Bone Dry: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 1) (33 page)

I gasped and stood so fast all the blood rushed out of my head and left me reeling. He placed the knitting needles on the coffee table and held up his hands.

“I’m not going to do that,” he said. “Calm down.”

I obeyed, but only by sitting on the very edge of the chair, leaning forward, ready to jump up if he so much as flicked his eyes toward those needles again.

“When you stopped by my building in Boston, I knew you’d never tell me where she was. I’m sorry I lied to you, but I needed you out of the house so I could come by and pick up a little something she took away from me. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. When I got here, her trunk, where I know she hides things, was unlocked and empty.” He narrowed his eyes, all amusement falling off his face. “Where’s the book?”

I involuntarily gripped the strap of my backpack tighter. “What book?”

“You’re lying.” He whipped up the knitting needles so fast I barely had the chance to flinch. “Tell me where it is or I will break these bones in two. I might have been fond of your mother at one time in my life, but that won’t stop me now.”

I heard Laura’s ragged breathing, and my vision blurred as tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. Without even thinking, I lifted my backpack onto my lap and pulled out the book. I held it up, like a waving white flag, eyes trained on the bone needles in his hands.

In two strides, he had the book out of my fingers. A triumphant smile lit his face, and his eyes lifted with greed. It made him look diabolical. Evil. I hated him at that moment more than I ever had before, the full realization of who this person was finally smacking me upside the head. He was the guy responsible for my mom’s failed health, her shaking hands, her empty expression. And now he was trespassing in my home, taking precious items out of my hands after threatening me with my mom’s death.

If I could see by color, everything would have been shades of vicious red. The rage I felt scared me a little, but the demon on my left shoulder was cheering me on so loudly I could barely hear anything else in my head.

Anthony walked away from me, and his back turned long enough for me to do something. Anything. Some part of me, somewhere deep inside, wanted to jump up right then and hurt him so bad he’d never walk again. But I couldn’t. I just kept sitting there and watching his every move. I was ready to do something, but only if I had to.

He shoved the book into his own bag—a generic, leather one—and started pulling out shaman supplies I recognized all too well.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He didn’t answer until he’d set a bunch of stuff on the coffee table. When he turned to look at me, his eyes held that glint of madness I’d seen in the other shamans’ eyes. I shivered from fear and hated myself for it.

“Since you are so clearly your mother’s daughter,” he said, “I’m giving you a chance to join my group. My faction in the shaman world. You have it inside you. We need others right now, and I think you’d be perfect. I’d teach you any and every spell you want to know. Teach you how to be powerful. You and that one may join,” he said, pointing at Laura.

I tried to keep my face blank, but I knew I was failing miserably.

“But these two humans of yours….” He shifted on the couch. “They both know far more about the shaman world than is safe. We should take care of this problem now before it becomes more dangerous than it is.”

What?

I stood. My entire body trembled. “How can you even say something like that? You want to save people, but you’re going to kill two innocent humans because they know you can do a few cheap tricks?”

He shook his head at me, like he was sad I didn’t get it. “These two don’t get the same privileges from me as most humans do. They know too much. I…respected your mother, which is why I let her live even though she was trying to stop me from doing what I needed to do. Because you’re her daughter, I respect you, too. I have a good feeling about you. Intuition.” He tapped two fingers to his forehead.

“Well, you can just go to hell,” I said, just as Laura laid a hand on my arm. I threw my arm around her and glared at him, reaching one hand behind me to wrap my fingers around the knife. If he took even one step closer to my best friend, her father or Nathan sprawled out in the hall, I would stop him the only way I knew how.

Cool air blew into my face. My fear mixed with Laura’s, a strong enticing scent, but the spirit didn’t attack. I didn’t know why it wasn’t.

“I should have known you’d respond just like your mother,” Anthony said. “It’s such a shame.”

I gripped the knife in my hand and slid it out of my jeans. I fiddled with the sheath, fingers pushing and pulling to get the knife free with only one hand. The black leather fell to the floor, but Anthony was too busy with his shaman supplies to notice. Astral started hissing again, pacing back and forth.

I jumped when Anthony lit the candle.

He leapt off the couch and sprinted toward Laura’s dad. I screamed when he grabbed his unconscious form and started dragging him across the floor to the couch. When Laura jumped out to stop him, Anthony dug his fingernails into her arm. She writhed and bucked to get away from him. I couldn’t tell what was happening. It was all such a blur. The room seemed to tip under my feet.

“Attack!” Anthony’s voice boomed.

My stomach dropped, my heart hammered. I moved instinctively, my body going through the motions I was too scared to do.

Save Laura. Save Laura. Do anything to save Laura.

I lurched forward and whipped the knife out from behind my back. Anthony’s eyes flew wide, and his grip loosened on Laura just long enough she was able to pull free. I stopped the blade only inches from his chest. His hands flew up in surrender.

“You’re going to leave us alone.” My ears buzzed as if a million bees were swarming inside my ear canal.

Anthony shook his head with a laugh.

“You surprise me, Holly.” He gave me that patronizing smile.

He stumbled forward as if he’d been pushed. He fell onto the knife. My heart stopped. I choked out a cry. His eyes flew wide. The slurping, crunching sound under the blade made me gag, and I let go like it was a rattlesnake.

Anthony fell to the floor, blood pouring from his chest and soaking his shirt, breath ragged, fingers twitching.

The world lost sound. Everything fell away.

I did this.

I fell to my knees, hugging myself. The world shook as I leaned over Anthony’s body. Blood was on the floor now. Everywhere. It painted the room.

I closed my eyes to block out the red, and when I opened them, Anthony was gone.

CHAPTER 33

W
here did he go?” I rubbed my hands on the floor. “He was just here.”

I whirled, half-expecting him to grab me from behind. But only Laura was there, shaking her head and sliding to the floor beside me.

She sniffed. “He disappeared. I saw him…It’s like he blinked out or something.”

I had to make sure he was gone. I ran through the house, looked in every room, but he was nowhere to be found. I peeked through the blinds on the front window, remembering I hadn't seen a strange car when we’d pulled up. I checked on Nathan and tried to move him into a more comfortable position. He smiled as I propped him up against the wall. It was like he was in a deep sleep, nothing worse. When I got back into the living room, I noticed Anthony’s supplies were still scattered across the coffee table, but his bag—with the book—was gone.

If it weren’t for the big red stain on the floor, it’d be like he was never here in the first place.

I knelt next to Laura and hugged her while she cried over her dad’s shallow breathing, until her sobs turned to silent shakes. When I leaned away, she laughed and wiped the back of her hand against the snot pooling under her nostrils. “Oh god, I’m a wreck. I’ve never been so scared in my life. Ever.” She looked around, eyes darting. “What happened to the spirit?”

I frowned, looked around, and felt no cold breath of air or any sign of a spirit. “I don’t know. I think it’s gone, too.”

“I am so done with people trying to kill us,” she said. “I can’t take it anymore.”

I didn’t know how she’d handled everything so far. “I don’t know what happened, but I think it’s over. At least for a little while.”

“Intuition?” she asked.

I nodded. Ever since Anthony had blinked out—or whatever it was he’d done—I’d felt like a gazillion pounds had been lifted from my shoulders. And I needed a very long nap.

Laura’s dad groaned, and we turned our attention to him. He rolled over, mumbled words we couldn’t understand and then fell back to sleep.

“I think he’s going to be okay,” I said, glancing at the clock on the mantel. Four-thirty. We needed to hurry. “I know you've had a really shitty day, but could you help me put the protection wall back up and cast the incantation for my mom?” My heart lifted a little. “I have everything I need for it now.”

Laura grinned, her eyes sparkling through her tears. “God yes.”

***

Shaman magic swirled through me while Laura and I held hands over the flame, chanting the song to save my mom. Anthony’s blood was the last thing I’d needed according to the spell I'd found in mom’s South American jewelry box months ago. Now I had it, and all my power and passion was flowing from me and into the room.

When the last few notes left my mouth, I stared at my mom’s quiet form on her chair, watching the steady rising and falling of her chest. My own breath was held tight in my throat, my fingers gripping Laura’s hand, everything inside me begging for this to work. I didn’t know what I’d do if, after everything that had happened, this was all for nothing. If it didn’t save her. But at least I could never look back and ask myself what might have happened if I’d tried. What might have happened if I’d done everything I could.

Mom coughed, and instantly, I was by her side, my hair hanging down over her as I stared into her face. Her eyes cracked opened, and she coughed again. When she met my eyes, she smiled, and my entire body sung with joy. Laura was beside me. She reached out and grabbed my mom’s hand.

“You girls okay? Holly, what’s going on?” She reached a hand up to her face, and she felt her skin as if she’d never touched it before. “I'm back. How can I be back? Holly?” Her face fell as she stared at my shirt. I looked down and grimaced at the massive blood stain that was there. “What did you do?”

“It’s a long story, Mom,” I said. Astral purred by my feet and pranced around in excited circles. My lips split into the biggest grin I’d ever had. “You’re really back?”

Her eyes fluttered, and she yawned. “I’m exhausted. My body feels like it’s been run through a washing machine. Let me get some sleep, and we’ll talk about this later.” She paused, face softening. “Everything is going to be okay now.” She reached up a hand and touched my face. Then, her eyes closed.

***

An hour later, after Laura had gotten her dad home safe, I snuck back into my neighbor’s house, leaving Nathan snoozing on my couch. The spirit was waiting for me, silent, peaceful, calm. When I entered the Borderland, it wasted no time.

“You do not need his blood to banish me now,” it said.

I blinked in surprise, the colors whirling around us in random patterns.

“My old master is alive, but he was dead for a moment,” it said. I gasped. I hadn’t meant to kill Anthony, no matter how temporary it had been. “In that moment, I was released from being bound to him. I’m no longer dependent on him for food. Now all my brothers are free as well. I could not hurt him myself, or I would have long ago.”

I tried to wrap my head around what this meant. All those spirits he’d trapped, all the ones he’d bound himself to, were back in the world. I didn’t agree with Anthony’s morals, but I wasn’t so sure this was a good thing.

“He kept us hungry and used us for his own life-prolonging experiments. It made us very angry and very hungry. Some of my brothers could not control themselves when summoned, and they ended up slaughtering when they got their first taste of humans. This is not the way we are meant to exist. My brothers and I, for the most part, do not want to suck humans dry. We need to feed, and then move on.” The spirit did something that looked as if he were shaking his head. “With the master gone, this is how things are meant to be. Balanced.”

“Okay,” I said, understanding the spirit world a whole lot more, even though I wasn’t sure I agreed with the spirit’s views. It made sense to me, but what it said was such a foreign concept, I had a hard time truly believing it was right.

“I am grateful to you for holding the knife,” it said.

“What?” I asked, straightening my spine.

“I guided him to the blade,” it said. “It was time he let us go.”

My hand flew to my mouth. “I thought you couldn’t hurt him.”

“You hurt him. I only guided.”

“Loophole,” I murmured.

“As a token of my gratitude, I will leave this place willingly, but I am still indebted to you, Holly Bennett.” It bowed, then vanished. I was left sitting there looking at nothing but dark swirling masses, shadows and colors all blending into one.