“No,” I said, and Rianna shook her head. “I’ve raised shades that have been dismembered. This isn’t the result.
Remember that case three years ago when the parts were found in three different trash bags?” And the bag with the head and right arm had been found almost a week after the rest. The vic had died of exsanguination as his limbs were sawed off one at a time. It stil made me sick to think about that case, but even though I hadn’t had the ful body to raise a shade from, and several of the limbs had been severed prior to death, the shade had stil remembered that it once had a ful body—the parts had just appeared dismembered. This shade . . . it was like the foot was al the dismembered. This shade . . . it was like the foot was al the man had ever been.
“Okay, so then what is this?” John pointed to the flailing foot.
“I don’t know.” Unhelpful. That’s what it was. How could a foot forget it had been part of a body? “It’s like the rest of the body just ceased to be.”
John grunted. “You sound like the tracker I consulted.
Good reputation, best tracking spel s in the country. But he tried to track the rest of the body on each of the feet, and each spel failed. He said he’d never seen anything like it and it was like there was no rest of a body out there to find.
How is that possible?”
I had no idea. The shade jumped off the gurney and hopped across the floor. It bounced against the edge of the circle, sending a tremor through the barrier. I shook my head. “Why is it stuck in perpetual motion?” I asked aloud, though I knew no one could answer. Would the other dismembered feet do the same?
I thought back to the circle at the vacant lot and the rage-and pain-fil ed shadows I had almost been able to see around me. They’d been writhing and circling. Was this shade stil stuck in whatever had happened inside that circle? I watched the foot hop about. There seemed to be a pattern to its movement, but with only the one foot I couldn’t guess what it was.
“We should put it back,” Rianna said, her voice wavering.
Chil bumps had broken out down her arms, though I wasn’t sure if they were from fear or cold, and she looked exhausted, overused. Not that I wasn’t.
I nodded and began drawing the magic back, preparing to lay the shade to rest. Then the morgue door banged open. I jumped at the sound and a familiar silver-souled fae stormed into the room.
“Alex,” Falin said, coming to a stop inches from my circle,
“we have to go. Now.”
Chapter 23
John rounded on the FIB agent. “We’re conducting an investigation here,” he said, the shiny bald spot on the top of his head flushing to red.
“And it’s over. Alex, let’s go.” Falin rapped on the edge of the barrier as if he were knocking at a door.
Sparks of light flashed through the circle around his knuckles, and my knees locked as spikes of magical backlash tore through me. Reminds me of the first time we met. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one affected.
Rianna swayed, her eyes rol ing back to show too much white. I grabbed her wrists before her hands fel away from mine. We were stil sharing magic. If we broke contact at this point, the results could be disastrous. Possibly deadly.
“Unless you want to drag me out of here unconscious, get the hel away from my circle,” I said, glaring at Falin as I tried to keep Rianna standing.
Falin glanced at his fist, as if only now considering the result of his action. Then he dropped his hand and stepped back a foot. The urgency in his face didn’t change, though, and I didn’t ignore it. Something must have happened.
Regardless, certain magics couldn’t be rushed, and I was in the middle of one.
I drew back the power that gave the ghastly foot form, and it vanished, the sound of its clomping dance fading.
Rianna let out a breath, swaying as she did so, and I squeezed her fingers. I hastily pul ed my heat from the corpse, the bit of living warmth accenting just how cold I’d grown while immersed in the grave. I shivered, but I wasn’t grown while immersed in the grave. I shivered, but I wasn’t done yet. I stil had to break the ritual with Rianna.
“What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.” As the power-laced words left my mouth, Rianna’s magic washed out of me.
She dropped my hands and sagged into herself, then sank to her knees. Her already pale skin blanched to the gray of a corpse, and she gasped, as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. She was the better witch, hands down. I’d seen her cast spel s I could never dream of attempting. Hel , she’d healed me from being half dead after my fight with Coleman. But the gap between our grave abilities? It had clearly widened in the years we’d been apart.