How to Claim an Undead Soul Page 21

  “Her involvement would explain the curious predicament we find ourselves in,” he mused. “Tell me, boy, did she share blood with you? Is that why you have the sense to be afraid when others of your ilk drift into oblivion without a spark of terror to flavor them? Only a goddess such as she could rouse a soul such as yours.”

  The dybbuk had made it no secret he was aware I was goddess-touched. He had teased me with it all along. Yet another box checked off in favor of Linus being his vessel.

  “Go away.” Oscar stamped his foot, and it shot him into the air like a rocket. “Leave me alone.”

  “Would that I could, dear boy, but no.” Ambrose watched him with the patience of a spider waiting for a fly to land in his web. “I can’t.”

  Oscar shot me a panicked glance that sealed my fate. All I could do was scramble for a plan.

  The dybbuk was grinning now, hungry, his teeth chips of moonlight. “Who’s hiding with you?”

  The boy realized what he’d done and blanched, quite a feat considering his usual pallor. “No one.”

  “Good effort, but I don’t buy your performance. It smacks of too little, too late.” Ambrose didn’t sound upset by the fact, merely intrigued. “Come out, come out, whoever you are.”

  There was nothing for it. He would find me now that he knew to look. The sigil didn’t make us invisible so much as it made us uninteresting, forgettable. If I let him look too hard, he might find Linus too. Assuming it wasn’t Linus I was about to stare down in order to buy a few extra minutes to think of a plan.

  Stupid, persistent hope. Here I thought I was all out, but it seemed I was unwilling to give Linus up as a lost cause just yet.

  Seeing him with Oscar poked holes in my theories and stretched my nerves thin to breaking. Hope truly was the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. Maybe the Grande Dame had been right keeping her silence until I was freed.

  “Ambrose,” I said as I scrubbed off the sigil and stepped from my hiding spot. “What brings you to the Cora Ann?”

  A nail rolled behind him from the vicinity of the doorway. I scuffed my shoes to cover the sound and tried not to get my hopes up when any number of things might be to blame, including the poltergeist who was working up a head of steam over his imminent demise.

  “We are in a dining room, are we not?” His gesture encompassed the space. “I would have thought my purpose self-explanatory.”

  “I’m afraid Oscar is a friend of mine.” I extended a hand, and the boy clasped it hard in his clammy grip. “You can’t have him.”

  “You’ve been making promises too big to keep,” he tsked. “You can’t take a meal from my mouth without offering me a replacement.” His luminous eyes fastened on Oscar. “I’m afraid there’s no other spirit in Savannah on par with our friend— Oscar, did you say his name was? You awakened him. Your blood opened his eyes. Unless you’re willing to do the same to another spirit, then you have nothing to barter. And since your objection is no doubt due to his sentience, I doubt you’d condemn another soul to a waking slaughter. So I say again, you have nothing with which to barter.”

  “You act like you have a right to him.” I pushed the boy a half step behind me. “You don’t own this boat, this boy or this city. What right do you have to prey on its citizens?”

  “I was invited into this city, and that makes it mine. I was invited into one of its citizens, and that gives me the right.” The flames in his hair roared higher, almost licking the ceiling. “I was awakened with a promise, and I will see it manifest.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “This is my city.” Sweat dampened my palms. “The people here are under my protection.”

  “Ah.” That amused him all the more. “Who granted you sovereignty here?”

  “A Woolworth stood alongside General James Oglethorpe at Yamacraw Bluff. A Woolworth was present at the founding of this city.”

  A cruel smile cut his mouth. “You’re no Woolworth.”

  My Marchand bloodlines were no secret, but I was surprised the dybbuk was so well-informed. He was definitely pulling facts from his vessel to know me so well. “I hate to break it to you, but my adoption paperwork says otherwise. I am Maud Woolworth’s daughter in all ways except blood.”

  “Blood is what defines you.” He glanced between me and Oscar. “In your case, it is all that defines you.”

  A twinge I couldn’t hide left him grinning. Only my blood had granted me freedom. The Grande Dame measured me by its potential, but I refused to let it define me. “What do you know about my blood?”

  “More than you do.” His hair returned to its usual corona. “More than you ever will at the rate you’re going.”

  “It’s been a hard few years. Sorry if I’m not up to snuff.”

  “Atramentous,” he breathed with profound reverence, “creates diamonds from the rough.”

  “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

  “You wouldn’t be the woman you are today without the time you spent there.”

  “You’re right.” I awarded him the point. “I would be normal, well-adjusted, and I wouldn’t wake screaming in the mornings. I would be working toward a degree, hanging out with my friends, and generally doing all the things average people do with their time.”

  Instead I wasn’t on speaking terms with normal, screamed myself hoarse in my sleep, worked toward the level of proficiency most practitioners acquired around age ten, and looked over my shoulder every time I left the house, making it hard to pal around with friends when my mind was elsewhere.

  “Normal,” he spat. “Average.” His hair sizzled around his face. “Ordinary is a death sentence.”

  “Again, I gotta disagree with you there.” I would trade my eyeteeth to have my old life with Maud back.

  The unnatural cant of his head alarmed me. “Say that louder next time.”

  “Say…?” Oh. Oh crap. “You heard what I was thinking.”

  “How else do you think I hook them so deep?” He chuckled. “I’m a tradesman, Grier, an entrepreneur.”

  “Are bargains offered the only thoughts you can detect?”

  “I don’t have to read your mind to know what you’re thinking. It’s written all over your face. But alas, I’m only privy to what’s offered to me. I can’t take anything from anyone. All I am, all I have, is freely given.”

  “I doubt that.” I kept watch from the corner of my eye for any motion that might indicate a rescue was underway, but no Elite boots pounded up the stairs, and Linus remained a big question mark. Guess it was up to me to squirm out of this on my own. “Who bargained with you?”

  “Ah.” He touched a finger to the side of his nose. “That information comes with a price. Will you pay it?”

  “Nope.” I had enough chaos in my life, thanks. “Just making conversation.”

  “You can’t save him.” Ambrose was well aware of what I was doing. “You might as well stand aside. The longer you drag this out, the more hope you give him. That’s crueler than anything I will do to him.”

  There wasn’t much of Oscar to start with, but I used him for cover while I eased a hand into my pocket. Fountain pens were so much stealthier than using a brush and a jar of ink. Talk about your combat applications. Linus was a genius. Whether or not that genius was evil remained to be seen.

  Trembling with urgency, I scribbled a row of sigils across the back of Oscar’s hand. I figured if I could feel him, I could affect him, and my theory was proven correct when he jolted as the magic snapped into place around him. That power was a pale echo of the symphony playing through Woolly’s eaves, but the soft melody of this ward told me it had anchored despite the water sloshing far beneath us.

  “A pen,” Ambrose marveled. “How fascinating. Wherever did you get it?”

  Nice how no one assumed I had made it myself. “From a friend.”

  A fresh trickle of doubt dripped in the back of my mind. If Linus was his vessel, wouldn’t he know that too? The way he seemed t
o know everything else about me?

  The dybbuk crossed to us and placed his hands against the invisible boundary that protected Oscar, and gave it a shove. “Impressive.”

  “Glad you like it.” Now that I’d bought us a few seconds, I pulled ink and a brush from my pack and knelt at Oscar’s feet. For some applications, you couldn’t beat traditional. I dusted the area beneath him as clean as it was going to get then went old school on the circular ward I painted over the warped boards. “Walk away now, and I’ll ask my friend to make you one too.”

  For the span of a blink, he looked tempted, but then it was gone. “I’m afraid I must decline.”

  “Stay put,” I warned Oscar. “No matter what happens, don’t move from that circle.”

  “All right.” His wide eyes tightened at the corners. “I can do this.”

  “Yeah, you can.” I stood and faced Ambrose, who appeared too preoccupied with the problem of the ghost in a warding circle to pay much attention to me. Good thing too, as my current plan involved sprinting from the room, down the stairs, and across the docks until I caught the attention of the Elite.

  I waited until his back was facing me, his absorption in Oscar complete, and then I ran.

  Wild laughter trailed me, and footsteps pounded behind me. Ambrose was fast. But I was desperate.

  I hit the first deck, leapt a roll of carpet and dodged a stack of boards. I made a beeline for the gangway, took that first step over water, then wiry arms closed around my middle and snatched me off my feet.

  Fiddlesticks.

  “Forgot about the water, did we?” He chuckled in my ear. “You are so forgetful, aren’t you? It’s rather charming, actually.”

  “Bite me.”

  “I’m not that flavor of undead.” He shook his head, the heat from his hair singeing the peach fuzz on my cheek. “How is it you’re allowed to wander about without a keeper?” He hauled me back onto the boat. “Ah, that’s right. Your wraith. Not much good all the way over there, is it?”

  The dybbuk had a point. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “That depends on you.” He shackled my wrists and started frog-marching me back up the stairs. “First, you’re going to convince your friend Oscar to step outside his wards, and then you’re going to rub off the sigils you painted on his hand.”

  “I won’t help you,” I snarled, thrashing in his hold. “He’s just a kid. Let him go.”

  “He’s just a source of nourishment.” We reached the landing, and he paused there, out of Oscar’s sight. “Either you convince him to sacrifice himself, or I bleed you until he offers himself to save you. No matter how this night ends, Oscar ends with it. You have about five steps to make your decision before I make it for you.”

  We took the five steps. My answer didn’t change. Neither did his mind.

  Ambrose curved his fingers around my throat, and each one bit into my skin with the eagerness of a honed blade. Warm blood slid down my neck to saturate my top. Struggle would have sawed off my head, so I held still, barely daring to breathe, and prayed Oscar held tight to his self-preservation streak.

  “Surrender, Oscar, and I won’t hurt her.” Ambrose forced me into the room ahead of him. “Grier is your friend, isn’t she?”

  Oscar’s knees gave out, and he dropped onto the floor. “D-don’t hurt her.”

  “You can stop this at any time,” Ambrose soothed. “Come to me, and I let her go. A life for a life.”

  “No,” I managed before his hand tightened, and fresh warmth eased down my chest.

  “I told you,” Oscar said, a lost boy who had lost hope. “I told you he was coming for me.”

  The black streaks raining down his cheeks broke something in me, and I used the only move Taz had taught me that might help in this situation. I brought up my knee and stomped his insole with everything in me. When he hissed and loosened his grip, I broke free, skin tearing, and ran to Oscar.

  “Stay.” More words wanted to come out, but my throat wasn’t working right anymore. “Stay.”

  Boaz would come. He must have seen me. The Elite had been staking out the Cora Ann for days. All I had to do was hold on a little longer, and then—

  I screamed as one of Ambrose’s elongated fingers pierced my side, skewering me on his curving nail.

  “I swore I wouldn’t do this, but here I am, forced to break my vow.” Ambrose yanked me closer, ripping open the tender skin above my hip. “My vessel will not be pleased, let me tell you. You’re making both our lives far more difficult than they have to be. This is one child. Let him go.”

  “You…won’t…stop,” I gasped as his finger twisted clockwise. “You’ll never…stop.”

  Vicious mirth unspooled in his laughter. “How well you know me. It’s almost like we’re friends.”

  I was out of words and out of time. Out of air and blood too if the spinning room was any indication.

  A radiant blast of searing agony spooked my hindbrain into retreating down the warren I had created during my time in Atramentous. I was safe there, apart from my body, separate from the pain, curled up in the back corner of my mind where no one could find me. I was in the process of slamming the door shut on my heels when a shout echoed across the distance. I hesitated, hands on the locks, and listened.

  “Grier.”

  The voice sounded so familiar, but it came from too far away to be sure.

  “Wake up. Grier. Wake up.”

  The name it called rang a bell. Grier. I had no name here but…

  “Please, Grier,” he begged, and it was a man’s voice. “Wake up.”

  I lingered in the doorway, torn between safety and reality, uncertain which way to turn.

  “I can’t do this without you,” he said. “Help me, or Oscar will die. You’ll die.”

  Oscar. The boy. The ghost aboard the Cora Ann. Oh, no. Oscar.

  I slammed back into my body so hard I seized in Linus’s arms.

  “Shh.” He cradled me gently until the worst of the shakes passed. “You’re all right. I’ve got you.”

  “Linus,” I rasped. “I thought…”

  “I know what you thought.” His fingers traced a cool line across my cheek, probing for injuries. “I should have told you the truth, but I wanted to see if…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. You must help me contain the dybbuk.”

  Pain hammered at me until my bones felt poised to shatter. “My side…”

  “You were out for a solid minute.” He eased me upright. “I’ve staunched the bleeding in your throat and side, but you must help me. I set a containment ward. Ambrose tripped it when he got too close to Oscar. You have to help me reinforce it. This magic requires two casters.”

  Focus was impossible when it felt like my head was hula hooping. “What?”

  Linus cradled my face between his palms, the cold like diving into icy waters. “Help me.”

  “Okay.” I shut my eyes and tested what hurt most. “I can do this.”

  “How dare you,” Ambrose thundered. “I was summoned.”

  “Where is my ink?” I winced as Linus braced his shoulder under my arm and guided me to my feet. Together, we limped to the wards set into the floor precious inches from Oscar, where Linus lowered me onto my knees. “Brush?”

  “Here.” He pressed my brush and ink bottle into my hand. “Copy my sigils exactly. One mistake, and he’ll shatter the ward.”

  “No pressure,” I panted, getting into position.

  “Your wards won’t hold me, Eidolon.” Ambrose paced, a caged tiger, his cruel fingers clashing against air as he hacked at the wards. “Release me now, or feel my wrath.”

  “Eidolon,” I echoed. “Which of us is he name-calling?”

  “Me, I’m afraid.” He forced his gaze from me with visible effort and began. “There’s a stigma to bonding with wraiths, even among shades. Perhaps especially among them since they must barter for their hosts while wraiths are free to bond as they will.”

  While he spoke, he
laid down a swirling design that cramped my fingers thinking about copying it. I steadied myself on my knees, leaving a bloodied handprint behind, and let my mind drift just enough the pain stopped knifing me.

  Linus came full circle before I hit the halfway point. He stood watch against Ambrose while I struggled to close the wards before tipping into the darkness awaiting me on the fringes of my consciousness.

  Who are you? Let him pick that thought from my head. Who had invited this creature to share their mind, their body? Who was so desperate for power they would welcome this disease? Had the summoner not understood the dybbuk would use them as a means to its own ends? Or had the person simply not cared as long as they were taken along for the ride?

  The last flick of my wrist sealed the wards, and Ambrose bellowed in agony.

  “Get back.” Linus hooked his arms under mine and dragged me. “The ward isn’t supposed to—”

  Light exploded across the room, searing the memory of its layout across the backs of my eyelids, and the boat began rocking beneath us like the Cora Ann was riding out a hurricane instead of anchored in a quiet berth. I scrabbled toward Oscar, using his ward as flimsy protection and dragging Linus with me.

  I’m not sure how long we huddled together, but eventually my teeth started chattering from having Linus curled around me, and my eyes, so sensitive to light, began to register my surroundings.

  “No,” Linus warned, his arms a gentle cage around me.

  I had broken free and crossed the room before his warning registered. Even then, I ignored him. This was wrong. This was a mistake. This made no sense. Something had gone wrong. Horribly wrong. There was no way. None. She would never…

  Amelie huddled in the center of the wards. Linus’s shirt hung off her shoulder, and his pants pinched her waist and stretched past her toes. His shoes were boats on her feet, and they tipped off as she tucked her legs beneath her.

  Hands pressed to the wound at my side, I collapsed inches from the warding ring. “Amelie?”

  Linus joined me, setting restraining hands on my shoulders. “You can’t set her free.”

  “How do we know it’s her?” I sat down hard. “He looked like you before and—”