Murder Game (GhostWalkers, #7)(126)

“Tansy, no.” His eyes burned. His throat felt raw. “Fucking don’t do this.” He shook her again, trying to find a way to revive her. Her body remained limp and lifeless in spite of the air he tried to breathe into her. In spite of the stimulation to her heart and mind.

Kadan roared like a wounded animal, lifting her limp body into his arms, cradling her against his chest. Cold spread like an encroaching glacier, desperate to put out the firestorm of wild grief tearing through him. His heart shredded in his body, his mind went from clarity to chaos, thunder crashed in his ears, and for a moment, all civility was gone and he was standing primitive and stark in his raw, unrelenting agony. Only one other time in his life had he felt so utterly lost as a human being. He had sworn never to go there again, never to kill in cold blood, but the monster inside him was loose now, craving, needing, demanding vengeance.

Tansy. Don’t leave me. Baby, please. I’m begging here. He buried his face against her throat. There was no heartbeat, no warmth, no gentle hands to touch him.

He remembered a once-innocent child begging his mother, his father, even his brother and sister. Don’t leave me. But they had, and with them, they’d taken all the warmth in the world, leaving an ice-cold killing machine behind. Last time, he’d known his enemy. This time, who would pay?

He placed her body carefully on the bed again and knelt there for a moment, his hands framing her face. He hadn’t touched his family, but he wasn’t going to let her go without telling her. Saying it aloud.

“I love you, Tansy. With everything in me, good and bad. I absolutely love you.”

He swallowed the last of the fiery grief clawing through him and stood, allowing the arctic cold to consume him, inhaling, drawing the ice into his veins and lungs and into his mind, welcoming the glacier taking him over, and then he began to assemble his weapons.





“Don’t you die on us, Tansy!” Jeff yelled. “You’re not going to die on us.” He slammed his fist hard on her heart, turning her on her side, trying to drain her lungs. “It’s not real. You can’t let him kill you this way.”

Nico jerked Dunbar close to him, face-to-face, staring into his malicious eyes. Without warning, Nico slammed his forehead hard against Dunbar’s face, shattering his nose, driving the man backward and down. Before he could fall, Nico caught him by the throat, his fingers—with their superhuman strength—choking the air from the man. He dragged him across the macabre lake, wading through blood and victims as if they weren’t there, to throw Dunbar on the ground beside Tansy.

“Don’t let this son of bitch move,” he ordered and crouched down beside Tansy.

Dahlia, his wife, had always been the one to focus energy, and then Nico had done the healing with Kadan, but this was a dream, not reality. Whether or not he could heal on his own outside the dreamscape world didn’t matter—he was certain he could here. Tansy had woven the dream, and the puppet master had used it against her, but Nico could twist the dream for his own purposes, just as Jeff could.

He rubbed his hands together, gathering energy from the violence so thick in the surrounding air. When he’d acquired a pool large enough, he focused the energy between his palms, aiming it directly at Tansy’s heart and lungs. White light burst from his skin, shining around each individual finger. The light hit Tansy’s body, rippling over her like a wave. Her limp body shuddered.

“He’s fighting us,” Nico said, his voice flat and calm, wanting to scare the puppet master. “Kill him.”

Dunbar’s eyes widened in horror as Jeff’s fingers tightened around his throat. “You can’t,” he gasped, his voice hoarse. “I’m holding the dream.”

Jeff looked into the man’s eyes, shock blossoming. “He’s lying, Nico. This is Tansy’s dream. She pulled him into her dream.”

“Are you sure?” Nico asked.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure.”

Jeff released Dunbar and then swung his hand hard, the edge slamming into the puppet master’s throat, crushing the larynx and smashing the trachea. “See you in hell, you bastard,” he muttered.

Dunbar fell back, gasping for air, strangling, his face turning a mottled purple.

“This is her worst nightmare,” Jeff explained. “It was powerful enough to supersede anything the rest of us were doing. She’s a dreamwalker as well, which is why she’s so good at what she does.”

The moment Jeff broke Dunbar’s hold on Tansy, the light soaked into her body. She shuddered, coughing. Gasping. Fighting to draw in air.

“Wake up, Tansy,” Jeff ordered.





Ryland slipped into the neighborhood like the ghost he was, easing his way through the streets until he found the house he was looking for. The backyard was protected from the rest of the houses on the street, and he went up and over the fence and through the landscaping to the small toolshed. It took only minutes to open the lock and go inside.

The shed was amazing. Each wall was lined with shelves holding every kind of nut and bolt and screw possible. Tools hung neatly, each clearly labeled. There wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere. On the table were Dunbar’s carving tools, the various blades razor-sharp and laid out neatly like surgical instruments. Beside the tools was a small piece of ivory, the shape of a frog emerging.

Ryland searched through the drawers and found a laminating machine and thick card stock. There was an index box of cards already laminated, and each card had precise instructions detailing a murder: the name or names of victims, address, how the victims had to be killed, and the time frame allotted. There were points awarded for each detail, and at the bottom of the card, there was the total number of points each murder could accumulate. Ryland had found the actual game, along with a website he was building for an online game.