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18

March 1685

Whitby, England

Marguerite ran.She fled through the field, running for her very life. A creature beyond all measure pursued her. She did not know him, save for the flashes in her dreams of a demon that possessed her.

She had seen priests to aid her. She had visited women who practiced the old ways. None could rid her of the dreams that took her in the waking world, whispering to her of a past that could not be. She saw herself dying—again, and again, and again—in such terrible ways.

And each time, that thing, that terrible and shadowy monster was there. Nipping at her heels. Reaching for her soul. She did not know herself. She did not know from whence she came. All her memories and recollections were gone. All, save those terrible nightmares that could not be real.

Or at least she had not believed them to be real. Until she witnessed the monster in the waking world. Her physician—who had claimed to be able to help her—had melted away. His body had disappeared into the shadows and horrifying reaching talons.

She had screamed. And then she had run.

It was pouring, the water coming down in sheets around her. She could barely see, and the long grass around her clung to her dress as if wishing to pull her down into the dirt. As if that was where she belonged.

Perhaps I am already dead, and that is but Death himself come to claim me. I am not alive, am I?

She ran as far and as fast as she could, before one misstep ended her escape. Her ankle twisted in a depression in the ground, and with a cry of pain, she fell into the wet grass.

She sobbed, her tears joining the rain as it sank into the ground. Yes. She was dead. And this was her home.

There was family in the dirt.

She sank her fingers into it, needing to feel the clinging grit against her hand. She put her forehead down and shut her eyes tight. “I am alone. Please, I do not wish to be alone. If I might die, let me die. But I cannot do this any longer.”

When a hand touched her back, she screamed. Rolling over, she gazed up at—

At Death.

But not the shadowy creature she had expected. No. What stood beside her was—was a—was a skeleton.

It stood upon its bony, rotted, yellow legs, no skin or tendon to help hold the pieces together. From its shallow shoulders and empty ribs hung tattered remains of fabric. A skull perched atop a neck, and no lower jaw decorated its fleshless remains.

It stood there, watching her. With no lips with which to aid it, the skeleton spoke to her. “I am here, Marguerite.”

She screamed.

And her world went black.

* * *

Gideon snarled,his fists clenching.

How was it that his world was always insisting on going from bad to worse?

There, walking through the moors in the pouring rain, heading back to his home, was not Marguerite. When she had fled from him, he knew she would run through the moors, perhaps sprain her ankle, and then, soaked and hopeless, she would return to him. And then they would begin in earnest.

But no.

No.

Instead, he saw the bony, impossible, infuriating form of a fleshless revenant carrying her unconscious body back to the light of his home. When the skeleton stepped closer, meaning to move past him and out of the rain, he stepped in front of it. “Leave her and go.”

“I cannot. More importantly, I will not.” The skeleton stood firm, holding the girl to his lifeless frame as if he were a living man. “She summoned me. I crawled from the Earth. And I walked over field and through ocean to reach her. From my grave I have come to this foreign land.” He paused. “Besides which, I would remain simply to spite you, necromancer.” He took another step forward, bony foot sinking into the muck. “Now get the fuck out of my way.”

Looking down at his wife, at her drenched state, he knew there was nothing he could do. She had summoned a revenant without realizing it. She had latent power before they were bound, but now that his soul was tangled up in hers, she was truly dangerous.