Grave Ransom

by Kalayna Price

  “Come on,” I said, shrugging away from Falin’s arm and barging through one of the many glass-fronted doors.

  I walked through the metal and spell detectors. A green light acknowledged that I carried active magic but nothing that set off alarms. Briar and Falin stopped before stepping into the detectors. Briar cursed and glanced around. Her look-away charms were top of the line, but with all her militarized magics and weapons, she’d set off both detectors and have every security guard on campus descend on us. There was a small amount of space between the door and the detectors, and she headed toward it. Falin handed her his gun as she moved. He stepped through the detectors without a blip—standard spell-detecting charms never looked for fae magic. Briar rejoined us a moment later, handing Falin back his weapon. No one had even noticed her moving around the scanners. Yeah, those were useful.

  Past the detectors, we found ourselves in the university library. While there were books on this level, the front part of the room was dominated by the circulation desk, computer stations, and artfully arranged small sitting areas. We wove through these, following the tug of the charm. It led us deep into the building. Rows and rows of shelves surrounded us, and while there were a decent number of people in the front part of the library, as we got deeper into the stacks, it got very quiet. We passed one girl sitting at a desk set up at the end of one of the long shelves, but after that, there were just books, books, and more books.

  The tugging grew stronger and stronger and then suddenly began to lessen. I stopped, turned, and backed up. It grew stronger again. I looked around. We were in the middle of a very long aisle of books. An aisle empty of any other people. I peered through one of the shelves, looking over the books to see if there was anyone in the next aisle over. No one on either side.

  “Let me guess,” Briar said, her arms crossed over her chest. “The trail ends here. Where there is no one. So it is a weird fluke and not a real trail.”

  I frowned, not yet ready to admit defeat. My eyes had not recovered from the last time I used my grave magic, but I cracked my shields anyway, letting the other planes of reality superimpose themselves over the world around me.

  It was possible that Remy’s ghost was here, but deep in the land of the dead, deeper than I could typically see without spanning the chasm between the living and the dead. Around me, the books appeared to wither and flake away, and I was careful not to touch anything. The thin bubblelike shield I’d built around my psyche to contain my planeweaving abilities was active, but I didn’t want to risk pulling anything over into the land of the dead and making what I was seeing a reality. I searched, letting my psyche stretch further. Around me, the books appeared to crumble to dust and drift away in the wind; the shelves they sat on rusted and rotted into collapsed husks. In the darkness just outside my field of vision, shadowed forms lurked. Not Remy. Not even ghosts. Things that had never been alive but could scent my shimmering life energy.

  I drew back, pulling away from the land of the dead and slamming my shields closed. I hadn’t found Remy, but I didn’t dare send my psyche any farther across without a circle in place. Besides, I doubted the charm could have tracked his soul as far across the chasm as I went, let alone farther. Which meant Briar was right. It was a wild-goose—or in this case, ghost—chase.

  I brushed back several curls that had been tossed into my face by the chilled grave wind, and the charm tugged harder. I glanced at where it was attached to the arm that was now at face height, and then I extended my arm over my head. The charm gave a slightly harder tug. I lowered my arm and the tug calmed ever so slightly.

  I’m an idiot.

  “Upstairs,” I said, bustling down the aisle.

  The world was slightly more shadowy after my quick look through the planes, but considering I was already functioning in an odd grayscale, it was hardly noticeable. I was expecting to find a staircase but was pleasantly surprised when Falin pointed to an elevator set in the far wall of the building. There were several options of basement and subbasement levels, but only one floor above the main level. Falin hit the button and the doors gave an earsplitting creak as they closed. The elevator lurched, dropping several inches. We all grabbed for the rail before it stopped and started its slow journey upward with what sounded like straining gears.

  “Craft, after all the shit I’ve lived through, if I die in a freak elevator accident, I’m coming back to haunt your ass.”

  “I already have two ghosts haunting me. Position’s filled.” I made the words sound flippant, even though I was still gripping the railing.

  Briar smiled, but she was the first out of the elevator when the doors opened again.

  I led the way, following the tug of the charm. This level of the building was more of a mezzanine than an entirely new story. The front was a balcony that looked down over the many lounges and study nooks on the main level. The back appeared to be administrative offices. The center, through which we were following the charm, appeared to be some sort of rare book collection.

  We passed an illuminated scroll under glass, the yellowed paper looking like it was close to falling apart. Display cases and glass-topped pedestals were scattered through the space, holding more ancient, weathered books and scrolls. In the center of the space were bookshelves, but very different from the ones we saw on the main level. These bookshelves were fixed with heavy Plexiglas panels that kept anyone from touching the books. There didn’t appear to be any scrolls on the shelves at a casual glance, and the books themselves looked much less ancient. Some still sported the telltale signs of age in cracked and split leather bindings, but others looked much newer. I assumed that this was a rare book section that authorized faculty and the occasional graduate student were granted access to. Security cameras hung from the ceiling in plain view as a deterrent. Heavy wards surrounded the texts on pedestals, but only the locks on the Plexiglas secured the books on the shelves. Apparently they were accessed frequently enough or by such a diverse number of people that warding hadn’t been practical.

  We walked past the first two aisles of sealed shelves. When we rounded the third, the charm on my wrist jumped, trying to pull me down the aisle.

  A woman maybe twenty-two years old knelt in front of one of the shelves. She had long black hair that had been pulled back in a ponytail so messy it looked like a drunk who’d never touched a hair tie before had pulled it back for her. The Plexiglas in front of her was slid to the side, and she appeared to be sliding something inside a backpack that rested at her feet.

  She was also a corpse. I had to crack my shields to be sure—she was the best corpse I’d seen the necromancer create yet, barely any grave essence rose from her, but she was still dead.

  “Hey, Remy,” I said, forcing as much bubbly cheer into my voice as I could muster.

  The girl’s head shot up as one of her hands moved to clamp her bag closed, hiding whatever was inside. The other slipped inside her big coat, reaching for something underneath.

  “Oh, hi. I, uh, was just browsing. Uh, do I know you?” Her voice was high, the words spit out fast in a nervous tangle.

  Falin stepped in front of me. “Are you going to use the weapon you have under your coat?” he asked, nodding to her.

  “I, uh . . .” She backed up a step. “I’m late for class. I have to go.”

  “Remy, wait,” I said as she started to turn. Behind me, I felt one of Briar’s tranquilizer charms prime for action. I held up a hand, trying to stall her. People tended to cooperate better if you didn’t start your introductions by shooting them. I’d rather try talking to Remy first.

  The girl flipped back around. A gun emerged from under the big coat, and she lifted it, pointing it at us with a shaking hand. “Don’t try to stop me. I’m desperate and—” she said, but cut off suddenly, her dark eyes going from squinted nervousness to rounded shock. “What did you call me?”

  “Remy. Remy Hollens,” I said, stayin
g very still. Both because I didn’t want to get shot, and because I didn’t want to escalate anything to the point Briar thought she had no choice but to take Remy down.

  “How do you know who I am?” the body that contained the soul of Remy asked, the arm holding the gun slowly lowering until the barrel was pointed safely at the ground.

  I gave a sigh of relief. First because I was no longer in danger of getting shot and also because I’d been right about this being Remy. It seemed a given as the charm had led us here and the body was dead, but in this case, I wasn’t taking anything for granted.

  “Taylor hired me to look for you,” I said as explanation. Taylor had also fired me, but that was beside the point.

  “Yeah, but . . . How did you know it was me?” He glanced pointedly down at his very female body that looked nothing like the picture Taylor had supplied me.

  I turned to Briar and Falin because that was a rather complicated subject. While it had been a good assumption, even if I’d opened my shields, I couldn’t have made out the image of his ghost while it was inside a body, just the general glow of a soul that didn’t quite fit inside a body correctly.

  “What did he have you steal?” Falin asked, nodding at the book bag Remy held.

  Remy clutched the bag, pulling it against his chest and then nearly dropping it, surprise flashing across the body’s pretty face. I was guessing it was the boobs he hadn’t anticipated smashing when he hugged the bag. That would probably take getting used to.

  “What do you know about him?” Remy asked, glancing between Falin and me.

  I realized that he never once glanced at Briar on my other side. She was hiding behind her charms again, but she hadn’t plugged him with any kind of knockout spell yet, so whatever. As long as she was hanging back, I’d assume she approved of my line of questioning, and of me choosing what to reveal.

  “I know that you signed up for a study with a man named Hadisty and wound up in another body.”

  Remy scoffed under his breath. “Hadisty.” He shook his head. “You know that’s not his real name, right?”

  I nodded and Falin said, “We know a couple of names he goes by, but we doubt we know his real name.”

  “I might not either, but his friend called him ‘Gauhter’ and I think that’s probably real.” Remy glanced at the watch on his wrist and cursed. He tucked the gun back under his coat. “I have to go. Tell Taylor I’m okay, and I’ll be home soon. Don’t tell her about me looking like this. I don’t want her to ever know.”

  But he wouldn’t be home soon.

  “What did he have you steal, Remy?” I asked, taking a step forward.

  Remy slung the backpack over one shoulder and turned to walk the other way. I couldn’t hear her, but I knew that Briar would be lifting her crossbow, preparing to take him down. He couldn’t be allowed to leave. Could we arrest him for being dead?

  “Wait,” I called after him.

  He just shook his head. “I can’t. I have to get back. You don’t understand.”

  “He said he’d put you back in your body if you do this,” I guessed, based on Angela’s ghost’s words.

  “Yeah, exactly. So you understand how important this is.”

  “He can’t put you back,” I called after him.

  Remy stopped. “He put me here. He can put me back,” he said, and there was something a little desperate in his voice, something that rang of radical conviction. He had to believe he’d get his body back.

  And I had to disillusion him.

  “Your body is dead.”

  He shook his head. “No. No, I saw it walking around recently.”

  “It’s in the city morgue,” Falin said, and Remy recoiled, his lips pulling back from his teeth in an expression that was too primal to rightly name but definitely included fear and anger.

  “You’re a liar.” He spat the words at both of us.

  Falin pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open to flash his badge. “I’m Falin Andrews with the FIB. The body of Remy Hollens has been positively identified and is currently in the city morgue.”

  Remy hadn’t asked us who we were, which shouldn’t have surprised me considering he’d barely been paying enough attention to describe his own death, but that meant Falin’s action created quite a response. The anger on his face drained away, leaving only the horrified shock. He sank to his knees, hands slack by his sides, his gaze a million miles away but directed at the carpet.

  “Well done, Craft,” Briar said without a trace of sarcasm in her voice.

  “That wasn’t well done. We just destroyed him,” I hissed in reply.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t have to shoot him.”

  True. Though letting her tranquilize him might have been kinder. He would have had to find out about his body at some point, though.

  “So, I’m like this forever now?” Remy whispered after several minutes, and I cringed.

  Eventually I’d have to tell him that the body he was wearing was dead as well. Not yet, though. That would be too many blows for anyone to handle.

  Footsteps sounded out of sight but somewhere close. Briar, who was closest to the bookshelf, discreetly closed the open Plexiglas.

  A security guard turned the corner around the bookshelf. His pace was quick, not casual, so this wasn’t him on rounds. We’d drawn someone’s attention.

  “You kids doing okay over here?” Friendly words for a man who was studying us with a suspicious frown. He also wasn’t old enough to call us kids, but I let that slide as we were on a college campus.

  “Just having a conversation,” Falin said with a smile.

  The guard turned to study him, his eyes narrowing as he took in Falin’s appearance. Maybe Falin could pass for a postdoctoral student, but he sure couldn’t pass for the typical undergraduate. That said, the university was pretty diverse.

  The guard’s gaze eventually moved off Falin and fell on Remy’s still-kneeling form.

  “Miss, you okay?”

  Remy didn’t move, he didn’t even breathe, though I’m not sure he was aware of that fact. His gaze was still distant, unfocused on the carpet. Of course, he probably didn’t even realize the guard’s “miss” was addressed to him.

  “Remy,” I coaxed, kneeling down beside him, close, but not close enough to touch. My grave magic might be exhausted and behaving, but he was still a corpse. He lifted his head, but he didn’t seem to see anything. I looked back up at the guard. “He just got some bad news about the death of someone very close.”

  Confusion flickered over the guard’s features, and I realized I’d used a pronoun he probably hadn’t been expecting. Female body. Male ghost. Pronouns were a little tricky.

  The guard let it pass without comment. Just nodded and said, “Maybe this isn’t the best place for such a conversation. Sorry for your loss.”

  Then after one more searching glance that encompassed us all, except Briar, he turned, waved to someone watching from one of the cameras, and walked away. No one spoke as we listened to his footsteps grow more distant. This close to Remy, I could feel more than just the magic in the backpack he carried, but also another charm I hadn’t sensed earlier. It was subtle, and illegal. It kept the wearer from showing up on cameras. I recognized it only because I’d used one before. Briar’s news stunt wasn’t the first time I’d ended up on the wrong end of a reporter’s story. It did explain how Remy got the book into his bag without the guard showing up earlier. Or why none showed up when he pulled a gun on us. But we probably did need to move on before the guard realized the number of people he spoke to didn’t match up with the number on the screen.

  “Taylor will never accept me like this,” Remy whispered, but he wasn’t really talking to us, his voice distant and introspective. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  The body he was wearing was petite and I had to slouch to get down t
o eye level with him. I would have liked to reassure him that Taylor would love him regardless of what body he wore, but I could only imagine the shock his high school sweetheart would experience when she learned her football-star boyfriend was now her girlfriend. Maybe, under different circumstances, she could have learned to accept the changes, but she was never going to get the chance. This body was already dead. There was really only one thing he could do.

  “You help us find the necromancer who did this to you so we can stop him from doing it to anyone else.”

  “But that doesn’t help me. I was saving for a ring . . .” There was so much pain in his voice, it broke my heart even though his shade had already given away that particular secret.

  “No, it doesn’t directly help you, but it can give you closure. And revenge.”

  Revenge tended to be a great motivator. An empty, soul-destroying motivator that rarely left the one seeking it satisfied, but it certainly inspired action.

  Remy’s eyes narrowed, his gaze snapping into focus. “What can I do?”

  Briar stepped closer, dropping her look-away spell. “What did he have you steal, and where are you taking it?”

  Chapter 22

  “No way,” Remy said, shaking his head. “I’m not going back there. My real body is already dead. I’m not risking this one by leading you to the guy who killed me.”

  We’d moved our conversation to a narrow table in the far corner of the room, hoping we didn’t attract the attention of the guards again now that we were farther from the books. Remy had handed over his bag to me, and the book was still inside, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “I thought you said you wanted revenge?” Briar said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “I want to live more. Even if it will be”—he glanced down—“a very odd adjustment.”

  Briar and Falin both glanced at me, Briar thrusting her chin slightly, one eyebrow raised in a clear demand. I could guess for what. I sighed.

  “That’s not really an option,” I said, trying to keep my voice gentle because if I’d devastated him before, I was truly about to shatter him now.