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“He was,” Tres confirmed.
I still had my sword at ready, but I was curious. I let magic fill me until I felt like my skin was going to split and spill the energy onto the world. When I could stand no more, I released it in the direction of the late Mr. Odem. I was the conduit from the grave to the living, or in some cases, a conduit from the far side of the grave to our side. Either way, undead magic filled me to the point that my vision slid into that place where the world looked like a dream, hazy and ethereal, as if I’d become a ghost for a moment—not that ghosts were real, mind you. They were just like shapeshifters and cyborgs and tentacled aliens: merely the stuff of fiction. I enjoyed reading of them, but not of witches ordraugr.I had the ability to see the world with such an eerie vision that any horror director would be jealous.
With that grave vision, I saw that Tres burned with a light, but his glow was a flicker next to the shining glow that made Eli look like he’d swallowed a city-sized menorah on the night of the last candle.
“They’re dead,” I said, gesturing at the other corpses in the room. “Truly gone, but I could summon—”
“No. They are unrelated,” Eli said. “They have nothing to tell us.”
He was right, and until recently, the resting dead could not be summoned. I felt enough power flowing into my skin tonight that I wanted to try. Eli’s voice stopped me, though. I trusted him, and experimenting as I’d been doing was dangerous.
I tapped my sword tip on the sheet covering the late Mr. Odem. “He knows things.”
I pressed grave magic into him, filling him from the soles of his feet to the crinkles on his balding head. I’d never tried to speak to the dead who were at a crossroad like this. Not full dead like the corpses I drew together. Not awake yet as a regulardraugrwould be a few days after death.
“Geneviève?” Eli asked. “What are you doing?”
I was about to tell him that I had it under control, but the dead man sat up. He slid to the edge of the table and stood with a sudden lurch. He leaned against the edge of it, but he had pushed to his feet and opened his eyes.
“Talk to me,” I ordered. “Tell me what I seek.”
I let my magic carry questions: the visual of the injection, the dead Chaddock, the conversation snippet of Tres telling me someone had murdered his father.
When the corpse of Odem tried to speak, he noticed that his lips were sewn shut—as all corpses’ were. He frowned, looked around, and then the naked dead man walked over to a counter, grabbed a scalpel and sliced the threads sealing his mouth.
“What is the meaning of this?” The re-animated Mr. Odem gestured at all of us with the scalpel.
One of the suits fainted.
I held my sword at ready.
What had I done? The dead man ought to be a muttering, hungry corpse, no more sentient than any other newborn. This was unexpected. I tried to keep myself positioned, so I was between the dead and the living. Eli, Tres, and the suits ought to leave so I could . . . what was I to do? Odem seemed coherent.
“Mr. Odem?” Tres asked. “James?”
“Chaddock.” The late Mr. Odem stepped forward. “What are you doing here? I was sorry to hear about Alvin, but . . .” He paused, glanced down, and frowned. “Why am I standing here starkers?”
“Geneviève?” Eli walked up to my side. “What just happened?”
James Odem was alert, dead, and sounded very much like he’d skipped the entire decade-plus of drooling, starving nonsense thatdraugrall had.
I cleared my throat and admitted, “I think I, umm, accidentally fixedadraugr.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tres lookedat me and then the dead man who was wrapping a morgue sheet around himself like a cheap toga. The suits, who were both upright now, gaped at me. Their expressions were horror-filled. Tres, however, had a look of awe on his face that frightened me more than I could explain.
“You did that.” Tres gazed at me, all semblance of calm businessman long gone. He watched me in the way of zealots—and not the predictable pitchforks-and-torches sort. This was worse. He looked more like he might build me a temple than a pyre.
“You, boy.” Mr. Odem gestured at one of the suits, who were both watching him warily. Neither man moved, but they both looked at Odem. The old man held out a very steady hand and ordered, “Jacket.”
“I need to get out of here,” I whispered to Eli. Tres’ reaction had been odd before, but this?
“Could you bring my father back?” Tres reached for my arm.
“I cut hisheadoff.”
“Could a plastic surgeon or”—he gestured to the morgue—“pick a new body. Something younger.”
