“Allie.” The whisper was close, a cold exhale against my cheek.
Holy shit. That was my dad. I spun toward the sound, holding the Reveal spell intact. Pain bloomed up from my thigh as my wound reopened and poured more blood. I gritted my teeth against making any sound and peered into the crosshatch of light pouring through the dust and dark webwork of magic that filled the air.
I didn’t see my father. Didn’t see his ghost. But I realized that all the lines of magic in the room-coming from the girls, coming from the glyphs on the walls-were connected to whoever was lying on that surgical table.
I took a step closer to the table. The figure was familiar. Two more steps, and I recognized that profile. And I should. It was my father.
Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell. Reality did a sick little dreamlike swing, and I broke out in a sweat. Suddenly I hurt everywhere: my head, my chest, my bleeding leg, every inch of skin and bone that the dead magic users had stabbed burning fingers into and torn apart.
This was too much. Too much too fast. I pressed the palm of my left hand over my forehead, trying to steady my breathing, trying not to let the part of me that was screaming and screaming take over.
Images of Pike’s bloody body, his mutilated face, flashed behind my eyes. Trager’s bloody smile mixed with that, his cold gaze as he shot me, stabbed me, died on me, a heavy stinking heap of flesh that I stabbed until his blood gushed down my legs. Stabbed until he was dead.
What did I think I was doing? I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t a soldier. I wasn’t a killer. I was a Hound. Good at tracking spells. Spells. My life wasn’t supposed to be filled with dying, bloody, horrible, hurting, tortured people.
The part of me that was screaming took up a new chant. What if he’s not dead? What if he’s not dead? What if Dad isn’t dead?
What if my father was still alive-right there, on that table, in this hell house? What if all those lines of magic leading to his body were keeping him alive?
A ringing started in my ears and I felt the room rock a little more. Hello, shock. Wondered when you’d get here.
Get a grip, I told myself. If that was my father, alive or dead, I needed to know. Needed to find a way to save him too. And Anthony. And the girls, if they were still alive.
All before whoever was throwing this little soiree came back to check on the guests.
I gripped Zayvion’s dagger tighter and limped over to the tables in the middle of the room. The ghost girls to my left moaned and shifted, stretching to the lengths of their magical chains, hands still clawing the air for me. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if those chains broke.
I stopped next to the table.
My dad-my dad’s body-was strapped down to the table, leather bindings across the ankles, hips, and both wrists. Why? My mind raced with images from horror movies. Things people did to torture, to destroy. But none of it matched this. It was as if someone expected his body might get up, leave, go for a walk, escape.
Which was ridiculous. Because even I could tell he was very, very dead.
Black lines of magic from the girls draped down to play like wind-stirred mist across a large square lead and glass engraved plate on my dad’s chest. From this angle, I could make out glyphs of Life surrounded by glyphs of Death carved on the plate just like the wall outside Get Mugged-just like the walls in here.
The acrid stink of chemicals-formaldehyde and something else-the rancid scent of something biological gone bad, like spoiled fat left in the heat, hit me. And the misty black spell rising like steam off of the plate stank of cloying licorice, so strong it made the back of my throat tighten. Magic. Not blood magic. Not any kind of magic I had ever smelled before. Something dark. Something bad.
“Allison.” The whisper came from the other side of the table.
I looked up.
My dead dad stood on the other side of the table, his corpse spread out between us. Ghost Dad was transparent enough that even the dull light from the window poured through him. He cast no shadow next to mine on the floor.
“The gates between the living world and that of the dead are opening.” His voice was the most alive thing about him, though his pale, pale green eyes still shone with a kind of light-anger, determination. He sounded like himself but as if he spoke from across the room even though he was close enough I could touch him.
“That’s not my problem.” I wanted it to come out strong, but only a whisper escaped my lips.
“Yes,” he said. “It is. There are things you don’t know, dark things, dark magics that dwell on the other side. If they are allowed into this world, you, the people you care for, will die.”
I thought about Pike, already dead. Then I thought about Violet, who was pregnant with my father’s child, my brother or sister. I thought about Davy, and then my mind turned to Zayvion.
Shit.
“I’m going to call the police,” I said a little louder than before. “MERC can handle this. Fix this.”
“Allison, listen to me. This is far more than the police or any of the uninitiated can handle. You must do as I say. Let me touch you. Let me use the magic you hold in your body, your blood to seal the gates. It is what you were born for, what you and I were meant to do. With your magic, I can break these spells. Close the gates that are just beginning to open. You and I together can keep those we love safe. Alive.”
Okay, I liked it better when he couldn’t talk. Maybe being so close to his dead body made him strong enough his words carried a little of the old Influence he used to use on me to make me do what he wanted.
Frankly, everything he was saying just made me want to run like hell.
“You want to use me?” I said. And yes, that came out indignant. I get prickly under extreme duress. We had a long history, my father and I. And most of it was him trying to use me for his own benefit. “For all I know you set this up. Maybe you’re the one who wants to open the gates. Maybe you’re the one who is hurting those girls and hurting Anthony.” Maybe you’re the one responsible for Pike’s death, I thought silently.
“If that were true, I would not rely on chance to bring you here. I certainly would not rely on your cooperation for my plan to work. I am not that irresponsible.”
He had me there. My father was a thorough bastard when it came to planning and executing his desires. It didn’t seem likely he would implement anything, much less something that may involve a lot of magic, a lot of death, and me going along with it all, in such a haphazard way.
Still, he was dead. Maybe dying had dulled his edge.
“Fine,” I said. “Prove to me I can trust you. Free Anthony from the Offload.”
“Who?”
“The boy being used as a Proxy on the other side of this room.”
He scowled into the distance as if trying to focus through a fog. “He is nothing.”
“He’s someone I care about. Someone I have promised to look after.”
“Allie.” He was getting angry. I knew that tone. “You underestimate the severity of the problem. One boy’s life is nothing to give.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “One boy’s life is too much to give. I am going to get the hell out of here, find a phone, and call the police.”
I took maybe five painful strides away from my father’s dead body.
“Oh, let’s not ruin a good thing,” a man’s voice echoed from behind me.
I turned and spotted a movement by the darkest area across the room, which, now that I looked closely, was a doorway.