Page 170 of Dead Vengeance

Jem looks up at Tezcatlipoca, who slightly raises his spare shoulder in response. “He was broken. I fixed him.”

“I don’t know if that’s an upgrade…” Archer begins carefully.

“He was broken,” Tezcatlipoca says a little more slowly, with a slightly annoyed edge to it, like we’re being thick.

Jem drops a hand down onto Tez’s, then says, “I think what he means is, he didn’t put it in you, Liam. And I didn’t either.”

I stare at them both. “But… I couldn’t see this. I couldn’t do that. Not until you touched me.”

“Fixed you,” Tez corrects.

Jem laughs, rolling his eyes like they have some great and amusing secret. “It was already in you. The necromancer stuff. That’s why you could see me in the hospital, away from the ley lines. And why you felt the connection from Archer at the séance. Just being near him began to wake it up.”

“Wait, you were there? At the séance? You saw that?”

“Yeah. Because I was with Tez I couldn’t break through to speak with you. But…” He laughs again, dropping his oddly pink face to concentrate on dusting off his weird old suit. “But I did see what happened, ummm, before that…”

“What?” The word drops out of me like a cracked brick.

“I didn’t mean to!” he breathes, in perfect embarrassment. “But right on the pentagram?”

“What?” Archer says, even more cracked than when I said it.

“I know, you thought it was closed, but… fat ley lines, the mirror… um. Just maybe don’t do that again. Right there. It’s kind of… like a shop window, you know?”

“Oh god,” I practically weep into Archer’s shoulder, while he twists his forehead to rest on me as though it could hide us both away for eternity.

“The point is,” Jem carries on, forcefully casual, “you wanted to know why that was… um… special. That’s why. Double necromancer stuff.”

“Okay.” My voice is so small, my eyes still shut against the mortification. “Thank you. For letting me know.”

“You’re very welcome. Now, if you don’t mind, I think it’s time we closed this chapter.” With that, he grabs Marsden’s feet and drags him across the grass to the side of his own open grave. “Does anyone mind if I…”

“Don’t you dare,” Simon growls before Fabian can get a word in.

Simon quickly raises one finger, and the pile of dirt leaps down onto the coffin, every clod and root and rock, all of it falling in one fleeting avalanche of earth. Once it’s full, the chunks of grass Archer dug all apart thread themselves back together, leaving the place eerily calm, looking fresh, utterly undisturbed.

Except for Marsden’s corpse.

“Simon,” Jem sighs out, but a second later, an enormous gash opens in the ground on the near side of Marsden. Maybe it’s six foot deep. Maybe it’s more. Either way, Marsden’s body slips into it. The ground swallows his skinless skeleton and organs whole, and closes back over the top of him without so much as a burp.

And that’s it. It’s all over. Archer’s alive. Jem’s alive. Tezcatlipoca is still wandering around in his new human skin. And Simon and Fabian…

Wait a minute…

“Are you a ghost now?” I ask Fabian.

“Yeah,” he says on a smile. “Life goal achieved.”

“Death goal,” Archer jokes.

“Death goal,” he laughs. “And now I get to live on. With Simon. Forever.” He takes up Simon’s hand easily, no fighting to create physical sensation between the dead and the living, the two of them smiling at one another.

“All right,” I reply softly. Things just keep getting weirder, but I guess I have to get used to this at some point. “So… if we just get out of here before dawn, then that’s it? Perfect crime? No trace left? Jem’s back, Tezcatlipoca’s happy…”

“Very happy,” he says, tracing a hand over his coat of skin.

“Fabian and Simon are happy,” I continue, trying to not look at what’s left of Marsden. “So that’s… justice done?”