Living With the Dead (Otherworld 9)

She caught his sleeve, closed her hand around the charm and lifted her arms to his neck.

He caught her wrist. "There's an inscription."

She found it. Three words, repeated on the front and back. No matter what.

"Yes," Karl said. "Quite possibly the least poetic inscription ever written."

"No it's..." She clasped the charm. "It's perfect."

"And I mean it, Hope. I'm here for you, no matter what. I always will be. You can never do anything that will scare me away. No matter how hard you try."

She laughed, the tears jolting free. He wiped them away.

"You're right," he said. "You have decisions to make and I shouldn't be a part of that. I don't need to be. You'll make the right choice, and whatever you decide is fine with me... as long as it doesn't involve handing back my condo keys."

"It won't."

"Then, I meant what I said the other day. I'm just along for the ride. Council, Cabal, mercenary, I don't care. I come willingly, and it's not about following you or protecting you. I enjoy it. You aren't the only one who's finding that what satisfied those 'uncivilized urges' in the past isn't doing the job the way it used to. So consider your options, make your choice and call me home."

"I will."

* * *

FINN

No one thought it would work.

Hope Adams had put Finn in touch with a necromancer named Jaime Vegas. Finn thought the name sounded familiar, though he wasn't sure where from.

She'd promised to walk him through it over the phone, but warned him the task was difficult enough for experienced necromancers, let alone one who'd never actively practiced the art. As Damon would say, he didn't have the juice.

From what little Finn had learned so far, most necromancers saw ghosts all the time, not sporadically at murder sites. Of course, no one - not even Damon - suggested Finn lacked the power to pull it off. They were just very, very cautious in their optimism.

Finn had passed those warnings on to Robyn and she'd been quicker than anyone to assure him that she understood, that if it didn't work, that was okay. Which wasn't true. Yes, she'd understand. But it wouldn't be okay. Not for her. Not for Damon. Not for Finn.

They tried it in Robyn's apartment, just the three of them: Finn, Damon and Robyn. He'd followed the ritual and then... A flicker of images, like a film strip on fast forward. It lasted only a second or two, and when his vision cleared, he was in a strange apartment, sitting in a leather beanbag chair.

Finn touched the chair. He could see his fingers make contact, but couldn't feel the leather. He poked it. His fingers passed through, the leather still smooth.

From the other room, he heard... his voice. Singing. A song he didn't recognize, in a timbre he didn't recognize. A sob. Then a cry that he knew - even if he couldn't make it out - was Robyn saying a name. Damon's name.

He pictured Robyn leaping from her chair, her face...

The apartment next door went silent, and he imagined her throwing herself toward him. His arms outstretched. Robyn in them. Robyn kissing him. But not him. Not really him.

He imagined it and...

He stopped imagining it.

As he sat there, trying not to eavesdrop, an idea wriggled up from the deepest part of his brain. It had been burrowing there since he'd first realized he might be able to let Damon into his body.

It wasn't so much an idea as an impulse. One that if he decided to follow through on, he knew he couldn't think too much about. Do it or don't.

He pushed to his feet. At the door, he reached for the knob. His fingers passed through. He paused a moment, staring at it. From the next room came a chuckle, then a snuffle - a laugh breaking off in a sob. Finn squared his shoulders and stepped through the door.

Down the hall. He paused outside the elevator, but had no idea how that would work, and wasn't about to shimmy down elevator cables. To the stairwell then. To the lobby. Out the front doors.

He stopped in the doorway. Did he want to do this? It felt like the right thing to do, and he supposed that was what counted. As for what he wanted, he honestly didn't know anymore. It had been too long since he'd considered it.