Ghost at the Feast: The Nightwatch Book 3

by Cassidy, Debbie

  Oh, God. This was it. I needed to get the keys.

  Focus.

  Pain ripped through my head. Claws dug into my mind. Shit. Think. Move.

  You have more power than you know.

  Where the fuck was that power? My hands were no longer my own, my body was no longer my own. No. No, you can’t have my mind. You can’t.

  The power at my center, the white-hot energy that allowed me to tether to specters and move in and out of the shade, flared and surged up through me. The heat made a beeline for the claws sinking into my mind. The shimmer man cried out and released me.

  He took a step back, his gaze raking over me. “Well, well, well. I guess we’re going to have to get rough.”

  Fuck the keys. I’d missed my chance, but it looked like he was about to give me another one.

  He moved so fast there was no time to evade. My back hit the ground, and he was on top of me. One hand on my throat, the other pressed to my forehead while he pinned me to the sand. His power, his essence, his rage hit me like a tank, knocking me momentarily senseless, but then my hand was in his pocket, fingers grazing the keys. I had them, I—

  Stars filled my vision. So many stars and galaxies. I was flying past them, through the enormousness of space before slamming into a planet, green and blue and perfect. Lava erupted, blood flowed, screams filled my ears, and joy bloomed in my chest as my emptiness ebbed. The hunger ebbed because I was feeding on the pain. Feeding on the chaos. Because I had no choice. I needed to find the thing that was missing. The thing that had been taken. Was it here? Would I find it this time? It was a compulsion. An addiction. No rest for me. No death for me. No rest for the Abyss.

  The Abyss…

  No. Not my thoughts. His thoughts. His mind inside my mind. Not your space. Out. Get out. Please.

  But he was too strong. He was too powerful.

  Oh, God. No. I couldn’t lose. I couldn’t. But my voice was getting smaller. My pulse was slowing.

  Give in to me. Let me have you, and I’ll make it feel so good. We can find it together, Kat. We can find completion together.

  Sorry. I’m so sorry.

  “Get away from my chickie!”

  My body jolted, and pain ripped through me as the shimmer man was evicted from my soul.

  A shadow fell over me, and I sat up to see a huge leonine creature planted between me and the shimmer man.

  Hope bloomed in my chest. Tris. “Oh, God, Tris.”

  My gargoyle roared, blasting the shimmer man with her rage and forcing him away from us. “Get on,” she ordered me. “Get on, and I’ll get us out.”

  “She isn’t going anywhere,” the shimmer man said. “There is no waking up while the cuffs are on her.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. The keys.

  Kat? Tris said in my head.

  He has keys to the cuffs in his pocket.

  Then we get them.

  Tris attacked the shimmer man, knocking him to the ground. Her mouth opened wide and lunged for his throat but met nothing but air.

  The shimmer man was gone. But then an arm was around my throat, and a chest pressed to my back. My body reacted on auto, falling into fight mode. A jab to the ribs and a headbutt to the nose. I was free, but not for long. Power slammed into me and sent me flying across the beach. I hit the sand hard, the grains cutting into my palms, and then my fingers grazed something metallic and cool. The fucking keys.

  Booyah.

  Tris’s growls and roars filled the air behind me as she fought off the shimmer man. Where was the fucking keyhole on these things? Shit. I pressed the key to the cuff on my left wrist, and it fell off. Yes. I unlocked the right one too. I stood to face the shimmer man just as he sent a blast of energy flying at Tris. My gargoyle flew ass over tit but landed neatly on her feet. She was tired, I could see it in the tremor that shook her body.

  “Tris!” I ran toward her. “I got them off.”

  She looked my way as I ran toward her. “Get o—” Her face froze.

  Her body left the ground and floated into the air, gripped by the shimmer man’s power.

  “You’re a formidable woman, Kat,” the shimmer man said. “You remind me of someone I knew once. Formidable. But like her, you overestimate yourself. Pick up the cuffs and put them back on.”

  “Fuck you.”

  His smile was jagged shards of glass.

  Tris’s body contorted, and she shrieked in pain.

  “NO!” I held up my hands. “Please, don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m done playing, Kitty Kat. Done petting your fucking pet. Put on the cuffs, and your gargoyle friend goes free. Refuse, and I’ll tear her soul to shreds.”

  Tris bellowed as he forced her body to contort even more.

  Oh, God. “Okay, okay. Just stop. Please.” I reached down and picked up the cuffs.

  “Good girl. Now put them on.”

  No! Tris said in my head. Don’t do it, chickie. This is about more than you and me. This is about the world. You can’t give him what he wants. If you do, then all our hard work will have been for nothing. My purpose will have meant nothing.

  I can’t lose you.

  Oh, poppet. Haven’t you learned anything yet? I’ll always be with you. In your heart. You’ll never lose me. But right now ... Right now, you have to let me go.

  “No more thinking, Kitty Kat,” the shimmer man said. He rotated Tris so she was facing me. “Put on the cuffs, or watch her die.”

  Tris locked gazes with me. Go. Now. You don’t need to see it happen.

  It was her or the world, and damn if I wasn’t tempted to say fuck you, world. But as always, she was right.

  A sob broke from my lips. “I love you, Tris.” I dropped the cuffs and ran for the sea.

  The shimmer man’s scream of rage was followed by Tris’s roar of pain.

  Don’t look back, don’t.

  I looked over my shoulder in time to see her explode into a million brilliant pieces, and then the salt of the sea mingled with my tears as I let the water take me. Take me and pull me down.

  Down.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I woke up fighting, thrashing, and gasping through my sobs. Drowning, I was drowning.

  “Kat, it’s okay, we’ve got you, it’s okay.” Bres pulled me into his arms and onto his lap, rocking me back and forth.

  No, it wasn’t okay. It hurt … my heart hurt. “Tris. Oh, God. Tris. He k-k-killed her. He killed T-T-Tris.”

  “I’m sorry. So sorry,” Bres said.

  “Kat. Kat, look at me.” It was Karishma’s voice. “I need you to calm down and look at me. Okay.”

  “Can’t you see she’s fucking upset. Give her a minute,” Bres said.

  “We have to do this now, Bres,” Karishma insisted.

  I sucked in deep lungfuls of air, fighting the rise of grief and the tumult of emotions.

  “Okay,” Karishma said. “Can you look at me?”

  I raised my head from the crook of Bres’s neck. We were in my room, and they were all here. Kris, Lark, Jay, Mai, and Karishma. All here. All except …

  “Where is she? Where’s Tris?”

  Karishma pressed her lips together and looked down. I followed her gaze to the pillow beside me to find Tris’s stone form lying there in two pieces. Cracked just like her soul. Just like … Oh, God. A low keening sound filled the room. Me … that was me.

  “Kat, look at me.” Karishma gripped my chin and stared into my eyes before chanting strange words.

  “What the fuck? What are you doing?” I pulled away with a growl and a flash of fang.

  Tris. I needed Tris.

  Karishma released me, and her shoulders relaxed. “It’s her. It’s Kat. He’s not inside her.”

  The shimmer man. They were checking to see if he’d gotten out. “No. He didn’t make it out, because Tris saved me, and I … I left her to die. I left her …” An obsidian wave of grief hit me in the chest, and I couldn’t breathe.

  “Leave,” Bres snapped. “Give us the
room.”

  “Bres, we need to know what happened,” Jay said.

  “And you fucking will, but not right now.”

  His arms tightened around me, and he began to rock me, not speaking, not telling me to stop. But simply allowing me to cry.

  * * *

  I stood at the window, looking down at the snow that glittered like pearls in the moonlight. I’d filled the others in on what had happened. On the hide-and-seek, the cuffs, and my mother. Although there were gaps in my memory when it came to her. I recalled Death was my father. Yeah, that had gone down well with the others. But there was more, something she’d said I needed to do.

  Dammit.

  Karishma had taken Tris’s remains an hour ago and was working on a way to keep me awake, to keep me out of Somnium. With Tris gone, they couldn’t risk my falling asleep. And with Vinod gone, they couldn’t replicate the original binding with another gargoyle.

  Another gargoyle.

  Tris had been more than that. She’d been my friend, my … She’d been my mother.

  Bres cupped my shoulders from behind and rested his chin on my head. “Lark and Mai are arranging a memorial ceremony for Tris. They’re going to bury her on the grounds tomorrow night.”

  I nodded. “She would have liked that. She loved it here. We need to let the other goyles know … Her friends …” I pressed my fingers to my temple. “Bres … I don’t know how to live without her.”

  “Then we’ll figure it out together. She gave her life to keep you from the shimmer man. We need to make sure that wasn’t in vain.”

  “He has a plan B.”

  There was a knock at my door. “Yeah?”

  Lark popped his head in. “Sorry to disturb, but Jay wants us all in the lounge.”

  “Now?” Irritation flashed across Bres’s face.

  Lark nodded. “Something’s going down. Something big.”

  I straightened my spine and headed for the door. “Let’s find out what.”

  The team was gathered in the lounge, but both Jay and Karishma were on the phone. They both hung up as we entered.

  “What is it?” Bres asked.

  “That was Poppy,” Jay said. “Ten humans have been brought into General in the last hour. All stuck in REM sleep, but this time it’s not a viral toxin. This time the bloodwork is clean. And more cases were coming in as we were speaking.”

  “I just got off the phone to HQ,” Karishma said. “It’s happening there too. To supernaturals. They’re calling it a psychic virus. They’ve issued Protocol Haven. Essential personnel are evacuating to the Academy because it’s heavily warded. Even though it’s part of our world, it’s been cut off and manipulated to technically exist in its own pocket of reality.”

  Another reality … Which would mean the supernatural souls there wouldn’t be visiting Somnium when they slept. They’d be safe from the shimmer man.

  “You need to go.” I looked to Bres and the team. “Get out while you can. This is it. His plan B. He said he would make it so I had no choice but to go to him. He’s going to trap everyone I care about and then unleash … something. I don’t know what, but it’ll be bad. You need to get out.”

  “Like hell!” Lark said. “You are not doing this alone. You need us. We can figure this out together. The trick is not to sleep. We can figure something out.”

  “And there has to be a way to stop him. If it lives, it can be killed,” Kris said softly.

  Something stirred at the back of my mind. A memory … Something my mother had said, and then it hit me. The tidbit of vital information I’d almost forgotten.

  “Morpheus and Death. We need to find them.”

  Everyone stared at me.

  “My mother told me that Death and Morpheus trapped the shimmer man because they weren’t powerful enough to end him, but maybe together, the three of us could kill him. She said … She said I was conceived in Somnium.”

  There was a beat of silence. Then Jay clapped his hands together. “All right, we have a reference point. We can start our search and gather as much information as we can on the god of dreams and Death. We’ll find them, and we can end the shimmer man for good.”

  Everyone was nodding as hope filled the room. We had a plan. We had a way forward.

  The front door swung open, and a gust of cold air swirled into the lounge. Boot falls echoed in the hallway, and then a figure strode into the room.

  His golden hair was dusted with snow, and his sapphire eyes, bright from the cold, zeroed in on me.

  He stood there like he’d never left. Like he’d never ripped my heart from my chest and trampled on it, and rage, unmitigated, potent rage, burned all reason from my mind. I bridged the gap between us and slapped him hard across his beautiful golem face.

  “Fuck you, Henri. Fuck you!”

  To be continued…

  Join Kat and the Team in Lay the Ghost, book 4 in The Nightwatch Series.

  Grab it HERE

  Other books by Debbie Cassidy

  The Gatekeeper Chronicles

  Coauthored with Jasmine Walt

  Marked by Sin

  Hunted by Sin

  Claimed by Sin

  The Witch Blood Chronicles

  (Spin-off to the Gatekeeper Chronicles)

  Binding Magick

  Defying Magick

  Embracing Magick

  Unleashing Magick

  The Fearless Destiny Series

  Beyond Everlight

  Into Evernight

  Under Twilight

  The Chronicles of Midnight

  Protector of Midnight

  Champion of Midnight

  Secrets of Midnight

  Shades of Midnight

  Savior of Midnight

  Chronicles of Arcana

  City of Demons

  City of the Lost

  City of Everdark

  City of War

  For the Blood

  For the Blood

  For the Power

  For the Reign

  For the Hunt (novella)

  Heart of Darkness

  Captive of Darkness

  Bane of Winter

  Fate’s Destiny

  Deadworld

  Deadworld

  Dead City

  Dead Sea

  Dead End

  The Nightwatch Academy

  Shadow Caster

  Shadow Weaver

  Shadow Warrior

  Shadow Master

  The Nightwatch Series

  Ghost of a Chance

  Give up the Ghost

  Ghost at the Feast

  Lay the Ghost

  Dragon Guard

  Dragon Trials

  Survivor’s Heart (Planet Athion world)

  Novellas

  Rogue

  Rebel

  Survivor

  Standalone Novellas

  Blood Blade

  About the Author

  Debbie Cassidy lives in England, Bedfordshire, with her three kids and very supportive husband. Coffee and chocolate biscuits are her writing fuels of choice, and she is still working on getting that perfect tower of solitude built in her back garden. Obsessed with building new worlds and reading about them, she spends her spare time daydreaming and conversing with the characters in her head – in a totally non psychotic way of course. She writes High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Space Fantasy, and Reverse Harem. Connect with Debbie via her website at debbiecassidyauthor.com or twitter @authordcassidy. Join her Facebook Reader Group, or sign up to her Newsletter to stay on top of the new releases.

 

 

 
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