The ravines in Western Washington ran deep and steep, their slopes covered with thick undergrowth. A lush tangle of ferns and brambles and vining plants of all types covered the slopes, and the dirt was thick with moss and detritus. Almost every forest floor in Western Washington was thick with the matted needles that fell from the evergreen trees, and rotting leaves from the maple, cottonwood, and birch trees. Everything blended together into a unique ecosystem, thick with nutrients that supported all of sorts of life from fungus to insects to the birds and animals that fed on them.
Trecht directed us to park near the lower level of the Katega Campground. A trail ran through the woods to the bridge crossing Juniper Creek. As we prepared to get out of the car, I called Sophia to let her know where we were.
“How far away are you?” I asked.
“Less than five minutes. I wish you and Bryan would wait for us.”
“Every minute could mean the difference between saving Arnica and losing her to that freak. We’ll be careful. I promise.” I hurried out of the car to catch up with Bryan. He turned around, staring at me.
“I want you to stay here,” he said. “Wait for Sophia. I can run ahead in my wolf form and make better time that way. I’ll have the best chance of the Soul Collector being unable to affect me with his magic in my shifter form, as well.”
I bit my lip, wanting to go with him, but if he had a better chance of saving Arnica without me, he was right. I should wait.
“All right. I’ll wait here to talk to Sophia.” I got back in the car and shut the door, watching as Bryan shimmered into his wolf form. He was beautiful, large and white with glowing blue eyes. Trecht motioned north, and he and Bryan took off down into the ravine, Bryan loping through the snow as though it wasn’t even an obstacle.
As I waited, I fretted. Had the Soul Collector found Arnica yet? Was she still alive? And what could he do to Bryan in his shifter form?
Shivering, I suddenly realized how cold it was. I fumbled in my purse for my keys, hoping to turn on the heat, but then I realized Bryan still had them. When he turned into his shifter form, his clothes changed with him, which meant my keys were unavailable. And the only spare key I had was at home.
“Crap,” I said under my breath, sticking my hands beneath my armpits.
I kept an eye out for Sophia, wondering just how long five minutes could be. It occurred to me that I might have a blanket in the backseat, so I turned around on my knees, leaning over seats to look in the back for it. The next moment, I heard a knock on my car door. I whirled around, opening it, relieved that the cops had finally arrived.
“I’m so glad you—” I stopped.
Sophia wasn’t standing outside my door, and neither was Frank. Instead, a tall burly blond man stood there, a scar on his face.
Oh hell, it was the killer.
My feet were on the ground, my hand still holding tight to the door handle.
As he reached for the top of the door, I acted without thinking. I swung the door open as hard as I could, ramming it into his stomach and knocking him back. I thought about slamming it shut and locking it, but it wouldn’t be that hard for him to break the window, so instead I scrambled out into the snow.
I started to run, heading toward the main road. It would be a deadly mistake to run into the woods with him following me. He knew the forest too well, and he was bigger and faster than me. I could hear him struggling after me and wished I had swung the door even harder.
I managed to reach the main road that led out to Whipwillow Lane, but I hadn’t counted on how icy the asphalt would be. I went sliding across the pavement, landing on my ass. I glanced around, seeing a snowbank nearby, and I scrambled for it, struggling on my hands and knees to reach the soft snow.
The Soul Collector was coming after me now, still saying nothing, but I could see the deadly glint in his eye. He carried a wicked-looking knife. The blade had to be at least eight inches long.
Finally on my feet, I struggled through the snow toward a nearby tree. The road was too slick to run on, so now my only hope was to reach the treeline and hide from him until Sophia and Frank made it here.
The Soul Collector paused, watching me flounder through the knee-deep drift. “Make it easy on yourself, spirit shaman, and stop.”
I glanced at him, looking over my shoulder. There was a certain magnetism to his voice and I found myself pausing, not even understanding why I had stopped.
“Come here. I’m not going to hurt you.” The words trickled like honey, wrapping around me with a soft embrace.
Logically, I knew I had to move, to run, but my body wasn’t obeying. What the hell? And then I remembered. He was able to charm. He had lured Nancy in with the promise of Oxycontin.
“The police are on their way! You can escape if you leave now.” My words were shaky, but I hoped he would believe me. If I could keep him talking for a couple minutes longer, Sophia should come racing down the road.
“Come here,” he said again.
And once again, my feet struggled to move on their own, my body ignoring my thoughts. “No, please. Just go. If you hurt me, you’re not going to get away with it. The cops know who you are.” I forced all of my will into resisting him. Silently calling on the Morrígan, I asked for her strength. Just give me strength. Give me the power to break free. Give me the strength to fight against him.
There was a sudden shriek as a large crow came winging down into the night, aiming for his face. The Soul Collector tumbled back, trying to ward it off, and my feet were suddenly free again. I turned, heading for the stand of trees.
In the distance, the whir of sirens grew closer.
I reached the nearest tree and grabbed hold of the trunk, swinging behind it only to see the Soul Collector heading my way. He was large and strong enough to where he could easily break a trail through the snow, and he was faster than I was. Praying the sirens would get here before he reached me, I moved behind yet another tree, jamming my hat down over my ears to try to drown out his voice.
“Come here. I order you to come here.”
Once again, the impetus to obey swept over me. I prayed the crow would return to attack him again as I struggled against my body’s desire to follow orders.
“You can hear the sirens,” I shouted. “You have time, but only if you leave now!”
I closed my eyes, focusing all my will into getting out of his reach. But he moved in a blur and the next moment he was right in front of me. He grabbed hold of my wrist with one arm, swinging me in front of him and bringing the knife to my neck. He dragged me forward, toward the road, as Sophia and Frank, along with another two patrol cars, slowed to a halt on the icy road in front of us.
“You’re my ticket out of here,” he whispered to me.
“You might as well give it up. It’s no use—” I started to say, then realized he had nothing to lose. He could kill me right there and would be no worse off than he would be if he let me go, considering how many people he had already killed. “Maybe I can help you,” I said, struggling to think of something that would sound feasible.
“Oh, you’re going to help me all, right. We’re going for a little drive.” He dragged me back to my car, standing behind me and walking backward as Sophia and Frank and the other officers got out of their vehicles.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Sophia said, in a loud, steady voice. “Let her go and everything will be all right.”
“You think I buy that bullshit?” the Soul Collector said. “You know who I am. I know who you are. Are you just going to let me walk out of here if I let her go? I don’t think so.”
“Don’t hurt her. It’s over. If you give in now, we’ll see that you get a fair trial.” Sophia was trying her best, but she wasn’t dealing with someone rational.
“You’re going to let us drive out of here, and then I’ll drop her off when I’m on my way out of town.” Even as he said it, I could feel the lie beneath the words. He wouldn’t drop me off. At least, not alive.
“I want to get the hell out of here.” The Soul Collector tightened his grip around my neck as he dragged me with him. To me, he hissed, “Get your keys ready.”
I thought quickly. I didn’t have my keys, but he didn’t know that. “They’re still in the car. In my purse, in the backseat.”
“They are, are they? All right, we’ll just see about that.” To Sophia, he said, “Stop right where you are. If you don’t, I will slice her throat.”
He would do it. I knew he would.
There was nothing preventing him from killing me. No remorse, no worry about jail time. And then I realized he was prepared to die. And I was the hill he was prepared to die on. Necromancers knew what happened after death, and they weren’t necessarily afraid of that threshold. If he got agitated enough, Sophia would shoot him, but that didn’t matter. He knew there was a life after death, and he was fairly certain of what he was going to be doing in it.
Panicked, and wishing he was an atheist, I scrambled through my thoughts, trying to think of something to turn this situation around. But I didn’t have the kind of magic he did. The spells that I could perform worked mostly over the dead, and he wasn’t there yet. I couldn’t shift form like Bryan, and while I would probably live a long, healthy life under normal circumstances, I wasn’t immortal and had nothing to protect me from accidents and mayhem.
Please, Great Morrígan, do something.
The next moment, several things happened, all at once.
A loud noise to the side startled both the Soul Collector and me.
As he jerked around, thankfully not dragging the knife across my throat, Trecht appeared at his side. The general reached out, grabbing hold of the Soul Collector’s hand holding the knife.
The Soul Collector screamed, and even I could feel why. Trecht was burning his skin with his deathly chill. Cold as ice, cold as liquid nitrogen.
Trecht dragged the Soul Collector’s hand away from my throat, the knife dropping to the ground. I stumbled forward, falling into the snow and rolling to the side. As I came up into a sitting position, I saw that the Soul Collector’s hand had turned ice blue, a trail of spiderweb veins appearing across his fingers. The veins glowed for a moment, as if they were boiling with the energy, and then his fingers and hand shattered into a thousand shards, littering the snow. A few drops of blood followed, but they froze before they hit the ground.
The Soul Collector was screaming in earnest now, the trail of blue fire rolling up his arm. His clothes began to vaporize, turning into puffs of mist and floating away.
The Soul Collector lunged forward, toward Trecht, his one good arm outstretched, and he started to chant:
Soul to soul, I called thee forth,
come to me, be my source.
Soul to soul, mind to mind,
your power now shall be mine.
From thy husk, your soul shall flee,
Unliving soul, belong to me.
Trecht stared at him for a moment, then grabbed hold of him and threw him to the ground. He began to laugh, an unearthly laugh that chilled me. “Nice try, necromancer. But where’s your speaking skull? Without it, you hold no power over me.”
Veronica’s words came back to me. The Soul Collector had to have a skull in order to trap the souls of the Unliving. Whether it was in his pack or he had left it somewhere, without the skull, he couldn’t do a thing toward Trecht and the Unliving.
The Soul Collector stared up at Trecht, letting out a roar of anger and frustration. He pounded the snow with his one good hand. “You’re mine. You’re supposed to be mine.”
“It’s so hard, not getting what you want. Isn’t it?” Trecht leaned over him, his eyes glowing with an unearthly light. “We don’t hold your kind in good esteem where I come from.” And then he let out a howl that filled the air. It was a summons, a call to action.
I scrambled away, managing to stand up as Frank hurried forward to help me. He lifted me up and carried me over to where he and Sophia were standing.
As we watched, several spirits materialized around the Soul Collector. They were corporeal, soldiers from Veronica’s Army of the Unliving. And Trecht was their general. He barked out an order in a language I didn’t understand and the spirits fell on the Soul Collector, shrouding him with their bodies.
I felt queasy, watching the frenzy. It was like watching a school of sharks around a wounded fish. I wasn’t sure what they were doing, but they closed in on him, and one unearthly shriek came from the Soul Collector. Then everything was silent.
Trecht walked over to us, ignoring Sophia and Frank. He focused on me.
“He won’t be a problem any longer,” he said. “And Penelope will not be required to escort him over to the Veil. We’re taking him with us. He belongs to the dead now. He’s our lapdog, our footstool, our go-fer, if you will. He’s fed on so many souls of the Unliving that he’ll learn what it means to drain yourself dry for others. Trust me, he’ll pay a price greater than he would in any jail in your land.”
At that, his soldiers stood back, and we could see the body of the Soul Collector splayed on the ground, bloodied beyond recognition. But I could also see his soul, standing there, in ghostly shackles, head down in humiliation.
I turned back to Trecht. “What will you do with him?”
Trecht gave me a gruesome smile. “Trust me, spirit shaman. You don’t want to know. And now, my duty to you is done. I bid you farewell, for now.”
With that, he let out another call, raised one hand and motioned to his men. As he walked back to them they began to fade as a unit, and Trecht looked back to give me one last cunning smile before they vanished.
As we stood there silent, I heard a noise from the nearby bushes. Bryan stepped out in his human form, carrying the limp form of a teenage girl. He had found Arnica.
Chapter Twenty
Sophia rushed forward. “Is she still alive?”
Bryan nodded, gently setting her down on the snow. “She’s hurt, she’s been stabbed a couple of times, but she seems to have gotten away before he could hit anything vital. She’s lost a lot of blood, though, so we need an ambulance.”
I remembered something Ivy had done. I didn’t know if I could do it, but I pushed forward, kneeling beside the girl. I placed my hands on her side near her wounds and closed my eyes. Focusing all my energy into the words, I whispered the charm Ivy had used on Bryan when he had been shot.
Charm, charm,
Mute the harm,
Still the blood,
Slow the flood.
I had no idea whether it would work, so I poured my focus into the energy, trying to slow the blood. Nothing happened.
I brought my focus even narrower, trying to target the individual droplets.
Charm, charm,
Mute the harm,
Still the blood,
Slow the flood!
I tensed, waiting. Then the flow of blood slowly turned to a trickle, dwindling until only a few drops oozed out.
“How did you do that?” Sophia asked.
“I don’t know, I just did what I saw my grandmother do.” I sat back, leaning against the snowbank, ignoring the chill that was running through my butt. In the distance we could hear the sirens of the ambulance. I glanced up at Bryan as he knelt beside me, pulling me into his arms.
“That’s the second time that your life’s been on the line because I wasn’t around. I promise you, that will never happen again.”
I stared into his eyes, then reached up and stroked his cheek.
“You can’t be with me every second of every day. You needed to find her. And it all worked out. This arrangement… You being my guardian, me being the spirit shaman… It’s something we’ll have to figure out as we go along. There are going to be bumps in the road, and unexpected problems. We can’t escape chaos, because chaos is part of life. Even though I deal in death, I do so from the side o
f the living.”
I turned to Sophia. “What are you going to put in your records about him?” I nodded toward the Soul Collector’s maimed body. “We don’t even know his real name.”
“We’ll find out. And we’ll find his pack and wherever he was hiding out. I guess…he died the victim of an animal attack. While he was chasing his victim, he ran into a cougar or a wolf.”
“I know that bothers you,” I said, feeling bad that she had to compromise her ethics.
She shrugged, looking resigned. “Whisper Hollow has its own rules, and that goes doubly so for the police force. Why don’t you go home? It’s not even dawn yet. We’ll stay with Arnica, make sure she gets to the hospital, and then I’ll talk to her parents.”
Grateful, relieved it was over, I let Bryan lead me back to the car. There was no sign of Trecht, and I didn’t expect to see him again. As we headed home, the snow started in again, swathing the night in a world of silent white flakes.
The next morning, Bryan, Juliana, Peggin, Deev, and I gathered around the kitchen table for waffles, bacon, and eggs. It was nearing noon. We had slept in and by the time we got up, everyone around was snowed in. We wouldn’t be going anywhere today.
“What about Frith and Folly? I need to feed them,” Peggin said as we finished eating.
“I’ll walk over and take care of them,” Deev said, giving her a kiss.
“Bless you.”
“I’ll take it out in trade later,” he said, giving her a lascivious grin.
Peggin swatted him, laughing. “Good.” She turned to me. “Deev and I’ll do the dishes. You guys go in the living room and talk.”
“Thanks,” I said, grateful. My phone rang just then. It was Sophia.
“We found his lair, and his speaking skull. I don’t want that in the evidence bin. I don’t want to chance anybody else getting hold of it. Would you like to have it?” she said.
I blinked. I really didn’t want it, but maybe I could give it a proper release, given the skull had belonged to a child he had murdered. “Bring it over when you get the chance. Ellia and I will release it to the earth.” I paused, then asked, “Did you find out his name?”
The Phantom Queen Page 20
