half-lich 02 - void weaver (21 page)

Better to be here with Alice than with Nyx.

Right?

CHAPTER 21

Reunion

How did I do all that?

For someone who thought she had herself all figured out, the shock to the system that was life without Trapper had been nothing short of monumental. For years Alice had lived with her condition, had embraced it, and had even gone so far as to utilize her abilities to become a supernatural bounty hunter of note. Maybe the ‘
of note’
part was questionable depending on who you asked, but the point was Alice had been perfectly grounded in who she was.

Until now…

When the euphoria of having consumed a fresh, healthy—albeit tortured—soul began to wear off and Alice’s insides stopped vibrating while she remained prone on the floor, she found herself with a little time to dwell on such things. A week ago, her arsenal of abilities consisted of capturing souls with Trapper’s help and sensing the auras of supernatural creatures and humans alike. She had never tried any other method of
reaping
souls—
reaping
being a term she had decided to coin then and there—other than using Trapper, but then
this
happened. Only what had
this
been, anyway?

Alice killed the garbage man—she ran a knife through the back of his throat and ended his life in a pool of blood. That’s what happened. What was it she had said yesterday? Guns were messy. This was why she never carried one. But she had never had to use a gun to kill anyone; had never killed anyone
period
. But that wasn’t exactly true either, because wasn’t reaping the same as murder? Reaping was the most natural thing in the world to her; it was part of her, a necessity. In her mind, murder was still abhorrent.

But was that righteousness or delusion talking?

She had seen her fair share of dead bodies before, had even been present at the time and place of the death of a woman who had run afoul of a vampire. He had wanted to feed, she had tried to get away, so he had broken her neck just as she reached the mouth of the alley and then ripped her jugular open. This had happened only feet away from where Alice was standing. She had considered intervening, but vampires… they weren’t easy to deal with, and she had been green at the time; at least greener than she was now.

There had definitely been no blue light then. Alice would have seen it. Maybe Doug’s soul had presented itself to her now because she had been the one to kill him. In all cultures, the act of taking a life carried with it a great deal of metaphysical power. Alice had real, supernatural power, so it wasn’t a crazy assumption to make.

When she finally felt like she could sit up, she did so. Sparkling dust fell all around her, disturbed by her sudden movement. She checked her hands, which had been covered in blood the last time she had seen them, and noticed they too were covered in dust. Alice clapped her hands together and the dust fell away in little clouds. This was good. She wouldn’t need to deal with Doug’s body, and having taken his soul, no one would ever even know he existed.

No one but Nyx
, she thought, but she pushed the idea away.

The only person she needed to worry herself with now was Raegan. Her corpse was there, flat on its face, sprawled out on the laminate floor. Her head was bashed in, and a trickle of black goop had slid from the hole and onto the floor. Nearby, coating the lower corner of a wall, was more of that black goop. Flies had gathered and were buzzing all around it, enjoying a taste of the now drying combination of old blood and gray-matter.

Alice planted her palms on the floor and stood upright, stretching her joints. She could taste whiskey in her mouth and noticed her lips had gone dry. Did she need a drink?
Hell yeah I do,
she thought, but that wasn’t right. Maybe she should grab her flask and take a swig, but that wasn’t right either. Alice shook her head to throw the echo of Doug’s thoughts and emotions away and centered herself. There was a body to deal with. The cop in her knew many ways one could discreetly dispose of a corpse, but Raegan… she had already been through enough, and had come through for Alice in a time of need.

Raegan needed a proper burial, and Alice would give her one.

From the laundry room, where Elvira had returned to after her sudden mad-dash against the garbage man, Alice retrieved a number of clean, spare bedsheets. She reached for Elvira, who was sitting on top of the washing machine, and the cat sniffed her fingers before nuzzling into them, but she clearly wasn’t ready to leave the safety of the tiny room.

Alice took the bedsheets to where Raegan lay, covered in sparkling dust, and carefully slid one of the sheets beneath her. When the first bedsheet was in position beneath the corpse, Alice grabbed Raegan by the shoulders and rolled her onto it, but disturbing the body caused a nauseating smell to come loose and fill the room. She fought the gag reflex and won only by the skin of her teeth, but the urgency of getting Raegan wrapped up became apparent.

It wasn’t until she had wrapped her up inside two bedsheets that the smell faded, but it did not disappear entirely. Alice didn’t think it ever would. She could bleach the place from top to bottom, and the smell would probably still remain; even if only in her mind. But with Raegan wrapped up, and eventually bound, transporting and then burying her would be much easier than it would otherwise.

With great effort, Alice hauled the body into the bathtub and drew the curtain closed. She wouldn’t have to see it, but if she needed to pee anytime between now and whenever Cameron showed up, she would definitely smell it.

“Now all I have to do is get her into the trunk of my car,” Alice said to herself.

But that would have to wait until sundown. Hauling the body into the bathroom had been a task all of its own, but dragging the body out of the apartment building, onto the streets, and into her car… that would attract eyes even if a Victoria local were the one doing the deed. Alice, who was already
unwelcome
even at the best of times, would draw more than just interest.

This gave her a couple of hours to herself, at least, so she decided to head for her bedroom with another fresh set of sheets in her hands, thinking about whether it would be better to throw the mattress out and buy a new one—probably—or spray it clean, flip it over, and hope for the best, but didn’t get far. Her skin began to crawl, her senses didn’t just tingle—they vibrated, and her heart jumped from zero to sixty. Whatever she was feeling, whatever was happening, it was powerful and close; as if a stampede of buffalo had suddenly materialized in her living room and was about to run her down.

Alice whipped around fast and saw violet lightning come arching out of what looked like some kind of
rip
in the fabric of reality. There was a booming roar, a growl, and more lightning whipped out, striking the walls, the sofa, and the TV, which exploded in a shower of sparks. She dashed toward the kitchenette, threw herself on the floor and skidded the last few feet into cover, only narrowly avoiding a crack of light that had seemed to come right for her.

She took a split second to catch her breath, and then crawled toward the cutlery drawer opposite her, reached inside, and came up with the other—smaller—knife she hadn’t been able to grab before the garbage man tossed her over the counter. When she came up, with the knife clutched firmly in her hand, blade out, she was ready to slice whatever
thing
had just invaded her apartment.

The crackling tear was still there, but the wind had calmed down and the roaring had transformed into a buzzing. Alice watched, mesmerized by the shifting light, the violet crackles, and the dark center of the event horizon, and then something started to emerge. First there came a foot, carefully slipping out of the yawning hole and finding the solid hardwood floor. A moment later, a person started to emerge. The shifting light and the hard shadows made it difficult for Alice to identify whoever it was stepping out of the portal, so she gripped the knife more tightly and ran toward the hole with it raised above her head.

“No, wait!”

It was Isaac. He had his hands up as he came through the opening, ready to protect himself against the slice that would surely come. His skin was pale, there were bags under his eyes, and his hair was a messy rag being tossed around by the cold wind spilling out of the portal, but it was
him
.
Him
, and not some shadow creature or Nyx herself.

The blood in her face simultaneously drained, and flushed. A cold sensation gripped her stomach, but a strange heat was rising through her chest and into her neck. She reaffirmed her grip on the knife, believing for a second this was a trap—that Isaac wasn’t really here. He couldn’t be. Isaac couldn’t just
teleport
anywhere. But then she didn’t know that with any kind of certainty, did she?

Isaac turned his head to look at her. He was pale, more than normal, and his long hair was messy and not at all brushed over his head like it usually was, but his eyes were sharp and present.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, and then he flashed her one of his big, pearly white smiles.

Alice let the knife drop from her hand, closed the distance between them, took his face in her hands, and kissed him deeply. Isaac wrapped his own hands around her waist and reciprocated. His skin was cold for a moment, as if he had just come out of an extended stay in a walk-in freezer, but his lips warmed with her heat, as did his face, and then the rest of him.

Forever passed before they split apart, and then they remained standing in place, resting their foreheads on each other in a moment of quiet stillness.

“This better really be you,” Alice said, “Because after what’s happened today I could do with something good happening.”

“It’s me,” he said, cupping her face with his hands. He found her eyes. “It’s me.”

“Something’s different. What’s different?”

“I think I know what you’re feeling, but I won’t waste our time with explanations.”

“All we have is time,” she said, her voice now barely a whisper. She kissed him again, this time more forcefully. Her body was warm now, and she was pulling him close—tugging on his shirt to press his body against hers. She kissed his neck. “All we have is time,” she repeated into his ear.

“Alice,” Isaac said, but he arched his neck and exulted in the sensation of her lips on his skin, the warmth of her breath. “Alice, wait,” he said.

She pulled herself away from him, reluctantly, and gazed into his eyes. “What is it?” she asked.

“There’s a corpse in your house.”

Alice craned her neck and looked at the bathroom door. “Right… that… how’d you know?”

Isaac tapped his nose. “I can sense it, too. What happened?”

“It’s a long story. I could ask you the same.”

“Another long story, I’m afraid. At first I was with the magistrate, but last night I broke out.”

“Broke out? How?”

“That’s where the long story starts.”

“I hope it ends with the reason why you’re different. That’s gonna bug me.”

“I will tell you how it starts and how it ends, but every good story has a prologue.”

He leaned toward her, backing her into the closed bathroom door, and kissed her deeply. Alice’s heart began to beat hard within her chest. Her cheeks flushed warm with blood, and her body broke out into a frenzy of lustful tingles. She took his face in her hands, pushed his messy hair over his head, and responded to the kiss. Forget the zombie in the bathroom; her body had spoken.

No, it had roared.

An instant passed, and Alice was unbuttoning Isaac’s shirt and slipping it off his shoulders. He looked like he had been in a fight, maybe more than one. Purple bruises with yellow eyes stared up at her from the landscape of his body. She kissed them tenderly and then reached for his belt buckle. He pulled her along the small segment of wall connecting the bathroom and bedroom doors, but a warning bell went off in her mind.

“No,” she said, and she pushed her body into his and urged him into the living room. “Not the bed.”

Isaac didn’t question this; he was too busy tugging on her shirt and lifting it over her head. His fingers touched her bare hips, her ribs, and her scarred back, leaving little trails of soft fire everywhere they went, which caused Alice to shudder. She had his belt off now, and had managed to undo the button on his jeans. He slid out of them. Alice was breathing heavily, now—each quaking breath of hers passing into his mouth, and likewise.

She was out of her jeans in a matter of seconds, and out of her underwear soon after. Her instinct was to press her naked body against his, to stop him from seeing her fully—stop him from seeing her scars—but Isaac had already explored the landscape of her back with his fingertips, had felt every grove and bump, and hadn’t been turned away by them.

Because he’s a good man
, she thought, and then she hooked her fingers into his boxers and drew them down. Slowly, she pushed him down onto the sofa and crawled onto him. He stared into her eyes, brushed wild strands of hair out of her face, and kissed her bare chest. She was shaking uncontrollably. This was the first time she had been intimate with a man in a long time; at least, intimate in a way that counted for something, that meant something.

“I missed you,” Isaac said.

Alice smiled, and her entire face seemed to light up. “I missed you too,” she said, and she kissed him again.

CHAPTER 22

The Chicken or the Egg

Alice thought maybe she had slipped into a light sleep after her brief interlude with Isaac on her living room couch, because her eyes refused to open. They had stayed there, wrapped around each other’s bodies without speaking, Alice listening to his breathing, and Isaac listening to hers. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had wrapped their arms around her like this, but was grateful for the closeness when her mind became restless.