Лей Бардуго - Ninth House

In Lethe’s books, Alex had found no way to make Tara talk or any way to reach her on the other side of the Veil—at least, nothing that was achievable without the help of one of the societies. Even if Alex could have managed it, many of the rituals she’d found made it clear that speaking to the newly dead usually risked raising them, and that was always a dangerous proposition. No one could be brought back from beyond the Veil permanently, and hauling a reluctant soul back into its body could be wildly unpredictable. Book and Snake specialized in necromancy and had created numerous safeguards for their rituals, but even they sometimes lost control once a Gray found its way to a body. In the late seventies, they’d tried to summon the spirit of Jennie Cramer, the legendary Belle of New Haven, into the body of a teenage girl from Camden, who had frozen to death when she’d passed out drunk in her car during a blizzard. Instead, it was the Camden girl who had returned, shivering with cold and possessed of the ferocious strength of the newly dead.

She’d broken through the Book and Snake gates and walked to Yorkside Pizza, where she’d eaten two pies and then lain down in one of the ovens in an attempt to get warm. A Lethe delegate had been present and was able to quickly quarantine the area and, through a serious of compulsions, convince the customers the girl was part of a performance-art piece. The owner was Greek and less easily swayed. He had long carried a gouri given to him by his mother—specifically the blue “evil eye” or mati , which stymied any attempts at compulsion. Cash proved far more effective. At the owner’s request, Lethe also stepped in to make sure Yorkside retained its lease when the majority of other businesses were forced out of Yale’s premiere shopping district by rising rents designed to bring in upscale retailers. The local businesses along Elm and Broadway had vanished, making way for prestige brands and chain stores, but Yorkside Pizza remained.

So since Tara couldn’t talk, her body would have to. Alex had discovered a ritual to reveal harm, something simpler, lighter, used for diagnosis or for when a patient or witness was unable to speak. It had been invented by Girolamo Fracastoro to discover who had poisoned an Italian countess after she’d keeled over, foaming at the mouth, at her own wedding feast.

Alex didn’t want to put her hand into the haze above the gruesome wounds on Tara’s chest. But that was what she’d come here to do. She took a breath and thrust her fingers forward.

She was on the ground, a boy’s face above her—Lance. Sometimes she loved him, but lately things had been… The thought left her. She felt herself open her mouth, tasted something acrid on her tongue. Lance was smiling. They were on their way… where? She felt only excitement, anticipation, the world beginning to blur.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said.

She was on her back, staring up at the sky. The streetlights seemed far away; everything was moving, and the cathedral beside her melted into a building that blotted out the few stars. It was quiet but she could hear something, like a boot squelching in mud. Thunk squelch, thunk squelch. She saw a body looming above her, saw the knife, understood the sound was her own blood and bone breaking open as the blade sawed away at her. Why didn’t she feel it? What was real and what wasn’t?

“Close your eyes,” said an unfamiliar voice. She did and was gone.

Alex stumbled backward, clutching her chest. She could still hear that horrible squelching sound, feel the warm wet spreading over her chest. But no pain? How had there been no pain? Had she been high? High enough not to feel being stabbed? Lance had drugged her first. He’d told her he was sorry. He must have been high too.

So there was her answer. Tara and Lance had clearly been messing with something other than weed. No doubt by now Turner had been through their apartment, found whatever weird shit they were using and selling. Alex had no way of knowing what Lance had been thinking that night, but if he’d been taking some kind of hallucinogen it could be anything.

Alex looked down at Tara’s body. She’d been frightened in those last moments, but she hadn’t been hurting. That had to count for something.

Lance would go to prison. There would be evidence. That amount of blood… Well, you couldn’t hide it. Alex knew.

The map still glowed above Tara. Little injuries. Big ones. What would Alex’s map show? She’d never broken a bone, had surgery. But the worst damage didn’t leave a mark. When Hellie died, it was as if someone had cut into Alex’s chest, cracked her open like balsa wood. What if it really had been like that and she’d had to walk down the street bleeding, trying to hold her ribs together, her heart and her lungs and every part of her open to the world? Instead, the thing that had broken her had left no mark, no scar for her to point to and say, This is where I ended.

No doubt that was true for Tara too. There was more pain locked inside her that no glowing map would reveal. But though her wounds were grotesque, there were no organs taken, no blood marks or indications of magical harm. Tara had died because she’d been as stupid as Alex and no one had come to rescue her in time. She hadn’t found Jesus or yoga, and no one had offered her a scholarship to Yale.

It was time to leave. She had her answers. This should be enough to appease Hellie’s memory and Darlington’s judgment too. But something was still tugging at her, that sense of familiarity she’d felt at the crime scene that had nothing to do with Tara’s blond hair or the sad, parallel tracks of their lives.

“Should we go?” she asked the coroner standing in the corner in his scrubs, looking vaguely at nothing.

“Whatever you like,” he said.

Alex closed the drawer.

“I think I’d like to sleep for eighteen hours,” Alex said on a sigh. “Walk me out and tell Moira everything went fine.”

She opened the door and strolled straight into Detective Abel Turner.

He seized her arm and drove her backward into the room, slammingthe door behind him. “What the living fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Hey!” Alex said cheerfully. “You made it.”

The coroner hovered behind him. “Are we going?” he asked. “Stay there a minute,” said Alex. “Turner, you’re gonna want to let go of me.”

“You don’t tell me what I want. And what the hell is wrong with him?”

“He’s having a good night,” said Alex, her heart pounding in her chest. Abel Turner did not lose his cool. He was always smiling, always calm. But something in Alex liked him better this way.

“Did you lay hands on that girl?” he said, fingers digging into her skin. “Her body is evidence and you are tampering with it. That’s a crime.”

Alex thought about kneeing Turner in the nuts, but that wasn’t what you did with a cop, so she went limp. Completely limp. It was a strategy she’d learned to use with Len.

“What the hell?” He tried to hold her up as she slumped against him, then released her. “What is wrong with you?” He wiped his hand on his arm as if her weakness were catching.

“Plenty,” Alex said. She managed to right herself before she actually fell, making sure to stay out of his reach. “What kind of stuff were Tara and Lance getting into?”

“I beg your pardon?”

She thought of Lance’s face floating above her. I’m sorry. What had they been using that final night together? “What were they dealing? Acid? Molly? I know it wasn’t just pot.”

Turner’s eyes narrowed, his old, smooth demeanor slipping back into place. “Like everything else related to this case, that is none of your business.”