How to Claim an Undead Soul Read online

  The doors rolled open, and Linus strolled out first. The transformation was instantaneous. Gone was the casual slouch as his shoulders corrected themselves into perfect alignment. Gone was the amusement in his eyes as his gaze hardened to granite when he glanced back to make sure I followed. Gone was the stride that welcomed me to fall in step with him as his gait turned ravenous, devouring the red marble tiles of the Lyceum as he prowled into the center where the assembly awaited us.

  I toddled after him in my gift-shop apparel with my two-day hair pulled back in a messy bun that looked like a squirrel had died on the back of my head and kept my arms crossed to cover my bralessness.

  Before us stood the opulent box seat where the Grande Dame presided over proceedings. Her throne was an antique, a solid gold and gem-studded eyesore. It was exactly the kind of flamboyant bauble that got ships sunk by pirates looking for an easy score. The kind that sent divers looting wreckage for decades after the resulting cannon fights left the cursed thing on the ocean floor. Plain silver chairs were good enough for the representatives who sat at each of her elbows. A High Society Dame sat to her right, a Low Society Matron to her left.

  For a few blessed steps, I distracted myself wondering how many tassels must be decorating the red velvet cushions beneath them, and then we were standing in the center of the amphitheater staring up at our would-be judge and her pet jurors.

  I wanted to vomit.

  “Linus, dearest, there you are.” The Grande Dame flushed with pleasure. “I was beginning to worry.”

  “Apologies, Mother.” He executed a practiced bow, one that reminded me of Ambrose’s mocking imitation. “Grier was only just released from the hospital.”

  A growl worthy of any momma bear poured from our left where the Pritchard family gathered around a shackled Amelie whose chains bolted her to an anchor set in the marble tiles. And below that, in the lowest seating level, a dozen made vampires, almost hidden in the shadows, chittered between themselves.

  “This is a blatant ploy for sympathy,” Matron Pritchard snarled. “Look at her. Look what she’s wearing.”

  Dread splashed in my gut like a cold stone dropped from a great height. Linus had made the first move in this game over an hour ago, and I was only now grasping how well I had been played.

  “She was admitted to the ER for treatment of wounds sustained aboard the Cora Ann.” He took great care to cast no blame. “I escorted her home myself, and a car was sent for us before Grier made it inside to shower or change her clothes.”

  The Grande Dame drummed her fingers on her armrest, a tiny smile curling her lips, but she didn’t interfere.

  “We are ready to hear the charges brought against our daughter,” Mr. Pritchard announced, “so that we might defend against them.”

  The dame on the right lifted a scroll from her lap and unrolled the creaking parchment. “Your daughter is accused of consenting to a third-level possession by a fifth-level shade. She is accused of willfully conspiring with the shade, who self-identifies as Ambrose Batiste, to murder nine members of the Undead Coalition.”

  Fifth was the highest measurable level for a shade. A third-level possession wasn’t much better. It might be worse if you viewed it as the halfway point where the vessel ought to have had some measure of control. But wasn’t a partial possession by such a powerful shade more devastating than a full possession by a lesser one? Where would the line of culpability be drawn?

  The Pritchards paled, and Matron Pritchard almost collapsed before her husband gathered her close. “No. It’s not possible. Not our Amelie.”

  “Scion Pritchard,” the matron on the left intoned. “You were part of the Elite team dispatched to detain Amelie Pritchard, correct?”

  “Yes and no.” Boaz jutted out his chin. “My team and I were already in position. We’d had the Cora Ann under surveillance for several days. We had a suspect in mind, but it was not my sister. Finding her in the warding ring…” He shook his head. “I didn’t believe it was really her. I thought the shade was playing another trick.”

  The dame leaned forward a fraction. “What do you mean another trick?”

  “Ambrose borrowed clothes from Scion Lawson. He also tailored his appeared to resemble him.” Boaz ground his molars. “I thought—I hoped—when we came upon Amelie, that Ambrose was using her face to manipulate Grier into releasing him.”

  “Shades can only manifest one aspect per bonding,” the matron informed him primly. “They can choose how they appear, but they can only tailor their look once. Your commanding officer should have briefed you on the dybbuk to prepare you for what you might encounter in the field. Did he fail in his duties?”

  “No,” he all but growled, “but Amelie is my kid sister. I was in shock. I still am. So you’ll have to forgive me if I suffered a lapse in judgment.”

  Matron Pritchard had recovered enough to bristle as the matron picked at him. “I think we can all sympathize with my son, considering the circumstances.”

  “Yes, the circumstances,” the matron mused. “I understand your son is romantically involved with Grier Woolworth. How peculiar to find both your son, his girlfriend and your daughter all in one place at the same time. One might think the meeting prearranged.”

  The implication, that Boaz and I had colluded with Amelie, stung. I’m not sure why. I had no reason to expect better from them.

  “Scion Lawson was also present,” Matron Pritchard was quick to point out to the assembly. “He’s living with Grier on the Woolworth property.”

  The dame gave up all pretense of detachment and leaned forward, eyes hungry. “Are you implying Dame Woolworth is also in a relationship with Scion Lawson?”

  “I don’t know what they get up to over there.” Matron Pritchard sniffed. “Maud made clear to me some years ago that it isn’t my business what Grier does or who she does it with in the privacy of her own home.”

  Mortification stung my cheeks, and I blanched as our gazes snared one another. How could you? That’s what I wanted to ask. I had never done a thing to her, and goddess knows my reputation was already in tatters, yet there she stood with shears in hand, snipping away at what scraps remained.

  “No,” Boaz boomed. “Leave her out of this.”

  “She’s in this up to her neck,” his mother spat. “They claim Amelie was captured on that boat. Amelie, who is a straight-A college student. Amelie, who is the Low Society ideal. Amelie, who lives at home under my watchful eye where I would see if something was wrong.” She seethed in my direction. “Murder is far more believable of that one. After all, she’s been convicted of it once already.”

  I had expected the accusation, of course, but not its source. I knew Matron Pritchard didn’t like me, but I’d had no idea until that moment that she hated me.

  “Are you questioning my judgment?” The Grande Dame uncoiled from her chair, a cobra ready to strike. “Do you truly believe I would release a murderer on a lark? Or is this simply an attempt at establishing precedent through slander in the hopes I will show your daughter the same imagined leniency?”

  Matron Pritchard gaped in stunned comprehension of her misstep, but the snake she had stomped on was already fanning its hood. She had crossed the Grande Dame, in a crowded amphitheater, no less. Her wide eyes swept the row where other Low Society matrons gathered, but no one could save her from herself. It was one thing to believe I had killed Maud and that the Grande Dame had pardoned me since I was family. It was another to hurl the accusation in her face during a full assembly.

  The spectacle made me sick, and I clutched my stomach, afraid it might spill.

  Only a minute shake of Linus’s head gave me the strength to lower my hands and correct my posture.

  The trial resumed, but try as I might, I couldn’t shake the ringing in my ears. Or maybe it was all the hateful words and insinuations I couldn’t escape. I stood beside Linus, a perfect statue, while inside I thrashed and wailed as I was put on trial once more right alongside Amelie.


  Linus, a talented orator, told our side of the story. His summation painted a watercolor version of our night, but no one who wasn’t there could hold it up against the original and tell the difference. He revealed the nature of my part-time job in order to explain our interest in the Cora Ann. He admitted to tutoring me in order to bridge the gaps left in my education during my imprisonment to explain his current residence. And then he expounded on how the two intersected when we decided to explore the Cora Ann after learning about its highly publicized ghost.

  I didn’t make a conscious decision to vanish through the door in my head to escape the dissection of my character, but I careened into awareness when Linus brushed his icy knuckles against mine.

  Someone had asked me a question, and I had been too far away to hear or answer.

  “As I said, Grier provided a distraction while I painted containment sigils around the room,” Linus reiterated. “Our goal was to protect ourselves from Ambrose. We had no clue as to the identity of his vessel until after he was contained and relinquished his aspect.”

  The dame was staring a hole through me. “Do you have anything to add?”

  Uncertain how much or what Linus had said, I shook my head. “No.”

  “I will withdraw to my chambers for deliberation,” the Grande Dame announced. “I will return within the next half hour to render judgment.”

  Thirty minutes to decide Amelie’s fate. I wondered if I had been given so many.

  The Grande Dame and her retinue descended the back stairs and entered her private chambers, leaving those of us trapped on the floor to afford passive entertainment for the rest of the assembly. I mimicked Linus’s rigid posture and bored expression as best I could, but each second stretched an eternity.

  I worked up the nerve to cut my eyes toward Boaz, but he was staring at his sister like this might be the last time he saw her, and his hands were flexing like he was debating the tensile strength of her chains.

  Finally, a low creak announced the opening of a faraway door, and the Grande Dame returned with a click-clack of stilettos upon marble. The silence in the Lyceum was deafening while the trio resumed their seats and settled their gowns around them. With the suspense drawn out to the last possible millisecond, the Grande Dame rested her palms on her armrests and stared down at the Pritchard family.

  “Amelie Pritchard murdered nine members of the Undead Coalition while under the influence of the shade, Ambrose. Eight of the nine clans are willing to settle for tithes to be paid in the amount of twelve million dollars. The final clan is calling for a blood tithe instead.” Her bored voice droned on. “Matron Pritchard, will you see these debts paid?”

  “Twelve million dollars would empty my family’s coffers.” She wet her lips. “There must be something else.”

  “There is,” the Grande Dame agreed amiably. “A blood tithe will satisfy any and all outstanding debts.”

  A tremble started in my knees and migrated upward until my teeth chattered. “I’ll pay her debt.”

  Every head in the room whipped toward me while Linus sighed my name through his parted lips.

  “No,” Matron Pritchard snapped. “We won’t be indebted to you.”

  “What’s the alternative, Mom?” Boaz demanded. “Amelie is your daughter.”

  His mother ignored him. “We can’t afford the tithe.”

  “Shall we arrange for an execution then?” The Grande Dame directed the question to the made vampires huddled in the row a half step below the level where we stood. “We are all in agreement that satisfies the debt, correct?”

  “Yes,” nine voices chorused.

  “I’m inclined to give you what you crave. The girl was foolish, and she won’t learn without punishment.” The vampires made a fingernails-on-chalkboard sound as they rubbed their upper fangs against their lower teeth that curdled my blood. “Except there’s one small problem. Six of the nine vampires Ambrose murdered weren’t killed in cold blood.”

  Whispers raced through the room as we all scrambled to figure out why that could possibly matter now.

  “The most curious aspect of this case is not that they were murdered by a dybbuk, but that they were killed within the high wrought iron fences surrounding Woolworth House.” Her red lips bled into a smile. “What are the odds that a horde of vampires, each bound to a different clan, would descend upon my niece’s house on the same night at the same time?”

  The nine salivating vampires ceased their scraping and fell as silent as the dead. Or the undead in this case.

  “Where is the proof?” a man I recognized as Clan Master Truong barked. “What evidence do you have?”

  “The incontrovertible kind,” Linus informed him as he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Let the record show the video I am about to share with the assembly was forwarded to the Grande Dame on the night the incident occurred.”

  The lights dimmed, and a large projector screen unspooled from the ceiling. Linus pushed a button on his phone and, through the magic of Bluetooth, we were all treated to a short film blasted from a projector overhead.

  The movie was set in my front yard and starred six unfamiliar vampires. They scuttled over the fence like spiders, weaving through shadows toward Woolly. Ambrose intercepted them on the lawn wearing wrinkled pants spotted with concrete and a bloodthirsty grin, his headful of flames dancing wickedly.

  “Who might you be?” his silken voice implored. “I don’t recall seeing your names on the guest list.”

  “Step aside, abomination,” one snarled. “We have business here.”

  “The lady of the house isn’t home.” Ambrose rocked back on his heels. “You’ll have to come back later.”

  Another vampire unslung the wooden bat from his shoulder and aimed it at Woolly. “We’ll just leave her our calling card then.”

  “No need for that.” He affected gripping a pen poised over a notebook. “I’m happy to take your names.”

  “We’re under orders,” a third barked. “We aren’t leaving until we’ve done as the Master bid us.”

  “I’m afraid then that you won’t be leaving at all.” The comment wasn’t made as a threat, or an invitation to brawl. He was simply stating the outcome as he saw it. He stood there while that registered on all their faces, then spread his arms wide. “I await your decision.”

  Their answer was to bare their fangs and rush him with their weapons drawn, and his response was to become a weapon. He thinned the flats of his hands into blades, so that where he sliced, fingers and arms and heads thudded to the dew-misted grass. Within minutes, he stood king atop a mountain of severed limbs, and he winked right into the eye of the camera before bowing to his captive audience.

  “Where did you get that footage?” Boaz demanded before I could put voice to the words.

  “You placed several motion-activated cameras along the Pritchard/Woolworth property line. They each offer a different vantage point of Grier’s home and yard. I discovered them when I did a search of the property after moving into the carriage house.” Linus ended the film, and the screen rolled away as the lights brightened. “Eleven days ago, I encountered the dybbuk using a hose to wash blood off the lawn. I reported the incident, and the assembly allocated resources to secure the footage for their records. That’s when the massacre was discovered.”

  A massacre. On my lawn. That no one had seen fit to mention to me. One sanctioned by the Master.

  The past two weeks of quiet had been an illusion. A silent battle had been waging on my property, among my friends, and I’d had no idea. I was being treated as spoils of war instead of as a fellow warrior who might lend aid to the cause that was protecting my own life.

  Spitting mad, I whirled on Boaz. “You’ve been keeping me under surveillance?”

  “I was trying to protect you.” Muscles fluttered along his jaw. “I worry about you.”

  “And you?” I blasted Linus next. “What’s your excuse for not telling me?”

  “I forbade him to mention the i
ncident to you,” the Grande Dame interceded on his behalf. “That meant he couldn’t share his sources, either.” She tapped a garnet fingernail against her ruby lips. “He could have lied, I suppose, and told you he witnessed it firsthand, but my son never lies.” The urge to roll my eyes forced me to study the toes of my slippers. Everyone lied. All except the fae, and they were said to be so gifted at misdirection as to be impossible to catch in the act. “Linus discovered new evidence in an ongoing investigation. Discretion was of the utmost importance.”

  Again, the cool brush of his knuckles chilled me to attention, and I stared up at the Grande Dame.

  “What say you to this?” she demanded of the Clan Masters. “Who is this Master whose orders supersede yours within your own clans?”

  None of the previously ravenous vampires made a peep.

  “We shall continue this discussion in my chambers.” She snapped her fingers, and three dozen Elite sentries poured into the room to secure the master vampires. They were marched beneath the box seat down the darkened hallway to the Grande Dame’s private domain. “They forfeit their tithes with their treachery.”

  Boaz’s relieved sigh carried across the room to mingle with mine. Six down. Three to go.

  “That brings reparations to…” She bent her head together first with the dame on her right and then the matron on her left. “The tithe owed is a paltry three point five million dollars.”

  A stab of hope left me breathless. Surely Matron Pritchard would pay such a reduced fee.

  “We haven’t heard from our daughter.” Her stare hung where the screen had been. “I want to hear the truth from Amelie’s own lips.”

  “Very well.” The Grande Dame gestured to the sentinel standing behind her. “Remove her gag.”

  He scrubbed the sigil from her forearm with a wet cloth then fell back into position.

  “Tell the assembly you’re innocent,” her mother ordered. “Tell them who is really at fault.”

  Call me paranoid, but I suspected, to her, the person really at fault meant me.