Grave Measures (The Grave Report, Book 2)

by R. R. Virdi

  Monsters never choose the starvation route.

  I had suspected the phage was operating that way, but I hadn’t known why. Now I did. It explained how and why the creature took its time with the killings. Why there were a handful of deaths versus dozens. It tainted a select few, let its toxic Myrk work its magic, and then fed. It was slow, measured, and effective. With the phage’s ability to contort itself and its already slender build, it could move through the vents with ease. All of that meant it limited its exposure a great deal, as well as minimizing risks to itself.

  The phage could’ve chosen to stay longer on our side, but that meant expending more energy, which meant more meals. All of that would definitely arouse suspicion. It was as smart as I’d figured. It reasoned well. The notion occurred to me that I would also run the chance of engaging the thing in the Neravene. That was going to be a problem. This thing was dangerous and could toy with my mind. In its own pocket of the Neravene, I wouldn’t have a hope.

  And I wouldn’t have a choice, either, if it came to it. People were dying, and my timeline continued to whither away.

  “What’s she talking about, Charles?”

  I told Ortiz everything I knew about the creature and its home in the Neravene.

  Ortiz’s hands slid up to rub her biceps and shoulders. “I don’t want to have to go into a place like that again, not unless we absolutely have to.”

  The feeling was mutual, but I kept my objections silent. Ortiz was as solid as they came but even she was susceptible to fear. So was I, as well as Lizzie, and this thing preyed on fear. I didn’t need to showcase any of the doubts I harbored.

  Lyshae spoke. “Finding the creature while it’s in the asylum will be problematic. There are two ways it can be done. Neither are without their dangers.” She went silent again, waiting.

  I motioned for her to continue.

  “How is the water here?” Her eyes shone. She knew the answer to that.

  I confirmed her suspicions anyways. “Tainted. The freak’s contaminated the water supply.”

  “As I thought. The first option you have is for one of you to ingest large quantities of the fouled water. Whoever is under its influence will be able to see the creature, should it be near, and they will be drawn to it. Drinking enough of the water forms a link between the phage and mortal who consumes it.”

  “And turns the person into a flare,” I said. “The phage would find them easily. Not to mention the fact they’d be out of their minds and couldn’t put up a fight.”

  “No risk, no reward,” Lyshae replied.

  “Second option?” I asked, blowing over her reply. Part of me didn’t want to ask the question. I already had an inkling what the answer would be.

  “The use of a child,” said Lyshae. The lump in my stomach grew.

  “I knew I could help,” Lizzie chimed.

  “No!” Ortiz and I shouted in unison. Lizzie pouted, crossing her arms and adopting a haughty posture. Nice to know she wasn’t always airy-fairy.

  “Keep the kid out of it.” My lips almost peeled back from my teeth.

  Lyshae’s brows rose as her eyes grew. “Why?” She sounded genuinely surprised. “Children can see the creature regardless of their condition. Babylonian phages favor children. They find nothing sweeter than a child’s blood rich in fear.”

  That was wrong on so many levels.

  “Bait,” I whispered. “You want us to use the kid as…bait?” Air popped within my knuckles as my fingers dug into my palms. I inhaled several times, reminding myself with each breath that I needed Lyshae. I told myself that pummeling her for even suggesting that would do no good. Well, it would make me feel good.

  Lyshae shrugged. “Then you have only one option.”

  “Seems like,” I agreed, my voice gravel-like.

  “About the stake...” Lyshae’s voice rang with undertones of something more. “We should speak—in private.” She slipped off to move further into the woods.

  “Charles, don’t,” Ortiz warned.

  “Relax.” I flashed her a grin. “I’ll be fine.”

  Ortiz bit down on her lip but didn’t argue further. Lizzie, on the other hand, moved to follow. I stopped her with a shake of my head. Her posture sank, but she was a smart kid; she understood.

  Flashing her the same smile I’d given Ortiz, I walked over to Lyshae and her outstretched hand. I hooked my arm around Lyshae’s. “Shall we?”

  “My,” she breathed, letting a hand fall to her chest. “So polite.”

  “I can be.”

  Lyshae released a huff of breath that edged on laughter. “Not nearly enough, remember?”

  I adopted dignified silence. That fiasco wasn’t my fault.

  We passed through an array of younger and slender trees, some no thicker than paper towel tubes. I struggled to keep up with Lyshae even though we were arm in arm. She navigated the woods with a grace I couldn’t imagine having. Stepping past an upturned root here, avoiding a sunken patch of earth there. All the while I stumbled along. My foot snagged on that same root. That piece of sunken earth worked ever so hard to twist my ankle. The uneven ground made me fight for balance. Lyshae’s innate skill brought to us a clearing no larger than a hot tub.

  It was a rather intimate place. No more than ten paces would’ve taken me out of it. To be in such a tight place with a creature as beautiful as Lyshae gave my anatomy ideas. I told it to shut up. Lyshae was the sort to take those ideas, spin ‘em into a wonderful fantasy, then push my ass off the imagined cliff.

  For once, I let my actions speak in place of my words. I arched a brow and let my head fall to the side as I regarded her. She picked up on the question I posed.

  Lyshae waved her hand more elegantly than I thought possible, and yet the making of the gesture seemed so casual for her. For a second, the air resembled a desert mirage, bending visibly. I felt the touch of something sap-like engulfing my body in an invisible cushion. My ears received a liberal heaping of the feeling. It felt like they were clogged with Vaseline.

  “Out of sight,” Lyshae murmured in perfect clarity, “out of mind.”

  “Lyshae…did you just veil us?”

  She inclined her head no more than a millimeter. Had I not been so focused on her, I might’ve missed the action entirely. “From eyes and ears,” she commented.

  Veiling was a magical art that did exactly what the name suggested: obscure one from sight, even sound. We weren’t truly gone. Someone could’ve bumped into us. We were simply masked. Simple was the wrong word. There was nothing simple about what Lyshae had done. Illusion-based magic takes skill, patience and a deft hand. Lyshae had all of those in excess. But the ease with which she performed the act wasn’t something to be taken lightly.

  That took a level of skill that put many practitioners to shame. Many creatures I’ve met can perform veils to hide voice or sound, not both. Nor could they do it so effectively. That performance gave me a new respect for Lyshae’s abilities. She’d picked up some neat tricks in her thousand years of existence.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “Didn’t know you could pull ones off like that.”

  “Honestly, Vincent.” She gave a little shake of her head.

  “Right, sorry, should’ve known,” I muttered while rolling my eyes.

  “Now that we have some privacy, let us talk about a new bargain. One,” she said, pausing for a moment, “that will put you in my debt.”

  My teeth slid across each other. This wasn’t going to be good.

  “I will help you, Vincent Graves, but you will be in my debt, and you will fulfill said debt.” It wasn’t a question.

  I ceased eroding my enamel, instead swallowing my anger and feigning a smile. “’Course.”

  She held up three fingers.

  “Three?” I sputtered. “What makes you think I’d agree to three debts?”

  “First, because I am not obligated to help you. I am choosing to. That warrants a debt. Second, helping you stop the creature is not the same as pr
ocuring and delivering the means with which to kill the creature.”

  “It sort of is,” I countered.

  “It is not. I have already informed you how to do so, and have done so in good faith, I might add. If you desire, you can retrieve a stake made of cypress yourself. You are also free to prepare it yourself, to my description. That is, of course, if your limited schedule allows you the necessary time to do those things.”

  I scowled.

  “Lastly, I could have—and still can—reveal the truth of your identity to the woman called Ortiz. The sole reason I did not is because you might be of use to me. Better use if you’re not compromised in any way. That young woman is adept. If she finds out who and what you are, it could be troublesome.”

  My scowl deepened, my posture tightened, and I imagined what Lyshae would look like with a broken nose. I believed in chivalry, but I also believed that it didn’t apply to supernatural women who’d tried to kill you. “You’re blackmailing me.”

  “Of course,” she said through a peal of musical laughter. “I am myself. It’s to be expected, is it not, Vincent Graves?”

  “Bitch.”

  She laughed harder.

  “Lyshae, have a heart. People are dying here.”

  “People die all the time. After a thousand years, I’ve learned that. What makes this so different? A monster, a non-human one, is doing the ‘murdering’? Spare me.” She waved her hand. “Your kind has bred monsters in its own right. Many times a finger wasn’t lifted to stop the killing.”

  She was right about the last bit. That didn’t make her right about all of it.

  “I’m not going to argue semantics with you, Lyshae.”

  “Then, what? If you aren’t opting to strike a bargain, what else is there?”

  “Lyshae.” My voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “People are dying, damnit! Don’t pull this crap.”

  Lyshae remained resolute. The frickin’ icy bitch. “I am not your friend, Vincent Graves. I am not someone you can call upon for favors without expecting to owe me in return. You dealt with Gnosis. He provided information and you reciprocated by placing yourself in his debt.”

  Technically that wasn’t true. The little asswaffle slipped that into a conversation. He had hung up before I had time to counter. True, I didn’t argue the point anytime after that; it was still a dirty move. But then again, so was blackmail.

  “You and Gnosis should get a room—two peas in a pod of assholery.”

  “This isn’t getting you anywhere. As you said”—Lyshae broke off to tap her forearm—“people are dying, and you are running out of time.”

  Damnit, she was right. I didn’t like the idea of being blackmailed. I liked the idea of owing her even less. Not to mention it’d be three frickin’ debts. Three atop of the one I owed Gnosis. But that was the problem of being a soul who never knows where he will wake up.

  It’s near impossible to plan ahead. I can’t exactly have a tool kit ready to slay monsters with me everywhere I go.

  I exhaled and loosened my posture. I unclenched my fist and noticed the row of marks left by my fingernails. “Right,” I grated. “Let’s deal.”

  Lyshae’s smile wasn’t one of overwhelming glee or surprise. It was of quiet confidence, of surety. It was a smile of triumph. “Your word, Vincent Graves.”

  “Is good.”

  “Give it, please.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes coyly.

  She enjoyed watching me squirm.

  “Your word,” she repeated.

  “Contingent on you giving yours. No offense, Lyshae. It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that I don’t trust you.”

  She let out a rueful laugh, covering her mouth with a hand. “Very well then.” Her hand blurred into motion faster than I could follow. All I could see was the trailing ripples of her shimmering shift. A glint of silver made its way towards me. My wrist was wrapped in an iron grip. She upturned my hand and made a fast horizontal swipe. I reeled. A paper-thin stream of heat enveloped my palm, running across the length of it. Crimson seeped from my flesh.

  Before I had finished shouting, “Lyshae what—” she turned her own hand over, doing the same. I couldn’t tell what stood out more in contrast—the porcelain flesh against the blood, or the blood against the flesh.

  The hell’d she get the knife?

  As soon as I thought it, Lyshae fanned her hand like a magician doing card tricks. The knife vanished. Either she was adept at slight of hand, or she veiled the knife as well. Both were disturbing.

  I waved my bleeding palm. “The hell?”

  She took my hand within hers—gently, I might add. I didn’t expect that after she nicked me with a knife.

  Women are complicated creatures. Supernatural ones all the more.

  She solidified her grip. We were essentially shaking hands. But it was more than that.

  The idea of blood pacts stretches far back into human history. Normally interwoven with tales of dealing with the devil. In this case it might’ve been true. This wasn’t some macabre handshake. It was an ironclad agreement. We were forming a link. If Lyshae broke her word, she’d suffer consequences. If I broke mine, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  For a being like Lyshae, the side effects could range from diminishing her power a bit, to losing it altogether. It depended on the severity of her transgressions in breaking her word. It also depended on the wording of the contract between us. I tried to slip my hand out from hers. The grip wasn’t painful, but she was strong.

  “I, Lyshae, swear upon my power to render my services to you, Vincent Graves. I swear upon my power to aid you solely in stopping the Babylonian phage within the asylum walls. I swear upon my power that I shall give you the weapons necessary to kill the creature preying on the people here. I swear to supply you with any knowledge that will aid in stopping the phage. I swear upon my power and name so long as you, Vincent Graves, place yourself in my debt—thrice.” She held up three fingers with her free hand. “As reciprocation for my services.”

  I honed in on the word “solely” as she spoke. That was a limiting word, a bit of a loophole she’d worked in. It was smart. Wordplay was Lyshae’s strong suit. I tried to recall all that she had said exactly as she’d said it. If she had left herself any wiggle room to screw me over, I needed to know about it.

  “I am waiting.” She smiled.

  I exhaled through my nose. “I, Vincent Graves, abide by those terms. I swear it by my name to place myself in your debt thrice, so long as you live up to your offer of services. So long as you do not reveal my identity to”—I trailed off, catching myself before disclosing Ortiz’s full name—“the woman I call Ortiz. And so long as you stay the living fuck away from the young girl who was in my company.” I figured I’d throw in my own conditions.

  Lyshae’s features shifted into a frown and back to neutral with startling speed.

  Good. If she wanted this deal so bad, I was going to make her suffer for it.

  “I, Vincent Graves, swear by my name and life, to place myself in your debt.”

  A multitude of expressions flickered over Lyshae’s face. They went by faster than I could register. It was never easy to understand what she was up to, but that little display sent a low voltage current down my body. It made me conscious of my wording in the pact. I tumbled through all I had said. If I had slipped up somewhere and didn’t amend it, Lyshae would capitalize on it, twisting it to her advantage.

  The injured tissue of my palm contracted and pulsated violently. A horrible mixture of arctic ice and skin blistering heat filled the wound, spreading up my hand. As it worked its way into my forearm, the muscles broke into a spasmodic dance, twitching in painful bursts. My veins were visibly clear, engorged and darkened as if filled with a sickly wine. They ached like braided cords of steel ran through them.

  Lyshae’s face might as well have been carved in stone. It betrayed no emotion. But her posture did. Lyshae’s arm may have been hidden beneath the loose and lengthy fabric of h
er shift, but she had to be feeling what I was. Supernatural strength or not, it was damned painful and her sinking posture said that. It was a small pleasure to know that I wasn’t enduring the agony alone.

  Sharing is caring.

  Despite the pain, our grips never faltered. Lyshae and I held onto one another in grim determination. It was a contest of wills. Using her hand as a cushion, I squeezed, digging my fingers into her. The skin around her eyes tightened. The next moment, her hand exuded a dangerous amount of pressure as she reciprocated. The delicate bones in my hand cried out for relief. They were rewarded. Seconds to my pain threshold being exhausted, the excruciating sensations ceased. The bulging veins subsided and we broke contact.

  We each took a cautious step back, putting the slightest bit of distance between us. Physically, it may not have been much. Lyshae could’ve crossed the distance before I could react, if she chose to. It was more of a gesture to put the other at ease after our machismo showdown.

  Nonplussed, Lyshae ran her hands down the lower half of her shift to smooth it. “The bargain is struck,” she said in a soft and carefree voice. Her mouth split into a smile and she bowed deeply.

  It was the first time Lyshae had done so with serious intent. It was a measure of respect.

  “I cannot recall, in all my years, more than a handful of beings who’ve endured the binding as you did, Vincent Graves.” There was a note of surprise tinged with respect in her voice.

  I answered with a deep bow of my own. It seemed proper.

  Lyshae’s smile grew. “Well,” she murmured, “you can learn manners.”

  “You know, next time you want to have a big dick contest, you can just ask me to drop my pants and we can skip the special handshake.” I winked.