The wind from the other side of the chasm picked up, stirring the ash around me in a small whirlwind. The house creaked. I tensed. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
When the house didn’t topple down onto my head, I took a tentative step forward. Nothing changed, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. Just get to the kids, Alex.
With that less than stellar mental pep talk, I began picking my way through the rubble, moving as quickly as I dared. The shields in my charm bracelet still held, buffering me from some of the torrent of realities around me, but with my main shield cracked and my dome popped, the grave pricked at me, distant corpses calling to my wyrd magic. Color also washed over the world, the Aetheric plane attempting to push into reality. I pointedly ignored both as hard as possible, focusing on the building.
I stumbled twice. The house quaked as reality shifted and the wall I tumbled into crumbled down to what I saw in the land of the dead. Maybe this wasn’t the best plan. But, if the ceiling did fall, it would disintegrate around me—hopefully before crushing me.
I finally reached the oddly intact wall. It wasn’t just one wall, but an entire room, complete with door. I paused before reaching for the handle. The door looked ready to fall off its hinges in my sight, but something had preserved this section of house, and I was guessing it was in a lot better shape than my gravesight indicated. If I pulled this small intact section into contact with what I saw across the chasm, I might destabilize the whole house. While I had a decent chance of surviving a small collapse, the structure would not crumble harmlessly around the kids.
Which meant I needed my shield back.
It took precious seconds to erect the shield. Through the rotted door, I could see one of the yellow glows dimming—I didn’t have much time. As soon as the bubble formed around my psyche, I grabbed the doorknob and twisted, throwing open the door.
The room beyond was a small bathroom, and while it was hard to be sure in my gravesight, it appeared that it hadn’t taken so much as smoke damage. A teenage girl huddled in the large claw-foot tub in the corner of the room. Molly. She clutched a smaller figure to her, who I was guessing had to be the three-year-old the neighbor had mentioned. Sam hid under a blanket, which almost completely concealed him so that if my gravesight hadn’t shown it as moth-eaten and rotted, it would have masked the glow of his soul. The boy glowed a brilliant yellow in the gaps of the blanket, but his older sister’s glow was dull, dwindling.
Death waited beside the tub.
He looked up as I burst into the room. Then his eyes closed, his head sagging. “You shouldn’t be here, Alex.”
“Don’t,” I said, stepping toward the tub. “Let me take them out.”
The girl’s head snapped up at the sound of my voice. Her wide eyes were sunken, as if she’d suffered a long sickness, her voice weak as she opened her mouth and screamed. The boy in her arms hunched lower, tucking himself against her without turning to look at the new potential danger.
The girl kept screaming, and I had no idea what her mind saw, but I felt the moment the glamour tried to wrap around me, to twist me into the nightmare she imagined. She’s the Glitter user. The glamour slid back off me, my own powers rejecting the version of reality her drug-addled mind had tried to cast me into. And her soul dimmed.
The Glitter was fueling the glamour with her life force, and she was running out.
“It’s time,” Death said, reaching for the girl.
I lunged forward. “No. Wait.”
It was already too late. Death’s hand was in her chest, his fingers grasping her soul. He gave me a small, sad frown, and said, “There was only one path for her after she took the drug.”
He lifted his arm, pulling her dwindling soul free. Her scream cut off, her body sagging. The boy in her arms shifted, but he didn’t move. He didn’t know she was gone. Not yet.
“At least let me question the ghost.” Because I could already feel the hollowness in her corpse—if I could raise a shade, it would be a mere echo, likely too faded to be of use. And we had to find who was distributing this drug. It needed to purged from the street. People couldn’t keep dying in these nightmares, or daymares, or whatever.
Death’s frown deepened. “She’s no restless spirit. She’s tired, ready to move on.” And to accent his point, he flicked his wrist, and Molly’s soul moved on to wherever souls went next.
Damn.
“What about . . . ?” My gaze moved to the boy.
“He’s safe,” Death said, and tension I hadn’t realized had sunk claws into my shoulders loosened. I nodded to acknowledge his words, and he glanced over my shoulder, toward the front of the house.