Drop Dead (Tess Skye Book 1)

by D. N. Erikson

I turn toward Finn. “Well?”

  “Gene did most of the Soulwalks so, I—uh, well, see it’s kind of difficult to explain—”

  Sounds more like he doesn’t want to explain, judging from the pained expression on his face. It would seem the cocky cool is a thing of the past for the moment.

  But there’s no time for mourning or processing or guilt right now. So I press onward. “Give me the broad strokes, then.”

  “You can inhabit the bodies of the dead. Slip into their souls. Recover their memories.”

  Back in the Groves. That feeling, of touching the dead woman’s face. Feeling the blade slice across her neck. That was a memory, not just a vision or hallucination.

  And not just any memory.

  The dead woman’s.

  No wonder everyone is chasing after me. “That’s insane.”

  I say the actual thought out loud, startling myself.

  “It’s the truth.” Miranda keeps stirring the tea. “A lot to take in. The possibilities are endless, really.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me. You could kill someone, then have a Soulwalker steal their memories. Revive someone long dead to get into a secure location. A whole list of sordid possibilities if you have no conscience.

  Dominic Rillo fits that bill.

  I flash back to this morning, to the voice whispering it’s not your time to die. “And the voice in my head?”

  “That’s me.” Finn stops rocking. Sweeps his hair out of his eyes. “Or it will be, now. Before it was usually Gene. Being in another person’s soul can be disconcerting. The Navigator acts as a tether. Pulls you back when you get too deep.”

  “And we have some sort of bond?”

  “You know, back in the movies, how James Bond can talk to the command center when shit hits the fan?” Finn stands up and starts pacing. “Kind of like that. Except it’s magical. And it’s always on. I can always sense you.”

  I pause and listen to my breathing. “I don’t sense you.”

  “I’m much more attuned to you than the other direction,” he says.

  “And what can you feel now?” I ask.

  The steam rises from the teapot, carrying a foul, earthy scent that smells like mud mixed with garbage. I breathe the putrid mud-tea steam in deep by accident. Little fragments of memory begin to stir in my subconscious.

  Finn’s hands ball up, then release, ball up, release, until they’re red.

  Then he stops pacing. No smile, nothing. Dead serious.

  That makes me nervous.

  “Earth to Finn.” I snap my fingers like he’s a dog to bring him back to reality.

  He still says nothing. I watch Miranda take a sip of the putrid smelling tea. Her mouth puckers, and she puts the lid back on.

  Finn finally says, “It’s funny.”

  “I don’t see anything funny.”

  “Not ha ha,” he says, “but even though you can’t remember a damn thing, you’re still you. To the very core.” He closes his eyes. “You ask me what I’m feeling. Everything, screaming to be let out.”

  “And what is that, exactly?”

  “You’re about to find out.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Remember those herbs in the garage?” Finn points at the teapot. “This is the real deal. Straight from the master.”

  Looks like Finn’s been a busy guy, apprenticing with both grandparents.

  Miranda taps the spoon against the side of the teapot with a musical clink.

  I look at the steam pouring out the nozzle. “Uh, I thought you meant green tea. Or maybe some oolong.”

  “You’re free to say no, dear.” She gets up and retrieves the battered cookie tin from beneath the bed. “But while you make a decision, I should draw that blood.”

  She removes a syringe and a vial. I dutifully hold out my arm as I continue my staredown with the teapot from hell.

  But I’m not actually debating. More just mentally psyching myself up. Not for the garbage tea; after being shot, half-drowned, and thrown in jail, that’s a small step.

  No. What I’m preparing myself for is becoming me again. Most memories are built over a lifetime. What’s it like to lose them, then have them returned all at once?

  And what if I don’t like who I was?

  “Walk me through your plan.” I watch Miranda don a pair of gloves and prep the needle.

  “Simple. We draw this serum. Read the information. And nail all the people involved.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It demands delicate timing.” Miranda wipes my arm with an alcohol swab before she jabs the needle into my arm. The blood starts to fill the vial. “We need to submit the information to the proper authorities—the AAMC, the FBI. Can’t exactly tell the local cops.”

  I recognize the AAMC as the American Association of Magical Creatures. They’re the official independent governing body for magical creatures that liaises with the government on policy, matters of national security, and other critical human-magical issues.

  This mess definitely qualifies.

  “Then what?”

  “Hold this.” Miranda finishes drawing the blood and presses a gauze pad to my arm. I do as I’m told, holding the cotton against my vein. “Then we all put this nightmare behind us.”

  “Home in time for dinner?”

  “Something like that.” Miranda puts away the cookie tin. “You’ll take care of the bombs at the dam. But it needs to be done before we deliver the evidence to the authorities. Otherwise Dominic will set them off.”

  “And who handles that part?”

  “Detective Diaz can deliver the evidence to law enforcement.”

  “That might be a little difficult,” I say.

  “Are you doubting his abilities?”

  “Mine,” I say. “I don’t know how to disarm a bomb.” Then I add, “And Javy crashed into a cop car to buy me time to make it here.”

  That leaves multiple holes in our plan.

  “Then we’ll give him another call.” Miranda takes her phone out. Dials.

  No answer.

  She does it again.

  Nothing.

  “He’s still not picking up,” I say. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Then we press on. I’ll take the evidence to law enforcement. You take care of the bombs.”

  “I think you misheard me.”

  Miranda presses her horn-rimmed glasses up on her nose and shoots me a sharp glare. “I do not mishear things.”

  I repeat my prior objection nonetheless. “I don’t know how to disarm them.”

  “Then you will find a way.”

  As simple as that.

  “What about me?” Finn asks. “I can help Tess out.”

  “You’re going nowhere near anything, young man.”

  “Mom wouldn’t want that,” Finn says.

  “Your mother isn’t here anymore, so she doesn’t get a vote.” There’s a finality to the statement that suggests drop it.

  This woman has some stories of her own. That much is clear.

  But right now, I’m more concerned about my stories.

  It’s time to shine a light into the darkness that is my life.

  Without another word, I grab the pewter cup and down the tea in a single swallow. Calling it battery acid would be a compliment. My eyes water. Somehow, when I stand up from the small table, my organs don’t go into septic shock.

  “I’d sit down if I were you, dear.”

  “I’m fine.” Nothing’s changed, other than the foul taste in my mouth.

  “Finnegan,” Miranda says, “get up from the bed and help her.”

  He does so, catching me just as my knees buckle. It’s like we’re slow dancing and he just dipped me. He eases me over to the cot.

  His brown eyes stare into mine and he says, “Hey.”

  “Slow down, Casanova.”

  I will myself to sit up, but I can’t.

  I’m still lucid, but none of my limbs respond.

>   Fear grips my throat.

  “What—what’s happening?”

  “You are no longer in the present,” Miranda says, appearing like a specter over the cot. “But in the past. Allow it to take control. To consume you.”

  Then, like the curtain falling on a play’s final act, the room dissolves into the ether.

  Eighteen

  1 Year Ago

  The marshland.

  Javy and I driving out to the Groves on the captain’s orders.

  To think that everything started with that dead body in the Groves—the swampy jungle wilderness outside the city.

  Being set up. Finding the dead woman’s body. Touching her skin. The flash of her memories. Then being pinned down in the mud—and hearing the glee in Dominic Rillo’s voice upon realizing that my abilities were real.

  And finally, being dragged through the swamp.

  It all comes surging back.

  And then I’m fully immersed in the past, in the sweat, and rusted metal, and rotting wood. In a small room that smells like corroded pennies. When I look down, I know why instantly: there’s a small blood pool at my feet, growing wider by the minute.

  A gash along my calf drips onto the floor.

  I blink and cough, the blood forming little rivers through the cracks in the concrete.

  The shutters are drawn. Moonlight peeks through the worn slats.

  “Killing a cop won’t go well for you.” My back molar rattles when I speak.

  A bald man, not large, but with a presence all the same, emerges from the back room. His shoes scuff against the concrete.

  It’s Rillo. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. Past and present knowledge swirls together in this memory. Vision? Hallucination?

  Rillo’s voice roots me back into the past.

  “You have a choice, Detective Skye.” He’s holding my badge, staring at it like it’s a curio from a Cracker Jack box.

  “Backup is on the way, asshole. Surrender now and maybe you get leniency.”

  “You’d need evidence of my involvement.” He flashes an all-too-white smile. “And I leave no evidence behind.”

  “Well look who watches Law and Fucking Order.” I strain against the bonds tying me to the chair, and the ropes nip into my wrists.

  I bite my tongue and rock back and forth, trying to tip the chair over.

  None of my efforts are a rousing success.

  “How you struggle.” Rillo looks on with detached amusement, as a circus trainer would a chained elephant. “I admire your fortitude.”

  “You’ll admire it less when I put my boot up your ass.”

  “I need your assistance with something.” His bald head gleams as he steps into the moonlight. “So I have a proposition.”

  “Kidnapping weirdos aren’t really my type, sorry.”

  A smile creeps across his face. “Work with me.”

  “I’d rather die.” A chill works through my body when I realize that option is on the table. But I stand by the proclamation without reservation.

  The smile grows wider, maniacal, obsessive, but totally joyless. “You fail to understand.”

  “Then help me understand.”

  “I am afraid explaining demands too much time. And your partner will have called for backup by now.”

  “Then my answer remains the same,” I say. “Fuck off.”

  “I cannot explain.” He clasps his hands together like a yoga guru. “But I can show you.”

  “Why do you need my help so badly, anyway?”

  “Because you can relive the steps of the dead.” Rillo holds what looks like a small bundle of matchsticks up to my right nostril. They have a sharp scent. My brain begins to go fuzzy. “And maybe, just maybe…”

  “Maybe?”

  “Maybe you can save this town from the destruction that I will otherwise bring upon it if you refuse my offer.”

  I stare at him. Ten seconds stretches into twenty, then thirty.

  I’ve seen enough perps to know that he’s dead serious.

  I blink as he says, “Think about it, Detective Skye. Many lives hang in the balance.”

  When I blink again, he’s gone. The only indication that he was ever there is a little card in my lap that says check the dam.

  Along with a phone number.

  Nineteen

  When I open my eyes, the world is still.

  But only for the briefest of moments.

  Blood rushes to my temples as memories jockey for position. An endless slideshow of misery, all playing on top of one another.

  Death after death after death. All from the last year.

  All related to Rillo.

  I realize now why he needed me: most people have the same reaction to working for Dom Rillo. Revulsion. Refusal. The finger.

  Their intellectual property, their knowledge—it’s all locked safely away in their heads. Unless you have a Soulwalker that can access their memories.

  Then it’s just a matter of killing the right people. Scientists, arcana researchers, magical archeologists—any expert who said no, the solution was simple.

  I can hear Gene’s reassuring voice—and occasionally Finn’s—guiding me through the various Soulwalks.

  A cold, clammy sweat clings to my skin. I try to take a deep breath and block out the onslaught of memories.

  But I was right to worry about who I was. Because it feels like an impossible trade: the lives of a few in exchange for the lives of many. I didn’t pull the trigger or slit their throats, but Rillo would have had no reason to do so without my abilities.

  “Are you okay, dear?” Miranda asks. There might even be a hint of concern in her voice.

  Instead of answering, I projectile vomit all over the bare walls.

  To my left, a familiar cocky voice says, “Look who decided to rejoin the land of the living.”

  I gag a few more times until my throat is raw and I’m dry-heaving.

  Someone places a cold rag on my forehead. I push it off and try to stumble to my feet.

  “Easy, dear,” Miranda says, adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses. “We brought you back a bit early.”

  “Why?” I flounder like a newborn colt when I try to stand, legs bowing out at all sides.

  I have to sit back down on the cot. Otherwise it feels like I’ll collapse in a heap.

  Murder after murder flashes past.

  A woman pushed off a roof.

  A man devoured by vampires.

  And on it goes, interspersed with flashes from my own messy life.

  “Breathe,” I whisper to myself, clutching the cot’s blanket between my fingers. “Just—” The Big Zipper’s front door explodes inward with a sonic boom. Smoke rushes inward through the chasm left behind.

  Finn dives for cover behind the cot.

  I instantly block out the mess of memories and instinctively reach for where my gun should be. But my fingers brush against nothing but empty fabric.

  Miranda has us covered. The shotgun pops out as she whips the curtain aside.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she calls.

  I hunker down behind the cot, next to Finn.

  “I’ve come for the Soulwalker.” A booming voice so low that baritone seems like the wrong word reverberates across the thrift shop. It’s deep enough that I can feel it rumbling through the tile floor.

  Putting two and two together I look at Finn and say, “That’s why they bailed you out. To find me.”

  He just says, “Shit.”

  I struggle to sit up, but the nasty-ass tea and all the memories it’s conjured up are a little bit of a drag on my energy. But I do manage to look over the cot, into the main room.

  The shotgun roars as a fiery beast, fashioned of onyx and rock, marches through the smoke, unfazed by the blast.

  A pyre golem. An obscure creature, descended from Titans. The racks of clothes alight as the beast passes its flaming hands through the fabric.

  Miranda fires another shot, but it bounces harmlessly off.r />
  “I have no interest in the gray-haired one,” the creature booms. “Cease fire.”

  “Like hell I will,” Miranda mutters, reaching into her pocket. I catch a glimpse of the shells, and they’re none I’ve ever seen before.

  She readies her aim.

  A fireball comes spiraling forward, tearing through the clothes racks like cellophane. It smashes right at her feet, knocking her backward.

  The shotgun clatters away across the tile, next to the table with the teapot.

  The pyre golem points a thick finger at me. “You.”

  I duck back behind the cot, along with Finn. He’s fumbling with a revolver that’s he’s grabbed from somewhere in the room.

  “Give me that.” I yank the six-shooter out of his hands and check it.

  All six rounds are locked and loaded.

  That’s good.

  On the other hand, we’re being hunted by a flaming rock monster.

  Six bullets or none, the odds seem about the same.

  Miranda groans in the corner, and Finn goes to help her. I pull him back. “Wait for the right moment.”

  “Gram,” he says in a concerned whisper. “You okay?”

  She grunts.

  Maybe it’s a yes, maybe it’s a no.

  “I can burn your little bed to cinders.” The floor quakes as the pyre golem moves ever closer. Smoke and ash swirl in the air. “There is no hiding. Only surrender.”

  Then the pounding footsteps stop.

  “Return peacefully, Soulwalker, and the old woman lives.”

  “Generous offer,” I shoot back. “Allow me to counter.”

  The monster either knows that I’m going to tell him to go fuck himself, or is uninterested in negotiating. “Or the woman can die, and you will return to our master either way.”

  “Fucking Dom,” I say. The gift that keeps on giving.

  “Time is up.” The beast roars. Flames alight. “Her time has come.”

  “Wait,” I reply. “We’re coming out.”

  I raise my non-pistol hand. Slowly.

  Under his breath Finn says, “The hell are you doing?”

  Buying time. Trying to rack my brain and my still refilling memory bank for any scraps of intel. What’s a pyre golem’s weakness? I close my eyes, my one arm almost fully extended in surrender, trying to picture the pages in the book. Letting the memory flow around me.