I crested the hill to discover Chief Thomas hadn’t been kidding about his cops being on the scene. A parade of police and FBI vehicles parked along the road leading to a Spanish Mission styled mansion, one easily large enough to house the vineyard workers with room to spare. I whistled, wondering how many millions of dollars the owner had spent buying the place. “Luke?”
“Yes?”
I smiled, knowing the perfect way to nettle my co-lead. “Please call Detective Davis and ask him how many blind dates he has scheduled today.” I counted vehicles. “Two quads from the looks of it, a possible supervisor or extras, five patrol pairs, three forensics vans, and an ambulance.”
The ambulance would be to take the body to the morgue, but the two extra forensics vans puzzled me. I would’ve sent one.
Then again, the mansion was huge, so maybe the police or the quads wanted to get things done in a hurry so I wouldn’t have a reason to complain.
I liked when people did things efficiently and with the goal of minimizing complaints from the bottom up. When I didn’t have a reason to complain, my boss didn’t have a reason to complain, and when he didn’t have a reason to complain, the uppers didn’t, either.
“Why don’t I just ask where he’s at?”
“Don’t ruin the only good part of my day, Luke. I’m going to head down and see which quads are here. They’re not mine, and the boss didn’t say where he was getting quads from to watch over Davis until we arrived.”
“Technically, they’re all yours. You outrank every other supervisor in the state,” Luke reminded me.
“But they’re not mine.” While I could boss every quad in the state around, I preferred to stick to my usual hunting grounds and work with the other supervisors rather than steamroll them.
“One is probably his babysitter.”
I pointed at the luxury SUV reserved for supervisors. “I don’t know if that’s a quad supervisor or not. Also, why don’t I ever get one of those?”
“Because our entire resident agency has better than the baseline SUVs. You sacrificed your luxury SUV so we’d all have better ones.”
Oh. Right. I had. “I should just buy myself a car one of these days.”
“And deny Eddy the opportunity to drive you around several times a week? Don’t be silly, Olivia.” Luke patted my shoulder. “Have fun storming the castle. I’ll call Ray, and I’ll even be nice and ask him about his blind dates. I’ll even ask why there are two quads and a supervisor, but one quad is probably watching Ray. That makes that quad technically yours.”
“That’s still not what I want to hear, and that doesn’t explain why there is a second quad here. I want answers, not even more questions to contend with today.” I headed down the slope, muttering curses under my breath. Halfway down, I slipped, landed on my ass, and skidded the rest of the way to the driveway.
Stones, bristly underbrush, and sandy gravel tore into my skin before tingling magic enveloped me. The last few feet of the drop hurt a great deal less, and I’d have to thank Jamie for keeping my fall from turning into a headlong tumble down the hill.
Unfortunately, someone had called in Santa Clara county’s FBI quad supervisor, Sergio Greene. He leaned against one of the nearby SUVs, the accursed luxury model, and smirked at me. “So nice of you to drop in, Olivia.”
I held up the scanner, which had survived my fall without incident. “This scanner, plus our current location within Alameda county, says I have undisputed jurisdiction. Read it and weep, Greene.”
“Olivia, you have state-wide jurisdiction. All you have to do is show up.”
Why was everyone out to ruin the little fun I could find about my current situation? “Why are you here, anyway?”
“I’m a gopher today. The boss asked me to show up and make sure nothing happened to, and I quote, your pet cop. I can’t believe you finally got a pet cop.”
Beaming at my fellow quad supervisor, I waved my scanner at him some more. “And look what he gave me!”
“I almost feel bad for telling you this, but you don’t get to keep it. I take it you’re working on the Oakland City Center case?”
“I got a signature, and it leads here.”
“Well, you’ve got a pissy pet cop on your hands, a corpse, and a territory dispute to clear up, then. You know I respect the hell out of you, Olivia, but you look like hell. Want some backup?”
“Do you have the case details?”
“I’ve got the gist of it. The missing statuette is involved?”
“If it wasn’t before, it is now. Or at least the property is. The corpse is of the statuette’s owner?” The death of the statuette’s owner complicated things.
“Your pet cop, whom I’m assuming is the Oakland detective, confirmed her identity.”
“Yeah. That’s my pet cop. Detective Davis. He’s in demand, and area jurisdictions beg to borrow him. One quad is his security? Other is yours?”
“Good guess. His security quad is out of Union City, and they got here twenty minutes ago.”
“He’s a pure, and my boss told me I should assign myself as his security.”
“Harsh. That’s going to make an already tough case even tougher. The commissioner is going to have a field day with this. Good luck. You’ll need it.”
Dad would have a field day with me at dinner. “I can handle the commissioner. Mostly.”
“He’ll send you to your room without supper if he thinks you’ve abused one of his cops again.” Sergio snickered. “I’m so glad I’m not you.”
“Gee, thanks. Anything else I should know?”
“Your corpse? She’s probably turned into a haunter, so be careful in there.”
That explained why the second quad was present. The last thing I needed was a fresh haunter. “Why do you think we have a fresh haunter?”
“You’ll see when you get inside. And Olivia? Be careful. I’ll make sure Ethan’s aware of the haunter so he’s not taken by surprise. She’s strong enough to give my medium the creeps, but that’s not really unusual when they’re new.”
Some days, I wished drowning Sergio was an option. I couldn’t really blame him for dumping the fresh haunter on my lap. Nobody wanted to deal with a fresh haunter.
They always found a way to surprise quads, they rarely played by any rules, and many resented the loss of their life and wanted to take anyone they could with them.
I got to my feet and dusted myself off. “I’ll be careful.” Marching to the house, I presented my badge to the cops guarding the manor’s double doors, which were open. A woman’s decaying body sprawled a few feet inside. Detective Davis crouched beside her discussing something with an older man in a lab coat.
A ghostly figure hung in the air over the woman’s body, her eyes closed in slumber. Haunters took many forms, but few could make their presence known without the aid of a memento mori camera and someone with the right ability to use it.
No one knew I could, a secret I’d kept since the day the nuke had destroyed New York City and forever changed my life. I’d acted as a conduit for the dead once, and I tried my best to forget that day. Some nights, I closed my eyes, and every detail haunted me just as the haunter lingered in her home and guarded her corpse.
They’d moved through me with the relentless power of a rising tide.
From the haunter, I felt nothing, a relief. Everyone perceived them differently, and I wondered what Detective Davis saw.
Perhaps later I’d indulge my curiosity. “We meet again, Detective Davis.”
He lifted his head and leveled a glare at me. “How’d you get here?”
Yep, my pet cop wasn’t happy. “I used my scanner. I got a signature from the incident site and followed it to here. What’s the deal with our haunter?”
“She’s the statuette’s owner, and she hasn’t budged since she manifested an hour or so ago. I think she died shortly before I came to talk to her.” Something about his tone bothered me, as though all the life had been sucked out of him.
Ah. When I’d first danced with death on the so-called day of reckoning, when the horrors of World War III came to a head in New York City, I likely had had a similar expression.
“Is she your first?”
“My first?”
I gestured to the woman’s body. “Homicide you’re responsible for.”
Detective Davis’ gaze landed on her body. “Yes, she is.”
Everyone faced death differently, and I wondered how the cop would emerge from the experience. I couldn’t do much for him, but I could offer him something. “We’ll make certain she rests easy. That’s what my quads do. It won’t bring her back from the dead, but you’ll find the burden is easier to bear after the killer is brought to justice.”
Sometimes justice slipped through my hands, but I kept a drawer filled with unsolved cases I worked on every spare moment. Some mysteries would remain unsolved, but every now and then, I got a lucky lead and eased the burdens of those left behind.
“You sound confident.”
“I hate losing. What’s her name?”
“Elizabeth Donalds.”
In life, Elizabeth had worn her wealth to make up for her lack of beauty. She’d worn makeup, but while evidence of it lingered on her body, her incorporeal self lacked any.
Some haunters wore masks. Others wanted to be seen for who they were.
If she was one of the haunters who wanted to be seen, something as simple as addressing her directly might be enough to find out what prevented her from going to the other side to her final rest. “Hello, Elizabeth.”
The haunter opened her eyes and met my gaze. “Hello, Olivia.”
Well, that wasn’t creepy, not at all. Detective Davis froze, as did everyone else nearby.
“How can I help?”
“Can you? Help, that is? It won’t let me sleep. It eats my dreams. It will continue to eat until I become nothing. If it could. It can’t eat me here.” Elizabeth’s gaze dropped to her body, and she shrugged. “Not that it has much left to devour, I suppose.”
I relaxed. While a fresh haunter, she’d already accepted her death; unless we provoked her, she didn’t worry me much.
Like Detective Davis, Elizabeth sounded tired.
“I can’t make any promises, but I’m going to do my best. Anything you can tell us might help.” Some haunters reacted poorly to honesty, but I got the feeling she wouldn’t be one of them.
I waited for her to decide.
“In life, I was a linker. I can show you. I can link to your body. I feel you. I can help you help me. But that is all I can do. If you mean your word.” The haunter’s gaze challenged me, asking how far I would go for her sake. “The shadow named it Hypnos.”
“It? The shadow?”
“The shadow comes and goes. Perhaps a man? The shadow could be in the shape of a man, I suppose. It is Hypnos. It is the dream devourer disguised as a fish.”
“Ghostly?”
“Ghostly enough.”
Well, that was all the confirmation I needed.
Detective Davis cleared his throat. “Elizabeth?”
The haunter glanced at the cop. “It wasn’t your fault. You did your best, and I do not doubt that at all. Do not blame yourself for what another did.”
His eyes widened, and he sputtered.
“Does this Hypnos use a form of hypnosis?” I asked, hoping to buy Detective Davis time to regain his composure.
“Yes, Hypnos. Hypnosis. He who uses hypnosis to become a god. Or monster. Maybe both. My life woke it. For that, I’m sorry.”
Between Elizabeth and Detective Davis, I’d have my hands full convincing them they weren’t guilty for the crimes of others. Detective Davis would be easy enough to set straight; I’d hand him over to my father and let him handle the mess.
He was good at putting the backbone back into his cops.
I offered the haunter a smile. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” Hoping I wouldn’t regret my choice, I held out my hands in invitation. “Show me your memories, Elizabeth. I’ll safeguard them well. Will you let us help you to the other side?”
“I don’t wish to linger here, but I don’t want to be devoured.”
“Show me, and then go find peace in your eternal rest.”
Some haunters only needed to be told they could go. A memento mori photographer could force a haunter to cross to the other side. They could also guide the willing through a single eulogy and a photograph.
If she went on her own, I’d face some difficult questions later.
Most believed the camera served as a conduit between the living world and the next life. I wasn’t sure what I believed, but the New York bomb had done more than transform me into a water elementalist.
I couldn’t do everything like the hated warlocks, but I could do more than I should’ve been able to.
Detective Davis shot a questioning glare my way. Before any of the more seasoned quad members could interfere, Elizabeth rested her hands in mine.
The world faded away to a dark, rippling sea. Water caressed my skin and woke my magic. I breathed the water in, the magic in my blood filtering the air from the water without allowing it to drown me.
I relaxed, and revitalizing warmth spread from my chest.
Elizabeth held my left hand. “You’re beautiful. A sea full of stars.”
I glanced at our hands. She remained human, but I’d become an inky void sprinkled with sparkling lights. “Well, that’s different.”
“It’s this way.” Elizabeth pointed with her free hand towards a pulsing blue light. She tightened her grip on me. “I fled back to my body while it was busy trapping its new victims. I’m sorry for that. I would have saved them, too, if I could. I could barely save myself.”
Yep, she had a guilty conscience, the kind that made good people haunt the living world trying to find closure—or escape a fate she might view as worse than death. “You retreated,” I soothed. “Show me what happened.”
The haunter waved her hand, and the image of a black koi mottled with gold sliced through the water. “It began its life as my statuette, pure gold, one of a set of twelve. My father adopted me and eleven other girls, and he gave us each a statuette to remember him by. I was the first he adopted, and I’m the eldest. I was born in early March. He loved Greek lore for all he’s Chinese, so he had these made for us. When I was little, I just thought it was a pretty toy. It wasn’t until I learned more of the world that I realized he’d given us each a treasure. The base bore my Chinese sign, the dragon. We were his living zodiacs. None of us share any of the same signs. He claimed his love for us was written in the stars.”
“That’s so sweet.” Judging from her words, her father had died. “What happened to your father?”
“I’m sorry. He died a few years ago, an old but happy man.”
“Don’t be sorry. Isn’t that what we all want for our lives? To die old and happy?” I smiled—or I hoped I did. “I was born in early March, too. My mother is Chinese, and my father is American. I’m not very good at being Chinese, much to my mother’s dismay. I never paid attention to my zodiac sign.”
“What year were you born?”
“1988.”
Elizabeth laughed, and the joyful sound rippled through the water. “We’re the same age.”
Her joy became my sadness, as I often believed I had so much of my life ahead of me. “My birthday is March 2, 1988.”
Elizabeth’s smile brightened even her eyes. “Me, too. We are dragons of the earth, and dragons always fixate on the earth. But we’re fish dragons, and fish dragons aren’t really the best earth dragons, but I never told my father that.”
Fish? Ah, the Greek zodiac. “Pisces.”
“Fish dragons.” Elizabeth’s smile widened to a grin. “I did that to annoy my father. On the other side, I look forward to an eternity of teasing him. I guess it’s fitting. His oldest being the first to rejoin him. I think he’ll be sad at what his statuette has become, but he will be proud of my choice following death. I could’ve just fled.”
She could have. “I’ll have to try your tactic on my mother.”
“You are a sea full of stars when you should be the strongest of dragons. You defy the circumstances of your birth.” Elizabeth’s smile vanished, and her brows furrowed. “No, that’s not right. My father always believed that the flowers to bloom in adversity are the most beautiful of all. You’re a water elementalist, aren’t you?”
“I survived New York.”
Elizabeth squeezed my hand. “Adversity. Never forget you are a dragon. Are you ready to see the monster that the shadow named Hypnos?”
“Show me.”
We drifted through the dark sea towards the blue light. As we drew closer, the glow solidified into an orb filled with hazy figures struggling to escape from a monstrous black and gold koi circling them. Pale streamers seeped out of the orb, which the ghostly fish chased and devoured.
“Those are people. His new victims. They’re dying. While it eats their dreams, it also eats their souls, just as it devoured most of mine. They’ve no way to escape. I fled in a tiny gap in its attention. It enjoys to chase those who flee. But the truth remains. They have no way to escape.”
Like hell they didn’t. “You’re a linker, right?”
“I am.”
“Can you guide them to my body with your magic? Link them to me so they can return to the living world?”
I had no idea if it would restore them to life or make their situation worse, but I didn’t have any other ideas.
“But what good will that do?”
The truth hurt. I didn’t want to send anyone to the next life again, but I could feel their terror rippling through the water. No one deserved that fate.
“Better for them to haunt your house than to have their souls eaten by that thing. I don’t know how strong of a linker you are, but you could perhaps link them to their bodies if you’re willing to try.”
It wasn’t like overextending would kill her again.
“I’m willing.”
“Thank you.” I considered the fish, which continued to chase the energy leaking from the orb. Fish disliked the cold, and as a water elementalist, I controlled all forms of water, even ice.
However, ice strained my ability to its limits.
I had no idea what attempting to freeze a giant ghost fish would do to it—or to me. “This is probably going to be dangerous.”
“Things worth doing often are. My father liked saying that.”
“My mother named me Lee Jing Chi. My Chinese name. My birth certificate and official papers use Olivia, though.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Huang Chenguang. He gave us all a Chinese name. His family, the Huang family, has survived since the early Shang Dynasty. A proud line, now gone with the death of my father. I think he had our zodiacs made so some part of his line would survive into antiquity. As I’m the eldest, the family registry is mine. It is in my home. Please guard it well, and may it become a treasure of the Lee family. My statuette, too. It does me no good, and it is of your spirit, too. Consider it yours by right. Before I move on, I will make my wishes known. The statuette and registry aren’t in my will.”
Denying a haunter her final death wish led to one place: trouble. “I will make certain your wishes are respected.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have a few ideas, but I’m still thinking about it.” I drifted closer to the orb, which towered over us. “How did you escape?”
“He forgot about me. New sleepers came. I used my magic to return to my body.” Elizabeth’s grip on my hand tightened until it hurt. “I think one of the new sleepers created that shield. I don’t know what Hypnos will become once it has finished feeding. For now, it’s still a fish.”
Fish hated ice, either falling into a state of hibernation or dying when too cold. I doubted my ice would kill it, but perhaps I could slow it down enough to help its victims escape.
If they could escape, I would have time to find the shadow Elizabeth had mentioned.
I was willing to bet my badge the shadow she described was the one behind everything. Once freed, as long as no new victims appeared right away, I could focus on apprehending the so-called shadow.
“That simplifies things.” I eyed the koi, which continued to chase after the streamers of energy. I’d never frozen a whale-sized koi before, but I was game to try.
The koi changed directions and came closer. My fury over Elizabeth’s needless death sparked. With a single wave of my hand, I unleashed my magic.
Ice crackled around me, crashed into the orb, and raced over its surface, cutting off the streamers of energy and forcing them to remain within the sphere. The koi darted away, and its whiskers glowed an electric blue.
It dared to run after terrorizing its victims?
When my ice fully covered the orb, I gave the koi my full attention, flinging my power at it in spears of ice until I impaled its tail. I sank my magic into its fin to tether it, then I gave it a taste of its own medicine, slowly encasing it in frozen water. My ice, much like my insubstantial body, was flecked with bright pinpoints of light. It thrashed in its effort to escape.
I refused to let it go, and I forced it to face me. Blue light bled from its mouth, and distant screams disturbed the water’s peace. I squeezed the koi around its middle until more of the blue light spewed out and dispersed.
“Not today, asshole.” I clenched my hand into a fist.
My ice devoured the fish, but I could feel it struggling against my hold. Layer upon layer, I thickened its prison.
“You are a dragon,” Elizabeth whispered.
“That honor belongs to a friend.” Eddy would kill me assuming I survived through the inevitable backlash of magic I’d suffer through. In my body, I would’ve been a great deal more hesitant about trying this stunt.
Magic came at a price, and using too much could easily kill me.
“Can you try to link them to their bodies?”
“Are they still alive?”
“They were this morning.”
“Through you, perhaps. I will do my best. If I can, they should just wake up. Their souls will seek out their living bodies even without my help. But still, I will help if I can to ease their way. They’ve suffered enough.”
I regretted I’d never have a chance to truly meet her or her father.
Elizabeth sighed. “Or it should.”
“You mean their souls should return to their bodies unattended?”
“Sorry, yes. That’s what I meant.”
The ‘should’ worried me. “Well, I guess we’ll find out. Do what you can.”
What was the worst that could happen? Unleashing hundreds of angry haunters topped my list. But, and it was a big but, they might flit back to their living bodies.
It was worth the risk.
I created an opening in the ice until I reached the orb. “Direct me to our bodies, Elizabeth. The best place to link back to us. I’ll create a passage to there.”
As my ice seemed to work against the koi, at least for the moment, I’d build a barrier to protect those trapped. Even the thought of trying to sustain so much ice tired me. Next time, I needed to put more thought into my actions before committing to them.
I ignored my worries and focused on my job.
“I’m ready when you are,” Elizabeth said.
I assumed the spirits, like Elizabeth, would resemble the bodies they’d left behind, so I created a tunnel large enough a man could walk through without ducking. It took time, and the longer I worked, the harder it became to concentrate.
“There. You’ve reached it.”
I closed off the end of the tunnel and focused on thickening the ice in case the koi escaped its prison. It would, eventually.
I could feel it still struggling, eager to resume feeding.
Damned ghost fish.
Turning my attention to the orb, I tapped on it. My fingertips pierced the surface. I covered my skin with ice, plunged my hand into it and forced the hole to widen.
“Your turn,” I gasped, forcing my tunnel to extend into the orb. I trembled, and my anger intensified.
Hundreds of men, women, and children crowded into the space, and they recoiled from me, terror etched into their faces.
Elizabeth drifted inside, and brilliant yellow light infused her.
A rush of water and spirits surged around me, diving for the freedom at the tunnel’s end. Somewhere above us, Hypnos flailed and shattered his prison.
“Not today, asshole,” I repeated, flipping the koi off and concentrating my magic on reinforcing my tunnel. It wouldn’t steal my victory out of my hands, not when I was so close to making a difference.
Elizabeth dragged me through the tunnel.
“Death has no business with you today,” she said with a smile, dragging me to where the dark water shimmered as though alive. “We part ways here, Olivia.”
I touched her face, stroking her cheek. “Rest in peace, Elizabeth.”
While I lacked a memento mori camera or even a eulogy worthy of her, she passed through me as so many of New York’s dead had. In her wake, she left a final remnant of her earthly magic, which caught me in gentle hands and returned me to a world of sunshine and air.
I was aware of Hypnos bellowing its rage, but not even it could deter the will of the dead.