Page 73 of Installment Immortality

I found them toward the far edge, dancing with a pretty girl who had probably been legal for less than a month. Aoi was wearing the face of a handsome young Japanese man, their hair gelled back and their collar popped at a jaunty angle. I grabbed them by the elbow, stopping their gyrations, and they turned to look at me quizzically.

“Yes?” they asked.

“It’s me, Mary,” I said. “Benedita’s in trouble.”

“No she’s not,” they said. “She’s been here with me all night.”

“Yeah? Point her out to me.”

They turned to scan the dance floor while their erstwhile partner looked more and more annoyed at the intrusion, pretty cheeks going red as she crossed her arms and glowered at me. I blinked, then realized what this looked like: I was clearly younger than Aoi, and not dressed for the club at all, interrupting what must have seemed like a singularly pleasant night out.

Aoi finished their scan and turned back to me. “Where is she?” they asked.

“I took her to see her brother. He wasn’t there. I think something may have happened to him. The people he’s been working with aren’t good people.”

Aoi blanched. Too literally—the color drained from theircheeks, which then continued to pale, slipping fast toward a dead, bleached-out white. I elbowed them in the side, and they yelped, jumping as the color came flooding back.

“We need to go,” I said. “Jonah can’t help. He’s just a kid, and they’re not in a place his curfew allows.”

I paused for Aoi to take my meaning, then added, “I have a couple of people who might be able to lend us a hand. Can you come with me?”

Aoi nodded, turning to make apologies to their dance partner. She rolled her eyes and muttered something I couldn’t make out over the music, then turned and stomped off toward the bar, leaving Aoi staring helplessly after her. I grabbed their elbow, pulling them with me as I made for the exit.

Again, I didn’t bother to unhook the rope, and again, the bouncer looked at me with a flat lack of surprise.

“How long has this nightclub been haunted?” he asked.

I raised an eyebrow. “You really want us to answer that?”

“Not particularly, no.” He shook his head. “They don’t pay me enough to care about dead girls breaking dress code.”

“Not a girl,” said Aoi.

“Not breaking dress code, either.”

“Fair enough.” Aoi turned to me. “What was all that about?”

“Exactly what it sounded like. Now, I don’t know how your kind of ghost moves around the twilight, but I was able to haul Benedita with me by holding her hand. That work for you?”

“Why, Miss Mary, I had no idea you cared,” said Aoi, face morphing into my own as they batted their lashes at me.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed their hand, and we were gone, reappearing a moment later in the hallway of Phee’s boardinghouse.

The doors to Arthur and Elsie’s rooms were standing open. Panic flooded through me like bleach, sucking the color and substance out of everything, and I staggered, dropping Aoi’s handas I braced myself against the wall. They couldn’t be in danger or distress; they weren’t calling for me. I’d hear them if they were calling for me, wouldn’t I? They were my family. I was supposed to hear them.

But I couldn’t feel them at all when I tried to reach out and locate them. I’d been so busy with everything else that I hadn’t noticed the absence. Now that I was feeling for it, though, I couldn’t pay attention to anything else. The absence was all. Elsie and Arthur were gone, and there was a hole in the world where they should have been.

“Seeing” that hole made me want, more than anything, to hurry and check on everyone else I cared about, rushing from place to place until I knew that they were all safe. The desire was almost overwhelming. I breathed slowly in and out through my nose, forcing it aside. I would know if they were dead. That was a certainty. They weren’t here, they weren’t dead, and they weren’t currently in active distress. That left very few options, and I wasn’t sure what most of them meant.

Aoi turned to give me a puzzled look, clearly not understanding why two open doors would upset me so much. “Are you okay?” they asked.

“No,” I managed. “The kids I babysit for are supposed to be here.”

Aoi blinked. “And they’re not?”

“No.”

Something moved farther down the hall. I vanished immediately, reappearing in front of Phee, who had been retreating toward the kitchen. “Going somewhere?” I asked, voice barely above a snarl.

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