Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  There were four ghosts chained to the two men who now approached. Two of them were women, one only slightly older than Emma or Allison and the other older than Emma’s mother. The two boys, however, were exactly that: boys. One looked as if he could pass for six on a good day. The other she guessed had been nine or ten at the time of his death.

  The dead, to Emma’s eyes, looked very much as if they were still alive. There was one significant difference, though. She could never tell, looking at the dead, what color their eyes were. It didn’t matter if she knew what the color had been before their death, either. Her father’s eyes—and, more significant, Nathan’s—were the same as the rest. They seemed slightly luminescent in the dark of night, but that luminescence shed no color; it was like an echo of the essence of light. Maybe it was pure reflection. Her father had told her that there was a place to which the dead were drawn and that, for roughly two years, that place was all they could see.

  All they wanted to see.

  Eye color wasn’t the only thing the four dead people were missing. They lacked any expression at all as they stood silent, still, unmoving. In that, they looked like corpses. Emma knew she could scream at—or to—them, and they would hear as much as an actual corpse, and respond the same way. She thanked whatever god existed that Allison couldn’t see them.

  Nathan, however, could.

  “Stay back,” she told him, voice low. “Stay with me.”

  With the dead as escorts, the two men began to move; they walked slowly. Nathan started whistling the theme song to an old Western his dad used to watch. Emma wanted to laugh. She also wanted to run.

  One of the two men gestured; white fire rose on either side of the road. It stretched from a point just behind the men to a point well behind where Emma, Allison, and Petal were. They now stood in a tunnel.

  Allison’s sharp intake of breath made it clear that the fire, unlike the ghosts, was visible.

  “So,” Emma said, backing up. “This is supposed to make me trust you?”

  “No,” the taller of the two men replied. “It’s supposed to keep us safe.” His eyes were now the color of a dead man’s eyes, he’d absorbed so much power.

  Emma stopped moving.

  Eyes narrowed, she could see the delicate strands of golden light around the Necromancers’ hands and wrists. If she were closer—and close was so not where she wanted to be—she would see those strands as chains, like the chains of a necklace or a delicate bracelet. Unlike jewelry, the chains ended in the figurative heart of a person—a dead person. If she could grab those chains, she could break them, depriving the Necromancers of the source of their power.

  Petal was growling nonstop. Emma felt the hair on the back of her neck rise; she felt the howl of a sudden, arctic wind and turned, leaving her dog to keep watch.

  The road behind her back was gone. In its place, rising up past the boughs of the old trees that lined the street on the wrong side of the fence, was a standing arch composed almost entirely of the same fire that blocked escape on two sides.

  “We don’t have time to explain things here,” the tall man continued. “So we’ve arranged a little trip.” He frowned, said something to the man beside him. Emma reached out and caught Allison’s hand, pulling her close. As she did, strands of white flame shot out from the right side of the road and wrapped themselves around Allison. The fire was cold.

  “Stop it!” Emma shouted. “Let her go!”

  The taller man shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a calm and reasonable voice. “But she’s seen us, and she’s not one of us. In future, you’ll understand why it’s important to leave no witnesses behind.”

  Emma grabbed the white strand that was tightening its grip on Ally’s throat. It was bloody cold; ice would have been warmer. Contact with it numbed her fingers instantly.

  This is why I wanted you to run! she thought, struggling—and failing—to get a grip on the tendril of fire. Ally was turning purple; her knees buckled. Petal leaped at the man who’d been doing most of the talking, and Emma couldn’t even watch; she was trying—and failing—to force the fire to let go of her best friend’s throat.

  “Em,” Nathan said. He caught her hand in his; his hands, like the hands of all the dead, were cold. She didn’t try to pull away; she knew that Allison’s only hope lay in Nathan. In his hands and in hers. Nathan was dead. Emma was a Necromancer. If she could use his power, she could save Ally.

  “I’ll go with you,” she told the Necromancers. “I won’t fight—but you’ve got to let her go.”

  “You’ll go with us anyway,” the younger of the two said.

  The pressure of the strand didn’t let up. Emma swallowed and began to pull the only power she had access to: Nathan’s. He offered it; he offered it willingly. As she took it in, her hands began to tingle. No white glow gloved them; it wasn’t that kind of binding. But it didn’t matter. Emma could now see how the strand was connected to Allison, and she could—and did—melt it off. Allison was gasping for breath as Emma turned. The men were closer now; the younger of the two looked both annoyed and surprised.

  The older just looked weary.

  “It was the least painful way for her to die,” he told Emma, in a gentle voice. “But there are others, and they are more certain.” He gestured again, and this time—this time she recognized the fire that lay in his palm, like a roiling ball. It was green. Chase had called it soul-fire.

  It had almost killed him—and it would kill Allison if it hit her.

  Emma didn’t know what to do with the power she had. She didn’t know how to use it, how to defend herself—or anyone else—with it.

  “Please,” she said, voice low and shaking. “Just let her go. I’ll go with you. I won’t fight. Just—let her go.”

  The taller of the two shook his head, although there was a weight to his expression that hadn’t been there before. “I can’t,” he replied. “It’s against the law.”

  “Everything you’re doing now is against the law!”

  “Mortal law doesn’t concern Necromancers, Emma Hall. It doesn’t concern you anymore, although you don’t understand that yet. You have a gift—”

  “It’s the same as yours,” she said quickly, her hands now warm in Nathan’s because she was drawing power from him. “It’s the same as yours—and this is not how I want to use it!”

  “You’ll learn. All your friend loses is a few years. A few years, in the existence of the dead, is nothing.”

  “She’s not dead—”

  “She will spend far, far more of her existence dead than she will alive, even if she lives to see old age. Come, Emma. If you feel you must, in the decades to come, you can return here and find her; if you grow in power and stature within the City, you can command her, and she will come to where you wait.”

  He threw the fire.

  He threw it, and Emma reached out and caught it with her arm; it splashed, as if it were liquid, and spread instantly across the whole of her coat. Real fire wouldn’t have done that.

  The Necromancer’s eyes widened in either shock or horror. He was still too far away to tell.

  Allison was nearer, and she started to reach out, but Nathan barked at her, and she stopped. She could see Nathan now. Emma was holding onto him.

  Emma was doing more than that. The fire wasn’t hot, but it wasn’t cold. It burned, but it didn’t burn hair or skin; it burned something beneath it.

  “You fool!” the Necromancer shouted. Power spread out from him in a fan; it was distorted by the rising waves of green.

  She reached for Nathan almost blindly, and she set what he gave to her, his very presence, against the spread of the fire itself. She didn’t tell Allison to run—there was nowhere to run to. She didn’t look to see if her dog lay dead in the streets, because there was nothing at all she could do about him n
ow.

  Where Nathan’s power surged through her, the fire stopped its painful spread. But it didn’t bank; it ate away at what he’d given her. She could take everything he offered—everything—and she might extend the fight with the flame for long enough to put it out. And then? He’d be here, unable to talk or interact or do anything.

  But she couldn’t stop herself; she couldn’t disentangle their hands; she took what he offered, fighting every step of the way.

  She wasn’t prepared for the way the green fire suddenly guttered, and she stumbled, still holding Nathan’s hand. She was surprised that his weight supported hers, but she didn’t have time to think about it: Looking up at the Necromancers, she saw that the one who had thrown the fire had fallen to his knees. His eyes were wide; she could see their whites from here.

  Behind him, she could see Chase.

  * * *

  Eric swore. Chase heard the words at a distance because he left them behind at a sprint. Two men stood side by side in the street. Beyond them, Emma and Allison were backing up. Emma appeared to be talking; she’d lifted both of her hands, as if in surrender.

  Allison was silent.

  Chase saw the white-fire corridor spring up to either side of the two girls. He saw the hazy swirl of visible light behind them, and he swore himself; he knew what it meant. The Necromancers didn’t intend to head back to their apartment for passports and plane tickets; they intended to walk home, with Emma between them.

  Allison would be a footnote. Allison, who stumbled. Emma stopped immediately, huddling at her side; she lifted her face. He was close enough to hear her words. Close enough to see the white filament around Allison’s neck as it melted. He sucked in air, picked up speed, lightened his step as much as he could; he wouldn’t have much time before the Necromancers became aware of him.

  But he wouldn’t need it.

  He gave up on stealth the minute he saw the green-fire globe form in the Necromancer’s hand. He wasn’t going to make it in time. He wasn’t going to be able to drop the Necromancer before he threw the fire.

  “Allison!”

  Necromancers didn’t spend years learning how to throw; aim, when it came to soul-fire, didn’t matter. Blindfolded, they could still hit their targets. There was only one certain way to douse soul-fire: Kill the Necromancer. There were less certain ways—but Chase knew whom the soul-fire was meant to kill. And he knew that Allison had no protection against it.

  No protection but Emma and Chase. He knew which of the two counted.

  He threw one of his two knives; it struck the man cleanly between the upper shoulder blades. He made it count, leaping to grab the handle of the knife as the Necromancer’s arms windmilled. Chase twisted the knife.

  He yanked the blade out as the man fell forward, blood spreading across the new gap in the back of his jacket. Chase looked up, then, to see that Allison was not on fire. Emma was—but the fire, like the Necromancer, was dying. He grudgingly revised his estimate of Emma’s usefulness.

  The second Necromancer turned. The white walls on either side of the street faded as he pulled his power back. He made no attempt to help his partner; he had no hope of saving him, and they both knew it.

  Instead, he ran. If he could make it past Allison and Emma, if he could make it to the portal, he’d survive. He thought he had a chance. As Eric leaped past Chase in the night streets, Chase grinned.

  * * *

  Allison’s skin was red where the white filament had twined round her throat. Her fingers, on the other hand, were blue, and her hands were shaking. She’d managed to half-knock her glasses off her face.

  “Ally?”

  “I can breathe.” Not without coughing, though; her voice sounded hoarse.

  “Allison!” Chase had saved Allison’s life. On television, rescue usually came in the form of someone a lot less blood spattered. Chase was, once again, wearing a variant on the world’s ugliest jacket.

  Allison lifted one hand; it was shaking. “I’m alive,” she said. “We’re both alive. Where’s Petal?”

  “Here,” Eric’s voice came from somewhere behind Chase; Chase was close enough it was hard to see around him. Petal was whining, which meant he wasn’t dead.

  “We need to get out of here,” Eric told them. He was staring down the road, and Emma turned to look that way as well. The arch was slowly fading, its cold light giving way to the night of streetlamp and road.

  “Where did it lead?” Emma asked.

  “To the City of the Dead,” he replied, without looking at her. Petal’s tail started to move, and he set the dog down. The Necromancers hadn’t killed him. He glanced at the two dead bodies that lay in the middle of the street. “Chase, give the old man the heads up.”

  Chase, however, was kneeling beside Allison. Allison felt dizzy and nauseated, but she knew, looking at his expression, that this wasn’t the time for either. She smiled. She forced herself to smile at him.

  He grimaced and rolled his eyes. “Don’t even try,” he told her. He practically shouldered Emma out of the way. Allison caught only a glimpse of Emma’s expression before Chase’s shoulder covered her face.

  “It wasn’t Emma’s fault,” she said, between clenched teeth.

  He slid an arm beneath hers and lifted her to her feet. “I didn’t say it was.”

  “Chase—”

  “Not here,” he told her. “Not now.”

  She would have argued—she almost did—but she realized that part of the trembling she felt wasn’t her own. The fact that Chase, spattered in blood, was shaking, silenced her.

  * * *

  “Emma?”

  Emma smiled wanly. “I’m fine.”

  Eric’s brows rose. “I haven’t known you long,” he finally said. “But ‘fine’ in Hall parlance doesn’t mean much.”

  “No?”

  “No. You’re just closing the door in the face of external concern.”

  She grimaced. “I’m fine, Eric. Allison was the one—” She exhaled. She couldn’t see her best friend; Chase’s back was in the way. Pointedly in the way.

  “I’m okay,” Allison said. Her voice was shaky. No surprise, there. The Necromancers hadn’t tried to kill Emma. Just Allison. Because Allison had been stupid enough to join Emma while she walked her dog.

  Her dog bounded toward her, and she felt a surge of both guilt and gratitude. She knelt and let his wet nose leave tracks across her face. People were often put off food by danger; Petal proved that in some ways, he was all dog. She offered him a Milk-Bone, and he ate it.

  “Eric’s worried about you,” Nathan said. Emma startled, which was embarrassing. She ran her hands through her hair and then turned toward Nathan. He didn’t look different.

  “He’s like that,” Emma replied. “Chase—the redhead with the broad shoulders—doesn’t care if I die.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it. He was worried about Ally, though.”

  “It’s why I can’t hate him,” Emma said, speaking quietly so Allison wouldn’t hear her. “He’s attractive, he’s confident, he’s—I don’t know. A guy. But he does like her. He didn’t even notice Amy—and I can’t think of another living male who hasn’t.”

  Nathan smiled. “It’s hard not to notice Amy. If most women are bullets, Amy’s a nuclear bomb—overkill on all levels.”

  Emma didn’t even feel a twinge of jealousy; she would have, once. Eric glanced at Nathan.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She was. She’d forgotten that Eric could see the dead. Eric, who wasn’t a Necromancer, who wasn’t suspicious, and who Chase had not come to Toronto to kill. “Eric, this is Nathan. Nathan, this is Eric.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Eric said. He didn’t hold out his hand.

  Neither did Nathan; they stood sizing each other up in an almost painfully obvious way. Emma cleared her
throat. “We were going to leave?”

  Eric nodded. “The old man’s coming to clean up. But you’re not going home yet.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Our place.”

  * * *

  Chase was pissed off. Emma wasn’t in the best of moods herself, but she wasn’t angry with Chase; he, however, was clearly annoyed with her. He inserted himself firmly between Emma and Allison and made clear by the direction his shoulder was turned—toward Emma—that that was where he was staying, period. Ally didn’t notice; Chase had his arm around her shoulder and she wasn’t saying anything. She was white as a sheet.

  Nathan walked on the other side of Allison, glancing at her from time to time. He made no attempt to touch her or speak with her—it was pointless—but seemed to take comfort from offering her his entirely invisible support.

  Petal stuck like proverbial glue to Emma’s side. He did attempt to eat a Milk-Bone through her pocket; she shoved his nose aside—his wet, warm nose—to save her jacket from saliva and teeth marks.

  For a group that had survived death by Necromancy, it was pretty grim. The blood really didn’t help. Eric’s hands were still red; his shirt, his coat, and part of his face were sticky with blood. It wasn’t his—which did help—but it was disturbing. Mostly, it was disturbing because he didn’t appear to notice or care. Both he and Chase acted as though this sort of thing happened every day. Or every night.

  “Eric,” Chase said, “I’m taking Allison home.”

  Emma stopped walking. “No, you’re not. Not looking like that.”

  Chase bristled. “Would you like to keep her here so someone else can try to kill her?”

  Allison made a strangled sound and ducked out from under Chase’s arm. “Don’t say that!” She was trembling, she was white, and she was—and this hurt—frightened. But she was also angry, and that added a bit of welcome color to her cheeks.

  Chase grimaced. “Allison—”

  “Don’t ever say that again. Emma didn’t want me to stay—I wanted to stay.”

  “And now you know why it’s a very bad idea. Look, Allison, I know the two of you are friends—”