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Chapter Eight
Filth covered the house, but I lacked the energy to complain about the accommodations.
Staying in the home of the man who had been ready to carve me up andplantme wasn’t my idea of a good time, but one good look at Kase had reminded me that there were bigger issues than my comfort.
He looked…horrible. His skin was even more pale, dark red blood covering so much of him, his shirt in tatters that helped expose his damaged body.
It made the fight with Troy seem like nothing, and I couldn’t shake the memory of him taking blows meant for me.
Troy had reminded me that the creatures that guarded the fields hadn’t been interested in coming anywhere near me after the whole flinging-blood thing, and with the master himself dead…the house was probably the safest place around.
So Troy had helped Kase inside and gotten him settled in a bed upstairs, before heading down to check the rest of the house, and probably to shift back to human.
“Are you going to be okay?” My voice wavered at the question.
Kase leaned against the headboard, red covering so much of his clothing. “I’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“I will be fine,” he repeated. “I just need to rest.”
“And feed?” I held my arm out. “I know my blood isn’t to your liking, but if it keeps you alive, maybe your delicate sensibilities can deal with it.”
He shook his head. “After seeing what it did to the things here, I’m going to guess that the taste is the only warning I would get. I don’t want to know what it might do to me if I swallowed it.”
I opened my mouth, but he held up his hand to end the conversation.
I sat on the bed beside him, hunching forward. “I wish I could have helped more.”
His eyebrows drew toward each other like I wasn’t making any sense. “Ava, even after I told you to run, you stayed there. I’d be dead—more dead than normal, as you would say—if you hadn’t come up with that blood trick. Also, I did happen to see you running through the field like a ghost,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to mention that or not.”
“What does thatmean?”
He shifted, a grimace before he stilled as if realizing no amount of moving around was going to resolve his pain. “I don’t know.”
“You’re old as shit,” I pointed out. “How can you not know?”
His laugh was strained and rare. In fact, I’d bet it was only his horrible condition that meant he laughed at all instead of suppressing it. “Because I suspect whatever you are isn’t supposed to happen.”
“Why now, though? I’ve been whatever I am for thirty-five years, and all I’ve had to show for it before was bad dreams and talking ghosts. Why am I changing now? Why am I finding all these new skills?”
“Probably because you hadn’t needed them before.” He gestured for me to come closer, to sit beside him.
I moved slowly, trying not to jostle the bed. Though I was sure I did, he didn’t react.
Once I leaned against the headboard, he went on. “We do things when we need to. The saying, necessity is the mother of invention comes into play, here. You stayed in your safe little world for a long time, Ava, and in doing that you never needed these skills. They atrophied, perhaps, but now that you’ve needed them, that instinct has kicked in and you aren’t suppressing them. I wonder what else you may be hiding.”
“I’ve recently learned my blood is toxic, I can rip invading spirits from bodies and occasionally turn into some sort of ghost. I feel like I’ve reached the end of my ability to deal with new things.”
Kase made a soft sound, one that said what he didn’t need to. Whether I wanted to know more about me or not, it would probably happen.
“How did you even find me?” Another question struck me. “Also, where am I?”
“Thatthingthat took you”—thingwas clearly a far worse word he was substituting for—“created a portal. He also decided to pull in a few of those creatures you scared off when he took you.”
My mouth went dry. “Is everyone okay?”
“I assume so. They aren’t anything Hunter and Grant couldn’t handle. However, other than Hunter, I’m the fastest since Troy has to shift, so Grant gave me the tracker to follow you while they dealt with the creatures.”
