They both came out of the shadows at the same time. A man of average height was holding Torra tightly by her forearm. It took everything I had to stay where I was. I took a good look at my tormentor. He had short hair, dark and trimmed to his scalp. He bore a patrician’s nose that sat high in the middle of an ordinary-looking face. He stared through me with large, dark brown eyes. He painted on a sickly sweet smile.
“What a pleasure it is to finally meet you, Kristina,” Wolf said.
A gravelly cough bounced off the ground at my feet as Rush tried to convince me to flee one last time. “Run!”
Wolf looked down at Rush. “Oh, is he a little under the weather? Sorry about that, but in my defense, I did warn you.”
I ignored his taunting and focused all of my attention on Torra. She thrashed and squirmed against Wolf’s biting grip, but he easily held her in place. It made me wonder if I was dealing with a vampire instead of a human, which I’d assumed he was from the beginning. Nah, he couldn’t be. I wasn’t wearing my contacts, and if Wolf was a blood-sucker, my eyes would be glowing bright like a jack-o-lantern.
Out of the blue, Torra jumped at Wolf with blinding speed. He blocked and swung her away from him by wrenching down on her arm. With the butt of the gun he held in the other hand, the one he used to shoot Rush with, he whacked the back of her head. The gun came down with a loud crack. Torra’s eyes rounded as she choked out in agony. After a silent plea through watery eyes, her body went limp. She dangled off his arm like a ragdoll.
Before I could think, my finger tightened, and I squeezed the trigger. Three shots popped off; my arm vibrated like a tuning fork against the recoil. I blinked. Damn it! All I managed to hit was the tree Wolf had been standing in front of. Within that single blink of an eye, he had moved out of the way. I only knew of one creature that was capable of such a feat, and I met my first one the night before at the Center. Wolf had to be a phantom.
It was starting to make since, how Wolf was able to control one of the strongest paranormal species in existence; it was because he was one of them. Also, if you take into account that he had at least one phantom working under him, doing his evil work, that would mean he was a very strong phantom, to boot. Wonderful.
“Save your bullets for someone you can shoot.”
I swung around and aimed my gun in the vicinity of the chuckling voice. “Thanks for your concern, asshole.”
I heard a loud swish, the sound of branches breaking, and then a jarring thud. Torra landed on her back, ten feet away from me, at the base of a tree. I lost my breath as her blond head smacked down hard against protruding roots. She didn’t move.
“Have I earned your undivided attention?” Wolf asked.
He emerged from behind the tree where Torra lay unconscious. His hands were empty; he must have ditched the gun. He didn’t need it. He was powerful enough on his own, and he knew it, judging by the cocky look that overtook his features.
He had me frazzled, catching me off guard. I had been free falling into nothingness before, unable to fully understand what was going on in regard to what he wanted from my sister and me. I followed his rules, raised a corpse, and dragged my ass to that creepy graveyard per his instructions, but apparently, all my efforts to make the guy happy were not enough. Unless his ultimate goal was to make me suffer, I was stumped.
“What do you want from me?”
Wolf stared off into the night, deep in thought. His smug smile smoothed out into a straight line and his body relaxed. “I want what everybody wants and deserves to have.”
I waited for the space of two heartbeats and asked, “And…what would that be?”
I couldn’t keep my focus trained on my enemy, even though I knew it was in my best interest to do so. My eyes kept jumping to Torra, and then over to Rush. Both of them were still breathing, thank God. Torra’s breaths were shallow, but steady. On the other hand, Rush’s lungs were struggling to work. That answered my question of where the bullet had hit. It was lodged in his lung. Very painful, but he would eventually recover.
“Come with me,” Wolf said, walking away from me down the dirt path.
For a second, I thought of running, grabbing up my loved ones and getting the hell out of Dodge. But there was no way I could carry the dead weight of both their bodies, and those two wouldn’t be walking on their own steam anytime soon. I also knew that if I tried a stunt like that, Wolf wouldn’t hesitate to finish the job and kill them both. At least, if I did as Wolf asked of me, they would remain hurt, but safe. I gave Rush and Torra one more look, then turned and followed the phantom.
Chapter Twenty-six
With my head down, hands in my pockets, I watched Wolf’s shiny black loafers kick up dust and dried leaves as I followed him. Those crunching footfalls echoed deep within my ears.
My heart fluttered like a nervous rabbit as my thoughts remained several feet behind me, where Rush and Torra were left helpless and injured. I couldn’t count how many times I almost turned around to go back. It felt wrong to abandon them to fend for themselves in their completely defenseless state.
Wolf had promised me that no harm would come to them if I did as I was told. My only hope was that Rush’s injury would heal soon, so he could take my sister far away from there, because I didn’t trust that Wolf character to keep his word for a second.
“Your friends will be fine, so chin up.”
Infuriated, my heart gave a hard thud, and I had to swallow back a hate-filled scream. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a woman. Her shadowy form hovered next to me as if she’d always been there, like a casual acquaintance joining me for a midnight stroll in the park. I fancied that idea more than my current situation—a death march in the middle of the scariest part of the cemetery with a maddened monster.
“He speaks the truth. Your friends are fine. I just checked on them,” she said.
The tall, thin, middle-aged woman had on a white dress that covered every inch of her body. It was long, flowing past her feet to drag the ground behind her. The gauzy fabric cinched at the waist, with lace trim adorning the bodice, high-neck collar, and the cuffs of her long sleeves. She had a generous amount of hair that rode high atop her head in a round poof, with wisps of it waving in the air in front of her transparent cheeks and eyes. An oval-shaped cameo pendant hung around her neck, nestling at her bosom.
She wore a smile that seemed at home on her face. If she wasn’t a ghost, I knew it would rosy up her round cheeks, a bright red. Her cheery features were etched in deep lines that were usually a reflection of spending a lot of time underneath the blazing sun. I could picture the woman working a farm or tilling happily in her garden. By her appearance, I would venture to guess she once lived in the early1800s.
“Are they still unconscious?” I asked the apparition.
She smiled, nodded, and said calmly, “The fellow is able to sit up now.”
Knowing that bit of information made me feel much better. “Thank you.”
There was something about her smile that seemed eerily familiar.
Wolf stopped and turned to me. “Who are you speaking to?”
“A ghost.” I saw no reason to lie.
“Whose ghost?”
“Choose from any one of these headstones; she could belong to any of them. Just because I can communicate with them doesn’t mean I know their life story.” Okay, maybe my last statement was a little bitchy. But come on…no one would expect me to have a great attitude in that situation.
Before I could react, Wolf struck out. The back of his hand came down hard across my face. Pain exploded, radiating out across my cheek bone. My jaw made a cracking sound. I found myself flat on my ass in the dirt. Through a haze of confusion, I could see the ghost hovering over me. She wasn’t smiling anymore; in fact, her shadowy form was flickering in and out, her energy being displaced, the frequency interrupted, because of how pissed off she was.
“Watch that foul mouth of yours, necromancer. You are nothing but a low-born w
oman, put on this earth to do a man’s bidding. Hopefully, that punishment will remind you of your place.”
I pushed up off the ground to stand on unsteady legs. I was fuming inside. That wasn’t the first time I’d been struck. The vampires I went after didn’t like it much when I drained them of their life force, and I’ve had the crap beaten out of me because of it. But that was different. He struck me like he had a right to, like I was an insignificant nuisance. Without a thought, I swung at him, punching with all my might. Right before my fist could make contact with his face, he teleported out of the way again.
“You’re cute when you’re angered,” he taunted.
“Screw you,” I seethed through a busted lip. I could taste the tang of blood and feel a wet trail down my chin. “I swear, I am going to kill you.”
His face flared with anger. “Keep talking, and I will bend you over one of these gravestones and fuck your mouth shut, if that’s what it takes.”
“Try it, and I’ll kill you before you get that puny dick out of your pants. That’s a promise.”
It wasn’t an empty threat. All I had to do was somehow lay a hand on any part of his body, and I would be able drain the life force right out of him. It would probably kill his host in the process, but I was willing to do just about anything to be rid of him and save myself from being raped. From the look on his contorted face, I could see he knew it, too. I would wager he knew a lot more about me than I was aware of. It would explain why he was going to such great lengths to stay out of my reach.
He shook off my threat like it was water on a dog, and then, acting as if he hadn’t struck me across the face or threatened to rape me, he managed to plaster on another fake smile. His body relaxed, changing his appearance, making him resemble a marionette doll with that creepy smile and the way he stared through me with dark, vacant eyes. Chills replaced the heat of anger pumping in my veins, and I wished for a time when it would all be over.
“We have arrived.”
I took in my surroundings. Wolf had stopped in front of a small mausoleum. Directly behind him was a clearing of dried grass and patches of dirt spread out in front of a dilapidated building. There was a backdrop of trees with long, weathered and weeping branches which dragged atop the building’s steep, stone roof. It was an image taken right out of a scary movie, complete with a large, round, ominous moon casting an eerie glow of muted light on the morbid scene.
"Am I raising another corpse for you?"
"Yes and no."
I walked over to the building and dropped my bag. "That’s it. I'm tired of your riddles. I'd raise the lifeless body of a hippopotamus at this point, so direct me to the intended stiff, so I can wave my magic wand and be done with all of this bullshit already."
Wolf took a key from his pocket; the silver metal gleamed as it caught a ray of moonlight. Rubies encased the snake’s eyes that shined bright at the top, winking against the natural light. He inserted the key into the keyhole. Small puffs of dust billowed out from the tall crack as he pulled open the door. An acrid odor followed the plumes of dust, making me gag, but the foul stench was nothing, compared to the gruesome sight that lay beyond the open doorway.
Zombie-like ghosts. That was the only way to describe the ghosts dripping and oozing before me. Never before had I seen a spirit in such a terrible condition. Ghosts always appeared to me looking exactly as they did when they were alive. The sight of those ghosts, on the other hand, was terrifying. One of them wrenched open its mouth, blood and green slime dripping to the ground before the gender-ambiguous monster choked out a long, keening cry. The screech bent the night with its tortured sound, making it apparent to me, and anyone else who was unfortunate enough to hear it, that the mangled mess was in terrible agony and was extremely pissed off about it. I stepped back, inching away from the ghosts.
“You have nothing to fear. The hellhounds can’t harm you,” Wolf said.
The other two mutated ghosts moaned before dropping to all fours. The third one, which had screeched an unholy warning at me, fell to its hands and knees, as well. They began to shudder, jerky movements that cracked and popped. Their bodies began to lose their celestial forms, smoothing out to replace visible bone, goo, and all of their human features. In its place, short, black fur spilled forth to cover a flesh and bone body. The new forms were canine, thick and bulging. The top of the hellhounds’ heads would easily reach to my shoulders.
Wolf began to laugh, a broken cackle that had me almost wetting my pants. He seemed to be enjoying the show way more than me.
“Meet the watchers of the Shadowscape, the underbelly of earth, a little place I like to call home. It’s situated between your earth and Hell. These adorable pups are hellhounds. The finest stock, purely bred from my own personal kennels.”
A million questions filled my head. Were they real? Maybe I really did sustain a concussion or even a hemorrhage in the brain. And did the guy say he was from Hell? I gripped onto to the most ludicrous thought running through my mind. “Why did your hounds appear to us as human ghosts at first?”
He looked at me with cheery interest. “Is that what you saw of them? Interesting….”
“And why would that interest you in the least?” I stepped even farther away from Wolf and his creepy shape-shifting mongrels.
“Because the hounds appear to whoever invades their sanctuary as that person’s biggest fear. So it would seem, my dear, that your biggest fear is ghosts.”
I laughed. “Ghosts don’t scare me at all. I’ve been chatting up ghosts ever since I was a kid, so that theory is shot to hell. Try again.”
“Hmm. What were the ghosts doing when you first saw them?”
“They were suffering, deformed, and in agonizing pain.”
“In that case, the suffering of your little spook friends is what you fear the most. That’s good to know.”
I didn’t even want to know what he meant by that. “I suppose it would be.” I just wanted an end to the uncomfortable conversation.
Wolf walked into the building. His hounds dropped their heads as if in reverence. I could see the outline of their massive skulls—black-furred skin stretched tightly over them as they crept backward out of his way.
“Grab your stuff and come. We have a lot of work to do.”
Standing by the door, a frown dominating her face, the ghost from earlier shook her head. Wisps of stray hair floated to frame her face, the hair moving, even though the night was still, with no wind. Not even a gentle breeze.
I took a deep breath and let it out. After picking up my bag, I walked forward. I eyed the open door. Six glowing, red eyes peered back at me. “Here goes nothing,” I mumbled.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The inside of the mausoleum looked exactly as I would have expected. It was cramped, with carved pillars pushed up into all four corners. What hit me the hardest about the place was how gloomy it felt. Dark and miserable. Shadows played on the walls, intertwining, dancing to the beat of the flickering candles that hung on either side of the room.
Wolf stood only a few feet away from me over a rectangular-shaped stone slab. It was half the length of the room. My eyes fell on its surface markings. Chiseled deep into the stone were archaic symbols and drawings. They matched the ones carved into the pillars. I didn’t recognize a single one of them.
The hounds fell back farther against the interior walls. There was barely enough room for Wolf and me to navigate around the room, as it was. Add those massive beasts into the mix, and the cramped place became a sweat lodge of the supernatural. I was severely uncomfortable. My body itched from sweat, and my nerves jumped every time one of the hounds so much as breathed in my direction. I was a freaking mess.
“Do you still have that locket I sent you?” Wolf asked.
Oh, crap. I had forgotten about the necklace. I hadn’t needed it to raise Rafe or anything else, for that matter. I almost panicked, feeling around my neck. The bare skin underneath my fingers confirmed what I already knew; it
wasn’t there. I was wearing the same jacket I had worn the night before, so I crossed my fingers. I stuck my hands inside the pockets, and after a few tense seconds, I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the jewelry from its hiding place. I held it out for him to see.
“Good girl. Now grab your dagger and some salt. It’s all you’ll need down there, besides luck.”
I didn’t respond. I was getting pretty good at letting his taunts and jibes slide off my back. Cooler heads always prevailed. I did wonder, however, what he meant by ‘down there.’ My question was soon answered, though. Wolf’s arm flung out before him, making me jump in my skin with its suddenness. His hands began to twirl at the wrists, clockwise, as a baritone hum vibrated from between his lips.
If I hadn’t been so frightened, I might have realized that my enemy had slipped into something akin to deep meditation, not able to protect himself from me or my hands. I could have easily gotten a hold of him in that condition, but instead, I was frozen in place. I would forever kick myself for that missed opportunity.
The air in the room was sucked out like a vacuum, taking with it the small amount filling my lungs. I grabbed at my throat, clawing for breath. Then as suddenly as it was taken, the air swooshed back inside the stifled room. I began to choke and cough, sucking air into my lungs.
My vision swam, the fog lifting from my eyes in time for me to witness the stone slab beneath Wolf’s feet beginning to tremble. He took a step backwards, and then another, right before the slab rose a few inches into the air. The breach made a popping sound as it opened to fall back against the wall with a jarring thud. What it revealed was none too assuring—a chasm filled with darkness.
I felt a pull of immense power from its depths. Whatever resided in that deep hole hovered between life and death, and it called to me silently. I knew without a shadow of doubt that whatever was down there had been waiting for me, or someone like me, for quite some time. The hellhounds lifted their heads. Without direction from Wolf, they fell in line, single file, and descended into the darkness.
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