[M__M 03] Misery Loves Company Read Online Free Page A

swayed, blocking my view again, and I wished for Steph’s height.
    “Eric, you okay?”
    I couldn’t see what was going on, but he must not have responded because the same voice then yelled for someone to call an ambulance. Wide awake, on the awful high from everyone’s emotions, I cringed.
    Steph’s grip tightened something fierce on my arm. “Jess, look.”
    Calling Eric’s name, she yanked me through the people surrounding her cousin. Her horror was a sour blue flame, urging me on. People drew back like they always did for Steph, and I grabbed one of the cheap metal folding chairs at the front of the room as she knelt next to her cousin. I swore, understanding her panic at once.
    Right before my eyes, Eric’s skin was slowly turning a fetid gray, his eyes glassy and unseeing. Everything within him—everything that was him—seemed to shrink away, to fade and die.
    People called a person’s soul a lot of things. But whether it was the light in Eric’s eyes, or the spark that made him human, all those things were gone. Drained from him in seconds. And all any of us could do was stand around helplessly and watch.
    I swallowed, tormented by the disparate emotions coursing through my blood. My humanity was horrified, yet my pred-self was alive and buzzing with everyone else’s horror. I was frozen in shock, but capable of bouncing in place with energy.
    Unbidden, my thoughts strayed to Lucen and my secret. What I was. What he wanted me to do. I wanted to embrace my pred power for his sake, but staring at the creature that had once been Eric, my old loathing for preds reasserted itself more strongly than ever.
    In the back of the room, someone yelled that an ambulance was on its way, but an ambulance was of no use. Eric was beyond paramedic help. He was beyond anyone’s help.
    His goblin master had just sucked his soul dry all at once and turned him into a ghoul. And I hadn’t the faintest idea how that was possible.

Chapter Three
    “Everyone back off. Give him space.” One of the store clerks shooed us away. “Clear a path for the EMTs.”
    Excess energy crawled along my skin, and I rubbed my arms. I wanted to help, but I was as useless as everyone else. Or was I? Something wasn’t right here, in more ways than the usual wrongness that surrounded anything pred.
    Leaving Steph and the crowded bookstore behind, I stepped outside and called the Gryphons’ emergency line.
    The mere act of someone turning into a ghoul wouldn’t get the Gryphons to come running, but this wasn’t an ordinary way of turning someone into a ghoul. “Magical attack,” I told the operator, which was true enough as far as I knew. “Someone’s seriously injured.” Also true.
    I declined to leave my name since that was only likely to complicate matters these days. Then, taking a deep breath, I weaved my way back inside. The store clerks were still trying to appeal to everyone’s good sense, but though some customers were leaving, almost as many were hanging around and gawking. Already, down the narrow street, I could hear sirens approaching.
    Steph pulled me closer. She must have told the clerks that she was Eric’s relative, so they let us be.
    “Jess, what the hell?” Hair fell in Steph’s face, and she swatted it away. “He’s breathing, he has a pulse. Is this some kind of spell?”
    “Not a spell. He’s become a ghoul.”
    Shaking her head, Steph sat on one of the deserted chairs. “Ghouls are what addicts become, aren’t they? Eric…” She stared at him, her eyes widening with realization.
    “Excuse me.” A shadow lengthened by my feet, and a woman cleared her throat. “Are you a Gryphon? Did I hear you suggest Mr. Marshall was an addict?”
    I glanced up. The woman hovering over me had been standing next to Eric during the signing. I hadn’t paid much attention to her because I’d been pondering Eric’s little addict problem—which apparently wasn’t so little—but I’d assumed she was his wife or