Pretty When She Destroys (19 page)

Returning his at
tention to the women outside, Cian saw Amaliya resting on the ground gazing up at the stars. A pang of sorrow surprised him. For a moment he wanted to rush outside and lay next to her. It had been so long since they’d had a quiet moment to just enjoy the night. For a short period of time after they had first gotten together, they’d spent hours sitting outside on the balcony of their penthouse apartment, smoking cigarettes and talking. It had been incredibly peaceful. He longed for those nights again. Perhaps it was inevitable that to return to a more halcyon existence he would have to make deals with devils.

“You’re not asking my permission to do this, are you?” Cian shifted in his chair. He was amused when Jeff started.

Jeff wagged his head. “No. Not really. It’s Samantha’s choice, you know. In the end. It’s her power. Her life. We won’t even see him unless she decides to let him manifest. His entire existence will be tied to her.” Once the words left Jeff’s mouth, his demeanor significantly altered. Cian recognized his look immediately. It was of a man who realized he didn’t have control over the situation either.

“Point well made. I will support Samantha’s decision then.” Cian cleared his throat. “Is that all?”

Jeff winced. “No. One more thing.” The human clasped his hands together in front of him and took a deep breath. “Benchley uncovered some information about Bianca that complicates everything.”

“Enlighten me.”

As Cian listened to Jeff explain all that Benchley had unearthed, a feeling of dread washed over him. It was vividly clear to him what Amaliya’s reaction to the news would be. She would want to immediately launch a rescue. Cian had enough insight into her mind to know that Amaliya would not be able to abide Bianca being held captive by The Summoner. What his beloved hadn’t shared in actual conversation he had already glimpsed in her mind. Amaliya was adrift. As a vampire fledgling, the first years of her undead existence would have been under the guidance of her creator, but The Summoner had abandoned her. The power within her sought out vital connection. Coupled with the loss of her grandmother, Amaliya was craving familial bonds that were denied to her throughout her life. If Bianca was alive, she was in essence what was left of Amaliya’s vampire family. The Summoner, Bianca and Amaliya would have created a troika of power unlike any other if The Summoner had not been so set in his ways.

“Blood calls to blood,” Cian said at last.

“What does that mean?”

“Vampires that are created by the same vampire have a strong attachment to one another. Though Rachoń and I have a very adversarial relationship, when I’m near her I feel the connection between us. That is what initially drew me to Amaliya.
I still feel a pull to The Summoner after all this time, though it has diminished with time. I suspect that the link between Amaliya and Bianca is even more intense. They are the only two of their kind.” Cian finally relaxed his posture. He rested his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands.

“So this is bad,” Jeff decided.

“Possibly. Depending on how I deal with it. And you must let me deal with telling her. Understood?”

“Yes, absolutely!” The young man was clearly uneasy with the entire situation. “Benchley calls Amaliya our big gun and she really is. If she goes off after The Summoner on her own, we’re fucked.”

“I almost think I preferred it when she ran away from danger, not toward it.” Cian gave Jeff a slim smile.

“A nice middle ground between the two would be good.”

The massive pulse of power almost knocked Cian off his chair. It thrummed through the room like a cello playing low notes.

“Cian?” Jeff rose to his feet in alarm.

Scrambling to his feet, Cian stared out the window. “Shit.”

“What is it?”

A thick wall of risen corpses stood in a tight cluster around the area where the women had been seated. Completely immobile, the zombies gave the impression of being sentinels. As Cian watched, the decayed and desiccated forms gradually flushed with life until they resembled living, breathing humans. What was most disturbing was that from the center of the beings a thick, roiling, ghostly mist tumbled upward into the sky. Sparks of light and vague flashes of wraithlike bodies and faces filled the miasma.

“What the fuck is that?” Jeff gasped.

“I have no idea,” Cian answered.

The two men rushed to the back door.

Samantha kept her eyes firmly closed, anticipating the bite of the vampire. The first and last time Amaliya had drunk from Samantha, she had drawn blood from a stab wound inflicted by a sword-wielding zombie controlled by The Summoner. It had been the only way to save Samantha’s life. Therefore, Samantha had never experienced a vampire’s actual bite. In some movies and books the bite was sensual and pleasurable, but in others it was agonizing. As she waited in dreaded anticipation, Samantha wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Flinching when Amaliya’s cool lips closed over her wrist, Samantha balled her free hand into a fist. The razor sharp teeth punched through her skin, a flash of pain popping her eyes open. Instinctively, Samantha started to jerk her arm away, but Amaliya had a vice grip on her forearm and didn’t relent. Within a few short seconds, the agony of the vampire bite vanished to be replaced by sublime bliss.

“Oh, wow,” Samantha panted, swooning despite her resolve not to do any such thing. It was as if she was submerged in a cloud of pleasure that left her reeling with an intoxicating rush. Eyes fluttering closed, she let the waves of ecstasy close over her and sweep her way. She didn’t even realize she had slumped onto her side until Amaliya leaned over her and gave her a firm shake.

“Samantha, you need to drink from me,” Amaliya said, sounding as though she was speaking from far away.

Opening her eyelids just a slit, Samantha stared at the vampire. “Oh, wow. You’re so pretty...and scary.”

Amaliya’s power was coursing out of her like great majestic wings that trembled above her shoulders. Eyes glowing like white fire and her long black hair twisting about her head in inky tendrils, Amaliya looked like a death goddess.

“Drink, Samantha, while the magic is strong,” Aimee’s voice ordered from nearby.

When her gaze drifted to the witch, Samantha drew in a sharp breath of surprise. Aimee’s figure was outlined in the glowing colors of the rainbow with orbs of light drifting around her head like a halo.

“Drink,” Amaliya insisted, holding out her arm.

The liquid dripping from the vampire’s pale flesh was black and filled with stars. Samantha drunkenly tried to sit up and Amaliya rapidly slid her other arm around the blonde to support her.

“It’s full of stars,” Samantha whispered, then her lips clamped over the wound and she drank in the darkness of the eternal night. It was cold, rich, and coppery.

The world transformed around her instantaneously taking on the appearance of the negative of a black and white photograph, the dark and light hues transposed. Only Amaliya in her dark goddess mode and Aimee glowing like a rainbow remained the same. A thick mist roiled around Samantha, full of whispering voices and soothing caresses. A small part of Samantha’s mind thought that maybe she should be afraid, yet the altered world was comforting. The more of Amaliya’s dark blood she drank, the clearer the ghostly realm became. She could see for hundreds of miles in all directions. Brightly glowing patches of land called to her, whispering her name, and she discerned these were graveyards. Ghosts drifted through the trees, coming to greet her and welcome her home.

The coppery taste of the night filled with stars stained her tongue and lips when Amaliya drew her wrist away.

“It’s so beautiful,” Samantha breathed.

Amaliya was stunning, yet terrible. Her eyes smoldered with white fire and her immense black wings filled the air. “I see it.”

The vampire drew Samantha to her feet, her hands cold, yet burning with power. Their combined magicks writhed around them like great snakes made of the glittering darkness and luminescent mist.

“You freed us, Samantha,” Amaliya whispered, looking downward.

Samantha followed the vampire’s gaze and was stunned to see their bodies lying side by side on the ground, their fingers intertwined. “We’re astral projecting!”

With a triumphant, gleeful grin, Amaliya’s power lashed out and the dead rose out of the ground around them. Tendrils of their ghostly memories sifted among the decayed bodies, murmuring in hushed voices to the phasmagus. Samantha watched transfixed as Amaliya’s power restored the broken bodies of the dead. Samantha sensed the fine strands of her own magic throbbing with energy, waiting for her command. Concentrating on the wisps floating among the dead, she called the ghosts forward. To her amazement, they answered, taking on form.

“You are completely The Phasmagus now.” Amaliya’s voice pulsed with power.

“And you are The Necromancer,” Samantha answered.

“Let’s find out just what we can do,” Amaliya said, obviously enthralled.

Still holding Amaliya’s hand, Samantha rotated about so she was facing the west. “Let’s go find Roberto.”

Not certain of what exactly she should do and acting purely on impulse, Samantha concentrated on the nearest phosphorescent nodule resting in the hills outside Austin. Instantly there was a dizzying rush around them, then they stood in the center of a graveyard.

“Whoa,” Samantha breathed.

Amaliya gripped Samantha’s hand ever tighter. “Do that again!”

Nodding, Samantha stared across the strangely illuminated terrain and concentrated on the brightest spot in the west. Again, there was an exhilarating whoosh, then they stood among the gravestones of yet another cemetery. Before Amaliya could say a word, Samantha looked toward the next spot. This time they appeared among a grove of trees, with no graves to be seen. Yet, the ghostly dead were nearby, watching curiously.

“Wherever there are bodies...” Amaliya said in awe.

Again and again, they moved through the world at an exhilarating pace until they stood in an eerily dark and dreary cemetery. The only glow came from a single figure sitting in the center of it. The beautiful luminance of the other graveyards was absent here. The graves were black, hollow holes.

“He took them all,” Samantha wailed. “He took them all and burned them up like candles.” The horror of The Summoner’s act washed over her. All the fragments of memories of lives lived and lost were gone. Only one ghost remained. He wasn’t a memory, but sentient and weeping.

“Roberto,” Amaliya said, pointing.

“Have you come to finish his work?” Roberto asked, his voice raw. He sat upon a grave, his body hunched over with his arms hugging his upper body.

Holding hands, Amaliya and Samantha approached him. The dark necromancer power slithered over the ground, seeking the dead, but finding none. Samantha’s own magic twisted and twirled about her in wispy ribbons, cautiously approaching Roberto, but not touching him.

“We did come to find you, but not to do The Summoner’s bidding,” Samantha answered.

“You’re more powerful than before. Isn’t this his work?” Roberto’s form looked like the cutout of a black and white photo. It crackled and speckled as he moved.

“No, it’s ours,” Amaliya said.

“Plus, he’s the bad guy. We’re the good guys.”

“Are you?” Roberto looked doubtful.

“We are.” Amaliya’s power receded to pool around her, covering her like a great cloak.

Roberto stared at them fearfully. “Are you here for revenge? For what I did?”

“Actually, we’re here to make you an offer.” Samantha wondered briefly what she looked like. Amaliya looked like a death goddess, so did Samantha look like some sort of ghost goddess? Was there such a thing?

“So what
is
this offer?” Roberto lowered his arms slowly. The lost expression on his face was slowly fading into a hopeful one.

“I need a ghost minion. Someone who can help me.”

“You don’t look like you need help.”

Samantha studied the bleak world around her. Maybe Roberto was right. Now that she was at full power did she need him? It wasn’t doubt, but her own instincts born of her magic that whispered in her soul that she did. “Yeah, true. But I thought you might want to get out of your limbo and get some revenge on The Summoner.”

A subtle smile crept onto the ghost’s lips. “I would like that.”

“But not against her,” Samantha said, pointing to Amaliya. “She killed you because you were a dick.”

The ghost’s body sputtered as he slid off the tombstone, his black eyes boring into the vampire. “I thought you would be Cian’s death, you know.”

“Yet you were willing to betray him and torture him to get what you wanted, weren’t you?” Amaliya retorted.

Roberto chuckled, a dark sound in the barren world. “Love and hate are close siblings.”

“If you’re a psychopath maybe,” Samantha sniffed.

“I will help you, Samantha, but only if the past can be laid aside and forgotten.” Roberto was staring squarely at Amaliya.

A delicate thread of Samantha’s power curled around his head, not quite touching him, but close enough that she could detect the tumult of emotions and thoughts filling him. “He means it, Amaliya.”