Bring Out Your Dead (8 page)

She gaped at me in disbelief. “I cannot
believe you can deny that just this morning I was baring my broken
heart to you.”

It took a second for me to put the pieces
together. I blamed my sorry mental state on Sebastian. “The man who
dumped you was Sebastian?”

“
Of course it
was!”

I turned my attention to him. “You dated my
roommate?”

His jaw tightened. “I refuse to be drawn
into this argument. You are my Beloved. We are Joined. You belong
to me now, and nothing and no one can sunder that.”

“
She is not your Beloved,
I am,” Noelle said, socking Sebastian on the arm. I knew just how
she felt. “You admitted as much the last time we went
out.”

“
You have two Beloveds?” I
asked. “Is such a thing possible?”

“
I have only one. You are
she,” he answered, with a particularly obstinate set to his
jaw.

“
You can say that as much
as you like—it won’t change the facts,” Noelle whispered fiercely.
“I know the truth.”

Sebastian had evidently had enough. He
grabbed me by the wrist and started pulling me toward the door. “It
is a waste of time to stand here and argue. We must leave this
house immediately. I must move Ysabelle to a safe area before I
contact the demon who is no doubt rallying an army to take
her.”

My heart felt like a lead weight, thumping
painfully in my chest. My mind was numb with disbelief and
confusion. I’d felt the emotions inside Sebastian—he truly believed
we belonged together. But how could that be if Noelle was his
Beloved? And how could I stay with him when I knew how heartbroken
she was over his refusal? “I’m sorry, Sebastian, but I’m not going
anywhere with you until we get this sorted out.”

“
There’s nothing to sort
out!” he bellowed, causing everyone in the hall to stop what they
were doing. “You are my Beloved! You hold the key to my salvation.
We are Joined! Previous relationships are not relevant
here!”

“
What did he say?” Sally
stopped in the center of the hall. “Noelle is his Beloved,
aussi
?”

“
Please, Sally, not now,”
I said absently, trying to make sense of the confusion.

“
Evidently the Dark One
used to date the Guardian,” William’s remains said with a sickening
cheerfulness. “This is as good as a telly show, eh, lad? Wish I had
a little something to eat while we watch. Do you…eh…need all ten of
those fingers?”

Damian scooted down to a different
stair.

“
La la,
” Sally said, looking at Sebastian. “How like Monsieur Sexy
Pants to have
deux
Beloveds.”

“
Prove it,” Noelle said to
Sebastian, ignoring everyone else as she confronted him. She
straightened her jacket and gave him a quelling look.

“
Prove what?” I asked,
torn by the conviction that Sebastian spoke the truth.

“
If she’s your Beloved,”
she said, “and you Joined, then where’s your soul?”

I looked at him,
remembering the dark, tormented emptiness inside him.
You didn’t get your soul back?

He hesitated a few moments
before answering.
It may take some time
before I have it.

I closed my eyes against
the pain that swamped me at the unspoken acknowledgement.
She’s your real Beloved, isn’t she?

No. She is a Beloved, but not mine. In all
senses of the word but one, you are my Beloved. Can you not feel
how we complete each other? You bring me light, Ysabelle. You stir
feelings in me I never imagined existed. I want to protect you, to
keep you safe. I wish to spend the remainder of my life discovering
all there is to know about you. I have known you less than an hour,
but already you have become vital to me. Only a Beloved could bind
me to her in such a way. You complete me. We are one now, and
nothing Noelle or anyone else says can change that.

I stood with my arms wrapped around myself,
sorrow stinging behind my eyelids. Sebastian didn’t try to touch
me, just stood watching me, his mind open to mine, willing me to
merge with him to read the truth for myself. I allowed my mind to
fuse with his, rocked by the powerful emotions he held in check. He
didn’t lie—he was thoroughly convinced that we were meant to be
together, that my very presence brought him immeasurable
pleasure.

How on earth could I resist a man who so
completely believed the sun rose and set on my word?

How could I betray the one friend who had
stood by my side for so many years?

“
What you’re saying is
that she’s your Beloved in name, but I’m your Beloved in fact? Is
such a thing possible?”

“
Yes.” With infinite
gentleness, his thumb brushed away a tiny little tear that had
crept from my eye.
Forgive me, Belle. I
would have saved you this pain if I could.

“
So touching,” Tim said
quietly to another of the revenants. “Just like a chick
flick.”

“
That it is,” the revenant
named Jack agreed. “Romantic.”

“
Romantic, my arse. I’m
sitting here starving to death, and all you can do is yammer on
about this drivel? Someone give me a bite to eat!” William’s
remains demanded.

Damian stood, picked up William’s discarded
leg, and walloped the half-a-revenant over the head with it.

You don’t believe
me?
Sebastian asked.

Yes, I believe you.
I couldn’t disbelieve him—the regret he felt was
so strong I didn’t need to merge with him to feel it.

“
Noelle?” Her stormy green
eyes turned to me. “I have known you your entire life. Your mother
gave you into my care when you became a Guardian, but I think we’ve
become more than just roommates—you are my friend, and I love you.
I would never hurt you. I know you and Sebastian had a less than
amicable parting, but what I want to know now—what I need to know
is what your feelings are for him. Are you…are you in love with
him?”

“
Well, it doesn’t matter
now what I feel, does it? You’ve gone and Joined with him. There’s
nothing left for me,” she snapped, the words hurting me almost as
much as the anger in her eyes.

“
Noelle—”

“
Zut. Elle est tres
pissed,” Sally said in a clearly audible
undertone.

“
Very,” Tim said,
nodding.

“
I’m leaving now,” Noelle
said with icy dignity, gathering her bag of tools. She marched to
the door, ruthlessly pulling down the barricade the revenants were
building from bits of the door and part of the couch. “I am bound
by the laws governing the Guardian’s Guild to answer any summons
you may make for help with a demon, but I would advise you to think
twice before you call. I fear I would be quite, quite delayed in
answering.”

“
Noelle, please, we can
talk about this—”

She ignored my outstretched hand and marched
out of the house, her back rigid.

I dropped my hand, pained by her actions but
aware that I had hurt her deeply.

“
She will understand in
time,” Sebastian told me, his fingers whispering across my cheek.
“Do not feel guilty, Belle. You are innocent of any
wrongdoing.”

“
Où
are the imps?” Sally asked, peering out into the darkness as
the revenants rebuilt their barricade.

“
They probably went back
to Abaddon.” With reluctance, I took a step back from Sebastian. I
needed time to think things out, and I couldn’t do that with him
touching me, stirring feelings that had lain dormant for so
long.

“
That should hold it,” Tim
said as the men moved the last bit of hall furniture across the
doorway. “We should be safe from those little yellow devils
now.”

“
I could eat them, you
know,” the remains of William answered. “I’d be happy to do it.
That would solve a big part of the problem, wouldn’t it? I could
probably put away a couple dozen braces of imps with no
difficulty.”

Sally frowned, looking up
and down the street before coming back into the hall.
“
Non. Les
imps
don’t just disappear,
hein
? They must be banished properly
by
le
Guardian.
They must be somewhere else.”

I frowned at her words, glancing through the
part of the doorway visible around edges of the barricades. “They
don’t go off on their own? Then where did they go?”

A muffled crashing noise drifted up from
beneath the floor. We all looked down.

“
You checked the windows?”
I asked Sally. “They were all warded?”

“
Well…
oui.
So far as I know.
Je ne
quite sure what a
ward looks like…”

Sebastian swore.

“
What’s down in the
basement?” I looked at Damian.

“
It matters not. Beloved,
we must leave now.” Sebastian grabbed my hand and tried to haul me
toward the door.

“
Nothing is down there,”
Damian answered, shrugging. “A few broken crates, the furnace, a
wine rack with no wine in it, and one of those big old-fashioned
radios that Papa says everyone used to listen to.”

Sebastian’s gaze met mine. “Furnace?” I
asked him.

“
Pilot light,” he
answered, and without another word, snatched the back of Damian’s
shirt with one hand and my arm with another, kicking aside the
barricade before shoving us both through the doorway. “Run!” he
ordered.

I grabbed Damian and ran down the steps to
the street below, heartened to see the revenants and Sally spilling
out of the house after us. Sebastian brought up the rear.

“
Here, what about me?”
wailed a voice from within the house.

“
Oooh, we’ve left Will,”
Jack the revenant said, but the rest of his sentence was drowned
out by a loud explosion. Sebastian hurled himself at me, knocking
both Damian and me to the ground, covering us when a fireball
exploded from the house, consuming everything in its
path.

Chapter Six

“
Damn the imps,” Tim
muttered, as behind us, the door to the hotel room closed. Ah,
sanctuary.

I collapsed into the nearest chair, heedless
of the soot that no doubt came off my charred clothing. “Amen to
that.”

“
Mmrfm wbrbl mnplm.”
Damian, on his way to investigate the video-game equipment in the
entertainment center also housing a flat-screen television, paused
long enough to pull a faintly smoking object out of a plastic
carrier bag. He set the remains of William’s remains—now just a
blackened head—on the coffee table, propping it up next to a bowl
of seashells.

“
Ta, lad,” William’s head
said politely. “I’m a bit peckish…anyone not using all their
fingers or toes?”

“
Did we have to
bring
that?
”
Sebastian asked, glaring at William’s head. William grinned back
and blew a kiss.

“
Tim felt it would be
wrong to leave a sentient body…er…part of a body behind,” I
explained wearily. “I suppose I can see his point. Once a revenant,
always a revenant, until the entire body is destroyed.”

“
That’s right, and I’ve
still got me old noggin,” William said, nodding. Unfortunately, the
act sent the head rolling across the table until it was lying
upside down.

Damian shoved it aside to perch on the
coffee table, a game controller in his hand.

“
Ooh, Xbox car racing!”
William said. “Give us a turn, will you? I love this
one.”

Sebastian’s look become more pointed as
Damian set a controller before William’s head and positioned it so
it could be manipulated by the revenant’s mouth.

“
I admit it’s stretching
the precepts set down by the Society a bit far, but his head is
still sentient.”

“
Vroom!” William said.
Sebastian pursed his lips.

“
Okay, just barely, but it
still seemed wrong to leave him behind just because the imps blew
up the rest of his body.”

“
I’m done. Next!” Jack
said as he emerged from the suite’s guest bathroom. Although we’d
survived Damian’s house exploding, we were all a bit singed about
the edges and covered in soot and dirt.

“
Ysabelle?” Tim
asked.

I waved an exhausted hand. “I’ll wait. You
all go ahead.”

“
You may clean up in my
bathroom while I have a word with you,” Sebastian said, hauling me
to my feet again. “The bedroom is through here.”

“
Dibs on
le
couch,” said Sally as
Tim kindly let her out of another carrier bag. “Oooh!
Très bon
hotel room,
Sebastian! I like it. Is there service
du
food
en
la
room?
Je
suis
starved.”

“
I have a few things I’d
like to say to you, as well, but I’m not going into your bedroom,”
I told Sebastian, sitting down again.

He stood in front of me,
his hands on his hips.
Why not?

Because you’ll just try to seduce me, and
quite frankly, I’m not sure I could resist.