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She let out a wet bark of a cough, and when I retracted my hand, I frowned on seeing black fluids splashed over my skin. Examining closer, I noticed strange movement in each black drop, as if something lived inside of it. Sliding my attention back to her showed a spark of panic, before her eyes rolled back, and I lurched forward, grabbing her before she sank below the water’s surface.
I lifted her out of the tub and, with her wet, naked body limp in my arms, carried her across the room to the bed, where I lay her down on the mattress and covered her with blankets. Back in the bathroom, I found her dress crumpled on the floor and fished out the card from its pocket. After one more check to be sure she still breathed, I made my way down to my office and rifled through my desk drawer for thecret’calatieszsummoning chalk.
On my way back to Farryn’s room, I passed Vaszhago, who must’ve sensed my urgency because, without a word, he followed after me, but came to a stop at Farryn’s doorway.
“Don’t let anyone in.” I ordered, to which he gave a nod and stood guard outside the door. “I’ll speak with you about the angel afterward.”
Once back inside her room, I drew a circle on the wall with the chalk and, within it, wrote the name embossed on the card.Kezhurah. Hand pressed to her name, I spoke it aloud.
Moments later, the edge of the circle lit with a bright light, and the form of a tall, curvy woman appeared in a loose, white tunic and brown leather pants. A long, white braid lay draped over her slender shoulders, and against her hip, a brown, bulging satchel rested. A tattered, off-white cloth hung from the belt that cinched the tunic at her waist, and she carried an intricately carved black staff which she tapped against the floor.
Without introduction, she sauntered over to Farryn, and even though I was the one who’d summoned her, my muscles twitched with tension as she dragged a finger down Farryn’s damp brow.
“I stay one night.” The accent on her tongue was one I didn’t quite recognize. “After, she will be well again. And what will you offer in exchange?”
“Whatever you ask, it is done.”
“Aseptierof celestial steel.” A septier was a gift of seven. A rather gracious gift, as it related to the coveted celestial steel. In her case, what amounted to about seven pounds of it.
“Would you accept a dagger?”
“That will suffice, yes.” From the satchel at her hip, she pulled out long fibery strands, which I deemed to be kestle root, and a small vial labeled blood of aenge. An aenge was a somewhat rare and uncommon flower, which grew mostly along rivers. Its center carried a red nectar that, when squeezed, made the flower appear to bleed out. The nectar itself was said to be particularly potent and effective in drawing out bad spirits.
“What is wrong with her?”
The woman threw back the covers from over her, showing Farryn’s naked body curled into a ball. All over her skin were newly made black markings, like the one she’d left on my arm weeks ago when we’d crossed over into Nightshade. So many of them, all of which must’ve appeared after I’d left the room as she didn’t have them when I’d given her a bath. “She harbors the unbound.”
I knew that much from my reading. “I was under the impression that the unbound starved to death. That they couldn’t inhabit a body.”
She ran her fingers over a particularly dark marking along Farryn’s ribcage. “That is the case with most. Seemed this one found a way.”
Aside from her trembling, Farryn didn’t so much as stir beneath the woman’s touch.
A tingle across my skin diverted my attention toward the dark coloring of my fingertips, and a glance through the window confirmed what I feared. The sky had darkened significantly since my return, and my preoccupations with Farryn had kept me from noticing the moon was already high and bright. Fuck. My Rur’axze would be kicking in soon. “And what of the baby?”
“Baby?”
The scent of Farryn carried on the air, invading my senses. Trying to ignore it proved impossible, as the sweet aroma hit the back of my throat and watered my mouth. “She is pregnant.”
The woman’s face held a sobering expression, and she glanced momentarily toward Farryn.
I blinked hard, trying to ignore the sight of Farryn’s naked form, because Hades in winter, only a rotten bastard would notice such a thing while she lay sick and suffering. “Can you remove this soul from her?”
“I will try.” After unlatching the satchel from her hip, she set it out on the nightstand beside the vial and root, then removed a small crucible from its depths. “It will depend on the will of the soul.”
“They are relatively harmless, these unbound souls.” It was coming, my Rur’axze, and hellsfire, I couldn’t stop it. No matter how much I wanted to, my body could not tamp down the urges rising up inside of me. And when it occurred to me why that might’ve been the case, a unbridled rage burned beneath my skin. Aside from another woman present in the room, I suspected my body recognized the weak nature in Farryn. The fucking predator in me knew she’d be easy to claim in her condition.
“For the most part, they are,” the woman said in answer. “But if they were malevolent in life, it is possible they can carry that malevolence with them. This one appears to have been with her for quite some time.” With a pair of scissors, which she’d also retrieved from her bag, she snipped a small lock of Farryn’s hair and deposited it into the crucible. Over that, she poured the blood of aenge and broke small pieces of the root.
“Withher, you say?”
“Yes. Inside of her.”
Inside of her? Damn it. They typically hung close to the living, rarely given the opportunity to enter the body. “For how long?” Fortunately, Kezhurah kept herself busy, perhaps not noticing the storm brewing inside of me. I’d need to get out of there soon, or risk harming both of them.
“I cannot say. Long enough that I can sense a restless nature in it.” Covering the crucible with both hands, she spoke whispers in a language with which I was not familiar, and beneath her hand flickered a soft, orange glow.
“It is my understanding that they are invisible. That they cannot be seen, or sensed, by anyone outside the host. How then do you sense its restlessness?”
