Touch of Death (21 page)

“Which is as good as a command if you’re tapping into that power. And you definitely were.”

I was speechless. Once again, I’d used my powers without meaning to. “What do we do?”

“We have to go after him. You have to tell him to stop.”

“But if he goes back to his grave, he’ll be at rest. He should be at rest, not working here.”

“Think, Jodi. He’s going to dig up the ground and crawl back into his grave. Get the mental image because you need to be prepared for what you’re going to see out there. And once he digs his way to his grave and crawls inside, he’ll stay there. But not at peace. He’s not dead, Jodi. He’s a soul stuck in a dead body. And you sentenced him to stay that way for all eternity.”

Oh, God! I had no idea. If that poor soul got stuck in a grave—well, that would be worse than what Alex’s family had done to him in the first place. “What do we do?”

He tugged on my arm, and we ran from the room. I wasn’t quite at full strength yet, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I had created this problem, and now I had to fix it. I stumbled a few times, but Alex stopped me from completely wiping out. I could tell he was holding back, not running at full speed so he could keep an eye on me. After how quickly he had gotten to me after lunch, I knew the guy had some major leg turnover. Luckily, dead people don’t. Even with the head start, the servant had only made it to the cemetery when we caught up with him.

Without thinking, I reached for the guy’s arm. “No, don’t!” Alex said, yanking me back. “He’s dead, and his body is barely holding itself together. If you pull on his arm, it’ll come right off.”

I gagged. “Oh, this keeps getting better and better.” Alex flicked on a flashlight that he must have grabbed on the way out of the house. He really was like a Boy Scout—always prepared. He shone the light on the servant, who was completely ignoring us and zigzagging through the headstones. “What do we do then? How do we stop him?”

“You have to control him. Like you did in your room.”

“Why me?” My voice was high and squeaky. “I haven’t even had any training yet.”

“Because I don’t have enough power to do it. Only the adults can control the dead once they’re brought back to life. I started to learn how to do it, but my powers aren’t strong enough yet.” He took my shoulders and turned me so I was forced to look at him and nothing else. “Somehow, you have enough power for this. You’re not like the rest of us. You’re stronger. You need to concentrate. Do whatever you did upstairs.”

“But I don’t know what I did.” For the past week, things had just been happening to me. I didn’t understand any of it, and I didn’t have control over it.

Alex lowered his hands and turned to see how far the servant had gotten. I followed his gaze. The guy was at his grave, shoveling dirt aside with his hands. Even from a distance, I could see his flesh falling off his hands in the process. There was going to be nothing left of him by the time he dug his own grave. I couldn’t let this happen. “Tell me what to do.”

“Okay, you have to concentrate and draw from your emotions.”

“What does that mean?” This wasn’t the time to be cryptic.

“You were angry in your room. It was that anger that fueled your power. You need a strong emotion.”

My emotions were definitely running on high. “All right, what else?”

“Let the emotion wash over you. It has to take over your body. When it does, you’ll feel your blood. Literally feel it from head to toe. That’s when you’ll know you’re ready.”

I put my hand up to stop him. “Let me work on that part before you tell me anymore. I don’t want to get confused by too many details at once. I’m new at this.”

He nodded. “We should move closer. It will help you focus on him.” We ran over to the grave and stopped just far enough away that we weren’t going to get pelted with dirt and bits of flesh. “You can do this,” Alex said, giving my arm a quick squeeze.

I inhaled deeply, which was a mistake since the air smelled like a combination of rotting flesh and dirt. I let images of all the awful things that had happened to me fill my mind. I started small. The deer. The deer terrorizing the farm and killing the sheep. The squirrel biting into Jake’s neck. Nurse Steingall and Dr. Alvarez. Matt. Matt ripping into the bunny. My blood started rippling in my veins. By the time I got to Mom, I was ready. “What’s next?”

“Think about what you want this guy to do. Get firm instructions in your head, and then tell him. You need to be forceful. He has to know you are in charge.”

I thought about what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to stop digging his grave. I wanted him to forget the command I’d given him before. No. That wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to find peace. I wanted his soul to return to wherever it had been before Alex’s family forced it into its decaying body. I wanted him to be free.

“Jodi, come on,” Alex urged.

I opened my eyes, locking them on the servant. “Stop!” I wasn’t sure if yelling was necessary, but Alex had said I needed to be forceful. The servant hesitated for a moment but then started digging again. “I command you to stop!” This time he listened. He stayed kneeling, but he stopped digging. I knew Alex wasn’t going to be happy about what I was going to do next, but I’d made up my mind. “I command your soul to return to the place it was before it was put back in this body. Go now! I command you to leave your body and return to where you belong!” I was concentrating so hard, my body shook. My blood boiled under my skin. Sweat dripped down my forehead.

The servant looked at me briefly before his body crumbled on the ground. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he’d looked thankful, relieved to be free. I smiled, and my legs gave out from beneath me. Alex rushed over to me, helping me stand. He draped my arm over his shoulders to steady me. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Because he didn’t deserve to live like that. He was being tortured. Releasing his soul was the only way I could make up for what I’d almost made him do.”

Alex sighed. “You definitely aren’t like the rest of the Ophi.”

“Don’t say that. You make them sound like awful people.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, you can do things the rest of us can’t.”

“You said you haven’t been taught how to do that yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.”

“I wish I could’ve done that for—”

“Matt.”

“I had to use my blood on him. Kill him for the second time.” Alex closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. “If I had your powers, I could’ve released his soul without having to put him through dying all over again.

“I don’t blame you for what happened. And neither would Matt. You did what you could to fix the situation. A situation I created. Any suffering Matt went through was my fault. Not yours.”

“Thanks, but sometimes I think it would be a lot easier if I were like you.”

“Hey, you want to be the Chosen One with a prophecy written about you? Please, be my guest. Then maybe for once in my life, I could be the normal one.”

“No, Jodi.” He smiled and shook his head. “You could never be normal.”

Somehow when Alex said it, it didn’t seem so bad.

He nodded at the body on the ground. “How are we going to explain to Victoria why she’s down a servant?”

Ugh, I hadn’t thought of that. Victoria wasn’t going to be happy about this.

Chapter 20

Alex said someone would bury the body in the morning. It felt wrong to leave the guy lying on top of the grave, but Alex had a point. We could barely see a thing in the darkness, even with the cemetery lights. We headed inside to find Victoria waiting for us at the door. “There you are. We’ve been looking everywhere for you. I held dinner.” She must not have known Alex had food sent to my room, not that I’d gotten to eat it.

“Sorry. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Nonsense. It’s your first real meal with us. I wouldn’t think of starting without you.” I guessed my little outburst at lunch didn’t qualify as eating with the group. “Besides, we can’t find one of the servers. Alex, have you seen him? He’s the one with—”

“You don’t even call them by name?”

Victoria glared at me. “They are no longer alive, Jodi. It’s not as though we revived them immediately after they died. We brought back bodies that had been gone for a while.”

I remembered what Alex had said about how scary it was to bring back bodies that had been dead for a long time. He’d known because his parents had done it. But these bodies didn’t look like they’d decayed completely. “They couldn’t have been gone for that long or they’d be nothing more than bones.”

She smiled at me and put her hand on my shoulder. “I have to remember that you are new to all of this. If we use enough power while restoring a soul to its body, some or even all of the flesh returns along with it. You have many abilities, Jodi, and in time you will to learn to use them.”

“Um, speaking of Jodi’s abilities.” Alex looked back and forth between Victoria and me. “We know what happened to your server.”

Victoria cocked her head to the side. “Go on.”

“I used my powers on him,” I blurted out. I couldn’t help it. Victoria wasn’t like my mom. She looked for any reason to be disappointed in Alex. I had to let her know this had been my fault. “I didn’t mean to, but I commanded him to go back to his grave.”

“You controlled him?” Victoria raised her hand to her mouth in shock. I thought she was going to be upset, but instead, she smiled. “Jodi, that’s wonderful. Most Ophi don’t learn to do that until they reach eighteen. You’re even more advanced than I thought you’d be.”

“That’s not all she can do,” Alex interrupted. Victoria’s eyes widened. “She released his soul. He was digging his way back to his grave when Jodi released him. His body is still there. Someone will need to take care of it in the morning.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Victoria put her arm around me. “You can release souls. That is amazing!” Her voice was a bit awestruck as she stepped back and clapped her hands together. “We must celebrate. Come, come.” She took me by the arm and led me to the dining room.

Like last time, the table was set and everyone was already seated. I wondered how long Victoria had been making them sit there staring at empty plates. Abby narrowed her eyes at me, and I got a little satisfaction out of making her wait for me. My eyes immediately lowered to Abby’s neck. She wasn’t wearing the locket. Maybe she wasn’t quite gutsy enough to steal it and then wear it in front of me. It had to be hidden in her room, which meant I had to find a way to get in there.

Victoria whispered something to one of the servers before taking her seat at one end of the table. “Everyone, I have very exciting news.” The servants brought out glasses of wine for everyone. “It seems dinner was held up for very good reasons.” She paused and looked at me. “Jodi’s powers are progressing better than we could have hoped. This evening, she not only took control of one of our servers, but she also released his soul.” There were murmurs and gasps all around the table. Once again, all eyes were on me. “This is more proof that Jodi
is
the one we’ve been waiting for. And with her powers coming on so strongly—well, let’s say we will all benefit from her being with us.” She raised her glass, and everyone else followed. I hesitated for a second but Victoria nodded to me, so I picked up my glass as well. “Welcome to our family, Jodi.”

While everyone else joined in with the welcome, Abby downed her wine in one gulp. “Yeah, welcome, Sis.” She leaned her shoulder against Alex’s. “Welcome your new sister, Alex.”

He moved his chair away from her and closer to me. “We aren’t all blood relatives, Abby.”

“Sure we are. We’ve all got Gorgon blood, don’t we?” She reached for his glass of wine and drank that, too.

Alex rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Jodi isn’t my biological sister.” I was trying to pretend I wasn’t listening, nodding along to a conversation at my end of the table, but I saw Abby lean over and run her finger down Alex’s arm.

“And neither am I, Alex.”

Alex pushed her hand away and motioned for one of the servers. He placed his meal request and ignored Abby. Dinner was pretty normal after that. Except Alex wouldn’t look at me. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong. Abby was the one making all the comments about blood relatives and blatantly coming on to Alex. I kept stealing glances at him, which wasn’t easy since we were sitting right next to each other. I sipped my wine, more for something to do than for the taste, which was strangely metallic to me.

As soon as Alex finished eating, he took his plate and went into the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what he was doing since the servants cleaned up after dinner, but I grabbed my plate and followed him.

“Hey.” I put my plate on the counter next to his. “Something wrong?”

“Just Abigail being Abigail.”

“You don’t like her much, do you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “How can you tell?”

I leaned against the counter while he fidgeted with the plates. “Well, she certainly likes you.”

“Abby likes everyone.”

“Not me.”

“That’s because—” He shook his head. “Never mind. She’s not even worth thinking about.” He stopped playing with the plates and turned to me. “You want to take a walk? I’ll show you around.”