The black mass around him was spinning—thick and ominous—the cries of those trapped flying across the air to hurt my ears and nearly masking the sound of him splashing through swamp water. He and the others had come from another direction and parked closer than I had. But that side of the clearing was surrounded by thigh-deep, tannin-stained liquid.
His already slanted dark eyes were so narrow only a glimmer of the fury was visible, but his steady, intent movements said plenty about how he felt about my defection during the night. Mud spattered his clothes, face and hair—he must have driven like a maniac to get here.
“Uh, Beri.” I glanced at Castor to find him staring at Nikolos, face gone pale. “What is that around him? And do you hear that?”
The spirits whimpered, some growing into a vibrating howl. Wincing, I stepped in front of my newfound brother and lifted the knives. I felt Phro’s comforting presence beside me without even seeing her. I briefly wondered if Castor could see her, then had my attention snagged on the furious giant coming my way.
On the drive here, I’d tried to formulate the words—thought about what I’d say to Nikolos—and it had come out articulate and polite and all kinds of adult. Instead, here I stood holding knives and feeling as if someone had used them to carve out my heart. When he was about five feet away, I slowly shook my head. “You’d better stop there, Nikolos.”
The man was smart. He halted. I was a little surprised, actually.
“Why did you come without us?”
I tightened my grip on the knives until pain spiked through my knuckles. “Why do you keep a ward about yourself?”
He nodded slowly as understanding erased some of the anger from his expression. “You felt it last night? The magic?” He closed his eyes as a wave of anguish swept over his frame. My heart lodged in my throat. He lowered his voice. “Do you not hear them crying, Bergdis?”
“I hear them,” I whispered, trying to swallow my matching agony as it rose, powerful and crushing. “Castor hears them. Nikolos… I see them. I have from the beginning.”
He opened his eyes—darkly bleak—then loosened his fists to let his hands fall to his sides. “And what did you think they were? Did you realize that they’re souls?”
Nodding, I glanced over his shoulder at the vehicle where Blythe and Dooby watched us. Blythe had both hands raised to her mouth.
Meeting the desperately tortured gaze of this big man nearly killed me. “I assumed they were victims from all the wars you’ve been in. But slowly I began to realize what they might be—that they might be what keeps you alive. And you know what, Nikolos? I didn’t think you knew. You said you don’t know how you swam through that labyrinth. You said you don’t know how you’re still alive.” The last part was so low and came through such clenched teeth, I didn’t know if he could hear it.
He took a step.
I lifted the knives. “I saw the ward leak last night. I saw a new soul sucked into that mass.”
A faint smile twisted his mouth, and before my eyes he seemed to shrink. Not his body but his presence. There were darker splotches spreading on his T-shirt and dismay still crept into my chest when I realized it was blood from that damned chest wound. His smile was sucked up by the grimace he couldn’t quite disguise. His shoulders fell slightly—his tanned skin turning yellow.
He was dropping all his magic.
And as it dissipated, the howls of the souls grew in volume until I wanted to scream myself. I sensed movement and caught Castor’s moan as he came around me.
“What can we do? Can you let them go?” He crossed the ground to Nikolos in a long, agitated stride. “How can we help them?”
I lowered my knives when I saw that Nikolos had no intention of hurting my brother. He was also in no shape to fight me. I didn’t want to fucking fight him anyway. Damn the man. I couldn’t handle seeing his pain anymore than I could really hurt him.
I was in love with him. Truly—deeply.
Movement behind Nikolos told me Blythe and the necromancer were getting out of the vehicle. Guess they’d realized the situation had diffused.
Nikolos stared at my brother, then lifted an eyebrow at me.
I shrugged. “Seems I’m not the only freak of nature around here.”
Blythe, who had been creeping up behind Nikolos, piped up. “We’re all freaks of nature here, Beri.”
“Speak for yourself,” Dooby said. He had a hold of one side of the heavy spell book. Blythe the other. The water, thigh-high on Nikolos, had soaked Blythe’s jeans and most of her pink T-shirt. Dooby was wet to the waist. They must have held the book over their heads. Impressive. That damn thing weighed a ton.
I looked for my sister and saw that they’d left her in the buggy—a blanket propped a couple of feet over her face for a makeshift shelter. I saw Castor looking in the same direction.
“Is that your sister?”
My heart was in my throat as I nodded. I watched him walk downhill to the buggy. He didn’t hesitate at the water—just slugged through. He leaned over the side of the vehicle and draped the blanket over his shoulder. He then slid his hands under my sister and lifted her into his arms with ease.
Seems he had the same kind of strength I did. I still hadn’t fully swallowed the idea of family—an actual blood relation.
He carried her toward the cabin.
“No,” I called out. The thought of her in that house sent panic skittering through my veins. “Not inside. Not in there.” All I could think about was who had once lived in this place. What he’d done here.
Castor understood. “The people in town helped me tear his home down. This cabin was not here then.”
“I don’t care. I want her out here. With us. Where I can see her.” I put the knives away and rubbed my hands over the goose bumps popping up all over my arms.
Nikolos pulled the blanket from Castor’s shoulder and spread it on the ground.
My brother laid Elsa gently on top of it. “She’s pretty.”
I knelt beside her and brushed blonde hair off her face. Then I held my hand an inch over her mouth to feel the reassuring warmth of her breath on my palm. “She’s wonderful. When this is all over, I’ll tell you about her.”
“I’ll learn for myself.” He smiled.
I still didn’t know what to say to Nikolos so I stood and trudged through the water to heft the wrapped mirrors from the buggy. Snagging the dried mullein leaves, I grimaced at the mud splattered over their fuzzy surface. I swung Blythe’s satchel around my shoulder and took my time going back to the others, but stopped halfway there.
Something had joined us. Evil, murky and soulless, it pricked at my skin. I looked into the forest while I listened to the others.
“You’re not afraid to use black magic?” Castor was asking Dooby.
“Magic is magic—black or white. Depends on the person using it. It wasn’t considered evil or called black magic until the Christian religion.” Dooby pointed to the book they’d laid on the blanket next to my sister. “When that book was created—before the time of Solomon—there was no Christian religion. Magic used to contact or control the dead was thought to be a good thing. The spirits called upon usually were more like deities.” He rubbed his hands together, his slim body nearly vibrating with excitement. “We’re going to try calling an elemental.”
Blythe waded out and took the bag from me before scurrying back to them. She dropped it on the blanket and patted Castor’s arm. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Not in most magic. And Dubious is a necromancer. He’s used to ordering dead things around.”
“Your name is Dubious?” Castor grinned. I wondered if it was just the silly name or if Blythe’s mothering reassurances had amused him. Probably both.
Dooby glared at Blythe. He’d twisted his hair into a bun. The only time I’d seen a man wear his hair like that had been in my dojo. In fact—eyeing the Doob’s slim frame—I wondered if he’d trained. He certainly moved with the graceful confidence most martial artists did.
Dooby crossed his arms. “A lot of necromancers think they should be ordering spirits to rise so they then try to control them with threats. Causes a lot of problems—for the necromancer and anyone in the vicinity. Demons, spirits, most otherworldly creatures don’t take kindly to humans ordering them about.” He straightened his shoulders. “Don’t worry. I ask them to come to me—not order. I know what I’m doing. I’m the best out there.”
Phro, who stood near Elsa’s prone body, burst into laughter. She sneered and used energy to make herself solid enough for Dooby to see. It took a lot for her to do this and she couldn’t hold it long. “Some goetic magician you are! You can’t even see me unless I suck up precious magic from nature. In my time, you would have had to crawl on your hands and knees to beg entrance into Hades. Call spirits, indeed. No one commands a spirit.”
Though his eyes had flared wide when she’d materialized, he kept his cool. Was probably used to dead beings popping up around him. “I just said that.”
I noticed he stared at her chest when he talked. I hadn’t been paying attention to her clothes. I was so used her half nude presence it hadn’t registered that she was sort of wearing a white sarong dress and sandals. One breast was completely uncovered. I would have laughed at the traditional ideal of a goddess’s attire if I wasn’t so damned nervous about whatever was in the air here.
With one eye on the trees, I joined them. “You know, Dooby, I always read that you’re supposed to raise the dead during the hour between midnight and one o’clock.”
Everybody stopped to stare at me.
Phro snorted, still easily visible to everyone. “She likes to read cheesy paranormal books.”
I narrowed my eyes. “We don’t know which ones are cheesy until we read them, do we?”
She shrugged and stuck out her middle finger. A butterfly landed on it and she squinted at it in surprise before grimacing and flicking it off. She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Something is wrong.” She dumped the extra energy, fading back to normal.
“I know.” I hugged my arms for a moment before straightening my spine… and my resolve. “Dooby, the midnight thing? It’s the middle of the afternoon. I guess I thought we’d be waiting until tonight.”
“We are not raising the dead.” Dooby’s condescending tone set my teeth on edge. I was reaching to whack his stupid bun off his head but stopped when I saw he was unwrapping one of the mirrors. “We are inviting a powerful being to join us in conversation.” He glanced at Blythe. “Of course whether he comes or not depends on how the witch does with the elemental. If she can get him to burn through so many dimensional layers.”
I’d managed to push the elemental from my thoughts. Sweat broke out on my forehead and I focused on watching Blythe pull little baggies from her satchel. Looking closely, I could see she was pale instead of flushed. It was then I realized she and Dooby were going out of their way not to touch or even look at each other.
He better not have hurt her.
The flood of protectiveness took me by surprise and I squashed another urge to hit the Doob. Instead, I leaned over him as he unwrapped the second mirror. “Then why do we still need you?”
“My charm?”
“Charm my ass,” Blythe muttered from behind me.
It broke the tension.
Nikolos chuckled. I smirked. Blythe cussing was funny.
Dooby didn’t think so. He snarled at her before turning glittering anger on me. “You need me because my magic will lure this Dweller out before he’s ready. He doesn’t have enough souls yet to do it on his own.”
“But if he comes out before he’s physical, where will he go?”
Dooby looked at Elsa.
“What?” My back went straight. I stepped away from him before I took his head off. Fury—icy cold and deadly—flooded through me. “No. No! No fucking way. Never. I didn’t bring her along for your spell—I brought her because I didn’t trust her to anyone else!”
“She’s the only comatose person here,” Dooby argued.
“You never once said you needed one.” I advanced on him.
“I assumed you knew,” he muttered, scrambling to his feet and backing away from me. “I thought that’s why you brought her.”
“It was a dumb shit thing to assume.”
Nikolos, who had been holding the mirror, propped it against a tree and quickly grabbed my arm. “There is only one other thing you can do then.”
I stopped advancing on Dooby and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to face this option. I couldn’t. There was a sudden movement about my head. It was different from the bees—bees that had moved out of the way. No, this fluttering had no buzz. I looked up. A swarm of butterflies swept past my head, their furious wings creating a soft breeze.
One of them hovered, then dropped to my palm when I held it out. Raising the creature, I felt the smile slide right off my face. It was as if this particular butterfly had grossly offended Mother Nature. Staggered white lightning bolts feathered the delicate brown wings, but my gaze didn’t stay on those lines—it strayed to the things the bolts pointed to.
Infections.
It was the only way I could describe the flesh-colored blobs at the bottoms of those beautiful wings. Flesh-colored blobs with three bulbous, metallic wounds.
There was something yellow under those wounds…
I squinted, pulled the butterfly even closer, and it felt like the earth shifted. Gasping, I shook my hand but the thing wouldn’t let go. I violently flung out my fingers and it dropped—but slowly, as if the oils in my skin had drugged it.
Taking a shaky step back, I rubbed my palm over my jeans because it hadn’t been my imagination. That was no ordinary butterfly. There had been yellow but it hadn’t been a part of the wings. Thick and liquid—it had looked nasty, like puss. Then it dripped onto my palm. Gaze darting left and right, I slid out my knives again. My eyes swept over the tall cypress trees—the pines and palmettos on the higher ground. The leaves and dry brush around us rustled and the usually shy serpents slithered into the open. Cottonmouths, eastern diamondback rattlesnakes and several other species twisted about the ground.
Blythe whimpered but I didn’t look her way. My eyes were glued to the forest as louder rustling noises came to us on the breeze.
No, I wouldn’t let them use Elsa, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t need to. The Dweller was making his presence known. He didn’t need a body. I swung toward Dooby and Blythe. “Make a circle. Now!”
Dooby snarled at me. “I’m not some newby practitioner who can’t control his magic and needs a circle. I was born into my powers—I did not stumble upon them as some I know.”
Blythe looked at the mirror, not at us. “If you’re aiming that dig at me, it’s unwarranted. I started my first fire in the crib.”
“Shut the fuck up! Idiots! Now isn’t the time!” I held up my hand when they both opened their mouths. “I don’t care who got what power when. Grow up you two, before I knock your asses into next week. Let’s focus here, okay? This isn’t your ordinary dead guy or demon. Don’t you think a circle might provide some extra protection? We don’t really know what we’re dealing with.”
Dooby considered it. I could tell he didn’t want to. Goddess, the ego!
“Listen to me carefully.” I pointed to Elsa. “That is my sister. I love her. I do not want this thing jumping into her body. I do not want it getting away when we…uh, do whatever it is we’re going to do with these mirrors. But I do want extra protection and I’ve studied enough magic to know that a circle will help. Do it. It’s not a fucking suggestion.”
Dooby, anger obvious in his jerky movements, actually moved to start counting out the nine feet it would be in diameter. I stomped past Nikolos, picked up my sister and carried her to the circle. I carefully placed her toward the back, making sure her legs and arms were tucked securely to her sides. Tears touched my eyes and I swallowed heavily and blinked to keep them back.
“I won’t let him hurt you
, I promise,” I whispered.
Dooby was spilling salt in a circle when I heard a heavy grunt and thump. I turned to find Nikolos slumped against a tree, his legs stretched out on the ground. He stared at me, something in his expression tearing up my insides. Yeah, he’d lied to me. Right this instant it didn’t seem so important—not when we were about to call forth some kind of ancient powerful creature that could very well destroy everything. I ran to him and knelt to touch his cheek. “Hey, are you still with us?”
He reached up and slid his thumb over my lips. I’d picked up on how much he liked to do that—liked my mouth. His smile, when it came, was soft and full of affection. My heartbeat picked up.
Sighing, I took his hand and cradled it to my cheek. “I’m going to stop this. I promise.”
“I heard you promise your sister, too. Lots of promises.”
“I always keep my promises.”
His fingers tightened on my chin, his eyes on my mouth. “If you killed me now, your sister’s soul would be set free. The Dweller would lose his power.”
I closed my eyes and placed my lips in the center of his palm. “I can’t do that. Did you know he was harvesting the souls on you, Nikolos?”
I saw in his eyes that he had not wanted me to realize this. “They were attached to the host before. When I killed him, I took them on. They are tied to the Dweller. This has allowed me to find him each time he’s incarnated here.”
“Why didn’t you say?” I whispered.
He sighed, stroked my chin again. “I wasn’t going to let you kill the host. This world could have been a better place had I found another way the first time. Your brother is important, Bergdis. You might be here to bring order, but I believe he’s here to create balance. You can kill me instead and the Dweller loses his power.”
“We don’t know that,” I choked out.
“We don’t?”
We did. Goddess, I knew we did. “I want you both,” I admitted in a whisper that sounded broken and lost. “I’m selfish that way.”
Dweller on the Threshold Page 28
