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"It's okay," I said. "Just wait. I'll let you know if I need you."
I am your familiar, the demon had told me, and I may act to defend you. Any harm that comes to you, I will feel as if committed to my own flesh. I am at your command as long as you bear that mark. If it is possible for me to do, your word will make it so. I am not free to act, as you are.
I understood a lot more now. No wonder Magi wanted familiars. It was like owning a slave, he had explained, a magickal slave and bodyguard. The trouble was, I didn't want a slave. I wanted to be left alone.
I closed my eyes. Deep circular breaths, my sword balanced across my knees. After the uncertainties of the last few days, it was a relief to have something I knew how to do and understood doing. Here, at least, was a problem I could solve. Dropped below conscious thought, the blue glow rising, my hand resting on the steel box.
The words rose from the deepest part of me. "Agara tetara eidoeae nolos, sempris quieris tekos mael—"
If you were to write down a Necromance's chant, you'd have a bunch of nonsense syllables with no real Power. Necromance chants aren't part of the Canons or even a magical language—they're just keys, personal keys like the psychopomp each Necromance has. Still, someone always tries to write them down and make them follow grammatical rules. The trouble is, the chants change over time.
Blue crystal light rose above me, enfolded me. My rings spat sparks, a shower of them, my left shoulder twinging. Riding the Power, crystal walls singing around me, I reached into the place where the cremains rested, hunting. Small pieces of shattered bone and ash a bitter taste against my tongue.
To taste death, to take death into you… it is a bitter thing, more bitter than any living taste. It burned through me, overlapping the ache in my shoulder from the demon's mark.
I've seen the tapes. While I chant, my head tips back, and the Power swirls counterclockwise, an oval of pale light growing over the body—or whatever is left of the body. My hair streams back, whether caught in a pony-tail, braided, or left loose. The emerald on my cheek glitters and pulses, echoing the pulsing of the oval of light hanging in front of me, the rip in the world where I bring the dead through to talk.
My hand fused to the steel box. My other hand clamped around the hilt of my sword. The steel burned fiercely against my knees, runes ru
Blue crystal light. The god considered me, felt through me for the remains, and the thin thread that I was stretched quivering between the world of the living and the dead. I became the razorblade bridge that a soul is pulled across to answer a question, the bell a god's hand touches to make the sound out of silence…
There was a subliminal snap and the wife gasped. "Douglas!" It was a pale, shocked whisper.
I kept my eyes closed. It was hard, to keep the apparition together. "Ask… your… questions…" I said, in the tense silence.
The chill began in my fingers and toes. I heard the wife's voice, then the lawyer taking over, rapid questions. Shuffle of paper. The mistress's husky voice. Some kind of yell—the college kid. I waited, holding the Power steady, the chill creeping up my finger, to my wrists. My feet rapidly went numb.
More questions from the lawyer, the ghost answering. Douglas Shantern had a gravelly voice, and he sounded flat, atonal, as the dead always do. There is no nuance in a ghost's voice… only the flatline of a brain gone into stormdeath, a heart gone into shock.
There was another voice—male, slightly nasal. One of the cops. The numb chill crept up my arms to my elbows. The sword burned, burned against my knees. My left shoulder twisted with fire.
The ghost replied for quite some time, explaining. My eyelids fluttered, the Power drawing up my arms like a cold razor.
There was a scuffle, something moving. The lawyer's voice, raised sharply. I ignored it, keeping the ghost steady.
Then the lawyer, saying my name. "Ms. Valentine. I think we're finished." His voice was heavy, no longer quite as urbane.
I nodded slightly, took a deep breath, and blew out between my teeth, a shrill whistle that ripped through the thrumming Power. The cold retreated.
Blue crystal walls resounding, the god clasping the pale egg-shaped glow that was the soul to His bare naked chest, dog's head quiet and still. White teeth gleaming, eloquent dark eyes… the god regarded me gravely.
Was this the time that He would take me, too? Something in me—maybe my own soul—leapt at the thought. The comfort of those arms, to rest my head on that broad chest, to let go—
"Dante?" A voice of dark caramel. At least he didn't touch me. "Dante?"
My eyes fluttered open. The sword flashed up between me and the pale egg-shaped blur in the air. Steel resounded, chiming, and the light drained back down into the steel box, fluttering briefly against the flat surfaces, limning the sharp corners in a momentary pale glow.
I sagged, bracing my free hand against the polished mahogany of the table, the smell of my own Power sharp and nose-stinging in the air. I could feel the demon's alertness.
When I finally looked around the dark room, one of the cops had the younger son—the acne-scarred wet-eyed boy with the greasy hair—in plasteel cuffs. The boy blinked, his fishmouth working. Goddammit, I thought sourly, if I'd known this was a criminal case I'd have charged the estate double. Got to have Trina make a note about this lawyer.
The wife sat prim and sticklike still, but her eyes were wide and wild with shock, two spots of red high up in her dry cheeks. The mistress sat, imperturbable. The older boy stared at his younger brother as if seeing a snake for the first time.
I managed to slide over to the edge of the table and put my legs down, sheathing my sword. Surprisingly, the demon put his hands up, held my shoulders, and steadied me as I slid down. My fingers were numb. How long? I thought, numbly.
"How long?" I asked, forcing my thick tongue to work.
"An hour or so," Jaf replied. "You… Your lips are blue."
I nodded, swayed on my feet. "It'll pass soon, I'll be fine. What happened!" I deliberately pitched my voice low, a whisper. Jaf caught the hint, leaned in, his fingers digging into my shoulders.
"The mistress was accused of killing the man," he said softly. "The ghost said it was his son that beat him to death with a piece of iron."
"Ms. Valentine?" the lawyer interrupted, urbanely enough. The cops were dragging the limp kid away. He hung in their hands, staring at me. The shorter cop—curly dark hair, dark eyes, he looked Novo Italiano—forked the sign of the evil eye at me, maybe thinking I couldn't see.
Lethargy washed over me again. I swayed. An hour? I kept the ghost talking—a full manifestation—for an hour? From a pile of ashes? No wonder I'm tired. I took deep, circular breaths. The air was so cold from the ghost's appearance my breath hung in a white cloud, and little threads of steam came from Jaf's skin. "I hate the ash ones," I muttered, then faced the bland-faced lawyer. "It just happened to slip your mind that this was a criminal affair?"
"Consider your… ah, fee, tripled." His eyes were wide, his slick blond hair ever-so-slightly disarranged. Maybe I'd scared him.
Good. He'd think twice before trying to cheat a psi out of a decent fee again.
"Thanks," I said, and blinked deliberately.
He was sweating, and his face was pasty white. "I've never—I mean, I hardly—" The lawyer was all but stammering. I sighed. It was a transitory pleasure to scare the shit out of a little scumbag like this.