Chapter 6

The psychopomp is not just a being of storybooks and legends. The god Death has been known to create such transporters, specifically for those who struggle the hardest to make their way through the Nothing and onwards to their eternal rest. Children benefit the most from such beings.

-Hecate's Guide to Arcane Philosophy

Rorick

I awoke at dusk to the sound of pounding at my door. Whatever Hecate had put in my tea, it'd made me drowsy. I struggled to my feet, vision blurred at the edges, and couldn't remember where I put my robe.

The pounding didn't cease, the thump of a fist striking wood rattling the door in its frame loud enough to make my head sore.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I groused, finding my housecoat finally and slinging it on over my underclothing.

The knocking continued at an erratic pace, a thud, thud, thud I felt vibrating in my drowsy skull.

"Hell's teeth," I cursed, ripping the door open.

Quiet stood on the other side at the top of my stoop, smiling brightly, fist hanging in the air mid-knock. I was as confused by the sight of her bright smile as I was by her unexpected presence. Her schedule was so full lately. An impromptu visit was especially strange. We'd taken to arranging our time together because her duties and mine kept conflicting.

I squinted at her, still bleary-eyed. "Quiet?"

"Well, are you going to let me in?" she asked, lines crinkling around her gray eyes. "Or are you going to leave me out here in the cold?"

A carriage rumbled by on the street behind her, briefly catching my attention. A chill breeze stirred her skirts, sending a cloying scent into my nose. It came off her clothing in a wave, hiding her usual fragrance. I was accustomed to strange experiments masking her favorable smell from time to time, but this familiar sickly-sweet odor coupled with her request to let her in put me on my guard. Since when did my partner ask for anything?

The woman I knew would have already pushed inside, ordering me about along the way with whatever urgent thing she needed that had pulled her from her schedule.

Hell's bite, she probably wouldn't have bothered knocking at all. She'd have just waved her wand and let herself in. She wouldn't need permission to cross my wards. Wards only kept out the hunting classes, and witches weren't that.

"One moment." I slid the door partially closed, checking the lintel for the little brown spider that favored the spot where the wall met the ceiling. I'd had a row with the woman who cleans for me about leaving the spiders alone until their webs were empty.

Apparently, my cleaning lady had finally listened because this little one was still there. I rose up on my toes and trapped the spider in my palm carefully, then I let the door fall back open.

"Come in," I said.

Showing her teeth warmly, she stepped over the wards at the entrance. "There's something urgent we need to discuss," she said, working gloved fingers over the fastening of her cloak so that it loosened around her shoulders.

"What's that exactly?" The spider scurried inside my palm, trying to squeeze itself between my fingers.

"There's one thing I just can't seem to wrap my head around," she said, eyes flashing with malice. Her strange smile faded. "Why you, Detective? Of every soul in the Nothing, why did Death choose to gift you with his blood?"

Detective ? Never in Quiet's life had she called me that.

"Hm. Would you have a look at my friend first?" I waited for her attention to drop to the fist I held aloft.

She squared her shoulders, eyes wide and expectant—a look nearly like Quiet in every way. I tossed the spider at her. The critter landed on her chest and clung to her day dress. She reared back, hands flailing. It was a perfectly natural response that just about anyone would have after an arachnid was flung at them.

Perfectly natural for anyone but my Quiet. And that was all the confirmation I needed.

The imposter's hands came up to swat the scampering brown spider off her bodice. I caught her flailing wrists and shoved them back against the wall so hard the wood crunched. Pinned to the paneling, the shapeshifter growled at me. I held them firm while the spider scurried for safety.

"Who the devil are you?" I hissed through my fangs. Her mouth fell open, but I cut her off. "Claim that you're my partner, and I'll rip your lying tongue out."

Their face hardened into an expression so foreign, so violent, it was a wonder I ever thought they resembled Quiet.

"I didn't come here to talk about me, Detective." The shifter's voice dropped two octaves and lost Quiet's rasp, sounding masculine. "I came here to talk about you ."

"Are you here because of the robbery?" Only an ichor could change so convincingly and be able to mimic Quiet's voice so well. Corpse-eaters couldn't speak that way, so this person had to be an ichor. "You're angry I pointed the police at your kind, is that it?"

"I'm not afraid of the ged police," the shifter spat. "I came here to collect what I'm owed, what I spent eons in service trying to gain!"

My brow furrowed. "I don't owe you anything."

Tired of seeing hatred on Quiet's face, I turned the shifter, slamming him against the wall. I pulled off the mock witch's hat he wore, a poor copy, searching for weapons. I found one secured inside by strips of fabric. It was a sharpened metal tool shaped like a railroad spike, but thinner and lighter—perfect for destroying a vampire's brain.

The thrill of a threat had cleared my mind. I remembered where I'd seen a spike like this before. It was a sacrificial dagger, often used in alchemy or by a practicing necromancer prone to experimenting on the undead.

"I just came to talk this time," the ichor rasped. He tried to break away from me again, a look of surprise on his face when I easily overpowered him.

Pressing his cheek against the wall with one hand, I held the pointed end of the spike up near his eye. "Just wanted to talk, eh? Horse shit. What's this for, then?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Insurance. In case this talk didn't go well."

"Who are you?" I moved my hand to his throat and pressed.

"Stop," he gasped, baring his teeth—Quiet's teeth—in a grimace. "You want to let me go," he coughed.

"No, I really don't," I said, squeezing harder.

"I know where your partner is!"

"In her home," I growled, "safe and sound, making her dinner."

"She's not!" he panted, pushing against the wall, clawing at the wood with Quiet's fingers, trying to wriggle free of me. "She's in trouble. Let me go, and I'll tell you where!"

"I don't believe a word out of your mouth. And why should I? Everything about you is a lie." I shook the shifter, rattling the side of his head against the wall.

Black hair tumbled out of the braid Quiet always wore. The movement loosened my grip. I knew this wasn't actually her, but it didn't make being rough with the image of her any easier. "Start talking," I said, holding the ichor firm. This close, I could smell the cloying mold on the creature's skin. It reached me through the illusion of his shifted form.

"Eckert Castle," he said, rubbing at his neck. "She's on her way to Eckert Castle."

Lie. That was the absolute last place Quiet would ever go. "How could you possibly know that?"

"I watched her fall this morning, just outside the Castleway Circus while I was playing the steam organ." The shifter spoke the words casually, and my muscles went rigid at the mention of that cursed place. "Her and two other witches. They went tumbling down into the aqueducts. There's only one way out of there."

My eyes went wide. Ichors were undead, but their hearts still beat faintly, pumping the golden blood they were known for through their bodies. The beat of the shifter's heart remained true. Either this shifter was a gifted liar indeed, or Quiet really was traversing the aqueducts right now.

I lifted the shifter by the hood of his cloak, dragging him toward the door. I ripped it open and tossed him into the street like he was a sack of garbage.

"I'm rescinding my invitation inside my house," I said, preventing him from crossing my wards ever again.

He tumbled down the stoop. Skirts fluttering, the shifter scrambled to his feet, spearing me with vengeful gray eyes. "We still need to talk!"

"Fuck off," I snapped, slamming the door shut.

Peeking through the keyhole, I watched the ichor scurry off into the night while I plotted the fastest route back to Eckert Castle—my home that no longer felt like home, the castle that haunted my nightmares.

There wasn't anywhere I wouldn't go for Quiet, but it occurred to me then that this could all be a trap. An elaborate one. But why would an ichor want me to go to Eckert Castle? I'd check the old firehouse first, the Home for Foundlings second. Prim would confirm if Quiet made it to volunteer during the day, and if she didn't . . .

Back into my nightmares I'd travel.