‘Let me show you something first.’ She gripped my hand again and even though I knew what she was - who she was - I couldn’t bring myself to yank my hand from hers. She led me past the wall with its painted mural to a small, dark alcove. Inside was another waist-high stone slab, on which was lying a woman’s body, half-shrouded in a white sheet. Her long dark hair curled around her shoulders and her mouth was drawn back in a rictus, showing her sharp white fangs. Another gold locket nestled between her full breasts. Rosa. Thankfully, the only wound she had was the one on her left hip, the one that corresponded with the spell tattoo on my own left hip. She’d obviously healed any damage done by having a five-foot sword run through her.
‘You’re not suggesting I use Rosa’s body, are you?’ I asked guardedly.
‘Sadly, that is no longer a possibility,’ Cosette told me, squeezing my hand. ‘The vampire’s body is bonded to yours through flesh and magic, not by soul or spirit. But I have more to show you.’ She put a finger to her lips and tugged. ‘Come on, we must be quiet. It is better if they do not see you.’ She led me to the open doorway in the bricked-up archway and motioned for me to look. ‘Stand here at the side,’ she murmured.
I peered around the door and into a big, dark, arched-roof space. I frowned as a feeling of déjà vu snagged in my mind, then the thought vanished as I saw the people - thirty or so of them, men, women and a few children, sitting in rows or standing in silent groups ... no, not living people, but souls, ghosts, shades.
I turned back to Cosette and whispered, ‘What are they all doing here?’
‘Hannah has gathered them to pay her demon debt; she has been collecting ghosts from all over the city.’ She pointed to the far side where a ghostly teenager was curled on his side, tears streaking down his face. Another ghost, a woman carrying a posy of wilted flowers, bent and ruffled his hair consolingly. The boy flinched and his head jerked up. He looked around, wide-eyed and scared. ‘Who’s there?’ he whispered, then sucked in the silver hoop piercing his bottom lip and huddled up again, more tears squeezing from his eyes.
Shock sparked in me as I recognised him: the florist’s lad. Then I realised something else and I turned back to Cosette. ‘He’s not dead, is he?’
‘The demon always likes a virgin sacrifice.’ Her thin little shoulders shrugged. ‘He qualifies. He’s also a witness they need to be rid of. With him and all the souls she’s collected, that’s an abundant offering. She’s hoping this will free her totally.’
‘But if she does that, she won’t be a sorcerer any more.’ I was missing something.
‘No, she will be sidhe fae - or at least her body will. And she will control its magic - just as you controlled the vampire’s magic when your soul inhabited that body.’
That made ambitious sense; I could see the advantage in upgrading to a body with its own magical power source, instead of owing a demon for every spell you cast. Didn’t mean I had to like it, or let it happen. Or that I was stupid.
I crouched down next to Cosette. ‘Okay, you’ve been haunting me for long enough, you’ve shown me a sacrificial virgin and a load of ghosts that need rescuing from the fiery pits of hell, so now you can tell me what you get out of all this.’ I smiled, knowing it didn’t reach my eyes, ghostly or otherwise. ‘And don’t try telling me you’re suffering from an attack of remorse or sudden altruism, because I won’t believe you.’
‘Of course not, Genny.’ She patted her chest. ‘I want you to save my soul from the demon too, but I appreciate you might not feel as charitable towards me as some of the innocents in there - look on them as an added incentive. Oh, and just to make it perfectly clear, Hannah intends giving your soul to the demon as well, in return for making her soul in your body a permanent transfer.’
‘Of course she does,’ I muttered. ‘So tell me about these connections.’
She waved her small arm at me. ‘Look and you will see.’
Great. More cryptic clues—
But as I looked, I realised I could still look, that I could still see the magic, and both my own body and Cosette’s were as transparent as a heat shimmer. Queasiness roiled in my stomach. I closed my eyes briefly, regaining my equilibrium, then looked again. This time I could see two ethereal threads attached to my ghostly form; the first was the black silken rope which dangled from my left arm, the rope I’d seen before, when Malik’s sword-trick at the Blue Heart had thrown me back into the nightmare of my memories. The other was a fine red thread joined to the knuckles of my left hand.
‘How do they—?’
A loud buzzing shattered the quiet as one of Doctor Joseph’s machines leapt to life.
‘Yes, it worked,’ Janet yelled loudly, and slapped Joseph on the arm. ‘C’mon, help me get it off her. You take the legs.’ She yanked at Hannah’s old body, jumping out of the way as it rolled and hit the floor with a loud smack, sounding like nothing so much as a side of meat. Joseph froze, his eyes wide above his face-mask, staring down at the blood-covered corpse.
Janet walked round and gave him a little shove. ‘C’mon, Doc, get on and do your stuff,’ she ordered.
Hands shaking, he trundled the small trolley nearer and reached for a swab. He cleaned the blood off my body’s left breast, then lifted what looked like an elephant-sized hypodermic. He held it up and pushed the syringe plunger until a bead of clear liquid appeared, then tapped the syringe until, finally appearing satisfied with his preparations, he felt along my ribs, and positioned the needle. He hesitated, and I could see his eyes blinking behind his glasses, then he pushed down hard until the needle was up to the hilt in my flesh. Then he injected the liquid.
‘Do you think that’s going to be enough?’ Janet hovered over him.
‘I’ve given her enough adrenalin to get a horse started; it’s almost three times what she needs for the body weight,’ he said quietly as he withdrew the needle and swabbed again. ‘It’s the equivalent of a massive build-up of venom, which is what I think brought her - it - the body round last time.’
We all stood and watched my body.
‘Give her another—’
My body’s spine arched and my arms and legs started spasming as if plugged into a live electrical socket. The machine beeped into life and numbers flashed red and began rising fast, and faster. My body opened its eyes; my mouth formed a wide, overjoyed grin and jerked upright.
‘Oh my goodness,’ my mouth yelled delightedly, ‘it worked, it really worked!’ My body lifted its hand and muttered and a ball of light glowed like the sun in its palm; my body threw it up and blew it a kiss. The light shattered into rainbow colours that rained down like a spring shower. ‘Oh, the power! It’s like driving a Ferrari instead of a cranky old rustbucket!’
Fuck. And I didn’t even know how to ride a bike.
I rubbed my hands over my face. I needed to work out how to get out of this, and I needed to get my own body back - before the demon appeared to claim all those poor souls, and mine—I clamped down on the terror that thinking of the demon brought and shoved it away. I looked up as my body threw another spell in the air and it showered me/it/Hannah with coloured light; and filled me with freaky confusion.
Okay, now I needed to think of my body as Hannah’s.
‘Get this stuff off me,’ Hannah said, flicking at the electrodes stuck to her chest. Doctor Joseph worked quickly, removing both the electrodes and the cap of wires that hatted her head. As soon as he was done, she fastened the gold locket around her neck.
‘Wow!’ she said, smiling at Janet. ‘You know what? I feel wonderful’ - she held out her hand; it was shaking - ‘if a bit quivery.’ She swung her legs off the altar and slid to the ground, reaching out to grab hold of Janet’s arm as she wobbled. ‘Time waits for no woman, or in my case, no sidhe fae. Shower first, then tidy up that mess you left at Granny’s. After that I’ll pay a visit to the bank. I still need to get the Fabergé egg.’
‘What’s the Fabergé egg for?’ I asked Cosette.
‘The egg’s a
soul trap. Without it she can’t collect all those souls she’s gathered and hand them safely over to the demon, and that means the demon will take her own soul instead as payment.’
Ri-ight. So pretty much as Hannah had explained, except without the oh-so-relevant specifics.
‘What do you mean, tidy up round at Granny’s?’ Janet asked, her voice petulant. She popped another liquorice torpedo into her mouth.
Hannah gave her a disbelieving look. ‘Well, there’s Granny’s body for one, and that wood shaving mess in the hallway. The police will have found it all by now, won’t they.’
‘I s’pose so - but won’t the sidhe slut get the blame?’
‘Janet, little sister, I am the sidhe now - and if you ever call me a slut again—’ Hannah gave her a warning look. ‘And unfortunately, my stool-pigeon has flown the nest, thanks to you.’ She waved an imperious hand at Joseph. ‘Doctor, please shoot her and put her out of her misery.’
‘Shoot me?’ Janet’s mouth fell open as Joseph turned round, picked up his tranq gun and, without hesitating, aimed, then shot Janet in her ample chest—
She looked down, her eyes round with surprise. ‘But—?’ She dropped her sweeties.
‘Damage limitation, little sister dear,’ Hannah said briskly. ‘Someone’s got to get the police off my back, and since you’re actually guilty, you might as well take the blame for the baker’s, the boy’s and Granny’s deaths.’
Janet’s eyes fluttered, then she did a tree-topple and thudded to the floor.
‘Is Janet really her sister?’ I asked Cosette, stunned.
Cosette nodded.
Talk about dysfunctional families.
Hannah prodded the unconscious woman with her foot. ‘Don’t worry, if all goes well, I’ll try and get you out before they burn you at the stake.’ She looked up at Joseph. ‘Don’t just stand there; tie her up or something. You should enjoy that; after all, isn’t that what you like to do at that little club you go to?’
He pushed his glasses up his nose, lifted the tranq gun and pointed it at her.
‘Don’t be silly, Doctor,’ she sighed. ‘Just put it down, otherwise that DVD of you cavorting about in all that tacky leather and chains could still accidentally find its way onto the internet ...’
He did as he was told, his hand trembling.
‘You should be glad, you’re going to be labelled a hero for rescuing me from the dangerous sorcerer’s clutches.’ She smiled. ‘Which is much better than being labelled a pervert, isn’t it?’
His cheeks flushed with either anger or embarrassment and I remembered all the ‘clothes’ in his mirrored wardrobes - the ones he’d said belonged to a friend!
‘Compulsion spell tied to a nice bit of blackmail,’ Cosette muttered as Joseph pulled out the cord from Hannah’s discarded robe and started to tie Janet up. ‘She always was rather good at that.’
‘I see you started without me.’ A man strolled out of the gloom, his sun-streaked, gelled hair and well-trimmed van Dyke glinting blond in the candlelight, a red Souler cross pinned to the lapel of his smart grey suit. Neil Banner. Not totally surprising considering their supposedly separate but similar quests for the Fabergé egg. I wondered whether they were an established item, or if the egg had only recently made them soul-stealing mates. Not that it made any difference.
Cosette gave a small gasp and whispered, ‘That one is the necromancer who has been collecting the souls for her. I did not think he would be back so soon.’
‘Neil!’ Hannah held her arms wide and my body did a shimmy. ‘Look, it worked. Do you want a feel?’
His face twisted in disgust. ‘Not when you’re all covered in blood, Hannah.’
‘Genny,’ she snapped, ‘you must call me Genny, nothing else.’
He waved her anger away. ‘I will; it’s just that I still see your soul, not hers.’ He frowned, looking around. ‘Where is her soul, anyway?’
She patted the gold locket. ‘In here, of course.’
‘No, it’s not.’
She clutched at the locket in panic. ‘It has to be! I did the ritual perfectly.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Neil said calmly, ‘she can’t have gone far; she’s probably still disorientated from being cast out.’
‘You don’t understand—’ Hannah grabbed his arm. ‘I have to wear her soul close until tonight. What if it dissipates? Then this body will fade away and I’ll be left with nothing—’
‘Hannah, it’s you that doesn’t understand.’ He extricated himself, then with a self-satisfied smile he pulled out a bloodstained hanky from his pocket. ‘The sidhe’s hand was bleeding last night when I met her at HOPE. I managed to get a hook into her soul then.’ He touched the hanky to his nose, muttering as he turned a slow circle. ‘She’s not going anywhere.’
I clenched my fists. Bastard.
‘You must go, now!’ Cosette grabbed my left hand, in as much panic as Hannah, and touched the thin red thread there - it was stretching out towards Neil Banner.
Crap.
I tried to break it, but it was like pulling at elastic; it just kept stretching. ‘Go where?’ I demanded.
‘There.’ Neil pointed straight at me. ‘She’s hiding in the corner with that stupid child. Open the locket and I’ll call her to it.’ Hannah fumbled with the catch as he resumed muttering.
Cosette pushed at me frantically. ‘Go!’ She indicated the ethereal black silken rope that wrapped around my left arm and dangled down around my feet. ‘Follow it, and pray that the necromancer is not strong enough to call you back.’
Neil’s muttering rose to a crescendo and the red thread yanked at my hand, dragging me towards him. I stumbled, almost falling, but my fingers closed round the black silk rope—
—the rope slipped through my fingers as if it was slick with blood, and I fell, spinning out in the red-blackness ...
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The red-blackness was as before: empty, silent, scentless ... nothingness. This time the mist that circled the blackness was no longer pale and far away, but pressed close, and shot through with hot golds and coppers and reds, like the rays of the sun that backlight the dark side of the moon. I didn’t want to think what that might mean. The black silk cord I tailed down and away below me.
Hand grasped tightly round the blood-slick silk, I continued to fall ...
Where was I, some sort of limbo place for the soul?
And how was this supposed to get me my body back, let alone save virgins and kidnapped ghosts? Use my connections, Cosette had said, which was fine, except she’d hadn’t told me how, thanks to Neil the necro turning up.
What I needed was help - but how, when the only ‘people’ I could talk to were other ghosts, or my local not-so-friendly neighbourhood necro? Of course, if I could make my way to a graveyard, I could talk to anyone living - whoever happened to be around at midnight. I could even touch them, since I’d be corporeal again for the hour between one day and the next - except that midnight on All Hallows’ Eve is traditionally when demons made their house calls, so midnight was going to be way too late.
But I was falling the same way I had after Malik skewered me with the sword - only then I’d tumbled back to my wedding night. No way did I want to relive that memory; one return visit was around a hundred times too many for my liking. I shuddered in the darkness as I kept on sliding down. Malik had called to me the last time, as if from above and below, but still I’d kept dropping, until I’d come round in the hallway the morning after - so did that mean down was the past? But in the past, when I’d been fourteen, I’d never picked up the Autarch’s sword, I’d never decided to go hunting, hadn’t even met Cosette, so it had been less like a memory and more as if my adult self had travelled back to that time. Could I do that again? Could I pick a time where I could step into my own body and change things?
But when?
My descent slowed, as if the silken cord wanted to give me a chance to think.
The last time I’d revived seem
ed to be the most obvious point, when Malik had called my soul back to my body and I’d awakened to the realisation it was Malik who had chased me on my wedding night, Malik who had sunk his fangs into me, not the Autarch. I felt my hand slip, almost as if the black silken cord was reacting to my thought, and I dropped faster again, the air rushing past me as if heralding an approaching train—
—and the black silk cord frayed to nothing within seconds. Stunned, I hung in the red-blackness spinning slowly, clutching the thin red thread that was hooked through the knuckles of my left hand. Frustration sliced into me, sharp and painful, like the bronze sword of my memory. Damn. Whatever bond Malik had tied my soul with was broken - so now what? Did I hang around waiting to see if Necro Neil was strong enough to haul me back so I could be part of Hannah’s demon debt? Or ...
The Cold Kiss of Death Page 33