Page 5 of The Bloody Ruin Asylum & Taproom (Sam Quinn #7)

Three

I Should Have Learned Some Key Hungarian Curse Words Before I Came Here

I threw my arms up, but no one was there. Instead of a battered woman screaming, there was only terrified me in the mirror. I looked in the bedroom. Nothing. Clive was resting in the bed. No traumatized woman was wandering around, which was a huge relief.

I’m a necromancer. Seeing ghosts is not unusual for me, but this was something different.

She felt like a live wire. Normally, ghosts can’t hurt me, but there had been those two in New Orleans who’d pretty successfully attacked me.

They’d been supernaturals in life. Perhaps I was dealing with the same here.

The one in the mirror, though, had felt human to me.

The crazy chill in the bathroom left with the woman in the mirror.

Hopefully that meant she’d used up her strength to scare me and would now be quiet.

I supposed I should have been prepared for ghosts when I saw the building.

I’d been so worried about vampires plotting against us, I hadn’t considered ghosts.

Deciding it was safe to proceed, I blew dry my hair, turned on the gas fireplace, grabbed my e-reader, and curled up on the couch.

There was no way I was telling Clive about the poor lady in the mirror.

I knew him. He’d worry and want to move me out of the Guild, but I didn’t want anything to get in the way of him becoming a Counselor. Besides, I could deal with ghosts.

Right now, I needed to relax if I had any hope of sleeping. I was reading the latest in a mystery series I enjoyed, but I couldn’t concentrate. I had to keep stopping myself and going back, realizing I hadn’t been paying attention to the words my eyes were skating over.

Had the young woman in the mirror been a patient in the asylum? She’d been bruised. Had she done that to herself or had someone else hurt her? I’d read such horrible things about asylums…

A shadow passed over me. Flinching, I sat up, looking around. I’d become accustomed to light and shadow flickering with the fire. This was different, though. I’d seen something tall and dark pass in my peripheral vision, seen the shadow momentarily block the fire.

I put aside the e-reader that had gone into standby mode while I’d been zoned out and stood, studying the darkened corners. I searched my mind for supernatural blips, finding lots of vamps, but none in the room with me besides Clive.

Lighter, almost indistinct in my mind, were hazy forms surrounding me. I couldn’t see them, but ghosts were hovering all around me. The floor creaked near the door and something crashed in the bathroom.

Jeez, was I a necromancer or what?

I sat back down, closed my eyes, and gathered up the spirits crowding me.

I’d done this outside The Wicche Glass Tavern when I was still learning about my powers.

I could certainly do it now. I let out a breath and then realized I had a problem.

I didn’t speak Hungarian. How was I supposed to tell them to go?

Pulling out my phone, I tried to find a translation program, but I didn’t have a signal. Shit. The flames in the fireplace shot up, making me jump. Rude, stupid-ass ghosts. I went to Clive and tapped his chest.

“Sorry. I really need your help.”

His eyes blinked open but they were unfocused.

“I’m fine. It’s not an emergency. I just need the Hungarian word for go. Can you tell me what that is?”

His speech was slow, but he said a lot of words. A lot.

“All of that to just say go?” What the hell kind of weird language was this?

He spoke again in what I assumed was Hungarian. I could have gone out and asked one of the human Renfield assholes, but I just knew if they spoke English, they’d probably lie to me.

“Clive, I need you to tell me in English how to say go in Hungarian.”

He opened his mouth and I said, “In English, please.”

He paused and then said, “Go.”

I thunked my head down on his chest. “Yes. The word is go in English. What is that word in Hungarian?”

“Megy.”

Oh, thank goodness. One word. I said it back to him, hoping I got the pronunciation correct. When I said it, the pressure in the room swayed.

He said the same word back to me and I turned, found all the spirits pressing in on me, held up my hand, and pushed while forcefully repeating, “Megy.”

Like an elastic band, they moved away and then snapped right back. Damn it. Was it the wrong word? Was I pronouncing it incorrectly?

Frustrated and more than a little scared, I sat back down, closed my eyes, and tapped into that part of me that spoke to the dead. I focused on all the misty images I saw around me. All were women. When I tried gathering them up again, broken nails scraped down my arms.

I put power in my voice and commanded, “Megy!” Some of the lighter, more insubstantial ghosts disappeared. The rest, though, slowly, resentfully, retreated. They were still in an orbit around me, but at least they were no longer clinging to my skin.

I didn’t understand why they were so different from all the other spirits I’d encountered. They were stronger and angrier. Other than those two ghosts in New Orleans, I’d never felt threatened by spirits before.

Was this an asylum for supernatural creatures? That seemed unlikely—and terrifying. What was it about these ghosts then? How did they have the power to ignore me?

I reclined on the couch, desperate for sleep, as I considered. Could it be the vampires? They were what was different here. Could ghosts feed off vampires? Who could I ask?

Eventually, I did fall asleep but far too soon, Clive was waking me up.

“Sam, darling, we need to get ready.” Voice low, he kissed my forehead and went to the closet to pull out a suit.

“Do we, though?” The last thing I wanted to do was go chat with impossibly beautiful deadish people who were hardwired to hate me when I was sleep-deprived and more than a little unnerved by a horde of supercharged hostile ghosts. So far, Budapest sucked.

He turned. “You don’t have to, if you’d prefer not.” His brow furrowed. “Is everything all right?”

Not really, but I couldn’t do that to him. This was a big opportunity and I wanted it for him. “Yep. Just tired. I’ve been a little keyed up about this trip, so sleep has been evading me.”

After living together in the nocturne, we’d learned to speak barely above a whisper.

We both had excellent hearing, so it wasn’t a problem.

If another vampire was intent on eavesdropping, they’d probably just hear a murmur of voices.

When we had to communicate something sensitive, though, we spoke mind-to-mind.

“I’m sorry.” He pulled me into his arms. “They can wait to meet you. I’m not sure of the schedule, but I’ll find time and we can walk around the city. It’s been weeks since you’ve been able to go for a run. I’m sure that isn’t helping your restlessness.”

“I’m okay. No worries. Besides, I want to meet the players. How else am I going to be able to talk shit about them?”

Laughing, he pulled me toward the bathroom. “Let’s get cleaned up and see if there’s anything I can do about all that pent-up energy of yours.”

I pulled away, searching for voyeuristic ghosties. A few were still hanging around.

“Sam?” Clive paused, expression concerned.

“I’ll be right in,” I said.

I could tell he thought something was up, but he nodded and went into the bathroom, turning on the shower.

This time, I led with anger, not fear; anger born of horrible embarrassment.

I did not want creepy people from the other side watching Clive and me.

I gathered them in my head again, uncoiling that metaphorical golden thread in my chest—my magic—looping it around them and shouting MEGY!

Thankfully, they did, and I relaxed as I walked into the bathroom.

One very long and exhilarating shower later, I was blow drying my hair again and Clive was in the bedroom getting dressed. Hair up or down? I wanted to make a good impression. Why, I’ll never understand.

I was finishing up my makeup when I heard, “Darling, this dress is lovely. Is it new?”

I went into the bedroom, still wrapped in a towel. “Yeah. I asked Audrey to go shopping with me, as she knows what’s expected at these kinds of vampy things.”

“That word,” he murmured, rolling his eyes.

“Thing? Anyway, Audrey said most of you guys would be wearing black, so I should wear color.”

“And she was right. This will be stunning on you,” he said, giving me a kiss. “It matches your eyes.”

The dress was dark green, with a fitted, sleeveless bodice.

Baring my arms still made me uncomfortable, but it was summer, and I needed to woman up.

The dress flared at the hip, the fabric imperceptibly moving from solid green to a very subtle green floral with hints of blue.

The skirt hit just above my knee. Audrey had even found forest green stilettos to wear with it.

I wore the blue diamond art deco earrings and bracelet Clive had given me that matched my wedding ring.

Once I’d strapped on the shoes, I looked in the mirror. “Too much?”

Clive came up behind me, wrapping his arms around me and resting his chin on my shoulder. “Perfect.”

I looked down at the large diamonds on the cuff bracelet. “No one’s going to try to steal this, right?” Wearing expensive things made me so nervous. What if it slipped off my wrist?

Clive kissed my jaw. “I think you’ll be safe from pickpockets.” He moved toward the door. “Shall we?”

“Wait.” I ran back into the bathroom to grab the dark green clutch, stuffing my phone, key, and lip gloss inside. “Hey, what’s with there being no cell service here?”

“I hadn’t noticed.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I have service.”

I checked my phone and sure enough, I had bars. “Interesting. Earlier today, there was nothing.”

“We can ask.” He opened the door and held his hand out to me.

“Do you know where we’re going?”

He squeezed my hand, his thumb brushing back and forth. “I do.”

The hall seemed longer than it had this morning when we’d arrived. Maybe it was the high heels. Probably it was the dread.

There were two vamps talking in the large reception area. Clive didn’t acknowledge them, so neither did I. I was acutely aware of how much noise heels clicking against marble made and I irrationally began to hate them. I slowly let out a deep breath, trying to force myself to calm the fuck down.

Was I willingly walking into a room with some of the most powerful vampires in the world? Yes. Did that make me an idiot? God, yes. Such an idiot. The things we did for love.

Clive paused before we hit the open door. Tugging my hand to pull me closer, he kissed me. You’re not an idiot.

Stop reading my mind!

I wasn’t trying to. You’re projecting rather strongly right now.

Shit.

Put up your mental blocks. When he started to move forward, I stopped him.

I needed a moment to erect them. Picturing walls hadn’t worked.

Remembering what Thoth, the Egyptian god, had taught me, I once again imagined my mind getting a rainbow candy-coating.

Did Thoth recommend a candy-coating of my brain?

No. That would be silly. I was the one who’d interpreted his wise words as my needing to skittle-fy myself.

To be safe, I did it twice, hoping to keep the likes of Cadmael out of my head.

Finally, I nodded and we started moving again. It was showtime.