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“Yes, we do.” I was getting tired of discussing the reason I couldn’t touch silver and wanted to change the subject, but she was leading this gig and once again: Elder Fae. Anger at your own risk.
“This, my bloodthirsty friend—and what makes you so self-righteous about my eating bright meat when you drink blood?—as I was saying, this wil help me rout your unwelcome friends.
These spirits are thick and greedy, angry and hateful. They belong in the bogs, not in the city. They are a strong lot and I can put them to use.”
Put them to use?
“What do you mean? You keep them? What the hel do you do with angry ghosts?” I stared at her, both appal ed and oddly impressed. The Maiden of Karask was a piece of work, al right. But then, the Elder Fae never worried about what others thought of them. They didn’t need to.
“I harvest them, yes, and fil my swamp. They sing to me at night, of their pain and anger over being trapped by one such as me, and I feed on their angst. While it’s not bright meat, it’s a sweet dessert.” She grinned at me and her mouth reminded me of a shark’s, with needle teeth and an almost cartoonish grin—a vacant smile, hungry and searching. I could al too easily see her gnawing on someone’s hand, or foot.
I tried not to think about the spirits, already miserable and hateful, trapped in one of the Elder Fae’s gardens, used as a feeding source. It occurred to me that I was basical y handing them over for enslavement, but then again, it would get them out of the city and I real y didn’t want Camil e coming out here, trying to dispel them. And she would . . . with or without Morio.
Ivana gave me a long look. I just nodded. She seemed to like that, and as she turned toward the end of the diner, she started to grow tal er. The ratty hair took on a life of its own and came alive, like serpents, hissing. Her teeth lengthened, now glistening sharp bone blades, and the nubbin of nose vanished. I gazed up at her eyes. The pupils had vanished, and now an abyss of ocean waves crashed against the shore. She rol ed her head back and the asps making up her dreadlocks rose up, hissing. Raising her staff, she let out a low growl.
What the fuck? Though I’d heard that the Elder Fae seldom showed their true forms, I wasn’t sure just how different they could be. This was on par with Morio’s demonic form compared to his human one. Scary. Big, and scary.
“Graech wallin ve tarkel. Greach wallin ve merrek. Greach wallin ve sniachlotchke!” Her voice thundered through the room and the staff sparked.
A thousand screams answered in unison, their fury caught in a high-pitched resistance. The rising shriek began to hurt my ears and I began to back toward the door, but before I could, a loud flash of light ripped from the staff and shredded the air as an inky portal opened up, through which I could see vague, vaporous forms entering the room.
They swirled, laughing, dancing, delighting in the pain that emanated from the wal s of the building. A wave of anger and betrayal filtered out in concentric rings, energy taking form in a widening gyre, undulating through the room. I was normal y headblind, but I could see everything going on.
“Graech wallin ve tarkel. Greach wallin ve merrek. Greach wallin ve sniachlotchke!” Ivana’s words echoed, ricocheting from wal to wal , and the spirits who had come through the portal ran crazed, in a dance that spiraled around both of us. I couldn’t see their faces, but that they had once been human—or perhaps Fae—was clear.
A rumble from the wal s of the building interrupted their play, and they gathered together, focusing on the hal way leading to the basement of the diner. I stiffened as Ivana let out a cackle of delight.
“Come to the Maiden, my pretty ones, my lovely sweet treats.” She reached out with one hand, and her jointed fingers curled in toward her wrist, almost touching it. A smal flame burst into life in the center of her palm, sickly green with sparkles of purple racing through it. The flame grew, then detached itself and soared into the middle of the swarm of spirits.
“Crap, what the fuck kind of freak show are you running?” I didn’t mean to speak aloud, but the words came slipping out.
Ivana snorted, but she did not look back. “What do you care as long as I meet the bargain, dead girl?”
“I guess I don’t,” I said, but wasn’t sure if I real y meant it. I’d expected some spel like Morio and Camil e might cast, not a ful floor show starring Spooks “R” Us.
“Then enjoy the show and be grateful I’m not picking my teeth with your bones, lovely one. You may be dead meat on the hoof, but when hungry, any source wil do.” Ivana grinned at me, and I decided it was better when she wasn’t looking my way.
“Not a problem. I’m enjoying,” I muttered, doing my best to plaster a smile on my face.
The portal ghosts—the ones she’d invited in—were converging at the back of the diner, and I began to notice a sparkling form in their midst. Not good sparkles—there are some shimmers that you just know don’t have your best interests at heart, and this was one of them. It was one of the diner ghosts, and it was pissed.
Ivana’s ghosts spiraled in on it, and I realized they were doing what porpoises do—forming a bubble net around it like the dolphins do around a school of fish they want to eat. The diner ghost let out a loud wail that would have frozen my heart, and there was a flare of sparks as the two forces met. Ivana’s spirits tightened their spiral, forcing the ghost into their center until I couldn’t see what was happening, but a shriek shook the foundation of the building, echoing from wal to wal , and the ghosts broke apart, again darting in their crazed dance.
I looked for the diner ghost but couldn’t see it, and it was then that I noticed a new form among the woo-hoo, party-hearty crowd. The diner ghost was now one of them, and by the intense shimmer around it, I had a feeling it was pissed out of its mind but couldn’t do anything about it.
Ivana clapped her hands. “Nok sillen vog nor taggin!”
The spirits moved forward toward the basement stairs, and Ivana fol owed. I didn’t want to go back in the basement. I’d had my fil of angry ghosts, of dancing ghosts, of ghosts that absorbed other ghosts. I backed away and leaped on the counter.
“I’l keep watch up here while you go downstairs.”
“Stupid Vampyr, you don’t know fun when you see it.” Ivana spit out the words but then ignored me, pressing forward. I watched as she vanished through the doorway.
I might be a stupid vampire, but considering the stake through Morio’s side that had been meant for me, I’d rather be stupid and remain intact. And downstairs, where the worst of the from-hel crowd were hanging out, wasn’t a safe place for anybody. Except, apparently, the Maiden of Karask and her ghostly cavalcade.
I moved back toward the door, deciding it might be wise to wait outside while Ivana did her stuff, and stepped into the thickening snowstorm. Pul ing out my cel phone, I punched in Delilah’s number. She answered a moment later.
“Hey, I just wanted to know how Morio’s doing. Have they come out of the operating room yet?” I glanced at the time on my cel phone. Ivana and I’d been hanging out together a good two hours now. Lucky me.
