Odette raised a shaky hand to her throat, her milky eyes glassy with unshed tears.
“The whorls on the inside I thought were scarring is an artist’s signature. She makes jewelry from what washes up on Tybee.” I tossed the token to her. “At first, I thought Cletus brought me a shell from the beach. I couldn’t figure out why he fixated on it, but now I think he must have found the orphaned half in your house during our second trip.”
The bungalow might have been stripped down to the magnets, but a shell? Found in a beach house? That wouldn’t draw a second look from most people. Lucky for us, Cletus wasn’t technically a person.
“No,” she cried. “Grier, no.”
“The wraith monitoring Corbin Theroux is mine.” I doubted Linus would mind if I laid partial claim to Cletus. “Think very hard about what I might have seen and heard before lying to me again.”
The couple Cletus had shown me in flashes between Corbin’s reports—it had been Odette and Lacroix.
“Visions from a wraith are distorted,” she protested. “You can’t trust everything you hear or see.”
“A wraith’s entire vision might not translate, but it knows what it saw.”
“Wraiths are not sentient,” she argued. “They only know what they are told.”
“What about Shane?” I jerked my chin toward the body cooling beside her. “What did he know that was worth his life?”
The cozy invitation into his bedroom hadn’t been seduction, it had been subterfuge. He scented Odette in the room he had been given, and he wondered at our connection. The fact he had been aware of her location but hadn’t acted until now made me wonder if this wasn’t her first time using bronze powder to deter nosy gwyllgi.
“I did not kill him,” she protested. “You saw—”
Automatic weapons fire peppered the night, the sharp pops scattering my focus.
The Elite had arrived.
Finally.
“This is your last chance,” Lacroix warned. “Come with me, and I will let your friends live. Deny me, and I will ensure you watch the light fade from their eyes as I drain them.”
“As much fun as that sounds,” Boaz drawled, swaggering toward me. “I’m gonna have to pass.”
Boaz kept his weapon trained on Lacroix, and when Lacroix lunged for him, he filled him with a clip.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t stop Lacroix. It didn’t even slow him down.
Crimson sprayed the invisible barrier as Lacroix’s wicked fangs severed Boaz’s carotid with a shake of his head.
Momentary paralysis overtook me, my heart a drumbeat in my ears. “Boaz.”
His name became my battle cry as I smashed through the barrier and landed on Lacroix’s back.
The ancient’s primal roar caused my hindbrain to twitch with the urge to flee—fast and far—but I held on and clenched my fingers around the stake. With every ounce of my strength, I plunged the sharpened end into his flesh. Thanks to him bucking like a bronco desperate to unseat his rider, my aim sucked, and I pegged him between his shoulder blades instead of in his heart.
Lacroix might have protection against a goddess-touched necromancer and her artifacts, but the reality of a stake plunged beside his spine until the tip protruded from his chest was hard to ignore.
Hands slick with gore, he groped at the point, trying to yank it out so he could heal.
One look at Boaz had me sliding off Lacroix and sinking to my knees. That happens when they buckle. Your weight carries you down, and your kneecaps crack against the pavement.
Lethe and Hood might be out of commission unless Lacroix moved against me, but Linus was in my corner. Always. I trusted him to watch my back while I did what I could for Boaz.
“You idiot,” I growled, tempted to slap him. “What did you think you were doing?”
With my trusty pocket knife, I sliced open my palm and gritted my teeth as the blade parted tender skin.
“Saving…you…” he wheezed. “Love…you.”
Eyes prickling with unshed tears, I tuned him out to focus on the vault of knowledge locked away in my head. A standard healing sigil wasn’t going to cut it. I needed more, stronger, but panic was paralyzing me. I took the best fit, honed the design to fit the application, and covered Boaz in looping swirls from head to toe.
Light erupted from his pores, blinding me. I raised my arm to shield my eyes from the brightness, but it was too late. The afterimage of his outline was seared into my retinas.
If anyone figured out I was incapacitated, they might as well slather on the butter. I was toast. But just because I couldn’t see didn’t mean I could afford to sit on my hands. I tested Boaz’s throat, and his pulse thumped under my fingertips. I ran my palms over his neck, past the damage from Lacroix’s fangs, over his chest and down his sides.
Blood turned my palms sticky, but he was mending, the skin knitting back together. The fluids he’d lost couldn’t be replaced, but this would keep him alive long enough for us to get him away from the carnage.
“Stupid girl.” A haughty sigh warned me I had company before her grapefruit scent cut through the stink of viscera. “I thought you had moved past this infatuation.”
Jaw dropping, I rubbed my eyes. “Clarice?”
“Tilt your head back.” The Grande Dame pinched my chin between her fingers, and the tickle of a brush caressed each of my cheeks. Magic whispered over my skin, and my sight returned in a swirl of sharp colors that cut my eyes in time to see her staring down her nose at me. “You’ll do.”
“I was a sitting duck until you came along.”
The implication, that I was shocked she didn’t let the battle handle the problem of her future daughter-in-law, was plain.
“I love my son.” Her red lips thinned, a trait she had passed on to Linus. “And he loves you. It’s an affliction he’s suffered for a number of years. You loving him back?” Her gaze clashed with mine. “That…I did not expect. I always wanted better for you than Boaz Pritchard, but Maud wanted the best for you.”
It went without saying the best was her son. I wasn’t about to argue when I agreed with her.
“When you were…sent away…I thought the separation might free him from his fascination, but I see now I was mistaken. Whatever hold you have over him is irrevocable. For him to remain in my life, I must accept my grandchildren will come from you.”
Grandchildren.
Between her wish list and the one Woolly slapped me with earlier, I would be birthing litters of tiny, redheaded Woolworths.
“Now.” She capped her ink jar and tucked away her brush. “Explain yourself.”
“Lacroix attacked Boaz. I attacked Lacroix.” Squinting against the vibrancy, I searched for my grandfather. “Where is Odette?”
“Odette was here? I didn’t see her.” She frowned down at me. “Lacroix was gone when I arrived.”
Sick to my core, I had to warn her. “I have reason to believe she may be working with Lacroix.”
A flicker of true fear darkened her features, and then she spoke the words that turned my heart to stone. “Where is my son?”
Nineteen
Another time, I might have relished shoving the Grande Dame away from me so hard she fell to the pavement on her butt with an undignified grunt. I might have even rewound the moment, savoring it, replaying it until it burned in my memory, never to be forgotten. But the raw panic fluttering behind my breastbone left me too lightheaded to care.
“Grier,” Boaz whispered as his eyes started tracking. “What…?”
“Stay put and don’t die.” I whirled toward the Grande Dame. “Keep him safe.”
“Me?” Flicking the grit from her palms, she examined her scrapes. “Do it yourself.”
“I can’t,” I shouted, leaping to my feet. “I’m going after Linus.”
Incredulousness painted her features sharp enough to cut. “He can take care of himself.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m not hanging back and hoping for the best.
” I summoned the wraith, hoping I wasn’t sacrificing Corbin in the bargain, and watched with a heavy heart as he cocked his head at the Grande Dame as if recognizing her. “Stay with them.”
Cletus billowed, his cloak spreading in an inky spill through the air.
“I’ll take the gwyllgi with me,” I promised him. “Protect them. Please.”
Before the Grande Dame could argue, I sprinted away. Lethe shifted and fell in beside me, Hood flanking her on four legs.
Fighting was tapering off around the edges as the vampires retreated toward the tunnel mouth, making our job simpler. Pack members herded the cowards attempting to escape the slaughter back toward the waiting Elite, who staked them without mercy.
Putting their distraction to good use, we fled the chaos.
About to paint on a tracking sigil, I glanced over at Lethe. “Can you find Linus?”
A short bark confirmed it, and the gwyllgi pair slowed then dipped their noses toward the pavement.
Seconds later, Lethe threw back her head and bayed at the moon before breaking into a sprint.
I ran as fast as I could, counting on Hood to help me plow through the remaining vampires. Sweat poured into my eyes, and my hair stuck to my face. Lungs blazing, I gulped air and pushed my legs until the burn migrated from my calves, up my thighs, and into my side.
Lethe kept howling, her cry raising the hairs down my arms.
Hood caught the scent a moment later, and he joined in the hunting song.
An alley loomed ahead, and they shot through it like bullets fired at a target.
Darkness swirled around two figures clashing at the dead end, and blood soured the air. Linus’s familiar scent hit the back of my throat, hunger and fear churning in my gut. A darker smell clogged my nose, Lacroix’s blood, thick and metallic.
Heedless of the danger, I rushed into the miasma armed with only the blood in my veins and the sigils in my head.
Linus had gone full dark. He was all tattered fabric and moonlit blade, soul and bone, a wraith come to life. He flowed with his scythe, each arc a vicious slice that rent the air. He moved like a dancer familiar with the steps, able to follow their patterns without thought.
But if Linus had gone dark, Lacroix had gone feral. The stake protruded from his chest, and his blood drenched his clothes. He bared fangs thicker than my pinky finger that dripped with viscous saliva. Slices marred his face and throat, the wounds healing slower thanks to massive blood loss.
Eager to assure myself Linus was all right, I scanned what I could see of him. Once I confirmed he appeared unharmed, I could breathe easier. The sigil was holding strong, keeping him safe. Now I just had to take out Lacroix before that changed.
Powerful the sigil might be, but his sweat could dissolve it. A lucky scratch from Lacroix could void it too. I couldn’t risk either of those happening. I had to take Lacroix out before he gained the upper hand.
Without my life endangered, Lethe and Hood were no good except for moral support. I had to factor them out. This was between Lacroix, Linus, and me.
Searching the alley, I prayed to the goddess for a weapon to materialize. When I spotted a stack of rotted pallets, I ran for them. Bracing my foot on a cracked slat, I eased my fingers under the plank and yanked up. It snapped off in my hand. The width made it unwieldy, but its sharp end was what mattered. I broke off a second one then advanced on Lacroix.
Linus locked gazes with me, and I shivered beneath the alien coldness in his expression. There was no hint of my Linus in his gaze. This was the Potentate of Atlanta, the Eidolon, and the cruel edge to his features made my breath catch. Proving he read me, no matter what mask he wore, he made an elegant turn that shifted Lacroix’s back fully to me, a perfect opening.
Clutching a stake in each hand, I lunged for my grandfather. This time I didn’t miss, and I drove the wooden shards through his heart.
The fight drained out of him, and he sank to his knees, his eyes wild and inhuman. The look he turned on me promised vengeance, and I took a healthy step back.
“For your crimes against the city of Savannah, the Lyceum, and the Grande Dame, I hereby sentence you to death.” The wicked blade gleamed when Linus raised it over his head, and I shut my eyes so I didn’t have to watch my grandfather, monster he might be, die. “Justice is served. May the goddess grant you peace.”
A whistling noise telegraphed the scythe’s deadly arc to my ears, but there was no resulting thwack as blade met bone. No indrawn breath. No thump as Lacroix’s head rolled across the pavement.
Daring to crack open my eyes, I sucked in a ragged gasp at the wicked athame slicing into Linus’s throat.
“Release him,” I snapped, shifting to one side to see who had ambushed him and then wished I hadn’t.
“I offer a trade, your Linus for my Gaspard.”
As much as I wanted to blink away the sight of Odette holding Linus at knifepoint, I had to accept this was the real her, that the woman I had known and loved since coming to Savannah was a figment of my imagination.
That didn’t make losing who I thought she was hurt any less.
“All right.” I lifted my hands to show her they were empty. “Let him go, and I’ll allow you both to leave the city.”
“That is fair,” she conceded. “I accept.”
“Was any of it real?” I hadn’t meant to ask, not while Linus’s life hung in the balance, but it came out all the same. “Did you love Mom or Maud or me at all?”
“I loved Maud,” she said quietly, “but she adored Evie, and when there was no Evie, there was still you.”
I didn’t need her to spell it out. I could read between the lines just fine. That was a big, fat no.
She hadn’t loved Mom, she hadn’t loved me. Her tolerance must have been an act for Maud’s benefit.
Doing what I do best, I shoved all that hurt, all that pain, all that misery, into a mental box and twisted the key, locking it away where it couldn’t distract me.
“Lower the knife.” I pulled on my Dame Woolworth mask, its austere indifference the best defense I had against letting Odette know how much she had hurt me. Though she had known me long enough to see through the cracks, I still held on to the edges for all I was worth. “Step away from Linus. Once you’ve released him, I’ll back away from Lacroix.”
“Gaspard is wounded. Moving him will prove difficult. Forgive me, bebe, but I must even the odds.” Without flinching, she drew the blade across Linus’s throat. It shouldn’t have given him a paper cut, not with that sigil on his body, but Odette had come prepared, it seemed, with a goddess-touched artifact. A crimson line carved his throat, and blood gushed down his chest. “He won’t die if you treat him quickly.”
Horror wobbled through my knees, but I kept them from buckling as I rushed to catch him as he fell.
“I’ve got you.” I wrapped my hand around the front of his throat. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
I eased him down onto the pavement, his gaze locked with mine, unflinching, like he wanted to make sure my face was the last thing he saw.
“Sorry in advance,” I teased in a broken voice, unable to break his stare. “Promise I’ll buy you a new one.”
After ripping open his buttoned shirt, I hacked away his undershirt and used it to staunch the bleeding. He held the fabric in place while I sawed the pocketknife across my palm. Spots danced in my vision, and I slipped to one side, dizzy. Biting into my bottom lip until my eyes watered, I regained my focus.
Using his chest and abdomen as my canvas, I smeared jagged sigils that curled like thorns over his sides.
The most ridiculous thought crossed my mind, that the sharp edges had pierced his soul to cage it in his body, but it flittered away on a breeze smelling of garbage and pennies.
More blood. More pain. More sigils. More magic.
I gave it my all.
It wasn’t enough.
The vicious slash wasn’t healing. It wasn’t healing.
The goddess-touched arti
fact used to inflict the wound must have made him resistant to my magic.
“Odette,” I begged, desperate. “You have to help me.”
Lethe butted me in the shoulder with her blocky head, and Hood padded closer too.
I didn’t have to look back to see Lacroix was gone, and Odette with him.
I made a fist, squeezing out every drop, and delved into the farthest recesses of my genetic memory. I scooped a sigil from the bottomless pool of ancient knowledge and applied it in concentric circles.
Magic shimmered over Linus’s skin, coating him from head to foot, but there was no blast of energy this time. No light. No miracles.
For a moment, a vision from the nightmare superimposed itself over us.
For a moment, he was Maud, lying in a pool of blood, already dead.
For a moment, I was that younger Grier, hunched over my adoptive mother’s body, her blood on my hands.
But she had been gone when I found her, her blood ice on my fingers. Linus was still here.
He was still here.
Cut deeper. Cut harder. Cut faster.
More blood. More pain. More. More. More.
Slowly, so slowly, his eyelids slid closed, and his lips parted on a soft exhale.
“You’re not leaving me too,” I screamed at him. “Linus. Linus.”
“Grier,” Lethe said gently. “Let him go.”
“No.” I shrugged her off me. “I can—”
Hood cut in, his voice barely a whisper. “Do to him what you did to Maud?”
The verbal slap cleared my head and shocked me out of my panic spiral.
Up the well-worn stairs to my mind, I ran, as fast as my feet would carry me.
Mom. Maud. Amelie. Boaz. Odette. Linus.
I couldn’t keep going like this, not when I lost everyone I loved, not when I was alone.
Again.
Always.
How to Live an Undead Lie (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 5) Page 27