He had never let go of me, and now his fingers sank into my arms in a way that would have been painful for a human, and the shaking recommenced.“He didn’t understand!You don’t raise the spirits whowantto come back!Especially the strong ones!They don’t make good servants—they will fight you, hurt you,possess you—”
“But he did anyway?”I guessed.
“He raised abeast, something so powerful that it killed him immediately, using his life force to tear its way back into this world.And then it went looking for information—someone it could talk to, work through.It came looking forme.”
“And you didn’t send itback?”
“I tried, but it was too strong!It invaded my body, made me do things—like that scene at the grocery.That wasn’t my idea; I’m not a damned Reaper!But it wanted the potion—”
“Wanted it why?”I demanded.
“To make more Relics.That was really why we raided Tartarus—it forced me into that, said it needed troops worthy of the name, and that some of them down there must have the old strain in their blood—”
“Make Relics to dowhat?”
“I don’t know!Do you tell a slave your reasons?I tried to tell my Circle that Brandon had raised something wrong, somethingweird,and that it was out of control, but they wouldn’t listen.Thought I’d been taking too much borrowed magic lately, to help with the strain of all the extra work.Thought it was affecting me—”
Considering that he looked completely insane right now, that seemed about right.
“—and said that the spirit was doing what they wanted anyway, turning the Weres on each other.But they didn’t understand—it wasn’t doing it for them.It has some kind of plan—”
“What plan?”
“I don’t know!It hasn’t been with me much since it discovered Bleddyn.It seemed to find him more to its liking—thankfully!It was his idea to kidnap Sebastian and try to get you to betray your Circle.We’d never dared anything like that for fear that it would cause the Weres to go from passively supporting your Circle to fighting alongside them, but neither of them cared—”
“Why not just sic the creature on HQ to begin with?”I demanded.“If it’s that powerful—”
“Because I didn’t tell them you had the potion there!I said there was no way to know where it was, but that you could find out.And Bleddyn, the idiot, doesn’t know anything about the Corps, so he couldn’t refute that!
“I didn’t want them to get it, since I don’t know what they’ll do with it, and I have to live in this world, too!But I had to tell them something.They said that either I get them an army or they would drink me down like the rest—”
“Drink?”
“They eat souls!”I would have thought I misunderstood him, except for the expression on his face.Instead of a big, bad dark mage, he suddenly looked like a little kid afraid of the monster under the bed.Worse—he knew the monster was real.“They take the heart and somehow access the soul through it.I mutilated the Reaper to cover that one up, so when the body was found, it wouldn’t be just the heart missing, but I couldn’t find them all—”
“God.”
“God has nothing to do with this!And the bastards who did have been getting sloppy!They went on a tear through every potion seller they could find, causing the very people who might have a vial or two of Jenkins’ stuff in their inventory to pack up and leave, while expecting me to cover up the evidence—”
“Like the guy in Tartarus a few days ago,” I said.“You sent people to scour his shop and remove the body.”
“Which one?”It was savage.“That thing has killed—and eaten—dozens so far, and I couldn’t get to them all—”
“And you did nothing tostop it?”
“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do?But I need the potion!That’s why I redirected them away from HQ, to try to get it for myself.With it, I can increase my power and—”
“You’ve already done that!”
“What?”He looked at me wildly.
“The Reaper lied to you.He had at least one vial left, and it broke in your little scuffle at the grocery, and part of the contents were aerosolized.You were exposed if you weren’t shielded, and I strongly suspect you weren’t, considering that the thing possessing you at the time didn’t need it.So whatever good it would do you, it’s already—”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”he screamed, shaking me some more.
“I just did!Now can we talk about how to kill this mother—”
But that was as far as I got, because a blast of lightning came down, shattering the mage’s shield and the platform all at the same time, and sending us flying in different directions.I landed far below, stunned from the fall and with my body bristling like right before a lightning strike.And just managed to leap away before another livid bolt skewered me.
