by Becca Andre
Neil waited a short distance away, standing in the center of a dark red area rug. A pair of wingback chairs sat to either side of a small table. The walls were lined with shelves and though empty, they were oddly clean, as if someone had dusted them recently.
A soft thump, and Gavin landed on the rug behind her.
“What is this place?” she whispered.
“At one time, a library and a lab.” Neil turned away, and his flashlight illuminated a doorway beneath the stairs. She followed him down the narrow hall until they stood in a second, more sparely furnished room. This one held only a couple of tables and a set of rough shelves.
“Ian was a very talented alchemist for his day. Some of the things he accomplished, even in the absence of New Magic, were truly amazing. Once, this room held an impressive lab.”
“Why am I here?” Elysia cut in.
Neil turned to face her. “You’re not interested in your ancestor’s accomplishments?”
“Not particularly.”
“Huh.” He turned and led her back to the first room. “Here’s the thing. I’ve had a bit of bad luck lately, and I’m short on places to keep you that Doug doesn’t know about.”
“You’re leaving me here,” she whispered.
“Well, yes. But don’t worry, I’ll keep you fed and bring you some blankets. Not sure what to do about a bathroom.” He shook his head. “It’s so much easier with a lich, but that’s not an option any more.” He ran his light over the walls as he spoke, seeming to consider the amenities.
“Please don’t do this.”
He turned to face her. “I’m sorry, Elysia. This is a shitty way to reward you. After all, you netted me this wonderful opportunity.” He waved a hand toward Gavin. “Maybe I can brew a potion to wipe your memory. Such things can be done, but they’re touchy. Brain chemistry was never my strong suit.”
Her mouth had gone dry.
“Have a seat.” He shined his light on one of the wing chairs.
She walked over and sat, her legs shaking the whole way.
“I’ll even let you keep my flashlight.” He laid it on the table beside her. “I’ll need to find some matches and a few candles. There are wall sconces. The place won’t be nearly so gloomy then.”
Elysia had stopped listening; her attention was on the flashlight still rocking from side-to-side on the table. How long would the batteries last?
“Come along, Gavin.” Neil climbed the steps and Gavin fell in behind him.
Elysia swallowed as Gavin looked back at her, his eyes still aglow in the dimness. At least she had gotten out of giving him a “taste.” But, oh God, the price.
The two men disappeared upstairs. Moments later, the sarcophagus lid began to slide into place, leaving her alone, in the dark.
Elysia lost track of the time as the flashlight beam grew dimmer and dimmer. She debated repeatedly whether to turn it off and save the battery, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t touch it, afraid that jostling it would knock the last of the power from the battery or damage the delicate wire within the bulb.
She didn’t know how long she sat there staring at the faint light of that tiny bulb before she realized that the glow was only in her imagination. She reached for the flashlight. Her fingers slid across the smooth surface of the table, and her knuckles bumped against the hard plastic case of the flashlight, causing it to roll. She made a grab for it, but it eluded her, rolling off the table to smash against the floor where the area rug didn’t reach. The sound of smaller pieces clattering against the stone was distinctive.
Oh God, no.
She slid off the chair, noting that Neil’s potion must have finally worn off, and felt beneath the table. Her hand ran across something sharp, and it bit into her palm.
With a gasp, she jerked her hand away, imagining a large rat or perhaps a spider hiding beneath the table.
“It’s a broken flashlight,” she whispered. But even with that knowledge, she couldn’t bring herself to reach again.
“Don’t do this, El.” She had to stay calm, rational. It was only darkness. Complete and total darkness.
El?
Her breath caught. The whispers were returning.
“Shh. It’s only a ghost.” Not encroaching insanity.
A light tug of her hair, and she jerked away, crawling on her hands and knees until she cracked her head against the wall.
She groaned, holding her head until the thumping stopped.
Elysia.
She spun around and pressed her back to the wall. Ghosts, just ghosts. She repeated the line in her head a few more times.
What if Ian Mallory was still down here? He would be pissed that a descendant had survived his curse. Perhaps he would want to finish the job.
Her mind leaped to the dark doorway beneath the stairs. The lab was back that way. Ian’s lab.
She strained her ears, listening. Was that the faint clink of someone stirring a beaker? The scuff of a shoe against stone?
“Stop this,” she whispered. Stop, stop, stop. It was her imagination. Nothing more.
She pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her face against them. Neil would return soon. He said he would bring candles, matches. She would have light.
A scrape against stone, then the soft thump of a step on carpet.
She hugged her legs and pressed her face tighter against her knees. Just her imagination.
Another light thump. Closer. Silence, then an exhale followed by a sniff that sounded canine.
James! She jerked her head up, opening her eyes, and screamed.
Red eyes glowed, several inches above the level of her own and only a few yards away. She shoved herself to her feet. It wasn’t James.
The eyes rose as she did, ending up well above her head.
“You’re bleeding,” a voice rasped in the darkness. Gavin.
“I cut my hand,” she whispered, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t hear his tread as he closed the distance between them.
“Yes, it’s fresh, smeared between here and the chair.” His hand encircled her wrist. He didn’t fumble around, clearly able to see in total darkness.
“Please get me out of here.”
“You are the master’s.”
He pulled her hand away from where she had clenched it at her waist, his strength unbreakable. He pried her fingers open with his other hand.
“I don’t like the dark. Please?” She hated to beg, but he was a way out.
He lifted her hand. Hot breath across her palm followed by the rough wetness of his tongue. He growled, and every hair on her body stood up.
“Take me out of here.” She gasped as his too sharp teeth bit into the heel of her hand.
“Soon,” he snarled, then pressed her against the wall. Still sucking on her hand, he moved his body against hers, and she realized he was naked.
Chapter
16
James pressed his cheek against the cold metal surface, trying to get his hand a little further through the space between the wall and the tray he lay on. But it was no use. His fingers didn’t even reach the bottom of the drawer. The key had rattled to a stop right beneath him, so tantalizingly close.
He lay there, panting, trying to think of some way to get to the key. He had nothing to work with. Not a stitch of clothing. Nothing except the collar that was the problem in the first place.
A sense of anxiety had set in during the last few minutes. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew Elysia was in trouble. He gripped the edge of the tray, rocking it from side to side in an attempt to knock it off track and widen the gap.
Something crashed in the room outside his drawer. Had Neil returned? He had to get that key.
Without warning, light flooded his drawer a
nd he froze. A gasp. “You are here.” The tray rolled out and James stared up in shocked silence. It was the girl from the convenience store. “Elysia asked me to free you.” She gave him a tentative smile. “I’m Kari.”
“James.” He rolled onto his side and tumbled off the drawer, getting a gasp from her. He landed on his hands and knees at her feet.
“You don’t look so good.”
“I’m bleeding out.” James pushed himself to his feet and reached into the drawer for the key. It took a bit of fumbling before he gripped it in his fist.
“What’s that?”
“The key to my collar.” He slid down the wall, his back thumping across the mortuary drawers until he sat on the cold tile. He fumbled with the lock, trying to insert the key.
Kari squatted beside him. “Do you want me to—”
“Stay away. My blood is toxic. One drop is lethal.”
“I’m already dead,” she whispered.
“It’ll still banish your soul from the mortal plane.”
She pulled back her hand. “Oh.”
A bit more fumbling, and he finally got the lock open. He tossed the collar aside.
“Move back,” he said.
Once Kari was clear, he slid into his other form.
“Good God,” she whispered. “I didn’t imagine it.”
James barely heard her words, momentarily lost in the joy of being whole. He pulled open the portal and tensed to spring. He would soul track Elysia and find where Neil had taken her. He didn’t like the way Gavin stared at her.
“Stop!”
James heard Kari gasp as familiar power slammed into him. He turned with a snarl.
Doug stood inside the door. “Don’t move. Either of you.” Doug gave Kari a frown before turning back to James. “Change.”
Another powerful compulsion, and James was once more human. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he braced a hand against the floor to steady himself. He had lost a lot of blood. This form wasn’t the best choice at the moment.
“What’s going on? And who the hell is this?” Doug stopped before them, waving a hand at Kari.
James ignored the question. “Neil has Elysia. He left me here to bleed out and—”
“Elysia? She was here?”
“You’re not listening. Neil took her. Let me change. I can soul track her—”
“You’ll remain as you are.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Kari spoke up.
“Who are you?”
“Kari. Kari Anderson.”
“That’s who you were. Who Made you?”
“Elysia.”
Doug snapped his open mouth closed. “You’re the lich from the hospital.”
“Yes.”
James!
James came to his feet. “I need to go. Now!”
“Hell’s blood.” Doug gave him a glare. “Calm your—”
James leapt across the space between them. He caught Doug by the shoulders and slammed him against the mortuary drawers before he could finish the command. Doug’s head smacked the door with a hollow thump.
Hoping it was enough to daze him, James sprang away, calling the hound.
“Stop!”
The command hit him so hard that James stumbled and fell against the nearest table. The bond tightened as Elysia cried out to him again. James whirled to face Doug. “She’s screaming.”
“What are you—”
“Elysia is screaming!”
“How do you know?”
“The bond. She screamed my name. Something’s wrong.” Another cry echoed through his mind, and he doubled over, clasping his head.
Doug’s expensive loafers came into view. “She’s cut off from her power. She can’t call you.”
James straightened. “If you love her at all, let me help her.”
Doug frowned, his expression uncertain. “I don’t trust you, dead man.” His eyes went white. “You will take me with you.”
“I’ll be traveling through the land of the dead.”
“I’m a necromancer. Death does not frighten me.”
James was tired of arguing with him. He needed to move. Now. “Step back.”
Doug didn’t look happy about it, but he obeyed.
“I’m going with you.” Kari stepped up beside Doug.
Doug opened his mouth to argue, but James cut him off. “I’ll open the portal. You two step through.”
“What about you?” Doug demanded.
“I’ll be right behind you.” James shifted forms and dropped to all fours. Hang on, Elysia. He opened the portal and Kari immediately stepped through.
Doug stepped up to the edge, squinting his eyes as he tried to see into the darkness.
Annoyed with the delay, James sprang. He butted into Doug, knocking him through the portal and followed, his form changing on its own. He landed in a crouch on two legs, one clawed hand braced against the soft ground. The portal winked closed behind him.
“Dear God.” Kari pressed a hand to her mouth, her wide eyes on James. The glow of her soul looked so mundane next to the brilliance of Doug’s.
“What the hell,” Doug whispered, his expression shocked as he stared at what James had become.
James rose to his full height, now a good foot taller than Doug. It was always a bit disconcerting to face a familiar figure in this form. The added height and the keenness of his senses made the experience surreal. He remembered the first time he held Addie while in this form. He had been so terrified he would hurt her.
My true form, he explained. It was odd to be here without Gavin.
“I knew you would deceive me,” Doug said. “Take us back.”
James tensed, ready for the slam of Doug’s power, but it never came. James smiled, or tried to with a muzzle full of teeth. Your power doesn’t work here, necromancer. James remembered how he had once escaped Clarissa by coming here. Only Elysia and her soul bond could call him back.
“You intend to abandon me here.” Doug’s eyes narrowed.
Give it a rest. James turned his attention outward. Now be quiet and let me track her.
“She’s here?”
Not necessarily. James stepped away from them and took a deep breath. He thought of Elysia and the brilliant taste of her soul. There, a whiff of strawberries, and damp stone. Darkness, underground. She’s still in the mortal plane.
Focused, he didn’t know if Kari or Doug spoke. James reached out and ripped open a portal. The space on the other side even darker than this place.
Jump through, James commanded.
“But—” Doug didn’t get to finish his excuse when Elysia screamed, the sound of her voice echoing off the walls beyond the portal. A snarl answered her.
James shoved Doug and Kari through and jumped out after them. He landed on four paws, his back claws clacking against stone while his front paws landed on carpet. The room was without light, but the hound had no trouble seeing in the total darkness.
Elysia was in the far corner, though James sensed her more than saw her. His view was blocked by a naked man’s back, one he had seen many times before. Brian. No, Gavin.
James lifted his lips, but before the snarl could escape, the area was flooded with a bright bluish light. Doug had pulled out his cell phone.
“What the hell?” Doug whispered.
Gavin whirled to face him. A snarl twisted his blood-smeared mouth, and his crimson eyes were on full glow.
James shifted human, but Gavin was faster than he expected and cleared the space between him and Doug in a single leap, ebony claws glinting at his fingertips.
“Stop!” Doug shouted. His power slammed into James, freezing him as he became human, but it seemed to have no effect
on Gavin.
Chuckling, Gavin lifted an arm to take a slash at Doug. Darkness swirled around his claws, and James stared in shock. Gavin’s claws weren’t an extension of the hellhound’s claws. These belonged to his true form. Claws that could rip the soul from a mortal body.
Suddenly Kari was there. She stepped in front of Doug, and Gavin’s slash took her across the upper chest. She screamed, then collapsed at his feet.
Doug stumbled backward, but his feet tangled with the edge of the rug, and he fell on his butt. His cell phone landed on the carpet with a thunk, but the light stayed on, illuminating the monster standing over him.
Gavin straightened and held up his hand. Iridescent shimmers clung to his claws. He flicked his hand and the shimmers flew free, coalescing into a glowing orb.
“Jesus,” Doug whispered.
The orb shot across the room and disappeared into Elysia’s chest. She doubled over with a grunt.
“Elysia?” James took a step toward her.
She straightened and, without a word, opened a portal and jumped through.
James pulled in a breath. He knew Elysia could open portals, but he had never seen her do it.
Gavin chuckled. “Now we hunt, little brother.” He ran back across the room, and right before he reached the wall, he slashed out with his claws and physically ripped open a new portal before jumping through.
James blinked. He hadn’t become the hellhound to open the portal. It seemed like Gavin’s true form had merged with Brian’s body.
“What was that?” Doug whispered.
“My fellow grim. Neil resurrected him with my blood.” James reached down and gripped the necromancer by the front of his shirt and jerked him to his feet. “Do not use your power around him. It only worked on me.” James glanced down at Kari’s still form. He didn’t need to touch her to know she was gone.
“But I felt his death,” Doug whispered. His cell phone, still lying on the carpet, winked out. Doug gasped.
James released him and stepped back to shift into the hellhound.