* * *
M ost nights in the shop, the dead were silent. If anything woke me up, it was usually Bubbles or Peanut streaking into the room like a furry missile before slamming into me on one of the chairs. Tonight was different.
Someone called my name. I was unsure if the voice was there, unsure I’d heard the sound when it first echoed through my consciousness. I grumbled something unintelligible and cracked my eyes open to find a gray form standing nearby. I didn’t think anything of it. I just figured it was Koda, using Ward’s circle to do some research. My eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. When I realized it was the witching hour, a frisson of dread shot through my spine.
I snapped my gaze back to the form inside the ghost circle. It didn’t have Koda’s cloak, or his oversized prayer beads resting around his neck. For that matter, the ghost before me wasn’t fully formed. It shouldn’t have been able to get inside, much less place itself inside the ghost circle, unless it was Koda. That meant it had help, which meant someone else had to be here.
The ghost made no move to approach me. It only held up its hand and stared at the translucent fog that had once been its fingers. When it raised its eyes to me, each was black, struck through with a tiny bit of yellow lightning. “They are coming. They are near.”
My heart rate spiked, amplifying the dread wrapping itself around my spine. “Why? And how did you get in here?”
The ghost was a few feet away from me, and then it wasn’t. It moved toward me, one moment a safe distance, and the next I was staring into gold-tinted eyes mere inches in front of my own. “They are coming.” The ghost vanished.
“What the fuck?” I muttered. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting a lot more sleep that night. I figured I should probably warn the fairies, in case the ghost hadn’t been off his rocker. I tried to remember details about him, what he’d been wearing, where I’d seen the patterns on his uniform before. But he’d had a vague form, as if someone had started pulling him apart. Perhaps it had been the aftereffects of being torn away from whatever battlefield he’d died on. I suspected that’s what had happened, considering the soul that still waited within his eyes.
For a moment, I wondered if the ghost had been from World War I, like the ghost who had helped us near Rivercene. I frowned. I didn’t think so. I was pretty sure his shoulder had an honor braid, and an old one at that. One like they’d used during the Civil War, one that Zola would’ve called chicken guts.
I hopped out of the chair and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, heading toward the stairs. I tried to remember any nearby battles where an officer might have fallen in the Civil War, as I suspected some of the shadowy forms on the ghost had signified his rank. But I couldn’t think of any specific ones.
I paused when I reached the bottom of the stairs. Bubbles stared at the back door.
“You saw it, too.”
Bubbles chuffed.
“Keep watch for me.”
Bubbles settled onto the floor, her head on her paws, staring at the door. I had to admit, cu siths made good guard dogs. Of course, I also suspected she’d be back in her lair about five seconds after I turned my back.
“Foster, Aideen, you awake?” When no one answered, I knocked on the edge of the grandfather clock. Foster had once told me that was about the same as being hit by an earthquake, so I figured they’d wake up sooner rather than later.
It didn’t take long before Foster stumbled out from the back of the clock, stepping onto what had been an empty shelf a moment before, the deep interior of their home hidden by whatever wards had been placed on the old wood.
“What the hell?” Foster muttered.
“There was a ghost.”
Foster raised an eyebrow and stared at me.
“An unusual ghost.”
“And why does that require you to wake us up with a bloody earthquake?”
“It was weird. All the ghost would say was, ‘They are coming. They are near.’”
“Son of a bitch,” Foster said. “Why didn’t you say so? That’s an old fairy warning.” He ran back inside the clock, and I suspected it was to fetch Aideen.
* * *
It wasn’t long before the fairies reappeared on the grandfather clock’s middle shelf, Foster in mid-sentence. “…telling you, it was one of the old warnings. Whatever it was, it told Damian, ‘They are coming. They are near.’”
“No,” Aideen said. “That phrase is long dead. It hasn’t been used in earnest since the time of Atlantis and the fall of the Mad King.”
Alexandra’s minuscule form sprinted out of the grandfather clock, swelling into her full height, translucent one moment, flesh the next. “We must tell Nixie.” She turned her emerald eyes to me. “What did it look like? The ghost, what did it look like?”
“Like a Civil War soldier. Much of his body was ill-defined. I could see honor braids on one shoulder, but it definitely wasn’t the uniform of a modern soldier.”
“I’ll be at the river,” Alexandra said. She hurried toward the saloon-style doors, hitting them at a full run. “Don’t let anyone into the store that you don’t know,” she shouted over her shoulder. “If I haven’t returned in fifteen minutes, assume the worst. And make ready.” She unlocked the deadbolt on the front door and was gone.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, turning to Foster and Aideen.
“It was the last thing the Mad King’s advisor ever said to him,” Foster said. “Before one of his own knights took his head. So it’s a safe bet that a ghost from the Civil War doesn’t know the phrase. Someone manipulated an older ghost.”
“Get your gun, your focus, and anything else you can kill with. And then we wait to see if Alexandra comes back.”
“Let’s follow her and make sure she comes back,” I said.
“No,” Aideen said. “I understand why you want to, but if this is the beginning of an attack, she has a better chance alone.”
“A better chance than what?” I asked.
“A better chance to escape an army stationed outside your door, than having to worry about the three of us.”
Bubbles picked that moment to trundle out of her lair and chuff as she looked up at Aideen.
“The four of us,” Aideen said, gliding down to settle on the cu sith’s head.
The first few minutes flew by as Foster and Aideen slipped into their armor, and I pulled the holster for the pepperbox over my head before sliding the hilt of the focus into my belt. Once the frantic rush to gather our weapons was over, time barely seemed to be passing at all.
* * *
“Who sent the message in Atlantis?” I asked.
Aideen and Foster exchanged a glance before Aideen said, “It was Nixie and Alexandra’s queen, the last time the throne of the water witches was emptied.”
Even though it was one of the few answers I expected to hear, it wasn’t reassuring. In fact, knowing so many of our allies were out of touch—either on a mission for the Obsidian Inn or fighting a battle of their own near Falias—was downright unsettling.
“We need to warn who we can,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “You haven’t heard from the Obsidian Inn yet, have you?”
“No,” Foster said. “Whatever is happening, they either don’t need our help, or everyone’s already dead.”
I thought that was probably a little more black-and-white than reality, but it didn’t seem like the time to argue with Foster. I started texting Sam.
Shop might be under attack. Be ready.
She responded a moment later. I’ll gather the others.
Hold off until you hear from me. We don’t know what’s happening yet. It might be a warning. Just waiting for Alexandra’s report.
Keep me posted.
“Sam will have some of the vampires ready, if we need them.”
I thought about reaching out to Alan, as I knew he was back from Kansas City for at least a week to spend more time with his family. But I didn’t want to drag the werewolves into this if I didn’t have to. That should be Hugh’s choice, as alpha of the river pack. They’d sacrificed enough over the years for us, and to Philip’s ruses.
I stared at my phone, a creeping sense of dread crawling up my spine.
“What’s wrong?” Aideen said.
“A ruse. This could be a ruse. Not a warning, not an attack. A ruse to keep us here, on our toes, and away from another target.”
“Casper,” Foster said.
I cursed.
“One of us could go scout the base,” Foster said.
I shook my head. “We’re thinned out enough as it is. We haven’t reached half our allies, and we’ve heard nothing from Alexandra. They could be waiting for her to come back.”
Foster pulled his sword a fraction of an inch from its sheath before slamming it home with a click. “I don’t like this.”
“Of course not,” Aideen said. “You haven’t stabbed a single thing yet today.”
Foster gave her a sideways smile.
Aideen glanced at the clock. “Anytime now. If Alexandra isn’t back before the quarter hour has ended, we must either make a stand or run.”