Phantom Kiss

by Chloe Neill

  “This is Merit.”

  “Hey, it’s Annabelle.” Annabelle Shaw was a necromancer, a woman whose magic allowed her to commune with the dead, help them reach those they’d left behind and make the peaceful transition to the afterlife. We’d met her randomly one evening, and she’d later clued us into one of Sorcha’s alchemical hot spots.

  “Hey, Annabelle. What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I have a situation. I left a message with the Ombudsman’s office, but I thought I’d better call you, too, just in case.”

  “We were just leaving a family event, so my grandfather is probably on his way home. He might not have checked his phone yet. What’s up?”

  “I’m at Almshouse Cemetery. I was doing a sweep when I found it.”

  The concern in her voice had me sitting up straighter. As a necromancer, Annabelle was hard to shake, even where cemeteries were concerned. “When you found what?”

  “Someone has disturbed a body.”

  My lip curled instinctively. “That’s awful.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s just the first part of it,” Annabelle said. “I’m pretty sure they also summoned a ghost.”

  • • •

  Although we were transitioning from a party in our honor to the investigation of something grim, I was still relieved to be out of my parents’ house. Magic and mayhem felt more like home now, uncertainty a new kind of normal.

  “What do we know about the cemetery?” Ethan asked after he’d alerted Malik to our schedule change and redirected the car.

  I did a quick search. “According to the Internet, Almshouse Cemetery was established by Cook County in 1861. It’s where the county buried people without other options—who weren’t claimed by their family, who died in epidemics, who couldn’t be identified after the Great Fire, what have you.”

  “Is it still in use?”

  I paused to read further. “Only in a limited capacity. There are a few family plots, and family members are still interred there. Once those spaces are full, it will be closed to new burials.”

  Edging toward creeped out, I put the phone away again. “Is grave desecration something you’ve run into before?”

  “Not personally, although it has existed as long as humans have,” Ethan said, one hand on the wheel, his gaze intent on the dark streets. “Graves are robbed in times of peace, in times of war. In the interest of greed and science. But in the middle of Chicago?” He shook his head. “Not to my recollection.”

  His brow was furrowed with concern, and I knew he was thinking of Sorcha.

  Although we’d stopped her magic, she’d escaped the hold of the Chicago Police Department. Two months had passed, and there’d been no word from her, no trigger of the magical alarms set around the city to warn us if she tried anything. But it was hard to shake the feeling that we were just biding our time.

  I put a hand over his. “There’s no point in worrying about what we might find. It won’t change anything. We’ll see what we see”—I linked our fingers together—“and we’ll deal with it.”

  We always did.

  • • •

  The neighborhood was dark. It was residential but rural, at least by Chicago standards, and there were no streetlights. Clouds obscured what little moonlight might have penetrated the darkness, creating an odd pool of shadow not far from one of the biggest cities in the world. That didn’t make me any happier about our current task; cemeteries were not my thing.

  Annabelle’s car was parked at the curb outside the cemetery. She leaned against it, and looked up from her phone at the sound of Ethan’s car. The movement rustled the shimmery dark tunic she’d paired with loose silver pants and sandals. Her skin was dark, her hair in braids she’d piled into a complicated knot.

  “Merit, Ethan,” she said. “I sorry I interrupted your evening.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Ethan said with a smile and a touch on her arm. “We were already in the car, and we’re happy to see you, if under unfortunate circumstances.”

  “How are Marley and Maddy?” I asked her.

  Marley was Annabelle’s four-year-old daughter. Maddy, the newest addition to her family, was almost two months old.

  “They’re good,” she said, grinning. “Hard to leave Maddy at her age, but duty calls.”

  She led us to the gate in the rusted and wavy chain-link fence that surrounded the graveyard. We’d visited cemeteries with Annabelle before—lush gardens of roses and marble, where the living could pretend death was something secret and majestic. But there was no wrought-iron here, no overflowing urns of flowers. No fuss, no ornamentation, no apparent concern about easing the transition between life and death.

  The gate was closed and locked, bound to its post with a thick silver chain. Annabelle pulled a necklace over her head, inserted a key into the lock, and when it unsnapped with an audible click, pulled the chain free and pushed the gate open. Magic flowed like water through the gap, perhaps released by the gate’s opening or drawn to Annabelle and her connection to the dead.

  The energy of the deceased was unique among magicks, or at least those I’d experienced so far. It was thicker and, when it brushed against skin, felt tangible. But unlike the last time I’d been near a ghost, the magic was sharply cold—potent peppermint against the skin. It had been early spring then, the temperature already cold, so I probably hadn’t noticed the difference. Now it was midsummer, and the chill of magic was a shocking contrast to the warm night air.

  Goose bumps lifted on my arms.

  “The ghost is still here,” Ethan said.

  Annabelle nodded. “Not just a spirit that needs to communicate; the energy is too strong. This spirit was purposefully called and manifested into our world.”

  That meant intentional magic. “Is there evidence of alchemy?” I asked.

  Annabelle’s eyes went cold. We weren’t the only ones who hadn’t liked Sorcha and her unusual brand of magic. “I’ve seen the grave, not the spirit yet. But I haven’t felt or seen anything that suggests this was her doing.”

  Ethan nodded, gestured to the opening into the graveyard. “Let’s take a look.”

  • • •

  We strode in silence down the gravel path that bisected the grounds. Around us, crickets and katydids chirped with abandon, and the wind rustled leaves in the summer-full trees. Gravestones were few and far between. There were a handful of tall pedestals, a few granite slabs, and a lot of small metal plates hardly larger than plant markers.

  “Some are mass graves,” Annabelle quietly said. “Some are individual. As you can see, the marking is spotty.”

  I nodded. “We did some research on the way. Are the deceased differently active here? I mean, because of the way they died—or because they weren’t claimed?” It seemed that would lead to many more uneasy souls.

  “Some probably were at the time of their death,” Annabelle said. “But most buried here died many years ago—many generations of necromancers before me. This place isn’t usually chatty. Watch out,” she added, pointing to dark tree roots that had pushed up through the path like arching snakes.

  The lane bowed around an enormous tree, its branches heavy with summer leaves. The magic grew stronger—and more uncomfortably tangible—as we moved deeper into the cemetery. It wasn’t unlike walking through dangling spider webs.

  “Here,” she said and aimed the beam of her flashlight at the ground. A long hillock of dark earth lay beside a rectangular hole. At the end of it was a small metal post with a tidy engraving: 1-CCU49-871.

  “‘CCU’ stands for Cook County Unclaimed,” Annabelle said. “That means this individual was buried by the county. This particular area was used in the twenties and thirties.”

  “There are burial records?” Ethan asked.

  She nodded. “The county keeps them, but the cemetery’s old, so I�
�m not sure how good their records are.” She glanced at us. “There are bones in the grave. There’s no shame if you prefer not to look.”

  It wasn’t a possibility that excited me, but it didn’t disturb me as much as the fact that someone had purposefully desecrated the deceased’s final resting place.

  “I’d like to look,” I said, and took the flashlight she offered me.

  Ethan and I stepped forward.

  The deceased had been placed into a simple wooden coffin that hadn’t done much to protect against the elements or the passing years. The top had been lifted, was now tilted against the side of the hole, no longer protecting the person within.

  Or what was left of him or her, anyway. Flesh and muscle were gone, leaving the bones in a jumble. Some were easy to identify—the pelvis, the long bones of the arms and legs, were scattered among tatters of dark fabric and what looked like the curved remains of a hat.

  We weren’t forensic anthropologists, of course. But it was obvious something was missing.

  “They took his skull,” Ethan said, crouching down, hands on his knees, as he looked at the remains. Pity and anger warred in his expression.

  “Yeah,” Annabelle said quietly.

  Ethan looked up at her. “Did they take the skull in order to summon the ghost?”

  “I don’t know. Disturbing mortal remains can certainly draw a spirit back into this world. It’s an instinctive response, even for those who are dead: You sense danger, that something is wrong, and you check on it.” She shifted her gaze from us to the grave, pity creasing lines of worry in her forehead. “But necromancy primarily involves communication—helping the deceased understand where they are and why, and passing along messages to their loved ones. We don’t do spells, and we generally don’t touch the remains. We might consult with a family about moving someone between cemeteries or resituating someone whose grave has been displaced by weather—like after flooding—but that’s it.”

  “So if this isn’t alchemy or necromancy,” Ethan said, rising, “maybe it’s standard magic. We’ll talk to Catcher and Mallory.”

  Annabelle nodded. “They might have a better sense of it.”

  “How did you find it?” he asked Annabelle.

  “I started a walk-through last night, to check the cemetery’s pulse, so to speak, see if anyone needed to talk. I was finishing up tonight, ended up crossing back over the same territory, and found it. It wasn’t like this yesterday. When I saw it, I locked up and called the Ombudsman, then you.”

  Chunks of dark soil in the low grass caught my eye. I walked around the hole, redirecting the flashlight.

  “You’ve found something?” Annabelle asked.

  “Maybe a trail,” I said. Near the other end of the grave, clumps of dirt had fallen like crumbs onto the pale gravel walkway. I followed the line of dirt, but it didn’t get me very far—only ten or eleven feet past the end of the grave.

  “Where does the path go?” I asked Annabelle when I’d walked back again.

  “It circles around the cemetery, joins the main path near the gate.”

  “I’m going to walk it,” I told Ethan.

  Escort Annabelle back to the front and call my grandfather, I told Ethan. Ask him to bring the van. I’ll meet you back there.

  Ethan glanced into the hovering darkness. You’re sure?

  I’ll be fine, I assured him. But I’m taking the light.

  • • •

  I usually enjoyed the dark. Vampires were, after all, nocturnal. We lived in the night, relished in the scents and sounds of it. But I’d never been a fan of graveyards, and someone who could open a grave and steal a skull likely wouldn’t mind attacking me. So I stayed on my guard.

  I followed the path down one side of the cemetery, then around the back. The chain-link fence here was in worse shape than in the front, buckled and rusted, bent over protruding shrubs, and in some cases barely hanging from the steel posts.

  The signs of neglect—but not just that. I walked closer, found a slit in the fence where a portion of the chain link had been pulled back like a dog-eared page, fastened out of the way with small clips.

  A small scrap of fabric was caught between the woven steel links. It looked like the same dark fabric we’d seen in the coffin, probably part of the deceased’s burial ensemble. The person who’d stolen the skull had come through here on the way out, sneaking out of the cemetery the way he’d come in, and probably hadn’t realized he’d dragged the scrap with him.

  To avoid contaminating the sample, I didn’t pluck it free. Instead, I pulled out my phone, leaned forward, trying to avoid the mud as I took a photograph.

  The broken portion of fence stood above a three- or four-foot dip in the ground, which was bare of grass and muddy. The dip would have provided a nice bit of cover for someone trying to sneak out of the cemetery. And sure enough, there were streaks in the mud where someone had slipped as they’d moved under the fence.

  But the group that burst through the trees came from the other direction.

  There were three of them. The girl was tall and lithe, with dark skin, short hair, wide eyes, and pretty, symmetrical features. The men had pale skin and brown hair. The one in front was shorter, the one in back taller, with wider shoulders and large headphones fitted over his ears. They all wore polo shirts with CPAN embroidered on the pocket.

  “Did you get him?” the shorter man asked, nearly out of breath.

  Even in my party dress, I’d taken a defensive position. They were humans, with no whiff of magic or weapons about them.

  “Did I get whom?” I asked.

  The shorter man glanced at me, then at the fence. “The summoner of the ghost whose energy is all over the freaking place. Did you see him?”

  “I didn’t see anyone but you.” I narrowed my gaze. “Who are you?”

  The shorter man bowed from the waist. “The Chicago Paranormal Action Network. Paranormal investigators,” he added at my raised brows.

  Ghosthunters, I figured, searching the cemetery for signs of unusual “life.”

  “I’m Robin Vines. These are Roz Leary and Matt Birdsong.” He pointed to the woman and taller man in turn. “And you’re Merit of Cadogan House. What a night this is!”

  His voice was quick, his words little bullets of sound. I held up a hand. “Hold on. Why do you think the summoner went this way?”

  “There’s a spirit,” Matt said, his voice a deep baritone rumble, his gaze on the box into which his headphones were plugged. “Some serious supernatural activity.”

  “You’re a vampire,” Roz said. “Can’t you feel it?” There was something slightly snippy in her tone, and very snippy in her expression. She looked at my dress with disdain, as if finding the outfit unsatisfactory for the work.

  I kept my gaze level, flat. “I didn’t ask about the magic,” I said, and shifted my eyes back to Robin. “Who are you chasing?”

  “We saw someone running,” Robin said, pointing to the fence. “And trailing magic behind him. But we lost him in the trees.”

  “‘Him’?” I said. “You saw a man?”

  “Pretty sure,” Robin said, and looked at Roz and Matt for confirmation. They both shrugged.

  “It’s dark,” Roz said. “Could have been a guy; could have been a girl.”

  “Built like a guy,” Matt said. “On the tall side.” He gestured behind him. “After we lost him, we saw a white sedan hauling ass out of here, squealing tires and everything. We ran toward the fence, came over that little rise, and here you were. Did you see the car?”

  “I didn’t.” But that could have been an issue of timing. “Why are you in a cemetery after hours?”

  “We were up the street at the Malone house,” Robin said, gesturing north.

  “It’s a former bordello,” Roz said. “A very reliable supernatural hot spot. It was quiet tonight,
but then our instruments went crazy. We tracked the energy over here.”

  “It’s scattered all over hell and back,” Matt said, frowning now. “Didn’t find the hot spot or the person who created it.”

  Since they didn’t mention the grave, I had to assume they hadn’t found it yet. That could also be an issue of timing.

  “How’d you get in?” I asked. “The front gate is locked.”

  Robin grinned sheepishly. “Oak tree on the corner has a huge branch that pops right over the fence. Easiest way in and out if you don’t want to hack through a lock.” He looked back at the breached portion of the fence. “If we’d known this was already here, we’d have come in this way.”

  He cocked his head at me like a scientist examining a particularly curious specimen. “You didn’t summon the ghost, did you? I didn’t think vampires can do that.”

  “I didn’t. But I’m very interested in who might have, as are my colleagues. Let’s take a walk,” I said, and directed them back to the path.

  • • •

  We reached the front of the cemetery just as my grandfather’s vehicle, a white panel van with OMBUDSMAN printed on the side, pulled up. The doors opened, and my grandfather and Catcher climbed out. Catcher had changed from party attire into casual wear, and wore one of his characteristic snarky T-shirts. This one was dark green with MY MAGIC > YOUR MAGIC across the front in bright letters.

  Ombuddy number three, shape-shifter Jeff Christopher, hopped out of the back. He had shoulder-length brown hair, currently tucked behind his ears, and a thin frame that belied the power of the enormous tiger he could shift into.

  For a moment, everyone looked at everyone else.

  “I’ll start,” I said. “Ethan of Cadogan House; Chuck, Catcher, and Jeff of the Ombudsman’s office; Annabelle of the Illinois MVD Association; and Robin, Matt, and Roz of the Chicago Paranormal Action Network.” I wasn’t sure if Annabelle was publicly out as a necromancer, so I stuck to her professional affiliation.

  “Annabelle,” my grandfather said, “it’s nice to see you again. How’s little Maddy?”