I shivered, opening my eyes.
The room was dimmer now, my magic having burned out some of my vision, at least temporarily. The collectors were clear, though—it was more than my eyes that I saw them with. The Gray Man had already collected the soul that had been inside the homeless woman. I hadn’t even had a chance to look at it. The Raver was approaching the soul standing beside the fallen country club lady, though the soul was that of a man. Death was en route for the soul that had popped free from Remy’s body.
I held up a hand. “Wait.”
Death didn’t meet my eyes now, and I pushed off the ground. I was trembling, both from the cold that had ripped through me and from the adrenaline of the last several minutes. I wobbled as I got my feet under me, but my legs held, and I focused on the soul.
She was female. I couldn’t tell her age, but I was guessing not much older than Remy. Ghosts often took a moment to realize they’d lost their bodies, and I’d pulled her all the way across into the purgatory of the land of the dead, which was probably an even bigger adjustment. She stared down at Remy’s body, shaking her head.
“Hello,” I said, trying to get her attention. Death had almost reached us. “What’s your name?”
She looked up, and I was close enough to the land of the dead to see that she’d had big brown eyes in life. They were brimming with insubstantial tears.
“Put me back,” she said, kneeling down over Remy’s body and plunging her arms into his chest as if trying to pull him back on like a coat. “Put me back right now.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Death said, kneeling down beside her. “It’s time to go.” He held out his hand.
She reeled back. “No. No. He said if I did this, he’d put me back.”
“Who did?” I asked her, and shot a pleading gaze at Death. I needed to talk to this ghost.
He only shook his head. “It’s time to go,” he said again, and reached out, catching her arm. Her form shimmered, losing its distinctness and becoming brighter, clearer as she transitioned from the land of the dead to the realm of souls again.
“No!” the girl and I shouted at the same time.
Death flicked his wrist and she was gone. The look he gave me was apologetic, but he didn’t apologize—he knew what I was. Without a word, he vanished as well, and I was left in the sea of chaos that was the bank.
• • •
Two hours later, I was back in the closetlike waiting room in Central Precinct. I again wasn’t under arrest, but I had the sinking suspicion I couldn’t walk out as easily as I had the day before.
Remy’s body was also in the building—presumably in the morgue in the basement. I knew because the charm was once again alerting me that its target was close. At the same time, it had a thin, distant pull to another location, no doubt toward the wilds where I’d first felt the schism.
I considered that as I sat there in an uncomfortable folding chair. I’d assumed the issue was contamination of the focus because a person can’t be in two places at once, but what if it wasn’t? Remy’s body had been at that bank, but his soul hadn’t been. Maybe his soul was somewhere in the wilds? I’d never heard of anyone tracking a soul specifically, but typically there wasn’t much of a point. Either it was in the same place as the body, or the person was dead, and almost all souls crossed over immediately.
The door opened, revealing a young officer who looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t name. “Ms. Craft, if you’ll come this way,” he said, gesturing.
I followed obediently. Any hope I had for a friendly sharing of information evaporated when he turned the opposite direction from the detectives’ offices and led me instead into an interrogation room.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a sturdier but even more uncomfortable-looking chair.
For a moment I thought he was going to be the one leading the interview, but then, without waiting for me to comply, he turned and walked out of the room, the door shutting behind him.
I considered trying the knob, but I was fairly certain it would be locked, and there was a good chance someone was watching from behind the two-way mirror, so I refrained. Walking up to the chair, I sat with as much dignity as I could scrounge up and attempted to not slouch as I waited.
And waited.
• • •
I’d succumbed to boredom and was playing a game on my phone when the door finally opened. John, my once-favorite homicide detective, was the first into the room. He carried a small laptop that looked even smaller against his bearlike bulk. His partner, Jenson, followed him. As the door crept closed, I felt more than saw a third figure enter.
Briar.
She was working hard at not being seen, and the spell that masked her magic was once again in place, but while it felt innocuous unless I explored deeper, it was still a spell, and in a group this small, it highlighted her location. I made a point of not looking at her, focusing on the two detectives instead. I knew she was there, but she didn’t have to know I knew.
John sat in the chair across from me and set the computer on the table, closed. Another chair waited for Jenson, but he only leaned against the table, arms crossed over his chest. Briar hovered near the far wall, hidden from sight behind her veil of spells. I looked at John. They all looked at me.
No one spoke.
I waited. If I’d learned anything from the summers I’d spent in my father’s house, it was how to keep silent. It was never a good idea to offer explanations to questions that hadn’t been asked just because a silence stretched too long.
“So why were you at the bank today?” John finally asked.
“Missing-person case.”
John and Jenson exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher.
“Did you find the person?” Jenson asked.
“He’s in your morgue.”
Jenson grunted, and there was silence a moment before John said, “Tell us what you witnessed in the bank.”
And that was the tricky question. I took a deep breath, but I didn’t hesitate. “I walked into a robbery in progress. I believe Remy Hollens was about to lock the door when I walked inside. He held a gun to me and had me click the lock before getting to my knees. He then turned his attention to the bank guard. There was a woman with a shotgun at the teller’s desk. She had the man behind the counter fill a duffel bag. There was also an older woman with an assault rifle robbing the hostages.”
John nodded, motioning me to continue. This was the hard part. I was fae, so I couldn’t lie, but I also couldn’t reveal everything I’d seen. I was still unsure I should reveal exactly what I’d done either. All three robbers had been dead already. The collectors would have ripped the ghosts out of the bodies if I hadn’t—I was sure that was what Death had been telling me—but they’d looked alive. It might be a tricky distinction for someone who hadn’t felt the grave rolling off the bodies.
“Someone caught the older woman’s attention and she started yelling. That drew the other two robbers’ attention. While they were distracted, the security guard drew his own gun. He fired and all three robbers collapsed, dead. Or maybe they collapsed as he fired. It happened really fast.” And I’d been otherwise distracted, so I wasn’t sure on that detail, but I was guessing none of the bank witnesses could have given any account other than what I just had.
John and Jenson exchanged a look again, and then John opened the laptop. He pulled up a video file and hit play without saying a word.
The screen filled with a quad screen of crisp black-and-white videos. There was no audio file, but I didn’t need one—I’d been in the room where it had been recorded. It was security footage from the bank. In shades of gray I watched myself enter the bank. A chill crawled down my spine as I saw Remy shove his gun in my face while I blinked dumbly.
The events unfolded on the small screens exactly how I remembered.
John hit the pause button, freezing the video version of me yelling a silent but clear no, and reaching a hand forward, toward empty space deeper inside the bank. Which was extra odd, as all the other patrons were running out the door.
“Care to revise your statement?” John asked, looking from the series of frozen images and then back up at me.