I smiled, and the snakes twined with lazy satisfaction as Tavish straightened and backed away.
‘What if I give the body an injection of adrenalin?’ a new voice said hesitantly. Joseph, his brown eyes blinking owl-like behind his glasses, stood in the doorway, hugging his black medical bag to his chest. ‘It’s what worked last time.’
Malik looked up and said, ‘Joseph, my friend, I thought we agreed that you would wait outside until this matter was settled.’
‘I couldn’t.’ He looked nervously round and moved towards Malik. ‘I want to help, after what that—what that woman made me do.’ He stopped, gazing down at my body. ‘I have to try and help.’ He crouched down, put his bag on the floor and pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘I feel so awful about it all, as if it was my fault.’
The snakes hissed in unease and I tilted my head, puzzled; something was not right about the doctor.
‘You are not responsible for what the sorcerer made you do,’ Malik said quietly, sorrow lacing his words. ‘It was a spell she laid on you. The guilt is all hers.’
Joseph nodded, quick, anxious bobs of his head. ‘I understand that in my mind, but—’ He opened his bag. ‘At least let me try.’
I shifted anxiously and started to crawl towards him.
‘It canna hurt any, vampire,’ Tavish said, still wary as he followed me.
Malik removed his hand from where it rested on my body’s chest and leaned back. ‘Then please try, Joseph.’
Joseph gave him a quick smile, but the shape his mouth made was wrong, triumphant, instead of pleased to help. He dipped his hand inside his bag and pulled something out, pointing it at Malik. There was a snick! and a quivering dart lodged at the base of Malik’s throat. Then Joseph turned and shot Tavish, the dart going straight into his chest.
I jumped up, the snakes writhing in alarm, leaping for him—
‘Stop,’ Joseph said almost casually as he looked up. ‘Don’t move.’
—and I stopped, held in place like a fly trapped in amber. What the hell had he done to me?
Cosette flew into the centre of the room, her long dark hair whipping about her head, her small hands held out towards me. A wind blew from her hands and threw me back until I crash-landed at the base of Rosa’s stone altar.
‘Nicely done, Joseph.’ Cosette’s child-face split in an approving grin, then she came and stood over me. ‘Genny, I think you and Joseph have already met.’ She beckoned him over. ‘But I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced.’ She held out her hand and somehow managed to take hold of his.
‘Genny, this is Joseph. My son.’
‘Your son?’ Stunned, I scrambled up to my feet.
‘Yes. He’s a fine figure of a man, isn’t he?’ She smiled up at him, pride in her eyes. ‘And a true necromancer, not like that piffling weakling Hannah managed to dig up from somewhere.’
‘Sit down, Genny,’ Joseph said, using that same quiet casual tone, fixing his owl-like gaze on me.
I was sitting on the floor, legs crossed Indian-style, before he’d even finished speaking my name. Fear and fury coursed through me in equal parts, and the snakes retreated uneasily, hiding under my skin. Cosette was right: Necro Neil might’ve managed to push me around a bit, but his commands had been nothing compared to Joseph’s effortless control.
She puffed up with even more pride. ‘And if things had been different, I would have liked to see what sort of grandchild you two would have given me—but that’s not going to happen now—while I might trade with a demon, I still draw the line at incest.’ She patted Joseph’s hand. ‘After all, Hannah’s idea of usurping your body for herself is really too great an opportunity to be missed.’
Fuck. Out of one sorcerer’s frying pan and straight into the other one’s fire.
What the hell was I going to do now?
Chapter Thirty-One
‘Come on, Mum, time to get you sorted,’ Joseph said. He walked over to my limp body and picked it up, grunting with effort as he lifted it—being a necro obviously didn’t give him any perks in the physical world. He laid my body gently on the sacrificial altar and started cutting away the remnants of the orange dress. ‘You don’t want to be still in spirit form when the demon turns up, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. She smiled up at him as she climbed up on the altar and sat herself down so she was half in and half out of my body. ‘Although the demon should be happy enough with the sidhe’s soul.’
‘Glad someone’s going to be happy,’ I muttered.
Joseph rummaged inside his black bag, laying things out on the trolley next to his machines. I briefly wondered if he’d had some sort of practise run, playing around with my soul and my body while I’d been out of it after the explosion at the bakery, when he’d supposedly been taking care of me. I shoved that deeply disturbing thought away. It was more important to figure out how to get my own body back before Cosette took up residence in it. Then I had to stop the demon gobbling up all the other ghosts, never mind the virgin sacrifice—because something told me that just because the sorcerer directing operations had changed, the treats on offer for the demon’s Hallowe’en visit hadn’t.
And now Malik’s and Tavish’s heroic rescue attempt had ended in disaster, Cosette probably intended adding them to her bag of demon treats too. I banged my head back against the stone altar in frustration and anger. With friends like Joseph, Malik really didn’t need any enemies.
‘So if I’m to be a demon snack,’ I raised my voice, waving at the unconscious bodies, ‘what’s going to happen to the two of them?’
‘Um.’ Cosette considered Tavish. ‘The soul-taster is a problem; he’s not dead, so I’m not sure the demon will take him, but we’ll see. But as for the vampire, he’s going to come in useful for Joseph here, much as Rosa was for you these last three years.’ She smiled up at him as he inserted a shunt into my body’s arm. I really wanted to wipe that saccharine look off her little girl’s face. Later, I promised myself.
‘Now I’ve perfected the Body Transference spell,’ she went on, ‘it seems wasteful not to use it again, doesn’t it, Son?’
‘Yes.’ He glanced over at me, then inserted a hypodermic needle into a clear glass vial and filled the syringe. ‘I understand it can be an interesting experience.’
So Joseph was going to walk around in Malik’s body, just as I had in Rosa’s. My heart lurched: I might have done the same thing myself, but it was unwittingly, and I’d never had Rosa do anything I wouldn’t have done myself. Somehow I didn’t think Joseph would take the same care of Malik’s body. Not that Rosa had taken that much care of her own body, if her memories were anything to go by. I looked up at her a little speculatively. Was there any way I could use her to get out of this? Cosette had said it wasn’t possible earlier, but she had her own agenda, and it wasn’t like sorcerers were known for telling the truth. I looked at my two captors, but they were deep in discussion about whatever evil nastiness they were planning now.
Slowly I got up, relieved that Joseph’s ‘sit down’ command must’ve negated his earlier ‘don’t move’ one. Holding my breath, trying not to catch his attention, I climbed onto the stone altar, wincing as my hands and knees sank inside Rosa’s body. I lay down, positioning myself so I merged inside her.
Nothing.
I stared up at the brick-arched ceiling, fists clenched like Rosa’s, willing it to work.
Still nothing happened. Damn. I’d really needed Cosette to be wrong on this one. Maybe if I concentrated, tried to think like Rosa, I could spark her into life. I closed my eyes and imagined Joseph tied up in chains. It was a great image; it fed my anger and frustration, but nothing else. Joseph was pleasant-looking—even if his intentions were anything but—but he wasn’t exactly eye-candy. Maybe what Rosa needed was for me to think of someone more—