by Kelly Meding
Novak touched my shoulder with his blistered hand. I stood up. Dirt mixed with the blood on my hands to create a thick paste, which I wiped on the seat of my jeans. More yuck. Lovely.
Kathleen circled around us and yanked open the metal door. Sage, rosemary, and half a dozen other herbs wafted out, carried on the sound of an agonized scream. My heart hammered against my ribs. Tennyson. I jerked forward. Kathleen raised her gun, a SIG Sauer that matched Lars’s, and sneered at me.
“Behave yourself inside, or I will have to restrain you,” she said.
The moment I crossed the door’s threshold, unholy magic hit me like a hammer and whooshed the air from my lungs. My scalp tingled and itched, and I balled my hands into tight fists. My tether flared and flickered, struggling to maintain its connection through the haze of power between me and my wisher, who lay strapped to a table in the center of the five-sided room.
Like the dugout we’d found, symbols were set in the earth in all five corners. These symbols, though, were made of metal poured into the etched ground and left to harden. A garden of dried herbs hung from ropes dangling from the ceiling. A tray of instruments stood next to the head of the table, as well as a clay bowl the size of a watermelon on its own freestanding pedestal. Red smoke coiled up from its interior, the odor vaguely sulfuric.
Tennyson had been stripped and secured with silver manacles around his wrists, ankles, waist, and throat. Blood dripped to the floor from the dozen or more wounds carved into his bare chest and torso. He turned his head and crimson headlights stared at me. His mouth was pursed tight, lips already pierced by his own fangs.
I’m sorry, I thought at him as loudly as I could.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head away. I choked on my own breath. Next to me, Novak growled again.
I paid attention to the other people in the room. Adam Weller stood at the foot of the table, dressed in a black robe that made him look like a cult reject. I’d only met him in person a handful of times—same salt-and-pepper hair, same wide blue eyes and round face, same dark beard. But this man was a stranger, an enemy of the worst caliber, and I was hit with sudden, all-consuming hatred for him. He, on the other hand, seemed mildly annoyed.
Two strangers stood in flanking positions on the far side of the room—a tall, thin man with black hair and an unfriendly sneer, and a female werewolf in half form, fur thick on her naked, semi-humanoid body, teeth elongated and eyes wild. The man was one of Weller’s, I was sure. The she-wolf I didn’t know.
A fourth figure was the necromancer himself. He stood at the head of the table, near the smoking bowl and arrangement of weapons, with what looked like a silver melon baller in his hand and a wad of smoking herbs in the other. He wore a black robe identical to Weller’s, a gold amulet with an embedded red jewel the size of an apricot, and a look of intense, closed-eyed concentration. Long, wild white hair was pulled back to the nape of his neck. He was old, craggy-skinned and sunken-cheeked, evidence of a hard life and the physical destruction of black magic. Abuse magic and it abused you right back.
I didn’t recognize him, but attention zeroed in on his left hand, which bore a gold triskelion ring. A Celtic symbol that didn’t fit with the rest of his ensemble.
“You’d have been smart to stay where I put you,” Weller said. His voice had a faint Southern twang.
“I don’t like being locked up while my friends are tortured,” I shot back.
“I told you I’d release you.”
“Yeah, well, after you crashed my car, I didn’t have a lot of faith in you keeping your fucking word.”
Weller made a face that said my suspicions were correct. He would have recruited us or killed us. Probably turned us over to become revenants ourselves—if revenancy even worked on djinn or demons.
The necromancer spoke angry words I didn’t understand. The inflection was familiar, though. Some mad mix of Russian and . . . something else. Eyes still closed, he reached across Tennyson with the melon baller and dug it into the vampire Master’s chest. Tennyson screamed, his agony shattering my heart. I caught a shriek of my own and forced it back. Hatred burned in my chest as the necromancer scooped the flesh and dropped it into the smoldering bowl. It popped and sizzled. The wound sent more blood dripping to the packed-earth floor.
My stomach twisted and bile rose up. I swallowed hard, nails digging into my palms, my fists so tight I thought my knuckles would split from the pressure.
Weller retreated to our side of the room so as not to disturb the precious ritual playing out in front of us. Novak shook from head to toe, and I could imagine the strain of remaining in command of his faculties. The blood and agony had to be seriously screwing with his control.
Bless my own magical limitations. I couldn’t use my magic to harm anyone, and I couldn’t manipulate the situation without a wish. I had no weapons. The she-wolf seemed ready to attack at any moment, as though the blood was getting to her, too. The tall man just looked bored. Lars was still somewhere behind me, and Kathleen wore a pensive expression I couldn’t quite decipher.
Maybe if I tried launching myself at the necromancer . . . if I could somehow interrupt the spell, it could buy us all time.
Kathleen was just as likely to shoot me in the back as soon as I started moving. Traitorous bitch.
As if needing those simple words, my fury bubbled to the surface and I whipped around to glare at her. She blinked. “Did you stand here like this while they tortured Julius to death, you coldhearted half-breed?” I said. “You gonna stand there when they do this to me, too? And Novak? Huh?”
Her cold eyes narrowed, and she drew back her upper lip, exposing protruding fangs. “Remember yourself, child,” she spat back. “You’ve not seen the reach of my temper.”
I punched her in the mouth. Her fang cut my knuckles, and it hurt like a son of a bitch, but I didn’t care. Watching her stumble backward, lip split and oozing blood, gave me such a wonderful sense of satisfaction I didn’t see Weller move until he hit me. I fell to my knees, ears ringing, positive my aching skull would start oozing brain matter out of my ears.
“Don’t do that again,” Weller said. “You won’t have to wait much longer to see real magic in action.”
“Black magic,” I said. All voices sounded underwater. Gray fuzzed the edges of my vision. Not good. He’d hit me with something solid. The butt of a gun, maybe. I wouldn’t be feeling it so awful if it had been his fist. Warmth trickled down the back of my neck. The back of my skull felt strange.
Crap.
“And there is nothing more powerful, is there? It’s for the greater good, Ms. Harrison.”
If my head didn’t hurt so much, I’d have snorted. Maybe laughed. All I really wanted to do was lie down in the dirt and sleep until my skull fracture went away.
Shiloh.
I jerked my head up, which released another wave of dizziness. Tennyson’s eyes were still closed, every muscle in his body tense, but it had been his voice. I hear you, I thought back.
My final wish . . . The tether hummed and fritzed, struggling to maintain a connection as he invoked its power.
The necromancer made a strange noise, then said something in a mash-up of Russian and . . . was that Gaelic? It hit me suddenly, as conversations with both Piotr and Brighid rolled back. Brighid hadn’t actually seen Adelay’s dead body, and Piotr said the book had been stolen from him. By its rightful owner, perhaps? Someone already incredibly versed in the black arts, so he’d have the power to control so many revenants at once.
The necromancer was Lord Robert Fucking Adelay himself.
“Adelay,” I said, mostly to be sure.
The necromancer’s lips twitched but it was enough of a confirmation for me.
Tennyson’s head listed toward me and his eyes opened. Blue battled the red for dominance. Perspiration bathed his face, pinking the skin. Weller was talking to Adelay, but I ignored them both.
I wish—
Tennyson’s words were lost to a blur of motion.
With a furious glare, Adelay hurled the thing I’d called a melon baller at my chest. White-hot agony exploded below my left breast and that lung stopped working. I don’t think I screamed. Someone else did. Chaotic movement on all sides made no sense as I fell.
Slamming into the dirt onto my shoulder didn’t hurt like it probably should have. The fire in my chest blocked out everything else, even the intense pain in my head. I thought I saw Novak and the she-wolf clash mid-air in a flurry of claws and snarls. Possible. Then I thought I saw Kathleen tackle Weller from behind. Not as possible—weren’t they working together?
The magic in the room roared in my ears, and the tether between Tennyson and me sparked and demanded attention. I had no idea what he’d wished for, but it didn’t matter to the magic in me screaming to obey. I lolled my head, barely able to see the outline of Tennyson’s body on top of the table.
“Granted,” I hissed. Warm, metallic liquid bubbled into my mouth, and I fought hard against the overwhelming need to cough. Maybe I’d vomit a little, instead. I really wanted to sleep.
Tennyson launched himself off the table, the bands holding him down tearing as if they were made of paper (and just maybe they were now). He pivoted with amazing grace and speed, considering his chest looked like it had been chewed on by rats, and caught Adelay by surprise.
Someone kicked my foot. Behind me came the squishy sound of a fist striking wet flesh. Novak’s familiar roar of triumph bellowed through the metal tent. So much happening, and I was transfixed by the sight of Tennyson with his arms around Adelay’s chest and waist. The way the naked Master vampire’s red eyes glowed like hot coals and his fangs glistened before he sank them into Adelay’s neck.
Tennyson didn’t drink. He ravaged. He ripped and tore and soon blood flowed freely from both men. One grew stronger as the other faded. Red light changed to blue as fury was overcome by the influx of power.
Then Lars was crouching in front of me, and I didn’t have the strength to tell him to move. That I wanted to see. He was a bad guy anyway.
Novak, his ebony skin streaked with fresh blood, sank to his knees next to Lars. A tuft of gray fur was stuck to Novak’s cheek. I tried to raise my hand to brush it off and failed. Neither hand worked. I couldn’t do anything, except lie there and gasp. More blood rose into my throat, choking me. The magic around me shifted, tightening and then bursting like a fireworks display, breaking gossamer threads in front of my eyes. Bright swirls of red and green and yellow and all colors in between. No one else seemed to see them.
No one else sensed magic like I did.
Up I went, lifted suddenly into strong arms and whisked away. Frozen spice surrounded me. Laid me down on something hard and flat. Tennyson’s face hovered over mine, his eyes bright blue. Normally pale skin was flushed with blood and the aura of power—more power than from a normal feeding.
Of course, he’d fed off someone tapped into black magic. That had to have been a rush.
“Let me heal you, Shiloh, please.” Oh, right, he was talking. I tried to focus past the gray blur in front of my eyes. My good lung had stopped compensating for the loss of the other, and then neither worked.
I couldn’t seem to nod my head or form words. I mustered my last tendrils of strength as my heartbeat slowed, and I sent a single thought at him: Yes.
He sliced his arm with his fangs, flaying flesh from wrist to elbow. Hands held me down as blood dripped into my mouth. Pressure pulled away from my chest, then exploded in blinding flashes of agony. Heat followed and on its heels came the gentle caress of magic.
I stopped fighting.
Chapter 22
Shhh, Shiloh, it’s all right. You’re safe now.
Am I dead?
No, you’re resting.
How come I can hear you if I’m resting?
I’m uncertain. Perhaps it is the massive dose of blood we shared. The necromancer’s power was still fresh. It may be enhancing our bond.
Bond? You shout in my head.
Am I shouting now?
No. You’re kind of quiet. It’s almost relaxing.
Then continue to relax. You have much healing to do.
How do I shut this off?
Simply stop thinking. Embrace the darkness for a while. I will be here when you wake.
Okay.
I blinked awake, pushing away the last threads of sleep still fogging up my mind. I was flat on my back on something soft and covered with a blanket. The rough, crossbeam ceiling was unfamiliar, and faint odors of grease and cow manure rolled my stomach. I pitched sideways and vomited over the side of the sofa, spewing a bit of red liquid onto a faded, floral print carpet.
Why was I vomiting blood?
Oh yeah, I’d swallowed some. Again.
“You’re awake,” a smooth voice said.
I flopped back against the sofa’s under-stuffed pillow, too tired to give Tennyson anything other than a flat, “Duh. Alive, too.”
He squatted next to me, bringing us to almost eye level. Brilliant copper-penny eyes smiled at me, though his mouth remained in a straight line. He’d found a t-shirt and jeans somewhere and the informal outfit, combined with his long, red-stained hair, made him look like an aging hippie. His skin was still mildly flushed, almost a natural shade of ivory. Foreign power rippled inside of him—was this new magic a friendly guest or a cancerous invader?
“You stopped breathing, and your heart nearly failed,” he said. “I feared you were too far gone for me to help.”
“I’m unpredictable.”
“You are that. As are your friends.”
I cast around the room, but saw no one else. “Where’s Novak?”
“With Lars and Kathleen, tearing down the structure.”
“Huh?”
“Once the necromancer died, the barn illusion fell. We felt it foolish to leave such a thing standing.”
Was he playing stupid, because I really wasn’t in the mood. “With who?”
Understanding dawned. “Ah, yes. My apologies. It seems Kathleen Allard is—what’s the term? A double agent. Or, rather, a double-double agent. It’s—never mind that for now. Just know she works for a shadow agency whose purpose is to hunt and destroy practitioners of black magic. She went undercover against Weller a few months before he supposedly planted her into your Para-Marshal team.”
My brain bounced that around for a little while. It’d be easier if I came at it when I felt less like I’d been hit repeatedly with a baseball bat. “And Lars?”
“In collusion with Kathleen. His death was fabricated for the reasons we assumed. He was meant to grow in his role as a spinner and use his abilities to further Weller’s agenda.”
“Guess he furthered his other boss’s agenda more.”
“Perhaps.”
“Do we know who they work for?”
“Neither will disclose the information at this time.”
Which meant a big fat no, and very likely not in the future, either. Kathleen didn’t want to tell us, fine. I’d figure out how to throw some formal charges her way. See how her shadow boss liked that. If I even had a job with the Marshals’ Office. One Para-Marshal team leader was a revenant without a Master. The other one was a turncoat who’d used our resources to further his own agenda, not to mention a laundry list of kidnappings and attempted murders as long as my arm. Kidnappings . . . hostages . . . .
“Your people!” I sat up so fast I almost clipped him in the jaw with my elbow. My chest throbbed with the effort, and I flopped back down flat with a pained gasp. The couch wheezed, ancient springs protesting my weight. “Sweet Iblis, that hurt.”
“Then do not sit up,” Tennyson said with a wry smile. “And my people are fine. I was . . . I am unable to explain it.”
I clasped his arm gently, an automatic gesture that didn’t really register until he looked down at my hand. I didn’t pull away. His skin was still warm, almost alive.
“For one brief moment,” he said, struggling for the words, “I felt my lost twel
ve again. I felt them through the power of the necromancer’s blood, and I was able to free them of their chains to him. They are truly gone now and, I hope, at peace.” His free hand rested on mine, a gentle touch. “I am glad to have given them that.”
“I’m sorry you had to lose them.”
“As am I. But no more have been lost. And . . . I was also able to use what power I had to free your friend Julius.”
The news relieved me more than upset me. No one should have to spend the rest of their afterlife as a confused, bodiless head. Especially not a man who’d been so strong and helped so many—a memory tarnished by his willingness to take money for renting a storage locker and not ask why. I still had so many questions that needed answering in the days ahead, but still . . . Julius had been my friend.
Tennyson continued, “Your authorities are quite angry, however. They have quietly detained my people and moved them to a nearby high school gymnasium until this can be sorted. The trailer park residents have been set free.”
Thank Iblis. The one thing I’d set out to do since our relationship began was get those vampires the hell out of Myrtle’s Acres. I hadn’t counted on everything else that had come about because of one simple phone call, including a tentative friendship with a Master vampire. After everything we’d gone through in the last few days, I definitely counted him among my allies. Maybe even a friend.
One of the few I had left.
“You were quite clever in deducing the necromancer’s identity,” Tennyson said. “Brighid will not be happy to learn Adelay was alive these past few centuries.”
“At least he’s really dead this time.”
“Too true.”
“Did you find the rest of the vampires? The wolves?” I asked.
“The vampires, yes, and they have been released. I will face repercussions for the deaths of Azuriah’s people, but that is something to be handled later.”