The Girl Who Should Be Dead (The Magic of the Living and the Dead #5)

Chapter 4

4

N obody calls for the brief time Gurlien’s in the shower, but Ambra curls her legs underneath herself and gamely attempts to eat the thoroughly unpleasant energy bar, staring at the blank piece of electronics.

The couch is just as plush as she remembers it, at least, and she slumps backwards in it, like it’s something that can embrace her. Even with the weirdness, even with the physical body sending so many contradictory sensations, it’s a lot better than the blank fuzz of stasis, with the single cot.

And she goes over her plan, whatever it could look like. Her now much abridged plan, with only three targets instead of five.

She had always planned on going after Korhonen first, taking him out as quickly as possible. He used her for the most destruction, and she wanted to limit that the most.

Nalissa would be the easiest to kill but the hardest to track down, the most protected. She ruled the underground burial tunnels underneath Paris, and had laid all the traps possible for people to be caught off guard .

Even though she had walked Ambra through them like a friend, even though she had chatted amicably with the body, she didn’t bother to step in during the merge, to stop the body from dying and leaving Ambra behind. She didn’t help, and then afterwards put Ambra through a reeling array of tests, all for control.

Johnsin mostly stayed in Florida, the humid state with more marsh than forest, and the body had hated him with a passion. His mansion was slickly beautiful, smooth tiles and white walls overlooking a twinkling blue ocean, and Ambra had just thought it was all so very tacky.

He hadn’t waited for the body to die before putting them through all the tests, and the body had screamed her throat bloody before Ambra could heal it.

Boltiex…Boltiex just wanted power. He lived wherever suited him, rarely keeping one home, and would be, by far, the hardest to kill.

She puzzles over it, as the shower turns off, her limbs somewhat heavy on the couch. Like they were unused to being out of stasis for so long.

“Nobody called,” she says loudly, as soon as the tiny bathroom door opens up.

The pajama pants are somewhat comically short around Gurlien’s ankles and his glasses are fogged up, but he shakes his head anyways.

“I hate these pants,” he mutters, tugging at the hem. They don’t look bad on him, just ill fitting, like something that he’s never meant to wear.

Other than the tough work pants from the base, she’s not sure why her mind makes that connection. Back at the bar, she had been too tunneled into focusing on the half-demon and the necromancer, and barely remembered Gurlien being there, except for the flash of his phone light and the reflection of it in his glasses. Nothing about his clothes or general presentation.

“I expect Axel’s probably laughing it up with his friends,” Gurlien mutters, swiping the phone back and sitting on the other side of the couch. “Do you want another bar?”

Ambra squints at him, weighing whether or not that was a normal thing.

The body had eaten more food than Ambra had thought necessary, but she had done a lot that Ambra wasn’t sure of the purpose of.

“Why?” She finally settles on.

“Because humans,” he starts, pushing himself up to the cupboard, “expend a lot of energy whenever they use any sort of power, and they need to replenish it. So if you want to be powerful enough to kill any of those three when they call for you, you need it.”

“Sure,” she says, “but if there’s anything that’s less awful than those, I’d appreciate it.”

“Okay,” he mutters, then tosses her a brightly wrapped candy bar. “Demon doesn’t like protein bars.”

She raises an eyebrow, unwrapping the candy and sinking further into the couch. On the table, the phone beeps, and she flinches.

But on the screen, even without him unlocking it, she can read:

AXEL (8:55 PM): She suggests that warm food is always better than cold, and that something ridiculous will get her to eat more than something boring.

“Are you asking your friends how to feed me?” Ambra asks, torn between being amused and absolutely horrified. “And who would Axel refer to as ‘her?’”

Gurlien swoops in to pick up the phone with a clatter. “I asked how to get you to full power,” he snips, and once again, the glimpse of personality is fascinating. “And all of his suggestions are food and sleep and comfortable things.”

“Who’s ‘she?’” Ambra asks, after a long moment of staring at Gurlien’s fingers as he taps out responses.

“Could they compel you to answer if they get the leash?” he asks languidly, but she doesn’t buy the casualness at all.

“Of course.”

“Then I’m not telling you,” he responds, with barely a flicker of a glance from behind the glasses.

It’s fair, but it still sucks, so Ambra just leans further into the couch, mindlessly eating the candy. It’s not bad, the sweetness a bit overpowering and artificial tasting, but again, not very interesting when one has consumed necromancer recently.

It’s silent again in the small cabin, and she watches as Gurlien flicks a tiny button on the phone, quieting all the piercing beeps, but he continues typing, his eyes speeding over the screen with a quickness that almost astounds Ambra.

Sure, she’s seen humans read, but not that fast.

“You said the other Terese project got killed by a Necromancer,” she starts, after a long lull, and she’s almost surprised at how much her voice has slowed down in the meantime. “But the one at the base—”

“Delina,” Gurlien interrupts.

“Had only been unlocked recently, they said.” She watches him underneath her eyelashes. “So there’s more than one?”

“Yes,” he replies, fast. “For once in history, there are two actual necromancers, and they’re in the same country and around the same age. ”

She rests her head against the back of the couch, her eyelids strangely heavy. “Demons must be going nuts.”

He shoots her another glare. “One of them is protected, we don’t know how, but she is. Delina has Maison, and he’s prepared to fight anyone for her.”

“Convenient,” she murmurs, letting her eyes flutter shut, letting them rest for the first time in the day.

With the bright lights of the stasis chamber, closing her eyes didn’t provide much relief, and all since then had been a strange blur of alarms, of strobing lights, so the warm glow of the motor home lamps is soothing. Easily ignorable.

“Okay,” Gurlien mutters, then sighs, pulling out a notebook from a drawer and rattling around for a pen.

She sits up straighter, opening her eyes again.

“Yes, I found this, I’m taking it,” Gurlien says, holding up the cheaply spiral bound book. “It was empty and I need something to take notes on.”

“Sure,” Ambra says, gesturing at the motorhome. “Anything you need to take from here, as long as you help me.”

This stalls his brain for a few moments, before he shakes his head and scribbles something down.

“But what are you writing?” she asks, unable to stop herself.

“A list,” he replies curtly, and she recognizes the tone from other handlers to stop talking. He alternates between writing in the book and glancing at his phone, referencing something, and she’ll have to steal it to check what he’s writing later.

For a few minutes, the only sound is the whisper soft susurration of the snow outside and the scratch of the pen over the cheap paper, an almost lulling concoction of noises.

Until .

Almost imperceptibly, the leash tightens around her neck, cutting off the exhale of one breath.

Gurlien drops the pen, his other hand going to his wrist, before his eyes snap up to her.

And Ambra freezes, her heart jumping.

Before the leash loosens, just enough so she can pull in another breath.

Across the cheap plastic counter tops, Gurlien’s lips part.

“Was that…”

Ambra nods, as small as she could make it.

Dread pools into her stomach, and the leash stretches taught again, as if testing.

Moving slowly, deliberately, Gurlien puts his phone into his pocket, stepping around the counter, keeping a hand over the leash on his wrist.

Another tug, not enough to compel her, not enough to pull her away, but it jerks her chin up from her place on the couch.

She can’t swallow, she can’t speak, and air barely squeaks down her throat. Her hands shake like they’re in the wind outside, and pain, sudden and vicious, rockets down her spine.

“Okay,” Gurlien mutters, and he picks up the gun from the side table then, in a moment of foolishness, sits next to her on the couch.

All of Ambra’s a single nerve, and it’s on fire, and the leash loosens enough that she gasps in some air, before tightening again.

So it’s one of the handlers that knows the unpleasantness of that motion. Knows the pain of the leash, of denying her breath for a few moments.

Her hands shake up, to clutch at the leash, and Gurlien catches them, startling a flinch out of her .

“Are they testing it right now?” he asks, voice low.

She can’t speak, no words can leave her, but she nods, a single jerk of her head, before it tightens back up again.

“Don’t respond,” he whispers, and her jaw works against the leash, cutting into the skin on her neck. “If you don’t respond, they might stop.”

They won’t, and she opens her mouth to say that, but no words come out.

The body’s eyes water, uncontrolled, tears rolling cold down her cheeks.

The reactions to this are always the worst. The automatic systems, the nerves spiking, the parts of her that she can’t control. The parts that the handlers manipulate, to tie her into the body.

Another jerk, just enough to hurt, not to bring her over. A gasp squeaks out of her, unbidden, and a drop of blood trickles from her neck.

His eyes are wide behind his glasses, and he cradles her hand, a contracting sensation, before he swipes his thumb over her palm.

If they pull her back now, before she’s had a chance to figure out the leash with Gurlien, there’s a chance she may never be free. They might shove her back into the stasis chamber, shove her somewhere nobody will ever dig up.

She grips his hand back, tight, digging her nails in, and abruptly, the leash slackens.

Like whoever was testing abruptly let go.

Ambra doubles over, a keening noise ripped away from her throat, and she shakes. Her hands shake, her face shakes, her breath shakes.

Gurlien inhales, like it had been choking him too, before he jolts up to standing, jerkily walking to the kitchen.

Ambra just squeezes her eyes shut, trying to stop her lungs from aching. Her throat hurts, like the leash had cut into it.

Dimly, she hears Gurlien run the faucet, before his footsteps approach again.

“Here,” he says, abrupt, shoving a wet towel into her view.

“Why?” She croaks out, attempting to straighten, but she lists to the side, unable to control even the most basic of motions of the body. “I’m…”

“Ugh,” Gurlien mutters, sitting back down, propping her up. She leans forward, her head thumping against his shoulder, and even that motion hurts. “Here,” he says, holding the wet towel against the broken skin on her neck, and she only manages a twitch in surprise at the touch. “It drew blood.”

“It does that,” she mumbles out, and she can’t even control the body enough to speak clearly, so she clears her throat.

Which is, of course, awful.

“Well, that’s vicious,” he mutters, gently dabbing at the skin. “What medical care do they give you?”

She exhales through her nose, still keeping her head down. “I can heal myself.”

“Right,” he replies unsteadily, still cleaning up the black blood, and her stomach turns.

Straightening again, even though her head swims and her vision almost whites out, she snatches the wet paper towel from him, scrubbing at the abraded skin.

“It draws blood, it fucking hurts, and I can’t fucking control this body,” she snaps, and her voice is still raw, like sandpaper had been rubbed against her vocal cords.

He pulls back, and there’s a calculation behind his eyes, one she can’t parse .

“Which one?” Gurlien asks, and his face is pale. “Could you tell which one it was?”

She shakes her head, which is blindingly painful for a few seconds.

“Useful,” Gurlien snips, but he pushes himself up to standing again, joining her in the kitchen, where she dunks the towel under the water again. “Any hints, though?”

Ambra exhales, leaning against the counter, letting her mind race. “It wasn’t Boltiex.”

“Good to know,” Gurlien nods, and he’s hardly alone in that.

“He wouldn’t play with the pain, he would just…” she mimes jerking on the leash. “Nalissa and Johnsin might.”

Gurlien faces her, drawing her gaze up at him in some unknown instinct. “So, a person who knows your nerves or a person who likes pain?”

He learns quickly.

“Johnsin had the best control over my body,” she says, and the words hurt. “He could make me do anything with just a thought.”

“So this wasn’t him?” Gurlien asks. “He wouldn’t need to tease you like that.”

She shakes her head again, it’s not the correct assumption. “He just might, just for the pain. Nalissa…” she trails off, trying to force her mind to think. “Nalissa might test, so she’s not surprised by the results, and the pain wouldn’t matter to her.”

Gurlien’s silent, for a minute, just watching her, and the surveillance is almost overwhelming, wholly different from the focus of scientists she usually endured.

“Let me call in Maison,” he murmurs finally, and she flinches. “He’s had connections with other demons, he could figure out how to fix this. ”

She shakes her head, as fast as she could without blacking out. “If he’s had connection with demons, he could deliver me to them.”

“His girlfriend is a Necromancer, he doesn’t want anything to do with demons like that,” Gurlien interjects, and Ambra gapes at him. “What.”

“He’s…fucking his necromancer?” she manages out, and it’s almost distracting enough to erase the pain from her mind. “Intentionally?”

Gurlien just stares at her, blankly. “What did you…what did you think they were?”

She doesn’t have a proper answer for that. “He’s bonded to her, I didn’t think…” she squeezes her eyes shut, to try to get a grip on her reactions, still horribly out of reach after the leash. “He’s even more insane than I thought.”

There. A trace of a smile on his face, like he couldn’t help it, before he squashes that down. “When we aren’t in the middle of a crisis, I will tell you that story, and it is more insane than you think it is,” he says, fully serious, and suddenly, desperately, she wants to know it. “But we should call him.”

“No,” Ambra says, though now the curiosity of the story wars with the practicality of needing to stay away from the Half Demon. “I don’t trust…”

If he’s Half Demon, it means he’s half human, too, which gives him more than enough power to fully control her.

To distract herself, she rewets the towel before placing it cool against her neck, a welcome distraction from the still burning abrasion.

“Plus, I think if given a chance, he’d absolutely just rather live somewhere and do his art rather than any combat,” Gurlien says, and it’s some sort of bid for her attention, for some reason. “And now with his mom out, I don’t think he’d ever do anything for the College ever again.”

She squints at him, at the shape of his lips forming words, at the pull of his skin on his face, as if it could give her more meaning. As if the moment slows down, as if the shaky pulse in her neck quiets its speeding, and—

Her head snaps back, the leash yanking tight, faster than she can yell out.

And.

And each time it does, each time it chokes, she gets the split second of warning. Of where the rest of the world flashes to white, where she can struggle and dig in. Where all sound slams away, a fuzz of static filling her mind instead. Where she can claw at the leash, drag her fingertips and nails into the skin, maybe get some purchase from it, and—

“Shit!”

A hand on her wrist, as the world explodes around her.