Page 19 of Installment Immortality

“I have faith in Annie’s ability to make things explode,” I said. “You would have figured out another way. You’re creative people.” I even managed to sound like I meant what I was saying, which was possibly the most difficult part of what I was saying.

“Regardless,” said Sarah, and sipped her tomato juice.

“Because the Covenant thinks I was key to the attack plan, they’ve been harassing the dead. They’re posted up somewhere near Boston, where they can find the greatest density of older ghosts who might be powerful enough to help with something like the attack. I don’t know if they’re trying to catch them and mount a counterassault, or whether they’re just destroying them, but either way, the anima mundi doesn’t like it. Removing the ghosts releases all the energy that was being fed into their hauntings and sends it lashing around, messing with things.”

“That sounds… bad,” said Alice.

“The anima mundi sure seems to think so. The energy has to gosomewhere,and apparently it can cause newer ghosts to get too strong and become problematic. I’m not entirely clear on how it works. All this metaphysical stuff goes right over my head most of the time. Just because Iamthis metaphysical stuff, that doesn’t make it one of my strong points. Anyway, they want me to head up there and stop all this nonsense. How, not really sure about that either. I told them I had a plan, because the best way to find a plan is to get moving and figure it out on the way.”

“How are you planning to accomplish this?” asked Thomas.

“Well, I figured I’d start by heading for New York,” I said. “I don’t expect Verity can be much help right now, between mourning for Dominic and being eight months pregnant.”

“She’s very angry,” said Sarah, eyes on her lasagna as she spoke. “She wants to hurt the Covenant more than she’s ever wanted just about anything, even to dance. Please don’t tell her about your mission. If you do, she’ll try to go with you. She’ll want to help. And she could get hurt, or the baby could get hurt, and I don’t think she could live with that once she recovered.”

“I won’t tell her, I promise,” I said.

Sarah glanced in my direction and mustered a very slight smile. I wasn’t sure she could actually, physically see me. Her eyes were unfocused and glowing very faintly. “Thank you,” she said. “How are you going to explain showing up there?”

“I’ll just tell her I wanted to check on her and the baby, and make sure she knows I’m back in the land of the living, even if it’s on a temporary visa.” I sighed. “I do need to pick up some physically manifest help, though, or I’m never going to pull this off.”

“What about Rose?” asked Alice.

“Also dead,” I said. “The anima mundi would have sent her if they wanted a two-ghost tag team to take on whatever the hell the Covenant is doing. I’m assuming they want to keep from losing two of their favorite toys in the same mission.”

She exchanged a look with Thomas, who grimaced but nodded. “We could help,” she said. “We’ll come back to New York with you, if you want us to.”

I paused to consider her offer. Thomas was an experienced, powerful sorcerer, and Alice was a nightmare in combat. Sally was no slouch herself. The three of them could be a great asset, and it was with extreme reluctance that I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “Even apart from the fact that I’m not sure I could bring you anywhere near your pregnant granddaughter withoutyou deciding you needed to stay and help her, and deal with the ghost issue later—and that would be completely valid of you to do, ‘family first’ is the rule for a reason—any Covenant we ran into would stand too high a chance of recognizing you. The only one I’d feel halfway safe taking into the field is Sally, and neither of you is going to let me run off with her.”

“I’m supposed to fly to the West Coast next week to see James, anyway,” said Sally. “We didn’t really get a lot of time to catch up before, and we need it.”

James was Sally’s best friend, and had been since long before either one of them was involved with our carnival sideshow of a family. They grew up in the same small town in Maine, and she’d made the crossroads bargain that eventually threw her into Thomas’s path in order to set James free. They needed the time together more than I needed Sally in specific to help me.

“I can’t,” said Sarah. “When I’m around Covenant people, I do bad things.”

I nodded. “I know, sweetheart. I wasn’t going to ask you. And I can’t go to Ohio—Shelby and Alex are busy with Charlotte and Isaac, and I’m really trying not to orphan anybody if I can help it. We’ve dealt with enough parental abandonment in this family to last us a dozen lifetimes. I figure I’ll pop back to Portland and see if anyone there wants to go on a road trip. It’s only, what, a week to drive from Portland to New York? Less if we can flag down a passing routewitch and convince them to bend the distance for us.”

Sarah blinked at me, looking suddenly alarmed.

“Artieisn’t— Youcan’task— Hemight say yes just because he feels like he would have said yes before everything that happened, and then you’d have an unstable incubus in the field with you, and he could get hurt.”

“Sweetie, any of us can get hurt any time we’re in the field,” I said, patiently. “Even me, as Penton Hall so brutally reminded us. There’s no safety outside a controlled environment, and I’m notgoing to pretend he’s not still a member of this family just because he’s a little scrambled right now. But he doesn’t have the kind of experience I’m looking for. I’ll see whether Kevin’s up for a road trip, or maybe Annie and Sam. They’re pretty good at this sort of thing.” As if they had ever dealt with this sort of thing before.

As if this were a sort of thinganyof us had ever had to deal with. We were striding quickly into uncharted territory, and I didn’t have much time to figure out how we were going to emerge from the other side. I looked to Alice. “How much trouble are you going to be in with the mice if I don’t stick around to tell them what happened to me right this second? I promise I’ll come back as soon as I can take the time.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” she said, with a slight roll of her eyes. Then she nodded. “It’s all right, Mary. If you need to go, you can go. I’ll placate the mice, and while they’re not going to forget that you owe them a liturgical recounting for their records, they’re usually easy to bribe with a chocolate layer cake, especially if I’m willing to put frosting roses on it. But you need to keep your promises. I buried my daughter and my son-in-law, but I couldn’t bury you.”

“Your mother did that a long time ago,” I murmured. “She took care of everything.”

They’d found my body in the ditch where it had been thrown by the truck that hit me, swallowed by roots and hidden by cornstalks, and they’d dug it up and carried it back to the old Healy place to bury in the back field, where I could be at rest in the presence of people who cared about me. Maybe that was part of why I’d been so easy to tie to the family, even with the crossroads pulling on me the way they had been. The crossroads may have owned my soul, but the rest of me was buried on Healy land.

“Yeah, well, I still thought I’d lost you, and having a dead babysitter means I’m never supposed to lose you. That’s the way this works. So be careful this time, and come back to us.”

Thomas shot her a sharp but distinctly fond look. “Areyoutelling someone else that they should be careful?” he asked. “Has one or more of the hells frozen over?”

“Quiet, you,” said Alice, and cuffed him in the shoulder.

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