“I’m not going to ask for her forgiveness.” His jaw flexed. “There’s no excuse for what I’ve done.”
“Well, you got that much right at least.” She shot Linus a tentative smile. “I’m the home-wrecking harlot.” She extended her arm. “You can call me Adelaide.”
“You’re a woman making the best of the hand she’s been dealt,” he corrected her. “I’m Linus.”
Mischief sparkled in her eyes. “You’re even prettier up close than you were from across the ballroom.”
The look Boaz cut her promised there would be words later. Loud ones. Ugly ones.
He strode out into the garden, and she watched him go, an exhale sending loose hairs skating over her cheek.
“I should go smooth his feathers.” She shrugged when I started to warn her off that plan. “I live to ruffle them, so it’s the least I can do.” On her way past Linus, she said, “You really are pretty, but I’m sorry to have objectified you. I’m teaching Boaz a lesson that ought to enable us to spend the rest of our lives together without one of us ending up in a premature grave. So far, blunt force seems to be the only effective way of getting through to him.”
Linus actually smiled after she left. “I like her.”
“I do too.” As long as she kept her heart out of their bargain, their marriage just might work.
“Me three,” Amelie chimed in. “She will be the making of him.” She shrugged. “Or the death of him. Definitely one of those things.” She clapped her hands together. “Let’s do this.”
“You’re sure?” Linus scanned her face. “You want to bond with Ambrose for the rest of your life?”
A tremor shook her hands, and she squeezed them tighter. “The only other option is death, right?”
“The dybbuk has discovered how to work around the tattoo you already have, and he can slip the wards to leave the house. We could establish stronger wards, if you like, but that’s a temporary solution. Your indenture is almost up, and I’m guessing you don’t want to be confined a moment longer than necessary. Fixing the wards won’t address the issue.”
“I’m grateful to Grier for everything she’s done for me, but yeah. I’m looking forward to freedom.”
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I pressed. “I’m not saying death is the better alternative, but I want to make sure you understand your options. We could reinforce the wards to give Linus time to figure out a workaround.”
“It’s a fitting punishment.” Her knuckles turned white. “I wanted him, now I’ve got him. For life.”
A pang rocked me, and I reached for her. “Amelie…”
“I can handle this.” She stepped back before I could offer her comfort. “I need the scales to balance before the slate gets wiped clean.”
Unsure what to do with my hands, I tucked them into my pants pockets. “What do you need from me?”
Linus understood I was asking him, and he guided me to the office, away from Amelie, to give us privacy.
“I need you to design a new sigil for her.” He stroked a finger across the bend of my right arm. “I’ll also need some of your blood for the ink. I believe it’s the only thing strong enough to contain him permanently.”
“If we’re wrong about Ambrose being the problem all along, she’ll be bound to me.”
“If we’re wrong about Ambrose, she already is, and we’ll have to break the connection before she moves out either way.”
Nodding, I sank into the chair behind the desk. Linus offered me a pad and pencil, and I plumbed the depths of that well of knowledge burbling in the back of my mind. A design rose to the surface, and I fished it out, studied it, and then started drawing.
When I finished an hour or so later, Linus stood over me with something like awe softening his features.
“You never cease to amaze me.” He traced the pattern with his fingertip. “This is perfect.”
“All I did was remember.” I shrugged off his praise. “It’s no big deal.”
“Show me another necromancer who could do the same, and I’ll agree with you.”
Cheeks heating, I didn’t fight the compliment a second time as I extended my arm to fulfill my other obligation. “Do you want to do the honors?”
“I have more practice.” Linus trailed his fingertips over the ripe veins. “It’s your call.”
“I trust you.”
After pressing his cool lips in the crease, he sterilized the area then drew the blood he needed.
“Weird,” I mused. “I don’t get hungry when I smell my own blood, but I salivate over yours.”
“You wouldn’t get hungry for human flesh if you smelled a steak on the grill.”
“Nice try, but no cigar. They aren’t comparable.” I narrowed my eyes on him. “Just admit it. You’re delicious. This is all your fault.”
“I’m delicious,” he dutifully repeated, “and this is all my fault.”
“Am I interrupting?” Amelie stood in the doorway, wavering on the threshold. “I can come back.”
“I was just teasing Linus.” I smiled with what I hoped passed for reassurance. “You’re fine.”
“How much longer do you think this will take?” She fidgeted. “I’ve made up my mind, but I want it over.”
“We’re done.” I stood, offering Linus the drawing. “He’ll mix up the ink, and we’ll be ready to start.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “Do you think you could wait outside?”
“I…” A pang rocked me. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
“I’ll take care of her,” he promised me. “I’ll get you if there are any complications.”
“All right.” I lingered for a moment, but the look on Amelie’s face said she wanted to bolt. Clearly, I was as much of a trigger for her as she was for me. “I’ll go keep Boaz company.”
Linus stilled, just for a second, half that, but it was enough to betray his hesitation.
“I’ll be right outside,” I reassured him. “I’ll let Lethe take out her pent-up aggression on him if he gives me any lip.”
“Call me if you do.” An infinitesimal smile made an appearance. “I would like to see that.”
Amelie looked like she might want to argue against her brother taking another beating from a pregnant gwyllgi, but she must have decided it was smarter not to antagonize the guy about to ink her.
Outside, I found Adelaide, but not Boaz. “Where did he get off to?”
“He’s walking the perimeter. All these gwyllgi have him nervous.” She rolled her eyes. “Or so he says. I think we can both tell he’s worried about his sister.”
She had claimed one of the Adirondack chairs I kept meaning to sand and repaint but somehow never got around to doing either. I plopped down in the one next to her, and it groaned a complaint and leaned to one side.
“I could fix that for you,” Adelaide offered. “All I need is some wood glue and a few screws.”
“I might have that in the garage.” We stood, careful not to collapse our seats, and went to investigate. “We’ll be safe that far.”
Guiding her to the garage still crammed to the rafters with boxes full of Boaz memorabilia—and his bike—made me feel like I had been caught naked with him on the couch in her living room. She would take one look at my collection, gathered over a lifetime of living next door to him, and see with her own eyes how deep the wound had cut.
Sucking in a breath, I rolled up the garage door and flipped on the lights.
Adelaide was drawn straight to Wilhelmina. “That’s his bike, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” I flinched away from all the rest. His leather jacket, gloves, helmet. They had been tossed on her seat like he would be back at any moment. “Matron Prichard wasn’t hot on him parking a bike in her driveway, so he got in the habit of leaving her here. He’s done it for years.”
It doesn’t mean anything, I almost added, but that would have been a lie.
“This one is yours?” She wandered over to Jolene. “She’s beautiful.”
There was too much history with that bike between him and me to give her a full answer, so I settled for a simple one. “Yeah. Her name’s Jolene.”
Smiling, she trailed her fingers over the handlebars. “Like the Dolly Parton song?”
The lyrics rose in my memory, the poignant plea—one woman to another—not to take her man.
The bike’s name had never bothered me. Boaz had christened her, after all, but I still got chills.
“Any luck with the tools?” Her gaze panned the space, landing on a high school football jersey here, the lion costume from an elementary school play there, then a plastic crown fit for a prom king. “Do you need any help?”
“They should be right here.” Sure enough, I found what she required, including an electric drill with a set of drill bits and an extension cord. “Success.”
After I flipped off the lights and rolled the door closed, Adelaide kept staring where Willie sat.
As much as I didn’t want to know the answer, I had to ask, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” She yanked her gaze from the garage and helped me carry the supplies. “I just had no idea what I was up against.” She looked back once. “Until now.”
Fifteen
Adelaide and I repaired both chairs and set them aside for the glue to dry, leaving us nowhere to sit. I could have asked Woolly to give her a temporary pass for the back porch so we could make use of the swing, but the old house had spotted Boaz on the grounds, and she was not happy about it. Introducing Adelaide as his fiancée might get the poor woman banned for life.
“He really does feel like an ass,” Adelaide confided while arranging our supplies in a neat pile.
“Good.” I cringed to remember the confrontation. “He ought to after the hissy he pitched.”
“He’s torn between wanting to throttle Linus for getting in your pants, the way an older brother would kill anyone who touched his little sister, and wanting to be the one who—”
“Yeah.” I cut her off with a sigh. “I get it.”
“Your first time is supposed to be memorable.” Her smile tried valiantly to salvage the awkwardness of the situation. “All things considered, I doubt any of us will forget yours.”
A groan rattled the back of my throat when I heard it framed that way, as a social event to be discussed.
I would never forget. That much was true. But the memory would forever be divided between the perfect day Linus and I spent tangled up together and the morning after when Boaz shattered the illusion that I could live in those perfect moments.
“You can always come bang on my door the night after I say I do and hurl accusations at me if it helps.”
I whipped my head toward her. “You’re a…?”
“Yep.” She angled her chin higher. “There was no time for boys. I was too busy taking care of my sister.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re looking at me like I’m on death row instead of engaged.” Her eyes glittered, laughter or tears, I didn’t know her well enough to guess. “Boaz has enough experience for both of us. I’m sure it will be fine.”
The door to the carriage house opening spared me from wondering if I had worn the same weary resignation on my face when discussing Boaz’s past conquests. The light tone, the sad eyes, the tight mouth. Yeah. I liked Adelaide. But I wondered how much of that was because I saw so much of myself in her.
“Amelie is resting,” Linus announced. “I used a sigil to help her sleep while her body adjusts.”
“Oh good.” Adelaide’s relief appeared to be genuine. “I’ll let Boaz know when he gets back.”
“I’ll tell him myself.” Linus cast me an amused glance when I stiffened. “I need to discuss the gwyllgi issue with him. It would save us a trip to the barracks.”
Uncertain how far to trust him, amusement or not, I inched closer. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“I can handle Boaz,” he assured me. “I can behave myself.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Linus was at his most dangerous while cool and collected. “Meet me in the library after?”
Linus couldn’t gain access to the basement without me, but I didn’t want to pique Adelaide’s curiosity.
“We can resume our filing,” he said without missing a beat. “I won’t be long.”
“I’ll go in and sit with Amelie.” Adelaide shifted her weight toward the carriage house. “We have to stay in this section unless we’re with you, correct?”
“Yes.” I pointed to the safe areas. “Don’t take the security measures personally.”
“I hate when Boaz barges into my house like he owns the place, so I understand.”
“As easy as he makes it, I can’t blame him for this. Not all of it anyway. The added layers of security are more to do with recent threats against me than anything personal.”
“Threats against your person sounds personal to me.”
“Right?” I laughed. “I better go. I have a lot of work ahead of me.”
“It was nice seeing you again.” Adelaide waved. “Maybe one of these days we’ll bump into each other on purpose.”
“Maybe so.”
Before I retired for the night, I took a moment to examine the gwyllgi issue. More of them crowded the lawn now than ever. They stood in small clumps, which was odd. Distant relatives lumped into family groups, maybe? Shrugging it off since Linus was on the job, I headed in the house and called out to Oscar. “You up for an adventure?”
“Sure.” He drifted through the ceiling until he landed on me and attached himself piggyback style. “Will there be gold doubloons or pieces of eight?”
“Not this time. You’ll have to finish your treasure hunt when you’re feeling better.”
“Can we pretend?”
“Sure thing, kid.”
The basement door decided to give me fits and expected me to spill blood to enter. Since it didn’t take much, I picked at the pinprick scab left from where Linus had drawn blood and smeared a crimson dot across the lock with a fingertip. It snicked open, and we entered the void.
A swirl of darkness more substantial than the rest swept past me.
Cletus.
Eager to hear news from Corbin, I jogged down to the library and waited for the wraith to find me.
“Do me a favor,” I said to Oscar. “Focus really hard and bring down the scrolls from that pile.”
The stack brushed the ceiling, and it was easier sending a ghost boy than pulling out a ladder.
As I turned to address the wraith, he enveloped me in his hood before I could blink.
Ice cold shattered through my veins, and my head swam. The faint scent of rose water coated the back of my throat, a phantom memory, and then Corbin wavered into view.
“Lacroix taught me to feed tonight. He took volunteers. Humans owned by vampires.” A vein bulged in his forehead. “Owned, Grier.” He wiped a hand over his mouth. “I learned to take what I need, and he taught me the cost of mercy. He killed them. Drank them down in front of me when I refused to kill them.”
Static fuzzed the picture, making me think time had lapsed between his first memo and his next.
“He spends more and more time in his quarters.” Corbin shifted his eyes to the door. “I’m under house arrest after I broke up a blood orgy in the parlor. I’m trying, Grier. God knows I am, but these people—these things—they’re hedonists. Every night is a spectacle, some new horror Lacroix dreamed up the day before. There’s a woman with him now.” He wet his lips. “She loves him. Real love. His lure isn’t to blame.” He gazed into the hood, right at me. “She’s not a vampire, definitely not human. Necromancer, maybe? They have history. Decades’ worth based on the fights they’ve been having.”
The door burst open behind him, and a vampire rushed in. “Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” Corbin said, and the vision ebbed to darkness, but not before the vampire in the doorway locked gazes with Cletus.
Expecting the wraith to
cut me loose, I flailed when the void held on.
Muffled voices drifted to me, and the flicker of movement hinted at another vision, but it wasn’t Corbin.
“She won’t be controlled,” a woman protested. “You are a mad thing to believe it possible.”
A man countered her, “An impossible thing has merely yet to happen.”
“Fool.”
“For you, yes.” The figures intertwined. “Always.”
Lacroix.
Cletus was definitely spying on Lacroix and his mystery woman.
The sound quality was crap, but who else could it be?
I came aware on the floor of the library, staring up at the ceiling and the battle taking place there.
“You killed her,” Oscar shrieked at the wraith. “You killed Grier.”
Oscar held a scalpel tight in one fist and sliced the air in front of the wraith to keep it away from me.
A low moan was the only defense Cletus could manage, and it’s not like getting cut would hurt him.
“I’m…” I swallowed, tasting roses and dust, “…not dead.”
“You’re not?” The ghost boy froze with his weapon at the ready. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” I rubbed the back of my head. “I don’t think it would hurt so much if I hadn’t survived.”
A blue-tinged missile launched at my chest, and I fell back, grimacing at the pain.
“I was so worried,” he cried against my throat, his black tears saturating my collar. “I couldn’t get him to stop. He wouldn’t listen. He just kept making you look.”
“He’s learned a new trick.” I patted Oscar’s back. “He’s not hurting me. He’s showing me things he’s seen that he thinks might help us.”
“Oh.” He drew back. “I guess that’s okay then.”
His outline wavered, and he grew lighter than air in my arms.
“Do you need to go rest?” I ruffled his hair. “You fought a hard battle.”
“You did promise me adventure.”
“I try to deliver.”
Yawning, he started drifting higher like he had been pumped full of helium. “See you later.”
“I’ll be here.”
How to Live an Undead Lie (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 5) Page 21