Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,106

Here, where he was about to raise a soul-eating monster.

What an arrogant ass.

I didn’t think Carson could sense it. I’d had seventeen and three-quarters years to learn how to use my gifts. What made him think he could master them instantly?

Simple. He was the son of an arrogant ass.

The air stirred with a shimmer, the Black Jackal appeared inside the semicircle of his brethren. He wore the guise of the jackal-headed god, but I could See through the illusion to the shade of Oosterhouse. Handsome, young, fit … and bare-chested, like a Yul Brynner Rameses.

He put his hands on his hips and studied the surroundings with a sneer. The tomb had seemed very real when I’d awakened to chanting, but behind the genuine artifacts were black exhibit walls, and the torches were merely flashlights and electric lanterns. It was all just set dressing next to the self-proclaimed demigod.

Maguire spoke from the altar like it was a boardroom table. “Welcome, my lord. As you see, we are ready to proceed with the ritual.”

The Jackal encompassed Maguire in his disapproval. “You managed to secure the book?”

“I never lost the book,” said Maguire, cool and in charge. “I always knew where it was.” He placed one paternal hand on Carson’s shoulder, the other on Alexis’s. “My son had it, and my daughter translated it, and together they brought you Miss Goodnight.”

At last Carson’s guarded gaze flicked toward me, as if to see if I believed that he’d been working with Alexis. I trusted he hadn’t, but I was still pissed about everything he had done, including delivering the Jackal exactly what he wanted. Not me, but the power to open the Veil.

The Jackal finally gave me his attention, and the air crackled between us with opposing psychic forces. He strode to where I was bound and stood over me, his shadowed eyes glinting. It hurt to look at him, as if the twisted magic that made him burned the answering magic in my soul.

His gaze roved over me in a vile way. “You’ve brought her,” he said, “but you haven’t broken her. How will you convince her to play her role?”

Maguire’s voice was a smooth, ringing promise. “If she does not unbind you, Agent Taylor will die in disgrace as part of the plot to kidnap my daughter.”

Taylor tensed at the threat, pulling at the ropes that bound us. More than that, I could sense the horror the threat gave him—not the death, but the dishonor. Though I was guessing he didn’t much want to die, either.

I managed to twist one hand until I could link a few fingers with Taylor’s as Maguire continued. “However, if she complies with the ritual, her friend will merely be killed in the line of duty.”

Wow. He wasn’t even pretending he wasn’t going to kill us. Taylor’s fingers squeezed mine, but I didn’t find that reassuring. My choice was doom him to disgrace or doom him and every other soul in this world to oblivion.

Maguire stood, shoulders back, supremely confident. He saw himself as the pharaoh here, and Oosterhouse as his pawn. Beside him, Alexis glowed with the same conviction of control, and in his own way, underneath his mask of compliance, Carson seemed steady in the idea that he could turn the tables.

They were all cataclysmically wrong.

“I like the way you think, Maguire,” said the Jackal, indulging him. “The problem is your sense of scale. I know a man like you understands the importance of, what do they call it now? Shock and awe.”

As quick as a thought, he plunged a spectral hand into my chest. Icy cold punched through my ribs, burning, cracking, seizing my heart. He twisted, tearing a scream from my vitals. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life, but worse still was the moment when he grabbed the threads that connected Ivy to me and used them to pull her shade from thin air.

“Hello, Professor Goodnight,” he said. She dangled from his grip on her throat, her hands grabbing at his thick, tanned forearm.

“Oosterhouse.” Aunt Ivy managed to wheeze with contempt, as if they were academic rivals and not one spirit choking the afterlife out of another. “I should have known. No one who likes to hear himself talk as much as you do has altruism at heart.”

“I’m so glad this turned out to be you,” he snarled. “Women—and Goodnights—need to know their place.”

He tightened his fist, and Ivy screamed. I did, too, straining at my bonds until