Living With the Dead

by Kelley Armstrong

  "As a mercenary - hired gun, hired spy, hired con artist, whatever - you're a professional liar." She met his gaze. "Right?"

  He tugged his cap brim, as if adjusting it, a subconscious attempt to pull back under its shadows. A man who preferred the security of anonymity.

  "A professional liar can outwit an Expisco," Hope said.

  "Not if you were properly trained."

  How much did he know about Expiscos? This was the second time his words suggested she wasn't the first one he'd met. The demon jumped to attention, straining forward with questions. Hope hauled it in and muzzled it.

  "What possible reason would I have to fake-rescue you?" Rhys said. "To lead me to Adele? You have no idea where she is."

  "Okay, then. I'm useless. So let me go."

  "You aren't useless to me. I brought one operative on this mission, and your boyfriend killed him. I need help, and I have a feeling you're going to be a lot more useful on this mission than Grant."

  "What mission?"

  "You haven't asked why the Cabal let me escape that hotel room. What does Irving want?"

  This wasn't the time for a pop quiz. But as Hope squirmed, she could tell she wasn't getting out of these strap cuffs until he let her. "You know where Adele is. Irving has figured out you're not handing her over. He thinks if he swoops down on us and you escape, you'll run off to warn her. Lead him to her. That's why he had one of his men suggest they know where she is."

  "Suggest?" Rhys laughed. "That was one of the most obvious tricks I've seen. There's a reason Irving hasn't shot through the Cabal ranks."

  He took a penknife from his pocket and flicked it open.

  "Your hands," he said.

  "I'd like to keep them."

  "And you aren't going to if you keep yanking at that strap, digging it in deeper." He flipped Hope around and sliced off the cuffs. "Now we need to get that cleaned up. I have a first-aid kit in my car. Then we're going to the kumpania." Seeing her expression, he shook his head. "You don't even know what that is, do you? Remember what I said about being in over your head? The kumpania is where we'll find Adele."

  "But that's exactly - "

  " - what Irving wants me to do? Yes."

  "I'm not helping the girl who - "

  "I'm not warning Adele. I'm warning Neala." Again, he saw her confusion. "Colm's mother."

  "Your wife."

  He shook his head, gazed down as he returned the knife to his pocket. "Not for a very long time. But she saved my life once. I owe her."

  "So you're going to warn her about the Cabal."

  "And, more immediately, about Adele. Which she already suspected. I just didn't listen. She tried - "

  He broke off, shaking his head and prodding her along the fence line.

  Hope dug in. "Whatever problem you have, it's your problem. Mine is Karl and Robyn. I don't even know where Robyn is - "

  "Picked up by the Cabal, I'm sure. You want them back from the Cabal SWAT team, and I want to get to the kumpania without that SWAT team on my tail. The two goals, I think you'll agree, are not mutually exclusive." He took her elbow. "Come on."

  * * *

  FINN

  That sprint along the motel had burned off Finn's anger, and when he saw Robyn clutching the gun, the first thing he noticed was not the black hole of a barrel, but those slender hands trembling. Robyn struggled to hold her expression immobile, eyes narrowed, in a desperate attempt to hide her terror. It was a look Finn knew well. He'd seen it on too many people at the other end of a gun, fighting to show that they weren't scared, that they would pull that trigger, and that made them ten times more dangerous than the most hardened gangbanger. Because at the smallest move, the slightest sound, they fire before their brain could interfere.

  "You don't want to do this," he said.

  Robyn's laugh wobbled as much as her hands. "Are you going to remind me of the penalty for shooting an officer of the law, Detective? I bet that comes in handy, doesn't it? Your boss sends you after someone like me, and if I stand up to you, you just play the cop card, make me think twice about defending myself."

  "My boss?"

  "The people you work for."

  "I work for the city of - "

  "Cut the crap, Detective Findlay. Hope already figured out your game."

  "Hope?"

  "Ah, so now you're going to pretend you never met her."

  "If you mean your friend, Hope Adams - "

  "That's the only Hope both of us know. Only you didn't know her as well as you thought. You overlooked that magic power detector of hers."

  "Magic power?" He remembered interviewing Adams, remembered being afraid she'd somehow pick up on his secret.

  "Are you going to parrot everything I say? I bet that's what they teach you at double-agent school, huh? In case of exposure, whatever your interrogator says, repeat it back?"

  "Double-agent - " He stopped himself. "I don't know what - "

  " - I'm talking about. Lesson two: deny everything. Now you'll tell me that Hope's wrong, you don't have supernatural powers."

  He felt his jaws part. He wouldn't go so far as to say it dropped, but it definitely opened.

  "Better yet, gape at me like I've lost my mind."

  He shut his mouth.

  "Over the last few days," she continued, "I have had very good cause to question my sanity, but if I know one thing right now, it's that I'm not crazy and nothing you can say is going to convince me otherwise. Now, are you going to tell me you don't have supernatural powers?"

  He should deny it. He'd been raised to do that until he was married, and then only to tell his wife, warning her the same way he would if his genes carried a disorder.

  But Robyn Peltier would see his lie. She'd condemn him for it worse than she'd ever condemn him for the truth. Considering she was a fugitive currently holding a gun on him, her opinion shouldn't matter. But it did. And he knew if he was going to solve this case, and find not only justice but truth, his answer - and her opinion - would be critical.

  "No," he said.

  "So you are going to deny it."

  "I mean no, I'm not going to deny it."

  She took a second to recover, loosening and regripping the gun.

  "Can you put that down?" he asked.

  "Right now, this gun is the only thing guaranteeing me the truth."

  "No." He met her gaze. "It isn't."

  She faltered again, her fingers peeling off and finding new holds. Then, slowly, she lowered it to her side.

  "You have them, don't you?" she said.

  "Who?"

  "Hope and Karl."

  "I don't have any - "

  "Your employer does, then."

  "My employer - " Finn exhaled, air whistling through his teeth. "Okay, let's back up. Who do you think I work for?"

  "The man in the photograph. The one Portia sent to me, that started this whole thing."

  "You mean Irving Nast?" He took out his badge. "This didn't come from a cereal box, Robyn. You can call in the number right now and check. I'm a real detective."

  "Of course you are. That's the beauty of it. They get you on the LAPD and anytime a crime involves you people - "

  "You people?"

  She flushed, as if caught making a racial slur. "Your... your sort. People with... supernatural powers. Werewolves, demons, clairvoyants, whoever works for the Nasts. If they get into trouble - or cause it - you swoop in and clean up, keep your world a secret."

  There was, Finn reflected, a bizarre logic to that... once you got past the part about werewolves and demons employed by a nefarious organization posing as a Fortune 500 corporation, which, he admitted, was rather a large roadblock.

  "Irving Nast... ?" was all he could say.

  Robyn crossed her arms, gun dangling from her fingers, fixing him with a sharp look of disapproval. They'd finally gotten past the parroting and denials, and now he was backsliding.

  "If I'm working for Irving Nast, why was I at his office a few hours ago?
"

  Her disapproval slid into disgust. Obviously if he was working for Irving Nast, he'd have reason to meet with him.

  "I went to question him on this case," he said. "Instead I met Sean Nast. Does that ring a bell?"

  "Should it?"

  "Ask Hope. She met him an hour ago - right after I left the Nast offices. You think that's a coincidence?"

  She uncrossed her arms.

  "Hope did meet with someone, right?" he prodded.

  "Yes, a contact."

  "Who was Sean Nast, the guy I met, who stonewalled me, shooed me out of his office, then raced off to meet your friend. So I would suggest I'm not the one working for the Nasts."

  Robyn shook her head, her arms falling to her sides now. "Not Hope. Sean Nast is her contact in that organization. You talked to him, so he called her..."

  "And I followed her from that meeting to this motel. All of which should mean I don't work for Irving Nast."

  It wasn't a bulletproof argument and her look told him so, but she did ease back, thinking.

  "You do have some supernatural power, though, right?"

  "If you call it that."

  "Hope said you're a necromancer."

  That was the second time this week he'd heard that word. He didn't like the way it made him feel - uneasy and unbalanced. Like being the star in every school play, coming to L.A. and finding yourself one of a thousand actors who'd starred in every school play.

  "I have no idea what a necromancer is..." Robyn continued.

  It took a moment to notice her watching him expectantly.

  "It means... ghosts," he said. "I see ghosts, communicate with them."

  He braced himself for her eyes to light up, for her to say, "You can talk to the dead? My husband passed away six months ago. Can you... ?" He'd promised Damon he wouldn't tell her, not yet. But if she gave him that look, if those green eyes lit with hope, if she asked...

  But it didn't register. Maybe because he'd said "ghosts" not "the dead." Maybe because, right now, Damon was miles from her mind.

  "You talk to ghosts," she said, nodding as if assimilating. "Okay, that I can live with. It's a lot easier to believe than some of the others."

  "Others?"

  "The - " She stopped, studying him. "You really don't work for the Nasts, do you?"

  He shook his head.

  "You know nothing about the Nasts, do you?"

  He shook his head.

  "But you do know you're a necromancer."

  "If that's what it's called, I guess so. I just know that seeing ghosts runs in my family."

  "But the rest of it... ? Clairvoyants? Demons? Werewolves?"

  "Uh, no."

  "Oh, boy."

  As silence settled over them, a figure flickered to Finn's right, by the side fence. An arm appeared. Then a leg in midstride. Finally a faint figure shimmered, heading his way. A few paces later, Damon popped into full view.

  "Oh, so now you can see me. About time. I've been - " Damon turned the corner and saw Robyn, and his face -

  Finn looked away, feeling like he had when he'd come home from college early one weekend to walk in on Rick proposing to his girlfriend, his face raw with longing and hope. Finn had known she'd turn him down, and that had made it all the more painful to see, knowing the moment couldn't end in anything except disappointment, as this one would for Damon.

  As Finn pretended to look for the ambulance, he scratched the back of his neck, not because it itched, but just to have something to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damon approach Robyn, slowly, warily, as if expecting her to disappear.

  Whatever powers had kept Damon from being near his wife had evidently lifted that ban. Maybe because Finn still needed Damon's help to solve this case, and now he needed Robyn's, too. Or maybe just because it was time to let him see her again.

  "Uh, Finn? Why is my wife holding a gun?"

  Finn turned. Robyn looked confused, as if she was trying to figure out why he'd turned away.

  Damon stood beside her, so close his arm was through her. His brows arched as he gestured to the weapon.

  "Bobby... pulled a gun on you?"

  Finn searched for an excuse. Then Damon smiled, like a man seeing his wife pull a martialarts move he never realized she knew, proud of her ability to defend herself... and touched with sadness that she had to.

  Damon leaned into Robyn. "A brave new world, huh, baby?"

  "You don't know the half of it," Finn muttered.

  "Detective?" Robyn followed his gaze to her side. "Is there... a ghost?"

  Damon pulled back sharply and shot him a look, reminding Finn that he'd promised not to tell Robyn about him. Damon was right - this was no time to tell her. That would come later. After they got through this and she was safe. For now, Damon would just have to be Finn's anonymous spirit helper.

  "She figured out that I see ghosts." He gave Damon a meaningful look. "That's it."

  "Detective?" Robyn said.

  "Yes, it's a... ghost. Can you give us - me - a moment?"

  Finn backed to the corner. He was about to turn away, then remembered the last time he'd left Robyn alone.

  "It's okay," Damon said. "I'm watching her."

  Which he was. Couldn't take his eyes off her, even as he explained to Finn what had happened, how he'd followed Hope to the motel room, then been blocked at the sidewalk and known Robyn must be inside. He went back only to find Finn's ghost radar on the fritz again. He'd been hammering away at Finn for a while before the motel room door opened, and Hope and a man came out.

  "Karl Marsten?" Finn kept his voice low, so Robyn wouldn't overhear.

  "No, a red-haired guy in some team jacket."

  "I saw him."

  Damon told Finn that Adams had been in rough shape. Finn presumed it was from the gas, but he hadn't mentioned that part to Damon, who was already eyeing Robyn like a mother hen with a bedraggled chick. Damon said the man seemed to take Adams against her will, but she'd escaped. He'd been about to run through the side fence, taking a shortcut to follow them. Then he'd seen a van around the back, Karl Marsten in the rear of it.

  "He left Adams?"

  "Not willingly. He was out cold, being loaded in by two guys dressed like SWAT, and I thought you must have called it in. But they'd cut out the bathroom window and taken him through there, so no one would see, which doesn't sound like the LAPD to me."

  "They weren't."

  "So we have private citizens in riot gear, kidnapping a guy through a motel room window, and strong-arming a woman out the front door... in broad daylight? This case is getting stranger by the minute."

  Again, Damon didn't know the half of it, and if Finn stopped to think about it all, he'd get mired in the morass of his confusion.

  "Where's Adams now?" he asked.

  "Over there." Damon pointed to the back fence. "She kicked the crap out of the guy. I know Aikido is supposed to be good self-defense, but man, that was something else. Bobby definitely has to start taking those lessons with her. Way better than a gun."

  "So Adams is okay?"

  "I think so. When they were going at it, I came back to find you, couldn't, went back and they were done brawling. They seemed to be negotiating." He paused, gaze still fixed on Robyn, and rubbed his thumb over his chin. "I guess I should go check on her. Hope, that is."

  Finn tried to think of some way to agree without sounding heartless. They both knew that once Damon left, he might not get this close to Robyn again.

  "I'll go." Damon wrenched his gaze away. As he did, he leaned for a better look at the front lot. "An ambulance just pulled in. Is that for Bobby? Is she okay?"

  "Just thought I should get her checked. Should be a squad car, too. I'll send that over to help Adams."

  Damon hesitated. "Might want to hold off. She's okay and..." He rubbed his chin again before looking at Finn. "What I heard at the sandwich shop? Hope and that Nast guy? It was..."

  "Strange?"

  "Yeah. What did Bobby - ?"<
br />
  "Go keep an eye on Adams."

  Whatever was going on here, he had a feeling that if the police descended on the situation too quickly, answers would dissipate like smoke signals. As Damon loped off to the fence, Finn collected Robyn and headed around front.

  * * *

  HOPE

  A block away, Rhys had parked a nondescript car with local plates. In the car, he efficiently tended Hope's wounds, then managed to pick up the Cabal tail while looking like he was trying to avoid it. Independent operative, hired gun, mercenary... whatever Rhys called himself, he was adept at it, which was good because as a clairvoyant, he sucked.

  Hope gave him props for admitting it. In the supernatural world, the strength of your powers is like intelligence level for humans. Everyone lets on they have it in spades, if only as untapped potential. Saying your powers are weak is as tough as admitting you're not too bright.

  When he tried to check on Karl, he couldn't pick up anything, which suggested Karl was still unconscious. He did get a brief flash of Robyn. She seemed to be sitting on the tailgate of an ambulance. There was a man with her. From the description, it was Detective Findlay.

  After talking to Sean, Hope was sure Findlay had nothing to do with the Cabal. The fact that he'd waltzed through their office doors meant he was either one hell of a ballsy necromancer or he didn't know what the Nast Corporation was. But she hadn't had a chance to tell Robyn that. If she was with the paramedics, though, she must have realized that whatever Findlay was, she was safe for now.

  For now, Robyn did seem safe, and Hope had to leave it at that, because after a brief snapshot of Robyn, Rhys's mental camera screen went blank. Not so much a substandard model, then, as a battery hog, needing plenty of downtime between shots.

  They were being tracked by two vehicles - a black car and a van, which were taking turns in the tailing position. Rhys wasn't fooled.

  "Are you sure Karl is in that van?" Hope asked.

  "Positive."

  "But if you can't see him..."

  "He is. Relax, Hope."

  "I'm being sensible, not sensitive. There's no shortage of vehicles at a Cabal. Why not exchange that van for another, take Karl back and get him locked up before he wakes?"

  "Because they're waiting for him to wake up. Irving isn't particularly bright, but he is resourceful. If I take off on foot and his guys lose me, he has a werewolf."

  "For tracking."

  "Presumably the original plan was to take you as a hostage and force Karl to help."