by E. A. Copen
“You’re talking about…”
“She’s a ticking time bomb.” I kicked some more mud off my shoes. “A psychopath waiting to evolve into a killer. Or worse. I don’t know for sure, but someone without a soul sure sounds like they’d be a prime target for supernatural entities who get off on pain and suffering.”
“Something like demons?” Emma asked.
“I’ve never met a demon, but I believe in them. And worse things. Emma, if I can’t get her soul back…”
“Get it back?” Khaleda made a huffing sound. “Lazarus, you heard what Serkan said. Whoever is behind this has likely already distilled it into whatever compound he’s making. Or will soon. He only has until tomorrow night to finish his work.”
Emma frowned. “Sounds like you know more than you’ve been sharing.”
“I didn’t before this morning. Or last night.” I rubbed my forehead. The days were starting to run together. The adrenaline rush from earlier had long ago worn off, and I needed sleep, but I wasn’t going to get it. Khaleda had promised to whip me up a potion that would help, but I didn’t know how long that would take and we were losing daylight.
Potions. That’s it. That has to be what this guy is making. If so, maybe the souls are just ingredients. “Khaleda, does the blood moon have any significance for brewing potions?”
She smirked. “Does a dog chase its tail? Of course. Just like any other magical day or time. If you know what you’re doing.”
I pushed up out of my chair. “Then he hasn’t distilled those souls yet. We can get them back.”
Khaleda didn’t seem convinced. “What makes you so certain?”
“You’re the alchemist. You tell me if you distill your ingredients ahead of time or if they’re more effective if you hold onto them until you need them.”
She squirmed in her chair, glancing at Emma who held her under a heavy gaze. “Well, just like coffee beans. The ingredients lose their appeal if ground too soon.”
I nodded and turned to Emma. “I think I can find the bad guys. Or at least where they’re holding the souls. But I need to perform a ritual on Kaitlynn.”
Moses stood, testing his leg. He favored one side. “What kind of ritual?”
Tracking spells worked because the spell I knew could connect biological material of the same kind over distance. With fresh hairs, I could track anyone anywhere as long as I could hold the spell and didn’t run into any wards or physical barriers. But that wouldn’t work if, say, the person I was tracking shaved their head or dyed their hair. Either would sever the link. That’s why your stereotypical bad guy wizard is a pale bald guy. Keeping oneself hairless was a good way to ensure your enemies had one less way of tracking and killing you.
Blood, however, was best. A person couldn’t go walking around without blood in their body in most cases. That’s how I’d been able to track her so well. Even the tiniest amount would work to forge that link.
But if Kaitlynn’s soul had been removed, there wasn’t anything on her end to form a link. In theory, I could work the spell backward, but I’d need her to be in a state that mimicked the soul’s conditions, and the soul was outside of the body. I only knew of one other time the soul naturally exited the body. Death.
Normally, I wouldn’t have suggested something so drastic, but in a medical setting, death was induced all the time. Hearts were stopped for transplants. Surgeries. I’d only need her to be medically dead for a minute, maybe two. With a team of doctors, I was certain it could be done safely.
I told him.
Emma jumped to her feet. “Are you crazy? The Michaels just got their little girl back, and now you want me to go in there and explain that to them?”
“They might have her body back, but she’s not their little girl,” I argued. “Not anymore. Your soul makes you who you are. Lets you feel. Without it, you’re just a bag of meat and memories.”
“No.” Emma shook her head. “I won’t even bring it to them. Find another way.”
“And if there is no other way?” Khaleda asked.
“Find another way,” Emma said through gritted teeth. “And never suggest that to me again.”
“Okay, let me think.” I rubbed my temples. We needed a lead, and we needed it now.
Jean appeared at the worst possible moment, floating into the waiting room with an anxious look and an attention-grabbing whistle. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Not now, Jean,” I snapped.
“But I can help. I was able to find Dominique’s body.”
I lowered my hands from my head, ignoring all the strange looks I was getting, talking to empty air. “And how does that help? It’s still a body without a soul. I’d have the same problem.”
“Well, you could do your ritual with his body perhaps?”
I rolled my eyes and turned my back on Jean to talk to Emma. “Can I at least talk to Kaitlynn? See what she has to say?”
Emma exchanged a glance with Moses who shrugged.
“Guess there’s no harm in it,” Moses said. “As long as the parents are okay with it.”
“But she stays out here.” Emma nodded to Khaleda.
Khaleda raised her hands in a surrender gesture. “Fine. I know when I’m not wanted. Just don’t die between here and there, okay, hot stuff?”
“And you keep your hands to yourself.” I pointed a scolding finger at her. Not that I could back that up with any kind of threat. In a fair fight, maybe I could take her. After all, I was arguably bigger than her. Unfortunately for me, Khaleda didn’t like to fight fair.
I followed Moses and Emma into the locked ward. Hospitals were worse than a morgue for me. The cleaning chemicals stung my nose and burned my eyes. All the bright lights and white colors were supposed to make everything cheery, but it had the unintended side effect of making it easier to see the tired faces of the staff, nurses who had all been worked too hard for too long. Death lurked in the hallways alongside them. Sometimes, it appeared in the form of past patients hanging over their shoulders. Some of the older nurses had a whole group of ghosts following them, each one chained to the next, the heavy spectral chain looped around their waists and shoulders, weighing them down. Other times, it was something else. Something darker.
We passed a young, frazzled looking nurse with jumpy eyes and deep, dark circles under his eyes. Under my Vision, I could see the demon attached to him, its teeth embedded in the bend of his arm. But it wasn’t sucking anything out. It was pumping a black, vile substance through his body. I didn’t know the demon’s name, but I knew its nature well enough. Addiction.
I stopped in front of the nurse who looked up at me with tired but all-too wide eyes. “Yes?”
There was a pad of paper on the desk and a pen. I grabbed both and jotted down my number, holding the paper out to him. “If you want help with your problem, call me. I’m discreet.”
His face slackened, but he took the paper with shaky hands. The demon attached to him lifted its head and bared toothless gums at me as if they were fangs. This wasn’t the kind of demon I could deal with, not alone, but I’d sure as hell be happy to sit in on a few NA meetings with him.
Kaitlynn’s room was at the end of the hall. Her parents were in there with her, mom curled up in one of those plastic-coated chairs. Dad hovered at the end of the bed, flipping through papers attached to a clipboard. He looked up when Emma knocked on the door frame. His pensive face changed, lip curling. “Haven’t you bothered us enough? We answered your questions.”
“Our consultant has some questions of his own.” Moses gestured to me. “We’d appreciate it if you could help us out. Stop these guys from hurting anybody else.”
The father’s eyes slid to me, a quiet debate going on behind them. He didn’t believe what he’d seen earlier, even though it yielded results. This was the kind of guy who would look magic in the face and still deny it with the same devotion flat-Earthers had when it came to NASA photos of the Earth. No amount of evidence would convince him I was the real
deal. He’d rather ignore me and forget I existed so he could go on denying the existence of whatever he couldn’t explain away.
The irony was that disbelief had its own power. Some spells wouldn’t work unless you believed in them. Others would be made more difficult in the presence of a denier like Mr. Michaels. It’d be a pain to do any serious magic with him in the room. Not that I planned to. I was just there to talk.
“Fine,” he growled. “But I don’t know what good it’ll do. She’s been talking nonsense.” He stepped aside, going to the window to finish his paperwork.
I stepped into a room that smelled like old baby formula and alcohol wipes. Kaitlynn had been put in one of those unflattering hospital gowns and propped up in bed. It hung loose from her body, emphasizing her skeletal form even more. With as much weight as she had lost, every dimple in her skull was visible. Her golden hair hung limp like wet hay. A tube full of some sandy colored liquid crawled through her nose. Dark, empty eyes regarded me without interest as I stopped by her bed.
In my Vision, there was nothing left. Where there should have been a brilliant soul, there was a hole that not even darkness filled. It was like looking through her as if she wasn’t even there.
I swallowed the rising anger and tried to sound non-threatening. “Hi, Kaiytlynn. My name’s Lazarus. Do you remember me?”
“You found me.” Her tone was flat, lifeless. Like a robot. No, like a shade.
I nodded. “That’s right. I was wondering if you could tell me about how you were taken. Could you describe the man who took you?”
“The police already asked her about that,” Mr. Michaels said from across the room.
“Now I’m asking.” I didn’t mean to snap at him, but the guy was getting on my nerves.
He must not have been expecting it either because he shrank, tucking his head between his shoulders and turning back to his paperwork.
I lowered my attention back to Kaitlynn. “So how ’bout it, kid? Who or what grabbed you from your house?”
Her eyes went out of focus. For a minute, I thought she’d break. Maybe I’d missed seeing a part of her soul or the ghoul had left a tiny bit behind. But no such luck. She was just staring at something no one else could see.
Kaitlynn raised a single skinny arm and closed four fingers, leaving her pointer extended. “It was him.”
I turned my head one way and then the other, searching for whoever it was she’d pointed out. The ghost of Jean Lafitte shrieked in a panic as we both realized at the same time she was pointing directly at him.
Chapter Fourteen
Amid the confusion in the room, I considered slipping out. To everyone else, it looked like she’d pointed at empty space. The father started shouting for us to leave, insisting the trauma she’d suffered had made her hallucinate. The mother started crying again. Emma tried to get everyone to calm down but just wound up shouting over everyone. Moses sighed and scratched his head, waiting for everyone to be done.
And, of course, Jean made for an exit through the closed door.
I’d already let one bad guy get away from me that day. There was no way I was letting him disappear without some answers.
“Oh no you don’t,” I growled and lifted my hands and sent a jolt of energy through the air aimed at him. It was supposed to hit him and hold him just like I held uncooperative ghosts I’d just pulled from the dead, but that wasn’t how it worked. The power whooshed through the room like a whirlwind, blowing dust, papers, and anything small and not tied down all around. The medical equipment in the room started beeping uncontrollably, drowning out the sizzling sound of magic burning through the air.
Invisible needles with thread attached shot from my hands, the needles burying themselves in Jean. He let out a scream that had even the doubters in the room covering their ears. His form coalesced into something visible to even the normiest of norms, a terrified expression on his ghostly face.
Mr. Michaels crossed himself. Mrs. Michaels fainted.
The door to the room crashed open, and a whole team of nurses stampeded in. Flowing around me like water, they went straight to the equipment going haywire to silence it. Among them was the demon-riddled nurse I’d seen at the station. He paused in adjusting a monitor to look over at what I was doing and let out a gasp that drew everyone’s attention to the ghost in the room.
“Lazarus, I think you’d best be on your way,” Moses said, removing his hat and staring at Jean wide-eyed.
I grimaced, fighting to hold the ghost who was still trying to flee. “Can’t. He’ll run. Need to question him.”
Emma put her hands on her hips, moving her blazer back away from her body to reveal the gun, the badge and something that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen her. A good old fashioned telescopic steel baton. And since steel was mostly iron, she could whack Jean with it just as well as I could with my magic.
She pointed a finger at the ghost struggling in my grip. “Now you listen here, whoever you are.”
If I hadn’t been concentrating so hard on holding Jean, I would’ve smiled. There were times when I wanted to kiss that woman.
“I don’t care who you are, how long you’ve been dead, or whatever deal you’ve struck with Lazarus. Body or no body, you’d better cooperate with my investigation, or I swear to God I will… I’ll….”
“Smack him with your club,” I suggested.
“That!” Emma exclaimed.
Jean’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think I haven’t been beaten before? Shot and stabbed? Bitten? I will not be accused of a crime I didn’t commit! Not again.”
“No one’s accusing you,” I ground out. “Ghosts can’t kidnap little girls.”
He considered it a moment before frowning at Emma. “What kind of police officer are you?”
“The kind that doesn’t let cases like this go unsolved because of uppity ghosts,” she snarled. “Now, will you cooperate? Or do I have to get my club out?”
Jean finally quit struggling, his head drooping. “Yes, ma’am.”
Emma’s answer was a satisfied snort before she turned her back.
I gave Jean a glare of warning and withdrew the spell. He flinched as the pins came out, but his form faded. A chill swam up around me. Wet clothes, cold hospital air, and magic just didn’t mix. I moved to take a step, but the world swayed, so I wound up collapsing against a wall and staying there, shivering.
“Um,” said the nurse with the demon riding him, “everyone else saw that, right?”
“I don’t see nothing no more,” grumbled another nurse, shaking her head. “They don’t pay me to see none of that. Now help me with this line.”
Mr. Michaels crossed the room, his eyes still big and wide, but his jaw set. “Thank you for finding my little girl, Mr. Kerrigan, but I’d rather not see you near my daughter anymore.”
Nobody appreciates the good guys. I huffed out a sigh and nodded my head.
A moment later, Emma was under my arm, half-escorting, half-dragging me from the hospital room. “You need the greenhouse again?”
I shook my head. If I went to Emma’s greenhouse, it’d mean she had to take the time to get me there. Time she could otherwise be using on the case. That time seemed to be ticking away even faster now that I knew we were up against a deadline. Even if I needed to rest and recharge, I couldn’t afford to. I certainly couldn’t afford to ask Emma to. As long as I was conscious, I could work.
When we reached the waiting room, Khaleda came to my other side and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from Emma. Emma narrowed her eyes and pulled back.
I had a sudden vision of the two of them throwing punches at each other and wondered who would win. Caveman brain took one look at the skin-tight leather on Khaleda and wondered how much clothing would get ripped and torn in the process. Would Khaleda’s allure work on Emma too? Probably. But she wouldn’t need it to win, and Emma wouldn’t let her make it easy. At least, I hoped not. I squashed the caveman brain and all the instincts that went with it. It�
�d be a good fight, one I was sure half the guys I knew would pay to see, but it wouldn’t end well.
I pulled my arms away from either of them, and though I swayed a little on my feet, I still preferred that to being yanked back and forth. My fingers went to my temples, rubbing in a circular motion. “Okay, give me a second. I need to piece my brain back together.”
“What happened?” Khaleda demanded.
“She identified a ghost as her attacker,” Emma said.
“A ghost? The same one that’s been following you around? Lazarus, that can’t be a coincidence.”
“I know.” I collapsed in one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs and rolled my shoulders back, popping several vertebrae. That spell wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d had time to prep for it. As it was, I’d had to draw on my own energy reserves without dropping my mental shields, which meant it was a hard pull. Sort of like deadlifting a heavy dresser. I could do it, but it strained me.
I studied the ghost of Jean Lafitte as he floated into the room, head tucked, shoulders hunched, gaze fixed on the floor. That was a guilty look. Why? Even I knew he hadn’t done anything to the girl. How could he have? If she was pointing him out, the only explanation was that she’d seen his body. Jean had said he found Dominique’s body up and walking around. That meant his could be too.
A better question to me was how Kaitlynn Michaels had seen his ghost in the first place. Sometimes kids have a sort of sixth sense about the supernatural. They can see things adults can’t because they still believe. As we grow older, that belief drops off along with the ability to see and interact with the supernatural world. Except for those few gifted with magic, most kids had lost the ability to track ghosts by the time they were ten years old.
I wondered if Kaitlynn Michaels had any innate ability. Maybe that’s why she’d been a target. If she did, it was gone now. Magic was tied to the soul. Without one, I didn’t think you could do magic, which was why ghouls and other soulless beasties never had any wizards among them. At least, that was my understanding of how it worked.
