How to Claim an Undead Soul Read online

  “He was a caricature of me,” Linus said gently. “Look at her. She’s flesh and bone. She’s Amelie.”

  “You must have suspected,” she croaked in his direction. “You were too good at hunting us.”

  Unable to contribute more than my unhinged jaw to the conversation, I sat there and listened, hoping that sanity and understanding might collide to explain how this had come to pass.

  “The night you came to the carriage house to retrieve Grier you had traces of zinc sulfide on your hands.” Linus tucked me closer when I listed forward. “Most people require a black light to see the effect, but the wraith I’m bonded to perceives it in its own unique way.”

  “The clothes.” A brittle laugh strangled her. “You dusted the laundry Ambrose had been stealing from your hamper.”

  That explained why I kept bumping into Ambrose in the gardens. He had been pilfering new outfits from Linus before he went out for the night. Having his suspicions confirmed also explained the frosty reception he gave Amelie. “Why did he choose Linus to mimic?”

  Amelie flinched at the sound of my voice and huddled deeper into her stolen outfit. “Ambrose wasn’t powerful enough to manifest his own form for some time. Mostly he used me to...” She blanched. “He must have bumped into Linus and liked the look of him. Or maybe it was easy access to his clothing and supplies that appealed. I don’t know. I never asked, and he wouldn’t have told me if I had.”

  Meaning I could have spoken to Amelie, visited her, and been talking to Ambrose. No wonder he knew me so well. He had access to the mind of the person who knew me best. Thanks to the dybbuk, she was privy to all my secrets now. “Tell me this was an accident. Tell me someone forced you. Tell me anything that will let me erase these lines between us.”

  “I can’t do that.” Tears spiked her lashes. “This is all on me, Grier. I welcomed him in.”

  A million questions jostled for position at the head of the line, and my thought process was lost amid all the shoving. “No.” That was all there was to it. “He manipulated you. He forced you to bond, and then he—”

  “We lost you once.” Amelie stared into her lap. “I couldn’t lose you again.” Her throat worked over a hard lump. “Boaz—” She shook her head. “He was so furious with the system, he was coming unhinged.”

  A vicious twist set my heart pounding. “What are you saying?”

  “After you were sentenced to Atramentous, we saved all we could from Woolly. We held on to it in case you ever…” Her eyes closed, releasing fresh tears. “I found a grimoire. I read a few of the spells, but I didn’t understand them.” Her fists curled in her lap. “Why would I? I’m Low Society. We’re taught nothing except the history of the High Society.”

  The acerbity in her voice carved my bones, but it had always been this way. She had always felt like she was on the outside looking in, even when I had been standing on the outside looking in right beside her. Envy was a seesaw we both rode from time to time, but none of her lows had been this, not rock bottom. She had always touched off the ground and gone soaring again. There must be more to it, there had to be a reason why she had chosen this path.

  “You found a summoning spell in the grimoire.” Linus saved me from asking. “That’s how you knew what to do.”

  “I spent the last five years figuring out the language of sigils.” Her glare dared him to belittle her accomplishment. “I tried warding and other small magics, but I couldn’t work them.”

  “That’s when you started researching ways of increasing your power by using that newfound understanding.”

  Again, he stole the words from my mouth, and I could only be grateful not to have to speak them.

  “There was nothing I could do that wasn’t permanent,” she answered, “so I did nothing.”

  “Ambrose is not nothing,” I rasped. “Why would you bind him to you?”

  “Volkov took you.” Her gaze swung to me, full of pleading. “I had to do something. I had to save you.”

  “No.” Linus slashed his hand through the air. “You don’t get to lay the blame for this at Grier’s feet. You made the choice. You had years to grasp the implications. This wasn’t a lark. This was a calculated decision, and the consequences are yours to bear.”

  “Do you think I don’t know what I’ve done?” Rage blistered her cheeks. “I begged him to give me strength. I threw myself on his mercy so he would keep her safe from the vampires, but he twisted my words. He lied to me.” Her voice broke. “Bonding drained him until he was useless. Grier was home again before I noticed I was missing time, before I caught him stealing my body.”

  “What did you expect?” He stared her down. “There is always a cost for power.”

  “Perhaps the High Society ought to educate the rest of us on the price of the dream they sell us.” Her shoulders drooped, the fire draining from her. “We’re fed stories of power and magic from the time we’re born until we’re grown and left to hunger after scraps from our betters’ tables. How can we value our contributions when we’re kept ignorant of them? How can we make heroes of ourselves when we’re told no stories of our champions?”

  “No one can save us from our birthrights.” His chill sigh whispered past my ear. “We’re all trapped in the net cast around us by fate the moment our eyes blink open. Whether the net is woven from silk or twine doesn’t matter. When you struggle against its pull, it cuts all the same.”

  “What are we going to do?” I looked to Linus, the lifeline I didn’t deserve. “What will the Elite do to her?”

  “Ambrose murdered nine vampires.” Linus resettled me against his side, supporting me so I didn’t tip forward to kiss the rusted floor. “She’s an accomplice. She will be held responsible for those deaths.”

  “Godsdamn it, Amelie.” A worthless sob choked me. “What were you thinking?”

  Amelie rested her chin on her knees to prevent further conversation.

  Craning my neck, I peered around Linus. “Why haven’t the Elite stormed the castle?”

  “Ward,” she mumbled. “On the road, not the boat.”

  Well, that explained why the light show hadn’t brought them running.

  Linus pinned Amelie with his stare when he asked me, “Will you be all right waiting here?”

  Until he moved me and a pang shot through my side, I hadn’t noticed I was almost collapsed on his lap. “Yeah.” He laid me down easy. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  In the stillness after Linus left, a small throat cleared. “What about me?”

  “Oh, Oscar.” I turned my head toward him since the rest of me was dead weight. “I’m sorry we forgot you.”

  “I’m used to it.” He flashed a cheeky grin. “You saved me, just like you said.”

  “Linus helped.” Linus, who I owed an apology. Linus, who had been doling out second chances too, hoping I would scrounge up enough faith to believe he wasn’t a murderer despite the evidence mounted against him. Linus, who really ought to have come back by now. “You can break the ward now.”

  “I think I’d rather stay here.” His gaze darted to Amelie. “Until your friend gets back.”

  “Suit yourself.” I focused on taking the smallest breaths possible. “I’ll be right here.”

  I wish I had blacked out, but oblivion is never so merciful. I was wide awake when boots pounded up the stairs, and I had a front-row seat when Boaz entered the room. He glanced from Amelie to me, torn in his loyalties, rocking back and forth the same way Cletus had all those days ago. I won the coin toss, but it’s not like he could have reached through the warding ring to hug her. He had no magic to break ours.

  “We’ve got a medic on the way, Squirt.” He trailed his knuckles down my cheek. “Can you last that long, or do I need to carry you out?”

  “I can manage.” Whatever Linus had done seemed to be holding. “Where’s Linus?”

  “We detained him. We didn’t know what we were walking into, only that you were on the boat with him, and you were in distress.”
He grimaced. “Godsdamn, I’m a fool. I never should have asked for your help.”

  “I’m glad you did.” I leaned into his touch. “I know you see me as some High Society princess in need of rescuing—”

  “Your title has never interested me much,” he said plainly. “I would have married you the first time you made goo-goo eyes at me if all I wanted from you was prestige or fortune.”

  “Okay, you made your point.” A tingle ignited in my cheeks. “I wanted you bad, and you knew it.”

  “I didn’t take advantage of you then,” he pressed on, determined to make his point, “and I won’t now.”

  The message was clear. He wasn’t sure what part Amelie played in all this, but he must suspect her role. Separating himself from her must be killing him. They were always a unit in my mind—the siblings Pritchard. I loved them equally, if in different ways, and they had each been a staple in my life up to now.

  “Medic,” announced a tall black man who ducked into the room with a red bag slung across his shoulders. “Medic.”

  Boaz lifted an arm, and the man jogged over and knelt at my side. “Take care of my girl, Heinz.”

  “Your girl?” The medic blasted me with a megawatt smile. “You’re Grier?” He peeled up my shirt and got a look at my side. “You’re too pretty for an ogre like him.” He palpated my abdomen. “Have you considered seeing other people?” He examined my throat next. “And when I say other people, I mean me. There’s no need to talk. Just blink once for yes.”

  After his examination moved south, I asked, “What happened to twice for no?”

  His chuckle was warm and genuine. “I didn’t want to leave you any wiggle room.”

  “Stop hitting on her before I start hitting on you,” Boaz grumped. “What’s her status?”

  “She’s stable enough for transport.” He checked with Boaz. “Meet us there?”

  “I have to handle this.” Boaz scrubbed his palm over his head, his posture weary, but he pressed a lingering kiss to my lips. “I’ll join you as soon as I can. Do not leave without me. That’s an order, Squirt.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” I saluted him as Heinz gently lifted me in his arms. “Shiver me timbers.”

  “Best get her out of here.” Boaz caught my hand. “She’s clearly delusional.”

  “She must be if she’s dating you,” Heinz agreed. “Come on, gorgeous.” He angled us toward the doorway. “Normally, I wouldn’t sweep a girl off her feet until I’d at least bought her dinner, but the corners are too tight for the stretcher, and the boat is trashed. Are you sure this is a steamboat and not a garbage barge?”

  “Boaz.” I trapped his hand in mine. “We’re going to fix this.”

  “We’ll try.” He kissed my forehead and then my nose and then my lips. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “That’s enough pecking, lovebirds.” Heinz carried me away from Boaz and down the stairs. “Now that we’re alone, tell me all the embarrassing stories you remember about Boaz from childhood. He’s got serious dirt on me, and I need to find a shovel before he buries me with the other guys in our unit.”

  And so I told him the story of the second time I saw Boaz naked. It involved a case of beer he polished off single-handedly, a wide-mouth glass bottle (some fancy brand of tea his current girlfriend had favored that smelled like grass), and a jar of Vaseline. It went downhill from there.

  Fifteen

  Heinz strapped me on a stretcher his partner had waiting for us in the street, and I grunted when they slid me into the idling ambulance. Necromancers use the same hospitals as humans, so it was a short drive. Most High Society types weren’t thrilled with sharing a communal medical facility, but most Low Society families lacked the funds for private healthcare, and there were also concerns over emergency care. It was better for us all if we could be rushed into the arms of our own kind for treatment rather than ending up in an all-human hospital after a wreck or other mundane accident.

  The compromise was a private floor warded against humans and staffed with exclusive doctors. The Society kept key personnel scattered throughout each department to clean up after supernatural patients, and other factions did too. The staff was close to sixty-five percent nonhuman the last I heard.

  The comingled system had worked for decades, and it saved the Society money by piggybacking off the human healthcare system. The High Society worshipped wealth and prestige in equal measure, so it was a tradeoff for the elitists. Saving money at the expense of rubbing elbows with commoners. But none of them were willing to pony up the cash to fund the startup costs of an affordable alternative so…

  Basically, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  “So you and Boaz have history.” Heinz clamped an oximeter on my pointer finger, wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my upper arm and stuck leads to my chest. “How long has that been a thing? You guys high school sweethearts or something?”

  “No.” I shut my eyes to block out the glare from the overhead lights. “More like childhood friends exploring our options.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with just being friends.” Heinz’s smile flavored his voice. “Maybe it’s best if you don’t explore this thing with him.”

  His teasing was doing its job, taking my mind off Amelie. A little. Okay, not really, but he was trying. I awarded points for effort. “You’d rather I explored a thing with you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “As flattered as I am by your offer, I have no choice but to see where this leads now that he’s got it in his head to do something about it, or I’ll never get another moment’s peace.” Oh, to have a time machine. Or a smidgen of discretion. “Good thing you’re pro-friendship.”

  “Now I see the attraction.” He chuckled. “You keep him on his toes while other girls fall at his feet.”

  “Oh, I fell at his feet. I was probably the first girl who did, but I had an unfair advantage.” If that’s what you wanted to call it. “When he stepped over me and kept walking, he didn’t have far to go since he lived next door. Fall down every day, and you start building scar tissue. Get enough scar tissue, and the falls stop hurting. Once the falls stop hurting, you work up an immunity. After you get immune, there’s no more reason to fall, is there?”

  Heinz was cackling at this point. “I’m so glad I was on duty tonight.”

  “Me too.” I enjoyed meeting people who saw other facets to Boaz or who had different perspectives on the ones familiar to me. “Just don’t tell him who ratted him out.”

  “I won’t breathe a word,” he promised as the ambulance rocked to a halt. “Even if he tries to beat it out of me.”

  “That’s all I ask.” I was smiling as they wheeled me into the hospital.

  I might have lied about having an allergy to anesthesia when the nice doctor asked me. Drugs were a hard no for me. I would rather suffer than be trapped behind my eyelids. I also might have invented an entirely new language of swear words that appeared to impress even the most seasoned nurses with the depths of their vulgarity when the doctor reopened the wound on my side to repair the internal damage. There’s even a slight chance I blacked out, hurling myself into the safety of my mind, to escape the sting of the needle and the pull of the stitches in my skin.

  The temptation to linger in that place, too far away for pain to touch me, was great.

  But then I heard singing.

  “The night birds are calling, calling, calling. The princess she’s falling, falling, falling. A stone for a heart and a blade for a tongue, fair beauty she slayed all her suitors but one. His armor was love, and his weapon this tune. Their battle was fierce, the casualties great, but fair beauty, she smiled as she lowered her gate.”

  “I always wondered if that was a metaphor for sex,” I murmured, eyes closed.

  “Lowering her gate?” Linus mused. “I never understood why you loved that song so much.”

  “Maud had a beautiful voice, but that was the only song she knew start to finish.” I blinked the room into focus and e
xhaled with relief that Linus had dimmed the overhead lights. “She sang it on a loop. I was forced to love it or go mad hearing it on repeat.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “It took me a while to figure out too, so don’t feel bad.” I turned my head on my pillow and got my first good look at him since Ambrose attacked. His long hair gathered at his nape, but limp strands plastered to his neck with dried sweat. “Are you okay?”

  “Minor cuts and scratches.” He flashed his hands and forearms at me. “I treated myself on the drive over to see you.”

  “You saved my life.” The bald statement hung between us. “How did you trap him?”

  “While you provided the distraction, I painted as many concentric traps as I could around Oscar.” His lips, full and hard, turned downward. “I’ve been asking myself if I acted logically, staying behind after you ran downstairs, or if I was a coward for not chasing him.” He pulled his hair down and ran his fingers through the auburn tangle. “I still don’t have an answer.”

  “There’s a joke in there somewhere about the teacher not having all the answers, but I’m fresh out of snark.” I shifted onto my uninjured side to see him better. “You trusted me to take care of myself, and that’s no small thing.”

  “I’ve watched you train with Taz.” His lips pulled to one side. “I knew you could handle yourself.”

  “Shush,” I warned him, though his praise made me glow. “I’m not finished yet.”

  He inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You did the smart thing. Your quick thinking saved all four of us.” I might have invited him there for all the wrong reasons, but my lack of faith is what saved us in the end. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if we’d had to resort to violence to bring down Amelie. Hurting her that way would have killed me, so thank you.”

  The tips of his ears reddened adorably, and he cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”

  Though I longed to ask after Boaz and Amelie, I didn’t want Linus to feel unwelcome, so I bit my tongue.