Devich’s too-pleasant smile never faltered. “Information isn’t like cash, Ms. Walker. I can’t divide it into two neat portions.”
“Tell me something—prove you actually know something of interest to me—or this little interview is over.” I was bluffing, of course. I needed whatever information he had, but I was counting on him wanting my services just as badly. The fact that he was sitting in my living room uninvited said that he did.
Devich leaned forward, his spine stiff and straight. He closed his eyes, apparently unconcerned by the fact that he wouldn’t see me pick up a gun, if I decided to shoot him again.
What in the name of bloodshed would I have to wield to be taken seriously as a threat? Obviously neither the Ruger nor the .50 cal were enough. The flame thrower over the couch, maybe? Or the chainsaw in the closet? How ‘bout a fucking nuclear missile?
Devich’s eyes opened, and he crossed his arms over his suit coat. “Tell me about the night you died. How much do you remember?”
“Every fucking bit of it.” I barely resisted the urge to caress my gun as I spoke. The girl who’d died that day no longer existed anywhere other than my memory, yet I couldn’t think of that long ago rainy afternoon without reaching for a weapon, as if I could somehow defend myself from the ghost of my own trauma. “But you’re supposed to be the one doling out information.”
“I need to know where to start. How did you die?”
Centuries-old images flashed across my vision, layered dimly over Devich and my living room. They were phantoms from my past. Sights, sounds, and textures I hadn’t been able to forget in all the days and nights since my death, each one seasoned with the odd combination of panic and futility I relived in every nightmare.
Wood planks, rough beneath my bare feet. Men in red uniforms. Muskets thrown over broad shoulders. Mud on white breeches, black boots. Hard hands, shoving me forward.
And finally, the sound I heard in my sleep—the ghost of an echo, which still raised goosebumps on every inch of my flesh…
The creak of a taut length of rope, shifting and sliding against a wooden beam. The last sound I heard before—
I blinked. Devich was still watching me. Waiting.
I took another deep breath and swallowed the bile at the back of my throat. “I was executed. Hanged to death, in front of an audience ofbloodyRed Coats.”
Devich blinked, his eyes mercifully blank. “You were…?”
Hanged.
The word lingered in the air between us, unspoken.
Very few women were executed in the colonies, outside of the infamous witch hunts. But even in death, evidently, I had to do things my own way.
“What was your crime?” Devich asked.
“I’ve answered your question. Your turn.”
I’m not going to beg for information. I’m not. I hadn’t begged for a thing in more than two centuries. But we both knew how desperate I was.
Devich eyed me carefully, and his power tingled against my skin like static electricity, a reminder that no matter how concerned and sympathetic he seemed, Devich was there for his own reasons, and they had nothing to do with anything I needed or wanted. “Do you remember what happened after you died?”
“There’s not much to remember,” I said, trying to decide how much to tell him. “There was darkness for a long time, but I couldn’t tell how long. I felt the sensation of floating, but no sense of direction at all. No up, and no down. Then there were soft voices I couldn’t identify and didn’t care to. I don’t remember any light, but there must have been some, because eventually I realized there were shadows. Lots of shadows. And when I looked down at myself, I…”
“Yes…?” Eagerness shined in his eyes, and for some reason, that irked me.
“I was one of the shadows.” Speaking about it brought the memory back in eerie detail.
Calm confusion. Tasteless wind. Eternal patience. I might have been there for years without even knowing it.
Devich leaned forward on my couch, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes narrowed. “You were a shadow? You’re sure of that?” he asked, and I nodded. “You saw other shadows? Were they moving?”
I nodded again, slowly. “I think so.” His enthusiasm was unnerving, as was the intensity in his gaze. “Some of them were whispering—maybe asking questions. Every now and then, someone would scream, and I’d hear this horrible, loud roaring sound. Bonfire, not lion. But mostly it was quiet. Silent.”
“Then what?” He was openly eager now, more interested in listening to my story than in adding anything to it.
I shrugged. “Then…nothing. I realized my eyes were closed, and when I opened them, I was standing in my own…” My voice started to break, and I closed my mouth to keep him from hearing in one fractured sound just how traumatic the transition had really been.
In my experience, once a man has seen weakness in you, he never sees anything else.
