The Sorceress Screams (31 page)

“Oh, Zeus,” I
whispered and slumped back to my knees, desperately trying to hide the moisture
in my eyes. “Why?” I moaned at the sky as if the king of the gods himself would
send an answer.

“Why what,
Kora
?”

I inhaled a
ragged sigh as I slumped over my thighs. If Trip had to ask, then he hadn’t
guessed what was on my mind.

Whoever had
told him what had been going through my thoughts a few minutes ago, could tell
him what I was thinking now. That couldn’t happen. I would die if he found out.

He took a step
forward, no doubt impatient I hadn’t answered. I remained where I was because
he couldn’t touch me. He could only manipulate things with his new bracelet,
and I was betting
things
didn’t
include people. I must have been right because though he was close, I didn’t
feel anything more than the decrease in temperature powerful entities within
the Spirit Realm generated.

Trip switched
to a slightly different topic in a tone no less sour. “How is fucking a vampire
helping your mother’s plan?”

“I have a life
beyond that,” I said in a hollow voice against my knee. “I’m allowed to be
happy, contrary to what you’ve tried to do for the past fifteen years.”

“You can’t be
happy with a
corpse
. You’re ashamed
to be seen with him! Get your fucking ring back and
end
this,
Kora
!”

My head came
up so I could shout. “I can’t. I
tried
.
It didn’t work on him!”

“You tried
Water. You little idiot, you forgot about necromancy!”

I opened my
mouth to argue that I’d tried everything. Nothing came out.

Hades’s
fiery hair, he was right! I
hadn’t tried necromancy. Max was
dead
.
If I could reanimate corpses and force them to answer my questions truthfully,
then I ought to be able to make a vampire slip a ring off his pinky. Why in
Hera’s name hadn’t I thought of that?

“Do it now.”
Pure malevolence flooded his eyes.
“Before he touches you
again.”

That command
had nothing to do with my mother’s plan—why he’d supposedly collected weekly
reports from me. I got to my feet.

“Why do you do
this?” My delivery was angry and hoarse. “Why won’t you let me be happy?”

“Happy?” He bellowed
and jabbed an arm toward the house beyond the woods. “He’s blackmailing you!
You are
the
daughter
of Hecate! You are the most powerful witch in the world!
An extortionist, worm-ridden corpse cannot make you happy!”

“Then who can?”

He took a step
forward. Icy tingles poured over my skin. His misty form pressed against mine,
stealing the breath from my lungs. Trip’s eyes were wide in an unreadable but
no less forceful gaze.

“Rebecca?”

I whirled
toward Max’s voice. He was hidden in the trees, deep in shadow but there
nonetheless. I pushed myself forward without glancing back. I knew what I’d
find if I did. Trip would be gone.

“Is everything
all right?” Max asked. “Why are you in the woods?” He’d probably silently
added,
talking to
yourself
.

“I needed
air,” I said. “And I didn’t like being under the watchful eye of so many
people.” All the truth despite how lame it sounded.

Max extended
his arm toward me. “Come. The fireworks are about to begin. I have a
comfortable seat held for you.”

Immensely glad
he hadn’t forced an answer from me, I went without argument.

The
comfortable chair Max had saved for me was on the porch by the living room. It
was a seat for one, but he didn’t intend to use it that way. He’d settled me
between his thighs atop the cushioned lounge chair much as we’d sat on my
futon.

I was stiff
with the worry that Trip was watching. If Maximo noted, he didn’t mention it.
He sifted his hands through my hair as he’d done in the beginning of our
courtship. The difference was I never relaxed.

An hour later,
I hovered in the periphery of the porch, shadowed and alone while he played
host to the departing partygoers. But after the minutes extended to fifteen
then twenty and on, I grew impatient. I was lucky enough to find
Dea
Woods leaving when I stepped out Max’s front door. She
eagerly accepted my request for a ride home.

Max would be
upset with me. Soon it would be the least of his complaints. And I’d rather be
home when the drama went down than on his turf. Though I supposed technically
the entire colony was his turf.

I pushed the
worry to the periphery of my mind while watching out
Dea’s
hybrid’s back window. Rich drove, which meant
Dea
could speak to me. She chatted about how she’d helped Dr. Yates perform the
treatments on the other enthralled witches. I agreed it was good news. Nadir’s
harem would be eradicated, or at least the ones I’d rescued. No one spoke the
fear we all knew was there: that Nadir had many more harems around the world.

Dea
wished me a good night at the
mouth of the apartment complex’s courtyard. I hiked my purse onto my shoulder,
drew in a deep breath, and then made my way to my door. My fear was that
someone would be waiting in my apartment. I’d asked Trip a question he hadn’t
answered. But from his reaction, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what it would
have been.

I sighed in
relief when I flipped the light on in the living room and found it empty. I
could use my mother’s divine penlight to peek into the Spirit Realm. But I
really didn’t want to know if Trip was hiding. Instead I dropped my purse on
the breakfast bar and headed into the bedroom. Maybe tonight I could get back
on my regular sleep schedule.

An icy arm
came around my throat, cutting off my next breath. My eyes shot wide. The skin
was dark—toffee dark. This wasn’t Max. This was Nadir Khan.

I called on
Water, shooting an empathic link into him so I could work my will. “Let go!” I
gasped beneath his arm, backing up the demand with a heady push of Water power.

Nothing
happened. With no air coming into my lungs, I panicked.

Water hadn’t
worked! But it had before! What had happened?

“An anti-Water
weave, cunt,” Nadir said. “Manipulate yourself out of this one!” A wicked
cackle shook the chest behind me.

My vision grew
hazy from a lack of air. I thought I saw Trip—golden-haired, beautiful Trip—but
it wasn’t the Trip of my present, it was the Trip of my past. The one who had
mercilessly beaten me for years until I’d fought back.
Until
I’d learned to best him.
What did it mean that images of
him
flashed before my eyes while dying
rather than those of my own life? But … these
were
of my life.

I choked,
flagging in the foreign vampire’s arms. I couldn’t die yet, and definitely not
by strangulation. It was too soon. I was just getting started!

The memory of
Trip sparked an idea.
Necromancy
.
I’d just bet the dead asshole didn’t have a weave on him for
that
.

I whispered to
Death, noting the big chunk of it behind me. There was a soul in him, trapped
and pained. But it was there nonetheless. I called on it, flexing spectral
hands within its glowing seed until I had him.

“Dead man.”
I choked
Fārsi
through my clenched throat. “I have control of
your spirit. You are bound in my service while I hold it. Release me.”

Nadir’s
fingers dropped away. I doubled over, gasping for air. The vampire’s outraged
scream wasn’t promising.

“Stop!”
I hissed through a raw
throat.

His fingers
reached my neck and
halted
.

My body shook
from how very close I’d come to the true afterlife. “Don’t touch me! Don’t
move!”

I stumbled
away, slumping to the ground several feet from him on the living room’s
travertine floor. His red-rimmed black eyes and snarling face proved he was ready
to tear me apart. Nadir Khan would murder me if I didn’t find a way to make him
leave for good.

Things would
be so much easier if I could kill him. But would my soul become tarnished even
if the death were in self-defense? I wasn’t going to risk it. Not when it meant
Trip would claim it.

“I will
destroy
you!” Nadir roared in his
impotent pose. “I’ll fucking track down your entire family and destroy them,
too! I’ll
turn
you so I can skull
fuck you every night until you beg me to end your existence!”

The front door
slammed open, doorknob crashing against the wall. I yelped and dove toward the
kitchen island. A blur of motion implied someone supernatural had interfered.
My open channel to Death magic reported a second vampire.

There was a
loud crack, a sick slurping noise, and then a head and spinal cord slammed
inches from me on the stone floor. I shrieked, scrambling away from the
startled,
blinking
toffee face on the
travertine tile. He was still
alive
!

Another
slurping noise saw to the end of that. Nadir’s red-rimmed eyes went dim in
death. They rapidly shriveled until they were nothing more than sludge. The
rest of his body decomposed within a second. Soon the only thing left of the
foreign vampire was a pile of dust on my floor. I lay aghast, unable to process
the events because of the level of horror I’d witnessed.

A familiar
face appeared in front of me. Max’s expression was drawn with worry. All I
could do was
stare
at the stain on his sleeve.

“You shouldn’t
have left without me, or Javier, or Ali Mac,” he said. “What were you
thinking?”

I’d been
thinking I’d needed to get away from him, Javier, and Ali Mac. I’d been
thinking I’d be forcing Max to give me back the ring and dumping him as soon as
we’d found a private moment.

But he’d
killed
Nadir Khan, the undead Prince of
Persia, to save me. What in Hades was I going to do now? This went beyond
betraying his race. He risked war between the undead nations!

Max made a
sound of dismay. He disappeared into the kitchen. The sink’s faucet turned on.
I soon understood what he was doing when I heard the tearing of a paper towel.
He was washing up.

Seconds later
he was back, lifting me so he could carry me into the bedroom. I didn’t fight
him when he set me on the bed. But I should have because the last things I
remember were his milk chocolate eyes and his whisper for me to sleep.

****

I woke with a
start, springing out of bed onto my feet as if I was being attacked. A glance
around the sunlit room proved I was alone. Last night returned in a rush of
memories. A cold shudder passed over me when I thought of what I’d see when I
turned around. But I had to look.

I tiptoed into
the living room, gaze already on the stone floor where a vampire had been
brutally… What was that even called? Surely there was a name for it. It was
beyond decapitation. Eviscerated? No, that involved bowels. I
shuddered
simply thinking of the term.

But the floor
was smooth. There wasn’t a speck of dust, a smudge of blood, or even a drop of
goo. Either someone had cleaned my apartment or it had never happened.

“
Mornin
’.”

I shrieked at
the rumbling voice, jumped into a defensive pose, and called on Water.

A massive
leather-coated frame hopped to its feet. “Whoa! Whoa! Hold up, lady! It’s just
me!”

Heart in my
throat, I trembled even though I’d recognized Ali Mac. He’d scared the divine
out of me.

“You’re lucky
I was half awake,” I said. “I could have really hurt you!”

“Max has
gotta
start
warnin
’ you,” the
werewolf said under his breath.

“No shit.” I
gestured at the floor I couldn’t seem to look away from. “Did someone clean
up?”

“Yeah.”
His shaggy hair bounced with
his nod. “Max had a crew in here to make it spotless for you. What happened
anyway? He was adamant that I be
inside
today.”

If Max hadn’t
told him what had happened then I certainly wouldn’t offer the details.
“Someone attacked me. He stopped them.” I let out a long yawn, and then
realized what day it was. “Shit! What time is it?”

“Uh…” He
flipped open a phone from his pocket. “Quarter to eight. Why?”

I dropped my
head back. Thank the
gods
I hadn’t
overslept again. It was one thing to make Desmond wait. It was an entirely
different issue to delay the whole coalition.

I would have
liked to keep my business to myself, but since the guy was inside the apartment
on Max’s orders, I figured I’d have to fight him to leave. “I have an
appointment with the Centralized Coven Coalition at nine.”