Devin was only partly capable at the moment of envisioning what the days of withdrawal would be like. The cramps, the nausea, the brain-splitting headaches.
The desire to do it all over again.
It would be worth it though. It had to be. This was one of the last fully sober thoughts he had. His plan had better fucking work.
Chapter Eleven
Margot lit candles while Peter cleansed the downstairs rooms with a smudge stick. The aroma of dried sage soon permeated every corner, bringing with it memories of summer nights camping in arid backcountry.
Sybille was supposed to be meditating, preparing to open the channel for Nate, but instead she found her mind blipping like a heart monitor hooked up to a caffeinated rabbit. Celebrimbor’s presence didn’t help. He was a hoverer, poking his beak nose into her personal space and disrupting her concentration. For someone who got off on seeing her possessed, he sure knew how to hamper the process. Then there was Devin’s last text, telling her to get started, but cautioning her that they’d have a long night ahead. That meant things weren’t so cut and dry this time around. He never complained about the danger his job put him in, but it was apparent that this one was harrowing.
What horror had she gotten him into? Not that it was her fault exactly. He could say no, but he wouldn’t; he never would. He had a history with the Low, something dark in his past that he’d alluded to but wouldn’t speak about directly. He hated the Low, yet he couldn’t stay away from it. Sometimes she wondered if he’d find a reason to go there on his own even if he didn’t work for her. Although he complained about spending time “in that hellhole,” the place seemed to hold power over him. The more she thought about it, the more it worried her.
Crave had to have something to do with it. She shivered despite the room’s stifling warmth. A possession was taxing enough on its own without Crave being involved. When this was over, she’d have a talk with Devin, get to the bottom of it. His reports were never very detailed when it came to the bloodthirsters’ last moments. This one wasn’t bound to be either, but she would call him on it. This time, she wouldn’t let it slide.
Last on her list of men determined to rile her nerves of steel was Elis. This possession and release was bound to take forever, maybe even most of the night depending on what was going on with Devin. While she had come to accept Elis’ regular appearances, Sybille hoped he would skip tonight. There was no way she’d have the energy to deal with him after giving Bore his show and sending Nate off to the World Beyond.
“Bore, I’m going to have to respectfully ask you to park your ass on the couch.” She fingered a black tourmaline crystal and lifted it into her palm. Celebrimbor had bought it for her believing it would help her focus her powers. That was highly doubtful, but it was still calming to have something with which to keep her hands occupied. Besides, if it didn’t help center her, she could always throw it at his head.
Thankfully, it only took Sybille’s friendly brush-off plus a stern look from Uncle Peter to get him to retreat. “The lady needs her space, Patron.” He guided Bore to the living room. “Possessions are a tricky thing—almost as much an art as a skill. You know that, son. This isn’t your first rodeo either.”
Bore mumbled his acknowledgement and Sybille proceeded to tune him out, instead concentrating on the circle of twelve candles arranged on the table. Margot was already seated directly across from her. She reached her hands towards her daughter, who set the crystal down and then grabbed on and squeezed.
Margot nodded. “Let the show begin, my dear.”
Nearly all the possessions fell upon Sybille’s shoulders now. Zareen hadn’t done more than a handful since becoming pregnant with Adelaide, and Peter had never been particularly skilled at them. His strength was in creating the right atmosphere, one that was conducive to a spirit-ready mind. Without Peter’s skill at incantations, she would be far less successful. Her mother, a powerful medium in her day, had backed off years ago in favor of letting Sybille take the lead. Sybille tried not to let this irk her. Margot, more than anyone, knew what it took out of a hierophant every time she gave herself over to a spirit. But still, she let Sybille carry the brunt.
“You are far more skilled than any of us,” she told her daughter on a regular basis, trying to appeal to Sybille’s ego.
That may be true, but it didn’t make the toll she paid any less.
While the women were preparing themselves, Nate sat to Sybille’s left, absorbed once again in the patterns on their tablecloth.
“The candlelight makes things pretty.” He fingered the lace with reverence.
“Yes dear, but you must be quiet now.” Margot spoke in the sing-song voice she normally reserved for Zareen’s young brood. “Sybille has to focus, or you will not receive your proper sendoff.”
“Right. Sorry, Sybille.” Nate turned to her, his brow pensive as he tore his gaze from the table. “What do I do, just jump into you or something?”
For the love of Mike. “No, Nate, you don’t… Look, sit there and wait, okay? It will happen organically. Imagine that you’re tied to me by a rope. When you feel me pull on it, don’t resist. Let yourself be brought in.”
He agreed to it and the room fell silent. Celebrimbor and Peter sat turned to the back of the couch so that they could peer over it at the spectacle. Peter’s hand remained firmly on the Patron’s shoulder to keep him from jumping up and returning to the dining room.
Finally, Sybille found herself able to center. The candle flames held her in their golden caress, letting her open the channel separating herself from the overlapping plane Nate resided in. She may have told Elis she wasn’t able to be hypnotized, but that wasn’t strictly true. Her family learned guards against the sort of mesmerizing Elis excelled at. However she was more than capable of putting herself into a trance state—the sort of state that would allow her own consciousness to be tucked away while Nate’s temporarily moved in. When that happened, she would become an observer, able to watch everything that happened but unable to control any of it.
This was the part of being a hierophant that sucked ass.
It happened over an endless stretch and also in the blink of an eye. Her mind folded in on itself, making more room for its visitor. She was barely hanging on, barely able to squeeze her mother’s hands or shift in her seat, when he came.
Elis.
“What the hell?” He stood next to her chair, in between her and Nate.
“Not really a good time, Elis.”
“Oh, is this the man you were talking about?” Her mother smiled at him. “He’s handsome, Sybie!”
“You were talking about me?”
“No, I was…well yes, you’re part of my job and…”
“Sybille, I feel a tug!” Nate’s hands clasped in front of him as though he was climbing an invisible rope. Damned literal-minded spirits.
Elis’ attention shifted back to Nate. “You do not. Stay out of her head.”
Sybille snorted. “You’re one to make that demand. Stand down, Elis. This is what I do. If you insist on being here, you’re going to have to join our other eager beaver on the let’s-give-Sybille-her-space couch.” She narrowed her eyes at Elis, who narrowed his eyes at Nate, who narrowed his eyes at the tablecloth.
“Fine then, but I’ll be right there.” He pointed to the living room.
“And I’ll be right here, and Santa Claus will be right at the North Pole. Jesus Christ, Elis.”
“Honey, what do I always tell you about men?” Her mother stroked Sybille’s palms with her thumbs, attempting to sooth her.
Sybille took a deep breath. “That they all have a maiden-in-distress fetish. Just ignore them and save yourself because the harder they try the more they end up messing up.”
“I can hear you, you know.” Elis placed his hands on his hips.
To be fair, his current state of agitation wasn’t totally his fault. He was brought here through Sybille’s mind and so he couldn’t help but feel how it was bein
g threatened, made tinier by the second. And that threatened him.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand watching you be taken over by that moron.” He tapped his fingers against his sides and seethed.
This wasn’t the sort of disturbance Sybille needed. Elis, as well meaning as he may be, had damaged her state of calm. That meant this possession would take more energy, more time, more effort. She put thoughts of him aside and returned to the candlelight. Nate still pulled on his imaginary rope beside her. He was doing his part. The least she could do was hers.
The next thoughts she had were not her own—a woman in a high-collared lace dress running ahead on a trail through a forest, laughter fading, and then red.
Red, nothing but red.
Eyes rolling back into her head, she moaned as another’s memories drowned out her own. Her mother held fast to her hands, spoke soothing words she couldn’t make out. Nate’s rope pulled tight. He became her. His will was all that mattered. And he willed quite a lot.
“I want out!” Sybille’s mouth, Nate’s voice.
Elis flew from his perch on the edge of the couch and was back in the dining room within seconds. “Then leave. Now.”
“You have no say in this, Elis.” Sybille’s mother spoke in a hushed murmur. She struggled to hold onto her daughter’s hands as Nate pushed against the confines of a living body. Sybille danced like a marionette, her limbs jerking taught and then collapsing without warning.
Elis growled but said no more. He was only a spirit anyways. Nate was more present than he was. How could he possibly help?
“I hate this,” Nate howled. “I want to leave. For one hundred years, I’ve wanted to leave.”
“And you will soon, Nathanial, dear.” Margot tried to maintain eye contact with him. How she could see her daughter like this—writhing like a fish in a net, her skin grown pale, her eyes bloodshot and hopeless—was beyond him. “Please, do be gentle with my daughter’s body. She’ll need it after you’ve left.”
“No!” He shot up, hands separating from Margot, who cried as though she’d been struck. “You made me a promise, but my beast still lives. Why?”
“This hast been what I hath long awaited! To see her swallow such a beast and yield to its strength. Thy Lady Sybille, ist there no end to thy extraordinary talent!”
Ellis stared in disbelief at the weird guy sitting on the couch in a monk’s get-up, sputtering butchered prose. This must have been one of the Patrons Sybille had talked about, some kind of pervert, getting off on spirit possession. A medium groupie. Elis had been so focused on Sybille, he hadn’t noticed the Patron’s ridiculous presence until now.
“Doest thy fair Lady Sybille perchance to flit and flutter above her mortal coil whilst the beast dances with it? It hast struck my humble person that, though I may be apprenticing yet in the ways of the Powers, I do indeed feel her energy riseth out of her. Is it not so?”
No, it wasn’t so. Elis narrowed his eyes and sulked. Sybille was trapped in a little corner of herself, probably totally pissed off, not floating above this hell like a benevolent angel unable to feel or even care what was happening to her.
He waited for someone to call the Patron out, tell him what a fool he was, but no one said a word. No one could, he supposed. They needed the Patron to be pleased. They put up with him because he paid the family, which essentially made him their boss. Elis’ non-existent stomach turned thinking of Sybille having to go through this horror show just to pay the bills.
His attention returned to the dining room where Sybille’s mother was doing her best to keep Nate from working himself into a tizzy.
“Your beast is being dealt with presently. That’s why we’ve begun the possession. Don’t you remember, dear heart? You agreed to this.” Margot lifted a corner of the tablecloth and showed it to him. To Sybille. Damned if it wasn’t confusing watching Sybille move, her mouth forming words, knowing it wasn’t her at all.
Nate studied the tablecloth. For a second, the tension in the room subsided. Then everything became a blur of lace and flames as he pulled the covering away from the table. The fabric caught fire. He screeched until the walls shook, everyone but Elis clamping their hands to the sides of their heads to keep their eardrums from bursting. Nate screeched until Sybil’s throat must have been raw, then sank to the ground, wrapping himself in the blazing cloth.
Margot and Elis both screamed.
“My God!” the short, balding man Elis assumed was Sybille’s uncle, Peter, sprang to his feet. Pulling an afghan off the back of the couch, he rushed to Sybille’s side. As he threw it over her, he turned his head away from the heat and smoke. The blanket did the trick, dousing the fire in seconds. He placed his arms around Sybille’s body and brought her close. “Stop this, Nate. Stop it! We’re trying to help you. We can’t do that if you kill your host. You must be patient.”
Margot’s shaking form appeared at Elis’ side, her forehead dripping with sweat. “She said this one would be a challenge. My Sybie is never wrong.”
Cursing for the millionth time that he wasn’t physically present in the room, Elis could do nothing but stand there trying to make sense of what was happening. “I don’t get it. He was so docile.”
Sybille’s body continued to heave as it rocked back and forth. Peter held on to her as best he could. Every few seconds a low groan escaped her lips.
“Are you sure you don’t understand what’s happening here?” Margot stared at him, raising one well-manicured eyebrow. “Sybille tells me quite the story about you. I don’t know if I should believe it or not. I’m not even sure she does. But if it is true, you know exactly the struggle Nathanial is facing right now.”
Elis shook his head. His re-souling had been a grueling, violent affair, yes, but this wasn’t the same thing. “I wasn’t possessed by a spirit. When I was brought back into a body, I was coming back to myself. You must see that this is different.”
Margot continued to tremble. “I wish I had time to dissect what exactly you are because truly, you should not exist. At the moment, however, we have a more pressing issue to deal with.”
She walked over to her daughter, put a hand on the back of her bent head and whispered something to her. The groaning became louder for a bit and then receded until it was quiet enough to hear the grandfather clock ticking from the alcove a room away. Even the Patron seemed unable to come up with one of his ill-conceived, brain-damaged Shakespearean phrases. Margot and Peter exchanged a nervous glance.
Finally, Peter spoke. “Part of this is normal.” He stroked his niece’s hair. “And that part you should be able to relate to, Elis. Nate has been without a corporeal form for many years. He’s unaccustomed to moving within the limitations of a living form.”
“But…”
“But beyond that, the aggression and level of agitation we’re seeing indicates that his bloodthirster is particularly strong-willed and violent. Nate’s spirit is all that his bloodthirster isn’t, but now that he’s within a physical form, those elements of himself are rushing back to him.”
“Imagine living a hundred years without a single violent experience,” Margot continued as her brother began to mutter words Elis couldn’t make out in Sybille’s ear. “And then all of a sudden, you’re dropped into a war zone. If he hadn’t nearly burned my daughter to death, I would pity him.”
One hundred years of peace was something Elis could never imagine. He’d been living that span of time in the mental war zone this guy had only been introduced to twenty minutes ago. Nate should be grateful for what Sybille was doing for him.
“How long is this going to take?”
“The possession lasts until the bloodthirster is killed. At that point Nathanial will be freed. He will leave Sybille’s body, leave the Now World. And when that happens, he will be fully and truly dead, just as he wishes. Either that will happen, or…”
Elis waited but she seemed unable to finish her thought. “What happens if your field agent doesn’t kill the blo
odthirster? What then?”
Margot looked at her daughter’s blanketed form, carefree persona crumbling entirely. “Then? Then we pray.”
Chapter Twelve
The hardest part was keeping his mouth shut. Figuratively and literally. Cravers drooled more than a Saint Bernard. Even though the only other person in the room was going to be dead soon, Devin still resisted the idea of salivating all over the place. Drool was hardly his biggest problem; Crave made him want to share every thought in his head. Loose lips sank slayers. He couldn’t afford to start talking about his past, neither the distant one that involved the Low, nor his recent past under the Esmond’s employ.
His slipup with the phone had already given Atkins a glimpse of Sybille. That fact was unsettling enough to keep Devin semi-present. Well, that and the Strike he’d injected before entering Hocus. That serum couldn’t fully counter the effects of Crave, but it went a long way to shorten their duration, and it would help him deal with the Blood King, who wasn’t expecting Devin to be a walking caldron of witchy drugs.
Taking the glass tube back from him, Atkins wiped the spoon on a rag and returned the paraphernalia to his box. He placed a long strip of cotton gauze next to Devin…for later. “Feeling good, are we?”
Devin nodded slowly. It was hard to stay too concerned. The room had a soft glow to it now, like the Sleeping Beauty nightlight his sister kept by her bedside as a kid. You’d expect something uglier from a monster like the Blood King, but there it was.
“Your office is pretty, like a princess’s room.”
Atkins chuckled. “You’re officially wasted. This place is a dump. Not a princess in sight, except for you, Your Highness.”
Blood King (Spirit Seeker Book 1) Page 9