Grave Ransom Read online

  “Lawyer,” she said with a shrug.

  That made sense. He definitely didn’t have the look of a bereft loved one.

  “Interesting case?” I asked, and Rianna wrinkled her nose as she shook her head.

  “Insurance dispute. But it should be a quick case. I’m guessing an hour at the graveside this afternoon. Two at most.”

  “Fun,” I said, and she shot me a dirty look.

  Insurance and probate cases were basically the bread and butter of our firm. Someone contesting the validity of a will, second-guessing the deceased’s wishes, or an undetermined cause of death suspected of being caused by something that would invalidate an insurance policy. They tended to be high-tension cases for the families, and sometimes rather drama-filled at the graveside, but they weren’t particularly demanding on us as investigators. We raised the shade and repeated the questions from the family and lawyers and then put the shade back. Regardless of the outcome, our part was done after that.

  Rianna had been taking the brunt of those types of cases recently because while they might not take much from an investigation standpoint, grave magic was hard on the eyes—mine more than hers. As well as being a grave witch, I was a planeweaver, and seeing through the planes seemed to be doing extra damage to my eyes. While Rianna and I both suffered from the poor low-light vision so common to grave witches, she could hold a shade for an hour or two and drive herself home twenty minutes later. I, on the other hand, ended up with severely impaired vision for a few hours, sometimes to the point of complete blindness for a time. So I tried to only raise one shade every week or two, which meant if more cases came in, Ms. B. quietly arranged for them to go to Rianna. It wasn’t the most ideal situation, but it worked for our firm.

  “Any other clients scheduled before the ritual?” I asked.

  Rianna shook her head. “Nah, I’m free until one. Why? What are you working on? Anything interesting?”

  “I need a tracking spell. I have a missing-person case.”

  Rianna’s eyes lit up. “Really? I want all the details.”

  Becoming a private investigator had been Rianna’s longtime dream career, not mine. She was the mystery novel buff, and the one who’d talked about her plans for a firm when we were roommates at our wyrd boarding school. She’d already vanished by the time I graduated, and with a little help from a local detective, I’d eventually fallen into starting the firm. She’d joined me after I’d rescued her from Faerie, and while I suspected it wasn’t as glamourous as she’d dreamed, anything had to be better than spending hundreds of years as a captive of Faerie while only half a decade passed in the mortal realm.

  “Don’t get too excited yet. I was hired to find a college freshman by his still-in-high-school sweetheart. This might be a very expensive breakup.”

  “Oh.” She crinkled her nose. “Still, it’s a missing-person case. This is the firm’s first. We’re moving up in the world.” She turned toward the lobby. “Ms. B, will you block off the rest of my morning? I’ve got a tracking spell to cast.”

  Ms. B nodded from her desk, and Rianna disappeared back into her office. I headed back to mine, dreading the inevitable confrontation that was about to occur.

  Sure enough, Briar was sitting in my chair when I got back to my office, her feet kicked up on the surface of the desk and her hands behind her head. “Is this what you do all day? Listen to weeping parents and take cases from lovestruck teenagers too stubborn to know when they’re being dumped?”

  “Not all day. Now I have to go find said teenager’s boyfriend.”

  Briar snorted. “And what will you tell her when you find him with his new girlfriend?”

  “The truth. Hey, we can’t all make our living incinerating ghouls and whatever else you do. Now if you’re just going to sit there insulting how I run my investigation firm, you can leave.” Because I’d worked hard to expand my business beyond just raising shades. My vision couldn’t take the damage it would take to raise enough shades to pay my monthly bills.

  Briar looked like she was about to say something, but then her expression changed as she fished a phone out of her pocket. She glanced at the display for a moment and then dropped her feet from the desktop.

  “Good news, Craft, looks like you get your reprieve. I know you’ll miss my company—”

  Now it was my turn to give a sarcastic sniff.

  “But it appears that someone finished the job your fast-rotting corpse started yesterday and smuggled the exact same artifact out of the museum while the wards were down for inspection. So, maybe there is more to that case than it seems. You have fun with your teen drama. I’m going to go investigate something interesting.”

  I scowled at her back as she walked out. At the main door, she lifted her hand and cocked it to the side slightly, making the wave look sarcastic.

  I shut my office door.

  “Come on, PC, we have our own case,” I said as I stepped around the small dog on my way to my desk. “I don’t care if she is off to look into a case with walking dead people. Which is bizarre and should be impossible.”

  He lifted his head, ears at half mast, and squinted at me. Even he didn’t look convinced.

  “With Briar involved, it’ll probably turn out dangerous. My case will be a nice, easy car payment.” Well, half of my car payment. It was a nice car.

  My dog put his head down on his paws, going back to sleep on the pillow beside my chair. Yeah, okay, my case was probably a dud. And I was curious about the corpse from yesterday. But I had my first missing-person case, and I was going to throw myself into finding Taylor’s—probably cheating—boyfriend. Bizarre cases with walking corpses be damned.

  Chapter 4

  While Rianna created the tracking charm, I made a few phone calls. I started with Remy’s phone. I didn’t really expect him to answer, but it would definitely shorten my investigation if he did. I left a brief message identifying myself and asking him to return my call. I didn’t tell him why. The next call I placed was to Remy’s roommate, Colin.

  He answered on the first ring. “You’ve reached the coolest dude on campus. Talk to me.”

  Riiight. “This is Alex Craft, an investigator for Tongues for the Dead. I’m looking into the possible disappearance of Remy Hollens. Have you—”

  A sound somewhere between an exasperated laugh and a sigh cut me off. “Seriously? An investigator? Did Remy’s jailbait call you? And who did you say you’re with? She thinks Remy’s dead? Dude, she’s crazy.”

  “No one thinks he’s dead,” I said, leaning back in my chair and pressing the palm of my hand over my eyes. “I’m simply trying to locate him. Have you seen or heard from Remy today?”

  “No. But, dude, it’s Saturday. Hopefully the guy went to a party, got some college tail, and is sleeping off the hangover in some chick’s bed.”

  “Do you think that’s likely?” I asked, but was greeted by silence on the other side, as if Colin was indecisive about spilling secrets. “I’m only trying to locate him. I have no obligation to report back his activities to my client. Trust me, I don’t want any drama.”

  He hesitated a moment more, then released a slow, defeated hiss between his teeth before saying, “No. It doesn’t sound like him. I mean it’s possible, but it would be out of character. He’s devoted to that girl.” As an afterthought he added, “But I’m not worried. This is the college life.”

  “Of course. If you hear from him, give me a call, okay?” I rattled off my number, but he didn’t repeat it or sound like he was writing it down. I’d never hear from him again, but the call did confirm Remy wasn’t likely to be avoiding Taylor because he planned to dump her.

  I added a few notes to my document and then glanced over the information Taylor had left me. She had given me Remy’s dorm address only, but when I was in college, a lot of the local kids in my dorm headed home regularly, typically with a basket full
of dirty laundry. I didn’t have Remy’s parents’ info, but Tongues for the Dead paid for several online database services we used for background checks. Less than ten minutes online earned me the home address as well as cell and work numbers for Remy’s parents.

  I punched the first four digits of his father’s number but then hesitated. If Remy really was sleeping off a hangover, I didn’t need to panic his parents by telling them I was investigating his disappearance. Of course, if Taylor was right and something had happened, early warning would likely be welcome. I dithered a moment and then cleared the number. I’d given Rianna the hair from the brush half an hour ago. She would be done with the tracking spell soon.

  As if summoned by the thought, Rianna stepped into the threshold of my doorway. “One tracking spell prepared and ready to track. Want to place bets on where you find him?”

  I stood and collected the spell from her. “As long as I don’t have to report back to a brokenhearted client that I found him in someone else’s bed, I’ll probably be happy. It sounds out of character for him, though.” I frowned. “Okay, revision. I’m hoping he’s not in the hospital either.”

  “Or the morgue,” Rianna added cheerily, and I frowned at her.

  “Yeah, I’m really not even holding that out as an option.”

  She just shrugged and handed the charm to me. The tracking spell was contained in a blue microsuede bag suspended on a nylon cord. The components were nothing fancy, but my ability to sense magic told me the spell inside was strong and good. Rianna had always been an excellent spellcaster. As soon as I touched the cord, I felt a distinct tug from the tracking charm. Remy was north. Somewhere.

  “This is great,” I said, in lieu of thanking her.

  Rianna nodded, silently accepting the words as they were intended. She was a changeling, not a fae, so while she didn’t share my particular need to avoid particular phrases, she understood the limitations.

  “Well, Desmond and I are going home to do an early lunch, I think.” She buried one hand in the black fur of the doglike fae who was her ever-present shadow. He leaned into the touch, his red-pupiled eyes gazing up at her with affection. “Have fun tracking your missing person. I want all the details tonight.”

  With that, she turned and headed for the front door. I just shook my head as I tied the nylon cord of the charm around my wrist. She had a lot more confidence that this case was going to be interesting than I did. Or maybe I was still distracted thinking about the walking corpses.

  I’d just double-checked that I had both Remy’s home and dorm addresses in my notes and uploaded to cloud storage when a figure floated into my room and hovered by the door. Well, not literally; ghosts more or less obeyed the laws of physics, their plane of existence just didn’t always mirror ours perfectly so they often appeared to float through solid objects.

  “You have a case?” asked Roy, ghost and junior detective—hey, no one ever said a guy couldn’t have career aspirations after death.

  “Missing person. You tagging along?”

  He shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or another, but not even being slightly translucent hid the excitement that lit up his features. “Yeah, I could do that.”

  I closed the laptop and returned it to my bag before sliding my cell into my back pocket. “Hey, if you’re too busy, I get it,” I said as I walked past the ghost and toward the front door.

  “Well, I have . . . I mean . . .” His shoulders hunched and he pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “No one ever hires a ghost detective. You should really add my name to the door.”

  I pushed open said door, stepping onto the street, and then paused, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the bright, nearly noonday sun. “What would that do besides confuse people who wouldn’t be able to see or hear you, and thus still wouldn’t hire you?”

  This was an old argument, almost a script at this point, and the ghost sulked as he followed me toward my car.

  “Maybe if my office was bigger, nicer . . . Maybe Icelynne would . . .”

  “Leave the castle?” I offered when he trailed off. He nodded and I patted his slumped shoulder. “She’ll leave when she’s ready. She’s still adjusting to being a ghost.”

  He only nodded again, but it was a halfhearted movement. One that acknowledged my words but didn’t agree with them. I couldn’t fault him. He’d fallen hard for the frost fae when we’d been investigating her murder, and she’d seemed interested in him as well, but when I’d finally solved the case and been granted my independent fae status, the castle that had been hanging out in limbo since I’d inherited it had forced itself into mortal reality, unfolding a small pocket of space that was both reality and Faerie perfectly entwined. Icelynne had taken to haunting the castle since it felt the most like the home she could never return to, and she hadn’t left since. It wouldn’t have mattered how big or nice Roy’s office was. She didn’t particularly like the mortal world, preferring the castle and its strange meld of mortal and Faerie planes.

  I sucked at consoling people, so once patting Roy’s shoulder started to feel awkward, I dropped my hand and climbed into the car. He followed moments later.

  “So where are we headed?”

  I lifted my hand with the charm secured to my wrist and pointed. “That way.”

  “Anything more specific?”

  “Not yet, but I thought we’d head toward the university unless the charm pulls us in a different direction first.”

  “Very scientific.”

  I shrugged and pulled the car away from the curb. “Hey, it’s magic, not science.”

  • • •

  The college was a bust. The charm kept pulling, indicating we had farther to go. I keyed Remy’s home address into my GPS, but it was in the opposite direction of where the charm was leading us. So I just drove, trying my best to follow the pull of the charm despite the fact that streets were not designed to go in one straight line for extended periods. Several times the street we were on would curve and I’d have to consult the map screen of my GPS, searching for the nearest street that would send us in the right direction again.

  We’d long ago crossed the river that separated the Magic Quarter from Nekros City proper. Once we’d left downtown the streets had become less organized, with intersections appearing farther and farther apart and side streets that dead-ended into neighborhoods or empty lots, making following the charm that much more difficult. Now even the outlines of the city’s skyscrapers had vanished on the horizon, and I hadn’t seen another street to turn onto in over a mile.

  “Why are we stopping? He can’t be here,” Roy said, indicating the boarded-up building whose overgrown parking lot I’d pulled into.

  I shook my head and frowned at the charm around my wrist. “I think this thing is malfunctioning,” I said, giving the charm a shake—as if that would actually change anything. It continued to convey the same confusing information. “It’s telling me Remy is in two different directions.”

  “Huh,” Roy said. “Maybe he was murdered and his body is actively being scattered across town.”

  “Gross. And may I add what a positive outlook you have today?”

  The ghost only shrugged.

  I shook my head and prodded the spell with my ability to sense magic. It felt exactly as it had when I’d examined it in my office. Unless it had always been flawed, and I didn’t think it had, it didn’t seem to be a magical issue.

  “Maybe it’s the focus. I pulled several dark hairs from Taylor’s brush for the charm. She might have lied about who she let use it.” That was the most likely scenario. Roy’s suggestion, though gruesome, was also possible, but I was guessing highly unlikely.

  “He could have a twin.”

  “Only child.”

  “Separated at birth?”

  I frowned at the ghost.

  He shrugged again. “Hey, I’m only offering ideas
. So which way?”

  I didn’t answer but returned to trying to decipher the information from the spell. Tracking spells weren’t terribly sophisticated magic. Tricky to cast, yes, but they were simple in function. The spell pulled in a straight line toward its subject. As the charm’s holder got closer to the spell’s subject, the pull grew stronger. This charm had appeared to be functioning perfectly until just a few moments ago. The pull had gradually grown stronger for the nearly two hours we’d been driving. But now the charm seemed confused, trying to pull in two different directions in a tug-of-war-like sensation.

  I looked around. We were in the outskirts of the city, past the sprawling suburb, and approaching the wild areas where there were few humans and fewer paved roads. The road we’d just pulled off was one of the few remaining tributaries that eventually fed back into the highway that was the only way in or out of the unfolded space containing the entirety of Nekros City.

  “I think he might have passed us,” I said, moving my arm back and forth between the two warring directions. They weren’t completely opposite directions, more like whatever the second reading was coming from had passed by on a road slightly to the north of us. I’d have put money on the fact that both trails had been in the same area not long ago. But then one source had broken off, heading back to town. That one seemed to still be moving. And it was close—closer than the one pulling either toward the wilds or possibly out of the folded space and into the next state. So who could Taylor have been sharing her brush with who would have been out in the wilds or beyond with Remy? Why? And most importantly, was Remy the one headed back into town, or was that the unknown source?

  Roy watched my arm swing slowly back and forth between the opposing points for a moment before saying, “I vote we follow the one heading back toward the city.”

  “Why is that?” I actually had the same inclination, if for no other reason than it felt closer, but I was curious to hear the ghost’s reasoning.

  “It’s past lunchtime, and there is food in the city. Nothing to eat in the wilds. Things that might eat us, but definitely no fast food.”