Affairs of the Dead (6 page)

He said nothing, but I could feel his eyes on my back as I left. I felt more pity for him than I had ever felt before. I was used to making fun of him and being amused by his uneasiness that I would rat him out. I was not used to feeling bad for him and wishing there was something I could do about it.

The moment I emerged onto the sidewalk, I shook off Trevor’s gloomy disposition and concentrated on tracking the ghost or ghosts that the rune stone had picked up. I’d bring Trevor something nice next time I was in the area, a piece of cake or a Slurpee or something. Yeah, that would make everything all better. I stood still for a moment and concentrated on the thrum of energy going through my body from the rune stone. A few moments later, I felt myself compelled to go right, so I set off, weaving in and out of people trolling the Underground.

Since I was wearing office clothes and pumps and had an active rune stone around my neck, I stood out, but people spared me only passing glances before going about their business. The streets here were narrow; it almost felt like the place was pressing in on itself as though it wanted to disappear. The fact that it was fully dark could be seen as a hindrance, but it was a lot more helpful than daylight since the glow that surrounded ghosts was easier to see in the dark.

Several yards ahead, I caught sight of the ghost flitting down an alley and quickened my pace. I cursed myself, not for the first time, for not remembering to switch my pumps out for boots. It really had been that long since I’d done this type of work. In my early days at AOD, when I was doing track and retrieve, I had enjoyed it. But years of having a comfortable cubicle to sit in and interesting ghost clients to work with had turned me off of this cat-and-mouse game.

If a ghost had the mindset to hide, that probably meant it wouldn’t take well to being chased. When I finally made it to the alley and the ghost turned and saw me, he started to run, which set me off in a run as well. I’d already taken out one of the absorbing runes. Ghost guy was fast, but as a necromancer, I was faster than the average human, so it wasn’t too difficult to keep up with him.

The problem was the narrow and crowded streets. Where there weren’t people in my way, there were bags of garbage, piled up crates, or stray animals sniffing about for something to eat. It was more likely that they’d be snatched up and have their souls taken to reanimate something.

I stopped being polite and plowed through people, since most didn’t seem to care enough about a frantically running woman to get out of my way.

The ghost had the advantage of being able to run through people and things, so he’d gotten a bit of a lead on me, but he was easy to spot even though the distance between us was increasing. If I wasn’t afraid of running onto some dirty needle or something, I’d have taken off my shoes to run, but I wasn’t going to risk picking up hepatitis just to nab a ghost.

I rounded a corner onto a slightly wider street and stopped momentarily when I didn’t see the ghost. The stone was still leading me forward so I kept moving, wondering if the ghost had run into one of the shops in the area. Damn ghosts and their ability to walk through solid matter.

About halfway down the block, I stopped, because the stone was directing me into the shop I was in front of. It wasn’t boarded up, but the windows and doors were covered in newspaper, and there was no indication that anyone was inside.

I tried the doorknob, but of course it was locked. Undeterred, I swung my handbag, which was weighed down with rune stones, and broke a hole in the glass door. I then stuck my hand in and unlocked it from the other side.

When I entered the store, I had to stand still for a few moments to let my eyes adjust. If the ghost was in this room, I would have seen it, but it was empty. However, there was an open doorway that led to another area, and I walked into a bigger room, where I saw the ghost crouching behind some broken-down equipment.

When he saw me, he prepared to run again, but I threw my necromancer power at him and held him immobile. That was another nifty ability we necromancers had. We could throw an invisible net over a ghost to keep it from fleeing, but we had to be within close proximity to do it. Finding himself unable to run, the ghost dropped to his knees and started whimpering and pleading as I came closer.

“Please don’t send me into the afterlife, please don’t!”

I’d heard these kinds of pleas seven times already tonight.

“It’s not a bad thing,” I said, kneeling in front of him. He bent his head and his ghostly body shook. “Trust me, guy, you don’t want to hang around here for too long. It’s better to get your affairs in order and fade away.”

“No!” His head snapped up, and I was faced with intensely blue eyes. He was a good-looking ghost, though he had a young look to him. I think his hair was blond, but it was so pale it looked white. Or maybe that was what they called that platinum blond. “I’m not dead. You have to believe me. I’m still alive!”

I sighed, opening my palm to reveal the absorbing stone.

“That won’t work on me,” I said. “I can tell the difference between a ghost and a living person.”

“That’s not what I meant!” he screamed.

I frowned when it looked like he was about to cry. Ghosts couldn’t produce tears, but they could do everything else associated with crying: sob, scream, and whatnot. He had an expression of intense fear that I’d never seen before, not even on the most reluctant-to-be-found ghost.

“I’m alive, I’m alive! You can’t send me, please, you have to help me.”

I shook my head. Something was off with this ghost, but maybe he’d been in theater when he was alive and just had a flair for dramatics.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you. Hiding out is the worst thing you could do.” I moved the rune stone toward him, and he shied away like I was coming at him with knives and fire. When I touched him with the stone, he wailed, but I blocked him out so I could concentrate on what I was doing.

Contact with the ghost was supposed to activate the rune and suck the ghost into it, but seconds passed and nothing happened. I frowned and pushed the stone into him more, figuring maybe the stone wasn’t touching him enough. Still, nothing happened.

I drew my hand back and stared at the stone. Was it inactive or something? I felt the thrum of energy I was supposed to feel from it, so why wasn’t it working? I set that one aside and took out another one, touching it to the ghost. I was bewildered when, again, nothing happened.

I tried three more, and none of them worked. I sat back on my heels and stared at him.

“What the hell?” I said. He looked up at me, still looking like a wretched mess. “My rune stones aren’t absorbing you. Something must be wrong with them.”

But they had worked with the other ghosts tonight, so what could have made them suddenly stop working?

“Look, please listen to me. I know it may seem like I’m a ghost, but I’m really not. My body is still alive!”

“What?” I said. Had I encountered a crazy ghost? He started to calm down a little since I was just sitting there, not trying to absorb him anymore.

“My name is Ethan Lance,” he said. “And I know I’m a ghost right now, but I didn’t die. I was shoved out of my body, and someone else took over!”

“What?” I said again. Maybe he was a dead mental patient?

“My body is alive,” he said, his blue eyes fixed on me as though he was willing me to believe him. “I’m just not the one walking around in it.”

Chapter Five

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Of all the tales I’d heard from ghosts I’d tracked over the years about why I shouldn’t rein them in, this one took the cake. Had to give Ethan points for extreme originality.

Then again, he had resisted the absorption runes, and unless something was suddenly wrong with the stones, then something was wrong with the ghost. So the least I could do was hear him out, then decide what the hell I should do with him.

Ethan took a deep breath, though being that he was a ghost, it was more like a leftover human gesture than his actually needing a calming breath. I frowned when I noticed something about him. “You’re touching the ground,” I said. “And you’re not that cold. Nor is your glow extremely bright.” Three things ghosts weren’t capable of unless they were wearing rune stones or a necromancer was channeling energy into them. Ethan’s aura felt cool, but nowhere near as cold as ghosts were supposed to feel. Still, when I touched him without channeling energy into him, my hand went though. So he was a ghost…but he wasn’t behaving entirely like a ghost.

“Does this mean you’ll listen to me?” Ethan asked hopefully.

I nodded, too shocked to speak. What the hell was going on here?

“A few days ago, I was walking home from a friend’s house,” he started. “It was pretty late and there wasn’t anyone else around. I had my headphones on, so I didn’t hear whoever it was come up behind me, but the last thing I remember happening while I was in my physical body was this burning hot pain go through me. After that, everything went dark, and when I came to, I was lying on the sidewalk.

“At first I thought I was attacked, but when a woman walking her dog came down the block and walked through me, I knew something was wrong. I thought I’d been killed, but I didn’t see my body anywhere, nor did I see any blood. I didn’t know what to do, so I just went home and freaked out all night, but the next day I saw…I saw my body come back and come into my house. He had my wallet and keys on him, of course, and he took a bunch of my clothes and left. I tried to confront whoever it was, but he couldn’t see me. I followed him, but I lost his trail when he went into the subway.”

“Wow,” I said. “That…that’s a lot to take in.”

“You don’t believe me,” he said despondently. “I can see it on your face.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I mean, something is definitely going on. I can’t use my rune stones to absorb you, and the characteristics that go along with being a ghost are a little off in you.”

“I’m telling the truth,” he said. “I came here because I thought I could find a necromancer who could help me, but then you started chasing me, and I panicked because I thought you were going to blast me away.”

“Necromancers aren’t really in the business of blasting away ghosts,” I said. “Unless they become a beastie or we really can’t help them. But Ethan, if what you’re telling me is true, then I think we have a serious issue on our hands. I’ve never heard of a living person having their soul shoved out so someone could take over. It sounds like…” I frowned as I tried to think this through, becoming alarmed when I realized where my thoughts were leading me.

“Sounds like what?” Ethan prompted, sounding both afraid and hopeful.

“Reanimation,” I said. “Sort of.”

Ethan’s eyes widened. “I’ve heard about that.”

“Yeah, reanimators have the power to take a living soul and put it into a corpse, but it’s not quite adding up to your situation. You were supposedly kicked out of your body, and an existing ghost jumped in. That’s unheard of in the realm of reanimation, so I don’t know what the hell to make of it.”

“You said supposedly,” Ethan said. “Do you really not believe me?”

“Maybe I just have to see it to believe it,” I said. “I mean, this sounds ridiculously insane.”

“If you could track down my body, then you’d be able to see for yourself that I’m telling the truth,” Ethan said. “Could you please try? I’m telling you that my body is still alive, walking around out there, and I have to be put back into my body.”

I regarded Ethan for a while, not really knowing what to think. Here I was, my first night back on track and retrieve in several years, and I ended up with a ghost who claimed his body was still alive and wanted my help in getting him back into it. Yeah, this should be a piece of cake. I sighed and stood up, releasing my hold on Ethan and indicating for him to stand up as well.

“Since I have my own questions about what’s going on with you, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for now,” I said, which made him look relieved. “I may be able to track down your body, but I’ll need something that belonged to you, a personal item from your house.”

“I’d get it for you, but I kind of can’t touch anything.” He sounded sad.

I thought for a moment. Sure, I could let him lead me to his house so I could break in and grab a pair of his undies or something, but my shift didn’t end until midnight. Then I had to report back to the office with the ghosts I’d rounded up. Plus, I also had to prepare for tomorrow’s reanimation inspection. Therefore, I was going to let Ethan help himself here.

I fished into my bag and pulled out my energy runes. I hadn’t handed them in even though I’d been taken off client work. I pulled two of them out and placed them around Ethan’s neck, then picked up a piece of debris from the ground.

“Take it from me,” I said. Ethan reached out and tentatively slid his fingers around the object, then gasped at the fact that he was able to do it. “The rune stones are channeling energy into you to make you tangible. So you’re able to touch things, and you’re also able to be seen by people, so keep that in mind. No peeping Tom behavior when you have those stones on. Go to your house and bring me back something personal. The best bet would be a piece of dirty laundry. Then come to my house.” I recited my address and made sure he remembered it.

“Okay, I can do this. I can definitely do this,” he said. “Thank you…”

“Selene,” I said.

“Thank you, Selene.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” I said, turning around and walking toward the door. “If I can find your body, then I’ll expect all the thanks in the world.”

“Right,” Ethan said.

We were back outside, standing on the sidewalk.

“Be careful and try to blend in,” I said. “Don’t talk to people if you don’t have to, and definitely don’t tell anyone what you just told me, even if it’s another necromancer. Got it?”

“Got it,” Ethan said resolutely.

We parted ways, and I watched him weave through people with some trepidation. He’d probably gotten a little used to walking through things. Even though Ethan had left, the tracking rune was still glowing, so that meant there were more ghosts in the area. I headed off in the direction the stone was leading me, hoping I wouldn’t encounter another wacko story like Ethan’s from any more ghosts tonight.