Grave Danger (19 page)

“
Chas,” boomed the voice close to her head,
nearly deafening her for a moment. “This is no time to be playing
with the others. She’s just a girl.”

Chas stopped short of his target, enraged that his
brother had interfered. “She attacked me, you saw it.” His fists
balled at his sides, he stalked forward. If Corrigan would only put
her down, he’d have at her, take a piece of her precious soul for
humiliating him.

“
And she was listening in on us. She’s a spy
for them, I know it.” Chas tried to make a grab at Clarissa but
Corrigan swiftly side-stepped out of his reach, taking his ghost
hostage with him. He refused to put her down, knowing what his
brother would do.

“
The ghost is not a spy for her people. She
hasn’t even been dead long enough to know not to venture out after
dark. She’s of no interest to us, brother.” Corrigan held the girl
ghost in his arms, her body stiff as a post, her legs dangling high
above the ground. He could tell she was new, fresh, her soul so
bright and unblemished beneath her ghostly form that it made his
insides twist up in painful knots. She made him want to hold her,
keep her close and bath in the cool beauty of her spirit; lose
himself in her goodness. He tightened his grip, not caring if he
hurt her. She was a ghost, a spirit, and he hated her
kind.

“
Let me just take a bite out of her, Corr.”
Chas stalked them again.

Corrigan backed away, moving out of reach of his
brother as he came closer to them. “Go back to Helen, Chas.” He
tried to reason with his brother, seeing the madness in his eyes
and trying to think of a way to penetrate the man within. “You
wouldn’t want to leave her all alone out there. If there are spies
for the Eidolon, she shouldn’t be left by herself. Go,” he
commanded, raising his voice. “We’ve already stirred up enough
trouble as it is. If you attack one of their own, what do you think
will happen? Who do you think they’ll punish? If not for yourself,
then think of your mate. Go now and I’ll take care of this one.”
Corrigan relayed a message to his sister that his brother needed
her.

Clarissa could hear once again the soft feminine
voice of the other. Now she knew it was another flesh-eater. In her
thoughts about the flesh-eaters, she hadn’t imagined a female
version of the creature, nor one with such a beautiful voice. That
just didn’t coincide with the image she had painted of the evil
creatures.

Clarissa watched as the face of the darkly handsome
flesh-eater softened, a secret smile tugging at the perfect bow of
his now closed mouth. With it closed she could almost believe he
was human again; almost. Then the smile was gone and his mouth drew
down in snarl, directed at her. “Thank my wife, ghost girl, because
she just saved your soul.” He was off in the next instant, turning
away swiftly and bounding down the street in a fast paced run.
Clarissa couldn’t get over how quickly they moved on two feet. She
would have thought they would need at least four to run that fast.
Perhaps all flesh-eaters were like Olympic sprinters.

Clarissa was left alone with the brother of this
creature, one she had yet to see. He kept her suspended in the air
for several more seconds, the sound of his deep breathing close to
her ear. It was warm along her cooler skin, the breath belying the
cold death that was hidden in his form. He tightened his grip yet
again against her, too tight that she almost felt like he was
trying to absorb her body into his own. Then just as suddenly he
dropped her back onto her feet.

Clarissa teetered on her feet as she found herself
unceremoniously dropped back down to earth. The brother was
certainly a rather impressively tall creature. It didn’t bode well
for her to stick around and find out if he was as handsomely
attractive as his brother. Clarissa had had enough interaction with
the creatures to satisfy her curiosity for awhile. Finding her
equilibrium, she moved to put distance between herself and the
creature.

Corrigan become aware of the ghost woman distancing
herself from him, but before she could get far, he grabbed her arm,
spinning her around and holding her in place. Until now he hadn’t
had the leisure to get a good look at her. She was of average
height for a woman of this time period, but with a curving body
instead of the angular ones he had seen so often of late. Her hair
was a dark mahogany that in the light would show shades of gold and
red. But it was her eyes that bespoke of the beauty of her inner
self; in her eyes her soul was revealed. Hers were quite exquisite,
the blue of her irises pale on the interior with a cobalt ring that
gave her eyes an otherworldly charm to them. Her skin, like most of
her kind, was cool and pale in the moonlight, a radiant glow
running under the surface. It made her eyes and hair stand out in
contrast to the silky glow of her ghostly form.

Clarissa found herself gazing up into the face of
some fallen deity. His skin was slightly tanned, a golden glow that
radiated over his skin like heated magick. A dark lock of his raven
colored hair fell over his forehead to caress his skin and give him
a rakish look. The flesh-eaters form was perfectly formed like his
brothers, a body of a beast and not a simply man. The sculpted
mouth and jaw held no show of warmth and in his iridescent blue
eyes she saw nothing but empty death. If the eyes were the windows
into the soul, his revealed nothing.

“
Let go of me,” Clarissa commanded of him.
“I’ve had my fill of being manhandled, thank you. Now let go.” Her
voice held the note of authority and showed nothing of
fear.

“
You would be well advised not to find
yourself outside alone at night again,” Corrigan answered, still
keeping a firm hold on her arm. “Leave now before I change my mind
and decide to take a bite out of your soul as my brother had wanted
to do.” He released her arm, giving her a slight shove, pushing her
away from him.

“
He’s not your real brother is he?” Clarissa
asked. “You two look nothing alike.” She should leave, he had given
her the opening she needed and she could simply shift the
atmosphere and be in the security of her own home in
seconds.

Clarissa knew that that security would only be an
illusion; the citizens of this city were never fully safe from
these others. And if she fled now, after having waited so long to
confront them, it would show deep cowardliness on her part. But she
knew the dangers in trying to converse with these beasts. It was
like being in the wilds of Africa trying to infiltrate and study a
pride of lions; at any moment he could change his mind and charge
for her. She took another step back, but then held herself still,
needing resolution to the questions that had burned in her brain
since coming to this old city.

Corrigan was slightly taken back when he realized
she wasn’t leaving. Instead of disappearing as he assumed she would
when he let go of her, in a strange turnabout she remained standing
a few feet away and dared to speak to him in a calm and reasoning
voice.

“
He is my brother and it is no concern of
yours in any case,” he responded tersely.

“
I see,” she said. Clarissa tilted her head
slightly to the left, studying him. “Is it the nature of the
flesh-eater to be hostile or is just in your nature? I thought
Richard was the only man who could be so dreadfully anti-social and
petulant.”

This little slip of a ghost had the audacity to
critic his character and those of his family. Didn’t she know that
he could take the very last breath of life out of her, consume her
soul in an instant and then there would be nothing left of her? She
was either more than slightly demented, Corrigan thought, or she
lacked any self-preservation. He should just get it over with and
end her existence, save her people the trouble of doing it
themselves. If she was foolish enough to break the rules of her
people then she didn’t deserve to exist in this world.

Corrigan strode forward, his mouth slightly parted.
Her soul was running like a liquid current under her form, bright
and enticing him. She didn’t back up again as he drew closer to
her. He didn’t expect that. She should have at least had the
decency to look frightened.

“
Don’t come any closer,” she commanded him,
using a voice he had yet to hear from her. It was a voice of
compulsion, one that he had not heard in over a hundred years. And
as he knew it would, it stopped him dead in his tracks. He growled
deeply in his throat like the caged animal he knew she was turning
him into. “I have just a few questions to ask of you, if you don’t
mind.”

Clarissa was more than surprised to see he had
listened to her. But somehow, she couldn’t guess why, it looked
like he hadn’t wanted to. It was like she had forced him to stop
his advances, overriding his own wants like a command of
compulsion. It didn’t make sense. He looked like he wanted to rip
her head off, yet he remained immobile.

“
Stop growling,” she commanded again. He was
silenced immediately. His eyes flamed to life, the iridescent
coloring glowing like a blue flame in the face of a beautifully
enraged angel. For a moment, it was a heady euphoric feeling of
power that flowed over Clarissa’s form, but she suppressed it
quickly. Even if he was an animal, there was something inside her
that made her reluctant to want to control him. She knew she
should. He was a beast, a monster, and she hated his
kind.

“
What questions would that be?” he bit out.
“If I may be permitted to speak, mistress, I would not want to
offend you.” His sarcasm dripped like icy shards of glass from his
tightlipped mouth.

Mistress
, Clarissa
thought. What did he mean by that? He was a flesh-eater and as far
as any of them knew had no one to control his behavior. It seemed
he believed that she was such a person to control him and he
obviously wasn’t pleased about that; not that she could blame him.
But only a death bokor could control the dead. Clarissa wasn’t a
bokor, was she?

“
Mistress,” Clarissa heard his deep voice
calling her. She had been lost in her own thoughts for several
seconds and at first hadn’t heard him. “There are only a few hours
of darkness left. Ask your questions so that I may return to the
island.”

Clarissa nodded her head in agreement, clearing her
mind so she could focus. Clearing her throat, she continued to
observe him. So he must obey her commands, she thought. If she was
indeed a death bokor, which she was still finding hard to believe,
then he could not hurt her. She was his mistress, he said, like a
servant to his master; she had authority over his actions.

But she wondered if she had complete control over
him. Could he lie to her? Clarissa might control his body, but was
there a part of him that could not be touched, a part of his being
that was entirely his own?

No person should be at the complete mercy of
another.

Clarissa had to remind herself that he was not a
person, he was a flesh-eater and he had killed the friends and
loved ones of her communities’ associates. An attack on the S.S.
was like an attack on the Eidolon people.

“
What do you mean by calling me
mistress?”

Corrigan frowned in agitation. He didn’t think he
could have hated this young woman more than he already did, but he
could. Before she had only been a foolish ghost caught in the dark,
unprotected. Now, he had the misfortune of finding out that she had
been a bokor in life and had not released her hold on her powers
even after her death.

“
You are a bokor, mistress.” Corrigan said
solemnly, though he wanted to ring her neck from her shoulders. She
shouldn’t have been able to control him, not even as a ghost. But
he knew that not only was she a bokor, she was a death bokor, a
more deadly order that had the ability to control and exterminate
the underworld creatures of this world.

“
There is no sense in that kind of formality.
I don’t want to be your mistress anyway. I just want to know why
you and your family have broken the treaty.”

“
You’re misinformed, mistress. No one has
broken the contract with the Eidolon.”

Clarissa raised her eyebrows at him. “Can you lie to
me, if you wanted to? And stop calling me mistress. You make me
feel like some kind of slave owner.”

She was and he was the slave. Corrigan folded his
own arms over his massive chest, looking down at her. “Yes, I can
lie unless you specifically told me not to, then no. But in this
case I am not lying. My family and I have never broken any rules
your people have set out, not that they have the power to stop us
if we wanted to change that.”

“
Except me,” Clarissa pointed out.

That fire was back in his eyes. “Yes, except you…”
he paused before continuing. The degradation had been branded into
his psyche for so long, he didn’t know he was reverting back to
what he had been; until her. But he wasn’t that man anymore and she
wasn’t his mistress. “Except you – whatever your name is – you can
control us. A fact of which, you are already aware of by now.”

“
Clarissa,” Clarissa said. “My name is
Clarissa Schofield. And I take it you have a full name as well.
What is it?” She wondered if by having a name to go with the
figure, it would make him seem more human. He looked so human it
was difficult to remind herself of the soulless beast that lived
inside of him.

Corrigan didn’t want to answer. She hadn’t compelled
him into a response, simply asked the question like a normal human
being. But Clarissa was anything but a normal human. “Corrigan
LeMoyne,” he said, hiding his accent from her. Only when he
communicated as he did with his family did anyone hear the true
sound of his voice.