Blood Secrets - By Jeannie Holmes Page 0,46
serve the darkness.”
The circle snapped closed, sending a charge through his body. His breath hissed over his teeth as he sucked in the electrified air.
The initial rush of power was always the sweetest and the hardest to control. Peter forced himself to relax and open his mind to the energies now swirling within the confines of his circle. Gradually, with each measured breath, a balance was achieved both within him and within the circle.
Now the ritual could truly begin.
He paced to the center of the circle and knelt between the girl and the doll. Picking up the ceremonial dagger, he held it over the girl, blade directed toward her heart.
“Ut quod est recipio, quod novus visum est instituo in obscurum,” he recited as he had done countless times prior. “That which is, recedes, and new vision is found in darkness.”
He positioned the dagger over the doll. “Memento vivere,” he said. “A reminder of life.”
The girl moaned as he laid his free hand on her bare chest, over her heart. “Viva enim mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita.” He placed the dagger against her throat. “The life of the dead is retained in the memory of the living.”
The dagger sliced through her flesh. Bright red arterial blood sprayed upward, coating his arms and chest.
Power surged around the circle’s perimeter, flowed through him, and into the girl. She convulsed beneath his hold as her life drained away, pushed into the abyss by the energies now coursing through her—the same energies that caused his back to bow and his penis to stand erect, energies he had to control and direct into the doll.
Peter gasped and groaned as another surge of power hit him. “Vita mutatur … life is changed.…”
The girl stilled and the power receded, but he knew it was only a momentary pause—the eye of the storm. The girl’s mouth fell slack and a pulsing blue-white stream of mist rose before him.
He speared the mist with the dagger. Coldness spread over the blade, up the hilt, and into his arm. “… non tollitur … not taken away,” he completed the incantation as the energies ripped the girl’s soul from her body.
A piercing shriek filled the circle and he answered it with his own howl of pain. The mist quivered and writhed on the dagger’s blade. Power rushed into him.
The girl’s soul shattered like glass, leaving a small piece clinging to the dagger’s blade.
Peter positioned the blade over the doll, reciting the words he’d used to seal the circle in reverse order. “Totus animus servo obscurum. Nex nutritor obscurum. Pectus pectoris nutritor nex. Vita in nex.”
The soul shard slipped from the blade and melded with the doll.
He covered the doll’s chest with his hand, feeling the final surge of power building within him. “Ego sum obscurum quod vestri nex sustineo mihi.”
The dagger fell from his hand. The last of the circle’s energy coursed through him. His hips bucked violently as he climaxed and then collapsed to the floor between the doll and the girl’s corpse.
Panting from his exertion, he gazed at Alexandra’s replica, glowing brightly with life. He stroked the doll’s fine red hair and a spike of power jolted his fingertips.
He smiled and whispered to the doll. “I am the darkness and your death sustains me.”
eleven
ALEX PERCHED ON THE END OF A GURNEY AND CURSED the darkness that her own stupidity had thrust upon her. The rapid transition through the Veil had been too much for her psyche to handle. As a result, her brain had blocked all visual input as a defensive measure. Even though it was a natural reaction, she still berated herself for following the possessing entity into the Shadowlands. She did it to save Varik, but now Morgan, and therefore the Tribunal, would know about her abilities as well as the blood-bond.
Blood-bonds were rare and a bond shared by two Enforcers even more so. The FBPI had no policy against its agents fraternizing, dating, or even marrying so long as their work performance didn’t suffer. However, having two Enforcers bound by blood increased the danger to both, especially if they worked in the field together. The attack in the salvage yard proved she and Varik were vulnerable, and with her temporary blindness, the Tribunal was sure to use it as an excuse to widen the scope of their inquiry.
“Well, Ms. Sabian, there doesn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with your eyes,” an unseen doctor said. “However, I’d really like you to have a CT scan.”
“No.” Alex rubbed