Page 144 of Summoned
My limbs go numb.
Everything inside me breaks. My heart stops beating, and I pray it never starts again.
A clap cuts through the still air, interrupting my grief.
“What a lovely performance! I wouldn’t expect anything less from Gaetano. He always did know how to create drama.”
I raise my head. There, between the neighboring graves, stands a woman. Her skirts are the color of soil and spread like tendrils crawling out of the graves.
I’ve dealt with enough frenemies in my life to recognize the evil behind a sweet smile. A textbook villainous bitch.
“…Madeline?” I whisper in a shaky voice.
Her gaze settles on Gaetano’s corpse.“Of course, he told you about us,” she says. “His obsession with me always ran deeper than his passion for magic. I’m not surprised by yet another one of his performances. Crafted to win my admiration, no doubt.”
I swallow my tears and gather the little strength I have left to straighten my shoulders. Gaetano wouldn’t want me kneeling before her.
She moves toward me with a graceful stride. Those tendrils extend from her gown, as if they’re siphoning something from the graves. I force myself to stand, even though my legs barely support me.
She stops at Gaetano’s grave. Pain crashes back into my chest the moment I glance at his body—his head and torso exposed, the rest still buried. My heart clenches at the thought that he died because of this fucking bitch.
“Don’t touch him!” I shout.
Madeline turns to me with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Will you defend him with the same passion when he takes your life?” I flinch. “The Black Joker’s curse isn’t complete, idiot. When he told you to dig up his body, he forgot to mention one detail: it would stop the harvest of his soul and leave one more to claim. Yours. Though I doubt he ever struck a deal with himself at all, or it was another illusion.”
A muffled sound rises from the grave. I lower my gaze to the soil covering half of Gaetano’s body. A throbbing sensation pulses in my temples as I try to comprehend whatI’m seeing. A hand breaks through the earth—black runes, facing upward.
I fall to my knees beside him. “Gaetano?”
His eyes open, and color returns to his lips. I feel the pain that light causes him, but he endures it. My tears sting, and my fingers clamp around his hand. The thought of letting go terrifies me. If I do, he might vanish back into the earth.
My touch seems to anchor him to reality. Those black irises lock onto my face with the same painful honesty he’s always shown.
He’s alive.
My heart races. Tears spill openly now, and I don’t mind that Madeline is watching.
His cracked lips part. “Nicole…”
“I’m here,” I whisper, already brushing soil off his chest. “I’ll help you.”
He shakes all over and his free hand gradually clenches into a fist, as if struggling to regain his sense of self.
“You shouldn’t have come…” Gaetano coughs. “You… dug up my body and brought me back. I didn’t finish the process…”
I don’t understand what he means, but I keep digging. He squeezes my hand.He’s weak, but he’s alive!
Madeline’s shadow looms over us. “You caught my attention, Gaetano,” her voice is chillingly flat. “Now take her soul and be done with it. Or I will do it for you.”
I stare at him. The fear in his eyes mirrors the one already nesting in my heart since the moment I saw him dying.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you…” he says.
49
Gaetano
One moment, I’m circling the fires of Hell, about to fall into them. They caress my skin with the gentleness of Nicole’s fingers. After all, what other place could so precisely anticipate our weaknesses?
