Chapter 31
He gave a little shake of his head, as though telling me to be silent.
Then he slipped by everyone, including the two oblivious firefighters, gliding through the doorway as if there were no barrier.
As soon as he appeared on the other side, his form stabilized into the ordinary bookstore guy again, vintage vest and slacks, gaze cast down and sad.
Angel gave me a questioning look. Couldn’t he see Nat? I mouthed the man’s name for him, and his eyes widened in alarm. After half a heartbeat, he nodded, turning to the firefighters instead. “The magic resonance is growing in this area. The two of you might be safer going downstairs.”
One of the firefighters frowned at him, glanced back at the apartment, and back to us. “There are people in there.”
“They are dead,” Angel said. “I can’t hear their heartbeats, and my partner is a necromancer variance. He can tell they are gone.”
The other firefighter’s jaw tightened, and he nodded, then tugged his partner toward the stairs. “We’ll send the SED up.”
“What about the smoke?” the first firefighter asked.
“It’s not a fire. It’s Veil smoke,” his partner answered. “The worse it gets, the more likely the Veil is to take over this building.”
The first firefighter cursed, but they vanished down the stairway.
Angel gazed through the open door, and I snuck a glance behind him, barely able to see bodies on the floor a good twenty feet inside, down a hall, and to what had likely been the living room.
The epicenter, what little I could see from the doorway, encircled an open part of the floor, charring the rug and leaving patterns of runes around it.
“It’s like across the Veil, right?” I asked Angel.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
Against the far wall, what I thought might be the kitchen, a man’s body lay slumped in uniform. A cop.
His face was frozen in a scream, skin mottled as if he’d died a week ago instead of in the blast. Impossible if he had anything to do with the explosion.
Inside the apartment, Nat surveyed the scene. He knelt beside the woman, her child across the way, both arranged in the charred circle. His gaze flicked up to meet mine, sadness in his eyes. He pulled something from the woman, and then the child—not physical items, but threads.
I blinked as they solidified. The ghost of the woman took the child into her arms. But while Nat stood beside them, holding out his hand, the woman met a barrier. The edge of the charred rune circle stopped her from leaving. That couldn’t be good.
“What do you see?” Angel asked.
“You can’t see Nat or the ghosts?”
“No.”
“Did you know Nat was some sort of Reaper?”
“Yes,” Angel said. “What’s he doing?”
“Nat pulled the threads, freed them from their bodies, but the runes have them trapped.” Could I break that rune? We’d smudged the circle last time. But that had decimated the bodies and with them any evidence. We also couldn’t get close to the sigils due to the barrier over the door.
The expanding line of purple spread across the top of the opening, as if the pulled threads tore reality itself. I pushed Angel back a step. “The tear is growing.”
He tugged me away from the door, and a few seconds later, Nat appeared at the barrier, gaze on me, but as he passed through to the mortal side, he became the dark-robed skeleton rather than the pretty bookstore owner.
“I can’t reach the sigils to break them,” I said and waved at the doorway, which was quickly losing ground to the widening Veil tear. “Threads are pulling the Veil opening wider.”
“You see threads on a Veil tear?” Angel asked.
“Yeah. I was hoping Nat had an idea how to fix it.”
But the Reaper remained still and silent, waiting. Well, that wasn’t helpful. I held out the grimoire. “Is there something in here to fix this?”
A tiny shake of his head.
“You’re talking to Nat?”
I growled, annoyed that Angel couldn’t see him too. “I was hoping he could see the way strings are pulling the edges of the tear wider, and if there’s a way to fix it.”
“Can they be restitched, like you did when you healed me?” Angel asked.
I stared at the widening gap, wondering if it could be that easy. Only one way to find out.
I shoved the grimoire into Angel’s hands. “Hold this. I want to try something.”
“Be careful,” Angel said as I focused on the edges of the tear, jagged and sharp as if slashed and haphazardly bound to pull it open.
Not random threads at all, but part of the cult magic within.
Like my attempt to create a buttonhole on a shirt decades ago, messing it up and tearing through half the fabric.
The spell wound invasive threads into hooks, relentlessly straining the fabric between realms.
I might be new to weaving and magic in general, but I knew how to fix a hole, pretty or not.
Grandma taught me to sew a handful of stitches after my folks kicked me out.
Small, tight stitches, which I later learned were called a satin stitch.
Strong enough to mend most holes, at least for a while. Could I do the same with magic?
The threads appeared sharp, like they would cut if I reached for them, but I hadn’t had to physically touch Nat’s or Angel’s threads to weave them.
With focus and willpower, I reached for the threads, sensing each one like a lightning rod in my mind, humming and wild.
The raw power from the growing tear thrummed vast, ancient, and hungry, willing to devour everything it could touch.
I willed the threads to move, picturing them in my mind, threaded through an invisible needle and slipping from the top of the split to the bottom, tugging the thin membrane between worlds back together.
They moved with invisible force—my will, magic, or whatever—slipping them together like spectral silk to weave tiny, tight stitches.
I tugged carefully, slowly, feeling the tear close inch by agonizing inch.
A sharp pain pulsed behind my eyes, warning of a headache, but I couldn’t give in yet, not while focusing on each loop mending the split.
Each stitch vanished as if reality itself was repaired with my weaving.
I guided the threads, having to struggle for strength as the closer I got to the widest part of the tear, the entire thing growled and snapped at me.
“It’s working,” Angel whispered, voice full of awe, standing at my back. He slid his hand up under my shirt, his palm on my back, warm and grounding, stabilizing the growing backlash of the tear fighting back. But each tug quieted the belching chaos of the Veil tear.
I dripped sweat as I painstakingly wove stitch by stitch, focusing on thread by thread, rather than the whole.
Like mending a wound on a thrashing giant, it lashed back with stinging magic, fighting me, threatening to rip the threads from my grasp, but I held it firm.
Angel lent me steady focus and strength.
Nox tickled my senses with a small push.
My hands trembled with the effort of concentration.
I wasn’t powerful enough to force it closed.
I could only patiently, meticulously, mend it one tiny stitch at a time.
I lost track of time, my world narrowing to the next loop, the next stitch.
Pull through. Again. Again. Until the howling power from the other side quieted to a whisper.
With one final, psychic pull, I drew the last threads together and tied them off.
The end of the tear vanished, returning to ordinary wall and the murders for cult magic beyond.
With a pop, the spell within the apartment collapsed.
The barrier fell, both over the door and the circle within.
The silence was sudden and absolute.
The ghosts stepped free. The Reaper version of Nat held out his hand to welcome the woman’s grip in his. The Reaper’s starlit gaze was fixed on me. He didn’t smile. But he gave one slow, deliberate nod of respect.
I swayed on my feet, utterly drained. Angel’s arm was around me in an instant, holding me upright.
“You did it,” he whispered into my hair, his voice thick with absolute reverence. “Jude, you actually did it. You closed a fucking Veil tear.”
“Wow,” I said, wondering if this were all a fever dream as a wave of dizziness zapped the last of my strength.
If not for Angel, I’d have landed on the floor and taken an instant nap.
“What about the cop?” I asked more of Nat than Angel, but Nat was gone, and with him the ghost of the woman and her child.
“Well, that was nuts,” I slurred and closed my eyes, passing out from one heartbeat to the next.