Grave Memory: An Alex Craft Novel (24 page)

I tore my gaze from the screen. There, in my doorway,
stood Death, his thumbs tucked casually into the loops of his faded jeans and an easy smile on his face.

I jumped to my feet and then froze because my heart felt like it might leap across the room before me. And I did want to run to him, to touch him and make sure he was real. But if he vanished on me, the crush of disappointment might break every bone in my body.

“Are you really here, or am I finally having a good dream?”

His face turned serious, those intense dark eyes searching me as if looking for a wound he could bind. “Still having nightmares?”

“This is not a social call,” another voice said, and the gray man popped into existence in the room, his cane twirling like a baton.

“Which is why he shouldn’t have come,” a female voice said as a third soul collector, one I’d dubbed the raver because of her white PVC pants, orange tube top, and neon dreadlocks, appeared in the room.

I sank back into my chair, my insides too heavy for my legs to support. “If I’d known there’d be a party tonight, I’d have brought drinks,” I said to none of the collectors in particular.

“Trust me, this is no party,” the raver said, her long nails tapping against the plastic of her pants. “This is an intervention.”

An intervention?
She
had
to be kidding. But when I glanced at Death, his face was serious and he gave me a single, solemn nod. Damn. An intervention of what? They’d already inserted themselves into my relationship with Death to the point this was the first time I’d been in the same room with him in a month.

“You need to drop this case, Alex,” Death said, and I gawked at him.

I couldn’t drop the case. The police didn’t believe the victims were murdered. If I didn’t gather enough proof to convince them of the truth, who would? And then there was the firm’s budding reputation to consider. I couldn’t drop my
first case. Though I had to admit, when someone whose primary occupation involved collecting the souls of the dead told me to drop something, I couldn’t ignore the warning. The case wasn’t worth dying for, but then, they hadn’t said it would come to that.

“Don’t warn me off—prepare me. What is that thing? How do I stop it from jumping bodies?”

The three collectors exchanged a look I wasn’t invited to participate in. Then the raver turned toward me. “You see far too much, girl.”

“Walk away.” The gray man pointed his cane so the silver skull grinned at me a foot from my face. “Walk away and let someone else deal with it.”

“Who? Who can deal with it? You guys can see it and have made no effort to stop it.”

The three collectors went as still as statues. Then they turned toward one another, as if in silent conversation. I could read enough of their expressions to know that Death wanted to tell me whatever they silently debated. I guessed the gray man would vote no, which left the raver, who was the swing vote and tended to waver more than the other two. I hoped she was feeling charitable toward me today.

She raked a hand through the air in a dismissive gesture. “She’ll figure it out anyway,” she said.

The gray man, with his youthful features disguised under the blandness of his appearance, snapped his cane against his thigh, but gave a sharp “Fine” before turning toward me again.

“It does not exist on a plane we can touch, so we cannot do anything about its actions. But that doesn’t mean
you
need to get involved. Walk away.”

His message delivered, he vanished. The raver lifted a brightly dyed eyebrow, as if daring me to disagree; then she also vanished.

Which left Death, his handsome face torn, a mix of want and pain in his eyes as he stepped closer.

“I know you have to go,” I said.

“I don’t want to.”

I knew that too—it was written in every movement of his body—but I didn’t say it. There were laws against a mortal and a collector having a relationship. A month ago I’d even seen a horrific example of why. But I missed Death. I wanted him in my life.

I had a circle of people I considered my best friends, but Death was more than just a good friend or potential lover. He’d been there for the worst moments of my life, knew the secrets I told no one else, knew me. And despite everything he couldn’t tell me, I knew him. Oh, I didn’t know his name or understand his magic, but I knew his easy laugh, his kindness, his compassion, and yes, his flirtatious streak. I might
want
him as a man, but I
needed
my friend.

“If we went back to the way things were before…?”

Death stepped around my desk and brushed a curl behind my ear. The simple, familiar gesture sent a shiver of excitement through me.
Okay, maybe going back would be hard.

“That wouldn’t be enough anymore,” he whispered, as his fingers tilted my face toward his.

I dropped my gaze, avoiding the emotions in his eyes. His nearness woke a giddy excitement in my stomach, something much more than friendly, which carried on its heels the itch of guilt because he wasn’t the only man who affected me this way.

I changed the subject. “I have the artifact the witch and her reaper used in their ritual. Shouldn’t you take it?” After all, it allowed mortals to interact across planes—including the collectors’ plane.

I hated that damned artifact. It contributed to Death’s absence this last month. Though, to be fair, the actions of the twisted couple couldn’t be blamed on a magical relic. Still, in the aftermath of that horrible night, something inside me warned me not to turn the artifact over to the police.

“Is it secure?” Death asked, his expression turning serious.

I nodded. “It’s in a magical dampening box in my apartment.”

“You’re probably the only mortal with no use for the artifact, so that will be enough for now. I’ll find out what should be done with it.” His thumb ran along my jaw, sending shivers down my body. “That will give me an excuse to return.”

He leaned forward and his breath tumbled over my lips, smelling of dew and clean, fresh turned earth. I froze, uncertain if I wanted to pull away or accept the kiss.

It turned out I didn’t have to make the decision.

A hand with bright orange nails appeared, grabbed my shoulders, and jerked me back, making my chair tilt as it rolled over the uneven carpet.

I yelped, more in surprise than anything, and the raver stepped between Death and me.

“You two seriously need a babysitter,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring first at me and then him. “Time to go.”

Death said nothing, he just glanced over her head, meeting my gaze, and then vanished. She followed suit.

I sat there, alone in my office, still seeing the look in Death’s eyes before he left. Those eyes that could smile even when he wasn’t; those eyes that could tease. But tonight, in that last look, what I saw in those eyes reminded me of words I only half remembered from when I’d been dying under the Blood Moon. And that terrified me, because that night Death had said he loved me.

I
stopped in the doorway of the Tongues for the Dead office, the morning sunlight streaming in behind me and reflecting off the burnished wood of a large executive desk. A desk that hadn’t been there when Caleb and Holly had picked me up at midnight.

Okay, either I’m dreaming or the desk fairy came overnight.

I blinked, waiting to wake up. I didn’t and the desk was still there.
Desk fairy it is
.

And the desk wasn’t the only new item. A large leather chair sat primly behind it, a blotter, a phone—which was even more a mystery as we didn’t have a landline—and a computer were placed neatly on the desk’s surface. Against the other wall, the threadbare seat had been replaced with a leather and wood love seat and two matching chairs. And on the wall opposite the main door? A grandfather clock taller than me.

I stepped back out the threshold, closed the door, and stared at the words Tongues for the Dead stenciled on the window, Rianna’s and my name under it. Yes, this was our office.

I opened the door again, expecting the ragtag collection of furnishings we’d had since opening a week ago to have
reappeared. No, the expensive lobby decor still filled the lobby.

“Hello?” I said, not expecting an answer. If Rianna had been here—and she never beat me because of the erratic nature of the Bloom’s door—she would have left the door unlocked. Which meant I was alone with an office suite worth more than half a year’s rent.

Or at least I thought I was alone, until the door to my personal office swung open.

I dropped to a crouch, my hand moving to the hilt of my dagger. It was silly really. What did I expect? Burglars? Their MO was to take stuff, not replace junk with better stuff. Or maybe the office was the prop of a serial killer with an executive fetish.

From where I was squatting, the large desk blocked the bottom half of my door, but I expected to see the torso of whoever had opened it. I didn’t. The chair squealed, twisting slightly, and then a thud sounded as small bare feet landed on the top of the desk.

I straightened at the sight of the brownie, who stood maybe two and a half feet tall and nearly as wide. Her long, quill-like green hair trailed behind her, hanging over the back side of the large desk. Her small fists rounded and she pressed them against her hips.

“Ms. B?”

“You’re late,” she said, coal-colored eyes hard as she pointed to the large grandfather clock. The larger hand currently pointed at the three. “I expect you here on time tomorrow.”

“On time?” I repeated like a parrot. It was my business. How could I be late? Of course, I did have the hours posted on the door, and according to them I was, in fact, fifteen minutes late.

I almost asked her how she’d gotten into the locked and warded office, but I knew better. She bypassed the locks and wards on the house just as easily. I took another look around the room. There were even paintings on the walls.

“Is all of this glamour?”

“Of course not. That would never do,” she said, and the way she cocked her head implied she was questioning my general intelligence. She looked about to say more when the phone—the one that shouldn’t have had a live connection—rang. “Tongues for the Dead,” Ms. B said in her gruff voice. She’d never be a phone sex operator, but she did sound surprisingly professional. “Yes, bring them in, we’re ready.” She set the phone back on the receiver and turned to me. “You planning on catching pixies in that trap?”

I blinked, then realized my jaw was hanging loose. I snapped my mouth shut.

The chime on the door sounded and Rianna said, “Oh hello.” But she didn’t step inside and she wasn’t talking to me. Two large trolls ducked under the doorway, not that they could stop ducking after they were inside—the ceiling had only an eight-foot clearance. The first carried four chairs, two with blue velvet seats and silver accents and the other two with green and brass.

“Blue this way,” Ms. B said, and turning jumped from the desk. Her hair rustled as she padded across the floor, which I noticed with more than a little shock was now a deep cherry hardwood instead of the ratty carpet. The small brownie headed into my office, and the troll with the chairs, Rianna and I followed.

My office’s transformation wasn’t quite as drastic as the lobby’s, but then there wasn’t much room to be drastic. My mismatched client chairs were gone, but were quickly replaced by the blue ones the troll was carrying. My chair, which had already been fairly nice, was still there, but I had to do a double take to realize the desk was the same as it had been stripped and refinished.

“I managed to salvage it,” Ms. B said, a note of pride in her voice.

The troll set the chairs down haphazardly. As Ms. B positioned them to her satisfaction, I looked at the other changes. I now owned a filing cabinet stained the same color as the desk and chairs, the broken blinds on my
window had been replaced and blue curtains hung around them, and best yet, a mini fridge with a microwave and coffeepot on top sat in the farthest corner.

“Okay, I’m impressed.”

Ms. B clucked appreciatively and then turned toward Rianna. “Your turn, girl.”

She scampered out of my office and across the lobby to Rianna’s. Both trolls followed this time, one setting a new desk in the center of the room and the other placing the final two chairs. Rianna’s room was decorated with the same dark wood as mine, but where my accents were blue and silver, all of hers were green and brass. Desmond even had an oversized green velvet dog bed, which he immediately investigated.

Rianna and I looked at each other, sharing an approving nod.

“The small one goes in the little room,” Ms. B told the troll who still carried one desk, the size a pupil might use in school.

She got a desk for Roy? If he weren’t already dead, I guessed the ghost would keel over from joy. I couldn’t wait until he saw it. But one nagging worry scratched at the edge of my mind.

“Ms. B, how did you pay for all this?”

“From your treasury of course.”

My treasury? I made a mental whimper that I managed not to allow to escape any farther than my thoughts. “So, Faerie money?” I gave a despairing glance at all the beautiful things—which we were going to have to return. Faerie money didn’t remain money long; it turned back into leaves or rocks or whatever it was made from after a few hours, which meant everything was technically stolen.