She huffed, cocking a hip. “He should be staying away. You’re nothing but trouble.”
Neither one of us had to clarify who “he” referred to. Death. Of course, that wasn’t his real name, or a name the Raver would recognize him by. I didn’t know his real name—or hers, for that matter—and as far as I’d observed, collectors didn’t use names at all. It could make things confusing, but we both knew there was only one person I’d track her down for.
“He’s my boyfriend.”
She rolled her eyes so hard her whole head moved with the action, making her long dreads twitch like snakes curling around her.
“I need to talk to him,” I said again. “Can you let him know I’m looking for him?”
The Raver just stared at me a moment, incredulous. I met her gaze, not backing down. After a moment, she made a sound that wasn’t dissimilar to a growl before slashing her glowing orange-capped nails through the air in a dismissive gesture. “Sure. I’ll tell him. But don’t you think he knows? He pops off to see you whenever he can. If that’s not enough for your mortal heart, then you should cut him loose. Don’t you know how dangerous your forbidden dalliances are?”
I had some idea, but I had the suspicion he hadn’t told me the full extent of it. “I’m not trying to endanger him.”
“Then let him go.”
My hands clenched at my sides. I hadn’t come here to have my relationship critiqued. “He could walk away anytime.”
“Until you have a case you can’t solve without trying to pry the secrets of the universe out of him. Then you’d crawl back, looking for him.”
My jaw clenched, but I looked away because she wasn’t completely wrong. Wasn’t that basically what I was doing here? I wasn’t here because I was worried about him, or because I missed him so much I’d burst if he didn’t visit soon. I was here because he hadn’t visited in a while and I wanted to ask him about a case. If I was completely honest with myself, I was angry with him. Angry he hadn’t visited. Angry for him taking the soul at the bank, even though he was just doing his job. Angry about all the things he couldn’t tell me. Like his name.
Yeah, she wasn’t completely out of line. And that made the words sting a lot worse.
“Just let him know,” I said, forcing myself to meet her eyes again.
“I already said I would.”
Right. So that was that then. I nodded to her, trying to acknowledge thanks without actually verbalizing it. Then I turned.
Several people were staring at me. In fairness, I’d been standing in the middle of a dance floor, not dancing, and having a conversation with someone no one else could see. Yeah, that likely didn’t seem strange at all.
“You’re welcome,” the Raver called behind me, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
I didn’t turn but focused on navigating back to the entrance and the more reliable evening light outside.
? ? ?
It was far too dark for my comfort as I reached my neighborhood, and I found myself squinting into the dimness as I reached the driveway. I hated this time of year. The days were too short. Four cars were already in the drive, so I parked at the curb. We’d been cited for doing it by the homeowners’ association already, but they’d be even angrier if someone parked on the lawn, so until we widened the drive, it was what it was.
I took a moment to brace myself before I left the cozy warmth of my car and dashed for the front door of Caleb’s house. Until recently, I would have gone around the side of the house to a set of steps that led to the second-floor room I used to rent, and, on paper, it was still listed as my legal residence. But the situation had changed.
I let myself through the front door into the empty house beyond. Despite the nearly half dozen cars out front, the house was dark, silent. No one actually lived in it anymore. Caleb still used his studio on the main floor, and it was kept furnished in case anyone visited, but the house had been used more as a passageway than a residence for nearly a month now.
I started to navigate my way through the darkness toward the back door, but then hesitated. The house did serve one other purpose. It was the place with power and Wi-Fi. There was one other source where I might be able to find information about walking corpses, or at least if other grave witches had encountered them: the Dead Club Forums.
I detoured, heading through Caleb’s living room toward the inner stairs that would lead up to the old apartment I used to rent. A power charger for my laptop and phone waited on the small bar area in the one-room apartment, and I pulled out both and plugged them in, booting up my laptop.
I clicked the desktop shortcut that sent me to the Dead Club Forums, the unofficial Internet home of grave witches all over the world. While the site was geared toward grave witches, other magic users dropped in occasionally as well. Many of the non–grave witches were morbidly curious about magic dealing with the dead, and others were obvious forum trolls, but sometimes more bizarre elements posted.
I turned to the search feature first. It was . . . limited, to say the least. I looked for information on tracking a soul first. A handful of hits popped up. Most were hypothetical, but a few claimed they’d actually managed to track ghosts. In each case, there were no details listed and most of the profiles had been deactivated, making me think they probably weren’t legitimate accounts. I then tried every iteration of “walking dead” and “animate corpse” I could think of. Most of the results were unrelated, but two showed promise. Both were infuriatingly vague but seemed to hint at necromancy, which was what I was already leaning toward.
Despite being a witch who worked with the dead regularly, I knew almost nothing about necromancy. Spells that physically affected dead bodies or used human or fae body parts were illegal in every country in the mortal realm. Practicing necromancy was banned, and even owning books about it was punishable with huge fines and/or jail time. So, even on the Dead Club Forums, necromancy was talked around, not about.
I opened the compose mode on a new thread, but hesitated as I considered the very few details I knew about the case. The ghosts piloted the bodies. The bodies decayed abnormally fast once the ghosts were ejected. What else? I stared at the blinking cursor in the center of the blank box, not sure how I could ask if anyone had dealt with either of those scenarios without the thread getting tagged by an admin.
“Hard day?” asked a masculine voice from across the room.
I startled at the sound, even though the voice was wonderfully familiar. My head shot up, my gaze landing on Death leaning against the wall, watching me.
“You came.”