Grave Visions (Alex Craft #4)(82)

I stepped away from Falin, forcing myself to straighten. Wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, I avoided looking at the body. I didn’t like blood or gore at the best of times, and I’d seen bodies in much worse condition, but no one had ever been murdered simply so I could question their shade before.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone in the room.

“What was that, planeweaver?” the queen asked, but the sharp tone of her voice said that she’d heard me.

I could almost feel the stiff stillness of Falin at my back, like a warning. Ryese smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant expression. The look told me that if I refused the queen, he would enjoy dragging me to Rath, the queen’s torture room, just as much as he would have enjoyed hauling Tommy Rawhead there. Ryese was an equal opportunity pain dealer. Beside him, Maeve looked away, but Lyell gave a minute shake of his head, a small warning that refusing was a bad plan.

I swallowed and forced my shoulders back. Lifting my head, I met the queen’s crazed gaze. “I said, I can’t do this. Here.” I waved a hand to indicate the throne room. “No land of the dead, remember?”

She raised an eyebrow full of sleet, but she didn’t call me on the cover. “Knight, transport that.” She gestured to the body. “Ryese, assist him.”

“Dearest aunt, perhaps I should stay here and organize the restoration of your throne room?” He gestured to the blood, which had been carried in the puddles to spread across most of the room.

I was going to have to burn my boots.

“Fine.” She waved a dismissive hand, and then turned to me again. “After you, planeweaver. I want my answers.”

? ? ?

I stared at the body in the center of my circle. I’d considered trying to duck the queen as soon as we’d returned to mortal reality. But, unless I planned to run off and join the shadow court, the only way for me to stop myself and my friends from fading was to find the answers the queen needed. Not questioning the shade due to moral outrage was suicidal. Rawhead was already dead. The damage was done. If he revealed the alchemist, at least some good would come out of this mess. Besides, while Rawhead was almost certainly involved with Glitter, he wasn’t the mastermind of the operation. We had to stop the production of the drug.

So here I stood. But there was one major issue. A huge complication that made me hesitate even after resigning myself to performing the ritual.

Rawhead’s soul was still inside his corpse.

Just like with Icelynne, because there were no collectors in Faerie, Rawhead’s soul hadn’t passed on. I was fairly certain that if his body was left in the mortal realm long enough, a collector would eventually stumble over him and take care of the oversight, but we didn’t exactly have time to wait for that to happen. I could eject the soul as I’d done with Icelynne. But while she’d emerged scared and confused, she hadn’t had any reason to blame me for her demise.

Tommy Rawhead did. I had no doubt he’d hold a grudge.

And I’d be trapped in a circle with him.

“What is the delay, planeweaver?”

I ignored the queen. She was on the outside of my barrier and not my biggest concern, currently, at least. Kneeling, I drew a second circle close to the body, but I didn’t activate it yet. If I timed this right, I could eject Rawhead’s soul, and then erect the second circle around me and the empty body. The ghost would be left trapped between the two barriers. If I then dropped the outermost circle, Rawhead would be free to leave. The question was, would he? And if he didn’t, how long could I keep the smaller circle intact?

I mentally tapped into the raw Aetheric energy stored in my ring. There wasn’t much. I prayed it would be enough.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped over the waxy line of my inert inner circle. Then, without releasing my connection with the energy in my ring, I opened my shields, and as the chill of the grave blew through me, I pushed it into the corpse at my feet.

The silver-blue soul of Tommy Rawhead exploded from the corpse. I had hoped he’d be disoriented. That would have given me time to get him away from the body so I could raise the inner circle. But Rawhead lunged toward me before his form solidified.

I stumbled, throwing out my arms to guard my face.

The ghost locked his jaw around my forearm, and cold pain sliced through me as those pointy teeth sank into my flesh. I screamed, blood welling up on my arm.

Outside my circle, yelling erupted, and I felt something slam into my barrier. The force reverberated through my magic. The idea of dropping the circle flitted through my mind, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to break the spell—Rawhead was still attached to my arm.

He locked his jaw, and I swore I heard his teeth grinding against my bones. Screaming again, I pushed against him with my grave magic. The ghost seemed to drink down the magic, becoming more real.

Damn it.

Rawhead released my arm and stepped back. He grinned, spreading his legs and arms like a wrestler preparing to tackle his opponent. Not good, as I was that opponent. He’d manifested exactly as he’d been in life, with blood running down his face from under his hat. But as it was now only an idea of what he’d been, that blood was pale, slightly translucent. The blood running from his mouth was mine, and very real.

I cradled my arm against my chest and backed away, but the circle wasn’t large. I had nowhere to go.