Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) (22 page)

The darkness opened for me, pulling me up and I gratefully went. The lights twinkled in the inky black and despite the cold, I felt a rush of warmth spread across my shoulders. The pain in my throbbing temples rolled back and for barely an instant, I had the sense that someone stood over me. There was someone in the darkness behind me, and they were
aware
.

But then the sensation was gone and in its place only the familiar peace, the gentle nothingness that had so often lulled me and tempted me to stay. A light bobbed into my vision and I moved towards it.

The girl’s soul came easily, curling into my arms like a child to a parent, and carefully I trod downwards. The soul floated above the lightly breathing body, tapping it tentatively before, with a sound like a sigh, sinking down into the girl’s chest. I watched her mouth drop open, as though being relieved of some great pain.

I rocked back onto my heels and took my shaking hand from the girl’s head. Her eyes fluttered, a low murmur coming from her. Chad looked at her quizzically and then opened his mouth to speak at the same instant that the girl gasped and jackknifed forward, throwing off the sheet.

I barely got a glimpse, but the impression of nudity was enough that both Chad and I whipped our heads to one side. Shouts came from somewhere and then what felt like hundreds of hands were on me, pulling and pushing both until I was shoved to one side.

I scrambled back, getting out of the way of the EMTs as they swarmed the girl. Someone produced a blanket, one of those shock blanket things, and quickly draped it over her shoulders. I heard her voice, small and frightened, but her words were lost amongst the chaos.

My head felt like it had been clapped between two rocks. No one paid me any attention as I got to my feet and staggered a few yards away from the commotion. The sweat on my brow froze in the chilly air. My stomach rolled, twisting hard enough that I wondered if I would be sick. Not throw up sick. The other way sick. I blinked rapidly against the sudden burning in my eyes, the revolving lights from the nearby fire engine leaving ghost lights in my vision.

“You okay?” Chad appeared at my side, reaching for my elbow, as was his custom.

The pinch of his fingers on my arm steadied me and I leaned into him.

“It takes a toll,” I told him weakly.

His eyebrows came together, but he just nodded. We stood together and watched the rest of the emergency response team gather the girl onto a gurney. Only her pale face  peeked out from the blanket, her tangled dark hair flowing over the side like a fall of black water. She turned her head as she was wheeled past me and our eyes locked for one instant. Without thinking, I took a step forward, Chad’s hold on my arm all that held me back.

“What is it?” Chad asked.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just... they’ll take her to the hospital?”

“Yeah, she’ll get checked out. You saved her, Ebron. She was dead.”

“I know,” I said and sighed. I turned to him, unsteady on my feet. “Still one more?”

“Yeah,” he said. “God, are you okay? Your nose is bleeding.”

I dabbed under my nose with one finger and looked numbly at the bright red blood, blinking hard to bring it into focus. A weird wave of heat washed over me and was gone, leaving me to shiver while fresh sweat chilled on my forehead. A long shudder went through me.

“Come on,” I croaked. “Help me.”

Chad hesitated, but then he gently nudged me closer to the twisted ruin of the sedan. Someone’s parents’ car, undoubtedly, borrowed for the dance. I stumbled along with him, like my feet weren’t my own.  Another cramp knotted my guts and vaguely, distantly, I thought that when I got home I was heading straight to the bathroom and staying there.

The frantic activity of the scene swirled around me in an uneven blur. Chad steadied me on the icy blacktop, stepping over skid lines that careened off into the guardrails. I glanced over my shoulder as an ambulance whirred to life, bearing the dark-haired girl away into the night.

A crackle from Chad’s radio startled me and I jumped, then winced at the bite of pain in my temples. I wanted to sit down, but then I looked up and saw one more lumpy white sheet. And discarded beside it, a few feet away, sat a purple high-heeled shoe, standing upright like it was just waiting for its owner to slip it back on.

“One to go,” Chad reminded me gently. He gave a nod to the paramedics sitting beside the body and they moved away slowly, their eyes fixed on me.

Though, I had to admit, not unkindly.

My head swam. Sweat itched in my armpits and rolled slowly down my sides. Dizziness rolled over me in waves.

 “Chad,” I said, turning to stare hard at him. “Chad, I might not...” I don’t know if he understood. I swayed, my legs like rubber. Dawning realization made his eyes widen and he looked helplessly back at the still, covered shape. I closed my eyes, willing the dizziness away. Despair, self-loathing, desperation, it all jumbled together and smothered me until I felt choked by my own roaring emotions.

Chad grabbed my arm and guided me to the lump. Solemnly, he gave me a nod and we exchanged a heavy look. I sank to the ground beside the body, unable to stop shooting glances at the discarded shoe. Chad noticed; he nudged himself right up against me, blocking my view.

“You can do this,” he told me. “One last time.”

I nodded.

“Ebron,” Chad started, then stopped, his brow wrinkling. He grimaced but then shook his head.

I looked back at the lifeless lump I wondered if the paramedics used new sheets for each accident, or if someone had to wash them to be used again. Probably not. They probably had to be sterile, or something, right? They were probably biohazards after they were touched with blood.

I pulled the sheet down with a little jerk. Beside me, Chad let out a hiss and I would have made a noise too, if the nausea hadn’t suddenly choked me.

“No,” I whispered. No. I blinked but that didn’t make it go away. It. The truth. The fact that I was staring down at an achingly familiar face.

Danielle, Dahlia’s youngest daughter, swathed in the tattered ruffles of a purple and silver gown. She looked tiny, encased in all that crumpled fabric. Her face pressed into the snowy asphalt, her neck awkwardly bent. One arm twisted out beside her in an unnatural angle, her thin fingers cupped and catching snowflakes. In the pulsing red and blue light of the emergency vehicles, her skin looked ghostly. A drop of blood sat on the surface of one of her wide, sightless eyes.

I turned away for a second, gulping air. No one deserved to die like that, face down on a lonely highway, limbs twisted and fear on her face. I wondered if Dahlia was sitting awake, right at that moment, waiting breathlessly for her to return home safe. My fingers itched for my phone. I should call her, she should be here, I should... get to work.

Closing my eyes helped. Chad’s hand on my shoulder helped too, anchoring me. Because my head ached and my body felt numb and I didn’t know how much gas I had left in me. Enough, I hoped.

For now, I just had to concentrate. She was a broken body that I could fix, a soul that I could find. Just had to breathe. Just had to ignore the panic, the horror. I felt the pull upwards, but faintly and when it came pain burst in my head with such force that I grunted. Wetness on my upper lip distracted me and when I touched my nose my fingers came away slick with blood.

I let myself float, still and without any intent. The pain subsided a bit, and I drifted upwards. My headache faded, as did all physical sensations, and I took the opportunity to just exist there, in that calm safety. Fixing Danielle would hurt—badly—and I steeled myself for it.

I moved upwards, pushing myself out like I’d launched myself away from the edge of a pool and into the deep water. The medium around me held me up—but I could still sink if I didn’t work for it. I had to bring my A game.

I gathered a few pinpoints of glowing light to my chest and turned slowly, looking for more. There should have been more, but I peered into blackness that was unbroken by any lights. Did it not replenish? Had I taken it all?

Maybe higher up?

I had to make claws to climb, dragging myself upwards with effort and by the time I had reached a level where the lights were more abundant, my whole body ached with leaden pain, even through the numbing veil of the astral plane.

I took what I could, pulling light to me sluggishly, like I was reaching through water. Something was happening to my physical body, far down below. Like something was draining out of me. Distantly, I heard Chad’s voice, but I focused my resolve and scrambled a little farther up.

Everything wavered, a sense of vertigo washing after me as the whole world around me tilted. Pressure built in my head, in my ears. Out of the darkness came a high, ringing noise that echoed all around me. The sound grew until I felt it even in my teeth.

I dropped, falling out of the higher plane suddenly enough that my grip on the glowing light ball faltered. But at the last second, I tightened my hands and pulled it down with me. I hoped it would be enough.

Someone shook my shoulder, jostling my physical body and I cracked open an eye. Chad exhaled the second I did, but the relief on his face quickly turned to concern when I turned my head and dry-heaved.

“Ebron!” he was on me immediately, his big hands on my shoulders to steady me. I weakly tried to push him off, more concerned that the light I had brought back with me was just sort of hovering timidly over the dead girl’s twisted body.

“I got to finish this,” I panted at Chad, nudging him aside. Shoving him, actually, though I felt about as weak as a kitten. I scrambled to sit upright, reaching for Danielle’s fragile hand. Chad shifted, giving me better access, but he stayed glued beside me. I was grateful for it, leaning close into the warm shelter of his body. He sniffed a few times, his eyes welling in the cold wind.

My own eyes burned as I extended a hand and guided the light down to the Danielle’s body. It went immediately, as though glad of the instruction. Pinpoints of light spread over her, and wormed into the crumpled purple dress, into the mottled skin of her bare back, into her scraped face. I swayed, pressing one hand into the gravelly surface of the cold highway to steady myself, and hoped that it would be enough. Prayed. I’d claw my way back up there, if necessary. I’d rip all the lights from the heavens.

She stirred and both Chad and I sighed in relief.

“Oh, God,” I moaned, sagging a bit. Her back rose and fell and very carefully, I pushed at her shoulder until she rolled and lay face up. Her blood-speckled eyes stared at me, but at least her bloodied face wasn’t scraping the gravel. Her mouth sagged with broken teeth and I thought of the picture in Dahlia’s shop, the girls all smiling for the camera. What was she, like sixteen? Christ. I smoothed more light over her face and let my fingers linger on her torn lips.

“You know her,” Chad said.

“She’s my friend Dahlia’s kid,” I said, looking up at him. “You didn’t know?”

“No,” he said. “Is she okay?”

 “I’m not done. I have to go back. I have to get her soul.”

“Jesus Christ, Ebron,” Chad said, staring as the laceration on her face knit themselves back together. “Jesus Christ.”

“Be right back,” I said.

My vision went fuzzy around the edges and I blinked rapidly a few times. A cramp knifed into my stomach and I let out a small sigh.

“Ebron?” Chad asked. His voice sounded distant. I couldn’t feel his hand on my elbow anymore.

“I’m almost done,” I said, a pep talk to myself. I didn’t hear Chad’s reply and turned my head to look at him. I d through my nose. I had to go back. Something heavy kept slamming into my chest. My head ached.

Chad yelled something, faint and far away.

“What?” I asked, squinting through the fuzziness.

His blurry face moved closer towards mine. “I said—”

I didn’t hear what he said. The ground rushed up to meet me and I floated away into the darkness.

Chapter 15

I swam back into consciousness slowly, with the same sluggishness I felt when moving through the higher planes. Swimming like a salmon, in the opposite direction. Always moving upstream.

I opened my eyes to white light, and winced, blinking rapidly and turning my head. Voices, then, urgent and close. I heard my name and rotated my head again, trying to pinpoint the location of the voice. My tongue scraped dryly against the roof of my mouth. My limbs felt heavy and slow.

I cracked open my crusty eyes and looked into Cody and Scott’s concerned faces. They leaned over, one on either side and as my eyes found theirs they each exhaled.

“Wha—” I tried to sit up and both of them lunged forward, pressing on my shoulders to get me to lay back. Into stiff white sheets that were not my own. Something tugged on the top of my hand when I moved it, a tiny pinprick of pain. A blocky, beeping machine hovered by my left shoulder, like a robotic nursemaid. I let my eyes roam over the tiny room, taking in the white, featureless walls and the TV mounted in the corner and the smell I knew was death, both repellent and familiar.

I closed my eyes again and blew out an unsteady breath. “Why am I in the hospital?”

Cody moved closer, taking the seat to the right of me and leaning his head close. He reached for my hand and didn’t let go.

“You were at a car accident last night,” he said softly, urgently. “Remember? With Chad Metz?”

I nodded slowly and then my eyes flew open. I tried to sit up again. “Danielle! I didn’t finish her. Is she... did she—”

“We don’t know,” Scott said. He poked a few buttons on the rail of the bed and the front half of it rose into an L shape with a mechanical hum. I startled at the sudden movement, feeling everything beneath me shift, but then rested back again with a sigh. I felt nothing though, no pain. Only tightness in my chest that spread down into my belly. The hospital...fuck. I remembered...

“Where’s Chad?” I asked. “Is Dahlia here?” Then my eyes narrowed. “What are you two doing here?”

“Calm down, son,” Scott said, dropping a heavy hand onto my shoulder.