Dark Ghost (36 page)

She would have bitten her lip if she had one. The words. The tone. That caress. She shivered. He still took the time to make her know she was his and he was watching over her. She didn’t consider herself shy, but she couldn’t find the words to answer him back. When it came to relationships, she didn’t have the first clue, only that she was determined to have his back. She wanted him to know that. To feel it, just the way he made her know he would be there for her under any circumstances.

The branch the owl rested on shivered. Teagan’s stomach did a somersault, and not in a good way. The large, very thick trunk shuddered. Sickness spread through the tree. She felt it – disease – as if some mutant parasite had entered through the roots and moved through the veins and arteries of the tree, spreading a dark acid through the sap. Branches trembled. Shuddered. A few leaves curled on the lower branches.

Now the note became several. The clacking noise continued, providing a jarring beat behind the malevolent notes. The musical symphony of the night – of the mountain itself – changed into something altogether different. Teagan tuned herself to the notes, separating the sounds until she knew there were two of the undead stalking the night. Now she simply had to trace the path back to them.

Do not.
 

She winced. That was nothing less than a command.
Seriously, Andre, I can help. Kirt and Keith may be bleeding profusely, but they’re still alive and they could be dangerous to you. I can find the vampires and tell you exactly where they are.

She ignored his warning, because it was the only thing she could do to help him. It might have sounded like she was joking when she told him he could handle the undead, but there was no way she was getting close to one of those creatures. Well, not unless it was a dire emergency.

Teagan stretched her senses, allowing them to flow out of her, listening to the music in her body. To the tone. To the…

Everything in her stilled. Inside the owl she went rigid. Paralyzed. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t reach out to Andre, let alone anyone else. Panic hit her hard. Something had taken over her mind. Shut her down. She couldn’t shift. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t warn Andre. The vampires had found her.

You are perfectly fine. Sit there quietly. The vampires have no idea of your existence and we are going to keep it that way.
 

Oh. My. God. Andre had totally shut her down. It was Andre controlling the situation. She couldn’t help because
Andre
had decreed it. When he let her loose, if he was still alive, she was going to kill him. Make her own vampire-hunting kit and do him in while he slept. No. She wanted him to see it coming. She’d be the black widow and kiss him silly and then stake him.

Do not make me laugh. You are distracting me.
 

She couldn’t reply, which made her all the angrier. But he was reading her thoughts and that meant she could
think
about what a rat bastard he was. Her best friend growing up, Cheryl, had it right. Cheryl decreed a lot of men were rat bastards, and now Teagan was hooked up with one.

The very branch she was on shook and then it expanded as if it couldn’t contain the poisonous brew spreading through its main body. Instantly she saw Andre’s head come up alertly, even as he faded into the trees, behind Keith, who was on the ground, on his hands and knees, knife gripped tight in his fist as blood continued to run down his throat to soak the front of his shirt. Kirt slumped a few feet from his brother, the slashes in his neck much deeper. He gasped over and over as if he couldn’t get air.

The entire tree trunk quivered and then began to creak ominously. If she could have, Teagan knew she wouldn’t have been able to stop the owl from flying off the groaning branch. Because she couldn’t move, neither could the owl. She knew Andre saved her life. She could never have remained calm and still when insects surged up the tree, a black moving carpet, swarming over every leaf and twig, straight toward her.

Right before the insects reached the owl, the trunk of the tree began to split. Black sap erupted and rats and more insects poured out of the center as if the tree was giving birth to something malignant. The pile of rats fell to the ground, revealing the vampire. The rodents rushed toward Kirt as the vampire laughed hideously.

“What do we have here?” The creature’s breath hissed out of him. “Did you two get in a knife fight? How very sad. Brothers, I see. I will end your suffering. Not right away, but I promise… eventually.”

He waved his hand as the rats reached Kirt and began tearing at his body with sharp teeth. “My friends are hungry. That one is too far gone to have much fun with, but…” He smiled down at Keith, revealing his spiked, blackened teeth, stained with the blood of his victims. “You and I can have a great deal of fun before you die.”

Everything about the vampire was hideous. His voice hurt Teagan’s ears. His skin was drawn tight over his bones, so that he looked like a walking skeleton. Flesh seemed to slough off of him. His eyes appeared to be two burning holes in empty sockets. She didn’t want to watch as he approached Keith, but as if a horror film was unfolding, she couldn’t look away, even if Andre had released her from the paralysis.

Andre materialized out of thin air, his body between the vampire and his prey. The two came together hard, hunter and hunted. She saw Andre’s fist hit dead over the heart, punching through the wall of flesh and bone to get to his target. He rocked the vampire with his enormous strength, with that punch that penetrated deep, so deep a good portion of Andre’s arm disappeared as well.

The vampire threw back his head and howled. Spittle ran down his mouth. His eyes blazed fire. Black blood erupted around the hole in his chest and ran down his stomach and legs. Teagan also noted the thick goo that coated what she could see of Andre’s forearm.

The vampire went wild, thrashing, slashing, biting at Andre, and calling to his rats for aid. He raised his voice loudly to the wind, calling his master and his brethren for help. To Teagan’s horror, the rats abandoned Kirt and raced toward Andre.

Andre didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look at the rodents. He kept his gaze burning over the vampire’s face, staring him right in the eye. There was a terrible sucking sound and Andre withdrew his hand, whirling away from the vampire to toss the blackened, wizened organ a distance from him. He raised his hand toward the sky and a whip of lightning sizzled and cracked, hitting the heart as it bounced and rolled along the ground trying to find its way back to its body.

The whip of lightning struck the heart, incinerating it. Instantly the vampire went down, falling in the middle of the rats that had stopped just as abruptly when the rotten heart had been destroyed. The white-hot whip hit the vampire’s body, the flames jumping to the rodents.

Teagan felt her body tune to the second discordant note. It was much more muted, as if the vampire was aware it was being tracked – or if it was already stalking Andre. Her heart stammered.
Andre, another one.
She couldn’t reach him on their shared telepathic path, but she knew he was in her mind. She concentrated on the jarring, jangled sound resonating inside of her. She could at least give Andre a direction.

Giles and Gerard burst out of the trees as the scent of foul burning flesh mingled with the odor of blood. Giles held a gun; Gerard, a knife. They took in the fact that Kirt was lying on the ground, blood all over his clothes and throat. Keith still clutched his knife but he was unmoving, his eyes wide with shock, his mouth stretched open, a look of utter terror on his face.

Giles already had the gun up and trained on Andre, who was wielding the whip of hot energy to clean the black acid from his arms. Giles fired straight at Andre. Teagan heard her own scream, deep inside the owl’s body. She fought the paralysis gripping her, stark fear warring with Andre’s command. Forcing herself not to panic, she followed the thread in Andre’s mind back to the source of the command.

The first bullet took Andre in the arm, just below his forearm. The second skimmed his left bicep because he moved fast, whirling to one side to avoid the lead coming at him. At the same time, he snapped the lightning and the whip wrapped around Giles’s neck, turning his body to ash. Gerard skidded to a halt, his mouth open as his brother dissolved into little curls of blackened soot right before his eyes.

He swore and backed up, right into the hands of the second vampire. The undead gripped him in bony hands and bent his head to sink his teeth into Gerard’s neck, all the while keeping his gaze on Andre. He held the human in front of him as a shield.

“Take care not to be too greedy, Bacsa,” Andre cautioned. “Your master needs his blood and he will be most unhappy with you if you bring back a dead feast. He likes his blood hot and fresh.”

Bacsa was careful to close the wound on Gerard’s neck. “I see you have your own messy feast.” Deliberately he indicated Kirt and Keith.

Andre shrugged. The lightning whip sizzled.

Bacsa smirked, believing he was safe as long as he had the human shield. He lifted his head and scented the air. His gaze widened and a crafty expression crept over his face. “You have a woman. A lifemate. I can smell her on you.”

“Where is he? Your master,” Andre asked softly. “You know why he sent the two of you after his food. He knows he cannot defeat me and he sent you as his pawns, fodder to be killed while he slips away. You have been around long enough to know how it works. Where is he?”

Bacsa took two steps back, dragging Gerard with him. “You are wounded. You have a woman. Do not follow and I will allow you to live.”

“I will not allow you to live, Bacsa. I am a hunter. I bring you the justice of our people.”

Teagan went still. She realized right then that Andre didn’t argue – not with anyone. Not a vampire. Not a human. Not with her. He explained things to her, but he didn’t argue with her. He told her what he was going to do and the consequences if she didn’t listen to him, and he followed through no matter what. It was a very good insight to have if she was going to spend a lifetime with him.

She knew what he was going to do and she wasn’t at all shocked when the whip cracked, unfurled and wrapped around Bacsa and Gerard. The vampire screamed. Gerard disintegrated, the blackened ash falling away from the undead. Bacsa’s rotted flesh and clothes melted away, leaving him a hideous shell of bloody, burnt bones.

Andre dropped the whip and was on him in a flash, driving his fist deep into the chest cavity, seeking the heart of the vampire. Bacsa shrieked and fought, pummeling Andre’s face with bony hands and then ripping at his throat and shoulders with sharp talons. He tried to shift, but Andre’s fist was already too deep inside, his fingers grasping the shriveled heart.

Bacsa slammed his bony hand into the gunshot wound on Andre’s arm. Teagan raged at her inability to move, to help. She could see Keith crawling across the ground toward Andre, knife still in his fist. His gaze was on Andre, not the vampire, his entire being focused on killing her man.

Teagan found the command keeping her still, right there in Andre’s mind. His entire concentration was on taking Bacsa’s heart. He blocked out all pain and everything else around him, determined to kill the undead. She fixed her focus on the command, reversing what he’d done. Instantly she felt freedom. She spread her wings and dropped down fast, straight at Keith’s face, talons extended.

The talons raked his cheeks, her wings beating hard, striking him repeatedly. Keith fell back, swiping at the bird with his knife, sawing the air back and forth in an attempt to get the owl off of him. He struck the body of the bird on a frantic and very lucky slash. Bright red droplets of blood splattered in the air. At the same time, Andre withdrew the heart and stepped away from the vampire.

Bacsa turned his head toward the bird, his gaze desperate. He lunged and caught the faltering bird by one wing, dragging it to him. Even as he did, Teagan had presence of mind to rake her talons down Keith’s face, ripping through flesh and bone, destroying his face as the vampire jerked her to him. His teeth sank deep just as a bolt of lightning slammed into the heart Andre had tossed to the ground.

The moment the heart was incinerated, Bacsa’s body shuddered. His bony fingers closed reflexively around the bird, his mouth opening wide in a silent scream. He fell hard, taking the owl with him, so that she landed beneath his toppling body. Teagan felt the dead weight of the vampire pressing her into the ground. The owl’s neck was twisted funny and she couldn’t move. Black blood dripped onto the feathers of her back, burning right through the flesh of the bird to the very bone.

Panic set in immediately. There was no air to shift back to her normal form. She couldn’t even form a picture in her mind she was so afraid the heavy body was smothering her. Abruptly the vampire was lifted from her. She saw the bright flash as the whip of lightning incinerated first the vampire and then Keith as he crawled blindly along the ground, his knife still clutched tight.

Shift.
The command came in a tight, hard voice.

The sound was shocking to her, enough so that it snapped her out of her panic. Air rushed back into her lungs.
I just
saved you and you’re angry at me again. I can’t believe you. This was terrifying, and in case you haven’t noticed, there are dead people everywhere. Dead people and dead things. I’m having a very bad night.

Shift. Now. I am holding the image in your mind for you.
 

His voice was unrelenting, and Teagan shivered. She was reluctant to face him in human form. Her body hurt and she knew she was bleeding. She had vampire teeth marks in her back, up high where Bacsa had driven his teeth deep. She didn’t want to see what her belly looked like and more than anything, she didn’t want to face Andre’s steely wrath. Not now, not with dead people’s ashes floating in the air around her.

Teagan, if you do not obey me, I will force the shift.
 

Oh, yeah, he was angry with her. And unrelenting. She sighed and complied. She didn’t like the idea of him taking control of her that way and she knew him well enough now to know there wouldn’t be a second warning.