that research. I want to know who owns the place by morning. You got your funky glasses on you?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Call if something goes wrong. And don’t forget this whole city is the danger zone, okay?”
“Okay! Geesh! Are you sure you don’t have some eggs you need to hatch somewhere?”
“Sorry. Old habits. Still, be careful.”
Exasperated sigh. “Get
out
already!”
I left. By now my feet felt like a couple of cooked meatloaves. I was surprised they weren’t smoking. But I had farther to go, so I went. Clear to the storefront where I’d first met Asha Vasta.
I didn’t expect to find a visual sign of him, so I wasn’t disappointed when the whole street was empty. What I hoped for was a trail, like the one Vayl had left. I stood in the shadows of the bakery’s doorway and opened my mind. Nothing beyond a hint of the reaver I’d allowed to pass unharmed.
“He went to Channel Fourteen,” I murmured. “Gotta remember that.” Right now Uldin Beit’s team was out in force, pretending to be reporters and cameramen, trying to track me down. While I, on the other hand, couldn’t find one large and rather conspicuous looking
other
. Well, if I were him, would I want to be found by a woman who’d held a knife to my throat? Hardly. By golly, I’d be covering my tracks like they used to do in the old Westerns, with a well-branched limb and a roundabout path home.
Wait a minute. The knife!
I pulled the bolo out. Pressed the point, which had touched Asha’s throat, against the tip of my nose. And drank in his scent. With no
others
around to distract me, I was able to mentally tag the unique identifier that surrounded him wherever he went. Call it an aura. Or charisma. The essence that gave a person presence — so even if no one heard or saw them enter a room they still knew they’d been joined — had lingered on the steel of my blade.
“Gotcha,” I breathed. I sheathed the blade. Took another breath. Concentrated, narrowing my eyes to focus the trail, and moved.
Chapter Nineteen
I found Asha at a black-fenced cemetery, the stones of which all laid long and flat like legless benches. I liked the idea. This way there was never any debate about whether or not you were stepping on hallowed ground. He perched on top of a gatepost like a gigantic statue, watching a group of people huddled together inside.
“Were you going for an ubercreepy vibe?” I asked as I came up to him. “Because, actually, it’s working. And how do those guys not see you?” I pointed to the group of half a dozen black-suited men gathered around the candlelit, petal-strewn tombstone maybe fifty yards in.
Asha hopped down. “They are too busy with their own business,” he said. “Note the gentleman standing between the two largest candles.”
“I see him. Is he . . . signing?” I looked at Asha. “He’s a medium, isn’t he?” All others who could communicate with the truly dead were deaf. Many were mute as well.
He shook his head. “This word. Medium. Does it mean the same thing as Spirit Bridge?”
“Yup. So is this a seance?”
“Of a sort. These men have just lost their father. And they wish to talk to his spirit to find out why he committed suicide.”
“That seems reasonable. Except you’re here. Which means this particular Bridge isn’t nearly as upright as he seems.”
Asha stared at me like I’d just announced that the city fathers had agreed to allow a Gay Pride parade down the main thoroughfare of Tehran the next morning. “You know what I am?”
Was he pissed? Or just extra depressed? At this point, I didn’t really care. I was here to get what I needed from him and to hell with his feelings. “I have an idea. And I need to talk to you about how, being who you are, maybe you could lend me a hand with a little (huge!) problem I have when you’re done here.”
“All right.” He moved toward the gate. Paused when he realized I hadn’t followed him.
“Aren’t you going to stop this first?”
“What do you mean?”
I could feel my anger rise. Though some clinical part of my brain understood it was closely tied to my worries over whether or not my dad would ever wake up again and if my brother would survive past tomorrow, it still managed to focus purely on Asha. “I thought you were supposed to police the others. Isn’t this guy committing some sort of offense?”
“Yes. In fact, he is telling the men their father’s spirit is here, speaking to him, explaining that he could no longer stand the pain of his cancer and the knowledge that he would soon become a complete invalid.”
“And that’s not true?”
“I doubt it. If the father’s spirit is present, it is howling. Because one of his sons, one of these men, killed him.”
Okay, Jaz. The shaking is not a good sign. Usually that means you’re about to hit something. Or somebody. And you need this dude’s help. So don’t break his nose. At least not until after you get the favour. I really should listen
