Tony met his gaze and held it long enough that Adam had to put a hold on his wolf.
“Fair offer,” Tony said. “Can I think on it?”
“Open offer,” Adam agreed. He waited outside until George’s car pulled out of the lot.
10
I followed Zee into the garage, where presumably he’d tell me all about what was going on. I felt like I had too much information and none of it went together. I had a box of jigsaw pieces, but I felt like I couldn’t tell if they all went to one puzzle or three different ones.
I clutched Adam’s coat around me, probably looking like an idiot. I was tired, sore, and scared—and well beyond caring what I looked like, or at least caring enough to do anything about it.
Aubrey followed me.
I’d quit talking to him, though it was probably already too late. I didn’t know if my paying attention to him affected Aubrey anyway because he wasn’t a typical ghost; I hadn’t really figured that out before I tried to help him “go into the light” or whatever. Ghosts are spirit, what’s left behind sometimes when people die. Aubrey was the whole kit and caboodle minus his body—soul bound to this earth as if he were still alive. And not really without body, either, though that was dead, all right. But when I’d tried to send him on, I’d felt that the ties that bound him to his body weren’t cut the way they should be.
Zee took a seat on one of the short mechanic’s stools, the kind on wheels, arms crossed and mouth set. The unhappiness that had begun earlier today and built into anger through the visit to the grocery store, morgue, and cemetery was still with him. Zee could hold on to rage longer than anyone I knew.
“Mercy,” he began, but I stopped him.
“Could you wait for Adam?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow.
Adam couldn’t perceive the kind of magic that Zee and I had been wading through all day. I wasn’t sure I was getting all of it. What I did get, I hoped I didn’t understand what it meant—because what I thought it meant was bad. I had the distinct feeling that Zee’s explanation wasn’t going to make me feel any better, any less afraid.
I’d had a spider-fae lay thorns or something that had turned into eggs infesting my hands and feet, and those embryonic creatures had taken control of my mind. The spider eggs were going to give me the willies for days once I allowed myself to think about them. I’d waded through the magical and physical leavings of a killer and viewed the bodies he’d left in his wake. If I was going to get more horrible news—and I was pretty sure I was—I wanted Adam to get the horrible news with me.
I raised my chin in response to Zee’s eyebrow lift to indicate that I didn’t care if Adam added to the discussion or not, I wanted to wait for him. That seemed to amuse Zee—without cooling the rage I could feel radiating off him. He shrugged to indicate that he was fine waiting for Adam even if he thought I was being stupid.
My hands and feet hurt, a dull irritating ache that didn’t keep me from pacing. Pacing meant that Aubrey had a harder time trying to invade my personal bubble. As a bonus, as I walked, the minor pain of my feet distracted me from the worst part of my day so far.
The awareness that I was somehow tied to that dark entity hadn’t faded like it had after I’d dreamt about it. Maybe if I hadn’t tried to send Aubrey to wherever souls go when their bodies die, or maybe if I hadn’t examined Aubrey’s body, if I hadn’t tracked the killer using my ties to that endless darkness—hey, maybe if I hadn’t gotten up this morning—I wouldn’t be noticing that the taste of darkness in my mouth was strong enough to choke on.
Probably, as Larry the goblin king had not-so-usefully warned me after the fact, it really hadn’t been a good idea to use my body to break the spider-fae’s web. Something about that surge of aimless magic had made me vulnerable enough for the abyss or whatever it was to connect with me.
I heard Adam open the office door and lock it behind him. That was smart; no need for a customer to come in and overhear us talking about a serial killer.
Adam walked in and I immediately felt better. His air of competence and confidence was contagious. It worked on the pack and it worked on me. With Adam in the room, I knew he would find a path forward that was, at the very least, less stupid than all the other paths forward—no matter how bad the situation was.
Adam glanced at Zee, who might have looked a little ridiculous squatting on the short stool if he hadn’t felt so dangerous. That Adam took note of Zee first told me that he considered Zee a threat. My mate is not stupid.
Adam looked at me—and I caught the moment he saw I was still wearing his coat, indoors where the temperature was fine for shirtsleeves. He met my eyes and smiled. It wasn’t amused, that smile. He liked it when I wore his clothes. I went from feeling ridiculous to feeling sexy in one smile.
“Let me start,” Adam said, holding up a finger. “Mercy’s been tied to some kind of intelligence since she broke the spell web at Stefan’s, and it is getting stronger.”
“This is true?” Zee turned to me.
I shrugged, glad of the warmth of Adam’s coat. “Yes.”
“That is not good.”
“Agreed,” Adam said with a growl. He held up a second finger and said, “At the grocery store, Mercy could tell that that intelligence was tied to the killing of the young man—which means presumably also the witch earlier this week. She thinks this intelligence is feeding off the deaths—and using them.”
Zee nodded.
Adam held up a third finger. “The ghost of the boy from last night is following Mercy around, unable to move on because he is being held by that intelligence. I think from your reactions to the bodies in the morgue and because we visited the cemetery afterward that the magic the intelligence is working is also tied to the bodies of its victims.”
He held up another finger without waiting for a reaction from either Zee or me. “Fourth.” Adam stopped speaking and shook his head. “You have no idea how much this disturbs me. And if I weren’t living with Mercy’s walking stick, I wouldn’t be able to conceive it was possible. Fourth, the intelligence Mercy found is the artifact that you, Zee, told us about, the one that killed people forty years ago. The cemetery we stopped at dates back to well before the time when those people were killed. I presume that some of the victims were buried there and you both were checking out their graves. I’d guess you found that those bodies were still bound to souls that should have gone on decades ago. Prisoners, in fact.”
He tilted his head and examined Zee’s face. “Some damned thing controls people, picks out victims, works magic to bind them, and defends that binding. And now it’s attached itself to Mercy.” Adam’s voice roughened with anger on the last bit, but his focus stayed on Zee.
“Ja,” said Zee. “To be fair, it is a very old thing.” He shrugged, the motion making his stool squeak. “And magic applied over time is a strange and powerful force.”
“Finally,” Adam said, “you’re mad as a wet hen because someone pulled the wool over your eyes all those decades ago by slipping you a sloppy ringer when you were hunting a powerful artifact.”
“Perceptive for someone who has no feel for magic,” said Zee sourly. He considered Adam a moment, then said, “I believe that the intelligence that Mercy is sensing is an artifact known as the Seelennehmer.”
“The Soul Taker?” I asked, dusting off my rusty German. “Like in the children’s prayer?”
Zee looked blank, so Adam recited it for him. I joined him on the last line, remembering that Stefan had quoted that, too. “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”