Sin & Spirit (Demigod of San Francisco #4)(66)

I brought up my hands, wiggling my fingers. Much of the shadowy fog had burned away, and my body felt like it had some weight. This wasn’t reality, but it mostly looked like it, which made it easier for me to wrap my head around the situation.

“I’m like a spirit now instead of a shadow…”

“As I said, only a Demigod of Hades can walk through spirit as well as we can. I know you’ve only seen the Demigods as shadowy forms, but that’s because they’re worried about keeping their identities secret. Otherwise, they would have manifested like this. They would’ve looked like any other spirits, and had more power to work with. Then again, you would’ve been able to grab a hold of their vitals, so…”

“But how did you do this? How did you change me?” I lifted a foot and put it back down, feeling the urgency to get to Daisy, or to look around, but knowing I didn’t have my head on straight yet. Harding wasn’t holding on to me anymore—I didn’t want to jerk myself into the never-never and get lost.

“By leaning on spirit a certain way and forcing your soul to show itself. It’s advanced. You’re not there yet. You’re barely here yet.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this when we started? Or one of those times you dragged me out of my bed and marshaled me into the Beyond, as you call it?”

I took a step back and then quickly breathed through the flip-flopping of my stomach. Gravity was still weird, like it wasn’t holding me properly. I imagined this was what astronauts felt like, except they’d trained for it. And also, they were in a whole different place. It was a trip to feel this way somewhere that looked like the real world.

“It takes a lot of energy to hold this form. I know you’re determined and powerful, but most people freak out the first few times they leave their bodies. If you’d needed a few more stops and starts, you might not have had the energy to make the trip. But your courage continually surprises me. You only balked once. So far.”

I nodded, because that made sense, ignored his teasing, and definitely ignored the glow of approval. He wasn’t the sort of guy I should let charm me. The fact that he was incredibly good at it was proof enough.

Dirt and a few rocks didn’t scrape underfoot as I pivoted, looking around the small parking lot, deserted except for one shiny red Honda. All around, buildings rose into the sky, mostly newer condos and some older office buildings. Shiny glass reflected rays of sunlight down onto this little forgotten hovel, three stories high and badly in need of an update.

The tides pulled at me from a distance, and though I could smell the ocean’s influence in the air, I could not hear it. The natural environment had all been paved or covered over with landscaping. No street signs rose in my line of sight.

I had no idea where I was.

“Okay,” I said to myself. “First things first. Make sure Daisy is okay.”

I felt her soul, strong and sure, and walked toward the corner of the building in search of a door.

“What are you doing?” Harding asked.

I paused. That’s right, I couldn’t open doors. Or, if I could, it would take an insane amount of energy.

I stared at the wall instead, and my reality wobbled. Suddenly I felt like I was in a dream, and if I thought too hard about it, I would go scurrying for reality. Except I couldn’t just wake up from this. And if I did, I’d have to find my way back here anyway. Daisy was counting on me. I had to get a grip.

“I can go through that, because I am not real,” I said to myself, stepping up to it.

“Close your eyes and walk through,” Harding said. “Or close your eyes and I’ll move you through.”

“Look, if you’d just trained me in the first place rather than hijacking my sleep, I wouldn’t freak out so much.”

“You work better when you’re under duress.”

I gritted my teeth. Bria said that all the time.

Steeling myself, I closed my eyes and walked forward. Spirit swished and moved around me—until it reached a thin line of nothingness up ahead. That had to be the wall. Spirit couldn’t penetrate the solid object.

Once we made it through the wall, I opened my eyes and immediately felt a pang in my gut. Daisy sat in the middle of a bare room, her face a mess of bruises and blood, tears streaming down her cheeks, and her grunts sounding more like whimpers.

“Oh my God,” I said, bending toward her.

Harding’s hand and clipped “no” froze me.

“You as a spirit need to learn not to suction energy. She needs all the energy she can get. Do not touch her.”

I yanked my hands away, agony throbbing in my middle. I walked around to the back of her and gasped. Her right wrist was black and blue, swollen to epic portions, very badly sprained or broken. Rope burn had made a red line right above it, and her left wrist was bleeding. She’d ripped and torn her skin trying to loosen the ropes. Despite the obvious pain she was in, she was still going, the clumsy fingers of her left hand working that badly tied knot.

“She’s close,” Harding said. “She’s almost there. She’s a fighter.”

Tears would’ve overflowed if I had a physical body capable of crying. “She’s had a mostly shitty life.”

“Thank the heavens, huh? Or else she’d just sit there, in pain, waiting to be saved. No worse pastime than that.”