blood—she definitely wasn’t human—and letting it drop randomly on the candle and my hair. Her red lips moved, and the chant that came from her throat was soft and unintelligible.
She flung her hand, flicking her blood all over me, Aaron, and the circle. “Sit up,” she ordered, eyes taking on a faint grayish glow.
The smut in the circle grew denser, choking me as she drew on the dark power of Charbydon and filtered it through her corrupted soul. The power was indifferent, as was the natural energy found in Elysia. Both could be drawn here, and both could be manipulated and used in black crafting. Charbydon’s energy, however, seemed to lend itself better to the dark arts, easier to bend to the will of the user, especially if that user was natively Charbydon.
Nuallan Gow, with her black blood and glowing eyes, was not human. What the hell was she? And what the hell had we gotten ourselves into?
My hands were covered in the sticky pool of my own blood—I was always amazed at how quickly the life- giving substance turned cold. I gathered my strength and pushed against Aaron’s chest, sliding off him. I sat up near his hip, facing Nuallan as she sat on the other side.
“Take my hands,” she commanded, reaching over the body, not looking, mouth continuing to move in her soft chant.
I grabbed her hands, my blood squishing between our palms, as she squeezed painfully. Her power leaked into me, creeping up my arms like millipedes hunting food. I shivered and swallowed, the movement causing the sting and ache in my neck wound to hurt fresh.
Her chant grew faster, more demanding. A thin cloud of darkness formed from the link of our hands, spreading out over Aaron, enveloping him and then easing down, settling over him like a shroud.
A wave of dizziness flooded my brain and stole my vision. I swayed, knowing I was losing too much blood. I struggled to stay conscious, blinking hard a few times to force the fog away, my vision returning as I lifted my heavy eyelids.
Nuallan’s face shifted like a TV losing its satellite signal. I squinted, unsure of what I was seeing. Her human face shifted again, this time a fraction longer and giving me just a brief glimpse of another face—sallow skin, graying in the dips and shadows of sharp bone structure. Bald. Long, pointy ears. Thin, pale lips drawn back from a mouth filled with two tiny rows of sharp teeth on her upper and lower jaw. Eyes that were round and as black as pitch. She looked like a skull with skin and teeth.
A ghoul.
Nuallan Gow was a ghoul.
A moment later, the hideous face was gone, and the Nuallan I knew and hated stared back at me. She dropped my hands, snaked a finger out, and dragged it through the wound in my neck before I had a chance to prevent it. I gasped at the sudden pain as she with-drew her finger, and with my fresh, warm blood, drew a complex symbol on Aaron’s forehead—one I’d never seen before.
“And so we halt death …” she said solemnly, her attention on the corpse. “It is done.”
The gray shroud of black crafting power lay over Aaron, the symbol of my blood bright on his forehead, but dimming as it sunk into his skin.
Nuallan stood, snuffed out her candle by pinching it with her thumb and the bloody middle finger, saying what seemed to be some kind of thank you or prayer to the Dark Mother in Charbydon, took her ritual dagger, grabbed her bag, and then shoved her expensive pumps through the circle of ashes. The barrier of smut dropped immediately and she stepped out, stopping in front of Hank. “Leave him on the floor.”
And then she left, the Master black crafter of Atlanta. A very powerful, very deadly, very unpredictable monster.
There weren’t many ghouls in the city, most preferring their homeland in Charbydon, but some of the more enterprising of the species had come to our world where they lived in the shadows and maintained a quiet, mysterious existence.
Hank entered the broken circle and bent down to help me to my feet. His scent swirled around me and my mark gave me a fresh zing of energy, but it didn’t stop me from swaying on my feet, everything going blurry. “Heal yourself, Charlie,” he commanded through tight lips.
My throat burned. I tried to speak, but now it hurt too badly.
I was aware of him and the others helping me out of the room, and of the cool air at the back of my neck where hair
“Get her up on the table,” I heard Liz say amid the sound of footsteps and metal clanging. Hands slipped under my armpits as I was helped onto a cold, hard table. Then I was being lowered onto my back. Somewhere in the haze of my mind, I realized they’d put me on a stainless steel autopsy table.
The voices of Hank, the chief, and Liz became lower and more distant until they blended into a low hum and finally silence. My muscles relaxed, and I gave in to the oblivion waiting in the wings.
A surge of heat from the mark on my shoulder, followed by a cool breeze floating over my neck wound and winding its way inside of me, slowly restored my awareness. My mind began to process things again, and after a few tries, I was able to open my heavy eyelids and
Hank stood over me, one hand over my wound and the other palm underneath my shoulder blade on the mark we shared. I knew what he was doing—giving me his healing energy, and replacing some of my pain with those feel-good hormones from the mark.
I felt drunk. My lips worked, trying to speak, though I didn’t know what I meant to say.
“Better?” Hank asked.
I nodded, testing my throat with a swallow to see if it hurt. Yeah. It hurt. But not as badly as before. “Getting better,” I rasped out.
“Good, because you know I’m not the best at healing others. Why don’t you help me out and start healing yourself?”
“Okay.” I could do that. “If you tell me what
“It’s just a generic term, a greeting from one Elysian to another. Nothing important. Heal yourself, Charlie. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“You’re so full of it,” I slurred. But, yeah, he was right. Whatever the term meant, it wasn’t important. Not now, and I wasn’t even sure why that question had popped into my head to begin with. I drifted into that cool place of healing, thinking of smiles and laughter and my kid, all the good things that sent a familiar hum of pure light energy into all the nooks and crannies, into the places that still burned, and snuffed out the fires …
“Charlie. Charlie, wake up,” a voice echoed in a singsong tone while a gentle hand shook my shoulder. “Time to kick some Adonai ass.”
Those words made me smile.
I woke from what was a very typical healing state—very similar to sleep—to see my partner shaking his head in an amused way. “I thought that would get you up.”
It took a few tries, but I managed to ask in a scratchy voice, “How long was I out?” The weight in my eyelids dissipated as I pushed to my elbows, one hand going carefully to my throat. Tender. A little squishy as the wound had sealed but not yet scarred over. Otherwise I felt okay. I sat up all the way and swung my legs over the autopsy table, giving myself a minute to regain my equilibrium before sliding off. “Don’t ever put me on that table again.”
Hank tossed me an extra Hefty. “We should double up.”
“I take it you raided the armory again. Where’re the chief and Liz?” I shoved the extra Hefty in the waistline of my jeans.
“Liz is in with Aaron, getting her stuff ready for the ritual, and the chief is on the phone with DC and the Adonai reps. Now that they know about Llyran, we won’t have to worry about them accusing the nobles.”
“Yeah, we have enough to worry about,” I muttered.
I went to twist up my hair, reaching back and not finding it there. Ah, yes. My unnecessary payment to the Dark Mother. The ends were still long enough to pull back into a barrette or a very, very short ponytail that would stick straight out, but I didn’t have any of those handy.
“It looks cute,” Hank said. “Makes you look young and innocent and sweet.”
