Haunted Women of the Otherworld_Book 5 Kelley Armstrong

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necros to perform an exorcism. Problem was, as the Fates reminded us, this wasn't a normal case of
spirit possession because the Nix wasn't a normal spirit. They were ninety-nine percent sure it would fail.
By the time we tracked down and prepped a necromancer for the exorcism, if it didn't work, it would be
too late to try something else.
As long as we stayed in the throne room, plotting, we were operating on the Fates' time, and only
minutes would pass in the living world. But the moment we stepped into the living world, we were on our
own, clock ticking.
"So we need to find a way to separate the Nix's spirit from the body of her living partner," I said. "And
the only way to reliably do that is to use an angel's sword& which won't work in this case. So how the
hell ?"
"There is another way," the child Fate said.
"What?"
The young Fate began to shimmer, her body lengthening and aging, morphing into her middle sister, but in
slow motion, as if fighting the change. A split-second burst of light, and the child stood there again, her
face a grim mask of childish determination.
"There's another way," she said, words spilling out almost too fast to understand. "It's been done before.
The second seeker "
"No!" Trsiel said. "We agreed "
"You agreed what?" I said. "Are you telling me that after all this, you know another way?"
"No, I don't." He shot a scowl at the child Fate. "And neither does she."
"But the other one does," she said, chin lifting. "The second seeker."
"You mean the angel you sent the second time?" I began, then stopped. "No, it wasn't an angel, was it? It
was a ghost. A man named Dachev. You sent him after the Nix and he caught her. Then she cut a deal,
persuaded him to join her instead of turning her in."
The youngest Fate's mouth opened, but her middle sister took over before she could confirm it. I didn't
need that confirmation, though. One look at Trsiel's face, and I knew I'd put the pieces in the right place.
I continued, "And if he wasn't an angel, then he must have managed to separate the Nix's spirit from her
body without a Sword of Judgment. How?"
The Fate shook her head. "We don't know, Eve. We only know that he did& and that things became
much worse after that."
"A problem some of us foresaw," Trsiel said.
The Fate nodded. "Yes, Trsiel. We should have listened to those with a better understanding of such
matters. We made a mistake, and we have paid for it."
"Such matters& " I said. "You mean evil. This Dachev, the Nix didn't tempt him into a partnership, did
she? It was his idea." I looked up at her. "Send a killer to catch a killer& and I'm not the first killer
you've sent."
Chapter 39
IT SEEMS THAT AFTER JANAH's SANITY-BUSTING BRUSH with the Nix, the Fates had
decided that they needed a bounty-hunter with a better understanding of the Nix's mind. So they'd
reached into their darkest hell dimension, and plucked out a likely candidate, a supernatural serial killer
who'd expressed contrition and remorse for his crimes. Andrei Dachev.
They then struck a deal with Dachev. If he caught the Nix for them, he would be rewarded. Not by
becoming an angel that was never an option. Instead, he would be transferred to a medium-security
afterlife, one worse than my own but much better than his hell dimension. A fine and fair deal.
Unfortunately, once freed, he took it upon himself to renegotiate& without consulting the Fates.
Like me, he had been assigned an angel liaison not Trsiel, but another of the full-bloods. It had taken
him all of two days to ditch the guardian and strike out on his own. Of course, he'd been bright enough
not to just cut and run, probably because the Fates had been bright enough to fit him with the mystical
equivalent of an anklet tracking device. Instead, he'd proven to them that he worked better on his own.
When he needed an angel, he'd call. Until then, he'd report back daily with updates. After four months,
he caught up with the Nix. Only he didn't call for backup. He separated her from her partner's body all
by himself. Then, rather than drag his prize back to the Fates and collect his reward, he cut a new deal&
with the Nix.
"Okay," I said when the middle Fate finished her explanation. "So he's still in this serial-killer hell, right? I
mean, he hasn't, you know& escaped."
"No, Eve. Our security isn't that poor. The Nix was "
"A special case. Yeah, I know. But if this guy's still down there, what are we waiting for? Throw open
the gates to hell, 'cause I'm coming in."
"That's a very, uh, noble sentiment, Eve," Trsiel began. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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