Who By Water (Voices of the Dead Book 1)

by Victoria Raschke

  Maja nodded and disappeared.

  Jo wasn’t a fighter, not in the physical sense, but she’d be damned if she’d let a fucking demon kill her son. She peeked around the wall. Roman jugs and vases were set in smooth depressions in the clay, small placards next to them. Beside the well lay her son, looking much younger and more vulnerable than his twenty years. Bending over him was Katarina, her hair wild, grasping a knife as if to sacrifice him. But to what?

  Jo took off at run down the ramp, grabbed the first piece of Roman crockery she saw, and hurled it at Katarina’s head. Bullseye.

  She hit the mark, but apparently ancient pottery didn’t have much stopping power. Katarina turned on her, eyes dark and flat in the green light from the well. There was no murderous rage in them, just a nothingness so complete that Jo had to look away. Katarina advanced on her, leveling her knife like every movie street fighter Jo had ever seen. Jo backed away until she was pressed against the glass partition that separated the dark basement from the ramp above her head.

  Jo prayed again. “Look, I don’t know who or what might be listening, but I really need some help this time. If it has to be me or Faron, take me.”

  The sound of her words stopped Katarina, who looked around in confusion as if to see who Jo was talking to. The momentary pause was long enough for Jo to grab the nearest object: a metal sign holder holding a placard stamped with a bright red arrow. It seemed the right weight: not too heavy to wield, but heavy enough to clock Katarina more effectively than a two-thousand-year-old jar. Jo ran to the right and edged her way around the room in hopes of putting the raised floor section between her and Katarina so she could reach Faron.

  But Katarina was impossibly fast. Jo looked at her again. It was Katarina, but not Katarina. The eyes, the speed, the not-talking – she really needed to get this doll back into the well. She could feel the sickening weight of it in her pocket.

  Katarina lunged at her. Long, manicured nails raked over Jo’s face, just missing her eye. Jo swung the sign hard, a bit above waist level. It smacked into Katarina’s arm, and the knife and the sign both went flying.

  So much for keeping the sign as a weapon.

  Katarina hadn’t stopped her advance. Jo continued to back away. Her eye was watering and the skin on her cheek felt like she’d been bitch-slapped with a porcupine. She lost her footing on the uneven ground and turned her ankle. There was a distinct pop, and pain radiated up her leg. She hobbled the best she could, backing around the well and the platform where Faron still lay. Jo’s heart was racing and all she could think of was the goddamn M*A*S*H theme song.

  No, no. Oh, no. That was bad. Her father did not need to be there.

  Katarina lunged at her again, arms outstretched at the level of Jo’s shoulders. If Katarina got her, it was over. The thing inside her would snap her neck or do whatever it was demons did to people like her.

  Jo had backed as far as she could go. There didn’t seem to be a way out. She turned and tried to run in an effort to fake the demon out, but the pain in her ankle screamed at her to sit the fuck down. Katarina ran after her, unhampered by such considerations. Panicking, Jo went for a Hail Mary: she pulled back her arm and flung the doll at the well. Katarina screeched and wheeled back toward the green light.

  Jo seized the opportunity and tackled her from behind. They went down hard together and Katarina’s chin caught on the edge of the raised bit of flooring. It was the first time Jo actually heard a bone snap, and she didn’t ever want to hear it again.

  Katarina wasn’t moving.

  Jo scrambled up and limped back around to Faron. He was breathing, but his breaths were shallow. She shook him gently and his eyes fluttered. As she was positioning herself to pull his arm around her shoulders, she heard water began to bubble up from inside the well. The gentle bubbling quickly became a steady geyser.

  Her father stood in front of her.

  “Jolene, you’ve got to let it in.”

  “Let what in? Why would I let anything in?”

  “It’s the only way.”

  Whatever had been inside Katarina was now a black hovering mass, a mist made out of thousands of eyes and wingbeats. Looking at it hurt her brain.

  “No!” She lunged at her father’s shade to push him away.

  The inky cloud engulfed her father and he disappeared in a flash of fluttering wings.

  Before she could wrap her brain around that, the mass rushed at her. She dodged and when she turned again to face it, it crashed into her from behind. She went sprawling onto the step and into the room beyond the well, the room filled with shelves of Roman pottery and glass. The blow had knocked the air out of her and she tried to get it back. Every inhale felt like one of her ribs was trying to escape. A low hiss came from everywhere at once. Water was pooling around her and the taste of floor and blood filled her mouth. She slid down off the step to try to roll over.

  It was on her. Its weight flattened her against the floor. It pinned her, all the while beating its wings and casting about wildly as if it were searching for a crack. Her face was submerged in the quickly rising water and she couldn’t push herself up.

  Her lungs burned. This was it. She was going to drown in a few inches of water and that would give the demon access. It had beaten her and it would take out everyone she loved.

  Where was the doll? The thought echoed in Jo’s mind like an amplifier in an empty hall.

  She closed her eyes for what felt like half a second, and felt another presence in the room. The pieces started coming together. The god’s broken head from the exhibit, the feeling of menace she’d had on the bridge – from the start it had been trying to get to her, and that was what her father had come to tell her. She was the pigheaded woman from the poem who wouldn’t dance with anyone.

  A warmth rose from her feet, up her legs and into her chest. Achelous was putting her on like a pair of pants, and she was being crowded into a corner of her own body. She fought it, pushing back mentally.

  But she had to let him take her. It would be the god or the demon. It would be her or Faron. And everyone else. She stopped fighting and the warmth spread through her, the demon still fluttering angrily against the back of her neck.

  For the next few minutes, it seemed like she was watching herself on a monitor from another room. She was aware of a being whose essence was far larger than she, yet constrained within the parameters of her body. It sprang up from the floor and threw off the dark cloud of eyes and wingbeats, dashing it against the raised platform. Then she, or it, or whoever, fished the doll out of the water and spoke, in a voice that sounded like Tom Waits howling from the bottom of a mine shaft.

  “Return to this vessel. These are under my protection.”

  Markings she’d never noticed on the back of the doll were glowing.

  The demon’s screech sounded like ten thousand nails on a chalkboard inside a tornado. She wondered if her ears were bleeding.

  An explosion of light hurled her back against the well. She slid down to the floor, a heap of dirty clothes, bruised flesh, and a cracked rib or two. She was alone in her body again, but she had to struggle to stand. Water was getting into her mouth and it tasted like muck and metal. She pulled herself up against blocks of the well. Faron was floating freely, his face slipping under the black water. The green light sputtered a final time and then died, leaving only moonlight shining through the glass wall to light her way back to the ramp.

  So this was what dead weight meant. The weight of her own clothes and boots and her unconscious son pulled at her, threatening to take both of them under. The water was now too deep for her to touch bottom. She went under again, clutching a handful of Faron’s shirt.

  The voice from the well was inside her head, urging her to let go, to let the water carry her to him. He had helped her. She wouldn’t have to worry about this happening again. Her gift would be hidden. It was her
choice.

  How easy it would be to just let herself sink down.

  No.

  She was not going to die now. She was not going to let Faron drown. It took everything she had to swim to the ramp with his unresponsive body. Again and again, she reached out, thinking she’d made it. It couldn’t be more than twenty feet, but her waterlogged boots couldn’t find a purchase underneath her. She reached out one more time and finally touched glass. She slid along it until she banged her knees hard against the concrete of the ramp. Then she crawled, heaving Faron up ahead of her until they were both completely out of the dark, lapping water.

  As her boot cleared the surface, the water began to recede, back down the ramp and into the basement. She lay flat on the cold concrete looking up through the glass and the open courtyard at a few stars visible despite the city’s light pollution. She was still clutching Faron’s arm. Every breath hurt. Definitely a broken rib. Maybe she wouldn’t rush in like the cavalry next time.

  Please don’t let there be a next time.

  She puked onto the ramp, then closed her eyes. She took a long breath that pushed painfully against the cage of bone holding her chest together. When she opened her eyes again, Helena was looking down at her. It looked like her neck had straightened up a little since Jo had last seen her. Now her head seemed to be cocked like a bird’s when its listening.

  “I have to go back for Katarina.” Jo didn’t even have the energy to sit up.

  “Katarina’s dead, honey.” Helena rested her cold hand on Jo’s cheek.

  Jo closed her eyes and exhaustion took her.

  Chapter 25

  Leo stood over the unconscious bodies of Jo and her son. He’d checked twice to make sure they were both still alive. The scratches on her face were painful to look at. He could only imagine how they felt. A perfectly round hole the size of a tea saucer was missing from the front of her shirt and the skin it exposed was raw and blistered.

  Marta Klančnik was at the top of the ramp with Lichtenberg. They both turned to look at him when he glanced up at them. He disliked the idea of bringing another person into what Lichtenberg referred to as the Veil, but he saw there was no other way to clean up the events of the night without drawing more eyes and raising more questions.

  Lichtenberg could handle that. He and the investigator could say it was a meteor or aliens for all he cared. Leo wanted to get Jo and Faron out of there. Marta had forced Vesna to wait outside. Never before had he heard such language used by a woman who looked as demure as his niece, but Marta had prevailed. The courtyard lights were off to attract less attention, but Marta had turned on the lights inside the museum and the light spilled out through the glass into the courtyard.

  Lichtenberg’s voice drifted down the ramp. “…She can’t be connected with this.”

  Marta sighed loud enough for him to hear. “What the hell am I supposed to do with three crime scenes, three dead bodies – one of which will have to be scraped together off kitchen cabinets – stolen artifacts, and,” her voice rose as she turned toward him again and looked down the ramp, “two unconscious witnesses you say I can’t question? And why the hell is there a priest here again?”

  Another woman wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans and a man in dark blue scrubs joined Marta and Lichtenberg.

  “Marta, this is Dr. Struna. She will care for Ms. Wiley and her son.”

  Marta threw her hands up. “Okay, get them out of here.” She started to walk away and then turned on Lichtenberg. “There’d better not be any extra paperwork in this for you and your board or whatever the hell they are.”

  Lichtenberg nodded.

  Leo knew he was lying. The Observers were all about documentation.

  Dr. Struna, Lichtenberg and the man in scrubs made their way down the ramp.

  Lichtenberg looked down at Jo then up at Leo. “How badly is she injured?”

  “I’m not sure. They’ve both taken a beating.”

  The man in scrubs leaned over Faron and took his pulse. He nodded at Dr. Struna, who squatted next to Jo and felt her pulse, then stood. “I’d prefer to do a more thorough examination here before moving them, but given the situation…” Her voice trailed off as she looked up at Leo. “I assume you can carry her out to the ambulance?”

  Leo nodded. He squatted down and tried to get his arms underneath Jo as tenderly as possible. She moaned when he lifted her but didn’t wake. He tried not to think about all the unseen injuries she could have. The man in scrubs carried Faron and they followed Lichtenberg and the doctor up the ramp and out through the museum to the waiting ambulance. Vesna rushed to them.

  “Gustaf, did you see her chest?” Dr. Struna, nodded her head back toward Jo.

  “Yes. I’ll be curious to see who she is when she awakens.”

  Dr. Struna sighed heavily. “If she awakens. People don’t usually survive divine possession.”

  The ambulance looked like the kind of panel van furniture movers would use, but when Dr. Struna opened the back doors, the inside was all ambulance. She pulled down two gurneys for Leo and the assistant to put Jo and Faron on.

  When the patients were strapped to the gurneys, Dr. Struna stepped up into the van and pulled one of the doors closed. “Gustaf,” she said, “I’ll take them to my surgery first. Call me when you know where we need to take them from there.” She pulled the other door closed and thumped it from the inside.

  The van took off down the cobbles toward the roundabout at the end of the square.

  More police cars arrived. Lights and sirens sliced through the night.

  Marta came out of the museum’s front entrance and shooed Leo and the others off to the side. She spoke to them in the shadows. “Everyone needs to get the hell out of here.” She turned to Lichtenberg, “I’ll do my best to make your ridiculous cover story stick.”

  Chapter 26

  Sunlight filtered through a lace curtain pulled closed over the window. Pain shot through Jo’s back and side as she sat up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. There was no clue as to how she’d gotten there from the museum.

  A few bars of “Whatever Lola Wants” drifted through her thoughts.

  Helena appeared at the foot of the bed and walked around to sit next to her. Her head was situated properly on her shoulders now, and her dress was clean and dazzlingly white.

  “I’m dead.”

  “You’re not dead.” The corner of Helena’s mouth curled into a sly smile.

  “But, you’re…”

  “That’s a long story. For later.”

  Jo rubbed her hands over her face. Every inch of raw skin where the Katarina-thing scratched her burned and throbbed like she had just rubbed her wounds with salt. “Where’s Faron. Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. He’s with Ivanka in town.”

  “And Milo?” It hurt, in a very different way, to say his name.

  Helena touched her face, the cold of her fingers soothing the sting. “He must have crossed. I haven’t seen him. I’m sorry.”

  Jo looked around. “This is Gregor’s house?” She didn’t want to talk about Milo, or what had happened to her father, with Helena.

  “Yes. His mother’s old room, apparently.”

  “I’ve only been in here once. To help him go through her things after she died.”

  “It’s, um, quaint.” Helena ran her hand over the bumpy chenille bedspread and flicked at the lace at the window.

  “Who’s here besides you and me?” She wasn’t ready to face anyone else, alive or dead.

  “Vesna and a tall, gorgeous Jesuit who may be the first person who’s made me wish I were still alive…” She shushed Jo’s attempted interruption. “I know, love. Gregor, of course. Oh, and your Aunt Jackie.”

  “Wait. Where’s Maja? How are you even here? I thought you crossed or whatever.”

  “Nope. The d
oor was closed when I got there so I stuck around and made friends and found out how to, um, freshen up a bit.”

  “But, Maja?”

  “I offered to stay in her place when her door opened.”

  “I didn’t get a say in any of this?”

  “Don’t be angry. I think being your sidekick was more than your little baker could handle. She told me to tell you, boss lady, to take it easy for a while. And not to be too hard on Mr. Bear? I have no idea what she meant by that.”

  There was a soft knock at the door, and then it opened. Helena remained visible.

  “You’re awake. I heard you talking.” Aunt Jackie crossed the room to the bed and sat on the side opposite Helena.

  “I’m glad you finally woke up. I was getting worried.” Jackie took her hand.

  “Finally? What day is it?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Oh shit. Maja’s wake. The shop…” Jo moved to get out of bed. Jackie put her hand on her shoulder to stop her.

  “All taken care of. You should trust your team more.”

  Jo sank back into the bed. “Guess so. But what happened? How did I get here? Where’s that fucking doll?”

  “I just came to check on you. I think Leo is the one to explain all of this. Are you hungry?”

  Her stomach growled. She hadn’t thought of food until Jackie asked. “Yes, I’m starving.”

  “I’ll bring you something.” She closed the door behind her.

  “She made chicken with dumplings. She said it’s your favorite.” Helena stood.

  Jo grabbed her wrist before she could go. Helena turned back to her with a question on her face.

  “Why did you stay, really?” Jo couldn’t put into words why Helena’s return as her guide unnerved her, but everything about it screamed trouble.

  Helena laughed. “I have a mission.”

  “Is this mission for you or for me?”

  “Later, dear. You need to heal up and eat your dumplings.”

  Getting dressed was hard, and she wasn’t even sure that fresh underwear and a kimono counted as dressed. She was happy to be upright and sitting at the table with most of her family. Vesna and Jackie wedged her into a chair with pillows to support her back and keep her from slouching, which made her ribs sing with pain. She had crutches, but she couldn’t use them because of her rib. Instead, someone had to walk on her right side to help support her sprained ankle. She hated being an invalid, even if it was temporary.