Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (46 page)

“What are you, a James Bond villain?” I said. “The least-hot Bond girl ever? Pussy NoMore?”

“Bond,” Danika said, baffled by the words coming out of her mouth. “James Bond. Shaken, not stirred.”

Though delirious, it was Danika's soft purring mid-West accent now, pushing through the influence of the inhuman visitor within her, enough to get me excited.

“Danika, listen to me,” I said, forcing my tongue to work properly. Whatever drug Ruby had put in my tea had my limbs lead-heavy and the rest of my body ache with the need to sleep, but my mouth was back to songbird-clarity. “Ruby Valli paid Batten to kill your companion, to kill George. Just like she gave another hunter my address to come and smoke Harry out. Didn't you, Ruby? Who was he? Some local hooligan?”

Danika's head came around at me and a thin keening fissured out of her throat. Wrenched free of the demon's control, she wailed: “George! Geeeoooorge!”

Ruby folded her arms and smiled at me. Her apple-pink cheeks were round and soft and lifted smile lines into the creases of her eyes. “What makes you think Mark Batten isn't still on my payroll?”

I tried to ignore that, because it didn't help me right now, but my heart couldn't un-hear it. It hammered sick and hard under my ribs, leapt with terror, contracting in a dread-squeeze. He's with my Harry, it said. Notice, he's always with Harry, lately.

Focusing on Danika, I struggled to keep her attention.

“It was Ruby's plan all along, Danika. She's been using you to keep her own hands clean, just like she used Batten, and who knows how many others? She uses everyone. Now she wants to use you to kill me, and for what? Do you think she's just going to hand over Harry to you?” I raised my voice to be heard over Danika's broken-hearted clamor. “Don't let her win. You're just another sacrifice for
her altar. There's no new companion for you, Danika, only death. It's Ruby's fault George is dead.”

Danika moaned, “George,” as though her motor was grinding down.

“Danika, she'll break the promise. She already has!”

Danika's moaning ended abruptly. Her chin fell even and her eyes bored into mine. For a fierce second, sanity and understanding blazed in her aspect; she poured fully back into herself, mentally filling her psyche with clarity and realization. Though it was an invisible change, I could tell the instant that Danika Sherlock thrust the demon completely from her exhausted body, and summoned her will for vengeance.

So could the demon's conjurer. Ruby lunged forward behind her. For a second, it must have showed in my face, because Danika's eyes flew wide. She screamed, “Mom, don't! Moooommeeee!”

The jagged point of a knife tore the front of Danika's delicate throat, sending a foaming jet of blood splattering across my face, lashing the revenants on the wall. It was over in a heartbeat.

Something behind me, barely alive, drew a shuddering groan as it stirred.

FORTY-THREE

I had been abandoned.

The odd purple candle light was fading in the mirror as the wax sank to nubs. Somewhere Harry was likely waking, stretching his sleep-stiffened body languorously, cat-like, in silk sheets on his big four-poster bed, and lighting a cigarette. Maybe Wes would be rousing in Harry's casket. My Cold Company would soon be asking Chapel and Batten where his DaySitter was. He and Batten would waste precious time they didn't know I didn't have, trading barbs and hassling each other, while Chapel realized I'd been gone too long and was not answering my cell phone. Probably my phone was ringing right this second in the Buick out front, filling the hot car with the Inspector Gadget theme song. The Buick. Where my gun was. Again, I had not known when to use it or how. And I was going to die in the middle of the day, surrounded by the sour stench of blood, death and bodily fluids.

I considered my options: A) Be a human sacrifice, or B)… ok, there wasn't a B. Was there?

What would it feel like to be ripped limb-from-limb, I wondered? Was Danika really going to rise from the dead to complete the deed? I'd already seen one ghoul.

Her own daughter. More than just random jealousy; hating the very girl you created. So much for motherly nurturing. I knew all about being rejected by your mother, but my mom never used me as a demon's sock puppet. I hadn't seen a familial resemblance before, but I hadn't been looking.

As the drugs fully receded from my dulled mind, I was able to taste fear; it did not taste good. I figured it was only a matter of time before Ruby had some other living host body for her demon to enter.
Or maybe that was my new purpose, here. What did that feel like? Or maybe she was just going to torture me. Just. How long would she hurt me, and with what implements?

I lifted my cheek off the floor and found it sticky. I could see shelves of tools, mostly woodworking tools: vices, files, rip saws, carving knives and gouges, chisels. They didn't look dusty or unused, which bothered me, because I wanted to believe they had been there from the last owner of the shop. What I really didn't want to know was what Ruby needed the planes for, but my brain still hates me, and it tripped along several flesh-removing options.

My eyes fell to the circle. Summoning a demon didn't sound all that difficult. You called it by name and title, kissed its ass a bit, and it came. Of course, I'd only just seen my first live ritual. And what demon would wanna help me? I didn't know any demon names, did I?

The spit on my tongue stung with a sudden excruciating sweet heat, that tart cinnamon candy heat. The Overlord? He was a demon king. He had better things to attend to than… well, hell, I was a servant of one of his revenants. He should be on my side, right? I could give it a shot. What did I have to lose, here? Except blood, sanity and lots of flesh, if Ruby grabbed the plane off the shelf.

“Hear me, Asmodeus,” I whispered. “Prince of Lust, Father of the Line Immortal, King of the Old Believers. Faithful… uh, backer-upper of… yeah, no, that's not going to work. The devoted servant of your creation calls you to—ow!”

My left nipple twisted suddenly with such an unbearable intensity that hot pain shot down the nerves deep in my chest to tangle around my heart. An invisible force tweaked it again with joyous, sadistic fingers. I cringed and, with my arms tied behind me, could do nothing to rub away the feeling. “I am the faithful servant of—ow! Motherfucker!” Both nipples twisted in unison, pinching hard. “OK, sorry! I was going to invite you out to play, but forget it.”

So, no Overlord. Asmodeus, the prurient father of the vampire lineage, was playing purple-nurple with my girly parts like a tipsy adolescent and would be no help. My options at this point were limited.

My eyes crept to the revenants chained to the wall. The young dark-haired one was Patrick Laurier Nazaire; I knew this immediately. He had owned the sunglasses before Danika tried to force the Bond
on him. Patrick was, at this point, uselessly insane. Starvation-weakened arms bound across his chest as if he was already in a straightjacket, he licked the chains that rested across his shoulder, looking through me. If he were ever freed, he'd leave a swath of slaughtered bodies in his wake, until the day someone like Batten did the nation a rowan wood favor. That thought made me wonder if Ruby was bluffing about Batten being on her payroll, but the idea made my gut churn, and to keep from yurking-up I had to consider something else and quick.

That left Ruby's immortal companion, Gregori Nazaire: a blond giant of a man, well over six foot seven, probably very distinguished at full health, looking like someone's frightfully realistic but under-stuffed Halloween prop chained to the wall, clothes hanging off his frame. Jeans and a white button-down dress shirt covered in months' worth of filth. Fourteen hundred-year-old poets wear Levis? Who knew?

Why had Ruby chained up her own revenant? Had he tried to stop her from doing the rotten crap she'd been up to? If so, that indicated he wasn't completely evil. Maybe he was trustworthy. Maybe he could help me. Maybe we could help each other. Or, maybe Harry was right and I was utterly naïve.

“Mister Nazaire?” I breathed, experimentally. The sound of his name coming out of my own throat made my legs go numb and I suddenly needed to pee real bad. It would serve Ruby right if I whizzed on her chalk circle. That is, after all, the best-known folk cure for beating demons: pee your pants and run like hell.

“Mister Nazaire?”

The revenant did not respond.

I used the grippy toes of my Keds to push myself closer, my feet tingling as though asleep. The rubber soles scraped loudly in the echoing room, smudging chalk writings. I glanced behind me then pushed again, until the rope dug in around my ankle. An inch closer. Again. Closer.

I left the candlelit spot in front of the mirror behind, and scrape-shuffle-snaked my way into the cool dark by the back wall. My thighs quivered like Jell-o inside my pants, and sweat greased the skin under my bra's underwire.

I could smell him now, faintly, like a skeleton nearly desiccated, weeks-old carrion cooked to dry bones, ligaments cracking in the summer sun. I wished I didn't know what that smelled like. Other people didn't have to know. Then again, it was a slight improvement on the smell of blood and loose bowels in a clod under Danika's chair.

Up close, Gregori Nazaire hardly looked real. His flesh was a horror of shrunken musculature, paper-thin skin, blue veins roping emptily and visibly beneath. A belt held up his jeans; new holes had been punched in it to tighten it enough to keep his pants up. I wondered how many times Ruby had broken in a new belt hole and adjusted his pants around his dwindling waistline. His chest, sunken within his white button-down dress shirt, didn't rise or fall.

But I knew he was not gone: underneath that light cooked skeleton smell was the sharp familiar tainted sweetness of burnt sugar.

“Gregori?” I whispered. No movement, no hint that he'd heard me. The smell of the chains against his skin was like a sweaty, oiled coin. They'd blistered his skin, not a lot but enough to tell me there was significant silver content in the iron. The only way you'd be able to keep a revenant of his age chained to a wall, even with silver, is if he'd been starved for quite some time before you put him here. She must have locked him in his casket for years, blocked his escape with crosses. Starved him into submission.

Who knows how long he'd been tormented? If I got any closer and he woke up slavering and insane, I'd be within reach. It would be pretty stupid to look for help from a starving revenant you've never met, and end up with your face chewed off. What would Harry say? He'd have “Served her right” carved on my tombstone so generations could see a dumbass mistake cost me my life.

Before I got any closer, I had to know whether or not Gregori Nazaire remembered who he was, if his faculties were intact, if we would be able to help one another, if there was a chance I was only trading death-by-torture for death-by-draining.

“Monsieur Nazaire?” I tried with my clumsy French accent. “Master Nazaire?”

Nothing. I took a deep breath and struggled to my knees to lean up closer, as much as the ropes allowed, prepared to thrust myself back into the safety of my bonds if he lunged at me.

Danika Sherlock's blood had splattered the bridge of his nose but hadn't awoken him like it had the other revenant. Patrick watched everything and nothing with glowing green eyes that showed no sign of sanity whatsoever. Gone deep into lich-form, his tongue worked madly, scenting in the air like a snake on crack cocaine.

Probably better to take my chances with ole G'Naz, here. And I shouldn't try street nicknames for him, either. I'm not cool enough to pull it off, and he probably wouldn't like it. What if I quoted some of his stolen poetry? What was that line I'd read this morning?

“Taken down and worked dry,

the fairest maiden left fairer

still by aching heart and straining yard…”

My throat closed over the words, nausea rolling in my belly. Nope, no revenant erotica, no romance for the dying or the dead. Ick, blerg and blech. I tried a more formal route, cleared my throat and whispered solemnly:

“Death Rejoices, glorious Elder.”

The revenant's eyelids fluttered, but did not open.

I said it again, my voice soft with respect. “Death Rejoices, cherished master of the grave, keeper of the gift of immortality.”

Nazaire's neck seemed not strong enough to bring his head up, but his eyes did open and they slinked sideways in my direction. The irises were pure airy platinum, shining with calculating intelligence, yet guarded. Wary.

His bloodless, parched lips parted.

“Hail, honored DaySitter. Centuries untold celebrate your gift of submission,” he said formally in return.

His voice, though dry and weak, hinted at rich sumptuousness. I thought at full power it might be sonorous, a voice for singing opera, or belting your point across a courtroom. Not a voice for a skeletal dead guy in jeans. A voice for a three-piece power suit guy. I smiled up at him, reassured by the steadiness in his voice. He knew who he was, and what I was. This was a good start, a promising start.

“Death Rejoices, Master Nazaire,” I responded one last time. “Do you know who I am?”

His nearly transparent eyelids fell closed again, lashes casting shadows on pale flesh. Maybe it was an effort to keep the lids up.

“My name is Marnie Baranuik. I worked with Ruby at Gold-Drake & Cross before she retired.”

“Fired,” he said.

“She was fired?” I felt my eyebrows soar. “Because there were younger psychics coming in to take her place.”

Nazaire's head shook. “Kidnapping.”

My brain scrambled. “They fired her because they found out she was kidnapping other psychics’ revenants?” He nodded. “Like who? Patrick Laurier?” Another exhausted nod. “To what end?”

“Power… must make sure her dhaugir is dead. I hear…” His chin came up again, but he was too worn down and dried out to manage it for long. “Many hearts. Many hearts beating…the dhaugir…”

My brain scrambled for a definition, but the drugs interfered. The word dhaugir was very familiar, and I knew he meant Danika: dhaugir, a DaySitter's human mystic whipping boy, taking her pain, doing her dirty work.