Haunted (Otherworld 5)

Agnes's gaze swept left so quickly the Nix saw only the flicker of a shadow. Frustration washed through her. For two days she'd been telling Agnes they were being followed. The hunter kept to the shadows, but the Nix had noticed that he failed to cast a shadow himself, which could only mean one thing--their stalker was a spirit. Probably an angel. One had followed her before, and she'd dispatched her easily enough, but the Nix wasn't fool enough to ignore the threat another would pose.

An angel had taken her to that supernatural hell dimension, where she'd spent two centuries, and could do so again with another swipe of those damnable swords. As a demi-demon she'd been impervious to the Sword of Judgment, but she'd lost that immunity when she'd taken over a human form.

But Agnes had shrugged her off with a nonchalance that still sent waves of fury through the Nix. So long as the stalker wasn't coming for her, Agnes didn't care. This only confirmed the Nix's suspicion that she'd outlasted her usefulness to Agnes.

Agnes picked her way down a trash-strewn hill, then paused and inhaled.

"Smoke," the Nix murmured. "Something's burning over by Hobotown."

Agnes hurried forward, stumbling over piles of tin cans and scraps of lumber. When they rounded the next building, the sky turned orange. Distant flames lit the night sky.

"No," Agnes whispered. "No."

She rushed forward. Hobotown was afire, ringed by fire trucks. The firemen were just standing there, leaning on shovels, sitting on upturned buckets, watching the shantytown burn.

The Nix strained to hear the shrieks of dying men. For agony, there was nothing like burning alive. Yet all she heard were the shouts of the police and firemen, laughing and calling to one another as they enjoyed the spectacle. Finally she picked up the sweet sound of sobbing, and traced it to a line of police paddy wagons. Men were being loaded into the trucks.

A young man in an overcoat strode out from the line of paddy wagons. Eliot Ness. The Nix recognized him from the articles Agnes pored over.

"Burn them to the ground!" he shouted. "Leave them no place to return to. That will solve the problem."

"No," Agnes whispered.

She swayed on her feet. The Nix felt a sharp pain. Agnes clutched her chest, gasping, and sank to the ground.

"No!" the Nix said. "Get up!"

Agnes lay on her back, mouth opening and closing, eyes wide and unseeing. The Nix let out a howl of frustration as she felt Agnes's life slipping away. Involuntarily, the Nix's spirit began to separate from Agnes's body. She tried to throw herself free but couldn't. As Agnes died, the Nix was trapped there, tethered to Agnes's earthly form. As she struggled, a figure stepped through the building beside them. A dark-haired, handsome man.

"No!" the Nix shrieked. "I will not go!"

She struggled harder, but was held fast. The man stopped, head tilted, studying her face. As she looked into his eyes, she realized, with a jolt, that he wasn't an angel.

He walked closer and hunkered down beside her spirit form.

"You appear to have a problem, pretty one," he said in Bulgarian.

The Nix snarled and writhed.

"I've been sent to capture you," he said. "And promised a nice reward for your return. All I have to do is call my angel partner, and it's over." He smiled. "Unless you can make me a more attractive offer." He lowered himself to the ground. "She appears to be taking a while to die. Shall we discuss my terms?"

16

I FELT A PANG OF GUILT AT HAVING LEFT THE JAIL BEFORE I could find the little boy and say good-bye. Too late to go back now. I hadn't left a marker, so it'd take me hours to walk there again. I'd return and see him when this was all done.

I found Kristof in my house, and told him what had happened.

"Why not just kill her?" he said when I'd finished.

I threw my hands up. "Exactly. Why isn't this dead obvious to everyone but us?"

He put his legs up on the ottoman, resting his feet a hairsbreadth from mine. "This Janah told you to find the latest partner. Is that because she's the only one you can use?"

"No, I think that was just because she'd be the easiest one to find. With the others, who knows if they're still alive..." My chin jerked up, eyes meeting his. "I see. If I don't need to use the latest, then I can check out one who's already passed over, and test my theory, see whether they're connected to the Nix when she's on this side. I'll just need to visit the Fates and get myself a visitor's pass to a dead partner's hell dimension." I looked over at him. "Want to come along?"

He smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."

"No," the eldest Fate said, not even pausing in her spinning long enough to look at us. "You cannot go flitting about the other dimensions, bothering ghosts in purgatory."