Midnight Marked
Page 24

“I’m Annabelle Shaw,” she said. “I’m a necromancer.”
“Mortui vivos docent?” Ethan asked.
“Very good,” she agreed with a smile, and must have caught my look of confusion. “The phrase means, roughly, ‘the dead teach the living.’ In this case, the dead speak, I listen.”
“I didn’t know that was possible,” I said, thinking of Ethan’s temporary death and the possibility we might have communicated during it. “Necromancy, I mean.”
“There aren’t many of us,” she said. “It’s a pretty rare magic, which is probably a good thing. The dead are talkers.”
Dread skittered along my spine.
Annabelle winced suddenly, lifted a hand to her belly. I caught the flash of concern on Ethan’s face. He stepped forward and gripped her elbow to help keep her steady.
“I’m okay,” she said, and patted his arm. She smiled a little. “Thank you. Peanut kicks like a mule. If I wasn’t certain her father was human, I’d wonder. And I’m still fairly sure she’s destined to be a kickboxer.” She winced again, staring down at her belly as if her narrowed gaze could penetrate to the kicking child within. “You know, we’ll both be better off if I have a functioning bladder.
She rolled her eyes, blew out a breath, seemed to settle herself. “Anyway,” she said, “I’m a registered necromancer, affiliated with the Illinois MVD Association.”
If there was anything I’d learned about supernaturals, it was that they loved bureaucracy. Magic wasn’t worth doing unless a supernatural could throw a council or code of conduct at it, slap it on a T-shirt, and charge a due. And supernatural bureaucracy was just about as effective as the human version.
“How does that work, exactly?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“Well, I take commissions, usually work on retainer. People have questions—they want to know if the deceased was faithful, where they put the garage key, whatever. Or they have things they want to tell the deceased that they didn’t get to say while they were living.”
“That’s nice,” I said, trying to unknot the tension at the base of my spine.
“Sometimes,” she agreed, resting her linked hands on her belly. “And sometimes they just want to tell off the—and I’m quoting—‘rotting, whoremongering, philandering, dickless bastard who, if all is right and just in the world, is spending his days in the embrace of Satan’s eternal hellfire.’” She grinned. “I memorized that one.”
“People are people,” Ethan said.
“All day every day. Anyway, I try to balance out the commissions with public service. Sometimes I get a vibe that the deceased have things to say, like Mr. Leeds here, even if nobody’s requested a commission. I give them time to get it out so they can rest peacefully.”
If there was anything I wanted, it was a peaceful ghost.
“You were singing to him?” Ethan asked.
“I was.” She lifted a shoulder. “Every ’mancer has his or her own style. I like to sing. It calms them, makes them a little more cooperative. And that means I don’t need to use as much magic to keep them in check.”
“What do you sing?” I asked, fascinated despite myself.
“I generally use slow jams,” she said. “Classic R and B from the eighties, nineties has a nice, relaxed rhythm and sets a nice tone.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Just don’t tell my grandmother that. She’s in the business, too, and she’d be pissed if she learned I was singing Luther Vandross to clients. She says gospel’s the only way to go.”
“We’ll keep your secret,” Ethan said. “And sorry we interrupted you.”
She waved it off. “No worries. Some of them like to listen in, and cemetery conversations are usually pretty morose.”
“Do you do a lot of work in this neighborhood?” I asked, thinking again of Caleb Franklin.
“We work territories. Not many want to work this close to Hellriver.” She shrugged. “I don’t tend to get bothered. And if I do, I know how to protect myself.”
“Fireballs?” I asked, thinking of Catcher.
“Screaming ghouls,” she said, her expression so serious I had to choke back a silent, horrified scream.
She must have sensed my concern. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. They don’t typically manifest physically, so they don’t usually cause any physical harm.”
“I’m stuck on ‘typically’ and ‘usually.’”
She smiled. “Job hazard. And speaking of which, did you say earlier I didn’t look like an evil sorcerer?”
“That’s actually why we’re here,” Ethan said. “We’re looking for a sorcerer—someone not of the Order, but actively practicing. The magic is likely to be dark, or at least unusual.”
“What kind of unusual?”
“Alchemy.”
Annabelle’s eyebrows lifted. “Alchemy. That’s not a word you hear very often.” She frowned. “I’m doing the darkest magic around here that I’m aware of, and that’s only because it’s literally dark,” she said, waving a hand in the air to indicate the nighttime. “You’ve checked with the Order?”
“One of our colleagues is doing so,” Ethan said. “Although we’ve found them to be relatively useless.”