How to Claim an Undead Soul Page 23

  “I brought you a gift,” he began, reaching into his pocket.

  “This is starting to be a habit with you,” I chastised. “You don’t have to buy my friendship, Linus. You’re earning it. Brick by brick. Literally, in the case of what you’ve helped me do with Woolly.”

  “I think you’ll want this one.”

  “Okay.” I held out my hand. “Gimme.”

  He placed a dented brass button on my palm. “This is the first half.”

  “You shouldn’t have?” I examined the raised anchor pattern for clues before turning it over to inspect the shank. “Is this a memento from my latest near-death experience?”

  “Not quite.” He penned a sigil for perception on my hand. “This is the second half.”

  Oscar flickered into being at the foot of my bed, his round cheeks stretched to capacity. “Hi, Grier.” He launched himself at me, and I grunted at the impact even though he weighed nothing. “I thought you were going to be a ghost like me. I didn’t want you trapped on that boat. It’s no fun there.”

  “I’m fine, little guy.” I kissed his curls while staring at Linus. “How is this possible?”

  “You woke a ghost, Grier, an unprecedented feat, and you’re asking me about a simple relocation?”

  Relocations seemed pretty magical from where I sat covered in squishy ghost boy. “Yes?”

  “Oscar’s recollection was correct. He died onboard. He vanished during a cruise, and he was never found. I searched the boat and located his remains walled up in the engine room.” He looked so tired all of a sudden. “I collected his bones to return to his family.”

  Spirits could only drift so far from their remains. Oscar’s first undead memory held the clue as to why he ended up haunting the dining room instead of below decks. His soul had been drawn to his parents in that moment of elasticity after death when he stretched his tether to its limits. Once it snapped into place, there was no going back. He was stuck. Anchored to the spot where his parents’ world fell apart.

  “I don’t know anybody anymore.” Oscar clenched his fingers in my gown. “I don’t want to go back. I want to stay with you. Can I?”

  Adopt a ghost child? As an adoptee myself, I understood what a gift it was to be wanted by a second family, but I was too young to be mothering a ghost more than five times my age. And yet… I had woken him. He was my responsibility. At the very least, he was already dead, so it’s not like I could kill him.

  “Sure, if you want.” I gasped when his arms closed around my throat, cutting off my oxygen. “Okay, pal, let’s tone it down a bit. I really don’t want to get stuck haunting a hospital because you suffocated me in my bed.” I checked with Linus and held out the brassy token. “How does this work?”

  “I bound his spirit to a button from the shorts he was wearing when he died. That anchor ought to satisfy his needs since past violence imbues objects with more power.” Linus shook his head. “Frankly, I’m amazed it worked. Relocations are more like small-scale banishments to rid particular areas of spiritual energy. All it does is move a ghost into another room. But, in this case, he was relocated into a button.”

  “We make quite a team.” I sank back into the pillows and shifted Oscar against my good side. “What did you tell the Elite?”

  “I didn’t disabuse them of the notion we were too late to stop Ambrose from consuming Oscar. They’ll believe me since there’s no trace of him aboard the boat, but Amelie might out us if Ambrose gets control of her again.”

  “They weren’t interested in Oscar except as bait,” I reminded him. “I doubt they care what happened to him as long as they got their man. Woman. Whatever.” A pathetic huff of oxygen masquerading as a laugh escaped me. “I still don’t believe it. I saw it with my own eyes, and I…” I mashed my lips together, swallowed hard once. “Where is she?”

  “Amelie is being held in a cell at the Lyceum until sentencing. They can’t proceed with the trial until all the affected clans have been notified and given a chance to attend. They’ll also have to gather documentation proving the vampires belonged to them, who made them, and how much they paid for the service and when.”

  “So it all comes down to money.” How typical. A life’s worth reduced to a figure on a ledger.

  “That’s how these things usually go. Vampires are less sentimental than necromancers, but there’s always a chance one of the clans will have had a human turned for love rather than simply allowing a wealthy addition to tithe their way into the collective. The age of the victims will be the biggest determining factor. Older vampires are more revered, but they grow distant with age and lose touch with the modern world and their contemporary kin. Such a loss might be considered a profitable write-off, since a vampire’s clan is its sole inheritor. Younger vampires, however, cling to their humanity. A clan would be more upset to lose such potential.” He noticed the look on my face and sighed. “I’m sorry, Grier, but that’s the way the Society works. You asked me a question, and I answered it using the same formula I learned at my mother’s knee.”

  “I didn’t mean to be judgmental, it’s just this whole situation is surreal.”

  Linus parted his lips, pressed them together, then opened them again. “You never suspected her?”

  “Of being a cross-dressing ghost eater?” I leaned back against the pillows. “No. I thought she was tired from work and school. She explained it away as studying for finals. I have no idea now if that was true or not.” But when I shut my eyes again, I recalled each time the voice in my head warned me away from sharing secrets with her. Why listen if I trusted her? Maybe, after all this time apart, the most obvious answer was…I didn’t. And this newest betrayal only made me feel that much worse. “We’ve had trouble reconnecting since…” I waved a hand in the air. “I didn’t push. I thought this was more of that. Us finding our way back to each other. Discovering our new normal.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said plainly.

  “Me too.” I curled around Oscar like he was a plush toy, and he didn’t seem to mind. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I have money. I can pay whatever tithes are leveraged against her.”

  “You understand this isn’t your fault.”

  “I…” Words failed me. “That’s how it feels.”

  “You can’t help who or what you are any more than she can. You grew up together. She had plenty of time to come to terms with the disparity between your classes without embracing possession as a coping method.”

  A tiny spark of anger on her behalf threatened to ignite my temper. “Tell me how you really feel.”

  “She cast blame on you,” he kept going, taking me literally. “She knew you would bear the weight, and she cast it off her shoulders onto yours. She considered this for a long time before she reached a tipping point. I won’t dishonor her by implying she had no intentions of using her newfound powers as she claimed, but your abduction was a spark next to a powder keg. If Volkov hadn’t happened, then there would have been another trigger. She was a loaded gun waiting to go off in a crowded room.”

  His earnest argument doused the worst of my irritation. “I can’t cut her out of my heart.”

  “I’m only asking you to be careful. Her family won’t take this well. They’re going to side with her, and they’re going to blame you.” His fingers pressed into his eyes. “You haven’t been dating Boaz long, and he’s the Pritchard heir. They’re going to come down hard on you and hope he breaks things off before it gets serious. You need to harden your heart against what’s coming.”

  A single tear escaped my eyes in acknowledgment that he was right, that I knew he was telling me the truth, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want it to be real yet.

  The Pritchards had never been fond of me. His parents had made their stance on my romantic feelings toward their son clear. A union between a High Society dame and a Low Society scion would muddy the waters for both our bloodlines. Our children, if we had any, would struggle to find their place the sam
e way I did thanks to my unorthodox upbringing.

  Except, in my case, I had been playing human alongside the Low Society kids. At any point, Maud could have tired of the charade and dropped me into a new life that glittered diamond-bright before me. Linus might have filled the role of older brother or raging crush had I been schooled alongside him and my High Society peers. But I hadn’t been.

  Our children wouldn’t have the option of choosing. Our children would be Woolworths. They had to be, or Maud’s line would end with me. I lacked her reputation to protect them. The family name would have to do that, and that meant Boaz renouncing his position as Pritchard scion and assuming an almost consort position. And since Amelie was about to fall from grace, the future of their bloodline would rest on the youngest Pritchard’s shoulders.

  Macon was a good kid, but he hadn’t been groomed to lead the family since birth like Boaz. He hadn’t been nudged along as a spare like Amelie, either. Life as he knew it would end. His dreams would be cut from his head and new ones whispered in his ears. And the worst he could do was what Boaz had done—rebel. For all the good it would do him. There were different rules for male scions. Even Boaz’s rebellion hadn’t done more than earn him a title as a modern-day rake. All his acting out hadn’t saved him from his familial obligations, and it wouldn’t spare Macon either.

  “I’m tired.” I made a valiant effort to keep my eyes dry. “I’m going to nap if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll wait out in the hall.” He pulled a faded blue crochet blanket over my shoulder. “I’ll leave Cletus with you.”

  Eyes already shut, I pretended to sleep while he strolled out the door.

  Sixteen

  Ice spread through my chest, cutting a path between my breasts, and I gasped fully awake. “Cletus?”

  “I’m insulted you called out another man’s name during foreplay,” Boaz drawled, leaning over me as he braced his elbows on the bedrail. “The ice cube move is a classic.”

  I shoved upright, my heart attempting to catapult from my throat, but the brass button was cold in my palm, and Oscar was wherever Oscar went when he wasn’t here. Odds were good Boaz couldn’t see him without help since I struggled with his perception too, but I didn’t want to find out like this. Or at all. Not yet.

  The Elite had been ready to sacrifice the kid to get what they wanted, and I was happy having him off their radar.

  “That was foreplay?” The front of my gown was soggy and cold from the ice cube he’d stuck down my neckline. “Huh. All this time, I thought I was missing out on the whole sex thing, when foreplay with you is the equivalent of dumping a cold drink down the front of my shirt. I’ve done that plenty. Guess I’m less virginal than I originally suspected.”

  “It doesn’t count when you do it,” he teased. “Dumping ice down your shirt is fun, sure, but having someone else do it is life changing.”

  “Hmm.” I blotted my chest dry. “Are we talking about masturbation or sex?”

  “I have a one-track mind, but self-pleasure is an activity I’m willing to explore with you.” His smile made my heart twist. “All couples need their hobbies.”

  “I expected you to kiss me awake. You’re such a fan of the classics, I figured you for a Prince Charming come to wake his Sleeping Beauty.”

  “What’s romantic in theory can come off as lecherous in practice.” He traced my bottom lip with his pointer finger. “I don’t have much pride, but I can say I’ve never had nurses pry me bodily off an unconscious woman in her hospital bed.”

  “Um, ice cubes?” I flicked water at him. “That’s classier to you?”

  “You are High Society.” He sniffed. “I had to up my game.”

  “Standards,” I teased. “It’s important to have them.”

  “You’d think so.” He picked at the sheets. “Not all folks share that view.”

  Finally the elephant in the room trumpeted, and both of us took notice.

  “Talk to me.” I caught his hand and held it balled against my chest. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m numb.” He stroked his thumb over the wet spot on the front of my gown. “I can’t feel a thing. Maybe I was hoping playing with ice would burn enough to wake me.”

  “I didn’t know.” I had to put it out there. “I keep thinking I should have known.”

  “Me too, Squirt.” The bed creaked from taking on his weight when he sat near my feet. “I haven’t been home much in the last few years. That’s on me. I should have been there for her after she lost you, but things between me and my folks haven’t been great since I got old enough for them to list me on the meat market.” A sarcastic twist bent his lips into an unfamiliar shape. “I couldn’t stomach living in Savannah after the trial. You were a kid. An innocent child. And no one could be bothered to save you.”

  “You tried.”

  “Not hard enough.” He grunted. “Now Amelie’s head is on the chopping block, and it’s her own damn fault. I don’t know what to do with that. I want to protect her, but I can’t when she got caught in the act by the Grande Dame’s own son. His word is gold.”

  My fingers uncurled from his. “Mine’s more nickel-plated, huh?”

  He cursed under his breath. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Except I kind of thought that’s exactly what he meant, though he would never have said so if he weren’t so stressed over Amelie. It wasn’t that he doubted me. Boaz’s faith in me was as solid as the chests stacked in the living room of the carriage house. But he was working among the Elite, with fellow necromancers, and they would be buzzing about my pardon and release. He was a far more trustworthy barometer for public opinion on me than any I had. Clearly the masses weren’t convinced my release was more than scraps my aunt tossed under the table to me.

  At least no one suspected her true motives. Yet. But that day would dawn all too soon.

  “When do I get to go home?” I touched the bandage covering my side and winced. “Woolly will be frantic if I don’t get back soon.”

  “I stopped on my way here and explained things to her,” he assured me. “I worried she might hike up her foundation and waddle over here after me, but I think I talked her into staying put. You can rest easy.”

  “Thanks for thinking of her.”

  “She’s your family.” He peeled my hand off the healing wound. “Notifying them is SOP.”

  “It’s not standard operating procedure for most people to soothe the fears of an old house.”

  “Woolly’s my second-best girl.” He kept hold of my fingers, exploring their length, the way they flexed, like he’d never seen knuckles a day in his life. “I couldn’t leave her hanging.”

  “I’m going to attend the trial.” The Pritchards might not want me there, but I was going all the same. “I hope that doesn’t cause friction between us.”

  “But I’m a fan of friction.” He slid our palms together. “Especially between us.”

  His gambit nearly worked. I almost smiled. “Be serious.”

  “You’re going to be called as a witness. It’s unavoidable.” He arranged my hand on my lower stomach. “You were there, and they’ll want you to corroborate Linus’s story.”

  “Oh, Goddess.” I slumped against my pillows. “How can they expect me to help condemn her?”

  “She killed people, Grier.” Pain throbbed in his words. “She must be held accountable.”

  Nodding, because he was right, because I couldn’t pardon her, because this was life, I closed my eyes. “I’m tired.” I used the same line on him since it had worked so well earlier. “I’m going to nap if you don’t mind.”

  “Nah. You should rest.” He pressed a tender kiss to my cheek, right in the path of a tear I couldn’t manage to call back. “I’m leaving my number as your emergency contact. I hope that’s okay. I couldn’t remember Odette’s, and Linus went to get coffee, so I can’t ask for his.” And Amelie, my first choice, was a nonstarter. “I’ll be back after you’re released to give you a ride home.”<
br />
  “Mmm-kay.”

  The tears came after he left, each drop emptying the well of my soul, but it was for the best. I couldn’t face the Grande Dame with grief in my heart or desperation in my eyes. Better to purge now than risk breaking down in front of her.

  Oscar popped into existence beside me after the hiccupping sobs ended and offered me his linen handkerchief. I took it and daubed my sore eyes with the chill impression of fabric then pressed the red button on the bedrail. “I’m ready to go home.”

  “The paperwork has already been started, Ms. Woolworth,” the nurse informed me. “Your private physician is consulting with our attending. She’ll be in to collect you shortly.”

  I clutched the sheets like their paper thinness might protect me. “I don’t have a private physician.”

  “Mr. Lawson made the arrangements,” she said quickly. “I assumed…”

  Well, that explained his coffee run. It’s not like he drank the stuff, or much of anything else.

  “I’m still muddled. Ignore me.” I forced a laugh. “Of course Linus can handle my affairs.”

  I had no idea who this mystery doctor of his was, but I wasn’t above taking any out I was given.

  The third time I woke in the hospital, I was alone. It gave me time to think about how short my list of potential visitors was since I had few friends, and that number seemed to be dwindling. Woolly and Keet were family, but they weren’t people. It’s not like they could stroll in and ask to see me. Neely was a good friend, but he wouldn’t be admitted to this floor even if I called him. And if I did call, how would I explain getting stabbed by our mutual friend while she was under the influence of a shade?

  This might be Savannah, one of the most haunted cities in the U.S., but even locals had their hard limits.

  Miserable, I tugged the blue knit blanket higher on my shoulder. I hadn’t felt this alone since Maud died.

  Depression was an old coat I sometimes wore. It fit too tight in the shoulders and pinched as I moved, but taking it off required herculean effort, and I wasn’t feeling even demigoddess-touched at the moment.