Just a few minutes later, I’m back home in the graffiti-covered alleyway, stepping over rats and trash that both make sounds when I accidentally step on them. The magic is fainter now. A lighter haze of purple sitting just above the ground like smoke. I know it’s not a leak from a Magline, or else Anomalies would have clustered around this place like flies to garbage. Speaking of which, Jane’s body is a rancid, fetid mess, and I’m pretty damn sure I didn’t leave it in this state. I hold my breath and swallow bile, and do Jane a favor and cover her eyes as I near the dumpster.

  The horde of flies humming around here, relentlessly finding pieces of her body they can burrow inside and lay their little maggot babies, is enough of a give away that Jane isn’t lying about being allergic to magic. And deathly allergic, because even after death, her corpse is getting chewed up by the residue wrapping tightly against her rotting arms and even each one of the stumpy, green-gray bits that were her fingers. I glance over my shoulder and squint, looking at the faulty Magline running down the street. No, there aren’t any leaks. Besides, MageCo would have been here in a heartbeat if they so much as heard that one of their lines was spazzing out right now.

  Either that, or some gang would have tried to get their grubby hands on it before MageCo.

  “Hey,” Jane says to me. “What’s all that buzzing? They sound like flies.”

  I know it sounds bad, but I’m kind of glad she doesn’t have a proper sense of smell to catch onto the awful stench gathering in the dumpster. But…is it meant to rot that much? I take a picture with my phone and send it to Sable, asking him if the arm I just picked up should look like this, considering when I left an hour or so ago, her arm was just fine. I guess it also means Jane isn’t gonna get a body any time soon, either. Minutes later, I got a reply.

  ‘Sick,’ he says, which isn’t helpful, then: ‘Soul poisoning. Probably a spell. Any dead flies?’

  I look down at my feet and search the dumpster with my phone flashlight, which is so awesomely fun! I try my best not to vomit on the corpse, but sure enough, there are mounds of dead flies in the dumpster and even on my shoes. I shake my head, and—gross, gross, gross—several fall from my hair. ‘Yep,’ I text back. ‘Plenty of ‘em.’

  ‘Not my field of expertise then, Kace. Unless you wanna send me ten bucks.’

  Bastard, I think, stuffing my phone back into my pocket. I’m not bartering money I don’t have. I’m in enough debt with enough people, and I guess Sable is as much of a friend as my good standing with him allows for it. I sigh and comb my fingers through my hair, because the internet is telling me that soul poisoning can’t be cured without either an exorcism (can’t afford it), or divine blessings from an Angel (neither can I afford that, not in a million years), so I’ve got a bit of an idea of what’s going on here. They don’t want her body getting far. That’s for sure. It’s a miracle I brought her head along with me for later, because Jane would have been in the same state as the rest of her body. They want to get rid of evidence, right? Completely and utterly wipe the slate clean, as well as anything that might have eaten her or even seen her. Gods, this is just so fun. Be a bounty hunter, mom said. It’ll be fun, she said. I kick the dumpster, briefly scaring off the few remaining flies. Minutes later, and they’re finished.

  All that’s left in the dumpster now amongst a pile of dead flies are clean white bones.

  “Um, K…No, that’s not her name. Kara? Karina?”

  “Kacey,” I say.

  “Right! Hey, Kacey, mind letting me see?”

  I weigh my options a little, and decide that I might as well let her see the alleyway. I unhitch her from my belt and show her the dumpster. She stares at it, blinking slowly, then raises an eyebrow. “Are those chicken bones?”

  “Yours,” I mutter. Her mouth snaps together, immediately silent. “Soul poisoning. Eats down bones, too.”

  Jane lets out a garish, horrified moan that makes me feel sick to the gut. But I can’t blame her. Anyone’s emotions would be a mess right now. A second chance at life is great, and possibly finding your killer is better.

  But you’ve got no memories, and your body is being eaten into oblivion right in front of you.

  The one lead I had is now gone. She could have remembered something about her body. A birthmark or maybe a necklace she should have had, or a wedding ring, a piercing, literally anything. But she can’t even do that to jog her memory. For her sake, I put her under my arm and left the dumpster, leaning my back against the sooty brick wall underneath the fire escape ladder. I set her down on a trash can, where she continues moaning and trying her best not to cry, but I let her go through the motions, because we’re both kind of stuck right now. Fuck sake.

  “Isn’t there anyone you can call?” she asks me, hiccuping after crying. “Mages have friends, right?”

  “Well…” I shrug and slide my hands into my jeans. “One’s dead, the other is missing, and I forgot one.”

  She blinks, then says, “Oh. Oh my Gods, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  I wave her off. “Anyway, unless we get someone like a detective on this, it’ll be a long ass night. I’m thinking we…” I snap my fingers, making Jane flinch. Slinging my backpack off my shoulders, I rummage through it and find the several potions at the bottom. I move each of them aside, muttering to myself until I find where it…

  There.

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  I pull a vial of silver liquid out of my bag, dull and thick, kinda soupy. The label reads Shimmer.

  It’s also only got one dose left at the bottom of it, so I’ve got to make this count.

  “What is that?” Jane asks quietly as I undo the lid. A scent of gasoline fills the air.

  “Off-brand Shimmer,” I say, sniffing it just to make sure it hasn’t gone bad yet. Shimmer is never all that fun to use, but when you’re not a Medium, I don’t really know how else you’re supposed to go around asking the dead if they’ve seen anything else. According to MageCo, you’re not meant to take this stuff raw. Mix it with literally almost anything else except raw Shimmer, just so you don’t have residue lingering around in your body days or weeks after you’ve taken it. Something, something, lose your mind hearing all kinds of crazy phantoms.

  All I’ve got is an old packet of juice at the bottom of my bag that tastes like I’ve just licked the soles of my sneakers, but I down it, hold it in my mouth, and pour the Shimmer down my throat. I wince and swallow, the taste doing my tongue no favors whatsoever. I feel it slide down my throat, warm and awkward and thick. I wait until it vanishes from my mouth completely, but Gods, this stuff sucks. I nearly spit it out on reflex, but instead put a fist to my mouth to stop myself from puking. Then I shut my eyes and wait, counting for a few seconds until I finally hear them whispering. Muttering at first. Distant and nonsensical. Some angry. Some miserable. Until it’s all too clear.

  See, if this stuff was real Shimmer, I could probably see the dead people, too. The Specters that linger around death looking for any magic they can suckle on, though, are entirely invisible to me. But I can hear them, and I know they can hear me. It’s not my first time with this stuff flowing through my veins. Probably won’t be the last either. But I’ve got all of two minutes for a dose this small to work, so I walk over to the dumpster and talk.

  “Hey, ghost people,” I say. Their chatter falters around me. I don’t feel a chill down my spine or anything. They apparently find that a little bit of a stereotype, but I shudder regardless as they begin hissing into my ears.

  “We hunger,” one says, hollow and distant. My head whips around, but there’s nothing behind me apart from a graffiti covered wall and several mounds of rotting trash. “Your magic is tainted. Savory. We prey for it.”

  They begin to mutter and hiss in unison, and now I feel a chill rake through my body. I must’ve just been grazed, or poked at, as they try to see if the magic inside of me is the real thing. I don’t know what that tainted part means, because even though I haven’t showered in several days, surely I’m not dirty to the point my magic is.

  I hope it’s not.

  “You want some of it?” I ask them. I must look batshit crazy right now talking to thin air. “One condition.”

  Very quickly, they’re willing to listen as they silence around me.

  “Uh, Kacey?” Jane says from her trash can. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  I shrug and tell the Specters, “Look, you see that head over there behind me? Her body is what’s pulling you to this alleyway right now. She’s been dead for a while, but I need to know what killed her. You guys saw it.”

  They start muttering and mumbling amongst themselves. I hear one of them asking for some spare change. I guess someone recently deceased and not yet accustomed to being fully dead. Or something. Beats me. I’m alive.

  The Specters go silent. Completely and utterly dead silent. I can’t tell if they’re still surrounding me, and being hostile with something that you can’t touch that can definitely touch you isn’t a good idea. It doesn’t stop my basic instinct from putting a hand on my sword, because if there’s any security you can get in this city, it’s the one you carry with you. So I wait, hoping to the Gods that the Shimmer hasn’t run its course through my veins. Just once, let me catch a break. Then the trash littering the dumpster rustles, swirling around as if a set of hands were rummaging through it. I wait, walking a little closer, and watch as the garbage parts away and something catches my eye. Something tiny, golden, and crazy expensive. I crouch, palm out, letting the Specter place the ring on my hand.

  I turn it in my fingers, and spot the black raven’s head embossed into the gold. It’s a thick ring. Wouldn’t fit me, but it would a man. The tiny red ruby in the raven’s eye glints under the broken street light as I stand again.

  They were hiding it, I think. But not that well on purpose.

  They wanted someone to find it, or for its owner to come get it from them.

  “Who paid you to hide this thing?” I ask them quietly. Maybe it’s the blood on the dumpster and on the fire escape that was their wayward payment. The dashes of it on the ground aren’t Jane’s. Those had been someone else’s, so either Jane fucked them up big time, or they paid these Specters a lot of magic to do what they wanted.

  ‘Your magic,’ they hiss, ‘is what we want. Pay.’

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. A couple of seconds left. The bad thing about these things is that you can’t say no and go back on your deal. You pay them, or they make you suffer for as long as they can until you either mentally snap, or you take your sword and put it through your temples. So, grudgingly, I sigh under my breath and cut open my palm with my dagger, squeezing my fist so the droplets of blood douse the alleyway. Not as much as the other Mage had done, but according to them, my blood is tarnished, and judging by the horrific cry of glee that echoes through my mind as soon as the Shimmer wears off, I think they’re happy enough with a little bit.

  That just leaves me wondering why the other Mage had to give them so much, just for them to keep this thing here under some garbage. Heck, maybe they knew someone would eventually come looking for it for a price. Maybe the Mage would return searching for it, and would have to cough up some more of his magic-laced blood.

  His magic was potent, still strong enough to linger even right now. If they wanted him to return, then they loved his magic. They wanted to keep consuming it and bathing in it. In contrast, I only have to give them a drop.

  For all I know, they’ve stolen something from me, too, and probably want me to come back for it later. But I can’t find anything missing on me, so I’ll take this as a win for old Kacey Summers. I was onto him. Very onto him.

  Think I just got one over you, I think, flicking the ring into the air and catching it. Or I’m wrong.

  But this is New Salem. Even after death you’re gonna be looking for some loose change. Specters screw with the living all the time, especially here downtown where there’s death and misery a plenty. They’ll hide your keys and snatch your cat, and you won’t know where they are until you accidentally cut your finger and poof, next thing you know, your cat is on your bed and your keys are right there in your pocket. Fun bastards. Helpful, too.

  Because I at least have some kind of lead.