chapter 16
I FELT A PANG OF GUILT AT HAVING LEFT THE JAIL BEFORE I could find the little boy and say good-bye. Too late to go back now. I hadn’t left a marker, so it’d take me hours to walk there again. I’d return and see him when this was all done.
I found Kristof in my house, and told him what had happened.
“Why not just kill her?” he said when I’d finished.
I threw my hands up. “Exactly. Why isn’t this dead obvious to everyone but us?”
He put his legs up on the ottoman, resting his feet a hairsbreadth from mine. “This Janah told you to find the latest partner. Is that because she’s the only one you can use?”
“No, I think that was just because she’d be the easiest one to find. With the others, who knows if they’re still alive…” My chin jerked up, eyes meeting his. “I see. If I don’t need to use the latest, then I can check out one who’s already passed over, and test my theory, see whether they’re connected to the Nix when she’s on this side. I’ll just need to visit the Fates and get myself a visitor’s pass to a dead partner’s hell dimension.” I looked over at him. “Want to come along?”
He smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“No,” the eldest Fate said, not even pausing in her spinning long enough to look at us. “You cannot go flitting about the other dimensions, bothering ghosts in purgatory.”
“We can’t bother ghosts in purgatory?” I said. “What the hell is purgatory for, then?”
The middle Fate took over before her sister could answer. “Most wouldn’t speak to you anyway, Eve, and those that did would only try to lead you astray with lies and half-truths.”
The youngest Fate cut in. “What about—?”
Her sisters cut her short, and the three of them flipped past as they discussed something. Then the middle Fate returned.
“We have a possibility,” she said. “Someone who may be inclined to help you, and who will be truthful. However, like the others, she’s not a supernatural, so she isn’t within the realms we govern. We must make arrangements for you to speak to her, and this may take some time. Leave it with us.”
The Fates sent us to my house. I stood on the front porch and looked at the pair of wicker rockers. I’d picked them up shortly after moving in. They conjured up images of lazy afternoons whiled away sipping mint juleps and reading trashy novels. And just as soon as I had time for lazy afternoons, mint juleps, and trashy novels, I’d use them. For now, though…
I looked over at Kris. “The Fates and Trsiel think this is all about following clues like tracks in the snow. But to catch your prey, you need to understand it.”
“You want to better understand the Nix.”
“Exactly.” I waved him to the twin rockers. “I need to speak not to a partner, but someone else who was there, who saw what was happening. Someone who’d have a reason to talk to me. Maybe a victim…”
“Possibly, but outside of movies, I doubt many killers share their thoughts and motives with their victims. Those women the Fates showed you both had male partners. The first man is still alive, but the later one died in prison about ten years ago. From what I dimly recall of the trial, he and his wife didn’t present the most united front. After his sentence was read, they dragged him out cursing her name.”
I grinned. “So he might be up for a little tattletale pay-back?”
“Let’s hope so.”
Jaime lifted her eye mask to peer at me. “The first night off I’ve had in two weeks, and you’re asking me to spend it in a cemetery five hundred miles away?”
I dropped onto the armchair and pulled my legs under me. “Forget the graveside version, then. Let’s go for the long-distance ritual.”
“You mean the one that will zap my powers for a week, and knock me flat on my back for three days? Even if I cared to do that—which I don’t—the long-distance ritual never works on anyone who isn’t in a normal afterlife dimension.”
“Well, there is an alternative.”
“Good.”
“We could contact the ghost of Amanda Sullivan’s five-year-old daughter, ask her if she noticed anything strange about Mommy before she drowned her.”
Jaime glowered at me, then plucked off her mask and tossed it across the room. “I’ll pack.”
It took me a couple of hours to get to the cemetery, first transporting as near as I could, then walking the rest of the way. While I waited for Jaime to arrive, I laid a marker and returned to the ghost world, to check on the Fates’ progress. The wraith-clerk receptionist assured me the Fates were working on my request, but couldn’t provide an ETA for results.
I popped over to Portland to check on Savannah. She was at school, poring over a math test. Math has never been her best subject, and I hovered there for a few minutes, trying to mentally communicate the answers, but the truth is that math was never my best subject, either. If I succeeded, I’d probably only guarantee her a failing grade. I kissed her for good luck, and went back to the cemetery to wait for Jaime.
It was a dark and stormy night…
Actually, the skies were crystal clear and, with the three-quarter moon overhead, it wasn’t even that dark, but if you’re going to conduct a graveside séance, you have to set the scene properly.
I’d been sitting on a grave marker for over an hour now. It was one of those double headstones, for a husband and wife…only the wife hadn’t died yet, so the stone just bore her name and date of birth. Downright creepy, if you ask me. The woman’s husband died twenty years ago. Every time she came by to tend his grave, she had to see her name on a tombstone, that blank date-of-death space just itching to be filled in. Talk about a memento mori.
At least they had a tomb. I was buried somewhere in a forest in Maine. The upside to that, though, is that no necromancer could contact me unless they did it the hard way, which, as Jaime said, was damned hard, and rarely successful. So far my afterlife had been interference-free.
At the stroke of midnight, a cowled figure leapt over the cemetery fence. Well, okay, it was probably closer to twelve-thirty, she was wearing a full-length coat instead of a cape, and she more tumbled over the fence than leapt, but I’m really trying for atmosphere here.
Jaime spotted me and strode over, coat flapping. Under it, she wore a black bodysuit. It would have been a great disguise…if not for the flaming red hair that flashed through the darkness like a firebrand.
“Oooh, love the coat,” I said as she drew closer. “Is that lambskin?” I looked down at my jersey and jeans.
“Hmmm, underdressed as usual.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about being seen, except by our ghost.”
“Ah, but that’s the problem. If our ghost sees me dressed like this, he’ll know right away that I’m a spook. Better not give him any clues.”
I closed my eyes and changed into an all-black outfit—a turtleneck, snug-fitting jeans, cropped biker jacket, and knee-high boots. If you have to skulk around a cemetery, at least you can look good doing it.
I’d found Robin MacKenzie’s grave earlier, so I led Jaime straight there and waited while she set up, then spent another hour waiting while she coaxed MacKenzie out. The Fates and their ilk keep a pretty tight lock on the nastier areas of the afterlife.
Finally, a ghost popped through. In my vision, I’d only seen MacKenzie from the back. This spook fit: average size, sandy brown hair, scrawnier than I remembered, but I guess a decade in prison took its toll.
“Robin MacKenzie?” Jaime said.
He looked around, deer-in-the-headlights stunned, then saw Jaime. He gave her a slow once-over, grin broadening by the second. Then his gaze slid to me and his grin widened.
“Hell-o, ladies,” he said, running his hand through his hair.
“Robin MacKenzie?” Jaime repeated.
“Uh, yeah. Right.” He shook himself and stretched. “Sorry if I’m a bit slow on the uptake. Never been called out by a necromancer before.” He paused. “That is what you two ladies are, right? Necromancers?”
Jaime nodded.
“Sweet.” He gave us each another once-over, his grin returning. “Very sweet. So…what can I do for you ladies? Looking for a little incubus action?”
I slipped off my tombstone and strolled over to him. “Is that what you think you’re here for?”
“Well, heh-heh, let’s just say it’s what I’m hoping I’m here for. A little ghostly ménage à…uh, a three-some.”
I kicked him in the back of the knees. As he crumbled, I grabbed his collar and threw him face-first into the dirt. Kind of blew my cover, but it was a bit late to worry about that.
“Let me give you a hint,” I said, leaning down to his ear. “This isn’t foreplay.”
He let out a gurgle, and tried to rise, but I ground his face into the dirt. He writhed and coughed.
“Stop faking it,” I said. “You’re dead—you can’t choke. But there are a few other discomforts I can dream up. Any more ménage à trois notions, and we’ll put my creative abilities to the test…right before I toss your murdering ass back down to hell. Got it?”
He sputtered, eyes saucer-wide. “Murdering…? Look, ladies, I don’t know who you’re looking for—”
I glared at him. “You aren’t Robin MacKenzie, are you?”
“Shit, no. I saw you ladies hanging around, trying to get hold of this Robin dude, and I figured if he doesn’t want to answer, I will. I mean, shit…” His gaze traveled over me. “Can’t blame a ghost for trying, right?”
I hauled him over to Jaime’s altar, bent over her bowl of vervain, blew the smoke into his face, and watched him fade away. Then I turned to Jaime, who was sitting there, head in her hands.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
When she lifted her head, she was sputtering with laughter. “Oh, that was too good. I need you around on all my séances.”
“It might help if I looked more like I was trying to contact a spirit, and less like I was trying to pick one up.” I closed my eyes and changed into a plain black T-shirt and pants. “There. Better?”
“Doesn’t matter. Believe me, I’ve tried. I could shave my head and wear sackcloth and still attract a whole lot of ghostly wrong numbers. Makes me wonder whether there’s some kind of ghost-necro porn industry down there.”
“Séance Sluts III: Naughty Necros Caught on Film.”
She grinned. “Probably. Okay, let’s try again. And this time, we’re checking ID.”