by Trisha Telep
This was where Graves had stolen their souls.
I’d never given much thought to my immortal soul before. As an assassin, I figured I’d already booked a front-row seat on the express bus to Hell a long time ago. But somehow I knew that was what was in the globes – their souls. It was the only explanation that made sense. The lights were the same pale silver that Tess was, that same pale, translucent silver that I’d never seen anywhere else. Two of the lights bounced around inside their globes like ping-pong balls, as if they could somehow knock the globe off the shelf, break the glass and free themselves. But the others – all the others – had sunk down into the bottom of the globe, and they barely glowed at all.
My mother had collected snowglobes before she died. It was bone-chilling to see something so harmless used in such an evil way.
It was one of the most disturbing things I’d ever seen.
“Graves brought you here and he hurt you, didn’t he?” I asked Tess. “Because you didn’t love him like he loved you. Graves kidnapped you and tortured you and Thomas because you two were in love. You and Thomas both died, but somehow, you kept Graves from getting your soul. But Thomas is trapped here somewhere, isn’t he? In one of the globes. That’s why you needed my help. To kill Graves. To free Thomas . . . and the others.”
Tess gave me a haunted look and slowly nodded her head. She floated over to the back wall and hovered there in front of a globe. Judging from the hobwebs wrapped around it, this snowglobe had been in the shack longer than all the others. For a moment, the light inside perked up and glowed at Tess’s appearance. Then, it settled back down into the bottom of the globe and winked out like a firefly. Tess wrapped her fingers around the globe, trying to pick it up, but of course she couldn’t. She might be able to brush away a few leaves, but something this heavy was beyond the haint’s abilities.
The longer I stood in the room looking at all those trapped souls, at all the people that Graves had murdered over the years, the angrier I got, until my rage matched what I’d felt when I’d touched Thomas’s gravestone.
“That soul-sucking son of a bitch—”
That was all that I got out before I noticed Tess waving frantically. I heard footsteps behind me and immediately whirled around, but I was already too late. I turned my head just in time for someone to smash me in the face with a shovel.
I was out cold before I even hit the dirt floor.
When I came to, I was strapped down on the stone table that I’d seen when I’d first come into the shack. Thick ropes lashed my legs and feet, while two more held out my arms as if I were crucified. Not too far-fetched an idea, given what I knew about Homer Graves.
“You’re finally awake,” a smooth voice said. “Excellent.”
Footsteps sounded, and a man came into view. Homer Graves was not what I’d imagined. Given the decrepit state of his house and yard, I’d expected a run-down hillbilly who wasn’t too big on personal hygiene. But Graves’s black hair was carefully styled and slicked back from his high forehead, and he’d just shaved because I could smell the lemon-scented aftershave he used. A fitted black suit draped over his tall, thin body, and a silver tie had been artfully knotted at his skinny neck.
All together, he looked like an undertaker – mine, if I wasn’t careful.
“So you’re the big, bad, Air elemental vampire who gets his kicks by cutting out people’s hearts and stealing their souls. I thought you’d be taller.”
I made the words as light and mocking as I could, considering how hard my head was pounding. Graves had whacked me good with that shovel, and I felt scattered and hollow inside, like a piece of me was already missing. I slowly moved my jaw and blinked my eyes. My vision was OK, but I could taste hot, salty blood in my mouth. I wasn’t in the best shape of my life, but I was still a long ways from dead.
Graves regarded me a moment, then held up something where I could see it – one of my knives. I bit back a curse. Of course, he’d searched me while I’d been unconscious and found them. The two up my sleeves, the one in the small of my back and the two more tucked into the sides of my boots. The bastard probably thought he was going to carve me up with my own blades, but I’d be damned if I let that happen.
Instead of responding to my taunt, Graves smiled at me, revealing two gleaming white fangs. Then he leaned forward and drew one knife across my stomach. The swift strike wasn’t deep enough to kill me, but it definitely got my attention. Blood immediately soaked into my shirt and jeans. Underneath me, the stone of the table started to wail. It knew what was coming next – more cuts, more blood, more pain. So much more pain.
I ignored the stone’s cries, sucked in a breath, and focused on pushing the burning fire of the cut away.
The vampire cocked his head. “So you’re not a screamer then. Well, that’s disappointing. Before I kill you, though, I suppose I should ask the basic questions. Who are you? And why did you come here?”
Despite my precarious position, Graves wasn’t going to be breathing much longer, so I saw no reason not to tell him the truth. Besides, I wanted to rattle the bastard’s cage a bit. Rattled people made mistakes, and I needed the vamp to make one right now, so I could cut myself free before he started in on me with my own knife again.
“Tess sent me. Tess Darville, the woman you murdered almost a hundred years ago.”
For a moment, Graves’s hazel eyes widened, and he looked as shocked as he could, what with that hangdog face of his. Then his features smoothed out into a pleasant mask once more.
“Tess? Tess sent you? Is she . . . is she here now?” He licked his lips and looked around the shack.
Suddenly, I knew what he wanted – what he’d always wanted. Tess’s soul, trapped in one of those damn snowglobes along with all the others.
“That’s why you killed all those other couples, isn’t it?” I whispered. “Because Tess somehow got away from you.”
Graves shrugged, but he kept staring around the shack, a sharp, sick, hungry look in his eyes now. Since I was tied down I couldn’t see if Tess was here, but I hoped that she wasn’t. I didn’t want Graves to trap her too.
“I’d already killed Kirkwood,” Graves said. “I left the shack just for a few minutes to go put on a clean suit. I wanted to look my best for Tess before I took her soul. She was special, you see. So special to me. The first woman I loved, the first woman I killed. But I came back, and she was gone. She’d somehow cut herself free. She didn’t get far, though. I found her just inside the trees, but she was already dead, and her soul was already gone . . .”
His voice trailed off, and I could tell that he was lost in his memories. A lot of vamps were like that. They lived so long that the past and present often blurred together for them. After a moment, Graves came back to himself. He looked at me and smiled.
“You know, I never could lure Tess back in here, not even when I used Kirkwood’s soul as bait. But I’m sure she’ll come for you, since she sent you here in the first place. I’m sure when she hears you screaming she’ll come running, and then my collection will finally be complete.”
Graves stepped closer and tightened his grip on my knife. “Tell me, where would you like me to make the first incision? I used to be a doctor during the Civil War, so I always give my patients a choice about where I cut them first.”
He’d been a doc during the Civil War? OK, this was getting creepier by the second. I supposed that explained why Graves liked to butcher people, though, since surgery was quite barbaric back then. Well, that and the fact that he was just a sick son of a bitch.
Graves brought the knife up once more. He gently drew the bloody blade down my cheek, then my neck, before finally stopping the knife right over my heart. He pressed down, and the blade pierced my shirt and nicked my skin. I felt the hot blood well up over the knife, roll over my breast, and start trickling down my side.
“I think I’ll start with your heart,” he murmured. “Everyone screams during that. It’s sure to bring Tess flying straight
to you.”
Graves drew back, and I tensed myself for what was to come. I’d only get one shot to take him down, and I had to make it count—
“You’re not going to do a damn thing to her,” a loud voice boomed.
Graves whirled around just like I had minutes before.
Owen stepped into the shack, threw himself forward, and crashed into the vampire.
The two men fell to the dirt floor, punching, kicking and grunting.
“Owen,” I whispered.
Soft wonder warmed my heart at the fact that he’d come for me without my even asking him for help. I let myself revel in the emotion and its heady power for a sweet, sweet second before I pushed my lover out of my mind. Owen had given me the opening I’d needed to free myself – something I had to do or we were both dead.
Graves had taken away my silverstone knives, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. Far from it. I was an elemental, after all, so I immediately reached for my Ice magic. A cold silver light flickered in my palm, centered on the spider rune scar there, and, a second later, I was holding a jagged Ice knife. I had to bend my wrist at an awkward angle, but I managed to slice through the rope that tied one hand down. I used the Ice knife to cut the rest of the ropes and sat up. The wound in my stomach stung with every movement, but I hissed through the pain and used my magic to make a second Ice knife. They weren’t as strong as my regular blades, but they’d do the job.
I’d make sure of that.
By that point, Owen was on top of Graves. He drew his fist back to punch the vamp, but Graves brought up his hand. Graves’s eyes flashed like topaz in his face, and a blast of wind exploded from his palm and blew Owen off him. Owen flew through the air, crashed into the doorjamb, and fell to the ground. The globes on the shelves closest to him rattled like dry bones at the vibration and the lights brightened, shocked out of their slumber by the sudden bout of violence.
The spider rune scars branded into my palms itched and burned at the influx of the vamp’s elemental magic, but I forced the sensation aside, hopped off the table, and put myself between Graves and Owen, who was groaning and struggling to get to his feet.
The vamp saw my weapons and let out a polite, cultured laugh. “Ice knives? Really? Do you really think those pitiful blades will beat me? Silverstone is so much better, so much sharper.”
I smiled. “That’s the thing about me, Graves. I always make do with what’s available.”
This time, I was the one who sent out a burst of magic with my hand, but not Ice. I was the rarest of elementals in that I was gifted in not one but two areas and, this time, I put my fingers down on the edge of Graves’s butcher’s block and used my Stone magic to shatter the table into a thousand pieces.
Chunks of bloody rubble blew back onto Graves, who lost his footing and went down on the floor.
I was on him a second later.
I cut and cut and cut him, making Ice knife after Ice knife as they broke and shattered in my hands, but the bastard just wouldn’t die. Hell, he wasn’t even bleeding, no matter where or how deep I cut him, and I couldn’t figure out why. All that appeared on his skin were these thin silver lines, like I’d dipped my fingers into a bucket of moonlight and had decided to paint stripes all over him.
I let out a low growl of frustration, and Graves just laughed in my face.
“Let me know when you get tired,” he said. “I’ll be happy to kill you then.”
A ghostly hand waved at me, and I turned my head to see Tess standing in the middle of the shack, right where the table had been. Tess held her hands out wide and whirled around and around, the faint shimmer of her body reflecting like moonlight off the snowglobes. It took me a second to realize what she was trying to tell me.
“The souls,” I whispered.
Somehow, Graves was drawing his power from the trapped souls. That’s why I couldn’t kill him, because he couldn’t be killed until they were free.
Graves saw me hesitate, then used his Air magic to blast me off him the same way he had Owen. I let him. I crashed into one of the shelves, then slumped down onto the floor and stayed there.
Graves got up, straightened his tie, and stepped toward me. “And now I think it’s time for you to die, my dear.”
I ignored him. Being smug was a quick way to get dead in my experience. Instead, I stretched up a hand, reaching for the closest globe. It only took a second for me to use my magic to make it Ice over. I kept concentrating, and the elemental Ice quickly spread from one globe to the next. In seconds, the Ice had coated all of them, and the inside of the shack looked like a snowstorm had suddenly erupted inside.
“What are you . . . what are you doing?” Graves asked, but it was already too late.
I sent out a final, brilliant burst of Ice magic and shattered each and every one of those damn snowglobes.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, one by one, the globes erupted like mini volcanoes, until the smashing symphony of glass was all that I could hear.
Well, that, and Graves’s screams.
As the globes broke, all the trapped souls spilled out. One by one, they woke from their long slumber and winked back to life, until the whole shack pulsed with their bright, beautiful lights.
And then, they went after Graves.
It was like watching a swarm of killer bees attack a wounded animal. One after another, the lights – the souls – slammed into Graves until they covered his entire body. The vampire screamed and screamed, but the souls only attacked. He fell to his knees and then onto his back, but the souls kept on with their psychic swarm, feasting on him the way the vamp had once feasted on them. I couldn’t really see what was happening, but I got the impression that the souls were taking back whatever pieces of them Graves had stolen in the first place.
It seemed to go on and on, although it couldn’t have lasted much more than a minute, two tops. Finally, the souls started to peel off. In ones and twos, they flew out of the shack, escaping up into the atmosphere – to Heaven, to Hell, or maybe someplace else entirely. Either way, they were finally free.
And when it was over, and the last of the silvery souls had faded away, I got to my feet, dug one of my knives out of the rubble, and walked over to where Graves lay spreadeagled on the floor.
The vampire was a mere husk of his slick self, literally. However he’d used his Air elemental magic to trap the souls in the first place, however they’d been sustaining his existence over the years, all that power was gone now, and him along with it. His skin was dry, splotchy and shriveled, like he was severely dehydrated. His black hair slid out of his scalp in clumps, and his formerly white fangs were now brown and brittle-looking.
I’d seen photos before of vampires who’d been starved, who’d been denied the blood they needed to survive. That’s what Graves looked like. It was nothing less than he deserved and far kinder than what he’d inflicted on his victims.
Soft whimpers rasped out of the vampire’s throat, and he looked like he was about a minute away from dying. As the Spider, I was good at judging things like that. His desperate eyes fixed on me, and I leaned over him just like he’d done to me earlier.
“You know what the difference is between you and me, Graves? I don’t give people a choice about where I cut them,” I said. “I know it’s not very sporting, but one slice is usually all I need.”
Then I leaned over a little more and cut the bastard’s throat, just to be sure.
This time, he bled, and his blood was just as red as mine.
Once I was sure that Graves was dead, I helped Owen to his feet, and the two of us stumbled out of the shack and into the yard. We found a rickety iron bench half hidden in the weeds, and the two of us sat down until we could get our breath back. Owen picked glass and other debris out of his hair, while I lifted up my shirt and looked at the wound on my stomach. Still bleeding, but I’d be all right until I got to Jo-Jo and she healed me.
I turned to Owen. “Jo-Jo called you, didn’t she? And told you where
I was going?”
Owen winced. “She said she had a feeling you might need help and sent me after you. Are you mad at her? Or . . . me? For coming after you? I know you like to . . . work alone.”
I might have been angry before, back when I’d been the Spider full-time and still killing people for money. But since then, I’d learned that it was OK to rely on other people – sometimes, anyway. If anything, today proved that Owen’s feelings for me were real, and so were mine for him. Owen had come after me when I’d needed him to, and I’d known that if I didn’t find a way to kill Graves, that the vamp would have sucked out Owen’s soul and stuck it in one of those eerie snowglobes. And that upset me more than anything had in a long, long time.
“I don’t want to crowd you, Gin,” Owen said, taking my silence for disapproval. “But I’m always going to come for you, no matter how much danger you’re in, no matter how much danger it puts me in. I hope you know that. I hope you know just how much you mean to me. You’re just . . . everything.”
The intensity burning in his violet eyes took my breath away. I reached over and squeezed his hand in mine, trying to put all my feelings into that one simple gesture. Owen squeezed back, telling me that he understood – and that he always would.
“I know that,” I said in a soft voice. “And I feel the same way about you. I’m glad that Jo-Jo told you what I was doing. Believe me, I was happy you showed up when you did.”
Owen grinned. “You know, we make a pretty good team. I come in as the distraction, and then you take care of the cleanup. Or something like that.”
I shook my head and laughed. We sat there, holding hands and resting for a few more minutes. I was just about to suggest that we hike down the holler to my car, when a shimmering light caught my eye and Tess strolled out of the shack.
This time, though, she wasn’t alone.
The mountain girl was holding hands with a man who was just as pale and translucent as she was. Thomas Kirkwood. I recognized him from the photo Finn had shown me at Jo-Jo’s salon. The two of them drifted a little way from the shack, then stopped. Thomas stared down at Tess, and she beamed right back at him.
