Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(96)

“If you are that intent on saving your business, then go ahead and shoot the girl.”

“I’d rather shoot you. Let her go and face me like a man.” Winter took another step. His nostrils flared. A brief flash of repulsion crossed his face. He smelled the corpse. His eyes finally flicked to the coffin. Hesitation chinked his steely exterior—Aida could see it. Yip saw it, too.

“Before you shoot anyone, why don’t we see if another woman might change your mind?”

All of Yip’s muscles seized. He barked out a rough command. Aida struggled against him, trying to get away. His grip changed from firm to bruising. Pain sliced down her arm as his fingernails jabbed hard enough to break skin.

The coffin lid creaked open, blocking her view of Winter.

A gunshot cracked. Shellacked wood splintered.

Yip reacted immediately, dragging her backward as he circled around the coffin like a clock—a ticking second hand trying to outpace Winter’s steady minute hand. She attempted to slow Yip by biting the meat of the palm gagging her mouth. Yip stomped on her toes. Pain radiated through her foot as tears streamed down her face. He dragged her farther and shouted another command.

They stopped at the head of the coffin.

Winter aimed a gun at her from the coffin’s foot.

Their gazes locked. She saw nothing in his eyes—nothing at all!

The corpse’s head lifted. Winter’s focus shifted. She watched horror dawn over his face as he looked upon the rotting body of his dead wife.

“No introductions are necessary,” Yip shouted to Winter. “True love never dies, yes?”

The body crawled out of the coffin, sloshing viscous dark fluid as it stood with creaking bones. Her dress was plastered to her limbs, indistinguishable from the pieces of embalmed skin clinging to her arms. Most of her flesh was gone around her upper legs.

A grotesque nightmare.

Yip gave her another command. Her head twisted toward her former husband.

Aida heard Winter make a pained noise. He aimed his gun at the walking corpse.

“You killed her once,” Yip shouted near her ear. “Will you again? I called her spirit from the beyond. The body is crude, but it holds her, truly. She is alive, for all intents and purposes. And she still loves you, even from the grave. Would you really kill her with your own hands?”

Aida stared at Winter, hoping he wasn’t falling for this insane man’s words. He’d contradicted himself so many times, even she didn’t know what was true. He’d said the revenant wasn’t immortal. It was just a spirit occupying a dead body . . . nothing more than what she did when she channeled, only the spirit didn’t have a live shell to occupy.

Winter hesitated, unsure, whispering, “Paulina?”

The broken sound of his voice was like a shock of cold water over Aida’s nerves. Twisting in Yip’s arms, she sloppily hiked her dress up and snatched the lancet from her garter. Yip shouted some threat in her ear, but she wasn’t listening. Four quick twists and the lancet cap bounced on the floor.

Reaching behind her, she stabbed the blade into the only place on Yip she could properly reach: his right hip.

“A-a-ah!” he yelped as his hand released her mouth.

Not a serious wound, but enough to free her.

His grip around her shoulders sagged. She spun around and hit him again, slashing his bicep. He screamed in Cantonese and lunged for her, grasping at air when she jumped.

“Move out of the way!” Winter roared from the other side of the coffin.

Aida glanced over her shoulder. Was he talking to her, or to his dead wife?

Yip shouted a command at the revenant. The rotting corpse turned and lumbered toward Aida.

“If you kill me now,” Yip yelled at Winter, “you will doom both of them. Your wife will not stop until Miss Palmer is dead—only I can command her. And if she kills the medium, her spirit will be tainted with blood debt. She will no longer be innocent, and she’ll be stuck in limbo on this plane.”

Stuck on this plane.

The words jarred something loose in Aida as she backtracked, eyeing the revenant as it shambled toward her, moving faster with each step. Doctor Yip had been too happy about the knowledge that she could potentially send his ghosts back across the veil.

Because he couldn’t.

Could she?

The ghost in the tunnel hadn’t budged, and this one carried the weight of a dead body. She honestly didn’t know if that was better or worse, but Yip had used the bones to call the spirit, and maybe she could use them to send the spirit back. All she could do was try.

White breath clouded her eyes. She concentrated. The revenant lifted rot-bedraggled arms and reached for her as Winter shouted something jumbled and elusive in the distance. Aida made a whip-fast decision to boost her chances by doing something she usually only did to call a spirit: she raised the lancet and jammed it into her own thigh with all of her force.

One second of brightness. One second of a clear mind, free of chatter and thought.

One second of trance.

She grabbed cold, slimy bone and pushed her willpower into a single command.

Leave.

Current crackled inside the revenant, sending a shock through Aida’s fingers. She jerked her hand back as the corpse quivered for a moment . . . then collapsed.

Aida’s next breath was clear.

With a grunt, she pulled the lancet out of her leg and glanced up. Winter stood a couple of feet away. His gun was pointed at the fallen corpse. Their gazes locked briefly. His nod was barely discernible, but she caught it right before his eyes flicked to Yip. His gun followed.