by Amie Gibbons
No, no, couldn’t go hysterical.
I wasn’t helpless. I could work magic too.
Just wasn’t sure how.
But I had power. And it came out when I was scared.
And what was scarier than a vamp holding your neck, threatenin’ to separate your head from it at any moment?
I closed my eyes as Carvi flashed forward and pushed with my mind.
The hand let me go and I dropped to my knees on the carpet.
He hadn’t been holding me hard so at least my neck wasn’t sore and my breathing was fine… well, as fine as it had been considering my asthma acting up.
I turned, bringing my rifle up and shooting straight at Claude’s chest.
The bullet went right through his heart and my jaw dropped.
Considering my usual aim, even at maybe five feet away, right through the heart without taking the time to steady and aim is a hard shot to make.
He disintegrated before my eyes, melting into a pile of gross goo and I jumped to my feet, whirling on Patrick.
With these rounds, if I hit them in the chest, odds were the bullets wouldn’t get far if they went straight through and definitely wouldn’t get through a wall to hurt anyone.
Patrick just stood there, lookin’ as shocked as he had when he saw Carvi was alive.
I turned my mic back on and said, “Grant, can’t remember the code, we’re on eighteenth. Got the vamps, no Fae yet.”
No answer.
Fear shot through me. “Grant?”
Nothing.
I looked back at Carvi, still tossing zombies back into the others he’d trapped in that section of the hall, and growled at Patrick. “Talk.”
Patrick shook his head. “No, no, I never wanted this.”
“Yeah,” I said, aiming at his chest, “heard that one before.”
“Ariana, no!” Carvi called, turning back to his zombie battle. “We need him alive. We need him to get to that damn Fae.”
That seemed to shake Patrick outta his stupor and he lunged for me.
“Crap on cracker!” I screamed, stumbling back and holding my trigger finger steady through will and not much else.
Everything in my body screamed to shoot him here.
But Carvi was right.
“Help then!” I yelled, jerking to the side to dodge the vamp and dancing back towards Carvi.
“Can you take the zombies who get through?” Carvi said.
“Not without risking the bullets goin’ through and getting someone in the rooms.” I dodged around Patrick again, smacking his arm with my gun.
He was pretty slow and kinda clumsy for a vamp.
“I spelled the hall. Nothing gets out,” Carvi said.
The zombies were still marching through the portal, slow jerky movements turning fluid as they crossed into our world. Their bodies littered the floor and they just kept coming, crawling over their fallen like they weren’t there.
“How about makin’ it so nothing gets in? Like close that portal?” I asked.
“I was trying to,” he said as he threw one last beheaded body into the crowd of crawlers and rushed past me, hopefully taking Patrick down.
Because there was no way I’d be able to hold these guys back for long.
I shot one in the head then the next, my breath snagging as they rocked back and fell.
At least the bullets worked.
I wasn’t sure they would cuz usually you have to take off the head, but then again, silver goes a long way against the undead, something about the specific atomic structure being disruptive to things on a cellular level.
I shot and shot, losing count, until my rifle clicked.
Empty.
I stumbled back, pulling my extra mag off my belt with clumsy fingers.
“Excuse me,” Carvi said next to me, making me scream and drop my mag. “Can I take one of these?” He unhooked one of the grenades without waiting for an answer, pulled the clip, and raced down the hall, launching himself over the pile of dead zombies and slammed through the live ones so fast they couldn’t react, and lobed the grenade through the hole in the world.
Boooooommmmm rocked the world, and an invisible force threw me back.
I hit the floor near the end of the hall hard on my back and the wind rushed outta me, leaving me gasping and immobile.
I struggled to sit up and my eyes couldn’t quite grasp what I was seeing.
The bomb didn’t seem to do much to the hall, but on the other side of the portal was tumbling chaos, things swirling and screaming.
I clamped my hands over my ears against the noise and it poured in anyway.
Carvi came outta nowhere and grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet.
He said something I didn’t catch and took the other grenade away from me, throwing it straight through the hole in the world again.
It went off after a moment and the only thing keeping me in place against the second blast was Carvi as he turned and pulled me into him, blocking me from the blast.
The world went quiet and I sighed as we straightened.
Patrick lay on the ground with his ankles and wrists clamped together like they were tied, but I couldn’t see the rope.
The zombies littered the hallway, all down.
And they smelled.
The reek of rotting meat made me gag and everything shook as I hit the carpet, tossin’ my cookies right there.
“Ugh,” I said as I stood. “Sorry.”
“Not the worst thing going on in here,” Carvi said, turning to Patrick.
He grabbed the vamp by the neck and hauled him to his feet.
“Patrick, I need to know who this Fae is and where she is,” Carvi said. “Is she working alone?”
Patrick just stared at him.
“I don’t have time for this,” Carvi said, voice going low and dangerous.
“I swear I remember you liked foreplay?” a voice said outta the blue.
Carvi and I looked around and he growled under his breath.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he said. “Apparently, we know each other and I can not begin to think who you could be.”
“You don’t remember me?” she asked, voice soft and play hurt. I could practically see the pout that’d go with that voice.
“I’m sure I do,” he said. “Just have to see you to place you because I’m not getting anything from the voice.”
“Seriously, Carvi,” she said. “That’s what you go by now, right? Silly nicknames and all that. What was wrong with your old name? I liked it.”
Carvi drew in a sharp breath and gulped, tossing Patrick away.
“Carvi?” I asked.
“It can’t be,” he said, eyes searching the hallway. “No.”
“Tut tut, lover,” the voice said.
“You’re dead.”
“So are you. Supposedly. You will have to tell me how you tricked me like that. It was you. I sensed your soul and I saw you disintegrate, so it wasn’t a decoy.”
“I’m not telling you shit, bitch,” he said.
“Now, now, is that any way to greet an old friend?”
The air opened and she was suddenly there in a flash.
She was a petite blond, about my height, but thin and slim hipped. She had big eyes the brightest blue I’d ever seen on a person outside of photoshop, thick cupid’s bow lips, high cheekbones, and sharp features.
The face I’d been seeing all weekend?
But who was she?
“Hello, Kari,” he said. “Long time no kill.”
Chapter TWENTY
“You know that’s not my real name,” she said in a southern accent thick as mine that hadn’t been there before. “Just like I know Carvi isn’t yours.”
Kari and Carvi? How did that not get confusing?
“Who?” I asked as they stared at each other.
“She is the reason I changed my name and wiped the memory of it from the world,” Carvi said, voice low and charged. “She is last person outside of my brot
her I trusted.”
The Fae who’d seduced and tricked him back in that small town in Alabama?
“Why?” he asked. “You know what, fuck the why. How?”
She smiled, lopsided and cruel. “You really should know the why.”
“Don’t care,” he said, staring her down with an intensity that’d make me go running.
“Yes, but I do,” she said. “I want you to know why thousands of your people are going to die. It’s because of you. I never would have thought of this without you using your powers to kill me twenty years ago. And I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off from the mortal plane. But the real why, is because of you. Because you made me break my one rule. Don’t fall for the mark.”
Wait, what?
Carvi snorted. “You never loved me. You couldn’t have-”
“I did,” she said, something small and metallic appearing in her hand. “I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. And then you killed me.”
“You look pretty alive to me,” he said, lunging at her.
He flew right through her like she was a projection and hit the ground at a roll, bouncing back to his feet.
“Ohhhh, clever girl,” he chuckled. “You are dead.”
“Hole in one, lover,” she whispered. “And you’d be shocked what you can pull off from the astral plane as a ghost.”
She flicked her fingers and Carvi flew backwards, slamming into the wall next to Patrick.
Who looked asleep.
What the?
Maybe he was so slow earlier because he wasn’t old enough to be up during the day easily and when he stopped pushing himself, he fell asleep?
“You see, Carvi,” the Fae spat, “I snuck in, I got you, and I got sucked in. Hard to seduce someone like you without falling prey yourself. And when I wanted to bring you to our side, tried to, you turned on me. A thousand years of seducing men into ruin and never has one broken my heart. You want to know why, Carvi, that’s why. Tens of thousands dead because you’re a man whore who can’t be bothered to keep a promise to the woman he claimed to love.”
“You’re a fucking Fae,” he growled, teeth clenched like it hurt him. “I asked a human woman I loved to marry me, not a Fae playing me from the start.”
My mouth fell open.
Carvi asked her to marry him? After a few months? Carvi?
“Yeah, I told you what I was and you turned on me,” she said. “And I’ve got a long memory and had nothing better to do on the astral plane than gather disciples and power.”
Twenty years of hording magic as a ghost because he broke up with her after finding out she was his enemy? Okay, he killed her, but sounded like she was plannin’ to do the same to him when she started her long con. Seemed a little far to go for revenge.
Then again, Hell hath no fury like a woman scored.
And wasn’t I the one saying he should’ve known the power he was playin’ with when he slept around?
What was that she tried to bring him over thing? He made it sound like she attacked him outta the blue, but apparently not.
Not like that was important now.
I very slowly drew my pistol.
She didn’t so much as glance my way, eyes fixed on Carvi.
“I’m glad it turned out this way,” she said. “Killing you with the shadow spell was too quick. Too merciful. I wanted to take out your kingdom while you were trapped and watch you crumble when you realized who did it, killing you was a last resort, but now, now I get to see you live in despair.”
I pointed the gun at her, keeping my movements slow and smooth.
The gun jerked from my hands and flew through the air.
The Fae plucked it from the invisible wind without looking away from Carvi.
“Never interrupt a confrontation between exes,” she said, still looking at him. “Is this your new favorite toy, Carvi? Does the poor girl know what you do to women? How you run through them? Does she know you’ll just break her heart? I’m doing you a favor honey.”
“Well bless your heart,” I snapped.
Something smacked me across the face so hard I fell to the ground and my eye and nose exploded in pain.
What kind of power did this bitch have!
She’d taken my pistol but I still had my rifle.
Carvi’s neck and arms bulged as he strained forward like he was strugglin’ against ropes and Kari chuckled.
“You know you can’t get out of this, lover,” Kari said, voice low and throaty.
She walked towards him, slow and careful like a cat closing in on a mouse and Carvi thrashed, mouth working soundlessly.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” she said, stopping just out of his reach if he managed to pry his arm free.
No, no, no, no!
My heart raced and my hands shook so hard I couldn’t even grab the rifle with the first try.
She was a ghost. Carvi flew right through her. What was I gonna do against a ghost?
The air shimmered around her and I squinted.
What was that?
She smirked.
“Nice try, Carvi. I know all your tricks. Learned half of mine from you.”
Tricks!
I wasn’t exactly getting tutoring this weekend, but I definitely got some on the job training.
She was a ghost.
We couldn’t touch her.
At least not here.
I took a deep breath.
I didn’t know how to do this technically, but I was starting to feel how it was when I walked through into a vision.
I focused on her and Carvi, letting my fear flood me.
Carvi may have been an asshole for jumping me to scare me, but he did have a point. I connected with my powers when I was scared.
And right now, I was terrified.
My body shook and my stomach rose up as I let the fear ride me. The room spun like it did when I got shots. Dizzies took me and I collapsed.
I opened my eyes and pushed up with renewed energy, like I’d taken a dose of instant steroids.
My body lay below me, weighed down with equipment and exhaustion.
The scene changed like a badly edited movie into the pool room of Carvi’s old bar. Eighties country music blasted above, making my ears hurt. The lights were dim and the pool tables had balls racked on them, looking ready for a player to slide them to the middle and break them for a nice game over beers.
I was back in the biker babe outfit and Carvi stood in his leathers in the middle of the table, a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
And Kari stood in the back, wearing a long black skirt, tank top and leather jacket, hair curled and makeup heavy.
She looked like a young and sweet good girl gone bad, like she was playing Sandy in a high school production of Greece.
She stared with wide, shocked eyes for another moment and shook her head.
Carvi was already moving.
He was on her before I even recovered from the change and grabbed her around the neck. She broke his hold with a viper quick swipe and they traded blows, both punching and blocking so fast I couldn’t follow it.
I pulled up an image of knives in my mind. Delicate and deadly sharp push knives just small enough to be comfortable in my hands appeared, gleaming under the soft bar light and I lunged, going low as she popped up with an uppercut, catching Carvi off guard.
I slammed my fist into her back, going for a kidney shot and barely swiping her side, the blade skipping over the cloth as she whirled around in a roundhouse that put mine to shame.
I didn’t even feel the hit. Just saw the foot and then opened my eyes on the floor, my head exploding with pain radiating from my eye and back through my skull.
They were still going at it, each landing a blow infrequently, and my knives were long gone.
Carvi was a match for her, but only just. And I apparently was no help.
I couldn’t think through the pain and growled as I pushed myself to my feet. How long until her expertise with the astral plane wore down
Carvi’s greater experience?
“Grant?” I screamed mentally, imagining reaching through the astral plane to the real world, wherever Grant was.
“Ryder?” came back a moment later like through earbuds, faint and confused. “What the fuck?”
“Sir, the coms weren’t working earlier. We need help. Can you get up to the eighteenth floor and let me know so I can try to pull you in? And bring security?”
“Security was passed out in the backroom,” he said. “I’m alone.”
“Well, crap. Okay, get up here? We’re on the astral plane fighting Carvi’s dead ex and-”
Grant appeared in front of me.
I jumped half a step back, arms up on reflex and gagged as I tried to gasp and talk at the same time.
“How did I do that?” I asked.
Grant gave me a look before turning to the fight.
He did that?
Grant got the lay of the land far faster than I thought possible and launched himself into the fight, catching Kari from behind and twisting her neck as fast as Carvi could’ve.
She fell in a pile to the ground and relief rushed through me.
Grant looked back at me and Kari caught him in the knee with a snap kick and he went down, face a contortion of pain before he snapped his head around.
She had to be pretty strong to make that hurt from lying prone.
Carvi got in and slammed her on the back as she jumped up, knocking her back down.
He kicked her fiercely in the side and she curled up, protecting her head as he kicked her hard enough to flip her over.
She could hurt in here for sure, but how did we kill a ghost?
Same way she was going to kill us on the astral plane.
You could kill the spirit on the astral plane, but so far Carvi and Grant were doing a good job of trying and not getting much of anywhere.
Magic. We needed some serious magic.
Something strong enough to destroy a spirit.
Grant was up and pounding on Kari too and I met Carvi’s eyes.
He paused, eyebrows shooting up.
“How do we kill her?” I thought at him. “Magic, I know, but how?”
Carvi closed his eyes and I flew forward, slamming into him.
“Neither of us alone has the power,” he said in my mind as my vision flipped around, showing Grant keeping Kari down with hard and fast kicks, but just barely.
