beamed, literally brightening with her smile. “You’re welcome! Have a nice day!”
Grabbing my shopping basket, I hurried to the aisle I wanted. I didn’t linger over my choices, just snagged the cheapest netbook that would serve. My fifteen minutes was almost up, but as I headed for the front of the store, a thought slowed me down. How long had Doris been greeting people who couldn’t hear her?
I went back to Accessories. Doris’s shade still stood behind the counter, still smiling, still in the loop that had been her life.
“Hello!” she said, starting from the beginning. “Welcome to Walmart! Can I help you find something?”
“Would you like to go home, Doris?” It was hard not to speak to her like a child. That was sort of what she was. A lost lamb, all habit, no home.
Her eyes were pale, in a face that hadn’t seen sunlight in years, expression numbed by endless, mindless repetition. And that was before she died. The pattern was slow to break, but finally comprehension sparked, like light in a curtained window of a vacant house.
“You mean my shift is over?”
“Yes.” I set down my shopping basket, glancing at the big clock at the front of the store. This crossing would have to be quick and dirty.
I pictured my psyche rushing to my skin like a blush, pulsing with my heartbeat—not fast and frantic like when the geas had hold of me, but a strong and powerful song. The air around me hummed an echo, and the Veil appeared in front of us like a beaded curtain of glass.
Doris gasped. “My dogs! They’ve been waiting for me all this time I’ve been at work. They must be so hungry!” She took a step forward—through the counter, feeling the pull of the next world.
I loved this part. It made everything else worthwhile. “Your dogs are going to be really happy to see you,” I said with a grin. “Ditch the apron and go, Doris.”
Pulling off the smock, she let it fall into nothingness and ran through the mercury beads that gated her eternity. As she disappeared, I caught a whiff of candle wax and a strain of Conway Twitty.
She didn’t say thank you. They never did. They were too excited about what was ahead to think about what was behind, and that was all the thanks I needed.
The Veil blurred and softened to a silk ripple, and I reached with my psyche to close it, to still its vibrations like damping a ringing bell.
But I stopped when I glimpsed a black figure on the other side, like a stalking shadow on a moonlit curtain.
Free me, Daughter of the Jackal.
The words whispered through my head as the Veil closed.
My ears rang. My head rang. Nothing had ever spoken through the Veil before. Eternity was hidden from the living. That was the rule.
At least, that was my rule, because I’d never seen anything different. I was ninety-nine percent convinced I’d imagined this in some sort of stress-and-magic-induced waking fever dream.
The other one percent was certain I shouldn’t be certain of anything.
I made for the checkout on shaking legs and paid for my stuff. I’d barely stepped outside when a late-model Mazda sports sedan zoomed up to the curb.
“Get in,” Carson said through the open passenger window. I could tell he was pissed because he was so careful not to look that way.
I popped open the door and jumped in. Carson hit the gas as soon as my foot left the pavement, trusting me to get the door closed before we were up to speed.
“What part of ‘fifteen minutes’ was hard to understand?” he asked with icy calm. “The part where I was idling around the corner in a stolen vehicle?”
“Sorry,” I said. But some emotion must have laced my voice, because he spared me a glance as he pulled onto the service road to the interstate.
“What happened?” he asked. “Are you okay? Did you have trouble with a guard?”
“No. Something with a remnant.” I shivered in spite of myself. Remnants saw things beyond the Veil. I did not. Ever. Until tonight.
“Is that why you didn’t manage to buy a coat?” He leaned over to turn up the heater.
His tone ignited my temper, burning off the shivers. “I didn’t manage to buy a coat,” I said, reaching into one of the bags and yanking out the netbook in its box, “because I was blowing my cash on a way to look at that flash drive. Ingrate.”
He smiled and turned his