Pretty When She Destroys (Pretty When She Dies #3)(58)

“What is it?”

A thick wall of risen corpses stood in a tight cluster around the area where the women had been seated. Completely immobile, the zombies gave the impression of being sentinels. As Cian watched, the decayed and desiccated forms gradually flushed with life until they resembled living, breathing humans. What was most disturbing was that from the center of the beings a thick, roiling, ghostly mist tumbled upward into the sky. Sparks of light and vague flashes of wraithlike bodies and faces filled the miasma.

“What the f*ck is that?” Jeff gasped.

“I have no idea,” Cian answered.

The two men rushed to the back door.




Samantha kept her eyes firmly closed, anticipating the bite of the vampire. The first and last time Amaliya had drunk from Samantha, she had drawn blood from a stab wound inflicted by a sword-wielding zombie controlled by The Summoner. It had been the only way to save Samantha’s life. Therefore, Samantha had never experienced a vampire’s actual bite. In some movies and books the bite was sensual and pleasurable, but in others it was agonizing. As she waited in dreaded anticipation, Samantha wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Flinching when Amaliya’s cool lips closed over her wrist, Samantha balled her free hand into a fist. The razor sharp teeth punched through her skin, a flash of pain popping her eyes open. Instinctively, Samantha started to jerk her arm away, but Amaliya had a vice grip on her forearm and didn’t relent. Within a few short seconds, the agony of the vampire bite vanished to be replaced by sublime bliss.

“Oh, wow,” Samantha panted, swooning despite her resolve not to do any such thing. It was as if she was submerged in a cloud of pleasure that left her reeling with an intoxicating rush. Eyes fluttering closed, she let the waves of ecstasy close over her and sweep her way. She didn’t even realize she had slumped onto her side until Amaliya leaned over her and gave her a firm shake.

“Samantha, you need to drink from me,” Amaliya said, sounding as though she was speaking from far away.

Opening her eyelids just a slit, Samantha stared at the vampire. “Oh, wow. You’re so pretty...and scary.”

Amaliya’s power was coursing out of her like great majestic wings that trembled above her shoulders. Eyes glowing like white fire and her long black hair twisting about her head in inky tendrils, Amaliya looked like a death goddess.

“Drink, Samantha, while the magic is strong,” Aimee’s voice ordered from nearby.

When her gaze drifted to the witch, Samantha drew in a sharp breath of surprise. Aimee’s figure was outlined in the glowing colors of the rainbow with orbs of light drifting around her head like a halo.

“Drink,” Amaliya insisted, holding out her arm.

The liquid dripping from the vampire’s pale flesh was black and filled with stars. Samantha drunkenly tried to sit up and Amaliya rapidly slid her other arm around the blonde to support her.

“It’s full of stars,” Samantha whispered, then her lips clamped over the wound and she drank in the darkness of the eternal night. It was cold, rich, and coppery.

The world transformed around her instantaneously taking on the appearance of the negative of a black and white photograph, the dark and light hues transposed. Only Amaliya in her dark goddess mode and Aimee glowing like a rainbow remained the same. A thick mist roiled around Samantha, full of whispering voices and soothing caresses. A small part of Samantha’s mind thought that maybe she should be afraid, yet the altered world was comforting. The more of Amaliya’s dark blood she drank, the clearer the ghostly realm became. She could see for hundreds of miles in all directions. Brightly glowing patches of land called to her, whispering her name, and she discerned these were graveyards. Ghosts drifted through the trees, coming to greet her and welcome her home.

The coppery taste of the night filled with stars stained her tongue and lips when Amaliya drew her wrist away.

“It’s so beautiful,” Samantha breathed.

Amaliya was stunning, yet terrible. Her eyes smoldered with white fire and her immense black wings filled the air. “I see it.”

The vampire drew Samantha to her feet, her hands cold, yet burning with power. Their combined magicks writhed around them like great snakes made of the glittering darkness and luminescent mist.

“You freed us, Samantha,” Amaliya whispered, looking downward.

Samantha followed the vampire’s gaze and was stunned to see their bodies lying side by side on the ground, their fingers intertwined. “We’re astral projecting!”

With a triumphant, gleeful grin, Amaliya’s power lashed out and the dead rose out of the ground around them. Tendrils of their ghostly memories sifted among the decayed bodies, murmuring in hushed voices to the phasmagus. Samantha watched transfixed as Amaliya’s power restored the broken bodies of the dead. Samantha sensed the fine strands of her own magic throbbing with energy, waiting for her command. Concentrating on the wisps floating among the dead, she called the ghosts forward. To her amazement, they answered, taking on form.

“You are completely The Phasmagus now.” Amaliya’s voice pulsed with power.

“And you are The Necromancer,” Samantha answered.

“Let’s find out just what we can do,” Amaliya said, obviously enthralled.

Still holding Amaliya’s hand, Samantha rotated about so she was facing the west. “Let’s go find Roberto.”