Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [114]
“Actually, yes. Considering the fact that ghosts seem to be the second most widely ignored topic next to the whereabouts of Jim Morrison among the so-called magical intelligentsia—”
Wren snorted. “I keep telling you, he got himself sucked into a tornado being too wizzed to come out of the wind.”
“—regardless,” he went on, “a contact of mine came through with some interesting information. Ghosts are tied to this plane by one of three things. Unfinished business, ties of strong personal emotion—a loved one or thing—and a nasty little curse that doesn’t seem to be the case here, as it was able to actually leave the stone once it was cracked open.”
“Great. A lot of help if we knew who it was when it was at home. Failing that, let’s go with unfinished business.” Putting the mug down, she chewed on the thumbnail of her left hand. “Almost everything we’ve learned about ghosts is alleged and hypothetical. Fine. Allegedly, a hypothetical ghost would appear at the place where he was killed, not where he was buried. But our ghost was tied to the cornerstone by his death, yes?”
Sergei nodded slowly, thinking along with her.
“I’d been assuming they did a ritual interment, maybe some bones, some blood. But what are the odds that our boy was killed on-site, as it were, rather than being brought there for disposal?”
“Before the foundation was laid, allowing his killer easy access to a place to dump the body? You’d know more about the specifics of spell-casting than I would, but I’d say it was probably pretty likely.”
Wren spat out a bit of fingernail, looked at her thumb, then went back to chewing on it. “Or it all might just have been a crime of passion. Y’know, see person you hate, bonk ’em over the head, toss the body into a specially prepared block—the world’s most grotesque time capsule, never meant to be opened. If—”
“If it weren’t for the spell,” Sergei finished for her.
“Right. That’s one thing that’s not hypothetical. Again constructing out of maybes and what-ifs, but from what we’ve found out it sounds like blood magic is nasty and unpredictable, but if it works it’s a surefire way of making something last. Hollow out a receptacle, cold-cock the victim, create the spell, seal it to freshly-spilled blood and use the power released in the instant of actual death…Quik-Crete for a spell of intent. And if the person killed had some kind of connection…” She raised her face to look at him, at the same moment he stopped, mug halfway to his mouth, to look down at her. Sergei didn’t have a shred of magic to him, but he could have read her mind at that moment. Without another word, he got up and headed to the office, Wren half a step behind him.
“1953, 4…when the hell was—”
“1955,” she supplied, pulling the number from the file he had sent her a little over a week ago. “Damn. You think there’ll be anything archived from there?”
“Not obits, no. But we’re not going to look for the obits.” He sat down at the computer and logged on to the Internet, long, capable fingers moving over the keyboard like Mozart on speed.
“Please tell me you’re not hacking into the NYPD records again?”
“All right,” he said agreeably.
“All right, you won’t, or all right, you won’t tell me?”
“Yes.”
Wren grinned. Their definition of “law-abiding” was remarkably flexible, she thought, not for the first time. If you looked at it too closely, it would probably make you froth at the mouth. Her mother would be horrified.
“Oh, hell.”
“What?”
“I forgot to call my mom. You keep doing whatever it is you’re not doing. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Wren went into the bedroom, where the other phone line ran, sat down on the bed, and prepared herself mentally for talking to her mother. Deep breaths. In…out. Don’t mention the gunshot. Don’t mention the storm. Don