Necromancing the Stone (30 page)

I couldn’t argue with both of their powers combined. “Fine. I’m going to summon Douglas,” I said. “Happy?”

“No,” Ashley said. “I’m not.”

Brooke looked thoughtful. “How are you going to do that? I mean, can’t he just ignore you?”

I held the egg up in the moonlight for them to see. “I don’t think he’ll be able to resist this. At least, I hope he won’t.”

Once I had finally shoved the both of them out of the circle, I closed it. Ashley was really unhappy with that, since she wouldn’t be able to bust in and help me if things went wrong, and being Ashley, she felt it necessary to point out the fact that with me things often went wrong.

And it would have felt nice to have Ashley in there—someone to save my ass if things went awry. But all my power wouldn’t mean a damn thing if it wasn’t me pulling the strings. More than just fixing things, the pack needed to see me—not Ashley—kicking ass. They needed to know that I wasn’t a screwup. That I didn’t get onto the Council because of some fluke, which it turned out was true. The power that had landed me that seat was mine and had always been. Not inherited from Douglas, but 100 percent Sam.

Of course, none of this would matter if I fucked it all up again.

I winked at Ashley’s furious little face. “I’ll try not to screw up too bad,” I said. “I need you guys to keep an eye on the outside, okay? Please?” I could feel the crowd turning, even from inside the circle. The angry weres were getting restless and agitated, arguing with some of the others around them. I could see Eric getting into Ramon’s face and Ramon, arms crossed, telling him to back down.

Not entirely mollified, Ashley nodded anyway and didn’t bring up any other arguments.

I’d become pretty proficient at closing a circle. I used a little blood because I wanted this one to be as sturdy as possible. Once I’d bandaged the cut on my arm, I took my place at one end.

I closed my eyes and let my head droop. I blocked out the sounds and the smells, concentrating on the cold jade egg in my left hand and the solid athame in my right.

The air was still warm and full of summer. I pulled it into my lungs, holding it before letting it go. I was a little worried about what I was going to do, and I needed to shove that fear down, to push it deep, where it wouldn’t distract me. In some ways, calling up Douglas seemed stupid. I’d survived our last confrontation only because I’d been lucky. I knew that. I wasn’t in his league. That being said, what else could I do? Let him run around, even though I was pretty sure he’d killed Brannoc? Wait for someone else to take care of the problem? Ha. I may not have been qualified, but I was the closest thing to it. There was no cavalry, no badass to come and save the day for me. I was going to have to be the badass.

I tightened my grip on the egg. “Douglas Montgomery, I summon thee to get thy ass over here right now.” Usually when I summoned someone—or something—I let the call go out into the ether and waited. This time, I sent it into the egg. If I was right, that was my connection to Douglas. That was the call he couldn’t ignore.

Squeezing the egg even tighter, I whispered, “Olly, olly, oxen free.”

I felt him appear. The temperature in the circle dropped about ten degrees. I looked out with my sight and found what I had expected, the electric blue dome of my circle stretching overhead, and the swirling, nauseating mass that was Douglas.

I opened my eyes.

He didn’t look any different, despite his death. Immaculate and cool in his dove gray suit, cuff links twinkling in an errant shaft of moonlight, his body bore no mark of our fight—no scarring around the throat, nothing. Necromancers have a few neat tricks, but self-healing wasn’t one of them, which made me wonder how, exactly, he’d pulled it off. The body I’d seen earlier was his—I was positive.

He still scared the crap out of me.

Douglas stayed at his end of the circle, head tilted slightly up, regarding me with faint curiosity. I held up the egg. “I’ve got something of yours.” I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I’d been expecting, but I had expected something. He just kept staring.

“What do you want?” he asked.

That was a fine question. What did I want? I looked down at the egg, making sure to keep Douglas in my line of sight. “I want this all to be over. I’m sick of losing people—of you taking them from me.”

The bastard smiled. “Life is about loss, Sam. You can’t change that.”

The image of the egg blurred as my eyes teared up. I was so angry, so frustrated, I wanted to scream.

“What are you going to do?” Douglas asked. “Destroy the egg? Try and kill me? Banish me? Subject me to more of your inane chatter?” That preacher’s voice of his sounded amused, but there was an undercurrent of intense hatred underneath it. “And now that I’m here, what’s to stop me from taking it?”

I kept looking at the egg. I hadn’t really planned on what to do after this point. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought the summoning would work. There was movement at the edge of my vision, and I realized that a few people had ignored the frosty stares of the pack and were now at the edge of my circle. They couldn’t come any closer than that. I scanned the faces surrounding us. Haley, her countenance grim, stood next to Nick. He looked a shade pale, but had his feet firmly planted. Ashley looked determined, Brid and her brothers were angry, Frank looked worried, and James … James looked scared.

Wait. James?

He had his hands pressed against the dome, his eyes on Douglas. “You weren’t at the cabin,” James said. I don’t think I’d ever seen such naked emotion on his face.

Douglas tapped the dome, looking at its construction, even now studying me above all other things. No fear, just faint curiosity. “I was busy,” he said. “And then I was summoned here.” He cocked his head, finally tearing his gaze away from the dome and looking at James. “Did you know about this?” His voice held a hint of accusation.

James twitched his head, a small movement of denial. “When I couldn’t find you at the cabin, I called the house. The Minotaur told me where everyone had gone.” James’s hands fisted against the barrier. “Please, don’t do this.” Was he talking to me or to Douglas?

Douglas gave him a faint smile in return. “It will be all right, James.” He turned back toward me. He didn’t say anything else. He just waited, his arms in front of him, holding his wrist with one hand, the very picture of patience.

My hand tightened on the knife. “All this stupid misery and pain—caused by
you
,” I said. “It’s gotta stop.” I advanced on him now, unthinking. I heard the shouts of Brid and a few others outside, but I ignored them, my only thought focused on hurting the person who’d hurt me and the people I cared about.

I slashed at him with my athame and … nothing happened. I mean, the dagger passed through, but I couldn’t see any damage. Douglas just laughed and then backhanded me so hard that I hit the ground. I’d been hit by Douglas before, and it was never fun. His being dead hadn’t changed that.

He held up something that glinted in the moonlight. “You can’t hurt me, sonny boy, not while I have this.” He kicked me then, hard in the ribs. “But I can most certainly hurt you.” He punctuated this with another kick, this time catching me in my stomach. Breath whooshed out of me, but I swung my hand clumsily, trying to catch him. He danced out of my reach easily.

He moved toward me again, and I rolled to my feet, backing away from him. The sight of me retreating made him laugh. “Don’t you find it the slightest bit amusing that we keep fighting over power, power that I want, but you don’t? That you’d give away if you had the chance?”

I saw Brooke leaning against the circle, her face scrunched and angry and afraid. “No,” I said. “Not really. To be honest, I just think you’re kind of an asshole.”

He ran at me again, and I barely saw him. But I felt his fist as it hit my face, and I was once again lying on the grass. I tasted blood. The sudden image of me during training only a few days ago, my feet against a tree, a squirrel chattering at me, sprang to mind. I’d been so tired of getting my ass handed to me then. Looked like I hadn’t learned a whole lot since.

I started to get up, and Douglas went for my ribs again, kicking me in the already bruised area. He did it again. And again. I couldn’t breathe now, and I kept wishing that I’d at least landed one punch. Of course, if my athame hadn’t caused any damage, my fist certainly wouldn’t, but I thought I’d have felt better anyway. Outside the dome I could hear raised voices and commotion, but I couldn’t lift my head to see what was going on.

Another blow, this time to my stomach. I looked back down at the egg. So much pain and hate brought on by one little soul—I was convinced that was what it was. More than most people on this planet, Douglas knew that death could be sudden and, I’m sure in his mind, inconvenient. So he had hidden a part of himself in this tiny jade egg. I didn’t really care how he managed it, the simple truth was that I wanted Douglas gone and buried. I wanted it all to be over. But I was also tired of people dying. And I realized I knew what I wanted to do.

Of course knowing what you want to do and knowing how to do it are two separate things. I studied the egg. I had no idea what spell Douglas had used to hide himself in it, and I wasn’t sure if there was a proper way to break it. So I did the only thing I really knew how to do—I called the soul out.

Necromancers have power over the dead. That’s our main gig. But what does that mean, exactly? Is it the flesh we control, or the spirit? When I bring someone back, I’m not just putting the physical being back together—I mean, I could probably do that, but what would be the point? We aren’t the shell that binds us, but that little intangible speck that hides within. As all the guidance counselors tell you growing up, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

I stumbled to my feet, and Douglas let me. Why not? It wasn’t like I’d been putting on a good show up until now. I opened up my hand so the egg could roll into my palm. I held it up at eye level so I could see it better and so Douglas knew what I was doing.

I grinned at him, tasting the blood on my teeth as I did so. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I whispered, but the sound carried. Douglas watched, face unreadable, while I cast all my power into that egg.

Nothing happened. I frowned, knowing full well that Douglas was staring at me in an amused fashion. Okay, so my first try didn’t work. Maybe I could just smash it? I started to cast around, looking for a rock, but I seemed to have picked the one piece of land that was totally rock free.

“You can’t smash it, can you? The spell is strong, and you have nothing to break it. You don’t even have a
rock
.” His voice took on a scathing tone. “You’re lacking something even primitive primates consider a tool. I can’t believe you got the best of me, even once. Brought down by something lower than an ape.” He shook his head in disgust.

He was right. I didn’t have a rock. But I was going to smash the egg anyway. I could use the pommel of my knife. I just needed to find something hard to sandwich it with. My palms started to sweat, the moisture making the cold, slippery surface of the egg hard to hold on to. It shot out of my hand and onto the ground. Taco, who’d been hiding quietly in the grass, spun out after it like it was a tennis ball.

“No!” I shouted. He ignored me as he went for the egg. “Taco! Be a good boy and give it back.” Sure, he’d never brought anything back before, but there was always a first time.

Douglas peered at us. “What is
that
?”

I could tell when he figured out what Taco was, because his cold arrogance was replaced with a look of panic. Now, why would a tiny little thing like Taco cause that reaction?

Then Taco, apparently not caring one iota that his new ball was made out of stone, bit right into it, and I remembered why Douglas had forbidden chupacabras from entering his homestead. Taco’s jaws tore right through Douglas’s spell and cracked the egg open. It might as well have been made of paper.

Again, I’m not sure what I was envisioning. Maybe a glowing spark coming out of carved stone and floating over to Douglas, or perhaps some mystical smoke weaving its way into his body. You know, some peaceful magical crap.

But what I got was a sonic boom. The sound was deafening, and as I was thrown backward, I caught a glimpse of Douglas being similarly knocked down. Outside the dome, I could see a flurry of movement. Chaos appeared to be ensuing, but inside my magic bubble, and except for a persistent whine in my blast-deadened ears, things were nice and calm as I slipped into unconsciousness.

27

LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD

Bridin Blackthorn had spent most of her life surrounded by Alpha males. She was used to the swaggering. The posturing. The jockeying for position. But that didn’t mean she always had patience for it. So when Eric grabbed her shoulder and turned her away from the dome, away from her view of Sam—who had just now been blown back against the edge of the circle—she didn’t even think. She reacted, smacking his hand and pushing him back.

“You don’t touch me ever.” She growled the words, advancing on Eric, who was now looking a lot less sure of himself.

He backed up, moving closer to the members of the pack who supported him. “But.” Then he rallied. “Look, it’s obvious what’s going to happen. We need to get ready. When Douglas leaves that circle, we need to be here to take him down.” He sneered at Sam’s crumpled form. “He’s not going to do it.”

Brid didn’t respond at first. She just stared at Eric, then the crowd behind him. It amazed her that, were Sam in Eric’s place, he would have backed away at this moment. He knew how to read her in a way that Eric, whom she’d been around her entire life, didn’t. Because Sam would have seen her silence for what it was—that quiet moment before the storm broke. But Eric, stupid Eric, was relaxing.

She smiled and got close to him, almost touching his chest. “I’m sorry, did you just try to order me around?” Her voice came out saccharine, which the boy in front of her again misinterpreted.

He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Look, you’ve been confused. We get that. Fell in with the wrong guy.” He squeezed her gently. “But it’s not too late. I’m here now.”