Callie felt Duncan stiffen, as if Boggs had managed to strike a nerve, but as usual the cop tilted his chin and held his ground.
Foolish courage.
It was going to get him killed.
“Can you read minds?” he growled.
“I don’t need to be a psychic to know what you’re thinking. I’m tediously familiar with the prejudices of men with badges. They instantly assume that freaks have no morals.”
“The Mave sent us to ask you questions,” Callie interrupted. Men. Did they always have to have a pissing match? “Are you willing to answer them?”
A cunning expression flickered over Boggs’s alien features as he subtly shifted closer, closing the robe to hide his body. “I suppose it depends on the questions.”
Duncan moved to make sure he could step between her and Boggs if he sensed a threat, his gun still in his hand.
“There have been bodies found without their hearts.” Duncan took the lead. Of course. He was such a cop. “But there are no wounds. It’s as if the heart just disappeared from their bodies.”
Boggs made a sound deep in his throat. Not shock. But ... resignation?
“A bokor,” he muttered.
Duncan frowned. “A what?”
“One of the living dead.”
Not surprising, the cop paled at the blunt explanation. “Like a zombie?”
Callie wasn’t quite as stunned as Duncan. Since she’d left the cradle she’d heard stories of the walking dead and the necromancers who could raise them.
Of course, she’d never believed them.
Not until now.
“I thought they were a myth,” she said.
Boggs stroked a too-thin finger down the line of his jaw. “There has been only one necromancer capable of controlling the dead.”
“Who?” she asked.
“He’s been known by many names.”
Duncan snorted. “I don’t suppose you know his current one?”
Boggs shook his head. “No, but he was once Lord Zakhar.”
Callie licked her dry lips. A true necromancer. It didn’t seem possible. Like discovering Santa Claus was real.
Only scarier.
“What can you tell us about him?”
“Very little. He was a nobleman in the Russian court. From what I could learn he was growing in power when he was accused of being a sorcerer.”
“Not uncommon,” Duncan surprisingly answered. “Russian politics were always dangerous and social climbers often accused their rivals of foul deeds.”
Boggs tapped the tip of his finger on his chin. “True or not, he was burned at the stake three hundred years ago.”
“Christ,” Duncan growled. “Necromancers can raise themselves from the dead?”
He took the words straight from Callie’s mouth.
“I didn’t say he died,” Boggs pointed out in sly tones.
Callie arched a brow. Many high-bloods had extended lives. Something not commonly known among norms. But not many could survive being burned at the stake.
“Then what happened to him?”
“No one knows.” There was an edge in his voice that spoke of his annoyance at the lack of information. Boggs clearly understood that knowledge was power. “The locals assumed he died in the flames, but there were rumors a dark power swooped in to rescue him. Some say the devil rose up to claim him.”
Callie wrapped her arms around her waist, suddenly chilled to the bone.
Could it be him?
Was it possible that the man she’d encountered in Leah’s mind was a three-hundred-year-old necromancer with the ability to raise the dead?
“Do you know what he looked like?”
“The stories claimed that he had eyes of diamond.”
“Shit,” Duncan muttered as he watched the color drain from her face.
Boggs released his breath with a low hiss. “You’ve seen him?”
“Not in the flesh.” Callie shuddered. “He was in the mind of a dead woman.”
“What did he say?”
“Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be answering the questions?” Duncan snapped.
Boggs waved a thin hand. “It’s an exchange of information.”
“He said that the question is—” She was forced to halt and clear her throat. “The question is ... Who are you?”
The white eyes widened. “Interesting.”
Callie frowned. It wasn’t interesting. It was ominous. And threatening. And spooky as hell.
“What did you see when you demanded that we meet the first time?” she abruptly demanded.
The doppelganger froze, as if caught off guard by her question. Then, with a twitch of his robe, he was turning to head toward his pile of junk.
“A minute,” he murmured, delicately shifting through the strange collection. Duncan muttered something about lunatics, but she remained focused on Boggs as he made a sound of satisfaction. “Ah, here it is.”
He returned to stand in front of her, holding up a tangled mound of pink yarn.
“A baby blanket?” she guessed.
Boggs held it to his face, his features becoming even more indistinct as he rubbed the material over his cheek.
“It speaks of you.”
Eek.
She ignored the way he seemed to savor the tactile feel of the cashmere against his skin. Or maybe it was the silent communication between him and the blanket.
“Why would a blanket speak of me?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps it was once yours.”
Highly doubtful, but she was willing to play along. “What does it say?”
“You’re walking through a graveyard.”
“That’s it?”
“The dead are stirring beneath your feet.”
A far too vivid image of hands reaching from the grave to touch her seared through her mind. It was a dream she’d been having all too frequently.
“Are they trying to warn me?”
“No, Callie Brown.”
A cold ball of premonition formed in the pit of her stomach.
“Then what?”
“They’re trying to follow you.”
The words hit Callie with the force of a tsunami, the stunned tidal wave of horror sweeping her under before she knew what was happening.
Falling forward, she was vaguely aware of Duncan racing to catch her in his arms before the darkness swallowed her whole.
Duncan muttered a string of curses, shifting Callie’s limp body against his side, and pointed his gun at the bastard who was surging forward.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”