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I decided I wasn’t enjoying the experience.
By what? Billy demanded.
Like I know! Just do something!
Yeah, only what I can do depends a lot on what exactly is—
Billy!
Okay, okay. Don’t worry, Cass. I got this, he told me. Right before he was thrown out of me, across the bathroom and through the wall.
I watched him disappear, a look of almost comical surprise on his face, and belatedly realized who’d had control of my other hand. Because it immediately went numb and joined the choke party at my neck. But amazingly enough, that wasn’t my biggest problem.
There were a limited number of things that could possess a human. Ghosts were one of them, but unless they were welcomed inside like I did for Billy, they had to fight their way through the body’s defenses. And that meant a much-weakened spirit by the time it finally got in—if it did.
But that hadn’t been weak. Whatever it was had exorcized Billy while maintaining its grip on me, and no mere ghost could do that. Which narrowed things down to the Oh, Shit list.
A fact that was demonstrated when the towel rack tipped over and tried to bash my head in. My hand wasn’t on it anymore—no one’s was—but it was going nuts, anyway. It shattered the mirror over the sink, then ricocheted off and slammed into the tub, sweeping the jar of bath salts onto the floor and turning the soggy tile fluorescent pink.
The result was enough noise to wake the dead, one of whom started hammering on the bathroom door. “Miss Palmer. Are you all right?”
I didn’t know the voice, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t answer, anyway. All I could think about was getting to the source. The vamps might not know any more about this than I did, but they could at least pry my damn hands off my neck.
I tried to shift, but this time, nothing happened. Maybe because the room was starting to spin and my vision was graying out and I was slowly sinking to my knees. And then Billy was back, looking pissed.
He slipped inside my skin, and immediately I felt a very familiar energy drain. You’re feeding now? I asked incredulously.
I have to have energy to fight this thing, Cass! And I’m almost bottomed out.
And what do you think I am?
Billy didn’t answer, and the drain didn’t stop. But a moment later, my hands sprang away from my neck like they’d been burned. Suddenly, I could breathe again.
I stayed down because I didn’t have the energy to get up, coughing and wheezing as my lungs struggled to drag in air through a throat that felt maybe half the right size. It was burning and my head was swimming, and I really, really wanted to throw up. But I would have cried in relief if my eyes had been under my control.
Unfortunately, they’d rolled up into their sockets and wouldn’t come back down.
“Miss Palmer?” The vamp was sounding seriously unhappy now, but the door still didn’t open.
Why isn’t he coming in? Billy demanded angrily.
He doesn’t want to upset me.
You and your damn personal space!
I didn’t answer because he had a point. And because I suddenly realized that I could feel my legs again. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Holding on to a body that isn’t yours and doesn’t want to be held is no easy task. And it looked like whatever had its claws in me couldn’t keep all my appendages in thrall at once while also fighting off Billy Joe.
It wasn’t much of an advantage, but it was the only one I had. I staggered to my feet, wincing when a piece of broken glass cut my heel, and almost tripping over the soggy, bunched-up rug. I was trying hard not to panic, but it felt a lot like drowning again—being naked and blind and at the mercy of an enemy I knew nothing about.
Except that it wanted me dead.
And it wasn’t too particular about how I got that way.
I hadn’t taken two hesitant steps when my legs suddenly went numb, my body turned and I ran—straight into the nearest wall. My head happened to be twisted slightly, which saved my nose, but my temple hit hard enough to leave me reeling. I staggered back, but only to get enough leverage to ram the wall again.
Eyes! I screamed mentally as I jerked out a hand to break my fall and almost broke the bone instead.
Working on it.
