Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) (25 page)

“You worked with a spirit before to take Anthony down.” Constantine broke the silence by pointing at the pile of shaman supplies in the corner. “Contact it. Ask it questions. See what it knows about feral, immune spirits and who’s controlling them. If it hates Anthony that much, it shouldn’t have any problem cooperating with us.”

“Okay, that does make sense” I said slowly. Communicating with spirits was one of my least favorite things on the planet, but it was a plan that hadn’t even occurred to me until now. “The spirit, Anannan, did say I owed him one for holding the knife that killed Anthony. I guess I could call in that favor now.”

“Do it,” Constantine said. “That’s an order.”

With a roll of my eyes, I grabbed my supplies from the corner and dropped to the floor. Sitting cross-legged, I drew the rune in slow, broad strokes and lit the candlewick that would allow me to enter the Borderland. My body began to tremble, but I tensed every muscle to keep Constantine from seeing the nerves racing through my bloodstream. I couldn’t let him see me be weak. And I couldn’t let Anannan get a whiff of my fear.

The low chanting shaman song started deep in my throat. My eyelids fluttered shut as I concentrated on a single sage leaf, centering myself as I used my shaman powers to push myself from the comforting confines of the real world and into the swirling chaos of the Borderland, the plane of existence that separates humans from Lower World, the place demonic spirits call home.

When I opened my eyes, red swirls of dust danced across my vision. A heavy humming rumbled underneath my body, and I had to grit my teeth against the way the wind battered the very core of my soul. Something felt off. The colors were harsh and bright, and the Intuition in my scalp confirmed my fears. The Borderland felt…more dangerous than it normally did. As if it were a hungry lion poised for attack.

“Anannan,” I said into the quiet chaos. “Anannan, I need you.”

Waiting with breath held tight in my throat, my astral projected form lifted further from my physical body as the Borderland air swirled around me, tossing me up in its red-streaked current. A crashing cymbal battled against my eardrums, and I fought every cell in my body to steady the rapid beating of my heart, not wanting to show fear in this place of bleeding shadows.

“Anannan,” I said again. “I’m calling Anannan. He owes me a favor.”

Something rushed at my face. A spirit, tall and twisting and black and red. It was the first time I’d seen color on a spirit’s face, and it was a terrifying site to behold. The color dripped down like fresh blood, glittering on something sharp and deadly that looked like rows upon rows of brittle teeth.

“Get out of here, shaman,” the spirit said, hissing in a lilting language that I knew was not my own, but that I could understand all the same. “You are not welcome here.”

“You’re not Anannan.” I squared my shoulders, refusing to back down and show weakness before this being. “I need to speak with him, and then I’ll go.”

“Anannan is not here.” A hissing static filled my head, and I pressed my palms tight against my ears to block the sound from burrowing its way deeper into my mind.

“Where is he?” I shouted over the noise. “Is he in Lower World?”

“He has been transformed into something that is against nature.” The spirit rose high in the air and writhed through the red dust.

“Against nature?” I stared up at the spirit. “Please tell me what you mean.”

The spirit hissed. “Get out. You have no power over me, shaman.”

A gust of bitter air slammed into my astral projected form, and the real world roared back around me. Breath ragged, I bent over and blinked at the stars that dotted my vision. My whole body felt as if it’d been through a blender, all twisted and torn in places I’d never felt before. Gasping for air, I peeled open my swollen eyes to look up into Constantine’s furrowed face.

“Are you okay, Holly?” His steady hand pressed into my shoulder, spreading a warmth through my shivering body.

“It’s no use,” I said, shoulders slumping. “Everything’s all screwed up.”

“What happened?” Constantine knelt before me and took my shaking hands into his. They were warm and solid and strong, and they felt like a lifeline back to reality. With a deep breath, I collected my thoughts, shook aside my fear, and replayed everything back to him.

After I was done explaining what had happened in the Borderland, Constantine frowned and sat back on his heels. “Your spirit ally has been transformed into something against nature? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“The last time I saw Anannan was back in September. He seemed normal enough then.”

“Then, Anthony Lombardi has done something to Anannan. As revenge for causing his death, no matter how short-lived it was.” Constantine gave a nod and stood from the floor. “At least everything is starting to make sense now.”

“Yeah, but what could he have done this time?” I asked, jumping up to join his hectic pacing across the living room floor. We each took one corner of the room, our heels digging into the carpet. “This all keeps going back to nature and the balance of things and don’t piss off karma, yada, yada, yada. But what could Anthony have done to a spirit other than bind it to his blood again? I have a hard time believing Anannan would let that happen.”

“I have an idea.” Laura appeared in the open doorway, red-and-blond streaked hair fussed from sleep, ancient leather book in hand. It was the other history book Mom had left behind for me, and Laura waved it in the air like a victorious flag.

Constantine eyed the book. “What’s that?”

“It’s a book that goes into a bunch of folk tales about shamans and spirits over the years.” Laura stepped into the room and handed me the book, dog-eared to a chapter labeled
Half Spirit
. When I heard you guys shouting and banging around in here, I decided I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, and I thought maybe this would be some nice bedtime reading.” She gave a sharp laugh. “Yeah right.”

“What did you find, Laura?” I asked, dread pooling in my stomach from the hard look in her eyes.

She hugged her sweater tighter around her shoulders. “There’s a story in there about a witch who teamed up with a shaman to create some seriously dark magic. The story sounds a little Frankenstein-y, to be honest, and it creeped me out as I read it. Anyway, these two magic-wielders wanted to create a rift between the planes of existence so they could let through a certain type of spirit that only exists in Lower World. Ones who are completely immune to shaman powers.”

“Wait a minute.” John strode forward and frowned. “You’re saying this is a completely different kind of spirit?”

Laura nodded. “At least according to the story. The ones we usually come across are just regular old spirits. They feed on humans through the Borderland, and we can summon them, banish them, whatever. Then, there’s the others. Under normal circumstances, they have no way of getting to us, so we have no way of getting to them. They can’t enter the Borderland at all.”

My heart sunk as I realized where Laura was going with this. “Unless there’s a rift.”

“Exactly,” Laura said. “It’s kind of like a portal. The spirits pass through the rift and wreak havoc whenever and wherever they want to, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”

“So, you’re saying Anthony Lombardi and George Proctor have teamed up to create this rift.” Constantine crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles tensing against his tight shirt. “Well, then all we have to do is close the damn thing, right?”

Laura winced. “Unfortunately, there’s more.”

The look on Laura’s face shook the very marrow of my bones. “What is it, Laura?”

“Well, the book was very clear about the repercussions of this rift,” Laura said, her face paling more with every word. “If it’s left open too long, it will create a massive tear in the Borderland and eventually destroy it completely.”

“Leaving this world open to spirit attacks indefinitely,” Constantine finished. He grabbed the book from Laura’s hands and frowned down at it, as if burning it with his eyes would destroy the truth of what we’d found hidden in its pages.

“One last thing,” Laura said, squeezing her eyes tight. “The rift is a person. And the only way to destroy the rift is to kill the person who has been transformed into one.”

“Wait.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “Please don’t tell me you said what I think you said.”

“We’re going to have to kill the rift to stop this. And I’m pretty sure it’s George.”

CHAPTER 23

“T
here has to be another way,” I said. “Despite what she’s done, I don’t want to kill her.”

“Not according to that book.” Laura pointed at the heavy tome that Constantine had begun to flip through. “She’s done something I didn’t think was possible.”

“She and Anthony, you mean.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “George needed someone who could manipulate spirits, and Anthony needed someone who could manipulate nature. Listen, what I’m about to say is going to sound crazy.”

“Just get it out there,” I said. It couldn’t be much worse than everything we’d heard so far.

“Right.” Laura drew in a deep breath before she spoke her next words. “George has merged herself with a spirit.”

“Say again?” I blinked at Laura, my mind stuttering on her words. Constantine frowned, but he didn’t seem terribly surprised.

“The only way to create a rift is to merge a living body on this plane of existence with a living body on Lower World’s plane of existence. So, George has gone and made herself half-spirit, half-witch.”

“Anannan,” I whispered. “That’s what the spirit meant. She’s merged herself with Anannan.”

For some reason, I felt a twinge of sadness at the idea that Anannan had been defeated, by Anthony Lombardi of all people. If we had to kill George to destroy the rift, that meant killing Ananann, too, when we we took her down. There’s no way he could survive.

“And that means what exactly?” Constantine’s voice held an edge as sharp as a knife.

“It means she’s part spirit, so she needs to feed on humans.” Laura pointed to the book again. “Or at least that’s what happened to the guy in the book. He became less and less human as the days went on, hungering more and more for human fear. And every time a spirit passed through his body into the real world, the further he fell into the spirit side of him. By the end of it all, he was basically a walking and talking spirit. His humanity had practically disappeared. It’s really creepy.”

“The powers of a witch mixed with the mindset of a spirit.” My mouth went dry. “This is worse than I thought.”

Constantine flipped through the pages of the story Laura had just shared. I began my heavy pacing across the floor again. George Proctor had done way more than I ever thought possible, and for what? There had to be a reason she was doing this, and if we could figure that out, we might be able to find a weakness in her plan.

Constantine slammed the book onto the coffee table, and I jumped five thousand feet in the air. Twirling, I saw his face etched with anger and pain. He gripped his rifle tight in his hands as he stormed toward the window to peer out at the light gray sky. Morning was finally here, and neither one of us had slept a wink. But despite the elephant sitting on my eyeballs, there’s no way I could sleep now. Not with George, the half-spirit, out there, keeping Nathan hostage until Anthony decided it was time for him to exact whatever revenge he had in mind.

“We need to find this girl. She’s killed too many people,” Constantine said. “This will end today.”

Laura raised her eyebrows at Constantine’s violent outburst. “Well, she won’t have gone far.”

“What makes you think that?” Constantine asked.

“There’s some good news in all of this. I don’t think they’ve made the merge permanent yet,” Laura said. “There’s one last thing she has to do before she’s like that for good. When she does, there’s nothing we can do to destroy her. She’ll be invincible. Immortal.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, my feet freezing on the carpet. A lightbulb flicked on over my head as the puzzle pieces finally formed a very clear picture. “Are you saying this merging spell creates an immortal life?”

Laura nodded. “Once it’s permanent, yeah. Not even those fancy guns of yours could do any damage. They never made it permanent in the book, and that’s why. They wanted to be able to destroy their creation whenever they wanted. See why I thought it was creepy?”

Taking a slow, deep breath, I closed my eyes and shook my head. Everything was utterly clear, spread out before me in a sickening display of truth. “George isn’t the one who merged with the spirit, guys. Anthony Lombardi is. The only thing that man has ever wanted is immortal life. It’s why he did all those terrible things in September. And it’s why he’s doing them now. He’s trying another tactic, and he’s going to crazy extremes to get what he wants.”

Laura’s eyes widened. “I didn’t even think of that. I just assumed it was George because…”

“She’s the one who has been drawing all of our attention,” I finished for her. “We’ve been distracted from what is really going on here.”

“Unfortunately, I think you’re right,” Constantine said. “But that doesn’t explain why don’t think they’ll go far. If he wants to make the spell permanent, why hasn’t he done so already?”