too faint to be certain. I thought about opening my shields more, but if we were about to go up against an evil practitioner of some kind, I didn’t want to lower my shields, because it would be very much like lowering a shield in battle. You can see over your shield better, but so can your enemy, who will happily plant an ax between your eyes.
If I didn’t want to drop my guard, what else could I do?
“Try using your necromancy,” Nicky suggested.
“I thought that didn’t work in daylight,” Zerbrowski said.
“If I was trying to raise a zombie that could think and answer questions intelligently, then you’re right, but I’m just trying to sense the dead, or the undead, or maybe Nicky is right and the bones will have some sort of power signature that I can sense.”
“And if you know it’s in there?” he asked.
“Then a life is at stake and we break down the door and save that life.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Zerbrowski said.
Almost any other metaphysical ability I had was something I had to coax, or call, or raise inside me, but not my necromancy. It was always there just below the surface, eager and waiting for me to drop my guard so it could spill out of me and into the nearest dead body. I put my fingers against the cool brick of the building the way I sometimes touch the dirt over a grave.
I hesitated for a second because if it had been a grave, I would have sent my power searching through the dirt for the body I wanted to raise, and then I would have called it to me. I didn’t want to do that, did I? Was there enough left of Warrington to come to my call? Was there enough of my magic left on the bones to call it to me? If we wanted to make an arrest, we needed to catch him red-handed. If we wanted to come back with a warrant and execute him, same thing, but was that really my goal? No, my goal was to save Justine Henderson’s life so she could see her little boy grow up, so her parents could have holidays with their child and grandchild. I didn’t give a shit about legalities; in that moment I just wanted to save a life.
At first it was just my hands against the cooler roughness of the bricks, and then distantly I felt an echo or a taste of familiar power, my power. I closed my eyes and trusted that the two men with me would keep me safe from any physical danger while I gave myself to my magic and let it lead me through the brick and the wood and the paint and the tingling of the electricity in the walls, and until I could hear a voice in my head that was thinking one word over and over like a heartbeat: Justine, Justine, Justine.
Thomas Warrington had died not only in love with her but bound to her with a version of ardeur-induced true love. I didn’t know what the other magic user had done to make Thomas aware enough to think of her, or powerful enough to reach out and start leaching energy from her, but as I heard her name breathed through my mind, constant as a pulse, I knew that was what was happening. The practitioner that had done the spell didn’t give a rat’s ass about Justine—he just wanted a powerful relic like the bones of a flesh-eating, very alive zombie. I wondered if the bones had stopped working as well for him once Thomas started longing for his ladylove.
Let’s go find out. And I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud until Zerbrowski replied, “Go where and find out what?”
* * *
—
Our buyer was named Robbie Curtis. When I’d asked Harold if Robbie was short for Robert, he didn’t know. Robbie lived on the third floor, not even a creepy basement or a scary attic, but just an ordinary floor. Nicky broke the door to pieces for us. He and I had our rifles snug to our shoulders, looking for danger. Zerbrowski had his handgun up and ready, too. We all knew the drill and, pointing