The Hunter and the Hunted: Two Stories of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong Read Free Book Online

world he’d had a spirit guide, could astral project and had healing abilities. Stranz still had his ayami—his spirit guide—except now the guide inhabited the same plane and had truly become his life partner, as often happens. And healing and spirit travel are absolutely useless in the afterlife. As if to compensate for this loss of powers, ghost shamans get special access to the teleport system, and what Stranz seemed to do with that access was make himself a wide and varied circle of friends. Which was a fun challenge for me, chasing him across the globe. But it wasn’t all that interesting. Until he went to London.
    •  •  •
    Stranz’s first stop in London was the British Museum, which operates a little differently in the afterlife. In the mortal realm, if you visit a museum exhibit on, say, cave paintings, you’ll get photos of faint-colored lines on dimly lit cave walls, with artist reconstructions of what they might have looked like and theoretical crap about the artist, the purpose, blah, blah, blah. But in the afterlife, if you’re interested in cave paintings, you get yourself over to France and hike out to the caves at Lascaux, and there they are, the colors just as vivid—and the animals just as misshapen—as they were when first painted. If you want to know how or why they were done, you ask one of the painters himself, who lives there, happily telling visitors about his life’s work.
    Same goes for pretty much everything you’d find in the British Museum. If you want to explore the past, you just travel. So what is in the afterlife British Museum? Artifacts, pretty much as you’d find in the mortal world version, complete with temporary exhibits. But each artifact is actually a touch portal, which can take you to its natural environment. Access is available to all afterlife residents, except those who’ve had their basic teleportation privileges revoked.
    Stranz’s access was fine. From what I’d dug up, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d even need to worry about revocation. A real straight arrow. Born during the Depression, died in the eighties, worked as a family doctor, never had more than a parking ticket in his life. In other words, the sort of person I usually had zero contact with, which made the prosecution’s interest all the more intriguing.
    My guess? Stranz was an unwilling—and probably unwitting—pawn in some scheme. A patsy. His squeaky-clean background made him perfect for it, as did his vast number of acquaintances. It was a good bet that one of those “friends” had set Stranz up, either to unknowingly transport goods or information or to take the fall for something.
    Which meant, if I was right, that I’d not only be helping Kris, but I’d be helping an innocent guy. That would win me brownie points with the Fates. They get excited when I do good deeds off duty, as if the whole angel gig is finally rubbing off. I might be able to parlay this one into an extra vacation week.
    As Stranz climbed the museum’s massive front steps, I lurked in a crowd of the recently dead. You can tell by the dresses and suits—they hadn’t yet learned how to change out of their grave clothes.
    I skirted them and hurried on, earning catcalls and whistles from a group of toga-clad young guys lounging on the stairs. I told them where they could shove it—in ancient Latin. That stopped them. One of the gifts that comes with ascended angelhood is a permanent universal translator in my brain. The Fates can’t rescind that when I’m off duty. They’ve just warned me that I should avoid using it for frivolous reasons. Which I do. My definition of frivolous just doesn’t always match theirs.
    I spotted Stranz as soon as I entered the museum. He took a left at the Rosetta stone—which, by the way, I can fully translate—then headed through the wing to the room containing pieces of the Greek Parthenon. From there, he teleported to the Acropolis itself. I waited behind