Briar was the one who shook her head. “I saw him. He doesn’t match the description of Gauhter.”
“So these were clients of yours, Alex?” John asked. “Do you know what they would want that would encourage them to work with a necromancer?”
“Their daughter,” Briar and I said in unison.
The men in the room gave various looks of confusion, and I sighed.
“They wanted me to find their daughter’s ghost, which was an odd request. Gauhter must have promised to put her ghost in a new body.” And the couple I’d seen in my office were probably desperate enough to jump at that chance. A witch giving their magic to someone else took trust or desperation; it was hard on the body and on the mind. But for the promise of having a child returned? I could see a parent jumping on the possibility.
I pulled out my phone and brought up a browser, but pecking out letters on the touch screen was impossible with my hands covered in gauze.
“What are you doing?” Briar asked.
I thrust the phone toward Falin. “Pull up the Nekros City newspaper.”
He tried to take the phone from my gauze-bound hand, but I didn’t give it up, so he settled for pecking out words with his pointer fingers while I held the phone. When it loaded I said, “Pull up the obits and type in ‘Katie’—no, that has to be a nickname. Try different spellings for ‘Catharine Saunders.’”
It took him several searches, but finally he nodded and I pulled the phone back.
“Kathryn Saunders, age six, passed into the arms of angels on November first.” I scrolled down the page, scanning over the obligatory list of people she was survived by and the gushing report of her character typical of any obituary listing. “Here we go, it says a viewing was held on November fourth at noon followed by a graveside service at South Cemetery.” I looked up. “That’s where we should look.”
Briar nodded, but John’s mustache pulled downward with his frown. “It’s as good a lead as any, but I don’t think we should focus solely on that cemetery.” John turned to the map. “This cemetery is the closest to the northeast wilds where the bulk of Gauhter’s activity has been. It is also a very viable option. But it could be any of them. We should send teams to systematically search all the cemeteries in and around the city.”
“Sure,” Briar said, already on her feet. “But you still have men at the rest stop and shack. And you sent more to the locations Tiffany gave us. Manpower is running pretty thin. Craft is right, Gauhter tends to use illusions, which means each team is going to need a sensitive or to do a sweep by hand with a spell detector. It’s going to take time to search all the cemeteries. We have our own sensitive.” Briar nodded to me. “So we should join the search, and I think Craft’s lead is the most likely.”
“Then I’ll take a team to the cemetery in the northeast,” John said.
Briar headed for the door. “Get your men organized and briefed. We will head out now since South is one of the farthest cemeteries. If anyone finds anything that seems to point to the necromancer’s presence, I’m their first call. Craft, Andrews, you two coming?”
And we were off to look for a necromancer, in a cemetery. Where else?
? ? ?
Rianna hadn’t called me back yet, so I called her again as Falin drove toward South Cemetery. Voice mail, again. I dialed the Tongues for the Dead office next. Considering the damage the office had taken, I wasn’t sure anyone would be there, so I was pleasantly surprised when Ms. B’s gruff voice answered.
“Tongues for the Dead, where the grave holds no secrets.”
Well, it was better than the line she’d been using the last time I’d called. I decided not to mention it. “Hey, Ms. B, it’s Alex. Is Rianna in the office? She’s not answering her cell.”
“No. She ran off to chase a lead before lunch. It’s getting late. She’s probably back at the castle by now. Reception is iffy there. Is there something you need?”
“True,” I said, but it wasn’t like Rianna to not return calls. “I wanted to ask her about the case she’s working. It appears to be tied into mine. Do you think you could scan the contract her client signed and e-mail it to me? It probably won’t lead to anything as he was the victim of theft, not our bad guy, but you never know.”
Ms. B grunted. “Sure. It might take me a minute to locate. Rianna’s filing system leaves even more to be desired than yours.”
“Great,” I said as way of thanks, ignoring the insult tacked on the end. Ms. B was a brownie; anything short of perfect organization was a mess to her. Then another thought occurred to me. “Also, the clients I saw but didn’t accept a few days ago, Rue and Rachael Saunders. Do we have any information on them from when they booked the appointment?”
I heard the sound of her tapping something on her keyboard, one keystroke at a time. We’d been looking for a keyboard that she could learn to type on, but they didn’t make many options for someone slightly smaller than your average toddler.
“Looks like all we got was a phone number,” she said after a few moments. “Will that help?”
“Can’t hurt,” I said, and she read it off to me. As I couldn’t exactly take notes with my hands heavily bandaged, I called the number out to Briar as Ms. B read it to me. She punched it into her own phone before repeating it back to me.
“Anything else?” Ms. B asked, her gruff tone making it sound like my call was inconveniencing her. I didn’t take it to heart.
“That’s it. I’ll see you back at the castle tonight.” I exchanged my good-byes and then twisted in the seat so I could see Briar. “So can we trace the Saunderses’ phone or anything now that we have their number? Get a GPS fix or something?”
Briar frowned at me. “I sent it to Derrick; we’ll see what he can gather for us. It might take some time, though.”
I nodded, admittedly disappointed. Then I had nothing to do but wait impatiently for Derrick to get back to us, the e-mail from Ms. B to arrive, or to reach the cemetery. Or you know, Gauhter to send another spell after me.
The overcast day made the approaching dusk seem to arrive early, so that by the time we reached the gates of South Cemetery, the world was caught in an oppressive gray gloom. My eyes had mostly recovered from the abuse I’d put them through this morning, but as night approached, my normal night blindness set in, making me feel vulnerable. I didn’t like being here this late. Half of me hoped we didn’t find anything, even though I knew time was at a premium. Maybe I could sleep in a magic circle tonight . . . and stay there for the foreseeable future. That wouldn’t work, and I knew it. Besides, my circles were too weak. Had I been inside one this afternoon, it would have crumbled under the assault of the spell Gauhter had sent. And as that spell had failed, I would bet the next one would be even stronger.