Eternal Void (Isabella Espinoza Book 2) Read online

  He met my red eyes, then glanced away.

  “You seem scared of something,” I said as I pushed off the desk and approached him. “What is it? If you really know Amari, why are you so nervous? Just tell the truth about what you know about her and how you know her?”

  “What does it matter? You’ve already decided not to believe me. My evidence was enough to get her back. Why won’t you just let me take care of her?”

  “Because she doesn’t want to go with you,” I said. “I can’t send her home with you if she doesn’t know you. And she’s clearly scared of you.”

  I leaned down over him, planting my hands on the sides of his chair and looking straight into his eyes from inches away.

  “You know what I think?” I asked. “I think you were there the night she died, alright. But not as a witness. You helped kill her. Maybe you even slit her throat yourself.”

  He huffed and shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. You have no evidence.”

  “Really? You smell exactly like someone she described that night. And your eyes lit up when you saw her healed wound. Plus, you didn’t bat an eye when I mentioned that she had died. Most people would probably take note of that kind of remark. Someone getting murdered and coming back isn’t exactly common.”

  He tried to push his chair back from me, but I pressed down harder, holding it in place.

  “So, why did you kill Amari? Why do you want her back?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “You’re right, you don’t, but I bet you won’t enjoy having me follow you and investigate where you go. Because I’m not giving this up. Someone gets murdered, I’m going to look into it, even if she’s still alive.”

  He clenched his jaw and looked up at me but didn’t say anything.

  “Who is the Necromancer?”

  “How did you hear that name?” he asked.

  “So it does mean something to you, at least,” I said. “That’s the most information you’ve given me tonight. Who is this person? What do they want with Amari?”

  “I’m done here.” He pulled his legs back and kicked me right in the shins.

  I staggered back to my desk.

  The man lunged for Amari, yanking her out of her chair. She screamed as she stumbled to her feet, and he pulled her to the door.

  She swung her free arm right for his elbow. His hold slipped, and she ducked away.

  I dashed across the room and grabbed the man by the shoulders, shoving him away from her.

  “Amari, take cover behind my desk,” I said, keeping my gaze on him.

  She dove toward the safety on the other side of the room.

  I lifted him up and shoved him against the wall.

  “Not a good move,” I said with a growl. “Did you think I would just let you kidnap her?”

  “You gave me no choice. You’re asking too many questions.”

  “Get used to it. You and that Necromancer are on my radar now, and I’m going to find out who it is and what they’re doing. Why does he insist on taking her?”

  “She owes him her life. The least she can do is come with us.”

  “But she doesn’t know you. Why are you just pushing this on her? Why Amari?”

  A slimy smile crept across his face. He made no attempt to wriggle out of my grasp.

  “That’s just the question. Why Amari, indeed.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Good.”

  He cocked his hand back and swung for my face. I ducked under his punch, but he wiggled free from my grip and dropped back to his feet. With his left hand, he pulled a long knife from a sheath in his belt.

  “Stop!” I said.

  He lunged toward me, and I stepped back. I could take him out pretty easily, if I wanted to. But I needed him alive. If he could lead me to this Necromancer, I couldn’t just kill him.

  I kept away from him, and between him and Amari. If he left, I could deal with it. I could track him down again. But I wouldn’t let him hurt Amari. She might have come back to life once, if everything that she told me was true, but there was no guarantee she could repeat that trick.

  “You all don’t understand,” he said. “If she comes with me, we can defeat this darkness and the death it brings. Let her come with me, and we can learn how to become masters of death.”

  That filled me with confidence that this Necromancer was a completely sane and reasonable person.

  “You sound nuts,” I said. “Killing people and bringing them back to life? That’s not hope. It’s evil madness.”

  “If you won’t let her come back, then I don’t have any other use for her.”

  He drew a pistol from his belt and aimed it toward where she ducked behind my desk. I charged toward him.

  He pivoted toward me.

  I shoved the gun up toward the ceiling, and it went off, blasting a small hole just above us. Bits of ceiling molding crumbled down around us.

  He stabbed toward me with his knife.

  I grabbed his wrist, twisted it, and shoved it back toward him

  The blade plunged into his belly. His body went limp, and he slumped to the ground.

  With the fake uncle’s death, my best lead to finding this Necromancer was now a bleeding corpse on my floor. And this one didn’t seem to be getting back up.

  Shit. I’d just killed the friend of someone who could defy even death.

  CHAPTER 5

  I stared down at the man I had killed who lay dead on the floor of my office, of my home. Disposing of a corpse was damned inconvenient, but now we had lost our best lead to figuring out what had happened to Amari and why.

  “Oh god, you killed him,” Amari said, peeking up from behind my desk.

  “He was going to shoot you,” I said. I wiped my bloody knife on a clean patch on the man’s shirt, then sheathed it on my belt.

  Amari just nodded and kept her distance from the body, staying on the other side of my desk.

  I knelt next to the corpse and patted down his pockets. Maybe he would have something that could help us track down the Necromancer or at least give us a thread to tug on.

  Something was in his left jacket pocket. I reached in and pulled out a black leather wallet, but nothing was inside except for some cash. I’d probably just give it to Amari. Though I doubted a quick five bucks quite made up for her being murdered by the guy.

  I rolled him onto his side to get to his back pockets. As I shifted him, more blood poured out from the wound in his belly.

  Amari let out a soft groan and turned away from the body.

  Unfortunately, my search was useless. His pockets were otherwise empty. I let him fall back onto his back with a thud.

  No leads. Now we just had to get rid of a dead body.

  “It’s starting to stink,” Amari said as she covered her mouth and nose with her hand.

  I smelled it too. Mostly blood, with the coppery tang that it gave to the air, along with a hint of shit from carving into his belly. And this was the best he would smell until he was just a dry skeleton in the ground. Give him a day or two, and it would be positively foul. If I let that seep into the walls, I could watch my property value slide into the ditch.

  “Amari,” I said, “I’m going to need your help. I wish I didn’t have to ask for it, but I can’t do this alone.” I maybe could have asked Jack, but I didn’t know where he had gone after notifying the “uncle,” and I didn’t want to wait.

  “What is it? I’m not going to have to touch that thing, am I?” She squirmed, her gaze roaming over the corpse.

  “No, but I do need to move it. I need your help keeping an eye out for people. I can carry it myself, but I might need help getting around obstacles, and he might block my view a bit.

  “I don’t know if I can be around that thing. It kind of makes me queasy even from over here.”

  “And that’s normal. But once we’re outside, the fresh air should help with the stench. You do have a choice, though. If you’d rather
stay here, you can do that. I can handle it on my own if I have to. It’ll just be easier with help, and I’m not sure if someone else might come along looking for this guy. If he has friends, I’m uneasy about leaving you alone. But you’re an adult, and the choice is yours.”

  Amari looked toward the outside through the window and nodded. “Fine, yeah, I think I’ll come with you. I don’t want anyone to find me. Plus, there’s so much blood, I don’t know that it would be much more pleasant to stay here than with the body.”

  “Good. Thank you, Amari. I appreciate the help. Can you lead the way outside? Let me know if it’s safe for me to drag him out without being seen.”

  Amari walked in a wide arc around the corpse, and then cracked the door open and peeked out. She took a step outside to get a better view. She swiveled her head, looking up and down the street.

  “I think we’re good,” she said. “There are some lights a couple of blocks up with some people under them, but I don’t think they’ll see us.”

  With a silent groan of disgust, I hauled the corpse onto my shoulders and squeezed through the door. Amari yanked it shut without me having to ask.

  “Okay, let’s head this way.” I turned to the left, away from the lights with the people.

  “Where are we going to take him?” she asked, trudging after me.

  “I know a place in an old park where we can tuck him away. He won’t be too close to any houses. And hopefully will stay hidden for a while. We’re going to take the next right. Can you make sure we’re clear?”

  Amari jogged ahead and leaned out from behind the fence of the house on the corner, and then waved me ahead. I hurried up behind her. The house near us sat at the top of a slight rise that sloped up from the sidewalk, with a small porch poised to look out over the neighborhood.

  “Wait,” Amari whispered as she peeked around the corner. “Someone just stepped outside. They’re lighting a cigarette.”

  “Great.” I leaned against the fence. I didn’t have a problem carrying the weight of a person, but it still tired me just a bit.

  A click came from the front door of the house next to us, and then a creak. I glanced up as someone strode out. The light caught us right in front of their house.

  A woman started down the stairs from her porch. “Hey, what are you doing?”

  I shifted the corpse to look like he was just a drunk man I was supporting.

  “Ah, my friend had a bit too much to drink. I’m helping him home.” The man’s head lolled against the side of my neck. With my left arm, I held him tight against me to hide the wound. I would definitely have to wash my clothes when I got a chance.

  “Do you want to bring him inside and let him sleep it off a bit? He looks like a big guy for someone like you to carry around. And what’s your friend doing there? Why can’t she help you?”

  “Oh, I’ve got this, don’t worry about me,” I said.

  “Strange, he’s so quiet,” the woman said. “My man snores like crazy when he’s drunk. But your guy doesn’t make a peep.”

  “He must really be out. He’s never been a snorer, though.”

  The woman nodded, her eyes narrowed.

  “Well, we better get him home.” I stepped up next to Amari. “How do we look?” I asked in a quiet voice.

  “The smoker’s stepped around back. I think we’re fine,” she whispered.

  “Have a good night,” I called back to the woman.

  She just gave us a wave back.

  We wound our way through the streets and between a couple of houses, managing to avoid anyone else.

  At last, we reached Glenview Park at the center of the settlement. We descended the small hill into the park and crawled into a water outlet pipe that was in the side of the slope. The corpse on my back forced me to sink extra low as I dragged its weight and my own through the mucky water.

  Once we had gone about fifteen feet in, I rolled the corpse off my back and let out a sigh of relief.

  “He should be fine here. At least if someone finds him, they shouldn’t be able to trace him back to us,” I said.

  “Would the guards investigate too much?” Amari asked.

  “Nah, I don’t think so. The guards here are barely even guards. If one of them used to be a cop, they might look into it. But I’m the only detective in this settlement, I think. Are you ready to get away from the body?”

  She nodded emphatically. “Yes, please.”

  I smiled, stifling a laugh.

  “Come on,” I said as I ducked out of the drainage pipe and climbed the slope again.

  She hurried after me.

  “You did well tonight,” I said, taking long strides. “I know this wasn’t the most pleasant business, walking through town with a dead body, but you held it together. Not everyone has that kind of strength.”

  “Not as strong as you. I couldn’t even touch the thing.”

  “You’re better than I was before I started doing the detective thing. My first murder scene, I hurled for a good ten minutes before I could manage to get it together and start my investigation of the scene.”

  “How do you get better at it?”

  “I think you just get used to it over time. Once you’ve seen enough, nothing really surprises you. But scenes still got to me sometimes. Maybe it’s because they’re gruesome. Maybe just because of what I had for breakfast that day. There’s no shame in feeling sick around a dead person.”

  We walked in silence for a few minutes, putting distance between us and the park. Our path took us past Jack’s little two-story house. It was dark, and the truck was gone. Guess he had somewhere to go pretty quickly after we got back.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Amari, glancing at her with a slight turn of my head. “I have someone I want to take a look at you, who might be able to figure out what happened. Are you up for more tonight, or do you want me to take you home to your friends? You’ve been through a lot, and if you want a rest, you’ve more than earned it.”

  “I think I want to keep going with you.” She stood up a bit straighter. “After everything today, I’m not sure I could get to sleep very well, and I’m not tired yet, at least not right now. I want to know what happened to me. Why did I come back to life? Not that I’m complaining. Who is this friend?”

  “David Spellmeyer. He was a forensic scientist when I was a detective, and he’s one of my best friends. He’s the reason I have these abilities rather than turning into a night stalker.” I scratched an itch on my cheek as we passed under a lantern.

  “And you think he’ll be able to figure out what brought me back to life?” Amari asked, her head cocked as she looked at me.

  “I can’t make any promises, but if anyone in this settlement can figure it out, it’s him. At least he’ll be able to give us a starting point. He’s only a few blocks away. It shouldn’t take long to get to him.” I picked up my pace, and Amari followed suit.

  “After everything I’ve seen you do tonight, I’d like to learn more and become as good at fighting as you are.”

  “I hope you don’t have to fight anyone again.”

  “We both know what this world is like, though.” She tugged her jacket tighter around her shoulders. “I got killed in a random alley within a settlement, which is supposed to be safe. I need to be able to take care of myself.”

  “You got away from that fake uncle pretty well.”

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t expecting me to fight back.” She chewed on her lip. “Please, can’t you teach me something?”

  I glanced over at her. She was in good shape, and she kept her composure under pressure. She was definitely more than capable. I didn’t want to put her at more risk than necessary, but every woman had the right to know how to defend herself.

  “We’ll see what I can teach you along the way,” I said. “I don’t want to bring you into any dangerous situations if I don’t have to, though. I want you to stay safe.”

  Amari nodded. “That’s fine. Whatever you think is best.�
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  “Did our meeting with that guy bring back any more memories?”

  “I think it did, actually. He wasn’t alone when he attacked me. I think I heard two other voices with him in the alley. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.”

  “Anything noticeable about their voices? Men? Women?”

  “I don’t think I caught that much. They were whispering, so it was hard to tell.”

  “And I suppose you were a bit busy bleeding out.”

  “That too,” Amari said, actually letting out a bit of a laugh.

  I was glad she was keeping her spirits up. Such a crazy night could emotionally devastate a person, but she was still staying positive. It was impressive.

  “Do you remember anything from when you woke up from being dead?” I asked.

  She rubbed her arms. “Nothing that I saw, but it was cold. Not like I was on anything cold, but the air was chilly. I shivered a lot. And it was damp and scratchy.”

  “So, you don’t think you woke up on the pavement in the same alley they killed you?”

  “No, it didn’t feel like that. I think I was in some grass, not on the street or in an alley. I faded back to sleep soon after that, though.”

  “Any sounds while you were awake?”

  “I don’t think so, just the wind.”

  “That’s something, at least. Your killers moved you for some reason. Maybe somewhere so they could bring you back?”

  “Maybe. That guy seemed to be not too surprised when he learned I had come back to life. Like he kind of expected it,” she said.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “I wonder what that means.”

  We had arrived at the front door of the place David was using as a lab. It had been an office in a strip mall, but he had converted it into a fully functioning laboratory.

  I gave a firm knock on the door.

  Some shuffling came from inside, and then a shadow fell across the peephole.

  Bolts clicked, and the door popped open.

  “Ah, Isabella. It’s good to see you. It’s been too long since you’ve stopped by my office,” David said. His large glasses sat on top of his bulbous nose. A white lab coat hung off his shoulders, with a notebook and several pens in the chest pocket. He glanced at Amari.