Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers)

Chapter 26



Kraven had put it perfectly. Tonight, I would either die and fade away, or I would go into a zombielike state. And if I survived, I would come out the other side totally evil.

A living nightmare.

I’d rather die than be like that.

This was happening too fast. It had been drawing closer and closer, but I’d really started to believe I was different. I’d believed the lies.

I wasn’t different. I was a gray. And I was terrified of what was to come next.

Bishop came to a townhome and kicked the front door. The lock splintered the frame as it swung open. It was all dark inside. Nobody was home. He carried me inside to the living room where he gently placed me down on the sofa.

I twisted. It wasn’t pain, really. But something bad was happening to me. The cold and hunger combined to make me numb as it burrowed into me—a caterpillar creating its cocoon. My vision went blurry and my skin turned to ice.

“What can I do?” Bishop asked harshly. “What can I do to help you? I need time to find Stephen. To get your soul back. It’s not too late.”

I just shook my head back and forth. It was too late. It was happening, and it was happening now. “Stephen said the only way to hold off stasis—would be to feed.”

“When did he tell you this?” His voice turned angry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Whatever was inside me moved through my limbs to my fingers and toes, making everything numb and cold. “Doesn’t matter anymore. I wouldn’t do it, anyway. I won’t hurt anyone like that—not again—no matter what.”

“You should have told me anyway, Sam. Damn it.”

He never called me Sam. Always Samantha. More formal—even though I loved how he said my name. “But I can’t feed. I can’t—”

Then, suddenly, his mouth was on mine. I let out a cry of surprise. He kissed me hard and deep, gathering me in his arms so much that he raised me right up off the sofa.

This is what I’d dreamed about—Bishop’s lips on mine as he kissed me with total abandon.

But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Feed,” he whispered. “Come on. Feed on me, Samantha.”

His heart beat fast against my own weakening pulse. I still sensed his soul, I still craved it more than anything else, but there was a wall there, muting it, closing off my access to it—even if I’d wanted to take it. My heart wrenched at the thought of hurting him. But if he’d done this before, I wouldn’t have had any choice. I would have lost control and destroyed him forever.

I had control now. But there was a very good reason.

No, scratch that. A very bad reason.

“It’s too late,” I whispered.

“No.” His voice caught and twisted. “I won’t accept that.”

“I’m dying.”

“No!” He got up and kicked the coffee table, sending it flying across the room and splintering into the wall. Then he fell to my side again, his expression agonized. “Take my soul. Take all of it. I don’t care. I can’t lose you.”

When he crushed his mouth against mine again and kissed me so hard and desperately, my lips felt bruised.

But nothing happened. It was a while before he finally relented.

My voice was strained and barely audible. “Do your job. Take my life. End this. Don’t let me become like Stephen.”

“I’m not giving up on you.”

Tears streaked from the corners of my eyes. The horrible cold pressed in on me on all sides, despite Bishop’s warm touch. Icy fingers sank into me, freezing me from the inside out. “You’ve killed things like me before. Why is this any different?”

“Because you’re different.” He reached down to clutch my hands in his. His brows were drawn tightly together above eyes that blazed bright blue. “You’re better than this. You don’t realize how strong you really are—not yet. You’ve only just started to know what you are. You’re amazing. And you can fight this.” His voice was broken, raw. “I can try to heal you, Sam. Stay with me!”

As he spoke, his voice had grown fainter and fainter. I wanted to reply. I wanted to tell him that I loved him. I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to be with him, now and forever. Despite everything, despite my fear over his past, despite it being such a short time since we’d met. Despite the secrets and lies...

I loved him.

But there was nothing he could do to save me.

My vision...my world...faded to gray.

Then to black.

Then to white.

And then...uh, blue.

Blue?

Yes. Blue. With fluffy white clouds.

There was something at my back. Something hard. I pressed my hands down to feel hard sand.

Where was I? What just happened?

“Are you going to lie there all day or what?”

I recognized the voice, but it was a moment before I could put a name to it. I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked around to see that I was in the middle of a wasteland, just the one from my dream about Bishop...where he’d kissed me and then killed me.

I swiveled until I saw Seth sitting nearby at a table, looking at me.

“You,” I said, confusion crashing down all around me. “I...uh...what’s going on?”

“You died, that’s what’s going on.”

I slowly got to my feet, turning around in a slow circle to take in the endless desert that stretched out all around me. The sky was the same flat gray I remembered from the last dream. And it was warm—I hadn’t felt this warm outside, or in, since my soul was taken. At least, not unless I was holding Bishop’s hand.

“I’m dreaming right now. But how can I dream if I’m dead?” I whipped back around toward him. He looked different from the last time I saw him. Cleaner. Better groomed. His dark beard was trimmed short, not long and scraggly. Now I realized he was at least ten years younger than I always thought he was. If he was even thirty I’d be surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“In your after-death dream?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged. “I guess you wanted me here.”

I studied him, trying to figure out what didn’t seem right. Then it clicked. “Wait. You sound totally sane.”

“I am sane here.” He glanced around. “Other places, not so much.”

I looked down at the table he sat at to see that there was a game of chess set up. “I’ve dreamed about chess before.”

“You were playing it?”

“Yes, I mean, I think so. But I don’t know how to play chess. Checkers, now we’re talking. But chess is complicated.”

“You’re right. It’s very complicated.” He waved a hand. “It’s your move, by the way. I’ve been waiting a very long time for you to get here.”

I sat down across from him and looked at the board before meeting his brown eyes. “How can I play if I don’t know how?”

“You know more than you think you do.”

“You said that to me before, but seriously, I don’t know.”

“Then I’ll teach you. Be happy to. Only...” He glanced around. “We don’t have much time left.”

“I’m dead.” I said it flatly, shocked that the idea of it didn’t trouble me as much as I thought it might. Just like before, I still felt numb. “And I’m dreaming.”

“You are.”

Maybe it was because I felt better here. More whole. There was no hunger, no cold. But still, there was something missing. Something that felt empty in my chest.

Bishop. My hands began to tremble and I pressed them tightly together. “I can’t stay here.”

“First, make your move.” He nodded at the board.

One piece glowed with a soft blue light, drawing my attention. “What’s that piece called?”

Seth looked down the board. “That’s the bishop.”

My breath caught. When I put my hand on it I felt it hum pleasantly against my skin. The piece knew where it wanted to go; all it needed was my help to get there.

I pushed it forward two spaces. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.” Seth smiled, leaned forward, and made his move, knocking over my bishop with his piece. He snatched it off the board and placed it to the side. “Check.”

“Check? What does that mean?”

His lips curved. “It means I’m winning.”

I blinked at him. “Why am I dreaming about you, Seth? Why now?”

“Time for you to go.” He stood up from the table and the chess board shimmered away so there was nothing left on the table. A moment later, there was no table, either.

My panicked gaze shot to his. “But where can I go if I’m dead?”

He drew closer and patted my cheek. “It won’t be much longer now. Angel, demon, light, dark. Even gray. Their destiny is already decided. Soon. Very soon.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You do. You just don’t want to yet.”

“Wait, I don’t—”

But then the wasteland slipped away. Seth vanished. And everything went black again.

A moment later, my eyes shot wide-open and I sat bolt upright, gasping for breath.

I was in the dark living room again, on the couch where I’d died. I frantically searched the shadows to find Bishop.

He was there. Sitting with his back against the wall, his eyes glazed. Only the light from the moon and streetlamp shining through the window allowed me to see him.

“Bishop...” I began.

“Couldn’t save you, couldn’t heal you. You died in my arms.”

“I’m not dead.”

He shook his head back and forth. “I hear you, but you’re not here. Memories haunt me now—like they always have. Always, forever. I’m okay with that, when it’s you. Haunt me, Samantha. Haunt me till the end. The very end.”

His voice was low and hollow. The sound of it sent a chill straight through me. And his words, his tone—he’d completely lost his mind.

My heart broke for him, for his pain, knowing that I was the one to cause it.

“Couldn’t save you,” he muttered. “Couldn’t save you. It was too late. I failed you. I failed you and now you’re gone.”

My body ached as I gingerly pushed myself up to a sitting position.

“I’m not dead,” I said again, stronger this time.

When he laughed, the sharp sound cut through the dark room. “Saw you die. Watched you die. You’re gone and now you haunt me.” He inhaled raggedly and squeezed his eyes shut. “Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

I shakily got to my feet and moved toward him. He opened his eyes and looked up at me as I approached. The devastation mixed with glazed insanity in his eyes tore me up inside.

I crouched next to him. When I reached out to him, he cringed away from me, and averted his gaze toward the window.

“Bishop.” Fear made my throat so thick it was nearly impossible to speak. “Look at me.”

I didn’t accept that he’d completely lost it. He believed that he could save me right until the moment it was too late, so I wasn’t giving up on him. I didn’t think I’d ever give up on him.

I wasn’t losing him. Even if he’d already lost himself.

“I wanted to save you,” he whispered.

“I know.” I moved closer to him until I was only inches away. “And now I want to save you.”

I grabbed his face between my hands and kissed him.

Electricity sparked between us, visible sparks—but it didn’t hurt. It felt good. It felt better than it ever had before.

This was pure magic.

I was meant to kiss Bishop like this.

His tense muscles finally began to relax. I thought he would pull back, but instead he pulled me hard against him and deepened the kiss, holding nothing back.

I’d always mocked those movies where the characters kissed like this—such passion, such desperation between them as if they would die if they stopped.

I wouldn’t be mocking them anymore. No way.

When Bishop finally pulled back a little, there was surprise in his wide, blue eyes—but the fog of insanity had lifted.

Relief filled me. It hadn’t been too late—for either of us.

“You’re alive,” he managed.

“I am.”

“You kissed me.”

“I sure did.”

“And—” his brows drew together with confusion ”—you’re not sucking my soul out through my mouth. Although, with a kiss like that it would have been very worth it.”

I couldn’t help but laugh nervously. “This is going to sound really strange, but I think part of me stayed dead. That was my stasis. And I didn’t survive it.”

Confusion crossed his gaze. “You’re very lucid for a zombie.”

I didn’t understand any of this, but I knew there were two outcomes to stasis. Death or total evil. Unless this was one big illusion, this was neither. “Luckily, I’m not a zombie. But...the gray parts of me did die—the hunger, the chills.”

Clarity shone in his gaze. “If you weren’t a nexus, the rest of you would have stayed dead, too.”

“I think so.” I nodded, stunned. “But I’m back.”

He pressed his fingertips to my throat to check my pulse. I definitely had one. He shook his head. “So I’m completely insane now. That must be it.”

“Nope, you’re not. Trust me. But we can’t argue about it any longer. We have to get to the party. The team needs their leader.”

Bishop took my face gently between his hands, touching me as if he couldn’t believe I was actually here, with a heartbeat, back from the dead, not a zombie, and I could be near him without his soul making me crazy.

“This is completely unbelievable to me,” he whispered.

He didn’t say it in a “this is a miracle! Hallelujah!” way. More of a “what’s the catch?” I’d been thinking the exact same thing, which helped dampen my joy of being finally relieved of my gray hunger.

“Kind of too good to be true, isn’t it?” I said quietly.

“Kind of.” He nodded gravely.

Bishop might be many fantastical things, and we might have next to nothing in common, but at his heart he was a realist just like me. My resurrection was not exactly textbook. Even I knew that. Especially with that after-death dream starring Seth, the fallen angel.

I quickly shared that with Bishop. “Do you think it was just a dream?”

He studied me. “Knowing you, Samantha, I honestly don’t know.”

As the numbness wore off, the realization that I’d literally returned from the dead—which I’d been for at least twenty minutes according to the wall clock—set in.

I was back, with no hunger, no cold, and I’d allow myself to feel joy at that.

The gray part of me had gone into stasis and she’d died twenty minutes ago on that couch.

The rest of me had come back for more. With a sore chest and bruised lips—and grateful as hell for both.

Together, Bishop and I left the townhome and raced down the street to get closer to the abandoned house—which, at the moment, was definitely not abandoned. Noah must have gotten word that it was haunted and decided that would make it a cool new location for his Halloween party. The iron gates were open enough to squeeze through. Some kids were out on the front lawn smoking. Everyone was in costume.

Well, not everyone. I’d been a bit preoccupied to think of something cool to wear.

The most important thing? Everyone was still alive.

My chilling vision had shown a massacre. The aftermath of the bodiless angel’s carnage. It hadn’t happened yet. Which meant we still had a chance to stop it.

“Are you okay here?” Bishop asked. “I know this place gave you problems before.”

“I’m fine,” I said, shaking my head. “Whatever it was...it’s not an issue anymore.”

“Good.” Still, his expression was guarded and watchful as he studied me, as if waiting for something bad to happen. For my head to start spinning, or an alien to burst out of my chest.

It might be Halloween, but I sincerely hoped that my personal horror movie of the night was now running its end credits.

It was crowded here—to put it mildly. The furniture was covered in plastic dustcovers, but that gave it an appropriately eerie feel. Kids milled about. Music blasted from the speakers. There had to be more than a hundred kids from school here, elbow to elbow. Costumes of all kinds—scary, sexy, funny. Some kids wore masks, others makeup.

Seemed like a great party, actually. In another life I would have probably enjoyed myself, if I’d been ignorant to the dangers lurking close by, ready to destroy absolutely everything and everyone.

Yeah, that knowledge put a bit of a damper on potential fun.

Connor caught our eye and waved at us from across the room near the stairs. We went right to him. His gaze was alert, and there was none of the humor I was used to seeing on his face. It had disappeared after Zach’s death.

He’d lost his best friend tonight.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Standard teen fare. Some underage drinking and some weed, but nothing supernatural. And no sign of our friend, Stephen.”

“The angel’s not here yet,” Bishop said.

Connor stared at him. “The angel’s going to be here?”

“I guess you haven’t run into Cassandra yet.”

“No, not yet. Big party. Roth’s around here somewhere, too. We’re ready for anything.” He glanced at both of us before turning his attention to the crowd. “What’s the plan, Bishop?”

“When and if the angel arrives, we need to isolate it. Get it away from the other kids.”

After it possesses someone, I thought. The thought still made me ill, but even I had to admit that we were running out of options.

Was one dead kid worth the lives of a hundred?

Someone caught my eye. Jordan, in full white-and-gold Cleopatra costume and black wig, was quickly making her way down the stairs from the second floor as if she was being chased.

“Bishop,” I said, “I have to find out what’s wrong with her.”

He caught my hand, but not hard enough to stop me. I might have lost my hunger, but the shiver of energy between us when we touched hadn’t gone anywhere. “Be careful.”

I nodded, then without another word, I threaded my way through the crowd of costumed kids and met her at the bottom of the stairs.

She didn’t even notice me until I caught her arm. “Jordan, what’s going on?”

She froze and looked over her shoulder at me. Her face was pale as a sheet of paper, despite her eyes heavily circled in black liner. “You’re here.”

She didn’t say it as an insult, just as an observation.

I grabbed her hand. She didn’t immediately pull away. Her skin was cold as ice. “What’s wrong?”

“I had to be here tonight. Socially, I mean, I couldn’t miss it. But I didn’t know...” Her breath came in rapid gasps.

“Know what?”

“I didn’t know about...the ghosts.”

I stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“This place is haunted. Like one hundred percent total hauntage.”

My eyes widened. The rumors were actually true about this house? “You can feel that?”

She nodded. “It wasn’t too bad when I got here. Just a low hum for me. But then some girls broke out a Ouija board upstairs and—bam. She—she spoke to me.” Her eyes were glossy. “I know it was her.”

“Who?”

Jordan met my gaze. She looked equal parts terrified and stunned. “Julie.”

A chill shot down my spine. “Julie?”

Her forehead screwed up into a frown. “I mean, I know she—she’s gone...but she’s here. And I—I had to get away.”

I’d been stunned into utter silence. This was why I couldn’t approach this house before. As a gray, my hunger had been triggered into overdrive.

Ghosts were disembodied souls. And this house was filled to overflowing with them.

I scanned the party. I couldn’t sense anything now, but Jordan could. She was the one with supernatural intuition.

What was wrong with this place? Why were so many ghosts here? Why was Julie still here?

There had to be a reason, and I had a strong feeling it was vitally important.

“Show me,” I said, clutching Jordan’s arm. “Show me on the Ouija board right now.”