I landed on my back and crushed the roof of the sedan, setting off a car alarm with a shriek. Dmitri followed suit, landing on the hood.
If anyone in the street thought it was odd that two people had just dropped from a balcony and trashed a car, they didn’t let on. For all I knew, this sort of thing happened every day here.
“We need to keep low,” Dmitri said, offering me his hand. I took it and pulled myself upright with a groan. Nothing was broken, but I didn’t exactly feel like sunshine and roses after that hit.
Dmitri stuck out his arm to hail a cab and gave the driver directions. “Where to?” I asked when he sat back, panting, his face beaded with sweat.
“The train station,” he said. “We’re going to get Masha.”
CHAPTER 20
The train rolled out of the city with a low rumbling, like the sound of a dragon deep in a cave. I slumped against my seat. We’d avoided the Belikovs, but for how long?
Dmitri looked up and down the aisle before settling into the seat next to me. “Long ride. Might as well get comfortable.”
I rubbed my temples. “No offense, Dmitri, but you don’t exactly give off the comfort vibe.”
“You’ve been acting strange ever since we left the room,” Dmitri said. “What are you not telling me?”
The train picked up speed as we left Kiev behind and headed east, and I leaned my forehead against the window. “Just forget it, all right?”
You are wrong, Insoli. So very, very wrong.
“Fine,” Dmitri said. “You never let me in. Just build up that shell a little more. It seems to be doing wonders for your personality.”
I flipped him off and went back to staring out the window. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but the low brown countryside passing by lulled me into it. My head rolled over onto Dmitri’s shoulder, warm and solid, and I let my eyes drift close, breathing in a scent that came back to me in my half-conscious state as a comfort, familiar and real.
The scent of seaweed and bay water, tangy and invasive. Cold wet skin under my cheek, wet hair draped across my neck.
“Alone at last,” Lily said. She sat in Dmitri’s seat, staring ahead, water dribbling from her hair, her chin, the tips of her fingers. Blood trailed from her chest cavity, the smell of it rotting the air around her. Death coated my tongue, and I forced myself to swallow it down.
I had never seen a real ghost. I never believed in ghosts in the same way I believed in daemons and magick. But this wasn’t like the dream in my bathtub, and not like my time in the cell.
“It’s not a dream at all,” I said out loud.
“Correct,” Lily said. Her voice was faint, and I had to strain to hear it.
I sucked in a breath and asked the question that they always ask in those ghost movies: “Why me, Lily?”
“I want you to stay alive, for starters,” she said. She turned her head slowly and stared at me with her wet, cloudy eyes. “You can’t help me if you’re dead. No one can help anyone when they’re among the dead.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Why me?” I said.
“Because you were the only one who saw me,” she said. “You’re the only one who can see. I’m fading, Lieutenant Wilder. Are you going to let me go?”
“I…” I started shivering. I was damp now, as if I were standing in a mist at midnight. “I don’t know what you mean, Lily. I can’t do anything.”
Like a skip in an eight-millimeter film, Lily’s hand lashed out and grabbed my arm. “You better do something,” she snarled, lips pulling back, blue with rigor mortis. “Because I’m not leaving.”
The train swayed, and I jerked awake, slamming my head on the window. “Ow! Fuck.”
Dmitri touched the back of my hand. “You all right?” His touch burned my skin, and I hissed and jerked away.
“Luna?” he said, his voice sliding into alarm.
I pushed back my sleeve and looked at my wrist. A small blue handprint was seared into my skin, radiating cold. Dmitri pulled back. “Hex me. What is that thing?”
“It’s complicated,” I sighed. Dmitri shifted in his seat to look me in the eye.
“I’ve got time.”
“Dmitri, really…”
“Look, Luna, you may not be able to deal with my daemon bite, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be there for you. Tell me what’s going on.”
I glared. “First of all, has anyone ever told you that you have a really shitty and abrasive way of trying to be helpful?”
Dmitri growled under his breath. “I’m sorry, all right? Go on.”
“It’s a girl,” I said. “A girl that was murdered back in Nocturne City. She’s the reason I got into this whole thing with the Belikovs in the first place. I was trying to figure out who killed her.” I bit my lip and looked at my feet. The rest sounded too insane to say out loud.
“I’m listening,” Dmitri said. He put his hand back over mine, and I didn’t pull away. “I’m not going to think you’re crazy, Luna.”
“I’ve been having dreams,” I said. “About her. Horrible, real, screaming dreams in full color and surround sound. And they’re getting worse.”
“Hmm,” Dmitri said.
“That’s it? ‘Hmm’? How helpful.”
“Hey, listen.” He rubbed his thumb in a circle over the back of my hand. “There are plenty of spirits inthe old country. My grandmother, gods rest her, had the sight. She could talk to the departed just as easily as I’m talking to you.”
“Did any of them ever sear handprints into her flesh?”
Dmitri frowned. “Well, no. That’s new.”
I sighed and rubbed my free hand over my face. “What’s wrong with me, Dmitri?”
“Can’t say,” he said. “But we’ll fix it. Look, you’re exhausted. You’re under pressure. Maybe your stress is causing some latent talent to surface. Ghost whispering under
