A Darkness Strange and Lovely (Something Strange and Deadly #2)(99)

Betrayal and fury flashed in his yellow eyes, quickly replaced by blinding blue. He snatched the clamp from me, his face contorted with rage, and his fingers gripped mine with bone-breaking strength.

For a brief flash I connected to Oliver—his anger seethed through my veins; his pain lanced into my chest. He hated me. Elijah would never have done this to him. I would pay for my cruelty.

Abruptly the connection ended, and if not for the roaring groan of the wood, I would have clawed at Oliver and begged his forgiveness.

But I did not. I threw out my free hand and screamed, “Joseph!”

Joseph hesitated—only a breath, but it was a breath too long.

In a deafening explosion of splinters, the door smashed inward. The Hungry toppled in.

Pop! Pop! Daniel’s pistols fired, and the first wave of Dead fell to the floor.

Joseph lunged for me, and the instant he had hold, Oliver squeezed the clamp. Electricity pierced through Oliver’s hand into mine. Up my arm, rippling beneath my skin until I boiled with power.

The pistols rang out again. Again. Yet for each corpse felled, ten scuttled in to replace it. Yellow skulls, shattered teeth, empty eyes.

My muscles twitched uncontrollably, and my heart raced. Why wasn’t Joseph using the power? I wanted to shout for him to attack, but my body was locked in place. I could do nothing but twitch. And watch as the Hungry clambered in. Daniel had to reload, and with each agonizing second, the chomping jaws closed in.

Why didn’t Joseph attack?

My heart galloped faster, pumping the hot oil through me and ballooning into my head. Black closed in on the edges of my vision. I was going to die, going to explode—

Blue light snaked from Joseph’s fingers. Thunder boomed.

Like a wind through grass, the Dead gusted backward. Flattened and lifeless for as far as I could see—all the way into the black tunnel and beyond.

But again the blue lightning struck out. This time it sizzled into the tunnel, a thousand veins of electricity flowing down, down.

Blue power laced through the air and boiled through my body. Then screams filled the air— my screams! Oliver’s screams, Joseph’s screams! Our heads rolled back, our throats burned raw with the inhuman shrieks. . . .

Until, all at once, it stopped. The hot crawling beneath my skin, our screams, the electricity . . . and the Dead. Everything stopped.

And as one, Joseph, Oliver, and I tumbled to the ground.

We stayed in the cellar a long time—too exhausted to do anything else. But eventually Daniel hauled us up and forced us to leave the devastation behind. Rising from the cellar, we came into an empty hallway. I instantly recognized it: Madame Marineaux’s house. Somehow, all that winding through the mines had taken us beneath the river Seine and directly into her basement. Obviously she had chosen this house for precisely that reason.

Joseph hung on to Daniel, his dark face drained white and his ear losing blood in bright red spurts, while Oliver stalked ahead of me, refusing to meet my eyes. Refusing even to acknowledge my existence.

“There’s a sitting room,” I rasped, turning to Daniel. “It has a fireplace. Joseph can rest there until we find a cab.”

Daniel’s eyes flickered over the hallway. “Shouldn’t there be servants?”

“The house is empty,” Oliver growled.

I did not ask how he knew—he did have exceptional hearing. Instead, I simply nodded and beckoned for Daniel and Joseph to follow. We shuffled to the back of the house until I found a familiar door. It was open, and embers burned in the hearth.

But the instant I stepped in, I drew up short. For there was an old man sprawled on the floor between the armchairs and the fireplace.

A squeak broke through my lips. I recognized the man’s elegant clothes—and I recognized the cane lying inches from his open hand. But his chest did not move, so though I knew it was the

Marquis, nothing about him looked as it ought. His skin sagged with age, and his formerly black hair was brittle and white.

Daniel spotted the Marquis next. He shot me a wide-eyed glance before easing Joseph into my arms and darting forward. He crouched beside the body, but it only took him a moment to check for a pulse. He shook his head once.

“Is it LeJeunes?” Joseph asked tiredly. I helped him shuffle toward the closest armchair, and as

Daniel eased the Creole to a seat, I bent down to examine the cane.

The handle was missing, the ivory fist gone, and though something tickled at the back of my mind —something that said it should have been around here somewhere—I could not find the full memory.

Daniel’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Do you think Madame Marineaux killed the Marquis?”

“I don’t know.” I rose, my gaze flicking back to the man’s ancient face. “He looks as if he aged a hundred years since yesterday.”

“Because he has,” Oliver said from the doorway. He stalked toward me, still avoiding my eyes.

“The man’s body was drained of soul. Look at how desiccated the skin is. How fragile the bones.”

Joseph cleared his throat. “How is that possible? I have never heard of such a thing.”

“I’ve only heard of it once,” Oliver admitted, leaning over the Marquis’s corpse. “Your brother”—

he pointed at me without actually looking my way—“mentioned it in passing. He said it was one of the darkest magics there is. Darker even than necromancy.”