Emma knew these things well enough that she could endure them, because she already had. Even if this was worse.
The baby was sleeping in her room. Cathy was down the hall—at the farthest end—in her crib. Andrew was in his bed in the room midway down. She grabbed the baby, and she ran, covering her mouth, the panic sharp and harsh. She woke Cathy, she grabbed Cathy, lifting her in one arm, lodging her on her left hip; the baby was cradled, awkwardly and tightly, on her right.
She kicked Andrew’s door open; Andrew was waking, and Andrew never woke well. Andrew woke, crying. Disoriented, the way he often was when wakefulness didn’t come naturally. She kept her voice even—god knew how—and she told Andrew to follow her quickly.
He stood up in bed, and he saw smoke and his mother’s harsh fear, and he froze there, in the night, the glowing face of a nightlight the only real illumination in the room. Andrew, follow me—the house is on fire!
Andrew, understanding her panic, was terrified.
She’d done it wrong. He could hear the raw fear in her voice, and he could see—oh, he could see—that she carried Cathy and the baby in her arms. He was a child. He could see that she carried them, while the house was burning. He could understand what this meant about her love for him.
And as a child, he started to cry, to whimper, to lift his arms and jump up and down on the spot, demanding to be carried. It wasn’t petulance; she saw that clearly. It was terror.
She’d done it wrong. If she had just stayed calm—
But she hadn’t. She tried to lift him somehow, Cathy screaming in her ear, the baby stirring. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t—she shouted at Andrew, told him to follow, begged him to follow, and she realized that he couldn’t do it either. Not newly awake. Not in the dark with the fire eating away at the promise of life.
She turned, ran down the stairs. Fire in the living room, fire in the hall. The front door clear, but covered by the smoke shed by burning things. God, she had to get them out. Just—get them out, come back in before it was too late, get Andrew, bring him out as well. Running as she’d never run, through the smoke, past the fire, coughing, as Cathy was coughing in between her cries.
And then, night air, smoke rushing after her as she raced along the path in her bare feet, picking up small stones and debris. Her neighbors, she could see, were standing in the darkness, except it wasn’t dark; it was a bonfire. Not her house, not her house—
She handed Cathy to the lady next door, handed the baby to the lady’s husband, turned to the house again, ran back up the path.
And fire, in the hall, near the door, greeted her—
Emma broke through the fire, the memory of fire, the scream that was swallowing all thought and all rational words. “Maria,” she said, in a voice that was outside of memory, but strong enough to bear the pain and the despair, “Come. It’s time to rescue your son.”
She held out a hand—a hand she could actually see—to Maria, and Maria stared at her, her face white and blistered from heat, and she paused there, on the crest of the wave, and realized that all hope was already lost.
She was not in the fire.
She was in the daydream of the fire, the one to which she returned, night after night, and in every waking minute: the one in which she had done things right, or the one in which fire hadn’t spread so damn fast, the one in which she could make it up the stairs to her son’s small room, to her son’s terrified side, the one in which she could pick him up and carry him. Not back to the door; that was death.
But to the window that overlooked the gable above the porch. To her bedroom, where he’d slept until he was almost a year old. To those windows, which she could break and through which she could throw one screaming child because even if he broke something, he’d still be alive.
And standing beside her, Emma Hall was also in her daydream.
Maria looked at Emma’s hand and understood in a second how damn much Emma had seen.
Andrew was screaming.
Emma’s hand was steady.
Maria grabbed it, and together they walked through the fire and up the stairs, where smoke lay like a shroud. They walked into Andrew’s room and saw Andrew standing on the bed, screaming and coughing, and his eyes widened as he saw his mother.
Emma opened her real eyes to Maria’s real expression, to the wet and shining veil of tears across both cheeks. Maria opened her eyes on Emma, and then she looked past Emma’s shoulders, and her eyes widened.
“Andrew!” She could see him, although Emma wasn’t touching him.
“Mommy!”
Maria pushed herself off the floor and ran to him, arms wide; she picked him up, and he hit her face and shoulders before his arms collapsed around her neck, and he sobbed there while she held him, her lips pressed into his hair, her body the shield through which nothing—nothing at all—would pass.
“We have to go,” Emma told her softly.
Maria swallowed and nodded. “The fire—”
“I think—the fire won’t kill us now.”
“You’re not sure.”
“No. But we need to leave.”
Maria’s arms tightened around her son. “What happens when we leave?” she asked Emma.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Maria nodded again, and Emma understood why she hadn’t moved. This was her son, her dead son, and these might be the only moments she would ever have with him again. They were a gift—a terrible, painful, gift—and she wanted to extend them for as long as she possibly could, because when she opened her arms again, he would be gone.
Emma Hall, who didn’t cry in public, struggled with her tears, with the thickness in her throat, as she understood and watched.
“Emma,” Margaret said at her back.
But Emma lifted a hand, waving it in a demand for silence. For space.
“Just…give them a minute,” she finally managed to say.
Maria, however, turned, her eyes widening. “Margaret?” Her voice was soft; it was the first time since she had lifted her son that she’d taken her lips entirely from his hair. “I can see you.”
Margaret nodded. “Yes.”
“But Emma’s not—”
“No. You will be haunted all your life by glimpses of the dead. I’m sorry, dear.”
Maria’s arms tightened around her son. “I’m not.” She kissed his hair, his forehead, his wet little cheeks, held him, whispered mother-love words into his ears until he told her she was tickling him.
“Emma,” Margaret said again.
“What?”
“Longland is here.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“And Emma?”
She didn’t want to hear more. But she listened, anyway.
“He has Allison and Maria’s baby.”
“HOW—HOW DO YOU KNOW?”
Margaret said nothing for a long moment, and then she glanced at Emma’s father. He slid his hands into his pockets—it was odd that the dead would have pockets, since they couldn’t actually carry anything—and said, “Someone else is also watching.”
Which made no sense.
“I know what happens to you,” Brendan Hall told his daughter. “I watch you. I’m not—yet—like Margaret, but I have some sense of what you’ve seen, what you’re worried about.”
Emma lifted a hand and looked at Maria. Maria looked mostly confused, but an edge of fear was sharpening her expression. Emma hadn’t bothered to mention little things like Necromancers to her, because it hadn’t occurred to Emma that they would actually meet them.
The only child that was in danger here was supposed to be Andrew, who was already dead. But the baby that Allison carried was alive. And in the hands of a man who, if you believed Chase, and, sickeningly, Emma did, had no trouble at all killing anyone.
She took a deep, steadying breath. Panic was not her friend, here.
“Margaret,” she said, as her father’s words finally sunk in. “Someone you knew in life is out there as
well?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Can he help them?”
She didn’t answer.
Emma ran to the door and pulled it open; the doorknob was warm but not yet hot. She yanked the door wide, and smoke billowed into the room; it was all she could do not to turn and shout at Andrew. We’ve brought your mother here, she’s carrying you, damn it—
Damn it, he’s four years old, Em. Think. Just think. She headed down the hall to Maria’s bedroom, which was only a few short steps away; the door was ajar, as they’d left it. Fire was playing out against the height of the stairs, but how much of the stairs had been consumed, she couldn’t say.
It didn’t matter. She made her way to the front windows, the bedroom windows, and some instinct made her flatten herself against the floor. The air here was cleaner, but at this point not by a whole lot. She rose slowly to one side of the window frame, and she looked out into Rowan Avenue.
She could see Longland in the street. His hand was on Allison’s arm, and Allison’s arms—both of them—were curled protectively around the baby.
No Michael, no Amy, no Skip. Emma felt sick, literally sick, with sudden fear. Where were the others? Were they even alive? Chase had warned her. Chase, who’d been so angry, so self-righteous, and so damn right.
Emma.
She looked up and saw her father standing in the center of the room. Beyond him, Maria stood, her son in her arms, her face so pale her lips were the same color as the rest of her skin. The others were nowhere in sight.
Emma swallowed. “Dad,” she said, her voice still thick. “What do I do?”
“Just think, Em.”
She wanted to scream at her father, and screaming at her father was something she’d done, in one way or another, since she was the age of the baby in Allison’s arms. But it wouldn’t help anything, and it wouldn’t change anything.
“Maria,” she whispered. “Stand to one side of the window; don’t stand in front of it. Don’t let them see you.”
Maria hesitated and then nodded, crossing the room to where the windows, open to night, let in air that was breathable and relatively clean. “What’s happening? Who has my— Allison and my son?”
“His name is Merrick Longland, but his name doesn’t matter. He’s a—” Emma grimaced. “They’re called Necromancers. I don’t know a lot about them, but I do know a couple of things.”
“Share.”
“They feed on the dead.”
“But—”
“Not on their corpses. I think they’d be called ghouls. Or zombies.” God, she could say the most idiotic things when she was frightened. “They feed on the spirits of the dead.”
Maria was not a stupid woman. Her arms tightened around her son. “What does it give them?”
“Power.”
“Power?”
Emma nodded. “And with that power they can do a bunch of things that we’d technically call magic.”
“Please tell me he’s not here for my son.”
“I’d like to. But I don’t know why he’s here, and your son—” she swallowed. “Your son could maintain a fire that could burn me even if I couldn’t see him and couldn’t touch him.”
“What does he want with Allison?”
“I don’t know. But if I had to guess, probably me.”
“But—but why?”
“I have something he thinks of as his. He probably wants it back.”
“Can’t you just give it to him?”
“No. No more than you could just give him Andrew.”
Maria really wasn’t stupid. “You’re talking about the others,” she said, her voice flat. “Georges, Catherine, Margaret—and the other two. I’m sorry, I don’t remember their names.”
Emma nodded. And then, because she was a Hall, added, “Suzanne and Emily.”
“He can use them because they’re dead.”
“Pretty much. It would be like handing a loaded gun to a man who’s already promised to kill you.” She grimaced, and added, “Sorry, Margaret,” aware that it was all sorts of wrong to talk about people as if they were simply strategic objects. That made her more like Merrick Longland than she ever wanted to be.
“Emma?”
From her position on the floor, Emma glanced up at Maria.
Maria could see street in the narrow angle between the wall and the window. Her gaze was now focused in that distance. “I think your two friends are out there as well.”
“Who?”
“Eric,” she said. “And Chase.”
“What—what are they doing?”
Silence, and then, in a much quieter voice, “Burning.”
“Is the fire green?” Margaret asked.
They both started, but Maria nodded. “It’s green, yes. It looks like fire, but filtered badly.”
“It’s soul-fire. They’ve some experience with that fire,” Margaret said at last. “It may not kill them yet; it is not, technically, fire at all.”
“Maria, is Allison—”
“I don’t know. Longland—that’s the name of the one who’s holding her, right?” When Emma nodded, Maria continued, “Longland is speaking. Or shouting; I think I can almost hear his words.”
So could Emma, but the fire made it difficult; it was louder.
“Emma, dear,” Margaret began.
Maria said, “Eric and Chase have stopped moving. They’re carrying knives,” she added. “But they’re not approaching Longland.”
“Has he done something to—”
Maria’s breath was sharp and clean as the edge of a knife. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.
Emma rose. She stood, forgetting any warning she had given Maria, because she had to see and had to know. Longland had his hands on Allison, yes, but Allison was struggling because he was also now touching the baby. He frowned and then almost casually lifted his hand from the infant’s chest and slapped Allison, hard, across the face. Allison staggered, and were it not for his grip, she would have fallen.
It would have been a bad fall; she still held tightly to the child. Would hold tight until the end of the world—or the end of her life. It was Ally all over. It was why Emma loved her.
She swallowed, and she looked, hard, at Longland. Looked at the two people who stood to either side of him. One was male, and older; the other was female, perhaps Maria’s age, if that. Emma’s gaze narrowed as she watched them all.
“There’s at least one ghost,” she said out loud. “Maybe two. Longland doesn’t have one.”
“How can you tell?” Maria asked. Her voice sounded soft—but it wasn’t. It was strained, as if speaking loudly would break it.
“The Necromancers bind the dead somehow, and to me it looks like—like a golden chain. I can’t see the dead, but the links are pulsing,” she added. “They’re using that power.”
“They would have to, dear. Against Eric, in particular, they would have to. Longland must have recognized him at some point.”
Emma shook her head. “He talked to some lady in a mirror. She recognized him.”
Margaret was utterly, completely silent. Emma would have glanced back, but she couldn’t force herself to look away. She had felt helpless before, but never like this.
“They’ll kill Eric,” she said, almost numb. “They’ll kill Chase.”
“If Longland has Allison, yes,” Margaret said. In a much gentler voice, she added, “You’ve always had a rather large amount of power on hand, dear.”
“Margaret?” Emma swung away from the window and lifted her hands, palms curved and empty, as if she were begging. Which was fair; she was about to start.
Margaret turned to confer, briefly, with the other ghosts—all save Brendan Hall, who stood, arms folded, expression watchful. She turned back to Emma. “You know you don’t have to ask,” she began. She lifted an imperious hand when Emma opened her mouth, and Emma snapped it shut again in deference. “But you do ask. It’s the difference,” she said quietly, “between making love and rape
.
“We’ll let you take you what you need.”
“Georges—”
“He’s not a child, dear. He’s dead.”
“I saw him with Michael,” Emma replied.
Margaret shrugged, a motion that was at once both delicate and crisp. “You know what to do.”
“But I don’t—”
“You don’t know that you know. But you managed to walk the narrow path when you altered Maria’s perception. And you changed very little—in her. What you’ve done to yourself remains to be seen, but that’s for another time. Touch the lines, Emma. Touch all of them.”
“Lines? You mean the chains?”
Margaret nodded.
Emma frowned, and then she turned to Andrew, still lodged in the safety and heaven—for him—of his mother’s arms. “Andrew,” she said, without looking up at his mother, “there are men outside. I don’t know if you can see them, but they’re—they’re not good men. One of them wants to hurt your baby brother. And he will hurt us—all of us—if we’re not very careful.”
“Emma—” Maria began, her voice as sharp and cutting as only a mother’s can be when her child is threatened.
Emma forced herself to ignore this. “If they try to reach your mom, you need to look at the fire,” she told him.
He buried his face in his mother’s neck, and Emma looked away. “I’m sorry, Andrew,” she said softly. “But the fire—it’s doing what you want it to do, even if you can’t see it, yet. If they come, try—try really, really, hard.”
She turned back to her ghosts, and this time, when she lifted her hands, she lifted the right one in a loose, grasping fist. From that fist, streaming from her folded palm to the five who now watched her in silence, ran lengths of golden chains. They stretched, as they had the first time she’d seen them, from her hand to their hearts, glowing with a faint luminescence, just as their eyes—all of their eyes—did.
She swallowed.
“Your friends will die, if you don’t, dear.”
She hesitated, because she knew these lines and their life force, if it could even be called that given they were dead, were the dividing line. If she did what she must do, she was a Necromancer. What she’d done for Andrew, what she’d done to Maria—it was different, and she knew it.