Marked by Death (Necromancer #1) - Kaje Harper Page 0,21

His eyes lit on Grimalkin, sitting in a sunbeam licking his shoulder nonchalantly. “Grim?”

The cat straightened and smirked. “Telephones are a wonderful invention. Hanging yours on the wall just made it an interesting challenge.”

“You called Anya? Why?” A sudden anxiety hit him. “Is Darien worse?” Grim had promised to watch the boy while Silas worked. “You didn’t call for me?”

Grim jumped in front of him, blocking his dash for the stairs. “He’s not worse. But he’s not well.”

“Enough to need a healer?”

Grim’s green eyes went dark, black as night from corner to corner. “I had a Foresight.”

“Oh.” Damn. Every familiar had a gift, and that was Grim’s— flashes of the future he would rarely describe, but which led to advice Silas had learned to trust. “Just about Darien?”

“Not sure. It felt bigger. Something’s coming, and if he was this weak, it was all going bad.”

A small brown furry face poked up from the pocket of Anya’s coat, and squeaked, “Still talking in riddles, cat?”

Grimalkin hissed, but the weasel chittered a laugh, and scampered up to sit on Anya’s shoulder.

“Time’s wasting,” Anya said. “Where’s my patient?”

Her time was expensive and she was already here. And Darien had looked pretty rough by the time Silas got him settled back in bed. He mentally kissed a chunk of his savings goodbye. There were worse things he could’ve spent them on. And Darien’s situation really was his fault. It was probably karma. “Upstairs. This way.”

He let her into the bedroom without knocking. Darien was still fast asleep, looking small on the big bed. The room was dim with the curtains closed, but Anya made her way directly to the bedside and waved an imperious hand until Silas pulled up the chair for her. She loosened her coat and sat, laying a finger on Darien’s bare wrist.

Darien’s eyelids fluttered but he didn’t wake.

“Head trauma?” She wrapped her hand around Darien’s sallow skin. “Pretty boy. Did you hit him?”

“No!”

Her chuckle said too late that she’d been pulling his leg. Then her eyes closed and her head tipped back. The weasel ran down her arm to put a small pink paw on Darian’s wrist beside her fingers, and tilted its nose up. For a moment the two looked like bizarre mirror images, then the weasel sniffed and jumped to the covers where it sat cleaning its whiskers.

Anya remained still, except for her fingers opening and closing rhythmically on Darien’s arm. Silas’s Othersight showed a stream of silver-blue flowing from Anya to sink into Darien’s skin and vanish. A few minutes later, Anya let go and sat back. “Are you going to do something about this boy’s passengers, Silas Thornwood?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “As best I can. I’m not sure what pulling all of them free will do to him.” He pushed images of his screaming, empty wallet away and said, “Would you be willing to support him when I do it?” He wasn’t sure what good the healer could do when he was ripping parts of Darien’s life force out, but it couldn’t hurt.

She hesitated. “Yes. I’ll even give you a price break because someone needs to take care of that poor soul. Do you know what happened? Did he run from his mentor?”

Some of the ghost-possessed were youngsters who took off out of their mentor’s protection, so it was a reasonable question. “No, he was never mentored.” At her grunt of surprise, he said, “It’s a long story. When would you be available?”

“Shall we say in three days? That will give him a little healing time, and I can check my library for specific spells to use in support. I’ve never seen anyone so invaded.”

“Three days should be fine. Thank you.”

He offered a hand as she rose from the chair but she gave him a scornful look. The weasel leaped from the bed to her shoulder and smirked at him, before winding through the braids at her neck and settling in like a fur stole.

“Let the young man rest as much as he’s willing for another day.” She headed out of the room briskly, and he had to hurry to keep up. “Feed him up. Red meat, and fresh vegetables. He’s half-starved on top of the blow to the head.”

“I will.”

She trotted down the stairs. “He should do well after that. There was some bruising and bleeding in his brain, but it cleaned up nicely. Don’t whack him on the head again, no matter how annoying he may be. Remember you were probably just as