“Bite me,” whispered Ridley. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Believe me,” Necro whispered back, “you don’t get it.” The Necromancer stepped closer until she was almost breathing in Ridley’s ear. “If my dreams mean anything, I’m not the one you should be afraid of.”
Her last word raked the air between them.
“Vindicabo.”
CHAPTER 14
Appetite for Destruction
Lennox Gates kicked and shouted. A stream of unintelligible gibberish came from his mouth, but it was loud and urgent.
So loud that he woke himself up.
He sat up on his couch, groggy, and then flopped back down.
Lennox was still wearing the clothes he’d had on when he came home from the club, early this morning. He’d been having nightmares again, courtesy of his friend on the other side, no doubt.
Vexes.
Vengeful manifestations from the Otherworld—black stretches of cold shadow had been everywhere. Swallowing up his friends, his family. Turning everything to fog and fear and doubt.
They had swarmed his club, his apartment, even his house on the island. He couldn’t escape, and he couldn’t hide. He would never be free of them, not until they dragged him back down to the world they came from.
Lennox Gates got the message. It didn’t require any actual words to articulate the threat of this ticking clock.
He looked at his watch, cursing under his breath. He was late, and not just for his first appointment of the day, but for the other things he’d been asked to do. The sort of things he couldn’t exactly put on his calendar.
Dark things. My specialty. How did that happen?
He was on a short timer, and his associates were impatient. At least it was only a nightmare.
For now.
Then Lennox felt the hair on his arms stand up. His room turned cold, so cold that he could feel a new sharpness to the air in his throat with every breath.
“What do you want?” His voice echoed through the empty room.
Silence.
“I know you’re there. You can come out now.”
The shadows in his room seemed to convulse, as if the walls themselves were trying to catch their breath.
The air churned around him.
Now. It’s coming.
Slowly, a black figure rose from the floor, materializing up from the rug as if it were being pulled into the Mortal world against its will. In reality, Lennox knew it was the reverse. The spirit was willing itself into this world—a difficult feat, almost Herculean.
Vexes—real ones. Here. In my own apartment, for the very first time.
Then Lennox had another thought, colder than the air around him.
He’s getting closer.
The apartment was the most Bound place Lennox knew of, with the exception of his club. The security in his building rivaled that of the UN building downtown. Stray Supernaturals were not welcome here, and neither were visitors from the Otherworld. Lennox would have thought it was impossible, if he hadn’t been dealing with the angriest dead headcase in five hundred years.
He can get to me, anywhere I go.
I’ll never be free of him.
Lennox raised his voice. “Which is your point, right? I understand, old man. You’ll have your way, or I’m to join you down there?” He stood up, pacing across the room. “Your hybrid friend is going to show up at the club today, and your Siren is bound to follow. I’ve taken measures to incentivize them both. Have a little faith.”
He knew he was asking the impossible, and he expected that his associate was laughing on the other side. Laughing, and making room for Lennox Gates in the Otherworld, right next to him.
“I’m not stupid or suicidal. This display really isn’t necessary,” he said.
But it is your style, he added silently. Or your name wouldn’t be Abraham Ravenwood. And I wouldn’t be in this bind.
CHAPTER 15
Rock of Ages
As Link walked down the Brooklyn street with Sampson, he couldn’t remember what had been bothering him. Something had been, but it had slipped away. Ridley had that effect on him. A few words from her, and he almost always started feeling better. He’d almost have thought she was Charming him, except for the fact that she’d promised she wouldn’t.
What kinda magic was that?
Link gave up.
To be honest, he didn’t really pay attention to a word anyone said after audition. It was like listening to a bunch of chickens squawking over a spilled bag of feed. Chickens or cheerleaders. The Jackson PTA, fightin’ over which book to ban. My mom on the way home from choir practice, full up with a fresh load a gossip. Link didn’t have much to say. At least, not to the chickens. His mind was on the audition.
It was an awesome word, like overtime or front row or state finals. Cheese-in-the-crust or double-stuffed or supersized. Of all those words, audition was the granddaddy of them all. At least, Link was pretty sure it was.
He’d never actually had one.
Link didn’t audition for bands. He always made sure it was his band, so they had to take him. That was the secret of his success. But it didn’t help him now. He was terrified. Auditions were so good they were bad, so important they were paralyzing. Link’s adrenaline was pushing and pounding so hard he felt sick, same as when he tried to eat his mom’s red-eye gravy halfway through his transition from human to Incubus.
Like he could blow chunks.
Hope I don’t puke onstage. Marilyn Manson puked onstage. Wait. It’s cool, right? If Marilyn Manson did it?