Omens (The Dark in You #6) - Suzanne Wright Page 0,36

never intended to hide, only to observe; to study her enemy.

She dropped onto the back of the teen. Her weight was enough to send him to his knees, no doubt due to how rickety his bones were. Wicked fast, she lifted her hand and sent a powerful wave of electric fire soaring at the stout corpse. Flickering and crackling, the flames whipped him so hard he crashed into the wall.

She slapped her hands on the teen’s head and emitted yet more electric fire; it buzzed and sparked beneath her palms. She might not be able to take control of his mind, but she could sure as shit fry it so that the corpse was useless to its master.

A hard, white-hot impact slammed into the back of her shoulder, barely missing her wings and knocking the breath from her lungs. Hellfire orb.

Gritting her teeth against the agony of her skin blistering and burning, she stood and whipped around. The stout corpse was still convulsing as shockwaves of electric fire moved through it, but her power clearly hadn’t hurt Enoch, because he was still able to attack her via the corpse.

Just then, another ball of hellfire appeared in its hand. It appeared too late, though, because she’d conjured an orb of her own. She tossed it at the corpse’s face, blinding it, cutting off Enoch’s ability to see and hurt her. Seconds later, it slumped, and she knew the necromancing piece of shit had withdrawn from its mind.

Her shoulders dropped as she looked from one corpse to the other. Neither was a pretty sight—the teen’s mush-for-brains was trickling out of his ears, mouth, and nose; the face of the other guy was blistering, charring, and peeling away, courtesy of the hellfire.

Speaking of blistering skin …

She peeked at the injury on the back of her shoulder. It was ugly and raw, but it wasn’t very deep. Thankfully, she was a fast healer, so it should be gone within the hour.

She psychically reached out to touch Ciaran’s mind. Bro, I got a problem here—meet me in my bedroom.

A male mind slid against hers. Are you going to ask me for a condom again?

She snickered. No. I’m going to ask you to help me get rid of a couple of corpses.

It took mere seconds for her brother to appear. After hearing her story and losing his ever-loving mind, he teleported Jolene and two of her sentinels, Orrin and Mitch, to the house. While her grandmother and the sentinels examined the bodies, Khloé told them what happened.

“You should have called for help sooner,” clipped Ciaran, standing in the doorway of her bedroom, his jaw clenched, his arms folded across his chest.

Khloé blinked. “Why?”

He gritted his teeth. “Because you were up against a Lazarus demon and two corpses, why else?”

“I’ve been up against worse.” It was the truth. “Besides, I figured I could take them. He was able to attack me with hellfire orbs through them, but he didn’t toss any of those black, smoky orbs.”

“There’ll be limits as to what he can do through his puppets,” Jolene told her.

“I don’t recognize either of the bodies; they definitely weren’t from our lair,” said Orrin.

Jolene cursed. “So Enoch’s now targeting the cemeteries of other lairs.”

“He might be hoping the disappearances of the bodies will be reported and that you’ll then somehow be held responsible for it all,” Mitch suggested.

“Possibly.” Jolene planted her hands on her hips. “I’m going to kill the bastard when I find him. And I will find him.”

“Did you manage to locate David Shore?” asked Khloé.

“Yes. He lives in Nebraska, but he’s on a business trip at the moment. We’ll have to wait a few days before we can pay him a visit.”

Orrin looked at Khloé. “Enoch likes to finish the jobs he started—it’s a matter of pride for him. He’ll be both embarrassed and furious that you thwarted him. He’s not going to let it slide, and I doubt it’ll be long before he strikes again. We had members of the Force watching your house, but they were distracted when two cars collided further up the street. They ran over to assist.”

“Enoch probably staged it,” said Jolene.

“It seems likely.” Rubbing her aching head, Khloé asked, “Hey, Grams, do you know if Enoch can dream-walk? I think he visited me in my dream, because it seems an awfully big coincidence that I just dreamed of him telling me that he’ll not only kill me but use my corpse to hurt you all in the name