Soul Taker (14 page)

She focused on Johanna's aura, willing it to
reunite and blend into the signature colors she knew were her
friend's, but nothing changed. Her life energy remained stagnant,
with barely a spark.

After a few more tries, she patted Johanna's
shoulder. "I won't give up on you. Hang in there," she whispered,
her voice choking at the end. Maybe Johanna's system needed to be
detoxed. She would repeat the procedure again tomorrow, using the
amber to correct the imbalances in the nervous system.

She pushed Johanna's bed back into place and
put the crystals away. Isabella stared at her friend, hugging
herself as she watched the machines breathe for her. Johanna's aura
was once beautiful. It hurt to see it broken and scattered in
fragments, as if someone shattered it. She wasn't sure if anything
she did would help. It was as if Johanna's life force had been
stolen from her.

Johanna had looked tired when she left her at
her doorstep. "Just tired." She angrily swiped a tear away. Johanna
was thrilled about the opening of her flower shop, and now her
dream was gone.

And where was Johanna's boyfriend? According
to Johanna, he was wonderful. Well, where was
Mr. Wonderful
now? She had Johanna's phone. She searched for a number, but
Johanna didn't have a number for her boyfriend listed in her
directory, and he never bothered to call. She checked Johanna's
home messages, too.
Nada
. Not one
message.

Isabella sighed and rubbed her tired eyes.
She reached for Johanna's hand and gave it a squeeze. "I'll see you
tomorrow." She leaned down and kissed her cheek.

****

Garran waited until Isabella left Johanna
Threshold's room and headed toward the elevators. "My turn," he
murmured as he entered Johanna's room. He was rather intrigued by
Isabella's attempt to revive her friend. Using crystals wasn't any
Necromancer ritual he was aware of.

Garran studied the monitors registering each
beat of the woman's heart and each breath she took. Johanna
Threshold fared better than the other two victims did, though he
was sure she wouldn't survive, either. Too much of her essence was
taken. He moved Johanna's hair away from her neck, leaning closer
to discern if there were any marks. He opened her mouth and moved
the tubing over to one side. He inspected the roof of her mouth,
discovering the slight discoloration. He wasn't surprised, but he
still wanted to confirm she suffered from the Soul Taker's
touch.

"What are you doing in here?" Isabella
demanded.

Garran stilled. Isabella Lucci had returned
and he hadn't heard her footsteps. The human proved intriguing on
more levels than he thought.

"I said, what are you doing in here?" she
repeated as if she felt he hadn't heard her threatening tone the
first time she demanded an answer.

He turned to face her. Her scent of fresh
fallen rain curled around his senses, making him wonder if her
blood would be as sweet. He shifted his attention, his gaze
latching onto her beautiful hazel eyes rimmed with gold.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The stranger assessed her with a cool
indifference. His arrogance not only proved to annoy Isabella, it
downright pissed her off. His lips twitched, almost smiling, making
her wonder if he read her mind. Well, hopefully, he had because if
he didn't say something in the next few seconds, she was going to
scream for help.

"I am…" He glanced at Johanna before
returning his gaze back to her. "A friend," he finished giving away
his Scottish heritage with slight burr to the
'r'
in
friend.

"Friend?" His aura proved a beautiful array,
but the arrangement of them was off, not sickly off, but just…off.
Her eyes narrowed. "I don't believe I caught your name."

"It is of no consequences." His broad
shoulders lifted in a shrug. He was tall, maybe six-four or five.
Dangerous
, came to mind when she looked at him, but Isabella
strode into the room anyway. She wouldn't leave Johanna until she
knew what this
so called
friend wanted. She placed her purse
on the end table before going to stand on the other side of
Johanna's bed. Everything looked to be in order. The ventilator was
forcing air into her lungs, the monitor was beeping indicating her
heart was still beating, and the IVs were still giving her the
vital fluids she needed to stay alive. If lying there in a comatose
position could be called alive. Johanna wasn't getting any better,
but as far as her aura was concerned, she wasn't any worse
either.

She leveled her gaze on the stranger,
wondering why he was here. Then it dawned on her who he might be.
She took in his lean athletic built covered by jeans and a dark
sweater. His hair was a burnished gold, his eyes a startling color
of stormy gray. His face was rugged, without being hard, with just
a hint of a five o'clock shadow. His mouth was full and definitely
flirting with the audacity to smile. He was a looker, arrogance and
all. "Are you Johanna's boyfriend?"

His brows lifted slightly. He didn't have a
chance to answer for the nurse came in, pushing a unit that would
take Johanna's temperature, blood oxygen levels, and blood
pressure.

"Pardon me," the nurse said with a
sympathetic smile.

Isabella moved out of the way so the nurse
could work. When she looked back to where the man had been
standing, he was no longer there. She ran to the door, looking down
the hall one-way then the other, but he was gone.

"She's stable," the nurse announced after a
moment. "I'll be back later to change the IV."

"Thank you," Isabella answered, though her
thoughts were still on the man who'd been standing over Johanna.
Who was he and why did he leave in such a hurry?

Chapter Twenty-Six

Garran didn't like being caught unaware, but
Isabella Lucci had managed to sneak up on him. Interesting
prospect. Something about the woman made him want to take a closer
look. His brows furrowed, disconcerted at his own curiosity. Sure,
she was lovely with dark hair and eyes, but no more beautiful than
any other human with proportional attributes. He admired her spunk.
The way she stood there in the doorway, challenging him. His lethal
stares caused men to tremble in their wake, but she didn't even
flinch. If anything, it seemed to make her more determined.

For half a second, he thought about using his
powers of persuasion, but then quickly decided against it. Her
human eyes may not have seen him when he followed her here to the
hospital, but her other senses felt him. He had a hunch his power
of persuasion wouldn't work on her.

Bravery, beauty, and in-tune to the
preternatural realm, all admirable qualities, but it didn't change
the fact she was human. Intrigued as he might be, he wouldn't allow
himself to become involved with her for curiosity sake. Humans were
too fragile and too needy. If he wanted to indulge in a
relationship, he'd stick to his kind. If he wanted to hold onto the
fantasy of there was the perfect soul mate for him, his soul mate
most assuredly would not be a human.

His lips curved. His thoughts had wandered
where he hadn't thought to go. He didn't want to know the woman,
let alone strike up a relationship with her.

Damn Harrison for making him curious. If he
hadn't insisted over and over again that Isabella Lucci should join
them in their quest to bring down the
Soul Taker,
he would
have never lurked in the shadows to catch a glimpse of her when
Harrison had called her to Johanna Threshold's side the night she'd
been attacked. It had been his first glimpse of the woman, whom
Harrison raved about for the last month and a half.

Isabella arrived in a flurry of energy as she
hurried to be at her friend's side. Isabella resembled her mother
in beauty. Louisa Lucci had been indeed a striking woman, but there
was something more to Isabella. Her warmth and vitality drew him
and he almost strode from where he hid for a closer look at her.
Luckily, he had come to his senses in time.

However, tonight in the hospital room, her
scent washed over him like freshly fallen rain and for a blink of
time, he lost his composure. Sure, no human would have noticed, but
it bothered him all the same. "She's lethal as a siren," he cursed.
He would stay away from her and warn Harrison to do the same.

****

Visiting hours ended fifteen minutes ago.
Isabella stayed with Johanna, fearing the tall man with the
gorgeous eyes would come back. Part of her wanted him to, but
another part of her thought she was crazy for even thinking it. The
man was probably some weirdo who got off on coma patients.

"Friend? I don't think so," she murmured. She
left Johanna's room and headed toward the elevator. Once the doors
opened, she stepped in, turning around to push the button for the
ground floor. A second before the cold steel closed, she caught
sight of the tall, mysterious man strolling down the hall. Her hand
whipped out, preventing the doors from closing.

The man's strides were long and determined,
never missing a beat, but instead of going into Johanna's room, he
continued down the corridor and entered another room, furthering
her suspicion that he was indeed a weirdo.

Isabella couldn't resist. She had to know
what he was up to. She hurried after him, halting in front of the
room the man had entered. She poked her head in and found him
leaning over the patient, a young woman in her late twenties or so.
He leaned in so close and it appeared as if he were kissing
her.

He must have sensed her watching him. His
body tensed, his jaw muscles pulsed as if he clenched his teeth.
Before he could whip around and spot her spying on him, she jumped
back, pressing her body against the wall as if she could melt into
the plaster and disappear. For a few horrible seconds, she believed
he would come around the corner and find her, but she detected no
footsteps, only the thud of her heart pounding in her ears.

She closed her eyes and took slow deliberate
breaths to calm her nerves. He hadn't seen her. She pushed away
from the wall and chanced another look. Her breath stuck in her
throat as she took in the entire room without a hint of the tall
stranger. How could he have gotten out? There were no exits, other
than the door where she stood. He would have had to walk right past
her.

Just then, the monitor in the woman's room
blared to life. Her gaze landed on the screen as she watched in
horror. The patient's vitals dropped. Two nurses and a doctor
rushed in, pushing a crash cart with them. Isabella watched from
the doorway as they tried to bring the young woman back from the
brink of death, but Isabella knew it was a hopeless attempt. The
woman's aura had ceased to exist.

Isabella waited until the nurses and the
doctor filed out. She had no doubt they had paperwork and phone
calls to make to the woman's next of kin. She would have to hurry
before someone came back to take the body.

Blood was the fastest way to contact a soul,
but a cell phone, black mirror and a conjuring triangle, with
protection symbols to ward off demonic interferences, would work,
too.

Since Marcy's death, she'd carried the items
with her, items she hadn't used since she was in high school,
participating in the nursing program offered for high school
students extra curriculum studies. If the teachers had known she
was only there to enhance her Necromancy skills, she would have
been tossed out of the program, but she was careful or so she
thought, until Danielle Smith caught her in the morgue. The girl
was always nosing into everyone's business as if she were elected
to police their actions.

If she had known Danielle was spying on her,
she would have never awakened the woman who had died from a
self-inflicted gunshot wound. Danielle's screams alerted the staff
on duty. The teacher didn't believe Danielle's story about her
raising the dead, but she didn't quite discount something had
happened. From that day on, she had a partner and couldn't wander
off to experiment on her own. Once the semester was over, she
didn't sign up for the program again.

Isabella fished into her backpack. She had
thought to use the method with Johanna to find out who had hurt
her, but she wasn't dead—not yet. Something had taken part of her
soul, amputated it from existence. She never knew of a death like
hers. Maybe the man she saw in here had something to do with it.
Black magic, perhaps...

She placed the diagram and the black mirror
on the woman's chest. Quickly, she removed the cell battery from
her old phone she had yet to recycle. She glanced at the door,
expecting any moment for someone to barge in and demand to know
what she was doing. She had to concentrate and block out the sounds
of the hospital—the beeping monitors, the low murmurs of
conversation, the coughs and moans from the other rooms.

She grabbed the woman's wrist and looked at
the name typed there. The woman's name was Missy Spangler. She
prayed there was enough of Missy's essence to have a coherent
conversation.

She closed her eyes and concentrated,
reaching beyond to the dark void where souls lingered before moving
on. She murmured words that Necromancers used to open the veil. The
lights overhead flickered and the air around her grew cold,
frosting the black mirror as if someone breathed on it. "Missy
Spangler, I command an audience." She didn't have time to play
nice. She needed to speak to her now.

The lights overhead flickered with a buzzing
sound of electricity being zapped. Her phone buzzed and she opened
her eyes to read the text.

I'm here.

"What did the man do to you?" Isabella
asked.

Kissed me.

She frowned. Sometimes the souls were
confused. "Did the man harm you?"

Kiss… took… he took…

"What did he take, Missy?"