Light the Shadows (A Grimm Novel) (25 page)

“I’d rather die.”

“So be it!” Natalie flung herself at him with a banshee scream that echoed off the walls.

Sully pushed away from the wall then swung the scythe’s blade toward her. She disappeared just as the blade sliced through her face, only to reappear behind him. He didn’t even have time to turn around.

With an angry snarl, the girl snapped his arm in two then kicked the fallen weapon away from him. She thrust him away from her with inhuman strength.

“Now!” she shouted
, and the room filled with shadows.

Several shady figures swept into the room, their hands all over him and their miserable thoughts dampening his own. Sully was only able to struggle for a few minutes beneath them before it all became too much. He fought against the sense of uselessness and despair, but they continued to shove it into his mind. Before long, his limbs grew heavy and weak. He no longer thrashed beneath their rough hands or tried to redirect their hopeless thoughts.

“I really thought he’d put up a bigger fight,” Natalie said with an evil snicker.

Dennis raised his brows. “Now what?”

“Now we have some fun,” she said as she crawled atop Sully. Knobby little knees squished into his stomach, and her weight made his ribs throb with agony. Turning her upper torso toward Dennis, she motioned him closer.

Dennis moved with wary steps, eyes watching Natalie as if he didn’t fully trust her. He extended the scythe to her, handle first. As soon as her tiny fingers curled around it, he moved backward as fast as his thick legs could carry him.

Natalie leaned forward, the blade of the scythe resting on Sully’s cheek. It was the same one she’d fractured earlier, but it held only a dull ache now. The girl’s nose was only inches from his own. The wicked smile that blossomed across her face let him know he was in for a long session of suffering.

Sully shut his eyes as the blade nicked the skin. The sharp copper tang of blood filled the room as his cheek fell open beneath the sharp blade.

“If you scream for me, I’ll stop,” Natalie said in a sing-song voice.

“Fuck you,” he growled through clenched teeth.

Natalie laughed. “Suit yourself.” With quick movements, she stood and tossed Sully’s weapon to Dennis who was still hovering close by.

As she moved toward the exit, the shadows that had looked on scurried out of the way. One young man fell into step in her wake. Sully recognized him as the dad in the green van. He looked worried and scared out of his mind. He also wasn’t as solid as the other vengeful spirits. “Excuse me? Why are we doing this? What are we trying to accomplish?”

Natalie’s face screwed into a dark scowl. Her fist shot out and gripped the front of the man’s shirt. “How dare you question me!”

“I’m sorry, I just…”
His voice dropped away as if someone had turned off the volume.

The girl drew him closer, her mouth twitching in a snarl. “I’m doing this for all of us. When the
Grimms are gone, no one can send us away. We’ll be free, forever.”

“Yeah, but…”
The man tried again.

With a final yank of her hand, the man fell toward Natalie. Instead of knocking her down, he seemed to be absorbed within her. He simply disappeared as if he’d never been there at all. For a moment, the atmosphere in the room was thick and cloistering.

Sully scrambled up onto his feet, thinking he might make an exit while everyone’s attention was on the creepy, crazy little girl. Dennis yelled a curse then swung the blade. The tip hooked the juncture of Sully’s shoulder. Using the blade, Dennis dragged Sully’s body up the wall. This time, he couldn’t help the groan of pain that escaped him.

“What’s wrong? You don’t want to play anymore?” Natalie gently patted Sully on the leg as she stared up at him with an odd smirk.

Dennis still held him against the wall, his body suspended several feet off the floor. He glared down at the girl then kicked Dennis in the gut. The big man stumbled backward, dropping Sully to the floor. The scythe clattered against the concrete somewhere in the murky depths of the room.

Natalie darted out of his reach. To Dennis she said, “Do your worst. He needs to be taught a lesson.”

Dennis’s laughter was the last thing Sully remembered before the big man’s boot struck him in the jaw. He winked in and out of consciousness too many times to count. Each time he awoke, Dennis had a new and more terrible torture waiting.

This time when he awoke, it was dark in the room. Night had fallen
, and he’d already lost track of how long he’d been held here. It might have been hours, days, or even a week. He had no way of knowing.

The room was even cooler than it had been before. He listened to his surroundings, searching for an indication that someone was in the room with him. His answer was the scrape of the scythe’s blade against the wall.

“Dennis, dude…” He listened to the darkness for a few seconds. Not hearing any movement now, he sat up and waited for his head to stop swimming. “Dennis, you still with me?”

A grunt was his answer. Before he could comment or move, Dennis pushed him down against the floor again. The concrete was slick with Sully’s blood, but it didn’t seem to faze the goliath crouched above him.

“I found the button that makes you scream.” Dennis said in a hushed voice that filled Sully with uneasiness.

It was then that Sully realized he was shirtless
, and his chest was covered in blood. “C’mon, Dennis, you don’t have to do this.” God, he hoped the man listened because he just remembered what button Dennis spoke of and how it sent him screaming into the black nothingness of unconsciousness.

Dennis placed a hand atop Sully’s chest and fingered the old gunshot wound that was now open. The way Dennis touched the bleeding hole was vulgar, the enjoyment he derived from it sickening.

Sully squirmed beneath the pressure of Dennis’s fingers sinking into his flesh. He would not scream. Instead, he attempted to make Dennis listen to reason. Though his voice was punctuated by short gasps of breath, he said, “Look, I know you don’t want to do this. You’re a good man, Dennis. You don’t have to do what Natalie tells you.”

Dennis chuckled at that. He jammed two fingers into the wound and began to thrust them in and out in a rough, crude manner.

Bursts of light and dark swirled behind Sully’s eyelids. His mind fuzzed, and he wanted to cry out to God, Azrael, anyone who might make the maddening torture stop. Instead, he brought his hands up and gripped Dennis’s wrist. Using nearly all the strength he had left, he yanked the big man’s hand away.

“At least tell me…” Sully gasped for enough air to form the words. “What did she do to that guy earlier?”

Beyond the small rectangle at the other end of the room, light began to seep into the enclosure. From his vantage point on the floor, he recognized where he was. A mausoleum, possibly the same one he’d first witnessed Micah’s white light in. It seemed like so long ago when they’d fought the shadows together. Would he ever see her again?

Only one side of Dennis’s face was visible
, and he looked a little worried. He leaned closer, and Sully stiffened, expecting to be harmed. Instead, Dennis whispered, “She’s done it to a lot of us. If we don’t fall in line, she takes our energy … absorbs it. It makes her stronger. Sometimes she shares the energy. That’s what makes us physical.”

Dennis repositioned himself so that his weight wasn’t fully on Sully, allowing him to breathe easier. He even removed his fingers from Sully’s chest cavity. “That man last night, he was an example. We’re all expendable. I don’t question her or refuse to do what she tells me. I don’t want to be like him.”

Before Sully could form another question, the door swung open to bang against the wall. Natalie swept into the room, and a suspicious glare darkened her delicate features. “Why don’t I hear screaming?”

Dennis didn’t skip a beat. He growled a curse then jammed a finger deep into the gunshot wound. Blood warmed Sully’s chest as more trickled out and ran down to the floor. Dennis gritted his teeth and twisted his finger deeper.

Despite efforts not to, Sully thrashed beneath Dennis’s massive body. He tried to kick him off, and when that didn’t work, he clawed at the hands holding him down. Dennis plunged deeper into the newly opened scar.

Natalie smiled now, no longer worried that her minion was misbehaving. She bent and picked up something off the floor. The metallic scrape of a blade made Sully’s guts tighten. He knew what was coming next.

Natalie laid the blade against his chest, the sharp tip at the edge of the hole Dennis’s fingers had just vacated. A slight smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “Better brace yourself, James Sullivan. This is gonna hurt.”

Then she put her entire weight upon the scythe, pushing its curved blade through his chest and into his heart.

Chapter Nineteen

Anna returned with less than helpful news. She said, “I stopped by the library and looked for information on the girl’s death. I had to go back about fifteen years, but I finally found something about a girl who was involved in an unsolved murder.”

The ghost drifted over to the bed and sat cross-legged. She didn’t ask what Micah had done with the paperwork that had been scattered atop it earlier. Anna continued
. “Her mother, Elizabeth, reported her missing. There was no sign of a struggle in the girl’s bedroom. The police suspect she was taken or lured away by someone she knew and trusted. A month later, her body was found in a ravine, butchered.”

“That doesn’t explain why she kidnapped Sully.”

Anna’s gaze lowered. “Well, the man they think killed her was a Reaper. He did terrible things to her.”

Micah’s stomach bottomed out
, and her throat seemed awfully dry all of the sudden. “It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Sully.”

“No, of course not,” Anna rushed to answer. “But it makes sense why she hates
Reapers, doesn’t it?”

Micah hurried into her closet to pull on some fresh jeans and a t-shirt. She bent to tie the laces of her purple Converse shoes. “What else? Why is she trying to get to me?”

“She’s probably taking out Grimms because they pose a threat to shadows.”

Micah pulled her hair into a low ponytail. “I don’t think Thomas is telling us everything.”

“Such as?”

Micah shrugged. “He called her by name, like they were familiar with each other.”

Anna said, “There’s more, but you’re not gonna like it.”

The ghost followed Micah through the house, into the kitchen. “Natalie’s last name is St. Clair.”

Micah spun to face her friend. “They’re related?”

Anna nodded slowly. “I’m afraid so. I had to do some digging, because he and Natalie’s mother weren’t married. I think Thomas is her father.”

“That bastard knew all along and didn’t say anything.” Micah shook with anger. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“I spoke to Azrael. The lower number of souls moving through the corridor enabled me to make an inquiry. I told him that a few had come through talking about a girl who had used other shadows to prevent the newly deceased from crossing over. Then I told him
James Sullivan was missing and that one of the souls that made it through mentioned that he’d been taken.”

Micah gripped the counter so hard her knuckles turned white. The room spun
, and she sucked in a breath. It felt as though someone had punched her in the gut. “Will he help us?”

“No.”

She straightened then said, “Take me to Azrael. We’ll convince him.”

Anna’s expression went from sorrow to shock. “What? No! Besides, I’ve already asked him. He refuses to help.”

“Sully’s worked for that asshole for over a hundred years. How can he not help him?”

“I’m sorry,” Anna said with tears in her eyes. “I begged him, but he won’t come.”

“Then I’ll go to him.”

The ghost frowned at her friend. “I can’t just make a door pop up anytime I feel like it. There has to be a death.”

The dagger with the crown of skulls slid into Micah’s hand. Her grip tightened around it. “Fine.”

“Micah, no!” Anna reached for her. She didn’t have time to say much more before a shadow filled the hallway.

“How bad is it?” Micah lowered the dagger as soon as Thomas appeared. She cut her gaze to Anna, hoping she’d play along.

Thomas’s dark eyes were downcast
, and his shoulders slumped. “It’s even worse than I imagined.” His voice cracked. “They’re going to kill him.”

“Isn’t Sully immortal?” When Micah received no immediate answer, she said, “He’s a
Reaper. He can’t die. Right?”
Please, please say that’s right.

Anna reached out to touch Micah’s hand. The action brought little comfort. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

Thomas sank heavily onto one of the barstools. “The shadows are torturing him and using the scythe on him. It’s only a matter of time before Natalie figures out how to end him.” His dark gaze searched the ceiling for hidden answers. “She defies everything I know.”

“What can I do to help him
?” Micah brushed the tears on her cheeks away.