Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson 13)

She gave him a suspicious look, but evidently he was successful in hiding his amusement at her discomfort, because she started talking. “When Aubrey died, there was some sort of explosion of magic, too. I could feel the remnants of it. It felt as if the blood on the floor was still connected to the killer in some way. I could trace that feeling both ways.”

“To Aubrey and to the killer,” Adam said, not liking the way that sounded.

She nodded, and her body gave a convulsive shiver. Her eyebrows rose a bit, and she took another deep breath. She met his eyes.

“I think I could track that magic because it’s attached to me, too. A sort of awful three-way tie.” She glanced in the backseat, and her face tightened.

“Company?” Adam asked. He’d gotten used to that aspect of her power. “I can’t tell.”

He could sometimes sense the ghosts—even see them, as he’d seen the boy in Stefan’s house. But if he could, it was a bad thing. Whenever he walked into Mercy’s old house, he felt like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

She nodded, a flicker of relief crossing her face. He couldn’t tell if she was relieved that the ghost was weak enough he couldn’t perceive it, or if she was relieved that she didn’t have to talk about it and risk making it stronger. He could make an educated guess about who the ghost was.

“That magical connection gave me insights into the boy”—she grimaced and twitched her shoulder as if someone had prodded her—“into Aubrey that I don’t normally get. Sort of a spiritual equivalent of the scent of a person. You know how a good sniff can tell you what shampoo they use, if their car has leather upholstery, how many cats claim them?”

Adam nodded.

“Well, I can tell you that our victim was not too bright but sweet as they come. He was half in love with one of his roommates and half in love with a cute girl in one of his study groups that so far he had been too shy to speak to. He loved bubble tea and sushi. Someday he wanted to visit Japan. He was good at math but had no business being enrolled in computer science.”

That evidently got some sort of reaction from the ghost because Mercy scowled over her shoulder before catching herself. She rubbed her hands over her face and slid out of the car. She stiffened just a little but otherwise covered up the fact that her feet were still sore. She moved into Adam and let her forehead fall forward until it rested on his chest.

“Makes it feel like you lost a friend instead of a stranger,” Adam said gently, rubbing her arms. He made a point of not looking in the backseat, where he was pretty sure Aubrey’s ghost was sitting.

She nodded. Silence fell between them, and he was content with that.

After too short of a time, Mercy said, “Why are you out here without the rest of them?”

“Zee sent me out to see if you would come in. He wants you to look at the bodies. Something he figured out in there made him pretty upset.” Adam considered his memory of Zee’s face. “Angry, I think.”

Both of her eyebrows shot up. “He wants me to do what? Since when am I an expert on dead bodies?” She pursed her lips to disguise her smile as she continued in an appalled tone. “And you kept them waiting in the morgue while I chatter on about stupid woo-woo stuff? When Zee is angry?”

“They’ll wait,” he said.

She snorted and clambered back into the SUV to turn it off. She locked it, handed his keys to him, and set off for the coroner’s office, limping.

“Do you want to go coyote?” he asked, following her closely. He didn’t ask if he could carry her in; he wasn’t stupid.

She shook her head. “I can’t talk that way. If Zee needs the coyote’s help, I’m sure there’s a bathroom I can change in so I don’t shock anyone.”

She stopped abruptly. Tensed. Adam looked around, but he couldn’t see anything to cause her reaction.

“Okay,” she muttered to herself. Then she turned and looked at someone standing on his right—Aubrey’s ghost, he presumed.

“Look,” she said. “You need to go. Go into the light or whatever.” Pause. “I don’t know what light. There’s supposed to be a light. Or a path.” Pause. “Look, I don’t have a freaking manual. I don’t know what to do—but I think that you should.” Pause. “Because most people die and go somewhere. Their souls don’t linger around even if their ghosts do. I don’t think it’s good for you.” Much longer pause.

Adam put his hand on her shoulder and his lips to her ear. “Pull on the pack,” he said. “On me. Tell him to go.”

“What if that just leaves him wandering around somewhere away from me?” she said, her shoulders hunching under his hand.

“You can’t help everyone,” he told her.

She gave him a look. “The day you take that advice is the day I listen to it from you.”

That was fair.

“Can you call someone to help?” he asked. “Your brother, Gary? One of the other walkers?”

She shook her head. “Tad always says that the real cool thing about being half one thing and half another is that no one can figure you out. He was being sarcastic about the ‘real cool’ part.”