying, “Are you sure about that, Miss Grieves? Did you want him… or just a relationship with someone who didn’t care you were a necromancer?”
Ah. There it was. That shock, that disbelief, and then the budding anger stealing over her face. “How dare you? You’re way out of line.” She finished her drink, started on another. “I don’t think I want you as my bodyguard anymore. You’re being too inappropriate. This isn’t done at all.”
“Am I wrong?”
She placed the cup down hard on the table and stood up, towering over him. “I just told you that my boyfriend broke up with me, and you have the audacity to say that I wanted it. Don’t you know how hard I’ve been working? How many hours I put in, and the time I have given him?”
He stood up as well, the chair scraping behind him, and now he was the one towering over her. “Could have fooled me, Miss Grieves. But I think we both know the only person being fooled is you. Hanging onto something even though it’s long gone. Pretending everything will be fine as soon as the next gig ends!” The words hit him as well with a sharp pain, because hadn’t he been doing that? With the necromancer, with wanting to hear his father’s spirit, all because of a promise broken so long ago? Wasn’t that why he carried around the locket with his father’s ashes?
Of course his father would have moved on. And this entire career he’d forged, on that whimsy alone—it was a fake, stupid career, because the necromancers kept on dropping dead anyway. Maybe they were just cursed. Maybe this was just what happened when they associated with the dead.
“You are the most insolent, nosiest moron I’ve ever met. I should kick you out right now.”