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CHAPTER 1

The first time I realized I could feel corpses, I had nightmares for a week. I was a child at the time, so that was understandable. These days I was accustomed to the clammy reach of the grave that lifted from dead bodies. To the eerie feeling of my own innate magic responding and filling me with the unrequested knowledge of how recently the person died, their gender, and the approximate age they were at death. When I anticipated encountering a corpse, I tightened my mental shields and worked at keeping my magic at bay. Usually that was only necessary at places like graveyards, the morgue, and funeral homes—places one might expect to find a body.

I never expected to feel a corpse walking across the street in the middle of the Magic Quarter.

“Alex? I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” Tamara, one of my best friends and my current lunchmate, asked. She sighed, twisting in her seat to scan the sidewalk beyond the small outdoor sitting area of the café where we were eating. “Huh. Which one is he? I may be married and knocked up, but I know a good-looking man when I see one, and, girl, I don’t see one. Who are you staring at?”

“That guy,” I said, nodding my head at a man in a brown suit crossing the street.

Tamara glanced at the squat, middle-aged man who was more than a little soft in the middle and then cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’ve seen what you have at home, so I take it this is business. Did you bring one of your cases to our lunch?”

I ignored the “at home” comment, as that situation was more than a little complicated, and shook my head. “My case docket is clear,” I said absently, and let my senses stretch. When I concentrated, I could feel grave essence reaching from corpses in my vicinity. All corpses. There were decades of dead and decaying rats in the sewer below the streets, and smaller creatures like insects that barely made a blip on my radar, but like called to like, and my magic zeroed in on the man.

“He’s dead,” I said, and even to me my voice sounded unsure.

Tamara blinked at me, likely waiting for me to reveal the joke. Instead I pushed out of my seat as the man turned up the street. Tamara grabbed my arm.

“I’m the lead medical examiner for Nekros City, and I can tell you with ninety-nine point nine percent certainty that the man walking down the street is very much alive.” She put extra emphasis on the word “walking,” and on any other day, I would have agreed with her.

My own eyes agreed with her. But my magic, the part of me that touched the grave, that could piece together shades from the memories left in every cell of a body, disagreed. That man, walking or not, was a corpse. Granted, he was a fresh one—the way he felt to my magic told me he couldn’t have been dead more than an hour. But he was dead.

So how the hell had he just walked into the Museum of Magic and the Arcane?

I dropped enough crumpled dollars on the table to cover my portion of the bill and tip before weaving around tables and out of the café seating. Behind me, Tamara grumbled under her breath, but after a moment I heard her chair slide back as she pushed away from the table. I didn’t wait for her to follow me out as I all but sprinted across the street to catch up with the walking corpse.

The museum’s wards tingled along my skin as I stepped through the threshold. I’d been inside the museum a few times, and the collection of rare and unusual artifacts from both pre- and post-awakening was impressive, but I was a sensitive, capable of sensing magic, and between all the security wards and the artifacts themselves, the museum tended to be overwhelming. Definitely migraine-inducing in large doses. I noted that the magic in the air was particularly biting today, like one of the security wards had recently been triggered. I sucked in an almost pained breath, trying to adjust to the sudden crush of magic all around me. The extra sting of the deployed ward didn’t help.

I should have walked the extra few steps to clear the entrance wards.

I’d entered only minutes behind the man, but he almost barreled into me as the door swung closed behind me. His shoulder brushed me at the same moment he hit the antitheft wards, and several things happened at once. The wards snapped to life, blaring a warning to the museum staff to let them know something was being stolen. Simultaneously, a theft-deterring paralytic spell sparked across the would-be thief, locking his body—and the artifact—in place.

Unfortunately, while the wards were powerful, they weren’t terribly specific. Where his shoulder touched mine, the spell jumped from him to me, immobilizing me as well. Under normal circumstances, that would majorly suck. Under these circumstances? It was so much worse.

My magic still identified him as a corpse. I could feel the grave essence lifting off him, clawing at me. My mental shields, while strong, were already overwhelmed, and my magic liked dead things. A lot. I hadn’t raised a shade in nearly a week, so the magic was looking for release. Typically I made a point not to touch the dead. Now I couldn’t get away.

My magic battered against the inside of my shields, looking for chinks in my mental walls that it could jump through. Fighting the spell holding me was a waste of energy—I was well and truly caught—so I focused all of my attention on holding back my own magic. But I could feel the chilled fingers of the grave sliding under my skin, worming their way into me and making paths for my magic to leach into the animated corpse frozen against me.

I wanted to open my shields and See what the thing in front of me was truly made of. But if I cracked my shields to gaze across the planes of reality and get a good look at the body, more of my magic would escape. And too much was already whispering through my shields, making fissures where more could follow. Sweat broke out on my paralyzed brow as I poured my focus into holding my magic at bay.

But I was touching a corpse.

The grave essence leaking from the body clawed at the fissures my magic was chewing through my shields, and it was too much. If I could have stepped back … But I couldn’t.

All at once a chunk of my mental wall caved, and the magic rushed out of me. Color washed over the world as the Aetheric plane snapped into focus around me. A wind lifted from the land of the dead, stirring my curls and chilling my clammy skin. I could now see the network of magic holding me in place, as well as the knot of magic in the sprung ward, but more importantly, I could see the corpse in front of me. And it was a corpse, no doubt about it, the dead skin sagging, bloating.

But under the dead flesh, a yellow glimmer of a soul glowed.

Which meant the body was both dead and alive. Considering it was up and walking around, it was a heck of a lot more alive than a dead body should have been.

The soul inside was the color I associated with humans, so this wasn’t a corpse being worn and walked around by something from Faerie or one of the other planes. I still couldn’t see spellwork shimmering across the dead flesh, but it had to be there, binding the soul inside the corpse. But whatever kind of half-life the man existed in wasn’t going to last much longer if I couldn’t get hold of my magic.

The hole in my shields wasn’t huge, but I could feel my magic filling the body. And the grave and souls didn’t get along. I couldn’t stop the hemorrhage of magic, but I managed to slow it to a trickle.

I’d barely noticed the crowd gathering around us until one of the museum guards began releasing the spell holding us. If the antitheft paralyzing spell was dropped, I’d be able to get my distance from the corpse.

But either he wasn’t a very good witch, or he was stalling—likely to wait for the cops—because he was taking his sweet time as more and more of my magic flowed out.

I’d ejected souls from dead bodies before. While souls didn’t like the touch of the grave, they tended to cling to their flesh pretty hard and it took directed magic to pry them free. I was actively fighting expelling the soul, and only a small portion of my magic had filled the corpse, but the soul’s connection to the body felt weak, tentative.

I couldn’t shift my gaze to the museum worker, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye. Oh please, release the damn immobility spell.

Too late.

In a burst of light, the soul popped free of the corpse.

Nothing about the body changed. It had already been dead and it was still held immobile by the spell, but the soul stood free. For a long moment it was almost too bright to look at, a shimmering, crystalline yellow. But souls can’t exist without a body, and in a heartbeat the glow dimmed, the form solidifying as the soul transitioned to the purgatory landscape of the land of the dead.

If I could have stumbled back in shock, I would have, but I couldn’t even blink in surprise. Not because the soul transitioned—that I expected—but because the ghost now standing in front of me was that of a young woman.

My focus shifted from the balding, middle-aged man to the woman who might not have been old enough to drink. Ghosts weren’t like shades. While shades were always an exact representation of the person at the moment of death, ghosts tended to reflect how a person perceived himself. Appearing a little younger or more attractive was common. I supposed it was even possible that if someone identified across gender lines, their ghost might reflect that discrepancy. But this ghost was a drastically different age as well as being a different gender and ethnicity. And that was unheard of.

The ghost-girl looked around, no longer inhibited by the spell holding the body she’d been inside. Her dark eyes rounded as her eyebrows flew upward and her motions took on the frantic quickness of panic.

A panic that didn’t last long as a figure appeared beside her. He was dressed from head to toe in gray and carrying a silver skull-topped cane. The Gray Man. A soul collector.

I wanted to scream No. To run between him and the girl who clearly hadn’t belonged in the dead body. Things didn’t add up here, and I wanted to talk to the ghost.

But I still couldn’t move.

I stood silently frozen in place as the Gray Man reached out, grabbed the soul, and sent her on to wherever souls went next. Then he turned and looked at the body she’d vacated. His expression gave away nothing as his gaze moved on to me. He gave me one stern shake of his head, which could have meant he didn’t know what was going on or that he knew but it wasn’t any business of mine.

Then he vanished.

Of course, that was the moment the guard released the spell. I stumbled back as the now truly dead body collapsed.

I barely registered the gasps and screams. I only half noted the gun that clattered across the marble as the lifeless body hit the floor. I was far too busy staring at the spot where the Gray Man and the ghost had been. She hadn’t belonged in the wrongly animated body. So how the hell had she gotten into someone else’s body? And why?

CHAPTER 2

“You’re saying the man was dead before he ran into the security system?” The cop interviewing me looked up from his notepad, one skeptical eyebrow raised. “And what makes you think that?”

“I’m a grave witch. I sensed him when he walked by on the street,” I said, not paying as much attention to the questions as I probably should have been. Most of my attention was focused on the body that someone had draped a black tablecloth over just a few yards away, still where it had collapsed near the door. When I’d first sensed the body—when it was still up and walking around—it had felt like the very recently dead. Now my magic told me it was older, days, maybe even a week, deceased.

I squinted, as if the action could reveal more about the body. It didn’t, of course. I could have reached out with my ability to sense the dead, thinned my shields so I gazed across the planes and spanned the chasm between the living and dead, but there was a lot of magic—both latent and active—in the museum, and my shields were already rather worse for the wear after getting caught in the antitheft spell with the corpse.

The cop’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying you noticed the deceased before he entered, and you followed him in?”

“I, uh …” Crap. Yeah, I definitely should have been paying more attention to the questions at hand. One look at the cop’s expression told me that I’d just gone from “unlucky witness” to “potential suspect.”

The door to the museum swung open and my gaze flicked over the cop’s head. Tamara stepped inside. She held out her laminated medical examiner ID as she assessed the scene, clearly trying to identify who was in charge.

“That was fast,” the other officer—the one interviewing the museum curator—said with a look of relief on his face. He wasn’t a homicide detective and he’d responded to a robbery call only to discover a dead body. He likely wanted to hand over his notes and be done with this mess.

Tamara shook her head. “I was across the street. At lunch.” The last words held the barest edge, no doubt aimed at me. “I let my office know I was at the scene. The rest of my team should be here soon.” She made her way toward the prone figure. Her baby bump was just barely showing, but her gait had changed slightly. Nothing major, but I’d known her long enough to notice. “Did anyone try to resuscitate the victim?”

The cop who’d been questioning me held up one hand, two fingers raised, clearly indicating I shouldn’t go anywhere. He half turned toward Tamara, never letting me out of his sight. Yup, I was officially in his suspect category, and I hadn’t even told him I’d been responsible for driving out the soul who’d hitched a ride in the man’s body.

“He was clearly dead when we arrived, ma’am. I checked for vitals, but he was gone.”

Tamara nodded absently and reached down to pull the makeshift shroud from the corpse. “What the—?” She jumped backward, dropping the cloth. “Get a magical hazmat team here now. This body needs to be sealed and contained behind a circle. Now.”

The cop in front of me radioed in Tamara’s order as his partner began drawing a circle around the corpse. Tamara kept backing away, never turning from the body.

I took advantage of the sudden chaos and slipped around the officer so I could get a better look at the body. The shriveled lips had pulled away from the corpse’s teeth, giving him an eerie death grin as his skin had slipped down his face. This wasn’t decay that happened in less than half an hour—this was days of rot. Which corresponded with how long my magical senses claimed the man to have been dead.

Tamara’s backward stride—steady and slow as if she were afraid that if she turned and ran, the corpse would jump up and give chase—had finally brought her to my side. I knew it wasn’t the decay that had her on edge—I’d seen her happily autopsy bodies in much worse states. No, it was a recent experience she’d had that had nearly killed her and her unborn child. An attack by a body that had transformed after death.

She turned to me, her dark eyes wide. “What have you gotten me into now? And why do I hang out with you?” She hissed the question, her voice too fast, too breathy with fear. “You don’t think he is … ?”

“A ghoul?” I shook my head. “Trust me, I’ll never forget what they feel like. No, this is something different. I don’t know what’s going on, but I definitely don’t like it.”

• • •

I sat in an uncomfortable folding chair at Central Precinct in a room that, if I were being generous, I’d call a waiting area. A more accurate description of the space was that it was a tucked-away closet where the cops could shuffle off someone they didn’t want to deal with but whom they couldn’t arrest. Yet.

The Anti–Black Magic Unit had arrived at the scene before the homicide detectives. To secure the scene and better assess the situation, they’d decided to clear the civilians out. Which included me. I’d been asked to come down to Central Precinct to give a formal statement. Which was fine—I needed to explain what I’d seen and felt. Quick-rotting corpses walking around piloted by the wrong soul were not normal. In fact, I’d never heard of any other reported case. I was hoping the NCPD would put our prior differences behind us and resurrect our retainer agreement so I could raise the shade and get some answers about the whole thing. But sitting in a dingy room between two empty folding chairs for over an hour was not leaving me optimistic on that front.

Standing, I paced around the small room, but there wasn’t enough room to make that a satisfying endeavor, and it left me more irritated instead. I could at least check and see if the detectives in charge were back from the scene. And if they weren’t, well, I had my own business to run. They could set up an appointment for me to come back. I was done waiting. With a decisive nod, I pulled open the door and walked down the short hall to the lobby of Central Precinct.

The front lobby buzzed with activity. Tensions had been high in the city of late, and that translated into an increase of both petty and serious crime. Some of the detectives and supervisors had private offices deeper in the building, but the bulk of the officers had desks scattered mazelike in the front. Blue-clad cops sat at these desks typing up reports, talking to witnesses, informants, or concerned citizens, or working on cases. An officer I vaguely recognized pushed a handcuffed man past me, toward fingerprinting, the man blathering about how this was all a big misunderstanding. As he passed, the assortment of spells the well-dressed suspect carried tingled along my senses. Most were commonplace enough, but then my ability to sense magic zeroed in on something he should definitely not have been carrying.

“You might want to check his right forearm,” I called after the officer. “He’s carrying at least a dozen primed knockout spells.”

The officer glanced at me and frowned, but I saw the spark of recognition in his eye. He turned back to the man and pulled up the tailored suit sleeve. A pouch no larger than a small coin purse was secured to the man’s arm with a strap.

“That’s not … Uh,” the man started, sweat pouring down his face. “Who the hell is she? I want my lawyer.”

“You’re going to need one,” the cop muttered, pushing the suspect forward. He gave me half a nod of acknowledgment before I turned and resumed my trek to the front.

“Why am I not surprised to see you here?” an eerily familiar, and not completely welcomed, voice asked from off to my right.

I spun, my gaze darting around the busy front lobby of Central Precinct. I didn’t see the dark-haired woman, who had always been clad in black leather during my short experience with her a few months back and who should have stood out in the precinct. Of course, I didn’t fully expect to spot her with my eyes—she wore so many charms meant to make the gaze slide over her that, even knowing who and what you were looking for, it was often hard to focus on her. But I expected to sense the magical armory she carried. Any other time I’d encountered her, my ability to sense magic had zeroed in on the massive amount of weaponized magic she carried like a spotlight.

At least half the people in the lobby carried a spell or two. Most were mundane, a couple were less so, but no one carried so many as to stand out in a crowd. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe I hadn’t heard—

Briar Darque stepped directly in front of me.

I jumped, stumbling back before catching myself.

“I take it from your expression, this spell was worth every penny I paid,” Briar said, smiling a wolfish grin. I only frowned at her. It had annoyed her that she couldn’t sneak up on me during our previous acquaintance. Apparently she’d found a way around a sensitive’s abilities.

Letting my ability to sense magic stretch, I mentally reached for Briar. At first all I could pick up was a single spell surrounding her like a haze. It was large, but not terribly interesting or threatening, which was why my magic had skimmed over it initially. Under that, though, when I focused on piercing that veil, I could sense her magical smorgasbord. I’d never encountered a spell that camouflaged magic before, at least not without it shining a huge blinking light on the thing it meant to hide.

“Damn,” I whispered, my voice breathy both from being startled and from respect for the piece of magical craftsmanship in front of me. “Who crafted that spell? And how?”

Briar’s grin only widened. Then her gaze moved past me and she held up her badge, flashing it at the officer approaching us. “I need to talk to someone who can brief me on your current open cases, in particular your more bizarre or unexplained ones.” She paused and then jerked a thumb at me. “Probably anything she’s involved with.”

The officer, who looked young and likely fresh out of academy, didn’t say anything. He scrutinized Briar’s badge for a moment, and then he turned on his heels and walked back the way he’d just come. I assumed he was going to retrieve someone with more authority.

“So what’s been happening, Craft?” Briar asked, walking over to lean on an empty desk. Her big biker boots and leather made no sound as she moved, as if she were more mirage than flesh-and-blood woman. “Keeping your magical nose clean, I hope? I see you’re still glowing.”

I cringed. “Can we not talk about that here?” Most people couldn’t see the telltale glow that emanated from under my skin, betraying my true heritage. The fae chameleon charm I wore let people see what they expected to see—which for most people was just a human witch. But once someone saw the truth of my fae nature, the charm didn’t work on them anymore. Briar was now immune to that particular visual deception. “How are you here already, Darque? The weird shit only started about an hour ago.”

She lifted one leather-clad shoulder. “The MCIB has a robust staff of precogs. Sometimes I get sent places a little early. Works out better that way. So define ‘weird shit.’”

I glanced around. No one was paying particular attention to us, and the officer Briar had sent scurrying for someone higher in rank hadn’t returned yet. Briar was an inspector with the Magical Crimes Investigation Bureau. When we’d first met, she’d told me she was the one they sent to clean up magical messes—and those who’d made them. A corpse trying to steal priceless artifacts sounded to me like a “magical mess,” so I told her how I’d sensed the walking corpse before it had entered the museum, about the soul I saw, and about the body’s quick decay after the soul’s departure. I left out the part about my magic being instrumental in the body and soul’s separation because Briar was … unpredictable.

Briar sat with her arms crossed over her chest as I spoke, attentive but unmoving, her expression unreadable. The situation made me twitchy, my fingers searching for something to fidget with as if to compensate for her uncanny stillness with excessive movement. I half expected her to pull out a file of neatly written facts about the case, like the one she’d shoved under my nose the first time we met, but when I finished, she only nodded.

“And you’re sure the corpse wasn’t a vehicle for a ghoul to enter this realm?”

“Yes, I’m sure. The ghouls we fought back in September had a tie back to the land of the dead. Once the soul left this body, it was just a corpse.”

She pursed her lips, but I thought that there was a look of relief in her dark eyes. No one liked ghouls. “Did you sense any spells on the body?”

“My best look at him was when we were both tied in a paralyzing spell, after he’d already successfully snatched an artifact from behind even more wards and we were inside a museum of magic—there was a lot of magic everywhere. I didn’t feel anything I would think would make a corpse walk, but I didn’t really have time to parse it out.”

“Hmmm. Interesting.” She pushed off the desk, her gaze going over my shoulder.

I turned. A visit from an MCIB investigator was clearly a big deal because the chief of police was headed straight for us, flanked on either side by a homicide detective.

“Well, if I have any more questions, I know where to find you,” Briar said, as she stepped around me.

“I’d like to talk to the man’s shade,” I called after her.

She only half turned. “Like I said, I know where to find you.” Then she held out her hand, greeting the chief.

I’d been dismissed.

Praise for the Alex Craft Novels

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2