Grave Destiny

by Kalayna Price

  By the time he fell silent, it wasn’t just his snobbish attitude that had vanished, but the court finery was gone as well. He now wore bloody nightclothes, the slashes wet and seeping. His death had become his reality, warping him until he was stuck in the terror of those moments, at least temporarily. I’d never seen it happen before, but then ghosts weren’t exactly common.

  “Could you tell how many people were present?” Falin asked, and thankfully his voice was soft. I’d heard him use the tone with victims before. Stiofan was an entitled ass, but he was also a victim, and he was vulnerable right now.

  The ghost frowned, wrapping his arms tighter around himself. Half-transparent blood streamed down the front of his nightclothes and dripped on the floor below. “Two at least. Maybe three. Maybe more?”

  “Could you identify anyone?” Falin asked.

  Stiofan shook his head.

  “Was there a goblin with three arms?” This question from Dugan. I frowned at him. Hadn’t we already determined Kordon had been dropped in Stiofan’s room postmortem?

  Stiofan’s head shot up and he glared at Dugan. “I don’t know. I had a pillow over my head! Is that who did this to me? One of your dirty goblins?”

  I answered before Dugan got a chance. “Your murderers wanted us to think so. A goblin was found a few feet from your body with your sword driven through his back. Considering you said your arms were pinned, I’m assuming . . . ?”

  He gave a mournful shake of his head. “I wish I could say I struck down one of my attackers, but I struggled, never freeing myself before I . . .” He hesitated. “. . . Died.” He sank to the ground, a dejected, nihilistic figure abjectly accepting the idea of nonexistence.

  “Is there anything you can tell us about your attackers?” Falin asked, clearly trying to get the ghost talking again before he sank so far into despondency that he ceased to hear us.

  The ghost sneered, his face torn between melancholy and rage. “They are cowardly scum and I hope you kill them as surely as I was killed.”

  Not exactly a helpful clue we can use to find them.

  “Did any of your attackers say anything?” Falin asked.

  Stiofan closed his eyes, as if concentrating hard. New wounds appeared on the ghost, translucent blood pooling at his feet. His eyes sprang open, wide, haunted, and he hugged himself.

  “I . . . I don’t think so.” His words came out hoarse, tinged with panic.

  Falin continued to press him for useful clues. “Could you smell anything out of place? Hear anything odd?”

  The ghost rocked back on his heels as his shoulders rolled inward, like he could curl into himself for protection. A wound opened near his collarbone, ghostly blood spraying outward and missing me by mere inches. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

  Dugan stepped close to the edge of my circle. “I’m not sure he is our best witness,” he said, his voice low—though, as small as my circle was, Stiofan could surely hear. Dugan shot a meaningful glance to the body bag near the ghost’s feet.

  I had to give the Shadow Prince credit; for someone who had—presumably—seen his first shade only today, he understood the principles of the magic pretty well. Stiofan was caught in the trauma of his death, and it was clouding the details of the event. His shade wouldn’t suffer the same issue. Of course, raising his shade in front of him might very well expand on his trauma.

  “Stiofan, I think you’ve done enough. I’m going to open my circle and let you leave, okay?”

  The ghost’s head snapped up. “Leave? Where am I supposed to go? I’m dead! You deal with ghosts. I demand you find a place for me where I will be comfortable and happy. And certainly somewhere less run-down than this hovel you call an office.”

  Now that he was temporarily distracted from the details of his murder, the wounds vanished from the ghost, his court frippery appearing once again, and he sneered at me, seeming to look down his nose even from his lower vantage of the floor. I frowned at him. My office was actually fairly nice now that Ms. B had decorated it. Of course, he was viewing it in the land of the dead, which was pretty much a disintegrating purgatory landscape, so it probably did look pretty shabby, especially when compared to the grandeur of Faerie. But he wasn’t going to escape the land of the dead. Not until his soul moved on, and he needed to find a soul collector for that to happen.

  I knew a few collectors. I had even dated one of them. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to locate Death—which wasn’t actually his name, but I had to call him something. Too many secrets. That was one reason my relationship with Death hadn’t worked. Even the passing thought of him still stung and I pushed it away.

  There was one collector whom I could typically find if I tried.

  “There is a nightclub I can direct you to. A soul collector hangs out there when she isn’t busy. Might be a little early in the day for her, but I’m sure she’ll be around eventually. Or you can hang out at a hospice care center. A collector will almost certainly be around there from time to time.”

  The ghost’s lip curled, the look contemptuous. “Soul collectors? I don’t want to be collected, you twit. If I cannot return to Faerie, you need to find me a place to live, as it were.”

  Yeah. No. There was no estate for the mortality-challenged that I had secret access to. My castle hosted quite a mixed group of occupants these days, two of them ghosts that had more or less followed me home during cases, but I was not about to adopt Stiofan. With his attitude, I’d end up having to kill him a second time.

  “Not in my job description,” I said as I pulled the energy out of my circle. The barrier collapsed and the grave wind that had been contained ripped across my office, ruffling papers and tousling Falin’s and Dugan’s hair. The ghost stared at me, and I gave him a smile that I didn’t even waste energy trying to make look friendly. “I’m going to continue my investigation into your murder. You might find this next bit rather disturbing. If you don’t want to witness it, I suggest you leave.”

  He looked from me to the body bag at his feet. “Are you going to do something to my body? How dare you.”

  The ghost took a step forward, and Falin was suddenly there, standing between the ghost and me, his silver daggers drawn. It was a sweet gesture—not necessarily practical, as Stiofan would only become tangible if I expended magic, or, I guess, if he touched me. But the thought was nice.

  From the corner of my eye, something dark moved in the shadows. I snapped my head around, searching.

  Nothing.

  I glanced at Dugan, but he was watching the ghost. If he’d had anything to do with the thing in the shadows, it didn’t show. Whatever it was, I needed to recast my circle pronto.

  “Get out, or stay. I don’t care. You have five seconds to choose.” I only half looked at the ghost as I spoke, most of my attention directed toward where I’d thought I’d seen movement.

  “Five.”

  The ghost didn’t move, but stared at me, his chin jutting up and out.

  “Four.”

  Falin still stood between the ghost and me, but the ghost ignored him, his incredulous expression daring me to try to kick him out. But I didn’t need him gone. Dismissing him was for his own benefit.

  “Three.”

  The shadows shifted again, this time closer. I reacted immediately, throwing magic into my circle. The barrier flashed into existence; a low sizzle and a few sparks shot across the edge closest to the corner of the room.

  “Hey! You didn’t make it all the way to one,” Stiofan yelled, taking a step forward.

  I didn’t even look at him. “Shut up.”

  Something moved at the edge of the circle, drawing back. The magical barrier calmed, the sparks fading. I’d thwarted it, thrown the circle up in time, but what the hell was it? Something not quite on the mortal plane, but I couldn’t see it any clearer with my shields open, so
not something from the land of the dead or the Aetheric plane either.

  Falin’s gaze followed mine, and he gestured with his blade from the edge of the circle to Dugan. “Is that your shadow spy?”

  “Why would I spy on myself?” Dugan asked, but he peered into the dark recesses of the room.

  The Prince of Shadows lifted his hands, and the predictable shadows cast by my file cabinet, the dog bed, and other items in the corner of the room quivered. Then the shadows pulled away from the corner. Well, most of the shadows. One small blob of darkness remained frozen in the farthest corner. A shadow not cast by any object in the room.

  It had no features, but the shape was vaguely humanoid, though small. Seven inches at most and thin, as if cast by something much smaller in late-afternoon sun when the shadows stretched long. It hunched down as it realized the shadows it had been hiding in had vanished. Its spindly neck seemed to turn, the stretched head swiveling back and forth.

  Dugan twisted his hands, his fingers straightening and reaching toward each other. The room’s shadows rushed back into the corner. They wrapped around the stretched shadow, twisting into dark vises that caught it and pinned it in place. The strange shadow quivered and thrashed, but it was stuck.

  “What a repulsive creature.” Stiofan spat the words, and I frowned at him. Unless he could see something I couldn’t, it was just a shadow, hardly repulsive at all. Though that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.

  Dugan stalked across the room, shadows twisting around him as he moved. If I’d been the small shadow staring at the approaching prince, I would have been terrified. When he reached the corner, he snatched the thrashing shadow as if it were more than just an absence of light but had true substance and mass.

  “Who are you? And who sent you?”

  The shadow trembled in his hand. Dugan lifted the shadow closer to his face. The natural Sleagh Maith glow of his skin brightened with his magic, but his dark hair and armor seemed to drink down the light and become a living shadow of their own. It was an eerie and fascinating juxtaposition.

  I strained to hear if the shadow answered, but the only sound in the room was the unarticulated grumbling from Stiofan. Beside me, Falin was still, silent, and just as intent on the shadow as I was.

  The small shadow convulsed, and then it folded in half, draping over the back of Dugan’s hand. I frowned because that didn’t look natural. Then the little shadow dissolved, growing thinner until we could see Dugan’s fingers through its body, and then it vanished into nothing.

  “You killed it?” Falin asked, his voice guarded, suspicious.

  Dugan shook his head as he turned to stare at each shadow in the room. They wavered under his scrutiny, but the movement was from his searching magic, not from an another intruder. “No. It was nothing I did. And I’m not sure if it self-destructed or if whoever sent it had a fail-safe spell in place in case it got caught.”

  “Was it an imp or a crafted shadow?” Falin asked. His daggers were still out and bared as he watched Dugan’s survey of the room.

  “That was a shadow master’s handiwork—an imp would have left a body.”

  “So . . . someone from your court?” I asked.

  Dugan shot me a frown. “Not necessarily.” He waved his hand in the air and every shadow—except those inside my circle—scurried up the walls to meet in a giant ball on the ceiling.

  It was disorienting, and I swayed, wishing there were something to grab hold of inside my circle. Falin offered his arm, but the dizzying effect had already passed, so I shook my head. I glanced around at a room now absent of darkness. Not a single disembodied shadow remained, so I assumed that meant there were no more spies hiding in my office.

  Dugan’s hands twitched, and the shadows streamed back where they belonged. This time I did grab Falin’s arm. He made no comment about it, but both Dugan and Stiofan frowned at me. I ignored them.

  “If it wasn’t ‘necessarily’ someone from the shadow court, who could have created it? And what was it doing here?” I asked, dropping my hand as soon as the shadows stilled and the disorientation passed.

  “It appeared to be attempting to join either your or the knight’s shadow, likely so it could follow you around and report back to its controller,” Dugan said, his frown deepening. “As to who could have been controlling it . . . the list isn’t exactly short right now.”

  “Right now in particular?” I asked, shivering, but not because something could jump into my shadow and spy on me. Not entirely at least. My shields were still open, the grave clawing deep into me with icy fingers. If I was going to raise that second shade, I needed to get on with it.

  Stiofan scoffed. “‘Right now’ because his courtiers are fleeing that cesspool of a court like rats from a sinking ship.”

  Dugan shot the ghost a look that might have been able to do serious damage if Stiofan hadn’t already been dead. Beside me, Falin discreetly lifted one shoulder, cocking his head ever so slightly in what I could only interpret as a sort of expression. Apparently he didn’t disagree with Stiofan’s assessment.

  Maybe Falin’s motions were not quite as discreet as I’d thought, because Dugan all but growled out the words, “There has been some turnover of late. And I will look into who might have constructed our interloping shadow, but in the meantime, perhaps we should wrap up your interview?”

  He wasn’t wrong about that.

  I glanced at Stiofan and Falin, both trapped in my circle with me. I didn’t really want to drop my barrier again. Not because I thought another shadow would attempt to ambush me but because I didn’t want to expend the energy. I’d given Stiofan a chance to leave already; he’d missed it. He was going to have to deal with the consequences.

  Reaching with my grave magic, I let it slide into the corpse at the ghost’s feet. The shade sat up, bloody and disheveled. Stiofan screamed.

  “What is this? Is that me? This is dark magic.” He scrambled to the edge of my circle, but he could get no farther.

  I ignored him.

  “What is your name?” I asked the shade.

  “Stiofan Greenmeadows.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. Last names were rather rare in Faerie, but more than that, “Greenmeadows” didn’t exactly sound like it should belong to a winter courtier.

  “You weren’t born to the winter court?” I asked.

  “How is that relevant?” the ghost of Stiofan snapped, but his shade merely answered, “no.”

  “How did you die?”

  Ghost Stiofan glared at me. “Didn’t we cover that already? I—you don’t have to answer that.”

  His shade didn’t notice the protests of the soul that had once resided in his body. “I was sleeping when pain woke me. I was pinned and stabbed repeatedly. I heard things breaking. Hands reached inside me and I lost consciousness.”

  The shade said it with no emotion, no fear or hesitation. Stiofan clearly felt the horror at the words, though, based on the way wounds opened on the ghost once again. He swayed, the front of his nightshirt filling with blood.

  “Stop it,” he whispered. But I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or his shade.

  “Did you see any of your attackers?”

  “No.”

  “Could you tell how many attackers were present?”

  “No,” the shade said, and I grimaced. He had answered the question I’d asked, just not the one I’d meant to ask.

  “Can you guess how many attackers there were?” Falin asked, and I repeated the question, even though I knew it was unlikely to be answered.

  The shade remained silent. He wasn’t cognizant. He couldn’t guess anything, couldn’t draw any conclusions Stiofan hadn’t considered or concluded before his death. For his part, the ghost shook, blood pooling around him as he watched his shade.

  “Did you hear or smell anything out of place? Did any of your attackers spea
k?”

  “Yes. A female. She said, ‘Don’t make it too fast. He should suffer.’”

  The ghost stared at his shade. “That . . . I do remember that. It sounded like . . .” He trailed off, sliding down the edge of my circle until he was sitting in the ephemeral pool of blood spreading around him.

  “Who did it sound like?” I asked.

  “Lunabella Blossommist,” both the shade and ghost said at the same time. Without looking up, Stiofan added, “My onetime wife.”

  Well, that was a start. It wasn’t a definite ID, or the shade would have identified her as an attacker, but it was a name.

  Chapter 7

  The shade didn’t have much more information. Dugan and Falin both pelted me with questions to ask, but Stiofan hadn’t seen, heard, or in any other way sensed anything else about his attackers. Stiofan’s ghost hadn’t said anything after identifying Lunabella. He had simply curled in on himself at the edge of my circle and stared at some point of nothingness.

  He still hadn’t moved by the time I wrapped up the ritual, put the shade back into his body, and released my circle. Ghostly blood dripped from the many wounds covering his spectral body, so I guessed he was still caught in the details of his own death. I wondered if he would make it out again or if this experience had broken him completely.

  For my part, the ritual had cost me some sight and warmth, but while I’d kept my shields open for an extended period, the time I’d actually raised the shades wasn’t long, so I still had some of my vision. I wouldn’t want to drive a car right now, or have to run for my life, but I could cross the room without running into anything or anyone, so that was something.

  I shrugged into my coat and sent a small spiral of magic into the enchantment Rianna had recently placed on the fabric. It immediately warmed, pouring gentle heat into me. The chill of the grave had sunk all the way to my bones, so it only helped a little, but it was better than nothing. Slightly warmer and with at least partial vision, I glanced at Falin.

  “So we have the smell of honeysuckle in the shadow court, and possibly a fae named Lunabella in the winter court. Is she a winter fae?”