I knew if Greyson got one more sip of him, he would have absorbed my father’s soul.
And if Greyson could carry around my father’s soul like I could, then Dad would be awake, aware, just like he was in me.
I did not like the idea of my father, and all the spells and training he had, being at the beck and call of Murder Boy over there.
Greyson opened his mouth, unhinged his human-looking jaw.
No time to think.
I ran to my dad’s ghost, ran
into
his ghost and inhaled, occupying the same space.
I didn’t know how to ask a spirit to possess me. So I did my best to clear my mind and concentrate on allowing my father’s soul, his mind, back into me.
I am a river and magic flows through me. Your soul is a part of that magic, a part of the magic I carry in me.
“Come back to me, Dad,” I said with enough Influence, I think even my willful father would respond.
A cool breeze, soft as a sigh, washed over me. I smelled wintergreen. Tasted leather. My father’s scents. But it was faint. So faint.
“Dad?”
No response.
And still no time.
Greyson yelled. That wasn’t good.
I turned. Threw both my arms up to protect my face.
A massive figure charged out of the shadows and hit Greyson like a one-ton truck.
Greyson rolled, but the beast kept after him. Greyson finally crumpled beneath the beast. And it was a beast. A very familiar beast.
Stone growled. His strange pipe-organ vacuum-cleaner croon now had a primal guttural rattle. He did not like Greyson. Not one bit.
I didn’t know where the big lug had come from, but I was really happy to see him.
He had Greyson pinned with one stone hand on his throat, and the other shoved in the center of his chest. Stone rocked forward, leaning a little more weight on each hand.
Greyson yelled.
So, here’s the deal. I had no problem with Stone making mush out of this guy. Maybe in man form Greyson could not only feel pain, he could also die. He sure hadn’t died in beast form when Stone messed him up before.
But I didn’t know if my dad was in me. I didn’t know if my dad was in Greyson. And the last thing Dad had asked him was who hired Greyson to murder my father. Greyson had answers to questions I wanted solved. Whether or not my dad’s soul was in me, in Greyson, or finally at rest.
“Stone, don’t,” I said. “Don’t kill him. Yet.”
The breathing boulder actually listened to me and eased up a little. Not that it did Greyson much good. He was bleeding, and from the angle of his arm and leg, broken. But bleeding and broken weren’t enough to make Stone let go of him.
And yes, Greyson’s wounds were already healing, just like they had in the alley, though I didn’t see dark magic filling him. No, just the disk that pulsed green at his neck.
A shiver ran down my sweaty back. Every instinct in my body told me the man on the floor was inhuman. Something that broke the rules of life and death.
Yeah, I know. So says the woman who keeps a dead man as a brain buddy.
Already Greyson looked less human. His face shifted into feral angles, his limbs bent and twisted into the form of the beast.
Maybe losing his humanity meant he no longer had my father’s soul. Maybe it meant I still had my father’s soul, what was left of it, inside me.
I’d cheer, but, really, who was I kidding? I had a couple problems on my hands here.
I shifted my grip on the machete. Cutting Greyson may not stop him, but large injuries seemed to slow him down some. And I was hankering to stab somebody until they told me what the hell I wanted to know.
“What did you do to Tomi?” I asked. “What did you do to my dad? Is he still in you? Did you kill him? Again? Did you fuck up Davy? Who hired you? Who put that damn disk in your neck? Why did taking my dad’s soul change you?”
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t move.
Yeah, I heard it too. Footsteps coming close to the shed.
The room suddenly flooded with light. Greyson looked over my shoulder.
I did too. That was stupid. Luckily, Stone was not at all interested in the light. He stared straight at Greyson and growled again.
Chase strode into the warehouse through the same hole in the wall I’d gone through. She held an orb, the source of the light, in her left hand. The fingers of her right hand curled around a snakelike glyph that I could see even without Sight.
“Allie?” she called.
“I’m fine,” I said even though I wasn’t. Because, really, right now I was a little worried that the kick-ass woman behind me was going to meet her undead, half-beast murderer boyfriend and oh, I don’t know, maybe the conversation would get awkward. If I understood her job description, it was a Closer’s duty, Chase’s duty, to Close people who used magic wrong, who used magic to hurt others. And that meant it was her job to kill Greyson.
The man she once loved.
The beast he now was.
Who might house my father’s soul.
Who might know who was behind my dad’s death.
Who might be impossible to kill.
Holy shit.
She strode over to me like she didn’t believe a word I’d said. Good instincts.
Greyson was still sliding into his mutated beast form, the disk at his neck pulsing toxic silver-green with every beat of his heart. He didn’t run, not that he could get out from under Stone’s grip. He didn’t raise his hands to cast a spell. He simply lay there. Watching Chase draw nearer. The rhythm of his heartbeat quickened, and the disk at his neck pulsed faster.
Pain twisted his face while contortions changed his body.
Chase caught sight of Stone and Greyson and paused midstride. She seemed to catch herself and finished the march to my side. She dimmed the light to nonnuclear levels and stopped next to me.
“Greyson?” she breathed.
“Please,” he said, his voice still more man than beast, “let me go.”
The spell in her right hand flickered and died, but the orb still burned, deep yellow now, like dying candlelight that caressed Greyson’s face, blurring the edges until it seemed only the man rested within its glow.
She was losing concentration. Probably going into shock.
I didn’t blame her, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her shock get me killed.
“Oh, Grey.” Her words caught. She swallowed, tried again. “I–I can’t.”
Greyson lifted one hand toward her but did not touch her, even though he could have. “Then look away. Please look away.”
Chase was shaking. “No. We can help you. We can undo this.”
Greyson shook his head. “No one can. Not even Zayvion.”
Chase’s breath caught in her throat. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth as if she could somehow keep the sorrow behind her lips. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, but I knew she was doing mad work to clear her mind. Her heart at my wrist fluttered like a hummingbird in flight.
When she spoke, she was no hummingbird. She was steel and ice. “Tell me who did this to you.”
“Daniel Beckstrom,” he growled.
Chase swung on me so fast I didn’t even have time to exhale. And that bitch knew how to throw a punch. I took it just below the eye, and fell. Blood poured down the back of my throat, and the dust from the floor filled my mouth. She’d put something else behind that hit. I couldn’t move. Not even to pull the knife out of my belt.
I’d spun before I landed so now the only thing in my line of vision was the bent metal opening at the back of the building.
I could still hear, which was something, I suppose. I heard Stone growl and jump. I heard Chase chant and throw magic. The ground shook as Stone hit the floor and was silent. After that, I heard Greyson getting onto his feet.