Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  “And Emma is.”

  Allison held up a hand. “I’m now instituting a rule.”

  “A rule?”

  “You and I—that being Chase Loern and Allison Simner—are not going to discuss Emma Hall unless her life is in immediate danger and discussion will save it.”

  Chase blinked. So did Michael. With an air of someone who’d just remembered a question he’d forgotten to ask, Michael said to Chase, “Why don’t you like Emma?”

  Chase laughed at Allison’s expression; when the laughter faded, some hint of it lurked at the corners of his lips and eyes.

  “You’re impossible,” Allison told him.

  “It’s my middle name. One of my middle names. I have several.”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear the rest.”

  Eric said, “You really don’t. Some of them aren’t meant for polite company.” Eric wasn’t Chase; his smile didn’t light up a room. He smiled now, and Allison realized, watching him, that he was tense. She almost asked him why, but she wasn’t certain Michael needed more stress. She was fairly certain that she didn’t.

  “But why don’t you like Emma?” Michael said again.

  “I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about Emma while Allison is in the room. Everyone else can be scared of Amy, but I personally think Allison is more terrifying.”

  Michael made the face he made when he was almost certain someone was joking. Sarcasm and humor had been hard for Michael when he was in elementary school; he was famously literal. But he’d become more comfortable with both as he’d marched through high school.

  “Amy,” Chase said, in a mock-sober tone, “has never hit me.”

  “I’ve never hit you either!”

  “Not yet,” he said, grinning. “I don’t imagine it’ll be long before—”

  “Chase,” Eric said, in the tone of voice reserved for emergencies that would inevitably lead to death.

  The smile dropped instantly off Chase’s face. Emma had just entered the cafeteria; Amy was by her side. Both of them were the color of chalk. Allison rose without thinking. When Amy looked frightened—when Amy looked even a tiny bit uncertain—it was big.

  “Short committee meeting,” Eric said, in the wrong tone, as they approached the table.

  “We didn’t go,” Emma whispered. “We’re heading out to find coffee.”

  Michael frowned; he rose as well.

  “Em?” Allison said.

  Emma shook her head and smiled brightly. It was, Allison realized, the same smile that Eric had been using throughout lunch—when he’d bothered to smile, that is. Allison nodded and headed toward the cafeteria doors.

  “We’re going to miss a period,” she told Michael.

  Michael hesitated. It didn’t last. He accepted the disruption to his daily schedule as if it were the natural outcome of finding a boy who had in all probability been left to die on a winter hillside by his own mother.

  * * *

  There was no way to break this tension. Both Amy and Eric drove; Amy chose the venue. She wanted something a little farther away than normal lunch-hour traffic. The one thing about Amy that even Allison had to admire was that she never dithered. If given a choice, she made it quickly.

  Sadly, this meant her patience for other people’s indecision was practically zero. Had Amy been the type of person to rule by consensus rather than by fiat, it would have been a disaster. No one spoke in Amy’s car; the silence was thick and uncomfortable.

  No one spoke—aside from giving a waitress their order—until lattes and hot chocolate had hit the table.

  For people who needed to find coffee, they didn’t drink a lot of it; Allison didn’t touch her hot chocolate either, although she made signs of finding it hot enough it needed time to cool. Amy didn’t bother. She lifted her latte and set it down with an authoritative clunk, as if it were a gavel and she was calling Court to order.

  “We know who the temporary replacement for Mr. Taylor is,” she said, voice flat.

  Emma glanced at her. She hadn’t picked up her own drink; Allison guessed it was because her hands were shaking too much. She was willing to cede the floor to Amy; she looked almost grateful to be able to do so.

  Eric waited. He’d taken his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the table; Allison wondered if he were recording the conversation. Amy didn’t have any issues with being recorded.

  “You’d recognize him.” Even stressed, Amy knew how to draw things out. “All of you would.”

  “Emma?”

  She shook her head.

  “The last time we saw him,” Amy continued, when Emma failed to interrupt, “he was a bloody, messy corpse.”

  Eric and Chase froze. It was clear from their reaction that this wasn’t somehow impossible—to them.

  “Merrick Longland. He’s apparently just out of the faculty of education; he has a teaching certificate; he doesn’t have a full-time job. He’s been doing piecework and temporary work as it comes in, and this job is a godsend. He’s grateful to have it and eager to work with new students.”

  Emma was white and silent while Amy continued to rattle off the talking points she’d pried out of the principal.

  “On the off chance that Merrick Longland didn’t have a twin, we decided to skip the yearbook committee meeting. So. What are the chances that our teaching replacement is the same Merrick Longland who took several wounds to various body parts and died? Judging by your reactions,” she added, jabbing the air in front of Eric and Chase for emphasis, “the odds are damn high. What are these Necromancers? Vampires?”

  “It’s the middle of the day,” Michael pointed out.

  “So? He’s not standing in direct sunlight.”

  “He’d have to walk in direct sunlight from his car.”

  Amy snorted. She understood Michael as well as Allison or Emma did, but didn’t see any pressing need to treat him differently than she treated anyone else. It was one of the things Allison admired about her. She might expect everyone else to make allowances, but Amy’s version of allowance involved very little condescension.

  “We want to speak to your Ernest,” Amy concluded, folding her arms across her chest.

  Eric and Chase exchanged a glance.

  “I mean it,” she added. “He was supposed to be responsible for the cleanup, if I recall correctly. Cleanup doesn’t generally involve hospitals and healing. Even if it did, that kind of knife work leaves scars. Our Merrick Longland would look like a more attractive Frankenstein monster; this one doesn’t. I’m not sure he’d’ve recovered from extensive plastic surgery by now, either.”

  “Our Ernest, as you call him, works on his own schedule,” Eric began.

  Amy reached out and plucked Eric’s phone off the table. Eric’s eyes widened; he was the only person at the table who looked remotely surprised. She turned the phone on, while Eric’s eyes rounded further, and after a few seconds, shoved it up beside her ear.

  Even Chase now looked dumbfounded.

  “Hi. Ernest? We met recently. My name is Amy Snitman. No, Snitman. Yes, that’s right. I’m one of Eric’s classmates. Eric and Chase are with me, and we are coming to your house to visit. We’ve got a few questions about your work and a possible emergency; we should be there in half an hour.” She hung up.

  “I take it back,” Chase murmured.

  Allison would have laughed, but Emma’s expression killed all mirth.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  CHASE JOINED EMMA AND ALLISON in Amy’s car; he provided directions. Amy was annoyed, and let it show—she had GPS installed. All she needed was the address. Chase told her he didn’t remember the exact address.

  No one, not even Allison, believed him.

  Michael went with Eric. Amy’s driving was always exciting and M
ichael had had enough excitement for a month. He believed that Emma and Amy thought they’d seen Merrick Longland—but he also believed that Merrick Longland was dead. As this was more or less giving Allison whiplash, she didn’t expect anyone else to take it in stride; the only person who did was Amy.

  Allison privately thought that Amy would prefer to be given a rational, logical, and above all believable explanation, which was why she was driving directly to Eric’s. Chase’s verbal directions guaranteed two things. The first, that Amy would be in a fouler mood, and the second, that Eric—with Michael in tow—would arrive first.

  This wouldn’t have been necessary if Amy had returned Eric’s phone, but Allison kept that firmly to herself. She felt as if she were only barely treading water, now. Because she, like the rest, had seen Merrick Longland’s death. She had nightmares about it. She kept them to herself.

  Amy kept none of her thoughts to herself, which meant the ride wasn’t silent. It was awkward, but given Amy was upset, awkward was as much as they could hope for.

  She parked about three feet away from the curb, opened the door, and stormed out. Michael, had he been in the car, would have pointed out that she was too far out. No one else dared, but Allison suspected that no one else noticed. And if she were any kind of a decent best friend, she thought with guilt, she wouldn’t have either.

  She hurried to catch up with Emma; Emma was staring pointedly at a spot to her right. Allison guessed that Nathan was here. Or that he wasn’t, and she wanted him. It didn’t matter; she took up the position to Emma’s left.

  “Em?”

  Emma smiled wanly. “I’m fine.” It was the Hall version of fine: it meant, in more accurate English, shattered. She exhaled, and headed toward the door, which was already opening to allow Chase and Amy entry.

  Allison hung back. She was afraid of leaving Emma on the front steps, because Emma looked at the door with an understated dread. “We don’t have to stay,” she offered. “It’s not like we’re going to be able to get a word in edgewise.”

  That made Emma smile a real smile. “Amy’s something,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m so glad she was there. I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “You wouldn’t have gone to the meeting.”

  “I don’t know if I would have noticed in time to back out. Longland didn’t see us; she saw him first. Amy notices everything.”

  “And usually points it out loudly, just in case anyone missed it.”

  Emma laughed. She straightened her shoulders and added, “Should we go rescue Ernest? He won’t know what hit him.”

  “He’s got Eric and Chase.”

  Emma winced. “Exactly.”

  * * *

  The living room was like a parent-teacher interview gone insanely wrong. Ernest was seated in the large armchair. His posture was stiff and his expression caught between bemusement and serious annoyance.

  Eric was on the far end of the couch—as far from Ernest as the seating allowed. Michael, conversely, had taken the seat closest to Ernest and had left room for Allison and Emma. Chase hadn’t bothered with a chair of any kind; he’d plunked himself down on the stone of the fireplace, crossing his legs.

  Amy, on the other hand, was prowling the room like a tiger. Since she’d introduced herself on Eric’s phone, she probably hadn’t bothered with introductions either—she’d gotten straight to the point, which Allison and Emma, slower to enter the house and remove all the winter clothing, had missed.

  “So let me get this straight,” Amy said, her voice growing louder as Emma and Allison joined the awkwardness. “Merrick Longland was dead. You checked. You didn’t convey him to an emergency ward anywhere in this city; you did not buy him plastic surgery, and you disposed of his body.”

  “I believe I’ve already answered all of these questions,” Ernest said, in a clipped voice that clearly implied he was not the one who was usually on the receiving end of pointed, icy questions. “I fail to see why they’re relevant.”

  “Leaving aside the fact that murder is illegal—”

  “Self-defense is not illegal in Canada.”

  “Which the courts, not tweedy old men, decide—leaving aside that fact, it’s relevant because the selfsame Merrick Longland has apparently taken a job at my school as a replacement for a teacher who’s going to be in traction for a couple of months. He’s taken over the supervisory role of my yearbook committee.

  “Can we assume that he is the same Merrick Longland?” She folded her arms and came to a stop inches away from Ernest’s feet.

  Ernest was silent.

  “Can we further assume that he retains memories of his death and all the stuff that led up to it, including our presence at the former Copis household?”

  More silence.

  It was hard to take eyes off Amy when she wanted attention, even if the attention she wanted wasn’t yours. Tonight was no exception; she was angry. She wasn’t angry with Emma, Michael, or Allison, but the full storm of her rage could easily encompass Chase and Eric, neither of whom wanted to meet her gaze. Allison knew. She was one of the few people present who could look at something else when Amy was on fire.

  “If he’s a teacher, he’ll have access to our records. He already knows where I live,” she added, each word a figurative bullet, “but he’ll now know where everyone else lives. This would include Emma. And Eric and Chase.”

  Ernest failed to answer. He had at least thirty years on Amy, possibly forty. He clearly had experience in a variety of deadly situations; he could clean up savaged bodies without raising a brow. He owned at least one gun, and he’d shown no hesitance whatsoever in using it. But even Ernest looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  “What are the chances we survive that knowledge?”

  Ernest rose. “These are all very good questions,” he finally said, in a voice that made November wind seem warm. “Or they would be, if you didn’t already know the answers.”

  “I didn’t, until now,” Amy snapped. “Believe it or not, where we live, dead people don’t come back to life. Among other things.” She drew, and held, her breath, exhaling it in a burst of nonverbal anger. “If we kill Merrick Longland—no, if you kill Merrick Longland—will he stay dead this time?”

  “He is already dead,” Ernest replied, his jaws clenching.

  “We want a definition of dead that only Emma can see,” Amy shot back.

  “If we, as you put it, kill Merrick Longland, he is likely to remain just as dead as he is now.”

  Someone cleared her throat. Allison, breath held, turned to look at Emma.

  * * *

  Emma had been beside Amy in a crowded school hall, and she’d watched as Amy froze in midsentence, all of the words she’d been about to say lost. Amy had said two words: Merrick Longland. She’d grabbed Emma’s arm as Emma turned to stare, realization and recognition freezing her in place.

  The dead looked alive to Emma. They wore the clothing they’d worn at the moment of their death, but they didn’t sport the wounds or the other clear signs that their physical bodies were corpses. She’d seen enough of the dead to know that she couldn’t easily differentiate between the dead and the living—but one of the dead she hadn’t expected to see was Merrick Longland.

  Amy wasn’t an idiot; she’d seen the same thing.

  This Merrick Longland, extraordinarily well-groomed and handsome, was not dead. Not in the way that Emma understood death.

  Nathan had been standing in the hall; he saw what Emma saw. His eyes widened, and he turned immediately to Emma. “Leave,” he said, voice low, urgency stripping it of the usual social graces. “Leave now.”

  Emma nodded. She didn’t answer, not because she was afraid that talking to thin air would make her look crazy, but because she was afraid to speak a single word that might draw Longland’s attention. She caught Amy’
s elbow and gave it an urgent tug, and Amy turned immediately, her face drained of color.

  They’d retreated to the cafeteria, by which time Amy at least had found her voice.

  And now they were here. They were at Eric’s, Amy going toe-to-toe with the old man, Eric and Chase looking distinctly uncomfortable—or worse.

  Amy was right: Longland would have access to all of their school records. He could, if he knew their last names, find their home addresses with pathetic ease. And at those homes were parents and siblings and half-deaf rottweilers.

  Emma knew what would happen to their families if the Necromancers came to visit: They would die. Maybe they would die quickly and painlessly; maybe they would die horribly and slowly. But Necromancers didn’t care about the living. Life was a cocoon state, as far as Necromancers were concerned; death was the eternity.

  Death as a power source, with no voice and no choice in the matter.

  She was nauseated. She wanted to throw up or cry, which was a first. Emma had cried tears of loss and grief; she had cried tears of humiliation, although she could be forgiven that act at the age of four or five; she had cried tears of joy. She had never cried because she was so terrified all other options were lost to her.

  And she was not about to start now.

  “How is Longland alive?”

  Ernest glanced at her. It was the only sign he gave that he’d heard the faint question at all.

  “I won’t argue with you. If you say he’s dead, I’ll accept it. But—he’s walking around in a way that the living can see. Clearly.”

  Ernest glanced once at the open arch. “We’ll take care of Merrick Longland.”

  “Because it worked so well the last time,” Amy cut in. Acid would be less corrosive.

  “We would be pleased if you demonstrated how we could do better,” Ernest snapped.

  Emma was terrified that Amy would take him up on the challenge. She’d watched Chase finish Longland off. It still gave her nightmares.

  “Ernest, that was uncalled for.” From the direction of the kitchen, clothed in a way that suggested the fifties and coiffed the same way, walked Margaret Henney. Unlike Merrick Longland, she was a dead that no one could see.