“Yeah, but . . . How did you know it was me?” He glanced pointedly down at his very female body that looked nothing like the picture Taylor had supplied me.
I turned to Briar and Falin because that was a rather complicated subject. While it had been a good assumption, even if I’d opened my shields, I couldn’t have made out the image of his ghost while it was inside a body, just the general glow of a soul that didn’t quite fit inside a body correctly.
“What did he have you steal?” Falin asked, nodding at the book bag Remy held.
Remy clutched the bag, pulling it against his chest and then nearly dropping it, surprise flashing across the body’s pretty face. I was guessing it was the boobs he hadn’t anticipated smashing when he hugged the bag. That would probably take getting used to.
“What do you know about him?” Remy asked, glancing between Falin and me.
I realized that he never once glanced at Briar on my other side. She was hiding behind her charms again, but she hadn’t plugged him with any kind of knockout spell yet, so whatever. As long as she was hanging back, I’d assume she approved of my line of questioning, and of me choosing what to reveal.
“I know that you signed up for a study with a man named Hadisty and wound up in another body.”
Remy scoffed under his breath. “Hadisty.” He shook his head. “You know that’s not his real name, right?”
I nodded and Falin said, “We know a couple of names he goes by, but we doubt we know his real name.”
“I might not either, but his friend called him ‘Gauhter’ and I think that’s probably real.” Remy glanced at the watch on his wrist and cursed. He tucked the gun back under his coat. “I have to go. Tell Taylor I’m okay, and I’ll be home soon. Don’t tell her about me looking like this. I don’t want her to ever know.”
But he wouldn’t be home soon.
“What did he have you steal, Remy?” I asked, taking a step forward.
Remy slung the backpack over one shoulder and turned to walk the other way. I couldn’t hear her, but I knew that Briar would be lifting her crossbow, preparing to take him down. He couldn’t be allowed to leave. Could we arrest him for being dead?
“Wait,” I called after him.
He just shook his head. “I can’t. I have to get back. You don’t understand.”
“He said he’d put you back in your body if you do this,” I guessed, based on Angela’s ghost’s words.
“Yeah, exactly. So you understand how important this is.”
“He can’t put you back,” I called after him.
Remy stopped. “He put me here. He can put me back,” he said, and there was something a little desperate in his voice, something that rang of radical conviction. He had to believe he’d get his body back.
And I had to disillusion him.
“Your body is dead.”
He shook his head. “No. No, I saw it walking around recently.”
“It’s in the city morgue,” Falin said, and Remy recoiled, his lips pulling back from his teeth in an expression that was too primal to rightly name but definitely included fear and anger.
“You’re a liar.” He spat the words at both of us.
Falin pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open to flash his badge. “I’m Falin Andrews with the FIB. The body of Remy Hollens has been positively identified and is currently in the city morgue.”
Remy hadn’t asked us who we were, which shouldn’t have surprised me considering he’d barely been paying enough attention to describe his own death, but that meant Falin’s action created quite a response. The anger on his face drained away, leaving only the horrified shock. He sank to his knees, hands slack by his sides, his gaze a million miles away but directed at the carpet.
“Well done, Craft,” Briar said without a trace of sarcasm in her voice.
“That wasn’t well done. We just destroyed him,” I hissed in reply.
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to shoot him.”
True. Though letting her tranquilize him might have been kinder. He would have had to find out about his body at some point, though.
“So, I’m like this forever now?” Remy whispered after several minutes, and I cringed.
Eventually I’d have to tell him that the body he was wearing was dead as well. Not yet, though. That would be too many blows for anyone to handle.
Footsteps sounded out of sight but somewhere close. Briar, who was closest to the bookshelf, discreetly closed the open Plexiglas.
A security guard turned the corner around the bookshelf. His pace was quick, not casual, so this wasn’t him on rounds. We’d drawn someone’s attention.
“You kids doing okay over here?” Friendly words for a man who was studying us with a suspicious frown. He also wasn’t old enough to call us kids, but I let that slide as we were on a college campus.
“Just having a conversation,” Falin said with a smile.
The guard turned to study him, his eyes narrowing as he took in Falin’s appearance. Maybe Falin could pass for a postdoctoral student, but he sure couldn’t pass for the typical undergraduate. That said, the university was pretty diverse.
The guard’s gaze eventually moved off Falin and fell on Remy’s still-kneeling form.
“Miss, you okay?”
Remy didn’t move, he didn’t even breathe, though I’m not sure he was aware of that fact. His gaze was still distant, unfocused on the carpet. Of course, he probably didn’t even realize the guard’s “miss” was addressed to him.
“Remy,” I coaxed, kneeling down beside him, close, but not close enough to touch. My grave magic might be exhausted and behaving, but he was still a corpse. He lifted his head, but he didn’t seem to see anything. I looked back up at the guard. “He just got some bad news about the death of someone very close.”
Confusion flickered over the guard’s features, and I realized I’d used a pronoun he probably hadn’t been expecting. Female body. Male ghost. Pronouns were a little tricky.
The guard let it pass without comment. Just nodded and said, “Maybe this isn’t the best place for such a conversation. Sorry for your loss.”
Then after one more searching glance that encompassed us all, except Briar, he turned, waved to someone watching from one of the cameras, and walked away. No one spoke as we listened to his footsteps grow more distant. This close to Remy, I could feel more than just the magic in the backpack he carried, but also another charm I hadn’t sensed earlier. It was subtle, and illegal. It kept the wearer from showing up on cameras. I recognized it only because I’d used one before. Briar’s news stunt wasn’t the first time I’d ended up on the wrong end of a reporter’s story. It did explain how Remy got the book into his bag without the guard showing up earlier. Or why none showed up when he pulled a gun on us. But we probably did need to move on before the guard realized the number of people he spoke to didn’t match up with the number on the screen.