Bone Dry: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 1) (32 page)

CHAPTER 32

O
n the way to my house, Laura told me and Nathan exactly what had happened with the shamans. She’d been sitting in my living room and reading Shakespeare for AP English when they’d busted in shouting and waving guns. They’d grabbed her and raced around the rest of the house demanding to know where I was.

This could have turned out a hell of a lot worse.

As far as she knew, they hadn’t touched my mom, but I was still anxious to get home and check on her. Make sure she was okay.

“I found out what they were trying to do,” Laura said. “In Seaport, anyway.”

“They told you?” I glanced toward the backseat, streetlights shooting beams of light onto Laura’s face as Nathan drove us closer to my house.

“Sort of. I don’t think they were all there, if you know what I mean.”

I knew exactly what she meant.

“Apparently, they were binding themselves to spirits, and when they did that, they could get part of the life a spirit sucks. Prolonging their life, making them healthy and younger looking and all that.” Laura made a gagging face.

I swallowed.

“That was only part of their plan,” she said. “Apparently, they were going to raid houses for expensive merch once everyone died. That’s why they were going after rich families. I think what they wanted most was the life thing.”

“But if they were already breaking into places, why didn’t they just steal the stuff then?” Nathan asked, turning onto Main Street.

Laura held her hands palm up in a shrug. “Like I said, I don’t think they were all there. The reason I heard all this was because they were having a huge argument about all the holes in their plan.”

“Like having us around.” I let out a dry laugh. “I bet your dad is freaking out so bad right now.”

“I don’t even want to think about it.”

When Nathan pulled into the driveway, I felt as if I hadn’t seen the familiar white panels and red shutters in years. I’d been running on adrenaline, very little sleep and food, and now that I was home, weariness descended upon me.

Nathan shut off the engine, and every hair on the back of my neck stood up and shouted a warning. My head throbbed in a pulsing beat. Nathan reached for the door handle, but I held out a hand to stop him.

“Something’s wrong,” I whispered, eyes trained on the house for any movement. Something was very, very wrong, and I needed to make sure the wrong thing wasn’t the fact that my mom was…gone. But something—my new Intuition—told me death wasn’t the problem, only danger.

“I think someone’s in there,” I said. “It’s probably Anthony Lombardi.”

Who else could it be? The two shamans who had threatened us were dead. Anthony had fed me lies and sent me on a scavenger hunt around Boston. He must’ve had a reason. He wasn’t the kind of person to do things without careful calculation. I didn’t know why he’d be here, but I had no doubt he was.

“What should we do?” Laura asked, eyes wide.

“I have to go inside and make sure Mom is okay. You guys can go home. You can just sneak into Laura’s car and get out of here.”

Laura’s hair smacked her face as she shook her head. “Not happening. We’ll go in together.”

“Yeah, I’m not leaving either,” Nathan said.

“Why do you think it’s the astrology guy anyway?” Laura asked.

“We found out a lot of stuff in Boston today. He's the one who attacked my mom, and he sent me off on this wild goose chase.” I quickly told her about finding Tyler’s body, meeting Audrey and sneaking into the hospital.

“That’s awful.” Laura leaned forward and gripped the seat.

“I don’t know why he didn’t just stop me from doing anything in the first place,” I said. “But I think he’s here now. And he's not the greatest guy in the world.”

My ringtone blasted. The display read my house. I flipped the cell open and listened, not saying a word.

“Hey, Holly.” Anthony’s smooth voice came over the line. “Come on inside. I heard the car pull in and can see you sitting there. We need to chat.”

Click
.

“Arg!” I fought the urge to throw my phone and slammed my hands against my knees.

“Okay, so no Shadow spell, I’m guessing.” Laura grabbed my backpack. A moment later, she pulled both mine and Anthony’s knife out. “This is all we've got.” She gave me and Nathan a grim smile, acting like she didn’t notice her wobbly voice. “If he tries to hurt us, at least we have something?”

I gave her my own grim smile. “Okay, let’s go in.”

As I got out of the truck, I slid the sheathed knife into the back of my jeans and pulled my t-shirt over it, hoping it wasn’t sticking out. I didn’t want to use it, but it was like a safety blanket. At least I wasn’t going in empty-handed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Laura do the same. Nathan clenched his fists together, apparently his current weapon of choice. Then, we slammed the car doors and headed to the front stoop.

Before we got there, the front door opened. Anthony smiled lazily and leaned against the red frame. Anger poked up its ugly head. Anthony Lombardi should
not
be inside my house looking calm and comfortable. Like he owned the place.

“Good to see you again, Holly. With your human friend again. And, oh, I see your friend Laura is all in one piece.” He winked as I stepped inside.

My mouth fell open and I whirled to face him, even though I wasn’t all that shocked. “You did that. You killed those shamans.”

“Of course,” he said.

“But why?” I took a step away from him, backing into the table that held the Witch’s Drum.

“That’s part of what I need to talk to you about,” he said, waving me through the kitchen. “Just take a seat in the living room, and we’ll cover everything.”

I bit back a retort. As much as I wanted to tell this guy where he could shove his little chat, I was curious about what he had to say. Plus, I had a feeling I didn’t want to make him mad, especially if what had happened to those shamans was evidence of Anthony’s anger.

I moved down the hall, Laura two steps behind. A second later, I heard a thump, and I whirled around to see Nathan sprawled unconscious on the floor. My heart lurched inside me, and I rushed to his side. I fell down, fingers moving up and down his arms and back.

“What did you do to him?” I yelled up at Anthony while I felt Nathan’s pulse.
Tha-thump. Tha-thump
. It was still beating. Maybe he was okay.

“Oh, that?” Anthony waved his hands dismissively. “I put a little spell around the house causing any human who crosses the threshold to lose consciousness. He’ll be fine once he sleeps it off.”

I glared up at Anthony, relieved it was nothing worse but pissed off he’d done this to Nathan. “Why? Why would you do that?”

A sly smile lit his lips. “Can’t have the human authorities barging in if you decide to make a 9-1-1 call. Plus, there was a human snooping around earlier.” He cocked his head toward Laura. “I believe the adopted relation of this one? He’s in the living room now with your mother, Holly.”

Laura’s eyes went wide, and she threw herself down the hall. “Dad!”

“He won’t hear you,” Anthony called out with a chuckle. “After you, Holly.”

I stared at Nathan, hating to leave him, but I didn’t have much of a choice. So, I made my way down the hall and into the living room. I sat across from Mom, relieved to see she was the same as when I’d left her. Laura crouched by her dad where he was passed out on the floor only inches away.

Anthony eased onto the couch and crossed his legs at his knees, smile nothing but patronizing. It made me want to punch him in the nose.

Astral raced up to me hissing in anger. I jumped back, shocked, but quickly realized it wasn’t me he hissed at. He put his back to me and started pacing back and forth, staring intently at Anthony like he was about to launch an attack right then and there. Astral’s paw shot into the air to maul something I couldn’t see. And then I felt something else in the room. Something I hadn’t noticed because I’d been too focused on Anthony. A chilling sensation prickled every hair on my arms. There was a spirit in here.

“You destroyed my barriers.” I took my attention off my crazed cat for a moment. There were worse things to worry about. “You destroyed my bones.”

I wasn’t sure why that insulted me more than him sneaking into my house or sending me off on some pointless mission, but I felt like I could tear his eyes out. He’d left my house vulnerable. My home. The only place I considered totally safe.

His patronizing smile only widened, but his eyes looked pained. “Precautions. Just precautions.”

Precautions against what? My bone shields were precautions. Taking them down meant a spirit could come in whenever it pleased. But, I didn’t argue. Instead, I sat there watching him while Astral weaved through my tense legs. I was afraid if I opened my mouth, everything I was thinking and feeling would bubble out like word vomit.

“I need to explain to you about the shaman world, Holly, because I believe you have very little knowledge of how it really is out there.”

He paused, waiting for me to answer, but I continued to stare at him, hoping my eyes looked as hard as my heart felt.

“In the shaman consulting business, we have two groups. One has members like your mother.” He smiled a little when he mentioned her. “That group banishes spirits whenever someone calls them in. Then, there’s another group, and that’s the one I belong to. We believe that banishing spirits isn’t enough. We believe in pre-emptive strike and doing whatever is necessary to keep humans from being attacked.”

Something crawled under my skin when he said that. Doing whatever is necessary. Like sticking my mom in the Borderland and murdering shamans.

“Part of this involves binding spirits to ourselves. I told you about that. These spirits can’t feed unless I let them. This also gives us some leeway if we need something from the spirit world. We give them food for information or knowledge or power. Like how Anannan followed my instructions to show you my old building.” He gave a little sigh. “This is also how our lives get extended.”

Lives extended. Like what Laura overheard.

He smiled like it wasn’t the craziest thing I'd ever heard. “When we bind ourselves to a spirit and then let him feed, we get part of the life he inhales.”

So, it was true. It explained how I’d felt the life blending with mine, revitalizing me. It made me lightheaded just thinking about it, and it all made perfect sense.

“I understand how crazy this sounds, and I promise you I’m not doing this for myself. If I ever die, the spirits will be released to feed on their own will whenever they want to. Or whenever some other shaman tries to summon them. Extending my life is the only way to keep humans safe.”

Wow, this guy was delusional. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Plus, he totally believed every word he said. He really thought this was the best way to help people, that he was doing what he had to in order to save the world.

“But you're still hurting people when you extend your life,” I said. “How does that make it any different?”

“I only let the spirit feed for a little bit. I take just a small slice of life from various sources to keep mine going. It’s the only way to keep the spirits bound.”

I shook my head and wondered how that explained all the other stuff I'd seen. The hospital, the bodies in the abandoned building, even the dead shamans.

“Why did you kill those two shamans?” I asked, deciding not to bring up the other stuff yet. He might know I’d gone to the hospital, but if he didn’t, I wasn’t about to give him a heads up.

He frowned, but his boyish face stayed as smooth as a baby’s butt. “They used to be part of my team until they decided they didn’t want to live by my rules. And now, they were binding spirits and releasing them onto humans to kill them. They were making a mess and bringing way too much attention to the spirit world. Sloppy is the best word to describe those two. If you hadn’t come to me, I would have found out anyway. The buzz has been building. They had to be stopped.”

By killing them? When I’d met him, I’d thought he was a little creepy, but still maybe an okay guy. I was seriously rethinking that assessment. I had to bite my lip because I was dying to ask him what he was doing with a photo of my mom on his office desk.

I was also too scared to ask.

“So, now that you understand a little more about the shaman world, I can tell you why I’m here.” The patronizing smile reappeared. “Your mother and I were once very close. But in the past few years, we found ourselves on opposite sides of a little political shaman war. I’ve been looking for her. Funny she was hiding so close. I should have known she’d do that.”

Political shaman war. So that was what Mom had been talking about.

He held up his hands, and for the first time, I noticed he was holding my mom’s knitting needles. For some reason, it made me tremble, and the spirit started stirring in the room. “You recognize these, right? I’m guessing she’s been using them as an anchor. Clever. When you told me she was still alive, I was surprised. She should be lost to the Borderland by now, but she’s been able to hold on longer because of these. Of course, if I break them now, we could end it quickly. Not that she has very much longer as it is.”