Dance of the Dead (The DeathSpeaker Codex) Read online

  This definitely qualified as a time of need.

  “De’àrsahd.”

  I rasped the spell to activate the moonstone, and it responded with a flare of blue-white light that settled to a steady glow. My eyes adjusted slowly to the brightness.

  And I found myself face-to-face with a grinning human skull.

  I swallowed a gasp and jerked back. The sudden movement lanced my shoulder with fresh pain. Something beneath me gave way with a sharp snap, and I was tumbling down before I could get my bearings. I landed abruptly on my back.

  Breathing carefully, I lay there for a minute with my eyes closed. Wherever I’d landed was a flat, hard surface that felt like packed dirt. I finally chanced a look.

  I’d fallen from a shallow heap of debris. Broken boards and beams peppered with rusty bent nails and shards of glass, the moldy pulped remains of plaster or sheetrock, and here and there, the busted remains of furniture. Wooden chairs, wooden desks, bed frames and springs with a few scraps of rotted material clinging to them. Tangles of dead brown vines twisted through the mess. Patches of moss grew in some places — the damp, spongy stuff I’d felt.

  And the skull I’d seen when I turned on the moonstone was connected to the full human skeleton sprawled on top of the heap, half-grown over with moss and decorated with rags that used to be clothes.

  I’d been lying on a dead person.

  I took full stock of my situation and concluded it was worse than I thought. This place appeared to be a collapsed basement that hadn’t been touched in decades. Probably since whoever that was on the heap had died. I tried not to think too hard about how it might’ve happened. Maybe they’d gotten stuck down here and starved to death, since there didn’t seem to be a way out.

  Or maybe my would-be killer had thrown me down here because he already knew it was a place where bodies would never be found. Because he’d put that one here, too.

  I gave myself a few minutes to let the concentrated moonlight heal me some before I pulled myself to my feet. The first thing I tried was my phone. No service. Not a big surprise, but still disappointing. The phone did tell me I’d been out for probably two hours. I’d left the crime scene around 8:30, and now it was just after eleven.

  That didn’t exactly help me figure out where I was. My attempted murderer had wheels, and two hours was a lot of potential driving time.

  Once I felt like I could walk without collapsing, I started looking for a way out. And I failed to find one. This place was three walls of solid cement and one wall of collapsed earth, which had spilled across the entire floor. There was a single door just above the heap of junk I’d landed on. Big and solid metal, coated with rust. It was probably locked, but I couldn’t find out for sure. The door was about twenty feet off the ground, and the wooden stairs leading up to it had long since fallen into rot and joined the pile of debris.

  I had exactly one, pathetically slim chance to escape. I could ask the dead person how they’d gotten in here — and pray it wasn’t the same way I suspected I did.

  Because if the answer was a guy in a robe threw me through that door, this place would be my tomb.

  Chapter 4

  Talking to dead people wasn’t nearly as awesome as it sounded.

  First of all, I had to physically touch the remains. It was the only way I’d been able to make it work so far — at least, on purpose. That meant picking my way back up Mount One-Wrong-Step-From-Multiple-Lacerations.

  After I’d made it back to the top and settled cautiously on a thick wooden beam that only looked half-rotted, I was within reaching distance of the skeleton.

  Now it was time for more pain.

  The dead couldn’t lie to me, but so far the ones I’d done this with really didn’t want to talk. They’d mostly been bad guys who didn’t want to give up information I could use to take down their still-living friends. And the more they’d struggled, the worse it was for me. Their voices were like knives in my head. If I kept up the conversation for too long, my nose would start bleeding. Then my ears. Eventually, I would pass out and lose the connection.

  So I’d keep the conversation as short as possible. Is there a way out of here, and where is it? That was all I wanted to know.

  I took a deep breath, then reached out and grabbed the skeleton’s arm. “Hey. Dead guy,” I said. “Got a question for you.”

  There was a short, sharp tugging pain in my head. More surprise than resistance. And a female voice said, Who are you? How is this possible?

  Okay. Dead girl. Her voice was strong and confident compared to most dead people. But then, I’d mostly spoken to the newly dead, and they were generally terrified, pissed off, or both. She’d obviously been gone a long time. Must’ve had time to accept her fate, or whatever.

  “Never mind that,” I said. “Listen, you’re dead. You probably already know that. But I need to know how to get out of … the place where I found your body. Any ideas?”

  The answering silence worried me, especially since I didn’t feel a struggle. That usually meant the dead person didn’t know the answer. I could only get the truth from them about things they knew.

  Finally, she said, I might be able to help. But there are a few things I need to know.

  The words came as if she were choosing each one carefully, and then poking them into my brain like needles. It would only get worse if we dragged this out. “No, thanks,” I said. “How do I get out of here?”

  Another pause. I’d tell you, if I knew what ‘here’ you’re talking about.

  “Goddamn it!” My jaw clenched in frustration. If she didn’t know where she was, then she hadn’t died here. So she couldn’t know a way out. “Gotta go,” I mumbled. “Maybe there’s a busted shovel I can dig through the landslide with, in a year or two.”

  Wait!

  The shout tore at my brain, and a thin runnel of blood dripped from my nose. “Could you not yell, please? That hurts,” I said. “Look, you can’t help me, so—”

  I can help. I just need to know if you’re in the basement or the tunnel … and if you came down on purpose, or if someone put you there.

  Despite the pain of hearing the words, I felt a faint glimmer of hope. “I think it’s a basement,” I said. “And I was definitely put here, by some crazy asshole in a black robe with an eye tattooed on his forehead. You know him?”

  Yes, the voice in my head snarled.

  Damn. I was hoping for a no there. “He killed you, then.”

  He did. The cold anger behind the words chilled my soul.

  “Well, I’m sorry about that,” I said. “But I need to get out of here before he manages to kill me, too. He already tried. How do I get out?”

  There is a tunnel that runs beneath the basement. She struggled against speaking this time, and my bleeding nose went from drip to stream. You’re forcing me to answer, she said. What kind of sorcerer are you?

  “I’m not. Where is the tunnel?”

  I felt her squirming, trying to resist. Through the hatch by the north wall, she finally said. Please, you must tell me what Balthier is doing here. Has he gathered the sacrifices? How many dead does he have with him? And … is it Halloween night?

  The chill in me deepened to bone-cold. “He’s got three zombies and two corpses that he stole from me,” I managed to say. “And yes, it’s Halloween. For about forty-five more minutes.”

  There is no time, the voice said breathlessly. You must stop him immediately, sorcerer.

  I ignored the sorcerer part this time. “Stop him from what?”

  From summoning the demon of chaos and plunging the world into eternal darkness.

  Chapter 5

  I didn’t know what the demon of chaos was, but it sounded way above my pay grade. I’d just managed to accept that things like werewolves and vampires and the Fae were real — even though I still hadn’t met a vampire. Now I was supposed to believe in world-ending demons? Maybe this was some kind of sick, elaborate Halloween prank or something, because this couldn’t be
real. “Look, sister,” I said. “I don’t know who you are, or who this Balthier guy is, and I don’t want to. I just want to get out of here alive, okay?

  You MUST stop him. Obviously, you have power of some kind. And if you don’t stop the ritual, you’ll doom all of humanity to an eternity of blackness and death.

  By the time she finished speaking, my nose was pouring blood and my head throbbed with the pain. I almost let go of her so I could cut the connection, go find this escape hatch, and get the hell out of this place. Only one thing prevented me from doing that.

  The dead couldn’t lie.

  “All right,” I finally said, trying to wipe some of the blood off my face with a sleeve. “I guess you’d better tell me what’s going on, and how to stop it. If I can. But do me a favor and whisper it, okay?”

  We only have until midnight. At least she’d complied with the whispering, but I detected a note of irritation in her tone. Get moving, and I’ll tell you on the way.

  “There’s no ‘we’ here. You’re dead,” I said. “And I can’t talk to you if I’m moving. I have to be touching your remains.”

  After a startled pause, she said, What are you? Never mind that, for now. Just take me with you.

  “Are you crazy? I’m not dragging a skeleton around this place. Where are we, anyway?”

  No, I’m not crazy. North Brother Island. Stop compelling me.

  “North Brother Island,” I said in a kind of choked, strangled voice. “You mean the abandoned, off-limits to the public, dangerous and spooky-as-hell island in the river, home of Riverside Hospital, where Typhoid Mary died. That North Brother Island?”

  Yes, she whisper-hissed. How can someone with such power be such a fool?

  I didn’t respond right away. I was still trying to get over being on North Brother Island. Christ, no wonder I didn’t have cell service. That also explained the advanced state of natural encroachment, the moss and the vines and the solid earth wall — this place had sat untouched since the 1960s.

  Finally, I said, “Watch it with the name-calling, lady. Out of the two of us, I’m the one who’s currently not dead.”

  I can’t imagine how you’ve survived. She gave a ghostly sigh that felt like static shocks along my skull. If you must touch my remains to communicate, then bring a piece of me with you. Won’t that work?

  “I don’t know. Never tried it,” I said. “To be honest, I’m really not sure how any of this talking-to-the-dead stuff works.”

  You have the power to speak to the dead, and you don’t know how it works?

  “Volume!” I gasped as fresh blood gushed. This time my ears gave an ominous pop with the pressure of the stabbing voice in my head. They weren’t bleeding yet, but they would be soon if I kept this up. “You’ve got to keep it down … whoever you are.”

  Zoria, she said in a considerably lower tone.

  “Yeah, that’s great. I’m Gideon. Listen, Zoria, just try to speak as little as possible. And don’t answer that.” I let out a shaking breath and started working the skeleton’s arm free of the moss and muck. Maybe I could pull off a finger bone or something. “I’m going to try this piece-of-you thing. Hold on.”

  She didn’t answer. But I could practically feel her impatience.

  Where most old bones were dry and brittle, these were damp and rubbery. Partially mummified instead of rotted. I found the hand, and my gut rolled a little as I worked the skeletal thumb back and forth until it came free with a grisly ripping sound.

  I let go of the arm and tucked the clump of bone in my jeans pocket. “Can you hear me?” I said.

  Yes.

  “All right. I guess it works, then.” Gritting my teeth, I pushed up and began the laborious process of getting back down the debris pile. “I’ll start looking for this tunnel,” I said. “You tell me what’s going on.”

  Truth be told, I really didn’t want to find out. Chasing down some guy on North Brother Island who planned to summon an actual demon was not the way I wanted to spend Halloween.

  But I had a feeling there was no one else around to stop it.

  Chapter 6

  I hadn’t found the exit because it was buried under three or four inches of dirt. The hatch was a wooden trapdoor that led to a questionable-looking ladder, and the tunnel at the bottom was half-choked with vines and tree roots that had forced their way through solid concrete over the years.

  Apparently the collapsed basement had been beneath the nurses’ quarters, and this service corridor led to the main hospital building. That was where we were headed — and by we, I meant me and a haunted thumb bone.

  Zoria filled me in as I navigated the tunnel. Balthier, the guy who’d tried to kill me, had been her apprentice. They were necromancers. She’d insisted she was the harmless one, but I didn’t see how anyone could be in the business of raising the dead for harmless reasons. Especially when she said they worshipped the demon Azathoth, who was somehow associated with Erichtho’s Comet, whatever that was.

  The comet arrived every thirty-three years on Samhain, which was Halloween to the rest of us. The two of them had come here the last time the comet passed to pay tribute to Azathoth. It was supposed to be a small blood sacrifice. Their own blood, not anyone else’s. But Balthier wanted to actually summon and control the demon — something Zoria would never allow. So he’d killed her during the ritual, while she was most vulnerable, and stolen her grimoire. That was the book he kept chained around his waist. According to Zoria, it contained some seriously powerful spells.

  Then Balthier had to wait thirty-three years for the comet to come back. And tonight, he was planning to offer five specific resurrected sacrifices, perform the ritual to summon Azathoth at midnight under the comet, and destroy the world.

  So, no pressure or anything.

  I’d had to stop Zoria a few times during the story when the pain in my head approached passing-out levels. Now I was nearing another ladder-hatch, the one I was supposed to take back up to the surface, and she was explaining about the sacrifices.

  The three you saw must have been the wicked healer, the fallen priest, and the virtuous executioner, she said. The fourth was the body he took from you. The failed savior. He must have caused their deaths to prepare them for sacrifice.

  I closed my eyes a minute, trying to will the throbbing in my head back after so many words. The failed savior — the guy who’d died trying to save someone else. “So he cast a spell on them? I mean, the witnesses said that book was glowing.”

  Yes.

  I was grateful for the one-word reply. “Does that mean the jumper is the fifth sacrifice?” I said. “He wanted both bodies.”

  No. But he’s probably using her as material for the fifth. He’d need a body to resurrect the spirit from its remnants in this place.

  “Whose remnants?”

  The walking plague, she said. Typhoid Mary.

  Great. So I had to go up against a necromancer and five zombies, one of which was Typhoid Mary.

  I was still far from healed. My nose wouldn’t stop bleeding, and my head felt ready to explode from talking to Zoria for so long. I knew all of five pathetic spells, but I had a limited amount of magic, and the moonstone was nearly drained from constant use. I’d need time and moonlight to recharge, and I didn’t have either.

  “How am I supposed to stop this guy?” I said as I stopped at the ladder.

  There are many ways.

  “Not helpful. Name one.”

  Use magic. Destroy one of the zombies. Get the grimoire from him. Just take something out of commission. He doesn’t have time to perform another resurrection, so you only have to interrupt the ritual.

  “Yeah, that’s more than one way. And none of them are real helpful,” I said. “Besides, even if I break up Balthier’s demon-summoning party, what happens then? I mean, he isn’t going to say ‘aw, shucks, guess I’ll try again in thirty-three years.’ Is he?”

  No.

  “What’s he going to do, then?”

&nbs
p; Zoria struggled against a reply, and the pain in my head spiked sharply. He’s likely to kill you.

  That was kind of what I’d expected to hear, but it definitely wasn’t the answer I wanted. “And how do I stop him from killing me?”

  I don’t know. She paused. But if you interrupt the ritual, you’ll die saving the world.

  Terrific. Just what I always wanted. “Call me selfish, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better saving the world if I was still around to enjoy it,” I said. “Don’t you have any ideas here? If you don’t, just lie to me.”

  It would appear that I can’t.

  Oh, right. No lying to the DeathSpeaker.

  I released a curt sigh. “Well, guess I’d better get going,” I said with extreme reluctance, eyeing the ladder that ascended in the darkness. I wasn’t terribly thrilled about climbing straight into a high chance of death. But I didn’t have much choice here, since I was the only living person on this island who wasn’t trying to summon a chaos demon.

  And it was twenty minutes until the end of the world.

  Chapter 7

  I really could’ve gone without knowing that the tower at the front of the old Riverside Hospital building was called the tuberculosis pavilion. But I had to go through there to get to the courtyard directly behind it, because that’s where Zoria said Balthier would be preparing for the ritual.

  Eerie didn’t even begin to describe this place. Dark, decrepit, and so far reclaimed by growth that some of the rooms bordering the outside of the building had living carpets of grass and ferns. Deep red rust swallowing every metal surface, severe water damage, crumbling plaster and splintering wood. Furniture, equipment, books and bedding everywhere, rotting where they lay. This island was life abruptly abandoned.