Page 52 of Aftermarket Afterlife

“Because whoever dispatched that team to the house in Ohio hit the local gorgon community first. The one they call the Fringe? And the only person who might have known about the Fringeandthe house is Alex’s assistant, Dee, but she was at the Fringe when they were attacked, and she’s too smart to think she can play with the Covenant and come away unharmed. Her daughter, on the other hand, was Annie’s roommate while she was working at Lowryland, and she’s been off at medical school, unprotected by the rest of the gorgons. If someone could get the info onher, they’d be able to use her to track down the gorgonsandher mother’s employer. It’s all a matter of following the threads.”

“So you want to ask Annie if her old roommate would have sold her out?”

“No. I want to ask Annie if she knows where Megan is. She’s not family, so I can’t just go to her—I lost that ability when the crossroads went away. They needed me to be capable of haunting literally anyone at a moment’s notice, and so I was a lot better at aiming for non-family when they were around. We need to check on her, both for her safety and because if she’s been taken, that puts us all in danger.”

“And you’resureno one was hurt?”

“The two dead Covenant field agents might not agree with that, but our people are fine,” I said firmly. “Alex’s calling Uncle Mike to see if things in Chicago are settled enough to let him come play backup. To be honest, I think Uncle Mike will appreciate having somewhere to aim all that anger he’s carrying after the attack at the Carmichael. One of you needs to call Alex. He needs to know what’s happening here.”

“We will,” said Kevin. “I promise, we will. We’re just waiting to catch our breath before we do that. I don’t...I don’t think any of us can say it yet.”

“That’s understandable.”

“You didn’t tell him?” asked Evelyn.

I shook my head. “It didn’t feel like it was my place. I’m going to go look for Annie now. Thank you for telling me where to find her.”

“James has agreed to keep the body cold enough that we can put together a funeral,” said Evelyn. “He can’t buy us forever, but he can get us a few days. That should be enough.”

“No,” I said. “It shouldn’t be. It should take us years to put together a proper memorial for that woman. But it’s going to have to be, and we’re going to make it work.”

I turned then, and walked back out through the wall, heading for the back of the property, and the barn. There wasn’t anything else for me to do inside, and we weren’t magically going to solve this if I hung around and grieved with the rest of the family. All the tears in the world weren’t going to bring Jane back.

It wasn’t surprising that Thomas wasn’t crying. He’d barely known her. They’d met for the first time earlier today, although there had been a few awkward phone calls before this, and while he’d always known there was a second child on the way at the time of his disappearance, she’d never been more than an abstract idea to him, a person who might exist. All her complexity and contradiction had happened far away from him, and he was mourning the possibility of their relationship more than anything real.

I had little doubt that as the family gathered and the funeral preparations got underway, he’d come to know her better, and his sorrow over what he would now never have the chance to experience firsthand would grow until it engulfed him. He was as capable of mourning as anyone else. He was just oddly outside this most intimate of familial rituals, at least for now.

Stepping through the back wall of the house into the yard brought me into sight of the firepit and the obstacle course. James and Sally were seated at the former, the fire unlit and Sally shivering slightly, while James looked perfectly comfortable despite the chill in the air. Elemental sorcerers are annoying that way. James looked as shaken as everyone inside, although from the hungry, almost-desperate way he was looking at Sally, I could guess that it had more to do with someone returning from the dead than it did with Jane’s death. I kept walking.

Motion caught my eye as I passed the obstacle course. I looked up and saw the top of Greg’s bristly head moving behind the low wall that was used as a final challenge for people doing the rope climb. It was no challenge for him, of course; he was a spider. Climbing things was basically his purpose in life. I paused to cup my hands around my mouth and call, “Sarah! You up there?”

Yes, Aunt Mary, said Sarah’s mental voice, meekly.Do you need me to come down?

“No, honey,” I said, trying to think the words clearly as I spoke them. “I’m going to the barn to check on Annie and Sam. You’re fine where you are. Just come inside or go to the firepit if you start feeling lonely, or sad, or like any of this is your fault.” I paused. “Is Olivia still with you?”

Evie came and got her when everyone got back from the carnival. She needed grandbaby hugs.

Small mercies. “All right, then, sweetie. Take care of yourself.”

Okay, Aunt Mary,she replied.And thank you.

“I love you too, Sarah,” I said, and resumed my trek toward the barn.

I’ve done a lot more walking since the crossroads died. It’s slow and it’s boring and compared to popping in and out of existence, it can feel like a waste of time. Since I’m dead, it’s not even like I get any benefits from the exercise. But when weighed against an eternity of subservience to an unspeakable force from outside the bounds of natural reality, I’ll take the long walk every time.

The barn loomed ahead of me, and I walked through the wall, looking up as I did. The makeshift trapeze rig that webbed the rafters was sitting motionless, clearly not having been used any time in the recent past. I blinked, and took a more thorough look around.

It wasn’t until my second pass that I spotted Sam and Antimony. They were up in what would normally have been called the hayloft, but was entirely devoid of hay, used instead for equipment and taxidermy storage. Maybe that was why I’d missed them the first time. In his natural form, holding perfectly still, Sam could be mistaken for a badly stuffed trophy of some sort. Annie wasn’t moving, either. She was balled up against him, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around his torso, holding him as tightly as he was holding her. I couldn’t see her face. He, however, looked completely miserable.

Right. He was a member of my family, and I could generously interpret this expression to mean he needed me. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and vanished, reappearing in the hayloft right next to him.

He didn’t jump, just turned to me and said, wearily, “Hi, Mary.”

“Long way from the kid who freaked out because a dead girl might be watching him shower,” I said, and sat down next to him on the edge of the loft, letting my legs dangle.

“Oh, I’d still be upset if I thought you were watching me shower,” he said. “I’d just tell Annie, and she’d take care of it.”

I leaned forward a bit, to look at her. “She okay?”

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