I blew out an annoyed breath and hurried farther into the house. The smell of mildew and stuffy air permeated my senses despite the still-open door and one cracked window. No signs of life disrupted the dust layering the ground or the furniture. Upstairs, the two small bedrooms lay bare, the hardwood floors scuffed and closet doors lopsided. The house was empty of people and souls.
“Why would he try to lure spirits in and then trap them?” I scratched my temple and made my way out of the house, scooting past the medium who’d moved into the living room. “Why would he expend the energy? It’s not like the spell’s targeted—this would work on any spirit.”
“He, who?” Bria asked, before stopping at the front door and turning back. “No, no, Clare, I’ll shadow her to the other houses. You see if there are any spirits lingering in this one. She seems to think there are.”
“No, I don’t—”
Bria elbowed me before I could finish. Then she pushed me along toward the next house with Jack following silently, blessedly leaving Clare behind.
“First order of business, get faster on the uptake,” Bria said. “Now, what the hell are you talking about? I feel like a mime at a public speaking event.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, because she was exactly right. I usually wasn’t so slow, but this situation was throwing me for a loop.
I took a deep breath.
“I’m talking about the guy—or lady—who’s trapping spirits here. Give me a second, though. I need to check something.” I quickly moved through two more houses. Both were set up in the same way as the first, and both came up empty. “He’s not even really trapping them. He didn’t put up a wall blocking off the Line.”
“Stop. Stop, stop, stop.” Bria yanked the strap of her backpack in frustration, moving it higher on her shoulder. “Start at the beginning. I still have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”
I looked down the street at all the empty houses, each abuzz with magical activity. Each empty of spirits.
I smoothed back my hair. “The spirits in the magical government building have been barred from leaving.”
Bria nodded with a furrowed brow. “That I did hear, yes.”
“Right. Well, the same thing is happening here. In each of these houses.”
Bria nodded again, her gaze darting to the empty dwellings around us.
“In addition,” I went on, “these houses have a strange sort of lure. Each one, independently, is beckoning to spirits. There wasn’t anything like that in the government building. It didn’t want new spirits, it just wanted to keep the spirits already there…in place.”
She nodded again, on board the information train.
“But here, unlike the government building, there is no wall between the world of the living”—I pointed at the ground, as if that would help—“and the Line…”
She held up a hand. “That’s the part I’m missing. What is this wall you’re talking about?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out at nothing, thinking back. “It’s a magical concoction of some sort. It looked like a sheet of various colors, draped in the air in front of the Line to block it off. No going around, no—”
She held up another hand. “Wait. You’re telling me that you can actually see the Line? The place where spirits cross over into the afterlife—you can see it?” She put two fingers in front of her eyes. “With your eyes?”
“Yeah.” I frowned at her in confusion. “I can see the Line, the crossing point, but not beyond it.”
“Yes. The crossing point. The freaking Line.” She leaned back, her eyes widening. “Holy shit, Alexis. You’re a fucking fountain of power. No wonder Kieran is basically pissing himself in glee.”
“Other Necromancers can’t see it?”
She blinked comically at me. “Do you smoke a lot of ganga, or what? That info is pretty basic.” Sensing that I didn’t, and it wasn’t, at least not for me, she ran a hand across her face. “Necromancers, especially strong ones”—she tapped her chest—“can feel the Line, and the plane around it. It’s like bat sonar. We can create an image in our mind’s eye from feeling it, but no, we can’t actually see it. I wouldn’t be able to draw it if my life depended on it.”
That took me aback a little. I’d always thought my magic was less than interesting. I’d certainly never thought, in my wildest dreams, that I could do something above and beyond what highly paid magical workers could do. Then again, I’d never thought I could rip souls from people’s bodies, either.
It was crazy that my mother had never reacted to any of my magic growing up. If she’d known how rare it was, or how surprising some of my skills were, she’d never given me any sign. No wonder the neighbors wouldn’t let her play poker in their weekly games. She’d probably been banned for always cleaning them out.
I shrugged it off and struggled to get back on track. “Right, well, at the government building, the magical wall keeps any spirits inside from crossing over. It effectively keeps them in a magical box. They couldn’t leave the building, not even to the beyond.”
“And here…they can’t leave the building, but they can crossover.”
“Correct.” I started walking again. “Here, he’s bringing them in, but allowing them to cross over. He’s not keeping them.”
“What’s the point?”
“And now we’ve come full circle. That was my question. Why expend the energy?”
She rubbed her nose, thinking. “Maybe this is someone’s way of playing god. We can’t all be Demigods, but some want the power of one. Maybe this is his or her way of feeling powerful.”
“Or maybe Valens doesn’t want any loose spirits messing with what he has going in that house at the end of the street.” I forced myself to walk back to the house in question, with its waiting spirits.
“There were no entities,” Clare said, catching up to us, still holding a bell.
“Great work, Clare,” Bria said, her tone so seemingly genuine that I doubted Clare knew it was sarcasm.
“Do you think this was done by the same person who closed off the government building?” asked Jack, who’d been with me when I first felt the weird wall closing off the Line.
I stalled in front of the spirit-stuffed house and scratched my head, staring at the mess of faces in the window, all vying for space to look out. “I honestly don’t know. But if it isn’t the same person, they are obviously talking to each other. The principles of what they are doing is the same. And equally as fucked up.”
“Oh good, you swear.” Bria nodded in relief. “The suit threw me, I have to admit. I was worried you’d be a Mary Sue.” She turned and looked down the street. “I can do magic summoning a spirit, and I can keep a spirit in a body, but I cannot cover a house with magic. I can’t keep a spell stationary for an extended period of time. And I wouldn’t have the first clue about blocking off the Line.”
We all stared at the house for a silent beat until Clare finally said, “Shall we finally go in?”
This was why people hated Mediums.
7
Alexis
“Now.” Clare pushed in close, right at my back. She had a large and small bell squished in her meaty hands. “If you’ll just head on in and go to the right…”
Bria opened the door, walking into the depths. I stepped forward to follow, but as soon as she got out of the way, bodies dressed in ragged clothes crowded into the doorway. The side of a man’s head was singed black, a woman’s ear was half torn, and another man was missing a hand, the stump also singed black. Hands clawed desperately at a waiting Bria, standing in their midst.
“What?” she asked, confusion crossing her expression.
“I’ll just squeeze in past you.” Clare bumped me to the side as she passed, allowing me to backpedal.
“What’s the problem?” Bria asked, leaning against the doorframe.
I sucked air into my lungs while shaking my head. Hollowed eyes and twisted expressions stared out at me from beside her. Behind her, a man babbled about nothing.
“Those people look deranged.” I pointed beyond her. “They are busted up and freaking out. One woman is screaming and beating her hand against her head. Their clothes and whatnot tell me they’re from different walks of life, but they have similar issues, which means something in this house is probably messing them up.”
“Yes, but…” She put out her hands. “It isn’t messing me up. So we’re good.”
I shook my head and swallowed hard, eyeing the surly-faced man staring at me through the window. Streaks of black ate away at the skin on his right temple. A look of vicious ruthlessness barely hid the desperation in his eyes.
Jack leaned against the porch railing and crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze rooted to mine. Without knowing how, I knew he was asking me if I wanted to go. If I gave him a sign, he’d leave with me, right now, without question.
I blew out a breath, his support lending me strength.
“Don’t touch me when we’re in there,” I told Bria quietly, starting forward.
“Got it.” She stepped back and turned, totally at ease with the situation and my curt demand.
I wished I could say the same.
At the door, I dropped my head, slipping into a trance so I could pull my magic around me, creating a barrier between myself and the spirits. Usually I would infuse this same magic into inanimate objects so I wouldn’t have to constantly expend the effort. If only I’d been allowed to bring my Honda, I would’ve had some supplies.
Another connection filtered into my anxiety-soaked mind.
I used my magic to push spirits away. I could infuse objects with it. What would be the difference in drawing them in instead of pushing them away? Surely that’s all this spirit trap maker was doing.