Page 27

Kali

B lake had taken Dakota for a tour of the property. He was leading her through the small copse of trees to where the river wound through the rear of his land, pointing things out here and there like he was genuinely excited to show her. Like he was actually happy she was there.

I stood by Chance, who watched on with a thunderous expression. He was protective of Dakota. I wasn’t sure how close they were, but she was his sister-in-law. She was family.

‘What the fuck is he doing?’ Chance snarled, his entire body vibrating with anger he was forced to contain, not because he didn’t want to attack Blake, but because he physically couldn’t do anything.

‘Showing her around,’ I supplied helpfully.

He huffed and nudged me with his elbow. ‘You know what I mean.’

I gave in at the helplessness he was radiating with every useless breath. ‘He’s covering his tracks. When the cops looked around and found nothing, not to mention the cop he’s holding captive in the basement, he must have figured out that they’re onto him.’

‘But why bring her into it?’ he asked, dismayed. He was a protector, and he couldn’t protect anyone right now. It was easy to see how much his inability to help was eating at him.

‘Because she’s his alibi. Just like I was. She’s the mask he puts on for the rest of the world. If she says he’s a good man, people will believe it. If she says there’s no murder basement, the cops will stop digging.’

‘He’s showing her there’s nothing to find,’ he deduced, anger and frustration warring for dominance.

‘Exactly. Blake is smart. Too smart. He’s planned for this for a long time. He doesn’t intend to get caught.’

‘We have to stop him,’ he said, growling his conviction.

‘We will. He’s not going anywhere just yet. Whatever his plans, he won’t go through with them until he’s sure he’s in the clear. Let’s just keep practising and pushing ourselves to be stronger, and we’ll make him pay.’

He deflated, though his glare was still drilling into the back of Blake’s head. ‘You’re right. I just…’ He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging on the strands in his frustration. ‘I hate this. I hate him .’

I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head against his shoulder, letting him use me as an emotional anchor. ‘Me too.’

His head twisted to face the house, and he worried his lip between his teeth at whatever thoughts were running through his brain. ‘How is she going to survive if he won’t go down there?’

I pursed my lips, trying to come up with a solution to the very question I had been thinking. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think she’ll get out of this alive if I can’t find some way to help her. I need to figure out a way to get her something to eat. Or at least some water.’

We devolved into silence, stuck in our heads, while our minds whirred with potential solutions to this new problem.

I had never had to worry about the welfare of his victims before.

I knew they were going to die, and that they would suffer immense pain beforehand, and there wasn’t anything I could do to help.

But now, I could help. I could touch things. Move things. I just needed to gather enough strength to sustain the ability without it costing me so much energy. But how?

I knew how, but I didn’t like the answer.

‘You said Morty was killing people, right?’ I asked Chance.

He grimaced. ‘Shit. I forgot about that…’ He tucked me in tighter against his body, like he could shield me from the danger Morty posed.

Except, I didn’t think he posed any danger to me.

Not physically, anyway. Emotionally, I had a feeling that man was going to wreck me.

I could only hope it was in a way I could appreciate.

‘Don’t worry about him. That’s not why I asked.’

‘Then why?’

‘I think that might be how he’s so powerful. He can do things that are so far out of my ballpark, and I’m sure he has even more tricks hidden up his sleeves, but absorbing souls seems to be the way to get access to more power.’

‘You think he’s killing people to what… eat their souls?’ he asked, completely aghast.

I tried not to bristle, the sensation of Bianca’s energy like a warm hug inside me. But was it the same for Morty?

‘It’s how I broke free from my grave’s pull,’ I admitted.

‘His last victim, Bianca. She could see me. I tried to help ease her passing, but she sort of just… fell into me. I don’t know how to describe it.

She’s not gone, and I can feel her inside me, but she seems content to just…

I don’t know, buzz around in the shadows.

Her energy gave me the boost I needed to break the tether holding me here.

Maybe the only way to get stronger is to take in more energy the same way? ’

Chance was looking at me with a strange expression I struggled to decipher, and I worried he would think poorly of me with that information, so I hurried to explain.

‘I think she wanted it, Chance. I didn’t eat her or whatever. I don’t know, I can’t describe it, other than she was happy to let me take over. She wanted this. I didn’t force her to disappear, and she’s still here, just in a different way.’

The elaboration seemed to relax him, and he accepted my story with a thoughtful hum.

‘Is that the only way I’m going to get unstuck? I have to… absorb another spirit?’

‘I think so.’

‘How?’ he asked, a new frustration making him tense up again. ‘There aren’t any close enough for me to absorb, and I’m not comfortable doing that without consent.’

‘I don’t think you can take the energy of a ghost unless they’re fresh,’ I mused out loud. ‘It’s why I didn’t touch you after you died. I had to let you settle into your new reality, and that somehow made you too… I don’t know, tangible? ’

‘Huh.’

‘Yeah.’

‘But that still doesn’t help us. There are no newly dead people around,’ he pointed out.

‘That’s what I’m here for.’

We both spun at the sound of Morty’s voice behind us. He had snuck up on us again , and it was really starting to chafe. I should have been paying closer attention, but I’d let my thoughts take precedence yet again.

‘You need a collar or something. With a bell,’ I sniped, but he only smirked in response.

‘I’ve brought gifts.’

It was only then that I noticed the two spirits cowering behind him. They were bound and gagged in his shadows, and he dragged them forward for us to see, presenting them like the most precious gifts he could have offered.

It was a sickening realisation that that’s exactly what they were. They were power. They were freedom.

They were crying.

‘What did you do?’ I demanded accusingly.

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 okay with 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 make me jump 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.