Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy (18 page)

I hated to have the Judge’s cold eyes
on me. I had a sudden, ridiculous urge to trade my pretty sundress
for a burkha under that assessing gaze. Jeez, I bet this guy could
have made Mother Theresa feel sinful with that glare
alone.

I gave him Todd’s address, and the
Judge turned his attention back to Tristan without giving me a word
of acknowledgement. “I’ll accompany the weres myself.”

Tristan smiled. “Excellent. There’s a
dead man who looks like he committed suicide in the house. We
believe the killer influenced him to do so. Once the weres have
finished their sweep, call the police anonymously and tell them
there’s been a murder at that address.”

The Judge frowned. “But you said it
looks like suicide.”

Dan spoke up. “It’s better to give the
investigators doubt. They know he was a client of Brandilynn’s
anyway, and throwing the ‘m’ word at them will make them work
harder and maybe pick up leads we’ve missed.”

The Judge’s frozen glare found me
again. “Of course. Humans do surprise me from time to time. Does
this woman have any recall yet?”

Boy, I hate being talked about like I’m
not in the room. My parents did that to me all the time. I held
back a retort, because he was Tristan’s friend. Okay, and partly
because he creeped me out. Honesty, honesty.

Tristan frowned at the tone the Judge
took when he referred to me. “She’s getting bits and pieces of that
night back, but she was glamoured. We may not be able to pull
anything else from that Swiss cheese memory of hers.” He took a
step towards me and smoothed a palm over my hair. “Sorry dearest. I
don’t mean to sound as if you haven’t been of help. You
have.”

I glowed under his praise. I am such a
sucker for a handsome man’s approval. I really need to grow some
balls or something. “Maybe there’s something else I can do?” I
offered.

He thought for a moment before he
nodded. “There is, and thank you for suggesting it. I’d like you
and Dan to search around Old Town for the ghost we lost, the other
murdered girl.”

Dan said, “Stacy Wilkerson. That’s a
lot of ground to cover.” He didn’t complain. My Marlboro Man looked
eager for the challenge.

“She’s not at any of the places she
frequented during her life. I checked myself. She’s got to be down
here somewhere.” Tristan went grim, his eyes darkening. “The Ripper
is still out there, looking for his next victim. We don’t have much
time before he strikes again.

Behind him, the Judge’s beautiful but
frozen voice sent a chill through the room. “The city should thank
him for cleaning up the vermin.” He stared at me over Tristan’s
shoulder, and I stiffened at the slur.

Tristan’s expression turned downright
thunderous as he turned on his assistant. “I know you have strong
feelings about prostitutes and escorts, but do not insult
Brandilynn again. She is important to me and I won’t have her
judged, not when we’ve done so much worse ourselves.”

Dan’s hand found mine, and he squeezed
gently. “Let’s get going, Brandilynn. You don’t need this
crap.”

As Dan transported us out, leaving the
other two men glaring at each other, Tristan’s voice followed us.
“Be careful out there.”

I wondered what was out there to make
him advise caution in the world of the dead. Surely there couldn’t
be anything worse out there than the steaming hatred in the Judge’s
eyes when he stared at me.

* * * *

We materialized in a dark, shadowed
place, a dirt path at our feet. The air smelled dank and rotting,
bringing to mind sewage and dead things. I quickly traded my
sandals for knee-high boots. The sundress changed to cargo pants
and a button-down blouse with long sleeves. I thought about gloves
for a moment. I so didn’t want to touch anything here. Even the air
felt dirty.

A cacophony of sounds overlaid the
vista of crumbled tabby ruins of long-ago homes: sobs, shrieks,
moans, and inhuman growls. Tree roots from the world above clawed
their way down to catch at the ground beneath my feet. It was a
world of decay, where it seemed no living thing had ever existed. I
shuddered.

“Nice place you got here. Where the
heck have you brought me?”

Dan grimaced as he tugged me along the
path that might have once been a road. “This is under Union Street,
a few blocks from downtown.”

I looked over my head, as if I might
spy the neighborhood above me with its seedy houses, weed-choked
lawns and old cars held together with baling wire. “The bad part of
Old Town. Funny how it’s just as scary here.” An unearthly shriek,
not too far away, made me jump. “Make that scarier.”

“This is a thin place. As above, so
below.”

In an alleyway between two partially
standing houses, I saw two naked men. One had his hands braced
against the wall of one house, his legs spread wide apart as the
other reamed his backside. Good heavens. They paused mid-stroke to
return my stare, their gazes cold and uncaring. I looked
away.

“What do you mean by a ‘thin place’?” I
asked Dan. I had to be blushing fifty shades of red.

“This is one of the locations where the
world of the living overlaps with the world of the dead. What goes
on up there affects down here, and vice versa.”

“So the drug trade and murders that
happen so often there are making it bad here?”

“Right. And the black magic practiced
in this area down here makes the killing and need for drugs more
prevalent up there. It’s a vicious cycle, constantly feeding on
itself.”

“Black magic?” I watched as dark
figures flitted from the crumbled structures around us, doing
heaven knew what.

“See those wards there?” Dan tugged me
over to a tabby wall. What I had taken as graffiti were actually
strange symbols painted on the shell-bumped surface. My eyes tried
to make sense of the angry red hieroglyphics.

Dan warned, “Whatever you do, don’t let
go of my hand. I’ll get us out of here quick if we’re
threatened.”

I tried to decipher the odd wards. They
almost seemed to pulse, as if enlivened with the heartbeat of some
beast. “What can these do?”

“I’m no witch. It could be anything
from protecting this particular piece of property to stealing
ghosts’ energy. Don’t ever touch a ward you know nothing
about.”

He pulled me back to the path, and I
saw a tall, thin figure dart behind the building we’d been
studying. A hooded cloak flapped around him, and I had the awful
feeling whoever he was had been spying on us.

Before I could tell Dan, a beastlike
squall split the air two houses up. Dan led me to the far side of
the root-draped street.

“It sounds like someone’s keeping a
rabid werehog over there. Keep sharp.”

We skirted the building, its doorless
and windowless openings barricaded with barbed wire. Jeez, I
couldn’t wait to get out of here.

“So let me get this straight in my
head. If our energy is stolen, we become wraiths. Ghosts of
ghosts.”

Dan nodded, his eyes searching the
hellish surroundings. “Helpless and racked with pain from being
constantly fed on. I can’t imagine Hell having any worse
punishment. If Stacy Wilkerson ended up here, a wraith is probably
what she is. Witches and other ghosts desperate for energy love to
get their hands on new ghosts because they’re so naïve.”

“How does this feeding
happen?”

“All you have to do is come in contact
with another ghost and consciously pull, like you did from the
magnetic field earlier. It takes concentration. A ghost can also
feed you their strength, but you’ll only find that in exceptional
cases.”

I frowned. “So say a ghost decides to
feed on me. What’s to keep me from pulling my energy back if
contact is all that’s required?”

Dan quirked a sickened smile. “First
come, first served. If a ghost draws from you, you’re too lost in
the pain to draw back.”

“But once the feeding is over, if you
don’t disappear you can get your strength back, right? Pull from
the magnetic field or something?”

He shook his head. “Being fed on to the
point you become a wraith does damage beyond just losing your
strength. You bleed energy after such an attack, too fast to
replenish through the magnetic field alone. Even strong energy
sources, if available, won’t keep you going for long. Some ghosts
are permanently injured and never recover their ability to hold
power.”

Yikes. Note to self. Do not let anyone
turn you into a wraith.

Dan motioned to the reddish clay ground
beneath our feet. “Keep an eye out for wards drawn in the dirt.
They might be temporary, but they’re just as potent as the painted
ones for as long as they last.”

My eyes wide, I stared at the ground
before us as we continued on. I might not know much about being
dead, but I knew for certain I didn’t want to be a
wraith.

“So how do we find her?” I
asked.

Dan opened his mouth to answer, but the
voice came from behind us, and it was female. “How do you find who,
princess?”

We turned to see a woman with hair dyed
burgundy. Her skin was as pale as a vampire’s, and she wore a lot
of black mascara, black eyeliner and her tank top, jeans and boots
were black too. A near middle-aged Goth chick? Well, it was a
statement. To each her own.

She had a solidness that told me she
still lived. Yet she looked straight at me. Another clairvoyant,
one with more ability than Lana, I supposed. She smiled at me, but
for some reason, I wasn’t warmed by it.

“Do I know you?”

She shook her head slowly. “Not yet. My
name is Erica Ford. Can I help you with something?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

Her grin got bigger. She started to
look a bit like a shark. “I got that. Maybe I can help you find
this someone … for a price.”

A couple of big guys, definitely
spirits, walked up to stand at her back. They would have made good
bouncers, and I’m not talking the sexy Patrick Swayze type. These
were goons. Thugs. Brutes. I’d keep going, but I’d left my
thesaurus at home.

Dan’s expression was wary, and he took
my upper arm, pulling me away from the terrible trio. “She’s a
witch, Brandilynn. You don’t want to pay her price.”

Erica gave us a round-eyed innocent
look, all the more evil for its exaggeration. “A little of her
energy to help her find a friend? That’s not so steep.”

We had moved a couple of steps out of
easy grabbing distance. Dan scowled. “Any price you charge is too
high.”

They started towards us. Erica’s beam
became a twisted thing, more snarl than smile. “I don’t like your
attitude,” she told Dan.

Dan and I moved faster. “I’m sure you
know who I work for.”

“Tristan Keith has no power here. He’s
overreached himself, as you’ll soon find out for yourself.” Her
smile went from shark to T. Rex. My skin crawled.

She raised her arms in a ‘v’ over her
head. Her right hand clenched in a fist. “Praehendo mortuus anima,”
she intoned.

The thugs moved around her to come at
us, their big paws reaching. Dan and I backed up fast as the three
pursued, Erica muttering incomprehensibly as she chased us. I
looked around for help. As above so below, as Dan had said. There’s
never a cop around when you need one.

Erica swung her clenched fist towards
us, her hand opening wide to fling what looked like green sand. Dan
grabbed me, swinging me aside to keep the substance from making
contact.

“The library!” he shouted. The world
shifted around me in a dark smear, Erica’s angry yelp following me
into the frozen in-between of transport. I felt a harsh tug, and I
screamed as I was torn from Dan’s grasp.

I emerged from the darkness of Fulton
Fall’s netherworld into the sun and fluorescent-drenched lobby of
the police station. As wrong turns went, it wasn’t so bad. At least
I’d escaped Erica and her goons.

A few people in various stages of
irritation sat on hard plastic and metal chairs. The muted din of
ringing phones and conversation came from an open door behind the
bullet-proof glassed-in desk. A teen boy stood there, giving an
emotionless uniform his impassioned complaint.

“I know it was that jerk Sam Torkelson
who took my iPod. Stuff is always disappearing around
him.”

I’d been in here before, the victim of
a purse snatch. I’d had a brief instant of remembering that when
I’d thought about cops never being where you need them. The stray
thought had brought me here rather than taking me to the library
with Dan.

I had to go to the library. Dan must be
frantic wondering if Erica had gotten me, I thought.

Before I had the main room locked in my
unruly head, Agents Heany and Neuhaus walked in from outside. I
froze as Heany said to his long, tall companion, “This case gets
weirder all the time. Hopefully forensics will prove that’s Ms.
Payson’s jacket and shoes we found at the Spaulding
house.”

He waved to the desk officer, who
buzzed them behind the desk. My interest sparked by the
conversation, I followed them to the next room, where banks of
desks were manned by about a dozen uniformed and plainclothes
officers. Dan would have to worry and wait.