My head snapped up and I stopped pacing, one foot hanging in the air before falling hard, the step forgotten. The land of the dead didn’t exist in Faerie either. If Death couldn’t reach his essence through a plane where he didn’t exist then it stood to reason the rider’s threads wouldn’t pass into a place where the land of the dead didn’t touch.
It was a stall tactic, but it would give us time. I looked at Tamara. “We have to take you to Faerie.”
Four eyes, two hazel and two dark brown, looked at me with equal amounts of confusion. Yeah, I guess that comment came from nowhere if you weren’t inside my head. I explained my logic. Death gave a begrudging nod as I spelled out my thoughts, but Tamara’s sunken eyes rounded until they dominated her face.
“I know you stumbled into a pocket of Faerie once, but even if we could get back there, would I be any better off or just in a different kind of danger?” Tamara asked, pushing her uneaten toast aside.
Crap. We were going to have to have the Faerie discussion. I really didn’t want to have that conversation, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that she’d stop transforming as soon as she was in Faerie. Slivers of the land of the dead slipped into the Bloom, so she’d have to go to Faerie proper.
Pulling out my phone, I tried Rianna’s cell. She had no reason to leave Faerie today, so I wasn’t surprised when an operator announced that the customer I was trying to reach was out of range. Faerie didn’t have cell towers.
“We need to talk to Caleb,” I said, heading to the door that connected my apartment with the main portion of the house. I also effectively avoided having to discuss the “F” issue for a couple more minutes.
Tamara stood slowly, as if she were trying to haul six hundred pounds instead of her skeletally thin form. I chewed at my bottom lip as I watched her dragging steps. Faerie will work. We just had to get her there. An added bonus? No way would Briar find Tamara in Faerie.
Death moved to follow.
I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Would you wait for me here?”
“Embarrassed to be seen with me?”
“It’s not that. We need to get Tamara to Faerie pronto, which means getting everyone moving with as little explanation as possible.” And explaining who Death was—especially since I didn’t have a name to introduce him with—would slow everything down. Tamara was so ill she’d accepted my explanation that he was an old friend without further prying, but Holly would press me.
He studied me, and I had the feeling he saw more than I liked. I squirmed. He knew me too well, and I could feel his gaze peeling back layers. Then he leaned forward and kissed the top of my head. “Just make sure you’re being honest with yourself in your reasoning.”
I watched him walk back into my apartment. I really was just in a hurry, wasn’t I? I was fine with my friends meeting him. Just not right now. Right?
I didn’t have time to think about it as I hurried to catch up with Tamara. We reached the bottom of the stairs and I pushed open the door. “Caleb?”
It was still fairly early, but he usually started working in his studio earlier than I preferred waking—which was one reason the studio ceiling had a soundproofing charm. But the garage-turned-studio was dark. Today apparently wasn’t an early day.
“Hello? Caleb? Holly? Anyone home?”
I glanced out the front window. Both of their cars were here. I headed for the back of the house. I hated waking Caleb, but as I couldn’t enter Faerie without cutting Death off from his life essence, Caleb was the only person who could take Tamara.
As Tamara and I turned the corner into the back hall, Caleb’s door opened, but it wasn’t Caleb who stepped out.
Holly, wearing one of Caleb’s shirts and nothing else, froze.
For a moment no one said anything. And then Tamara shook her head and muttered, “It’s like walking into a den of bunnies around here.”
That effectively broke the shocked silence.
“Uh, good morning?” Holly said, holding the button-up shirt closed with one hand, her other smoothing her tousled hair. She smiled, but the expression was a cringing flash of teeth as her eyes darted toward the elusive safety of her own bedroom door farther down the hall.
Oh yeah, it wasn’t the air of the revelry; my housemates were definitely sleeping together. This could get awkward. Unless I ignore the entire situation.
“I’m going to be in the living room. Can you see if Caleb’s awake?”
Holly glanced back at the room she’d been trying to sneak out of. “I’m sure he’ll be there in a minute.”
It was more like five minutes, but both he and Holly were fully dressed when they joined us. Holly may have been too shocked or embarrassed to notice Tamara’s condition a few minutes earlier, but she didn’t miss it now.
I gave as quick and condensed a version of events and my plans as possible. When I finished, no one looked terribly convinced.
“Where am I supposed to take her in Faerie?” Caleb asked.
I had an answer to that, I just didn’t like it. “I own some…property, in Faerie.” And by property I meant a castle, but that was beside the point.
The admission earned an eyebrow lift from Caleb and a “You what?” from Holly.
Tamara shook her head, “What is going on? Why would you own property in Faerie? Hell, how would you own property?”
Cards on the table time. I pulled the charm free of my shirt and lifted the chain over my head. “I, uh, well, you see,” I said as my skin gave off its own light.
Tamara blinked. “You’re fae?” She leaned back against the couch. “And I thought I was the one keeping secrets.” She placed a hand over her too thin stomach. Then she turned to Holly. “Alex figured it out already, but I’m pregnant. Or I was. Do you think…?” Her eyes shimmered with tears ready to spill over.
I bit my lips. Tamara was the one with the medical degree; if anyone knew, it would be her. Holly pushed out of her chair and joined Tamara on the couch. She wrapped her arms around the other woman.
“It’s going to work out,” she said, hugging Tamara. “We’ll find this rider thing on this side, and you’ll be safe in Faerie.”
“How could I possibly be safe in Faerie?” A tear slipped down her cheek. “No offense,” she said, nodding to Caleb and then as if an afterthought, to me. “How can you be fae?”
“It’s a long story that we don’t have time for.”
Holly gave Tamara a squeeze. “As we’re all confessing our secrets, the reason I’ve been a little weird lately? I kind of got addicted to Faerie food.”
Tamara gave a start, and fear pooled in her sunken eyes, dragged at her lips so that they twitched.
Holly just held her. “Don’t worry. Faerie is actually really very nice. Just don’t eat the food. It looks good, but it’s made out of toadstools.” She stuck out her tongue, making it sound like a joke.
Caleb pushed out of his chair. “Okay, the share-fest you girls have going on is great, but I think we need an actual plan. Al, if you own the property, why don’t you take Tamara? I don’t know where your property is.”
“I can’t go to Faerie without potentially deadly consequences. I can’t even enter the Bloom right now.”
Anyone human would have questioned me, but Caleb was fae and there had been no wiggle room in my statement. “Okay. I’m assuming you inherited something that is currently in Limbo?”
I nodded. “Get a message to Rianna. She can take Tamara the rest of the way.” Once he was in the Bloom, the bartender would be able to pass along the message. I still wasn’t sure how it worked, but Rianna usually appeared about five minutes after I let the bartender know I was looking for her.
Caleb nodded and looked down at Tamara’s miserable form where she leaned against Holly, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Ready?”
Tamara looked up. “This is really the only way?”
“It’s the best I can come up with,” I said. “But it’s only a stall
tactic. It won’t cure you but it should stop the transformation. It will give you a little time to rest as well. There’s a brownie named Ms. B who runs my property, let her know you’re my friend, and that you’re human so can’t eat Faerie food.”
“I’ll pack you a care package,” Holly said, pushing off the couch. She disappeared into the kitchen and the sound of drawers and cabinets opening followed. With Holly eating all her meals at the Bloom and Caleb eating at least half of his there, I wondered how much food they actually had around the house.
I slid my necklace back over my head, letting the charm fall under my shirt and between my breasts. The glow cut off abruptly, at least to me. Tamara just stared.
“Why are you still all shimmery?”
Great. “It’s a fae perception charm. People see what they believe they’ll see.” Which meant she now saw me as fae. Will that change our friendship? I cringed inwardly, but before I started worrying about what might happen, I needed to find the rider or she’d either be a ghoul or stuck in Faerie. I turned to Caleb. “Can you ask Rianna to meet me at the Tongues for the Dead office once she gets Tamara situated?”
He nodded, and we both looked at Tamara, who had curled in on herself. She looked so small and deflated that she barely resembled the strong, take-charge woman I knew.
“We’re going to stop the rider,” I said, wishing I had something more reassuring to say. “You just take care of yourself.” I almost added and the baby but I was afraid she’d break down again.
“What do I tell Ethan? We promised never to lie to each other or to keep secrets. But I’m thinking saying ‘Sweetie, I’m turning into a monster, so I’m going to hide at Alex’s place in Faerie until the bad guy is caught’ won’t go over well.”
I was so not the person to ask about relationship issues. “Tell him what you have to?”
She sighed, fumbling with her phone but not making the call.
“I’d wait until you’re almost to the Bloom though—Briar is looking for you, and you don’t want her to find you.”
“Right.” She shoved the phone in her pocket without hesitation. That clearly wasn’t a call she wanted to make. I didn’t blame her.
“This should do it,” Holly said as she reentered the room with two reusable grocery sacks filled with boxes and cans. “I threw in a couple of paperbacks and my supersecret stash of chocolate, so you should be set until we can get this straightened out.”
Despite Holly’s perky optimism, Tamara didn’t look the least bit cheered. Caleb helped her to her feet and we made quick good-byes. The door had barely clicked closed when Holly whirled around, all the softness gone from her face.
“What can I do to help?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m sure someone from the OMIH headquarters was infected, so unless the rider has already killed that host and moved on, we need to figure out who on the staff is missing or has been acting erratically. Or we need to figure out where the rider is most likely to go next.” Assuming it wasn’t planning to come after me again, but after everything that had happened, I guessed it would be trying to keep a low profile. Which would make it harder to find.
If the rider had killed off its latest victim, one of the collectors would know. Maybe they’d know who it had taken next. Of course, convincing the gray man or the raver to help would be quite a trick. Death may be able to persuade them. Thinking about Death, I glanced toward the stairs. Tamara was safely on her way to Faerie now, which meant no more excuses. I took a deep breath.
“Uh, Holly,” I said, and then had to stop because my tongue was paralyzed, stuck to the roof of my mouth. She gave me a questioning head tilt. I swallowed and straightened. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Chapter 38
Several hours later, Rianna, Holly, Caleb, and I were in the Tongues for the Dead office, searching for any clue to where and in whom the rider may be. Holly had used her contacts in the DA’s office to get access to the missing persons database, but no one had been reported missing in the last twenty-four hours. I’d left at least four messages on Briar’s voice mail, but she hadn’t returned my calls, so I had no idea if she’d learned anything. Death had left to see what he could find through his own networks, which, when he eventually returned, he may or may not be able to share.
Introducing him to Holly and then Caleb had been interesting to say the least, especially when we got to the part of no, sorry, you can’t ask his name and no, you can’t ask what he does either. Awkward was an understatement. Though, watching Rianna’s reaction was rather entertaining as she’d seen Death before and knew exactly what he was. Roy was far less amused that I had a soul collector with me, but when I sent him to the OMIH office to eavesdrop and snoop, he was so happy to have what he called a real assignment that he let it slide.
“No, that’s okay. Have a nice day,” I said, and hit the END button on my phone. I scratched through the name and then stretched. “That was the last one on my list.”
Holly looked up. “You want some of mine?”
Yeah, no, not really. We’d spent the last hour and a half cold calling the OMIH employees listed on the local Web site. We were look looking for someone who hadn’t come home last night, but there were several problems with this plan, primarily that half the calls weren’t answered so had to be noted as question marks.
“Hey, girls,” Caleb called from where he worked at Ms. B’s desk. “I have good news and bad news. You might want to come here.”
Holly and I exchanged a glance, but as I stood, Roy popped into the room.
“I found him,” he said, vibrating with excitement. “His name is Martin Tanner and he’s a magical technician. He helped scan the room after Larid died, and soon after became ill.” Roy used finger quotes around the last word. “That’s got to be him, right?”
I’d bet on the chance.
I walked out into the lobby. “Roy might have found our guy. His name is—”
“Martin Tanner,” Caleb finished for me.
The ghost’s shoulders dropped. “Wow, way to steal my glory.”
I was more curious how Caleb had found out. He turned the screen of the laptop toward me and bumped the volume.
“Police say Tanner is considered armed and dangerous, so if you spot him, do not try to approach him. Instead, call the tip line at the bottom of the screen,” the news anchor said as a phone number flashed below him. The superimposed image of a middle-aged man with a cheap hair regrowth charm and thick framed glasses floated behind the anchor.
“Of all the idiotic, stupid things to do.” I pulled out my phone, and dialed the fourth number on my speed dial.
A gruff voice answered with, “If you’re calling to bitch, I was against it.” John sighed and I heard something hit the mouthpiece of the phone as if his knuckles brushed it as he rubbed his mustache. “No one in the squad room three nights ago would have okayed that press release.”
“Then who did?”
“The chief of police and that MCIB investigator thought it would chase the rider out of hiding.”
Briar Darque. Great. She sure kept me in the loop.
“Yeah, he’ll come out of hiding.” I stalked across the office. “By walking into traffic or in some other horrific way murdering his host so he can have a new body.” I knew John already realized that as well, but the anger bubbling in my blood refused to shut up. A warm arm wrapped around my waist, stopping me from stomping into my office. Death. “John, I’ve got to go,” I said, making a hasty good-bye.
“Anything?” I asked, looking at Death expectantly.
“It sounds like you know more than me.”
Damn. “It looks like our current victim, who is being smeared on the news as armed and dangerous, is a magic tech named Martin Tanner. Caleb, do they have a picture of him posted on their site?”
Caleb clicked a button and what was either a driver’s license or work ID photo—both tended to be equally bad—popped up of the mild-looking tech. Death frowned at the i
mage but I thought I saw something akin to recognition pass through his eyes.
I dragged him into my office, shutting the door behind us. “You know him?”
“Alex, I have a lot of souls, most of whom don’t come close enough to dying that I’m called to them more than a couple of times during their life.” He leaned against the edge of my desk, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“But you think you recognize him.”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug that could have meant anything. “Even if he is one of mine, it’s not like I’m omnipresent. I can’t find him out of thousands any easier than you can, not until I’m called.”
“You always find me.”
That earned me a grin, and he reached out, pulling me closer. “I keep an eye on you.” His hands ran down my waist until his thumbs rubbed over the ridges of my hip bones. “Besides, you are easy to find.” The words were low, his mouth temptingly close to mine.
I sucked in a breath, my body becoming hyperaware so that the heat from his hands spread through me. But this wasn’t the time or the place. I had one friend waiting in Faerie, almost everyone else I cared about outside the door, and a gluttonous creature from the land of the dead out there who was likely to kill as soon as he realized he was wearing a wanted man. Definitely not the time. I stepped back, out of Death’s hands.
He started to follow me, a teasing glint in those hazel eyes. Then he froze. I saw the colors dance in his iris and knew he was seeing threads of possibility in someone’s life. His brow creased in something that mixed sorrow with anger.
“I found him.”
“Tell me I’m allowed to interfere. The rider is definitely not part of the normal mortal world.”
“I only see one possible end for this soul.”
Grave Memory: An Alex Craft Novel Page 34