Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(138)

“Crazy bitch,” growled Lisa.

“And that night your wife was killed,” I said.

“Murdered,” Rick corrected me like it was important. “If anyone had known that my mother had showed me that file that afternoon, I wouldn’t have walked out of the trial a free man. I was always pretty sure my mother had done it—it had all the marks of one of her frenzied, violent moments. Though as far as I know she’d never killed anyone before. I could never have convinced anyone she’d done it, not once she was dead. Only my father and I ever saw her at her worst. Most people thought she was this little porcelain doll.”

“And Lisa is the only one besides you to have seen your wife’s ghost,” I observed. Lisa, who was beside herself because of how much she loved him, who had gone into the house and was treated to a gruesome sight.

But Rick was still caught up talking about his mother. “My father said she was a psychic vampire,” he said.

I blinked at him. “Hold that thought,” I said, and pulled out my phone.

“Mercy?” Samuel answered his wife’s cell phone. “You know we’re in Ireland, right? And we don’t want to be bothered.”

Belated honeymoon.

“Yes. Sorry. But I really need to talk to your wife,” I told him. Ariana was a very old fae. If what I was worried about was possible, she would know. Maybe she’d know what to do with it.

“Life and death?” Samuel sounded resigned.

“Death, anyway,” I told him. I would have felt worse, but I knew Samuel. If he and Ariana really hadn’t wanted to be disturbed, they wouldn’t have had the cell phone on.

He handed me over eventually. I explained the situation to Ariana, taking my time so I didn’t miss any of the details that might or might not be important.

“So,” I asked her, “is there any way someone of fae blood could kill themselves and make arrangements to haunt someone for the rest of their lives?”

“They would have to have some sort of power source,” she said. “You told me that when you walked into the house, both you and Zack noticed a drop in the emotional intensity of the humans.”

“Yes.”

“There aren’t a lot of ways this could work,” she said after a moment’s thought. “The easiest way would be to quench an object in her death.”

I’d heard that word before. “Like when a weapon is quenched and takes on the personality traits of the person who dies.”

“Like that, yes,” she agreed, “but it doesn’t have to be a weapon.” She gave me a detailed explanation and several possible solutions.

“Okay,” I said, tucking my phone back into my pocket. “There are some fae who can feed on emotions. Literal emotional vampires. Zack and I both felt something odd happen when we walked into the house. Rick was ticked off, and both of you”—I pointed at Lisa and Rick—“were so hot for each other it was uncomfortable.”

Rick looked at me, but Lisa sucked in a breath and looked at Rick. I shouldn’t have done it, but I just couldn’t bear watching them not watch each other anymore. Four years, she’d been in love with him—and he with her, if I were any judge.

I continued as if I hadn’t noticed anything. “But all that dropped when you walked through the doorway. It didn’t seem important at the time. Death magic is not something that the fae are much involved in—that’s a witch thing. But there are some magics that the fae can use to tie the essence of a person to objects—they used to use it to power their blades or some of their magical items.” The essence or spirit was different from a soul. A person’s soul, except for thankfully rare instances, was mostly beyond the touch of magic.

“Your mother, if she learned magic from her father’s family, might have learned how to do that. Or maybe she contacted someone and asked. My expert friend says that usually the . . . the personality fades from such objects. But if your mother could feed herself on your emotions, then she could keep her personality intact indefinitely.”

“You think my mother killed my wife, then decided that she’d kill herself, so she could follow me around and, what? Take care of me?”

“Run off anyone who might compete with her for your affections,” I told him. “Or maybe just anyone who might harm you. You don’t really seem like a hermit at heart—but here you are, living isolated from everyone.”

“Because anytime I went out, anytime I brought anyone home, my wife would make an appearance,” he said. “I thought I was going mad. I worried someone would notice.” He looked at Lisa. “You don’t know. It was horrible for you, I know. But you don’t know what it meant that someone else saw it. I—” She leaned over and kissed him.

Which was lovely and sweet. A second later, the window in one of the upstairs rooms blew out and poured glass all over them. I leaned forward to help, but Zack tackled me around the middle and ran fifty feet before he put me down.

I stepped back from him and opened my mouth.

“I am your bodyguard,” he told me, almost angrily. “You are still limping, and you almost died. I am doing my job.”

“Okay,” I said. The one thing you didn’t want to do to a submissive wolf that you cared about at all was put him in the middle of contradictory orders. Adam had told him he was to guard me. I wouldn’t yell at him for it like I would have any other wolf. Probably one of the reasons Zack had been my bodyguard a lot lately.