Free Walking Shadows by Phaedra Weldon Page A

longer white, but amber. Sometimes they were brown. They were always different when I saw him—like he was still trying to settle in.  
    Two months ago, this First Born, the last of the original Phantasm's children, put himself inside the Throne within the gentle care of the Geist so he could carry forth his father's legacy. He'd never been a Revenant. And he hated the Ethereal Plane about as much as I did.  
    Weird huh? I hated what some called Heaven.  
    And with good reason.  
    My father was there. And I don't mean my spiritual father.  
    "Walking shadows."  
    I gave him my best WTF look. "Come again? As far as I can tell," and I looked around the porch with my now ever-present Wraith Vision (maybe I should trademark that), "Shadows ooze. They don't walk."  
    He shrugged and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The rain had slackened a little but there were darker clouds passing behind the tops of the buildings in Little Five Points. "Not these. I got reports of zombies running around Buckhead."  
    Zombies?  
    "Don't we call those Lamias or something?"  
    "No…not these. Lamias are created by Ghouls. These things are created by something a bit more sinister." He licked his lips. "Ever heard of Sin Eaters?"  
    I sipped my coffee. It was already getting cold. Damn winter. "Isn't that what I do?"  
    He shrugged. "Jury's still out on that. What you do, I mean. Sin Eaters are, in truth, Dominions, which are another rung of Ethereal spin-offs. Now," he held up his hand when I opened my mouth to speak. "Just hear me out. Dominions are between Thrones—you know what those are now—and Virtues like your dad. They're the mediators between the upper class and the lower class in the Ethereal realm. Usually they stick to affairs on the Outer Planes and work internally there.  
    "But recently—well since the Bulwark—and the almost-Bulwark we escaped—several of them crossed the borders to deliver their judgment on Abysmal creatures living in physical bodies. Part of the plan to get rid of the Abysmal influence in the Physical Plane. They consume the human soul inside the possessed body."  
    I arched my eyebrows and leaned forward. "So?"  
    "So—that leaves whatever Abysmal creature that slipped into that body trapped in the body. Most creatures like Symbionts and Daemons can't really pilot a body. I think you'll remember what happened to your own body when a Daemon slipped into it while you were out?"  
    Oh, hell yeah I did. I'd been OOB, checking out a dead body in the women's bathroom at the Peachtree Plaza back in February, and a Daemon possessing a dead body hopped right into mine and took it for a test drive. Cracked my ankle, bruised it up pretty bad, and destroyed that nice dress I'd put on my mom's credit card. "Yeah…"
    "This Dominion has been eating these souls, which has led to the soulless bodies wandering around and rotting. A human soul is what holds the fabric of the physical together, Zoë."  
    "I got it. So…what is it you want me to do?"  
    "There's a club downtown I need you to look at. It's not one most people know about. I only discovered it myself. But it's a haven for Ethereals who like to slum it. And usually nobody cares. They're lower level celestials. Virtues, a few Principalities—"  
    "Prince-a-whats?"  
    "Doesn't matter. Just celestials caught in the Seraphim's caste system. They like to try out avarice now and then and see what it is they're missing. And my father, and even Sophie, indulged them. It's a place even Revenants could go and relax with impunity."  
    I leaned my head the other way and brought my coffee up to my lips. "But something's changed."  
    "Yep. It has. There's been another Revenant death."  
    That…wasn't what I expected to hear. I nearly choked on my coffee and set the mug on a nearby wicker table and narrowed my eyes at him. "I—no one's told me there was another death. Who was it?" My heart skipped. "Oh god, it wasn't someone I knew, was it? Re?