A Torment of Savages (The Reanimation Files Book 4) (32 page)

Revath stood there staring at me as though she had been turned into a statue. She looked like less than half the thing she’d been before. The billowing darkness that had surrounded her was greatly reduced; now it just looked like she was wearing a flowy, black dress. Her skin had gone from ashen to pale, and the feel of power coming from her was no longer as strong.

Now it was my turn to give her a sickly sweet smile.

“You…you did not just…my power…my darkness…”

“I think the balance just tipped out of your favor,” I said. My voice sounded alien to my ears. I wasn’t at all certain that I was still the one in charge of my thoughts and my body. It was like some dark being had taken over. But no, it was all me, and I was going to end this now.

I strode up to Revath, who tried to move away but stumbled. I reached out and snatched the rune necklace as she fell, then I hauled her up and dragged her toward the open necromancer circle. Once we were there, I leveled my face with hers.

“You may be able to recover once you’re back on the other side,” I said. “Juice up on some ghosts and think about coming back for me, but I would think twice. This is over. My soul is no longer yours to take, as you saw firsthand, and I have taken most of your power from you and will do so again should you see fit to cross back over again. So go back to hell, bitch. You’ve lost.” I shoved her forward, right into the open necromancer circle. Her face was a mask of anger and hatred as light flared around her briefly before she disappeared.

I released a breath. A huge breath. Then slumped down onto my knees and bowed my head. I was shaking. Partly with the power that was still rioting inside me, and partly because I could hardly believe that I had actually done it. I had beat Revath. Granted, the necromancer circle was still open and I knew she would not stay weakened for long, but if she decided to come back, I was more than ready for her. I took a few deep breaths then stood up and turned around. The rune with all the souls was held tightly in my fist and the first body I looked at was Micah’s.

As I walked over to him, I noticed that the dome was still in place. Was it because I had taken so much of Revath’s darkness that I controlled it now? I’d find out later. For now I would accept the cover it provided as I reanimated everyone. It was better to do that without cameras filming every moment of it.

I knelt down next to Micah and drew his head into my lap, gently touching his cold face. Tears threatened, and I had to try and calm myself. Now more than ever I understood how Micah had felt when he’d been staring at my body those two minutes I was dead. I understood a lot better why he’d been willing to do whatever it took to save me.

I opened my hand and stared at the rune as I opened my reanimation power. I thrust my power into the rune and felt the answering pull of souls. Then I pulled my reanimation power out. I didn’t know how many souls I would pull out at once, but I’d keep going until it was empty and hoped the ghosts would understand why I would want to reanimate my boyfriend first. In the meantime they could all go find their bodies and wait their turn.

But, as it turned out, Micah’s ghost was the first to appear. Relief flooded me and I wanted to jump up and hug his ghost but decided to be patient and wait for a hug from flesh and bones Micah. When his ghost saw me, he looked as relieved as I felt and dropped to his knees on the other side of his body.

“Selene!”

“Oh Micah…” I reached up and touched his ghostly face. “I’m so sorry it took this long to save you.”

“You did it.” He didn’t even sound surprised as he looked around, though he hesitated when he saw all the dead bodies behind us.

“They’re going to be okay,” I said. “I have the rune that Revath trapped all your souls in. Once I put you back, I’ll do them.”

“I wish I could help you,” Micah said. “That’s going to take quite some time.”

“It will be worth it,” I said. “Now, come on, your body is waiting for you, and I’m waiting for your arms around me.” I drew Micah’s ghost into the circle of my reanimation power, and a few minutes later had repeated what I had recently done to Kyo. Micah’s ghost sank into his body, and after a few tense moments, his eyes flew open and he took a deep breath.

Micah was alive. He was no longer a Savage. The darkness was gone and his soul was back where it belonged. There were no words to express how I felt staring into his gray eyes right now.

“Selene?” Micah quickly sat up and turned to face me, his eyes wide. He looked down at himself, felt his body with his hands, then looked at me again.

“I’m back…I’m…”

“You’re okay,” I whispered.

“Oh God, Selene.” Micah wrapped me in his arms and crushed me against his body. I wrapped trembling arms around him and relished the feel of his body against mine. I buried my face in his neck and inhaled the musky scent of his skin. Micah. Micah. Micah. I had him back.

Micah pulled back and held my face in his hands, bending down and kissing me gently. My cheeks were wet with tears; I didn’t even remember when I’d started to cry.

“I’m here,” he said, wiping my tears with his thumbs. “I’m here, Selene.”

I nodded, unable to stop myself from crying and very afraid that I would break down into a sobbing, wailing mess.

“Oh Micah…Micah.” I didn’t know what to say beyond that so I just clutched him to me again. I felt like I was being washed away in a dark, dark sea and Micah was all there was to anchor me so I didn’t forget who I was. Although I feared that it was already too late. I was lost and my anchor was being washed away with me.

Finally, I pulled back and kissed him, cupping my hand to his cheek.

“More celebrating later,” I said, picking up the rune. “Now I have to put everyone else back.”

Micah nodded, gave me one more tight hug, then we both stood up. I took a deep breath and sent my reanimation power back into the rune to draw out another soul. It seemed I could only do one at a time.

After a few moments though I frowned, and looked up at Micah, who’d been looking at the rune waiting to see a ghost emerge. He glanced up at me.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“I…” I focused on the rune and my reanimation power, searching for more souls, but the longer I stood there, the more I felt as though everything inside me was turning into horrible, dreadful ice.

“I can’t find…I can’t feel any…” My breath was coming in short gasps and I was on the verge of hyperventilating. Micah put his hands on my shoulders and made me look at him.

“Selene, what’s wrong? You can’t feel any what?” But he knew. He stared at the rune, then back up at me, and he knew what I knew but didn’t want to say. Because once the words left my mouth there was no taking them back.

But it was the truth whether or not I chose to say it out loud. “I can’t feel any more souls inside the rune,” I said as devastation crashed over me. “There was only yours…only yours…”

“No,” Micah breathed, looking horrified.

“She won after all,” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “She only put your soul in this rune…I just assumed they were all in here. Oh no…oh no…”

Micah glanced behind him at all the fallen bodies. “So where are everyone else’s?”

“With her,” I said. My legs gave out and I fell to my knees. Micah dropped down and wrapped his arms around me even though there was no amount of comfort that would make me feel better. “They’re with her in the In Between. She collected her debt. She won…”

I could hear the echo of Revath’s laughter in my head.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I had no choice but to tell the truth. After standing there with Micah making attempt after attempt at finding more souls within the rune, I finally had to accept that there were no other souls in there. That left Micah and I standing in a dome of darkness with a hundred corpses who would remain dead. I could not stomach that truth; it literally made me feel nauseous, like I was going to throw up not only what was in my stomach but all of the darkness I had consumed as well. My dead magic and the power it had gobbled up from the Savages had quieted, but I was still very aware of it, and was intensely repulsed by it. I had blackened my soul for nothing. Now I would have to struggle with not letting the darkness consume me, and these people would remain dead with their souls left at the mercy of Revath for eternity.

I wanted to curl up somewhere and hide forever. But I couldn’t do that. So that meant I had to face the world. The dome dissipated by itself after a short time. Once it was down, the media swarmed.

The dead bodies astounded them. What astounded them even further was the fact that out of all the Savages, only my boyfriend had been saved. I explained over and over the fact that I had bested Revath, sent her back to the In Between, and took what I thought was a rune containing every Savage’s soul, intending to reanimate them all. I stressed that I had not known only Micah’s soul was in there but it was hard for anyone to believe me. And of course I had to explain that I once again carried evolved reanimation power, but that I was bound to an animal ghost not a human one, and would not again encounter the Rot or anchor human ghosts. Those were all the details I gave. As it was, the reporters were too focused on the dead bodies and missing souls to give too much attention to my reanimation power. Especially since it had done nothing to help these people.

Finally, people from the PCC, sent by Tielle, showed up and got the press off us. After being checked out by paramedics with paranormal training, Micah and I were allowed to go home while dozens more ambulances arrived to take care of the bodies. I couldn’t look at them as I left the park. If I did, I would not have been able to keep my legs under me.

It was four days later and Micah and I were still holed up at my house. After the first day I had stopped watching the news reports. I couldn’t listen to them list the names of all those victims and talk about who they were married to, how many kids they had, what they did for a living, what wonderful human beings they were. It would devastate me every single day from now on when I woke up each morning and remembered that I could not save them. I obsessed over how I could have done things differently until I felt like screaming and pulling my hair out. I should have found some way to make sure everyone’s souls were in that rune. I shouldn’t have just barreled in and made a hasty decision. Micah kept telling me there was nothing I could have done differently, that I was brave, that in the end I had defeated Revath, but it felt nothing like a victory. Too much had been lost for this to feel like a victory.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was still the matter of Ethan’s incarceration. I had not been able to bring myself to leave the house to go visit him, which I felt terrible about. But Micah and Kyo did visit, and said he was due for a bail hearing in a few days. It would have happened sooner had it not been for Revath and her chaos. So the glimmer of hope was that we would be able to help Ethan make bail so he could come home. After that, we’d have to see how to deal with the murder charges. Tielle and her lawyers were still handling it.

Micah seemed to be fully recovered from his ordeal. He had no memory of his ghost being inside that rune, which was good. And of course he had no knowledge of being a Savage, but it did pain him to think of the harm his darkness-filled body had committed. It was hard for him to deal with the blood on his hands. Dozens of people had been killed or injured because of the Savages.

I was sitting on the couch, not really paying attention to what was on the television, which was some makeover reality show that I usually enjoyed watching. Micah had gone on a grocery run after first trying to get Kyo to do it before realizing the newly reanimated man who still did not have a full grasp on the modern world would not be so great at grocery shopping. I knew he just hadn’t wanted to leave me. The
alone with Kyo
part was sort of left unsaid. The vibe between the two of them wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t a headache I wanted to take on.

Micah did express his amazement that I’d been able to get Kyo’s body back. But he was pissed to uncomprehending heights at the fact that Tielle had put me in the hospital because of my investigations. He was going to quit the PCC, but after many lengthy conversations, I convinced him not to. He was doing good work, for one, and at the end of the day it was in our best interests to keep Tielle close at hand. Besides, one of us in this relationship needed to maintain a steady income. The realization that his Alchemy work was helpful to others and thus important was what convinced him to stay. But I could not stop the verbal assault he’d unleashed on Tielle after one of his visits to Ethan. Since we were no longer in the spirit of hiding things from each other, he’d told me about it, as well as the fact that security had to come and remove him. I was shocked Tielle hadn’t fired him on the spot. Guess she realized she’d deserved it.

“Here.”

I looked up to see Kyo holding out a cupcake. We had more sweets than anything else, which was the main reason for the grocery run. I took it, but didn’t take a bite. That’s how you knew something was truly wrong with me. Kyo sat down and started to eat his.

“It’s always cupcake time with you,” I commented.

“Well, right this moment it’s because it’s my birthday.” He flashed me a smile, then his face sobered and regained the watchful look he’d been giving me since I’d been home. He had tried in his own way to make me feel better, such as funneling me cupcakes every chance he got, but he hadn’t probed or tried to get me to talk about things, which I appreciated.

My eyes widened. “Your birthday? Uh…happy birthday. What day is it today?” I couldn’t even tell you what season we were in right now.

“April third,” Kyo replied. Guess it was spring. I clutched the knit throw that was around my shoulders a little tighter. It wasn’t particularly cold in my house, but more often than not I felt chilled to my bones.

“So, how old are you now?” I tried to sound teasing but didn’t quite manage it.

“Hmmm,” Kyo pretended to look thoughtful. “I guess I’m about three hundred and thirty. But really, I’m just thirty.” He gave another quick smile.