One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress #6)(83)
That inner speck felt like it was humming now, the whiteness eating away at the pain from the knife in my chest.
“You think they’re a sign of weakness. That I’ve given up, just like you think your flesh makes you stronger. Wrong. Your flesh makes you weak, and these tears are stronger than any weapon you can imagine.”
He leaned closer, the stinking breath from his words falling against my face. “You enjoy crying? I will see to it that you don’t stop.”
Then Kramer frowned, cocking his head to the side. He ran his hand over me again, but in wariness this time.
“You feel . . . strange,” he muttered.
“Do I vibrate?” I asked, my voice coming out as a throaty whisper. “Do you feel drawn like you did when you followed the line of energy that led you to me in Ohio, in St. Louis, in Sioux City, and the farmhouse? Do you know why you’re feeling it so strongly again now?”
He reached out to swipe his hand across my face, staring at the pink wetness clinging to it with growing concern instead of triumph.
“There’s something in these,” he drew out.
“That’s right,” I said, caressing each word. “Power.”
Thirty-seven
Back when I had the full force of Marie’s borrowed abilities in me, I could shed my blood and call forth Remnants. But if I wanted to summon ghosts, I had to shed tears with my inner rallying cry. I didn’t have enough of the voodoo queen’s power left in me for my tears to compel ghosts near and far to rush to my side. But ghosts who were concentrating on me with all their strength to try to find me, like Elisabeth and Fabian would be doing?
Yeah, I still had enough juice in me for that. The lantern Kramer had on the ground, the one he sought to terrify us with because of that flickering flame and its ominous portent, would only make it easier for us to be found by anyone flying overhead.
Kramer recoiled, wiping his hand on his tunic as though my tears were poisonous. “I will burn them from you, Hexe!”
I trusted that my message had been sent, and now, it was time to quit playing possum and kick some evil ass.
“I’d like to see you try that.”
He grabbed the lantern, the look in his eyes telling me he wasn’t bluffing this time. What he felt in my tears must have warned him that it wasn’t worth the risk to rape and torture me first. But because he’d been off by a centimeter or so when he stabbed the silver knife into my chest, I didn’t hesitate to wrench my arms down, breaking the metal cuffs restraining me. It jostled the knife, but not enough to shred my heart, and before Kramer could correct that error, I yanked the blade out. Two hard jerks were my feet ripping free of the restraints, leaving nothing but the dried cornhusks at the bottom of the empty pole to catch fire when Kramer threw the lantern at me.
They went up with a whoosh, the gasoline Kramer doused me with having soaked them, too. I’d leapt back far enough to avoid any fumes on me igniting, but he’d spilled gasoline on Lisa and Francine, too. And the cornstalks around us, dried and crackling from the lateness of the season, were like tall, skinny matchsticks.
Kramer howled in frustration at missing me with the lantern. Sarah took one look at the flames and started to crawl away from the clearing as fast as she could. I ran to Francine, knocking her pole over with a linebacker tackle and ripping the metal off her wrists and ankles. She gasped in pain behind her gag, but Kramer hadn’t given up on his grisly intentions so easily. He snatched at the burning husks on the ground and threw one at us.
The spot where her pole had been flared with the contact from those greedy orange and yellow tongues, but I yanked her away in time.
“Run!” I yelled, giving her a shove for emphasis. Lisa’s muffled screams told me what I already knew—that Kramer was now focused on her. He grinned as he threw a burning husk at her, not even seeming to notice that the bottom of his robe dragged in the flames.
I didn’t have time to knock her out of the way. It had taken precious seconds to free Francine and get her safely out of the sodden, flammable circle at her feet. That glowing bundle arced toward Lisa and I knew, with crystal clarity, the only thing I could do to save her. Instead of aiming for the screaming woman helplessly chained to the pole, I threw myself at the burning missile, snatching it and taking it with me as I landed outside the triangular clearing.
Flames raced up my arms, blazing into an avalanche of fire once they reached my gasoline-soaked clothes. Pain so intense it robbed me of thought scalded over me, spreading to cover my body in an instant. In the brief moments it took them to reach my face, I realized I’d vaulted myself straight up into the sky, doing the worst thing possible by flying and fanning the flames. It hadn’t even been a conscious decision—all my primal mind knew was that it wanted away from this torture. With the willpower I had left in me, screaming as pain exploded in every nerve ending, I forced myself down into the fields and began to roll as fast as I could away from Kramer and the others.
You’ll heal, you’ll heal, you’ll heal. I clung to that litany while my mind exploded with the agony of my flesh being eaten away by those merciless flames. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, but I could feel everything, including the excruciating inner searing when I screamed again, and it drew flames into my mouth. Every instinct urged me stop rolling over what felt like razors ripping away at what was left of my flesh. To run from the overwhelming suffering that spared no inch of me, but with the last vestiges of my sanity, I ignored those urges and kept rolling.