“This is it?” Mory asked. Her voice didn’t betray any nerves or trepidation. She was cool for a teenager. Maybe that was the way they came now — or maybe seeing ghosts had prepared her for a lot of things.
“Yes. Do you want to talk about anything before we go in?”
“Like what?”
“Like, if Rusty comes to you … how will he look? Do you … should you know …”
“No. He’ll come as himself. His projection of himself. I think.”
“You don’t see the … scenes?”
“Like in a movie, except real life?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Not yet anyway. Death visions, you mean.”
“I wasn’t sure it was a thing, except that investigator crew came through.”
“Yeah. The one with the YouTube cube thing was a reconstructionist. That’s different. Not a necromancer thing.” Mory spoke matter-of-factly, but to me, the magic we’d witnessed at the tribunal had been awesome and overwhelming. “And I only saw the one with the werewolf. Mom made me leave.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, though I was really, really glad the fledgling necromancer hadn’t seen the reconstruction of her brother’s murder.
“They had a hired necromancer with them as well,” Mory continued. “Mom said the necro should have been able to speak to Rusty, to help piece together the moment of his death, but she didn’t testify. So maybe he wouldn’t talk to her.”
“Well,” I said, “let’s hope this isn’t your first death vision.” I really didn’t want Mory to see the last moments of Rusty’s life. I didn’t want her to see my sister eating Rusty’s soft parts as he lay dying, either. The very idea of that still sickened me.
We stepped into the room. It was completely empty. New blinds hung closed over the windows. New light-gray carpet on the floor. I could still smell the glue. No candles, no pentagram, and no blood.
“Here?” Mory asked as she stepped into the room and turned around.
“Yeah,” I answered. It had all been wiped clean. Logically, I knew it would have been, but seeing it was different. It wasn’t just a surface wipe. It was a deep, magical clean. “The magic has been totally scoured away. Will you … does that make a difference?”
“No,” Mory answered. She pulled a small mason jar containing a tea light candle out of her bag. “He’s not here in that way.”
“Not on this plane of existence.”
Mory shrugged. “Don’t know about that, but you can’t clean shades or ghosts like dirt. You can release them. Let them go if they’re trapped. But I’m not looking for Rusty’s ghost. I want to connect with his spectral energy.”
I had a feeling that the fledgling necromancer’s ability to connect to this spectral energy, or life force, or soul, was what bothered the vampire so much. But whether that was because vampires didn’t actually have souls, I didn’t know.
Mory lit her candle and sat cross-legged in the middle of the room. Now was not the time to ask her whether she could see Kett’s soul. Actually, now wasn’t the time for me to even be here.
“Mory, do you need me?” I asked quietly, just in case she was already in a trance or something.
“No,” she answered. “Either he’ll come or not. I just have to wait.” Her voice betrayed the first hints of worry.
“I’m … maybe I should —”
Mory’s shoulders, slumped over the candle in her hands, stiffened and straightened. She looked directly ahead of her and slightly upward. She held the candle aloft just over her head, as if using it to light some darkness I couldn’t see. The candle flickered, though there was no wind.
“Rusty,” she said. “It’s just me.”
I stumbled away from the pain in her voice. I stumbled, tripping over my own feet until I made it to the hallway, spun around, and pressed my back to the wall beside the open door. I slid down into a squat and covered my eyes with my hands.
The ache in my heart — the sharp point that had lodged there when Sienna died — flared but I stuffed it back down. This was about Mory not me. I needed to not make it about me.
“Rusty.” Mory’s voice was clear — bright even — through the open door. Full of joy. “I’ve missed you so much.”
I squeezed my eyes tighter, but not tight enough to stop the tears. I could taste Mory’s magic as it filled the room behind me with the flavor of toasted marshmallows and the same candied-violet base she shared with Rusty. I couldn’t sense anything or anyone beyond that, even though I could hear Mory’s one-sided murmured conversation.
“Jade brought me,” I heard her say, but then she paused as if listening.
Looking for a distraction, I pulled the jade stones out of my pocket and rolled the skinwalker magic around in the palm of my hand. I wasn’t sure what I’d created by combining the skinwalker bindings with the natural magic of the jade, but the last time I’d left magical objects lying around, things hadn’t turned out so well … for many people, including Rusty. I felt better with the stones in my hand.
“No!” Mory cried out from the room behind me. “But … why?”
I brushed the tears from my cheeks. Mory was getting bad news, and she didn’t need to see me blubbering like a baby when she came out the other end of it.
“They say you knew before that,” Mory said. “They say you helped.” The fledgling’s tone grew angry and hurt. I thought about getting up from the hall and pulling the necromancer from the room. Maybe this kind of truth was too much. She’d already lost her brother. Did she need to tarnish all her memories as well?
I didn’t move. Mory had stopped speaking. I tucked the jade stones back in my pocket and listened, but I couldn’t hear anything further.
I stood and went inside. Mory was seated as before, though her head was bowed. The mason-jar candle was still lit, sitting on the floor before her crossed ankles.
I found some Kleenex in my satchel and crossed to dangle it over Mory’s shoulder. She took it and blew her nose.
“He wants you to know he’s still here,” Mory said. She blew her nose a second time. “Because you can’t see him.”
“Oh,” I said. My stomach bottomed out. “I … should I look somewhere specific?”
Mory gestured over the candle in front of her. “There. Standing.”
My stomach lurched as I tried to make eye contact with something that didn’t exist. Rusty had been about my height. I remembered him sprawled naked and half-eaten on the floor at my feet.
“He’s says he’s sorry … for Hudson,” Mory spat angrily, as if she didn’t want to relay the message.
I nodded before I could stop myself, then switched to staring at the candle. “He wasn’t mine to mourn.”
“Rusty says he helped Sienna that night because she was scared of the werewolf. She was scared he was going to hurt you.”
A slew of retorts flashed into my mind, but thankfully I managed to not speak them out loud. Things such as
How could you be so blind?
and
Well, that’s convenient,
and
I don’t even remotely believe that your girlfriend was combining sex and blood magic and you didn’t even notice.
I wasn’t going to say any of those things. I wasn’t going to start any argument with Mory in the middle.
Hudson had been drained of blood and magic while he was alive. Sienna couldn’t have done such a thing on her own. Not even with five of my trinkets anchoring her own binding magic. Rusty was culpable through, through, and through. And he’d paid the price.
“Jade,” Mory said. She rested her head back against my thigh. “He’ll stay with me. If I ask.”
“All the time?”
“He can come and go. But yeah.”
I touched Mory’s hair. The purple dye was fading badly from its shaggy tips, creating a terrible, unintentional ombre effect. It also needed a wash. I pressed the palm of my hand to her head. She wanted my guidance but I had none to give. At least, I didn’t know what the right choice was here. Should she keep her brother’s spectral energy by her forever? Would he help or hinder? Would he protect her? Could he protect her?
“What would your mom say?” I finally asked.
“She’d say that I’ve made contact now, and I could make contact again.”
“Okay. Would you need to come back here?”
“I don’t think so.” She twisted the large bracelet — the one I was certain belonged to Rusty — on her wrist. I found myself wondering whether I could take the residual magic in that bracelet and combine it with Mory’s magic to make a beacon of sorts. So Rusty could always find her, but not be tied to her. Maybe necromancer magic already worked like that …
“Is there … is there anything you would be denying him? Does heaven exist?”
Mory fell silent for a moment, listening. Then she said, “Umm, I don’t know. He goes to talk about that, but then he can’t talk. Like something blocks him. I don’t know.”
“If you tie him to you, can you let him go later?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s the worst case scenario?”
“That I go crazy.”
“Well, that’s always the worst case.”
Mory laughed. “It’s a problem for all necromancers.”
“I imagine.”
“And, well … constantly talking to your dead brother might … you know.”
“Hasten the process?”
“Yeah.”
“Life is never going to be normal anyway. Is it?”
“No.”
“You got some answers. Whether they were the truth or not.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe you need to think on those before you make a decision.”
Mory nodded and pulled away from my hand on her head.
“See you later, Rusty,” she said to the air in front of her. Then she quickly leaned over and blew out the candle, as if she didn’t want the time to change her mind.
All the toasted marshmallow magic that had filled the room snapped back into Mory.
“You use candles like a witch,” I said.
“It’s a focal point,” Mory said, shrugging as she rolled to her feet and grabbed the candle.
“No circle, though.” I scanned Mory’s eyes for traces of magic, but I couldn’t see anything beyond her normal amount. A witch would never cast magic without the protection of a circle.
“I am the circle,” Mory stated.
“Yeah. I see.”
“I want bubblegum.”
“What?”
“The ice cream?”
“Right. Let’s call a cab.”
“You should get a car.”
“Nah, too expensive. Maybe I should sign up for one of those car co-ops.”
Mory made a noncommittal noise and headed for the door as I pulled out my cellphone. The gelato place was close enough that we probably could have walked, except I wasn’t sure a teenager could actually walk that far. Plus, Mory’s ratty combat boots looked like they were two sizes too big for her.
Three voicemails and ten text messages lit up my screen. I ignored them all.
Ice cream waited for no woman.
∞
Mory’s witch friend Amy — her magic only a glimmer behind her eyes — was waiting for us at Mario’s Gelati. I surmised that the quarter-witch had been delivered by text message. I bought them both cones and had a one-liter tub of black forest cake hand-packed for myself. Then I got my third-wheel ass out of there before they made me feel any older or unwanted. I was glad Mory had someone to talk to, because I was certain she couldn’t hide behind chocolate and cupcakes like I could. Nor did I have any other wisdom to offer, other than “grin and bear it.”
That philosophy wasn’t currently working for me, anyway.
I walked home, eating the entire tub of ice cream while I did so, hoping the calorie burning would offset the intake but also not really caring. Too much shit was rattling around in my head, and none of it was constructive or helpful.
My sandals — purple Joni’s with green laces; Fluevog’s, of course and always — were gorgeous and perfect for ghost hunting, but weren’t made for three-hour strolls along the seawall. However, blisters that would probably heal in minutes weren’t enough to snap me out of my head shit. And yeah, it freaked the hell out of me that I healed so quickly now. That I kicked a grizzly bear in the gut and he felt it. That I felt every drop of magic all around me all the time, so much so that I had started avoiding the things I’d loved before … dancing, dinner out, etcetera.
And I’d freaking kissed Desmond.
If by ‘kiss’ I meant ‘practically molested.’ Though he’d more than obviously been a willing victim.
I ran out of ice cream before I even made it into my own neighborhood.
∞
I avoided West Fourth Avenue and the bakery by using the back entrance and slipping up to my apartment through the kitchen.
Scarlett, thankfully, wasn’t home.
I thought about checking the messages on my phone and then didn’t. I crossed to the kitchen and pulled out my Mixmaster. The ice cream was begging for a brownie chaser.
Someone knocked at the front door. The stovetop clock read 4:47 p.m., but I was pretty sure I’d never bothered to spring it forward for daylight saving time. The knock didn’t sound like Kandy, who probably would have just come up through the bakery kitchen. Not being able to feel magic through the wards, I assumed it was the green-haired werewolf anyway.
Shucking my sandals as I crossed to the door — and yeah, the blisters had already healed — I opened it to reveal a nice-looking man with a perfect dimple and sexy suit.
Joe.
Oh, shit.
Joe’s smile faltered as I stared at him. His brow wrinkled slightly as he took in my just-walked-for-three-hours-eating-a-tub-of-ice-cream look.
“Friday.” I exhaled the word with the realization.
Joe tried to widen his faltering smile. “Dinner?” he said. “Tickets to Avenue Q?”
My heart sank and I felt like the utter shit I was. Joe, the cute lawyer whose office was just down the street from the bakery, had finally gotten a “Yes” from me two weeks ago for an actual date. It hadn’t been difficult putting him off, what with my sister’s death and all, but I’d actually felt ready to go out again. But then obviously —
“You forgot,” Joe said.
“No. I … it’s been … I’m sorry.” God, I was lame.
“Invite me in?” he asked, so sweetly.
“Yes,” I said, stepping back from the door. Then I saw the vampire in my living room. What the freaking hell was Kett doing in my living room? He shouldn’t be able to pass through the wards on the apartment.