The Death Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy Box Set: (Books 1-3) (14 page)

She held out her hand. I took it and felt an instant injection of juice. Also, the whispering grew in volume. The voices and their distinct signatures became clearer
.

Tiffany asked, “Is it always like this? The voices?”

“For me, yeah.”

Her eyes widened. “It's so loud.”

“It's louder with us touching.”

“Oh.”

We turned as one mind, one intent.

Gran had shambled over to her grave, looking rattier by the moment. I could feel Tiffany's energy or power, complementing mine.

I looked into Gran's eyes and felt a spark of some kind, slimy and evil. Tiffany reacted as well.

She looked at me, scared.

I asked, “Ready?”

I let my power shift to Tiffany.  I squeezed her hand, and it flowed between us.

I thought,
Rest.
A mental muscle flexed. The strength of my will chased the thread that connected me to Gran.

It was so simple it was criminal. Speaking of which, I could hear sirens in the background. There was no explaining our way out of this mess.

Gran gave one last heave of her chest, seeming to suck in real air for the last time. The breath rattled hollowly as it left her lungs, then she lay down on the grave. The dirt flowed over her, engulfing her body.

When it was done, the grave appeared undisturbed, as if nothing had happened. Tiffany and I released each other's hands, the spark between us fading.

The first police car arrived, and Garcia stepped out with a smile of satisfaction. A second officer got out and opened the back door. I figured Tiffany's snitch friend had blabbed to the police.

Perfect.

***

Garcia sauntered over, that wide smile stretched over his face.

He's loving this.

Tiffany stayed where she was, Bry walking over to stand beside her. I had to assume it had been Tiffany's snitch friend who'd blabbed to the cops. Sure enough, she exited Garcia's squad car.

With the hood covering her face I hadn't really noticed her that much, kinda busy with Gran-the-corpse and Tiffany's rather problematic older brother.

She had weird-colored hair somewhere between dishwater blond and red. Her face was all tight and pinched.

She looked warily from Tiffany to Bry then me and flushed a fine, true red.

Garcia stood facing us, legs wide, considerable arms folded across his chest.

“Well, Caleb, what do we have here?”

Just a tiny bit of corpse-raising.

Dad said, “Sergeant Garcia, good to see you again.”

“Hello, Mr. Hart. No offense, but I was talking to Caleb.” Garcia’s eyes went back to mine like a tuning fork.

“And he's a minor,” Dad added.

Garcia's head swiveled back to Dad, his eyes narrowing. “I don't have to be reminded of that Mr. Hart.”

Their gazes held.

“We were here, conducting some experiments, and these kids”—Dad gestured at Tiffany and her brother—“happened upon us.”

Mom hiccuped behind me. Oh great, she always got those when she was nervous—loud ones, too, from her gut.

I rolled my eyes.
Mom let out another one. Garcia's eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing. Dad squeezed Mom's shoulder.

The other cop joined Garcia. He was all business, with a military haircut. His hair was so blond that he looked bald. He was short, barely taller than I was, with deep set eyes that never stopped moving—restless. He gave me the creeps.

Garcia introduced. “This is my partner, Officer McGraw.”

This guy was big time Aryan nation, white bread in his pants, all blond and light compared to Garcia's tall darkness.

And he was scarier.

I could feel this guy's potential and it didn't feel good. What I wouldn't have done for a dose of Jade's Empath skills about now.

“The department is pairing mundane officers with paranormal ones to better handle paranormal crime.”

He said
paranormal
like a curse.

That I-want-to-be-your-friend thing had been an act. I was really glad I hadn't said too much during the dog incident.

McGraw let a cruel smile flash, then it was gone. I was guessing he was about Parker's age, one of the first group of kids that got the inoculation.

They're not giving these guys good enough psych screenings
.

What was he anyway? That would prove pretty useful to know in say, the next ten minutes.

I didn't have long to wait, this jerk was just dying to show off, who knew why? Because he could, like Carson.

“McGraw's an elemental,” Garcia said. “If anything gets out of hand here, I have perfect confidence that McGraw can handle it to the letter of the law.”

We were so screwed.

Elementals could manipulate the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. McGraw obviously did not have all his dogs barking, so I wasn’t interested in show and tell.

Dad frowned.

“I don't think any of us will be unreasonable. There is no need for posturing.”

Garcia flipped open his notebook (
pulse it,
moron) and got a pen out. Who wrote anymore?

He turned to Tiffany’s friend. “Miss Cote, why don't you repeat what you told me at the police station.”

She came forward awkwardly, eyes downcast. “It's cot-A. Ya know, a long 'A',” she corrected sullenly.

Cops growing out of the ground and she's correcting their pronunciation.

“Okay... Miss Cot-
A,
”
Garcia said. “Please repeat what you told us at the police station for these folks.”

Cote looked at Tiffany, who shook her head
.

So Tiffany wasn't feeling like being outed either.

Cote bit her lower lip. Garcia moved closer until he was towering over her.

She looked up at him, a shadow of doubt crossing her face.

“I thought I saw something over there by his parents.” She pointed in the general direction of Gran's tombstone. “But it isn't here now.”

“Now come on. You said a lot more than that,” McGraw prompted.

Tiffany said, “Mia, no.”

That was it!
Mia.
I hated forgetting peoples' names.

Mia said, “We were just going to come out here and hang. And then we saw these guys”—she gestured at my parents and me—“and saw something else, too. It smelled.” She crinkled her nose.

“What smelled?” McGraw asked.

“The dead woman,” she said finally.

Garcia smiled with triumph.

He and McGraw began a tight search of the area, moving in between tombstones. Garcia
stepped on Gran's grave without a downward glance. Not a blade of grass was out of place. It looked perfect.

McGraw turned back to Mia. “Where did you see this dead woman?”

“Right there,” she said, pointing.

He looked at where she indicated—Gran's headstone. He brought his gaze up and studied me.

Don't ask, Garcia.

He asked, “One of your relatives, maybe? Doing a little visiting?”

“No. Actually, we were conducting experiments, as I mentioned earlier,” Dad said.

“Well, I did some looking.” Garcia tapped his pen on the side of his head.  “I have the last five generations of both your families in my little notebook right here. And here you all are, right at the family plot.”

He snapped the notebook closed with a tight grinding sound and I gave a little involuntary jump. “But from what Miss Cote tells us, you were doing more than
experimenting
.”

Bry said, “Caleb and I got into a fight, that's all. His dad tried to break it up when it got out of control.”

McGraw looked skeptical as he took in our little group. Dad's hair was a spike fest, and his pants had grass stains on them.

Bry had blood all over his chin and the front of his shirt, and Tiffany had some dried blood under her nose. Mom shrank behind Dad. That clinched it for me. She didn't like him any better than I did.

McGraw looked back at me.

“But not a scratch on
you.
”

“I guess I got lucky,” I said with only a small tremor in my voice.

“But the,” he opened his notebook, scanning with his index finger until he came up with the name, then tapped it once, “Weller boy, has what looks like a piece of his tongue missing. And the sister,” he looked down again, “Tiffany,
has sustained trauma to her nose.” His eyes narrowed at me, barely more than slits.

“It's not Caleb's fault,” Tiffany said. “I just got in the middle.”

McGraw scowled. They couldn't do anything. They'd have to chalk the whole thing up to a hysterical girl thinking she saw things in a graveyard that she didn't. Two boys getting in a fight was not a police matter.

Garcia turned to Mia. “Are you sure that you saw a dead woman? Or are you willing to recant your testimony?”

“Recant?” Mia asked.

“Take it back. What you said. All of it.”

“Yeah...
yes
... I recant. I don't know what I saw.” She looked so helpless that I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.

“I guess we'll have to be satisfied with that,” Garcia said.

“But know this: I thought I smelled a skunk, so there must be one.”

Weird, just like Morginstern.
A strong breeze blew, whipping my hair and lashing my face.

Garcia pointed his pen at me. “You have my full attention, Caleb, and for the record, I don't like being played. If I find out you're a cadaver manipulator, we are lawfully bound to report that to the proper authorities. Don't let me find out you've been holding out on us.”

He rested his hand on the baton strapped to his utility belt.

McGraw smiled toothily, then his face took on an odd look of concentration. Raising his hand, he said, “Be still.”

The wind that had been so annoying stopped abruptly. Yet, about fifteen feet away, the low branches on the fir trees danced. We were in the eye of some kind of storm. McGraw was showing his juice was working   as an air elemental.

Terrific.

McGraw gave us a tight smile, closed his hand into a fist, and drew it toward his body. With an audible pop, the wind rushed in to lash our faces again.

CHAPTER 14

Once the cops were gone, Tiffany turned to Mia. “You're
such
an ass-potato!”

Mia looked around for support. Getting none, she said, “It looked bad to me. The old, dead woman and all. I didn't know what to do!”

Bry walked up to Tiffany. “Leave it, Tiff. We all did the best we could. AFTD has been hard for you, too.”

Tiffany eyed me. “I thought I was the only one.”

“No. I just found out that I had it.” If I'd known sooner, we wouldn't have needed to be alone.

“How?”

I gestured at Gran’s grave. “It was an accident the first time. I told Carson and Brett
that I could hear the dead. Actually, John did.”

“Why would you guys tell them? They're dickheads.” She caught Mom's look and hastily amended, “They're jerks to everybody.”

I nodded.

“Because I found out in biology. The frogs...” I shuddered. “Anyway, I wanted to prove that I wasn't some kind of coward for passing out.”

“Who the he—” She glanced at Mom. “Um… who the
heck
cares what they think?”

I shrugged. “They were being jerks, and I was tired of it. Jonesy thought it would be a good idea to show them what I had, that I wasn't a poser.”

“Does that seem like a good idea now?” she asked.

“No way.” I smiled.

Dad clapped his hands. “This is all well and good, but we need to discuss what happened, the possibilities.”

Always with the science.

Dad asked Tiffany, “Can you raise cadavers?”

“Zombies? No. Sometimes I know where murdered people are. And I can sense the dead.”

“Do you mean you can hear them like I do?” I asked.

She shivered. “No, it's not like those loud voices you hear. It's like impressions of their feelings or thoughts. I don't know. It's hard to explain.”

We shared a moment of complete understanding.

“Jade told me about that bird thing outside of gym.”

Tiffany looked confused for a second then said,
“Oh yeah! I almost forgot about that. LeClerc, right? Aren't you guys going out?”

“Yeah.”

Mom said, “We need to go. We have some things to discuss.”

“Okay, but I wanna add Tiffany to my contacts before I forget.” I grabbed my pulse out of my back pocket.

I thumbed my pulse and thought,
Add contact.

Tiffany walked over and laid her thumb on the pad. Her contact information appeared:

555.455.9830: Tiff Weller

“Tiff?” I asked.

“Yeah, I hate 'Tiffany'.”

“Why? Tiffany is a swell name,” Dad commented.

I gave him the lame-parent stare.

Dad said, “All right, brother, chillax!”

I shook my head. “Dad, don't
try
okay?”

Tiffany started picking up the scraps of her hoodie. Seeing that it was beyond repair, I took off mine and handed it to her.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I'll get it back on Monday.”

“I don't know,” she said. “We may not test in the same building.”

That was true. It was alphabetical. Hart, Weller—probably not.

“Tuesday then?”

She shrugged.

“So I have a huge favor to ask....”

“What?” she asked with barely contained skepticism.

“Can you guys keep this thing a secret?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. You worried you're gonna have to go away to that special school, like Parker?”

“Yeah, like that.”

She shuddered. “I'm
so
glad that I don't have the effed-up corpse raising to deal with. But
that was pretty cool that you raised your grandma.”

“Great-grandma.”

Tiff smirked at my correction. “Did ya know her?”

Bry rubbed his mouth. “It was pretty tight how strong she was.”

“What grade are you in?” I asked Bry.

“Sophomore.”

“What did you do on your AP Test?”

“Math science,” Bry said. “Abstractions and patterns.”

Tiff looked down at Gran’s grave.

“I've seen a raising on pulsevision, but to see it done in front of you, how we put her back and now it looks like it never happened? Weird.” She waved at Mia. “Come over here and check this out.”

“I'm not going over there.” Mia folded her arms across her chest.

Tiff sighed, “Okay, I am sorry I called you an ass-potato. You just pissed me off, bailing like that.”

She gave one of those top-shelf eye rolls. I struggled not to laugh. She was funny, tomboyish, and smart. The story Jade had told me didn't match up with the Tiff in front of me.

“What had you all emo about the bird?” I asked.

She lowered her head. “It was the first time I
heard
them. And the whispering… it's nothin' like what you hear, but it’s still pretty creepy.”

I nodded. I was freaked out the first time too.

The day had blown itself out and the wind was gone, leaving behind a pregnant stillness.

We said our goodbyes with assurances of secrecy then left the cemetery. Mom glanced back at Gran's grave. Her grandma was truly lost, not just to death, but with a different memory superimposed over the old.