So I followed Briar and Falin into the cemetery.
South Cemetery was the oldest in Nekros, older than the city itself, and judging by some of the bodies I’d sensed here in the past, older than when the space had unfolded after the Magical Awakening. Though it was a large, beautifully maintained cemetery full of statues and ornate mausoleums, it wasn’t a cemetery I particularly liked. Not anymore, at least. The last time I’d been here hadn’t been for a job, but when I’d been kidnapped by skimmers who wanted me to tear a hole into the Aetheric for them. I’d escaped that night by pouring energy into the dozens of ghosts haunting the cemetery and using their sudden appearance as a diversion. Tonight, as we walked among the hulking mausoleums and granite angels, the cemetery was oddly quiet. Too quiet.
“Where are the ghosts?” I asked, stopping and looking around.
Briar and Falin turned, giving me twin quizzical looks.
“Last time I was here, you couldn’t enter without at least a few of the dozens of ghosts following you around. I haven’t seen one since we arrived.” And I’d left the ghosts in this cemetery with a major power boost, so they should have been abundant and obvious.
Briar shrugged, looking unconcerned. Falin scanned the cemetery, but even if the ghosts had been present, he wouldn’t have been able to see them.
“You picking up any spells, Craft?” Briar asked as she started walking again.
I shook my head. We were headed for the largest mausoleums on the grounds, which would be the easiest to conduct rituals inside. So far, I hadn’t felt a hint of anything. I knew that at least one of the mausoleums had a secret underground bunker beneath it, but we’d already passed the crypt Bell and his flunkies had held me in, and I hadn’t felt anything there either.
Briar paused, pulling her phone from her pocket. She answered, but almost immediately pulled the phone away from her ear and hit a button on the screen. “All right, Derrick, you’re on speaker. What’s the warning?”
“Are Alex and Falin with you?” Derrick asked from the other side of the phone.
I stepped closer so I could hear better, and Falin said, “We’re here.”
“Good,” Derrick said, and I heard relief in his voice. “Whatever you do, the three of you do not split up, okay?”
I glanced at my companions. Don’t split up. Well, it wasn’t like I was planning to wander off on my own in the growing dark.
“Got it,” Briar said. “Anything on that phone number?”
There was a pause, like he’d been about to say something else and her question had derailed him. “It was a prepaid line, untraceable. It’s off at the moment. Nothing useful.”
“Well, that sucks,” I muttered.
“Alex.” Derrick took a breath. Even through the phone it sounded heavy and strained, either like he was about to say something he wasn’t sure he wanted to, or like whatever had happened before he made the call had frightened him. Either possibility was scary considering he’d clearly called because he’d just had a premonition. “Alex, you must hurry. Do not let sunset beat you.”
The phone clicked as he disconnected before I could ask any questions. Briar tucked the phone back into her pocket, but I was still frowning at the spot where the phone had been.
“What happens at sunset?” I asked.
Briar shrugged. “You know as much as I do, Craft.”
“I think I hate your partner. Why can’t he give us more guidance than that?”
She gave me an annoyed look, and I got the feeling the subject of her partner was off-limits. “He does what he can. We stick together and we finish this before sunset. Now come on, we are burning what passes for daylight.”
She was right; if we had to find the necromancer and his cronies before sunset, we didn’t have much time left. The gloom made it feel later, but we had about forty-five minutes before the true moment of sunset.
We finished our search of the graveyard within fifteen minutes. We hadn’t found any magic, and more alarming in my opinion, we hadn’t found any ghosts. We had found dozens of disturbed graves, including little Katie’s. I’d let my senses stretch. Each disturbed grave we found had been empty, no trace of the body that should have been inside. Our necromancer had been here, surely, but where was he now?
“It would have been helpful if Derrick had told us if we were at least looking in the right place,” I grumbled as we walked back toward the entrance.
I was more than a little concerned about what would happen at sunset. Would that be when Gauhter would attack me with the next spell? As a fae, I’d be at my weakest at sunset, and the charm Derrick had given me had been exhausted by Gauhter’s spell, so it would offer no more protection.
“Is that a light?” Falin asked, pointing somewhere in the back of the cemetery.
I turned, trying to pick out anything in the growing darkness, but I couldn’t see a light. Briar on the other hand, spotted it.
“Let’s check it out,” she said, leading us in that direction.
There was a small growth of trees beyond the final gravestones and statues, and we walked through them, emerging on the other side to find a simple but old house. As Falin had said, there were lights shining through the windows.
“I think it must be the caretaker’s home,” Briar said as we approached the side of the house.
I shivered. “We’re still inside the cemetery grounds.” I lived with ghosts, but I wouldn’t want to live locked inside cemetery gates with ghosts who couldn’t leave and often weren’t terribly happy about that fact.
Not that I’d seen a single ghost since we arrived.
It was likely that the occupant of the small house was the graveyard caretaker, but then, why hadn’t he or she reported the disturbed graves? We were looking for a necromancer; a report like that would have been flagged. Just in case, we kept to the shadows as we scoped out the building.
There was a covered carport in the back of the property, about fifty yards from the house, and we ducked into it. Four cars were inside, two covered with tarps. The closest to us looked vaguely familiar. Falin pulled out his phone, scrolling through the pictures he’d taken at the rest stop earlier today. Sure enough, this car was one from that lot. The one that had been missing by the time the crime scene techs arrived.
“So Rachael is here.” Equal parts excitement and terror pounded through me, making my heartbeat loud in my ears. We were close now. But that also meant they were close.
“Can you sense anything?” Briar asked me.
I let my senses stretch. We were too far from the house to get specifics, but in the distance I could feel the slightest tingle of familiar magic.
“Definitely the necromancer’s magic. We should call the police.”
Briar put in the call, giving a brief summary of our location and what we suspected we’d found. When she disconnected she glanced at her watch. “Twenty-five minutes until sunset.”