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‘Oy!’ She jabbed the knife at me. ‘You needs to pay attention ’ere.’
... well, the ghostly knife Moth-girl was jabbing at me. Not that it didn’t stop me jumping out of its way. Someone points a knife at you, even a ghost one, and instinct takes over.
‘Okay, you’ve got my attention,’ I said, indicating the knife.
‘Sorry,’ she said unrepentantly, ‘but you gotta listen. Don’t fink I got much time, the stupid twit pumped me up wiv too much vamp-juice again, fink he might of nearly killed me this time, so I ain’t wantin’ to be out too long.’ She looked at Grace administering to her body and gave a disdainful sniff. ‘’Ope that doc knows what ’er’s doin’.’
I frowned, surprised. ‘You’re not dead?’
‘Not yet.’ Her Pierrot-whitened face glared down at her prone body. ‘Not s’long as the doc does ’er stuff right.’
An idea started to form in my mind. ‘So you’ll be able to wake up again and talk to people?’ I looked down as the sharp pull of the thread across my knuckles caused an anxious flutter inside me.
‘Hope so! It’s what we Mofs do all the time; gettin’ necked on ’urts like a blinder if yer don’t make yerself step away from the pain.’
I blinked. ‘You mean you leave your body like this all the time?’
‘’Course—ain’t that wot I just said?’ She jabbed the knife at me again and it nicked my palm.
‘Ouch!’ I jerked my hand back and peered at the bead of blood. I was a ghost, and so was the knife. Why was I bleeding? I shook my head. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I want you to do something for me—’
‘No, you look, sidhe.’ She pointed to my hand where she’d nicked it with the knife. ‘See, I can still ’urt you as a ghost, and if you don’t listen, I’m go
‘Depends if I can ...’ I paused as an idea struck me. ‘Do you know where the devil-witch lives?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, Lu
The arched-roof tu
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘if you want me to help Darius, then you have to help me.’ I turned her round and pointed at Malik. ‘See that vamp?’ I said. ‘His name’s Malik al-Khan. When you wake up, or whatever it is you do, you get Darius to tell him what you’ve told me, and tell him he’s got to come to the devil-witch’s place before midnight tomorrow night, Hallowe’en, and he’s got to kill me.’ I squeezed her arm; her bone felt as thin as a bird’s beneath my hand.
I decided that I needed more than one basket if I was going to have a chance at saving the souls destined for the egg and the demon. I pointed at Bobby. ‘Tell him the same thing; tell him if he does this, Rosa will be his master.’ Then I pointed at Grace. ‘And tell the doctor everything too—then tell her to go to the police. Got it?’
‘Yeah, gottit: you wants ’em all to come an’ kill yer tomorrow—but ain’t you already dead?’
‘Yeah, I think so, but my body isn’t,’ I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. ‘The devil-witch is in it.’
‘Ah, now I got you.’ She nodded sagely.
The red thread yanked my hand high into the air.
I pulled it down, then turned back to the blonde-me again. Icould see ghosts—but the blue eyes of my Glamoured self were still staring fixedly at Grace kneeling next to Moth-girl’s body; I didn’t appear to notice the ghostly me at all. I tried tugging the blonde ponytail, then pinching my cheek, but my fingers touched nothing, felt nothing. Could I take over my body, as I’d done when I’d picked up the Autarch’s sword?
‘You’ll give ’er nightmares like that,’ Moth-girl sniffed. ‘’Er spirit’ll know sumfing’s wrong, even if it don’t know what.’
I pursed my lips, then walked round the back of the blonde me and stepped forward, merging myself with ... myself. Still nothing. I stood and looked out of my eyes and tried to lift my hand; my ghostly hand moved, but the blonde-me hand didn’t.
‘How do you know about the nightmares?’ I asked, sticking my head out of blonde-me’s face to talk to her.
‘I ’ad it done it to meself once.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘Couldn’t sleep for a week, an’ I know it was me pal as done it, seeing as I asked ’er to. Awful it was.’
‘Were they like picture nightmares, as if someone was telling you a scary story?’
‘Nah,’ she shook her head. ‘I just kept fallin’ into this big black ’ole all the time.’
Disappointment settled like an iron ball in my stomach. So much for getting inside the blonde-me and trying to communicate, by dreams or otherwise.
The thread jerked me out of blonde-me and slammed me back into the cold, invisible barrier, and back to staring into Necro Neil’s blank, mind-locked face.
Damn. He was getting impatient.
‘Oy!’ Moth-girl ran over to me. ‘Yer go
‘I’ll do my best,’ I said, not wanting to promise something that might be impossible.
‘Okay,’ she chewed her lip, then held out the knife. ‘’Ere, take it. You ain’t go
‘Thanks.’ I grasped the knife—for a ghost blade it felt warm and heavy and very real in my palm.
She sauntered back to where her body was lying. ‘Watch out for my Daryl, won’t yer?’
‘Yeah, I will. Oh—’ I realised I didn’t know Moth-girl’s name, but the thread jerked again, and the next second I was airborne. ‘Don’t speak to him’—I pointed down at Necro Neil—‘or let him see you out of your body. He’s a necromancer, and he’s in league with the devil-witch.’
Her lip curled with disdain as she looked at Neil. ‘Gotcha: ’e’s a fuckin’ ghost-grabber.’ And with that she fell apart into hundreds of tiny moths that disappeared into the patchwork of lace and satin and velvet her body was wearing.
I looked anxiously up at the tiled ceiling; it was only a foot away. I slashed the knife against the thread—maybe I could break his bond—but the knife slipped through it as if it didn’t exist. Then the thread yanked again and the wind rushed past me as I streamed through the red-blackness of wherever.
Chapter Thirty
The stench of putrefying flesh invaded my nose as skeletal fingers squeezed my throat, choking me, and a heaviness compressed my chest. Pain and blackness were eating at the light in my mind. A brief thought flickered in the encroaching darkness: being dead wasn’t much different to being alive; there were still some who could hurt you if they wanted to badly enough.
‘Have you managed to get her into the locket yet?’ A woman’s voice, far away.
‘I told you I’d let you know, Ha
‘Hurry it up,’ the woman said, ‘there’s less than an hour to midnight.’
A tug on my hand. ‘Into the locket, Ms Taylor. Now!’ The command came again.
‘ No—’ I whispered, the same answer I’d given him before. The fingers squeezed my throat tighter, squeezing out the light.
‘We wouldn’t be having this problem if you’d waited for me in the first place, Ha
‘Why don’t you put her in the Fabergé egg with all the others?’ the woman asked.
‘Because if I open the egg to put her in, I’ll let the rest of them out again.’ The voice was scathing this time. ‘You stick to your spells, Ha
‘I would do, if you could handle your side of things efficiently.’ She was closer, sounding suspicious. ‘You’ve been trying to persuade her for so long that I’m begi
The light narrowed to a pinhole and panic fluttered in my mind like a terrified flock of garden fairies. The skeletal hands weren’t going to—
‘Stop.’ I heard the command and the pressure on my throat eased up.