Lay the Ghost: Nightwatch Series book 4

by Cassidy, Debbie

  Dying.

  Nope. I can’t die yet. I have to do stuff.

  “Kat, watch out!”

  The barb-tipped tentacle hurtled down toward me. Dead. This one would make me dead. Don’t look, Kat. Don’t look. But my eyelids refused to close, and then silver was streaking across my vision, metal cutting through the tentacle like a hot knife through butter.

  “Not today, motherfucker.”

  I knew that voice. I knew …

  “I got you, Kat.”

  I was hauled up by powerful arms.

  “Indie?” My words were choked off as blood filled my mouth. “Oh, fuck.”

  “Hold on!” Indigo ordered.

  And then we were blurring. Indie was here, that meant Karishma had succeeded, it meant the shadow knights were here. I’d have done a jig if my legs worked, but the world was getting cold, and ice was filling my abdomen.

  Bad sign.

  “Move, let me see.”

  Luther?

  Heat seared my abdomen, and then fresh pain tore a scream from my throat.

  “It’s okay, Kat. It’s going to be okay,” Bres said. “Oh, God, fix it.”

  “I’m doing my best,” Luther snapped.

  Phantom fists were inside my torso, twisting and tearing. Make it stop. Please, make it stop. I was peripherally aware of being in the shop. Of Death hovering over Luther’s shoulder as the daemon mage worked on me, of my cousin, Indigo, standing by the smashed window while miasma filled me.

  The sounds of battle were inside the shop. All around us, but it was impossible to focus on anything through the agony. And then it was ebbing, melting into a dull throb.

  “You did it,” Indigo said. “Good job.” She peered down at me. “Are you okay? Do you need blood?”

  She sounded older. Confident. I sat up with a gasp and stared at her through my tears.

  I nodded. “The kitchen. In the fridge.”

  Luther staggered away, hopefully to grab me a bag or two.

  “Oh, God, fucking God.” Bres gathered me to his chest. “You saved my life,” he said to me.I held on to him, my eyes locked with Indigo. “Thank you.”

  She inclined her head, her mouth a hard line. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have some monsters to slay.” She grinned, a wicked, bloodthirsty grin. “And boy, have I fucking missed it.”

  She strode out into the square to join the other armored knights. Huge hulking guys who immediately flanked her to fight as a well-oiled machine, and wait, did one of the guys have a bionic leg?

  Luther returned with a couple of bags of blood and handed them to me. His face was too pale. He’d obviously overtaxed himself.

  “Drink quickly,” he said. “I can’t put the shield back up. You need to go, now. The knights are here. They’ll help fend off the threat.”

  I tore into the bags and downed them in several large gulps. Fuck that was good. The last vestiges of darkness hovering at the edges of my vision dissipated.

  “I have enough power to put you to sleep,” Luther continued, “but we need to do it now.”

  “Where’s Henri?” Bres asked.

  “Here.” Death slipped a pendant around my neck. “He’s in here.”

  “It needs to touch your skin,” Luther said.

  I tucked the pendant under my shirt. The metal was warm, and a feeling of well-being and safety washed over me.

  The sounds of battle rose to a crescendo, and warning bells blared in my head. I shoved Bres, taking him down just as a tentacle whizzed over our heads, smashing several aisles of goods before retracting.

  We scrambled to our feet to flashes of lightning. Minor horrors filled the square, and the shadow knights let out a collective battle cry before ramping up their attack. They had this, for now. Together with the golems, they were equally matched against the threat, but more horrors would come.

  “Fuck, I have to get out there,” Bres said. He looked torn, and there was no mistaking the fear in his face. But it wasn’t fear for himself, it was fear for me.

  “They won’t be able to hold them off indefinitely,” Max said. “You need to go and end this. I’ll be ready to seal the breach once you force the shimmer man back to the Abyss.”

  I nodded at Bres, too afraid to kiss him goodbye again, afraid this time I wouldn’t be able to let go. “Go.”

  He leaped through the broken window and out into the fray.

  “This way.” Luther led us toward the back of the shop, into a room where Petunia was watching over an unconscious Lark.

  “Lie down,” Luther ordered.

  Death and I lay on the floor, side by side.

  “Death is able to travel into Somnium himself,” Luther said to me. “But I’ll need to push you into sleep. The rest … The rest is up to you.”

  I nodded and closed my eyes. Death’s fingers brushed my hand, and I grabbed hold of them.

  “I’ll be with you, Kat,” Death said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  It was the last thing I heard before the dark place claimed me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wet, grainy stuff clung to my cheek. Sand. I was here. The world tilted upright as I sat up. The beach was dull and overcast this time, stretching out either side of me, littered with bodies. Bodies curled on their sides. Bodies face up and face down. So many bodies. I crawled over to the one closest to me. It was a youngish man. His eyes were open but milky white, his lips were an unhealthy gray, and his skin was so pale he looked bloodless. He looked dead.

  These were the souls that the shimmer man had trapped here.

  Shit. I needed to find Death and Henri … I touched my neck, looking for the pendant, but it was gone. Where was it? I had to find it. I raked the sand with my fingers. It had to be here somewhere. Oh, crap, what if it was in the sea?

  My skin prickled, warning me I wasn’t alone, which I wasn’t because of all the milky-eyed souls, but no, this was different. There was someone behind me … Oh, shit. Please, no. I slowly turned to face the new arrival.

  The shimmer man stood staring at me with his mercury eyes. His silver hair was swept back off his slender, intelligent face. He was dressed in a cream shirt with the sleeves rolled up and blue jeans paired with boots.

  I took a step back, and his eyes widened as if a thought had occurred to him that he needed to share.

  “Kat, it’s me,” he said.

  Kat … not Kitty Kat.

  The voice was the shimmer man’s, but the inflection was different, it was … “Henri?”

  “Yes, it’s me.” He turned his hands over. “I think.”

  He looked exactly like the shimmer man, but of course he did. This was his soul, and his soul knew the true form of his godly body, the body the shimmer man was currently wearing.

  Still, this was fucking weird, and seeing him like this provoked a contradiction of emotions inside me.

  “It’s me, Kat,” he said.

  “I know. I’m just … Sorry, you look like him. I mean, he looks like you.”

  “I figured.” He frowned. “I thought I’d remember something once we got here. I don’t.”

  “Give it time. Right now, we need to move. If we stay here, he will find us. We need to find Death before the shimmer man gets to us.”

  We had to be together to take him on.

  “Where to?” Henri asked.

  Damn, it was weird seeing him like this, with his face. Even though technically it was Henri’s, AKA Morpheus’s, face. My brain hurt.

  “This way.” I set off toward the tree line. “I know someone who might be able to help us.”

  * * *

  The woods were dark and creepy. Strange, spooky noises surrounded us.

  “Reminds me of the badly scripted horror movies you made me watch,” Henri said.

  “I didn’t make you do anything.”

  “Henri, we’re watching horror movies tonight,” Henri said, putting on a feminine voice, which I guess was supposed to be a mimic of mine. “You never asked. You simply s
tated.”

  “I did?” I looked over at his ethereal shimmer man form, and this time, my heart didn’t clench in fear. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I was your golem. It’s the way it was.”

  “Still, I should have offered you a choice.”

  “That’s not how it works with golems, and you knew that. To be honest, I didn’t mind the movies. It was Tris’s running commentary that made me want to scream.”

  Tris … “I miss her so much.”

  “I know. I miss her too.”

  “But she’d be so proud of us for getting this far. Look at us, walking through a spooky forest and not shitting ourselves. On the run from a primal god, while actively searching for Death.”

  Henri was silent. “What if I can’t do this? What if you and Death manage to get me my body back, but I can’t remember anything? What if I have no power?”

  “Then we’ll run like hell.”

  He snorted. “You’re not scared?”

  “I’m shitting myself. Trust me, I can’t help but think that the next time I almost die, it’ll be for keeps.”

  I scanned the trees ahead, looking for the clearing where Lucinda had found me. If anyone could help us locate Death, it was the huge, scary snake. Okay, so there was a part of me that was wondering if Death had even made it, or even worse, that he’d made it only to be captured by the shimmer man.

  Nope.

  Had to stay positive.

  We’d come this far and we—

  Henri grabbed my hand and tugged me behind a tree. “People.”

  “Where?”

  He peered around the tree trunk. “Two of them.”

  I peeked around the tree trunk and caught sight of a man and woman. They were stumbling through the trees, holding hands. They looked frightened.

  “I think they’re human.” I stepped out from our hiding place. “Hey!”

  The humans froze, eyes wide in fear.

  I took a step toward them. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Please … we just want to wake up,” the woman said. “Can you help us wake up?”

  The spooky moaning sounds were getting louder.

  “Oh, no. They’re coming,” the man said. “We need to move.”

  “Who’s coming?” Henri asked.

  “They’re hunting us. There were more of us, but they came. If they touch you, then you disappear.”

  What were they talking about? “What do you mean? Who’s hunting you?”

  My question was answered a moment later when several other figures appeared behind the couple. Four, no, five males. They carried staffs and whips, and when they caught sight of us, their wailing increased.

  “Run!” the human male said.

  And then we were running, being chased by the wailing people while winding through the trees and getting slapped in the face by errant branches.

  “What are they?” Henri called out.

  “No idea.”

  I glanced back in time to see a whip end lash out and slash at the woman. She screamed and then evaporated.

  The man was hit next, and then the wailers set their sights on us.

  We burst into a clearing. The clearing. “Lucinda!” My voice was swallowed by the wails. “Lucinda, I need you!”

  “Kat, we need to keep moving,” Henri said.

  Oh, crap. He was right, the wailers were almost upon us, but then something dropped from the sky. Slanted snake eyes stared at me, flicked to Henri, and flared brightly.

  “Lucinda, you have to—”

  Her head rushed toward me, and then her body was around mine. Henri was forced up against me, and we were hurtling up into the trees. Lucinda’s body tightened around us, pressing us together. Henri’s arm was around me, my cheek pressed to his chest. I could barely breathe.

  “Kat,” Henri whispered. “What the fuck?”

  “It’s okay, she’s a friend.”

  Long minutes passed, and then Lucinda’s grip loosened, and we were free, sitting in a nest made of her body. Her head loomed over us.

  “Well, well,” she said. “The prodigal king returns.” Her attention was on Morpheus. She swooped closer, her eyes narrowing. “And you have no idea who I am, do you?”

  Henri winced. “A very large snake?”

  “The shimmer man is on his way,” Lucinda said. “The Lost have alerted him that you’re here. He will find you, there is no doubt about that. His power has grown. His influence has grown. The Lost are his minions now, serving him without question. There aren’t many free souls in Somnium any longer.”

  “My mother?”

  Lucinda smiled. “You found her the last time?”

  “Yes, I found her. Is she safe?”

  “I haven’t heard otherwise,” Lucinda said, “but then my eyes and ears are compromised. Tell me … What is your plan?”

  “To send him back from where he came,” Henri said. “A place called the Abyss.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And that is the only option?” she asked me.

  “Yes.” I sighed. “Look, I don’t know how much you know about him, but he’s a primordial god, and from what we learned, he got a pretty raw deal back in the day. To top it off, another primordial god took his heart, which is probably why he’s such an unfeeling psychopath. The original plan was to find his heart and give it back, but yeah … that isn’t happening.”

  “So, you’ll put him back in his prison?” Lucinda said softly.

  “It’s our only option, but we need to find our companion first. He came with us, but we got separated somehow. He used to come here a lot, so you should know him.”

  “Old blue eyes?” She reared back in surprise. “He’s here?”

  “I hope so.”

  “He hasn’t been into the forest. I would have sensed him.”

  My stomach quivered with foreboding. “What if the shimmer man has him?”

  “We don’t know that,” Henri said.

  “You need to go,” Lucinda said. “The shimmer man is here, in the forest. Stick to the high branches and head east. They’ll deliver you to a network of caves. Death would always arrive from those caves. He never came from the sea. I’ll lead the shimmer man in the opposite direction. He knows I helped you last time, so he’ll follow, thinking you may be with me.”

  She wanted to play decoy. Concern bloomed inside me for this magnificent creature. I knew her, cared for her, felt safe with her, and trusted her. The last thing I wanted was for her to get hurt. I placed my hand on her dry, leather skin, and a shock of memories slammed into me. Laughter … My laughter as I clung to her back. The warm feeling that comes from being loved, being rocked as the stars winked down on me.

  “You … you took care of me …”

  She smiled that snake smile that should have been terrifying but was nothing but comforting. “You remember.”

  “Bits and pieces. I spent a lot of time with you here, didn’t I?”

  “The forest was your favorite place. You’d come here first, before going to see him, and you’d come here last before heading to the sea. This forest knows you. The vines would always come when you called. Trust the forest, and it will deliver you safely to where you need to go.”

  “What about you? What if he hurts you?”

  “Then it will have been my time.” She nudged me with her nose. “Go now, and take our forgetful king with you. He is no use to your quest until his memories are returned.” Her head whipped up sharply. “Go.”

  She slid away, leaving us hidden by foliage on a branch as thick as I was tall.

  “The caves are that way.” Henri pointed.

  Ah, yes, how could I forget his uncanny ability to find any place. We set off, moving from branch to branch. The foliage up here was dense, and the branches of the trees crisscrossed. It was its own ecosystem, and we were tiny organisms crossing through it. But then the branches got sparse, thinner, and the trees grew farther apart.

  Shit. “How much farther are the caves?”

/>   “A quarter of a mile at least,” Henri said.

  “We’re not going to make it.” I came to a standstill on the edge of the branch we were on and stared at the branch we needed to get to. “There’s no way we can get across that gap.”

  “What did Lucinda say about vines?”

  I scanned the leaves. “There aren’t any vines.”

  “Didn’t Lucinda say they’d always come when you called?”

  But that was ridiculous, right? Although it didn’t feel ridiculous. “I swear, if you laugh, I’ll shove you out of this tree.”

  Henri held up his hands. “No laughing.”

  It was weird, the longer he was with me in his natural soul form, the less I saw the shimmer man when I looked at him.

  I took a deep breath. Okay. “Vines, um … Vines, can you hear me? I need help.”

  Nothing happened. Of course it didn’t. Still, a stab of disappointment lanced through me.

  I closed my eyes and visualized the gap, calculating the speed and trajectory of the leap needed to scale it.

  “We’re going to have to jump, aren’t we?” Henri said.

  “I’ll go first.”

  “No, let m—”

  “I’ll go first.” Something stirred in the back of my mind, a shadowy memory, a conviction, and then I was running and leaping. Yes. Yes, I could do this, but then gravity grabbed hold and pulled.

  Shit, I wasn’t going to make it. I was going to—

  Green vines whipped out to grab me around the waist and swing me up to the branch. I landed lightly with my weight supported by the vines.

  “You came.” I stroked them, and I swear they warmed beneath my fingers. Yes, they were alive. They’d been my playmates. “You used to swing me through the trees.” The two vines unwound themselves from me, tips raised at eye level as if watching me. “Thank you.”

  The tips moved up and down as if saying yeah, that’s cool.

  “Can you help me and my friend get to the caves?”

  The vines nodded again, and then Henri let out a surprised yelp as a couple of vines picked him up and swung him over to me.

  With the vines’ help, we made the journey to the edge of the forest in minutes. They lowered us gently to the lush, fragrant earth, and with a final gentle caress, they retreated back into the trees.