Embers by Laura Bickle Read Free Book Online Page B

you.”

    Anya’s eyebrow quirked upward and she savagely twisted an arm from her groom. She set the limb down beside the dismembered figure. “I’m just. . . I’m just a bit burnt out right now.”

    Katie nodded sympathetically. “Do you want to come by my house later for some energy work? I could do a Reiki adjustment for you, if you want.”

    Anya’s collar twitched under her turtleneck. Sparky loved having his energy realigned. It was the equivalent of a massage for the scrappy little elemental. She smiled, relenting. “I appreciate it. . . and Sparky would, too.”

    “I’ll mix up some extra incense for Sparks.” Katie couldn’t see Sparky, but she could usually sense him when he was on the prowl. Sparky loved Katie’s cats. They would race up and down the halls, chasing each other until they wore themselves out.

    “But I’m actually here in connection with work. I need your help with something.” Anya pulled a photo out of her pocket and slid it across the counter. The photo showed the symbol on the floor of the ruined warehouse. “I’ve been running across this symbol on a regular basis. Any idea what it means? I thought maybe it could be a rune or something.”

    Katie looked at the photo, turned it this way and that. “Hmm. It’s not a Norse rune that I recognize. And it’s not an alchemical symbol. I’d be happy to do some research on it, though, and tell you what I find out.”

    “Great, thanks.”

    “If I can’t figure it out, do you want me to check with Ciro and see if he knows?”

    Anya paused. “Sure.” She would be happy to have Ciro’s advice, but she didn’t want to necessarily get sucked back into DAGR’s activities. The more she was on their radar, the more likely they would be to call her for spiritual garbage duty. And she felt guilty for avoiding them, especially Ciro. He would understand why she was trying to leave and he would let her, but she would feel terrible for leaving when the old man was so frail.

    “Why don’t you come by for dinner?” Katie suggested. “Bring Sparky and he can have a playdate with Fay and Vern. We’ll scrub your aura and I’ll have a chance to look up your mysterious symbol. Sound good?”

    Anya’s stomach rumbled. “What’re you making?”

    Katie grinned. “Matzo ball soup.”

    “’Nuff said. I’m there.” Anya slid off the stool, looking longingly into the pastry box.
    “Can I have a groom for the road?”

    Katie fished one out. “Take him. I got frustrated with the texture and modeled him after Munch’s The Scream .”

    Anya held the melted figure in her palm. The figure’s hands were pressed to his head, his openmouthed face contorted in an expression of culinary agony. Across his chest, the words “Eat me” were scrawled in icing.

    That was something she could do. Anya devoured him in three bites. For once, devouring someone gave her a warm, satisfied feeling.

    Certain places were always haunted.

    Some locations held a magnetic pull for the dead. It was a good bet that there would be a restless spirit or two hanging around a museum of any substantial size: the spirits of artists could sometimes attach to their creative works, and, of course, there were burial urns and bones of the dead. When she was a child on a field trip, Anya was convinced the spirit of a dinosaur was roaming the halls of the Smithsonian. Jails and prisons were another favorite for spirits: there were always inmates who were murdered or killed themselves, and they tended to linger, imprisoned in death as surely as they were in life. Nursing homes invariably harbored a collection of spirits still attending their daily activities and staring at the television, as if nothing much had changed. Those spirits seemed stuck in a never-ending tape loop—more often than not, living residents played bingo beside the dead. Anya doubted that many of them knew they had died.

    Hospitals, though, were the most haunted. Anya avoided them whenever