Blightmare (The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 5)

by A. J. Aalto

  Batten’s own eyes had gone the funniest color, and when I realized what it meant, I swore. “You motherfucker,” I spat. “Get away from him, Harry.”

  Harry shot me a baffled look. “Whyever should I, pet?” He read that my statement was born of concern for him and not distress for Batten. “What do you see?”

  I put my hand on Harry’s choking arm and he took it away from Batten, releasing him to the ground. When Batten had regained his footing and Harry had swept back a step, I took my Beretta Cougar mini from my lower back, thumbed the safety off, and shot Batten twice in the chest.

  Batten squawked and dropped, writhing in the snow with a howl as a jet of light blue revenant nectar spewed from the wound.

  I stood over him and aimed at his perfect, perfect ass, covered in faded denim and still a delight to behold. “That was for choosing Remy Fucking Dreppenstedt over me,” I said. “And this is for making me give a shit.”

  I fired once more, this time into his right ass cheek. It felt fucking amazing to walk away.

  Chapter 28

  Harry, on the other hand, did not walk away. He clucked disapprovingly at me, quickly frisked the wounded Kill-Notch for any more weapons, and demanded I re-invite Batten to the house.

  I grinned. “Fuck, no,” I said, and again, it felt fantastic. All my grief had fled. Bullets were magic. Why hadn’t I ever tried shooting Batten before? How soon could I shoot him again? I looked at the gun in my hand and started laughing.

  “Dearheart,” Harry said with a chiding snort of frustration. “Do be sensible. You simply cannot behave in such a disgraceful—”

  I fired off another round in Batten’s direction, hitting a pile of unmelted snow near the boathouse with an impressive phloof! Any minute now, Mr. Kujawski next door would be calling the cops, if he hadn’t already.

  “MJ!” Harry shouted, and pushed his irritation through the Bond. Surely, he must have felt how therapeutic this was for me, but he was not about to waver in his expectations. “I insist you drop that weapon this instant and invite Mr. Batten into the house so that we may tend to his injuries.”

  “You just told me to uninvite him,” I snapped.

  “To protect us from his challenge, which is now over,” Harry explained. “We will discuss this further inside, pet.”

  I stood at the mudroom door, considering, while Harry’s thrice-pierced brow furrowed further and further to display his displeasure. Finally, I let out a disgusted grunt and said, “Fine! Mark Batten, you are now welcome in my home, but watch your ass, because I really enjoyed putting a bullet in it.”

  Harry reminded crisply, collecting Batten up in his arms despite Mark’s cries of pain, “This is not the man you once knew. Shruff and cinders, my pet, use his proper name.”

  “Right! How could I fucking forget?” I glared at the writhing mess in Harry’s powerful grip. “Mark Batten Dreppenstedt, you are—”

  “Middle name,” Batten ground out through clenched teeth.

  “I'm apparently the only one who doesn't know what it is, jerkface.”

  “Kill-Notch.”

  I felt my eyes narrow to slits. “That’s not your middle name.”

  “Shows how much you know,” he said with effort. “And you are going to pay for this, woman. I fucking swear…”

  “Well, then maybe we’ll leave those bullets right where they are,” I said, turning to go inside. “That's a stupider name than Wes going by Wasp, and you don't even have the excuse of a deranged elder choosing it for you. How old were you when you got it legally changed? Eighteen? Go to the Michigan DMV in your Camaro, your mullet fully feathered and glorious, and try to lay some sexy-dangerous charm on some poor woman who had to try and fill out your paperwork with a straight face?”

  Harry barked again, “MJ!”

  “He named himself after his own nipple art! And he tried to murder you!”

  “Turnabout is fair play, love,” Harry reasoned, his accent heavy tonight. “I did kill him, after all. He won’t try it again. Only, he needed to test his new abilities, and I believe I’ve demonstrated my dominance, haven’t I, lad?”

  Batten’s answer was an agonized groan.

  I rolled my eyes grandly. “Fucking revenant bullshit logic and dick-waving. Fine. All right, Harry, but he’s your problem, now. I buried Mark Batten. For all I care, he can stay buried.”

  On the receiving end of two dead, unblinking stares, I grimaced. The night was cold, and their disapproval made it colder still. “Mark Kill-Notch Batten Dreppenstedt, you are welcome in my home,” I said blandly, meaning anything but welcome. “For tonight. I reserve the right to revoke that welcome the very instant you piss me off. Have fun getting sucked out the window when I do.”

  Harry moved past me in the tight quarters of the mudroom with Batten in his arms, and I got the clear whiff of revenant nectar, the burnt sugar scent of preternatural healing, the crisp lemony fragrance of the House Dreppenstedt Bond, opium smoke, and something else, something equally familiar: the absinthe-like herbal notes of Declan and his mother.

  Remy. Ugh. That royal bitch had done this. Sister of Worms. Falsefeather. The only female revenant in creation, whose pale butt I myself had all but shoved onto the throne. Genius move, Marnie. I supposed it made the most sense, though, that it had been Remy. I had witnessed her disturbingly effective insta-turn powers on the troll scout in the Olmdalur at Svikheimslending. Someone else may have started feeding Batten, with or without his permission, while I was arguing with the demon king in the throne room, but when I left, I had no doubt in my mind that Her Royal Pain In My Neck waltzed into Felstein and rapidly finished Batten’s turning. The weird blue-green steel color of Batten’s eyes confirmed it; he might be in the bloodline of the Raven of Night, but he was not only Wilhelm’s kin.

  Harry set him in a chair at the kitchen table, which caused Batten a satisfying amount of pain, since he was sitting with one of my bullets hot in his ass flesh. I smirked and got him a beer that I realized he probably couldn't drink. Then I went out to find his stakes, and kicked them into the lake. One of them bounced off a fine layer of ice and skittered across the surface before dropping into the drink with the other.

  Inside, Harry was fetching a pair of needle-nosed pliers as the espresso machine hissed. Batten’s eyes were picking up details in that infuriatingly observant way of his, spotting the signs of the nascent renovations. I caught motion out of the corner of my eye and saw Wes in the shadows in the pantry; he looked guilty, Felt guilty, and didn’t have to confess for me to know that this was what had kept him from coming directly home. He’d somehow picked up Batten’s scent upon returning to the area, and had been snooping around to find him. I thought in my brother’s direction, A heads up might have been nice. Wes disappeared downstairs without comment, and I wondered if the newly undead Batten could sense Wes in the cabin or not.

  “Stuff's changed in here,” Batten said, grimacing through his pain. “Even you.”

  I ignored that; I doctored my own espresso while Harry got warm water and a cloth to clean up the mess of Batten’s inky revenant blood. I came to stand beside Batten while he peeled off his black t-shirt and revealed the damage I’d done. He glowered at me.

  “Been busy.”

  “Missing me?”

  “Only with that last round, jackass,” I lied smoothly, sitting at the table with my espresso. “I don’t miss morons who do stupid things. Good riddance to bad rubbish as Harry would say.”

  Batten shot a glare at Harry like he could transmit his irritation. And he could. Harry sighed audibly, a long, put-upon sound, as the emotions battered him.

  Batten asked, “That what he said?”

  “No,” I said, and that was no lie. “He never once bad-mouthed you. That was my territory and I reigned over it with an iron fist.”

  “So I hear,” Batten said. “My sources say you’ve been taking it rough.”

  I thought about how many people had gotten versions of the “Keep an eye on Marnie,�
�� letter and frowned. “Your sources can suck my left tit.”

  “Going full henchman?” Batten poked my biceps while his eyebrow did a questioning arch. I will admit, my arms looked a lot harder than the last time he’d seen me. “Where’d all this come from?” he noted. “Well done. Got washboard abs?”

  “Don’t get too excited,” I said, “they’re not for you.”

  “They’re just… a result of my absence.”

  “Maybe you should go away more often,” I said. “It seems to be healthy for me.” Other than the drinking, and the sleep meds, and the caffeine pills, and the doubt, and the self-loathing. But other than that, it's awesome.

  He acknowledged this with a nod. “We’re not good for each other,” he said.

  Ugh. Me and my big mouth. Not the message I really wanted to send. It might be right, but I didn’t want it out there, spoken aloud. Ever. It took the steam out of my rage and I deflated. I noticed how carefully and smugly quiet Harry was being and felt I should challenge that with an eyeroll.

  Harry objected, “I’m sure that’s not entirely true, Mr. Batten. Oh! I do apologize. Perhaps I should call you Mr. Dreppenstedt, now.”

  Batten made an unhappy noise, unrelated to what was happening with Harry's probing fingers exploring my handiwork with the Cougar.

  “Not helpful, Harry,” I said.

  “Very well, I shall focus on being productive,” Harry said with entirely too much pleasure, and brandished the pliers. “Brace yourself, my dreadnaught.”

  Batten opened his mouth to retort just as Harry drove the pliers into the meat of his torso, and what came out of Mark was a surprised howl of pain. I expected Batten’s hurting to satisfy me, but it didn’t, not now, and I found myself regretting my actions. In an effort to distract, I said, “So. Your little ‘I’m out,’ text meant ‘I’m out of my mind’? How’s that working out for you?”

  Batten’s jaw clenched as Harry twisted the pliers around one of the bullets. “Exactly to plan, thanks.”

  “Exactly?” I nodded. “You sure about that?”

  “Mostly. Didn’t plan for you to fall apart. Jesus fuck, Baranuik. Pull it together, huh?” His face was pinched as Harry pulled free the first bullet and dropped it with a clink in the steel mixing bowl full of warm, soapy water.

  I said, “So, you planned to get murdered, turned, and come back here to have me shoot you? Wow. Genius plot, dude.”

  “Wouldn't call it murder,” Batten said, and his eyes flicked up and back at Harry so briefly that if I hadn’t been staring at him hard, I’d have missed it.

  “You knew you’d die.” I followed the bread crumbs. “You manufactured your own death scene? If that were true, if that was your long game, you should have told me. You could have spared me so much confusion and pain.” My bottom lip quivered and I bit down on it fiercely to stop it. Then I demanded, “Why didn’t you fucking warn me?” I stared Batten down through a long silence.

  When he finally lifted his eyes from the table to meet mine, he retained that cop face that I couldn’t read, but I thought I could sense the slightest whiff of distress; it smelled and tasted unique, like no one I had Felt before. My heart thudded hard in my chest with the realization. Undead, Batten was no longer a null for my psychic Talents. Now a part of my revenant’s house, a member of the Dreppenstedt line, he couldn’t hide from me the way he’d always done as a mortal.

  The surprise must have shown on my face, or maybe he was getting reciprocal feedback through the Bond, because it was mirrored on his own, only his was tinged with apprehension; he saw that I could read him, and he hadn’t been immortal long enough to figure out how to draw up a barrier and block me. I decided to demonstrate what that Bond felt like at full force. I drew all my feelings of rejection, betrayal, and sorrow, intending to pour them through the Bond.

  At the last second, I realized my payload of horrible baggage would have to pass through my Harry. I didn’t want to hurt and burden him more than this was already, so I backed down, turned back to the espresso machine, and then changed my mind. Instead, went to the pantry to fetch a bottle of vodka. I plopped into a seat across the table from Batten and glared at him as I took a long, unladylike pull from the neck. I'm subtle like that.

  “The noble elders had to feel your shock, my MJ, your pain, for the ruse to be believable,” Harry said quietly, eyeballing the booze but wisely choosing not to object. “And my own doubt, my regret. You and I could not have hidden a lie of this magnitude from primeval beings, my angel. We are not elders. We are not experienced residents of their world. We are not prepared to play games on their level. We are only pawns, my sweet. This is why we were not informed. Our Mark may be many things, most of them crass, crude, and brutish, but he is also capable of some cleverness.”

  That explained the Vulvolak broad being at Batten’s funeral, making sure we were still truly mourning, saying real goodbyes. It also, I realized, explained Wes not telling me though Batten was still alive; in hiding this, he was being careful. So I guess I won’t bean him in the squishies later, then.

  I asked Mark, “Did any of the Dreppenstedts besides Wilhelm know what you were planning?”

  Before Batten could answer, Harry interjected, “I find that highly unlikely, my love.” Harry returned his gaze to the careful tending of Batten’s second wound. “If they had, Wilhelm would have had to pour a lot of effort into blocking their little tells, and Prince Sarokhanian would have suspected that something was afoot.”

  I drank heavily from the bottle, relishing the hot invasion of alcohol in my belly. Then I tipped the neck of the bottle at Mark. “Then how did this asshole, a mere mortal, fool them?”

  “I should think if you examine the evidence, my love, Our Lad did no such thing. He did genuinely attack their stronghold, truly desiring of the death of their master. I assume that, if he could have killed Crowned Prince Aston Sarokhanian that night, he would certainly have done so.”

  Batten grunted, though whether it was due to Harry's extraction of the second bullet, or his failure at the assassination attempt, I couldn't tell, and the vodka was telling me not to give a shit about the difference anyway.

  “It was an honest attempt born of honest motives. There was only the slightest subterfuge. Our Lad knew that Aston wouldn’t be hasty enough to kill him outright without the pageantry and theatrics of presenting to Wilhelm his prize on the stage at the throne room. The elders do love their victories.”

  Why would Batten fake his death? I wondered. What would that get him? It didn’t take me long to come up with that answer, since I had been toying with the idea throughout my whole denial phase. He’d heard about the soul leeching of his grandfather, Colonel Jack Batten, and thought the best way to find him was to drop off the grid and get incognito for a loooooooong time, longer than a mortal would have years for.

  “You sacrificed your mortal life,” I said, “and your soul, to find your grandfather?”

  I expected him to play tough, like he had no feelings for anyone or anything, like he had no idea what I was talking about. Instead, he nodded. “He’s family. If Wes were missing, or one of your sisters, and you thought they were alive somewhere, maybe trapped, wouldn't you do anything to find and save them if you could?”

  “So you became one of them. A revenant. Just what you and your grandfather hunted.” I grimaced and took another pull, but the vodka was warming to room temperature, and the burn was turning sour in my mouth. I didn't care, and drank anyway.

  “It was the only way.” He sounded convinced, and I guess it was too late to discuss alternatives. “My time as a mortal was limited. No way could I outwait Sarokhanian. I need to be here longer. I had to have time.”

  “So now you’re like, what, the douchebag version of Blade?” I asked. “Do the other revenants know?”

  “Only Remy and Wilhelm for sure. Rask probably suspects, if Remy hasn't simply told him. And Carole Jeanne, who helped me sneak back into Felstein and sheltered me in her chambers until W
ilhelm could see me,” Batten said. “I’d heard the rumors Colonel Jack might be alive before, but our encounter with Sayomi in Ireland confirmed my suspicions. I wrote you all letters and returned to Wilhelm.”

  “You’re a fucking vampire hunter,” I said, ignoring the no-shit look on his face. “Asking Wilhelm Dreppenstedt for help was a long shot, Mark. Returning to Felstein alone was insanity. You could have been eaten by the manticore on your way. Or made a misstep with Captain Rask sailing back. What if Wilhelm had decided you were more trouble than you were worth? He may have thought having you as a servant of the house through me was cute, a quaint quirk, or some kind of novelty to toy with, but when you started making demands—”

  “You think I made demands?” Batten snort-laughed. “I’m not an idiot. I took a knee and fuckin’ begged. I knew what I was talking to.”

  What, I noted. Not who. He was one of them, but in the deepest part of his mind, he had returned to thinking of revenants as things, not people. Perhaps that was understandable, based on what he’d been through. Maybe his change had been eye-opening. Maybe he felt like a monster now. That made me think of my own monster within, and I was glad I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt over my werefox bite. I drank again and grimaced. The world was beginning to take on a little bit of fuzziness around the edges, and I welcomed it.

  “It was my only shot,” he continued. “Aston Sarokhanian was never going to tell me. But he does leave Svikheimslending; he’s one of the few elders who do.” Batten’s eyes hadn’t lost their sheen; he was far too new-dead to control it, and his excitement was high. He probably didn’t even know his eyes were lit up. If he opened his mouth wider, I’d have seen baby fangs peeking behind his human canine teeth, and I really didn’t want to. “If I died and was turned, I could go into hiding and wait.”

  “Sarokhanian is going to leave that island sooner or later,” I agreed.

  “Got all the time in the world, now. I can wait centuries if I have to.” His jaw set stubbornly.