Grave Ransom Read online

“Yeah, but watch your head.”

  I nodded, too proud to let her guide me any farther into the car. Putting a hand on the roof, I lowered myself into the little car, managing to still bang my knees into the dash because the seat was up farther than I thought. Once I was inside, I said my good-byes to Tamara and we were off.

  “Anything interesting at the office today?” I asked as Rianna drove us through the city. Her small sedan was a gently used older model, and the feel of the steel around me made my stomach cramp. Still, it was a better option than taking the bus or waiting for my vision to return enough to drive myself. As far as human-built cars went, Rianna’s contained much less iron than the average vehicle while being much cheaper than a fae-built one, but it was still uncomfortable. I had to wonder how Desmond could stomach riding in Rianna’s car every day.

  Rianna made a noncommittal sound that likely accompanied a shrug before saying, “We got a walk-in client. He asked for you specifically, but it was a missing-artifact case and once I explained you were engaged on a different case for a few days and I’d be the one casting the tracking charm regardless, he finally agreed to let me take the case as long as the paperwork said it was being covered by the firm. It was odd.”

  “Sounds odd. But on the plus side, at least it wasn’t another ritual for an insurance case, right? So what did he hire the firm to find?”

  “Family heirloom.” The words were flat. I was missing something. She should have been excited. She loved cases that let her be more detective than grave witch.

  “Did you locate it already?” I asked, because while it was only early afternoon, I would have expected her to be off tracking it when I’d called for a ride, and not at the office willing to pick me up.

  “No.” The single word sounded sullen and I wished I could have seen her body language. “Would you look over this charm for me?”

  I held out my hand, and she placed something that felt identical in size and texture to the charm I’d used to track Remy onto my palm. I might not have been able to see, but I knew she didn’t want me to examine the charm with my eyes. While I couldn’t have created the tracking spell myself, my ability to sense magic let me check a spell’s strength and purpose, as well as feel out any irregularities. Kind of like running a diagnostic. It was a skill I’d taken full advantage of when Rianna and I were in our wyrd boarding school. While I’d barely passed my remedial spellcasting class, I’d made a fair chunk of change troubleshooting other students’ homework and projects. Not exactly approved by the school’s code of conduct, but all the practice meant that when I’d gone to get my OMIH certifications, I’d tested into the highest category for a sensitive. I never even bothered trying to get certified for spellcasting.

  Like almost every spell I’d seen from Rianna since she returned from Faerie, the magic itself was tight, clean, and very strong. It should have been perfect, but while nothing in the magic of the spell felt wrong or even that different from the one she’d made for my case, the reason for her concern was immediately obvious. The magic was there, ready, but the charm itself was silent. There was no tug in any direction, no pull toward the missing artifact she sought. The charm was lifeless.

  I frowned, squinting at the charm in my palm as if that would somehow make it come into focus. It changed nothing. “The magic is flawless. What did you use as a focus?”

  “An illustration. I know, I know,” she said, clearly having read the skepticism on my face. “But I have successfully traced items with as little before.”

  “No, it’s not that. You said the client claimed it was a family heirloom? Why didn’t he have more than an illustration? What exactly is this family heirloom anyway?”

  “An ornate, filigreed, and jewel-encrusted bottle. He called it a buidealanam. Though I’m probably pronouncing that wrong. It’s apparently been in his family for hundreds of years. I have no idea why he didn’t have a picture, but it was a very detailed illustration that he provided.”

  When I continued to frown, Rianna sighed, the car slowing. “You think he never owned it to begin with.”

  “I think that’s a distinct possibility. The charm you made is good, and the focus, while not a great one, should be enough to get at least some feedback from the spell. That means the bottle is either too far away to track, or well warded. If his bottle is warded, that means it wasn’t lost.”

  “No. It was stolen. He was up front about that.”

  “Did he contact the police?”

  She was silent a moment before finally saying, “He said he contacted the authorities but that there had been no movement on the case in weeks. I’m not sure if he contacted the police or the FIB.”

  That last part surprised me enough I almost dropped the inert charm. “The client is fae?”

  “He didn’t say, but Desmond thinks so,” she said, and from the backseat the barghest chuffed, as if agreeing.

  If the client was fae, that put a bit of a different light on things. It explained why he would have walked into our firm looking specifically for me and insisted the firm take the case, not Rianna. There were rules in Faerie about involving mortals, but Tongues for the Dead was technically a fae-owned firm. It would also mean he couldn’t lie, so if he said the bottle had been stolen, it was. It might also explain why he’d had an illustration instead of a picture. Photography, being only about two centuries old, was still relatively new and mystifying technology to some of the older residents of Faerie.

  Of course, all of that was assuming the client really was fae, which at this point was just that, an assumption.

  “Are you supposed to locate the bottle or recover it?”

  “Just locate. Do you really think Desmond would let me take a case that might be dangerous?” She laughed as she said it, and the barghest gave another chuff from the backseat.

  We drove in silence for a few minutes, and even though I couldn’t see the city pass outside the window, I knew as soon as we crossed the river and into the Magic Quarter. The magic in the air was distinct, almost welcoming.

  “So if the tracking spell isn’t working, will you contact the client and release the case?” I asked as the feel of ambient magic grew around the car.

  “Have I ever given up that easy?” she asked, and though I couldn’t see her, I could hear her determination. Rianna could be the epitome of a fiery, stubborn redhead. “I thought I’d try some scrying, even though I hate it. And keep monitoring the tracking charm, of course. If the bottle isn’t already in a vault somewhere, it might move from behind the ward guarding it at some point.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I need it,” she said, but she sounded less discouraged than when I first entered the car. Maybe talking over the stumbling blocks in her case had helped, though I didn’t see how. “How about you. Is it the necromancy thing you’re working on with the MCIB investigator?”

  Now it was my turn to give a sour sigh. I filled her in on what our interviews of the shades had revealed. Going back over it, we actually had a lot of leads. It was just that most of them were thin. Our necromancer had been covering his trail using false names and disappearing conversations. It was no wonder a link between victims hadn’t been found before.

  The car pulled to a stop. In the distance I could feel the wards protecting Tongues for the Dead, so we were parking, not just at another stoplight. The engine cut off, and I climbed from the car, glad to be released from the cage of iron. Orienting myself by the feel of the wards and the now-familiar magics of the shops surrounding our office, I turned toward the alley where our little firm was located. There was no room to park directly in front of our building, so we always used the street parking a block or so away.

  Rianna walked up beside me and locked arms with mine. The position was friendly and companionable, and hopefully didn’t look like she was leading a blind woman down the street. It was something we’d used before, mostly because of my p
ride. Rianna’s eyes recovered considerably faster than mine, plus she had Desmond. He was like the ultimate guide dog, though he’d probably take offense at me saying as much.

  “Well, maybe the raid on the funeral home will turn up something vital and case-breaking,” I said as we walked. “Or maybe the cops can run a sting for this Dr. Hadisty-Vogel-Basselet-Moyer or whatever he goes by next. But if not, I’m technically under contract with the MCIB until this case concludes. If any clients call, can you cover them until the end of this case?”

  “Of course,” she said as she pushed open the Tongues for the Dead door to the familiar sound of chimes. “In the meantime, think you can help me with this missing-artifact case this afternoon?”

  “Sure, if there’s anything I can do while blind.”

  • • •

  I met Briar at Central Precinct again the next morning. I’d had a text waiting for me when I woke telling me to meet her at eight. At least she hadn’t shown up at the house this time. Considering I needed to pick up my car anyway, I’d already arranged to ride with Holly, so it worked out fine.

  “Did you bring the tracking charm?” Briar asked as soon as I stepped into the conference room she was using as her remote office while on the case.

  “Yeah, I take it the leads from yesterday didn’t pan out?”

  She lifted a hand and tilted it in a so-so kind of motion. “We managed to track down one of the flyers calling for volunteers. Contact was established and a questionnaire filled out, but now we are waiting for it to be reviewed.”

  “All the shades except Rosie said that the process took several days.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “So that’s out there. I don’t really want this to drag out several days, though. Plus we have no idea what kind of criteria he has for accepting ‘subjects.’ There is always the chance our application will get bounced.”

  “What about the two ritual sites?”

  The way Briar’s lips curled into a repulsed sneer was answer enough. She picked up a tablet off the table and opened a digital photo album. “I don’t think he’ll use either again. Both sites were bleached and salted.”

  Bleach to erase DNA evidence and salt to erase magical evidence.

  I scrolled through the photo album she’d handed me. There wasn’t so much as a stray rune left on the floor. Aside from the fact that everything looked immaculately clean, I wouldn’t have guessed anyone had been in either location in years.

  The guy was thorough.

  I handed the tablet back to her. “I’m guessing by the fact you know the place was salted, you’ve already had a sensitive walk the scene?”

  She nodded. “The local ABMU has several on payroll. Nothing is left at either scene.”

  It made sense that the Anti–Black Magic Unit would employ their share of sensitives. The talent was uncommon but not truly rare. I was good but certainly not the best in the city. If none of the sensitives from the ABMU had picked up any residual magic, I was highly unlikely to find something they missed.

  Briar walked over to a map of Nekros that had been tacked to a bulletin board. Over a dozen pins dotted the city. On the outskirts of the map were explanations for the pins and printed pictures of the known victims. The pins marked everything from the coffee shop where Annabelle saw the flyer to the museum where Rodger and I’d had our unfortunate encounter.

  “So what next?” I asked as I examined the layout of the pins. I saw no pattern. The locations where the victims lived, where they found out about the study, where they died, and where their bodies eventually stopped moving were scattered all over the city.

  “My partner is looking closer into the thefts the corpses have been committing to see if we can find out more about what the necromancer is after or what he might target next. The bank robberies, well, he’s collecting money for something. Possibly a one-way ticket to a private island, but Derrick thinks he might be buying magical items as well as stealing them. He’s identified the cup the shades described as an item sold on the black market a little over a week ago. It’s a poisoner’s goblet. Any liquid drunk from it becomes instantly deadly. Isn’t that charming? In contrast, the tablet stolen from the museum is believed to be an ancient charm meant to prolong life. I’m not seeing the rhyme or reason in his actions, but Derrick will keep digging.”

  “And me?”

  “You said you brought the tracking charm?” Briar asked, and once I nodded she continued, saying, “I made one. Having his body means we have as much material as one could possibly hope to use as a focus, but it only ever leads me to the corpse.” She nodded to a small silver locket sitting in a petri dish on the table.

  Her spell was definitely fancier than mine. I pulled out the cheap microsuede bag that held the tracking charm Rianna had made for me when this case first began. Cupping it in my fist, I felt the magic immediately make an insistent pull toward where Remy’s body was a floor below us in the morgue. I waited, searching for the second trail I’d picked up two days ago.

  Nothing.

  I shook my head, and Briar sighed, her leather-clad shoulders slumping.

  “Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe it was some sort of misspell, but just in case it wasn’t, where did you first pick up the trail?”

  I pointed to the northeastern quadrant of the city on the map. “I drove to the very edge of town, and it was pulling farther, out into the wilds.”

  Briar pursed her lips, studying her map. After a moment, she turned, striding toward the door.

  “Come on, Craft,” she said as she reached the threshold and I hadn’t followed her. She didn’t pause to wait for me.

  I had to jog to catch up. “Where are we going?”

  “There are no other leads, so we’re going to check out the wilds.”

  That stopped me in my tracks, which caused me to fall behind again.

  “You’re kidding,” I called at her back as I tried to catch up again. “For all anyone knows, if you don’t use one of the passages in or out of the folded space holding Nekros, the wilds might go on forever. We can’t hope to find anything out there.”

  “It’s the closest thing we have to a clue right now. Unless you want to sit around hoping another walking corpse drops dead at your feet. Again.”

  No. I definitely didn’t want more people to die just so we could learn more about our bad guy. But the wilds? As magic grew in the world, legends woke in the still-wild places in the world. They weren’t the kind of places you decided to take a nice picnic lunch to relax. She was right, though; the charm having pointed that direction was one of the few unexplored leads we had left. And maybe the faint trail I’d found when I was out there was too weak to feel from the center of town. Maybe when we got closer the tracking charm would kick in again.

  Into the wilds we go.

  Chapter 13

  We ran into our next problem before we even left the parking lot.

  Logistics.

  “This is not going to work,” Briar said, staring at my mostly plastic convertible. “Does it even have a trunk?”

  I rolled my eyes and hit the button to open the admittedly small trunk of my car. I’d pulled the little blue convertible beside Briar’s rented Hummer, and it looked sleek, sporty, and really, really tiny beside the humongous SUV. The backseat was almost nonexistent, and the trunk space was limited, but it was the nicest car I’d ever owned, and I loved it. Also, the whole part about it being designed for fae with very little metal so driving around in it didn’t make me sick was a big draw. But regardless of how much I loved my little car, it didn’t carry around its own folded space, nor was the trunk bigger on the inside, so there was no way it was going to fit the two huge military-grade metal footlockers Briar hauled around.

  “How much of that do you actually need?”

  “All of it? None of it?” She shrugged. “Without knowing what we might find, it’s hard to say.
I like to be prepared.”

  I didn’t comment on the fact she was basically a one-woman army with just what she carried on her person. I had no idea what could be in the crates that she didn’t already have on her, but then the last time I saw her fight, she incinerated a graveyard full of ghouls without breaking a sweat. She was accustomed to wading into situations most normal people would run screaming from. I’d managed to toast one ghoul on that trip, only because Briar had given me several vials of a highly flammable potion, but I’d still ended up nearly eviscerated. Being prepared had likely kept her, and the people around her, alive more than once.

  “I don’t suppose you have a gun safe hidden in that minuscule trunk somewhere, at least?”

  “I don’t own a gun,” I said, lifting my empty hands as if to prove the point.

  Briar said a few choice words under her breath, then leaned into the back of the SUV and lifted a panel, pulling out yet another, albeit smaller, warded metal box and a flat black duffel bag. She rummaged through the larger crates, pulling out items.

  A sawed-off shotgun went into the duffel bag. A tiny glass vial with a healing potion so potent I’d have believed it if she said it was made of unicorn tears went into the warded metal box. Priorities.

  Weapons, potions, spelled disks and darts, all were gathered and loaded into the bag or box. Several times she’d pick up a small case, evaluate the contents, and then put it back, deciding it wasn’t important to carry on our reconnaissance trip. Watching her pack potions that would melt flesh or instantly cause desiccation made my stomach twist into several pinched knots. What did she think we’d find out there? I was feeling less than enthused about this trip. Once the duffel and box were filled to the point of bursting, Briar sealed the two footlockers and backed out of the SUV’s trunk, the duffel slung over one shoulder and the metal box tucked under her arm.

  “This will have to do,” she said, moving both to my car.

  “I think you forgot the kitchen sink.” It was a feeble joke, more an attempt to cover my nerves than anything else. Thankfully, she didn’t bother answering.