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CHAPTER 1
“Run! Get the hell out of here!” Morio pushed me toward the iron gates.
I didn’t ask why. I just took off for the opening, avoiding the metal as I darted past the wrought-iron spikes. Nearing the steps leading out of the mausoleum, another shout from Morio stopped me and I whirled around. He’d dropped his bag containing his skull familiar and had pulled out a pair of curved daggers, one in each hand. A wedding present from me, but he wasn’t taking any time to admire the carved antler handles.
No, it was show-and-tell time.
Two people with long, shuffling strides were headed his way. Or rather, two bodies.
“Can you cut off their heads?”
Morio snorted. “Oh sure. I can just zip in and lop off their heads with these babies. Get real, woman. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“Hey, life would be easier that way,” I called out, but he had a point. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight. In fact, Morio was an incredible fighter. But we were facing one teensy problem. Our opponents weren’t exactly alive. They were already dead. And dangerous.
One of them was just what he looked like—so much dead meat on the hoof. Normally, returning the zombie to the grave wouldn’t be much of a problem—they were shambling, brainless monsters. No brains meant for less of a challenge. But we’d made a potentially deadly mistake. His companion was all too aware of our intentions and was whispering something under his breath.
That we’d accidentally chosen a demon’s corpse to experiment on didn’t help matters. Neither did the fact that we’d summoned a spirit into the body, and that spirit knew how to use magic. Oh yeah, we’d fucked up royally.
As I raced back to his side, Morio leapt into the air, spinning with a kick that landed squarely on the chest of the first corpse, sending the creature reeling back. The zombie thudded against the wall and slid to the floor. It was still moving, though, and if we’d done our job right, would be back in action in a moment. And it looked like we deserved an A+ for attention to detail. The zombie was struggling to push itself up off the ground.
“Cripes. Now our magic works,” I said, torn between being proud of our work and wishing we weren’t so damned good. I ran through my repertoire of spells, trying to think of something to help. We had to reverse the summoning spell but in the meantime, what could freeze an angry spirit waltzing around in a demon’s body?
Morio sliced through the air, catching one of the creature’s arms. He managed to carve off a long strip of the flesh and I grimaced as the chunk o’ demon fell to the floor. The zombie reeled as Morio punched him in the jaw. He knocked him back a few steps, but barely put a dent in the monster’s speed.
Oh, this was so not how our experiment was supposed to go.
Quick, quick, what could I use? Fire? No, the damn thing was demon and there was a good chance the body was still immune to flame. But what about lightning? I grinned. Electricity just might work.
I thrust my arms into the air and closed my eyes, summoning the Moon Mother, calling down the lightning. A storm was on the way, so the bolts didn’t have far to travel.
The lightning instantly responded. I could hear it crackling from about five miles away as the clouds raced in, carrying it to me. As the energy began to swirl around my hands, it thickened, shrouding me like a fog. The power soaked into my pores and entered my lungs with the rising mists.
The energy coiled like a snake at the base of my tailbone and began to ascend through my spine, prickling me like a thousand needles, the pain sharp and exquisitely sensual. A rush of desire rode on the back of the bolt—sex and magic were integrally combined for me. I sucked in a deep breath as the spell took over, then arched my back, arms open wide, and pointed my palms toward the demon’s body.
Morio glanced at me and I heard him mutter, “Oh shit,” his look one of stark terror. He jumped back, striking the demon with a final kick, and then cartwheeled out of the way. As soon as he’d cleared the zombie, I spread my fingers and let the energy stream out of me. It reared up, taking the shape of a dragon, and dove for the demon, arcing with ten thousand amps.
The spirit we’d invoked shrieked and fled the body as the carcass fell to the ground. I dropped to my knees, my gut aching like a son of a bitch, but when Morio shouted, I glanced up just in time to see the bolt of lightning coil, then reverse direction as it raced straight toward me. I screamed and raised the horn of the Black Unicorn.
“Deflect!”
The Master of Winds residing within the horn rose up and as the bolt came crashing down, he thrust his sword in front of me. The lightning fastened onto the sword and followed the trail leading to the air Elemental’s body, harmlessly passing through him as it grounded into the floor. I scrambled back from the blackened spot on the concrete not two feet away as Morio carved up the second zombie into small enough pieces that it couldn’t bother us.
“Well,” I said, panting as I leaned against the wall, all too aware that I’d barely skipped out on becoming toast. Again. “We can add this one to the list of thou shalt nots we’ve managed to accumulate. Whose bright idea was this, anyway?”
“So we made a mistake in choosing our host. It happens.” He shrugged.
“It happens? How on earth did we manage to end up with a demon’s body and not know it?” I stared at him for a moment and he gave me a sheepish grin. “Oh good gods, you knew. You knew we were invoking the spirit into a demon’s body and blithely told me to go ahead with it. What the hell were you thinking? Are you insane?”
“I thought you’d figure it out,” he said, laughing. He looked like he was enjoying this fiasco just a little too much. “We’re still alive so I consider it a success. And if you hadn’t chosen a mage’s spirit to invoke, we wouldn’t have had a problem. If you’d just chosen Joe Schmo’s ghost, then he wouldn’t have been able to use magic and we could have controlled him. Can you imagine what a demon zombie could do for us on the battlefield? Hard to kill, hard to take down. Goblins, trolls, even other demons would have their hands full fighting him.”
I blinked. “So now it’s my fault?” He laughed again and I sputtered. “You didn’t tell me who to call from dial-a-ghost. I just randomly chose somebody. I didn’t know he’d been a mage—”
“Camille, babe, it’s okay.” Morio leaned against me and brushed the side of my face with his hand. His skin felt oh, so smooth. “No harm, no foul. We’re dealing with it, so it’s all good. Now, get a move on, woman. We still have to banish the spirit back to the Netherworld.” He pointed toward the wall of the mausoleum.
There, a ghostly white shape hovered almost close enough to touch—the spirit we’d summoned into the demon. But the phantom couldn’t do anything now that we’d blasted it out of its host. The mage had practiced earth magic when he was alive, which meant he couldn’t attack from beyond the grave unless given a body through which to work. And I’d just blasted his vacation timeshare to smithereens, well beyond what Demons-R-Us could fix.
I dusted off my skirt, which was now beyond the place where anything but a lint roller and a lot of detergent could help.
