Her self-confidence was growing, and she knew she was better than this. Not just jumping all the steps into a job she wasn’t qualified for, but being pushed into it by some warlock in a position of power.
That’s right! Boyd Widarin is a warlock!
In a flash, she was out the door and sprinting down the hall. Running until her lungs ached, she cut down the street until she stood panting, directly in front of the Othercross Morgue. She straightened her outfit and waited until she wasn’t gasping for air. What she needed now was the air of authority.
For a moment, she almost wished she had waited until she had a card with her new title on it. The only problem was, by then the man she had come to see would be six feet under. Squaring her shoulders, she strode up the steps and into the lobby.
“Can I help you?” the dim-eyed vampire behind the desk asked.
“Yes, I’ve been sent by the Judiciary to see the body of Griffin Finch.”
He rolled his eyes up from the magazine he was leafing through and eyed her, from pearls to shoes. She was glad she’d worn one of her smartest outfits that day. There was no way she could have known that morning how handy it would wind up being.
“Gonna need to see some ID.”
He didn’t seem impressed by her junior investigator status, but it did the trick. She was waved into the hands of a large, dull-looking orderly who led her down the hall. In short order, she stood in a white tiled room, waiting for the orderly to open a stainless-steel door in the wall. Pulling out the rolling metal slab, he flipped back the sheet so she could see Griffin Finch’s gray, lifeless face.
“I need the room.” Channeling as much authority as she could into her voice, she managed to get the orderly to leave, and then she was alone with the body.
Don’t think about it, Aurora. Just do it.
She closed her eyes tightly and began to create that golden pool inside her. It started small, but she kept working on it, teasing it up to full power and letting it radiate into every corner of herself. It filled her until it felt ready to spill over in a dazzling cascade of pure life-energy.
It was powerful—far stronger than she had ever felt before—and she didn’t give herself room for doubt. She simply reached out, laid her hands on the dead man’s chest, and willed the full force of her necromantic energy into Griffin Finch. It was far more than he deserved.
With a shudder and a breath through the deep slit in his windpipe, his eyes flicked open. When he saw her, that crooked smile oozed across his face.
“I was wondering if you were gonna show up.” His voice raked through the gash, but the words were clear enough. At least it was better than the horrible watery gurgle Abernathy had managed.
“We need to talk,” she said. “Sit up.”
He did and turned to face her, leaning back against the steel door just above his own. As much as the sight of this career criminal made her sick, she knew he wouldn’t be able to lie to her. Once reanimated, it was impossible.
“Would you mind covering yourself up?”
Finch looked down, and seemed surprised by his own nakedness.
“Oh, sure.” Tugging the sheet around to cover himself, he looked back up at her with a raised eyebrow. “Better?”
“Much.”
“No accounting for taste,” he shrugged. “I don’t suppose you have a cigarette?”
“I’d like to get down to it, if you don’t mind.” She pulled out her phone. Flicking it on, she started the audio recorder and clacked it down at his feet.
“Nice phone,” he smirked. “If I had anywhere to tuck it away, you’d have to watch out, young lady.”
“Cute,” she said with a curt smile. “Now, let’s get started. Who hired you?”
“Direct,” he said, nodding in approval. “I like that. Paul Keenan, but you know that part. Don’t you?”
“I do. He’s also the one who cut your throat.”
“He is. And old Abernathy too. Quick hand with a knife. Those things are his specialty.”
Aurora shuddered, remembering the army of them sailing at her and the ones they’d pulled from Dane’s chest. “How does it make you feel to know the Judiciary isn’t pressing charges against him for murdering you?”
“What?” Finch’s face darkened.
“That’s right. The man who killed you is going to walk free. D.A. Widarin knows everything, but is refusing to prosecute.”
“That son of a bitch is in on it.”
As soon as the words wheezed from him, Aurora felt a crackle up her spine.
“Tell me.”
“He’s the one who got Keenan moving. The whole thing was in layers. Paul offered me a deal. He’d drop the latest charges against me if I’d steal the... whatever the hell that was. But ultimately, I handed it off to good ol’ Boyd. He was gonna use it to break into the Treasury. It was a pretty good plan, if you ask me. Until they came back to clean up the loose ends, that is.”
“What was their plan?”
“The potion I stole—forget the name—knocks out gargoyles specifically. I guess Abernathy told Boyd all about it at some hoity toity University party, which is what gave him the idea in the first place. Trouble is, Boyd doesn’t have as much brains as he thinks. That damned Treasury is practically infested with gargoyles. Any real thief knows that.” He reached up as if to brush his lapel, only to realize again that he was naked.
“So he didn’t have enough?”
“Worse!”
Finch began to laugh like a maniac, and the sound of it hissing through his cut throat made Aurora’s stomach tighten. She gripped the edge of Finch’s slab and bore down on keeping herself together.
“What happened?”
“That idiot took it over there in a goddamn atomizer. Can you believe it? You need a better distribution system than that if you’re gonna knock out that many guards!”
Aurora recalled Ronun’s comment about needing to use a fog spell to disperse the potion to affect all of the gargoyles. Mr. Abernathy must have left out that small but important detail when discussing the potion with Boyd. Maybe that was why he’d been killed. Or maybe, and this seemed more likely to Aurora, he’d become suspicious of Boyd after the attempted Treasury break-in.
“What a fucking clown,” Finch said with a cackle.
“Language!”
The thief started at the sharpness of her command.
“All right! Jeez.” He reached up and gingerly touched the edges of his wound. “I don’t suppose I could get that cigarette now?”
“I don’t smoke,” she said. “Those things will kill you.”
“Not a problem for me anymore. Is it?”
Aurora leaned back and regarded Finch. He was bound to start fading soon and slip back into the house of death.
“Let me see if one of the orderlies has one. You’ve earned it.”
“Atta girl.”
Twenty-Four
“Surprise!”
As soon as Aurora and Dane crossed the threshold into Hollow House, it exploded with light and good cheer. After all the changes and upsets in the last week, she jumped nearly a mile high and then crashed down into a broad, unguarded laugh.