The Dead Show Read online

  The Dead Show

  By Amanda Fasciano

  The Life After Series

  Waking Up Dead

  Dead Vessel

  The Dead Show

  Edited by Gail Matson

  Cover Art by Rebeca Covers

  This Book is Dedicated To:

  Anthony, Francesca, and Joseph Fasciano. Without all of you putting up with my craziness, none of this would be possible. Thank you for letting me follow my dreams.

  Dr. Eric O’Dierno for his patience in putting up with my questions regarding the scientific information.

  Chapter 1

  Snow felt white-hot rage shoot through him as he saw Cadence Riley, his partner and someone he cared about, caged above a fire like she was some animal being roasted. He saw the state of her legs, or what remained of them, and then the robed form of the man who was responsible. Osmund Snow, a spirit who was always calm and sensible, felt only incomprehensible anger as he quickly closed the distance between Overton and himself, intent on causing as much harm to the other ghost as he could. He saw Sam Riley out of the corner of his eye and knew that even though the young man was wounded, he would do everything he could to get his sister out of the cage.

  The powerful blow that Snow dealt to Overton’s face filled him with satisfaction, seeing the silvery blood explode from the man’s nose. He wrestled for the knife, which the robed man had stolen from Cadence when he had overpowered her, away from Overton and Snow sunk the blade of it deep in the man’s leg. There was no way he was letting Overton get out of here after all of the evil he had done.

  A scream of pain erupted from Cadence as Sam worked at freeing her not only from the ties that bound her to the chair inside the cage, but separating what was left of her charred limbs from the chair. Snow scowled and grabbed a handful of Overton’s robes, dragging the man, kicking and screaming no less, towards the cage. He knew that the area they were in was a so-called null. No ghostly powers or magic could be used here. Snow knew a way around that, however.

  He reached the door of the cage, dragging Overton behind him. He pointed at the lock and bright silver-white light arced between his finger and the mechanism releasing it. Sam, who had been wounded himself after triggering a booby trap as they had come in, scrambled to get his sister out of the cage. Cadence was on the verge of passing out both from the pain she was in and the damage that had been done to her. Snow felt that spike of rage, somehow both burning and freezing him at the same time, and shoved Overton into the cage. Using the same power as before, the power that defied the null, light arced between his finger and the lock once more. Snow put even more energy into it, making sure that the latch fused shut.

  Sam began to hurry away as best as he could, carrying his unconscious sister over his unwounded shoulder. Snow followed but paused by the lever that operated the sliding trap door. He knew that door hid the flames that half roasted his partner. All he had to do was flip that lever and not only would the beaten and bloody Overton be trapped in that cage forever, but he would burn forever too. Snow heard Sam call out to him to hurry. He turned to follow the young man but then spun on his heel and threw the lever, throwing open the trap door and letting the flames rise up. Overton howled in pain.

  Snow turned once more to leave but a mirror he didn’t remember seeing in here before caught his eye. In it, he found his reflection to be that of Overton. Fear shot through him just as the rage had before. He turned to the cage and saw himself in it, the flames of the fire beneath licking around the metallic cage and curling around the floor to caress his feet and legs.

  “No!” he shouted, sitting upright in his office chair, the force of the movement rolling him back from his desk a bit. His breathing was heavy, and he could feel the sweat on his forehead.

  “Nightmares?” a deep, smooth male voice asked from what was usually Cadence’s desk. Snow looked over to see the dark-skinned form of his former mentor, Alistair Croft. He gave the man a sheepish smile.

  “Silly, isn’t it?” Snow asked in his usual clipped British accent. “Whoever heard of a ghost having nightmares? After all, what do we have to be afraid of? We’re dead.”

  “Just because we’re dead doesn’t mean we don’t have fears. Especially for those of us who continue to fight to protect others. I have found, through personal experience believe me, that we fear becoming the monsters we fight,” Alistair said with a shrug before leaning forward. “You’ve been excellent good at avoiding me, Osmund. But we need to talk. You used it, didn’t you? The manipulation of power I taught you.”

  Snow pressed his lips together as he considered his response. Alistair was right, of course. He had been avoiding him, and because he had wanted to prevent this very conversation. Snow anticipated that this was going to be about as unpleasant as the nightmare he had just awoken from. Finally, he settled on the simple truth, waiting to see where Alistair took it from there. “I did.”

  “Why?” Croft asked. There was no admonishment or judgment in his tone, just pure curiosity.

  “It was the most expedient way of getting her out of that cage. You and Whitfield had given us something of a time limit with that ritual to seal the vessel.”

  Croft nodded at length and steepled his fingers as he folded his hands in front of him. “You risked a lot to save her. I know you care for her, but to use that trick in a place like that? Osmund, that was dangerous.”

  “Would you rather I have taken the time to root through Overton’s clothes for a key to the cage? And if it hadn’t been on him, what then? Search the room? Each second that went by was a second closer to all of us getting trapped in that vessel and you know it. We barely got out in time as it was.” Snow was aware of how defensive he sounded, and he didn’t like it, but he spoke the truth. The portal had closed, and the vessel had sealed mere seconds after they stepped out of it.

  Alistair seemed to think about this and nodded slowly. “You’re fortunate he either didn’t know how to or couldn’t, counter it. Then you would have spent part of your soul for nothing.”

  “I knew the risks,” Snow said, his voice quiet. While he did know the risks he couldn’t, in all honesty, say that he had been aware of them at the time. He had acted without thinking, which was a rarity for him.

  “Are the nightmares simply left over from that experience or is something else bothering you?”

  Snow rose with a sigh and began to pace back-and-forth behind his desk. “Sam told you, in quite exciting detail, about what happened while we were in there.”

  “Yes, he did,” Alistair said with a chuckle. “I think it was a mix of the exuberance of youth and getting to finally do something other than babysit the other murder victims’ spirits.”

  “There was one thing he didn’t tell you, one thing he didn’t know.” Snow paused once more, pressing his lips together. He wanted to confess his struggle with pulling the lever or not, but he also found that he was afraid that speaking it aloud would make it more reprehensible. That confessing to that much of a desire to do harm would make him evil, or as Alistair had said a monster.

  Croft rose from the seat at Cadence’s desk and moved over to Snow, putting a hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “Osmund, talk to me. What is it that bothers you so much?”

  “The cage he had Cadence in was over a trap door. A lever pulled the trap door open and let the flames come up to burn the person in the cage.”

  “Right, I knew about that,” Alistair said. He could see where Snow was heading but also knew the man needed to say it out loud to get it out of his system.

  “Once I had him locked in the cage, and we were leaving…” Snow trailed off and sat down with a heavy sigh, cradling his head in his hands. “God, Alistair, I wanted to pull that lever so badly. I wanted him to bur
n. I wanted him to suffer in pain for all of the pain he caused over the years. I was so angry for what he did to Cadence…” again he trailed off as his shoulders shook.

  “You have to say it,” Alistair said, trying to prompt his former protégé into admitting what his real motivation had been.

  Snow let his hands fall to the desk and balled them into fists, his shoulders now still and his voice flat and cold when he spoke. “I wanted revenge.”

  “Good,” Alistair said.

  “Good?” Snow said. Shock and disbelief were evident on his face as he turned to face his former mentor.

  “Yes. Good that you finally said what you were feeling, what you were struggling with,” Alistair said as he sat back down in Cadence’s chair. “Or did you forget that like your special ability with machinery and electronics, I have special sight? I could see it running through you like poison running through your veins. It was keeping you from healing the parts of your soul you spent. I thought you might work through it on your own so I let you be. But to find you asleep at your desk? The nightmare you were having? That showed me I had to push you.”

  “Push me to what? Admit I’m a monster?” Snow’s tone was bitter.

  “Push you to admit that you wanted revenge and that you are afraid that wanting revenge makes you a monster.”

  “Alistair, you said yourself that the only thing that separates us from beings like that are our actions.”

  “Exactly,” Craft said, leaning forward, towards Snow. “You didn’t act on the impulse to pull the lever. Every one of us, alive or dead, can have dark thoughts. Don’t persecute yourself for such a human thing. You didn’t act on the impulse. That, my friend, is what’s important. The fact that you are wracking yourself with guilt over it only verifies the fact that you are not what you fear. A monster wouldn’t care.”

  Snow nodded slowly, hearing Croft’s words. While a small part of him still wanted to argue, he realized Croft was right. Even though he had been tempted, very tempted, to pull that lever, he had not. The thought didn’t make him evil.

  “I do need to ask a delicate question of you, however,” Croft said.

  “Oh?”

  “I’m not going to deny that your anger and the power you used to help save your partner and get the three of you out of an awful situation. You said the anger came from seeing what he had done to Cadence, that you wanted revenge for her. What exactly are your feelings for Detective Riley?”

  Snow sat back in his chair, not quite believing Croft was asking him that question. “Alistair you cannot be suggesting―”

  Croft cut him off. “I am suggesting nothing. I am merely asking where you and your partner stand with each other.”

  “I trust her with my life, such as it is, and I know she trusts me with hers. We’re friends. There is nothing romantic between us.”

  “I know that Osmund, I wasn’t suggesting romantic. I believe our good Doctor Suarez has that covered, as much as our Detective might publicly bristle at the notion. No, Osmund. What I have heard and what you have admitted…it sounds more like a father protecting his daughter.”

  “The days of me missing my children are long gone, old friend. They are grown, had families of their own, and some may have even passed on already. I am not trying to replace what I had when I was alive. I am protective of her; I think in any kind of partnership you have that, especially one that requires the trust and comradery that ours does.”

  Croft nodded a bit. “I simply had to make sure.”

  “Your sight didn’t let you see that?” Snow asked, half teasing his old mentor and partner.

  “No,” Croft said in response with a smile as he rose from his seat at Cadence’s desk. “I only could see that your soul was not mending and that something was poisoning you. I hope now you can begin to heal. Now go home and get some sleep. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, sir,” Snow said as he rose to follow Croft out of the office which he shared with Cadence and their other partner, Whitfield.

  Chapter 2

  The first thing Cadence was aware of was that someone was holding her hand. She opened her eyes and recognized the hospital room as the same one she had woken up in before. This time there were far fewer people in the room. There was also a lot less pain in her legs than there had been the last time she woke up. She saw Ramon on her left. He had pulled a chair up beside her bed and had fallen asleep holding her hand. How long had she been asleep this time?

  Cadence gave Ramon’s hand a gentle squeeze. “What’s up, doc?” she said with a bit of a smile.

  Ramon shifted in the chair as he opened his eyes. It took a moment for him to register that Cadence was awake, and he sat forward as he realized it. “Hey sleepy head,” he said in greeting, looking far more relieved than Cadence was comfortable with.

  “Sleepyhead, huh?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “How long have I been sleeping this time?” Last time they had let her sleep for a week before she woke up.

  “About a month,” Ramon said and quickly kept talking as he saw her eyes widen and her mouth open to reply. “Before you get angry, you need to know that the damage was extensive, and you needed that rest to heal.”

  Cadence closed her mouth on her initial reply as her anger at being left to sleep for so long faded. She knew he was right. She remembered how much pain she had felt when she had awoken the first time in this room. Ramon watched the anger fade from her eyes and face and let go of a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He smiled and rose from his chair, stretching.

  “So it’s been about five weeks then? Because last time you said it had been a week that I had been asleep, right? Or was it a month including that?”

  “Five weeks,” Ramon said. “It’s been five weeks since they got you out of that hell hole.” There was underlying anger in his tone of voice that made Cadence lift an eyebrow in surprise.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that tone from you before,” she said.

  “I’m allowed to be angry about what was done to you. Even if there were no personal feelings involved, I would still be angry about what Overton did to you. No one should have to go through such pain.” The caveat about if there were no personal feelings involved made Cadence smile a little.

  “Well there seems to be less pain now than there was before,” Cade said, hoping to turn him from that topic. “And I’m awake so progress, right?”

  “Yes,” he said with a smile to her. “Let’s take a look. I should warn you though, there are scars. There will likely always be scars from that.” Again she could hear the anger beneath his voice.

  “Scars I can live with. No more open wounds though, right?” she asked with a hopeful look.

  Ramon laughed and shook his head. “No, nothing is open anymore.”

  “What’s so funny?” Her tone of voice was indignant as she asked the question. She knew what he was laughing at, he had teased her for it before. She just wanted to distract him from his anger.

  “It’s funny to me,” he said, giving a shrug of his shoulders as he grabbed the sheet. “The idea of a hardened detective so afraid of the sight of blood.”

  “Oh, I can take the sight of blood, no problem. Just not my own,” Cade added the last with a sheepish look and a bit of a shrug.

  Ramon chuckled and pulled the sheet covering her legs down. Cadence saw that he hadn’t been joking. There was a multitude of scars. Silvery scars covered the majority of her legs. It looked like spider webs on her thighs and knees, the threads of which got thicker and closer together as they went lower on her legs. Her ankles and feet were so covered they looked like they had been painted entirely silver. Ramon observed her face as she took in the damage.

  “Well,” she said at length, “looks like I can get a second job using my feet as disco balls.”

  Ramon smiled, though he knew her well enough by now to know that humor was her defense mechanism. “Try moving your feet a little; tell me if there is any pain.”

  Cadence dutifully w
iggled her toes and turned her feet in circles from the ankles. She was stiff and sore, wincing a little as she did, but it wasn’t the searing pain it had been a month ago. Ramon kept careful watch, noting where she winced and noticing the somewhat limited movement of her feet and ankles.

  “Now comes the hard part,” he said, offering her his hand. “Let’s see if you can stand.”

  “And if I can’t?” Cadence looked up at him, afraid of what his answer might be.

  “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” he said. He nodded to her in encouragement. “You can do this. Aside from Ruby, I’ve not met a more stubborn, determined woman.”

  “You’re one of the few men I’ve met who can say that and not make it sound like a bad thing,” she said, taking his hand. She felt the butterflies in her stomach as she moved, still apprehensive about what would happen if there was a problem with her being able to walk. She liked where she was, what she was doing, and the people around her. She didn’t want it to change. She winced a little as her feet touched the floor, but the face she made was more the anticipation of the pain, rather than with any pain she felt. Her movements were slow and careful as she eased herself off the bed and onto her feet. It hurt, there was no denying that, but not nearly as bad as it had before.

  “Okay, good,” Ramon said, keeping a hold of her hand for support as he watched her movements. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m okay I think,” she said as she tested out her feet. “It hurts a little still, and it feels weird. But considering where I was a month ago, this is definitely an improvement.”

  “What do you mean when you say it feels weird?”

  “It’s like…” she paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. “It’s kind of like my feet and ankles have been wrapped up in a thick leather bandage.”

  “That makes sense, given the condition they are in,” Ramon said. “But you are right, that is much better than before. I think things will get easier as you move around more.”