Blood Spirits (39 page)

“This is like a stepladder,” Phaedra waved dismissively at the treacherous climb. “I only need harness on cliff faces.”

With that she wrapped her own line around her hips, took it in hand, leaped over the edge, causing Beka and me to gasp. She ran, bounced, then jumped again, landing solidly on the small plateau twenty feet below, sending snow flying.

“That's where Alec was found,” Beka murmured to me.

“I'm surprised he didn't break his neck!”

“He was, too.” Her tone was subdued.

Phaedra held out her arms, encouraging Tania over. With Beka and me guarding the rope from above, and Phaedra from below, Tania inched her way down the chasm. Once or twice the two caused small avalanches that covered them with sprays of white powder.

“What's Phaedra's issue? Is she mad at me on Ruli's behalf, or mad at you?”

Beka laughed softly, sending a cloud of vapor into the still air. “She dislikes me for something unforgivable that I did in childhood, and again when we were teens. And yes, that time, it was about Alec.”

Tania said sharply, “Here.” Her voice echoed up the rocky crags.

Tania balanced on a rock near a broken tree, staring in that fixed way that reminded me of cats. Phaedra had also stilled, her head shifting in quick, minute flicks. Clearly she didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

“Something about Alec?” I asked, prepared to be shut down. Or ignored.

Beka sighed. “I said she was stupid. Because she doesn't read. I was a horridly arrogant teen. Arrogant and jealous.”

“Smug or miserable, all part of the teen package,” I said. “She's still angry?”

Voices echoed from below as Tania said something, and Phaedra answered. Then Phaedra lifted her head, her hands curving around her mouth to amplify the sound as she yelled, “He won't talk.”

Beka and I looked at each other. “He?”

“Is this the wrong accident site?” I asked.

Beka peered downward. “There is where the trees burned. The wounds in the higher trees are still fresh. We're in the right place. But the ghost might be old. Perhaps others have crashed here. It is a treacherous turn.”

We had to contain our impatience as the two labored their way back up. Phaedra guided Tania's every step, frequently catching her when Tania slid or got panicky.

Tania never made a sound. Her face was crimson, especially where she'd bitten her lips, but when she regained the roadside, she said, “There is a man. He is dark of hair and eyes. He wears a coat of smooth leather and very fine shoes.”

“Old fashioned clothes? New?”

Tania touched her chest. “New. His trousers, they zip here.” She patted her waist in front. “Many of the old ghosts, they have buttons.”

“That ghost could be from last summer, or seventy years ago,” I said. “Zippers in men's pants became standard around the time of World War two.”

“I
still
think Ruli would haunt Paris,” Phaedra called as she freed her ropes. “Probably at Hermès.”

I'd been fingering the prism in my pocket. “Look,” I said to Beka in an under-voice. “It's probably a waste of time, but like Phaedra said, we're here. We should try everything.”

Beka looked puzzled, then her eyes widened. “I agree.”

Phaedra had stowed the rope in the back of the car. She paused, one slim hand on her perfect hip, the other jamming those intimidating glasses on her nose. “What now?” Her voice changed. “What's that for?”

I had the prism on my hand. It winked and glittered, catching shards from the sun riding above the northern mountains. The sparkles were so intense I closed my eyes.

“Experiment,” I said. “Beka, what do I do to find that day?”

“I don't know how seers find a specific time. Perhaps look for Ruli's face? Maybe you will see her in the car?” She spread her hands, a quick, graceful gesture even with fuzzy mittens. “I am out of my realm.”

I drew in a deep breath, reaching for my one clear memory of Ruli, when we first saw one another up at the Eyrie. I recalled her features as I shifted the prism a millimeter at a time.

Something flashed, too quick to catch.

“It's like a single frame of a film, but I know it's there,” I said, frustrated.

Tania came to my side and peered doubtfully at the prism. “Are you perhaps seeing her in a moment of motion?”

“
Alors!
” Beka exclaimed. “That must be it. She is passing in and out of the space where you stand.”

Phaedra plucked off her glasses, then her brows arched skeptically. “Or you are imagining her? I don't understand this. Is it something like Honoré's auras?”

“No, it's different . . .” I shook my head. “It's fast, but I get enough of an impression to see different colors—she's wearing different clothes. Weird.”

“You are seeing her at different times,” Beka stated. “You need to isolate that day, if you can.”

“How?” I looked around. “Oh. I'm in the middle of the road. So, if those are different times, then I'm seeing her being driven along. I need to catch her going off the cliff. Which means . . .” I didn't know much about prisms and Second Sight, but I knew plenty about how traffic and cars worked. I stamped along the slushy ground to the side of the road. “If they began to skid off there, they probably started right about here.” I faced the road and moved the prism, trying to see the green Daimler that I'd ridden in for so many days.

This time the blur was less smeary and the image more clear, enough for me to recognize the Daimler coming at me head on. I jumped back, then steadied myself. No car was going to hit me.

When I tried again, it was easier—and the blurring, sliding image lasted long enough for me to see that there were two people in the front seat.

And I didn't know either of them.

TWENTY-FOUR

“I
T'S THE SAME CAR?” Phaedra asked for the third time.

I know that car. I rode in it for days. It's definitely the same car.”

Beka shook her head slowly. “Perhaps a similar car, from another year? I do not understand how it is possible that two people you have never seen could be in a car that no one drove besides Alec or Klaus Kilber. You didn't see Kilber?”

“A woman is driving. She has a pointy face.” I motioned to my chin. My head panged. “Narrow here.” I touched my cheeks. “Dark hair, very short, escaping under a red cap.”

Phaedra made a stifled noise and waved for me to go on.

So I finished, “She's wearing a brown coat.”

“The man?” Phaedra asked, arms crossed. But her tone was interested, not derisive.

“He's asleep, or leaning his head back, so all I could see was dark hair and a sort of smeary gleam here.” I touched my shoulders. “Light along a smooth thing. Not fabric. Maybe a leather jacket.”

Tania's words
coat of leather
reverberated in my head. Beka's eyes widened, and Phaedra tipped her head.

“You imagined it,” Phaedra said emphatically, jerking a thumb Tania's way. “Because she said her ghost is wearing a leather coat.”

Instantly doubt hit me. “Maybe I saw what I expected to see,” I said. “Except why would I see that woman? I don't know her.”

Beka's lips were a tight line. “Wait. Kim, is the car sliding, like it's out of control, or is it coming to a stop?”

“I don't know. Could be either. It's moving slowly through my space, with a sense of movement like this.” I pushed my hand toward the side of the road.

“
Vache
!” Beka's sharp exclamation snapped our attention her way. She made a visible effort and spoke in that neutrally flat teacher's tone. “Kim. Would you try one more thing for me? To be thorough.”

“Name it.”

“Come back to this point, here, where the car might have either stopped, or gone off the road. This time, instead of trying to see the Daimler, try to see Alec.”

“Oh, good thinking.” I paused to breathe and sloshed a few paces closer to the verge of the road. It had given me a bit of a headache, concentrating on the two strangers. But try to see Alec? That should be easy. I gazed down into the prism, turning it minutely, then shifting from left to right—

There. Gone in a blink, as usual, but now I was getting better at the tiny adjustments I needed to make to bring the vision back into focus, even if only for a second or two.

There.

I recognized the back of Alec's head. Below that one shoulder, and his arm, utterly inert, his hand loose, hanging off the back seat. He lay on his side.

I moved a yard diagonally and turned slowly to look back. I stood in the space where the front seat had been. I looked down into the prism—and there he was, not two feet away, hair spilling across his forehead, the rest of him sprawled in unconsciousness. Caught in time. I looked so long and hard that dizziness frazzled the edges of my vision.

I looked up, blinking rapidly until I regained focus on the trio of waiting faces. “He's asleep in the back seat.”

Beka was pale as death. She said carefully, “Good. Now look again at the man in the front seat, if you can.”

He would be in the same space I was standing, so I edged to my right, then turned again, so I stood in the driver's space, and I stared down through the prism at where the shotgun seat would be.

There was the man a few inches away.

You move as if inspired, sweet Ruli
, a voice whispered.

Cold poured through my nerves as if someone had shoved a bucket of snow inside my skin.

“I know that guy,” I said numbly. “I mean I recognize him. It's the guy I danced with in the Split nightclub.”

“Marzio di Peretti?” Phaedra squeaked. “Marzio? And Alec, in the Daimler? But everyone said . . .”

My throat was tight. I swallowed, instinct forcing me to be exact, as if every move, every word was important. “It is the same man I danced with. I never heard his name. He—he thought I was Ruli, you see. That day in Split.”

Phaedra gazed over the ledge. “I don't get it. How could Marzio become a ghost?”

“If it's the same man,” I said. I think
I
was squeaking. My voice sure didn't sound like mine.

Beka rubbed her cheeks fiercely. “I think the first question is, why was Magda Stos driving the Daimler with two sleeping men inside it?”

Phaedra jerked around. “You thought that, too? Magda wears a red cap. She has short hair, and that chin—” She said to me, “We used to call her
Barbe
, when Aunt Sisi first put her to spy on Ruli. You know, for that pointed beard of the musketeer days.” Phaedra's words came in a quick rush. “She drove Marzio to the border that day, we know that. But Alec in the back seat? Are you sure?”

“That is what I saw,” I said, hoping so hard that I tried to squash hope down.

Beka looked my way, her gaze stark. “There was one body found,” she said softly. “I could see Alec sliding out of the back seat if the door somehow opened . . .”

“But how would Magda call from Paris on Stefan-Zarbat, if she was driving this car, which ended up down there?” Phaedra pointed downward.

“She called?” Beka asked.

“You remember,” Phaedra said to me. “We stopped the fencing practice. She told the family that she drove Marzio to the border, as he requested. But I'd swear someone said she used one of the palace cars. And she wouldn't take the Daimler. Nobody drove it but Alec, and Kilber, and maybe Emilio. The clutch was temperamental. Stalled out if you breathed wrong.”

Tania had gone pale and still. Beka rubbed her hands slowly, then stuck them in her armpits. “Kim, one last request. Can you see any other cars around?”

“I'll try.”

My head was pounding by then, but I trod through the slush to the place where I'd seen the car head on and shifted the prism. Nothing. But when I concentrated on the Daimler, I got the blur-images like before. “I guess for this to work I have to look for something specific, either a car, or a person.”

“It was a good try. I think we are done.” Beka gazed into space, her brow troubled.

“No, we're not.” Phaedra put her hands on her hips. “All we've got are more questions.”

“Let's talk about it on the way back,” Beka looked around at us. “I'm freezing. You must be, too.”

“I'm fine.” Phaedra shrugged.

I was rubbing my achy fingers, and Tania shivered. Phaedra threw her hands wide and started for the car.

As soon as we were in, Phaedra swung the car in a neck-twisting tight U, but when we skidded, she slowed, her voice revealing her frustration as she said, “Marzio has never been in Dobrenica before, so it couldn't be any other day. So where was Ruli?”

Beka stared through the windshield, her expression tense, even nervous.

Tania said softly, “Might she have gone in another car?”

Phaedra said, “Then where's the wreck of that one, whatever car it is? In Paris we were told that Ruli was in Alec's green Daimler when it went over the cliff. It's Milo's old car. Nobody else has one like it. Alec said he had her purse, so she had to be with him. She would never go anywhere without her purse.”

I said, “But what if it's not Ruli in the wreckage in spite of the purse?”

Phaedra retorted, “So who is in that coffin?”

I said, “Who identified the body?”

Phaedra shot an exasperated glance over her shoulder at me. “I was in Paris—” The car drifted, and she snapped her gaze back to the road. “But I heard Uncle Jerzy breaking the news to Tante Sisi. Dr. Kandras reported that she was burned beyond recognition.” Phaedra braked and slewed around in her seat to frown at me. “Are you saying he mistook a man's body for Ruli's?”