If you fight me, he will see me-see us
, he corrected.
Just tell me how to cast the damn spell
, I said. Because he was right. We were out of time. The thing, the man-dog thing, had paused, right out there on the sidewalk where I’d been standing a moment ago.
The wind was blowing toward me, which meant he might not be able to smell me. For once luck was on my side, but I didn’t know how long it would hold.
Tell me how to cast Camouflage
, I said again.
If that thing kills me, you aren’t going to have anyone’s mind to hide in anymore.
It is too complicated.
And this time it wasn’t approval in his voice, it was anger. And fear.
Yeah, well, welcome to my life.
The creature hunched his far-too-human shoulders, hung his head, and scented the wind. He moved toward me, on all fours, human hands curled under so only the knuckles touched the bricks, body a tragedy of bone and sinew and maggot-white skin. He looked bigger than before. Stronger.
If you don’t give up
, I said to my dad,
we’re both going to be dead.
I felt him pause, still, as if he held his breath. Felt him decide.
You are right
, he said quietly.
And while I would have crowed in victory at that admission when he’d been alive, staring down my own certain death sort of dampened the thrill.
My dad reached out into my mind and yanked that damn cord again. Pain rushed over me in a wave of fire. The wave, my father’s will, crashed down over me so fast and so hard, I didn’t even have time to exhale my scream.
Both of my arms raised, palms forward-even though I was not the one moving them.
Back off
, I said. I pushed at my dad, built brick walls between us as quickly as I could, but it wasn’t working.
No. Stop. I won’t let you do this to me
, I said.
You have never known when to fight, Allison
, he said. Without my consent, my fingers traced an intricate glyph pattern. All I wanted to do was puke. Watching someone-worse, feeling someone-use me, puppet me around, control me, brought nightmares screaming through my mind.
Oh, hells, no.
I pushed at him. It was like shoving a mountain of sand-lots of movement, and none of it did a damn bit of good.
You have never known the right thing to fight for
, he said, his voice growing stronger in my mind, his willpower blasting apart the walls I scrambled to build, leaving nothing but dust behind. His hands, my hands, traced magic into the air to his bidding. His will sucked at the magic in my bones.
And you have never known what is worth losing to get what you want
With that, he shoved me so hard, I felt like I’d just fallen down an elevator shaft. My body jerked, hit the back of my head against the wall, but I felt it only distantly, as if I’d been huffing nitrous oxide. Dad was doing something to screw with my vision. I couldn’t see anything but blackness. But even at the bottom of an elevator shaft I could still hear, and I could still smell.
The scent of butterscotch and rum filled my nostrils and slid down my throat-the Camouflage spell.
If my dad could shove me out of my own conscious mind, take over my body, and cast a spell, I was on the hard end of a screwing.
Fine. I may not like my father, but that didn’t mean I was stupid. He had the upper hand for the moment, and since it was in his best interest not to let his current ride, aka me, get killed, I hated to admit it, but letting him cast that spell was probably saving my ass. The butterscotch-and-rum meant the spell was in effect. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and let Dad hide us until the beast moved on.
The thing was close. I could smell the foul rot of flesh and death and blood from it.
I held very still, wrapped in darkness, breathing butterscotch, and straining to hear anything, any hint of it walking away.
“Daniel.” The word was low, a growl. “I know you. I smell you. I see you,” it said. “You cannot hide. Your death calls me.”
“Go on your way,” I heard myself command. I could feel the honey twist of Influence my father brought to bear behind those words. “Or I will undo you.”
He was using my hands. He was using my eyes. He was using my magic. And now he was using my mouth.
That pissed me off. My dad was using my lips. My dad was using my tongue.
Nobody used my tongue but me. Nobody.
Fuck him. Even though I was shoved down here somewhere in my own head, I could still feel magic inside my body. All I had to do was find a way to get to it and a way to cast it.
“You are my way, Daniel Beckstrom,” the creature growled. “Living, undead, you hold the key to the dark and light. The key to open the gates. And then I will have my revenge on those who betrayed me.”
The back of my head hit the wall again, and I was aware, distantly, that my shoulders hurt. Also, I tasted blood. That was not a good sign.
Closer, in my ear, the beast shouted: “You are mine.”
Light slid like a blade of electricity between my eyes. Blackness flashed strobe white, blinding me again.
No!
My Dad, inside my head.
“No,” my own voice echoed.
I didn’t know which one of us had control of my body. We were mixed, too much of one person and not enough of two. The weight of the beast hit my chest-for the second time-and I crumpled to the ground beneath it.
I opened my eyes-
my eyes
Oh yeah. Go, me! I was in control again.
Fangs hovered inches from my face, and dark black eyes burned ebony into my own.
Shit.
“You are mine now, Daniel Beckstrom,” the Necromorph growled.
The Necromorph opened his mouth, unhinging his jaw, and breathed out. Dark magic poured over me like ice, magic that chilled the air. Magic I could not see, could not smell. I inhaled and deathly cold tendrils of magic slipped into me, into my lungs, into my mind.
“Come to me,” the thing growled. “Death nor life, I killed you once. You have done much worse to me. I will no longer wait here in the in-between, denied both life and death.”
What the hell? Killed him once?
And then the Necromorph inhaled. The darkness inside me cinched tight around something in my head.
My father moaned, twisted to try to break free of the hold that the Necromorph had on him. It was like my dad was a speck of dirt and the Necromorph was a vacuum. The Necromorph sucked in again.
I gasped in shared pain. Memories washed through me. My dad’s memories. Of a man holding his hands behind his back while a gun dug into his temple. Terror and fury washed me in cold sweat.
Because even more frightening than the memory of the gun to Dad’s head was the memory of the man in front of him. A man who cast magic. A man who had disks in one bloody hand, a knife in the other, and the same eyes as the beast that was tearing into my head.
Holy shit. This thing, this Necromorph, was one of the men who killed my father.
They thought James Hoskil was behind it all. And James’ mother had even named him. But it never made sense for one man to sneak into my father’s office, past his Wards, past his protections, and kill him. My father had been one of the most powerful magic users in the city.