Unholy Spirit (The Necromancer's Daughter Book 3)

by Genevra Black

  Barely lucid with exhaustion, he somehow managed to find the door. He flailed for the doorknob. Finally, with wisps of shadow clinging to his heels, he fled the scene.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There weren't many things in this world that disturbed Cal. Heights? He wasn't raring to go jumping off no buildings, but it was hard to destroy a revenant. The dark? He could see just fine whatever the lighting. Dead bodies? Well. That'd be kind of hypocritical, wouldn't it?

  But something about this goatfuck they'd been dragged into was getting to him. And he couldn't seem to pin down why.

  Sure, a young dead girl was a terrible thing. Especially when you were the guy who had to pry her cold corpse out of her dad's refrigerator. Being the only one keeping her body from decaying wasn't exactly Cal's idea of a fun vacation either, but still, he couldn't put his finger on why the whole thing was bothering him so much.

  The pale orange light surrounding Elle's body thinned a bit as he sat back, scrubbing his tired eyes. He might not need to sleep, but fucked if using magic nonstop didn't drain him—and this tiny pink computer chair was hurting his ass.

  But no matter how much his ass hurt or how much he wanted to lie down and close his eyes, he couldn't. Besides quick breaks, he found himself drawn to Elle's bedside like he was tethered there. Whether it was out of pity or some sense of duty, he couldn't tell. He didn't even know.

  He crossed his arms, keeping his eyes closed and trying not to wince at how the chair squealed as he leaned back. It was moments like this that made him wonder about his past. Or, more accurately, the past of whoever this body had been before it had been Cal. Was there an explanation there? Some feeling or experience that had been so intense that he still remembered it even if he couldn't recall it?

  If that was the case, did the memory even really belong to him? He was just a bundle of energy zipped into someone else's meatsuit. Technically, none of those experiences had ever really been his.

  He cracked an eye open to look at Elle, who was still serene as a sleeping baby. If there was something as awful as this in his memories somewhere, maybe he didn't want to know.

  It didn't help that her traumatized father was treating him like some kind of criminal. He hadn't done anything to deserve it. Hell, he was the only bastard around here who'd done anything practical so far. Satara and the others were researching stuff, sure, but he was actually getting results, and without hardly any breaks, too.

  Besides it being annoying as hell, it made him feel ... well, like a monster. He already knew he was big and scary looking; he didn't need to be treated like he was some big, dumb animal, too. You'd think a guy who called himself Frankenstein would understand that.

  If he only knew why he made Adam so nervous, he'd feel better. Might even be able to fix the problem, given the right context. But no, on top of everything else going to shit around him ... this.

  Adam didn't know the half of what it was like to be a Frankenstein, the douchebag. Typical fuckin' humans.

  With a sigh, Cal scrubbed his face again and rose from the chair, rolling it off to the side. It was time for a well-deserved break.

  Edie had insisted on leaving a glass of water with him, and though he'd waved her off earlier, he was happy to take a big sip now. He didn't need water to live, but it felt nice to have a little in his system. If he ignored the taste, he could even pretend it was a nice silver rum.

  Water wasn't going to cut it, though. He looked at Elle one last time before slipping from the room, gently closing the door behind him. By the time he stepped into the kitchen, he already had his pack of Newports in one hand and a cigarette tucked between his lips—such as they were.

  The knob of the back door was under his hand when it turned violently, and he staggered back just in time to avoid getting hit as the door swung open.

  Adam.

  On recognizing him, Cal was hit with a wave of dread, but it was soon replaced with concern. The guy looked like a corpse himself, worse than when they'd first found him. The dark circles around his eyes were deeper, his complexion like a melted candle, his face and neck bruised.

  When their eyes met, the hellerune loosed a yelp and practically leapt across the kitchen. It was then that Cal remembered he’d dropped his glamour to conserve energy.

  "Whoa, whoa, chill out! It’s me. What the—"

  "Where's Edie?" Adam managed, looking around the kitchen frantically.

  Something really must be wrong if he was asking a question he already knew the answer to. Or maybe he was just being a dickhead. But something told Cal that wasn't the case. "Uh ... she's out. At the priest's place, ’member? You guys made a whole plan about it."

  "Fuck!" Adam's voice was strangled. Before Cal's eyes, he almost seemed to ... crumble. His whole body shook, gaze somehow frantic and unfocused at the same time; his shuddering breath quickened until he was almost hyperventilating.

  Deep discomfort, paired with a good measure of irritation, tore at Cal's chest. There was always some sort of issue with his guy. "Calm down,” he said, a little tersely. "What the hell happened?"

  It almost seemed like Adam didn't hear him. His gaze was distant, and if Cal didn’t know any better, he’d think he was about to sink to the floor. Before he could, Cal huffed and reached out. That was about enough of this. If he couldn't pull himself together, Cal would make him pull himself together. He grabbed Adam's forearms and practically lifted him, turning and planting him in the nearest dining room chair.

  He tried to keep his hands steady, but Adam—who had frozen up for the second it took to move him—shook him off, teeth chattering. "Do-Don't touch me."

  Cal pulled his hands away. "Just sit down and chill the fuck out, hombre. And for god's sake, tell me what the hell is wrong so I can help you." When Adam continued to shake, the revenant gestured to his neck and face. "Who did this?"

  "It— Scarlet. Her name was Scarlet."

  That gave Cal pause. "Scarlet? The vampire?"

  "I don't know what she was."

  The revenant took a deep breath, willing himself with what little energy he had left not to yell. “Tell me what happened.”

  At last, the haze over his mind seemed to clear a little, and he shook his head. "My … one of my old friends asked me to go hang out with him, at his house. Edie thought it’d be good for me to take my mind off of … everything. I wasn't sure, but … anyway, when I got there, there was some woman I've never seen—"

  "What'd she look like?"

  Adam scrubbed his wrists hard. "Um ... really pale. Long, shiny black hair. Kind of goth, I guess."

  Definitely his Scarlet, then. Cal gritted his teeth and motioned for Adam to continue with his story.

  "Everything was normal at first. Awkward, but normal. I thought maybe she was just his new girlfriend or something. Then he started ... saying weird stuff. He tried to get me to join that Blood Eagles thing." Adam avoided looking up at Cal, instead focused on his boots. "When I said no, Scarlet started asking if I wanted to join the Gloaming instead."

  "And I guess you told her to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut."

  "She got mad and told me if I said no, she'd kill me. And then she tried to."

  Cal's brow shot up. He'd taken on a vampire and her pet human, both at once? Maybe he wasn't as wimpy as he looked. Still, the magic had clearly taken a lot out of him. He still didn't know how to use it proper.

  Adam glanced up at him. "I was able to fight her and Brian off. I ... fuck, I don't know if I killed him."

  "Well, did he try to kill you?"

  "He had a gun. He tried to use it. I..."

  There was something eating at him. Beyond his friend's betrayal, beyond getting the shit beat out of him, something else had happened. And Cal had a good feeling he knew what it was. "Using your powers didn't feel good, am I right?"

  "No," Adam mumbled, "that's the thing. It felt too good. I ... liked hurting them. And I heard this … this voice." The more he said, the more agitated he seemed to
get, until he was nearly squirming in his seat. "All my life, I've been obsessed with this idea that I was going to hurt people. That I would like doing it. That deep inside, I was this ... awful monster, and it was only a matter of time before I showed my true colors, and I— I can't let that be true. I don't want to hurt anyone!"

  "Hey, hey, hey!"

  Cal reached for his shoulders as if to steady him but stopped short when Adam flinched away. Confusion and anger mingled, and the pressure of their combination was too much for Cal to handle this time.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" he snapped. It came out louder than he meant it to, and Adam grimaced. "Stop acting so fucking scared of me, all right? Jesus! I know what I look like. I know I'm a zombie, okay, I get it. How could I fuckin’ forget? Just stop wincing like I'm gonna go crazy and tear your throat out or somethin’." The last bit came out as more of a plea than Cal had meant it to, but at this point, he was desperate to get this guy to understand.

  Adam curled inward on himself slightly, but it must have been an involuntary reaction, because he responded with just as much volume and enthusiasm as Cal: "I'm not scared of you because you're dead. This has nothing to do with you!"

  "And yet I'm the one getting treated like a convict when you don't know the first thing about me!"

  "How am I supposed to act around someone who drinks and smokes and— and walks and talks just like my piece-of-shit rapist father?" It all came out like a bullwhip, and the second it struck, Adam was out of his seat, pacing toward the living room with his fingers tangled in his hair.

  Piece of shit. Rapist.

  Even after a few long moments of silence, Cal felt the sting of those words keenly. A rift opened in his chest, pulsing deeply and slowly like a bleeding wound. He was suddenly consumed by and ashamed of the feeling. That ... that hurt.

  It hurt so bad that he didn't have anything smart to say. Memories of when that breathstealer had attacked Mercy came flooding back to him. The damn thing had shifted into his form, and when the real him had arrived to help, Mercy had been terrified. She'd accused him. This was like that.

  What made people think he was one move away from hurting them?

  Cal was so focused on regulating his emotions that he didn't notice Adam until he reentered the kitchen.

  The hellerune watched him for a moment before raising a hand to rub the scar on his forehead. "I'm sorry. I … I didn't mean to come right out the gate with that."

  Cal shrugged a shoulder, trying to pretend a little too late that the comment hadn't affected him. "Whatever."

  "No, I’m..." He sank down into the dining room chair again with a sigh. "That was a shitty thing to say. You haven't done anything but help me, it's just, I’m kind of—"

  "It's fine."

  "No, let me finish. Ellie is dead, and everything I worked so hard for is gone, and it ... it's just killing me. I can barely sleep, I can’t eat; forty years of demons have come back to bite me in the ass within the last two days." He squeezed his eyes shut and sighed again. "And every time you talk or move, it's like bolts shake loose in my brain, and I wish I could control it, but I can't. If my life wasn't falling apart, I'd be able to handle it, but on top of everything else..."

  "I can't change everything about the way I am," Cal mumbled. "If I could, my life would probably be a hell of a lot easier."

  "I know. And I'm sorry. You've already beyond proven that you're nothing like him. It's just ... something I have to get over, I guess." Adam sighed and looked up at him. "It would help if you refrained from, you know, shouting and grabbing me."

  Embarrassed, the revenant crossed his arms and shuffled from foot to foot. "Oh. Yeah. I guess that would be a good start, huh."

  "I'd be a lot less likely to blow up at you." He sank further into the chair. "What are we going to do about Scarlet and Brian? What if I killed him?"

  Relieved to have the previous topic dropped, Cal uncrossed his arms. "Don't worry about that right now. Now we know that vampire bitch is here, so all the better."

  "You know her?"

  "She knows me more than I know her." With a huff, Cal pulled a chair up and sat across from Adam. "She's a psychic vampire and a memory leech, emphasis on the leech. Back in Anster, she fucking roofied me and hauled me off to the Gloaming. I don't remember any of it, but I guess they had her digging around in my brain to figure out what we were up to. While she was in there, she took something from me. Memories. I know she did. I can feel it."

  Adam stared at him. After a moment, he said, “Oh. That’s … wow. I’m so sorry.”

  "Yeah, well. Next time I see her, I'm getting whatever she stole back from her, one way or the other. If she's close, then there’s a higher chance of us running into each other. And this time she won't be able to drug me."

  He let the words fall there, and they sat for a few long seconds. Across from him, Adam seemed to be deep in thought. What he was thinking about, Cal could only guess. As long as he was done accusing him of being some monster, he wasn’t sure he cared.

  At length, Adam looked back up. “So,” he said quietly, awkwardly. “I, uh … heard you like Cillian Murphy.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Satara looked up, past the planes and valleys of the mountain of tomes before her, out the window. From where she sat on the floor, legs crossed and book in her lap, she could only see the sky. The sun hid behind a grim cloud cover, rays so weak they barely pierced the rolling gray. But at least Sól was up there, riding her chariot ever onward—and for the time being, it had stopped snowing. Both good signs.

  The fledgling valkyrie simply prayed that the things she feared would never come to pass … that her suspicions were wrong.

  Aside from the ticking of the clock and the occasional sigh from Basile, the room was entirely quiet. Edie had left a quarter of an hour ago to get lunch for everyone—those of them that could eat, anyway—and Marius had followed to assist her. But even with complete silence, Satara could hardly focus.

  The ache in her wings had built more than she’d anticipated in the past couple days. The first two weeks had been concerning but not unbearable, and she’d expected the next two weeks to carry on more or less the same, but no such luck. The rot seemed to have gained momentum, a slow poison building up and threatening to spill into her bloodstream. The thought of it alone made her breath irregular.

  All of this, paired with lack of sleep and the memories of Astrid's death, and she could barely focus on the task at hand.

  It didn't help that the task at hand was tedious: poring through archaic texts, trying to piece together a solution to save another woman's life. She felt awful for Adam. He was a good man, and of course he wanted to see his daughter alive again. But Satara was dying, too. And though investiture frightened her, it was hard to fulfill these obligations with that thought in mind. It was difficult to help others when she was acutely aware that every passing moment brought her closer to an eternity in Náströnd.

  She rubbed her tired eyes and glanced up at Basile, who sat on the couch, working diligently. He was a fascinating man, but he could be very irritating. Did he even care about her problem? Did he know something she didn't—was her condition not as urgent as the pain made it feel? Or had his immortality wearied him to the point that he cared little for humans?

  Whatever the case, she was starting to regret their deal. When she had thought it would be a matter of a couple hours, maybe a day, that had been one thing, but it was shaping up to be much longer—if they ever could find a solution to this problem. It was a vicious cycle: the longer she waited to transition to a valkyrie, the more pain she was in; the more pain she was in, the less she could focus; the less she focused, the slower they found a solution to the Elle problem.

  Satara took a sip from her mug of tea and gazed down at the "coffee table." She had been around dead bodies her whole life, but the thought that there was a lich just inches from her, and possibly still conscious, made her shudder.

  She had read a bit a
bout liches. Commander Coldheart, the hero of her favorite book series, was in fact a servant to a lich king. But she'd never actually met one in person, nor would she want to, in most cases. Some were harmless, but the majority tended to be egotistical and power-hungry.

  If Basile's mother had been a lich queen, was he a lich prince? The imagination ran wild. Her favorite author would have a field day if they knew that such a thing existed. Think of all the drama...

  Her shoulder blades spasmed suddenly, and a jolt of pain flew up the arms of her unseen wings. She grimaced, inhaling sharply through her teeth. Dammit.

  When she opened her eyes again, Basile had looked up from his book to peer at her. "You all right?"

  A twinge of heat pricked her heart. "I ... could be better," she replied stiffly. "Let's just put it that way."

  "Ah. Right. The wings."

  "Yes, the wings."

  To his credit, Basile's expression was grim as he adjusted his glasses. "Hopefully we're close to a breakthrough on this. Then we can ... you know, proceed."

  "Exactly how close to a breakthrough do you think we are?" she asked, relaxing slightly as the pain evened out. "And how long do I have?"

  "I promise you, you'll know when you're close to the end. We have time."

  Satara sighed. "I figured. But I'd rather not wait until I can't walk from pain. How long?"

  She asked the question not only because she was afraid of turning into a twisted fledgling, but also because she was frankly afraid of the alternative. The thought of becoming a valkyrie terrified her.

  "I'm not going to let you die, young lady." He spread his arms in a grand gesture. "Even if, for some crazy reason, we had to stop what we were doing right now and save you, I'd buck up and do it. No one's going to Náströnd, all right?" He waved a hand toward the mountains of books. "I give this whole business a day and a half at most. Maybe two days including your trip to the Wending. That's plenty of time left."

  "You think we're close to resolving this, then?"