by K. D. Worth
As he helped me to my feet, I still heard and experienced the shades’ pain, but it had grown distant, like a TV in another part of the house, faint and no longer in my face. Slade told me I was a sponge for absorbing the pain of others.
Had this been what he meant?
Taking authority of the room, Max pointed at Zack. “Okay, dude, you need to chill for just a minute. Maybe you can think about what you did before you see your grandma.” To me and Heather he flipped his thumb toward the hallway door. “Reaper conference. Now!”
With gentle but hurried steps, Max led me toward the door, thankfully not letting go. That glorious warmth fueled me better than a double shot of espresso. I didn’t understand it, but I’d never been more grateful for my boyfriend, my protector.
My real-life superhero.
Too stunned to argue, Zack obeyed and Heather followed us with a bitchy, “Did you just tell my charge to wait?”
“Forget that,” Max snapped. “Here’s the scoop: that girl in there is Kody’s sister. He got scared when he couldn’t sense her presence so he came to check on her and found her high.”
“You’re not supposed to contact your family.” She glared at both of us. “You know that.”
“He’s new, cut him some slack. Nobody’s perfect,” he said, shushing more discussion with a wave of his hands. “Now this is what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna call 911 from his sister’s phone, then we’re gonna leave.” He pointed at Heather. “You’re gonna take Zack to heaven, fill out your paperwork, and never mention that we were here. Deal?”
“What’s in it for me?”
“We’ll both owe you a huge favor,” I said at once. I felt more like myself the longer I stayed connected to Max, but the icy cold hallway had me suppressing a shiver.
Heather studied me with an intrigued expression. Maybe because I was new or she didn’t like Max, but I thought she might be less annoyed with me. Or maybe she was manipulating both of us. Who knew? I never did understand girls, and I sure as heck couldn’t try now. Not with the echoes of spirits in my head.
“Please?” I begged, hoping she would agree before we had to explain the shades. The whisper of their thoughts had quieted, and I could sense they hadn’t come closer or attempted to enter the building.
Yet.
I clutched Max’s hand tighter as a thought occurred to me.
Maybe the shades were waiting for me to come to them—no way! I wanted nothing to do with those things. I just wanted to teleport back to the dorms and hide my head under a pillow. But no matter how scared I might be, we couldn’t abandon Zack’s spirit or my sister.
Heather looked back and forth between us, arms crossed as she came to some sort of decision. She sighed, her breath frosting around her lips. “Yeah, fine I guess.”
A hard chill moved up my spine and I shivered.
“Why is it so cold in here?” she wanted to know, glancing around in confusion.
I looked at Max and his skin had gone ashen white. “Shit.”
Then suddenly I knew.
The shades hadn’t merely grown quiet because Max’s touch had given me the strength to tune them out. It had become easier for me to tune them out because there were fewer of them outside now. More than half of them had left, returning to limbo.
“You don’t mean—”
“Oh my God!” Zack screamed. “You guys need to get in here! Oh my God!”
We raced back to the door. I slammed into Max when he drew up short.
Heather crashed into me. “Watch it,” she snapped.
Max held out his arm to keep us behind him. On the floor, in the middle of the room, Zack’s spirit crab-crawled toward us.
“Oh my God!” Zack cried again. “What is that?”
I’d never seen one before, but I knew immediately what it was.
A wraith.
My body went ice cold and Heather grabbed my arm. “Is that what I think it is?” she whispered, her grip tightening and her tone eerily calm.
Funny, in nonserious situations she was a screamer, but not now.
“Fuck” was the only answer Max had.
The black shadowy form hovered over the couch. Air swirled around us, emanating from the dark creature, bitter and cold. I trembled from sheer terror as the wraith zeroed in on Zack’s human body.
With a shrill howl that seemed to suck all the air from the room, the shadow rushed into Zack’s mouth. In less than three heartbeats, it disappeared into the confines of the corpse, taking the icy chill with it.
The body jolted like being struck with defibrillator paddles.
If I’d still been a human, I might’ve peed my pants.
A low groan arose from Zack’s possessed body, and it slowly began to move.
“Get him outta here!” Max shouted, startling us. He seized Heather’s arm and pushed her toward Zack’s spirit. “Go!”
Without protest, she grabbed her charge’s hand and yanked him to his feet. “Come on buddy, no time for questions. We gotta roll.”
A door appeared and Heather opened it, bodily shoving the guy in front of her. She threw us one backward glance. “You better get this taken care of, because I’m calling Slade in two minutes.”
When she and her door disappeared, I fought tears. “We’re gonna be in so much trouble.”
For a moment I thought Max hadn’t heard me. I opened my mouth to repeat myself but his attention had locked on the apartment window.
“We have a bigger problem.” He pointed outside. “There’s more of them coming.”
MAX—Chapter 18
UNABLE TO believe my eyes, I counted seven black shadows barreling toward the apartment. I didn’t know if they would break the window or seep through the walls, but they would be here any second. Below, the few remaining shades had become restless, moving away from the building.
Shit, even they’re afraid of the wraiths.
Kody’s presence had lured the shades here, and just like Slade had warned, the wraiths followed. If they found Kody this quick, last night in Alaska had not been as clandestine as we’d imagined. Meegan must’ve told Slade and they’d both been protecting us.
But no one knew we were here.
“We gotta leave.” I grasped at Kody’s hand so we could teleport, but he was no longer beside me. “Babe…?”
“Get away from her!”
I turned at my boyfriend’s cry.
The wraith had fully animated the drug dealer’s body. With a groan, it inched closer to Britany. It had a pencil in its hand….
Kody rushed forward, but he was too late.
The wraith stabbed her neck, puncturing her jugular. Blood spurted in the air. Britany’s body seized, and she made a choking sound.
“No! Get away from her!” Kody lunged for the wraith-possessed body of Zack.
The instant his hands touched it, a giant light exploded.
A huge blast threw me back.
I stumbled for footing, but fell on my ass from the force of power, the wind knocked out of me. Disorientated, I blinked a few times, trying to bring everything back into focus.
“Britany, no… no, you can’t die,” Kody moaned. He pressed his hands against her neck, trying to stop the blood while she gurgled through harsh, wet breaths. “No, no please….”
Zack’s body had crumpled on the couch beside them.
And a woman in a Victorian gown stood in the middle of the room.
“H-help me…,” Kody begged, his voice broken and slurred. “Gotta stop… the bleeding….”
The sound of Kody sobbing over his sister tore my gaze from the spirit.
Blood gushed from between his fingers in rhythm with Britany’s heart rate, staining his white shirt and drenching his hands. Her body shook, eyes wide open but without any clarity. Kody’s movements were clumsy, face glazed with tears and skin ashen white. He murmured assurances and pleas to Britany, but they sounded like the incoherent words of a stroke victim.
Kody wasn’t just upset.
Something
was wrong with him.
“Where am I?” the spirit of the old-fashioned woman asked.
Without hesitation, I screamed out to the universe, “Meegan! Help!”
My best friend appeared out of thin air, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”
“Thank God you’re here,” I cried. Kody’s broken sobs and babbling spurred me into action. I clambered to my feet and raced past Meegan to get to him.
“H-help m-m-me…. Max,” he begged, trying to hold a throw pillow against her neck but too weak to keep it in place. “She’s—” He gasped for air. “—dying.”
I took the pillow and pressed it to Britany’s neck, his hands mixing with mine, ice cold and clumsy. “It’s okay, I’ll help you,” I assured him. “It’ll be okay.”
The moment I’d touched Britany, I felt her life force fading.
She was not going to make it.
“Who is…?” Meegan’s question faded and her face lit up with recognition. “Shit, that’s Britany.”
So she did know more than she let on.
“The wraith killed her,” I told Meegan, wincing when Kody began to sob harder, choking on spit and unable to breathe. I let go of the useless pillow.
“N-no… don’t stop… need pressure…,” he mumbled. He sounded drunk.
“Kody,” I began, knowing he had to feel her dying too. Then again, in his debilitated state, maybe he didn’t.
Trying to get through to him, I touched his arm.
Instantly that fire—the heat and love Slade taught me to access—flared within me. My hands sparked with light, but Kody didn’t even flinch. I placed both hands on his arm and the moment our skin connected, his body began siphoning the power from me.
Rather than drain me, the more he took, the stronger and hotter I became.
“No, no, she can’t be dead,” he wept, his voice growing in strength.
Blood oozed from Britany’s wound, each pulse slower than the last as her life slipped away. Her eyes closed. Kody pushed the blood-soaked pillow into her neck again, with more vigor as my power fed him. “Please, God, no….”
The spirit woman seemed to find her bearings, and she began to mutter, “Where’s my baby? Have you seen my baby?”
“Max?” Meegan questioned. “Who the hell is that?”
Not letting go of my boyfriend, I jerked my head toward the spirit, her existence more than I could deal with at the moment. “Kody turned a wraith into her.”
Shit, even as I said it, I could hardly believe it.
Kody was so consumed with panic and grief I didn’t know if he realized what he’d done. Pushing that heat into him, I rubbed his trembling back while he tried in vain to keep his sister alive. Had Kody turned a wraith back into its true self?
I stared at him, covered in blood and weeping. How the hell did you do that, babe?
“Britany, no,” he begged, thin shoulders quaking with agony.
Then the spirit woman added her wails to Kody’s, steadily growing louder until she all but screamed, “Where’s my baby? My baby!”
“Oh, and there are more of them coming,” I told Meegan, fighting an insane urge to laugh.
This can’t be happening….
“More what?”
“Wraiths!” I shouted over the grieving duo, any humor morphing into hysteria. “I don’t know what to do! I can’t let go of Kody to fight them!”
The fire inside me, the heat I needed to create lightning blasts, funneled into Kody so fast my hands had fused to him. We were attached, locked, as he fed from my energy. If I let go, I feared he might be hurt… or worse. What if I was the only thing keeping him alive after what he’d just done?
Icy air increased around us until I could see my breath.
The wraiths were closing in.
A crushing weight of failure hit me. I wasn’t ready! I didn’t have enough training! When the wraiths got here, I wouldn’t be able to protect Kody because I couldn’t let go of him. I had to get him out of here.
Now!
I was the Protector—Kody’s protector, and though the wraiths would possess Zack and Britany’s bodies if we didn’t stop them, and Kody might never forgive me, I suddenly didn’t care. Far stronger than my instincts to save him on that bridge, more powerful than any desire to make him forgive himself and be happy, I had to keep Kody alive.
Nothing and no one else mattered.
In that instant, as if something or someone were whispering to me, I understood deep in my soul that I had to get Kody off these train tracks.
The fate of the whole world depended on it.
“Babe, we have to go!” I shouted over the shrieking spirit and the sudden rumbling outside. The cold had risen, making me shiver until my back hurt.
We were out of time.
“Meegan, c’mon!”
Kody jerked free before I could teleport us, severing our link. In a flash, all that heat rushed back into me, stealing my breath and making me stumble backward.
“No! I can’t leave her!” Blood covered Kody, his tears leaving tracks through the red. Whatever strength I’d given him had revived him enough that he’d stopped slurring his speech.
“We’re not staying,” I growled, more determined than ever.
Before I could grab him and make him leave with me, the air filled with the bone chilling cold of pure evil.
My head snapped up and blackness began seeping in through the walls.
“They’re here!”
Everything began to shake, trembling from ceiling to the floor, as the shadowy specters entered the apartment. The lamp on the end table rattled so hard it fell on its side, the lightbulb exploding in a spark and a burst of glass. We were in the middle of an earthquake, the drywall cracking and rumbling as the wraiths emerged from the walls. The bitter chill sent a violent shudder through me.
Beside me, Kody stopped sobbing. The woman in the long dress screamed even louder when the black shadows began to take humanoid shape.
The wraiths stilled, startled by the screeching spirit.
Meegan laid a hand on the woman, and instantly her ear-splitting cries fell silent. “You’re going to be with your baby now,” she said in a calm voice.
“My baby died,” the spirit protested. “I can’t leave her here all alone.”
Meegan shook her head. “No, your baby’s been waiting in heaven for you all this time.”
The woman nodded and then faded from existence.
I didn’t know how the hell Meegan sent that spirit to heaven so fast—but hell, I didn’t even know how a wraith-turned-back-into-its-original-form was even there in the first place!
Meegan whirled on me. “We need help! Slade! Help us!” she screamed into the air.
Above us, the wraiths began to circle, their coldness making my skin hurt, dry and brittle like we were naked in the middle of a blizzard. The wind whipped our hair around, and insanely I wondered if hair could freeze and break.
A burst of white light filled the room. I raised my arm to shield my eyes, blinking until I could see again.
Slade!
His gray eyes swept the room. Two giant broadswords appeared in his hands, and he launched himself into the swirling darkness above us, giant black wings spread wide.
What the…. Slade has wings?
Before the thought could travel from one side of my brain to the other, his blade cut through a wraith.
A high-pitched scream rent the air, and the wraith disappeared in a great explosion.
I dove forward to shield Kody with my body. Too weak with shock and fear to teleport us, I clung to him, sending a silent prayer of thanksgiving that Slade had arrived.
One, two, and then a third wraith exploded beneath the slash of his blades. I closed my eyes against the force of the blasts. Screaming wails echoed around us, and a vortex of magical power throbbed against my skin.
But I never let go of Kody.
If the wraiths got anywhere near him, if they touched him, they would suck out what little energy
he had left.
They would kill him.
Desperate to keep him safe, I concentrated all the warmth, the love from deep inside my heart, to shield him with more than just my body, but the fire of light within. Suddenly I felt it warm and illuminate the air around us. I glanced over my shoulder and realized that somehow, I had made a shield over us. My eyes tried to track Slade’s movements through the light, but he darted through the air above lightning fast, everything a swirling mass of confusion.
Cocooned within our own protective bubble, the heat between us rose, filling Kody and reviving me.
It was all over in a matter of seconds.
The echoes of dying screams faded, leaving a heavy silence broken only by the fluttering sound of some papers and the crackle of drywall chunks falling from the ceiling. The imminent threat gone, I felt the shield collapse and the sounds in the room amplified.
Coughing in the sudden dust, I fanned in front of my face so I could take in the aftermath of Slade’s battle with the undead. Blood pounded in my ears and I could barely hear Kody breathing beside me. He shook violently and I ran my hands over his arms. “Babe, you okay?”
He nodded, blue eyes wide with confusion. Then his gaze darted upward, utter disbelief coloring his face.
Slade landed on the floor in the middle of the apartment without so much as a sound.
His eyes were black and his face glowed, the features sharp and elongated—almost demonic. Glistening ebony wings rose behind him, towering clear to the ceiling. His body was completely bare, his skin silvery white, and his hair liquid obsidian. Power radiated off him in throbbing heatwaves like a bonfire.
Frozen in terror or shock—maybe a bit of both—I stared.
This was not the man I mouthed off to, complained about, or teased.
This was not a human, or a mere reaper.
Slade truly was an archangel of death.
“I told you not to go anywhere without telling me!” he growled so loud I swore his words could be heard in the four corners of the earth.
I recoiled, my blood reverberating from the authority of his voice. Beside me, Kody let out a squeak, clutching at my arm. I was too scared to try to create that bubble around us again—Shit! Did I make a force field?
