Gods, that hurts.
The first vampire finally goes still. I pick up my knife, ready to kill whatever else may be in this house, but then I halt.
Both vampires are now dead. Their deaths are on my hands.
So…where’s the buzz?
Once again, I test my magic, trying to heal my shoulder. Once again, nothing happens.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I grit, glowering at the sky I can’t even see.
Galene was right. I’m not a revenant anymore, which means I’m a demigoddess with no idea how to use holy magic.
Years of torturous training to learn how to use death-fueled magic, wasted.
“You’re all sadists,” I mutter at the gods.
Ironically, that makes me being related to them make some sense.
Bending, I yank my knife from the dead vampire’s neck. Embarrassingly, it takes a couple of tries to get it out—gods, I’m way too fucking weak for comfort right now.
I finally turn into another hallway. A dead woman lies face down here, deep wounds marring her back and legs, with an axe embedded in her spine.
Why would a vampire use an axe on a human? Unless…
Unless another human was influenced to use it against her.
Which means?—
“The daughter of Amadeus yet lives?” a raw, wind-like voice hisses.
My body’s response is visceral. Blood rushing through my veins, hair on end, fear replacing the adrenaline in my system.
It’s not Gideon. It’s some other wraith. Still, the instant I see movement in the shadows from the corner of my eye, my knife shifts into a scythe and is swinging before I can pause to consider that it isn't made of blessed bone.
A sharp, haunting whistle fills the air before the etherium blade rips through the center of the shadowy wraith’s chest. A sound like shrieking storm winds fills the room, deafening until the intangible creature dissolves into dark liquid that sinks into the carpet alongside the blood.
Again, no buzz from a kill floods my veins, but the clear etherium of my scythe lights up softly for just a moment. The burning in my chest eases ever so slightly.
Etherium in the hands of a demigoddess bitch must be pretty effective. Good to know.
I freeze, noticing a woman watching me from the kitchen’s threshold. She’s dressed in winter clothes that are stained red, but the blood splatter pattern on her face tells me that it’s not hers. At least, not all of it is. But then, it’s well within a wraith’s ability to drive someone insane enough to kill their loved ones. That skulking wraith must have caused the bloodshed that drew the vampires here.
The woman is speechless as she mouths,Maven Oakley?
Right. I was all over the news before my soul took an unmemorable detour to Paradise. She clearly recognizes me.
“Hi,” I say awkwardly. If she’s scared of me, she’s not showing it. “This might be bad timing, but do you have a map or?—”
She floats towards me, and that’s when I realize this woman is the axe murder victim I saw lying in the hallway.
Evidently, I can see ghosts again.
Just as I noticed when I was a child, new ghosts are ever so slightly transparent and can only speak in unintelligible whispers and soft wails. Otherwise, they look as if they couldbe alive. Only when spirits are left unreaped for a while do they lose their color and become foggy, humanoid blurs that become difficult to identify.
As she gets closer, I stand my ground. “Look, I’ve been through this before. I can’t help you.”
The woman pauses and points at my scythe like she’s confused. I’m about to explain that the real Reaper will have to collect her soul later, but I stop and examine my new weapon again. Galene said something about inherited abilities.
