Blood Debt by TANYA HUFF

Author:TANYA HUFF
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-19T07:08:41+00:00

Nine

EVEN before the day had fully released him, Henry could feel the cold tracing frosted patterns on his skin in a macabre parody of a lover’s caress. Opening his eyes, he almost thought he could see the icy currents drifting in the air like winter fog.

It knew he was awake. He could feel it waiting.

Brows drawn down in annoyance, he turned on the lamp, and sat up.

It wasn’t waiting. They were.

The second ghost was a little younger; late teens rather than early twenties. A metal ring glinted in one nostril. The ivory skull printed on the sleeveless black T-shirt grinned at Henry as though it appreciated the irony of a death’s head worn by the dead. As far as Henry could tell, he was anatomically correct—this second specter had retained his hands.

“Blessed Jesu …” At the last instant, he realized he shouldn’t have spoken aloud, but by then it was too late.

No audible sound emerged from either mouth stretched open far beyond the boundaries skin and bone would have allowed. As they howled, the soul heard the torment the ears could not.

Henry’s heart began to race until it beat at nearly mortal speed, but a sudden anger provided a barrier against the waves of despair. How dared they make him responsible for the lives around him! How dared they buy his help with blackmail! How dared they …

A strangled moan from outside his sanctuary broke through where the spirits couldn’t. It dragged him off the bed and across the room. Tony … Henry fumbled with the bolts, amazed to find his hands shaking, more affected by the shrieking dead than he was willing to admit. He spun around to face them, but they were gone; only the effect of their cry remained.

Ripping the last lock right out of the wood, he yanked open the door.

“Tony!”

Curled into a fetal position in the center of the hall, Tony slammed his forehead over and over into his knees and whimpered, the shrill noise pulsing to the rhythm of the action. Dropping down beside him, Henry wrapped both hands around the younger man’s head and forced him to be still. “Tony, it’s over. Listen to me, it’s over.” Gently, but inarguably, he turned Tony’s head until he could look down into the wildly staring eyes. He didn’t realize how frightened he’d been of what he might see until relief turned his muscles to jelly and he sagged back on bare heels. Insanity would have been no surprise, had, in fact, been almost expected. “You’re all right. I have you.”

“H … Henry?”

“Yes. It’s me.” Sliding an arm under shaking shoulders, Henry pulled him up against his chest.

“It was darker …”

He laid a cheek against sweat-damp hair. “I know.”

Tony sighed and pushed against Henry’s body—as though to test its strength as a shield—then he wet his lips and leaned back just far enough to meet the worried gaze. “Henry?”

“Yes?”

“What the hell did you ask it?”

“I was wondering that myself.”

Henry managed to stop the snarl but only because he felt Tony’s reaction when he tensed.

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