Spirit and Dust - By Rosemary Clement-Moore Page 0,113

deep-down part of me wondered what I would say if he was Jackal-less, if he’d never hidden any truth from me. I had a feeling it would be the same thing, it would just hurt even more. “No, Carson.”

“Why not?” He pulled me tighter against him, so I had to lean back to look at him. “Come with me, Daisy. Think of all the good we can do.”

Goodnights don’t run.

Some memory whispered that in my ear. Maybe even some shade. But it was the truth. I was a face-the-music kind of girl. “Or you could stay,” I said, knowing I’d have to make him somehow.

“I can’t.” He slipped his hand around the back of my neck, pressing his forehead to mine. “So this is where we split.”

Like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman at the airfield in Casablanca. Only Rick hadn’t said goodbye by kissing Ilsa like there was no tomorrow.

That felt like the real Carson. Not flippant or entitled or arrogant … Okay, maybe just the right amount of arrogant. The kiss was deep and dark and a little bit desperate, as if he had to drink all of me in or never get another taste.

It didn’t last long. Long enough for the ache of loss to blossom. Long enough for the taste to turn to smoke and sand.

I pulled away in horror. Carson looked back at me in confusion turning to alarm. “What?”

My arms had gone around his waist, and I took hold of the tail of his shirt. Twisting out of his arms, I yanked up the fabric and got a look at his tattoo.

He was too stunned to stop me. I was too stunned to move.

The inky jackal skulked across his skin. It covered his whole back, and blue eyes glittered like gems. They winked, telling me they’d seen me. Heard me. Tasted me.

I made a noise—disgusted, terrified. I didn’t plan, just reacted. I grabbed the tattoo like I could peel it from his skin. It gave some in the middle like a blistered sunburn, then snapped back. The jackal snarled, lashed at me with gleaming teeth, and a blast of magic flung me backward, where I hit the floor and kept sliding.

“Daisy!” When my eyes uncrossed, I saw that Carson looked as stunned as I was. But above him I saw the shadow of the Jackal, huge and laughing and triumphant.

I crab-walked backward from the apparition, through the swirls of spirit fog. It tingled in greeting, recognizing me from all my efforts that day. But as the Jackal’s shadow condensed and fell over Carson, fell into him, soaking in the way ink soaks into paper, the mist began to scratch and nip and bite.

When Carson looked up, his eyes were brilliant blue.

This was the exact opposite of all good. What looked out of his eyes now was inhuman, alien, and merciless.

“Why couldn’t you just cooperate?” said the Jackal. “I could have made the boy happy, given him what he wanted, let him keep the illusion of control. This is all your fault.”

He spread his arms and the spirit mist coiled in on itself, taking a new shape. “Remember that,” said the Jackal. “Though you won’t have to remember it long.”

I couldn’t even say what the thing was, other than huge. It had the mane of a lion and the teeth of about fifty sharks, and it bristled with scales and spikes and bones. Every time my eyes focused, it shifted, like trying to catch the red spot on your vision after a camera flash. But it was solid enough. Talons like giant flint arrowheads threw up sparks as they scraped the floor.

It was nightmare given form.

I’d scrambled backward and hit something—the railing around the tyrannosaur—and I used it to pull myself to my feet. Only hours ago I’d stood in almost the same spot, listening to the symphony of spirits that saturated the museum. I reached for them now, and found the psychic space where they’d been empty, like a raided tomb. What hadn’t been used up by the Brotherhood or the Jackal had been pulled in and warped by the monstrosity in front of me.

Johnson and the brethren lay in a heap, not that they would help me. Taylor hadn’t moved. The doors were locked. The museum was empty, and every shade in it was standing against me.

I’d never felt so alone.

Except … I was never alone.

The nightmare beast churned the air with a semblance of breathing, and it took a lot of willpower to