Finn wrinkled his nose. “It’d be miserable.”
“I doubt the corpse would care.”
“I mean for me. I don’t want to be in that body, what if her eyes had melted? That’s not a view I want.”
“You think the necromancer would figure that out? That you’re squeamish?”
“If he knows I can raise the dead, he knows enough about me to get that me and the dead are not friends.”
Veruca chuckled despite herself. She shrugged and closed her eyes again, sighing. “So I guess we know nothing, but the necromancer knows something. And that is a problem.”
Finn didn’t answer, but Veruca hadn’t really expected him to.
Chapter Eight
Veruca woke up the little spoon to Finn’s slightly deformed big spoon and smiled before she’d even opened her eyes. He was molded to her back, one arm holding her up against him and the other stretched out at an awkward angle beneath her head. Hoping to restore blood flow to his skinny, bent arm, she shuffled them both around. In the end, she could probably have shoved him right off the bed and he wouldn’t have woken up.
She wanted to take a walk, she realized. Finn was wonderful, entertaining, and sweet, distant when he sensed she needed space, and attentive when she wanted the company. There was something about going out on her own to think that had always appealed to her in times of stress, though.
As a child, once she’d been made consciously aware of her power and Belial had begun working with her to develop it properly, she had enjoyed the stimulation of taking a walk. Out in the world, reading souls could be so interesting. There were humans, of course, who were pretty basic. Veruca enjoyed reading the names people had been given, or those that they’d taken on and become, and deciding if their appearance matched the name. Sometimes people were spot-on, a Susan looked like one would picture a Susan to look. Then there were the people who looked like Jake or Hannah or Francis but whose names were Ryan or Jenny or Zach.
There were other errors in the world, as well, some more dangerous, dire, or unfortunate than simply choosing the wrong name. She could see good souls born to bad, a soul whose gender didn’t match their body, and souls more powerful than their bodies could contain, who were physically frail and unable to call on the magic power with which they’d been born.
Veruca had found herself resisting helping these people in the past. How she would go about it, she wasn’t sure, but these trapped souls always called to her, trying to lure her in. Belial had forbidden this interest, though, warning her of how destructive such a soul could be under the wrong circumstances.
At the edge of the human world, still functioning within but in secret, were people with Fairy in their veins—“fae spawn” as Veruca had been rudely called a time or three. There were other terms for it, of course, other ways fae described the result of thousands of years of intermingling, but fae spawn seemed to be the most commonly used term.
And then there was the reality resting within the human world that most humans, and even many fae spawn, had no idea existed. Either it was invisible, or purposefully hidden, or just so shrouded in glamour that you could bump right up against part of it and your fragile mind wouldn’t read it.
Veruca had learned she could see most invisible or hidden creatures, but there was glamour out there through which even she couldn’t read a soul.
Life was all around her on the streets of downtown Seattle. Even so early in the morning, people were bustling in and out of coffee shops, waiting for buses, sleeping in doorways, fighting behind closed doors, sleeping under warm blankets, and generally doing their best to get through the day. Without even consciously trying, Veruca could feel, see, and even hear the essence of life all around her. Souls of varying degrees of power dotted her senses, making her think of viewing the grid of lights on earth from way out in space.
It wasn’t until roughly thirty minutes into her jog that Veruca realized one of those lights had been following her.
****
Finn woke up alone with his phone set carefully on Veruca’s empty pillow. He yawned, stretched a bit, and grabbed the phone, finding a text notification in the center of the screen. Veruca had gone for some exercise and hadn’t invited him.
It was fine, of course, they both deserved their alone time. Finn could amuse himself if need be. Veruca was sure to keep old movies and snacks around for when she had to leave abruptly or when she just wanted to go for a run without him by her side.
Or, more accurately, considering his level of fitness compared to hers, behind her.
If the time on the text message was any indication, she’d been gone about half an hour. That wasn’t unusual and he figured he probably had at least another hour until she was back. Aiming to call down to ask if Veruca had ordered or eaten breakfast yet, Finn jumped when the phone on the desk rang just before his hand touched it. Shaking off the shock, a little ashamed of himself, he answered. “Mornin’.”
“Mr. Doyle, you have a visitor here at the desk. Her name is Alex, should I send her up?”
“Ah, sure.” Finn frowned, trying to rack his brain for answers to whether or not they’d agreed on an appointment for so early. “Yeah, I’ll get dressed.”
Finn pulled pants and a shirt on as quickly as possible, not bothering with underwear, and moved to the bathroom to look himself over. His hair was tousled and a little wild, which was typical after being in bed with Veruca. It wasn’t about to be smoothed down without a full shower and there wasn’t time for that, so he left it and went to go put coffee on.
Alex arrived pretty quickly, knocking hard on the door and making Finn jump again. He wasn’t sure why he was so anxious, but he figured it was probably because many scary Fairy bigwigs apparently thought ill of him. His subconscious was keeping him on his toes, he reasoned, that was all.
“Morning, darling,” Alex said as she pushed into the room past him and aimed herself right for the small kitchen. “Where’s your girl?”
“She went for a walk to clear her head.”
“So it’s just the two of us?” Alex asked, meeting his eyes as she poured herself a cup of his still brewing coffee. Finn nodded, which made her wink. “You want a little sugar?”
“I get enough, thanks.”
“Suit yourself. Which, by the way, might be a good idea. I have a lead we should run down fairly quickly. You get spiffed up and we’ll go.”
“Veruca’s not here,” he said, lifting his hands on his hips. He wasn’t sure why the stance made him feel more in charge, like a construction foreman about to lecture his workers.
“We’ll report back to her, don’t worry. Come on, come on, time is limited.”
“I… We should—”
“We can’t wait. This can’t wait. Call your girl, let her know what we’re doing. Maybe she’s almost back.”
Finn didn’t trust her and didn’t want to go with her, but he also didn’t want to miss out on a potential solution to his problem of being a wanted man. He considered Alex for a few moments before nodding and gesturing vaguely to the bedroom.
“I’ll grab shoes and socks and send her a text.”
“Aces.” Without another word, Alex turned to yank open the fridge and inspect its contents as if she’d stocked it herself.
****
The person following her wasn’t alive, that much Veruca could tell. As with the dead girl who’d started her on this path, this was a very well-made zombie, and Veruca couldn’t read the name of the necromancer in control. It was too big a coincidence not to be the same person. Veruca refused to believe there could be three necromancers all running around one city at the same time, especially if two of them could raise a zombie with so little magic spared.
She’d absently noticed the sliver of a soul a few blocks back but hadn’t really thought much of it. There were millions of insects, mice, rats, birds, and other creatures with souls the size of a pea. This one, however, was staying equal distance from her no matter what turns she made or how
fast she jogged. It was mimicking her, which no spider or swallow would have done.
She needed to talk to the zombie, that was for sure. Capture and interrogation crossed her mind, but it would have been useless on a corpse. There wasn’t much she could do to a zombie that would make its creator spill its guts. Even literally spilling the zombie’s insides wouldn’t have mattered to something that had no working nerve endings.
And besides, the necromancer could break the connection and release the thing from being risen in a second if he didn’t like what was being asked.
Well then, she thought, what to do?
The zombie had to be following her for a reason, and it made sense to Veruca to ask what that reason was. The worst that could happen was the zombie would go after her, and Veruca could defend herself as she’d done before. Neither party would gain anything from trying to attack. Perhaps that would make them both more amenable to discussion.
Stepping aside out of the path of other pedestrians, Veruca lifted her head and turned to scan the many living faces for a dead one. When she found one she recognized, she grimaced.
****
“Her phone must be silent. She’s not answering.”
“Then it’s her loss. Come on. You look good enough, and I’ve got a car in the exorbitantly expensive garage, so there’s no reason not to go.”
Finn continued to eye Alex, not trusting her in the least. It wasn’t just that Veruca didn’t like her, Finn could sense something in her that wasn’t to be taken lightly. Sure, she was taking a lot of Veruca’s money to help them and she’d done only her job so far, but he could see something in her that reminded him of other people he’d been forced to deal with since being taken from his family.
She was selfish, which was forgivable on its own, but he’d seen her in action once before with his old boss. According to Veruca, Alex had been planning to deal with Angelina, but her loyalty had flipped in an instant once Veruca had shown up.
Who was to say something like that wouldn’t happen this time?
“I’ll leave you here and have to go it alone,” Alex said, standing in the open doorway. “But if I can’t follow the lead by myself and we lose it, won’t your girl be unhappy? This might be your chance to clear your name.”
Finn could take care of himself, he reasoned, closing in to grab his jacket. He’d been scrapping and stealing and smiling his way out of problems for over a decade. One small—albeit scarily muscular—woman wasn’t enough to end his streak.
“Where are we headed?” Finn asked as they stood outside the elevator bay.
“You ever seen Fight Club?”
****
Veruca waited for Amanda’s body to make her way across the street, taking the time to marvel at the skill this other necromancer obviously possessed. Other than a slightly waxy skin tone and unkempt appearance, there was no sign the girl was dead. One certainly wouldn’t look at her as she strode across the street and think, “Man, she sure looks like she was murdered several weeks ago.”
Amanda’s body moved effortlessly, though she looked down at her feet when she came upon the curb, making sure she stepped up instead of tripping and falling down.
“We haven’t formally met,” Veruca said as Amanda got close enough. “You mind introducing yourself?”
“You’re trying to find me,” the zombie said, her voice slow and steady.
“I am, the both of you.”
“There’s only one me.”
“Not quite,” Veruca said, gesturing to Amanda’s body. “You’re hanging around in someone else’s corpse, and I’d wondered where she’d gone off to. I thought maybe you took her, but I couldn’t work out why. Care to enlighten me?”
“You’ve got powers,” the zombie said, stepping close, her voice intense despite her mostly blank expression.
“I do, though I wouldn’t consider myself in the same class as you.”
“No,” The zombie shook her head and looked Veruca up and down before meeting her gaze and leaning in even closer. Veruca was glad there was enough of a breeze to keep the faint smell of decay from assaulting her. “Where’s Finn?”
“Ah yes, I was going to ask about him too. Specifically, how you know him.”
“You want to know how I know Finn?” Amanda’s voice turned up at the end, but somehow Veruca felt it wasn’t so much a question as confusion about why Veruca would want to know in the first place. She decided to feign stupidity and take it as an offer instead.
“Yes! Do tell.”
“You tell,” the zombie said, poking at Veruca’s chest but missing as Veruca danced back and knocked the zombie’s hand away. A powerful enough necromancer could make even the frailest corpse pull out dangerous feats of strength, and Veruca wasn’t about to let those possibly deadly hands near her delicate throat. The zombie dropped her arm, unbothered by missing, and repeated herself. “Where’s Finn?”
“Does he mean something to you?”
“I’ve been looking for him,” the zombie said, the edge of anger sharpening her tone. “But now you have him and I want him.”
Veruca backed up, worried the necromancer’s frustration might leak through and influence the zombie. An angry zombie only reacted one way, and Veruca didn’t want to risk that. An angry zombie was a hungry zombie, and a hungry zombie couldn’t be controlled. A hungry zombie went for any living flesh it could get its cold hands on, which was a problem on a public street in the early afternoon. The only alternative, though, was to pluck out the soul, which would leave Veruca with a partially decayed corpse on her hands.
“Shit,” she hissed, poised to risk the police interference and pull the necromancer’s soul free. To her surprise, she didn’t have to. The zombie’s features went a little tighter, but she didn’t attack. When she lifted her hand a second time and poked it into Veruca’s chest, the action was slow, deliberate.
“I will find him,” she said before turning to head back the way she’d come. Veruca watched Amanda’s body go, wondering intently how the necromancer had found her in the first place. She’d only sensed the zombie after she’d been out jogging for a while. If it had followed her from the hotel, she would have noticed sooner.
At least she hoped that was the case. The sliver of soul was so minuscule, it was possible she’d mistaken it for something harmless. And if she had, who was to say Amanda had been the only corpse she’d missed? If the necromancer had sent spies after her, there was no way to be sure she hadn’t also sent them after Finn.
Cursing herself, Veruca reached for her phone, aiming to order a car to take her back to the hotel. The urge to enjoy the city on foot had disappeared.
Unfortunately, so had her phone.
Chapter Nine
“Hey, Veruca’s calling!” Finn announced as he followed Alex through an imposing doorway and the phone went dead. “Wait.”
The door shut behind him with an ominous boom, and he shook his suddenly useless phone as if the movement could turn it from a brick back into a way to talk to his beloved.
“Welcome to the Coliseum,” Alex said, hooking her arm through his and pulling him further into the room. He looked to her and then around, feeling lost and confused. The Coliseum was a Western-themed dive bar?
Alex laughed when Finn asked as much out loud, but left him standing alone among rickety tables and chairs to cross the wide, worn floor to a tube-like kiosk at the back. From what Finn could see, it was some sort of display for a taxidermy … raccoon? It was hard to tell from near the door.
“This doesn’t look like a Coliseum,” Finn said, addressing the strapping doorman who had moved to lounge in the style of a Greek god on one of the unworthy wooden chairs. The man glanced up at Finn and then went back to staring manfully at the wall, as if he could see through it to the sunset or a herd of cattle he wished he could be herding shirtlessly from the back of a horse.
Finn shook away his sexy thoughts, admired the cut of the man’s jaw once more, and then followed Alex to the tube.
<
br /> “What’re we doing here?” he asked, still distracted from looking too closely at the tube by the yawning ceiling and exposed beams that were barely visible in the sky-high darkness.
“Fighting, unless the Battle Maiden here’s been lying to me.”
Finn dropped his gaze toward the direction of the tube, expecting to see a squat, curly-haired older man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and maybe a butter-yellow tracksuit on. The scratchy, thick voice spoke of years of smoking, drinking, and gambling. Instead of a seasoned loan shark or mobster, however, Finn found himself eye to eye with a pile of matted, ripped, and dirty fur that was somehow smiling at him with a predatory grin full of sharp teeth.
“Jesus,” Finn breathed, looking it over twice before believing what his eyes were seeing. Even then, while his eyes insisted he was looking at a rodent the size of a chimpanzee that had met an unfortunate end beneath the tires of a speeding truck, his brain still argued that he must be drunk or high or mid-aneurism.
“Nope, Marv,” the creature said, lifting a paw to waggle three of its four digits in greeting. The fourth wiggled but didn’t seem useable. “You’re the necromancer?”
“I … the … what?”
“Ain’t too smart,” Marv commented, his attention back on Alex. “But as long as he can fight.”
“You’ll get your show. To the blood, Marv. No more corpses.”
“No more than necessary, eh?”
Finn goggled as Alex and the creature shared a laugh at his expense. More words were exchanged, but to Finn they may have been trumpeting, indistinct noise. He couldn’t figure how this mangled creature could be living, let alone moving and mocking a beautiful Irishman. His necromancy, which had the nasty habit of sitting at attention any time a corpse was within range, read no empty space in which to crawl.
“Come on, pretty boy,” Alex said, pulling him along once again, deeper into the room, back to a small door marked with symbols Finn didn’t recognize. “Let’s talk.”
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