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Derrick’s Spanish was perfect, of course. He’d snort whenever Lucian muttered something, and the two would exchange that conspiratorial buddy look that made me want to shoot both of them.

“I was waiting for you,” I said, putting out my cigarette.

He sat down next to me. “Pareces especialmente bonita esta noche.”

“That line doesn’t work in any language.”

He chuckled. “I had to try.”

“And we appreciate your effort.”

We sat for a while, not talking or touching. That seemed to be our pattern lately. I wanted to put my hand on top of his, but it seemed like an impossibly difficult move, something far beyond our current choreography. It made me angry and tired. I didn’t say anything, though. I never said anything, and neither did he.

The water looked like black ice. I wanted another cigarette, but I knew that he hated the smell. If I was going to be honest with myself, I hated it too. But I needed something in my hands, in my mouth, and he was no longer available. It was either Dunhills or Junior Mints, and that was an addiction I’d already laid to rest.

“What time did you finish up at the scene?” he asked.

“You mean Ordeño’s apartment?”

“Yes. The scene.”

“There are lots of scenes.”

“But this is the first to involve both of us.”

I leaned back on the bench. My muscles ached from processing trace evidence spread across the living room wall. I needed a hot shower and a handful of something with codeine. It must have shown, because he reached over and placed a hand on the back of my neck. His fingers were warm. I closed my eyes.

“I knew Ordeño.” He massaged my neck.

I kept my eyes closed. Lucian so rarely imparted personal information that I didn’t want to say anything to scare him off. Instead, I leaned forward, letting myself relax beneath his fingertips.

“He was a teacher and a friend.”

It’s weird. You didn’t normally imagine necromancers having friends. Then again, you didn’t imagine them having vinyl collections, or eating scrambled eggs with ketchup, or making sublime coffee, but Lucian did all of those things as well.

Just as I was nearing the point of absolute relaxation, with the perfect edge of horniness—the kind that begins as a flutter in the center of your body and spreads out like tisane blooming in hot water

—he took his hands away.

I sucked in my breath. Great. Another sleepless night watching TV. On the up side, I could finally tear into that sealed box of Quality Street Chocolates that Derrick had hid under the sink.

I lit another cigarette, mostly just because I needed something to do with my hands. Lucian watched me.

“So you and Ordeño were friends?” I inhaled. The nicotine made me dizzy in a pleasant way. It was probably one of the only things keeping me awake.

“Smoking is a slow, ugly death,” he said. His look was neutral, but I could tell by the purr in his voice that he enjoyed ribbing me.

I shrugged. “A pureblood demon couldn’t kill me. Neither could an elder vampire. I don’t think nicotine really stands a chance at this point.”

“Maybe not. But I know a fair bit about death, and all the magic in the world can’t reverse the damage you’re doing to your lungs.”

“Christ.” I stubbed out the cigarette on the bench. “For someone who channels necroid materia, I think you’re being a tad judgy.”

“I just prefer you alive. That’s all.”

I don’t feel alive. Not lately. I just feel tired and mined out, like someone tore up my foundations and left a heap of rubble behind.

I rubbed my eyes. “Thanks. I think.”

“Besides. Your breath is sweeter when you’re not smoking.”

“Oh? What does it smell like?”

He smiled. “Like everything good. Everything that I love.”

“Go on.”

He leaned forward and kissed me, twice on each cheek. Then his lips brushed mine, and for a few seconds, I didn’t think about anything. The fluttering returned, and with it, the ache.

His thumb moved across my cheek. I could feel his nail, and for a moment, I wanted him to split my skin like an orange, paring me down until nothing but a liquid core remained. But he didn’t. He played with my hair, breathing, his mouth uncertain on mine. Then he pulled away. His expression was unreadable.

I sighed. “What kind of a friend was he?”

“Ordeño?” Now he was looking at everything but me, as if the entire beach had suddenly become fascinating.

“We met a long time ago. I respected him. It’s an incredible loss to the community.”

You mean to the cult of necromancers?

Luckily, he wasn’t a telepath. I tried to comport my expression, to appear neutral, like I wasn’t actually interrogating him on behalf of the CORE.

“Selena mentioned that you arrived earlier tonight.”

“Yes. I was called to the scene.”

“Who called you?”

“A superior.”

Right. Circular answers, like always. Why had I expected something else?

“So—did your people get enough information? Will they be returning?”

“My ‘people’ were satisfied, yes.” He smiled slightly. “They’ll be sending some of their data to your lab tomorrow morning.”

“Some?”

He shrugged. “It’s politics. You can’t expect full disclosure.”

“Of course not. That would signal trust.”

“The CORE isn’t exactly in the business of sharing information either. You can’t expect trust to operate only one way.”

“Maybe if we knew something about your ‘people,’ we’d be more forthcoming with information.”

“What do you want to know?”

“An address would be a nice start.”

He chuckled. “It wouldn’t be called the ‘hidden city’ if you could find it on Google Maps.

Anonymity is part of our lifestyle.”

“Maybe that needs to change.”

“It’s not going to. Not anytime soon.”

I stood up. “I have to get home.”

“Tess.”

I stuffed the cigarettes into my purse. “I’d like to get more than three hours of sleep before I attend Ordeño’s autopsy.”

Something passed across his eyes. Pain.

Shit. This was someone he’d known. A friend. It wasn’t a John Doe demon whose body we were analyzing for trace evidence.

I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry. You knew him, and I’m sure he was a good person. He seemed like a good lawyer, at any rate. But we still have to go forward with this investigation, and it’ll be a lot easier if you can guarantee some cooperation from the necromantic community.”

He rose, putting his hands in his pockets. “We’ll give you as much as we can. We want to see the killer brought to justice.”

“We” meaning the community? Or just you?

My shoulders slumped. I was exhausted. I’d have to take a cab home.

“We’ll look at the evidence and see what appears,” I said. “In the meantime, keep in touch. We may need to conduct a formal interview with you.”

“Can we do it at the house?” He gave me a half smile. “Maybe Mia could do it. She’s on the debate team now.”

“Unfortunately not. It’ll be in a room with Selena.”

“Ouch. That’s scary.”

It was strange. I’d seen his power. I’d seen him die once before. That was scary. But you could never tell what frightened a person. Maybe when you controlled the forces of entropy and decay, the things that really scared you were impossible to describe.

“I’ll be there. Behind the two-way mirror.”

I kissed his cheek.

“Good.” His eyes fixed on mine. “You can protect me.”

I don’t think so, I wanted to say. I couldn’t before. I can’t now.

I just smiled. “Por supuesto. Of course.”

The air was damp, and I could feel the cold in my lungs. Derrick had left. It was just me on the dead street. All the clubs on Davie had closed down for the night. Every shop was dark. Even the convenience store on the corner of Bute was closed. All the sugary snacks and copies of Maxim were in-distinguishable beyond the black pane of the storefront window.

On the left side of the street, a trolley bus had simply stopped. The cables that connected it to the electrical lines overhead were motionless. There was nobody on the bus. Not even a driver. The front door was open. I kept walking.

Davie was the only street in Vancouver that literally went into the ocean. It followed a steep incline until it hit the beach, giving way to sand, trees, and sunbaked patches of grass. Even a dozen blocks away, I could feel the knife-edge of wind coming from the water. I could smell something on the air.

Something burnt or burning.

I kept walking. I could see the Christmas lights that covered the facade of St. Paul’s Hospital, winking on and off like holy semaphores in the distance. I turned onto Burrard, then paused by the empty lot that used to be a gas station. Now it was just a gaping hole, an abyss with a Pan-ago Pizza and a Quiznos, both encamped on the edge. Not much of a frontier, really.

I walked downhill toward the hospital. The Christmas display seemed to be the only source of illumination for miles, or at least for the length of the street. But I knew the city well enough to nav-igate it in the dark. I’d grown up here. It was like visiting your childhood bedroom and knowing in-stinctively where the light switch was, how many steps down the hall in the dark, how the blue glow from your parents’ television set flickered against the walls.

I stood in front of the entrance to the hospital. A sign next to the underground parking said NO

SPACES. A row of ambulances was parked off to the side, each one identical, like Hot Wheels. The Christmas lights flickered. There was a nativity scene made of blue, green, and gold bulbs. Mary’s mantle was distractingly blue. Baby Jesus was supposed to be made of gold bulbs, but the yellow coating had flaked off in places, so that his face consisted of a few points of naked white light.

The doors slid open, and I walked into the emergency waiting room. All the lights were on, but the entire waiting area was empty. A blood pressure monitor beeped quietly next to the triage desk. The vinyl seats stretched in rows of dark green, burgundy, and puce. I wondered if every hospital in the world used the same furniture supplier. The floor was painted with blue, black, and red lines, demarcating patient zones from staff zones. I followed the red line, which led past the triage and down a hallway with evenly spaced, identical doors.

Pieces of equipment lay discarded in the corridor. I recognized an EKG and what looked like an IV

drug dispenser, but there were other random components from different devices that didn’t look familiar. I didn’t touch anything.

It’s like the underworld. Don’t eat, drink, or touch anything, unless you want to end up like Persephone.

I could hear something. First a clicking. Then a long, slow sound, like air being pushed through a pump.

It was coming from the doorway to my left. Room number 521.

521. May the twenty-first. My birthday.

I opened the door. The room beyond was divided by a number of floral curtains, all moving slightly.

I could feel cold air coming from an open window. A machine beeped. Then I heard the wheeze of the pump again.

A light shone from the curtained space in the corner of the room. I tried to feel what lay beyond it, but all my senses were asleep. I could barely feel the materia in the walls and floor around me. The cold weight of the machinery dulled everything.

You’ve still got your athame.

But I didn’t. The sheath on my belt was empty.

Shit.

I tried to block out the sound of the machines breathing. I reached further down, beneath the rotting linoleum and the foundations of the hospital, into the deep mineral structures that supported the building itself. But the familiar power was gone. All I could feel was lack. It chilled the tips of my fingers and settled around me, a static of snow and heavy shadow.

I exhaled and pushed open the curtain.

At first, the figure on the bed was unrecognizable. His skin was translucent, with veins thrown into startling relief. His eyes were closed. The pump moved his lungs, and clear fluid dripped through an IV. Different screens around the bedside displayed different numbers, but none of them seemed to mean anything. His blood pressure was 19 over 82.

I swallowed. 1982. The year I was born.

Click. Breathe. Click. Breathe.

I stared at his small, white hands, sheathed in wires. I looked at my own hands. There was no resemblance.

“Is it you?”

He opened his eyes. They were the color of dirty ice, with a flare of violet around the pinned pupil.

He smiled.

“Tessa Isobel.”

“What are you doing in my dream?”

My father’s smile widened. “What are you doing in mine?”

I pointed at the monitors. “Are you dying?”

“I’ve been dying for almost seven hundred years.”

“If you need someone to pull the plug, just let me know.”

He chuckled. “You haven’t got the nerve.”

“Oh, I’ve got the nerve. I’ll do it right now.”

“Go ahead.”

I started unplugging random cords. I flicked off machines. I pressed every red button on every monitor. The numbers flickered and died.

My father didn’t.

“You see? You can’t do it.”

“That’s not fair.”

He touched my hand. His fingers were warm. Feverish.

“You tried, though. That’s what counts.”

I stared at him. A thousand kill-sites revolved within his eyes. Fire gathered within them. I felt it on my face. I took it into my lungs, and it seared all the way down like bourbon, eradicating me cell by cell.

“I’m going to find you,” I said.

His hand was soft and gracile in my own. Almost liquid.

I looked down, and there was nothing but blood, a spreading, silent pool of blood on the bedsheets.

His face rose out of the stain, like hot wax.

You are, the blood said. You are going to find me.

3

I woke up disoriented, like something had taken me apart during the night and put me back together all wrong. The comforter and sheets were lying in a tangle on the floor, and my pillow was nowhere to be found. I guess that’s what happens when you’re wrestling with demons in your sleep. Particularly demonic relations.