Judging by the devilish smirk on her face, what she considered to be ‘better’ was a matter of debate.
“What’s that?” I asked, ignoring the reapers who were now hurling insults in my direction. They stung, and I used that as armor for what was to come.
“I think it’s time we paid a visit to that best friend of yours. What was her name again? Tara, Tamara—”
“Tamsin,” I whispered.
“That’s it,” Thana said, nodding with approval. “Let’s go see what she’s up to. She did call us all sorts of names after her poor mommy died. She was simply heartbroken with what you’d done. I wonder how she’ll feel when she realizes you’re free.”
I swallowed thickly, sweat coating my palms.
I knew this was a possibility. Shep warned me she would want to test me and that she’d go after anyone if it meant getting her way. She was me after all.
A bad Salem.
Now I had to make sure she didn’t realize just how alike we were, and that I would do anything to protect the people I loved.
Even if it meant hurting them.
21
Gooood Salem
One moment we were standing there, in front of the reapers she’d killed—the next we were at town hall. I recognized the meeting room as the one the Council used.
They were here now, and this was nothing like any meeting that had come before it.
Chairs were toppled over. The long wooden desk had been split down the middle, both ends leaning in where the centerpieces hit the floor, as if someone had been thrown on it. Based on the mob of supernaturals surrounding the raised platform, that wasn’t exactly a long shot.
Dom stood off to one side, trying to reason with the members of the Council.
No one seemed particularly interested in listening, except perhaps the witches.
Tam stood a few feet away, thinking heavy thoughts. Her black eyebrows were pushed together, a pucker formed between them. She was without makeup, something that never happened. I mean, she was gorgeous without it, but my best friend was also a little vain.
It was more telling of the emotional turbulence within her than anything else.
“You lied to us. This is grounds for having you removed from the Council entirely,” Nocturna was saying.
“I didn’t lie about a thing,” Dom replied.
“Then why is the reaper that turned on you in custody?” the vampire representative, whose name I’d forgotten, asked.
“It’s complicated. This whole thing is complicated. We should just take a breath and start at the beginning—”
“She turned on us!” a reaper on the sidelines yelled. It was an older gentleman that I hadn’t seen since the vote when Dom was elected.
“Shut up, Scythe. We’ll deal with whoever that thing was—”
“What are you talking about?” Nocturna asked, holding her hand up to the angry mob for silence.
“I don’t know who the fuck that girl was, but she wasn’t Salem.”
Beside me, Thana frowned. She did not like where this was going. Meanwhile, my heart swelled that Dom had seen through it. Him. Of all people. Maybe there was hope for the reapers after all . . .
“What makes you say that?” the she-wolf Serena asked.
Dom let out a callous laugh. “Salem is an asshole. She says a lot of dickish things, and she acts like a brat all the fucking time. I don’t know how Graves puts up with her—”
“Can you get to the point?” Nocturna interrupted.
“She’d never lie like that. She’s incapable of lying, even when it would save her ass. She once admitted to kidnapping someone. No. I don’t know what that girl was, but it wasn’t Salem. I put her in a holding cell until I can figure it out.”
One for Dom. Zero for Thana.
Mentally, I was doing a little happy dance and knowing I was right to vote for his ass, however, Thana couldn’t see that. So I kept my face stoic.
“He’s lying!” someone from the crowd shouted.
“How do you explain Gerard?” Serena asked.
Nocturna cut her off. “We’re getting offtrack. The wolf’s death is not the matter currently before the Council.”
Serena seethed, her skin rippling like she was fighting against the change.
“As entertaining as all of this is,” Thana purred, “I think it’s time we have a little fun with the succubus.”
A protest was on my lips, but I swallowed it back, hating that Tamsin was getting pulled into this, but knowing now was not the time to back down. I had to keep Thana distracted. I had to make her believe I was on her side.
“How do you suggest we do that? She’s on the Council. They’re going to notice if she suddenly disappears in the middle of such a public meeting.”
Thana tapped a finger on her lips, debating. “True, but creating a little chaos isn’t exactly a bad thing.”
I shrugged, not seeing an obvious way around it. “Your call.”
“No, Salem, I think this one should be on you,” she said, smiling like she’d caught me.
In a way, she had. She was calling my bluff. Would I really turn against Tamsin to prove my loyalty to Thana?
I scanned the restless crowd, wishing for a moment there was a way to cause a distraction that would at least let me remove Tamsin from the room without sending everyone into a panic.
Wait. Maybe there was a way.
Thana had mentioned we could control ghosts. With Shep currently out of the picture, and the Grimm ghosts not actually being ghosts . . . there weren’t many people I could think of to call on.
“Tick tock, Salem.”
I gritted my teeth. Alright, if I couldn’t think of a ghost to summon, maybe I could just make these people believe there was one. I should’ve been able to fake a ghost attack . . . right?
Without any real idea what I was doing—which, let’s face it, was pretty much how I did everything—I stared hard at the broken table and flicked my finger out, sending it flying into the wall and shattering.
People screamed, and everyone looked in the direction of the flying table.
“Oh, very nicely done. Looks like my big sister learned some new tricks while I was locked up.”
“People weren’t very happy with me.” I shrugged. “You grab her while I keep their attention elsewhere,” I muttered, already sending a few chairs flying across the room.
“What the fuck is happening?” Rembrandt asked, ducking as a broken chair headed straight at him.
“I think we’re under attack!” Nocturna shrieked.
More screams rang out, but I barely heard them. I was wholly focused on one incredibly pissed-off voice.
“Salem Kaine, what the fuck are you doing?” Tamsin said, pulling free of Thana’s hold. I could see the question burning in her eyes. She wasn’t sure if this was part of my plan or not.
That little bit of doubt stung.
“So what do you think, Salem?” Thana asked. “Should we kill her?” my doppelgänger asked, running a ghostly hand down her cheek. Tamsin flinched. “We could play with her. Make her a little doll that walks and talks and does whatever we say?”
Fear shone in Tamsin’s eyes.
“W-what’s going on?” she stuttered.
“You, my little succubus, lost your faith too easily. Now my sister here has decided to let go of her humanity. She realized that things are more fun on this side of the line.” Thana’s lips curled up in a cold grin.
The color drained from Tamsin’s face. At least, as much as it could, given she wasn’t exactly corporeal right now.
I read her expression as clear as day, and it broke my heart.
“So what’ll it be, Salem?” Thana declared.
In the living realm, the shouts had slowed. People were noticing that one of the seven Council members was missing. That she’d vanished into thin air.
“Where did Tamsin go?” the warlock representative asked.
No one seemed to have an answer.
I s
wallowed.
“I-I—” The words wouldn’t come. Even with the world as I knew on the line, I couldn’t betray my best friend like this. I’d sworn I’d fix this, but even that I was going to fail.
Any apathy I’d managed to hold onto slipped from my face as the lie stalled on my lips, frozen by pain.
Thana waited several seconds and then smiled even brighter. Crueler.
She tossed her head back and laughed. The sound chilled me to the bone.
“I fucking knew it,” Thana said, her laughter stopping as quickly as it had started. “You don’t have it in you.”
She tossed Tamsin aside and wiped her hands on her faded skinny jeans, as if disgusted by my friend’s mere touch.
“Well—I—I said I was done, I didn’t say I wanted to torture everyone.” I scrambled to recover, but judging by the look on Thana’s face, I was doing a piss-poor job.
“You can drop the act, Salem.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’ve been alive over four hundred years, and I’ve known you in every life you’ve led. Even when you could lie, it never got past me.”
I let out a tight breath. “Fine. What do you want, Thana? You fucked up my life here. You’ve made it clear you want an eternal Bonnie to your Clyde. What is it that I need to give you for you to leave me the fuck alone and stop ruining people’s lives?”
Any amusement on her face faded away into the cold lethal predator that sat below the surface.
“I want the same thing I’ve always wanted,” Thana whispered. “A friend. A partner. You created me because you were lonely. I come back to you because I am too. Just like in that first life, though, you choose them. You may not choose death, but you always choose your human pets. Every fucking time. Even when you don’t choose Death, you never choose me.”
Behind her, Graves appeared. He gave me a single nod and then vanished before she even knew he was there.
The trap was ready. Now I had to find a way to get her there.
“You kill me in every life,” I replied. “Of course I don’t.”
“Oh? Learned about that, did you?” she said, not even showing regret.
I laughed once, but it was devoid of humor. “No, actually. I suspected, though, and you just confirmed it. So much for knowing everything about me.”
Once I knew who Death was and that they hadn’t tried to kill me even though they’d found me—well, it didn’t take long to start to wonder about that. And thinking on the fact I’d died in every life. At the end of it, there was only one logical conclusion. It all started and ended with Thana.
She narrowed her eyes.
“I kill you because you’re a fucking idiot every time, and instead of leaving all this bullshit behind, you end up thinking that you can save it—save me—save Death.” She groaned. “If you weren’t me, I would have sent you to the afterworld by now. There are no other immortals on this plane, though—not outside you and Death—and between the two of you, I prefer the one that’s stupid.”
It would have hurt my feelings if I didn’t already know she thought this way. I planned to use that to my advantage.
“So if you kill me in every life, why haven’t you this time? Why go to the trouble of trying to befriend me and getting me to see your side?”
Thana looked away. She was hiding something, or trying to.
“You might be stupid, but having a stupid twin is better than having no one at all. Not when the afterworld claims everything eventually—and while you were raised there—we aren’t welcome there. Far from it, in fact.”
I studied her features. The slight tremor in her bottom lip. The gleam in her gray eyes. She was good, very good.
But not good enough.
“That’s only part of it.” When Thana didn’t respond, I shrugged. “Don’t want to tell me? Fine. Hard to get what you want when you don’t tell me anything, though . . .”
My heart sped up. This was working out perfectly. Exactly as Shep said. Now she just needed to take the bait . . .
I turned like I was walking away.
“Wait.”
I paused, trying to keep the smile off my face.
“Yes?” I asked lightly.
“I need your help,” she uttered through gritted teeth.
“Mhm, I’m aware.” I turned back, giving her my full attention again. “What I’m not aware of is why I should help you do anything after what you’ve done.”
Anger flashed in her features, but she schooled it quickly.
“Death is coming for me. I’ve managed to evade it for centuries, but it’s getting smarter. I can sense that it’s here, I just can’t figure out where or who. I need you to help me get rid of it. Permanently.”
This time, I sensed the truth. Or most of it.
“How do we go about that?”
“Why on Earth would I tell you when you’re looking to betray me?” she sneered.
I lifted a brow, and Thana seemed to check herself.
“Fine, even better question—give me a reason to help you,” I said.
Thana looked from me, to the room of supes, to Tamsin’s ghost—who was watching us silently.
I knew what she was going to say before she did.
“Help me and I’ll leave your pets be,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Prove it,” I replied in a hard voice. I thrust my chin in Tamsin’s direction. “Put her back.”
Thana waved a hand, and Tamsin reappeared in the living world. It was just the two of us now.
“Happy?” Thana asked.
“Not a chance,” I answered. “But it’ll do.”
Thana’s brow furrowed. “So are you going to help me?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Death clearly hasn’t done me any favors, and if this gets you both to leave me and the rest of Farrow’s Square the fuck alone, then I’ll do it.”
I phased out of the Council room right as a group of reapers burst in. One of them was the dude Thana locked in a cell. Damn. They moved fast. I needed to be faster.
Reappearing at my house, I found the Hostess cupcake package sitting on the new dining room table. The living room was still destroyed, as was most of the kitchen. We’d moved a dining table up to the main room, so that Richard had time to work.
Judging by the fact that the cupcakes were sitting there—and neither my aunt, my brother, or the warlock himself were around—the plan was truly in place.
Thana appeared behind me.
“What are we doing here?”
I took a deep breath and picked up one of the cupcakes. This was probably the last food I’d get to eat ever. That thought was depressing.
I tried to hold out hope that the second, sketchier half of this whole dealio would work. But there was no way to predict Death.
Without further delay, I picked up the cupcake and bit in.
It tasted as amazing as always. I hummed under my breath, and my skin lit up.
“Salem, what the fuck—”
“Shh,” I snapped at her. “Don’t ruin this for me.”
I ate the other half of my cupcake, swallowing it down. When it hit the spot, I turned and said simply, “Welcome to forever with me, Thana. You’re getting exactly what you want.”
“What are you talking about?” She looked around, still not understanding. Not that I blamed her.
“It’s you and me, trapped here in this house for all eternity. Congrats, Sis. I hope you like eighties music because we’ll be listening to a lot of it.”
Panic crossed her features. She tried to ghost away, and an invisible barrier stopped her. Her spirit rebounded back, slamming into the already ruined living room.
“I don’t understand,” Thana started. “How the fuck is this possible?”
“Trust my Aunt Esme to always know a way. Her fuck buddy is a high warlock that perfected the equipment that allowed her to trap a ghost. When you ruined my life and started killing people, it gave me the bright idea—what if I could trap an immortal? Well. Turns out, I can.” I moti
oned to the house. “My entire mansion has been spelled to contain us, and that cupcake I just ate triggered it. As long as I choose to stay in here, we’re both trapped. Forever. Which means you can’t ruin anyone else’s life.”
“No. You can’t do this.” She was frantic, spinning around and trying to ghost away, only to bounce off the invisible barriers time and again.
As I watched her, a true smile stretched across my face even as I myself was starting to panic a little inside. Where the fuck was Death?
“Let me go!” she screamed, hurling herself at me.
I caught her, our bodies flying through a coffee table as we landed on the ground surrounded by shards of wood and glass.
We struggled, rolling over, each one of us vying to be on top. Finally, I landed a punch to her kidney that seemed to knock the wind out of her long enough for me to pin her to the floor.
“Fight me all you want, Thana. You’re not going anywhere.”
She spat in my face. “I hate you. You’re a pathetic excuse for a goddess. You never could see past the mortality of the humans you love so much and fully embrace what you are.”
“If that means ending up like you, then I’m glad I never did. There’s more to life than power, Thana. Maybe you would understand that if you actually allowed yourself to care about anything other than yourself.”
She bared her teeth, struggling against my hold, but all those training sessions with Graves, plus my super-enhanced strength from dying a good hundred and forty times, made me more than a match for her.
When I didn’t let her go, she went limp, her eyes going thoughtful. “What are those humans you love going to think when they realize that you’ve left them?”
I knew what she was trying to do, but she wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already thought about myself.
With more bravado then I thought I possessed, I shrugged one shoulder, not letting on how much it would hurt if I miscalculated the last part of this plan and actually had to stay here forever. With her. Nope. I had to hold on. “They’ll move on. It’s what humans do.”
“Some things people can never forgive,” she said, her voice lashing out like a whip.
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