Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) (27 page)

“So, the cards said you’d end up in jail.”

“No, I wish.” He gave me a sad smile, cobwebs stretching out from his turned-down eyes. “The cards said nothing about prison. Instead, they told me that my presence in your life would lead to the death of a young person. The death of you, the sorceress theorized.”

Static filled my ears as I stared hard at my dad. There was no sign of joking on his face. In fact, he looked more serious than I’d ever seen him, even more serious than he’d been over the past few days, barking commands at his shaman army. All these years, he’d thought being in my life would kill me. No wonder he’d stayed away for so long.

A tear slipped out of my eye. “But it was just a theory, right? That doesn’t mean it could really happen.”

“It was just a theory,” he confirmed. “But believe me when I say that neither me nor your mother were willing to test that kind of theory. It’s your life, Holly. We’d do anything to protect you. So, we decided it was best if I left and never returned. I shouldn’t even be here now.”

“How young?” I asked, feeling the blood rushing to my face. “Because I’m not a kid anymore. Maybe we’ve avoided the whole thing, and it’s fine now.”

“Holly.” My dad’s voice was grave. “I’m not willing to risk your life, especially not when we’re heading into a dangerous situation. What if this is the very day the sorceress warned us about?”

“Dad, I understand that, but I can’t stay locked up in this house while other people go out and fight.” I closed my eyes and fought the tears pooling in my eyes. “It’s Nathan. It’s his life at risk, not mine.”

Dad sighed and shifted closer to me, wrapping his arms around my shaking shoulders. He pulled me against his chest, and memories of my childhood came rushing back in a storm of emotion. The same musky scent clung to his shirt, one that had been the most comforting smell in the world when I was a kid. His voice rumbled in his chest as his strong arms held me steady and I sagged against his sturdy frame.

“When you were a kid, you told me you wanted to be a superhero when you grew up,” he said into the top of my head. “It makes me proud to see that never changed.”

Pulling away, I looked up into his smiling face, and I couldn’t help but give him a small smile in return. “You remember.”

“Of course I do,” he said. “I remember everything that my stubborn and feisty and headstrong daughter ever said. I love you, Holly, and I’d do anything for you. And this is why you have to trust me to get your boyfriend back safely.”

A shout sounded from the hallway, and I whipped around to see Laura and Constantine hurtling back into the living room. Panic clawed up my throat at the hard look on Constantine’s face. He whistled, pointed to my dad, to the guns propped up against the couch, and then to the window overlooking the backyard. A silent exchange of words that my dad understood at once.

“Hate to break up the reunion,” Constantine said as he grabbed a rifle from the floor, “but we have some visitors out back.”

Heart hammering, I headed straight toward the window, but Dad held out an arm to stop me.

“It’s Anthony Lombardi,” he said. “Stay back.”

“He’s going after the headstone, isn’t he?” I asked. “He’s going to get to it before we have a chance to trap him.”

Laura’s eyes went wide. “Is Nathan with him? George? He can’t do the spell without them.”

Constantine peered out the window before turning back to face us. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “He’s alone.” He pointed at me and Laura. “You two stay inside. Bennett?”

Dad gave him a nod. “You go right. I go left. We take this fucker out.”

The two of them hauled their guns to their chests and trotted toward the front of the house, their feet silent on the floor. Laura rushed to the window, and I flicked off the living room lights, plunging the room into darkness so that Anthony couldn’t see our movements. When I reached her side, she poked the foggy windows with a shaking finger.

“He just climbed into the car,” she hissed. “Do you think he can hot-wire it?”

“George said she knows how to hot-wire a car,” I said. “I bet she told him how to do it.”

Seconds later, the car sprung to life just as angry yells exploded from the front of the house. Heart tripping, I abandoned my post at the window and rushed through the whispering beads to see Dad and Constantine pacing around on the squat front porch, their hands in the air and their faces red.

“What are you two doing?” I stormed onto the porch. “Anthony is about to drive away with the freaking headstone! Stop shouting and do something already.”

“Yeah?” Constantine motioned to the front yard. “Why don’t you try going after him then?”

“John, no.” My dad frowned at Constantine, but I just glared at both of them. What the hell were they doing out here wasting time? My feet tripped forward two steps before my body slammed into a brick wall. An invisible brick wall. Pain exploded in my shoulder as I fell back.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

Laura rushed onto the porch just as Constantine’s car squealed around the side of the house. Anthony rolled down the window and gave us a salute as he spun past, turning the car onto the empty road and disappearing around the bend. Laura cried out and threw herself forward, only to meet the same fate the rest of us had.

“We should have seen this one coming,” Constantine said, sliding a dark look toward my dad. “We never should have left the headstone in the car unguarded. Not when we knew who we were up against.”

“There’s no way we could have predicted he would show up here in broad daylight,” my dad said. “They’ve barely had enough time to realize we stole the headstone.”

“They must have been watching us,” I said. “I told you guys I saw something in the cemetery.”

“Wait a minute. Something isn’t right.” Laura frowned and rubbed her forehead. “I can’t put my finger on it though.”

“Of course something isn’t right.” Constantine watched Laura poke the place between her eyebrows. “A whole lot of things aren’t right.”

“No, there’s something else.” Laura squinted down the road, pacing back and forth on the wooden planks with a frown pulling down the corners of her lips. My Intuition kept prickling my forehead, too, but it hadn’t really stopped doing that for the past twenty-four hours. A moment later, I heard the unmistakable sound of wheels spinning through melted slush.

“Everyone stay calm until we see who this is,” Dad warned. “If I give the order, you will all go inside this house and lock the door.”

“Sir?” Constantine said.

“Even you, John,” my dad said.

“Yes, sir.” Constantine scowled at the approaching black car. It hovered just at the edge of the driveway before turning down the icy gravel and easing to a stop beside my truck.

When the door popped open, a familiar head of bushy orange bounced into view. The woman squinted, smiled, and waved. Recognition flittered through me. It was Wanda’s niece from Salem. The one who’d tossed us out of her shop and refused to answer our pleas for help. What the hell was she doing here?”

“It looks like you all have gotten yourselves in a pickle,” she said, slamming the door and shielding her eyes against the rising sun.

“Holly, who is this?” My dad’s voice was low and full of danger.

“I’m Mary Glover,” she said with a smile as she walked up to the porch and stuck out her hand. Then, she cocked her head and frowned, rolling her eyes. “Oh, silly me. You can’t shake my hand because you’re stuck inside that barrier, aren’t you?”

“You did this.” My dad stepped forward, steam shooting out of his nostrils as he sucked in angry breaths of air. “Let us out of here now.”

“Oh, I assumed Holly told you.” She pulled back her hand. “She came to me for help, and I hate to say I turned her down. But I slept on it, and I’ve had a change of heart, I guess you could say. Looks like it was just in time.”

“So, you can undo this spell and let us out of here?” Relief barrelled through me. If Mary could break the spell, we might have a chance of catching up with Anthony before he sacrificed Nathan and finalized the rift. “We’re in a hurry. How quickly can you do it?”

Mary frowned and flicked her eyes around the house, as if she were eyeing up the barrier that none of us could see. “Well, this might take awhile, I hate to say. But if you really need out quick, I can just pull you through and take it down later.”

“Oh, thank god,” Laura said, giving me a quick smile. “Thank you so much for doing this, Mary.”

“I have to do it one by one though.” Mary stuck her hand through the wall and dug her fingernails so deep into my arm, they pierced my flesh. “Holly first.”

She yanked, and I fell through the barrier, tumbling onto the hard-packed ground at the bottom of the stairs. Suddenly, Mary gripped my hair from behind as she dragged me toward her car, all trace of friendliness replaced by a bitter smile.

“What the hell?” I asked, twisting against her grip and kicking at the ground.

“Let her go.” My dad’s voice boomed from where he was stuck on the other side of the wall with Constantine and Laura.

“Say goodbye to your daughter, Hank Bennett.” She gave him a wicked smile. “She’ll be six feet under after tonight.”

The world went black.

CHAPTER 25

W
hen I woke up, my wrists and ankles ached where they were bound. I blinked at my surroundings and found myself curled up on the leather seat of a bumping car. Every muscle in my body screamed when I shifted my legs to the floor, trying to hold myself steady as my head began to clear. Mary Glover sat behind the wheel, humming along to some classical song playing over her stereo. She gave me a glance, seeing me awake, and smiled.

“Finally.” Her voice oozed of fake honey. “You need to be awake for this.”

“Where are you taking me?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“To Anthony.” She turned down the volume and raised her eyebrows. “And to Nathan.”

The noose around my heart loosened just an inch. “He’s still alive.”

“Of course he’s alive,” she said with a light laugh. “We certainly weren’t going to kill him.”

“Then what the hell are you doing with him?”

“You’ll see,” she said.

I peered out the front windshield to orientate myself. All around us Seaport stood in ruin. Abandoned cars, smoking storefronts, broken windows. The spirit attacks last night had done more damaged than I’d known.

We were quickly approaching the main harbor, and the signature red barn hunkered on the boardwalk just ahead. Constantine’s car was parked beside it, and as we pulled into the gravel lot, the barn door flew open, revealing Anthony’s silhouette. My skin crawled as I drank in the man standing before us. This was the one person I’d hoped to never meet again, and here I was, kidnapped and bound by his ally who was driving me straight into his grasp.

Mary cut the engine and reached for the door handle.

“Wait,” I said, desperate to stall my inevitable reunion with Anthony. “Why are you doing this? I thought you were against this kind of magic.”

“I never said I was against it.” She smirked. “You should pay more attention to the way people frame their words. Though I guess it’s too late for you to learn any valuable lessons now.”

“It was you at the cemetery,” I said, remembering the flash of red. It had been Mary’s hair, dulled by the gray morning light. “Watching us.”

Anthony reached the passenger door and yanked it open before she could respond. He peered down at me, his face much more lined than it had been the last time I’d seen him, though his eyes still flashed with the same fire they had before. After all his time spent stealing the life forces of unsuspecting humans, I supposed age had finally caught up to him. For now.

He reached into the car and hauled me up by my armpits. “Holly Bennett. We meet again.”

Narrowing my eyes, I lobbed a ball of spit at his sagging face. It slammed right into his eyeball, and for a moment, his grip on my arm faltered. I braced my feet on the ground and tried to yank away, but his hand turned to steel faster than I could blink.

“A fighter until the very end,” he said. “If only you’d joined me when you had the chance.”

“Where is Nathan?” I asked him through gritted teeth.

“Oh, don’t worry. He’s inside.” Anthony dragged me toward the barn door and threw me into the darkness. A moment later, the door slid shut behind us, and a match sparked to light. It illuminated the dusty corners of the barn, the headstone in the middle of the floor, and a crouched figure squirming on the ground. My heart shuddered inside my chest.

“Nathan?” I shuffled forward.

The head turned, and through the shadows, I could see how very wrong I was. It was George.

“Hello. I am here, Holly Bennett.” Nathan stepped out of the shadows, his voice oddly flat and dull. There was a strange blankness to his expression, almost as if his emotions had been turned off. Almost as if this was a robot version of himself, one I couldn’t recognize as the boy I’d fallen for.

“Nathan?” I started forward, but Anthony held me back by my bonds. A tear leaked out of my eye and burned a hot trail down my cheek. “What’s going on? What have they done to you?”