Across the street, a sea of bones floats just over the ground in the massive graveyard. I squeal with panic and start flapping my arms, shooing the bones back to what was supposed to be their final resting place. I look all around as I do, but the few passing cars don’t slam on their brakes and run screaming from their cars. I don’t spot any pedestrians or anyone else walking slack-mouthed out of the surrounding businesses with their camera phones poised to capture the unexplainable phenomenon. I quickly bury the bones back where they’re supposed to be and then awkwardly speed walk away like there’s nothing to see here.
With a flick of my wrist, I call both Prek’s and Rogan’s bodies to me.I might be getting a little too good at this. I dismiss that thought as I hold open the door and carefully float Rogan inside. I shove Prek in next, not bothering to be overly careful as I bump him around purposefully.Oopsie.Marx quickly follows after, and my anxious eyes flit over everything around us as he disappears into the shop. No one is so much as glancing my way, and I relax a little as I shut the door, lock it, double-check that it’s actually locked, and then magically send Prek’s and Rogan’s bodies through the saffron yellow curtain that separates the main part of the shop from the large room where my Grammy Ruby did her readings.
I set Prek in the high-backed chair Ruby loved to sit in, and lay Rogan out on the table.
“Can you tie him up or secure him somehow?” I ask Marx, who’s watching me, oddly quiet, from the doorway.
He nods and gets to it while I check Rogan over. Magic tells me that he’s unconscious but otherwise fine. Relief spills out on a sigh, and I reach up and pull a finger-sized dart from his neck. Power pulses at my fingertips as I examine it, but I don’t detect any potions or spells. Whatever Prek hit him with seems to be a concoction of the human variety.
I brush hair away from Rogan’s face, gently running my fingers over his cheek.
It hits me that I too woke up on this table after meeting Rogan for the first time and being knocked out.
My, my, my, how the tables have turned.
A small smile ticks at the corners of my mouth. He looks way more uncomfortable than I remember feeling, or like he will be when he wakes up. I should probably feel bad about that, but I did tell him he’d rue the day for messing with me, and this day is a ruing.
I debate for a moment trying to speed up the metabolizing of whatever drug is in his system. Now that I know Hemamancers can heat up blood, maybe that would work, but I’m hesitant to try it. I don’t want to burn him up from the inside out or cause damage. I could also try to separate the drug itself from his system, but again the theory sounds great, but I don’t know how to actually do it.
I open myself up to the tether and the blood magic, willing it to guide my hands like my bone magic has so many other times. I wait for that telltaleknowingto percolate in my mind, for pure instinct to tell me what to do, but nothing happens.Okay, I definitely need to work that out with Rogan when he’s awake. No point in both of us having access to the other’s abilities if we don’t know how to use them when we need to.
I look over to find Marx draping a braided leather necklace around Prek, a small fuchsia pouch hanging from it and resting against the Order member’s breast bone.
“What happened?” I finally ask when Marx steps away and starts quickly inspecting his handiwork.
“Siobhan had to report the missing bodies. I tried to get her to hold off just a little longer, but she saidthey’d know she waited and that my dick wasn’t worth going to prison for.”
I snort out a laugh, not expecting that overshare, and shrug awkwardly. Marx shoots me a look that very clearly argues thisSiobhan’s claim, and I hold up my hands in no position to argue one way or another.
“To be fair, I don’t know if any dick is worth going to prison for?” I assure him, looking over to Rogan.
I tilt my head in contemplation. I mean, maybe I’d have to spend more time with it to be sure.
“Fuck, this is weird as hell,” Marx confesses on a deep exhale. “Rogan and Elon told me what happened to them. It all makes so much sense with what I’ve seen them put through, but I saw you...die. I watched them shut your eyes and clean you up. You were gone...but here you are.” He gestures to where I’m standing less than five feet away from him. “I don’t know how to process this. I thought I had. After talking to Rogan, I thought I got it, but I don’t know now.”
“It was weird for me too, trust me,” I reassure him. “You get used to it though,” I offer unhelpfully.
He rubs the back of his neck and chuckles at my crappy attempt at comfort.
“For real though, who is Siobhan and why would she wait to report missing bodies? Rogan told me you had a friend who was helping; I’m assuming that’s who you’re talking about, but you know this fool never paints the whole picture,” I tell him, waving a hand at where Rogan is still splayed out on the large circular reading table.
Marx laughs again, and some of the tension and uncertainty drains from his stiff shoulders. I know Rogan and Elon trust him, and I really want to be able to. I feel a little better now that he doesn’t look like he’s about to freak out.
“Yes, Siobhan’s my friend who works at the morgue. She’s in charge of processing and discharging bodies that have been claimed for rituals and sacrifices and other things like that. I figured that would be a quiet and discreet place to keep you while we, you know, waited,” Marx explains.
“Did she know there was a possibility I could wake up?” I question, wondering if she’s now going to be another loose end that could be a threat to us.
“No, definitely not. When she’s there, she’s normally in her office, making arrangements, not hanging out with the bodies. That part of the Order’s morgue doesn’t get a lot of activity though. Bodies are held there until Siobhan goes through the request database to see if there’s a match between a ceremonial request and what she has on hand. I remembered her saying once that some people wait months and months before they match up with a request. If you were going to wake up, we hoped that would be the best option for it to go undetected.”
“Oh,” I chirp, processing that information. “The bodies in those fridges were for ceremonies and sacrifices?” I ask, my face scrunched in concern, even though it does help me feel a little bit better about forcing them to help me.
“It’s completely voluntary,” Marx assures, taking in my judgmental look. “Just like Lessers have organ donation or the option to donate their body to science, mancers can opt in to be used for many different things. Covens all around the world still make sacrifices to different deities or elements. There are ceremonies that require parts of a mancer to be successful. It’s really fascinating. I have a great book that deep dives into a ton of great history on it, if you’re interested,” Marx offers casually.
I make a mental note to pivot from epic funerals and stunning headstones to a kickass sacrifice or something for the three bodies I magic jacked.
“Um, I’m cool, but thanks,” I tell Marx, and he just shrugs like I’m missing out. “What happened to the Order though? I thought the High Council had people watching me?” I gesture to Prek, who’s still out cold.
“I don’t know what he’s doing here,” Marx declares, toeing Prek’s boot and watching for any reaction. “As far as I know, his team was assigned to the file room until the investigation is complete on how portal bones got into your quarters.”
