“She’s being hunted by a demon.”
“So it’s demon hunter to the rescue.” Samantha’s smile was a little bit sad. “You must be desperate if you’ve come to me.”
“I don’t like to disturb you.”
“The only thing that disturbs me is people who need help but are too afraid to ask for it.”
Chavez went silent and her expression softened. “Never mind. I live only to help, and I’ve never regretted my sacrifice.”
I must have made a small sound, a slight movement, because she tilted her head and her eerily light blue eyes seemed to look straight at me, then right through me. “Chavez didn’t tell you?”
“What?”
“To see the other side she had to sacrifice her earthly sight,” he murmured.
Samantha was blind?
I lifted a hand and waved. She didn’t blink, just continued to stare slightly to the right of my shoulder.
“A minor price to pay to see my son again,” she said.
“What else do you see?” I asked.
“Whatever you ask.”
I glanced around at the deserted cement slab. “I can’t believe there isn’t a line of people waiting to do just that.”
“I see the truth, and the truth is often unpleasant. Some, actually most, would rather not know. After I saw enough horror, word got around, people stopped coming.”
“Maybe if you weren’t—”
Chavez shot me a glare, and I bit off the comment I had no business making. But that didn’t stop Samantha from hearing it, apparently.
“Here?” she asked. “You think if I spent my days in a park filled with children, a candy store, riding a merry-go-round that then I’d see happiness?”
“You might.”
“Truth is truth, Mara.”
I jerked. How did she know my real name?
Chavez cast me a sideways glance and shrugged. I was starting to see why he only consulted her when he had to. The woman was spooky, and she hadn’t even called the spirits yet.
“I come to this place because of what it is.” Samantha spread one hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “A graveyard.”
The wind—cool and damp—shrieked in off the water. Dirt flew up from below and swirled above our heads.
“If you want to call the spirits,” Samantha continued, “it’s best to go where there are a lot of them.”
“Which must be why all those houses built on Indian burial grounds have so many problems.”
“Exactly. The spirit energy is off the Geiger counters.” Samantha turned her attention to Chavez. “What is it you want to know?”
“I thought the demon that is after Kit was an incubus, but I haven’t been able to kill it in any of the usual ways. I discovered the beast is reanimating dead bodies, so I considered Rakshasas, but fire didn’t work, either.”
“I see your problem.” Samantha faced the fence again. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
The wind lifted her hair, fluttered her skirt, but left us untouched. A faint glow began all around her, like a banked flame, though no warmth flowed. When she turned, her eyes were even lighter than before, nearly white.
“Are you a godly spirit?” Chavez asked.
The voice that slithered from Samantha’s mouth was not her own. “No.”
“That can’t be good,” I murmured.
Samantha’s weird gaze slid in my direction. No longer blind, whatever was inside her saw me and smiled.
That saying about your blood running cold? It can happen.
“No!” Chavez waved his arms in front of her. “Deal with me.”
“Chavez.” The creepy white eyes flickered back to him. “It’s been too long.”
The voice brought to mind a snake—somewhat sibilant—but so deep, so sluggish it seemed to be coming from a tape recorder with severely low batteries.
“Not long enough,” Chavez said. “What have you unleashed this time?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“If I ask, you must tell.”
“The rules. I hate them.”
“What have you done?” Chavez repeated.
“You should be thanking me. If I didn’t unleash them, what would you do with your life?”
“Answer,” Chavez snapped.
“I’ve made something new.”
“New?” Chavez said. “Since when can you create new demons?”
“I could always create them. I had to have something to do while I whiled away several thousand millennia. What’s changed is that now I can set them free.”
“Why now?”
Samantha began to laugh—a deep, wicked sound that would have been comical—like the laughter that spewed from a plastic Halloween skull—if it hadn’t been real.