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Chapter Fourteen
“Gone, like completely missing.” I threw my hands up when Grant didn’t seem to understand what I was telling him for the third time.
He shook his head. “That doesn’t happen, Ava. Spirits are trapped to the body like shackles. When they die, reapers sever that, but there is still a connection between them until they move on.”
“Are you really trying to tellmehow death works? Me? Who’s dealt with death all my life? I know exactly how it is supposed to go, but that isn’t what’s happening, and not just with the people being killed by supernaturals. Every body in the morgue had had their spirit torn away. The edges of the link were frayed. When a spirit moves on naturally, there’s no link at all to follow. It dissipates until there’s nothing there. Therewasa link on these, but it just led to nothing.”
Grant frowned, as though the information was unwelcome.
No shit.
I certainly didn’t want to think about spirits being snatched away. Ilikedhaving a basic understanding of my world. I enjoyed knowing how things worked, at least in my little corner of it.
Now it had all changed, and no one seemed to understand why.
I stopped for a moment and stared at Grant. He’d been waiting outside the morgue when I’d left and apparently, I was so used to my new normal that I hadn’t thought about how weird that was. “How do you keep finding me anyway?”
He still seemed deep in thought about the current problem, his answer given off-handedly. “I made a tracker for you.”
“A what?”
He held up his hand to show a black circle on his wrist with a red dot that pointed at me.
I shifted left, then right, and that markmovedover his skin, following me. “How the hell did you do that?”
“Your blood from my knife.”
From the ward spell?“That’s stealing! You can’t just take my blood and do whatever you want with it.”
“I can, clearly. Besides, you get yourself into too much trouble to actually be able to complain about it. This links me to you, lets me find you and even burns the more you’re afraid. It means I can find you and know when you might need me.” Grant stopped speaking, as though the conversation didn’t interest him. Instead, he’d moved his attention directly on me, and I wasn’t sure I liked that any better.
“Why would you do that?”
He shrugged, then peered across the street. “Same reason I do everything. Money. Kase seems to want to keep you alive, and I like the paycheck that comes along with that.”
Ouch.
I tore my gaze from him.Fuck him.If he wanted to have some mark on his arm to warn him about me, well, that was a benefit to me, right?
Also, I planned to watch snake-bite videos at two a.m. every damn day just to make sure his arm burned and woke him up.
Fine, I was petty, but it soothed my pride.
“I know it was a mage that killed those people.”
“Of course. Anyone with half a brain could work that out.”
“So, aren’t you going to do anything about it? Isn’t that your job, as a mage?”
He snickered and shook his head. “Not a chance. That’s guild work. They police themselves and deal with their own problems. I’d bet they already roasted them.”
That made me pause. “Gran said you were kicked out of the guild.”
“Kicked out, quit—who can really tell the difference anymore?”
“Why?”
He tucked his hands into the front pocket of his pull-over hoodie. “Let’s call it differences of opinion. We disagreed on afew key points and I figured it made more sense to go out on my own. I don’t have as many protections, but I don’t have the rules, either.”
