Page 42

He remained unbothered, though, and merely shrugged. ‘I killed them for you.’

I inhaled sharply, feeling Chance tense even further beneath my touch. ‘Why?’

Morty shot me a look that told me that was the most stupid question I could have asked, and he wasn’t going to deign to answer.

I switched up the question. ‘Why them?’

His sneer when he looked at them, the expression so full of disgust, eased something within me. The something that worried I was in too deep with a monster even worse than Blake. And perhaps I was, but at least this monster seemed to be on my side.

‘They are scum, and did not deserve to live.’

‘What did they do?’ Chance asked, and we both needed the answer.

The shadows lifted up the ghost on the right. ‘He preys on children. Little boys or little girls, it didn’t matter to him.’ The shadows lowered him only to lift the other one instead. ‘And this one likes to make his employees get on their knees for him if they want to keep their job.’

Chance and I shared a look that spoke more than words could say. Morty wasn’t out there killing innocents, he was ridding the world of evil one kill at a time, then using those kills to charge up his power. It was brilliant, and a bit morally grey, but I was okaywith that. It seemed Chance was, too, because he levelled Morty with a determined look.

‘Give me the paedo. Kali doesn’t need that stain inside her.’

His request pleased Morty, and he handed over the bastard in question with a grin splitting his cheeks. It made him look boyish. Young. Still a man, with his short, thick beard and a very obviously grown body, but I realised then that I had viewed him as a sort of ageless being. Now, I could see that he was just a man who had figured out how to be more. A man who had been murdered, just like us, and way before his time.

When the spirit was in front of Chance, I waited for something to happen, but nothing did. He glanced at me uncertainly, then back at Morty. ‘Uh… What do I do?’

‘Just touch him. You’ll suck him right in.’

I scowled at my shadow man. ‘I don’t know whether to thank you or throttle you right now,’ I ground out through clenched teeth, earning me a wide-eyed look from Mortimer that was more innocent than I had ever seen from him before.

‘What?’

‘You made me figure it out on my own, yet here you are, handing Chance the answers like it’s nothing. Why did you makemejump through hoops, huh? Fucking asshole.’

Chance snickered beside me, though he did try to stifle it. Still, I turned my glare on him as I pouted at the unfairness of it all.

‘I need to know you were worth my time. You proved that you are,’ Morty said simply, like his words didn’t fill me with pride and set off fireworks in my belly.

‘Oh.’

He moved the other guy in front of me. An offering. His expression was expectant, and I sent him a grateful smile. Look at him. He was so freaking cute. Chance may have been the protector, but Morty? He was the provider.

‘Thanks, Morty.’

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he blushed.

With one more glance towards Blake and Dakota, Chance decided he had waited long enough. He extended his finger and just sort of poked at the guy that was struggling desperately against his shadowy restraints. I would have laughed, but the shadows retracted as the spirit suddenly flickered in and out of existence, and then converged at the small point of contact,streaminginto Chance like a genie in a bottle, only in reverse. And it was a fingertip, not a spout.

I wasn’t given the opportunity to watch for long, because Morty pushed my own gift closer until we touched, and then the same thing happened. He folded in on himself until he was nothing more than a swirling vortex of energy, like whisps of white mist that I sucked into me without further fanfare. It was quick, over in an instant, but I felt the barrage of his memories as he attempted to fight the pull of my own energy. It was a short battle, one that I won easily, but I didn’t want his memories. I didn’t want to experience the evil he had spread throughout his life.

With Bianca, she had been kind. Good. Her memories were welcome, and I’d accepted them out of respect for her and her sacrifice. This guy… he wasn’t warm like she was. He felt slimy. Sickly. Poisonous. I knew that if I ever tapped into his consciousness, I wouldn’t ever be the same again. So, with great effort, I constructed a wall between us. It made his passage into me more difficult, like trying to suck a drink through an obstructed straw. It hurt, and my shadows whipped about me as the pain tried to take over. It dropped me to my knees, but I bit back the scream that threatened to force itself from my throat and took it. I would rather have a short moment of physical pain than an eternity of this fucker’s memories plaguing me like persistent nightmares I would never be rid of.

I grunted as the pain sharpened for a fraction of a second, and then sagged when it ended. I felt both exhausted from the ordeal and reenergised at the same time, and I tilted my head up from where I knelt to see how Chance was doing. Alarm shot through me when I saw him floating horizontally above his grave, a few feet in the air. Air which swirled around him, sucking in one small tendril of shadow. Then another. And then another, until there were enough to cover him in a protective sphere.

Blake and Dakota rushed past, though I didn’t spare them a second glance. The wind was whipping around them so harshly that they had to push through it to get back inside, but I couldn’t bring myself to care that what was happening was affecting the living realm so intensely. Chance’s eyes were closed, his face slack. He was unconscious, which was not a natural state to be in after death. Sleep’s purpose was to mend the damage done to the body during the day, but we no longer had physical bodies to heal.

‘He’s okay,’ Morty said, closer than I expected him to be. He placed a steady hand on my shoulder, which I covered with my own.

‘Did this happen to me?’

‘Yes. Though I’m sure the memories you received were a lot more pleasant than the ones he’s currently experiencing.’