Geist (21 page)

Well...if they didn't know we were there before, they sure as shit knew it now. 

Joe didn't need any more prodding. He moved as fast as he could down the duct. We made that last turn and I could see Alice's light up ahead. 

I heard Joe's radio. "Halloran—what the fuck?" It was Zachary. "They know you're here!" 

"Yeah..." Joe muttered as he pushed himself through the opening in the closet. "We have a little problem." 

I turned to face Daniel if I needed to.

But he wasn't in the duct. 

Oh shit. 

I went incorporeal again and zoomed back the way we came. I followed the blood trail. Daniel had taken the first left once he'd come out of the second left. I could hear him banging around. And then I heard a scream. 

OH NO!

I pushed myself down that duct and followed the shouting. I came to a dead end—literally a
dead
end and sailed through the opening. The vent covering it had been torn away. 

I recognized this room. This was the Rumpus Room. I'd seen this room a few months back. 

Men in fatigue pants and white tee-shirts were huddled behind work-out equipment. And in the center of that room was Daniel. 

And dinner. 

He'd grabbed someone—not a Power but a human by the looks of it. They were all humans. Even I could hear their hearts beating. Daniel was half sitting with a young man in his arms. His face was buried in the guy's neck. And blood...

It was everywhere. 

All over the victim. All over the floor. 

And all over...

He looked up at me. His chin was covered in it. Elongated teeth were hanging over his lower lip. His eyes were black and for an instant I thought I'd been ripped out of my life and into a zombie movie. 

"D-Daniel?" 

Daniel's expression changed when he saw me. His brow softened and the sharp angles of his jaw diminished as his teeth slid upward and disappeared. His eyes became blue again and he was looking at me like a kid looks at their mother when they'd done something bad. 

When he realized what he was chewing on, he yelled out and flung it away. 

Oh God. 

My Daniel...

Don't look at me! 

"Daniel....please.." I said out loud. That voice had been his and Morgan's together. 

Morgan became lost in the lust, Zoë,
Mephistopheles said.
But she is regaining control. You have to get them out of there. 

"Where are the others?" 

They are with Dagda. Go! 

No time to grieve or scowl over regrets. I ran to him and grabbed him by his shoulders. Pulling him to his feet was easy. The hard part was looking at his face and not flinching. I knew I was just as much a monster as he was. I could take life by touch as a Wraith. I could scream and obliterate a living thing. And I had taken on the damnation of a Ghoul's soul. I was no one to judge what I'd seen Daniel do. 

But it wasn't me that had to forgive him. 

It was himself. 

"We have to go!" I said and pulled at him to follow me. Luckily the human soldiers were on their way to the exits. I needed to get us out of here a different way. Screw going back down the duct. That wasn't the best way. But we had to get back to that exit. 

Think, think, think...

Make a new door. 

"Geist!"

Make a new door—beside the fleeing humans. I will take you back to the exit. 

I hesitated, remembering what they had said about Geist. 

Have I lied to you? Have I ever wronged you? 

No...he hadn't. And he'd given Dags back to me, if only in this way. Figuring out where the hallway was, and kind of remembering my last stay here, I raised my sword and blasted a hole in the wall closest to us. I dragged Daniel behind me to the new exit. Luckily I hadn't nailed anyone with flying cinder blocks with the kaboom. But they were running past. About fifteen of them. Daniel and I ran after them.  

Keep going straight until you come to a door. Open it and turn right and you will see the double doors where Dagda is waiting.

Daniel was stumbling and I turned to see we were still leaving a bloody trail. The hole I'd put in him wasn't healing as fast as it should. "We might have a problem." 

Just get to the door! 

I saw the door at the end of the hallway and was about to throw Daniel over my shoulder—when someone stepped into my path. 

I skidded to a halt and Daniel barreled into me from behind just before he collapsed on the floor. "Daniel..." I said and leaned over him. "Daniel!" 

But he wasn't moving. 

I moved my hand through him. I sensed his pulse. He was alive. Guess that pops that old myth that vamps didn't have a heartbeat. "Morgan?" 

Zoë...get out of there.... they can't know you're here! 

That was Mephistopheles. "Old Man...where is Morgan?" 

She's healing Daniel. Go! 

"I can't leave him here!" 

"Well, well, well..." said melodic voice that reminded me of Daniel. "What have we here? A ghost? No...too substantial. And the Dragon Con costuming—I'd have to guess you are a Familiar?" 

I turned to face the man striding toward us. As I stood I called the sword to me and felt a presence...not from this guy. But from...

Geist. 

Do you trust me? 

"Do I have a choice?" 

I am sorry. I really am. I am not...I do not want you to think that way of me.

"Can we talk about this later? What the hell is that guy?" 

A Virtue.

"I'm toast." 

Then trust me. Please. Your mother was able to defeat him. You can do this as well. 

He stopped a few feet away. Just him and I in the corridor. Alone. He was tall and elegant. Blond hair in a ponytail. Kind of reminded me of Nick in a way. But he'd just missed handsome and moved on into—well—Fugly. His nose was a bit too long for his face and his entire expression had a pinched look. Like he smelled something bad. 

This was a Virtue? Seems like my dad got all the looks. 

I was pretty sure I was unrecognizable. He
had
called me a Familiar. I wanted to talk to Alice, or even Dags, but I wasn't sure what all a Virtue could do. What they were capable of. 

Except lock their daughters into Thrones and abandon them. 

Fugly was smiling. "I smell a Revenant. Excellent. I'll make sure and kill it slowly. Just like the old ritual says too." 

The old ritual—I knew what that was! Oh hell no, he was not going to put Inanna and Daniel through that kind of hell. 

"Over my dead body," I heard myself say. Oh great one there, Zoë. Brilliant. 

Fugly seemed pretty happy to hear that. "As you wish. And once I destroy you—then I will have weakened the
Grimoire
." 

-35-

Not Without My Daniel

Zoë? Join with me. 

"You're
asking
this time?"

I will ask from now on. 

Regardless of what the others thought of Geist I did trust him. I needed to get Daniel out of there alive. It was my fault he was in this state. 

I knew the moment Geist was there. Everything changed, just as it had before. It was like looking through a prism as things shifted and moved. A myriad of possibilities, outcomes, scenarios I'd never even considered. 

I even caught a glimpse of my life ten years from now...

A home. A husband. And children...

But they weren't human children. 

Zoë...do not look there. Focus on where we are. Look at the Virtue. 

Again Geist's voice was different. It was a thousand voices. A million. The world speaking all at once. I pulled away from my future and focused on the man in front of me. 

But it wasn't a man. I wasn't sure what it was. 

Oh no...he has broken one of the Seraphim's commandments! 

Who what now? I narrowed my eyes at the Virtue.

Like all creatures from the Outer Planes who wanted a physical body, there were several ways to get one—and all of them meant stealing them from their original owners. Except the Revenants. As benevolent creatures, they had merged with their benefactors. Extended their lives or saved them. 

This thing... 

The guy had a freak'n monkey on its shoulders. When I looked at Daniel I could see Inanna covering him. She was tucked in his arms as she worked to heal his wound. But looking back at Fugly—
"Is it a monkey? Cause it really looks like a Howler—" 

Geist was...pissed off. I could tell. 

Virtues are not allowed to possess or overshadow humans. This was a mandate set down by the Seraphim over a millennium ago. They were given special powers in order to manifest on the Physical Plane so their light would not be tainted by a living soul. 

"So...this guy did a bad thing." 

Blasphemy!

Uh-huh. "And the monkey is him?" 

Yes.

Yeah, I got it. Dude's got a monkey on his back. "Asshole." 

Do not blame the human he killed—but do not underestimate his strength either. My eviscerating this abomination will be in accordance with the Seraphim's law.  

I got the feeling—Geist was just a tiny bit mad. 

The man produced a flaming sword and charged me. His movements seemed...
slow
. Almost sluggish. I watched as he came at me then lazily brought my sword up and deflected his blade even as I turned to the side. He stumbled and went past me a step or two. When he looked back at me I saw genuine surprise on his face. 

"How—" 

I shrugged. "Dumb luck?" Because I was feeling a bit cocky with Geist in my pocket I held up my other hand and crooked my finger at him to come at me again. I dare yah. 

The action infuriated him and he came at me again. He was a little faster this time, but not by much. I moved to the side again, turned and came at him from behind with a slice of my sword to his back. He cried out as the impact of my attack, coupled with the momentum of his own, pushed him into the wall. He hit the wall head first and the Howler on his back screamed and danced about as he started jerking his human puppet up. 

Raziel—Fugly to the general populace—did get back up. But he was unsteady on his feet. He looked at me with narrowed eyes, his sword down. "You're not...a Familiar." 

"Yes I am." I danced a bit back and forth. I wanted to knock the shit out of him the same way I had my dad. 

"No..." and he started moving toward me. His sword still down. "No Familiar can win against a Virtue. I am the strongest of my brethren." 

"You killed a human, prick." That wasn't just my voice. Geist spoke through me as well. I brought the sword up and went for the kill as I slid my blade through the chest of the human body. His eyes widened as blood pooled from his mouth. 

I wish to destroy this creature. 

"Don't let me stop you." 

Geist took over my own astral being at that moment and pulled the sword from Raziel's body. The Virtue remained standing where he was, blood splattering on the floor at his feet. His eyes were unfocused as a smile pulled at the side of his lips. "I knew it....no ordinary Familiar." 

My body went incorporeal but not invisible. In fact, it was as if someone had turned a switch on. I lit up from the inside. I narrowed my eyes as my left hand slid inside of Raziel's physical body and grabbed hold of the monkey's leg. It screamed and bit and scratched at my hand. But there was no damage—it couldn't touch me. 

His body convulsed as Geist pulled the Virtue from its host until finally there was an audible snap and the body crumpled to the floor. But the monkey remained in my grasp and faced me. It's eyes were red even when the rest of its body melted into shadow and black mist. "How did you escape, Wraith? How did you get out of the Throne?"

Yikes? How did it know it was me? I didn't answer it though. 

Instead Geist increased his hold and crushed its leg. The Virtue yelled out again in pain, but it still stared at me. "He will know, Wraith. You can't hide in your
Grimoire
forever. And then he will kill the boy and take the book. And you will...wait....what is that....." It's red eyes widened as it looked into mine. "What....is that!" 

Geist's voices joined with my own.
"
Your worst nightmare, Raziel. The servant you cast down." 

"No...no...you can't leave the planes...you can't be here. It's impossible! Not with the Wraith!" 

"Oh...but I am here, Raziel. Here to prune the limbs of a tree grown so thick and dense it can no longer feel or see the light."
And then Geist took my other hand and the sword became a rapier of light.
"Tell him, I am free."
 

Before I could protest he drove the rapier's point into the shadow monkey's face. It screamed and disintegrated into a billion little pieces of black glass that tinkled against the floor. 

Whoa. 

"Don't move." 

Now who—?

Geist and I turned to see an entire hallway full of Powers. All of them with guns and dressed in black fatigues. The Church's army, I was guessing. They were on either side of us. 

And they had Daniel. He was on his front, arms behind his back, with a gun to his head. He wasn't moving. I could still see Inanna holding him. Even her eyes were closed. 

Daniel! 

We must leave them.

"No! Don't you see? They'll do that ritual on him! I can't let anything else happen to him!" 

Zoë—as strong as I am—I cannot win with these odds. You must return to Darren McConnell. He is what we must protect.

"But..."
and I was looking at Daniel. My sweet Daniel.
"I can't leave—"
 

"Don't move, I said!" one of the nasty little Powers said. He was a beefy guy with beret on his head. And he had a—