Bound by Blood

Chapter 6

"Pete?" My mind froze, unable or unwilling to process what I was seeing.

"Well, Dmitri Petrovich, actually," he said with a slight bow, "but Pete is what they called me at the bowling lanes."

I stared.

"There is no need to be frightened." He spoke with a slight Russian accent. "I will not harm you."

As unnerved as I was by his appearance, I believed him. Pete had never been malevolent. Then again, he'd never manifested as a full-bodied apparition, much less spoken in full sentences, either.

"Okay." I tried to look anywhere but at his black-hole eyes. "Um... Do you need, like, help crossing over, or something?" That was what ghosts were supposed to want, right?

A somewhat terrifying smile spread his thin lips, revealing yellowed teeth and black gums. "It is you who needs help, not I," he said. I hoped he meant with something other than the trials of the afterlife.

"What do you mean?"

"The object you refer to as the sphere," he said. He flickered slightly as he spoke, like a hologram with a faulty projector. "It is from this that I drew the power to defend this place last night, and to appear before you now."

"I...see." I didn't, actually, but that seemed unimportant. "Do you have it?" I asked. "The sphere? We didn't find it when we cleaned up."

His brows drew together, and his gaze intensified. "I do not have it. You have it."

Confused, I shook my head. Maybe he wasn't as coherent as I'd thought. "I don't. I haven't seen it since it came apart and attacked me, or whatever it did last night."

"You do not understand," he said, stepping—or rather drifting—closer. With the door at my back, I couldn't retreat. He paused with his awful, transparent face mere inches from mine. "The sphere did not attack you. It became you."

He raised a bony hand, fingers like claws and blackened nails worn to the quick, and—

—caressed my arm. Revulsion shivered up my spine. I'd taken my sweater off again, warmed by the exertion of cleaning, and his semi-solid touch felt like cold worms on my bare skin.

Then I gasped, my disgust forgotten, as the markings on my arm lit with a weird, luminescent glow. The light streamed from my skin like fine mist, drawn towards Pete's spectral hand. An odd tugging sensation caught in my chest, and my breath hitched in my throat.

Pete withdrew, and the sensation faded along with the markings' strange glow.

"You must beware," Pete said, his slimy voice grave. "You shine like a candle in the dark now, and many things—fair and foul alike—will be drawn to you, seeking your power."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you are delicious," he said simply, and I realized the hollow darkness in his eyes was hunger.

I swallowed past the dryness in my throat. "I don't understand. What is this thing, and how do I get rid of it?"

He shook his head. He looked less solid now, and flickered more. "I do not know its origin, nor its purpose. Only that it is inside you now, bound to your life." He looked at me, withered head tilted slightly to one side. He whispered, "I could take it if I wished. Become powerful—perhaps even return to life." Then he lifted a thin shoulder in a half shrug. "I do not so wish. However, there are other things in this world, worse than old phantoms like myself, that will."

He flickered, blinking in and out of darkness, and his expression turned to regret.

"The power I took is almost gone. I would have liked to keep it longer, but I had to warn you of this danger. Your uncle has allowed me to stay here in peace, and I owe him the debt of gratitude. You must be careful now, Master Ari. Protect yourself, and trust no one."