by Angie Fox
Holy moley. I gripped the black soul in my palm. There were more. I heard their faint screams, watched them bubble in JR’s heart. I didn’t know how either of us was going to survive this one.
“Heaven help us, JR.”
I inched my other hand inside his chest—past flesh, muscle, ribs. Slowly, deliberately, I eased the lumps up from his heart and plucked them like weeds. Every one I touched wanted to penetrate me. Wanted me.
They deserved to die.
I was following orders.
No one will ever know.
They screamed for release.
I gripped them hard as they surged through me.
“Lizzie!” Dimitri’s voice came from another universe.
Swallowing, I tried to answer. I felt like I was moving through water as I pulled my hands from JR’s body.
JR panted hard, his eyes unfocused. There should have been enough blood on the floor to fill a bathtub, but when I pulled free, the wound closed as if it had never been there.
My mind swam. They’d left him. They were mine now. And I wanted them.
“Let them go,” Dimitri was saying.
My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
“Lizzie!” he demanded.
I was weak. All my life I’d been weak. I’d been a sucker, always doing what people expected. Good Lizzie. Perfect Lizzie. Now, with these souls at my command, I felt powerful. And I didn’t need Dimitri or anybody else telling me what to do.
“Back off.” I shoved Dimitri as hard as I could. He crashed against the wall of the trailer. Good.
I had to get the souls inside me. I brought them to my chest, willing them. Please. I felt their power.
“Damn it, Lizzie!” Dimitri yanked my hands from my chest.
He was turning into a real pain in the ass. I wondered how hard it would be to kill him. He pulled me against him and the souls surged.
Another body!
He’s mine! Mine!
Get away!
I felt myself sway. The negativity, the greed—it wasn’t me. This wasn’t me! I fought for control. I’d opened myself too far. I started slamming the doors in my mind as Dimitri’s power poured into me. I didn’t care what he was doing or how he was doing it.
Dimitri’s hands warmed mine and through the clamor of the black souls, I felt…peace. I remembered flying. Flying? Not in an airplane, but like I had wings. High above cornfields and cotton, soaring with the wind in my face. Happy. I saw a family with twin girls. Dimitri’s sisters. I didn’t know how I knew, I just did. They laughed together, their noses almost touching. I felt the love. It reminded me of how I always hoped my real family would be, if I ever found them.
Pirate, think of Pirate. He was my family—Grandma too. I couldn’t lose her—or myself. Not now.
Dimitri gripped my hands tighter. Once again, I was flying. A mix of feelings slammed into me. I felt his red-hot desire, his churning doubt. And deception? I couldn’t go there. Not now.
I took those feelings and swallowed them deep down inside. Then together, we pushed them up, up, as I opened my palms and let the souls rise up like fireflies, through the ceiling of the rusty trailer and out into the universe.
The sudden emptiness overwhelmed me. Worse, I knew what had almost happened. Dimitri pulled me against his chest, and I wrapped my arms as far as they would go around his broad back. I clung to him for a few long moments, terrified of what I’d come close to becoming. Those black souls wanted me, and I wanted to go with them. I’d learned how to open myself, to sacrifice myself, but I knew nothing about limits. It scared me to think about how good it felt to be with them. I felt powerful, alive.
What had JR felt? The werewolf’s breathing had steadied, but he was still horribly pale.
Dimitri checked on him while I leaned my back against the wall of the trailer and fought the urge to close my eyes. The black souls had exhausted me. No wonder JR could barely move. He’d been possessed for days. I’d held the souls for minutes and I wanted to sleep for a year.
Just then my mind pricked. I felt a strange stirring outside. When I peered out of the trailer, an army of ghosts swirled past the tombs. People, werewolves, and—holy smokes—creatures I didn’t even know the names for. “I see—”
What did I see?
Dimitri moved behind me. “They’re called mnemonics,” he said against my ear.
“Can you see them?”
“Sometimes,” he said, simply. “Your experience with death opened you to new worlds.”
They glided through the cemetery, unaware of each other, or of us.
Dimitri’s voice ground near my ear, flooding my body with warmth. “Mnemonics are memories, nothing more. Their souls have moved on.”
I leaned back against him and wrapped his arms around me. He felt solid. Good. I didn’t know what I would have done without him tonight, or any other night for that matter. He caught his breath as I nuzzled against him.
“Okay, coach,” I said, turning toward him, “how do you know so much?”
I about melted at the intensity in his dark eyes.
“I’ve spent my life looking for a slayer. You. Then I met you and—” He lowered his lips to mine and I sank into his kiss.
What started out gentle turned into a heady, powerful rush of pleasure as his mouth ravaged mine. Sweet switch stars. I needed this. I needed him. His hands moved up my sides, caressed the undersides of my breasts, and I nearly combusted.
This is what it felt like to be alive.
My whole body tightened. The man was darned lucky we were smack-dab in the middle of a werewolf cemetery or I might have lost all control. Then again, something told me he wouldn’t mind.
I pulled back and he nuzzled at my neck, sending a whole new wave of sensations barreling through me. “You do have a way of welcoming a girl back from the almost-dead.”
“Promise you’ll never do that again,” he said against my collarbone.
I kissed him on the nose, trying to hide my worry. “Promise.” I hoped. I still didn’t know how I’d lost control of the black souls. Dimitri, through his sheer goodness, had pulled me back. I held on to him, savoring his warmth. “Who were the girls I saw in your memories?”
“My twin sisters.” He lifted his head, grief written all over his face. “Taken by Vald. He wiped out my entire family.”
I couldn’t imagine his pain. “I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing words could never be enough.
Dimitri reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, velvet bag. He tipped it and slid an intricately woven hairpin into his palm. At its tip, a gold griffin snarled, its orange eyes flashing in the moonlight. “This was my sister Diana’s.”
My fingers hovered above the griffin.
“Touch it,” he said, his voice husky.
“Does it hold any kind of power?” I asked, remembering his teardrop emerald.
“For me.” He turned it over in his hands. “Take it,” he said, his fingers caressing as he wove it into my hair. “Diana would want you to have it.”
I touched the jewel in my hair.
Smiling, I pulled him back to me. The kiss was warm, demanding, almost a promise. I could save what remained of my family, try to ease Dimitri’s pain too. With his arms wrapped around me, at that moment, it seemed like there was nothing I couldn’t do.
A cold wind blasted us apart. Fang crashed down on us. He lashed at us with clawlike hands. His anguished roar tore through the trailer. With a start, I realized it wasn’t Fang. It was his spirit. He hunkered briefly over his son. With a wail, he launched up through the roof of the trailer and into the night.
I felt like the breath had been knocked out of me. “Who killed Fang?” I asked, already knowing.
Dimitri scrambled out of the trailer and I followed a breath behind. The werewolves sprawled over the grass. Save one.
Rex stood over Fang’s bloody body, knife in hand. “You did.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rex dropped the knife an
d drew his shotgun, the double barrel aimed at my chest. I hurled a switch star without even thinking about it. It fired through the air like a rocket and cleaved Rex’s skull down the middle. The murderous werewolf didn’t even know what hit him.
The two halves of Rex’s head smoked as his body fell to the ground. His blood pooled in dark circles on the grass. There wasn’t much. The switch star had cauterized the wounds, leaving his head neatly sliced.
My stomach squinched. Yick. The smell of scorched flesh and hair made me want to gag. I rested my hands on my knees while I caught up with the adrenaline surging through me. I’d killed him.
I had to kill him. He would have shot us. But how I’d done it—clean through the skull—was awful. I clutched the switch star in my right hand. It had boomeranged back to me, not a drop of blood on it.
Dimitri took a deep breath, his gun cocked and ready. “We have to go.”
“Urgle.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the filet of wolf.
Dimitri checked on JR, then grabbed his backpack from the rear of the trailer.
Poor JR. How on earth were we going to take him with us? He was built like a water buffalo. His black T-shirt, wet with gore, was the only indication I’d reached my hand into his chest. The muscles and bone underneath pushed firmly against the wet cloth as he took short, deep breaths. Even asleep, he was a force to be reckoned with. I could feel the strength and power rolling off him.
I brushed the dirt from his black hair and noticed he’d begun to gray at the temples. I don’t know why I had to touch him again. Maybe I just needed to do something that didn’t involve gripping his heart in my hands.
What would JR be like when he woke up?
Dimitri threw his shoulder holster on. “Here.” He tossed me a set of keys. “Unlock him.”
I pulled my hand back. Sure, we had to take him with us, but I preferred my new friend chained. JR’s eyes clenched shut and he panted hard, like he was fighting something.
The black souls had flown the coop, but that didn’t mean JR wasn’t about to turn into a crazed werewolf.
Dimitri dumped a small arsenal out of his backpack, along with some first-aid equipment—the basic tool kit for taking someone apart or putting them back together. He glanced my way. “Sorry. I can’t guarantee he won’t turn furry. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”
“I’ve had enough of rampaging werewolves for one night.”
“Touché. But JR’s my friend and he’s going to need all the help he can get,” Dimitri said, clicking an ammo clip into one of the pistols. “He could be in trouble when the pack recovers from that paralyzing spell. No telling which side is going to wake up first.” He stuffed the gun into his shoulder holster. “With any luck, we’ll be on the road by then.”
“You mean we’re not taking him with us?” At least a dozen werewolves littered the ground around the trailer. It was impossible to know who was friend or foe until they woke up. And then it would be too late.
I didn’t want to know what would happen if Rex’s people got to JR first. Would they execute him like Rex did to their former alpha, Fang? Or would it be something even more horrible?
“We can’t just leave him here.” Call it selfish, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it. In my book, you didn’t leave your friends to get stabbed, slaughtered or eaten. “We have to save him.”
“We did,” Dimitri said, regret plain on his face as he placed two loaded pistols and a knife next to the fitful werewolf.
Dimitri located a beat-up Yankees cap in the corner of the trailer. JR’s, I assumed. He brushed the dirt off the brim and placed it on his friend’s head. “If he’s found with us, they’ll execute him on sight.”
He stood up to his full height, all business. He’d never looked more large or deadly. “You killed pack, Lizzie. You’re their enemy now—and JR’s.”
In what universe did that make sense? “Do the words ‘self-defense’ mean anything to these people?”
He shook his head ruefully. “I’m afraid not.”
I fumbled with the keys, shoving them into tiny locks and working the layers of cuffs away from JR’s thick wrists and ankles. In another life I would have been nervous. Lord knew we had reason. We still didn’t know if Pirate and the Red Skulls had escaped. I might be unchaining a crazy werewolf. And any time now, an army of hostile werewolves would wake up and find their alpha’s jugular slashed and their second-in-command with a large switch-star hole through his forehead.
No way around it. I should have been scared as a hamster at a rattlesnake convention. But I wasn’t. I was pissed. It wasn’t my fault Rex died. He’d been gunning for me from the start. He saw me as a weak link the minute we set foot in Shoney’s. Frankly, he might have been right. But I’d grown into my powers, and it was Rex’s own friggin’ fault he’d been too busy scheming to notice.
Rex had no right to mess with me or the pack. I yanked the chains from JR’s chest and his eyes flew open for a moment. “Eep!” I pitched backward and landed hard on my rear.
I might have had the demon slayer bit down, but I had a lot to learn about hard-ass.
Dimitri leaned past me. “JR.” He shook him. “Hey, buddy.”
JR squinted up at us through bloodshot eyes. Thank goodness they were brown instead of the sickly red they’d been before.
The wolf shuddered.
Dimitri squeezed my arm. “Good job, Lizzie.”
JR broke into a coughing fit. He gulped several breaths. “Talk about a hangover. I feel like the worm in the tequila bottle.”
“Don’t try to talk,” Dimitri told him.
JR waved him off, winked at me and nearly passed out again. “Oh good. You found her,” he said. His eyes focused on the chains hanging from the trailer ceiling. “This isn’t the bar.”
He still thought we were at the Red Skull. Good. He didn’t need to remember what had happened to him after that.
“You had an accident, but you’re okay. Your pack will explain.” Dimitri shook his head. “I hate to do this to you, buddy, but Lizzie and I have to split.”
JR coughed, catching his breath. “Something I should know about?”
“While you were out cold, the pack had a problem,” Dimitri said, diplomatically.
JR knew without us telling him. “Rex.”
“He’s dead.” Dimitri said.
“Good,” JR said, grunting as he pulled himself up.
“But, listen, we think Rex poisoned half the pack. And,” Dimitri said, clearly dreading what he had to say next, “Rex killed Fang.”
JR nodded, unable or perhaps unwilling to speak.
“I got Rex with a switch star,” I said to fill the silence. He needed to know someone tried to do something. “It was too late.”
JR kept nodding.
“Take this.” Dimitri gave JR a silver dagger. “These too,” he added, handing him the pistols he’d taken from his backpack.
JR’s eyes locked on something past my shoulder. “Go,” he grunted.
I followed his gaze out into the cemetery. Lights bobbed up the path.
With any luck, it meant the witches had safely fled. A bubble of satisfaction welled in my chest. If those wolves were looking for reinforcements, they were out of luck.
But I also knew there’d be no way to explain the wolves crumpled among the graves, or the executed alpha. Or Rex with his head cleaved in half. We had to get out of there.
Dimitri tossed the backpack over his shoulder and jumped from the trailer. I was about to follow when JR’s heavy hand gripped my arm. He squeezed once, twice. “Thank you,” he said thickly. I had a feeling he didn’t say it too often.
“Glad to help,” I told him. And I was.
Dimitri and I dashed through the dark cemetery. The werewolves could see a lot better and move faster, but if we had enough of a jump on them, we could make it out of there with our hides intact.
We raced past the lonely graves scattered over the far side of the cemetery. They were
much older and—I stumbled through a thicket of weeds—untended. The families had probably died out.
Dimitri came to an abrupt stop before a blue granite structure. “Here.”
The name said Flier. A black Harley leaned against the back of the grave.
I climbed on behind Dimitri, pressing myself flush against his back and holding on for dear life as the bike pitched forward. My handsome protector introduced me to a whole new kind of terror, zigzagging between trees, over logs and past the few graves that reached beyond the confines of the cemetery.
My brain rattled over every rock and hole we hit. Dimitri wasn’t the best driver under ideal conditions. Now? I did everything I could to stay on.
Dimitri pitched the bike up a steep embankment and onto the road, a narrow strip of asphalt winding into the forest. He gunned the motor, and the wind whipped at our faces as we sped off into the night.
We’re coming to get you, Grandma.
We’d done more than play pack politics tonight. I’d learned I could face off in a battle and win. I could live by the demon slayer Truths and trust myself, get outside myself enough to release my powers, even if I didn’t fully understand them. It had to be enough.
Grandma had looked terrible when she appeared to me. She didn’t have much time left. I couldn’t afford to wait. We’d meet up with the witches at the Dixie Queen’s casino. Then I’d learn what I needed to do to find Vald. It probably wouldn’t be too hard, I thought with a shiver. The demon wanted me.
Ant Eater told me I’d know it when the witches arrived at their new hideout. Somehow, I’d instinctively understand how to find them. I reached out with my feelings, searching for the comfort that everything was all right. Instead, I sensed dull emptiness and fear. No telling whether it came from the coven or from my own dark thoughts.
I gripped Dimitri tighter, feeling his warm skin through his black T-shirt. For a moment, just a moment, I allowed myself to take comfort in his closeness. I knew I shouldn’t want him. He was nothing but trouble. But I couldn’t help it. I needed a little good in my life after Rex, after the werewolves, after everything that had happened since Grandma pulled up to my front door on her pink-and-silver Harley.
