The Siren's Touch Read Online Free PDF Page B

tremor rippled through Sonya.
    He leaned forward in his chair. “Blood?”
    Yes. She could practically taste the iron of it in her mouth. She floated to the ceiling in thrilling ecstasy. Oh, how she wanted blood. Wanted it to pour from the veins of her killer, wanted to spill entrails and flay skin off muscle, then muscle off bone.
    The spell broke with a snap, and the lingering desires shocked her. She sank again, shaking her head. To want some stranger to suffer a gory death, even if he had killed her? Her mind rejected the longing, and where her heart used to be, she tightened, recoiling from the frightening force of the need.
    But on the most basic level of her ghostly being, she wanted blood.
    Elena strode toward the seat next to Dmitri, apparently forgetting that Sonya hovered in the path. When the woman passed through her ghostly body, the connections between her ethereal particles loosened again, and panic roiled up in her that she might dissolve before she’d had her vengeance. She trembled, hating the need, yet unable to control it.
    “Oh, pardon me, dear. I forgot you were there.” Elena hugged her arms across her chest, shuddering. “What an odd sensation. Clearly, I’ve never passed through a ghost before. I would surely have remembered that prickly, bone-itching sensation. It’s repulsively cold.”
    Sonya cringed, the words pulling her back into her surroundings. Her touch was cold and repulsive? That was mortifying in a different way than discovering her vengeful bloodlust. She would never feel human contact again. Never feel the warmth of a handshake, or an embrace.
    The thick bridge of Dmitri’s nose wrinkled in concentration. “How long have you been in Elena’s house, Sonya?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, how long have you been liv—um, I mean, been in the teapot? “
    Sonya’s mind searched for the memories and came up blank. She shook her head. “I’ve never been out of the teapot before. I was running, and I was at the river, and there was the bang, and the cold, and the water, and then…I was here.”
    “And that’s all you remember?”
    “Yes.” She raised her chin and steeled herself, trying to disguise her fear. Not only was her mission terrifying, it was hopeless. She needed vengeance, but she couldn’t even remember why.
    Dmitri tapped his fingers on the table, from little finger to big, three times. “When?”
    “What do you mean?”
    He let out a breath, not bothering to hide that he thought she was dim-witted. “What year do you last remember being alive?
    Year? Was he implying…?
    For the very first time, she took in her surroundings. The furnishings were odd, yes. But so much was familiar—the food on the table, the tea service.
    Now the unfamiliar leapt out—
    A large, shiny rectangle hung from the wall like an empty black picture frame. Similarly glossy black boxes with glowing lights and buttons were stacked beneath it. Futuristic bubble-shaped autos passed by outside. And then there was Elena’s suit…
    She finished her survey and turned back to Dmitri, who reached into his pocket and pulled out another small box, the size of a cigarette case. He pressed a button and its surface illuminated with some stunning futuristic technology. He showed her its face.
    She gasped. The twenty-first century. So much time had passed. How on earth would they find whoever had killed her?
    “1968. October. That is the date I last remember.”
    “Damn.” Dmitri cleared his throat. “How do we know the person who killed her is even alive?”
    “It’s a good question,” Elena replied. “But there is a logic to these things. At least in the stories…”
    A flash of the looseness, the almost-disappearing flickered through her ghost form and her thoughts grew disjointed and desperate.
    Dmitri grunted, rapping the arm of the chair with his knuckles. “Stories. All we know about her comes from children’s stories.”
    Sonya’s thoughts exactly. She laughed, but only a