Grave Memory: An Alex Craft Novel (45 page)

I didn’t answer but cracked my shields. I’d seen the patch of darkness bleeding over into reality, but once I opened my shields I saw thinner black lines snaking completely through Tamara’s body, her very soul, as if the rot had entered her blood and now filled every vein. I thought I caught sight of a twisting cord leading up, out of the wound, but there were too many different layers of reality to keep one thread in sight. I opened my shields wider. Before the raver had moved us through the collector’s plane, she’d forced me to narrow my focus on one reality. I’d done that by watching only the souls. Well, I could see the yellow glow of Tamara’s soul just fine; what I needed to see more clearly was the darkness.

I focused all my attention on that darkness and the room around me decayed as wind whipped through my
apartment, blowing the mail off the counter and ripping free cards usually held to the fridge with magnets. PC yipped, a high-pitched, nervous sound, and vanished under the bed.

But the other realities dimmed and the thread jumped into stark relief. From everything I knew about ghouls, they were connected in single chains. The prime was on top, and then like family lines, those infected by a ghoul were tied to that ghoul—or ghouls as was sometimes the case when a person was attacked by more than one. Kill the ghoul directly above on the chain and everything under them broke. Ghouls died and those infected were no longer in danger of turning.

Except Larid was dead and Tamara was still tied to the land of the dead by a thread.

Actually, it wasn’t a single thread. There were three dark lines. One had a jagged, twisted end, clearly severed.
Larid
. That had to have been the link to him. The next was thin and spindled off, deeper into the land of the dead.
The bridge to the ghoul waiting to take her body.
Which left the final cord. It was thick, glutted with Tamara’s draining vitality, but it didn’t fade into the depths of the land of the dead like the other. Instead it snaked out of the room, leading…somewhere. To the rider?
It’s feeding off the bodies its ghouls create?

If each ghoul had a second link back to the prime, that could explain why Briar was having so much trouble clearing the cemeteries. The chains didn’t break. It also explained why cutting the link with Larid didn’t stop Tamara from turning.

“Alex?” Tamara’s voice trembled and she stumbled back as I stepped forward.

“I can see it,” I said. “If I can sever it…” I retrieved my dagger from where it sat in its sheath on the dresser. The dagger had cut through a soul chain once, hopefully it could cut these threads as well.

Tamara’s tired eyes widened as I approached, but she didn’t move. I reached out, grabbing for the threads, but my hands passed through the darkness as if it were a shadow
and not a feeding tube draining my friend.
I need to be deeper.

I let my mind cross farther over the chasm. My apartment crumbled around me, but the threads solidified. I tried again, both with my bare hand and with the dagger. I nicked the tube, making it ooze gaseous drops of darkness.
How much deeper into the land of the dead can I reach?
I was close, I just needed to push a little farther. I let myself drift in the tempest.

Barely tangible arms wrapped around my waist in a ghostlike embrace.

“Come back,” a distant but familiar voice whispered.
Death.
“Alex, I need you to come back.”

I looked at the threads I was so close to reaching, but the desperation in his voice tugged at me. I drew back, pulling my psyche out of the spreading wasteland until I could see the ruins of my apartment, and then the apartment whole once more as I crossed the chasm.

Death’s arms around my waist solidified as reality settled around me again, but they were cold, a slight tremor running through them. I twisted in his arms. He was pale under his tan, his breathing labored; water streamed from his hair, dripping onto my shoulder as if he’d rushed out of the bathroom—though at least he had on a pair of jeans.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

His arms around me tightened, the tremors already passing, and he nodded. “I will be. Alex, please don’t take my essence to planes where my soul can’t reach it.” The last was a whisper for my ears only.

Take?

“Alex?” Tamara’s voice was thin, high, and tainted with fear. “What was that? You were less substantial than the shades you raise.”

Crap.
I forgot I wasn’t actually a corporeal being. My psyche kept me grounded in reality, but when I’d reached into the land of the dead, I’d sent my psyche there.

And I’d nearly killed Death in the process.

D
eath looked a little better after food and coffee. Tamara not so much.

I needed to learn what had happened to the rider. Briar Darque hadn’t known last night, but I hoped she would have learned something by now.

“Good timing, Craft,” she said. The sound of a radio and wind contending with her voice betrayed the fact she was driving. “I was headed your way. Have you seen your friend?”

An icy warning slid down my spine, chilling me. “Which friend?”

“The medical examiner, Tamara Greene. She’s not at work or at home.”

I glanced at where Tamara was fidgeting more than eating her toast—I didn’t have a lot in the house in the way of food, big surprise. Then I pointedly turned around so I couldn’t
see
her. Just in case.

I shrugged and in as an off-handed tone as possible said, “She’s probably having breakfast somewhere.”

“Her husband thought she might have gone to see you.”

Thanks, Ethan.
“He’s her fiancé, actually.”

“Yeah, whatever. If you see her, let me know.”

“What’s going on?”

“The OMIH agent who went to the hospital yesterday? The nurse called me this morning. He’d dropped sixty pounds and grown talons. I had to ensure he didn’t turn ghoul in the middle of the surgical ward.”

The toast soured in my stomach.
As in she killed him.
I forced myself not to turn and look at Tamara’s drained figure.

Briar was still talking, though my brain didn’t want to accept her words. “Your friend wasn’t as badly hurt, but I’ve got to find her before she turns. Damn, I really thought we got the ghoul.”

“We did. I recognized Larid.”

“We couldn’t have. Ghouls are linked.”

Yeah, that was the standing assumption. The problem was that it didn’t apply in this case. Not that I could tell her how I knew that fact. “Have you ever hunted ghouls created by something from the wastes in the land of the dead?”

Briar was silent as she considered the possibility.

“Did you find out if they contained the rider before they released the body from the circle?”

“They didn’t. Fuck. So that thing is out there. I’ve never seen anyone ghoul out as fast as that official. If it’s because of that rider thing, we could be in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

Understatement.

“I’m pretty sure it can’t get far outside of a body. Do you know if anyone who came in contact with Larid was acting strange yesterday?”

“Why would I know that?”

“Well, if we’re going to find the rider, you’re going to have to ask around because the people at the OMIH won’t talk to me. You’re looking for someone who most likely didn’t respond to their own name and would have made some excuse to leave early. They wouldn’t have gone home last night and won’t be at work today.”

“That’s pretty specific, Craft.”

“I’ve been tracking the rider. It’s predictable,” I said, and hoped that the rider was holding true to pattern. Of course, it was a Sunday, so the possessed victim might not be missed
yet. “Once you talk to the folks over at the OMIH, will you call and let me know what you learn?”

“Why?” The suspicion was so thick in her voice I could feel it through the phone.

“Well, for starters, if it is hurting my friend, I have a vested interest. I also have two clients who I already told we’d captured their husbands’ murderer and I’d rather not have to inform them it escaped.”

“Fine. If I find out anything and I have time, I’ll call, but you need to let me know if your friend shows up.”

“Right.” As Tamara was already here, “showing up” wasn’t an issue.

Briar hung up without saying good-bye.

“Do I want to know?” Tamara asked as I turned around.

“Probably not,” I said and tried to convince myself some of her grayish pallor was just my eyes recovering from my stepping into the land of the dead. But the color had returned to everything except Tamara. I could practically see her fading in front of me.
The change can’t happen that fast.

I glanced at Death. He shook his head but I didn’t know if he was telling me there was nothing he could do to help or just confirming that Tamara wasn’t holding up well. He’d told me we had only hours. We’d lost what, thirty minutes of that?

I shoved the phone in my back pocket and paced across my kitchenette. I’d dressed while the coffee was brewing so my boots made dull thudding noises that accented the helpless feeling vibrating through me. There had to be something more I could do besides wait for Briar to call.

I might be able to trace that feeding tube of a thread back to the rider, but I’d have to be halfway across the chasm while tracing it who-knew-where in the city. Even if I could manage the mobility and not get beaten to a pulp by grave essence while leaving my psyche that open outside wards or a circle, I had no idea if Death could survive me taking his essence halfway across the chasm for who-knew-how-long.
Well, I guess I won’t be going to Faerie anytime
soon.
Or possibly ever. Death’s plane didn’t exist there, which meant it was a no go.

My head snapped up and I stopped pacing, one foot hanging in the air before falling hard, the step forgotten. The land of the dead didn’t exist in Faerie either. If Death couldn’t reach his essence through a plane where he didn’t exist then it stood to reason the rider’s threads wouldn’t pass into a place where the land of the dead didn’t touch.

It was a stall tactic, but it would give us time. I looked at Tamara. “We have to take you to Faerie.”

Four eyes, two hazel and two dark brown, looked at me with equal amounts of confusion. Yeah, I guess that comment came from nowhere if you weren’t inside my head. I explained my logic. Death gave a begrudging nod as I spelled out my thoughts, but Tamara’s sunken eyes rounded until they dominated her face.

“I know you stumbled into a pocket of Faerie once, but even if we could get back there, would I be any better off or just in a different kind of danger?” Tamara asked, pushing her uneaten toast aside.

Crap. We were going to have to have the Faerie discussion. I really didn’t want to have that conversation, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that she’d stop transforming as soon as she was in Faerie. Slivers of the land of the dead slipped into the Bloom, so she’d have to go to Faerie proper.

Pulling out my phone, I tried Rianna’s cell. She had no reason to leave Faerie today, so I wasn’t surprised when an operator announced that the customer I was trying to reach was out of range. Faerie didn’t have cell towers.

“We need to talk to Caleb,” I said, heading to the door that connected my apartment with the main portion of the house. I also effectively avoided having to discuss the “F” issue for a couple more minutes.

Tamara stood slowly, as if she were trying to haul six hundred pounds instead of her skeletally thin form. I chewed at my bottom lip as I watched her dragging steps.
Faerie will work.
We just had to get her there. An added bonus? No way would Briar find Tamara in Faerie.

Death moved to follow.

I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Would you wait for me here?”

“Embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“It’s not that. We need to get Tamara to Faerie pronto, which means getting everyone moving with as little explanation as possible.” And explaining who Death was—especially since I didn’t have a name to introduce him with—would slow everything down. Tamara was so ill she’d accepted my explanation that he was an old friend without further prying, but Holly would press me.

He studied me, and I had the feeling he saw more than I liked. I squirmed. He knew me too well, and I could feel his gaze peeling back layers. Then he leaned forward and kissed the top of my head. “Just make sure you’re being honest with yourself in your reasoning.”

I watched him walk back into my apartment. I really was just in a hurry, wasn’t I? I was fine with my friends meeting him. Just not right now. Right?

I didn’t have time to think about it as I hurried to catch up with Tamara. We reached the bottom of the stairs and I pushed open the door. “Caleb?”

It was still fairly early, but he usually started working in his studio earlier than I preferred waking—which was one reason the studio ceiling had a soundproofing charm. But the garage-turned-studio was dark. Today apparently wasn’t an early day.

“Hello? Caleb? Holly? Anyone home?”

I glanced out the front window. Both of their cars were here. I headed for the back of the house. I hated waking Caleb, but as I couldn’t enter Faerie without cutting Death off from his life essence, Caleb was the only person who could take Tamara.