Who By Water (Voices of the Dead Book 1)

by Victoria Raschke

  “Jesus. How long does that take?”

  “Depends on the soul. But there is a more sinister reason the dead don’t cross. And a reason they would flee from a presence.”

  “I was really hoping fading into nothingness was as bad as it got.”

  “I wish it were, too. But demons and some other supernatural beings have the power to murder the dead.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  Leo continued. “They absorb soul energy or they sever the connection the dead have to this plane. I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure how it works but it isn’t good. The dead have no desire to be anywhere near a demon or anyone else who’s more than human.”

  “Except me.”

  “Except you.”

  She knocked on Vesna’s door to ask how her date with Igor went but she wasn’t home. Maybe breakfast had turned into an all day affair. She went back down to get the mail and walked back up to her flat.

  She opened the door to her apartment and her phone rang. The stone in her pocket felt like a burning coal against her hip.

  —

  A photographer circled the body behind them. The flashes punctuated Marta’s sentences.

  “He’s connected to Wiley.” Marta motioned at the corpse with a jerk of her head.

  Gustaf had thought he looked familiar but didn’t want to move the body before the police arrived to get a better look. “How did you know that?”

  “I interviewed him about the first murder.”

  “You didn’t think he was involved?”

  “No, but I thought he might give me a clearer picture of her. There’s something about that woman I don’t trust. She’s a terrible liar for starters.”

  He nodded. “She probably thinks you’ll lock her away if she spoke the truth.”

  “The thought had occurred to me.” Marta watched the crime scene team work. They hadn’t laid down a single evidence marker. “So what happened here?”

  “I suspect the same thing that happened to Ms. Belak.”

  “But why him?” She said it like she didn’t really expect an answer.

  “My best theory is the demon was out looking for Ms. Wiley and came across someone connected to her.”

  “How would a demon know they were connected?” Marta looked incredulous.

  “We leave traces on the people we care about.” He turned to go.

  Marta caught his arm. “I can’t just let you walk away. You’re my only witness and were seen with the body. You’ll have to go to the station.”

  “I don’t have time for that.” He resisted the urge to pry her fingers off his arm. He needed to find Jolene Wiley before the demon did.

  “I really don’t care. You may deal with all this paranormal nonsense, but I have to deal in the real world with real paperwork and real superiors who expect me to do my job.”

  “I understand that, but I must find Ms. Wiley. This proves she is in danger.” He looked at the man’s body. He lay on his side, as if he had fallen asleep on the concrete.

  “Where do you think she would go?” Marta’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She answered and watched Gustaf as a man’s voice strung together times and addresses in her ear. The line of her mouth tightened with each sentence. “I think I know where she’s been.”

  “This will be a long night.” He looked up at the moon coming out from a passing cloud. He’d stopped praying a long time ago, but wished he believed there was someone, or something, out there who would intervene on Jolene Wiley’s behalf.

  Chapter 24

  Jo slid her finger across the screen to answer the call. A woman wailed into the other end of the connection.

  “Who is this?” The stone in her pocket started to vibrate as well as burn.

  “Faron. She, she, she took Faron.”

  Jo froze in the doorway. “Who is this? Who took Faron?”

  “Ivanka. My mother. She took him. She took him away.”

  Jo’s heart sank into her stomach. She turned and ran down the stairs back out into the cobbled street, her phone pressed hard against her ear. “Ivanka, take a breath. Tell me where you are.”

  “At, at, at Faron’s, at his flat.”

  “Don’t move.” She pushed her phone into the pocket of her jacket and took off at a run toward Trnovo.

  The night closed in around her and there was only a tunnel of street lamps and lit faces staring. She pushed around pedestrians and in front of cars at the few intersections between her place and his. Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest, ten thumps to every footfall of her boots on the pavement and cobbles. Her lungs were burning and a stitch pierced her side, but she didn’t stop until she was standing at Faron’s door.

  Ivanka stood, shaking, still holding her phone in her hand, in a trashed room that smelled of rotted cabbage and old lady flowers. If Faron was dead, she was going to figure out how to dismember a demon.

  “What the fuck happened?”

  Ivanka jumped at Jo’s voice. “Mom. She’s not right. She was at the door and I opened it and she threw me against the wall. She grabbed Faron and left.” Ivanka rubbed the back of her head as she spoke. There was blood on her hand when she dropped it. “He fought her, but she was so strong.”

  Katarina? Jo could kick herself for being so stupid. The stone had warned her at the funeral but she’d still thought it was Tomaž because she disliked him so much and felt so sorry for his wife. And now she had Faron.

  “Let me look at your head.” She had to get Ivanka help and go.

  There was a knot, which was good. Better out than in, but the skin was split and bleeding profusely.

  Jo sat the dazed girl on the couch and went in search of a towel.

  She crouched in front of Ivanka. It was pretty clear the girl was in shock. Jo took Ivanka’s hand and pressed it to the back of her head with the towel.

  “Look. I think I know where they may have gone, but I won’t be able to get there as fast if I take you with me.”

  Ivanka nodded. She was crying now, but not sobs.

  “I’m going to call the police to come to you. Tell them someone broke in and attacked you.”

  Ivanka nodded again.

  Jo pulled her phone out and tried to wake it up to make the call. It made its low battery sound and she watched the screen go black. “Fuck.”

  She pried Ivanka’s sparkly red phone out of her hand and dialed the emergency number. She handed the phone back to Ivanka and nodded. “Tell them.”

  Back on the street, she stopped. She needed to get back to Tomaž and Katarina’s. Adrenaline would not be enough to get her there fast enough on foot. She said a silent prayer to whatever gods might be listening and ran back to the street in hopes that a taxi would appear.

  The whatever gods were on a coffee break until she got to Slovenska cesta where she hailed the first cab she saw.

  The driver left as soon as she tossed him a handful of wadded up bills from her pocket. She could only imagine what he thought of the frenetic woman who’d been in his back seat.

  The street lights were out and all the houses were dark. She made her way through the gate and to the door.

  It was open. The house reeked of demon magic, or whatever it was, and something else. The air tasted like copper pennies.

  The moonlight illuminated the IKEA kitchen enough to see that someone was splattered all over the kitchen and dripping from the counters and ceiling.

  Jo made her way to the table, trying not to step in anything on the floor. Please don’t let it be Faron.

  A tattered bit of shirt collar was stuck to the table. It was pale gray, maybe white, similar to the wrinkled shirt Tomaž had been wearing. She stepped back out into the entryway, staring at one of the Lucite chairs that was designed to disappear into the decor. It was now completely visible.

  Someone e
lse was in the house.

  There was a cough, then a stifled cry. She turned toward it and moved along the edge of the wall into the living room. The doll was on the floor near the couch. She crouched down slowly and picked it up. She jammed it into the pocket with the well stone as she moved in front of the windows towards the hall she thought led to the bedrooms.

  She nudged the first door open with the side of her boot. Bathroom. And too small to hide in. The door across from the bathroom was closed; she moved next to the wall and turned the knob slowly. The door creaked as it moved away from the jamb.

  A sharp intake of breath came from inside.

  Someone, or something, was in the room. She doubted that Katarina, or whatever Katarina was now, would hide from her.

  “Who’s in here? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  A young girl darted toward her. Veronika lunged out of the shadows attempting to stop the girl–who had to be Ana, the youngest daughter–before she reached Jo. Ana evaded her sister and tackled Jo in a hug, but she didn’t speak.

  Veronika stood and stared at her. Her face was white, and across her cheeks was a pattern of dark spots too big to be freckles.

  Jo stretched a hand and Veronika ran to grab it. Jo wrapped her arms around the girls and for a few seconds they clung silently together.

  She stepped back from them. “We need to get out of here.” Ana nodded up at her, but Veronika continued staring into Jo’s face as if she didn’t understand her words.

  Jo crouched down again, her knees screaming at the demands she’d placed on them within the last hour. “Ana, do you have a neighbor you like?”

  The girl nodded again.

  “Okay. Let’s go outside and then we can go to your neighbor and call someone to help.”

  Both girls nodded at that.

  Jo walked them out, blocking the view of the moonlit kitchen with her body as well as she could. Out on the dark street, she asked Ana which house the neighbor lived in. The child pointed across the street at a house identical to theirs except for the flicker of candlelight spilling out of the windows.

  She crossed the street with the girls. Before they got to the gate, Jo stopped and turned back to Veronika. She put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked directly into her face.

  “I have to find Faron. Ivanka is okay. She is with the police. Go inside and have your neighbor call the police.”

  Veronika’s gaze moved down and locked on Jo’s boots.

  She gently tilted the girl’s chin back up. “Veronika, I don’t know what you saw, but I know it was awful. That was not your mother. You need to take care of Ana and call the police.”

  Jo waited for her to nod, but she didn’t. Ana pulled on Jo’s jacket and pointed at the neighbor’s house.

  A man stood at the gate holding an old-style candle holder by its loop-shaped handle. The candle’s vanilla bean scent drifted into the night air around them; it was a welcome, if jarring, reprieve from the smells of the Novak house.

  Jo looked into the man’s face. It was kind and concerned. She had no choice but to trust him with the girls. She had to get to Faron.

  “Something has happened to Mr. Novak.” Jo stammered, realizing it would be impossible to explain what had taken place across the street. “Can you take the girls inside and call the police?”

  “Yes.” He reacted to the shock in the girls’ faces with his own and looked back at Jo. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. It’s bad. Please take them. Please call the police.”

  “And you? Are you okay?”

  “No. I have to find my son.”

  There were no taxis roaming the residential streets in Zelena jama, and her phone was dead. She mustered the strength she had left and she ran. She ran as fast as she could, cutting through alleys and breezeways, following the most direct route she knew. She had reached the edge of the park at Tavčarjeva when someone reached out and grabbed her.

  She fought hard, but could not wrest herself free. She’d been dragged into the park before she felt the penetrating cold seeping into her arm where her assailant gripped her. She swung around to get a look at the shade who was trying to stop her.

  She gasped.

  “Milo?” His ponytail was half undone and his neck was black and blue. Her knees started to buckle, but he grabbed her other arm and held her up.

  “What did you do?” His words weren’t accusatory but defeated.

  She couldn’t speak. Her head was pounding and she felt the blood racing in her ears from the run. She stared at him. This could not be real. She resisted the urge to wail.

  “I… she came out of nowhere. I was walking to the burek stand and the lights went out. And there was this woman, but not a woman, and then this smell. And I couldn’t breathe. She kept asking me where you were.” He looked at Jo. “I don’t understand.”

  Jo put her hands on her thighs and bent over. “I don’t either.” She had a stitch in her side again and couldn’t even begin to find words of comfort for him. “I have to go.”

  “Go?”

  “It has Faron.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No. You have to go somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Away from here. She can still hurt you.”

  “You always want me to go away.”

  “No.” This was so unfair. “It really isn’t that. I can’t protect you.”

  “I’m already dead. What more could happen?”

  “I don’t understand all of this, but I know this. She can still hurt you. She can take your soul. And I can’t protect you.” She cried with rage at the idea that he could disappear forever and it would be because of her. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I have to find Faron. And you, I can’t…”

  He put his hands on either side of her face and brushed his cold lips over hers. “For goodbye.” And he was gone.

  She reached out to where he had been standing and ran her hand through the air. What the fuck could be the point of killing Milo? He had nothing to do with this except to be with her.

  Maybe this thing was trying to break her. Maybe it thought she would just lie down like a doormat and let it waltz on through into this world if it took everything she had.

  She had news for this fucker. She wasn’t letting anything in.

  She had to stop to catch her breath again near the cinema behind the Slon. Someone really should have warned her that she needed to train for this dead whisperer thing. The breezeway was empty except for the sound of her ragged breaths. “Time Bomb” drifted past her and Maja appeared next to her.

  “What are you going to do?” Maja’s blue hair was haloed by the light from the kino signs.

  “I’m going to take the doll back to the well.”

  “Now? The museum’s closed. Are you going to break in?”

  Jo nodded. “I guess I’ll have to. I have no idea where Katarina is, but she might follow me there if she thinks I’m going to throw her Barbie back into its hole.”

  “Let’s go then.” Maja started off down the tunnel.

  “No. I need you to go to Leo.”

  “Why? He can’t even see me, and you shouldn’t go by yourself.”

  “I don’t have time to wait. Were you not there? Didn’t you see what she did to Tomaž?” Her throat was tight and her voice was pitched an octave too high. She tried, but couldn’t even say Milo’s name yet.

  Maja nodded. There were things the dead couldn’t unsee either.

  “And besides,” Jo said, “you can’t be near Katarina.”

  “Why?” Maja’s sassiness was back. “It’s not like she can kill me again or anything.”

  “But she can. Leo said demons can take your energy, your soul, even after you’re dead. Fuck, Maja, I can’t let that happen to you.”

  Maja was still staring at her.

 
“Go. Go to Leo. Knock shit over. Throw shit. Do whatever you have to do to get his attention.”

  Maja disappeared and Jo took off again down the tunnel, winded and shaking but not stopping.

  The front door to the museum was not an option for Jo’s less-than-stellar cat burglary skills. Anyone on French Revolution Square could see her. She walked down the side street between the museum and Križanke, where she found another entrance to the museum offices and tried the handle.

  The door opened. It was dark inside and the garlicky smell of burnt electrical wires stung her nose.

  Katarina had gotten there first.

  Jo pulled her keys out of the pocket, along with her stone. She held down the button on the mini LED light and moved the small circle of intense blue light around the walls of the entrance corridor. A white box with its wire guts hanging out was next to the door on the inside. There were scorch marks on the wall.

  At least she didn’t have to worry about the alarm or the police. The image of Milo’s shocked face rose unbidden in her mind. She couldn’t let anything like that happen to Faron. He had to still be alive.

  She found her way to the museum lobby. Her eyes adjusted to the low light of moonlight streaming in through the glass wall that separated the exhibit rooms from the courtyard.

  She walked down the dark ramp to the basement. The wall of glass to her left afforded a view down into the courtyard and above to neighboring rooftops. Now that she could see it clearly, the waning moon seemed especially bright. She stepped past the solid wall supporting the ramp and the building for a clear view of the stacked stones of the reconstructed well. Lit even at night with a watery green light, it was much spookier than it needed to be.

  There was movement near the well on the raised middle section of the floor. She stepped back behind the wall. Maja was next to her, whispering. “Leo’s at the rectory. I threw a book at him, but I don’t know if he got the message.”

  “Why are you here? Go.”

  Maja’s blue lip trembled. “I don’t want you to die, too.”

  “Maja. I have no intention of dying, but I need you to get out of here. I can’t protect you.”