Sin & Surrender (Demigod of San Francisco #6)(69)

“If it were the last Soul Stealer”—Gray Beard paused for dramatic effect—“you wouldn’t have to worry. He was ten times better trained than that naive girl you have.”

Daisy noticed the other Necromancer, with the badly dyed hair, didn’t share Gray Beard’s delight. His face had closed down in an uncomfortable mask, his mouth a thin line and his bearing tense. He was nervous about what he was doing.

“He was ten times better at killing, yes,” Bria said, and readied herself to call spirits. Daisy had seen her do it often enough to know. “But he wasn’t trained in preserving life. It’s easy to rip out a soul. It is not easy to put it back in.”

“What do you know about it?” Gray Beard asked.

“Ten times more than you ever will if you let your hold on that Soul Stealer waver. You’ll be first to see what spirit looks like, mark my words.”

Across the hall, their single cadaver rose to standing on shaky legs. Bria had stuffed spirits into bodies in record time, so she had nearly a dozen ready to face him. Thane checked his watch.

“Watch yourself,” Bria told the spirits. “If you get ripped out of that body, get the hell out of here. Don’t stay and be a hero. They don’t have a clue what they’re messing with. Also, I’ll remind you that I can’t hear you. So don’t try to talk to me.”

A strange feeling pressed in on Daisy, like intense hands pushing down on her shoulders. A black shape zipped out of the corner of her eye. She started and looked that way even as Dylan did, his brow furrowed. Nothing lurked in the hallway behind them. If someone had run by, they weren’t visible, not even as a sparkly sheen.

“I take it back. I want to stay at the lodge,” Daisy said.

“I might want to join you. Did you…see that?” Dylan whispered, looking around again. “Something feels off. It feels like something is pressing on my shoulders.”

“Yeah. This feels like Lexi’s shit. Things are about to get ugly.”

A low growl rumbled in Mordecai’s throat. He pushed in closer to her. For once, she wasn’t annoyed by that.

The lone cadaver stepped forward once, then again, as though it were slogging through waist-high mud. Daisy could just see the faces of the two Necromancers turning crimson. The one with a really bad dye job and a tuft of hair implants rang a bell, and the cadaver took another step forward. There it halted, shaking all over.

“Get the incense,” Gray Beard said, his voice strained.

“You shouldn’t be having this much trouble controlling one spirit,” Bria called, her hands working again. Hopefully she was setting up some sort of protections should that opposing spirit break loose. Or maybe it was just a matter of when. “He’s more knowledgeable than you are. He’s like a Necromancer on PCP. Your techniques are known to him, and he can work around them. Get him out of that body so he can’t do any harm.”

“This is standard…operating…procedure,” Gray Beard ground out. “He’ll…yield soon…enough.”

“He feels…more powerful…now,” Bad Dye Job said, and rang a bell. “This isn’t…like when…we practiced.”

The pressure increased, and the back of Daisy’s neck and shoulder blades tingled as if someone were standing directly behind her, breathing down her shoulders. Something mighty and dangerous. Something different than that fae yesterday. Much different.

She glanced around again, ready for someone to sneak up on her.

Still nothing.

“Something isn’t right,” Dylan murmured, and rolled his shoulders.

Up the way, Thane was doing the same thing—looking around, rolling his shoulders. He felt whatever Daisy and Dylan did. Mordecai’s hair was standing up along the center of his back, but he didn’t react. It meant he didn’t smell anything. He didn’t sense anything tangible.

Bria’s cadavers charged the opponent cadaver. When they were within ten feet, they fell. No pausing, no shuddering, just one step, then facedown on the carpet.

Just like when Lexi ripped out souls.

Gray Beard laughed. “So easy.”

“Get the hell out of here,” Bria yelled, and Daisy wasn’t sure if she was yelling at the spirits or the crew.

“We’ve got it, Bria,” Dye Job said, his hands curled around the handles of his bells. He rang one, then the other, then both at the same time. “We’ve…got him.”

“Well, don’t bring him over here,” Bria said. “I yield. I yield!”

“Ah, but we were just starting to have fun.” Gray Beard smirked.

One of Bria’s cadavers wiggled, as though trying to find life again.

“What are you doing?” Dye Job asked his buddy, sounding pissed.

“Think what I could do with this sort of power at my disposal,” Gray Beard said, a wide grin across his flat face. “My job would be so easy.”

“Don’t mess around with that magic, you nitwit. You don’t know what it can do. I yield!” Bria yelled.

“She yields,” Dye Job said. “Let’s wrap this up.”

“Wait. Just a moment,” Gray Beard replied. “Can’t you feel it? There are spirits hanging around. All I have to do is use him to—”

The cadaver wiggled again, started shaking, and then rolled over onto its back.