The Necromancer's Betrayal (The Final Formula Series, Book 2.5) (3 page)

Elysia stared up at the fancy new condo. It occurred to her that James could be a lot older than he looked. Although, if he was starting his college career, he might be younger than she was. She followed him up onto the porch. He had pulled on his leather coat over the shorts. Fortunately it was dark, so the bare legs and feet hadn’t drawn attention when they had walked to the municipal lot to get her car. He punched a number into the keypad and pushed open the front door. A draft of cold air brushed her cheeks and with it, an awareness. She froze on the threshold.

“What is it?” James asked.

“We’re not alone.”

James looked around, instantly on alert. He didn’t crouch or move, but there was something about the sudden tension in his body that made it apparent that he was ready to attack. No fear, no hesitation. Elysia stilled as she watched him. At that moment, she had no trouble believing Grams’s assertion that he was dangerous.

He turned his head to glance at her, breaking the spell. “Your soul is the only one here.” His glowing eyes slid over her in a way that made her want to cover herself. It wasn’t a leer or anything so crude. It was as if he saw within her, down to her very…

“You see souls,” she said, stunned.

“When I look, yes.” The glow in his eyes faded away. “No one’s here.”

“Not a person, a presence. This house is haunted.”

“Oh, that.” James visibly relaxed. “That’s Reggie.”

“Reggie?”

He turned and led her into the condo. “I offered to take him across, but he’s not interested.” He waved toward the open living room. “I’m going to get dressed.” He started up the stairs.

“Wait,” she called.

He stopped in mid-stride then gave her a glare. “Should I have asked for permission first?”

“If you insist on being a smartass, maybe I will make you ask.” She jogged up to the step he was on. “What do you mean take him across? Across what?”

“Across whatever divides the mortal world from the next.” His cold gaze met hers and held it.

“You really can rip souls.”

“Yes. And they don’t have to be willing.”

His confession shocked her to silence.

“May I go dress now? These shorts are riding up my ass in the worst way.”

Her cheeks heated, and she realized that he had probably said that intentionally. “Go.” She waved him on. “And pack a bag,” she called after him. “We may be gone a few days.”

“Yes, Mistress,” his voice carried down the stairs.

She frowned after him, her heart thumping a quick rhythm against her breastbone. A grim? More like the grim reaper. A power like that shouldn’t be left in the hands of one man. Especially one that seemed so angry. She remembered how he confronted that woman behind the bar. She had picked up on the anger in his body language.

Grams was right; he was dangerous.

She wandered into the living room and stopped to admire the leather furniture and enormous flat screen mounted on the opposite wall. Did his family have money or had he acquired such nice things by other means? And did she really want to know?

One wall contained a series of framed black and white photographs. They looked professionally done, and each showed a different doorway or decorative arch. Every one made her skin crawl.

On an end table, she found another picture. Unlike the photos on the wall, this appeared to be a candid shot. She leaned in for a closer look. The photo showed five people standing in front of a large Christmas tree. Two men and three women. One of the women was James’s blonde friend from behind the bar. Everyone was smiling at the photographer.

The smiles of people who were, if not family, at least very close, gave her a pang. She didn’t regret leaving home, but she did miss it. She especially missed the company of other necromancers. People like her who understood the unique demands of the magic of death. It had been a childish notion to expect to find a normal life, anywhere. She couldn’t escape the call of death.

She turned away and came nose to nose with a man missing half his face. The scream escaped before she could stop herself.

Chapter
3

“S
hit.” Elysia took a step back. The specter had been standing mere inches behind her in all his gory glory. If she had to guess, she would say he died in a fire. “Reggie, right?”

He blinked. Well, one eye, anyway. He was missing the other. She felt the cold brush of his soul, and his eye widened.

“Don’t even think about it,” she told him.

A series of thumps and James vaulted the handrail to land a few feet away. He glanced between the two of them, clearly able to see the specter. He straightened and gave her a frown.

“He was standing right behind me,” she complained. “He startled me.” She gave Reggie a glare. “I’ve seen worse.”

James frowned, then turned to the ghost. “Reggie, we’ve discussed this.” A pause. “No excuses.”

Elysia stared at James. “You can hear him?” Only uniquely talented necromancers could manage that, and then you had to let the specter in. No thank you.

James held up a finger, asking her to wait. “Yes, I know she’s a necro. Thanks for the warning.” He made a shooing gesture. “Leave her alone, Reg.”

The specter gave her a frown with his one remaining eyebrow, then vanished.

James tugged his black T-shirt in place over his jeans and gave her a puzzled look. “I thought necros could hear ghosts.”

“For a price.”

His brows rose in question.

“We must let them possess us.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Then what do you do?”

“I’m a bit of a ghost myself.” He shrugged and walked away.

The drive out of Athens was a quiet one. Her few comments on the scenery or the weather had been met with silence. Not liking the quiet, she popped in her favorite CD and turned up the volume. The manic drum beat and screaming guitar thumped through the speakers, and she tapped a finger against the steering wheel.

James glanced over. “You like metal?”

“Yes.” She had seen a couple of his T-shirts and wondered at his surprise. His taste appeared even heavier than hers. “Expecting something different?”

“I figured you would torment me with bad pop.”

“Dear God, no. I’m a necromancer, not a sadist.”

A soft snort answered her, but when she glanced over, he was studying the dark landscape outside his window. He didn’t comment further, but the silence that followed was more comfortable.

Two hours into the trip, she pulled over for gas. James climbed out of her Ford Focus and stretched to his full height.

“Next time we take my car,” he muttered, rubbing one shoulder.

“You’re sore?” Not possible. The dead had no bodily concerns. From her experience, they weren’t aware enough to know they had a body.

He rolled his shoulder and gave her a frown. “You going to stop and eat or should I get something.” He hooked a thumb toward the store.

“You eat?” She almost dropped the gas cap.

“It’s eat or starve.”

“Starving implies that you could die.”

“In my case, I go dog and slobber all over your upholstery.”

She snorted and turned to lift the gas nozzle. “Then you had better get a snack. Grams’s place is still an hour away. By the time we get there, it’ll be too late to expect more than a sandwich.”

“No offense, but if a necro is cooking, I’m not eating.”

She thunked the nozzle into the tank. “Why would I be offended?” She squeezed the lever and the gas began flowing.

James grunted and turned toward the store. He took a couple of strides and stopped. “You want anything?” he called.

“I’ll be in.”

He nodded and headed inside.

She watched him go, still not sure what to make of him. Metaphysically, he was a complete mystery, but more perplexing was his attitude. He should hate her, maybe try to hurt her, but he hadn’t tried anything. Once he had moved past his anger, he had been… civil.

She finished pumping the gas and walked inside. James waited at the counter with an assortment of chips, sweets, and a bottle of Mountain Dew.

“I thought you were getting a snack.” She placed a Diet Coke on the counter.

“What do you think this is?” he asked.

The clerk, a pretty-faced pregnant girl, gave them a grin and began bagging his purchases.

“No snack?” James asked, eyeing Elysia’s bottle of Diet Coke.

“Not hungry.” She handed the girl a couple of dollars, aware that the five in her pocket was the last of her cash. She had missed work tonight and now had to finance an unexpected road trip. It looked like a lot of Ramen Noodles next week.

James took the sack and thanked the girl, then they headed for the exit.

Elysia laid her hand on the door handle at the same moment the entry door on the other side of the counter chimed.

“Nobody move!” a male voice shouted.

James gripped her wrist.

Two men stood inside the entrance, both in ski masks and each carrying a handgun. The first raised his gun and fired toward the back of the store. Elysia dropped into a crouch before she realized that he wasn’t shooting in her direction. It took three shots until an explosion of plastic marked the end of the video camera. The man stopped at the counter and pointed his gun at the cashier.

“Empty the drawer.” He tossed a cloth tote bag on the counter.

James toed off his boots, his attention never leaving the two men.

“What are you doing?” Elysia whispered.

The second man noticed them and hurried toward their side of the counter. “You two, on the floor.”

James didn’t comment. Instead he undid his pants and shoved them down.

“Listen you twisted fuck. On the floor or I pop you one. Or better yet, your girl.” He swung the gun toward her.

James growled, and the gunman’s eyes returned to him.

“What the hell?”

“Exactly.” James tossed his shirt aside and sprang at the guy.

The gun fired. This close, it made Elysia’s ears ring. Darkness enveloped James, and an enormous black dog landed where he should have.

The gunman screamed—very high and very loud—and began to fire repeatedly.

James the hellhound jumped, covering the distance between himself and the gunman in one leap. Elysia expected the pair to collide and crash to the ground, but James didn’t slam against him. He disappeared
into
him.

Elysia stood up. “What—”

The gunman collapsed on the floor without a sound. James was nowhere in sight, but her senses told her there was still a dead man in the room: the man on the floor.

“Hades’s blood,” she whispered.

Another gun went off, and she realized that the other gunman was just as freaked out. The cashier screamed and Elysia reached out instinctively. Joyous relief filled her as she unfettered her soul. It flowed into the empty body on the floor and brought life. Euphoria rolled through her veins, and she almost forgot her purpose.

“Rise,” she breathed, and the dead gunman came to his feet in a smooth coordinated motion. The body responded perfectly with no lingering resistance to her foreign presence. It was as if his soul had left his body so smoothly it had left no bit of himself behind to fight her.

“No,” she whispered, as the full impact of what James had done hit her. But she would think about that later. Now she willed the new body to raise the gun.

“Herb, what are you doing?” the first gunman demanded.

She fired and he staggered, but he didn’t go down. Instead, he fired back. The impact shook her new body, but there was no pain.

She leveled the gun to fire again when darkness rippled behind her target. She glimpsed a taloned hand slashing from behind, then the second gunman collapsed without a sound.

In the space where he had stood, the slash of darkness remained. A glint of red eyes was followed by green. An instant later, her green-eyed hellhound crouched over the new body.

“James?” It was a rhetorical question. She could feel the bond in him, but it was still unsettling.

Another flicker of darkness, and James the man now crouched over the gunman.

“You going to keep that?” He jerked his chin toward the gunman she still held.

Heat rose in her cheeks and she pulled back her hold. The pain of her soul’s return made her gasp, and the body fell to the floor.

“You ripped out his soul,” she said. Knowing he could was one thing, but seeing him do it was something else entirely.

“Yes.” He held her gaze with his still glowing eyes.

A groan sounded from behind the counter. The clerk.

“No,” James whispered, then vaulted the counter.

Still a bit disoriented from the animation, Elysia wasn’t as graceful. She stumbled around the end of the counter. James knelt beside the girl who lay unmoving on the floor. He pressed his fingers against the other side of her head, and they came away bloody.

Elysia grabbed a roll of paper towels from beneath the counter and knelt beside him. “Was she shot?”

“Yes.”

Elysia ripped off a handful of towels and passed them to him. It quickly became apparent that he would need more. There was so much blood.

“Her soul is leaving,” he whispered.

Elysia bit her lower lip. She had to take his word for it. She wouldn’t feel the difference until the woman was actually dead.

“But the baby’s still here,” he said.

“Oh.” That would change as soon as the mother died.

“Please, don’t go,” James muttered.

Elysia realized that he spoke to the girl’s spirit. Could she hear him? A cell phone rested beside the open register, and Elysia picked it up to dial 911.

“She won’t listen,” James whispered. He took the dying girl’s hand in his.

The operator picked up, and Elysia gave her a quick description of what had happened—with a few embellishments to hide the necromancy.

“Help’s on the way,” she told him, returning the phone to the counter.

“She’s going. I can’t stop her.” He raised glowing eyes to hers. “Can you do something?”

Yes, animate her body after she goes. But she didn’t say that. Voicing her frustration wouldn’t help.

“If we can keep her here until they take the baby, maybe…” He pressed a bloodied hand to the girl’s swollen stomach. “Do you think she’s far enough along?”

“I haven’t a clue,” Elysia admitted.

“The soul is so strong. So here.” He closed his eyes, his brow wrinkled in anxiety.

Elysia drew a breath, and he opened his eyes as if knowing what she would say.

“There is something,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I can bind her soul… to her body.”

“You mean, make her a lich.”

“Yes. She’ll still die, but more slowly. It’ll give the ambulance a chance to arrive. Perhaps the baby can be saved.”

James blanched, clearly not liking the idea.

She didn’t blame him. Binding this woman’s soul to her rotting corpse was not a kind thing to do. Maybe it was cowardly, but Elysia remained silent, and let him decide. She wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to be. Her dark side was thrilled at the prospect, but the rest of her wanted to vomit.

“Do it,” he said.

She nodded and looked down at the girl, swallowing her revulsion. Was she really going to make this young woman a lich?

“What do you need me to do?” James asked.

Elysia forced herself to focus. If she was going to do this, she had to do it right. “See if you can find something sharp. I’ll have to use my blood. Then you’ll need to get dressed and cart me out of here.”