The Dead (The Thaumaturge Series Book 1) (28 page)

I moaned again, unable to articulate my disgust and horror and disbelief in any other vocabulary. The inside of my head felt like a bell being rung. My heart felt like it was snared with a fishhook. I was hot and cold, and I let out a small, strangled cry.

At once, Leo pulled me to my feet and gave me a little shake. “You can worry about him later. Ebron. Ebron. Are you there?”

There was a hurricane in my chest, an avalanche breaking across my back, but I nodded. “Yes,” I said, then again, a little louder. “Yes. Hey. Where’d you come from?”

“I heard you screaming,” he said softly in my ear.

I hung limp in Leo’s grasp, staring around in jerky twitches. Marcus put a hand on my shoulder, his eyes wide and blank. Scott stood with his face bent close to Cameron, whispering. Cameron held his arm awkwardly against his chest. Tears streaked his young face.

Morgan sat on the floor, still a few feet away from Corvin’s ruined head. She shook visibly, and as I watched, she raised her hand to her face. Her fingers came away smeared with red splatter.

“What do we do?” I asked Leo. My stomach yawned like a black hole, boiling with sickness. I glanced at the rifle resting on the floor and cold pinched in the center of my chest.

“Is there a chance any one heard that gunshot?” Scott asked. Cameron leaned heavily against him, his eyes stuck on the spreading pool of Corvin’s blood.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I doubt it,” Leo added. “There’s no one around right now.”

“There was a cop outside,” Marcus put in.

Leo sighed, like it hurt him to include Marcus, but said, “He drove off.”

“Then we get rid of the body,” Scott said gruffly, and if I hadn’t been feeling like my mind was unraveling, his practical tone would have been soothing. Everyone was handling the dead guy a lot better than me. Which was sort of refreshing.

“And what about her?” Leo jerked his chin towards Morgan. She blinked up at him. Wily intelligence returned to her wide eyes. She took a deep breath, and got slowly to her feet.

‘What about them?” Marcus asked shrilly, moving back to kneel by Jim and Shaina. “Someone help me untie them.”

Scott carefully pressed Cameron against the leg of a display table, and I winced in sympathy at Cameron’s small cry of pain.

“I need to get my boy to a hospital,” Scott said to me quietly, and I nodded.

“Here,” Scott said, unsnapping the small sheath on his belt. He passed a small pocket knife to Marcus. Marcus blinked at it for a second before he went to work sawing on the ropes.

Leo led me a few feet away, back towards the front door. I moved numbly under his hands, letting him steer me to sit on a one of the tall counter stools.

“You okay?” Leo asked, gripping me by the shoulders.

“I just killed a man,” I told him. The words felt surreal and I gave a little hiccupy laugh.

Leo nodded. “I know. The first time’s rough. But you got to pull it together. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

I stared at him dumbly. “Why? He’s dead.”

“Do you want the woman dead, too? I’ll do it, if you want.”

“Fuck, Leo,” I moaned, pressing one hand to my eyes. “How can this be my life?”

He gave me an irritated little shake. “Stop it. Decide. You want her dead or not?”

“No! Figure out something else.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment there was a rap at the glass front door. I froze. Leo froze. Deeper into the store, someone swore.

“The cops?” I gasped. Leo shook his head.

“It’s Cody,” he said and stepped aside to let me get to the door.

Cody peered in, his hands cupped around his eyes and his forehead pressed to the door. I glared at him through the glaze, but he just looked dazed and out of it.

“Cody,” I warned, pushing the door open a crack.

“What’s going on in there, man?” he stammered out. “I heard a gunshot. What the fuck, dude?”

“Go home,” I told him firmly and started to pull the door shut. His arm shot out, and he wormed his body halfway through the opening before I could shove it closed again.

“Ebron,” he groaned, pinned between the door and the frame. The leg that was on the inside kicked out.

“No,” I snapped at him. Behind me, Leo let out a long suffering sigh.

“Let me help you!” Cody insisted. His face squished up against the glass, red and sweaty.

“Ebron,” Leo growled.

“What’s going on?” Marcus called faintly from the back of the store.

I huffed in frustration, and threw the door open. Cody stumbled the rest of the way through, giving me indignant glares.

I twisted the front of his coat. “Just stay out of the way,” I told him.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” he whispered back.

Leo motioned to me, and I followed him back into the store, Cody trailing behind us. Cody gave a shocked gasp when he saw the tableau laid out before us – Scott holding Morgan at gunpoint. Jim and Shaina sprawled out, unconscious and bloodied. Cameron, pale and cradling his crooked wrist. And Corvin, of course, with half his head blown off.

The atmosphere was determinedly calm. Someone had extinguished most of the candles and the smell of fragrant smoke added to the already thick incense. The taste felt heavy in my mouth.

“We can’t go to the police,” Scott announced to me in greeting.

“No,” I agreed. “There’s no way to explain this.”

“Ebron,” Marcus called to me. He held Shaina’s head in his lap, the coils of rope piled beside him. Her eyes slitted half open, her mouth slack. I met Marcus’s bloodshot eyes.

“Can you bring them back?” he asked.

“I think I can,” I said, staring down at their limp bodies. Leo pressed his shoulder briefly into mine.

“Can you?” he asked softly, and I lifted one shoulder.

“Take notes,” I replied, just as quiet.

Morgan abruptly surged to life. She crawled across the blood-soaked floor, scrambling for Corvin. Scott jerked in surprise and he followed her with the gun. For a second, I thought he was going to shoot. His face stayed relaxed, though, and we all watched as Morgan knee-walked through the blood, groping at scattered herbs. She choked out half legible words. I grimaced as I watched her dip her fingers in Corvin’s blood. She traced lumpy symbols on the floor, uneven with the grain of the wood.

“Won’t –” Cameron started, and we all looked at him. He cleared his throat, licking his pale lips. “Sorry, but, I mean – I don’t understand how you do it, but when you helped Aubrey?”

I nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

“You kinda like went somewhere else. You went and helped her come back, right?”

I nodded again, and felt Leo suck in a breath beside me.

“So all dead people go to the same place? The same place they are?” Cameron pointed his chin at Jim and Shaina.

“He’s right,” Leo said, giving Cameron a quick once over. “Corvin will be there, too. You have to be careful.”

“He can’t hurt me,” I answered, but shot Leo a look even before the words were out of my mouth. “Can he?”

Leo grimaced. “I’m not sure. Dream walking – I’m not familiar with it.”

“Dream walking,” Cody said softly. “This is all so . . .” He broke off, swaying slowly as he watched Morgan crumble herbs between her fingers.

I blinked hard against the stinging incense, my eyes fogged up and gritty. I longed for some water to wash the ashy taste out of my mouth.

“Turn off some of these lights,” I said irritably to no one in particular. The room felt overexposed. My sweaty collar rubbed against my damp throat and I tugged at it with a one finger. Scott murmured something to Cameron, and I watched him walk into the backroom. The room went dark and then bright again, as Scott fumbled with the breaker box. Finally the harsh overhead lights went out, leaving only the under shelf lighting and a square of light from the backroom. My eyes watered in relief.

Scott returned, and as he rejoined his son, everyone pulled in close in a circle around me. The attention rankled me, made me bristle like a dog. Leo pressed in tight against my side again, and I threw him a grateful look. In the dimmer light, his eyes were unmistakably gold.

“Anything I should know?” I asked Marcus, shoving my sleeves up to my elbows.

That line appeared between his eyes again. “I don’t know what he can do. He’s been practicing.”

“But he’s never been on the higher planes before,” I pointed out. “And he’s dead, not dream walking.”

Marcus tipped his head in acknowledgment. “That’s true, but either way his soul has been released. And he’s got blood magic behind him. “

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Leo growled, his eyes fixed on Marcus. “That he’ll be strong. Blood . . . amplifies things.”

“Great,” I muttered. Scott and Cameron exchanged an uneasy glance, and Cody whispered something under his breath, something that could have been a prayer or a curse.

“I'll take care of things here,” Leo continued, ignoring them. “Just do what you have to do.”

“Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath, and stepped around them, over to Corvin’s body. I heard Marcus say something to Leo, to which Leo casually replied, “You need to shut the fuck up.”

Morgan didn't look up as I approached, so intent on chanting and tossing herbs onto the splattered remains of Corvin's head, so the startled look she gave me when I shoved the gun into her face was deeply satisfying. Her brief expression of fear made something primal in me
grin
.

“Stop what you're doing,” I said. My voice sounded strange, distant and warped, unrecognizable to my own ears. There was something wrong with my eyes, too, and I blinked a few times against the sudden narrowing of my vision.

“Ebron, wait,” Marcus said. He came up behind me, but he didn't try to touch me. I couldn't look at him. No one moved.

“Get on your stomach,” I said, taking a step forward and pressing the barrel of the gun harder into Morgan's forehead. She shook, her face crumbing, and she slowly sank down, looking desperately towards Corvin's lifeless body. I moved the gun to the back of her head, and pressed hard enough to make her strain forward. She huffed out a low, shaking moan.

Marcus moved closer, shoving himself against my arm so that I had to move the gun away from Morgan. She sighed softly when it stopped touching her and that sound made my lips curl back.

“You can do it at will, can't you?” he asked softly, low enough that I had to lean forward to catch it all.

“Do what?”

“Release your soul. Access the higher planes. You don't need spells or to die or anything. You can travel where you want?”

“I have no idea. I can go up high enough to -” I broke off, not wanting to reveal the limits of my abilities.

He nodded. “So do it then. Bring them back for me.”

I wanted to tell him that I would, but not for him. I would because that was what I
did
. But there was darkness creeping around the corners of my vision, and just for a second, I thought I heard laughter, low and cruel. I whipped my head to the side to look at Corvin's body, but it lay motionless.

There was a sudden pull in my mind, an unexpected jerk and I was yanked upwards for the briefest of moments, just high enough to see a dark shadow there, right in front of me. It dropped me immediately and I gasped, solidly back in my physical body and stunned with understanding.

Marcus gripped my forearms, heedless of the gun barrel pressed against his side.

“What about her?” I whispered, nodding towards Morgan, who watched me with suddenly calculating eyes.

“We'll take care of her,” Marcus said. He reached for my gun.

“I'll take care of her,” Leo corrected, taking the gun from me and tapping Marcus in the chest with it.

Marcus scowled at him. “We're on the same side.”

“I'm on Ebron's side,” Leo snapped back. “No one else's.”

Leo tugged at me, pulling me towards Jim and Shaina’s lifeless bodies. All of them watched me go, even Morgan, looking up from under her brows. I had the strangest sense that I was going to a funeral and that it might be my own.

Leo pushed me against the wall and settled me there, helping me to slide down. I felt like I was underwater. There should have been bubbles coming from my mouth when I spoke.

“Don't hurt Marcus,” I told him, my voice thick, like speaking through molasses.

“I won't. Ebron . . . ”

My mind yawned, forking apart as part of me rose and part of me slumped down. With every breath I took I floated higher and higher, like climbing stairs. I thought I saw double. Dark shadows played in the corners of my eyes.

“I might not come back,” I said to Leo. My words felt mushy in my mouth.

He nodded. “I know.” He leaned over and kissed me gently, his lips soft and warm against mine. I barely felt the kiss.

“Thank you, Ebron,” he said, and I started to tell him to take care of my dog, but then I was yanked upwards and out of the physical world.

I wandered forward into the blackness, my arms held shakily out before me. My pounding heart gradually slowed as I moved into the familiar stillness. Pleasant dimness, with twinkling lights snowing gracefully all around me. My astral legs felt sluggish, as though I was walking through water, but even that felt calming. I took a deep breath, sucking in little shining motes of light and felt dormant parts of my brain snap into awareness.

“Better,” I said out loud and felt someone squeeze my physical hand. I wanted to open my eyes, to check if it was Leo, but movement in the floating pinpricks of light caught my attention.

“Jim?” I asked. “Shaina?” I moved upwards a bit, climbing higher into the astral planes. The air felt thin, the light less bright. Shapes swirled in the shadows and a low whisper just barely reached my ears. I moved higher, and realized with some curiosity that my own feet were faded and hazy. There seemed to be nothing beneath me but gray.

Okay. Think.
I could still feel power vibrating in my bones, accessible and waiting. I was higher up, but it was still the same road. I stared hard into the empty stillness around, looking for any sign of a soul. Was it possibly that they were still even further up? I didn’t know how high dream walkers could go – how high
I
could go.