Malice (16 page)

“That had to have been an interesting conversation,” I said.

“I know. Alex said that everyone just assumed he’d seen one of her relatives or something. Someone who looked like her. That’s still actually a possibility. However, when she went missing the other day and her parents went to The Council, they brought it up.”

“They don’t think Alex is involved, do they?”

I found it interesting that Mrs. Lebeau had blown my mom off when, clearly, there was more to this story. Mrs. Lebeau had to be aware of that.

She quickly shook her head. “No, that’s not it at all. They were just looking for any information that might prove that she didn’t run away. Even though what happened was strange, Alex’s claims don’t prove anything. The Council rep thought the same things Bree’s parents did initially. That it was probably a relative who looked a lot like her.”

The tone of her voice led me to believe there was more to her story. “But…?”

“He doesn’t think so,” she whispered. “He’s positive it was her. Even though it doesn’t make sense. Even though he saw her in school the next day, he said he’s convinced it was Bree’s spirit. At first her parents thought he was mistaken, but now, they’re not so sure.”

“Can he prove it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe. He wants to go to the cemetery tonight to look for her.”

I felt the air leave my lungs in a rush. A cold, prickly feeling was left behind. “If he thinks her spirit is there…” I couldn’t say the words.

Finola looked at me somberly. “That means she’s dead. I know it doesn’t make sense. And
he
knows it doesn’t make sense. She never should’ve shown up at school the day after he saw her spirit. But it
is
possible.” She shuddered before continuing. “If dark magic was used, it’s possible.”

I knew she was right, even if I could barely wrap my mind around what she was saying.

“I told him I’d go with him tonight,” she continued.

“I’m going too,” I told her.

She shook her head at me furiously. “No. No way. Then he’d know I told!” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I’ll never tell him you told. I promise.”

She looked only slightly calmer despite my reassurance.

“Fin,” I reached out and grabbed her arm, I wanted her full attention. I told her about Levi’s list. “Your name was on that list, Fin. So was Alex’s.”

Her eyes were wide with confusion. “Me? Why me? I barely knew Levi! I didn’t even like him. I barely talked to him. In fact, I blew him off every chance I got.”

“I don’t know why. What I do know is that
Magnolia’s
name was also on the list. It has to be more than a coincidence that Bree and Jude were on there too. Now they are both missing? You have to let me come tonight. If this had anything at all to do with my sister, I need to help figure out what is going on. I’m worried about her. I’m worried about you too. Hell, I’m even worried about Alex. Levi’s interested in people that are close to me and I need to know why.”

After the initial shock wore off, she looked pained. “Alex would never agree.”

I shrugged and tried for a reassuring smile. “Then I guess we won’t ask.”

“Come on Sammy, don’t run off,” Tristan begged.

When I’d raced out of the house at twilight, I had not expected to find him walking up the porch steps. I’d flown out the door and nearly tripped over him. As it turned out, our ‘truce’ wasn’t going as well as he’d expected. I had still avoided him at school the remainder of the week. His answer to that dilemma had been to show up at my door.

His timing had been terrible.

I glanced at the clock on my phone. I wasn’t entirely certain what time Alex and Finola would be getting to the cemetery, nor was I sure how long they would be there. What I did know was that I didn’t want to miss them.

“I’m sorry. We’ll have to talk later.” I scurried down the steps. Reflexively, I glanced over my shoulder. Tristan was rooted in place. He looked defeated. The expression on his face caused a painful pinching in my heart. Not that he’d ever asked much of me, but I’d never been able to say no to him.

I hesitated as an idea began to take hold. I took a few moments to try to find a tactful way to word what I needed to say. I couldn’t come up with one so I just blurted it out.

“Your grandpa is buried in the Granite Falls cemetery, isn’t he?”

He blinked at me in surprise before looking at me as if I were slightly demented. To be honest, maybe I was, considering the plan I’d just created.

“Yes?” It was more of a question than an answer.

I nodded and then backtracked, darting to Mom’s flowerbed. I plucked up what I thought was an acceptable assortment of her tulips.

Tristan was still watching me from the porch. His arms were crossed over his chest as he watched me with a bewildered look on his face. I nodded toward my car and he lumbered down the steps.

“If you want to talk, you can tag along. I have an errand to run,” I announced. I walked back to my car with the tulips fisted in my hand.

Tristan’s feet started moving but his expression was stuck in place. “Where is it that we’re going?”

I slid into the driver’s seat. Once we were both buckled up and I was pulling out of the driveway, I answered him. “The cemetery.”

He shook his head. “Somehow, I knew you were going to say that.”

~*~*~

“This might be the strangest thing I’ve ever done with you,” Tristan accused. “And that’s saying a lot.”

“I know. Just go with it, okay?” If Tristan had thought we’d have some deep heart to heart, he was wrong. I was on a mission. Having something to do, something to focus on, was the perfect way to distract him from trying to get into my head.

“I thought that’s what I’ve been doing,” he mumbled as we trudged along. “Just out of curiosity,” he continued, “are you aware that we are taking the longest route possible to get to Grandpa’s grave?”

I winced, suddenly feeling guilty. I shouldn’t have pulled Tristan into my scheme. It just didn’t seem right.

“Sorry about that,” I said with a sigh.

I glanced around. The cemetery was sprawling. Considering the number of enormous headstones and the trees that were scattered liberally throughout, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find Finola and Alex.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groaned. “You’re
looking
for someone?”

I knew it would be futile to deny it so I gave him a guilty, noncommittal shrug.

He stopped walking and though I could’ve kept on going, I didn’t. I turned to face him.

“What did you get yourself into?” he asked.

“Nothing. But I can’t tell you what’s going on, either. I promised someone I wouldn’t tell.” I realized belatedly that I was jeopardizing my promise to Finola. Though I didn’t plan on actually telling Tristan, if we ran into them, he was smart enough to figure it out on his own.

“Finola?” he questioned. “Is she the reason we’re here?”

“What?” How had he figured that out? I quickly rewound my memory, wondering if I’d let something slip. In my distress I squeezed the flower stems in my hand. I felt a few of them snap. The buds whacked against my thigh. The poor things were going to look pitiful if I ever got around to putting them on the grave. “Why would you ask that?” I demanded with a nervous laugh.

“Because I see her,” he said simply.

Sure enough, when I realized where he was looking I spotted Finola too. She was walking with Alex and the two of them looked deep in conversation.

Without warning, Tristan took off in their direction.

“Tristan!” I whisper-yelled. “Tristan!”

He, of course, ignored me.

I scampered after him, swerving around headstones and trying not to step on graves. I had no doubt he was determined to get to the bottom of this. He knew the fastest way to do that was to bypass me and question them.

When he was close enough to be noticed he shouted, “Hey guys!”

Finola glanced up. Her eyes were narrowed as they shot daggers at me. I knew she assumed I’d broken her trust. Which,
technically
, I hadn’t.

“Hi,” Alex answered back. He glanced at Finola and he didn’t look particularly happy with her. She gave him an apologetic look.

“Well, this is weird, huh?” Tristan asked lightly. “I asked Samara to come with me to visit my grandpa’s grave.” He pointed at the flowers, a nice prop for his fib. Ironically, that’s exactly why I’d picked them. I just never thought he’d be the one using the excuse. “I didn’t think we’d run into anyone else here.”

Alex zeroed in on the tulips in my hand. I held them up and offered him a weak smile. He glanced at Finola again. This time, his expression was a bit more relaxed.

“So what are you guys up to?” Tristan asked. He stuck his hands in his pockets and rolled back on the balls of his feet. His gaze swung from Finola to Alex. Then to me. There was a glint in his eye that I was sure the other two hadn’t noticed.

Alex’s gaze drifted off into the distance. Now that the sun had set, it was easy to see what he was looking at.

“Bree,” he said quietly.

I shuddered as the glowing light moved closer. To a human, the spirit would be invisible. To Lamia, it looked like an amorphous column of light. Varying colors were striated throughout the nearly blinding glow, each color depicting threads of the soul. To those who had the gift, the colors would be seen as an aura when that person was alive.

To a Necromancer, the pulsating light was so much more. They could actually see the spirit taking the form of the body it had inhabited in life. It was eerie to think that while all I saw was this glowing mass, Alex saw Bree.

A troubling thought occurred to me. It was entirely possible this spirit wasn’t Bree at all. Our eyes couldn’t distinguish and we would never know. I shoved the thought away. There was no reason at all for Alex to play that kind of trick on us. But more than that, the melancholy look on his face led me to believe it was truly Bree, a deceased classmate, that he was speaking with.

“What?
Bree
?” Tristan demanded. His gaze swung from Alex to the spirit and then to me.

I shrugged, feigning ignorance.

Finola looked at Tristan and held a finger to her lips, silently begging him to be quiet. He scowled but acquiesced.

Alex frowned as he looked at the column of light and then back to me.

“What?” I asked a bit edgily.

He shook his head at me and turned back to Bree. “I don’t understand. Can you try to explain?” He waited impatiently and for the first time, I wished I had the gift of talking to the dead. The suspense was making me queasy.

“Samara?” he finally asked.

My eyebrows shot up. “What about me?”

He looked at me, the confusion evident on his face. “That’s just it. I don’t know. She keeps pointing at you but I don’t know why.”

“Pointing at me? I didn’t do anything wrong!” I said a bit frantically. If Bree was here, she was undeniably departed. The fact that she was pointing at me was concerning.

“No, I know,” he said quietly. “The way she’s looking at you, it’s more like a look of…
worry
, maybe?”

Tristan moved up behind me and looped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me back into him. Despite the tight grip, it was comforting. I glanced back at him, unused to him being so protective. He looked at me with concern before redirecting his attention to Alex.

“Can’t you get anything else? Why would she be concerned about Samara? Is she in danger?” he questioned.

Alex shook his head. “I told you,
I don’t know
.”

Finola reached over and placed her hand on Alex’s arm. “I know it must be frustrating. But any information would be helpful.”

“Dammit,” Alex growled. We all turned to look at him as he expanded with more colorful cursing. I quickly realized it wasn’t aimed at Finola and turned to see what held his interest.

“What’s going on?” Tristan demanded.

Alex didn’t turn to face him. He was looking past us, closer to the tree line. A few seconds that felt like hours passed before he muttered, “Jude.”

I wasn’t so sure he was answering our question. It sounded more like a greeting.

His expression was grim as he shook his head. “I was really hoping I wouldn’t be seeing you here.”

“Jude’s here too?” Finola whimpered. She didn’t sound afraid. She sounded heartbroken.

“What in the hell is going on?” Tristan demanded.

I pulled him away from Alex and the two columns of light that swirled around him. As I glanced around the cemetery, I realized more swirling columns were gravitating our way.

“Just give him a minute, okay?” I said to Tristan. I didn’t know how I’d expected this night to go, but I surely hadn’t expected this. It had been stupid to drag Tristan along with me.

Finola caught my eye from her place next to Alex. Looking at me, she said to him, “Ask them about Levi.”

“Ask them what?” Alex wondered with a frown.

“Ask if he had anything to do with what happened to them,” she insisted.

He looked confused but he didn’t argue. He turned to the column I thought was Bree. “Did Levi Devane have something to do with your, uh, death?”

The columns flickered, a static charge shot through the air, and both columns disappeared.

“Was that a yes?” Finola grumbled.

“What are you really doing here?” Alex demanded as he stalked toward me.

Tristan stepped in between us. “I think you’re the one that needs to be answering some questions,” he said. “How can you possibly be talking to Jude and Bree? Doesn’t that mean they’re dead?”

“Yeah, actually,” Alex said dejectedly, “I think it probably does.”

Probably
? I shuddered at the thought.

He looked at the three of us. He looked frantic. “What? How? Why don’t I know about this?”

“No one knows about it, not yet,” Alex admitted.

Finola gave Alex a gentle nudge. “Tell them about Bree. You can trust them.”

He hesitated but perhaps he was desperate for some support. He repeated what Finola had already told me.

Before Tristan could question him further, Finola stepped in.

“Tell him about the list,” Finola ordered.

“List?” Tristan and Alex asked in unison.

“I can show them the list,” I said. I pulled the folded paper out of my back pocket. Tristan swiped it out of my fingers. Alex edged up next to him and the two of them quickly scanned it.

“What is this?” Alex demanded.

I told them what little I knew.

Tristan plucked his glasses off and stuffed them into the pocket of his rugby shirt. The shirt was a vast improvement over the sweater vest from the other day. Standing here in the cemetery, hair rumpled, glasses off—which I’d hardly ever seen—and towering over me, he made my heart somersault.  Until that moment I’d been able to put everything else out of my mind, for the most part. Having something concrete to focus on had helped me not to focus on
him
.

Finola caught my eye and gave me a sympathetic look. Apparently I was wearing that big, flashing neon sign announcing my feelings. I quickly rearranged my expression and went to check out the nearest headstone.

Finola dropped down on a granite bench nearby and Alex followed.

Tristan edged closer to me.

“You seriously have
no
idea what that list is for?” he asked.

“Seriously. No idea,” I repeated. “All I know is that it was in Levi’s room.”

“And that two of those people are dead. And despite being dead, as of a few days ago, Bree’s body was still walking around,” Alex pointed out.

“Has anyone seen Jude lately?” Tristan asked.

I shook my head. “No. Not since the two of them supposedly ran off together.”

He turned to Alex who had settled onto the bench next to Finola. “Tonight was the first time you’ve talked to Jude?”

Alex nodded. “If you could call it that. His spirit has to be new. Newer than Bree’s. It’s still very…confused. I couldn’t really communicate with him.”