Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(101)

My magic battered against the inside of my shields, looking for chinks in my mental walls that it could jump through. Fighting the spell holding me was a waste of energy—I was well and truly caught—so I focused all of my attention on holding back my own magic. But I could feel the chilled fingers of the grave sliding under my skin, worming its way into me and making paths for my magic to leach into the animated corpse frozen against me.

I wanted to open my shields and See what the thing in front of me was truly made of. But if I cracked my shields to gaze across the planes of reality and get a good look at the body, more of my magic would escape. And too much was already whispering through my shields, making fissures where more could follow. Sweat broke out on my paralyzed brow as I poured my focus into holding my magic at bay.

But I was touching a corpse.

The grave essence leaking from the body clawed at the fractures my magic was chewing through my shields, and it was too much. If I could have stepped back . . . But I couldn’t.

All at once a chunk of my mental wall caved, and the magic rushed out of me. Color washed over the world as the Aetheric plane snapped into focus around me. A wind lifted from the land of the dead, stirring my curls and chilling my clammy skin. I could see the network of magic holding me in place, as well as the knot of magic in the sprung ward, but more important, I could see the magic coating the corpse in front of me. And it was a corpse, no doubt about it, the dead skin sagging, bloating.

But under the dead flesh, a yellow glimmer of a soul glowed.

Which meant the body was both dead and alive. Considering it was up and walking around, it was a heck of a lot more alive than a dead body should have been.

The soul inside was the color I associated with humans, so this wasn’t a corpse being worn and walked around by something from Faerie or one of the other planes. I’d never seen spellwork like what shimmered across the dead flesh, but whatever kind of half-life the man existed in wasn’t going to last much longer if I couldn’t get ahold of my magic.

The hole in my shields wasn’t huge, but I could feel my magic filling the body. And the grave and souls didn’t get along. I couldn’t stop the hemorrhage of magic, but I managed to slow it to a trickle.

I’d barely noticed the crowd gathering around us until one of the shopkeepers began releasing the spell holding us. If the antitheft paralyzing spell was dropped, I’d be able to get my distance from the corpse.

But either he wasn’t a very good witch, or he was stalling—likely to wait for the cops—because he was taking his sweet time, and more and more of my magic was flowing out.

I’d ejected souls from bodies before. While souls didn’t like the touch of the grave, they tended to cling to their flesh pretty hard, and it took directed magic to pry them free. I was actively fighting expelling the soul, and only a small portion of my magic had filled the corpse, but the soul’s connection to the body felt weak, tentative.

I couldn’t shift my gaze to the shopkeeper, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye. Oh please, release the damn immobility spell.

Too late.

In a burst of light, the soul popped free of the corpse.

Nothing about the body changed. It had already been dead and it was still held immobile by the spell, but the soul was free. For a long moment it was almost too bright to look at, a shimmering crystalline yellow. But souls can’t exist without a body, and in a heartbeat the glow dimmed, the form solidifying as the soul transitioned to the purgatory landscape of the land of the dead.

If I could have stumbled back in shock, I would have, but I couldn’t even blink in surprise. Not because the soul transitioned—that I had expected—but because the ghost now standing in front of me was that of a young woman.

I glanced from the balding middle-aged man to the woman who may not have been old enough to drink. Ghosts weren’t like shades. While shades were always an exact representation of the person at the moment of death, ghosts tended to reflect how a person perceived himself. Appearing a little younger or more attractive was common. I supposed it was even possible that if someone identified across gender lines, their ghost might reflect that discrepancy. But this ghost was a drastically different age as well as being a different gender and ethnicity. And that was unheard-of.

The ghost-girl looked around, no longer inhibited by the spell still holding the body she’d been inside. Her dark eyes grew large and round, and her motions took on the frantic quickness of panic.

A panic that didn’t last long, as a figure appeared beside her. He was dressed from head to toe in gray and carried a silver skull-topped cane. The Gray Man. A soul collector.

I wanted to scream No. To run between him and the girl, who clearly hadn’t belonged in the dead body. Things didn’t add up here, and I wanted to talk to the ghost.

But I still couldn’t move.

I stood silently frozen in place as the Gray Man reached out, grabbed the soul, and sent her on to wherever souls went next. Then he turned and looked at the body she’d just vacated. His expression gave away nothing as his gazed moved to me. He gave me one stern shake of his head, which could have meant anything from the fact that he also didn’t know what was going on or that he knew but it wasn’t any business of mine.

Then he vanished.

Of course, that was the moment the shopkeeper released the spell. I stumbled back as the now truly dead body collapsed.

I barely registered the gasps and screams. I was far too busy staring at the spot where the Gray Man and the ghost had been. She hadn’t belonged in the wrongly animated body. So the question was, how the hell had she gotten into someone else’s body? And why?