His soul was wrong as well. All three robbers’ souls were wrong. Souls didn’t overlay a person with a duplicate image. They weren’t clear and defined the way Roy’s ghost appearance was, though he was, in fact, a soul. That level of definition didn’t occur until after the soul separated from the body. Inside a body, souls were more like an internal glow that radiated outward, surrounding the person in a warm, auralike glow. All three robbers glowed the faint yellow I associated with a human soul, but the glow didn’t encompass their bodies right, like the soul inside didn’t quite fit.
Country Club had turned back to the teller, urging him to fill the bag with cash faster. The homeless woman kept her assault rifle trained on the three collectors. To my left, the security guard had his weapon in hand and was pushing off the ground. Remy was just starting to turn. He hadn’t seen the guard yet, but when he did . . . Regardless of who shot first, if anyone started shooting, the other two robbers would as well. And people would get hurt. Die.
I could see the possibilities on Death’s face as he stared at me. He mouthed my name, inclining his head as if giving me permission, or urging me onward. Because I could stop it.
Remy finished his turn. Saw the guard. His gun lifted, aiming, his mouth opened to yell something. I didn’t have time to think, to weigh my options. I let my mental shield fall, let the icy touch of the grave rip through me as I let my own magic stab outward and coil around the robbers. Their dead flesh offered no resistance, letting my magic slide right through to the warm, glowing souls beneath.
The souls tried to recoil from the icy touch of my magic, but they were weak, diminished from being trapped inside dead flesh, and the smallest tug of my magic pulled them free.
Three bodies hit the floor simultaneously. Inanimate. Truly dead.
Three souls stood beside them, looking confused, scared. Not one soul matched a body on the ground.
Chapter 6
My ears were ringing, and it took me a moment to realize the security guard had fired a shot before the robbers’ bodies hit the ground. People were screaming, crying. I tried to look around, but I hadn’t had time to use any finesse when opening my shields, I’d just thrown them wide, and the cacophony of information barraging my senses was overwhelming. I squeezed my eyes closed, but it barely helped. I managed to keep my new secondary shield in place, though, the one that kept my psyche from reaching out and merging planes until everything I saw became part of mortal reality. So, while the racking wind from the land of the dead was whipping my hair around and had caught a stack of deposit envelopes, at least the building wasn’t in danger of decaying around me.
Someone brushed by me on their dash to the door. The heat of the brief contact felt scalding even through the light jacket I wore. I needed to get my shields under control. Taking a deep breath, I drew my magic back and then focused on closing the walls I kept around my psyche. Slowly, piece by piece, the living vines I visualized forming my mental shields slid into place. The wind around me died down, but the chill that had snuggled under my flesh remained.
I shivered, opening my eyes.
The room was dimmer now, my magic having burned out some of my vision, at least temporarily. The collectors were clear, though—it was more than my eyes that I saw them with. The Gray Man had already collected the soul that had been inside the homeless woman. I hadn’t even had a chance to look at it. The Raver was approaching the soul standing beside the fallen country club lady, though the soul was that of a man. Death was en route for the soul that had popped free from Remy’s body.
I held up a hand. “Wait.”
Death didn’t meet my eyes now, and I pushed off the ground. I was trembling, both from the cold that had ripped through me and from the adrenaline of the last several minutes. I wobbled as I got my feet under me, but my legs held, and I focused on the soul.
She was female. I couldn’t tell her age, but I was guessing not much older than Remy. Ghosts often took a moment to realize they’d lost their bodies, and I’d pulled her all the way across into the purgatory of the land of the dead, which was probably an even bigger adjustment. She stared down at Remy’s body, shaking her head.
“Hello,” I said, trying to get her attention. Death had almost reached us. “What’s your name?”
She looked up, and I was close enough to the land of the dead to see that she’d had big brown eyes in life. They were brimming with insubstantial tears.
“Put me back,” she said, kneeling down over Remy’s body and plunging her arms into his chest as if trying to pull him back on like a coat. “Put me back right now.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Death said, kneeling down beside her. “It’s time to go.” He held out his hand.
She reeled back. “No. No. He said if I did this, he’d put me back.”
“Who did?” I asked her, and shot a pleading gaze at Death. I needed to talk to this ghost.
He only shook his head. “It’s time to go,” he said again, and reached out, catching her arm. Her form shimmered, losing its distinctness and becoming brighter, clearer as she transitioned from the land of the dead to the realm of souls again.
“No!” the girl and I shouted at the same time.
Death flicked his wrist and she was gone. The look he gave me was apologetic, but he didn’t apologize—he knew what I was. Without a word, he vanished as well, and I was left in the sea of chaos that was the bank.
? ? ?
Two hours later, I was back in the closetlike waiting room in Central Precinct. I again wasn’t under arrest, but I had the sinking suspicion I couldn’t walk out as easily as I had the day before.
Remy’s body was also in the building—presumably in the morgue in the basement. I knew because the charm was once again alerting me that its target was close. At the same time, it had a thin, distant pull to another location, no doubt toward the wilds where I’d first felt the schism.
I considered that as I sat there in an uncomfortable folding chair. I’d assumed the issue was contamination of the focus because a person can’t be in two places at once, but what if it wasn’t? Remy’s body had been at that bank, but his soul hadn’t been. Maybe his soul was somewhere in the wilds? I’d never heard of anyone tracking a soul specifically, but typically there wasn’t much of a point. Either it was in the same place as the body, or the person was dead, and almost all souls crossed over immediately.
The door opened, revealing a young officer who looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t name. “Ms. Craft, if you’ll come this way,” he said, gesturing.
I followed obediently. Any hope I had for a friendly sharing of information evaporated when he turned the opposite direction from the detectives’ offices and led me instead into an interrogation room.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a sturdier but even more uncomfortable-looking chair.
For a moment I thought he was going to be the one leading the interview, but then, without waiting for me to comply, he turned and walked out of the room, the door shutting behind him.
I considered trying the knob, but I was fairly certain it would be locked, and there was a good chance someone was watching from behind the two-way mirror, so I refrained. Walking up to the chair, I sat with as much dignity as I could scrounge up and attempted to not slouch as I waited.
And waited.