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The corpse looked at me and said, “Fuck you.”
It took a lot of emotion to resist my questions. A side effect of necromancy--one that I sometimes felt guilty about—was that it compelled most corpses to tell me the truth. It wasn’t a guarantee, but necromancy created a compulsion inmostcorpses. Lydia was a bucket of rage in a blood-stained, ripped dress, but I had a lot less guilt since she was the one who was actually trying to kill me for unknown reasons.
Answer me.
“You matter to Beatrice,” she said, words blurted as if she was trying to stop them from escaping. “And you need to die. Abomination.”
Then she ran.
As she did, I looked into her memories. A corpse’s mind wasn’t as clear as the living.
I saw an email to Lydia. The sender’s name was a series of letters and digits in seemingly random order. The message simply said,I can help you find freedom. Call me if interested.
She called.
A second email arrived. It listed an address to a post-office box on Magazine Street with the instructions:you will find a key under your doormat tomorrow. Eight. Your choice.
In the post office box were ten syringes, my name, a stack of bills, and nothing else.
There were no other memories. It was not enough. Lydia was murdering SAFARI members because she wanted out of her marriage—without breaking the prenup. Whoever gave her the means knew it, and knew how to get venom, and had a grudge against Beatrice, me, or both of us. I hadn’t stopped the possibility of murder-by-venom, but Alice had stoppedthismurderer.
I withdrew my magic, and the corpse of Lydia Alberti crumpled. I wasn’t an investigator, but I had an answer for both Tres and Beatrice.
Tres.
Who was an innocent bystander, like most of the victims. The only intended victim was Lydia Alberti’s husband. And me.
I had no idea what the right next step was, but I felt Tres growing closer and closer to waking. Sentencing him to a T-Cell wasn’t any fairer than beheading him. I was here as he was about to wake. I could spare him years of being a danger, of muttering incoherence, of trying to bite people.
“Keep her here,” I said.
And then, without another word, I turned and walked upstairs. I left the slumped corpse and the sobbing widow and my accidental fiancé behind. I could help Tres. That much was in my reach.
I paused and put a few tranquilizer rounds in my gun just in case Tres wasn’t like Odem. I’d rather have Eli there to shoot Tres with tranqs, but I couldn’t trust Alice to stay out of the room—and as obnoxious as she was, I couldn’t let her near Tres in case he woke up like everydraugrother than Odem.
Inside the room, I let tears fall. There was no right answer. If I’d been in his place, I’d hope to be beheaded. Hell, I’d asked for it.
But if I could be awakened and still be me?
No, I’d still opt for death. Biting people was horrible. How could I exist knowing that I needed to cause pain every meal? I couldn’t even eat a hamburger or a fish.
I wasn’t Tres, though. I knew enough to know he’d rather exist even in a T-Cell than be permanently dead. So, I locked my disgust away, and I let my magic flow through him as I had with Jimmy Odem. I saw the venom sliding under the skin, but it wasn’t the injections that killed him. Alice was not his murderer. The head injury from Lydia would have killed him without medical intervention. Alice sped up the process by injecting Tres with venom.
Wake up, Tres,I urged, hoping that the Odem situation hadn’t been a fluke.
And hoping it had.
I stood beside the bed and pushed grave magic into him, filling him from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. I drew him from wherever he was waiting. Mind. Heart. Clarity. It took very little effort, and that terrified me. No one, not even me, should have the power to raisedraugrto life.
Tres opened his eyes.“Geneviève?”
He smiled, and his first instinct was, apparently, either to bite or to kiss me. He sat up and reached for me, and I didn’t wait to see which it was. I jerked away, letting myself flow faster than I realized I could.
But Tres wasdraugr.He was out of the bed, fortunately still dressed under the bedcovers, and beside me a fraction of a moment after I reached the door. This time he reached out with both arms as if to embrace me.
I was faster. My gun was against his forehead at almost the same moment. “Speak to me, Tres Chaddock.”
“I’m missing a few hours,” he said, stepping back. “You called. I argued with Allie and Lydia Alberti. Then . . . why are you in my bedroom?” He frowned. “And why are you . . .”
