Bitch! Rage filled me as Bones was flung against the wall by those malevolent shadows. He wasn’t shouting anymore. He looked, frighteningly, like he was trying to speak but couldn’t. His features twisted as he struggled, more searing pain flashing through me, but not mine this time. How could these ghosts be able to inflict so much damage? Fabian couldn’t even poltergeist up a limp version of a handshake!
My gaze narrowed as I looked at Marie. It had to be her power enabling the ghosts to do this, what with how her voice sounded like a microphone to the grave and the icy, vibrating waves pouring off her. Even though I hadn’t manifested as much as a spark recently, I still tried to turn my anger into flames, picturing Marie, that fluffy chair, and even the package of chicken by her feet bursting into a fiery inferno. Burn. Burn.
Nothing. Not even a hint of smoke leaked out of my hands, let alone any fire. I tried focusing on the wineglass next, picturing it shattering and splashing her blood all over her. More hard thwacks came from my left, audible even above that awful high-pitched moaning the ghosts made. A glance revealed they had Bones’s arms and legs extended straight out, those shadows appearing and then disappearing from his flesh. Fragments of agony sliced across my consciousness, made more intense by the brief periods of blankness between them. Dammit, Bones was trying to shield me from his pain, even in the midst of being pureed from the inside out by those spectral freaks.
I looked away, tears spilling out my eyes, to concentrate back on that blood-filled glass. It hadn’t been too many months since I’d drank Mencheres’s blood. Some of his power still had to be left in me! Break, glass, break! Or just fall from her hand, at least.
More of those lightning-quick flashes of pain flitted across my emotions, the periods between them growing shorter. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at Bones again. His back was arched, eyes closed, muscles contorting every time one of those shadows dove into him. The agony leaking through to me from him was nothing compared to the searing pain that ripped through my heart seeing him that way.
I tore my gaze away and glared at the glass with enough loathing that it should have exploded into sand. It didn’t. Not even a shiver of movement disturbed it. Maybe it was because I hadn’t drunk nearly as much of Mencheres’s blood as I did with Vlad that one time. Maybe because I’d stopped drinking Bones’s blood, I was now weaker and less able to summon any residual telekinesis power left in me. Ultimately, the reason didn’t matter. All I knew was that the man I loved was being tormented, and even though I was in the same fucking room, I couldn’t help him.
I wasn’t surprised when a dull thrum slowly began to sound in my chest. Marie’s eyebrows rose, but she looked more curious than startled. Hatred surged through me at how calmly she sat there, directing all this mayhem as though it were a puppet show. I’d whipped out two knives from my boots and flung them at her before even planning the action, only to let out a scream of frustration when they were batted away by the wall of ghosts without even grazing her.
I threw myself against that spectral barrier next, determined to make her pay, but no matter how many times I bashed against that writhing wall of otherworldly bodyguards, I couldn’t force my way past them. Worse, it seemed to weaken me, replacing my rage with the same dizzying lethargy I’d only felt the day Bones drained all my blood to change me. After what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, I couldn’t even stand. Despair choked me as my legs gave out. The unearthly keening in the room seemed to grow louder in triumph.
“You can’t win against them,” Marie stated, her voice still echoing in that creepy way. “These aren’t ghosts. They’re Remnants, slivers of the most primal emotions left over after someone crosses over to the other side. Every time you touch them, they feed from your energy and pain just like a vampire feeds from blood, and they grow stronger.”
Almost in a daze, I stared at the concrete floor. Nothing marred it except cracks and mildew stains, but I’d seen something similar to these Remnants when Mencheres raised wraiths in retaliation for a vicious spell against him. Even though those had looked like ghosts, too, they were utterly lethal, cutting through dozens of vampires like a hot knife through butter.
And these Remnants seemed just as strong.
“Did you work the spell before we got here?” I forced myself to ask, even though talking seemed to suck the last bits of strength from me. “Where’d you hide the symbols?”
Her laugh resounded around the room. “I need no spell. I don’t practice black magic; I am black magic.”
Normally I’d say something caustic about how pride always went before a fall, but considering I was the barely conscious one on the ground, I didn’t think the insult would have the same effect.
“What are you waiting for, Reaper?” Marie asked calmly, glancing at Bones. “If they continue to feed from him for much longer, eventually they will kill him. If you want him freed from the Remnants, unleash these great abilities of yours. Show me fire, or move this glass even an inch, and I will send them back to their graves.”
I stared at her, my heart still sputtering out sporadic beats due to my fear and fury, noting every speck of her appearance as though the details could help me defeat her. Those large dark eyes, smooth ageless skin, and full wide mouth framed by black hair that barely brushed the lace shawl covering her tailored navy dress. Everything about Marie looked modern and normal right down to her sensible yet stylish heels, but this woman was the most dangerous adversary I’d ever encountered. I’d thought only Mencheres could wield enough power to clean my and Bones’s clock without even getting up from his seat, but here was Marie, doing that very thing. Her ability to control these Remnants must be what Apollyon was counting on to make the difference in a war between ghouls and vampires, and I had to admit; it was a damn frightening sight.
I looked at Bones. His face was still contorted, pain blasting across my subconscious like rounds from a machine gun, but though his mouth moved, not a word came from him. Not only could Marie direct the Remnants to hold him against the wall, but she could also make them keep him from speaking. Rage gave a flare of energy to my limbs, making me drag myself to my feet as I faced her.
“We both know if I had any of those abilities left in me, I’d be decorating the walls with your bloody, smoldering remains right now,” I said, wishing I had the stamina to sound more threatening. “I only picked up those powers for a short time when I drank from Vlad and Mencheres.”
Satisfaction flitted across her features before they became smooth again. “Like a Mambo,” she said, drawing out the unfamiliar word. “In my sect of voodoo, select Mambos drank from blood sprinkled with Zombi’s essence to absorb the god’s powers over the dead—temporarily. When I was changed into a ghoul, those powers became permanent, and increased more than anyone could imagine.”
“Get those things off Bones and you can tell me all about it,” I gritted out. Marie had confirmation of her suspicions about my power source, but we were still alive, so she must want something from us. I didn’t need a Magic 8 Ball to know if she wanted us dead, we’d be nothing but shriveling heaps in this dingy room by now.
Her hazelnut gaze met mine, no mercy in their depths as she held out the glass filled with her blood. “Drink this or he dies.”
I looked into her eyes and knew, down to my soul, that she wasn’t bluffing. No matter that I feared what would happen when I drank from that glass, I’d drain it dry to save Bones.
A swipe of my hand indicated the wall of Remnants between us. “Let me through.”
Her brow ticked up, and then a path appeared amidst the mass of transparent bodies. I went through that chasm, refusing to look at Bones in case by gesture or mime he’d try to tell me not to do what I was about to. It won’t affect you, won’t affect you, I repeated like a litany as I took the glass from Marie’s outstretched hand and then tipped it to my mouth, swallowing deeply.
Relief swept through me at the bitter, cloying taste, so different from vampire blood. If I
didn’t like it, then it couldn’t have the same effect as vampire blood did, because that tasted like ambrosia to me. I let the glass drop from my hand once it was empty, feeling small, petty satisfaction to see it shatter upon impact. I was pissed enough at Marie to want to see her in tiny pieces on the floor, too, but right now, I’d settle for imagining the glittering shards of crystal were bits of her corpse.
“You got what you wanted. Now get them off him,” I said, feeling stronger by the moment. The draining effect from my contact with the Remnants must be wearing off. Good. That meant Bones wouldn’t suffer any lingering damage, either. I didn’t know if spectral abuse could somehow screw with a vampire’s natural ability to heal, but that must not be the case, so Bones should be fine as soon as those energy-munchers got the hell away.
I swung my head around to glare at the shadows still funneling through his body. They’d better pray once I finally bit the dust, I stayed all the way dead, or I’d come back and kick their asses for this—
Those shadows fell from Bones so abruptly that he dropped to the floor before catching himself, crumpling into a heap. I ran over to him, cradling him, biting my lip so hard I drew blood from my rage at how slowly he pushed himself upright. Then I lasered a glare at Marie. She watched us with the oddest look on her face, the Remnants who’d so recently tormented Bones now appearing around her.
“You can send your little friends back to their graves, or you can play with them all night. I don’t care, but we’re leaving,” I told her curtly, noticing Bones looking between me and Marie with a sort of angry incredulity. The wall of Remnants surged toward Marie, until she was surrounded above, below, and on all sides by the twisting, diaphanous horde. Still showing off her power, I noted in contempt, as if we hadn’t gotten the message before.
“I ordered them back to their graves the same time I had them release him,” Marie said, each word holding only the sugary flavors of her accent instead of the echoing timbres of the grave.
“Bullshit,” I snapped, feeling another wave of anger rip through me, followed by an almost overwhelming hunger. “They’re still here, aren’t they?”
“Kitten, your voice . . .” Bones said with disbelief.
Something slammed into me so hard that my vision went black. I braced for pain, but strangely, it didn’t come. Sounds became muffled, disorganized. I thought I heard Bones shouting, but couldn’t focus on what he was saying or even where he was anymore. Air rushed by me in ever greater whooshes, reminding me of how it felt when I’d fallen from the bridge, but I couldn’t be falling. I was still in the room beneath the cemetery, wasn’t I?
Flashes filled my vision; streaks of silver and white going by so fast, they were almost indistinguishable. I could see through them dimly, but it was as if I was watching things from a long way off. A groan came out of my mouth, part of me registering that it sounded like it was filled with the voices of people who’d died decades, centuries, even millennia ago. As if in a dream, I watched Bones gently lower me to the concrete floor and then punch Marie so hard that she smashed against the far corner of the room.
“I’ll grant you that one strike,” she said, the words seeming to echo in my mind, “but only one. Now, will you listen to what you must do to help her, or will you make me kill you and leave her at the mercy of the grave?”
I could hear Bones reply and Marie answer, but somehow their words were lost to me amidst the keen of countless others, so much louder than when I’d picked up on humans’ thoughts. His touch wasn’t lost, though, when he knelt next to me and scooped me up in his arms. The feel of his skin on mine was an anchor I tried to focus on amidst the whirling chaos that had overtaken me.
I was so cold. So empty. So HUNGRY.
As he carried me out of the room, Marie stopped him, pressing her mouth to my ear. She murmured something, but it was only one voice among thousands, her words snatched away by the roar in my mind before I could fully register her question. Bones yanked me away, but I could still feel the burn of her lips against my skin. His long strides took me into the blackness of the tunnel, brushing by Jacques as though the ghoul wasn’t even there. My fingers dragged along the damp walls as we passed, faintly bemused by the trails of light they seemed to leave. That light increased, pulling itself from the walls to reach toward me with seeking tentacles, but I wasn’t afraid. I was sad. There were so many of them, poor things, and they were so hungry . . .
Grinding metal sounded ahead, then a thicker ray of silvery light shone at the end of the tunnel. Bones increased his pace, jumping straight up into it when we were bathed in its glow, and then everything around me exploded. The voices became deafening, the cold mind-numbing, the hunger insatiable. Those sensations increased, until it felt like I was struggling in the midst of a huge silken web to get away, but all the while my efforts only tightened the cage around me.
Chapter Seventeen
The first thing that registered was the scent of smoke, curling around my nostrils as if begging to be inhaled. The next realization was that my arms felt stiff and my wrists were sore. I opened my eyes, the bland grayness of a concrete ceiling above me, Bones’s pale, naked flesh to my right.
“What?” I began, trying to sit up, only to have something pull on my arms. I tilted my head backward, shocked to see that I was manacled to a wall even as another glance revealed that Bones and I were on a narrow bed. My gaze flew to him once more, noting the cigarette he set down even as he exhaled a long plume of white.
“Why are you lying there smoking while I’m chained to a wall?” I demanded.
The look he gave me was a mixture of relief and cynicism. “Since it seems you don’t remember anything about the past two days, let me assure you, luv—I earned that smoke.”
Two days? The last thing I clearly remembered was Bones carrying me out of that underground room with Marie. That was two days ago? And during that time, it had somehow become necessary to chain me to a wall?
“Oh shit,” I whispered, the memory of my voice sounding like the gateway to hell reverberating across my mind. “Marie’s blood . . . I absorbed some of her powers, didn’t I?”
He grunted even as he pulled a key out from under the bed. “Kitten, that’s quite the understatement.”
I thumped my head against the bed a couple times, more angry than afraid. Goddamn Marie. Why the hell had she insisted on me drinking her blood? Wasn’t it enough that she’d figured out where I got my abilities from? Guess not. She had to add to my problems by forcing me to drink from her. Now in addition to freaking people out once it became known that I could absorb vampire powers through feeding, Marie made sure to have proof that I could do the same thing with ghouls. People would be flocking to Apollyon’s side once these little tidbits were revealed.
“She must want war,” I said, rubbing my wrists when Bones unlocked the manacles. “If she didn’t, she would’ve just killed us. Once news of this hits, nothing but my public execution will calm things down with the ghouls.”
“That’s not going to happen,” he said coolly.
I grunted. “I’m not in favor of dying, either, but when people hear about this, Apollyon’s going to be fighting off converts with a stick—”
“I meant Marie’s not telling anyone, though you’re also right that I won’t let any of that zealot’s sods touch you.”
I sat all the way up, wondering briefly at the dampness beneath me but more focused on what he’d just said.
“Marie won’t tell anyone?” I repeated. “That doesn’t make sense. Why else would she have used such drastic measures to make me drink her blood, if she didn’t think it could benefit her in some way? And what other way could it benefit her except to tell everyone that I can absorb powers from vampires and ghouls? I don’t think she did it just so I can be her new voodoo buddy.”
His mouth twisted. “I don’t think so, either, but the last thing she said to me was if we revealed to anyone that you were able to siphon powers from ghouls, or that you’d drunk her
blood, she’d kill the pair of us. Said she’d know it if we told anyone, too. Must mean she already has some ghostly buggers spying on us. Makes me want to hire an expert to banish every filmy-fleshed one of them I come across, and double goes with the Remnants.”
“Don’t say that.” Thank God Fabian was with Dave or the ghost would’ve been inconsolable at hearing Bones speak so coldly about his kind. “They’re not the same as Fabian or other ghosts,” I went on, my voice catching at a fresh surge of memory. “Marie said that, but I could also feel them. They’re not conscious of right, wrong, what they’re doing, any of that. Those Remnants are just . . . like huge gaping holes of need that gravitate toward whatever energy source they’re pointed at. They couldn’t help what they did to you—”
“Sweet bleedin’ Christ,” Bones interrupted. “Try not to let this turn you into a Ghost Whisperer, hmm? Adopting Fabian is one thing, but we’re already turning away spooks by the dozen. If you want another pet, we’ll get you more cats.”
“Speaking of my cat,” I began.
“He’s here,” Bones said, rising from the bed. “Not in this room, for obvious reasons, but Ed dropped him off yesterday.”
I let my gaze travel over his nudity because, one, who wouldn’t? And two, it was almost habit for me to admire him every time he rose from the bed. But something caught my eye when I lingered over his muscled thighs, making disbelief snake through me. A glance at the dampness under me as I scooted aside only confirmed it, not to mention the matching pink smudges on my own thighs.
“Bones, are you serious?” I gasped. “You couldn’t wait to have sex with me until I was conscious?” Sure, he was a very sexual person. Almost insatiable, some might claim, and I’d be tempted to agree, but this was crossing a line—
He began to laugh in a way that was more ironic than amused. “You may not want to have this conversation until you’re a bit less . . . agitated,” he said, seeming to choose his words with care.