Grave Danger (20 page)

Clarissa had heard his voice before when he had been
conversing with his family. It was different than the one he used
out loud and with her. That one was harsher, less human than his
inner dialogue. Corrigan was an Irish name, and his inner accent
had a beautiful lilt to it. But he chose to speak with an American
accent. She told herself she didn’t want him to speak to her in
that deep brogue voice of his, but even telling herself that, she
knew it wasn’t true.

“
I’m a death bokor, then.” He nodded in
assent.

“
Someone has broken the rules here.” If he was
to be believed, then neither he nor his family had broken contract,
but she didn’t quite believe him. “Several members of the Spectral
Services, the friends and associates of the Eidolon community have
been murdered. Are you aware of that?”

He shook his head in the affirmative. Clarissa
continued. “Their attacks are similar to those made by the
flesh-eaters, like you and your family. As far as you are aware,
are you and your family the only ones of your kind in the
area?”

“
Yes,” he said his voice angry and
hostile.

Clarissa gave him a peeved stare. “Then, doesn’t it
seem logical that it was either you or one of your family members
who attacked our people?”

“
If they were out when they should not have
been, then it’s their own damn fault for dying. It has been this
way for many years and your people have to follow to the treaty as
well, though it seems most don’t.” He eyed her with a vicious
stare. “If a few of your associates get caught because of their own
foolishness, it’s not our fault.”

“
So you admit to breaking the treaty and
attacking our associates then.” Clarissa made a step forward,
closing in on him. Leah had told her that no S.S. would be caught
out in the night by one of these beasts. Someone was lying here.
She voiced her thoughts aloud. “None of the people killed by these
attacks would have been caught outside during your roaming time.
That means you or your family members have been crossing lines and
venturing into our homes and businesses for your kills.”

He growled at her in that animalistic tone. “The
last place I would want to be is in your spooks hang outs and
neither I nor my family would target anyone inside their homes. We
abide by the rules, no questions asked. So either you’ve been given
a false story on these deaths or someone else has it in for your
community. I for one don’t give a damn either way.”

Clarissa looked up at him trying to see through the
barrier into the man underneath, but she couldn’t. He was
unbreakable; nothing could cut through that hard exterior. Perhaps
there was nothing inside that form except emptiness. Then again,
something about him didn’t add up. For a man who seemed to hate her
so much, he had saved her from certain extinction. His brother
would have devoured her without pause, but he had stopped him, his
own brother.

“
I don’t believe you’re as callous as you
would like me to believe. You might growl and bark like an animal,
but you aren’t a beast.” Clarissa found it strange that she was
voicing these thoughts, but even as she said them she knew it was
true. Yes, the beast did take hold of him, but not completely.
Somewhere, in some small corner of his being was his
humanity.

“
You know nothing about me and for all you
know I could have killed your little servants while they were
sleeping in their beds. I am a monster, a flesh-eater, death and
murder are all I know and you would be wise not to push me. You
might be a death bokor, but you’re untrained. Even you can be taken
down at some point.”

Clarissa took another step forward in a stand of
defiance against his words. “Again,” she said with a note of humor
in her voice, “I don’t believe you. If that were true, you would
have given me over to your brother instead of protecting me from
him. That doesn’t sound like a monster.”

He stepped forward as well, the flame of madness in
his iridescent blue eyes. “I should have let him tear your soul to
shreds when I had the chance. You’re like a damn thorn in my side
and I know if I try to pull you out, I’ll just bleed out and
expire. But then at least I’d be rid of you. A permanent death
would be better than dealing with you for the rest of this
existence and I have a sick feeling you aren’t going to give me a
moment of peace.”

“
That is likely very true,” she answered him,
grinning now. He was all bluster and bark and she realized that
even though she was a bokor, he could harm her if he wanted to. She
sobered a little. He was still a flesh-eater, she reminded herself.
And even if he had saved her from his brother’s attack, he and his
kind was still responsible for committing untold numbers of deaths
in the last century. “I will bring absolution to the deaths of
these poor souls. And when I find out who is responsible I will
make sure they pay with their own lives.”

Her meaning was clear to Corrigan. Clarissa would
stop at nothing to nail his family as the culprits of these
murders. And quite frankly he couldn’t deny the possibility that he
or one of his brothers or sisters had accidentally targeted an S.S.
follower. But it wouldn’t be their fault if they had. They knew the
rules. You wouldn’t condemn a crocodile for behaving in what was in
its world, natural. His kind had not asked to be the creatures they
were, but neither could they rebuff the fact that in order for them
to live someone had to die.

“
And you think to place the blame on
us.”

“
Who else could it be?” He didn’t
comment.

They stood in the streets for several more seconds,
assessing the other. There was obvious mistrust between them. It
hung heavy in the atmosphere around their forms; a thick blanket of
unease. But, hidden in the subtext of their stares was something
more. Something neither of them had yet to grasp.

“
You’re rather attractive for a man-eater,”
she said with contempt. When his eyes flashed as they did when he
was angry or irritated, the only two emotions she had seen thus
far, there was something completely beguiling about them. His
brother was just as attractive physically as he was, but in
Corrigan, there was something more. And if she didn’t steal herself
against him, she could very likely fall into the trap of those
brilliant blue eyes.

“
You’re not so bad yourself, for a controlling
little phantom,” Corrigan retorted with an equal measure of
contempt back at her. The truth was, she was more than
not so bad
and maybe he was losing
his mind because he never thought about anyone, ghost or otherwise,
the way he was thinking about her. He hated her. She was a bokor,
his worst nightmare as well as a ghost. He couldn’t really decide
which part of her he hated more right now.

But the world was indeed a strange place, filled
with unexplainable anomalies. Because when he wasn’t thinking off
sucking the soul out of her, he was wondering if her lips would be
as cool and soft as the rest of her skin. And damn him for even
having thoughts about what she looked like under her ghostly
attire. If he touched her would she respond accordingly? She wasn’t
flesh and blood, but then neither was she without substance. It was
madness.

Clarissa looked off into the horizon. Already she
could see the subtle changes in the morning sky. It would be dawn
in a few hours, and he and his kind would be back on their side of
the city line. Turning back to the figure in front of her, she
raked her gaze once more over his person. “You should go now before
the light comes.”

He too raked her with a heated glare. “Stay away
from my family.” Those were his last words. But before he left he
did something that shocked not only Clarissa, but Corrigan himself.
He had every intention of getting as far away from the little
phantom baggage as possible, when the madness struck him like
lightening.

Corrigan took hold of her cool form before she had a
chance to shift atmosphere, pulling her closer when he should have
shoved her away from him. The spontaneity on his part left her
without the motivation to fight him off. Later, he would wonder if
she would have fought either way. Clarissa seemed to flow toward
him, like she had been expecting it, but he knew she couldn’t
have.

Taking this moment for what it was, madness,
Corrigan found out exactly what Clarissa’s lips felt like under his
own. Holding her in place with one strong grip on her arm and his
other hand taking hold of her face, he took from her, not her soul
but something equally as tantalizing.

Clarissa’s eyes slipped closed of their own free
will as insanity took hold of her and she found out exactly what it
was like to feel his lips against her own. His lips were warm, not
cold like hers; the blood and flesh of his kills heating his
system. And she could almost believe that her own lips began to
match his in temperature as they took what she seemed to be freely
offering; a kiss that held a stamp of possession. But Clarissa was
not of a mind to let him have all the control. With caution and
self-preservation thrown aside, Clarissa extracted her arm from his
grasp taking his Adonis face into her cool hands and taking what
she would of him.

Corrigan almost roared like the beast he knew he was
when Clarissa took hold of his face and began taking control of the
kiss. It was like kissing a lightning bolt, her passions an arch of
electricity flowing from her into him, setting his hair on end and
igniting a storm of cosmic awareness, all of which was centered in
the nucleus of their combined forms. For several minutes soul and
flesh touched, becoming one in a bright flash of living unity that
he wanted to exist in for the rest of eternity.

She’s a bokor.

The voice of self-preservation invaded the beauty of
the moment, but he couldn’t ignore it. This woman stood to mean
ruin for himself and his family and no matter how much he might
want her, Corrigan had to remember that she was the enemy. Drawing
away from a moment that was sure to haunt him for the rest of his
existence, he managed to extract himself from her clutches. It was
almost too much to watch the strange change of coloring in her soul
as the heat of his body had warmed hers, the combination of both
revealing a look of heated ardor to her cheeks and lips.

Clarissa was slow to come down from that place where
some people said time stood still. She wasn’t sure if that was true
or not, but it certainly had felt like time did not exist when
Corrigan’s lips had taken her own. If such a phenomenon happened
with a kiss, she could only divine what other talents he
possessed.

Opening her eyes which felt heavy with satisfaction,
Clarissa expected to see Corrigan standing in front of her, angry
perhaps, his usual temperament. When her eyes finally focused back
to the reality of the moment though, she found herself once again
alone in the dark street. Coldness crept back inside of her, and
she reminded herself, once again, that he was the enemy. Clarissa
steeled against the sudden feeling of rejection. She brushed
herself off, pushing the kiss from her mind, suppressing secrets
deep inside her person where even she could believe they did not
exist and turning swiftly away, she walked home.

Clarissa was so caught up in her own thoughts that
she didn’t notice the phantom like figure watching her from the
shadows. He smiled a demonic grin of satisfaction at what he had
just witnessed. There was nothing like the blurring of enemy lines
to break down forces on both sides. And from what he could gather
from the ardent embrace of these two foes, the little battles
between the two kinds would quickly flare up into the Great War he
had been aiming for. And when everyone was pointing accusing
fingers at the other, he would finally take control of the city. He
laughed to himself, unable to suppress the glee at finally finding
the two unsuspecting patsies that would finally sever the frayed
alliance between the Eidolon and the flesh-eaters. He hoped they
both got what they deserved in the end.

Chapter 11-

The days passed by quickly for Clarissa. She
had much to concern her with, not only with the preparations for
her new home, which the community was even now in the process of
acquiring for her. She had also been asked through Henry direct
from the Eidolon councilmen to join the select group of individuals
who resided under
The Four
as
administrative assistants. Henry was among these few spirits who
had the power to overrule The Four on occasion; though no one had
ever done so thus far.

Clarissa was excited to have her own home, a place
that she could call exclusively hers. Of course she had enjoyed her
stay with Madeline Connors. Maddy was a woman few people could find
a reason to dislike. Her lively spirit was contagious to anyone who
came near her, and Clarissa enjoyed spending evenings with her and
Eleanor. And Maddy had never asked her to share another cup of tea
in front of Eleanor; the woman’s discretion was a blessing.

Madeline’s grandson, Jackson, stayed the rest of the
weekend at the house. The young man, like his grandmother was
attuned to the paranormal currents and could see and converse with
Clarissa and the others. Growing up with his grandmother for an
influence, the idea of sharing a house with a ghost just didn’t
faze him like it would his friends.

During the day Jackson was out, hanging out with
friends in the area including Leah Moon. Leah had invited Clarissa
to join them that Sunday evening before Jackson had to go home out
to a movie. Clarissa had eagerly accepted the invitation, not
inquiring what movie they had chosen to go see.