Bewitched & Betrayed

Chapter 23

Mychael smoothly sidestepped me, leaving nothing between him and Nukpana/Tam but about twenty feet of open space.

A lot of damage could be done in twenty feet. I didn’t know how fast Nukpana could lunge out of Tam and into Mychael—or if he could even do it at all through Mychael’s shields—but I wasn’t about to let anybody find out. Vidor Kalta might know, but his attention was on examining Janos Ghalfari’s crumpled body.

Nukpana/Tam didn’t even spare a glance for his own family. “I take it my dear uncle did not survive his folly.”

Vidor stood from his examination. “Broken neck,” he declared with cool, clinical detachment. “There appear to be other injuries, but it was the neck that killed him.”

I risked a look over to where Ghalfari lay, his head twisted at an impossible angle, his lifeless black eyes staring up at the sky. So much for him having ultimate power over the dead. Good to know that Nachtmagus Janos Ghalfari could do something stupid and get himself killed and stay that way just like the rest of us.

Though lately dead didn’t mean gone.

“Where’s his soul?” I quickly asked Vidor.

“Dissipated,” he assured me. “And to answer your next question, I have no sense of him anywhere in the immediate vicinity.”

“Bring him back, Nachtmagus,” Nukpana/Tam snapped.

“As I just explained, his soul has fled his body.” From the annoyed clip of his words, it was obvious that Vidor didn’t like repeating himself, even to an almost demigod. “Janos Ghalfari was notorious for abusing his gift.” The slightest of smiles creased Vidor’s thin lips. “Perhaps he feared repercussions.”

Nukpana/Tam’s lips twisted in a sneer. “From whom?”

“From what. Reapers collect the dead, and they do not tolerate mortals who abuse souls—particularly if that mortal is a nachtmagus who should know better.” Vidor’s tone held a hint of satisfaction. “I don’t believe your uncle was anxious to, as they say, pay the piper.”

Nukpana/Tam’s turned his fury on Mychael. “My uncle lies dead in the gutter like an animal because of your interference. I hope you enjoyed enforcing the law—it will be your last time carrying the burden of morality for us all.”

“If you’re through with the melodrama, you’re wasting our time.” Mychael’s hands were glowing with a white light, quickly becoming brighter until I couldn’t look directly at them.

Nukpana/Tam took two steps forward, his boots tapping sharply on the cobbles. “I agree. Time is of the essence.”

The air around Mychael crackled with magic, lethal yet perfectly controlled. “Release Tam. Now.”

“I have every intention of doing so.” Nukpana/Tam flashed a crooked grin, and the sight of it twisted like a knife in my gut. How many times had Tam given me that same grin, mischievous and playful? Sarad Nukpana’s perverse use of it now was sickening.

“Releasing Tamnais is half of the trade that I propose,” Nukpana/Tam continued. “Surrender yourself to me and I shall leave Tamnais’s body unharmed.”

“So you can stroll into the citadel and steal the Saghred,” I said.

Mychael’s hands grew even brighter and he never took his eyes off of Nukpana/Tam. “The archmagus and my officers know not to let me into the citadel until they’re certain I’m not infected by you.”

“Infected?” Nukpana/Tam laughed, a short bark. “You make it sound like a disease.”

“Parasite is more like it,” I hissed.

The goblin chuckled darkly. “Poor Tamnais isn’t having a good week, and thanks to the paladin, I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse. Mychael’s arrangements have left me with no choice but to remain where I am. Tamnais’s imprisonment will become permanent—and the fault for his fate rests solely on the two of you.”

I’d heard enough, more than enough. I raised my crossbow.

“Yes, kill Tamnais. If you don’t kill him now, little seeker, Carnades Silvanus will have enough evidence to execute him tomorrow. The elf mage has been giving the two of you credit for my handiwork. Before this day is over, Tamnais will prove his suspicions correct. Carnades is most eager to see an umi’atsu bond at work, and I’m going to show it to him.” His tone became softer, almost compassionate. “However, I do not have to tell Carnades Silvanus your secret. You do not have to take his petty insults, tolerate his feeble attempts to ensnare and imprison you. And make no mistake, compared to your power, his attempts are feeble. You know this—and yet you still fear it.” Nukpana’s voice became Tam’s voice, his words soothing reassurance. “You need not fear your power. You can eliminate the Carnades Silvanuses of the world, the Taltek Balmorlans. No one like them can or will ever harm you or those you love again. Is that not what you desire above all else?”

I wanted it to be true. I wanted it to be Tam. But it wasn’t. It was all lies and illusions, trickery of the mind, temptation with the one thing I desperately wanted. The Saghred had been tempting me from day one. It knew what I wanted and had given me the power to do it. To protect myself, my family, my friends. The Saghred would give me everything I needed to keep them safe and more. Much more. All I had to do was take the power, use it—and then feed the stone to replenish it.

Feed the Saghred. Sacrifice lives, imprison souls.

I didn’t want to die or watch the people I cared for die. But I would not take the lives of others, the lives of innocents, to keep them safe. I would rather die first.

Mychael and Tam would rather die first.

No deal, goblin.

“Let me guess,” I said. “All this and more is mine if I agree to be your puppet.”

“Not a puppet; a partner. With the power we will wield, we could defeat Death itself.”

“Your partner in death and destruction.”

I heard the smile in his voice. “Only if certain governments are willful and do not wish to negotiate.”

“You mean unless they submit to you.”

“To us.” He turned the words into a caress.

“Partners have to want the same thing.” I’d made my decision; now all I had to do was live through the consequences. I knew they weren’t going to be pretty. “The only thing I want you to do is go to hell.”

“You reject my offer,” Nukpana said quietly. “You cannot say that I did not give you a compassionate way out. Carnades Silvanus is in the citadel now, is he not, Mychael?”

“Carnades hates Tam’s guts,” I said. “What makes you think he’ll let you within a hundred yards of him?”

“I thought I would invite you to assist me.”

“When Hell grows icicles.”

His voice mimicked the same words at the same instant that I said them. I had no idea what that implied, but it couldn’t be good.

“No, Raine. I don’t believe you will like assisting me at all; in fact, it may be rather painful for someone very close to you. My apologies in advance.”

Vegard screamed.

Sarad Nukpana extended his hand in the air before him, his fingers slowly tightening and twisting, never taking his black eyes from my face.

Vegard clutched his chest and fell to his knees in the street, his screams catching in his throat, each rattling breath an agony.

I heard another scream, raw-throated with rage. It was me. I snapped the crossbow up to my shoulder to fire.

“I have your guard dog’s life in my hands,” Nukpana said softly. “I could kill him now; crush his heart as easily as ripe fruit.” Softness twisted into a snarl. “Mychael, take one more step and I will squeeze his heart to a pulp and toss his body into the gutter beside my uncle. Tell your men to stay back.” His fist tightened and Vegard screamed again. “If they move, my hand moves—and your man dies.” There was a hesitation and the sound of retreating men from behind me. “Very good, Mychael,” Nukpana murmured. “You’re learning. I was beginning to believe it wasn’t possible. Now have them move back even farther. This is between the three of us; no one else needs to be involved.”

“Raine?”

Tam?

I kept my eyes on Nukpana, and tried to keep my breathing steady. I didn’t know how Tam could talk to me in my mind when Nukpana couldn’t, but now wasn’t the time to ask questions.

Tam’s contact was a featherlight touch on the edge of my consciousness, so quiet it barely registered. “Raine. Listen to me . . . I need your help.”

“How can—”

Tam didn’t answer me with words, but with a sensation—the smooth wooden stock of the crossbow in my hands.

Loaded, aimed, and ready to shoot. All I had to do was pull the trigger.

Tam was telling me to kill him.

No. No way in hell or anywhere else.

Sarad Nukpana’s phantom hand still held Vegard’s heart, and I dimly heard the goblin talking to Mychael. “Five levels down, third containment room on the left, buried in a spellbound lead casket in the right corner of the room. Is that not correct?”

Mychael didn’t answer him; he didn’t need to. Nukpana was right and he knew it.

“The spellbound iron casket is to keep anyone from finding it and a feeble attempt to contain it,” Nukpana continued. “Cold iron to contain magic. Primitive. Your spellweavers truly are desperate.”

Mychael’s body was glowing almost as brightly as his hands. “You’re not getting anywhere near the citadel.”

“Oh, but I am. Raine won’t stand by and watch me kill her guard dog. She’s become attached to it. Put down the bow, Raine. Come to me and he lives. Refuse me, and well . . .” Nukpana viciously twisted his hand, and Vegard collapsed onto the street, his boots moving weakly against the cobblestones.

“Stop it!” I screamed.

“Lower the crossbow, Raine.”

I hesitated and then did what he said. Nukpana unclenched his fist, and Vegard groaned, his breathing ragged, dragging air into his tortured lungs.

“I kept my end of the bargain, little seeker.”

“Raine, no!” Mychael’s voice rolled over me in a wave of sound; the intensity almost pulling me under. It was his spellsinger voice. He’d force me to stay put if he had to.

“I don’t need to dig up the Saghred or open the box,” Nukpana said. “I can simply wipe the citadel from the face of the earth with the Saghred’s strength and my will.” His black eyes glittered. “The stone wants out; it will do everything I ask if I promise to set it free.”

But he’d have to kill me first.

Tam spoke, low and urgent. “Raine, lower Nukpana’s shields . . . The three of us . . . you, me, and Mychael . . . together we can do it.”

And a crossbow bolt through Tam’s heart would force Sarad Nukpana to flee Tam’s body or die along with him.

The rest of Tam’s plan came to me in a flash of thought.

It was a plan with a lot of ifs with entirely too much at stake and no guarantee that any of it would work or even be possible. But if Sarad Nukpana controlled the Saghred, Tam would be a prisoner inside his own body with Nukpana in complete control—and to the thousands or even millions that Sarad Nukpana would go on to conquer, enslave, kill, or sacrifice to the Saghred, it would be Tamnais Nathrach who would be held responsible, reviled, and hunted.

And Tam would be helpless to stop any of it.

This wasn’t my decision to make; it was Tam’s. He’d made it and I owed it to him to do everything in my power to help him.

I tightened my grip on the crossbow until the wood creaked under my white-knuckled hands.

One chance, one shot, no mistakes.

Suddenly Mychael was standing next to me, his body touching mine. Our magic quickly flowed back and forth between us, merging, strengthening, communicating—lightning quick, whisper quiet.

I wasn’t the only one Tam had been talking to.

Nukpana/Tam laughed and extended his hand to me. “The fair lady is no longer yours, Mychael. I released her guard dog; now she will surrender to me or I will finish what I started.”

To Sarad Nukpana, we were little things to be toyed with, tormented, and crushed at his leisure.

I had news for the son of a bitch—little things mattered.

And when you were working yourself up to destroy a fortress and thought you were an indestructible demigod, shields became a little thing.

Mychael’s hand in mine connected him directly to me, and our umi’atsu bond with Tam completed our circle. Sarad Nukpana might have been inside of Tam, but it was Tam’s body, Tam’s muscles.

And Tam’s will. Combined with Mychael’s strength and my connection to the two of them, we had access to Sarad Nukpana’s shields from the inside and out.

I wanted to yank the bastard’s shields down around his ankles, but Mychael and Tam had a better method that was just as quick as mine. When those shields failed, I would have a split second, probably less, to put that slender bolt through Tam’s heart. I couldn’t hesitate; I sure as hell couldn’t miss.

I didn’t want to pull that trigger; I didn’t want to kill Tam. His words from a few days ago came to me and my vision blurred with tears: If you hesitate, you’re worse than dead and you know it—finish him. No hesitation, no mercy.

Mychael held his own crossbow low but at the ready. He knew what I was thinking, what I felt.

“Raine, I’ll do it.”

I clenched my jaw against any more tears. My eyes had to be clear for this.

“Mine,” I told Mychael.

Mychael didn’t take his eyes off of his target, but his quiet response came in my mind. “Do it.”

“Am I to believe you would shoot down your precious Tamnais in cold blood?” Nukpana/Tam spoke in a perverse mixture of voices: Nukpana, Muralin, and some others that I didn’t recognize.

Tam wasn’t one of them.

“No, I’m going to kill you and what’s left of Rudra Muralin.”

As quick as thought, the bottom dropped out of Mychael’s magic and it felt like the street was being sucked downward into a vortex of power and dragging us with it. Mychael’s hand tightened around my waist and I let him draw on my magic. We weren’t at the center of the vortex; our shields weren’t being drained from beneath our feet.

Sarad Nukpana’s were.

His shields buckled and failed, and Nukpana/Tam’s face blanched in sudden realization and panic. Sarad Nukpana couldn’t move at all. A smile—Tam’s smile—slowly curled his lips at the corners.

“You didn’t mean for that to happen, did you?” Mychael asked Nukpana. “Who’s the prisoner now?”

In a single blink, the solid black orbs became Tam’s eyes, not Sarad Nukpana’s.

His eyes were on mine, beseeching. “Now, Raine. Kill me. Please.”

I snapped the crossbow up to my shoulder. “Forgive me.”

My thought carried to Tam—and to Sarad Nukpana.

“Now!” came Tam’s shout in my mind.

I squeezed the trigger and the bolt flew. And so did Sarad Nukpana, abandoning Tam’s body the instant after impact. He knew Tam would be dead before he hit the street.

I felt Tam die.

My breath froze in my throat. Our umi’atsu bond pulled at me, stretching the distance between us, between life and death, becoming thinner and thinner until it snapped. The psychic recoil was like a monstrous whiplash across my entire body.

“Shields up!” Mychael shouted to his men, and pulled me to him, surrounding me with a protective, white nimbus.

A scream like a hundred banshees, a roar of fury and disbelief, shook the very air around us. A dark mist circled us, a bodiless specter. Then it suddenly vanished.

It wasn’t gone. Sarad Nukpana definitely wasn’t gone. The bastard wasn’t going to give up his prize that easily. He was a specter; he knew how to hide.

Mychael clutched my hand in his, keeping his shields around us both, and ran for Tam’s body now lying motionless in the street, my bolt protruding from his chest.

“Vidor!” Mychael shouted.

The nachtmagus was there a moment later, one hand on Tam’s chest, the other on his forehead.

One of Mychael’s officers took command, shouting orders, and we were surrounded by fully shielded Guardians, their backs turned toward us, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their weapons glowing with battle magic, ready and waiting to be unleashed.

No one could see between or around them. No one could see what we were doing.

Tam was dead.

If the plan worked, he wouldn’t be that way for long.

Mychael was keeping the blood in Tam’s body, using his healer’s magic to stop the bleeding, begin to repair the damage. He couldn’t do it instantly, far from it. It would take hours, days—if it could even be done at all. Mychael was the best, but he could only do so much. He snapped rapid-fire orders: a cloak or blanket, a stretcher, a room nearby with a bed, and most of all, more healers. And all of it now.

Vidor Kalta was keeping Tam’s soul in his body while Mychael worked.

I had another soul to attend to.

Sarad Nukpana was still here. He had to find another host body or he would lose everything he’d tortured and murdered for. If he found another body, we would be going through this all over again.

“Raine!” came a bellow from outside the wall of armored bodies.

It was Vegard. Dear God, the man was on his feet. The Guardians wisely made a hole for my bodyguard.

I ran to him. “Vegard, you shouldn’t be—”

“Up? Walking? Alive?”

“Yes.”

I ducked my head under Vegard’s left arm, grabbed his wrist, and pulled his arm around my shoulders, my right arm tight around his waist. I knew I was nothing more than a crutch; if the big Guardian fell, we were both going down. I pushed our way through the protective circle of Guardians. I didn’t want Mychael to hear or know what I was about to do. Yes, we were bonded, but hopefully he was too busy to notice me right now.

Vegard’s breath hissed in and out through his teeth. “Damn, it hurts. Ever been hit in the chest . . . with a war hammer?”

“Can’t say I have.”

He groaned and sucked in a halfway decent breath. “This is . . . what it feels like.”

“Vegard, more healers are on the way. You should—”

“Find that goblin son of a bitch,” he rasped.

My eyes stung with tears of gratitude. If I’d been tall enough, I’d have kissed him.

“Nukpana’s still here. I can’t see or sense him, but the bastard’s here.” I felt Vegard sway, and tightened my grip. “I can do this by my—”

“No!” Vegard’s eyes were blazing. “His ass is mine.”

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was bone-dry. “If he runs, he loses everything. He needs another host body.” I looked back toward Tam’s motionless body and bit back a sob. “We’re not going through this shit again,” I snarled.

Vegard smiled, fierce and wolfish. “Damn straight we’re not.”

“I promised that you’d be at my side when the big trouble finally caught up to me.”

“Yes, ma’am, you did.” I knew that whatever I asked, he would do without hesitation.

“I know a way to find Nukpana and take the bastard out once and for all—”

Vegard knew what I meant. “Reapers.”

I nodded. “But they might want me worse than they want him. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to stop them if they do—”

“And you made me a promise that I’d be with you.”

“Yes, I did. You still want it?”

His expression was resolute. “I’m not leaving.”

“Thank you, Vegard.”

I was taking the chance that a black mage who had tortured and sucked the life out of who knew how many people, who had stolen, abused, and manipulated the souls of the living and the dead, would be more hated than me. I’d just had the piss-poor luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and have the Saghred bond to me. Yes, it was full of imprisoned souls, but I wasn’t the one who’d done the imprisoning. In a way, I was the rock’s prisoner, too.

I was going to make Death an offer that he hopefully wouldn’t refuse.

The Reapers were here, nearby. I could feel them. The death of a nachtmagus of Ghalfari’s power had probably drawn them in like a lodestone to true north.

So would the Saghred.

I let the power of the stone flare through me. I knew I was probably ringing a dinner bell, but I had no choice.

I felt them coming and did nothing to stop them. Not that I could, or wanted to. Sometimes Death’s minions were downright welcome.

The Reaper rose straight through the cobblestones at my side as from the depths of Hell itself. I could see it, and so could everyone else. It was high noon, bright as a day got, and the damned thing was solid.

There wasn’t a swarm of Reapers. There was only one. A really big one. Taller than Vegard.

The one I’d punched at Markus’s house.

I looked up at the towering mass of tendrils.

I was so going to die.

It was the one Vidor Kalta said was strong enough now to take the living, thanks to my life force I’d fed it when I hit it. And I’d punched it as hard as I could. I didn’t know if Reapers held grudges, but I couldn’t imagine it being happy about something like that—then again, maybe it was.

It just floated there. I’d say it was watching me, but Reapers didn’t have eyes, so I had no idea what it was waiting on, but at least it was keeping its tendrils to itself.

The Reaper didn’t move, but Sarad Nukpana’s specter sure did. The bastard had been using a veiling spell floating above where Mychael and Vidor worked frantically to save Tam, waiting for his chance.

I had one imploring word for the Reaper. “Please.”

The thing just floated there.

Sweeten the pot, Raine. “Help me and I’ll help you.”

“Ma’am, no!”

I tightened my grip on Vegard’s wrist, asking him not to interfere.

All of my attention had to be on the Reaper floating not three feet in front of me. It knew what I was offering. Souls from the Saghred. Souls who wanted to leave, to move on. The Reaper could have taken me there, taken all the souls it wanted and me along with it.

Instead I swear it inclined its head—or where its head should have been—in gratitude. Maybe even respect.

I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t Sarad Nukpana.

It was worse, the kind of worse that made you want to scream yourself hoarse.

Janos Ghalfari was standing across the street, smiling at me, his head twisted at an impossible angle. He raised his hands and turned his head so it faced the right way.

It didn’t stay put. His head fell bonelessly to the side, lolling against his shoulder. I thought I was going to throw up.

Sarad Nukpana had decided to keep his soul in the family.

Janos Ghalfari’s reanimated corpse turned and ran, faster than something dead and broken should have been able to. The Reaper snapped around, tendrils writhing like a nest of snakes, and took off in pursuit. Ghalfari’s body glowed with blood-red light, so bright I had to close my eyes against it. A flash shone through my eyelids. I opened my eyes. Ghalfari had vanished, and all sense of the Reaper was gone.

Vegard sank to his knees in the street, taking me with him. I didn’t try to keep us on our feet. I wanted Sarad Nukpana, but I wasn’t stupid enough to go after a Reaper chasing a corpse.

Death would send his collector back for me soon enough.