His expression turned crafty. “Give me your name at least and I'll let her go.”
“Rico,” she lied.
Looking disappointed in her answer, he tightened his hands on his victim's throat again and Silvia's heart twisted painfully. When she'd arrived here from ElseWorld, she'd been so confident in her ability to protect Michaela from Pontifex. But here she was less than an hour later, helpless against a single one of his henchmen.
“Via,” Michaela choked. She could not see Silvia in her current form, either. But she knew her voice, and in her angst, she'd revealed too much.
“Yesss.” The Ogre nodded, pouncing on the revelation. He looked toward the place he'd last heard Silvia's voice, though she was several feet to the left of it now. “There'sss a nice beginning.”
Turning his captive toward Silvia as if to render her a shield, he moved behind Michaela with one hand clasping her to him by the front of her throat. His clawlike thumb stroked her vulnerable larynx, drawing a trickle of blood. She whimpered, but held her tongue.
“Now, give me the rest of it and I'll release your friend here,” he promised Silvia. “You know I must have it from your own lipsss.”
The impulse to reveal her name and face was strong, but this would gain them nothing. He'd only have two captives then. “Let her go first, and when she is far from here, I'm yours,” Silvia vowed.
His licked his lips. “Too bad I can't take you up on that offer. You sound to be a delicious morsel. Bet that skin of yours tastes sssweet.” He sighed regretfully. “But you'd only trick me. And I've got my orders.”
“Orders from whom?” Silvia lunged, striking the wall painfully with her shoulder. “Pontifex? Why would he want her dead?” Her mind worked furiously. Ogres were a rare breed, but Pontifex employed them as guards. One had visited Bastian's study recently and handled the decanter she'd found. And now this one. The incidents had to be related. If she could figure out how, she might be able to somehow trick Michaela's attacker.
Footfalls echoed in the distance, and the Ogre glanced toward the sound. By now, Michaela's cries had dwindled to pitiful mewls. She was fading.
“Polizia!”
Silvia shouted, praying someone would hear.
The Ogre's face swung back toward her and he made a hissing sound, like a fire being extinguished. “Ssstupid female. Shouldn't have done that. Moonful comes tonight. Not a good time for creatures like us to be incarcerated in human jails.”
Without warning, his hands tightened sharply. Michaela's eyes bulged and her fingers clawed at his. Bones snapped as he gave her neck a brisk wrench, leaving her just enough breath that she would suffer a lingering death.
“See what you made me do?” He grinned at Silvia, a horrible creasing of his face that bared double rows of small, sharp teeth. Damage done, he loped into the darkness of an alley.
Now that his clutch was gone from her throat, Michaela crumpled to the cobblestones, fog swirling violently around her. She looked like some sort of beautiful, wilted poppy as she lay there amid the crushed petals of her crimson skirts.
“Nooo!” Silvia shrieked, as if words alone could deny Death its latest victim. She beat at the wall of magic again and fell forward, finding it nonexistent. The Ogre's departure had dispelled it. She rushed to her friend's side to kneel there on the brick. Tears trickling down her face, she solidified into her true form.
Michaela's ebony curls were in lovely disarray, her head turned at an unnatural angle, and her hold on life tenuous. Wide, purple eyes gazed unseeingly toward the twilight sky. Was she already gone? But then her hand twitched and Silvia lifted it to her lap, cradling it within her own. It was already so pale, so cold.
“Don't . . . want to . . . die,” Michaela whispered hoarsely.
“Gods, Kayla,” Silvia said on a sob. “I'd give anything if . . .” her words trailed off. Their eyes met and the awful truth hung unspoken between them. There was nothing to be done. Michaela would die. They always died.
Although it wouldn't help matters, Silvia adjusted her head to a more natural angle on the brick, needing to do something. Needing to help when there was no way to help. She rubbed Michaela's soft hand and murmured comforting words as together they waited.
Cruel, cruel Death. Silvia had always hated these moments just before it arrived. Not only because it was so heartbreaking when someone's life ended, but also because of the small, shameful flicker of greed that always rose within her. The need to have someone die so that she could live. If one could truly call her existence living.
But never, never had she despised Death more than she did now. Never had she willed it away so desperately and with all her being. “Take me,” she begged it. “Let me be the one to die.”
Michaela spoke then, her words barely audible, but astonishing nonetheless. “I have a firestone in my possession. Aemilia's. She gave it to me that night for safekeeping as we all escaped from the burning temple. Pontifex found out somehow and sent a threatening note. I was told to bring it . . . here. That someone would meet me and . . .” She laughed, a harsh, gurgling sound.
Silvia gritted her teeth, rage against Pontifex welling up anew at this confirmation that he was behind the Ogre's attack. She tried to calm herself. To be what Michaela required of her now. There would be time for anger later. She'd listened to the last words, the longings, the regrets, and the wishes of the dying countless times over the years. But never had she imagined she would one day be engaging in this ritual with her most cherished friend in the Worlds!
“I didn't think Pontifex's minion would harm me . . .” Michaela went on. “But he planned to kill me all along.... Oh how stupid I was to come. You were always the smart one. Beauty and brains. Pontifex always said that together we would have made quite a woman.” She laughed, a soft, hysterical sound.
Silvia had never heard him say such a thing, but she didn't quibble. “It's all right. None of that matters.”
Tears squeezed from the outer corners of Michaela's eyes and rolled into the tangle of her hair on either side of her face. “I don't want to die . . . oh, dear Gods . . . not just when I've found love.” Her throat worked. “B-Bastian.”
“Dear Kayla,” Silvia soothed, brushing a curl of dark hair from her smooth forehead. Death was nearing. She felt it. Saw the signs.
Michaela closed her eyes, her face suddenly hopeless, seeming to accept that all was lost. “You'll take me . . . as host?”
Silvia nodded, unable to speak for the lump in her throat.
Oh, Michaela, how will I live when you are gone?
Trying to sound calm, she forced herself to say what she'd said to all the others she'd come upon in similar situations. “If there is anything you've left undone here in these worlds, just tell me, and Iâ” A great sob escaped her, but she forced herself to continue. “And I swear I will gladly see it done.” The words slipped from her easily as if she'd said them hundreds of times before. And she had.
But this was different. This was
Michaela
. Who was dying! Fifty thousand hells! How would she bear it? She bit back another sob.
Michaela's eyes opened again and her dry lips parted. Leaning close, Silvia somberly waited to witness her Deathwish.
Then it came, in a low, shocking murmur. “I want you to . . . lie with . . . Bastian tonight in my stead . . . to let him believe you are me,” Michaela rasped. “I want you to make love with him. And tell him Iâyouâtell him I love him.”
Silvia stared dumbly at her, stunned into silence. Tonight was Moonful! Lying with Bastian during the Calling would entail far more than a single coupling. On nights such as this, it was well-known that the Satyr mated from dusk to dawn. Without realizing it, she began shaking her head.
Michaela gripped her forearm with surprising strength. “Promise me, Via,” she insisted. “I want more time with him. You can give it to me. Please . . .”
A battle raged within Silvia.
No! Don't ask this of me. You'll discover that my heart has betrayed you, for I love him, too. Yes! I want him for myself. No! If I lie with him, it will only bind me further to that which I cannot have.
Although she wanted to scream a refusal, Silvia only nodded, whispering, “Yes, of course. I promise.”
Seeming more at peace, Michaela lifted a hand and touched Silvia's cheek, her eyes full of compassionate affection. Silvia covered it with her own and was surprised to feel the magic in it. Michaela was bestowing a parting spell! “What are youâ?”
“You must not mourn me, Via, not as long as you are with him,” Michaela began gently. Silvia gazed at her, a contradiction of dismay and gratitude swirling inside her as Michaela continued. “Tonight, you will become all he requires. You will accommodate him in his pleasure just as I wâ”
Michaela suddenly went deathly pale and wild fear pushed all else from Silvia's thoughts. “Oh, please, no, don't leave me. Not so soon.”
But Michaela's eyes were dull now, and she didn't reply. She drew a single, shallow breath, and then another faltering one. Then her hand fell to lie on her crumpled crimson dress, limp.
A debilitating grief threatened to overwhelm Silvia, and she desperately wanted to give in to it. But she'd promised Kayla.
It was time.
Moving like an automaton, she began the familiar rite of passage. Leaning forward, she let her red-gold hair curtain around Michaela's face to create a small privacy where they might do what they must. “I love you,” she whispered. And then she pressed her lips to Michaela's.
With a sharp
gasp!
she captured her beloved friend's final lifebreath. Inhaled it and took it into her own body. Then came that nebulous, infinitesimal pause as life eased into death.
A second kiss. And this time, Silvia gently exhaled and felt the familiar choke and pinch of her own life force moving outward as, slowly, she breathed life back into Michaela's body. Reanimating her. Becoming her.
And then Silvia was lying on her back, the misted brick street a damp and unforgiving bed beneath her. She blinked violet eyes, gazing up at the swiftly darkening, cloud-swollen sky. For a moment she lay there, disoriented and unsure of who she was or what had happened. Somewhere in the distance, she heard footfalls. Shouts.
Polizia.
She remembered having called for them. Why?
Gingerly, she sat up and felt pain. She put her hand to her throat. Gods, it burned as if she'd worn a hangman's noose. She had once, fifty hosts ago. Or was it a hundred? Cool air found her and she glanced down, her eyes widening. Her hand went lower to cover her cleavage. She hadn't been this well endowed in quite some time. Her dress was of the sort meant to attract bees to her honey. Who was she?
Then, in a flash, everything came rushing back to her. Michaela was her host now! Which meant she'd . . . died. Oh Gods, no! This meant they had no more than a month left together. Maybe less, then . . . No, she couldn't think of losing Michaela to Death forever. Not yet. Strangely, her grief at her dearest friend's passing was at present a dull, distant pain. She recalled the warmth of Michaela's hand on her cheek moments ago. The bespelling. Michaela had apparently locked away the specific set of emotions that would have made mourning her possible. Grief would not come until later, after she'd fulfilled her friend's final wish.
You must not mourn me, Via, not as long as you are with him.
Dry-eyed, Silvia got to her knees, finding her feet. She hadn't asked Michaela for the truth about her relationship with Pontifex when she'd had the chance, for she had assumed that when she took possession of this body, she would be given its secrets. But Michaela's Will was still strong, and for reasons Silvia could not possibly guess, she was blocking that information.
She walked a few tottering steps, then stopped. Murder was always the worst, for the bodies of the victims were painful. Her throat was still on fire. After all, she'd just been choked to death. But this pain and the marks on her skin would fade within the hour.
A man passed, his eyes turning greedy as they spied her. She adjusted her bodice higher and the pleasant flowery smell of Michaela's perfume wafted to her nose. She wasn't accustomed to being so attractive. Beauty drew too much attention, much of it unwanted.
“Move along, signor!” she said sharply. Ignoring her rebuff, he took a step toward her. She faced off, preparing to defend herself if she must. Suddenly, the man looked past her, his eyes widening. Behind her, she heard footsteps and the distant clipclop of horses. The man moved on, apparently thinking better of forcing his attentions on her.
Assuming the
polizia
had come, Silvia knew that they might assume her to be a prostitute and therefore take her into custody, since recent laws had given them license to do so. Mentally formulating a believable tale that would explain her presence here as innocent, she smiled and turned to greet . . .