“Yeah, wel , it was this or an IV of caffeine. The charm was easier.” He focused on me for the first time. “You okay?”
I shrugged, a movement that turned into a tremble.
Raising a pair of shades probably wasn’t the best way to prepare for a difficult ritual, but I now knew the reaper was stealing souls. I wasn’t sure what to do about that fact—I mean, what does a mortal do about a rogue reaper?—and I couldn’t yet prove he was supplying the souls for the constructs, but I was starting to put things together.
Hopeful y we would learn even more when we raised a Hopeful y we would learn even more when we raised a shade from the foot.
“Rianna should be here soon,” I said, glancing toward the large steel doors. At least I hoped Rianna was on her way.
I’d never sent messages via brownie before.
John rubbed a hand over the ever-expanding bald spot on his head. “So, what is the story with you working for the FIB?”
Crap. I’d seriously been hoping he wouldn’t ask. A little overoptimistic there, Alex. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah?” His mustache twitched, a quick swish of displeasure, but I was saved from having to answer any more questions by the morgue door opening.
Rianna stood in the doorway, looking unsure until her deep-sunk eyes landed on me. Then a feeble smile broke on her face and she scuttled across the room, her woodensoled shoes clunking on the linoleum floor.
“I’m glad you made it,” I said, since I couldn’t thank her for coming. Then I accepted her hug as she tossed her arms around my neck.
She pul ed back quickly. “You’re cold.”
“It happens.” I introduced her to John and Tamara, who both gave me questioning glances when I used Rianna’s name. It took me a second to realize why. They were both good enough friends to know that my roommate in academy was another grave witch, named Rianna McBride
—they also knew she’d disappeared a handful of years ago. I hadn’t told anyone I’d found her, and I certainly wasn’t going to get into her being a captive of Faerie. “So which foot do you want us to try to raise a shade from?” I asked, trying to keep the focus on the business at hand.
“How about the one from last night? It’s a good puzzle.”
John glanced at Tamara, who nodded and walked back to the cold room.
She returned pushing a gurney covered with a white sheet. A sheet with only the smal est lump in the center.
“That’s it?” Rianna asked.
“That’s it?” Rianna asked.
“I know it’s not much to work with, but we’l try.”
She nodded, but her lips turned down in a grimace. I didn’t blame her. Even together, if we managed to raise the shade from such a smal specimen, it would be a miracle.
With Rianna terrified of leaving Faerie for extended periods of time, my asking her to venture out for a nearly impossible task probably didn’t rate high in her book. Stil , the two of us had raised some seriously impressive shades in the past.
We might be able to raise this one.
“So, you know where the foot was found,” Tamara said as she rol ed the cart to the center of my already drawn, but inactive, circle. “Like the other feet, it was severed by unknown means just above the ankle bone. And like al the others we’ve found, it’s a left foot.”
Why only left feet? Why no other body parts?
“We won’t know gender until DNA results come back,”
she said, “but from an initial examination the foot appears to have belonged to a—”
“Male,” Rianna and I said in unison. There might not have been much of a body, but there was enough to sense gender.
John shook his head. “Okay, geniuses, you’l get your chance to show off in a minute.” When we’d first met, John hadn’t believed I could always tel the gender of a corpse.
Always. He’d rol ed gurney after gurney out for me to identify. “Here’s what I bet you don’t know,” he said. “The boot the foot was found in was laced and double-knotted.
Not like it was being pinched shut but like there was a leg in it when it was laced. And here’s the real mystery. The foot was severed almost four inches below the top of the boot, but there’s not a drop of blood inside the boot and there’s no more damage to the boot than what would be expected of an old, worn-out shoe.”
“So the foot was shoved inside after being severed?”
And drained of blood. But why? “Or are you thinking the person throwing feet in the river missed it because it was person throwing feet in the river missed it because it was hidden inside the boot?”
“Yeah, that’s one of several theories floating around—
none of which is leading us anywhere.” John rubbed at his bald spot again.
“Any luck untangling the spel s on it?” I asked, glancing at Tamara.
She shook her head. “I was hoping that since this one hadn’t spent any time in the water maybe I’d glean something. But it’s just like the other feet we’ve found.”
If we were lucky, we’d be able to ask the shade. I turned to Rianna. “You ready to try this?”