Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy (30 page)

As my guts recovered from the shredding
agony of Erica’s spell, a wave of fury overcame me. I stomped up to
the witch and got right in her face. “All right, lady, I’ve had
about enough of your crap.”

Her chant broke off, and she gave me a
crooked grin. “It’s not my ‘crap’ you should be worried about. I
have her, Pembroke.”

I’ll admit my guts turned to chicken
soup the moment the Judge walked in through the walls in ghost
form. Thank goodness I didn’t have a bladder anymore, because a
large puddle would have formed beneath me that moment. Especially
since the Judge looked as substantial as Erica. It’s hard to
explain since with the exception of the wraiths, we ghosts look
pretty solid to each other. Still, the Judge seemed more there than
anyone else I’d seen. I had a feeling that had any living creature
not gifted with second sight been in the room, they’d still have
seen him.

He stared at me. His undisguised
revulsion mixed liberally with something a little too much like
lust for my liking. I caught myself cringing. He’d looked at me the
same way when he killed me. As I crossed my arms over my chest in a
protective gesture, I realized I still wore no clothes.

The Judge’s thin lips curled. “Foul
creature.”

This beast had ended my life, and I
grasped onto my rage like a life preserver. I snatched my arms down
and planted my hands on my hips. “Yeah well, you should have paid
attention to the ‘do not disturb’ sign I had hanging on the door.
Knock first next time.”

As much as I wanted to thumb my nose at
his loathing of my unclothed state, I felt way too vulnerable with
nothing on. With bravado, I fashioned myself a string bikini. An
itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka-dot bikini, thank you very
much.

Erica snorted. Maybe she got the joke.
I didn’t care.

Drawing myself up proudly, I announced
to the sallow-faced vampire ghost, “Since I have nothing to say to
you, I’m out of here. Liberatio, solvo, eximo!”

Having used the words Yelena had taught
me to get me out of such a jam, I marched straight to the nearest
wall. End of scene, exit stage right. Except instead of passing
through the shack as the Judge had, I splatted against the wooden
surface and bounced right onto my butt.

As I rubbed my aching nose, more
surprised than hurt, Erica snorted. “My wards keep you all inside
and the earth’s magnetic field out. You’re not going
anywhere.”

I seized on the library, seeing,
feeling and smelling its comfort and tried to transport myself
there. Absolutely nothing happened. I stared at the Judge and Erica
in horror, and once more noticed the helpless wraiths bouncing
along the ward-covered ceiling.

Erica laughed at my expression. “You
didn’t think that little nature witch Yelena was a match for my
skills, did you? Stupid Wiccans. They have no real
power.”

The Judge scowled at her. “Leave off
the boasts and continue the search. Now that this problem has been
solved, we can concentrate on more important matters.”

I staggered to my feet. I don’t know
what made me madder; not being able to escape or tall, dark and
killer dismissing me like I wasn’t there. “If you think I’m not
still ticked about you murdering me, you’d better think
again.”

His arm shot out, and he gripped my
upper arm with a hand of iron. “You will not speak,
strumpet.”

Then hell the likes of which I’d not
known before descended on me. Being drained to death hadn’t come
close to this. Not even Erica’s witchy pull had hurt so much. I
can’t describe the searing pain that suffused my entire being. I
just can’t. It eclipsed everything, leaving only torment beyond any
torture I could conceive of.

I felt myself withering, becoming
small. Yet the anguish only grew, as if molten lava laced with
sulfuric acid seared through me. My mind untethered in the swell of
pain, and still the agony expanded. I wished for death, beyond
comprehending that I was already dead.

The grip on my arm disappeared, and the
shrieking agony abruptly ended, though not the sense of being
shriveled to nothing. I found myself floating slightly above the
grayed boards of the floor, inches from the Judge, who looked more
solid and real than ever. He’d released me, leaving me drained and
helpless. A wraith, or at least well on my way to being
one.

His rolling voice sounded like thunder.
“The slut’s screams are an irritant. Silence her.”

Erica muttered over the card table,
sketching smoky wards in the air with a taper. She huffed and
looked at the Judge with exasperation. “Do you want Tristan Keith’s
resting place or are you going to keep interrupting me?”

I sobbed weakly as he roared at her.
“Silence her, witch!”

She snarled, but she put the taper in a
brass candlestick and turned towards me. “Fine, fine, but I’d
better get paid tonight as soon as you rise.” The witch mumbled
incomprehensible words, and my throat went numb. “There, you undead
energy addict. Glut yourself silly on her.”

I’d floated even higher, but still not
out of the Judge’s reach. He grabbed me by the elbow, and the
insane torture resumed.

It went on for a hellish eternity. I
couldn’t even voice my pain now, which somehow made it worse. I
lost all sense of self, of Brandilynn Payson. I was anguish
incarnate. I would have welcomed oblivion, but it never
came.

A harpy’s shriek joined in the
nightmarish cacophony of misery. “I found it!”

The pain ended. I elevated with a rush
and bounced off the ceiling, joining the moaning chorus gathered
there. The hurting had stopped, but the memory of it persisted,
joining the sensation of being consumed until I was only tatters of
the ghost I’d been. I was shredded, an utter ruin.

Having discarded me like used tissue,
the Judge’s attention focused on the beaming Erica. “Where is
he?”

“Home sweet home. He and his sister are
buried on the grounds of Sanderson Cottage among the natives’
oyster shells.”

The Judge’s ghost grin didn’t possess
vampire fangs, but it still resembled the Gates of Hell. “The
Indian Mound. Brilliant hiding place. No one would dare to dig it
up as long as there are a few savages left to protest the
desecration of their former lands.” The bloodsucker’s laugh set the
other wraiths to wailing in fear. “It won’t save him tonight, will
it?”

Erica’s cackle joined his. I had an
inkling of how purgatory with its hordes of demons would sound.
“His weres will all be gathered at the press conference, leaving
your people to rip him to pieces when he rises. I got to hand it to
you, you’re a pretty smooth operator.”

The Judge recoiled from her, his
obvious hatred reasserting itself as victory’s moment faded. “I
expect you to join us to destroy any wards protecting the site.
You’ll be paid afterwards.”

“I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss this
party for the world.”

Evil satisfaction slimed over his
visage. “I must attend Tristan now. If a problem arises before the
appointed time, I will be at the city council offices. He and his
foul sister are spying on them today, hoping to block their plans
for putting a new jail on the waterfront.”

Well, that answered the question of why
Dan and I hadn’t found Tristan. The city and county commissions
were always at odds with each other, and any edge one could gain
over the other was considered essential.

Not that I really cared in my current
state. I just wanted to disappear from existence before the Judge
got his hands on me again.

Erica peered up at me. “I think the
last problem is taken care of. Although if you ask me, your
psychotic murder spree is more likely to be discovered when you
replace Tristan as Fulton Falls’ lead vampire.”

The Judge sneered. “Humans are nothing
but cattle, a lower link in the food chain. It’s high time the
vampires claimed their rightful place as rulers.”

Erica shrugged, clearly not impressed.
The witch blew out her candles, leaving only the lazily drifting
sunlight and the dancing flame of the hurricane lamp to light the
space. Without a backward glance, the Judge blinked out of the
shack. I sagged with relief to see him leave.

I wanted to curl into myself and huddle
with my hurts and fears. As the witch set about clearing the card
table of her witchy accessories, I forced myself to look around the
shack carefully, hoping to find some avenue of escape. One pointed
board shard hung loosely from the ceiling like a stalactite,
leaving a four-inch wide gap to the outside. I was wispy enough to
fit through it, but when I drifted near, I found it blocked as if
by a solid steel barrier. The wards defeated any hope of flight.
However, as a weak sunbeam washed over me, I felt a trickle of
energy. Solar power. Could I get myself back that way, I
wondered?

It was hard to hold still and remain in
the mote of sunshine. My weightless substance wanted to drift
around the cabin, bumping all over the ceiling. And drawing on the
light proved to be little of a feeding, more like munching on a
handful of peanuts when I’d gone all day without eating. At this
rate, I wouldn’t regain enough power to land on the floor for a
week. I had a feeling the Judge would be back to leech off me long
before then.

Erica continued to pack her belongings
into a compartmentalized carry-all. She took her time, wrapping
everything with great care before encasing each item in its padded
section. I looked at her black-handled knife with longing. I’d
never wanted to kill anyone before, but putting the double-sided
blade through the witch’s heart seemed like a pretty sweet idea
right now.

My gaze went to the hurricane lamp and
its tiny flame. Heat had energy. Perhaps more than the diffused
sunlight that barely squeezed in?

I coiled the rags of myself against the
ceiling. Using every pitiful ounce of effort I still possessed, I
pushed off towards the glass encased flame. I drifted lazily down,
just far enough to catch a waft of the warmth pushing its way out
of the lamp’s chimney. My course reversed, and I bumped against the
ceiling again along with a couple of other wraiths. My sister
spirits eddied apart at our contact before coalescing into more or
less intact forms again.

Only then did I notice the accumulated
ghosts of ghosts had stopped moaning. Gray pits that once held eyes
trained on me. Weary fascination had them watching my
efforts.

I didn’t remark on my audience for
long. My experiment with the lamp had given me a little extra
energy, a miniscule spark of life. I gathered myself and launched
towards the lamp once more.

I got even closer and sucked in as much
of the flame’s heat before I drifted out of range again. Better
still, but it was slow going. I’d never recharge anywhere near what
I needed to be before Erica snuffed the lamp. Unfortunately, it was
all I had.

The next time I actually entered the
glass chimney. Drawing heavily on the tiny flame, I made it
flicker. Erica noticed as the shadows danced along the shack
walls.

She waved a hand at my retreating
substance as if shooing a pesky fly. “Get away from that. You’re
blocking my light.” She turned back to her case.

That’s when I saw her cell phone. It
lay on top of a shard that looked like bone.

I powered off the ceiling, heading
straight for it. Well, powered as much as a wasted wraith could. It
took me a good five seconds to cover the distance, but I made it.
My grasping wisps of fingers closed over the phone.

A wash of power seethed through me, and
the phone beeped a complaint as I drained it. My position put me in
contact with Erica, and she tried to push me away, her hands
sliding right through my insubstantial form. I drew from her too
and saw the flesh of her bare arms goosepimple. Getting energy off
a person was much harder than other sources. Erica’s strength came
off her as sticky and reluctant as thick molasses.

“Get off me, you stupid whore!” she
cried. “I’m not about to release you no matter how you beg. The
Judge pays me too damned well for that.”

I wasn’t sure I had gained enough, but
I withdrew before she decided to hurl some black magic curse at me.
I had regained perhaps a quarter of my old self. I probably
overestimated the situation, but I’ve always been an optimist.
Better to be a quarter full than three-quarters empty.

I took that pittance of power and
concentrated everything in me on my hands. I poured all my will,
all my force into those two points of myself. I wrapped my hands
around the handle of the knife.

I felt resistance, a solid hold keeping
my ectoplasmic flesh from drifting into the rubber encasing the
gripping surface. Before I could think twice about it, I swept
around in an arc, the blade blurring in a silver circle to slice
into Erica’s throat.

Blood sprayed to patter the card table
surface. I lost my hold on the knife, and it remained stuck deep in
the witch’s flesh. Feeling wasted again, I drifted towards the
ceiling once more and watched Erica drop to her knees.

She made a desperate sound,
half-gurgle, half-scream. Her hands scrabbled at the knife sticking
out of her gore-slimed throat and fell away. Fading eyes found
mine. Whatever she tried to say I never figured out. It came out in
thick, wheezing grunts, “Nyuh, nyuh, nyuh.”