Dweller on the Threshold (38 page)

“Magic is magic—black or white. Depends on the person using it. It wasn’t considered evil or called black magic until the Christian religion.” Dooby pointed to the book they’d laid on the blanket next to my sister. “When that book was created—before the time of Solomon—there was no Christian religion. Magic used to contact or control the dead was thought to be a good thing. The spirits called upon usually were more like deities.” He rubbed his hands together, his slim body nearly vibrating with excitement. “We’re going to try calling an elemental.”

Blythe waded out and took the bag from me before scurrying back to them. She dropped it on the blanket and patted Castor’s arm. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Not in most magic. And Dubious is a necromancer. He’s used to ordering dead things around.”

“Your name is Dubious?” Castor grinned. I wondered if it was just the silly name or if Blythe’s mothering reassurances had amused him. Probably both.

Dooby glared at Blythe. He’d twisted his hair into a bun. The only time I’d seen a man wear his hair like that had been in my dojo. In fact—eyeing the Doob’s slim frame—I wondered if he’d trained. He certainly moved with the graceful confidence most martial artists did.

Dooby crossed his arms. “A lot of necromancers think they should be ordering spirits to rise so they then try to control them with threats. Causes a
lot
of problems—for the necromancer and anyone in the vicinity. Demons, spirits, most otherworldly creatures don’t take kindly to humans ordering them about.” He straightened his shoulders. “Don’t worry. I ask them to come to me—not order. I know what I’m doing. I’m the best out there.”

Phro, who stood near Elsa’s prone body, burst into laughter. She sneered and used energy to make herself solid enough for Dooby to see. It took a lot for her to do this and she couldn’t hold it long. “Some goetic magician you are! You can’t even see me unless I suck up precious magic from nature. In my time, you would have had to crawl on your hands and knees to beg entrance into Hades. Call spirits, indeed. No one commands a spirit.”

Though his eyes had flared wide when she’d materialized, he kept his cool. Was probably used to dead beings popping up around him. “I just said that.”

I noticed he stared at her chest when he talked. I hadn’t been paying attention to her clothes. I was so used her half nude presence it hadn’t registered that she was
sort of
wearing a white sarong dress and sandals. One breast was completely uncovered. I would have laughed at the traditional ideal of a goddess’s attire if I wasn’t so damned nervous about whatever was in the air here.

With one eye on the trees, I joined them. “You know, Dooby, I always read that you’re supposed to raise the dead during the hour between midnight and one o’clock.”

Everybody stopped to stare at me.

Phro snorted, still easily visible to everyone. “She likes to read cheesy paranormal books.”

I narrowed my eyes. “We don’t know which ones are cheesy until we read them, do we?”

She shrugged and stuck out her middle finger. A butterfly landed on it and she squinted at it in surprise before grimacing and flicking it off. She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Something is wrong.” She dumped the extra energy, fading back to normal.

“I know.” I hugged my arms for a moment before straightening my spine… and my resolve. “Dooby, the midnight thing? It’s the middle of the afternoon. I guess I thought we’d be waiting until tonight.”

“We are not raising the dead.” Dooby’s condescending tone set my teeth on edge. I was reaching to whack his stupid bun off his head but stopped when I saw he was unwrapping one of the mirrors. “We are inviting a powerful being to join us in conversation.” He glanced at Blythe. “Of course whether he comes or not depends on how the witch does with the elemental. If she can get him to burn through so many dimensional layers.”

I’d managed to push the elemental from my thoughts. Sweat broke out on my forehead and I focused on watching Blythe pull little baggies from her satchel. Looking closely, I could see she was pale instead of flushed. It was then I realized she and Dooby were going out of their way not to touch or even look at each other.

He better not have hurt her.

The flood of protectiveness took me by surprise and I squashed another urge to hit the Doob. Instead, I leaned over him as he unwrapped the second mirror. “Then why do we still need you?”

“My charm?”

“Charm my ass,” Blythe muttered from behind me.

It broke the tension.

Nikolos chuckled. I smirked. Blythe cussing
was
funny.

Dooby didn’t think so. He snarled at her before turning glittering anger on me. “You need me because my magic will lure this Dweller out before he’s ready. He doesn’t have enough souls yet to do it on his own.”

“But if he comes out before he’s physical, where will he go?”

Dooby looked at Elsa.

“What?” My back went straight. I stepped away from him before I took his head off. Fury—icy cold and deadly—flooded through me. “No. No! No fucking way. Never. I didn’t bring her along for your spell—I brought her because I didn’t trust her to anyone else!”

“She’s the only comatose person here,” Dooby argued.

“You never once said you needed one.” I advanced on him.

“I assumed you knew,” he muttered, scrambling to his feet and backing away from me. “I thought that’s why you brought her.”

“It was a dumb shit thing to assume.”

Nikolos, who had been holding the mirror, propped it against a tree and quickly grabbed my arm. “There is only one other thing you can do then.”

I stopped advancing on Dooby and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to face this option. I
couldn’t
. There was a sudden movement about my head. It was different from the bees—bees that had moved out of the way. No, this fluttering had no buzz. I looked up. A swarm of butterflies swept past my head, their furious wings creating a soft breeze.

One of them hovered, then dropped to my palm when I held it out. Raising the creature, I felt the smile slide right off my face. It was as if this particular butterfly had grossly offended Mother Nature. Staggered white lightning bolts feathered the delicate brown wings, but my gaze didn’t stay on those lines—it strayed to the things the bolts pointed to.

Infections.

It was the only way I could describe the flesh-colored blobs at the bottoms of those beautiful wings. Flesh-colored blobs with three bulbous, metallic wounds.

 
There was something yellow under those wounds…

 
I squinted, pulled the butterfly even closer, and it felt like the earth shifted. Gasping, I shook my hand but the thing wouldn’t let go. I violently flung out my fingers and it dropped—but slowly, as if the oils in my skin had drugged it.

Taking a shaky step back, I rubbed my palm over my jeans because it hadn’t been my imagination. That was no ordinary butterfly. There had been yellow but it hadn’t been a part of the wings. Thick and liquid—it had looked nasty, like puss. Then it dripped onto my palm. Gaze darting left and right, I slid out my knives again. My eyes swept over the tall cypress trees—the pines and palmettos on the higher ground. The leaves and dry brush around us rustled and the usually shy serpents slithered into the open. Cottonmouths, eastern diamondback rattlesnakes and several other species twisted about the ground.

Blythe whimpered but I didn’t look her way. My eyes were glued to the forest as louder rustling noises came to us on the breeze.

No, I wouldn’t let them use Elsa, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t need to. The Dweller was making his presence known. He didn’t need a body. I swung toward Dooby and Blythe. “Make a circle. Now!”

Dooby snarled at me. “I’m not some newby practitioner who can’t control his magic and needs a circle. I was born into my powers—I did not stumble upon them as
some
I know.”

Blythe looked at the mirror, not at us. “If you’re aiming that dig at me, it’s unwarranted. I started my first fire in the crib.”

“Shut the fuck up! Idiots! Now isn’t the time!” I held up my hand when they both opened their mouths. “I don’t care who got what power when. Grow up you two, before I knock your asses into next week. Let’s focus here, okay? This isn’t your ordinary dead guy or demon. Don’t you think a circle might provide some extra protection? We don’t really know what we’re dealing with.”

Dooby considered it. I could tell he didn’t want to.
Goddess, the ego!

“Listen to me carefully.” I pointed to Elsa. “That is my sister. I love her. I do not want this thing jumping into her body. I do not want it getting away when we…uh, do whatever it is we’re going to do with these mirrors. But I do want extra protection and I’ve studied enough magic to know that a circle will help. Do it. It’s not a fucking suggestion.”

Dooby, anger obvious in his jerky movements, actually moved to start counting out the nine feet it would be in diameter. I stomped past Nikolos, picked up my sister and carried her to the circle. I carefully placed her toward the back, making sure her legs and arms were tucked securely to her sides. Tears touched my eyes and I swallowed heavily and blinked to keep them back.

 
“I won’t let him hurt you, I promise,” I whispered.

Dooby was spilling salt in a circle when I heard a heavy grunt and thump. I turned to find Nikolos slumped against a tree, his legs stretched out on the ground. He stared at me, something in his expression tearing up my insides. Yeah, he’d lied to me. Right this instant it didn’t seem so important—not when we were about to call forth some kind of ancient powerful creature that could very well destroy everything. I ran to him and knelt to touch his cheek. “Hey, are you still with us?”

He reached up and slid his thumb over my lips. I’d picked up on how much he liked to do that—liked my mouth. His smile, when it came, was soft and full of affection. My heartbeat picked up.

Sighing, I took his hand and cradled it to my cheek. “I’m going to stop this. I promise.”
 

“I heard you promise your sister, too. Lots of promises.”

“I always keep my promises.”

His fingers tightened on my chin, his eyes on my mouth. “If you killed me now, your sister’s soul would be set free. The Dweller would lose his power.”

I closed my eyes and placed my lips in the center of his palm. “I can’t do that. Did you know he was harvesting the souls on you, Nikolos?”

I saw in his eyes that he had not wanted me to realize this. “They were attached to the host before. When I killed him, I took them on. They are tied to the Dweller. This has allowed me to find him each time he’s incarnated here.”

“Why didn’t you say?” I whispered.

He sighed, stroked my chin again. “I wasn’t going to let you kill the host. This world could have been a better place had I found another way the first time. Your brother is important, Bergdis. You might be here to bring order, but I believe he’s here to create balance. You can kill me instead and the Dweller loses his power.”

“We don’t know that,” I choked out.

“We don’t?”

We did. Goddess, I knew we did. “I want you both,” I admitted in a whisper that sounded broken and lost. “I’m selfish that way.”

“The choice is an easy one.”

I shook my head. “Somehow, I don’t think just killing you will stop all this. It can’t be that easy, Nikolos. Let’s try it from the book first.”

He didn’t argue—just squeezed my hand. “You should know that there are bodies here.”

“They were excavated, remember? The police tore this whole area up.”

“No, there are more. He did something to the bones. Put them deep. They were absorbed into the earth, but they’re here. I can feel their souls crying out to be returned.” He broke off and looked away, his throat moving in a heavy swallow. “They don’t know they’re dead. Years dead and they don’t know, Bergdis.”

I closed my eyes and opened myself up. I let every barrier—every shield I’d learned to build over the years shift away before opening my eyes and doing what I did best. The world blurred as began to look beyond.

And I did see them. Victor Vonbrahm’s victims. Spirits different from any I’d seen before because they were without souls. Vacant faces that gathered about us, drawn by the lure of their own souls trapped around this man. They wanted them back.

Somehow I had to make sure they got them back.

Blythe touched my shoulder. I hadn’t even heard her approach. I looked in her concerned eyes.

“Circle’s up and everything’s in place.”

I curled my fingers around Nikolos’s hand and stared into black eyes and knew I wanted—no
needed
—to be able to stare into those eyes for the rest of my life. I could hear his heart beating, see the strength he pulled from the souls around him so he could stand. I helped him, looking up into his beautiful face. “We can do this.”

Chapter Nineteen

We stood huddled in the circle. I was in front, my knives out though I was pretty sure they would do little good against the Dweller. I didn’t know what to expect—what would happen when Dooby started his spell. I only knew that I was ready to fight whatever came.

We had the mirrors facing each other and Blythe had the spell ready to call the fire elemental. We’d run out of time and she hadn’t started that particular part.