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.”
“You’re a ghost. You can’t eat.”
“No, but I can watch you and remember.”
I cut my gaze across at him. “And that’s almost as creepy and weird as the scattered-body theory. But I agree about tracking the one in the city. It’s closer. Let’s just hope it’s Remy.”
• • •
We followed the pull of the charm back through the outskirts and the suburbs, until, when the businesses began outnumbering the houses, the tracking spell began all but jumping on my wrist, we were so close. We weren’t in the city proper yet; the skyscrapers and municipal buildings of Nekros were still a distance off. This was more sprawl that had grown around the city since it was founded fifty-odd years ago. Most of the buildings in this area were retail establishments or restaurants, but as if anticipating joining the city, or maybe just to increase foot traffic to the local businesses, all the roads had sidewalks.
I pulled into the lot of an outdoor mall—it was far too gentrified to be called a strip mall—and parked. The charm was dancing on my wrist now. If I kept searching by car, I’d likely pass Remy and have to double back. It was smarter to go on foot and pay attention to the changes in the charm.
Roy followed as I set a brisk pace up the sidewalk. It was early afternoon on a Saturday and the sidewalks weren’t exactly packed, but they boasted clumpy crowds of shoppers scattered sporadically between shops. Several young people were gathered in a green space between a bookstore and a coffee shop, and I scanned the faces eagerly, but none belonged to Remy.
The charm at my wrist was no longer pulling—except for the light tug back toward the wilds—but was more like silently buzzing, alerting me its target was here, close. But where?
I pulled up the photo Taylor had sent me of Remy and held it up for Roy. The ghost wasn’t the best at identifying the living—being dead it wasn’t something most ghosts paid attention to particularly because the chasm between the living and the land of the dead tended to distort things, but he’d been honing the skill since deciding he wanted to be a detective.
“This is who we’re looking for,” I said, earning me a questioning glance from an elderly couple sitting on a bench not far away. Puzzled looks from bystanders happened sometimes when talking to someone no one else could see. But I didn’t have time to worry about people thinking I was crazy. Remy was around here somewhere. Or, at least I hoped that was who the spell had tracked here.
Roy studied the screen, tilting his head this way and that as he tried to see the image through what likely appeared to be a broken phone on the other side of the chasm. After a moment, Roy nodded and dashed into the nearest store to check the patrons. I continued up the sidewalk, searching, the charm vibrating on my wrist.
As I passed a branch of the First Bank of Nekros, the charm at my wrist gave a lurch. Yes. I jerked open a door that proclaimed the bank’s new extended weekend hours and rushed inside. The bank had soft lighting, and the sudden change from the bright outside sunlight left me blind.
“Lock the door,” a deep male voice instructed.
I blinked, willing my magic-damaged eyes to adjust quicker. Shadows resolved around me, slowly bleeding into color. A dark-haired man in a football jersey stood in front of me, still not quite in focus, but with the charm vibrating its excitement at my wrist, I took a guess.
“Remy?”
The man lifted something dark right in front of my face. I squinted. Then I yelped as the hazy shadow revealed itself to be a matte-black gun.
“I said, lock the door,” he said, and from farther inside the bank, I heard the distinct sound of a gun cocking.
Behind him were two more figures, both carrying even bigger guns. Patrons were on the ground, their hands behind their heads. I turned and twisted the lock on the door, as instructed.
“Now, on the ground,” Remy said, and I did as told, sinking to my knees.
Well, I’d solved my first missing-person case. Yay? Taylor would be relieved to know Remy was alive and well. Now I just had to hope I stayed that way too.
Chapter 5
“Cash in the bag,” yelled a woman in her midthirties, throwing a dark duffel at the teller’s counter. She wore a button-up sweater with pearls, white jeans, and sandals—not at all what I would expect from a bank robber. She held her shotgun clumsily, pointed at the teller, but braced low, near her hip. I didn’t know a lot about guns, but I was guessing the lady knew even less because even I knew that if she actually shot from that position, she would end up doubled over in pain from the recoil.
Remy still stood in front of me, but his gun was now pointed at the security guard several yards to my left. The guard was on his stomach, hands tucked behind his head, but Remy hadn’t given me any more instruction since he’d told me to get down, and he hadn’t instructed me to get down on my belly, so I still knelt, looking around. My eyes were finally clear and able to make out finer details again. Like the fact that while Remy held his Glock with much more confidence than the lady with the shotgun, his grip was all wrong, and if he pulled the trigger, the gun’s slide would break his thumb.
The third person in the group was considerably older than the other two. If I had to guess, I’d place her somewhere in her sixties, but life had ridden her hard, so I couldn’t be sure. Her skin was dark with accumulated grime, her stringy gray hair greasy and matted, and her layered clothing threadbare. She limped as she walked, but she carried the sleek, deadly-looking assault rifle in her hands with an expertise her companions lacked. She moved among the patrons, forcing them to place wallets, jewelry, charms, and anything of value into another dark duffel bag.
“Taylor is worried about you,” I whispered to Remy.
“Stay quiet,” he snapped without looking at me.
“When you didn’t pick her up last night, she went to the police to file a missing-person report.”
Now he looked at me.
“I said shut up,” he said, swinging the gun to point at me again.
My teeth snapped together and I shut up. Remy stared at me, his mouth a tight line, but when it was clear I was done speaking, his gun swiveled back to the security guard.
A small clicking sounded behind me, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if a hand hadn’t landed on my shoulder a moment later. I jumped but managed to muffle any sound I might have made when a familiar voice whispered, “I unlocked the door.”
Roy. Bless that ghost. Not that I could currently use the door to my advantage, but at least I had an escape route at my back. Of course, that wouldn’t help any of the other bank patrons being held hostage.
I gave the briefest nod of thanks, and the ghost stepped to the side, surveying the room.
“Isn’t that our missing person? Well, this case took an unexpected turn.”
Tell me about it. But I didn’t say anything. Instead, my gaze moved between the unlikely trio of bank robbers. A homeless woman, a college student, and a lady who looked like she belonged in a country club—how had they come together to rob a bank? And not one of them wore a mask or gloves. According to any cop show or novel I’d ever seen, that was a really bad sign for those of us who were witnesses.
As if summoned by that thought, three new people appeared in the center of the room. Well, not strictly people, as they were soul collectors, grim reapers, angels of death, or whatever people chose to call those beings whose job description involved ferrying souls from the mortal realm to wherever they went next. Soul collectors only appeared when the likelihood of death was probable—it wasn’t always guaranteed, as mortals had free will, and insignificant-seeming choices sometimes had cascading effects that could literally be the difference between life and death. But when collectors appeared, someone dying was highly likely. Which was definitely a bad sign for an unknown number of people in this bank.