Kelley Armstrong - The Reckoning

“Oh no,” Tori said. “No, no, no.”

She grabbed my arm again and tried to yank me backward. I brushed her off, walked to a place far enough away to be safe, then closed my eyes and concentrated on releasing the spirits. And if that sounds incredibly calm of me, let’s just say the earth wasn’t the only thing shaking. I had to drop to my knees before they gave way.

I squeezed my eyes shut and kept at it even when Margaret grabbed my shoulders. She shouted for me to get up, but I concentrated on releasing. Release, release, release…

Someone screamed. Then someone else. I leaped up and looked around, but there was no one near the crack in the earth, now at least twenty feet long, a half-dozen coffins exposed.

The ground had gone still. All I could hear was the rustling of leaves. I looked up. The tree branches were covered in tiny, new buds. That wasn’t what was making the noise.

I followed the sound to the coffins. Not a rustling, but a scratching, nails raking the inside of the caskets. Then came the faint, muffled cries of ghosts trapped in those bodies, trying to claw their way-

I dropped to my knees again.

Release them. That’s your job now. Your only job. Release those spirits before the zombies-

Another scream, this time from behind me. A group of newly arrived mourners was coming our way, the pallbearers carrying the casket toward an open grave on the edge of the old section.

They’d stopped and were staring down at the casket. I started toward them, slowly, cautiously, gaze fixed on that coffin, telling myself they’d stopped because of the earth tremors.

A gasp from the crowd. Then I heard what they did-a bump-bump from inside the casket.

Relax. Relax and release. Release, release, re-

A low moan came from the casket, and every hair on my body rose. Another moan, louder. Muffled. Then a strangled cry from within.

Two of the pallbearers dropped their handles. Their end of the coffin tipped and the other four, startled, let go. The casket plummeted, hitting a gravestone as it fell, lid popping open with a crack.

The knot of mourners blocked my view, everyone grabbing the person nearest them-some for support and others to push them out of the way as they ran.

When the throng cleared, I saw an arm on the ground, the rest of the body still hidden behind the gravestone. It just lay there, hand palm downward, arm encased in a suit sleeve. Then the fingers moved, curling clawlike, gripping the ground as the corpse pulled himself forward, turning my way, toward the one who’d summoned him and-

And the one who’ll send him back. Now!

I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined the man, a vague figure in a suit. I imagined setting his soul free, sending up an apology with it, releasing him-

“Good,” Tori whispered beside me. “It’s stopped moving. It’s-No, wait. Keep going. Keep-Okay, it stopped.” A pause. “Still stopped.” Her voice was breathless with relief. “You did it.”

Maybe so, but I didn’t open my eyes to check. As Tori went to assess the situation, I kept releasing spirits, picturing people in suits, people in dresses, people of all ages, animal spirits, spirits of every kind; and while I did, I listened, not just for the shouts and shrieks of the living, but the thumps and cracks and scratches of the living dead.

When I opened my eyes, Tori was coming along a path toward me, keeping back from the edge of the crevasse. People lined both sides now, eyeing it warily, waiting for the earth to move. But it didn’t.

“The dead are dead again,” Tori murmured as she came up beside me. “Everything’s quiet.”

Margaret stood along the chasm with the others. When I called to her, she turned slowly, eyes meeting mine, and in them I saw fear. No, not fear. Horror and revulsion.

You aren’t like her. She sees that now, what you are, what you can do, and it scares her. Scares and disgusts.

She waved us back to the car, but didn’t move herself, like she couldn’t bear to walk with me.

“Stupid bitch,” Tori muttered. “Oh, let’s take the necromancer with superpowers to the cemetery. Of course you aren’t going to raise the dead, you silly girl.”

“I’d say I showed her, but I really would have rather not.”

Tori’s laugh quavered. “We should probably get out of here before anyone starts asking questions.”

“Not too fast,” I said. “We don’t want to look like we’re running from the scene.”

“Right.”

As we walked, we gawked-it would seem weird if we didn’t. We gaped at the crevasse. We squinted up at the sky. We pointed at the fallen casket and whispered, all the while walking as fast as we dared, trying to look like we were as shocked and confused as everyone else.

“Girls!” a man called. “Hold on.”

I turned slowly and saw a middle-aged man bearing down on us. I tried to get Margaret’s attention, tell her we might have trouble, but she was looking the other way, leaving us to deal with it.

“ARE YOU GIRLS OKAY?” the man asked.

Tori nodded. “I think so.”

“Wh-what was that?” I said. “An earthquake?”

He nodded. “Seems so. We haven’t had even a tremor in twenty years.”

A young woman in a long leather coat came up behind him. “And we wouldn’t have had one now, if it wasn’t for the quarry reopening last summer.”

“We can’t go pointing fingers until we’re sure,” the man said.

“Oh, I’m sure. There’s a reason those environmentalists wanted to keep it closed, and a reason it shut down in the first place…after the last tremors, twenty years ago. Do you think that’s a coincidence? All that digging, knocking around the Teutonic plates. Now look-” She gestured at the chasm and scowled. “The quarry’s going to have to pay for this.”

“Is everyone okay?” I asked. “I thought I heard a scream.”

“Oh, that was just-” She waved at the casket, still upended on the ground, surrounded by mourners who were all hoping someone else was going to volunteer to return the body. “My great-uncle was being buried today; and when the ground shook, he started bumping around in the coffin, scared the guys, and they dropped it.”

The man cleared his throat, warning her that we didn’t need the gory details, but she carried on.

“The coffin busted open, Uncle Al fell out, the ground shook again, and-” She tried to suppress a snicker. “They thought he was, you know, moving.”

“Eww,” Tori said. “I’d have screamed, too.”

“Anyway,” the man cut in, “I see your grandmother wants you girls in the car. I don’t blame her. Mother Nature might not be done with us yet.”

We thanked them and headed to the parking lot, Margaret still keeping pace twenty feet behind us.

“Teutonic plates?” Tori said. “Do they bury German pottery with the dead around here?”

I had to laugh at that, but it was a bit shaky.

She continued, “To cause an earthquake the tectonic plates need a fault line, which are, like, on the other side of the country.”

“It sounded good. And that’s all that matters. Derek and Simon say that’s what people do if they see supernatural stuff-make up a logical explanation. If you didn’t know about necromancers and you saw what just happened, what would you think? A freak earthquake? Or someone raising the dead?”

“True. Still, Teutonic plates?”

This time I sat in the back with Tori. When we reached the highway, Margaret finally spoke.

“Who taught you to do that, Chloe?” she said.

“What?”

Her eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Who taught you to raise the dead?”

“N-no one. I-I’ve never even met another necromancer before you.” Not exactly true. I’d briefly met the ghost of one, but he hadn’t been much help.