Vicki Pettersson - The Given

She was sheet-white and already trembling. Still, she just gritted her teeth and jerked her head at Grif. “He’s the one you need to worry about.”

Ott grinned. “Okay, then.”

And in a flourish befitting a world-class magician, he whisked the sheet from the body in one fell swoop.

It actually wasn’t as bad this time around. After all, they’d both seen Barbara’s body before, on the floor of her high-rise apartment, and this time there wasn’t the sight and smell of blood pooling around her, or the assault of gunpowder shocking the air. Still, there was very little left of the woman’s face, her skull a blasted crater of bone cutting into the remaining gray matter. Grif looked at Kit.

“Geez,” she said, putting a hand to her head. “I don’t feel so well.”

Though Grif was closer, Ott reached Kit’s side first. “Can I get you something? Do you want to sit down? Get some fresh air?”

“No, no. I’m sure I’ll be fine. It’s just that it’s so early and I’m not used to this.” She paused dramatically. “But . . .”

“Yes?” Eager, Ott leaned in too close to her face. Grif fought the urge to pull the man away by the scruff of his neck. He got a pass, Grif figured, because he probably didn’t have a whole lot of contact with the living.

“Maybe a soda would settle my stomach?” Kit pitched the statement high, ending it in a question.

As expected, Ott rushed to her rescue. “There’s a vending machine in the hall. I’ll be right back.”

Grif watched him scramble away, red hair bouncing behind him like a troll doll’s. “You gonna scratch him behind the ears when he gets back?”

“Think I should?” Kit smiled as she went to lock the door behind Ott, though they were both serious again by the time she returned to Grif’s side. “He’s not going to let us in again after this.”

“I don’t think we’re going to need him to in the next twenty-four hours,” Grif muttered, because after that he’d be gone, never to roam the Surface again. At least, not as Griffin Shaw.

“Grif—” Kit chided.

“I know. Don’t worry, I know.” He blew out a breath and refocused on the corpse.

“Just hurry up and do what you need to before he calls that guard.”

“No problem. I’m an ace with the newly dead.”

And he was thankful for whatever Sarge had done to Kit. If Sarge had gifted her with Divine Touch, then he didn’t have to worry about breaking one of the Pures’ ridiculous rules about what she was supposed to see. He also hadn’t forgotten about Zicaro, stuck somewhere out there with a known killer. They needed to move quickly.

So, bracing himself, he filled his lungs with a deep, rib-splitting breath, felt his angelic nature fire up—originating in the twin feathers tucked beneath his shoulder blades—and then blew all that power out at the corpse.

He had to admit, he enjoyed the way Kit jumped at the same time Barbara’s corpse did, or maybe it was just the way Kit clung to him when she did it, and though the white-hot flash of heat and light might have been too fast for her mortal eyes to detect, he knew she scented the smoke when she covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

“What is—?”

“Just sulfur,” Grif said, not taking his attention from the coalescing funnel. “Better known ’round these parts as brimstone.”

“But brimstone is bad, right? It’s hellfire, damnation, stuff like that?”

Grif shook his head. “Sulfur is an essential element for all living things. It acts as both fuel and a respiratory compound. And right now we need both. Watch.”

Much like plasma, the yellowish sulfur swirled as if searching for a target, and found it in the phantom shape of Barbara’s missing features. It coalesced there, twining about itself before drawing in more tightly, squeezing out the air molecules.

“Why, that’s—” Kit began to speak but faltered, now truly looking peaked. Grif took her by the elbow to steady her, and hoped the authority in his voice did the same.

“It’s bonding with the proteins left in her body, the amino acids, the keratin.”

Kit swallowed audibly beside him. “And keratin is present in skin. And hair.”

“Yes, and more importantly, Barbara’s face.”

Which meant Grif was finally going to be face-to-face—in a manner of speaking—with that face, and the woman who had hated him and Evie for more than fifty long years. The one who thought that Grif deserved to die horribly . . . and who’d probably had a hand in it as well.

Gritting his teeth, he watched the smoke continue to mold itself to the woman’s remains, the basic facial features forming first and lightening into an ashy tinge actually befitting death. Even the curls along the hairline popped in stylish relief, and those darkened slightly into a hue similar to Kit’s own deep shade. The visage that appeared would be the self-image that the woman saw in her mind’s eye, not the one she’d watched age over the years in the mirror. Therefore the smoky face solidifying before them was not settled into her seventies but looked like it could be anywhere from mid-twenties to mid-forties. Whenever, Grif thought, Barbara had felt most like herself.

The eyes were the last part of the face to settle, wispy lashes the finishing touch before the corpse gave an enormous twitch, fell still again . . . and then rose at the waist.

By this time, Kit was huddling behind Grif, a mewling sound slipping from her throat, which she choked off. She was shaking, squeezing his arm—and he was flexing—when she fell suddenly still, before shooting up to full attention behind him.

“That’s not Barbara McCoy.”

“It’s not?” Grif asked as the corpse turned its head to regard them, wisps of smoke trailing the movement.

“Oh, my God,” Grif said, feeling the blood drain from his face and likely turning just as white as the corpse they were facing. “It’s Gina Alessi.”

Mary Margaret’s nanny back in 1960, when Grif had been killed. The woman who’d sent the young girl out to play in the front yard the day she was abducted. The woman who’d come to see Sal DiMartino fourteen years ago, on the day Kit’s father was killed.

Kit’s fingers tightened around his arm. “But if this is Gina, then that means—”

“Barbara DiMartino is still alive.”

And, at that, the corpse in front of them hissed.

Doesn’t seem to be any love lost there,” Kit murmured against Grif’s left shoulder as Gina’s gritty form continued to glare. Kit was trying to be cool about the whole thing, but talking to the dead— animating them—was new to her. She was seeing things no human should, and now she knew why. She’d have nightmares about this for weeks.

However, Grif just shoved his hands in his pockets and took a step forward. “Are you Gina Alessi? Is Barbara McCoy your cousin?”

The corpse gave a slow nod, which would have been fine except that the sulfuric head undulated on her neck, causing Kit’s stomach to do the same. She swallowed hard as it rolled back into place . . . and she stayed tucked behind Grif.

There are times when one must be brave, she thought. And this isn’t one of them.

“Did she have something to do with your death?” Grif continued.

That rolling nod again.

“Why isn’t she talking?” Kit finally asked.

Grif shrugged. “No tongue.”

And the stench of rotten eggs hit Kit square in the face as the corpse opened its maw to reveal a gaping darkness. Now she knew she’d have nightmares. Kit closed her eyes, but opened them again when she felt the reverberation of Grif’s tapping foot through the sleeve she held clutched in her fist.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Where is memory located? I mean, what part of the brain?”