When he twitched the curtain to see, he was wrong on all counts.
Lia turned from the door to look straight at him. She smiled a tight, nervous smile, accompanied by a terse wave.
It had been ages since she or Sunny had been here, and he’d never had one visit without the other. Which was why, when he undid the locks and let her in, he couldn’t help sticking his head outside to see if maybe Sunny was waiting in the car.
“I’m alone,” Lia said. “She’ll be furious if she wakes up and realizes I’m not there, but I had to come.”
He led her into the parlor, which, despite the rug rolled up to reveal the ritual circle, was less cluttered than the kitchen or small office he used as the actual living room on the other side of the house. Lia—with her blond hair styled even at four thirty in the morning, her perfect manicure, her outfit ready for a fashion magazine photo shoot—should have looked out of place here, among Cavale’s shabby secondhand furniture and pressboard bookcases. But she sank down onto the couch and clutched a throw pillow to her chest like she’d been curling up on it for years.
“What’s going on?” asked Cavale.
“Sunny’s terrified. I am too, but this . . . She didn’t go to work today. When I told her I was headed to the college, she freaked. We . . . We had a fight about it.”
He thought of his own argument with Elly and winced. He knew how Sunny felt. “Are you guys okay?”
She plucked at a loose thread. “Yeah. We worked it out. But I don’t want her to be scared anymore. It’s only been a day since we found out Udrai might be around somewhere, but we’ve been afraid of an incident like this since we came here. If it’s not him that finds us out, it’ll be someone else down the road. We can’t shove our heads in the sand and hope you can make it go away every time. That’s not the kind of life either of us wants.”
He couldn’t deny her that. It would put him firmly on Sunny’s shit list, but Cavale was tired of dead ends. Aside from being a friend, Lia was a damned good resource, if she knew Udrai. “What do you want to do?”
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “Show me what you’ve found.”
That wasn’t a step he’d imagined she’d suggest. His mental list of books they could pore over or rituals she could walk him through fell apart. “Isn’t that kind of a big risk to take?”
“If it’s a devotee of his, they won’t have any idea what or who I am. And if that’s the case, we can go down to yellow alert instead of red. Maybe be able to help you out a bit more overtly.”
“And if Udrai’s with him, giving orders?”
“He doesn’t know this face.” Lia got up and went over to the dresser Cavale used to store his ritual tools in. Bottles of oils and pigments covered the top, along with a set of paintbrushes of varying widths and the mortar and pestle he used for mixing various magical concoctions. “I want you to put a spell on me. The one you do that makes people look the other way.”
“Lia, that’s for things. Places. If you give me the day I can find one for people, but—”
“I’m not people,” she said, and for a moment there were two of her: pretty blond Lia, phys ed teacher and fashion plate; and her true self, towering, deadly, beautiful and terrible together—Galadriel, had she taken the Ring. That second Lia faded, and she smiled up at Cavale from her human face. “I can change it a little. Enough to hide . . . that. If I mix my magic with yours, bury it underneath, he won’t feel it. Shouldn’t.”
The problem with arguing with a succubus was, they had an answer for everything. He’d once asked how they knew what faces to wear for people, in their former lives. Sunny’d called it instinct mixed with mind reading and a dash of precognition. They couldn’t suss out your actual thoughts, but they got the gist of your feelings and acted accordingly. They molded their appearance faster than the eye could follow, tweaking as they went until they settled on the perfect face for whomever they were with. It worked with conversations, too, tipped them off to what topics to bring up, which to avoid.
They usually didn’t use it on their friends, they’d assured him.
Usually.
In this instance, he could forgive it. Lia needed to convince him, and he wanted to be convinced. It worked out.
He drew the don’t-see-me symbols on her forehead and the backs of her hands, and while her appearance didn’t change, his sense of her did. You worked with magic long enough, you could start to sniff it out nearby. He’d always felt a low buzz around Sunny and Lia, humming away at the edge of his conscious like a muted television: a sound you forgot about until it stopped. It stopped now, and Lia beamed. “You’re a genius,” she said. “Let’s go.”
On their way down the hill, his phone buzzed. Elly at last:
Going into Boston. We’ll talk when I get home.
Lia wasn’t subtle; she craned her neck to read the text. “Whoa. You just went all tense. What’s going on?”
He sighed, not sure what to say in response—to Lia or to Elly. “We had a fight, too.” Unable to look at Lia and see the sympathy on her face, he tapped out a reply: Stay safe. Here if you need. Then, much as it galled him to do so, he sent a follow-up: Call Chaz. He has info for you on necro & woman from Brotherhood. He wanted to call her, to say I’m sorry. Come home. Please. But that would only make her drive north faster.
Lia waited until he slipped the phone back into his pocket, then took his arm in hers. “You’ll be all right. You and Elly have a lot to work through still. Sunny’d probably have technical terms for it all, but truth is, it’s only been a month. You’re going to butt heads now and then.”
“This is different.”
She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. Of all the people they knew, Lia and Sunny would have the best advice, but this was too raw, too personal. It was the old need to circle the wagons speaking, Father Value’s insistence that they could handle anything the world threw at them, that others weren’t to be trusted. Cavale knew better by now, that the old man’s adages were—when it came to non-monster subjects—shit, but he also knew Elly. And knew himself. They had to try fixing it themselves first, or it wouldn’t work, period. Because Value’s ghost hung over them both, no necromancer needed.
He didn’t articulate any of that to Lia. Didn’t need to, really. Either her succubus instincts told her, or his body language, or several years of the things he’d left unsaid about his past let her make the leap. She put her head on his shoulder for a few steps, slipped her arm about his waist, and he felt a little less alone.
At the bottom of the hill, though, he started feeling crowded. Trina hadn’t called him since they’d parted the day before, but here was her car, pulled up to the curb a few houses down, at a quarter to five in the morning. Trina herself was nowhere to be seen.
“Shit,” said Cavale. “Lia, this is your last chance to go back home and let us handle things.”
She pulled away from him, into a wary fight-or-flight stance. “What is it?”
“The woman who owns this car, her husband died a few months ago. The necromancer’s offered her a chance to see him again. I’d warned her off, but . . .”
“But someone’s seen Ghost a few too many times?”
“Pretty much. If she’s here, it means he’s active.”
“Well then,” said Lia. “Lay on, Macduff.”
* * *
THE HOUSE WAS full of ghosts.
They’d come in through the back, Cavale jimmying the lock and leading Lia into the darkened kitchen. Light from the front room threw long shadows down the hall, and at first he thought their movement was simply that of dancing flames.
Then his eyes adjusted, and they resolved into shapes. Human shapes, six of them queued up at the threshold like customers waiting for the next teller at the bank. Old and young, male and female, waiting listlessly for . . . what?
Lia clutched his arm. “I can feel it,”
she whispered. “Udrai’s power.”
“Is it him?”
She held still, listening. For a second, he felt the low tingle at the edge of his perception that was her magic. Then it faded, and Lia frowned. “No. I don’t think so. But it’s . . . strange. It’s too strong not to be him, but it feels wrong.” She jerked in surprise, then stared around, her jaw dropping. “Cavale, they’re . . . everywhere.”
He tried following her gaze, but all he could see were himself and Lia, and the lined-up ghosts. “What are?”
“Spirits. All of them just . . . waiting.”
He couldn’t see them, not without performing a spell that might tip the necromancer off to their presence. Yet now that she’d called attention to them, he discovered he could feel them, brushing at the edges of his thoughts. Cavale wasn’t clairvoyant; all his readings at work were based on what the cards or the tea leaves told him, but they were there nonetheless.
“He’s drawing them,” said Lia. “They don’t want to be here.”
“Then let’s see if we can’t send them home.” He scuttled forward, down the hall alongside the corporeal ghosts. On some of them, Udrai’s mark peeked out from beneath shirtsleeves or crawled up their necks. They didn’t turn to regard Cavale and Lia as they skulked past, bent low to avoid being seen. The ghosts merely stood, listless and silent, held there by the necromancer’s will.
Low murmurs came from the front room. Cavale recognized Trina’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. He got down, close to the ground, hoping the necromancer would attribute any stray movement to a ghost shuffling, or the candlelight making the shadows flicker. He peeked around the door frame.
The room was mostly bare: a couch, a chair, an end table. Battery-powered hurricane lamps and cookie sheets covered in candles lit the room, illuminating Trina in harsh white light on one side and soft yellow on the other. She sat on the couch, in the arms of the man they’d seen in the street the day before: her husband, James. Trina’d been crying. Her hands fluttered over James’ face, his arms, his back, as though proving to herself he was truly there.
In the armchair, leaned back, legs crossed, watching them, was the necromancer.
“Son of a bitch,” Cavale breathed. Last he’d seen the guy, he’d been loitering outside of Hecate’s Cabinet, passing out business cards to the shop’s customers. He’d shed the coat and hat but still had his scarf bundled around his neck. It might have been the hurricane light, but he looked sickly: skin grey, bags beneath his eyes. He brought up his arm to cough into his elbow, the way he’d done outside the shop. Cavale moved back, away from the doorway so the necromancer wouldn’t see or hear him.
“You know him?” Lia was close, but out of sight.
“I’ve seen him before.” Damn it. If I’d been paying attention I could have had him two days ago. But what would he have done? Assaulted the man in broad daylight and be the one to get arrested? Even if he had realized who he was dealing with at the time, there wasn’t much he could have done. Cavale moved out of the way so she could get a quick peek herself.
She only looked for a second, ducking back with a sigh of relief. “It’s not Udrai. But.” She opened her mouth and sucked in a breath, the way wine tasters did to get the air flowing over their taste buds. “It’s his magic. Not, like, channeled through him, or gifted. Actually his, all stored up like a well inside the man.”
“That mean Udrai is dead, do you think?”
“No. We wouldn’t be so lucky.”
“Damn.” He dared another look. The necromancer was consulting his watch and making notes in a logbook. Trina and James were in deep conversation, oblivious to their surroundings, ignoring the man who sat watching them. “Enough of this,” said Cavale. He’d brought a small selection from his usual kit. The lightest things: salts and obsidian dust, a fat quartz crystal, a butterfly knife whose handle he’d covered in runes and sigils.
Before he could spring into the room, though, Lia held him back. “No. Not yet.”
“What?”
“Wait until she goes.” She tilted her chin toward Trina. “This has ended in horror for her once already. Let’s not add to that.”
“She wouldn’t want her husband held against his will. This is . . . The necromancer’s not going to let James show it, but it’s torture for him.” He remembered James’ manifestation at the shop, that staticky scream that had started it off. How the tears had spilled as Cavale tried to tell him good-bye in Trina’s stead.
“You see.” She was doing that emotion-skimming now, had to be. Her eyes were far away, like she was listening to music from another room. She’s reading him, and picking me up as a bonus. “It hurts him. But he’s handling it. He gets to see her again, too.”
She was right. Cavale couldn’t fathom what Trina had gone through when she got that phone call. If he were to burst in there, calling out spells and waving his knife around, whatever bittersweet good-byes Trina and James were exchanging now would fast become a nightmare. But were they good-byes? Or was this asshole going to milk her for as many meetings as he could? Doesn’t matter. If this is the last time she sees him, it ought not end in blood.
He sat back and closed his knife. Lia nodded as reassuringly as she could, considering the circumstances.
The meeting went on for another five minutes before the necromancer spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said, not unkindly, “but time’s up. Bringing your husband through is taxing for both of us, and I won’t be able to keep the veil parted for much longer. You understand, surely.”
“I . . . I do.” Trina hesitated. Cavale knew that hitch in her breath: it meant she was about to ask a question whose answer she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Mr. West, is there a way to bring him back? Permanently, I mean?”
It was a salesman’s pause, a carrot being readied for dangling. “We could try. But the materials I’d need to do it, they’re hard to come by. Precious, some of them. Rare, others. You can see from our surroundings I’m not quite set up for that sort of high ritual.”
“I can help,” said Trina, and it was only Lia’s hand clamped on his wrist that kept Cavale from running out there and putting an end to the sham.
“I’ll get a list together and be in touch, then,” said the necromancer, West. “Now, say your au revoirs, and I’ll get your coat.”
Rustling as all three stood, a few last, choked sobs from Trina, and a moment later James came drifting past where Cavale and Lia crouched. The liveliness was fading from his eyes as he crossed the threshold, growing cold and uncaring as the others in the queue. Then he caught sight of the two of them and he stopped. His face unslackened as hope bloomed.
Cavale placed a finger to his lips.
Help me, James mouthed. He turned to look back as the front door closed.
Cavale nodded and opened his knife once more. “Now,” he said to Lia, and pushed through into the living room. He didn’t get far.
The necromancer stood facing them, his back to the door, hands clasped behind him: a dignitary greeting petitioners. “She’s a good customer.”
So much for getting the jump on him. Much as he’d like to rush forward and take the man out, Cavale knew better. You didn’t make a run at a necromancer while you were still within arm’s reach of the ghosts he controlled. “You’re exploiting her grief.” Cavale stepped farther into the room warily. Never trust an enemy was one of Father Value’s early rules. Later had come If you can’t see their hands, they’re likely holding your doom.
“I’m giving her what she wants. It’s no different than the readings she goes into your shop for. Wait, it is different. It’s better.”
“You have a choice. Get out of my town or I’ll throw you out.”
That struck West as funny. He brayed laughter, so loud and so hard it turned into a coughing fit that left him doubled over, wheezing and fighting for breath.
Cavale
knew an opening when he saw one. He launched himself forward, intent on getting the necromancer to the ground. Lia was on his heels.
West flung a hand up, and Cavale saw the bloody sigil smeared on his palm. Where’d that come from? He wasn’t bleeding from anywhere Cavale could see.
There wasn’t time to chase it down. The presences that had been skittering at the cusp of his awareness went quiet.
All except for one. It giggled madly, shrilly, from right behind him. Poltergeist. He’s called a fucking— The giggling dropped sharply, and he felt the grip of invisible hands on his ankles. It yanked him off his feet. Instinct made him twist at the last second, his shoulder taking the impact rather than, say, his jaw. A weight settled on his side, heavy enough that it became an effort to draw a full breath.
Lia grunted as she went sailing across the room, as though there were a rope tied to her waist, pulling her backward. She hit the wall and scrabbled at her throat as the poltergeist lifted her up and up and up. Her heels drummed against the plaster as she tried to squirm free.
The necromancer straightened, palm still raised. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone for another week? Another three or four days? I’ve left you be, even when you and your friends were making a mess of my work. I counted up my losses and moved on. Just a little more time, that’s all I wanted.” He coughed again, and Cavale realized where he’d gotten the blood for his palm. He spat a wad of it into his other hand and wiped it on his hip. “Just a little more time.”
“You’re dying.”
“I don’t have to.” He cocked his head. “But you can. And that will help me immensely. Kill them,” he called, and in the hallway, the ghosts stirred. “I’ll come back later and take your finger bones,” he said, “and then you’ll serve me, too.”
Grave Matters: A Night Owls Novel Page 25