Heat of the Moment (34 page)

He never knew if she was shooting at him or one of the others. The shot fired harmlessly at the sky as Pru plowed into her. Deb's fury was cut off mid-shriek. From the gurgly sounds that followed, Pru had torn out her throat. From the snarling and slavering, the other wolves were tearing other parts. All Owen cared about was Becca.

He reached her side. There was so much blood. More outside than in, it seemed, which might be why she was so still, ice white. At first he thought she stared at him, then he realized she merely stared.

“No.” He grasped the curved knife, yanked it free, and shook her. Her head lolled.

He had to do something; he didn't know what. He couldn't heal—

Heal.

He used the athame to cut the bonds on her arms, her hands, then he grasped her wrist and placed her palm over the wound.

Nothing happened.

“Owen?” Raye stood at his side. At first he thought the rain had started again. Then he understood the drops on her face, on his, were tears. “She's gone.”

“She can heal.” His voice was desperate, but so was he. “We just have to give her a chance.”

“She can't heal dead, Owen.”

“How do you know? She's never tried.”

“Exactly.” Raye sounded as sad and hopeless as he felt, which was why he listened. “Powers require energy, life force, heat. She has none.”

“There has to be a way,” he insisted. “What good is magic if she's—” His voice broke.

Raye set her hand on his shoulder then shouted, “Cassandra!”

Both the priestess and the fed turned away from the wolves and what was left of Chief Deb. Owen had the presence of mind to look for Reggie and discovered the dog pressed against his leg like a leech. At least he wasn't snacking on the police chief.

“Good dog,” he said.

“You know how to raise the dead.” Raye pointed at Cassandra, who blinked then glanced at Franklin.

“I—uh—”

“We need her. Get her back.”

“I couldn't even if I wanted to.”

“Why wouldn't you want to?” Owen asked.

“Because to do so I'd have to be a shape-shifter, and that's just asking for a bullet to the head.”

Owen had no idea what to say to that.

“Things happen for a reason,” Cassandra began, but Owen interrupted.

“There's no reason for this beyond evil and asshole.”

“He has a point,” Franklin observed.

“It's impossible,” Cassandra said gently. “I'm sorry.”

Becca's hand had fallen off her wound, and Owen picked it up and held it there again. “Come on, baby, come on.”

He could feel the others exchanging pitying glances, and he hated it, hated them, this, himself. Why had he left her? Then or now?

“Nice toss.” Bobby peered over the edge of the cliff. “He's toast.”

He returned to Raye's side and put his arm around her, tugged her close, and she laid her head on his shoulder. Owen lowered his gaze as his throat went thick with longing.

“Though I'm surprised Henry didn't get to it first.”

“Me too,” Raye agreed.

Owen's head lifted. “Henry can toss things?”

“Of course. I inherited my power from him.”

“He's a ghost, but he still has his power.”

“That's right, but I don't—” Raye stopped speaking. Her gaze flicked to Owen's, and her mouth made an O.

“You can summon ghosts?”

She nodded.

“Do it.”

“Henry?” she called. Her gaze swept the clearing.

They waited, listening, though no one but Raye would hear him or see him.

“Well?” Bobby asked.

Raye shook her head. “I'll have to do a spell to summon him.”

“What do you need?” Bobby asked.

“My things from the car.”

Frustration flared. They'd left the damn car half a mile back.

“Here.” Franklin tossed a bag. Bobby had to catch it or eat it. “I figured someone might need that.”

“Always prepared,” Cassandra said. “Is that the FBI motto?”

“Boy Scouts.”

“Same thing.”

Raye pulled black candles out of the bag, a bottle with a few green sticks inside. She dropped to the ground and held out her hand. “Knife.”

Owen still had it. He slapped it into her palm like a scalpel. She dug a five-pointed star into the earth, set a candle at each tip, took one of the green sticks and placed it in the center then lit the wicks. She leaned in so close her breath fluttered the flames when she spoke.

“I call the spirit of Henry Taggart. Come in peace or not at all. As I will so mote it be.”

Owen listened, looked—which was stupid because he wouldn't see him or hear him even if he did come. And while he'd insisted on doing this, he still didn't think it would work. How could it?

“I call the spirit of Henry Taggart,” Raye repeated. “Come in peace or not at all. As I will so mote it be.”

She continued to say the words over and over in a singsong rhythm until she swayed trancelike to their tune. Owen felt entranced himself.

“Not working,” Bobby murmured.

Owen wished he could help. He'd do anything but he wasn't the one with the power. The only thing he knew about witchcraft was that rosemary kept away ghosts.

Shit.

“Rosemary,” he blurted.

Raye's eyes opened. They were unfocused, seemingly elsewhere for a moment before she blinked. “Right. We couldn't see her. But saw this place. She was warded. That might be keeping Henry away too.”

Owen tore open Becca's shirt, studiously avoiding the sight of the horrible wound that had killed her. Green flecks sprinkled her stomach and stuck in the blood.

“Water,” he said in the voice of someone lost in a desert.

He peered around frantically—they had a lake and a lot of puddles, but no way to get the water from there to her.

“Here.” Franklin tossed a plastic bottle of water, which he must have scrounged from one of the cars.

Owen caught it, opened it, poured it over her, rubbing away the blood and picking off the flecks until she was clean. No more blood pulsed from the wound. Why would it? She had no pulse.

“Hurry,” he said.

Raye began to chant again. Owen began to whisper the chant too. He could have sworn he heard Bobby, Cassandra, and Franklin do so as well.

Please
, he thought.
Please.

The air stilled. Everyone caught their breath. Pru howled and the wolves joined in. Reggie sat on Owen's foot. Raye's eyes snapped open.

And the candles went out.

*   *   *

Henry grabbed McHugh by the throat.

“He's already dead,” I said. “Not breathing. Can't strangle him.”

“But it feels so good,” Henry muttered.

The wind that wasn't, couldn't be, stirred my hair, and I caught the scent of flames. I didn't like it.

“Henry,” I began, and then I saw McHugh's face. He was smiling.

The breeze picked up, so strong it made me step back. I heard chanting in the distance, but I couldn't make out what was being said.

The wind pulled harder, and I had to lean into it to reach Henry. I wrapped my fingers around his arm just as lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and Roland McHugh began to laugh.

The next thing I knew I stood in the clearing at Revelation Point. Jeremy was gone. Chief Deb too. Pru and the wolves were here, though they were eating … a woman's arm.

That explained the absence of Deb.

The others were gathered in a semicircle around Raye, who was on her knees, bent over unlit candles.

“What's going on?” I asked.

Raye's head went up. Bobby Doucet stiffened, shifting his shoulders.

“Becca's here,” Raye said, though she didn't turn my way.

“Where?” Owen asked. He didn't look so good.

I hurried over. Reggie yipped.

“Hush,” I said to him, then touched Owen's hair. “What's wrong?”

He didn't answer, didn't seem to see me, and I turned to Raye. I caught a clue an instant before I caught sight of my dead self still on the rock.

“Fuck me.”

“Nice,” Raye said.

“I'm not a kindergarten teacher.” I hadn't had to watch my language even when I'd been alive. “Why am I here?”

“I don't know. I summoned Henry.” She waved at the candles, which were set on a pentagram carved into the dirt. I wished, and not for the first time, that I knew half as much as she did about witchcraft. Maybe then I wouldn't be dead.

“If I'd been thinking clearly I would have just summoned you.”

“Why?”

“Physician heal thyself.” Raye pointed to my body.

“Huh?”

“Remember when you were attacked and Henry tossed your attacker into a wall?”

“A little random there, Raye, but … yeah.”

“Henry's a ghost. With powers. Now, you're a ghost.”

“I still have my powers?”

“Why don't you try them and see?”

I didn't need to be told twice. I moved to my own side, got a freaky shimmy of d
é
j
à
vu when I stared into my own eyes. I laid my palm on my bloody chest.

Nothing happened.

No spark. No sickening slurch of skin coming together. Nada.

I pulled back my hand. Raye stepped up next to me.

“Try it again.”

I did, and understood. I couldn't touch things as a ghost. “I'm not…” I didn't know the word.

“Corporeal,” Raye said.

“You would know. Now what? I need a body to heal my body.”

“Too bad I don't have your—” She stopped. “Wait. Possess me.”

“Not,” I said at the same time Bobby blurted, “No, Raye,” and Cassandra choked.

“Without you the three is two,” she said. “Make that one since I have no clue where our other sister is. You think this is bad?” She waved a hand at dead me. “It's going to get worse if I'm all that's left between the
Venatores Mali
and the witches.”

“You aren't all that's left. You have them.” I lifted my chin toward the others.

“They don't have powers.”

“Do too,” Cassandra muttered.

“And so do Henry and Pru.”

“That's worked out great so far. You're dead.”

She had a point. Still—

“Possession, Raye?”

“It got a bad rap because of
The Exorcist
.”

“Ya think?”

She closed her eyes. “Do it.”

“Do what?” I had no idea how to possess someone.

She opened one eye. “I don't know. Jump?”

So I did.

*   *   *

Owen had been reluctant to breathe for fear he'd miss a single exchange between Raye and the ghost of Becca. Not that he could hear anything but Raye's responses, but as long as she was making them he knew that Becca was here.

He'd certainly come a long way from thinking they were all nuts. If they were, he was too. While once that would have terrified him, now he almost embraced it. Without Becca he'd gladly consent to being locked away and medicated forever.

“Jump,” Raye said, and Bobby reached for her, but an instant before his fingers touched her arm, she changed.

Not physically. Not really. But something in the air shifted, and then so did she.

Bobby snatched back his hand, then rubbed his fingers along his jeans as if they'd been burned.

Raye stood differently, like Becca, though Owen wasn't sure exactly how Becca stood. Maybe he was just hoping for this to work so badly. Her hair stirred, and in the depths of the dark strands, streaks of red waved.

“Raye?” Bobby said, and his voice shook. He saw it too.

She glanced over her shoulder and everyone gasped. Her eyes were much lighter, hazel instead of brown.

“It's all right.” The voice that came out of her mouth was an echo—two voices not one. She turned back. “I know what to do.”

She placed her palm on Becca's wound and sparks flew, so many more than there'd ever been before. Thunder rumbled over the lake, and clouds billowed on the horizon.

Owen whispered the word that had become his personal chant. “Please.”

Then Becca sat up with a gasp that was more like a shriek, and Raye collapsed like a marionette without strings.

*   *   *

One second I was in Raye—I
was
Raye, and she was me, I knew things about her, saw things that had happened, felt what she had felt, knew what she knew—the next I was myself.

It hurt. I hurt. The world spun. I saw Raye fall, and I wanted to go to her, but the instant I moved, I had to put my head between my knees or pass out. Coming back from the dead was a little harder than it looked.

“Becca?”

I kept my cheek on my knee so my head wouldn't fall off my neck. Owen hovered just out of reach. I held out my hand, and he took it.

“You okay?”

The dizziness faded. Raye sat up. Bobby held her hand too. The others stood between us, uncertain.

My shirt was open. Someone had tried to wash away all the blood. Some remained, but I could clearly see that where the athame had been only a thick pink scar was visible.

“Close enough.” I allowed Owen to help me up. He hovered nearby, hands out to catch me if I fell. I knew he always would. But I was good. I was fine. I was better than fine. I was here.

I kissed him. I planned to keep on kissing him until someone made me stop. He kissed me back the same way.

Someone cleared their throat. I ignored it until they did it again. We parted. From the corner of my eye I could see Bobby and Raye parting too.

“Don't ever do that again,” Owen said.

“No problem.”

“I've called in help.” Franklin shoved his cell phone into his pocket then gazed at the wolves still gathered around what had once been a police chief. “The rest of you should clear out. I'll wait for the cleanup crew.”