Page 9 of A City of Smoke and Demons
She’d been the only child in a world of grey habits, white walls and incense choked air. It was kind faces gilded by candlelight, gentle hands and soft silence, the peal of bells and the reverent hum of prayer. Books and floral teas. Analise spent her childhood following the nuns around, caught in the wake of their skirts. No one minded a child underfoot, and Analisehad been free to roam the convent—but never outside the walls. Which made her more eager to know what was out there. She wanted to see what the world had to offer, but once she’d gotten there, she hadn’t known how to navigate it.
She’d always suspected Mother Superior knew she would run because the night Analise left, the front doors were unlocked and on the top step was an amulet on a thin strip of cord. She’d snatched it up, and gone. She wasn’t prepared for the grime and the soot, the poverty, and the despair. She had no awareness of how to survive the streets and no choice but to learn fast. At the first lodging house she’d lived in, a man had tried to pin her to a wall. She’d kneed him so hard in the groin she thought she’d broken her bones as well as his balls. The mistress of the house threw her out, and Analise stumbled upon Morgan’s morgue that same evening.
Hemade himself known not long after and, for five years, had stalked her steps as the dreams stalked her sleep. If she stayed drunk enough, she didn’t remember the dreams, so her life had fallen into a horrible pattern. Work, sleep, drink, and drown out anything alcohol couldn’t with whatever man she was able to take home.
Analise pulled back the curtain and peered out. The Familiar was there. He was such a fixture in her life that she wasn’t sure how she would feel if she opened the curtains one evening and found him gone.
A wisp of mist darted free of his shadow and vanished. Analise stepped away from the window in fright when it materialised further down the street. She crept back to the window, and as she watched, that mist took form.
A ghost.
She’d seen plenty of ghosts, but none of them had come looking for her.
The first one appeared in the garden at the convent when she was thirteen, a shimmering wisp of silver. She’d wanted to help him but wasn’t sure how. Her magic was new, a feeling in her fingertips more than anything else. None of the nuns had magic and no one had to tell her what she was. Analise knew it instinctively. A death witch, one of Lilith’s Daughters. She’d carried that knowledge proudly, until she learnt that those blessed with Lilith’s gift were considered dangerous.
‘Men fear what they do not understand,’ Mother Superior had told her. ‘But you’re safe here, Analise.’
Analise asked no questions about Lilith, except one—who was she? A servant of God who guided the dead was her only answer and Analise the child had accepted that. Analise the woman had more questions, but no one to ask.
The Familiar was still peering at her window with his shadowy eyes. Analise chewed her lip. She didn’t know what to do. Would the ghost come here if she ignored it? It couldn’t hurt her, but it could definitely cause mischief, and the last thing she wanted was to be turfed out of the lodging house because she was being haunted.
Making up her mind, she threw off her robe and hurried to find her clothes. Lacing her boots and grabbing her coat, Analise hurried from her flat and into the street below.
The Familiar was gone and there was no sign of the ghost. Analise debated going back upstairs. Her head was foggy, her mind caught somewhere between the night before and the sense that something was about to happen. Maybe she should go and visit Lira. Maybe the blond man would be there again. Analise shook her head, trying to push him out of her mind. Normally, there was nothing extraordinary about the men she slept with. They were chosen because they were there and nothing more. What made this one different?
Her system worked because everyone remained anonymous, and she was afraid that if she deviated from what was normal for her, she’d upset some strange equilibrium and set something else in motion.
The bone-cold kiss of rain suddenly fell around her; Analise pulled her collar up in an attempt to stop water from fingering its way beneath her clothes. She decided against the pub, heading for the morgue. The ghost was on the other side of the street, keeping pace with her. She glanced over at him, and smiled, not knowing why.
At the corner of the alley that led to the morgue, Analise paused. She blinked the water from her lashes and in the second it took her to brush the rain from her cheeks, the ghost appeared, close enough to touch. She gasped and took a step back.
There was something familiar about him.
‘Do I know you?’ she whispered.
The ghost glanced towards the morgue.
‘What can I do for you?’ Analise had never spoken to a ghost before and wasn’t sure whether there was a protocol to follow. The ghost floated towards the morgue. With a furtive glance at the street, Analise followed.
Morgan never worked nights, so the morgue was dark, the air filled with the strange expectant silence that death collected. Analise unlocked the door, shedding her coat and draping it over the back of a chair. The ghost was by the cold boxes, looking at her. Analise opened the nearest one and slid out the tray.
The ghost hovered over her shoulder while she unwound the cloth, revealing the face of the dead man with the strange mark.
‘This is you, isn’t it?’ she asked. He nodded. ‘Do you need help moving on?’
The ghost shook his head, pointing at his human body, and Analise thought of how strange it must be, to be looking down at the body that used to hold his soul. She jumped when his handrested on hers. She didn’t have time to worry about why a ghost could touch her because he mouthed,look.
‘Oh,’ she breathed, crouching to look at the mark branded onto the flesh. ‘I don’t know what this means.’
The ghost gave her a pleading look.
‘You want me to find out?’
A nod.
‘When I touched your body,’ Analise began. ‘I saw inside your head. I saw it. Was—’
The ghost’s lips thinned and he was gone.
