This time, however he was wearing an immaculate black suit instead of the robe. And the power that had been crushing at a distance was off the charts when he was up-close and personal.
He strolled to stand beside Anya, his fingers lifting to stroke down the woman’s unnaturally pale face.
“Ah. I see that you’ve met your mother,” he drawled, his gaze never straying from Callie. “How charming.”
“You,” she breathed.
“Yes... me.” He continued to stroke Anya’s cheek despite the woman’s lack of response. In fact, the minute he’d entered the room Anya had shut down like someone had flicked a switch. She was there, but no one was home. “I suppose I should introduce myself.”
“There’s no need.” Callie shivered, her attention returning to the man who was looking her over with a cold detachment. “You’re Lord Zakhar.” She managed an edge of disdain. Yay, for her. “Russian aristocrat and psychopath.”
“And father.”
Her brief spurt of defiance was demolished by the two simple words.
Father.
A hysterical laugh lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her.
Well, hell.
Of course he was her father.
It wasn’t bad enough that she’d been abandoned in a Dumpster when she was a baby? Or that Boggs had terrified her with vague threats of her future the day she graduated ? Or that her mother was a cold-blooded killer?
Now her father had to be a crazed necromancer who abused the dead and was no doubt plotting some nefarious scheme.
Realizing that she was on the edge of hysteria, Callie grimly tried to concentrate on more important matters. So her parents were raving, homicidal lunatics. She could indulge in a nervous breakdown if she managed to survive.
Sucking in a deep breath, she considered the best way to discover just what her father planned.
With his power, she couldn’t force him.
But there was an unmistakable arrogance chiseled into his beautiful features that suggested he would be eager to brag about his cleverness.
“So why the belated family reunion?” she demanded.
“It was time,” he murmured, a cold smile touching his lips as he glanced toward the woman at his side. “Wasn’t it, dear Anya?”
The witch remained unmoving, her gaze locked on the far wall.
Callie grimaced. “What’s wrong with her?”
The diamond gaze shifted back to Callie. “She recently made the transition to another plane of existence.”
Callie’s breath tangled in her throat. “Is she—”
“Dead? Yes,” he purred. “Magnificent, isn’t she?”
Magnificent?
Callie’s skin crawled as she took in the woman who claimed to be her mother. She looked pale, and still oddly blurred around the edges, but otherwise ... perfect.
There was no way to tell she was a corpse.
“You sick bastard,” she breathed.
Lord Zakhar thinned his lips, as if annoyed by Callie’s response. “You, of all people, should appreciate what I have accomplished,” he berated in chilly tones.
She didn’t have to fake her revulsion.
Everything about this was wrong.
Perverted.
“And what exactly is it you’ve accomplished beyond killing my mother?”
“I’ve opened the gates to the underworld.”
She blinked in genuine confusion. “I don’t understand.”
He ran a tender hand down Anya’s long red hair. “Her body is dead, but her soul remains.”
“Oh—” Callie’s gut twisted with horror. It was one thing to abuse an empty shell of a body, but to imprison a person’s soul... it was monstrous. “God.”
“Yes, I am,” he smoothly claimed, a vast, all-consuming emptiness briefly flaring through the diamond eyes. “A creator who will soon have an entire army of followers who are indestructible and utterly loyal.”
Her gaze jerked back to her father’s arrogant face.
She tried to tell herself that he was just a blowhard.
A megalomaniac who was lost in his delusions of grandeur.
But there was nothing delusional about the dead woman standing obediently next to him. Or the pulsing power that filled the air with a suffocating chill.
She didn’t know if he could raise an army, but it was obvious he could control the dead.
She had to find some way to stop him.
“How?”
She hadn’t noticed he’d been hiding a hand behind his back until he held it out to reveal a battered golden goblet.
“This.”
Okay. That wasn’t what she’d expected.
“A cup?”
“A chalice,” he corrected in chiding tones. “It was made from the magic of necromancers. True necromancers like us, not the pathetic diviners who cower behind their Sentinels.”
On the point of informing him that she wasn’t anything like him, Callie was distracted by the small cut on his inner wrist.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Power demands a sacrifice.”
“Blood?”
“It’s the source of my life force.” He lifted his arm, revealing the bead of blood that appeared from the wound only to disappear. “The chalice opens the doorway, but it’s the blood that controls my children.”
Callie frowned.
Was the chalice absorbing his blood?
It seemed like the most logical explanation in a world that had gone insane.
“Each... child takes a part of your life force?”
“Yes.” He lowered his arm, his gaze trained on her pale face. “Which is why you were created, dear Callie.”
She flinched.
A part of her wanted to slap her hands over her ears. Yeah, it was childish, but there was only so much a poor girl could take. And she’d had more than her share of shocks over the past half hour, thank you very much.
Unfortunately, a larger part understood there was no more running, no more hiding from her destiny.
This was what Boggs had warned of all those years ago. She knew it in the very depths of her soul.
All she could do was hope that she was strong enough to prevent her father from using her in his quest to ... Wait, she still didn’t know what his actual quest was.
“What do you mean, why I was created?”
“To take my rightful place I must have an army, but unlike my predecessor, I have no intention of becoming a martyr.” He glanced toward the small wound on his wrist before his eyes lifted to meet her wary gaze. “It will be your blood that is sacrificed.”