How to Claim an Undead Soul Read online

  “Of course.” He sipped his milk, but the level remained unchanged. “What would you like to know?”

  The desperate edge in my voice shamed me. “Will I ever get it back?”

  “You still have your magic, Grier.” He set down his glass then watched until the ripples stilled. “The drugs and disuse have stunted it, but it’s like a muscle. The more you practice, the more you learn, the stronger you’ll grow.”

  Torn between disappointment that it wasn’t a quick fix and relief it was repairable at all, I nodded.

  “Now.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Time for a pop quiz.”

  The milk in my mouth soured. “I heard you should wait thirty minutes after eating before taking a test.”

  The look he shot me confirmed his professorial status. It said he’d heard every excuse in the book at least three times, and hearing them a fourth wouldn’t do me any good. I sat up straighter while he cleared the table and hoped I didn’t make a total fool of myself.

  “We’ll start off easy with a review of material you should have covered with Maud and go from there.” He placed a thin stack of graph paper in front of me then passed me a pen, the plain, black-ink kind. Not one of his modified ones. “Draw me four basic defense sigils for a home.”

  For a home. Those three words cemented his promise to help me restore the wards around Woolworth House, and I sat a little straighter in my chair.

  Despite the wording of his request, sigils didn’t fall into animate and inanimate categories. They were singular, and it was up to the practitioner to modify them based on their application.

  “Here goes nothing.” Summoning the designs from my rusty memory, I worked to get the fine details correct as I blocked each one out in its own grid. The pen was slippery in my hand when I finished. “There you go.”

  He slid on a pair of black-frame glasses that made the blue of his eyes that much darker then lifted the paper.

  The silence while he graded my work left me bouncing my leg under the table.

  “Explain each of these.” He placed the paper back in front of me and tapped the largest one. “Start here.”

  “This one protects against attacks both physical and magical.” I pointed out the next with the pen cap. “This one is for strength. It’s a combination that boosts the power of any other sigil.” The next was a nifty modification to the one I had used during my escape from Volkov. “This is an obfuscation sigil. It doesn’t disguise a home as much as it makes the residence so uninteresting no one notices it. Or, if they do, they don’t remember it for long.” The last was a staple in my arsenal. “This one is for healing. It can’t fix a cracked foundation or physical damage, but it can bolster failing wards until repairs can be done.”

  Poor Woolly was covered in them.

  “Interesting.”

  I set the pen down before my sweaty grip sent it flying. “What does that mean?”

  “Your technique is superb. You were trained with a brush, and some students can’t divorce the sensation from one medium to the next, but I don’t see any reason why we can’t proceed with an altered pen like the one you used to heal my nose. Unless you have a personal preference?”

  “Having a pen like yours might come in handy.” For homework, it would mean less drying time for my notes too. “You once mentioned using a brush for resuscitations and other ritualistic work. I think that would be my choice too.” He hadn’t stopped staring at that paper. “What did I do wrong?”

  “The sigils you’re using, the way you’re drawing them, is nonstandard. I don’t recognize the style at all, even though I can read it well enough to tell what it does.” He braced his palm on the table, tracing the curves with his fingertip. “It’s not wrong. It’s personalized in a way you don’t typically see in fledgling necromancers. It’s like a signature. Are all your sigils drawn this way?”

  “I…guess?” I rubbed my thumb over the tabletop. “I copied them down the way Maud taught me.”

  “Maud didn’t teach you this.” He canted his head toward me. “Has anyone else seen your work?”

  “Amelie and Boaz.” I had no other necromancer friends, no High Society friends at all.

  “They would have no reason to recognize the symbols, correct?”

  A few Low Society necromancers were self-taught to maximize what little power they had inherited. Even rarer was the prodigy whose natural power propelled them to High Society status. But, as much as it pained Amelie to have any limits imposed upon her, that was not the case for either of my friends.

  “No.” I propped my elbow on the table and my chin in my palm. “Why would that matter?”

  “Let’s try an experiment before I answer.” He sketched out an unfamiliar design on a fresh sheet of paper. “This sigil muffles sound.” I winced at the reminder of how I woke him. “The most common usage is insulating the walls of homes in predominantly human neighborhoods. I want you to draw it for me.”

  I shook out my hand and gave it a go. The lines were simple, and it only took a minute to complete and then check against the original. “Ta-da?”

  Linus claimed each paper then held them in opposite hands while he compared the finished products. His brow creased as his gaze flicked back and forth. “Do these sigils look identical to you?”

  “I’m out of practice,” I groused, “but it’s not that bad. You’re acting like you can’t tell they’re meant to be the same thing.”

  “No, I’m trying to understand.” He held them up, side by side, facing me. “These are not identical. They’re the same at their core, but yours incorporates a flourish. Mine are standard, unembellished. It’s a habit picked up from teaching that makes it easier on my students.” He flipped the pages over, facing him, and studied them again. “Fascinating.”

  “Is fascinating a good thing?” Right now, it sounded like a polite way of saying Maud had been right to condemn me to a life as an assistant rather than as a practitioner.

  “Mother was wrong about your blood,” he said distractedly. “It’s not just that, it’s this too. Your mind…” He shook his head then tucked the papers away, no doubt saving them for later deliberation. “I’m starting to understand why Maud kept us separate even when we studied the same lessons.”

  “She didn’t want anyone else to see what I see.” A frown sank into place. “Do you think this is the reason she enrolled me in human school?”

  As much as I longed to hear him say yes, that her decision was a protection and not a condemnation, I couldn’t shake those engrained insecurities that came from being told by one of the world’s most gifted practitioners that I wasn’t enough.

  “No one can know for sure, but it seems likely given what we’ve learned.” He crossed the room, and I lost track of him behind the trunks. “I wish we had access to her library. She must have made notes about your condition. She could never leave a good puzzle unsolved. Reading those would help us understand how your brain functions, how your blood works. We could save time building on her knowledge.”

  “The basement won’t open for me.” I hammered my heel against the nearest chair leg, but it did nothing to dispel the frisson of unease shivering through me. “It’s the one room Woolly can’t manually unlock.”

  Going down there hadn’t ranked high on my priority list until the Grande Dame explained what it meant that I was goddess-touched. That’s when it hit me that whatever Maud had known, I had to know too. I hadn’t tried breaking the wards. Yet. Assuming they could be jimmied. Given how determined Maud had been to hide my nature from me while she was alive, I was willing to bet the extra layers of security activated after her death wouldn’t crumple under a lock-breaker sigil and a few swipes of my brush.

  Odds were good Linus could batter his way into her inner sanctum. He was an apt pupil, after all. But once the wards came down, I had nothing to replace them, and I couldn’t afford to leave the library vulnerable.

  “That’s too bad.” Wood scraped over metal in the direction Linus had go
ne. “We can add that to our to-do list.”

  Mentally, I scratched that right out. There would be no witnesses when I descended those stairs for the first time post-Maud, and that meant I had to figure it out on my own.

  “I hope you don’t mind.” Linus reappeared with a rectangular bundle wrapped in butcher paper. A wide burlap ribbon banded around its middle, and a white wax seal had been pressed to its seam. “I brought you a gift.”

  “What is it?” I accepted the parcel and weighed it in my hands. “It’s heavy.”

  “Open it.” He leaned a hip against the table. “I commissioned it for you a few months ago.”

  Startled by his casual mention of the timeline for my release, I forgot what I had been about to do.

  “Mother lobbied for over a year to have you exonerated,” he explained. “I had time to prepare.”

  Too bad I hadn’t been given the same forewarning. A spark of hope goes a long way in the dark.

  “You can always save it for later.” His hands sank deep in his pockets. “You don’t have to open it now.”

  But he had put time and effort, and likely a good bit of money, into buying this for me. The way he kept pushing his glasses up his nose before they got a chance to slip told me he was excited to see my reaction. He had done the same thing as a boy each time he picked up a new mystery novel from the library.

  “I’m curious what’s put that look on your face,” I admitted as I tore into the package then froze with numb fingers. A shudder of revulsion rocked me, and I had to fight my instinct to drop the thing onto the table. “This is, um, wow. You shouldn’t have.”

  I stared at the grimoire, and the grimoire stared right back.

  Exposure to light caused its nine eyes to squint after so long in its wrapping. The cover was a patchwork blend of black and brown leather in varying shades that had been stitched together with broad thread. The hide was smooth in places and rough in others. I peeked at the underside and found it sewn from similar scraps, these covered in lumpy warts. Cracking open the cover, I flipped through the hundreds of pages of crisp, white paper awaiting my mark then set it back on the counter.

  “What’s it made of?” I rubbed my finger between two yellow eyeballs with slitted, vertical pupils, and its lids fluttered with pleasure. “It’s…livelier than the ones Maud used.”

  Crimson leather with gold inlay was more her style. Even in that regard, she had been a traditionalist.

  “A number of things I imagine.” He tapped the corner. “A goblin who consults for Strophalos makes them from creatures who have been condemned to death by Faerie.”

  “You know an actual goblin from actual Faerie?” The fae were ruled by the Earthen Conclave in this world. That was the governing body the Society brushed against when fae caused issues for necromancers. But the location of their home realm, and how they accessed this one, was a secret fae immigrants guarded with their lives. “Have you ever seen him without glamour?”

  “Yes, and no.” Linus straightened. “Contact with the fae is forbidden outside contracts negotiated between our solicitors, so I’m not allowed to speak to him directly. I’ve never actually met him.”

  About what I’d expected to hear but still comforting to learn that even the vaunted Lawson reach was limited.

  “Well, thank you.” The thing was so ugly, it was almost cute. “It was kind of you to think of me.”

  “Ah.” He held up a finger. “You haven’t asked what it does.”

  I examined it for clues. “Other than blink creepily?”

  “Write a combination sigil, something basic, but leave a quarter of it unfinished.”

  I did as he instructed then waited for the magic to happen.

  “Close the book.” He gave it about thirty seconds. “Open the cover.”

  “The book completed the sigil,” I marveled. “How?”

  “More eyes on a problem make for less work.”

  I laughed under my breath. “That is such teacher logic.”

  He shuffled my quiz papers into a neat stack then turned to carry them back to the office. I captured him by the wrist, and his pulse jumped under my fingertips. Wisps of black clouded his eyes when he glanced back until he blinked them clear, and I loosened my grip.

  “Thank you,” I said again, meaning it this time. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “I wanted to,” he countered, holding so still he seemed to enjoy being caught. “I want to help you, Grier.”

  Him and everyone else with something to gain, but all this help was five years too late in coming.

  “I should go.” I released him and stood in a rush, snagging the grimoire at the last moment. I couldn’t afford to forget why he was here or who had sent him. “This—” I gestured around the mess we’d made in the kitchen, “—was nice.”

  His gaze dipped to the chair I had vacated. “What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?”

  Boxes of oatmeal, all bought on clearance, awaited me in the pantry. “Reconstituting dried fruit?”

  “Would you consider joining me?” Linus still hadn’t glanced up from my seat. “I have bacon.”

  How could I say no to that? “Are nightly pop quizzes going to be a thing with us?”

  A smile flirted with his lips. “It’s not a pop quiz if I warn you ahead of time.”

  Flushing because he was right, and I wanted to impress him despite the nagging voice warning me not to care what he thought of me, I darted through the door into the cool garden before I stuck my foot in my mouth again. I might eat a lot of PB&J, but toe jam was not my favorite flavor.

  Two

  I was kneeling on the grass, pinching the drowsy heads off a row of peonies, when a curvy Indian woman about my height cranked open the side gate leading into the garden. She strode through the four connected archways dripping with fragrant jasmine and clusters of lavender wisteria to stand before me. Her outfit of tight black tee and fatigues clued me in to her identity seconds before her boot swung at my head.

  I dodged—okay, I fell flat on my back like a turtle—and shrilled, “Are you insane?”

  The flash of her teeth was dazzling. “Maybe.”

  “You must be Taslima.” I accepted the hand she offered like an idiot. “I’m Grier.”

  “Anyone who’s known Boaz more than thirty seconds knows who you are down to what size panties you wear.” She used her grip to yank me to my feet. “Either you’ve lost weight recently, or he hasn’t gotten in your pants yet. He’s off two sizes by my estimate.”

  While oddly flattered he had spoken of me to his friends, I was still going to murder him for what he had told them. “The answer is both.”

  Using her iron grip, she reeled me stumbling into her, putting us chest to chest, and latched her arms around me. A manic grin split her cheeks while I gasped for breath. “You can call me Taz.”

  “Taz,” I wheezed. “I can’t breathe.”

  She yielded not one inch. “Do something about it.”

  Dots flickered in my vision before my brain got the message she wasn’t kidding. With my arms trapped at my sides and her body plastered against mine, all I could do was slam my forehead into her nose with as much power as I could leverage.

  A sickening crunch made me regret the hearty breakfast I’d eaten, but her arms loosened enough for me to wriggle out of her hold.

  Backing toward the porch, I couldn’t swallow down my reflexive manners. “Are you okay?”

  “Did Volkov ask if you were okay when he kidnapped you?” The promise of swelling muffled her voice. “And if he did, tell me you weren’t dumb enough to stand around cataloging your boo-boos.”

  My heel banged against the bottom step, and I turned to climb onto the porch.

  A hard kick took out the back of my left knee, and I crumpled. Taz followed that up with a boot to my spine that made me cry out before she clocked me across the mouth. I face-planted in the grass and regretted ever asking Boaz for help. Clearly his choice of tutor was deranged. Had she mi
sunderstood this was basic self-defense and not an assassination attempt?

  “Get up,” Taz snapped. “You’re wasting my time if you don’t even try.”

  Blood dribbled down my chin from a split in my bottom lip. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and focused on the vermilion bindi dotted between her eyebrows until the two Tazes floating in my vision merged into one. And then I blinked again.

  Black mist whispered around her ankles, murmuring up her legs, until the wraith coalesced behind her with a threatening groan. Its skeletal hand palmed her throat, and the edges of its black hood brushed the spot below her ear, making me wonder if wraith had teeth.

  Linus strolled from the carriage house, drying his hands on a dish towel. “What’s all this about?”

  “I asked Boaz for self-defense classes.” I used the railing to haul myself onto my feet. “He sent me Taslima.” The wraith hissed, a death rattle in its chest, and its fingers tightened. Ignoring the whimper of my hindbrain, I wobbled over to her and pried at the wraith’s skeletal hand with my bloodied fingers, but it refused to obey me with its master present. “Let her go.”

  A flash of respect glinted in Taz’s eyes, but then she glared at Linus. “You heard the lady.”

  Linus studied me, evaluating the damage Taz had done, his lips mashed together to keep his opinions to himself until they whitened. Still I expected him to invoke his mother’s name to get his way or threaten to tattle on me if I didn’t stop damaging the Grande Dame’s investment.

  “Come see me when you’re finished.” His tone had gone so cold I imagined his lips bluing along their edges as the wraith bled into the shadows gathered under the porch. “I’ll do what I can to patch you up.”

  “That’s it?” I asked dumbly. “No threats? No ultimatums? No locking me in the attic until I see reason?”

  “Grier, you’re a grown woman. I can’t stop you from doing anything you want to do.”