Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo

by Selene Charles

  “Then hear me, Scarlett Smith. Never again can you shut me out. I live and breathe within you. My power will be yours. I will teach you, mold you, turn you into something truly magnificent.”

  I lifted an eyebrow, not bothering to correct her assumption. I was stronger than she gave me credit for.

  Sheer force of will wasn’t keeping me hovering between life and death. Neither had her desire that I do her bidding brought me there. I was a fighter and always had been. That was why I’d survived the master vampire’s attack. Yes, Mercer had been there, and yes, he’d killed my maker, but I’d fought to live.

  Though I’d not seen her endgame, I also knew only I could have gotten us where we were.

  I was a worthy ally, and someday she’d learn that. Oh, I’d let her teach me and make me stronger, more powerful than any vampire had a right to be, but my life would be mine and mine alone.

  “I am an engine of chaos and destruction, and I will not be denied,” she said it almost as a threat.

  The time for thinking was over. I understood everything. That was the only way I could save him and save me, by willfully allowing this demon free rein, by choosing to accept the darkness and not fight it.

  I stepped toward her and she toward me. Bending her head, she placed her lips on mine, and kissing her was like riding lightning. My body erupted in flames, my heart seized, and the whirling hum of a rolling tornado buzzed through my ears, burning through the body that’d once been battered and broken.

  It was broken no more.

  My eyes snapped open as emotions roiled through me, surging and pulsing, snapping. I remembered it all: the deal with the devil, her power, Mercer’s betrayal.

  I hated with a hate that burned. Time had started moving again.

  I stood. No one noticed me. No one looked up. Cole’s hand was diving toward Mercer’s heart.

  I smiled, shut my eyes, and whispered only one word, “Go.”

  The darkness exploded. A rumble sounded then clouds of plaster and stone exploded. A giant outcry of hundreds of voices, and then... nothing more.

  Chapter 23

  Mercer

  He’d been a man chained by the beast, lost in the darkness of the moon fever, but he blinked. Eyes opening slowly, he became aware of a thick cloud of heat licking close to his body.

  Arcs of electricity, like miniature bolts of jagged lightning, danced all around him. Slowly, his senses stirred.

  First, sight:

  The intensity of the colors, rolling and blending, taking on shape and form.

  Then sound:

  The sharp sizzle of volts striking water.

  Finally, a shifter’s greatest tool, scent:

  The chalkiness of plaster, the iron tang of blood, the smoky whiff of flame.

  He stared down at his feet, at the pool of dried blood surrounding him. His hands lightly touched his chest, feeling for the wounds, knowing where they’d been, the flesh that’d been ripped off him, exposing the sinew and muscle beneath. Nothing was there but smooth, hot skin, though.

  He blinked, confused, not sure what had happened.

  She’d died. He’d sensed the end of her life like a physical blow to his heart, and the man had been consumed by the beast, taken over and eradicated. In his grief, he’d become only one thing, one emotion: rage.

  He’d been certain that he would die, but he would take as many fanger fuckers as he could down with him when he did.

  Still holding his chest, he finally looked around, and what he’d at first assumed was the scent of crumbling walls, he knew instead to be the twisted, broken bodies of hundreds, possibly even thousands, of vampires.

  They were chalky rubble amidst the fallen stones of Cole’s castle.

  He was so consumed by what he was seeing, an apocalyptic cataclysm of destruction, that he’d failed to realize he wasn’t alone.

  The scent of cloves and sunshine punched him full on, nearly knocking him flat on his ass. Shuddering, he turned his head, looking desperately for Scarlett.

  Base animal instinct again took over, and he ran, following the smell, single-minded in his pursuit of it, of her.

  She was in there.

  She was still there.

  Mercer’s heart raced as adrenaline pumped, desperation digging like frantic fingers into him, telling him to go find her.

  “Scarlett!” he roared, tossing one-ton piles of broken marble out of the way as he picked his way through the wreckage.

  Arms. Legs. Torsos. Heads. He tossed them all aside as though they were nothing because they were nothing. What the hell had happened here?

  The curiosity was fleeting, for only one thing mattered. His movements were slow, hindered by what felt like miles of blockade. Gray clouds of dust and debris still rained down over his head. He hacked, choking on a cough, covering his nose with his arm as his eyes teared from the overwhelming stench of death all around.

  His mind was transported to another time, a different place, when wars had been violent and raw and brutal, a near daily reality. Confusion was starting to take hold. Questions... so many questions.

  He couldn’t stop searching, though, not even for a minute. Time stopped for no man. They had to get out of there. They had to be gone before the Veiler world learned of what had just happened.

  He kicked at a severed torso, shoving it out of his way, and that’s when he heard her. A low moan of pain pricked at his flesh like crystal resonance, making him shiver, making his pulse quicken.

  “Scar!” he thundered, eyes raking the piles of body parts before him. Then... a swath of ivory and crystal caught his eye.

  With a fierce bark, he jumped toward the pile of bodies, kicking and shoving everything aside.

  Scarlett was at the bottom, face covered in blood, hair loose and clinging to her forehead.

  He yanked her out, holding her tightly, promising he’d never let her go.

  Then he turned and ran out of the chamber of horrors, down the halls full of giant craters and billowing with clouds of thick dust. No matter where he turned, where he looked, every inch of that castle of horrors was the same. Desks were imploded, bookshelves ripped apart as if by mighty hands.

  Elegant chandeliers, once dangling from beams above their heads, had crashed to the floor in millions of jagged shards. A palace of great wealth had been reduced to a wasteland of twisted monstrosities in mere moments.

  The bodies in the ball room were different. They weren’t chalky rubble, and because of that, their deaths looked far more gruesome. Their bodies were mostly whole, but each of them bore a lethal wound—some through the chest or through the head. Some vampires were pale as sheets. Others who’d just fed were coated in blood and gore. Mingled with them were their guests: humans and Veilers. The destruction had been absolute, with not a single soul spared. All of them had their eyes open, staring emptily into the night.

  The epicenter of the blast had been in the chamber, but the farther he walked from it, the less violent was the devastation. Standing candle sconces were still lit in some places, flickering eerily over the quietness. His brain winked in and out with memories of the night as it’d been just a few scant hours before.

  Decadent and lavish, vampires had danced and laughed, cavorting and feeding.

  No one was moving anymore—no dulcet strains of a stringed quartet shivering through the night, just the scratchiness of his breathing and the echoing silence of mortality.

  He looked down at Scarlett’s face. She was paler than normal, but he knew she lived. He felt the flicker of her life, a gentle warmth against his hands.

  He didn’t look back as he walked out the gate, barely sparing a glance at the guards on the ground. The juxtaposition of men in suits, stretched out on the ground as though in slumber, was startling, even for someone like him.

  Mercer had fought like the devil in many battles throughout his lifetime, but even he had never seen anything like that. Battles always had losers and winners.

  Nothing other than him a
nd her was there.

  Stopping for a moment, he stared down at the guards, half expecting them to rise again. Unlike those inside, these guards had no wounds at all, but like the vampires inside, they were just as dead, their eyes open but hollow, forevermore empty. Death had been swift but brutal.

  Shivering, Mercer hugged Scarlett more tightly, as if by doing so he could shield her, could save her from what came next.

  There was no going back after that night. Everything had changed.

  She’d done that, all of it.

  He hugged her more tightly, shut down his thoughts, and just walked.

  ~*~

  Scarlett

  I was back in the gray world, but she was no longer standing beside me. She was inside me. I felt the roll and winding undulations of a second soul making itself at home, and I shuddered.

  I remembered it all, what she’d told me and what we’d done.

  We were so much more powerful than I could have ever imagined, and I’d loved it—the strength, the raw fury of all that untapped energy.

  I could just take and take and take, and she was an endless fountain of power. I was in the spirit realm, I knew, but I was alive, too.

  I was somewhere in-between and completely alone.

  “Boo,” I whispered, needing a friend, needing somebody to come and help me make sense of what I’d just done.

  My emotions had returned, and I shivered, close to tears, overwhelmed by everything.

  Just as I’d expected, the sting of Mercer’s betrayal was eating away at me. However, the knowledge that I’d done what I’d done... something so heinous, so violent and absolute, and all for him, did not escape me.

  The scent of ozone punched me with full force, and all the fine hairs on my arms rose. Knowing intrinsically that I was no longer alone, I turned sharply on my heel and gasped.

  Feeling as though I’d just been sucker punched, I stared into the eyes of a frosty woman, calm, and unbelievably beautiful.

  A wild mane of red hair flowed down her back like living flame, and her eyes gleamed like polished sapphires. Her gaze raked over me. Dressed in a flowing white gown that fell to her ankles, she grasped a broadsword almost as long as she was tall.

  I clutched at my throat, stomach heaving and twisting. I knew who she was. The soul inside of me had stilled too though an echo of what she said raced through my brain like a heated lance.

  “Mother...”

  “War,” I breathed.

  Those cold, dead eyes found mine, and I suddenly found myself wanting to look away, to not be forced to endure her gaze, wanting to drop to my knees and weep as my head burst with images of carnage and waste.

  She was one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The darkness within me told me.

  Her full, silky pink lips curved into a sharp smirk. “After all these years, is that the only greeting I get from my beloved offspring?”

  She opened her arms as though wanting to hug me, but I knew if I stepped into that embrace, I would never leave this place again.

  I held up my hands, rocking back on my heels. “Stay away. Stay back.”

  Her eyes widened for a fraction of a moment before quickly thinning with a shrewd light.

  Lifting her sword, she planted it against her left shoulder, casually stroking two fingers down its gleaming length. I would’ve sworn that thing was practically purring at her touch.

  The darkness inside me was so still I didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Death hid you well, but I knew it was only a matter of time before you showed yourself to me. I am here now, daughter mine. Take my hand, and let us fulfill our final destiny.”

  She held out her hand to me—ivory smooth skin without a single mar or blemish, practically glowing, it was so perfect.

  The darkness inside of me bloomed with desire. Yearning, it wanted to obey, wanted to go to her. Memories of other lifetimes, different worlds, and different lives spiraled through me—the destruction, the chaos, the bloodlust and desire to see everything burn.

  My fingers curled as her desires blended with my own, making me want, making me need, and I found myself rocking forward, ready to accept War’s offer, but that slight tremor of movement snapped me out of my daze.

  I steeled my jaw.

  No. I took you back inside of me because we made a deal, I mentally snapped at her.

  “Need this...”

  The coldness of her desire slapped me full force, and I was shivering, shaking, staring at War in dread and terror even as she gazed back at me with the knowledge that I would crumble as I always did.

  “You don’t understand,” my darkness cajoled, “I cannot resist her. I thought I could... I’m sorry.”

  She was like a kicked puppy, not the strong, powerful Veiler I’d seen earlier, the one who’d laughed that we would be victorious, that we would show them all who we were really were.

  Against my will, I took a step toward War.

  Her grin stretched wider, victory burning within her wicked gaze. “C’mon, daughter. Come be where you belong, where you’ve always belonged.”

  Her words were poison, noxious, making me sick, making me stumble even as I continued to drag my way slowly toward her.

  That’s when I understood.

  Darkness lived within me, but she was no more in control of her actions than I was right then. We were slaves to something bigger and darker than ourselves.

  She was compelled to obey, but I wasn’t.

  War knew my scent, so she would find me again, find us again.

  As I watched from someplace outside myself, though, I saw what even my darkness could not.

  War was not moving toward me. Greed burned in her eyes as flames licked through her pupils. She wet her lips, fingers twitching, desperation lacing her pretty features tight.

  I had to be the one to take her hand.

  I had to be the one to give in.

  She was powerful and could have forced me to do it, could have yanked me to her and forced us to end this world, but she couldn’t because checks and balances existed.

  Free will, the ultimate checkmate.

  I almost laughed.

  The answer was so stupidly simple yet also incredibly difficult.

  Mere inches separated our hands. I locked the darkness down tight. She screamed, sensing what I was about to do, pummeling my body from the inside out, raging at me that she would end me once and for all.

  Beneath the noise, though, was a gentle zephyr, a still small voice like that of a child’s, growing slowly in strength and volume.

  Yes. Yes. Yes... do it, Scarlett. Do this...

  In the struggle against War, she’d never been strong enough, but I was. I had to be for the both of us.

  Fighting every instinct inside me, I slammed my hand onto the cross pendant and screamed Boo’s name.

  “Get me out of here. Get us out!” My roar was deafening just as my fingers almost brushed the tips of War’s.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Boo was there, standing between me and death, and with a cheeky grin, he wrapped his arms around me and shot us out of the gray zone.

  War’s furious cry beat at our backs.

  ~*~

  I gasped, sitting up in bed so forcefully that I cracked my skull against something hard and unyielding. I yowled, and a male voice grunted with a sharp bellow.

  “Damn it all, Scar,” Mercer growled.

  The pain was excruciating and exciting, and though it throbbed, I shot to my knees, wrapped my arms around Mercer’s neck, and trembled violently as I clung to him, trembling so hard I felt as if I was about to come out of my skin.

  We were home, in my home, on my bed.

  I was wrapped tight in his arms. His lips were in my hair, his nose nuzzling my neck, and he was murmuring words I could hardly make out.

  We were safe.

  In my head, though, I was back there in that place where everyone wanted to kill us, where we were going to die, where we should never have go
ne.

  “Steve... Steven?” I had found the composure to ask.

  He pulled back just enough to look at me. “I haven’t told anyone we’re home yet, Scar. At least not here. I did text Carter. He was asking about you.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded, fingers digging tight into his shirt. He’d put on clothes at some point. I frowned. “How long was I out?”

  Callused fingertips glided tenderly over my cheeks, breaking me out in a rush of goosebumps and heat. “It’s the next day.”

  I didn’t realize I’d started crying until he wiped up my bloody tears, bringing the tip of his thumb to his mouth and sucking them off while staring heatedly back at me.

  The air grew thick between us. Unspoken words, questions, hurt... so much was swirling all around us, but right then and there, it was just us—him and me, locked in the moment.

  Suspended in the now, I could pretend for a while, pretend I hadn’t butchered them all back there, pretend we wouldn’t be found out, pretend I hadn’t brought hell down on the pack.

  He shook his head. “Stop.”

  “You don’t even know—”

  His lashes fluttered. “I do, Scar. I do know what you’re thinking. Not each and every word, but I can feel you, woman. In here.” He dropped a hand over his beating heart.

  I frowned.

  After breathing a heavy sigh, he said, “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. Wanted to tell you everything, all that I knew. But I couldn’t. I was bound by Death itself.”

  Remembering what I’d learned, what the darkness had told me, I felt a flash of anger at all the lies, all the deception, all the times he’d not told me the truth, but I’d learned something in the gray zone.

  Despite it all, Mercer had always had my back. It hurt, but I had to trust him—for her, for me.

  The darkness slithered, causing me to shudder. It was real. It was real, and she lived inside me.

  “And now?” I whispered, voice cracking. “What now, Mercer? Where does this leave us?”

  I wasn’t asking about just that night, but everything.

  His eyes were blue-green, the neon having washed away. He was calm and serious, and when he brushed his thumb over my bottom lip, I knew he was ready to talk.