Unholy Spirit (The Necromancer's Daughter Book 3)

by Genevra Black

  "What's wrong?" Marius asked, apparently sensing it, too.

  Basile hesitated. "Look ... things are, uh ... going south out there."

  Edie followed his gaze to where the battle had migrated. There were so many spirits that the Mall looked more like water than pavement. Like the river from her dream. They had barely cut the army in half by the time Daschla arrived with reinforcements, and now...

  Vidarr's form was the first to catch her eye, large and fiery as it was. He was trying to disengage from the battle to get to Daschla, but it was as if the spirits knew. They were swarming him, dragging him down to the cement. He was on his knees at the moment, struggling against the spectral weapons gouged into his flesh.

  Many of the valkyir seemed to be suffering the same fate as they tried to keep the spirits and their queen separate. Some had been pinned down, others mobbed and trapped. As Daschla fought her way through their line, she seemed to be absorbing souls, and as she passed, she left a trail of broken valkyir on the ground.

  Edie’s heart raced. Without Vidarr and the valkyir, they were fucked.

  "What the hell is she doing?" Edie asked, tracking Daschla with her eyes as she felled another valkyrie. She seemed to be growing larger and brighter. It almost hurt to look at her.

  “Those spirits she’s absorbing, she’s feeding on them. The more she consumes, the stronger she gets. I assume the idea was for them to destroy the city with her as their leader, in a position where she could feed on them whenever she needed to.”

  “Now she’s cutting her losses,” Edie mumbled, touching Marius’s forehead again as he slumped against the brick. “Shit. He passed out.”

  “Even if we’re able to bring her down somehow,” Basile continued, “the sheer number of these spirits … if we don’t retreat now, every last one of our defenders is going to die.”

  She looked at him. “If we retreat, they’re going to move into the city. They’re going to kill a shitload of innocent people.”

  “I know.” His tone was grim, thoughtful.

  After a pause, he glanced over his shoulder. Another valkyrie and her shieldmaiden had joined the fight, along with Cal and Elle, and Satara was able to step back for a moment of rest.

  “I have an idea,” Basile said, looking between her and Edie.

  Satara’s chest rose and fell quickly despite her not needing to breathe. “Good … we could use one, and I’m running out.”

  “To stop her from absorbing the spirits, I could absorb them first. They’re just floating around out there. I wouldn’t even have to flay them.”

  Edie thought back to their first meeting in Central Park, when he had devoured the souls of the Watchers chasing them. But that had only been five people. “Is that possible?”

  “I think so. Very, very difficult … but not impossible. But listen.” He stood, spreading his bony hands. “You remember when we first met, and I told you the more souls I consume, the bigger the risk?”

  “The emptiness inside of you could become bigger, and you could get … hungry,” Edie said. “I remember.”

  “Yeah. Well, if anything does it, two thousand evil souls will.” He took a deep breath, looking between them. “I could turn against you. If that happens … I need you to kill me. And then I need you to destroy my mother’s sarcophagus.”

  Satara frowned. “There must be another way. If—”

  “Satara, look.” He gestured helplessly to the battlefield. “You know there isn’t another way. We either retreat, or we all die, or I do this.”

  “But you could die,” she pressed.

  “If it means saving eight million people and your island, I’m okay with that. Just promise me you’ll do what you have to do.”

  Satara looked between him and the battle still raging, and after a few moments, sighed. “I always do.”

  Without another word, Basile strode into the battle, pushing through the crowd. Spirits dissolved under his fingers as he brushed past them, their essence clinging to his cassock and the heels of his shoes like flurries of snow.

  He stopped at the cobbled area just before the promenade and turned fully, surveying the entire battle.

  As he did, Satara joined a group of other valkyir, shouting, “Sound the retreat!”

  Moments later, horns filled the air, so close and loud that Edie’s teeth chattered. As the defenders began to retreat toward Bethesda Terrace, she stayed where she was, still putting pressure on Marius’s wound. She tried to split her attention between him and Basile but could only get glimpses the priest’s dark outfit as people raced by her.

  “Edie!” Adam emerged from the retreating defenders, looking exhausted and bleeding from a cut across his chest and collar. He jogged toward her, gaze filled with worry. “Is he—?”

  “Give me your hand.”

  “What?”

  Edie grabbed him and pulled him into a crouch, replacing her hand with his. “I need you to use your blood to heal him.” She tugged at the sleeve of her jacket to show him her sliced wrist. “Just enough that he won’t die, but don’t leave him.”

  “But, Edie, they sounded the retreat, there’s no way we’re gonna— And I don’t know—”

  “Listen to me. The blood … I don’t know how, but it knows what to do. You’ll know. Just listen to it.”

  She stood, turning to look for Basile. Most of the defenders had made it back to the terrace, and Daschla took to the air to follow them. Yet the spirits weren’t following her, and they hadn’t turned to attack Edie either.

  No … they seemed much more interested in Basile.

  He still stood before the promenade, looking up at the sky. The air around him quivered with power, and a circle of pale periwinkle fire about five feet in diameter surrounded him fully.

  Spirits swarmed him, attracted by the immense energy he was giving off, but the circle seemed to keep them at bay. He simply looked up at the gray clouds and the shafts of sunlight that had managed to break through.

  Then he raised his hands. Rapidly, the circle of light tightened until it disappeared under his feet, and his body flashed white for a split second. A sudden strong wind ruffled his cassock and made Edie’s hair whip around her face.

  Not an ordinary gust of wind. Strangely, Edie could feel it inside, like a pulling in her chest. Oh, shit.

  Quickly, she snapped into action, turning to Adam. “We need to find cover. Can you pick him up?”

  “What? I— With all this armor—”

  “I’ll help.” Edie crouched and supported Marius’s legs. “Get a move on unless you want your soul flayed from your body.”

  Silenced, Adam lifted his upper half, and they shuffled behind the bandstand. Once Marius was settled on the ground again, with Adam tending to his wounds, Edie peered around the structure to get another glimpse of Basile.

  The wind had picked up, and though she couldn’t feel it tugging at her insides anymore, it was strong enough to bite her skin and make her eyes water. The spirits were fighting against it, digging their heels into the pavement and leaning into it stubbornly. Otherworldly screams of anguish filled the Mall, and Edie covered her ears, gritting her teeth at the sound.

  Slowly, then faster and faster, the souls were being pulled toward Basile. He leaned back, skeleton face toward the sky, jaw open, arms wide. The wind picked up, quicker, more vicious, and Edie found herself clinging to the bandstand just to keep her footing.

  Most of the spirits weren’t so lucky. Many of them tripped and were caught up like empty plastic bags, swirling around and around in the air as though they’d been sucked into a twister.

  The harder the wind blew, the more souls were sucked in—until eventually Edie couldn’t see one unholy warrior with their feet still on the ground. They formed a whirlpool of wispy purple above Basile, swirling down, down into his open jaws.

  Edie’s chest felt like ice. Just like the river in her dream.

  In a matter of seconds, the last of the spirits were flushed through Basile’s invi
sible funnel.

  His body flashed white again, the circle of fire enfolded him, and he fell to the ground like a stone.

  For a long time, Edie simply stared. The battlefield was silent for the first time in hours. She could hear birds and traffic, police and ambulance sirens coming closer. The stench? Horrific. The sight? Bloody, bodies strewn across the pavement.

  But the sound? So calm and normal that it was jarring. Her ears rang.

  Creeping out from behind the bandstand, she took a few steps toward Basile. Was he dead? Was he sleeping? Or was this a trick to get her closer so he could kill her?

  Before she could get any closer to find out, screaming from the terrace drew her attention. Daschla was standing on the upper terrace, locked in battle with Satara.

  Without thinking, Edie darted forward, across the street.

  Past the terrace, she could see the frozen lake. Vidarr and the valkyir were forcing the humans through portals, back to Mare Isle. Some of them held their dead or dying friends in their arms; others struggled against the valkyir, refusing to give up the fight. The sight made her heart ache.

  They needed to kill Daschla or she’d make more warriors. Basile and everyone else’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

  As Edie approached the upper terrace, Daschla and Satara were struggling sword to spear, trembling in deadlock.

  Edie planted her feet, drawing both the Puretongue’s blade and the runed dagger. “Your spirits are gone,” she shouted at Daschla. “You don’t have anything left to feed on. You fucked up.”

  Her words caused the false valkyrie to falter in her defense, and Satara shoved hard, knocking her to the ground.

  In one swift, fluid movement, Satara twirled her spear and plunged it through Daschla’s middle, pinning her to the pavement.

  Daschla’s face was a mask of horror. Her expression hardly changed as she rasped, “You can’t do this to me. The Wounded won’t let you do this to me.”

  “Where is the Wounded?” Satara asked, never breaking eye contact. “I don’t see him.”

  Daschla said nothing, simply opened her mouth in a silent wail. Tears slicked her temples.

  “Are you frightened, now that you’re as disposable to him as your followers were to you?” Satara pushed her spear further. Dark purple blood coursed across the terrace. “It didn’t have to be like this.”

  She lifted her head and nodded to Edie, beckoning her closer. She stopped near Daschla’s head, looking down at her.

  The life was already leaving her; she only moved to twitch. She seemed so immobilized that Edie wasn’t afraid to crouch down.

  A spark of clarity seemed to light Daschla’s eyes as she did. “Kill me,” she whispered, gazing at the blades Edie held.

  Edie looked at Satara. She nodded.

  With surprisingly steady hands, Edie grabbed a fistful of Daschla’s braids, exposing her throat. She took a deep breath and held it, then exhaled. “This is more than you deserve.”

  She stabbed the runed blade into the side of her neck, slicing so deeply that metal scraped bone.

  Daschla was gone before she even removed her blade. Severing the carotid artery was an instant, painless death. Blood burst and coated Edie’s hands, her chest, her face, but it hardly registered.

  Everything was still for a moment.

  Then it wasn’t.

  At first, she thought Daschla’s corpse was twitching—death throes or something. But a second later, she understood what she was witnessing. The cracks in Daschla’s skin were widening, and as they did, her skin seemed to flake away, crumbling like loose dirt into the sickly light growing inside her.

  Inch by inch, her body turned to dust, until her form was only a white void. Then a cosmic groan cut the air, and the void blinked out of existence, leaving only a black blotch in Edie’s vision.

  She looked out over the lake, letting her hair stick to her face. The others were still struggling to get the Mare Isle defenders home, but there was nothing to retreat from now. The bracing wind carried the scent of death away from her.

  Satara wiped her spear off on the snow, allowing Edie to stare before breaking the silence. “If you knew what’s waiting for her on the other side, you’d know that was exactly what she deserved.”

  With that, the valkyrie turned and crossed the street.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The floor of the Baccarat's grand salon was covered in a fine gravel of tempered glass and crystal. The crunch of it underfoot echoed hollowly in Zaedicus's ears, agitation rising in him with every new step.

  She was supposed to be waiting. She had told the Wounded she'd be waiting for him. Where was she?

  Technically, Zaedicus should be back in Anster. He was the Gloaming Lord of that province, after all. But the title had not been long in his grasp before he’d realized that was all it was—a title.

  For all his scheming and ambition, the Gloaming in which he'd longed to gain power was gone. In the Wounded's New Gloaming, the real power was on the ground, not in the high castles with the coffers. Now, he was judged not on his status and estate but by his martial prowess ... and in that, he had come up sorely lacking.

  Lords waging wars with iron, like barbarians. How common.

  He couldn't even throw parties. The Wounded found them frivolous, and Zaedicus couldn't be sure how many more chances he had before he, like Fahraad before him, was assassinated and deposed.

  In short, Anster had become frightfully boring. The Gloaming all but ruled it now, the human governments were panicking, but none of that interested Zaedicus.

  Oh, he had always been a slave to ambition. He always wanted what he couldn't have. When he got it, he rapidly lost interest. It wasn't something he felt compelled to change in himself. He'd simply move on to the next thing.

  First, Anster. Next, Scarlet.

  He had it on good authority that she was here, although what he would do once they were together again, he wasn't sure. He hadn't thought of it, had simply traveled here in a white-hot haze of rage and desire.

  It was unlikely that she'd come with him willingly. Perhaps he could offer her safety. No one he had asked was sure, at the moment, where Indriði was. Scarlet would need someone to protect her. Or perhaps he would enthrall her. He doubted a lowly human-wight would be able to resist his superior elven power.

  But first, he needed to find her.

  As he meandered to the other end of the salon, taking in the broken, bland interior, he paused. Ah, yes. His informant had said the plan was for Scarlet and the Wounded to meet in the Baccarat bar after the hellerunan had been captured, to discuss her role in New York City's long-term occupation—and beyond a glass door about ten feet from him, he could see the very end of a bar.

  He straightened his posture, smoothing his beaded white doublet. The Wounded, he assumed, was still upstairs, searching the place for the hellerune and her friends. He needed to act quickly before Scarlet's one moment of privacy was snatched away from him.

  Zaedicus pushed through the glass door and took a step inside.

  He balked at the smell that greeted him. A wall cut the room in half, but the bodies were numerous enough that they nearly carpeted the floor. Disgust tickled the nape of his neck as he stepped over them, passing the wall and beholding the room in its entirety.

  Scarlet was clever and fierce. The death in this room meant nothing. She must be hiding, or perhaps she had escaped to the upper levels ... perhaps she was meeting with the Wounded now.

  He took a few more steps in, toward a wall of mirrors, gazing at the chandeliers above the bar. There had once been three, but one now lay in pieces, half-caught on the smashed shelves. There had been quite a battle in here.

  Suddenly, the checkered floor beneath his feet was no longer wood. It felt soft, like he was stepping on sand or silt, and immediately, he stepped back, looking down.

  He froze. A pile of ash glittered there, in a distinct mound save for where his boot had scuffed it. Had his heart been beating, i
t would have stopped.

  Undead remains, burned to true death.

  Gingerly, he knelt on one knee, careful to avoid the ash as well as the blood coating the floor. The gray, slightly shimmery remains were repugnant, and he didn't want to touch them, but he lowered his head for an experimental sniff.

  He would know that scent anywhere ... he'd dreamed of smothering himself in it every waking moment for months now.

  This was Scarlet.

  Unceremoniously, he plunged his fingers into the ash—something he would normally never do, and yet it was as though there was a cloud over his mind, like someone else had possessed his hands. He sifted through the pile with the single-mindedness of a revenant, uncertain what he was looking for. Until he found it.

  It felt like minutes before his fingers finally touched the silk, though in reality it was probably only a second or two. From the pile, he pulled the tattered remains of a long white dress, stained brownish-black where ash had clung to blood.

  Scarlet. All that's left of her. The thought stunned him as he clasped the fabric tightly, staring at it.

  An oppressive presence entered the room, and Zaedicus turned his head to see the Wounded standing behind him. The young man looked surprised, for a moment, to see the Gloaming Lord but schooled his expression quickly.

  "What are you doing here?"

  Zaedicus did not move, only looked at Sárr. "News of your movements travels fast, my lord." He looked back at the ruined silk. "I wanted to witness you taking the city."

  The Wounded grunted. "Somehow, I doubt that. Even so, you have your own city to worry about."

  "What happened here?" Zaedicus demanded. "Who did this to her?"

  When the Wounded didn't answer, the high-wight looked over his shoulder again—in time to see Sárr bend and pick something up off the ground. A shotgun shell, slick with blood from the floor.

  He raised it to his nose, then offered it to Zaedicus. "An easy guess."

  Scowling, Zaedicus batted the shell away. "That revolting zombie." Quickly, he averted his eyes, hoping he had escaped the Wounded's wrath. If a subordinate ever smacked something out of his hand...