Pride and Poltergeists

  “How would I manage that?” he demanded, a smile appearing out of nowhere. “And, moreover, why the hell would I want to? Dulcie going missing makes my life infinitely easier. What a breath of fresh air it would be not to have her poking her little nose in here whenever she damn well pleases.”

  It took a solid ten seconds for me to suppress the urge to set him on fire. When it passed, I pushed my hair back, exposing the silvery-red burns. The magic they radiated was dull, like the glow of a candle through tempered glass, but Dagan could sense it. He quirked an eyebrow at it and for a moment said nothing before he thrust his tongue into someone I couldn’t see.

  “This is the answer to how you’re going to find her?” I snapped. “As to your reasons why you don’t want to—please spare me; I’m not interested.”

  He frowned. “Not Dulcie’s typical fingerprint, is it?” He pulled back from his partner, or was it a victim? I didn’t know what to call her, but he pulled back just long enough to look at me with visible derision. Someone draped her legs over his neck and tried to drag him under the twisting mass of flesh and sweat again. He bit hard into her calf and she withdrew.

  “No. Dulcie is currently under the management of someone or something else,” I said, unsure of how much I could admit to Dagan. Maybe I’d already told him too much. “Regardless, I need to find her.”

  “And why would you want to do that? I was under the impression she was trying to kill you.”

  “How did you know that?” I demanded, eyeing him warily.

  He chuckled at me. “How would I not know that, Sam?” he demanded. “The whole city seems to be on fire, and Dulcie is rather well known around here. You know what they say about bad news.”

  “It travels fast,” Rowena responded, just in case I didn’t know what they said about bad news.

  “Madam White?” Dagan asked, pulling my attention back to him, albeit uncomfortably.

  “What?” I replied before I realized Dagan was addressing my boobs. I crossed my arms and snapped my fingers, and a shock of blue lightning struck him from behind. It traveled straight through him and into his naked friends before they all moaned in chorus.

  “Ooh,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Do that again!”

  Can’t say I wasn’t tempted, but we didn’t have time for fun. “Dagan, I need your help,” I insisted. “Help me find Dulcie.”

  Dagan’s mouth curved up. His friends looked at me, reaching toward me with hands and claws and pincers. “If you would just come a touch closer …” He raked me up and down with eyes of molten red, rubies glowing with unmasked desire. My skin tingled and turned warm, the vague sensation of an unholy creature offering a suspicious bargain.

  Unfortunately, I had to do Dagan’s bidding. The only way he would be able to locate Dulcie was by touching the magical print she left on me—the red scars that still burned my skin. I took a step toward him and he touched me, but not where he was supposed to—not on Dulcie’s mark. Instead, he touched the inside of my wrist and I was suddenly overcome with a bolt of lightning that ricocheted through me, leaving a streak of blistering pain in its wake.

  I pulled away from him instantly, gnashing my teeth as I caught his smug smirk, which only fueled my anger all the more.

  No more Ms. Nice Witch.

  I didn’t even have to move. I just looked at him and commanded my power. In response, Dagan erupted into brilliant blue flames, colder than a glacier, obscuring his chest and face, drawing the stone-black blood of his kind. His naked friends scattered and moaned, half of them rolling away, the other half dragging themselves closer to the burning Dagan. Some were begging to share his fire, shrieking with pleasure as their skin melted, blackened and froze. Rowena took a cautious step back, but she didn’t seem especially perturbed.

  I let the combustion die after twenty full seconds of blood-curdling screams. It was the most satisfying sound I’d ever heard. A part of me was worried by that. The other part was having a lot of fun setting Dagan on fire.

  The blaze died, the smoke cleared, and Dagan sat before me, a smoldering wreck. His skin had gone grey, fire-forged muscles tightened with burning ice. The cold surrounded him, pressing against him like a strangling hand, squeezing, and slowly letting go. His breath frosted in the air.

  There was a long, tense silence. The only sound was Dagan’s breathing, ragged and, of all things, terrified, but still, he hesitated.

  “The ANC is gone,” I said as I crossed my arms against my chest and tapped my toes. “Dulcie is missing. And I don’t. Have. Time. For. This.”

  “No ANC?” Dagan whistled before he smiled broadly. “What on earth will become of me, then, when I refuse to help you?”

  “I’ll cut your dick off and fry the pleasure centers in your brain,” I threatened. I didn’t realize how brilliant my response was until I saw the blood drain from Dagan’s face.

  All right, castration it is, I thought.

  Dagan smiled, trying his damnedest not to look concerned. I narrowed my eyes and imagined his little friend bulging, pulsating, before starting to burn. He twitched under my gaze, fighting the urge to writhe—part of him was enjoying it, but another part of his carnal brain knew the pain meant I had him where I wanted him. I could have given him the clap if I really wanted to, using only a lock of his hair and a drop of his blood. And there were plenty of both in this godforsaken place.

  “Find Dulcie,” I said. “Now.”

  “Of course.” Dagan stood slowly, deliberately, fondling his friends as he stood up just to act like my threats didn’t concern him that much. But I knew better.

  “Be quick,” I said, and he nodded. He was shaking. I’d never seen him so scared before. It was deliciously satisfying on some primitive, angry level, but mostly just weird. I almost felt like telling him that’s what he got when he messed with witches who were out of time.

  He laid his hand on a patch of my scarred skin and closed his eyes. My skin turned cold, then hot, then cold again as he siphoned the last of the magic out of me, filling his eyes with it, and casting out his awareness into the world like a lure. I saw everything he did—the light and silver shadows that bound the world together, the webs of dimensions that linked the Netherworld to the Earth like a baby to its mother. The footprints of powerful magic pressed into the ground.

  He didn’t have to say anything. When he found her, I knew.

  Dagan pulled his hand back slowly, running his fingers through my hair as he did. If he were anyone else, the gesture might have been tender—but it was Dagan, so it just felt dirty.

  “Satisfied?” he asked.

  I couldn’t help myself. “With you? Never.”

  Dagan twitched at hearing that, but his sleazy grin didn’t falter. “We’ll be here for a while,” he said softly. “If you decide to return.”

  “When hell freezes over,” I answered.

  I made some disgusted noise in the back of my throat and stalked out the door. Rowena followed, closing the door behind us. I could already hear the grunts and moans and shrieks of the resuming orgy, daring to be as loud and obnoxious as possible.

  “You sure you don’t want to kill him?” Rowena asked with a little shrug.

  I stopped walking. She said it with all the calm of a friend asking where I’d like to go for breakfast, or what my favorite color was. I shot her a “what the hell is wrong with you?” look, and she just blinked at me, totally chill with the idea of an impromptu, why-the-fuck-not? murder.

  “You … you’re in the FBI, aren’t you?” I asked slowly. Not that I was entertaining the idea of killing Dagan (no more than I usually did).

  Rowena shrugged. “Sometimes.” The magic in her skin trembled, condensed, and coalesced into a glowing, green sheen in the back of her eye. Her expression didn’t change, but something inside her pulled back, her shields dropping to expose what lay beneath—the burning heart of chaotic good, the lawmaker with a hundred broken bones, maybe a little too willing to cross the line. In the twisting fires, I could
almost see the creature that burnt her, a towering skeleton of ivory and black, bleeding from everywhere. It was a rather disturbing sight.

  “We’ve got time,” she said, shrugging.

  “Um … I think I’m okay,” I said, all the while wondering what the hell she was. “Maybe later.”

  Rowena’s magic dulled and her gates closed as the visions abated before she nodded as though nothing had happened. “Okay. Just let me know if you change your mind. The world would be a better place with one less demon in it.”

  “Uh-huh,” I answered, swallowing hard.

  ###

  Casey and company were waiting for us in the lot, leaning against the hood of Casey’s stark black SUV and doing their best to appear impatient. They were the pinnacle of ragtag spies, half-lit by Dagan’s cheap neon sign. The only thing to break the illusion was Kent, sitting cross-legged on top of the car, carving a tiny stick into a spear with a switchblade. The car was what really cemented the cliché, but I didn’t care to point that out.

  “What happened in there?” Casey asked, walking up to me as soon as he saw us. There was a twitchy energy about him, like he was a coffee cup away from bursting into flames. Poor guy was pale as snow. I figured he must’ve heard the screaming.

  “An orgy,” I said. “It’s over now.”

  Casey looked me up and down, grimacing, color flooding his cheeks. “Oh. Um … did you—”

  I made a vague, revolted grunt, cutting him off. “No!” I said, the mere thought of it making me gag. “I can’t believe you would even ask me that!”

  Kent giggled from his perch on the car. “So, ah. How’d it go?”

  Marcus blew smoke and smiled. “The interrogation or the orgy?”

  “The interrogation,” Kent answered in his thick, Scottish brogue. “Ah can guess how the orgy went.” He chuckled.

  Casey groaned, pinching his nose. “What happened?” he asked me.

  Rowena shrugged. “Well, no one’s dead.” Maybe it was my imagination, but she almost sounded disappointed.

  “Dagan found Dulcie,” I said. “She’s in the Netherworld.” That sucked because it meant my magic—along with Rowena’s and Casey’s, now that I thought about it—wouldn’t work when we met the big, bad Darkness. It also meant Dulcie couldn’t blast us into fiery oblivion, so, you know, pros and cons to every situation.

  Marcus quirked his brow, taking a long drag from a fresh cigar. “Netherworld. Unpleasant place,” he said, as though I didn’t already know.

  “Yeah,” I responded, thinking of all the unfriendly monsters Melchior bred to convince the Netherworldians they needed his protection—monsters that were most likely enjoying an absurd amount of freedom with the fall of the ANC. My stomach twisted. Hades, it probably looked like a war zone over there. “No kidding.”

  “Okaaay,” Judy said, crossing her arms. She was wearing yoga pants and a blue tank top, and for a fraction of a second, looking a hell of a lot like Dulcie. “So, how we planning on getting there?”

  “We could dig our way,” Kent offered, squinting at his stick.

  “Or,” Judy said, “we could go the old-fashioned way.”

  “Are you perhaps referring to one of the many ANC portals that no longer exist?” Marcus asked, smirking in his own shadows.

  “Well, no,” said Judy as she grinned.

  Casey frowned. “Judy, no.”

  “I know, it’s the worst plan, but—”

  “Absolutely fucking not,” Casey said.

  “I’m sorry, Casey, but do you have a better idea?”

  “Judy …”

  “Come on, all we have to do is ask nicely. You can do that, can’t you?”

  I stepped between them, confused as to what the hell was going on. “What are we talking about, exactly?”

  “Not something we’re going to do,” Casey said, looking over me at Judy.

  Judy looked past me, smiling smugly at Casey. She crossed her arms. “I’m calling her.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Judy pulled out her phone. “Watch me.” She dialed and put it to her ear.

  I turned to Casey. “Who’s she calling?”

  Casey pushed his lips together and closed his eyes, exhaling long and loud through his nose.

  Someone answered Judy with a high-pitched hello.

  “Margaret? Hi!” Judy said, barely keeping her laughter to herself. “It’s Judy! I know, it’s been a while. Listen, can you do us a huge favor?”

  “Casey?” I asked as I turned to the person in question, wondering what the hell was going on. “Who’s Margaret?”

  He opened his eyes and groaned. “My mother.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dulcie

  Don’t look, the voice inside my head insisted. The source of the voice wasn’t a wayward sprite who’d crawled into my ear either. After multiple magical attempts to clear the sprite from my mind, I had to face the fact that the voice wasn’t anything palpable that I could forcibly remove. I had no explanation for why it was there or who it belonged to. It just was. And at this moment, witnessing Mother having sex with the man who killed Father, the voice inside my head was terrified. Don’t you fucking look!

  But I had to. I couldn’t look anywhere else or pry my eyes away from them. Mother was on top of him, moving back and forth, her body rippling. His clothing was in shreds on the floor, torn and soaked in fresh blood. His hands scrabbled over her slick, cold body, a drunken rock climber trying to find purchase on the face of a sheer, marble cliff. The bed held fast beneath them, metal and wood straining against Mother’s desperate energy. The man looked up and sideways, then at the ceiling, or the covers, or the wall, or the window, anywhere but at her. He trembled and tensed with her movement, begging her to continue, but his eyes were hollow, deep pools of liquid black.

  They shouldn’t be black! the voice railed. They’re blue, Knight’s eyes are blue! What the hell is she doing to him?

  Having sex, I thought irritably, now fully aware that I had a stubborn tenant inside my head who wouldn’t move out and, apparently, there was nothing I could do about it.

  As I watched them, a sinking feeling rose within my stomach, making me feel as if I might retch up my last meal right there on the floor. But I didn’t. Instead, I pondered what Mother had been talking about when she said this idiot could teach Sebastian a thing or two. As far as I could tell, this man was fighting Mother at every turn. She seemed to be enjoying it, but it appeared so chaotic to me. He pushed himself into her with a petrified look on his face, like rigor mortis, the expression of an animal dead from fear. Even Mother had more urgency to her movements than he did.

  Stop them!

  “Shut up,” I whispered as I clenched my eyes shut and shook my head.

  “Are you watching, Dulcie?” Mother demanded, her voice hoarse and thick with desire.

  “Yes, Mother,” I said, blinking my eyes back open. The words came out as croaks. I cleared my throat and said louder, “Yes. I’m watching.” I cleared my throat again. “I don’t understand what you think this man could teach Sebastian.”

  “It is all about passion,” she answered. “Tell Sebastian to be more deliberate. Like this.” She pulled herself back and slowly drew herself across the man, moaning, arching her back violently.

  “Ah,” I said. “All right.” I couldn’t imagine Sebastian doing that correctly, but it was worth a shot.

  The hell it is! the voice yelled back at me, nearly in tears. Stop him! Stop her! Fucking kill her!

  No!

  You fucking bitch, don’t you remember anything? Don’t you remember who you are? Or who Knight is?

  My head pulsated and throbbed as an image materialized in my mind: me and this man, this murderous stranger, tangled up together between stark white sheets.

  Remember that?

  I fell back a step, horrified. Why would I have ever had sex with him, the man who killed Melchior?

  Melchior. No, not Melchior, my father.

  K
night didn’t kill him, the voice replied. Knight wasn’t even in the fucking room!

  Shut up, shut up and pay attention, I thought, squeezing my eyes shut, opening them when I started to see spots behind my eyelids. Mother wants you to watch this and you better not dare upset her.

  Fuck her! Make them stop!

  Mother’s hands were on the wall now, lacing it with long, deep gouges, ripping away the paint with reckless abandon. The bed creaked and moaned beneath them, straining with their excessive momentum. The man, Knight, the black eyes that should have been blue, moved with the robotic jolts of a man half-asleep. He was bleeding from a hundred different places, desperately enjoying every tenth second of it. Mother’s moans came faster, faster, faster. Knight began to grunt, scream, and growl, making an eerie, primal noise that might’ve been anything, but it sounded mostly like pain.

  No! the voice cried, panicked. Knight, what are you doing, what are you doing? Her voice rose to a fever pitch, growing panicked, no, terrified. No, no! No! Knight, please don’t do this, please! Now she was sobbing, screaming, throwing herself at invisible walls and making my forehead pulsate. I felt her tears in my eyes, bubbling down onto my face, landing on my throat. My entire body ached with a pain I’d never felt before.

  And then it was over. The room exploded with screams of ecstasy and Mother burst violently backwards, her mouth open, staring at the ceiling. They both stiffened, and Mother fell away, breathing evenly, while Knight lay in the bed, panting, twitching as though he couldn’t control his own body.

  He can’t, the voice said, but I wasn’t listening. I was staring at Mother, now all cool and collected, unimpressed by her own raucous display. She slowly put on her pants, blouse, and jacket, buttoning it up as she said to me, “There. Try that on Sebastian sometime.” She smiled acidly and threw a look over her shoulder at the writhing Knight. He managed to turn himself over and was now staring at the wall, digging his own nails into his arms.

  Mother straightened her blouse, checked her reflection in the window and strode out, stopping at the door. When she passed me, she smiled and petted my head like I was her loyal lapdog.