Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [118]
The apparition she had encountered at the mark’s house had been mostly ephemeral, more energy than substance, and it had scared the piss out of her. The figure in front of her was very much solid, with color and texture, from the mud caking its—his—pants leg, to the faint shadow of stubble on his chin and cheek. Disturbing enough, that it had somehow managed to anchor itself that well in the living world, but what was even more frightening to Wren was the low-level aura which flickered and snapped around him. That was the source of the strange light—and the probable cause of the dead man’s imitation of a bucket of KFC.
The dead guy might not have been a mage, but he’d obviously been floating in the current long enough to pick up a few tricks. Interesting. If she lived long enough to follow up on it. Right now, it was just another thing on a very long list of things that were pissing her off about this case.
The ghost looked directly at her, and she sucked in a breath of shock and fear. Nothing sane lived in those eyes, if anything lived at all. His pupils were wide and fixed, and within them flickered the agony of a human system overwhelmed by magic.
Wizzed. He’s wizzed. I never knew a Null could wiz…never knew anything dead could wiz…I’m dead. So very, very dead. Almost without her willing it, she grounded herself deep into the steel and concrete of the building, reaching for the bedrock deep beneath, praying that her ability would go that far. Praying desperately that her training would be enough to hold against whatever undead skills this thing had brought back with it. And why the hell didn’t anyone ever write down anything about ghosts interacting with current, she railed to Sergei in her mind. I may not go by the book but damn it, there’s supposed tobea book!
To her astonishment, however, the ghost turned away from her, rubbing one hand against his muddy pants leg as though trying to brush it off. He had dismissed her, somehow, and even though it was what she had wanted, the thought of it made her illogically angry.
Don’t let him finish whatever he’s started.
“Hey!”
The ghost turned again, and his face moved, almost as though he were trying to say something. It might’ve been a good-looking face, once, before the death blow turned half of it into tapioca. The jaw didn’t seem to be working, and the ghost-thing gave up finally, returning its attention to the other humans in the room.
No, Wren realized. Not both. Just one.
“That’s it. That’s why you’re here. Duh!” God, her brain must have gone on vacation the minute she took this job. It wasn’t about haunting, not the way they’d been thinking, anyway.
Fuck. Like lightning into her system it all made sense. Revenge. Damn it, they should have figured on the whole revenge angle…or they had, but they were thinking about the human, living side of it. Not the one who was most wronged. Legally? None of this holds up legally. But I don’t think the ghost, for one, much cares. Her own words, just that day.
The ghost wanted revenge on those who stuck him there—and failing the mage who was long dead and gone, where else but on the man who bore the name of the building he was trapped in? Okay, so it wasn’t the guy who had built it in the first place, but that’s why they did that whole thing about the sins of the father, yadda yadda yadda. Revenge…
Yeah, she had been right, she’d swear to it—the Council had set it all up from the very beginning. Frants challenged them, dissed them, and so they decided to take him down. They’d tipped Prevost—probably others, but Prevost took the bait—about there being an Artifact practically unguarded and for the taking. Then, when Frants yelled, they refused to get involved, probably told him he was on his own, so he’d hire an expendable lonejack to get it back…. Expecting—hell, knowing that the stress of translocation would be enough to crack the seal of the spell. And then when she not only survived but stayed on the job, they had tried to take her out so the ghost would remain free.