The Death Skull: Relic Defender, Book 2 (23 page)

She’d had dreams of such a place before. Of a home of her own in a quiet neighborhood where your neighbors were your friends. Of weekend barbeques filled with the heavenly aromas of cooking food and surrounded by laughter and love. She’d even had the man and small girl, only he didn’t have hair the color of caramel. Instead, he had hair the color of coal, rich black and gleaming.

In one mere moment, her dreams had been shattered.

Along with her life.

“Kat Ferchaud, do not dwell on the past. You should look to the future.” The melodic tenor rolled over her and she stiffened, not with fear or shock but in awe.

Turning her head, she stared at a tall man, well over six-five, smiling down at her. Eyes that glistened in crystal-clear blue, like the sparkle of tropical water under the sun, gazed intently into hers. Everything was so pure and clean about the man it almost hurt to look at him, and that was saying something for a ghost. Just like always, he’d just popped in.

Archangel Michael bent his head. “There is a plan for everything, even when it seems there is not.”

Her brow lifted. “There is a plan for me to be dead and stuck here as a ghost?” She almost gasped at her scoffing tone. One did not criticize Archangel Michael.

His smile widened. “Even that.”

Kat dropped her gaze. She’d been religious enough that she couldn’t behave as Lexi did and snort out her disbelief in front of the leader of the Heavenly Host. Even being stuck in some sort of limbo wasn’t enough to break her deference.

Almost as if he could hear her thoughts, and she supposed he could, Michael said, “Death isn’t the closing of one door. It is the opening of another.”

She had no idea what he meant but she figured she wasn’t supposed to. In Lexi’s case, it seemed to be true. The night her best friend met Mikos, Lexi had died and Mikos, using an amulet called the Navatitas, had brought her back. Kat clutched at the hollow of her neck. The Navatitas, which Kat now wore around her throat, only worked once for a true Defender. A defender of priceless objects who had the power to destroy the human race.

Since Lexi could no longer use it, she’d given it to Kat. Just like most things that touched her, the amulet had taken on the same transparency as she, yet she imagined she felt the weight on her chest of the ruby set in the gold. It acted as a sort of touchstone when she needed comfort. Like now.

“And there are times there must be a death in order to be a rebirth.” Again, Michael spoke as if he could hear her thoughts.

She looked up at him. The gentle smile on his face, mixed with the compassion in his eyes, tugged at the place in her chest that used to contain her heart. After all, ghosts were just shadowy memories of a person. They didn’t eat or drink or do any of the things humans did. But, sometimes, they could feel. Her heart still remembered what it felt like to love and to be, she thought, loved in return.

Mentally, she shrugged off the memories and said, “Archangel, as much as I am honored by your arrival, is there something you need?”

This was the second time he’d visited her alone. A record. Always, he’d come to see Lexi and Mikos and, recently, Jackson and Mari. And while she was frequently present when he appeared, it had always been they he’d wanted.

“I need you to do something important for me.”

Kat’s eyes widened. When he needed small errands run, he usually told Rocky—the little shape-shifting imp that hung around Mikos. She nodded.

He handed her a sealed envelope. “Take this to Jackson as soon as you can. Not only is it important, it’s urgent. Make sure he gets it.”

She nodded again and took the clean white envelope. It, too, turned transparent. She tucked it into her jacket pocket. When she looked up, the Archangel was gone. Lovely.

For just a second, she stared at the house of her childhood. Then, focusing on Jackson, she disappeared.

When she materialized, she entered the middle of a war. A sword came at her, slashing its way through her stomach. Kat screamed before she remembered she didn’t have a body. Still, she skittered sideways like a crab and stared at the scene before her.

Surrounded by scorched walls and shattered furniture, Mari, the beautiful and deadly fallen angel who was friend to Mikos, spun, slashed and jabbed at Beliel, the bastard of a demon who happened to be Lucifer’s son. In a blur of movement, Mari cut a long gash from Beliel’s right shoulder, crossing across his chest and abdomen. Surely, that would stop him.

Beliel let out a roar and the rest of his skin split, tiny gashes marking every exposed area of his body. As Kat watched in stunned horror, he broke apart, his true form bursting through. His demon form towered over Mari. Etched into his skin of glossy black—dark as the darkest black—strange ruby sigils glowed in a vivid display of color. Matching the hue of the swirling symbols, his eyes shone deep red, like a carmine pool of blood. When he snarled at Mari, his lips parted to reveal pointed teeth that reminded her of those of a shark.

When they went back to fighting, Kat switched her gaze to the others in the room. A slender blonde woman lay in a tangle of arms and limbs on the floor at Jackson’s and another blonde female’s feet. The downed woman twitched, her face ashen and drawn tight over her skull.

As for Jackson—he appeared as if he was under the influence of something because his handsome face was flushed under his tanned skin. The stunning blonde wrapped around him seemed to be taunting him, even as he fought to keep her from getting too close.

What had Michael sent her to? And what was she, a ghost, going to be able to do to help them?

A movement near the blonde puddle on the floor drew Kat’s attention. Her gaze tracked it and found a shimmer in the air not far from the woman. Narrowing her eyes, Kat squinted and gasped.
Oh dear God, it’s a soul stealer.
Terror ripped through her. The only thing ghosts like her feared.

Nasty little demons, soul stealers fed on the souls of all living creatures, but especially loved humans. They tended to frequent the site of death which meant the blonde did not have long to live. Kat knew this soul stealer was a particular minion of Beliel, so his presence shouldn’t be a surprise.

Despite being a ghost, Kat had, for some reason, kept her soul when she remained behind. This put her in the unique position of being able to feel, even as she couldn’t touch or be touched. As she watched the soul stealer creep closer, her own soul shrank in response. But she couldn’t just stand there while the soul stealer ate the blonde’s. Kat had to do something. Anything.

There was only one thing she could do and only one person who could help. “Mari! Soul stealer!”

Both Mari and Beliel froze and spun. At the same time, Jackson and the blonde stopped their struggles.

As Beliel roared out, “Gaarp,” Mari snatched a knife from the sheath on her boot and threw the blade at the shimmer that had, by this time, reached the dying woman and was crouched over her supine form.

The knife struck the soul stealer dead center. It let out a shriek and spun away. As if realizing the meaning behind Gaarp’s presence, Beliel let out a bellow of ear-splitting rage.

“Jahi, get the woman!”

There were furious blurs of movement—so many Kat couldn’t sort them out as each party tried to reach the fallen woman first. Now that the soul stealer was out of the picture, Kat moved to the woman. At her side, Kat crouched and looked clearly into the woman’s face for the first time.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. It was as if she’d peered at her own high cheekbones, wide blue eyes and pointed nose. At least, what she looked like while she’d been alive.

She focused intently. But the similarity was not exact. Just the general shape and color. The woman’s eyes were rounder, while Kat’s had a slight uptilt at the corners. The shape of her nose was off too. Tinier, less protruding than Kat’s. But still, it was
her
own face.

She felt a motion at her side and looked up. Straight into Ash’s black eyes. She stared at him, shock making the empty space where her heart used to be ache. A lock of dark hair fell onto his forehead, covering one of his magnificent dark eyes. Eyes that were shadowed with pain, as evidenced by the creases at the corners of his mouth.

“What are you doing here?”

He looked down at the woman. Kat sucked in a breath. He was here because this woman was dying. For a millisecond, she’d hoped he was here for her.

“She is dying.”

“Her heart is weak. Failing.” Other than that, Kat didn’t know what else to say—she couldn’t find the words and was afraid what she did say would come out shrill and make her sound like a harpy.

The woman opened her eyes and gasped in a deep gulp of air, then grimaced in pain, her face scrunching up. She breathed rapidly, her chest rising with the effort to take in air. Her gaze found Kat’s and stared. By the look of consternation in her blue eyes, she’d noticed the same thing Kat had.

“Who are you?” the woman whispered.

Kat didn’t know how to answer her. There was obviously something, some connection between her and the woman. As she opened her mouth to offer some sort of platitude, the woman uttered the thought that had been tumbling through Kat’s mind, “Are you my sister?”

Kat took the woman’s hand and squeezed. “I don’t know.” The woman nodded and Kat looked up at Ash. “Can you save her?”

He held her focus for what seemed like a long while. “I can save the mortal’s body. But not her soul. There is a big piece missing.”

Oh, damn it, they’d been too late. That fucking soul stealer had gotten too much of her.

She dropped her gaze back to the woman. Even as she stared, Kat saw the smoky mist rising as her soul slipped from her body. There were jagged tears and golf-ball-sized holes proving that Ash was correct.

While the battle raged around them, Kat watched the woman die. Turning, Kat looked at Ash and nearly fell over in shock. The naked pain in his dark eyes as he stared at the woman stabbed through Kat’s body like a million knives. She gasped, which drew his attention to her.

“Kat,” he murmured, “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t have time to wonder what he meant by that because his jaw firmed and in a blur of motion he punched a hand through her chest. White-hot heat tore through her and Kat screamed. Everything went black.

Chapter Sixteen

Lexi bolted upright, Kat’s name on her lips. “Jesus Christ,” she said.

“Lex, please,” Mikos mumbled at her side, his voice husky with sleep.

Other than shifting closer to her, he didn’t move. He was well conditioned to her frequently interrupted sleep. When she saw the things she did on a regular basis, it was understandable she had nightmares.

But this one was different.

She reached down and shoved him. “Something’s wrong.”

With an ease she envied, he sat upright, all sleep gone from his face, voice and body. He came completely alert as if he’d been up for hours.
Grr.

“What’s happened?”

“I don’t know how to explain this,” she said and shoved a hand through her hair, then flipped on the bedside lamp. “Kat’s gone.”

Mikos frowned. His silver gaze went distant, looking into places only he could see.

“You are correct. She is gone.”

“How is that possible? She’s a ghost, for Pete’s sake. Did she go into the light?”

His lips quirked and he leveled a stern look at her. “You know that’s not how it works.”

“Yeah, yeah, but what’s the deal? Where is my friend?”

“I don’t know. She is not in any realm I can sense.”

“Mikos, if Ash had anything to do with this, I’ll flay him alive, I’m serious.”

With a smile trembling on his lips, he leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “He would not hurt Kat.”

“How do you know that? After all, he was the bastard who killed her.”

Mikos leaned back and drew Lexi with him. With a contented sigh, she snuggled against him. He nuzzled her neck, blowing warm breath against the fine hairs at the nape.

She shivered. “Stop trying to distract me.”

His chest rumbled against her back. “I would never dream of distracting you.”

Her turn to chuckle. “But, seriously, Mikos. How do you know Ash wouldn’t hurt Kat?”

“Because he loves her.”

“Huh. He has a funny way of showing it. Being responsible for the death of someone is not exactly screaming love to me.”

Mikos was silent for a minute. Or two. Long enough that Lexi wondered if her lover had fallen asleep. She reached behind her to snatch a hair off his chest. One sure way to get his attention.

“Don’t even think about it,” he grumbled. “I am not sleeping. I’m thinking.”

“Well, think out loud. I’m worried.”

His hand smoothed down the side of her face, the backs of his fingers trailing across her cheek before he tugged her closer. She muted the smile that would have shown her badass fallen angel just how adorable he really was. She didn’t think he could handle the fact he was adorable.

“I do not know much of Ash’s time with your friend.” Mikos sighed. “He kept that part of his life from me. I do know he deeply regrets what happened. The last time I saw them together, he could not hide the depths of his emotions for her. Nor could she hide hers from him.”