Murder Game (GhostWalkers, #7)(89)

He turned her hand over and opened her fingers to examine her palm. The details of the knife were pressed deep, but there was no burn, just the imprints as if she’d been holding it so hard her skin had picked up the impressions—and he didn’t want them there. Kadan used the pad of his thumb to rub gentle caresses back and forth over the knife etched into her palm. The bristles were hard, but velvet soft, and he was careful to keep the sticky side from touching her skin, wanting only to soothe her.

Something moved in her mind and she winced, but he was there first, standing guard, standing in front of her. He would have to insist she do more exercises to strengthen her barriers, especially now, with the puppet master actively hunting her. Their enemy knew who she was. And he would have the details of her life, including the names and address of her parents. Fortunately Don and Sharon Meadows were under guard, but the man might try to find them, using his military contacts.

Tansy stirred, the heavy fringe of lashes fluttering. Her stomach lurched and her muscles tightened beneath his hand. Blood trickled from her nose again and she shuddered. “My head.” She mouthed the words rather than spoke them aloud.

“I’ve got your medicine right here.” He held the pills to her lips and then, half sitting her up against his chest, held the water for her.

Tansy swallowed with her eyes closed tight. “It hurts worse this time and it’s growing stronger. I’m in for a bad one. Will you make certain the drapes are closed and there’s no light in here?”

“Is it safe?” He didn’t want the puppet master visiting her in her sleep. Was it even possible? He doubted if she knew, but it worried him.

She was shaking and turned her face away from him, not wanting him to see her so sick and vulnerable. She was afraid to be alone with the voices in her head, afraid if he left her he’d take his shield with him, but she didn’t ask him to stay.

He leaned close to her, his lips against her ear. “You don’t have to ask me to stay, Tansy. I’ll always be here.” He stretched out beside her and pulled her close, pillowing her head on his shoulder, his arms holding her. “Go to sleep.” He brushed kisses in her hair. “Don’t dream, Tansy, just sleep. I won’t leave you.”





CHAPTER 15


Tansy was back in the swirling, chaotic world of pure energy. She loved it and hated it, drawn back in spite of herself time and again to a world no one else shared. When it was good, it was paradise, all stars and floating on a sea of happiness, a kind of euphoria unlike anything she’d known—except maybe sex with Kadan. When it was bad, it was the thing of nightmares, blood and gore and vicious, evil sickness.

She reached for the stars, but knew she’d missed again. She’d been doing that for years now, missing paradise and grabbing hold of hell with both hands. Blood poured into the sky and seeped through the ground, rising like the tide, so thick there was no way to swim and keep her head out of it. Hundreds of heads bobbed with hers, eyes wide with terror, mouths gaping open as they silently screamed. She wondered if she looked the same, desperate to keep from drowning in the red muck.

And then the volume turned on, and she could hear the screaming, feel it vibrating through her bones. She clenched her teeth and shook her head as fingernails scraped at her skin and bony hands clutched at her arm. Just below the surface she could see a woman looking at her through the murky red veil, her eyes pleading for mercy. Tansy clenched her teeth and reached through the sludge to take hold of the woman’s arm. She pulled and pulled—pulled until she felt her arms were being torn out of their sockets, but she couldn’t budge the woman.

She steeled herself and dove, head down through the lake of blood, diving deep in an effort to find what was anchoring the woman below the surface. Something bit at her ankle and she looked down. The woman was tied to a round cylinder of metal, left alive to stare toward the surface and safety until the air ran out in her lungs.

Tansy looked around her, the bloody water so murky she could barely make out the other bodies, all standing straight, eyes raised toward the surface that eluded them by no more than a few inches, all held down by wire tied to their ankles. Fish ate at their flesh as if they were swimming through a drive-through sushi bar.

She choked. The air exploded out of her lungs and she kicked her way to the surface, her head bursting through the oily sludge, gasping for air, screaming, fighting as hands tried to drag her back down.

You can’t get away now. The whisper was a soft taunt that ran through her mind. She recognized that voice. She fought harder, crying now, pummeling the force holding her down, desperate to get away.

You’re safe. You aren’t drowning in blood, baby, you’re safe with me. Kadan’s voice slipped into her mind and then he was there, filling up every part of her soul until he was the very air around and in her.

She realized she was pounding at his chest and kicking blankets onto the floor, and she made herself stop. Her own cries echoed in her ears, and she stopped that too, taking in great gulps of air in an effort to calm herself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Kadan.” She pressed her face against his chest.

He rained kisses over the top of her head and stroked one hand down the length of her hair while he held her tight against him. “There’s no reason for you to be sorry.”

“I can’t save any of them.”

He swallowed hard. “They’re already dead, Tansy. Long dead before you ever touch the object that holds the violent energy. They’re gone and no one can save them. All we can do is to try to stop their killers from murdering again.”