Touch Page 5

  “But—if she listened. If she listened to me, she could talk to my dad. He’s right there, Ally. He still keeps an eye on both of us.”

  “Have you asked your dad?”

  Emma was silent. It was still not the good silence. Petal made enough noise for two. Toronto had a lot of garbage-raiding raccoons.

  “Do you know what I would have done?” Emma asked.

  Allison looked at her best friend’s face in the streetlight. The outer shell of socially adept, polite Emma had cracked.

  “I would have done anything. If it’d been me—if I’d been my mother and I’d seen Nathan at the hospital—I would have done anything just to be able to talk to him again.”

  “Em, your dad died eight years ago.”

  “And that’s all it takes to forget him? Eight years? He wasn’t just a grade school crush, Ally. He was her husband. It’s been eight years for me, too, but I wanted to see him. I wanted to talk to him again.”

  When a conversation was going straight downhill, you could still control your descent. You could just stop talking. Going off-map sometimes revealed surprising cliffs in the conversational landscape. Allison felt the edge of one beneath her feet. She wasn’t certain how steep the drop would be.

  “He’s dead. Even if your mother could talk to him again, he’d still be dead. She can’t touch him without freezing. She can’t talk to him without you. If you’re there, she can’t say any of the personal stuff.”

  “It would still be better than nothing.”

  Allison wasn’t so certain.

  * * *

  “Chase, pay attention.”

  Chase frowned. He didn’t argue; Eric was right. He wasn’t paying attention. Not to the streets and the dwindling stream of people getting in the way of their stakeout. Not to the cars that were parking on the street, and not to the ones that had slowed to leisurely crawls in search of parking.

  He wore three rings, all etched with symbols; one was solid silver, and two had iron cores. He passed his hand through the air; nothing wavered. There was no visible distortion. He slid his phone out of his pocket.

  “What’s with you?”

  “Checking to make sure you got the right address.” He slid the phone back into his jacket pocket, because nothing had changed. They’d been sent to midtown to check out two addresses. “We’re up,” he added, as the door to the apartment building swung open.

  * * *

  There were multiple ways to get into a building. Chase had been an electrician, an apprentice plumber, a cable technician, a phone technician—in short, one of the invisible people who kept things running. It was easiest, when necessary. In countries like this, it was mostly necessary. Money opened doors—but only figurative ones.

  He vastly preferred to hunt—and kill—Necromancers in the streets of the city. Any city. Buildings were too easy to trap, too easy to bug, too easy to monitor. The Queen of the Dead didn’t care much for modern life—and modern life was therefore their best advantage.

  But they didn’t catch all of the proto-Necromancers, as Allison called them. And some of the ones that slipped through their fingers were also part of the modern age. Given that most of them were teenagers, their understanding of the finicky bits of modern life only scratched the surface; most of them didn’t know how their phones worked or where their internet connections came from.

  Then again, Necromantic magic was generally more useful than cell phones when it came to communication.

  They entered the apartment. “Number significant?” Chase asked, nodding at the door.

  Eric shook his head. “I don’t think they had the time.” He nodded toward the kitchen and the dining room beyond it. Chase headed that way; Eric headed to what were probably bedrooms and closets.

  The living and dining area was clean. Eric whistled, and Chase headed to the bedroom. “Got something?”

  “They’re here.” There was a mirror in the room, on the desk; Eric had already covered it.

  “All of them?”

  “Two.” He lifted passports, tossed them to Chase, who frowned. One of the two was twenty. One appeared to be in his thirties. “Not high in the upper echelons of the Court.”

  “Good. They didn’t leave much.”

  “You think they’ve already gone hunting?”

  Eric nodded. “Grab their passports.”

  “Cash?”

  “Some. Not much. They didn’t leave wallets here.”

  “Robes?”

  Eric shook his head. “They’re either wearing them or they don’t intend to grab and run.”

  “You think they’re going to kill her?”

  Eric frowned. “Emma opened the door,” he finally said.

  “She’ll know.”

  Eric nodded. “Every other Necromancer alive might have missed it, but the Queen will know. She won’t know how Emma managed it, but she has to suspect.”

  “The lamp.”

  “The lamp. If Emma dies, she won’t get her hands on the lamp.” Eric was examining the phone. He swore.

  “What?”

  “Car. Now.”

  * * *

  The only person Chase worried about was Chase Loern. That had been his truth for a long time now. Eric was his equal—or, on a bad day, his better; he could take care of himself. So could Chase. Anyone who couldn’t was dead and buried in some unmarked grave somewhere.

  Chase wasn’t afraid of death—he just wanted the bastards to work for it. So far, they hadn’t worked hard enough. Rania had called him suicidal, back in the day. She’d been a lot like Eric—proper, well mannered, well educated. Unlike Eric, she’d become a casualty.

  Chase had no illusions about death. Death was not a peaceful end. It wasn’t a release into the great, happy beyond. There was no heaven waiting, no divine presence. Only the Queen of the Dead. If she found Chase, he’d be a figurative lamppost in her city—if he was lucky. Rumor had it she held a long grudge.

  Then again, so did Chase. But he wasn’t a Necromancer. His grudge wasn’t worth much; he made it count by killing Necromancers. But it was a stalling action. Sooner or later, they were all going to end up in the same damn place.

  * * *

  “My mother’s not like yours,” Emma said. “We don’t talk about important things in the Hall house. I don’t know if that would be different if my dad hadn’t died. I kind of doubt it, though. But she talked to me about Nathan. After he died. She talked about my dad. It was the first time I’d really thought of him as her husband. I mean, I knew—but he was my dad first.

  “He was her husband. She lost him. She had me—but it wasn’t the same. I have Petal,” she added, with a wry smile.

  “You’re more important to your mother than Petal,” Allison said. “Sorry, Petal.”

  Emma smiled. “We had that in common. The loss. The way we understood it. I knew she’d survived. So I knew I could.” Her smile faded. “On some days, I didn’t want to.”

  Allison knew.

  “Maybe Dad wasn’t as important to her as Nathan is to me. Have you ever noticed that people seem to love less as they get older? I don’t want that to happen to me.” She swallowed. “If I forget him, Ally, if I reach a point where talking to him, seeing him, isn’t important enough—what was the point?”

  “Emma—”

  Emma smiled. “Hold this?” she asked, handing Petal’s leash to Allison without waiting for a reply. Allison took it in gloved hands; they were numb. It was a cold night, even for November.

  Emma removed her right glove; Allison held her breath as Emma held her hand out to the night air. She held her breath when Nathan materialized beside her best friend. He wasn’t dressed for November; he was dressed for summer. The cold wouldn’t touch him now. Aside from Emma and people like her, nothing could.

&n
bsp; “Hey,” Nathan said. It was dark enough she couldn’t see the color of Emma’s eyes, although she knew they were a lighter shade of brown. She couldn’t see the color of Nathan’s, either.

  For a long moment, she said nothing. And then, exhaling, she said, “Hey, Nathan.”

  * * *

  The problem with being Emma’s best friend was that Emma understood her. Allison smiled. She did. But the expression was half-frozen; it was like a mask. Emma knew. Emma needed Allison to be happy for her, and the best Allison could do was try.

  But it was November, it was cold, and Allison knew that touching the dead sucked warmth and heat out of Emma. “We should—we should go inside,” she suggested. It was a compromise.

  Emma’s smile was fragile, and it broke. Her hand—her bare, gloveless hand—twined with Nathan’s, tightened.

  “It’s cold,” Allison said again. “And you’re not going to get any warmer if you—if Nathan—” She shook her head. She had Petal’s leash, but Petal was no longer tugging at it; he’d doubled back. Allison watched as he headed toward Nathan, whining anxiously. His stub of a tail was still. He wasn’t growling. But he wasn’t happy, either—and he’d always liked Nathan.

  They all watched as he walked back and forth through Nathan, as if he were a particularly solid shadow. He whined, and Emma eventually tried to feed him—but for once he wasn’t interested in food.

  Allison took the leash more firmly in hand and began to walk; Emma followed, Nathan held just as tightly.

  It was quiet. It was the wrong type of quiet. Emma said nothing, but Allison knew the look. She wasn’t happy, but she didn’t want to start an argument about Nathan in front of Nathan. Allison didn’t want to start an argument at all.

  But she understood why Mercy had no desire to see her dead husband again. She was certain that Emma wouldn’t see it the same way—and who could blame her? Ghosts didn’t age. They didn’t change. Their touch was cold enough to numb. They couldn’t work. They couldn’t eat. They couldn’t live, or they wouldn’t be dead.

  Emma wasn’t dead, but she stood in death’s shadow—and she wanted to stay there.

  You don’t understand, Allison thought, because she knew that’s what Emma wanted to say to her. And maybe it was true. But Nathan was dead. He was always, and forever, dead. She was afraid that Emma would join him.

  And she couldn’t say that. Not now. Maybe not ever. Who is it hurting?

  You, Emma. It’s hurting you.

  But Emma would tell her she’d lived in a world of hurt since last July, and this was the first time she could see an end to that pain. There weren’t many things you couldn’t say to your best friend—but Allison was facing one of them now.

  Emma’s phone rang. Emma fished it out of her pocket without letting go of Nathan’s hand, which was awkward; she was trembling with cold. Nathan watched her as she fumbled and then looked past her to meet Allison’s eyes.

  Allison wanted to talk to him about Emma—but that couldn’t happen now. Anything Nathan heard, Emma would hear by default; she was his only conduit to the rest of the world. He knew she was worried. He probably even knew why; Nathan had never been stupid.

  And he’d never been selfish, either.

  “Em,” he said, as she brought the phone to her cheek. “Let go. Ally’s right. It’s cold.”

  She ignored him. “Hello?” To Allison, she mouthed, Eric. “We’re just out walking Petal. I’m with Allison. No, we’re near the ravine, why?” Her eyes rounded. The phone slid from her face as she turned.

  “What’s happened?” Allison asked, voice rising.

  “Eric says—Eric says we have two Necromancers incoming. He wants us to head to the cemetery. Now.”

  “Why the cemetery?”

  “It’s closest to where he and Chase are. They’ll meet us there.”

  * * *

  “I don’t understand what the Necromancers want,” Allison said, shortening the leash and picking up the pace.

  Emma was silent for half a block. One phone call from Eric had turned quiet night shadows into dangerous omens. “Ally, I want you to go home.”

  Allison stared at her.

  “They’re not—they’re not after you. If you go home now, you should be safe.”

  Allison felt a pang of something that was like anger. Or hurt. Hadn’t she just had this argument? Coming from Emma, it was harder. Her hands were shaking. Her throat was dry. Speaking over the fear took work. “Don’t.”

  “I don’t want you hurt.”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “If they’re here, they’re hunting me or Eric or Chase—”

  Adrenaline made Allison’s hands shake; it wasn’t just the cold. The last time they’d seen Necromancers, they’d had guns. Allison never wanted to see them again. “If I go home and something happens to you—”

  “Ally, what are you going to do if you don’t go home and the Necromancers find us?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure that out if it happens.” Her eyes, made much larger by her glasses, narrowed.

  Nathan reached up to touch Emma’s cheek; his hand stopped an inch from skin and fell, curling into a brief fist. “Em, listen to Ally. She’s right more often than she’s wrong.”

  “You shouldn’t be here, either,” Allison told him. “You’re dead. Necromancers use the dead for power—and if they don’t have enough, they’ll grab whatever they can reach.”

  Nathan shook his head. “I’m not in danger. I’m already dead. There’s not a lot they can do to me to change that. There’s a lot they can do to you—but you’re staying.” He hesitated, and then said, “If the dead have power to give to the living, I’m willing to give all I have to Emma.”

  Allison couldn’t argue. She didn’t tell Nathan that Emma didn’t know how to take that power, and didn’t know how to use it. Emma believed that—but Allison wasn’t certain. Emma had walked into the phantasm of a fire that no one else could see unless she touched them. Emma had walked out again, hair singed, clothing black with soot.

  Emma had given Maria Copis the ability to see her dead son—and the ability to pick him up and carry him, at long last, out of the fire that had killed him. If Em wasn’t trained in magical, Necromantic magic, she could still do things that Allison couldn’t explain. And could never hope to do herself.

  But Emma’s question hung in the air between them. Nathan at least had the sense to stand on the far side. What can I do? If Necromancers come, what can I possibly do?

  They picked up the pace in the uncomfortable, heightened silence.

  Emma didn’t have to drag Petal with her; he hunkered down by her side, like a portable, living tank. The streets were dark; the streetlamps were high and unevenly spaced, and there were no houses on this side of the street. There were graves just beyond the fence that bounded the cemetery, and moonlight, although the background of city lights caused stars to fade from view on all but the clearest of nights.

  Petal’s growling grew deeper.

  Allison stopped walking. In the street ahead, in the middle of a road that cars traveled on shortcuts, stood two men.

  * * *

  Had they just been walking, she wouldn’t have noticed them. They wore normal winter coats, hats, faded jeans; one wore boots, the other, running shoes. One of them seemed to be about their age; the other was older.

  They weren’t walking, though. They were waiting. Their hands hung by their sides, and in the shadowed evening light, Allison saw that they wore no gloves. Emma slid her gloved hand out of her pocket and held it out to Allison who understood what she intended; she pulled Emma’s glove off and shoved it into her own pocket for safekeeping.

  “The dead are here,” Nathan told them.

  Emma knelt to let Petal off his leash and rose quickly. The rottweiler was growling now as
if growling were breath.

  “Emma Hall?” One of the two men said, after a long pause.

  Emma nodded.

  He lifted his hands, palm out, as if in surrender. Or as if he was trying to prove that he meant her no harm. As if. “We’ve come a long way, looking for you,” he said. He took a step forward.

  So did Petal.

  “You’re in danger, here,” the younger man added. “We’ve come to bring you to safety.”

  “Why am I in danger?” Emma asked, as if meeting two strange men who knew her by name in the middle of the night near the cemetery was a daily occurrence. Allison heard the tremor in her voice, because she knew Emma so well.

  Her own throat was dry.

  “You’re special, Emma. We’re special, and you’re like us. You’re gifted. People won’t understand what you can do. They’ll fear it. If they can, they’ll kill you. We’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Allison was stiff and silent. The two men said something to each other; it was quiet enough that the feel of syllables traveled without the actual words. Emma swore. She let go of Nathan’s hand, lifting hers as if to surrender. Nathan seemed to disappear. But Allison knew Nathan. He wouldn’t leave Emma. Not now.

  Neither would she.

  “They have the dead with them,” Emma whispered to Allison, although she faced straight ahead. Her voice dropped. “Four.”

  Allison wasn’t Emma. She couldn’t see the dead. But she didn’t need to see them to understand what Emma meant. Necromancers derived their power from captive ghosts. Four was bad.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  EMMA’S HANDS WERE SHAKING; one was numb.

  Allison had been right about one thing: Touching Nathan was no different from touching any other dead person. It leeched heat out of her hands, numbing them.