Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy(81)

It was hard to hold still and remain in the mote of sunshine. My weightless substance wanted to drift around the cabin, bumping all over the ceiling. And drawing on the light proved to be little of a feeding, more like munching on a handful of peanuts when I’d gone all day without eating. At this rate, I wouldn’t regain enough power to land on the floor for a week. I had a feeling the Judge would be back to leech off me long before then.

Erica continued to pack her belongings into a compartmentalized carry-all. She took her time, wrapping everything with great care before encasing each item in its padded section. I looked at her black-handled knife with longing. I’d never wanted to kill anyone before, but putting the double-sided blade through the witch’s heart seemed like a pretty sweet idea right now.

My gaze went to the hurricane lamp and its tiny flame. Heat had energy. Perhaps more than the diffused sunlight that barely squeezed in?

I coiled the rags of myself against the ceiling. Using every pitiful ounce of effort I still possessed, I pushed off towards the glass encased flame. I drifted lazily down, just far enough to catch a waft of the warmth pushing its way out of the lamp’s chimney. My course reversed, and I bumped against the ceiling again along with a couple of other wraiths. My sister spirits eddied apart at our contact before coalescing into more or less intact forms again.





Only then did I notice the accumulated ghosts of ghosts had stopped moaning. Gray pits that once held eyes trained on me. Weary fascination had them watching my efforts.

I didn’t remark on my audience for long. My experiment with the lamp had given me a little extra energy, a miniscule spark of life. I gathered myself and launched towards the lamp once more.

I got even closer and sucked in as much of the flame’s heat before I drifted out of range again. Better still, but it was slow going. I’d never recharge anywhere near what I needed to be before Erica snuffed the lamp. Unfortunately, it was all I had.

The next time I actually entered the glass chimney. Drawing heavily on the tiny flame, I made it flicker. Erica noticed as the shadows danced along the shack walls.

She waved a hand at my retreating substance as if shooing a pesky fly. “Get away from that. You’re blocking my light.” She turned back to her case.

That’s when I saw her cell phone. It lay on top of a shard that looked like bone.

I powered off the ceiling, heading straight for it. Well, powered as much as a wasted wraith could. It took me a good five seconds to cover the distance, but I made it. My grasping wisps of fingers closed over the phone.

A wash of power seethed through me, and the phone beeped a complaint as I drained it. My position put me in contact with Erica, and she tried to push me away, her hands sliding right through my insubstantial form. I drew from her too and saw the flesh of her bare arms goosepimple. Getting energy off a person was much harder than other sources. Erica’s strength came off her as sticky and reluctant as thick molasses.

“Get off me, you stupid whore!” she cried. “I’m not about to release you no matter how you beg. The Judge pays me too damned well for that.”

I wasn’t sure I had gained enough, but I withdrew before she decided to hurl some black magic curse at me. I had regained perhaps a quarter of my old self. I probably overestimated the situation, but I’ve always been an optimist. Better to be a quarter full than three-quarters empty.

I took that pittance of power and concentrated everything in me on my hands. I poured all my will, all my force into those two points of myself. I wrapped my hands around the handle of the knife.

I felt resistance, a solid hold keeping my ectoplasmic flesh from drifting into the rubber encasing the gripping surface. Before I could think twice about it, I swept around in an arc, the blade blurring in a silver circle to slice into Erica’s throat.

Blood sprayed to patter the card table surface. I lost my hold on the knife, and it remained stuck deep in the witch’s flesh. Feeling wasted again, I drifted towards the ceiling once more and watched Erica drop to her knees.

She made a desperate sound, half-gurgle, half-scream. Her hands scrabbled at the knife sticking out of her gore-slimed throat and fell away. Fading eyes found mine. Whatever she tried to say I never figured out. It came out in thick, wheezing grunts, “Nyuh, nyuh, nyuh.”





Then like a light switch, her eyes flicked off. She dropped to the floor, twitched, and lay still. I waited to see if her ghost would rise, but there was no sign of afterlife.

Erica Ford was completely gone.

I’d killed her. I tried to feel something: guilt or horror. Even sadistic pleasure would have been nice. Only profound exhaustion filled me.