I began to pull back, but his good hand floated off the floor and settled on my elbow, holding me in place. I had dropped my guard, and for a moment I felt the connection between us as though it were a palpable thing, a cord that looped around us. Simon’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“For what?”
“I never . . .” His voice drifted off for a moment, his gaze losing focus. When his eyes returned to mine, he just said, “Lex? I don’t feel so good.”
“I think you have a concussion,” I told him. “I’ve got a little emergency supply of morphine—”
He started to shake his head, grimaced, and said, “No. I can handle it.”
I would have said the same thing in his position—in fact, I had, more than once—so I didn’t argue. “Then just rest here for a minute, okay?”
“’Kay.”
I stood up and backed a few feet away from him, turning to face the room. “Nellie Evans,” I shouted. “Show yourself.”
Nothing happened. There was no movement in the dark entryway.
“Nellie!” My voice was threaded with rage.
Her voice floated down from above. “I was just having a bit of fun. I dinna mean to hurt anyone.”
“Bullshit,” I spat. “You were pissed at me, and you thought you’d hurt my friend to put me in my place.”
Silence.
“No more lies, Nellie.” I put the warning in my voice. “Come out where I can see you.”
Nothing happened.
I did not have time for this. “Okay, fine. You want to play games? I can play too.”
I pulled my pocketknife out of my jeans and squatted down in the flashlight beam. Gritting my teeth, I dragged the blade across the meat of my uninjured thumb, careful not to cut too deeply this time. I didn’t want to mess around with the skin adhesive again.
Nellie popped up across from me as I was drawing a circle on the floor with my blood. The horror movie getup was gone, replaced by her standard look: a pinup-style polka-dotted crop top and short-shorts, complete with bright red lipstick and black hair in those fancy curls. Very Bettie Page, if Bettie were a leathery forty-year-old who looked like she knew her way around a knife fight. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
I didn’t look up. “I’m sending you across the bridge.”
“No!” Nellie disappeared, reappeared next to me. She was burning up a lot of energy tonight—but then, she probably hadn’t needed to become visible in months. Maybe she could store up her strength. It would have been an interesting thought, if I’d had time to care. “I said I was sorry!” She sounded desperate.
“Yeah, but you didn’t mean it.” I took a moment to fuss with the circle, filling in every gap so it was complete.
“Goddammit, Lex!”
I finished the circle and touched the tips of my tattoos to the line of blood, willing it to open. Door.
“Don’t you do this!” She was pleading now, her voice practically a sob.
I sat back on my heels, regarding her coldly. “I came here in good faith, owing you nothing, and you tried to kill my friend.”
“I didn’t—”
I overrode her. “I told you once that I had no interest in banishing you if you weren’t hurting anyone.” I pointed at Simon. “What do you call that?”
“Please,” she begged. “I’ll do anything you want.”
I cocked my head at her. I could feel the magic of my circle begin to build up inside me, the door pulling at my attention. We were running out of time in more ways than one, but I still drew out the moment for another five seconds.
“Please, Lex!”
I shrugged, scuffing the line of blood. The door vanished. “I want information, right now, no more games or tricks.”
“Ask. Ask me anything.”
I pointed through the entryway, toward the body rolled up in John’s cheap IKEA living room rug. “Tell me how to raise the dead.”
Chapter 38
I had expected an argument, and I got one. “Do you have any idea what you’re askin’ me?” Nellie didn’t sound angry, just scared and worried. “That’s the strongest magic we have—deep and dark. If you—”
“I have no time,” I snapped. “My friend needs a hospital. You have two minutes to explain it to me before I decide to cut my losses with you.” I twirled the pocketknife, a little theatrically.
We stared at each other for a long moment, but Nellie saw something in my face and sagged. “You need a sacrifice,” she finally grumbled. “Life for life, death for death. I’m assuming you didn’t bring your boyfriend here just to kill him.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I corrected, but I got up and went over to the box I’d brought in with us. I peeled back the top flaps slowly, but the chicken was still fast asleep, thanks to Simon’s sedation.
Nellie had manifested next to me, her color the normal, translucent level I was used to. She peered into the box. “That could work,” she said, begrudging. “For a few minutes. Maybe ten.”
“How do I do it?”
Nellie didn’t need to breathe air, as far as I could tell, but she still made a point of sighing. “Lex-girl . . . don’t do this. Once you raise the dead . . . they’ll begin to call to you.”
I could have asked her what she meant. I should have. But I had ninety minutes until I was supposed to be in Cheyenne, and I was afraid to know. “I have to. Tell me how.”
So Nellie explained.
I’m not sure what I expected for a ritual to raise the dead, but it was actually fairly simple, if gross: I needed to exsanguinate the chicken on top of the corpse. As the blood rushed out, so would its life. I had to use my mindset to guide the chicken’s life force into the werewolf and hold it there while I asked my questions.
The container for life force—the werewolf’s soul, for lack of a better term—was gone, so whatever I poured into the body wouldn’t stay long. Since I wasn’t about to kill another human and steal their soul, the chicken’s life force would start seeping from my fingers almost immediately, and I would have to let it go.
“What happens if I don’t?” I asked, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice.
Nellie gave me a frank look, then glanced at Simon. “Your magic will start taking life out of the next weakest soul it can find.”
My eyes hardened. “He’s a witch.”
“Really?” Nellie’s ghostly eyes widened, then narrowed with calculation. “Interesting. You don’t see many men witches, at least not back in my day.”
“Focus, Nellie.” My stomach roiled with nerves, but I didn’t have time for second thoughts. “We’re running out of time.”
Nellie looked uneasy. “Listen . . .” she began. “Is there anything I can say that will talk you away from this?”
I met her eyes. I had learned how to look at the surface of them, rather than let my gaze drift through. I had never seen Nellie’s face look so devoid of calculation. If I didn’t know better, I would have believed she was actually worried for me. I softened a little. “No, there isn’t.” I took a breath, moving the flashlight so I could check on Simon. His eyes were open, and he’d turned his head sideways so he could watch me. I kept the light out of his eyes, and when he saw me looking, he shot me a weak smile. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “We’ll be okay.”
I nodded. It was time to begin.
Killing the chicken was the worst part. I had to slice her throat, but at least the poor thing was still sedated and I don’t think she felt much. I stood over the dead woman, one foot on either side of her waist, and made the cut as quick and deep as I could. When the blood began to pour out of the chicken, running onto the werewolf’s chest, I switched into my boundary magic mindset, feeling the steadying presence of my mother’s bloodstone over my heart.
It was just as Nellie had said—the blood was like a weak, yellowish cascade of gossamer, pooling onto the dead werewolf’s chest. I extended ghostly fingers with my free hand and cupped them over the heart, trying to keep the pool together. When the bleeding stopped, I dropped the chicken, crouched, and used my other hand to help hold the small accumulation of life in place. Then I shifted to a kneeling position and pressed down, like I was doing chest compressions.
The body began to spasm.
Startled, I blinked out of the boundary mindset, seeing the corpse clearly now. Behind me, both of the lower legs were convulsing, and the knowledge that I was straddling a dead body suddenly crashed into me. I started to swing one leg off her, but realized that if I moved, her spasming legs might cause me to let go of the chicken’s essence. I clenched my jaw and stayed put.
Nellie’s quiet voice came to me from a few feet away. “Now, call her back.”
Through gritted teeth, I pushed my words into the body—the same way I pressed vampires, or opened the gate to lay ghosts. “Come back.”
Slowly, the woman’s eyelids dragged their way upward, fighting against the beginning of rigor mortis, which had already started in her face. Her pupils were as dilated as any I’d ever seen, and her eyes ticked around on the ceiling like her muscles had already forgotten what to do. I struggled to keep my magic working at her chest without actually dropping into my mindset. I needed to see her face.
Her legs had stopped convulsing, but my position was too precarious to move away. “Ask her a question,” Nellie instructed, as though I were an idiot. “Your clock is ticking.”
“What’s your name?” I blurted.
The ticking eyes finally found mine, though she seemed to stare right through to my soul. “Kelly,” she said, her voice a mechanical croak.
“Why were you working for Morgan Pellar, Kelly?”
“Why doesn’t it hurt?”
That confused me, and I almost lost my grip on her chest. I could already feel the stolen life force trying to seep out through my fingers. “Why doesn’t what hurt?”
Kelly’s dead hand slowly rose, scratching lightly at her chest just above where I sat. “The wolf. There’s no itching. No hunger.”
“You brought me a dead werewolf?” Nellie complained.
I ignored her. To Kelly, I said, “You died, Kelly. The werewolf magic won’t bother you ever again. After you answer my questions, you can rest.”
Her hand relaxed back down to her side. “Okay.”
I had about a thousand questions, but I skipped to the most important one. “Where is Morgan Pellar?”
“In the tunnels,” Kelly rasped without hesitation.
“Where are the tunnels?”
“Beneath Cheyenne.”
I glanced up, past Nellie to Simon. He looked as baffled as I was. But the chicken’s life force was already slipping away; it was like trying to hold down steam. “Where is the tunnel entrance?”