Page 39 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“I would never be so cruel,” said Rose, from behind me.

I opened my eyes and turned, and there she was, blue jeans and short brown hair and a French-sleeved blouse the exact shade of green that she had once worn to her ill-fated prom. I lifted an eyebrow. Ghosts can control their wardrobes, to one degree or another. Lucky ghosts like Rose can also control everything else. If she was wearing that shade of green, it was because she was trying to make a point.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

“I was already nearby,” she replied, and glanced over her shoulder at the tent. “She said to tell you she wasn’t sorry. I got her as far as I’m allowed to go, and she still wasn’t sorry, and she didn’t change her mind.”

That was actually reassuring, in a way I would have had trouble explaining if someone else had asked me. Jane had chosen to leave me, to go deeper, and Rose had been waiting there to meet her and lead her into the true afterlife, the place I couldn’t go until I was ready to stay.

“Annie’s trying to call Bon, and I know the routewitches aren’t a taxi service, but we need another one,” I said. “We need to get back to Portland. We can switch to commercial air from there, but this is too important to screw around with.”

“That, and you probably wouldn’t be able to take her home if you hired a normal car service,” said Rose. She bowed her head, and for a moment—just a moment—her face was a skull grinning at me from the shadows.

I hate that “oooo I’m a scary ghost” bullshit. There’s almost never any call for it. “And we have to take her home,” I said.

“She knew this was a risk.”

“They all know, all the time. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a tragedy when it happens.” I shrugged. “Can you help us or not? We need to get home. We need to find out where else the Covenant is attacking. Their resources can’t be endless, but we don’t know who they’ve been getting their information from, or how they’re tracking us down. They could go for the compound, or for Alex and his family out in Ohio.”

“They’ve already taken a swing at Chicago,” said Rose, almost placidly. “Real clever Charlies, going into a gorgon-owned hotel with guns and no eye protection. Uncle Mike’s a happy man.”

That almost certainly wasn’t true. In my experience, Uncle Mike was a viciously angry man who mostly managed to keep it contained through thick chains of loyalty, duty, and keeping his people safe. The Covenant represented an existential threat to his people greater than any he’d ever gone up against. But adding Chicago to the list of attacks we knew about meant we were up to seven separate Covenant attacks, all coordinated, all targeting locations the family had been known to frequent. Weneededto find the source of their intelligence, or this was going to keep getting worse.

Sadly, Jane had been our best shot at getting that information, and now she was—

Even thinking it was difficult. For someone who’s been with a family that takes this many risks for this long, you’d think I’d have more experience at dealing with death, but I came in during a surprisingly peaceful period. It’s been chaotic, but we’ve survived. That’s been enough.

“The routewitches were already going to send people to help the carnival with salvage and triage; I’ll talk to them, and I’ll get you a driver,” said Rose. “But thishasto be it, you understand? Anything more risks attracting the attention of the Ocean Lady, and that’s a risk you don’t really want to take, especially not when people are already dying. She collects souls as surely as any other god, and she might start asking for payment.”

“I understand,” I said. “Thank you, Rose.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said, and disappeared.

I turned to walk back toward the tent. Sam was inside now, his arms wrapped around Antimony as she leaned against him, her eyes closed, shuddering. Alice hadn’t moved from Jane’s side. It was like she thought she could make up for a lifetime’s absence by being present now, by refusing to be moved now.

It was almost admirable, even if it was entirely wrong. Nothing was going to make up for the years she’d missed. All we could do now was keep trying to move forward, and hope that we could survive this.

I had turned solid again during my walk along the midway, and Annie opened her eyes at the sound of my footsteps, turning to look at me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried calling the truck stop where Aunt Rose says the routewitches like to go during their distance runs, but the man who picked up didn’t know what I was talking about, and the connection was bad enough that I’m not sure he could understand me either. I didn’t know who else to try.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I talked to Rose. She’s going to send us another routewitch to get us home. But she says we shouldn’t ask again, because we’re on the verge of attracting the attention of the Ocean Lady, and we don’t want that.”

“The anima mundi wouldn’t let the Ocean Lady take me,” said Annie, with quiet certainty.

“Have you gone and pledged yourself to the anima mundi while I wasn’t looking?” I asked. She shook her head. I snorted. “Then don’t be so sure. The Ocean Lady’s a highway. She’s also a goddess, and she takes what she wants. That’s the benefit of being a goddess.”

“I liked it better when we weren’t all wrapped up in gods and weird divinities,” said Sam.

I looked at him flatly. “When was that, exactly?”

He didn’t have an answer. I walked over to Alice, laying a hand on her arm.

“Ally.”

She didn’t look at me.

“Ally.”

She still didn’t look at me.

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