Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [123]
I want…
“I know,” she told him, real regret in her voice. She’d want the same thing, too. “I know.” She flicked a glance at Frants, cowering in an almost fetal ball on the carpet, and inspiration struck. “But there’s—maybe—another way to do it.”
The ghost was listening to her now. So was Frants, uncurling enough to look at her, his eyes pleading underneath the streams of blood. Human eyes. But who was the victim? Who had the right to ask for justice?
Tell me. Quickly.
“Go back into the stone—”
The ghost turned on her, sharp needle teeth gleaming as he raised a hand toward her. Never!
She was dancing on cracking ice, her mind working faster than she thought possible, her skin tingling with the effort it took to keep them both still. “Go back for now. For a short time, a time you’ll barely notice.” She assumed. She hoped. “The length of a mortal lifetime.”
And then? He thought he knew where she was going with this, she could tell by the way his ruined lips were beginning to smile. It was terrible, and she repressed a shudder.
“And then he’ll take your place.”
Frants yelped a protest, and they both turned to stare at him.
“He’ll take your place—” an unspoken threat to Frants, to shut up and let this play out “—and you’ll be free.”
You can do this?
“When the time comes, it will be done.” If she had to get every damn lonejack to hold the bastard down while she brought the knife down on him herself, it would be done. And the Council could just sit and spin. They had set her up to hide the fact that a member of their damned coterie used blood-magics in place of current, committed murder to enforce a spell. And Frants knew all about it, had to, and had used her to strike back at the Council’s refusal to help him now. Why the hell should she care about any of them?
“Hell no I won’t,” Frants said. Or tried to say…his face wasn’t in much better shape than the ghost’s right now, and it came out soft, as though he’d lost a bunch of teeth at some point, too.
You would rather die now, and find hell that much faster? The ghost sounded honestly curious, and Frants’s eyes widened. He shook his head once, blood spraying across the room. Wren noted almost in passing that while the ghost was solid enough to do damage, the blood drops went right through him.
Swear to it. Swear, when the years pass, you will submit. You will replace me, and complete the spell.
Frants looked at Wren, who looked back at him as emotionlessly as she could. He could die now, or die later. It was up to him now.
“Yeth. I thwear it,” he said.
Wren felt her shoulders sag a little in relief. She didn’t think she could have stopped the ghost again, wasn’t sure she would have even if she could. It was a dilemma she was glad not to have to face. Frants will spend the rest of his life trying to find a way to wrangle out of the promise, by logic or magic or any other means he can find. His using Barbie proved that. But that’s a worry for later. For someone else.
“Satisfied?” she asked the ghost privately. It considered for an endless moment, then dropped Frants, its claws retracting into normal-looking fingers.
It’s cold in there, it told her. And lonely.
“It’s not forever.” And it was the best she could do.
The ghost nodded.
“What was your name?” she asked him suddenly.
Jamie. And there, overlaying the ravaged face, the maddened red eyes and needle teeth, she saw him. Young, vibrant. A serious expression, almost studious, but with the enthusiasm of a man in love with his work and his life. The ripped fabric swathing his body reformed into a handsome fifties-styled suit, the shirt underneath gleaming white.
Brown eyes under heavy brows sparkled at her, and he raised one calloused hand as though to tip a hat perched on his short-cut hair. He seemed surprised that there was no hat to touch, and looked around for it with an air of distraction, then shrugged in apology.
He