Grave Memory: An Alex Craft Novel (37 page)

“Here.” He held out a hand. In his palm was a necklace that glittered like silver but the small rectangular charm was inscribed with fae glyphs so I guessed it was the same metal as my dagger.

It was also very familiar. I reached out and touched the edge of the charm. It was warm. Not like it had absorbed my father’s heat but like it pulsed with its own energy.

“That was Mother’s, wasn’t it?”

My father frowned. “She wore it for a while.”

A dodgy response.

He touched something on the charm, and what had seemed a solid piece opened to reveal a small compartment. “It needs your blood and hair.”

I cringed. “And what does it do exactly?” I hated magic that involved blood. Yes, it personalized charms and made them stronger, but the pain and ick factor aside, that same ability to create a powerful link with a good charm made blood a dangerous connection if used for less virtuous spells.

“It will help conceal what you are. Which includes dampening your glow so you appear human.”

I regarded the charm. “Mother needed it?”

“In the end, it turned out not to be enough.” No sorrow or loss touched his voice. “Until you can use glamour properly, it should be sufficient. It won’t protect you from iron though. Now that you are fully awakened and the last layer of the spell has been stripped away, you’ll be more susceptible.”

More?
Being around it already made me uncomfortable to the point of feeling ill. But more important, what spell? He’d alluded to the fact I’d been glamoured before, and now layers of a spell?

When I asked he gave me one of his meaningless smiles but no answer.
Great.
I reached for the charm, but he pulled it out of reach, and looked at me expectantly. I sighed. He hadn’t offered me anything to prick my finger, so I leaned down, pulling my dagger from my boot. To my surprise, he looked pleased when he saw it.

“Has it bonded to you yet?”

I froze, willing my expression blank. The dagger had been a gift from Rianna when I’d graduated from academy. I’d never shown it to my father and he surely hadn’t seen enough of it to identify it. So what did he know about it.
And how?

He watched me, that neutral look on his face as if he didn’t care if I answered him or not. I made a mental note to question Rianna about where the daggers had come from. I knew that mine was part of a matching set that she’d been gifted, but I was now extremely curious by
whom
.

Without answering my father’s question, I focused on cutting the tip of one curl and then pricking my finger without allowing the dagger to bite too deep. For once, the dagger behaved. I placed the small lock of hair in the charm and squeezed out a single drop of blood. He held up a hand before my blood could drip into the small compartment.

“That is for something else,” he said, snapping the charm closed. He flipped it over. The faint outline of glyph was carved into the back. “Trace this with your blood.”

I hesitated, staring at the unfamiliar glyph. This wasn’t just personalizing a charm. This was blood magic.

“What does it mean?”

The name of the glyph rolled off his tongue like a musical note, which didn’t tell me anything about what it was or did. When I didn’t make any move to do as told, he sighed.

“A rough translation would be ‘chameleon.’ Now you’ve stopped bleeding so you’ll need to open the wound again.”

I glanced at my finger. He was right: the drop of blood had dried, turning flaky.
Damn.
I didn’t trust the dagger to behave as well a second time. Of course, I wasn’t sold on the charm yet either. Blood magic combined with glyphs I didn’t understand? A dangerous combination.

“What’s the worst possible outcome from the glyph and charm?”

He thought for a moment. “The charm isn’t a controlled glamour. You aren’t choosing how you appear to people—they are seeing what they expect. As long as they assume you are human, you will appear as such. If they believe you are not human…” He shrugged.

“Will I be able to tell what they see?”

“Only by their reaction.”

Great.
Perception charms were something I understood, even if this one was a little different from a witch’s charm. I drew the dagger again. I still wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but as I couldn’t use glamour, this was the best option. After pricking my finger, I reached for the charm.

“Do I need to channel Faerie’s magic to activate the glyph or will Aetheric energy work?” I hoped the latter would be sufficient—I might have to bleed myself several more times before I managed to draw on Faerie’s magic again.

“Neither. You are Sleagh Maith. The magic of Faerie runs through your veins. Your blood will be enough to activate the glyph.”

Right.
My finger felt large and clumsy as I traced the intricate glyph, smearing blood more than drawing anything
recognizable, but as I added the last line, Faerie’s magic moved through me, pouring into the charm. The metal warmed, not exactly an uncomfortable heat, but noticeable. I slid the necklace over my head and the light in my skin faded. I let out a sigh of relief before tucking the charm under my shirt.

I looked back up at my father. “Shouldn’t you warn Casey about all this? Because let me tell you, being blindsided by ‘awakening’ to a fae nature is hell. She’s been through enough already. A responsible parent would warn their child about something like this.” Okay, so maybe the last comment was as much about me as about my sister.

“Casey?” He gave me a bemused look. “She is none of mine. She and Bradley are simply backups of your mother’s genetic line.”

I blinked. “Hold on.
What?
”

His glamour flowed over him, turning him back into the respectable middle-aged man. “I suppose you need a ride somewhere?”

I stared at his retreating back. Sometimes my father scared the hell out of me.

M
y father dropped me off at the Tongues for the Dead office. The drive was tense, for me at least. He’d refused to answer any more questions. In fact, all he’d said during the drive was that I should call him later in the week to schedule another lesson. As much as I needed to learn glamour, I doubted I’d take him up on the offer. Caleb could help me from this point out. I’d lose the opportunity to work in a private pocket of Faerie, but I hated feeling like a pawn and the more I talked with my father, the scarier his living chessboard became.

After he drove away, I gave a weary glance at my office. It was Saturday, and we weren’t open, but I needed to update my clients and I wasn’t up for long phone calls and extended explanations. E-mail sounded a lot easier, but both Nina Kingly and Kelly Kirkwood’s contact information was at the office. So, first stop office, and then I was going home, burying my head under my pillow, and starting the day over. Or was it that I had to start yesterday over? I’d lost most of the night, so my internal clock was off, but the last few hours would have exhausted me even if I’d had a good night’s sleep.

I dug out my keys but before I could lift them, the lock clicked open. I froze.
Who…?

Roy’s head popped through the closed door. “About time you got here. Where the hell have you been? We have a client.”

I blinked at him.
A client?
Maybe I’d fallen asleep and this was a dream because ghosts didn’t bring in clients.

“Hurry up, Alex,” Roy said, stepping farther through the door. “He’s been waiting for hours now and he’s jumpy.”

Could this day get any weirder? Roy had already unlocked the door for me, so I pushed it open and stepped into the sunlit room beyond. Roy had the client waiting in the dark? And how would a customer get in—the door had been locked. Of course, Roy had proven he was more than capable of overcoming that particular hurdle.

I turned on the lights and headed for my office—which I could already tell was also dark.
Where…?

“My office,” Roy said, striding toward his door.

“You put a client in the broom closet?”

That earned a frown from the ghost, but he ignored me as he floated through his “office” door. I, on the other hand, had to actually open the door.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but a ghost huddling in the back corner of the closet wasn’t on the list. The ghost, who was faded to the point that even in my eyes all his color had washed away, cringed as he caught sight of Roy. He backed farther into the corner until his shoulders passed into the unpainted sheetrock of the walls.

“It’s okay,” Roy said, but he kept his distance. I don’t know if it was because he was trying to put the other ghost at ease or because he didn’t want to take the chance of getting too close. Once he’d crossed the threshold, he’d moved no farther into the small room. “This is Alex, the friend I told you about.”

“But she’s alive.” The ghost’s voice was like a whisper carried on the wind. I was surprised he’d managed to cling to his identity. Most ghosts as far gone as him were merely haunts.

“Yes, I’m alive,” I said, and turned to Roy. “I thought you said ghosts didn’t do the social thing? What’s going on?”

Roy shrugged. “Special circumstance. I found him trying to coax his body out of a graveyard.”

Why was it the more he explained the more lost I became? “I think you better start at the beginning.”

Roy looked over at the other ghost. “Steven?”

“My body, it’s stuck in Sleepy Knoll Cemetery—not that it’s listening to me anyway.” The ghost wasn’t whispering, but he might as well have been. It was hard to listen to.

“Give me your hand,” I told the ghost.

Steven backed farther into the wall. “Why?”

“So your voice doesn’t sound like wind rustling through dry reeds,” I said, taking a step forward and lifting my palm toward him.

The ghost stared at my outstretched hand. “But, you’re alive.”

“Yeah, we covered that part already. Trust me, okay?”

Steven reached out a tentative hand so transparent that for a moment, I was afraid he was so far gone we may not be solid to each other. But as his trembling fingers touched the tips of mine, I could feel the resistance, the weight, of the other being.

His nearly clear eyes flew wide, staring at where the tips of our fingers touched. I stepped forward and wrapped my hand around his. Those eyes, wide with both fear and amazement, stared and I felt him preparing to jerk his hand away, but after the initial flicker of panic that made his entire body jolt, he went still.

Opening my shields a crack, I channeled the slightest bit of power through my body and into the ghost. Chill bumps lifted on my skin, the lightest breeze crossing over from the land of the dead. The ghost’s shape filled in, becoming more solid. I’d raised a lot of shades over the last few days, plus the crash course in glamour, so I didn’t give him much energy, not even enough to bring about more than a hint of color, but the trickle I channeled into him carried him closer to the land of the living.

“Wow,” he whispered, his voice stronger, clearer. Which was what I wanted. I closed my shields and dropped his hand.

“I think I’m jealous.” Roy made the comment light, like a joke, but he shoved his hands into his pockets with more force than normal and his shoulder slouched so far forward that he looked like he had a humped back.

Nothing sexual existed between Roy and me, which meant if he was jealous it was all about power. “You start treating me like a food source and I’m cutting you off,” I warned him and the ghost gave me a big-eyed “who me?” look before shoving his glasses farther up his nose and looking away. I shook my head with a sigh—sometimes I really didn’t know about that ghost.

I turned back to Steven.

“You said something about your body being stuck in a cemetery—that’s where your body is supposed to be. You’re lucky you were smart enough not to follow it or you’d be stuck there too.”

“No, you don’t get it, my body, it’s
walking
around the cemetery. Well, really, more like scuttling. And what it’s doing…” He shuddered. “It ate a woman. I mean, she was already dead, but my body
ate
her.”

I went still, my pulse crashing in my ears. “Your body is a ghoul? When were you attacked and where?”

The ghost frowned, and Roy stepped closer, elbowing me lightly. “This is the really good part. Tell her, Steven.”

“I, I don’t remember being attacked. I remember fixing myself a bowl of bran cereal—my wife has been on a real health kick lately—and the next thing I knew it was night and I was squished under a park bench and something dark and frightening was sliding into my body, pushing me out.”

That doesn’t sound like a collector.

“Then this guy showed up and told me it was time to go, but my body was all wrong and it was shambling away. So I fought with the guy, because I couldn’t just let my body walk away like that. And the man let me go, telling me he’d be there when I was ready.”

Now
that
sounded like a collector. In fact, it sounded like Death—he’d told me the exact same thing once, only it
hadn’t been my soul in question. Choice. It was the hardest damn lesson I ever learned, and I was only five.