“No argument there. The MVD Association exists because the Order didn’t consider us sorcerers. In Europe, in Asia, India, magic-doers of all types are part of the same conglomeration. But in the good ol’ U.S. of A., we are not good enough to join their party.”
“Supernaturals pick the oddest swords to fall upon,” Ethan said.
“You are preaching to the choir.”
“What about a shifter named Caleb Franklin?” I asked. “He lived nearby. Did you happen to know him?”
She pursed her lips as she considered. “Caleb Franklin.” She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t ring a bell, either. And I don’t think I know any shifters.”
“How about this man?” I asked, pulling out my phone and showing her the grainy photograph Jeff had captured.
She frowned. “Hard to tell from the picture, but I don’t think so. I feel like I’d have remembered the beard.” Her eyes widened, and she lifted her gaze to mine. “Is this about what happened to that poor shifter at Wrigley? I mean, they didn’t release his name, but a vampire and shifter were involved, right?”
“Caleb Franklin is that shifter,” Ethan confirmed. “We believe he was killed by a vampire, and may have been involved in the alchemy. Alchemical symbols were found nearby.”
“I’d have liked to have seen them,” she said. “I mean, I’m sorry for his death, but it’s interesting the way that rare magic is. Like walking down the street and seeing, I don’t know, a diplodocus or something.”
It was the kind of joke I’d have appreciated, if a concussion hadn’t immediately shaken the ground beneath us. I gripped Ethan’s arm with clawed fingers.
What. The. Hell?
He patted my hand supportively, but I could tell he’d gone on full alert.
“And that’s my cue,” Annabelle said, moving closer to the gravestone and resting a hand on a marble curlicue. “Mr. Leeds knows I’m here and thinks I’m ignoring him, so I need to let him talk. I don’t, he’ll get angrier and angrier. And that’s when ghouls become a real possibility.”
I managed a weak smile. “That must keep your dance card full.”
“It does.”
“Do you mind if we observe?” Ethan asked. “And please say no if it would disrupt your process.”
“Or add to their potential ghoulishness,” I added. “Because we don’t want to do that.” God, did we not want that!
Annabelle smiled. “I don’t mind at all. But you’ll want to take a step back and cover your ears. Sometimes they come up screaming.”
Every cell in my body shuddered in simultaneous horror.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHAKE THE BONES
I took several steps back, working carefully to stay in the aisle and avoid stepping on anyone else’s plot. When Ethan moved beside me, I gripped his hand, unashamed.
Be still, Sentinel, he said. Those were the first words he’d said to me, and words I usually loved to hear. But here, in this graveyard, while waiting for a necromancer to commune with the dead, I wasn’t loving it.
Annabelle moved to stand at the end of the grave, facing the stretch of grass and gravestone. She closed her eyes, blew out a breath, seemed to center herself.
The earth shook again, the concussion like a strike on a timpani drum.
I cursed Thriller silently again.
Seemingly oblivious to Mr. Leeds’s irritation, or maybe because she was trained to deal with it, Annabelle held out her hands, palms down, over the grass.
“Harold Parcevius Leeds, I am Annabelle Shaw. I am here to help you speak. Please comport yourself respectfully.”
Another tremor.
Eyes still closed, she shook her head, breathed through her nose in what looked like irritated resignation. “Mr. Leeds, I am not interested in taking abuse from you. I am here voluntarily to help you communicate. If you can’t be pleasant about it, I’ll leave you to silence. Neither of us wants that. You want peace, and I want to help you find it.”
She paused, waiting, as Ethan and I stood behind her, watching, and then she nodded.
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your cooperation and acknowledge it. I can assist you in momentarily revisiting this plane, which will allow me to hear your claim or your confession. Do you acknowledge?”
Consent, it seemed, was important for all sorts of supernatural creatures. Mr. Leeds consented with another concussion, this one different from the others. It wasn’t made in anger by a pounded fist. It was more like a desperate bellow, the plea of a man who needed to be heard. Pity spilled in to replace my fear, and I unclenched the fingers I’d wrapped around Ethan’s.
Thank you, Sentinel. I was hoping to use those fingers again.
Magic began to shimmer through the air.
“Very well,” Annabelle said as the magic grew around us. It wasn’t painful, but it was unnerving. It was different from Mallory’s or Catcher’s magic—and it didn’t escape my notice that it was also different from the tinny magic I’d felt in Wrigleyville. This magic felt tangible and real, as if our skin were being brushed by hanks of silk. Instinctively, I reached out to touch it, but my fingers grasped nothing more than air.
Electricity popped around Annabelle, magic sparking through the air like forks of lightning. The power grew fiercer, stronger, until the magic seemed to coalesce atop the grass into the outline of a man lying on his back, arms at his sides. His figure seemed built solely of light and shadow, like an X-ray in three dimensions.