Give Up the Ghost

by Jenn Burke

  * * *

  After a shower, a snack—protein bars for me and Essence du Wes for Hudson—and a nap that was way too short, I felt marginally more human. Or human-like, anyway. The puncture wounds in my shoulder had healed, leaving angry red marks in my skin and a lingering ache, but it was getting better by the moment. As for Hudson, there was no evidence he’d been shot three times. I mean, yay for vampire healing. But my brain was doing this weird hitching kind of thing where the memory of him bleeding on the floor would steamroll through my thoughts and push everything else aside for a few seconds. Just, you know, so I didn’t forget I almost fucking lost him. Again.

  We all arranged ourselves around Lexi’s living room, and everyone else looked as ragged as Hudson and I felt. Ben and Joelle had elected to stay instead of returning to their dorms or classes or whatever their usual plans were. I wasn’t sure if it was because they truly wanted to help, or if they were afraid that Silvia would come looking for them. Why she might, I had no idea. I hadn’t even thought of it until Joelle asked the question in a shaky voice. So yeah... I was coming down on the side of them preserving their asses, but fair enough.

  I’d probably do the same thing.

  Lexi sat on an armchair with her computer balanced on a knee and one of the arms. Her casted left arm was positioned almost parallel to the floor while her right hand flew over the keyboard and touchpad as she researched stuff. Her mom sat on the floor, her back braced against the chair, as she flipped through an ancient-looking leather-bound tome.

  Lexi looked so much better than she had even a few days ago—fiery and energetic, more like her regular self. Her hair was a hint of dark fuzz on her scalp. I caught her shooting glares at Ben more than once, but he accepted the metaphorical daggers without complaint. I thought I’d heard him apologize to her when we’d first shown up and he realized who she was, but that memory was fuzzy with fatigue and pain. At any rate, there was some measure of peace in the room—as far as Lexi and Ben went.

  The rest of us were understandably on edge as Lexi and her mom searched for answers.

  “And you’re sure she wasn’t a ghost?” Lexi said for the third time.

  “Fucking positive,” I growled, then let out a breath when Rosanna shot me a mom look. I leaned more heavily against Hudson on the love seat. “Sorry. I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

  “She smelled like death,” Hudson offered up. “Did you mention the hellhounds acted like puppies with her?”

  Looking at Lexi, I gestured at Hudson. “That too.”

  She refocused on her computer. “And she definitely wasn’t a vampire.”

  I made a strangling gesture with my hands, which Hudson pressed down into my lap before Lexi could see it. “Definitely not,” he said. “She was dead.”

  “What happened to you insisting you were dead?” I arched a brow.

  He wrapped a hand over my shoulder and pulled me tight against him. “I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong. Especially after seeing...that. I am absolutely, one hundred percent not dead.”

  “Draugr?” Lexi looked down at her mom. “The brooch could be her treasure.”

  Rosanna shook her head. “She didn’t come out of her grave.”

  “Crap.”

  Joelle raised a tentative hand. “Could it maybe be a lich?”

  Lexi pressed her lips into a thin line. “This ain’t World of Warcraft.”

  I snapped my fingers. “I know what that is!”

  “Got it.” Rosanna pointed to a line in her book. “Revenant.”

  Lexi’s hands flew over the keyboard and trackpad until she brought up whatever was listed on the TechnoWitchWeb about revenants. Her eyes scanned down the page, and the more she read, the grayer her skin got.

  Uh-oh. “Lex?”

  “This is not good, Mom.”

  Rosanna reached out to her husband, Darrell, who’d pulled up a kitchen chair to sit next to his two ladies. “No, honey, it’s not.”

  My gut quivered—because knowing what I did already about Silvia, Lexi’s and Rosanna’s reactions were so not working for me. Blindly I sought Hudson’s hand with my own, and felt much more grounded when he grabbed it and held on tight. “Guys? You got a pic?”

  Rosanna turned her book around to display the illustration of a revenant and—yeah, that could have been Silvia’s twin. The bone-white skin, the vaporous clothing, the stilettos for fingernails, and the mouth of shark’s teeth.

  Lexi began to read. “A revenant is anger personified. It is a powerful undead creature that can be summoned from the beyond only if the deceased was prepared with the proper rituals prior to their death. Death must not be due to natural causes, and the summoner must have an item of personal importance to the deceased to act as an anchor of the spell. A revenant’s power comes from the individual’s unwavering and unyielding anger, which is why they are often called the spirit of rage.”

  “Sounds fun,” Evan croaked from his space on the floor near Hudson and Iskander, who sat on the couch.

  “Revenants must consume the flesh of the living frequently—ideally heart’s blood.”

  “Can confirm,” I said, swallowing hard.

  “They are vulnerable to sunlight. Unlike vampires, revenants are truly undead and even indirect sunlight will cause them to ignite and burn.”

  “Good to know,” Hudson said.

  That was good to know—and a definite advantage, since our two vampires were no longer limited to the dark.

  “Historically...” Lexi paused, wet her lips, and continued. “Historically, revenants were soldiers sacrificed and later summoned to participate in key battles. Ivar the Boneless reportedly had two revenants and their servants at the head of his army when he invaded the Kingdom of East Anglia in 865 CE. About a century earlier, Charles Martel of the Franks summoned a revenant to help in the Battle of Tours.” She paused, obviously skipping through some additional content she didn’t read aloud. “Here we go. ‘Revenants can move freely as long as they are anchored by their personal item. For safety, the summoner usually keeps that item locked away, protected by a mundane lock and key or an arcane version.’”

  “Well, there’s your problem,” Hudson said, deadpan.

  “Anchor is key,” Iskander said.

  “You mean the brooch she pinned to the skin of her chest?” I shuddered.

  “You’re a thief, Wes—you could steal it,” Evan said.

  “Retired thief,” I corrected automatically. “And maybe. But not without a fucking good distraction.”

  “First we need to find out where she’s hiding,” Lexi said, fiddling with her laptop again. “Evan, what time did the house come down?”

  “It was 6:38,” Ben piped up. “I remember seeing the clock on the dash.”

  “The sky would have been growing lighter—faintly, but potentially enough to hurt her.” Lexi scanned her screen. “Official sunrise was about 7:30 a.m. But if the early light of the sun was getting to her, I’m going to guess she wouldn’t want to wait until actual sunrise to take cover. So what’s close by that would offer complete darkness and solitude?”

  Hudson got up from his seat to stand behind Lexi as she looked at what I presumed was a map. His mouth pressed into a thin line. “No, these pictures are a few years out of date. See, that?” He pointed to something. “That building’s a GoodLife Fitness now.”

  “So not a place she’d hole up.”

  “No, but...scroll to the east. No, the other east.”

  “Sorry.”

  He pointed to another location. “This might be something.”

  “It’s an empty lot.”

  “Correction—in 2012, the date of this picture, it was an empty lot. Now it’s a high-rise condo unit under construction. With a parking garage.” He leveled a pointed look at Lexi.

  “Can you think of anywhere else close by th
at she’d retreat to?” I asked. Because this time, I didn’t want to show up at the construction site, scare the shit out of people, and be completely wrong.

  “She probably doesn’t know the area, so she’s going to be limited to whatever her hellhounds can sniff out for her. And quickly.” He tapped the screen and straightened. “I think this is the only option.”

  “Okay, then.” I let out a long, kind of jagged breath, because I wasn’t looking forward to going up against Silvia the Revenant again—but it wasn’t like I had any choice. “Hud—”

  Movement at the corner of my eye caught my attention and interrupted my train of thought. Michael flickered into sight at the edge of the room, then glitched out.

  Shit.

  I turned my attention back to my friends, my steady voice camouflaging the anxiety I suddenly felt. “Hud, you call Kat and let her know about Professor Dumbass and his undead great-aunt.”

  “That’ll be a fun convo,” Hudson grumbled, but he pulled his phone out of his pocket and retreated into the kitchen.

  “Everyone else...” I waved my hands as I stood. “Plan.”

  “Where are you going?” Lexi asked.

  “Little ghost’s room.” I shot her a smile I didn’t feel before making my way to the stairs and jogging up to the guest room Hudson was staying in.

  I stepped inside, closed the door, and leaned against it. Barely a breath had passed my lips before Michael’s form stuttered into being.

  “—not going to work.”

  I thumped my head against the door. “We don’t even have a plan yet.”

  “No—Not g—ting it.” His expression was dark with frustration in the seconds I could see him. “Y—cause of—holes.”

  I bristled. “I know. I’m not stupid—”

  “—magic—shredded—veil.”

  I remembered what my magic had shown me in my quiet moment in Bhavana’s café. “I know,” I said more quietly.

  “Y—know—fix it.”

  The blood drained out of my face and my fingertips grew cold. “There has to be another way.”

  Michael shook his head, the movement jerky with his glitching.

  “Michael, I can’t.”

  “—don’t want to—”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Michael took a deep, ragged breath. “Solution is—you—leaving this plane.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I returned to the living room to help with planning, but I couldn’t contribute much. I kept flashing back to that moment in the empty café, when I’d sought my magic’s input on the imp and ghost problem, and it had told me—in great detail—exactly how I could fix everything. I hadn’t wanted to believe it. In fact, I’d actively worked on pretending I didn’t know. But now Michael had confirmed it all.

  To fix all of this without risking any of my friends, all I had to do was turn the otherplane inside out—with me and the imps, ghosts, hellhounds, and one scary-ass revenant on the beyond side of things instead of in the living plane.

  I didn’t want to do it.

  I had long ago acknowledged I was a selfish asshole. The sky was blue, maple syrup was gross—I’d fight anyone who said otherwise—and I looked out for number one first and foremost, always. It came from growing up how I did, getting kicked out of the house at sixteen for kissing a boy I didn’t desire simply because I wanted to know what kissing was like, and having to fight for survival among the rough, transient farm workers at the start of the Great Depression. I’d learned many, many lessons from that time of my life. Some of them had worn off, sanded away by the luxury of always having enough food and never having to worry about growing old. Others remained steadfast—like my impeccable survival instinct.

  It didn’t care that Michael assured me I would continue on. It wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t be with these people. So therefore, I didn’t want to do it.

  But if I didn’t do it, would this here and these people survive?

  I broke away and headed back upstairs long before we’d found a viable alternative to the “sacrifice Wes” plan—not that they knew about that. Part of me didn’t want to tell them because they’d argue. Another part didn’t want me to voice it because it would make it real.

  And there was yet another part that didn’t want them to know in case I had to do it.

  Hudson found me slumped on the bed, staring at the carpet between my feet but not seeing it. When he rubbed my shoulder, I leaned into him, but I didn’t look up.

  “What’s going on?” he asked softly, settling on the bed beside me.

  I thought about not telling him. Lies of omission were easy—especially since he didn’t need to know, because I wasn’t going to do it. Except, lies of omission had stolen a lot of the joy from these past months, and I didn’t want to backslide. Honesty and openness—that was what we both deserved.

  “I...I know how to fix this.”

  He looked at me for a moment, taking in everything about me with his well-trained cop’s gaze. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  I leaned my head against his shoulder and told him. It was easier to do it without looking at him, but I could feel the tension jacking up in his frame the longer I spoke. Finally, when I was done, he gently nudged me away from him, turned to face me, and cupped my cheeks.

  “You are not going through with that,” he growled. “A nuclear bomb would fix a lot of things too, but what would be left behind wouldn’t be worth living in. You hear me?”

  “I hear you.” I sucked in a breath. “But—”

  “No. No buts. I can’t believe you’re trusting him. He killed you.”

  And Hudson didn’t even know the whole story—I’d never been able to confess that I’d been ready to commit suicide for Michael. But now was not the time to share that truth, so I shoved it aside.

  “I’m not. My magic—I know how to do it. It showed me first. He’s not lying.”

  “Not about the method, maybe, but the motivation?”

  “Why would he—”

  “God, I love you, but you are so fucking naïve sometimes.”

  We both froze and our gazes locked together. By the pallor of his usually bronze and vibrant skin, I knew he hadn’t meant to say that. The L word part. So...should I ignore it? Say it back? Wait so Hudson could clarify and/or backpedal?

  He licked his lips nervously. “So, uh, we haven’t said that to each other yet this time around.”

  Time for more honesty and openness. “We did, actually. But you don’t remember.”

  His brow furrowed. “When?”

  “When I was fighting Not-Julia in the otherplane.” The demon had been incorporeal after Evan beheaded its human host, and I’d had to grab it and try to force it into a stream of magic to take it back into the realms beyond. “I almost followed the demon into the beyond, but you grabbed me. Saved me.”

  “I was in the otherplane?”

  “I thought you were dead.” He’d taken a bullet to the heart, I’d thought, but it hadn’t been a direct hit. “I thought you were—were saying goodbye. You told me you loved me, that you’d never stopped loving me, and I said it back.”

  He tilted his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t think it was ready for prime time. And then I realized I was—was different and I couldn’t tell you and...” I couldn’t meet his gaze.

  Hudson gently pulled at my chin until I was looking at him again. “It was the truth. I love you. I never stopped.”

  My chest was suddenly tight and my eyes burned. I squeezed them shut and Hudson brushed away the few tears that escaped. “I don’t want to go,” I whispered.

  He pulled me tight against his chest and burrowed his face into my neck. “Then don’t. We’ll find a way to stop her without doing...that.”

  “I
don’t want to. I don’t want to go into the beyond. I—” My voice hitched. “I only want you. I love you.”

  Hudson kissed me, firmly, forcefully, leaving no room for doubt that he felt the same way. His tongue and lips consumed me, and I gave under the weight of it, falling back onto the bed. He followed me down and I surrendered.

  This was all I wanted, for the rest of the long, long years stretching out before me. Hudson’s love, this connection, this necessary sharing of touch. It wasn’t even about sex—it rarely was with me, even if the orgasms felt good—it was about being needed by another living being, needing them in return. From the way Hudson worshipped me with his lips, tongue, hands, and body, I knew he understood.

  Our clothes disappeared—slowly or all at once, I wasn’t sure. But the familiar feeling of his chest hair rasping against my skin electrified me. I arched beneath him, moaning softly, and he took the opportunity to bury his nose in my armpit, kiss his way to my nipple—licking and teasing it until I gasped—and then farther down, down, down. Words kept spilling from my lips, though I wasn’t sure what I was saying—pleas and begging, probably, stuff I’d be embarrassed by at any other time. But not now. This was the time for all the nonsense words and sounds, noises that were a language all their own.

  When he entered me, after slow prep that drove rationality even further away, my gaze locked on his. His fangs were down, his eyes showing only a thin ring of glowing yellow around pupils blown wide with need, and I lifted my legs up to cradle him as he thrust inside me, so strong and yet so gentle.

  “Mine.” His voice was guttural, showing the animal he insisted lived inside him.

  “Yours,” I agreed without hesitation.

  I tilted my head to the side, exposing my neck, and he took the invitation. His fangs pierced my skin and he moaned, and the knowledge that I could give him this, I could do this for him, made my balls draw up. My orgasm sang through me, triggering Hudson’s, and in that moment, we found perfection.

  Chapter Twenty-Four