His lips twisted. “I know what you mean, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, how are you doing? I know you’ve only been back at work for a week.”
I wiped a trickle of sweat away from my temple. The heat was beginning to ramp up as the morning progressed. “I’m all right. There’re a couple of people who are being weird about my, um, disappearance, but they’ll get over it.”
Crawford turned and stepped off the porch, motioning with his head to follow. He walked past the crime-scene tape to the meager shade offered by a scraggly oak tree, then took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his jacket pocket. “I’ve been a cop a long time, Kara. I thought I’d seen it all.” He pulled a cigarette out and lit it, took a heavy drag. He’d stopped using chewing tobacco and taken up smoking instead, which made no sense to me. He’d also shaved his mustache, which had really thrown me. On the other hand, he still dyed his hair brown and wore dull brown suits with wild and garish ties. So I guessed some things never changed.
“Anyway, I’ve seen enough weird shit to be willing to accept that there’s a lot of weird shit out there,” he continued. “I don’t believe that story about you having to go so deep undercover that everyone had to believe you were dead, but I figure if there really is another story, it’s probably best that no one knows it.” He shrugged and blew out smoke. I resisted the urge to move so that I was more upwind of him. He was surprising me with this apparent willingness to accept the inexplicable. I still wasn’t about to tell him what had actually happened during those two weeks, but I had the oddly comforting feeling that if I was to ever tell him, he’d be fairly accepting.
Crawford shrugged. “I guess I’m saying that if you need anything, let me know.” He looked over at me. “Any change with your aunt?”
I shook my head stiffly. My aunt Tessa was in an extended-care facility—a place that catered specifically to neurological disorders. I knew that Tessa hadn’t suffered any sort of brain injury, but I still needed to have her body cared for. She was missing her essence as well, though hers had not been consumed the way Brian’s had. It was just … missing. Temporarily mislaid, I hoped. I’d hated to put her in a home, but at least I could console myself with the knowledge that she had no awareness of where she was.
“No,” I answered. “No change. I’ve been trying to go through some of the stuff at her house, get it cleaned up a bit, just in case …” My voice broke, and I couldn’t continue.
“In case she doesn’t wake up,” he said, more gently than I ever would have expected from him.
I nodded, even though that was only part of the reason I was trying to go through Tessa’s things. It was her library that I was most interested in. Tessa’s essence had been used to provide added potency for a massive arcane ritual, and I still clung to the hope that it could be reversed and she could come back to her body. Tessa’s library contained hundreds of texts, scrolls, and documents related to the arcane, and I remained optimistic that one of them held some answers on how to help restore her essence.
Unfortunately, my research had come to a screeching halt before it even began when I discovered that my aunt had warded her library with layers upon layers of arcane protections—and that they had not been set to allow me passage. That fact bothered me on a number of levels—not the least of which was that, without access to the materials in that library, I might never see her alive and well again.
My gaze slid back to the open door of the house. I could see Jill moving around inside, taking pictures and measurements. I could also see the motionless lump that was Brian’s body, but I was thankfully far enough away that I couldn’t feel the gaping lack of essence. This was different from my aunt’s situation. His essence had been consumed, not just pulled away whole. Even if his body weren’t dead, there’d be no way to return his essence to him. There was no essence left to return.
And what could have possibly done that to him? I asked myself again, frustration and worry twining together in my gut. The only creature I knew of that could consume essence was an ilius, but that didn’t mean much. There was a whole lot that I didn’t know, and I still couldn’t shake the sick feeling that I’d screwed something up in my dismissal of the demon. What if I was responsible for this? Had the demon sensed Brian’s death and swooped down onto that essence just as it was beginning to shuffle free of its mortal coil? Was that even possible?
Damn it. There was too much that I didn’t understand. Unfortunately, there were only two possible sources of information for anything to do with the arcane. The first—and what would normally have been the simplest—was my aunt’s library.