Haunted

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Shit!" I scrambled up. "I need to warn Jaime."

  Kris got to his feet as I conjured fresh clothing. "I'm right beside you. But even if the Nix does get to Jaime before we do, Jaime's not about to volunteer her body for full spirit possession, certainly not to an unknown spirit."

  Finding Jaime wouldn't be a problem. Because of her erratic schedule, we'd already worked out a system so I could track her down if I needed help. If she was out, she'd leave me a note on her desk, where I could read it.

  I recalled Jaime mentioning earlier that she'd be in Sacramento for a couple of shows this week, and when we got to her apartment, the note she'd left confirmed she was already gone. She'd even penciled in her schedule in both local and Pacific time, to avoid confusion.

  "Very considerate," Kris said.

  "Unless she thinks I'm the one lacking a few brain cells."

  He laughed. "There are probably misconceptions on both sides." He peered down at the paper. "So her show finished an hour ago, with nothing scheduled before or after. Either she's still at the theater, or she's headed back to her hotel."

  "For which we have a name, but no room number, which she probably didn't know at the time. She says it'll be a suite on one of the top floors. That should narrow it down...I hope."

  "Do you want to take that, then? And I'll search the theater."

  I agreed, and we left.

  38

  BEING A GHOST SEARCHING THROUGH HOTEL ROOMS at eleven P.M. has its drawbacks--namely unwitting voyeurism. It wouldn't be so bad if I could have picked up something useful--a new technique, a new position, a new game--but it was all pretty pedestrian stuff. Even the businessmen who'd sprung for high-class hookers weren't doing anything that they probably couldn't have done at home with their wives. That made me wonder how many halves--or wholes--of these copulating couples had a wife or husband or lover at home, and what they thought they were doing, risking that relationship simply for a momentary change of pace...and change of face.

  I finished the first floor of suites, climbed to the second, stepped into the first room...and found the Nix and Jaime kneeling across from each other, a host of necromancy implements between them.

  "Hey!" I said, racing toward them. "What the hell are you doing?"

  The Nix's gaze flicked my way, then turned back to Jaime, who was nibbling her lower lip, staring down at the necromantic altar.

  "I'm not--I'm really uncomfortable with this," Jaime said.

  "No shit!" I said, planting myself over the altar. "If this is what it looks like--Damn it, Jaime, that's the Nix--the demi-demon I've been chasing."

  Jaime kept chewing her lip. I reached to shake her shoulder, but, of course, my fingers passed right through. So I got in her face--literally--ducking down and putting my face a scant inch from hers.

  "Hello! Anybody in there?"

  The Nix laughed.

  Jaime's head shot up. "What?"

  "You're sitting with a murdering demi-demon, that's what--" I began.

  "Nothing," the Nix said. "I was just thinking that I don't blame you for not trusting me. Hell, I don't blame anyone for not trusting me."

  "No shit," I said. "That's what happens when you're an evil--"

  "I did a lot of horrible things in my life," the Nix continued. "But I did one good thing, too--"

  "Bullshit."

  "--and that good thing is all that matters to me now."

  "Savannah," Jaime said with a soft sigh.

  My gut went cold.

  "I need to protect her, Jaime," the Nix continued. "And I would love to be able to do that on my own, but I can't. I tried. God knows, I've tried."

  I stared at the Nix and, for a moment, hearing those words, I saw myself sitting there...which was exactly what Jaime was seeing. The glamour spell. Shit!

  "Trsiel!" I shouted.

  The Nix fought back a smile.

  Jaime exhaled a deep sigh. "Okay, let's get this over with. But if you double-cross me, Eve--"

  "I won't," the Nix said. "Give me your body long enough to catch this bitch, and I'll give it to you with all the spook-busting credits you'll ever want."

  I lunged at the Nix. Yet even though she was in spirit form, I passed right through her and landed across the floor.

  I mentally called for Trsiel again, then recited a quick communication spell, putting in a desperate call to Kristof. I knew it wouldn't work--he'd never been able to master this piece of high-level witch magic--but I had to try anyway. The Nix had erected some kind of barrier against me, but maybe Kris could get through and either warn Jaime or stop the ritual.

  Jaime had barely finished the first invocation when Kristof popped into the room, facing Jaime and the Nix, his back to me.

  "You rang?" he began, then stopped. "What the hell?"

  "That's not me," I said as I hurried up beside him.

  "Of course it isn't," he said. "It's the Nix, but what--"

  "She's cast a glamour spell to look like me, and convinced Jaime to let me--her--possess her. I can't stop them, and Jaime can't hear me. Some kind of spell--"

  "Jaime," Kristof said sharply as he strode toward the two.

  She didn't turn.

  "Jaime!" he said, then bent over her and looked into her eyes. "Goddamn it!"

  He turned to me, opened his mouth to say something, then twisted fast and launched himself at the Nix, trying to catch her off guard. He flew through her and tumbled to the floor.

  "What kind of spell has she--?" I began.

  "Not the Nix. It's Jaime--she's put up a necromantic barrier to block interference from other spirits. The Nix probably told her to."

  "So what can we--"

  "Do?" Jaime said, rising to her feet. "Nothing, witch. You can do nothing."

  I blinked. The Nix had disappeared--into Jaime.

  "Where is she?" I said. "If you've--"

  "Oh, don't worry about the necromancer. This isn't about her."

  Before I could answer, Trsiel appeared, landing in front of me with his back to Jaime--the Nix. His gaze darted first to Kristof, then to me.

  "Ah, the angel," the Nix said. "Better late than never, hmmm?"

  Trsiel spun, saw Jaime, and frowned back at me. "What's she--?"

  "I was just about to tell Eve what I'm doing with this body," the Nix said. "Of course, I could surprise her, but that would quite ruin things. How much better that she should know exactly what I have in mind...so when it comes to pass, she can know that she failed to stop me."

  "Trsiel!" I said. "That's the--"

  "Nix," she said. "He knows, witch, and he'll do nothing about it. He won't interfere even when I wrap my hands around their necks. Yes, their necks. Those whose lives you made this bargain to save. Ironic, I think."

  "Paige and Lucas?" I said. "Don't you dare--"

  "Not only will I kill them but, with a little ingenuity, I can take an even sweeter revenge. What could be worse than your poor daughter losing her perfect guardians? Thinking she killed them herself."

  I started to lunge at the Nix, then remembered it would do no good and spun to face Trsiel, shouting his name. But he didn't move.

  "Goddamn you!" Kristof said, turning on Trsiel. "If you don't--"

  The Nix's laugh cut him off. She lifted a hand, waved, and walked out the door. With a roar, Kristof rushed Trsiel. He grabbed him by the shirtfront and threw him toward the door.

  "Get out there and do your goddamned job!" Kristof snarled. "Stop her!"

  "I can't," Trsiel said softly.

  Kristof bore down on Trsiel again. He grabbed him by the shirt, then rammed him against the wall. He locked his forearm under the angel's chin.

  "You've tricked Eve, haven't you?" Kris said. "Betrayed her to that..." His mouth worked, unable to find the right word. He lowered his face to Trsiel's. "If you've had something to do with this, no Fate is going to save--"

  I laid a hand on Kris's shoulder. He stopped, jaw still working as he eased back.

  "Trsiel? You said you can't,"
I said. "Why can't you?"

  "Because I'd kill Jaime."

  "And your point is?" Kristof said.

  Trsiel's gaze hardened as it rose to meet Kristof's. "My point is that Jaime Vegas is an innocent party. I don't know how the Nix got into her body, but unless she's a willing participant--"

  "She's not," I said softly. "The Nix tricked her. Jaime thinks she's helping me save Savannah from the Nix. Which means Trsiel's right. We can't kill her...not if there's another way. The Nix can't teleport while she's in Jaime, so we have some time before she gets to Portland."

  Kris stepped back and rolled his shoulders. A moment's hesitation, as he slipped back into character. "I would suggest, then, that we not waste time trying to figure this out ourselves. We'll see what the Fates have to say."

  "Trsiel is right," the middle Fate said. "He cannot kill her."

  We stood in the throne room. Kristof and I, that is. Trsiel stayed outside, probably having decided he was better off keeping away from Kris for a while.

  "Fine," I said. "He can't kill an innocent. We get that, and so long as we still have a chance of stopping the Nix before she kills Paige or Lucas, I don't want Jaime hurt any more than you do."

  The Fate shook her head. "I don't think you understand, Eve. Trsiel cannot kill her. Not now. Not ever...even as a last resort."

  "What?"

  "Hold on." Kris stepped forward, hands raised. "You mean to tell me that you'll let this Nix kill those kids, and you won't interfere? What kind of justice is that?"

  The oldest Fate slid into her sister's place and fixed Kris with a glare. "Is her life worth less than theirs?"

  "Yes. There's no question about that, is there? No disrespect to Jaime Vegas, but this is a woman who whores her--"

  "Kristof--"

  Kris met the Fate's gaze. "Whores her talents to the highest bidder, while Lucas and Paige are down there doing your work, fighting on your side. You cannot compare her to them."

  The middle Fate took over. "It's not our place to judge the value of a human life, Kristof."

  "Then whose is it? Because I want to talk to him."

  "No one has that power...or that right."

  Kristof shook his head in disgust. "Fine, then. Maybe you can't compare lives, but I'm sure you can count, and two lives lost plus one destroyed must be worth more than a single loss."

  The youngest Fate appeared. "We can count, Kristof. Even me. It's you who needs a lesson. Not in math, but in English. We didn't say Trsiel may not kill the Nix while she's in Jaime's body, or that he will not. We said can not."

  "You mean it's not possible," I said. "Because Jaime's innocent."

  The Fate nodded. "The Sword of Judgment cannot bring to justice the soul of an innocent."

  "But the soul isn't innocent," Kristof said. "The Nix--"

  "The soul of the body still belongs to Jaime."

  "So now what?" I said. "Where does that leave us?"

  "Exactly where you were," the girl said. Then her lips twisted in a rueful semismile. "Only without the backup plan."

  "Great."

  The Fates called Trsiel in to join us then. The more brains we had working on this problem, the better.

  The most obvious solution was to treat this as a normal case of spirit possession, and contact a few living necros to perform an exorcism. Problem was, as the Fates reminded us, this wasn't a normal case of spirit possession because the Nix wasn't a normal spirit. They were ninety-nine percent sure it would fail. By the time we tracked down and prepped a necromancer for the exorcism, if it didn't work, it would be too late to try something else.

  As long as we stayed in the throne room, plotting, we were operating on the Fates' time, and only minutes would pass in the living world. But the moment we stepped into the living world, we were on our own, clock ticking.

  "So we need to find a way to separate the Nix's spirit from the body of her living partner," I said. "And the only way to reliably do that is to use an angel's sword...which won't work in this case. So how the hell--?"

  "There is another way," the child Fate said.

  "What?"

  The young Fate began to shimmer, her body lengthening and aging, morphing into her middle sister, but in slow motion, as if fighting the change. A split-second burst of light, and the child stood there again, her face a grim mask of childish determination.

  "There's another way," she said, words spilling out almost too fast to understand. "It's been done before. The second seeker--"

  "No!" Trsiel said. "We agreed--"

  "You agreed what?" I said. "Are you telling me that after all this, you know another way?"

  "No, I don't." He shot a scowl at the child Fate. "And neither does she."

  "But the other one does," she said, chin lifting. "The second seeker."

  "You mean the angel you sent the second time?" I began, then stopped. "No, it wasn't an angel, was it? It was a ghost. A man named Dachev. You sent him after the Nix and he caught her. Then she cut a deal, persuaded him to join her instead of turning her in."

  The youngest Fate's mouth opened, but her middle sister took over before she could confirm it. I didn't need that confirmation, though. One look at Trsiel's face, and I knew I'd put the pieces in the right place.

  I continued, "And if he wasn't an angel, then he must have managed to separate the Nix's spirit from her body without a Sword of Judgment. How?"

  The Fate shook her head. "We don't know, Eve. We only know that he did...and that things became much worse after that."

  "A problem some of us foresaw," Trsiel said.

  The Fate nodded. "Yes, Trsiel. We should have listened to those with a better understanding of such matters. We made a mistake, and we have paid for it."

  "Such matters..." I said. "You mean evil. This Dachev, the Nix didn't tempt him into a partnership, did she? It was his idea." I looked up at her. "Send a killer to catch a killer...and I'm not the first killer you've sent."

  39

  IT SEEMS THAT AFTER JANAH'S SANITY-BUSTING BRUSH with the Nix, the Fates had decided that they needed a bounty-hunter with a better understanding of the Nix's mind. So they'd reached into their darkest hell dimension, and plucked out a likely candidate, a supernatural serial killer who'd expressed contrition and remorse for his crimes. Andrei Dachev.

  They then struck a deal with Dachev. If he caught the Nix for them, he would be rewarded. Not by becoming an angel--that was never an option. Instead, he would be transferred to a medium-security afterlife, one worse than my own but much better than his hell dimension. A fine and fair deal. Unfortunately, once freed, he took it upon himself to renegotiate...without consulting the Fates.

  Like me, he had been assigned an angel liaison--not Trsiel, but another of the full-bloods. It had taken him all of two days to ditch the guardian and strike out on his own. Of course, he'd been bright enough not to just cut and run, probably because the Fates had been bright enough to fit him with the mystical equivalent of an anklet tracking device. Instead, he'd proven to them that he worked better on his own. When he needed an angel, he'd call. Until then, he'd report back daily with updates. After four months, he caught up with the Nix. Only he didn't call for backup. He separated her from her partner's body all by himself. Then, rather than drag his prize back to the Fates and collect his reward, he cut a new deal...with the Nix.

  "Okay," I said when the middle Fate finished her explanation. "So he's still in this serial-killer hell, right? I mean, he hasn't, you know...escaped."

  "No, Eve. Our security isn't that poor. The Nix was--"

  "A special case. Yeah, I know. But if this guy's still down there, what are we waiting for? Throw open the gates to hell, 'cause I'm coming in."

  "That's a very, uh, noble sentiment, Eve," Trsiel began.

  "Noble, my ass. I just want to see this bitch's face when I rip her out of Jaime's body."

  A soft chuckle from Kristof.

  Trsiel shook his head. "It's not that easy--"

  "Yeah, I know,
this guy's a killer, and he's in a hell dimension, but I didn't lead a sheltered life. If this guy knows how to catch the Nix, I'll get it out of him. I know how to reason with guys like that. If I can't, I'll kick his ass from hell to Honolulu."

  Kris grinned. "And I'll be there to help...in the persuasion phase." He shot the grin my way. "If it comes down to ass-kicking, I'll just watch."

  The Fate let out a heartfelt sigh and shook her head.

  "Great plan," Trsiel said. "One small problem."

  "What?" I said.

  "He lies."

  "Huh?"

  "Dachev can't be trusted. Shocking, really, but--"

  "Stuff the sarcasm, Trsiel," I said. "We're here to solve a problem, and I don't hear you offering to help--"

  "Which, track record considered, may be a blessing," Kristof murmured.

  Trsiel shot him a glare, but before he could come up with a retort, I carried on.

  "If you don't have a solution of your own, at least don't mock ours," I said. "Obviously this guy can't be trusted to tell the truth about how he stopped the Nix, but if I can apply enough pressure--"

  "You can't," the Fate said. "There is only one way to compel him to tell the truth. The Sword of Judgment. If he could be made to tell what he did, while laying his hands on it, he'd be forced to tell the truth."

  Trsiel looked at Kristof. "And before you ask why I haven't done so myself, I cannot enter that place. Can not, not will not or may not. No full-blooded angel can enter a true hell. The ascendeds can...and we've already sent Katsuo, the only one who'd volunteer."

  "So the only way I can force him to speak the truth is to become an angel." I looked from Trsiel to the Fates.

  "Convenient."

  Kristof wheeled on Trsiel. "You scheming son-of-a-bitch."

  I laid my hand on his arm. "If anyone's scheming here, I doubt it's Trsiel. So far, he's been the only one who's been--or tried to be--honest with me about this whole angel thing." I fixed my gaze on the Fates. "Anything you ladies want to tell me about this quest?"

  The middle-aged Fate nodded. "Yes, Eve, we have selected you as a candidate for ascension. Trsiel has told us that you figured that out..." A reproachful look his way. "With a little help from him. While it's not the way we wanted you to learn of our plans, we will not deny it. However, it will always be your decision to make. We would never force you to ascend."