When I opened my eyes and noted how heavy they felt and how foggy my head was, I knew I was drugged up. My eyes opened to light that was too bright, so I squinted as I tried to figure out where I was. The soft whirring of machines nearby clued me in before I was able to open my eyes fully and blink past the blurriness to see that I was lying on a hospital bed.
When I looked to the side, I saw Micah dozing in a chair and couldn’t help but smile. I then tried to assess my body to see what damage I had taken. My left arm was in a sling, but not a cast, which meant it wasn’t broken. However, the pain in my side meant that I had bruised some ribs. Breathing wasn’t currently an enjoyable activity. There was also a bandage on the side of my head. My legs felt fine.
I guess I wasn’t as banged up as I could have been seeing as Ethan’s body-jacker had left two women hacked up and others shot to death.
“Micah.” It took a minute or two of croaking his name before he roused. He looked relieved to see me awake.
“Hey,” he said, giving me a smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than the body-jacker’s victims,” I said. “How did I end up here?”
“Someone made an anonymous phone call about an attack downtown, and the police and paramedics showed up and found you,” he said. “When they saw your ID and realized you were from AOD, they called us to let us know, and I came right over. It’s early Monday morning now. You have a concussion and bruised ribs.”
“Sounds like I’m gonna live,” I said.
“What were you doing out so late, Selene?”
“The tracking rune picked up Ethan’s body,” I said. “But he took it from me during the scuffle.” I felt around my neck, confirming that it was gone. “I tracked him to the Underground and confronted him in an alley where he kicked my ass and escaped. And, of course, he didn’t let me know who the occupying ghost was. I was going to try and use a rune to capture some of his essence, but I dropped it.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Micah asked. I shrugged.
“I wasn’t really thinking about much other than the fact that the stone was responding,” I said. “I just jumped into my car and drove off. I did manage to shoot him though. And one thing I know for sure is that whoever is in there definitely wanted Athena and Leslie dead. He said ‘they deserved it.’ He also said he wasn’t done, so we’re going to have more bodies on our hands unless we stop him.”
“We need to find a link between Leslie and Athena and who would want them dead,” Micah said, frowning.
“You should get back to the office and keep working on it,” I said. “I’m fine, really.”
He took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “It scared the shit out of me when the call came in that you were in the hospital,” he said. “I dropped everything…”
That, and the look he was giving me made my heart flutter. “Why, Micah, it’s almost as though you care about me.”
“I do,” he said. “I care about you, and I’m mad at you for being reckless.”
“But that’s my style, you know that.” I grinned, and his serious expression cracked and he smiled back. “Seriously, go back to the office and continue working on the case. I’m hoping that being shot will slow him down, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Okay,” Micah said, standing up. Then he hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“I kinda do, but this is more important.” I flashed him a smile, and he gave my hand another squeeze before heading for the door.
“Hey, Micah,” I called. He turned. “Does Andrew know what happened to me?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But he’s been wrapped up in meetings all morning.”
“Oh, okay.” He nodded and left, and I wondered how I felt about the fact that Andrew knew I was injured but hadn’t come to see me, meetings or not. Then I wondered why I was even thinking about that. I shouldn’t have expectations of hospital visits from someone I was having an affair with, who had a wife in the first place. But I realized that I actually thought Andrew would have come, if not because he cared about me beyond what an amazing fuck he thought I was, then because he was my boss.
I sighed. It was my fault for having expectations, even though I hadn’t known I had them. My twisted brain was trying to make me think a married man I was sleeping with would treat me like a priority. Micah, on the other hand, had dropped everything and come, even though I was only sporting a concussion and bruised ribs.
Despite my thoughts about Andrew’s not visiting, I realized I was happier about Micah coming than I would have been if Andrew had. Imagine that.
Chapter Fourteen
A nurse had just finished helping me put my street clothes back on, which were worse for the wear but were all I had to go home in, when there was a knock on the door and I turned to see Ilyse standing there. I smiled at her, but her face looked troubled, so my smile faltered.
“Nice of you to visit, but I’m on my way to sign the release forms and go home,” I said. “I’m not too badly banged up.”
“I’ve been here for a while, actually,” Ilyse said. “When they called the office to let us know what had happened to you, they asked for a dead witch to come down since any ghost energy you carried could interfere with the medication they gave you. I volunteered to come since it was you.”
I gave her another smile, but she still didn’t return it. “Thanks,” I said. “Nurse says I have to leave in a wheelchair. Want to push me around?”
“Can we talk for a minute first?”
The nurse left, and Ilyse sat down on the bed next to me. Ilyse was a quiet person by nature, but I had never seen her this serious before. There were bags under her eyes, and she looked tired and tense. I remembered she was still dealing with the deaths of her fellow dead witches.
“How are you doing in light of Katherine, Lisa, and Ora?”
“I’m as okay as I can be,” she replied. “But I’m really here to talk about you, Selene, and it’s very important.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did they give me medication before you could draw the ghost energy off? If they did, I don’t feel any worse than I should.”
“That’s not it,” Ilyse said. “It’s just that…Selene, I drew off a lot of ghost energy from you. A lot.” The way she emphasized the words “a lot” made my eyes widen.
“Okay,” I said. “I know it’s never good to have too much ghost energy on me, but—”
“I’ve detected the Rot, Selene,” Ilyse said softly, looking sad. I think my heart stopped for a moment. “How could you possibly have incurred that much ghost energy in only a few days? I worked with you a week ago, but it was like you’d been accumulating ghost energy for months without getting any of it siphoned off. It’s faint, but the Rot has definitely started.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was still waiting for my heart to feel like it was beating again and for me to remember how to speak. Ilyse had just said to me what no necromancer ever wanted to hear.
“Selene, do you have any idea how this could have happened?”
She had taken one of my hands, but I couldn’t even feel her touching me. I had gone numb. I swallowed past the dryness in my throat and tried to speak but only sputtered.
“Selene?” Ilyse prompted.
“I haven’t been around more ghosts than usual,” I finally managed to say, though my voice came out soft and hoarse.
“But this is unusual,” she said. “It’s been years since there’s been any record of a necromancer having as much ghost energy on him or her as you did.”
“I don’t understand…”
“It’s almost like you have a ghost bound to you,” Ilyse said. “You would have to be constantly connected to a ghost to rack up such a large amount of energy in such a short span of time.”
My head snapped up at those words. “Bound?” I immediately thought about Ethan. “Is that…is that possible?”
“It shouldn’t be in this day and age,” Ilyse said, her sharp eyes on me. “But I have read about a practice necromancers used to do a long time ago that involved binding ghosts to themselves to strengthen their power. Of course, in those days, the Rot and the damage it did were practically unknown, so those who bound themselves to ghosts met with a quicker death than they might have. The practice was viewed as black magic and eventually became forbidden.” She paused and regarded me. “I should add that not all necromancers could do this; it was specifically reanimators.”
My heart plummeted even further. Ilyse glanced over her shoulder at the open door. She closed it, then sat back down next to me. She took my hand again and gave me a level gaze.
“Selene, if you have something to tell me, now would be the time.”
It made sense to tell Ilyse that I highly suspected something about being in Ethan’s presence had brought on the Rot in me, but I was hesitant to reveal to her that I was a reanimator. Despite drunkenly blabbering to Micah, I really did keep that fact about myself under wraps.
But I had a level of trust with Ilyse that I didn’t have with any of the other dead witches at AOD. If anyone could help me, she could. I took a deep breath and immediately regretted it after a sharp pain erupted in my ribs.
“I am a reanimator,” I said quietly. “And I’ve sort of been keeping the company of a ghost lately. He’s connected to the murder case Micah and I are working on, but it’s not your typical ghost monster case.” I told her the details of the case, and she listened intently. Her expression didn’t change, so I had no idea what she was thinking.
I was freaking out that I had told her I was a reanimator. The part of me that was all about self-preservation was cursing me something fierce right now.
“I see,” Ilyse said when I finished. Her hold on my hand tightened a little. “Selene, I have a confession to make. I always knew you were a reanimator.”
I had no words to describe the shock those words brought forth in me.
“Wh-what?” I sputtered. “How could you possibly have known?” It couldn’t have been through me drunkenly blabbing it to her like I did with Micah. Ilyse would never be caught dead in the seedy bars I liked to frequent.
“Your grandmother and I were close friends,” she said, which made my eyes grow even wider.
“You were friends with Gran?”
She nodded. “Amelia and I were friends from childhood, and I was the only person outside of her family that she told about being a reanimator. When the power manifested in you, she confided in me about that as well, and when you started working here, she asked me to look out for you.”
“But I never saw you around,” I said, looking at Ilyse with a frown. “Not once. Not even at her funeral.”
Ilyse looked sad. “She told me it would be better for us not to seem too close. If she was ever found out as a reanimator, she didn’t want me implicated as well. The government has no mercy for secret keepers. So I never came around. I visited her grave after the funeral and said good-bye to her then.”
“Okay, but…all this time, you’ve known about me? And you never said anything?”
“I liked that you were naturally drawn to me when you started working here,” she said. “And I figured if, one day, I earned that level of trust with you, you would tell me. But you were a smart girl to keep it to yourself.”
Except when I was drinking heavily.
“Something about you reminds me of Gran,” I said. “Now that I think about it. I guess that’s why I was drawn to you.”
Ilyse smiled, but it was still a sad smile. “I’m happy we can talk about this now, but not happy about the circumstances under which it came up. Just being around this ghost isn’t enough to cause the amount of damage I saw in you. Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”
I was about to tell her no, then I stopped myself as a thought occurred to me. Ethan had interrupted me when I was dismantling the circle I’d made to bind my reanimation magic to the binding rune. I was certain the circle had been inactive, but I remembered thinking that the runes had glowed faintly after he touched the circle, which shouldn’t have happened if it had really been inactive. Oh shit.
“Ilyse, do you know how those reanimators used to bind ghosts to them?”
“I don’t remember the specifics as I read these things from old history books a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure it involved a ritual using a specific rune stone.”
“A rune stone that’s probably illegal and hard to find nowadays, right?” I said, swallowing hard.
“I would think so,” Ilyse said.
“Like a stone you’d swipe off someone’s table in the Underground.” I felt a little light-headed, and it wasn’t from the concussion.
“Selene, what are you trying to say?”
“I think I may have inadvertently bound myself to Ethan,” I said.
She inhaled a sharp breath. “How is that possible?”
I told her about the ritual I did to bind my reanimation power so it wasn’t detected, and the fact that Ethan had interrupted me just as I was finishing. I also told her about the binding rune I had stolen from Trevor.
“Does it sound like I may have somehow gotten Ethan bound to me?”
“Yes,” she said. “But if you and this ghost have indeed become bound, there will be more going on than just you gaining stronger power and the Rot. The ghost will be affected too.”
That immediately made me think of Ethan’s realization that he could touch physical things and eat. I told Ilyse about that.
“So is tangibility a side effect for the ghost?” I asked, even though I was sure I already knew the answer.
“It is,” Ilyse said. I suddenly felt weak and sagged against the pillows. “It’s a powerful bond, Selene, you gain strength and the ghost gains a constant connection to your energy, which allows him to have a physical form. It’s just that the ghost doesn’t have to be touching you, and you don’t have to actively pour energy into it.”
“But shouldn’t I be drained then?” I asked. “If I channel energy into a ghost too long, I end up exhausted, so wouldn’t this bond suck me dry?”
“This bond is different,” Ilyse said. “Because it’s more like you two are sharing energy rather than you giving him all your energy.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered. “Anything else?”
“There may be more,” she said. “I’m going to dig around and see what I can find. The literature on this topic is extremely obscure.” She got off the bed, and I made myself sit up, then stand.