I looked up into my lover’s golden eyes, only to see them darken and sink into pits, deep sockets of emptiness. And within that void, I could see shadows flying, shades moving, as her hunger reached out to encompass both Roz and me.
Roz began to scream and I leaped off him. I yanked up my jeans and aimed for the creature’s head. This wasn’t my betrothed. This wasn’t her at all. And the moment I hit her, I could see only a gray, alien figure with a rounded mouth filled with a row of sharp teeth, and dark eyes with no pupils.
Rolling away, Roz staggered to his feet, looking weak. I’d drunk too deeply and he was having a hard time recovering quickly.
“Help! Camille!” I might be small but my lungs could rattle the house. Even as I shouted for help, I landed a kick in the creature’s stomach. My foot slammed into it, knocking it back against a cedar.
If it had actually been my lover, I would have killed it with that kick, but the creature shook off the blow and grinned, a dark, filthy, tainted smile. I whirled again and slammed the other foot into its face, fully expecting my stiletto heel to pierce the nose. But it was like kicking solid stone. My heel didn’t survive, though I wasn’t hurt.
“Fuck! What the fuck are you?” Furious now, Roz’s blood pumping through me, giving me strength, I launched myself at it, knocking it to the ground.
The thing let out a garbled laugh but said nothing, merely reaching up to wrap its bony hands around my throat. It couldn’t choke me to death, but it could break my neck and put me out of commission for a while. As I struggled to free myself from the iron grip, Smoky appeared, along with Camille. They took one look at the situation and Smoky rushed over to help me out while Camille supported the struggling Roz, guiding him out of the area as he leaned on her shoulder.
Smoky motioned for me to move and I tried to roll away, but the creature held tight and I couldn’t free myself. Smoky flexed his fingers as his talons sprang forth. With one quick swipe, he sliced through one of the creature’s arms. As it let out a garbled roar and let go of me, I took the opportunity to get my ass out of the way.
Letting out a rumble, Smoky punched her in the gut, all talons front and center. As he ripped through the flesh, the creature struggled to get away but then, with one slow motion, toppled forward. Smoky jumped out of the way as it landed on the forest floor, still twitching.
“Not dead yet?” Morio asked, coming into the picture. He glanced at me, and then his gaze flickered back to the body on the ground. “Doppelganger. Summoned by a powerful necromancer.”
I managed to catch his gaze and hold it. “Or the Lord of Ghosts?”
He nodded. “Yes, Gulakah.”
I watched the figure writhe on the ground. “Can we talk to it?”
“Nope…it has no will of its own. Or mind, really. It follows instructions, and it’s hungry. It feeds off energy and flesh. And they have a natural charm that creates hallucinations in their intended targets.” He turned away. Over his shoulder, he added, “The Corpse Talker has arrived. I suggest you dispatch this thing now.”
Smoky gave it one more blow, and then he let out a long sigh. “You all right?”
I checked the heel of my boot, which was truly broken now. “No, not really. But I guess I’ll have to be. I just hope I didn’t fuck up Roz too bad.”
“The incubus will live. Come, we’d best go interrogate the dead before they refuse to give up their secrets.” And with that, he motioned for me to go first, and we slipped back through the trees to the clearing where the dead elfin guards were lying.
Shade was there, with the Corpse Talker. A faint blue glow emanated from within the folds of the cloak, and those luminous steely eyes peered out of the hood. I swallowed my revulsion—they really were squirrelly, but they had their place and were very useful.
Camille stood to one side, Roz sitting on the ground beside her, looking dazed. Moon Witches and Corpse Talkers weren’t the best of friends. In fact, something about their energies produced a volatile mix and the result could be a nasty implosion, explosion, or some kind of ’plosion. And Delilah didn’t like Corpse Talkers. So I’d be the one in charge of this little venture.
I stepped up to the shrouded figure, who was around my height. “Welcome, Speaker of the Shrouds.”
There was a rhyme we’d chanted in childhood, a charm to keep the bogeymen at bay.
Lips to lips, mouth to mouth,
Comes the speaker of the shrouds.
Suck in the spirit, speak the words,
Let the secrets of the dead be heard.
But bogeys were as real as the Corpse Talkers, and not nearly as worrisome as the speakers of the shrouds. Corpse Talkers were an unknown factor in so many ways, and there were rumors of them going rogue, wandering the wastelands of Otherworld, sucking souls from the living. How true it was, I didn’t know, but I didn’t really want to find out.
The Corpse Talker nodded. “Has the body been touched?”
“I checked them over briefly to look for a cause of death. That’s why you’re here. I couldn’t figure out why they died. But I didn’t touch them much.”
“Move back.” The order was direct, blunt, with an expectation of obedience.
We all shifted, moving away from the dead elves. I didn’t relish telling Queen Asteria that two of her guards had died on our land, but it would help if we could tell her why. They were noble men; they were honor-bound and would have put up a struggle if it had been any normal foe, so I had the feeling that we weren’t facing anything in the way of normality here.
The Corpse Talker knelt beside the first body and leaned down, pressing her lips to the lips of the elf. It was disconcerting watching her kiss the cold body, but then—who was I to talk? Nerissa kissed me, and technically I was dead. Well, undead. Vampires walked two worlds—we were truly the living dead, but at least we were sentient and still had our souls.
After a moment, the Corpse Talker raised her head, and again, all we could see were the gleaming steel eyes, but there was something else—a nimbus around her, a mist swirling. It was the spirit of the elf, which she had drawn into herself with her kiss. She stood and turned to me.
I bit my lip, trying to think of the first question. I’d have anywhere from one to five questions before the spirit would speed away.
“What killed you?”
“The soul sucker.” The voice that emanated from the Corpse Talker’s lips was a rattling breath, leaves quivering in the wind.
I frowned. Soul sucker. That didn’t give us much of an answer. There were any number of creatures who could suck out souls from the living.
“What did it look like?”
“A flash in the night. A swirl of flame and light. There was no body, only a ghostly apparition.”
I turned to the others. “I need more questions, now. What else should we ask?”
Shade stepped forward. “Spirit, tell us, how were you attacked?”
The Corpse Talker inhaled sharply and the voice of the elf fluttered through once more. “It ate away the magic in my soul.” And then—with a whoosh—the elf’s body jerked on the ground. The connection had been severed and his spirit had left to the Land of the Silver Falls, to join his ancestors.
As Camille murmured our prayer for the dead, I shook my head. We didn’t know that much more than we had at first, except that some ghostly creature had attacked the elves before they could defend themselves.
The Corpse Talker knelt by the second body but shook her head. “This one has departed already.”
“Then take your payment.”
The Corpse Talker pulled up the shirt of the body of the elf she’d communed with, then took out a thin, sharp blade. She deftly sliced a thin line down the elf’s chest, and then, with fingers cloaked in the shadow of night, reached into the cold cavity and withdrew the heart. How she severed it so quickly from the body, we couldn’t see, but she placed it in a small box and shut the lid, then ran her hand over the wound and it pulled together again.
I stared at the elf’s body. I’d never seen a corpse after the Corpse Talker took her payment, so I had no clue that they were able to mend up the wound like that. The dead elf would return to Otherworld seemingly intact. And the Corpse Talker would take his heart and eat it, in a bloody communion.
She stood and turned to Shade. “I will return now.” Without a word, Shade stepped forward and the Corpse Talker allowed him to loosely wrap his arm around her waist, and they vanished into the Ionyc Seas.
Camille let out a long breath. “What could have attacked the guards? I don’t recognize that description of any ghosts I know about. It’s wasn’t a revenant. But maybe, a shade?”
Revenants weren’t as dangerous as shades; they could suck out all the warmth from the body and leave you frozen, but shades…a single touch from a shade could give a human a heart attack, and they could do nasty things to the Fae, too. But I didn’t think they were responsible for these deaths.
“No, I just…don’t think so. Shades don’t appear in a fiery vision, either—they’re usually hidden in the shadows and attack without any warning.”
“These attacked without warning.” Camille turned to Morio. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been racking my brain but can’t think of anything. We’ve got some research to do.”
“What do we do about the body of the doppelganger?” Smoky motioned toward the patch of woods where I’d almost lost it.
I blushed. “About that…I have no idea of what went on. Roz…” I didn’t even want to get near him. I was afraid I’d damaged our friendship for good.
But he managed a wan smile. “Enchantment. Morio said it could put out a form of hallucination—make you see what you want to see. A type of charm, so that’s what happened. You’d never take advantage of me unless something triggered it like a spell. And…” He flashed me a slow wink. “It wasn’t all bad, was it?”
I didn’t want him to be nice to me. I constantly had to guard against my predator nature. Vampires were high up on the food chain, and it was too easy to lose sight of perspective and begin viewing everybody as your own private blood bank. I never wanted to fall into that mindset—the mindset of a monster. But for now, I accepted his forgiveness. We needed to find out who had sent the creature our way. The why was apparent—we had enough enemies that there was no need to ask why. But the fact remained that we’d been attacked in our own home again.
“No, it wasn’t bad at all.” I smiled at him gently as he struggled to his feet. “We should get back to the house. I need to get my ass in my lair before long. It’s nearing dawn.”
“Yeah…Morio and I will stay out here and reset the wards. Smoky, will you stay with us in case anything else comes through?” Camille leaned against him. At six four, Smoky towered over her, but a strand of his hair rose up to gently stroke her face and she smiled at him, a glowing smile—one filled with love. Morio leaned over and pressed a kiss on her shoulder, and the three of them headed off toward the driveway where the first batch of wards were hidden.
Roz, Shade, and I trudged back to the house. I motioned for Roz to hang back a moment, and Shade moved off to the side to give us some privacy, still within sight, but studiously ignoring what we were saying.
“I’m truly sorry.” I motioned for him to show me his neck. My fangs had left a deep wound, and dried blood encrusted the holes. “I should never have done that. I was looking at Morio and the next thing I knew, the bloodlust came over me. It’s not an excuse, but damn, I’m usually in better control than this. Do you really think it was the doppelganger’s charm?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing. We’re being targeted, and we’re being watched.”
He grimaced and rubbed his neck. “I’ll admit, as sensuous as you made it, I don’t think I ever want to feel your fangs again. The rest…well…I’d be happy to take another go. And you know with me, it’s all play. I can’t settle down. It’s not my nature. If it was…to be honest, I’d probably have swooped in and tried to break up Iris and Bruce. If you haven’t guessed, I have a distinct fondness for that house sprite, and she’s gorgeous.” He grinned again. “But don’t worry. I’m not mad at you, Menolly. This wasn’t your fault and I’m thinking it wasn’t really my idea, either. However, we’d better figure out what the fuck is going on and we’d better figure it out as soon as we can.”
“I have to sleep, but I may be able to do something even then. Roman’s been working with me, teaching me to lucid dream. While I can’t do much in the dream state, I can talk to him and control my dreams to some extent. I haven’t had a nightmare for several months.”
My dreams had been filled with fire and pain ever since Dredge had turned me, and while I’d slept better after staking my sire, still the memories caught me up at times—especially when I least expected it—and I’d relive the experience, unable to wake out of it. Now, thanks to Roman, I usually could divert the nightmares before they became too intense, and they’d transform into nebulous wanderings through the dream state.
Roman had taken me in hand and begun to teach me things that only an ancient vampire would know. He was sharing with me the secrets he’d learned through the centuries, and I was his grateful student.
I clapped Roz on the back and held out my arm. “Come on, dude. You’re weak. I drank way too much. You need to rest for a while.”
As we headed back to the house, Shade fell in behind us.