by Eli Constant
“I’m fine, Scotty. I’m surprised you remember me. We only met that once and for like two seconds.” I study his face as I talk. I suppose he’s not all that bad looking. He’s definitely got a boyish twinkle in his eyes. Not exactly my type, but I can appreciate a good boy toy.
“Nah. I couldn’t forget a person like you.” He says sheepishly, then blushes as he realizes what he’s said whilst his fiancé stands right beside him. “I mean, Andrea just talks about you so much. I feel like I know you really well.”
I give a sharp laugh. “Ha! Well, I can’t imagine she has the most endearing things to say about me. I’m sure all of its true though.”
“Come on, Scotty, let’s get out of here. We’re keeping Ms. Cage too long.” Andrea speaks quickly and her nails are digging into Scotty’s upper arm. When she says my name, I can almost hear the deeply-seated disgust she holds for me. And I find that almost as amusing as her fiancé being slightly flirtatious and forgetting she exists. Boy, if she didn’t hate me before… she was really going to hate me now.
Steve is leaning against the front desk when I enter, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He smiles and hands it to me before I can say anything. “Here, I saw you out there talking to the odd couple. Thought you might need a jolt of caffeine after.”
Smiling, I take the coffee and immediately take a long sip. “Thanks. Honestly, Scotty’s not bad. I mean, he’s definitely got that salesmen air about him. Always ready to sell something. It’s Andrea. I mean, that woman has hated me from the minute she started working here.”
“Yeah,” Steve grins, “she doesn’t like you very much.”
“Understatement of the freaking century,” I reply and start walking down the hallway that leads to the inner sanctum of the station. I find Terrance quickly, in the same room as last time I was here—with the map of Bonneau and the surrounding counties. The pentagram stares at me, and it feels a lifetime ago that I was standing here pointing out the obvious pattern to the fires.
Terrance has his eyes closed, and he’s leaned back in a chair with his legs crossed and stretched outward in a long, thick line. I don’t want to disturb him, maybe he had a long night with the kids, so I start going through the case information splayed out across the room like brains after a shotgun-in-mouth crime scene.
I’d seen one of those before, in what the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division called their BARF book. The photos hadn’t been what I expected.
The brains had been more gray than pink. The blood had dried a deep, crusty brown.
The man had a great cavern in his skull and his face was frozen in shock.
After searching the map for new clues, and the case file, and anything else available, I turned my attention to a laptop that was open, but in battery saving mode. I pressed the spacebar and the computer came to life. There wasn’t a password, so I immediately saw a paused video. Pulling up a seat, I scrolled the video back to the beginning and pressed play. The coffee Steve had given me was already cooling to the point that it wrinkled my nose to drink it, so I set it aside and watched what appeared to be the station evidence locker, which was housed in a separate building behind the running track.
I recognized the deputy who was on shift, but couldn’t think of his name. He was sitting, reading a magazine and looking bored out of his mind, but then he stood and his mouth was moving—talking to someone who wasn’t in view of the security cameras. He held a hand up after a few moments, and placed his right hand on his gun holster, undoing the clasp. He motioned forward, as if to tell someone to stop advancing.
And then she came into view. The video was in color, so I could see a shock of black hair streaked with white. Her back was to me though. “Come on, turn around,” I muttered.
She also held up her hands, both of them, and I wish I could see her mouth moving. Seconds later, the deputy was lowering his hand and securing his weapon. He stepped aside and made room her for her to walk past him. And then he followed her. I wanted to see where they went, and what they did, but this video was only from the one camera. After a long time, the deputy reappeared with the woman behind him. In her hands, she held a large transparent bag. I could see the glint of green.
The Lazarus Eyes.
She was clever, always staying just so behind the deputy so that her face wasn’t fully seen. I could see the large chest Terrance had mentioned. Like, too big to be natural boobs. That wasn’t enough though. You can’t ID someone by their tit size.
But I had an idea. A reckless, stupid idea. It might get us the information we needed though.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Terrance is on his third cup of coffee, trying to wake himself up and understand what I’m proposing.
“Spirit location. It’s… sort of like astral projecting with a defined traveling point. We don’t have enough information to find these people, Terrance. And I’ve done this before. I almost connected with the male arsonist. Now that I know more about the woman, can visualize her better, I think I can track her too. He was too powerful, I don’t want to try him again. But when I did it before there was this… shimmering there. This lightness. A spark of goodness. Maybe that’s her. Maybe we could convince her to help.”
“I don’t like it, Tori. It sounds too damn dangerous.” He pushes his now-empty cup away from him. “I don’t want to risk you.”
“From what I can tell,” I motion at all the documentation behind me, “you’ve hit a dead end. Unless you’ve got some magic human ace up your sleeve, I think you need to take advantage of your supernatural secret weapon.”
The door is closed to the room, and I start when someone knocks briskly on the thin pane of glass inset into the steel entrance.
“Hey, Chief. Your buddy from the next county’s here to see you. He’s waiting in your office.” Steve’s voice is muted by the barrier.
“Dammit,” Terrance groans, running a hand across his face. “He was beyond pissed over the phone, Tori. He’s going to rip me a new one.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Terrance.” I lean forward across the space between us and place a hand on his leg. “You’re only—”
He cuts me off. “Human? Yeah, I know. But I should have been smarter. I know what you are now. I’ve got an inkling of what happens below the surface in this town. I know that necromancers aren’t the worst thing out there, that humanity would have a fucking field day with what actually goes bump in the night. So I should have been smarter. That’s the end and the beginning of it. I need to be smarter now. I can’t afford to be … only human.” Terrance stands up and walks towards the exit.
Before he opens the door though, he looks back and me. “Tori, do not do anything yet. Wait for me and we’ll try and think of something else. I’ll consider your plan, but not until we exhaust other options.”
“There aren’t any—”
“There’s always another option, don’t matter if you’re magic or man.” He leaves me, and his parting statement is like a brand on my brain. Magic, or man, there’s always another way. But I couldn’t see one, not that would help us in time.
I feel for Terrance. For how hard all of this must be. But I don’t have time to help him process his feelings. I have a spirit to track. And now is as good a time as any.
I pass Andrea on the way out. “Can you tell the Chief I had to go home to do the thing we talked about? I’ll get in touch with him as soon as I can.”
She shoves a pad of paper and pen at me. “Tell him yourself.” And then she turns around in her chair and completely ignores me. What. A. Bitch. I should have hardcore flirted with Scotty, you annoying jerk.
Scribbling quickly, I walk back to the room with the evidence and slap the note onto the laptop keyboard. Hopefully Terrance won’t miss it there.
On the drive home, all I can think about is my first try at spirit location. That it nearly had awful consequences. I don’t know how to protect myself whilst projecting. And I don’t have anyone to ask for help from, because Liam is gone.
I made him leave. For good freaking reasons, but still… I hated that I was thinking about him, that I was needing him. I wanted to hold onto my anger, hold onto the sting of his betrayal.
He’d become an integral part of my life now though.
And he was also basically fae married, with children, and he’d lied for months about how he’d ‘escaped’ the Light Court. But I need him now. I need him.
Well too damn bad, idiot. He’s gone. So keep on task. You know what to do, and if it gets bad you can yank yourself back.
I park poorly and too close to the side entrance. For the first time since the Bronco perished, I’ve driven the sedan and not lamented every second about needing a replacement. I guess a vehicle loses its importance when you’re faced with hell on earth.
Back home, I mimic everything Liam had me do the first time. I get comfortable—changing back into Kyle’s giant sweats and a tank top. I settle myself onto the bed and close my eyes. I force the world away and empty myself.
And then I think of her.
The long black hair.
The streak of snow white.
The body—or as much as I’d seen of it.
Her connection to the fires, and the murders.
And I think of the Lazarus Eyes, each stone representing a captured soul and strangled power.
I feel my conscious mind pull away from my physical body. I expect to find fire and sparks and burning, but this time the path is a silver fog, and the only sparks are starlight discarded from a midnight sky.
“I can feel you there,” a soft voice pulses in the mist. “He warned you might try for me next. I am surprised you survived him. He is an inferno. He is Dante on the final level of damnation. He burns all he touches.”
“Who are you?” My voice seems normal, whilst hers travels through water and over great distance.
“I am the ash he leaves behind. The child of his destruction. The memory of what was.”
“Are you the Eve?” To anyone else, my question might sound strange, but I knew in my gut she’d understand.
“Yes. I am the Eve. The ruined womb of life. I hold the dead in my belly and feel their cries.”
“Why do you sound so strange? When I contacted… him… he sounded normal. Like we were having a conversation.”
“Because it is too late. My time has come. The final sacrifice. The original sin come full circle. The fall of man is the seed. And the seed is the womb. And the womb is woman. I am preparing.”
“What do you mean it’s too late?” Everything around me is still fog and starlight. I have to see where she is, and what’s happening.
“Beneath the center of it all, at the heart of it all, at the core of it all. The sin is satisfied. The mouth to hell will open. All will be destroyed to cleanse the world. You will see. You are the key, and I am the gate.”
Before I can speak again, I feel heat flood around me like someone has opened the proverbial dam to the River Styx, which is flowing lava instead of dark waters as some lore claims.
“It’s too late for second thoughts, my love.” It is the arsonist’s voice, the male coven leader. The murderer. For now I know, the woman has done his bidding, but she is no killer. She is the nurturer of this device.
“I do not regret my part. You have taught me the truth, given me knowledge beyond. To carry this seed is my fate.” Her voice sounds weaker in his presence. It feels backwards—wasn’t it Eve that gave Adam the apple? Wasn’t it Eve that had the strength to question everything and break the singular law of the garden?
Fire touches me and it burns. I can feel my skin begin to char and crack with the heat. The silvery mist around me is transforming into a fireworks show of dangerous size. Brilliant flashes of licking flame pop and sizzle. I scream as what seems like a ball of fire slams into my chest. I cough as smoke replaces the harmless fog of Eve’s paler evil.
“I’m going to stop you,” I choke out. “You won’t get away with this.” I have to break the connection. The back of my brain is trying to tell me… tell me that I’m dying.
Somewhere in the distance I hear my name screamed. But I’m too entrenched in the traveling, the astral plane holds me too tightly, and the arsonist’s magic is so very strong. I have never encountered such power, and that’s saying something considering how I have grown in the past months under Liam’s tutelage. When I tracked him before, he did not reveal the wealth of power he held.
“You will see.” The male arsonist speaks with such confidence that his words worm into me. “I count on your curiosity. On your dedication to humanity. I left the trail, and I knew you would follow. You will not die now. I need you. Yet, I could not resist the urge… such a beautiful house… so many secrets.”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” I cough, and it feels so real. I know I can be hurt tracking on the spirit plane. Yet, this feels like my body. I don’t remember that last time… only the pain in my soul. This is like my actual vessel is here. I can smell the hairs on my arms searing.
The roaring fire around me hesitates, as if unsure. My instinct is to yell that I will stop them. That they can’t do this, they can’t destroy the world. There is too much good left in it. “You won’t win. Evil won’t win.”
The Adam scoffs. “Goodness is relative. Evil is perception. The world has lost sight of objectivity. It needs the leveling force of a greater power. And I don’t mean the gods of now or yesterday. There is only one force that is neutral, that will treat with an even hand, every entity in the world—whether shadows or sunlight.”
“He is the balance. He has no objective save the reaping. He needs his servants from the cage.” The Eve speaks once more.
Now I can’t stay quiet. “You’re opening a Hellmouth… so the devil can take over the world?”
“Death is the great leveler. He evens the field. He reaps with no thought for color, creed, gender, or evil deeds.” Her voice is so weak now that I can barely hear her. Seconds later, her faltering lightness fades beyond sight.
“The devil is death?” I ask incredulously, because honestly? Adam and Eve sound like they’ve drunk the kool-aid, rather than eaten the apple.
The fire screams around me, and the Adam yells along with it. “Heaven has the trifecta, and so too does the Underworld. The Devil is the devil, deal maker and trickster. Hades works for his own gain, and nothing else. A fallen angel reaching for loftier kingdoms. But Death. The Grimm Reaper. It is time the world knew the blind justice of him that comes for each of us in turn. He will command a legion. The Cage of the Unseen will bow to him. They who have been locked away since the dawn of man will be his jury as he judges the plight of the world.”
My gaze widens… this can’t be real. “Well, I’ve solved the mystery of all this. I know exactly where you are and how to stop you.” I pause for effect, and know what’s about to come out of my mouth isn’t going to be met with laughter. “You’re at the nut house, and you need a gigantic dose of antidepressants, beta-blockers, or whatever the hell else it is they dope up a fucking insane person with.”
“You believe you’re funny. We are stood at the edge of everything, and you make jokes. It makes it hard to believe that you carry what I need. Yet, Death does not lie. So you must be our key.” The fire rages higher, its resolve to burn me the hell alive renewed. I can feel my body begin to boil past the breaking point.
“What. The. Hell. Are. You. Talking. About.” I say each word singularly and with bite. I don’t even make it a question really, because I don’t give a damn what he thinks. I wouldn’t help him in a million years. I’m not some damn key to a bunch of awful beings trapped in supernatural cage.
And my name, once again, is being screamed. But the voice is too far. It can’t help me.
“As I said, you will see.” He rushes towards me in a curtain of sparks. “Now, though. You may want to release your hold and return to your body. I still have need of you, and I believe you’re opposed to the idea of dying, Necromancer.”
&nbs
p; He disappears and I am left with the bitter knowledge that another creature on this Earth knows what I am. And the sneaking, awful suspicion that perhaps he knows another detail about my heritage that is not among my current body of proof.
My face jerks as something unseen slams across my cheek. “Son of a—” I press a hand to my face. I knew I could get hurt. Liam had warned me. Still though, I cannot deal with the fact that a spirit can be hurt on this transitional plane. Do spirits harm spirits then? I have to get out of here. I have to break this hold!
Something else hits me, this time brushing along my shoulder in a hard line. I can feel blood trickling. It’s not possible. My gaze goes down to the transparency of my astral form and I see nothing. The skin of my exposed arm is clean, unmarred. But the pain… that is not fake. I know it in my gut. All this time, the fire has continued to lick at me, like a dog to its master. It is brutality guised as affection.
And I feel a new level of fear sprout in my stomach. I need to break the connection. Right now.
Or I really am going to burn to death. That possibility I’ve always feared, to the very center of my being, every time I thought my secret might be discovered.
“Wake up,” I start screaming. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” I wish for ruby slippers, for some way to click my heels and return home again. But this isn’t a story. I’m not the heroine that somehow manages to escape dire situations. I’m the fucking idiot that runs upstairs and expects a nicer fate to intervene. I’m going to die.
I’m a Blood Queen, necromancer mortician, and I’m going to die on the astral plane doing something I was warned not to, because I’m a mother trucking idiot. A new unseen item hits me and it is smooth and thankfully soft. Yet the fire is not soft…hard, brutal, magma. My spirit is burning. My soul is being destroyed. What will happen to my body? Will it desiccate and die without me? Or will I become a vegetable on life support in a hospital until someone pulls the plug? Who will find my body?
Kyle. Liam. Terrance.
“Wake up dammit! Wake up!” I scream again, and at the same time the voice in the distance is screaming. Victoria! Victoria!
