“Get away!” I screamed. “Get away!”
“You were meant for this, born for this,” Dad chanted. “Your blood and mine. Beckstrom blood. The power you carry, the knowledge I carry. I have always known we would do great things, you and I. I have waited for this day.”
And over my dad’s babbling that grew louder and louder inside my head, I heard Frank’s footsteps across the wooden floor.
Frank bent, reached through my father-right through him-and I moaned, because it stung me too, like Frank was reaching through me.
“Open your mind to me,” my father said.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” I said.
Frank smiled. “Oh, you can. You can be everything I need.”
He pulled me up through my dad and onto my feet. Stuck a needle in my arm.
Possessive ghost. Dark magic. Blood magic. Probably drugs on that needle.
Holy shit, could this get worse?
The pain in my body eased some, leaving my head a little foggy and slow. That would be the drugs. Sensual heat rose up my legs, and I tasted sweet cherries on the back of my throat. And that would be the blood magic.
Fabo.
Allison, my father said from inside my head. Accept me. Let me use your power. I can stop him. Stop him from doing this to you. To us.
“No,” I whispered as Frank pushed me forward in a grip I could not shake. The drugs weren’t helping my coordination any. Everything felt sluggish. Dreamlike. Slow.
“Out. Get out,” I said.
“It will all be over soon,” Frank said. He wrapped his arm around my ribs and held me up, because my legs weren’t working so good. He shoved me over to my father’s corpse. I threw myself to one side, but Frank was strong and didn’t lose his hold on me.
“Be still,” he said. The needle wound in my arm pulsed at that word. I could not move. No matter how much I wanted to.
Shit, shit, shit.
Frozen in place, I watched Frank let go of me and pull my left arm out over the plate on my dad’s chest. A slash of pain bit my left palm as Frank drew a knife-a pretty little thing a lot like Zayvion’s-across my hand. He tipped my hand over the plate, letting my blood fall freely into the licorice mist.
He then poured blood out of the vial over my hand and over the tip of the knife he had used to cut me.
I might be frozen, but I could still breathe, could still smell. And that was not my blood in the vial-it was my father’s.
Hatred rose like bitter bile and stung the back of my throat. The weird thing was it wasn’t my hatred-it was my father’s. He hated Frank. And hated that Frank was using him.
Using him to break open the gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Using him to finally connect the magic of the living with the magic of the dead.
Horrors of what breaking the barrier between life and death and letting magic flow freely between the two swam through my mind-my dad’s mind. Somewhere beyond that horror, I heard the cold, angry thoughts of my father wishing he were the one doing this exact ritual but with Frank’s corpse on the table instead.
And it was then that I realized Frank was right about one thing. My dad did know how very useful I would be. And even now, in death, he was thinking about his missed chance of using me for his own ends. Thinking that he who opened the gates would be the one who controlled them.
I wanted off this crazy train. If I were going to get out of this room, get away from my father, from Frank, now would be a great time to do it. Except I couldn’t feel my feet. It’s hard to run when you have no idea where your legs are.
Anthony moaned.
Crap. I couldn’t leave him. Couldn’t leave him and the girls. I wondered if my father could feel my emotions, my thoughts like I could feel his.
Yes, he said. I can.
If I let you… use me… use my magic, you’ll stop Frank? I asked.
Yes. And I knew without a doubt that he was not lying. Okay, that was one good thing about this. He was so close to me I would know exactly when and how he would try to screw me over. I might even have a chance to stop him.
And you’ll help me free the girls? I asked. And Anthony?
Allison, there isn’t much time. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do after breaking Frank’s Wards and the Binding he has on my body. It is complicated. Untried. Half true. He might not know what the magic would do, but he had ideas, plans, of exactly what he’d be able to do: control me and all the magic at my disposal.
“Lie down,” Frank commanded. He put some Influence behind it. Anthony, the poor kid, whimpered. Of course, I wasn’t in that great of shape myself. Frank’s command filled me with the desire to do exactly as he said.
Damn it.
I crawled up on the empty table, fighting it, sweating, hating him, hating myself, hating my father. Magic filled me, but if I pulled on it, my dad would be able to reach it-push me aside and use it, use me, and then he could make me do anything he wanted to.
But maybe it would be worth letting him use me if he stopped Frank.
I looked around wildly. Shadows, slanting light, webs of magic, moaning girls. I twisted so I could see the door. Maybe I could get out. Maybe I could still get away and call the police.
The door I had walked through was open. That was weird. I thought it had shut behind me.
A man moved into the light of the doorway, silent as a cat’s dream. Dark and shadowed, his skin flickered with silver glyphs, his body crackled with dark fire.
Zayvion Jones.
Maybe I was imagining him. I really wanted someone to show up and make some sense out of all this. Make Frank stop, make my dad stop. Make this all go away so I could get away, and life and death and the world would be normal again.
But Zayvion said he wasn’t following me. Kevin said Zayvion wasn’t following me. So why would he be here?
He made his way silently to Anthony’s side, and I looked away from him just in case he was real. Just in case Frank caught me looking at him. Frank was busy weaving a spell between my father’s corpse and me with the tip of the bloody knife and his empty left hand.
This was not how I wanted things to work out. But if Zayvion could get Anthony out of here, maybe I could find a way to rescue the girls.
I moved my feet, felt the bite of a rope around my ankle. Not a physical binding-a magical one. Frank was a busy little bastard.
“You are much like your father, Ms. Beckstrom,” Frank said in his nice-doctor voice while another rope of black snaked out to tighten around my legs. “Intelligent. Willful. And incredibly powerful. If you had simply returned my phone call, we could have gone about this in a much more civilized manner. It could have been very… pleasurable.”
Holy crap.
Allison, my father growled in my head. Now. Give me your power.
Help me free the girls.
Allison, he warned. If you will not give it to me, I will take it. And that will cause us both damage.
Anthony grunted.
Frank noticed. Glanced up away from me. Saw, as I saw, Zayvion carrying Anthony on his shoulder, moving toward the door.
“Ah, Mr. Jones. The guardian of the gates has arrived. Please return my Proxy.” Frank wove his hands in the air and pulled magic-from my father’s corpse. The magic rose, sticky, wet, thick, not so much glowing as sucking light into it, leaving an afterimage of the rest of the room on my eyes when I blinked.