Between the earlier attack of the killer hair and meeting Joe down at the morgue (I’m ignoring the vampire crack from Rhonda . . . lalalalalala—dinosaur), I just wasn’t in the mood. Instead, I gave her a rundown of what Joe had said on the phone—or what Joe’s voice-box had piped in.
“Be careful with Lex,” Mom said as she handed me one of her specially brewed teas. I swear I thought I saw a ghost of a skull and crossbones poof up from it. I took it—but I sure as shit wasn’t going to drink it. “Not all the First Borns are sane—and Lex is the worst of them.”
I pulled my gaze from the floaty smoky poison symbol and frowned. “First Borns?” I knew what that meant. Had read about them in the Dioscuri notes. They were the first creatures created by the original Phantasm, before there were real solid borders between the planes. According to my great-uncle, the Phantasm then sent his children out—no one’s sure how many—into the physical plane to experience life for him since he was unable to exist in body outside of the Abysmal.
But then something happened to the Phantasm, and the First Borns were hunted down. They retreated into the bodies of their hosts, burying themselves so deep inside, merging with the souls trapped there, taking in blood to mask their existence within, creating something old, ancient, and full of legend.
Vampire.
I shook my head. “You believe all that stuff about vampires? I mean, granted—Lex is one spooky bitch.” Correction. One spooky
tall
bitch. Taller than me. And I’d wondered—albeit briefly—when we met if it wasn’t really a man in drag. It was good drag. But suspicious.
“Zoetrope,” Mom said, using my name again.
Yiiiiiick.
“After everything you’ve seen—all that’s happened—you don’t believe in vampires?”
“Mom—please.” I pushed the toxic tea away with my finger. I wondered if I could toss it in the money tree on the counter. No . . . that would be a crime against Chinese superstition. And just plain meanness to the plant. “Symbionts, spectres, spooks, Horrors, Fetches, Daemons—all that I can relate to. There’s no universal legend attached to them. Or rather, no, like, worldview of them. Not like the Wolfman, or the Mummy, or Dracula. So—believing vampires are real? Uh-uh.”
“It’s not like Dracula—”
There was a honk from the back of the kitchen, outside the door. Rhonda was there. I grabbed up my backpack (small, black, and covered in Jolly Rogers—borrowed from Rhonda’s old stash), kissed Mom on the cheek, grabbed Tim’s rock, and held it up. “I’m taking this,” and I bounded out the back door and down the steps, again feeling the gentle tug on Mom and Jemmy’s wards on the house.
Rhonda had made good time getting to the shop since she now lived in her uncle’s secondary estate in Alpharetta (I kinda knocked down the first one—oops)—a thermos of oolong tea out and ready for me (I would have preferred coffee, but Rhonda was all about this keeping the mind and body in sync shit lately)—and a granola bar.
Ick. Twigs in a wrapper.
I’ll pass.
Tim appeared ghostylike in the backseat as I tossed my backpack into his middle. He frowned at me and vanished—but I knew he was still there. I had his rock.
Rhonda was dressed in her usual—black hoodie, jeans, anarchy shirt, black nails and lipstick, dark makeup even at the butt crack of dawn. A month ago she’d gone through this weird transformation when she’d housed my mom’s soul for a bit when Nona ran away from TC—but couldn’t get back in her body. Rhonda had actually started looking basically normal—new haircut, clothes, shoes—but now she was pretty much back to her old self.
And looking nothing like the leader of a secret society should.
This morning her hair was in pigtails. Her earlobes had skulls and crossbones in them. “You tell Nona?”
“Uhmhm . . .” I sipped the tea after pouring it into the thermos lid.
Mmmmm. Nontoxic.
“You know she’ll be on the Internet or on the phone to Jemmy in less than an hour.” I managed to get my seat belt fastened before Rhonda took off, snapping my head back on my neck.
We drove in relative silence as Atlanta woke up slowly on a Wednesday morning. Traffic grew increasingly thick as she took Ponce into Decatur—luckily it was heading in the other direction. The silence continued, though it wasn’t as thick as Rhonda’s non-speak. She was thinking, wanted to ask me something.
But . . . I could wait it out.
*Whistles*
I finally refastened the lid on the thermos and put it between my legs before holding up my hands. “What?”
Rhonda was actually smirking behind that dark lipstick. “You have got to be the worst liar I’ve ever met.”
“Hah?” I played it off not guilty, but my mind was barreling zero to one hundred toward the door handle—in case she decided to zap my ass.
Oh. Yeah. There have been a few changes with Rhonda’s little magic as well. Zapping being in the top five.
“This sneaking out at night?”
Man, I was sure I looked guilty as hell. I stared at her, trying to figure out exactly
how
she
knew
. I threw Tim an accusing stare, but he only shrugged his half-visible shoulders.
“Don’t look at him,” Rhonda said. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
I decided that being silent and feigning innocence was the best course of action. There it was again—that really weird insane desire for me to be quiet. Hrm . . .
“Zoë—who is it? Is it Dags? I mean—I understand it. I don’t like it—but I understand the attraction. I have it too—and I don’t think it’ll ever go away.”
If you could actually see the face I was planting at that moment as I stared at her. I mean
stared
at her as if she’d grown not just a third eye on her forehead but a whole other face.
And she was still talking!
“—he was in town. It’s not that I keep spies on him or anything. I mean—well, yeah, I do—’cause he’s got the Bonville Grimoire and all locked inside of him. But I also worry about him. So if you’re sneaking out to see him—”
“Wait!” I put up a hand as she made a really scary last-minute turn to the right. “Stop—please. Before I totally hurl on you. You—you’re accusing me of sneaking out and meeting Dags somewhere? Oh man . . . this is too rich. Of all the people—” And then her words hit me. Time delay. You know—me using my single brain cell to power my mouth and not my ears. “Wait—Dags is in town. And you have people spying on him?”
Aw, man . . . talk about someone ’et up with guilt. Her face literally flushed pink . . . no . . . make that Day-Glo red.
Look out, Rudolph! You got competition!
“Damnit, Zoë—stop playing the fool on this. If you’re seeing him, then tell me.”
“Hey, if you got spies on him—then how come you can’t tell if we’ve been together?” It’s not that I really cared—since I hadn’t seen Dags in over a month. So if she claimed at all that’s where I’ve been—I’d call her a liar to her face and explain afterward.
Maybe.
But she didn’t accuse me of anything. “Zoë—look, we know he came in at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport at nine or so Sunday morning. So he’s been here for a few days.”
“Where’s he staying?” Whoa . . . why did I ask that? It just blurted right out. Kinda like vomit. Blap.
“Not funny—you know where—”
“I am not seeing Dags!” I yelled.
Tim sniggered from the back. I pointed at him.
You, be quiet.
We were both quiet for a while, getting close to the morgue.
Then, “Zoë—I can’t help it. You got a piece of him that I’ll never—”
“Stop.” I put up a hand. “We already agreed not to do this, Rhonda. What happened between me and Dags was just sex. A onetime thing. Okay? Nothing more. I love Daniel. Yeah—he’s a bit nuts at the moment, but you know we all go through phases in our lives—”
“I just . . .” She sighed and kept her eyes on the road. The sun was about up now, and I could see everything with a monochromatic overlay. Color, but muted. “You’ve shared something I’ll never have with him. He’ll always hate me—because of what I did to him.”
When Rhonda referred to what she “did to him,” I was sometimes in the dark about that myself, not having been with her, Dags, and Joe during that little mishap. Where was I?
Oh, at home, looking for Mom’s soul, unable to OOB, and totally pining away for a man who was already possessed by my darker half and killing people.
Yeah . . . that was normal.
“He doesn’t hate you.” And that much was true. Dags had said it. He didn’t hate Rhonda. She did what had to be done, to save him and protect the Grimoire. But—what I wasn’t going to tell her was how he told me he loved me. And he would love no one else.
Moment of awkward.
Rhonda pulled into the empty parking lot of the Dekalb County morgue. Well, not really empty. Joe’s truck was there, alongside a Bentley. I stared at it as I got out, taking note of the license plate. D8d Dock.
How droll. Had to be Lex.
I followed Rhonda to the building as the front door opened, and Joe stepped out. He was as smarmy as ever, his long face holding the expression of one who has grown impatient. His hair was spikier than usual, and he needed a shave. He wore his usual uniform—plaid shirt, jeans, boots, and badge on a chain.
How redneck.
Joe motioned for us to follow—not having a voice to speak with and, noticeably, no dry-erase board. We moved along the halls as we had a month before, and again I caught the smells of disinfectant. And death.
On that first visit a month ago, I wasn’t Wraith. I couldn’t see or sense anything. This time? Watching the shadows creep and move along the floor made my skin crawl. Their motions weren’t fluid like normal, but jerky, as if frames from the picture had been removed. Great effect on-screen. In real life?
Not so much.
As before, we moved through a set of double doors where the polished tile became dingy and worn. The odors changed, and the whole presence felt—
“Zoë?” Rhonda stopped and looked back at me. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking.
For the first time—I could sense it. There. Ahead of us. A heavy, heady essence of old things. Worn things. Used. Time marching across the planes.
Joe snapped his fingers in my face, and I blinked, looking at him. His eyebrows arched in question. Rhonda looked concerned.
“What is it?”
“She senses me,” came the melodic voice of Lex behind Joe and Rhonda. They turned, parting in front of me so that I could see her with my Wraith eyes.
I don’t know what I expected—having sensed her power. Or was it something else? She looked as she had that first night. Tall, flawless, with perfect movement as if each step were a practiced variation of the next. But there was something else . . . something . . .
Old.
Lex moved toward us, her body never making the bobbing motion of walking like a normal mortal would. She glided closer, her lab coat pristine as it moved with her, as if it were a part of her.
Joe waved at me to get my attention, and I looked at him. He raised his eyebrows, and signed,
“Is that right? You can sense her?”
I nodded, my gaze drawn back to her.
“She senses my age—” Lex said, blinking lazily at me, looking down at the child who plays where she doesn’t belong. “And the kinship we share on the First Tier.”
That jogged me out of my catatonia. “First Tier?”
Rhonda spoke up. “It’s what the First Borns call the Abysmal plane.”
Lex’s eyes grew amused. “It is what it is. My home.” Abruptly, her face split with a smile, and she held out her hands, her expression growing serious again fast. “Come—I have something to show you. And perhaps the little Irin child can confirm what I suspect.”
She turned, and I glared at Rhonda, who shrugged and followed Joe into the examination room. What I did notice this time meeting up with Lex was that her voice sometimes had this duality to it. Like there were two voice tracks, speaking in unison.
Lex had the regular room with its stainless-steel tables, drains, and pipes. Areas for washing the bodies and diagnosing cause of death. But just behind that, past the rows of toe tags, was the “other” examination room. This room was marked private, and according to Joe, no one—not even the Chief Medical Examiner—went inside.
Actually, once through those doors, I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to go in there.
The room itself was small—not so much a broom closet but close. Enough space for an examination table—with straps, I might add—and a shelf full of things I doubt any medical professional in today’s world thought about using. It actually looked straightened up today. The walls were painted with symbols I’d only seen in Rhonda’s book. And in the book Dags carried inside of him.
Not that they meant anything to me.
On the table lay a nude girl—nude from the waist up. Seems showing breasts was now considered the norm. How European.
Her eyes were open and milky white—telltale sign of death. Her skin was chalky and her lips blue. But what got my attention wasn’t the color of her skin or her hair—but the intricate markings carved over every inch of her exposed flesh from the collarbone down.
... help . . .
We gathered around her, with Lex at her head. I glanced across the body at Rhonda, whose eyes had grown to the size of chicken eggs. She pointed at the body, her finger getting close to the flesh.
“No!” Lex snapped, and grabbed at Rhonda’s wrist with lightning speed.
Joe, Rhonda, and I all jumped. I never even saw Lex’s hand move—it was just there—keeping Rhonda’s hand above the body.
“Sorry,” Lex said as she let go. “But the ritual is still active. If you look with your sight, you can see the essence lingering.”
Rhonda swallowed and pulled her hand back. I watched her as she narrowed her eyes and looked at the body. Joe and I glanced at each other—him shrugging. Obviously, he wasn’t as interested, having been there a while already. “Oh . . . you’re right. There’s a . . .” She straightened up and looked accusingly at Lex. “It’s gold. Why is it gold?”