The Hunter and the Hunted: Two Stories of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong Page B

heard . . .” She trailed off, shook her head, then paled, as if the movement made her stomach churn. “Oh, God. What did I eat?”
    “Just a pastry and a coffee hours ago.”
    “A latte. Must have been the milk. I feel like—”
    “Did someone call a lawyer?” the old woman warbled again.
    I turned to see her staring at an empty spot with a look I recognized from all my years hanging around Jaime. She was seeing a ghost. It happened sometimes with the mentally ill.
    “Is it my father?” I said to Jaime. “Is that who you think you heard?”
    She nodded, eyes still closed.
    “Can you look? See if he’s here?”
    A faint, pained smile. “If it was your dad, I’d hear him loud and clear. Kristof Nast does not allow himself to be ignored. He took off to hunt for you after the explosion.” She frowned and opened her eyes. “I didn’t hear back from him—”
    She blinked, then stared at the same empty spot as the old woman.
    “Oh,” she said.
    “He’s there?”
    “Yes, but . . . faint. Something’s wrong.” She pushed up and struggled to listen. Then another, “Oh.”
    “What’s he saying?” I asked.
    “He’s barely coming through. Maybe because I’m sick.”
    Jaime tried her best to communicate, with no success. When she started getting frustrated, I stopped her and said, “You rest. I may have a second avenue of contact today.”
    I nodded at the old woman, who’d been following our efforts placidly.
    “Mmm, not sure that’s such a good idea,” Jaime said. “She’s crazy enough to see ghosts, but that also means she’s not exactly coherent.”
    “Well, no offense, but you’re not doing so hot yourself. Rest and I’ll see what I can get.”
    The biker chick scuttled away as I sat down beside the old woman.
    “Are you going to get me out of here?” the old woman said, staring up at the blank space above us.
    “You can see him, right?” I said.
    She nodded.
    “Good,” I said. “So now he’s going to talk and you’re going to tell me what he says.”
    “I want out.”
    “Which he’ll do, as soon as you’ve helped me talk to him.”
    She turned her dark eyes to me. “So you can’t hear him?”
    “No.”
    She smiled. “Then I have him all to myself.” She looked up and said, “Get me out of here.”
    My father managed to trick her into passing on a message, telling me to demand to call Lucas, but after that, she caught on. She whined at him that she wasn’t stupid and he was supposed to help her, with me. Then she started to wail.
    “Ignore her,” Jaime croaked as I tried to calm the old woman. “I can hear him better now.”
    I got up and went over to Jaime. My father must have followed, because the woman let out a scream of frustrated rage. She flung her hands out and shouted something I didn’t catch.
    Then she smiled and lowered herself to the floor and started mumbling to herself.
    “Shit,” Jaime muttered. “She’s not crazy. Or not only crazy. She’s a necromancer.”
    “What?”
    “She just banished your father.”
    “Without vervain?”
    “She used a nastier method. One I’ve never learned because I don’t want to be tempted to use it. It knocks a spirit through dimensions.”
    “Shit!” I leaped to my feet and looked around.
    “Don’t worry, Savannah. Your dad will find his way back. Or your mom will track him down.”
    “Can you let her know?”
    She shook her head. “Not now. When she’s on assignment, I can’t call.”
    I wanted to argue that this was an emergency, but I trusted Jaime wouldn’t let my father suffer unnecessarily. Okay, she might, but only if my mother wouldn’t find out about it, which in this case, she eventually would.
    “All right,” I said. “My father was telling me to go ahead and demand my phone call. I’m not sure I like the sounds of that, but . . .”
    “He wouldn’t suggest that if it wasn’t safe. So go ahead. Try to flag someone down.”
    The hall had been empty since I’d arrived. I walked