Death's Primordial Kiss (The Silvered Moon Diaries Book 1)

by Romarin Demetri

  My sputtering cry held still in my throat as I closed my eyes and wished. I wished that I could have gotten here sooner. I wished that she hadn’t gone alone. I wished maybe for just a moment that I never auditioned as Fire so that Helaine didn’t have to forfeit her life for the Coven. Had I been Water, maybe it would have been me lying there instead.

  “Give me room, Avereis,” Stan said, leaning down toward me.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked. “She needs me.”

  I choked on tears again, realizing that she was at peace now. The fact that she didn’t need me any more scared me more than anything.

  “Give me room, Rose,” Stan said, putting his hands on either side of my face to hold it steady, and I welcomed the confusion of his touch. We were inches apart as I drew in my last sharp breath, and I could tell whatever he needed to tell me wasn’t a phrase. He needed to show me something. I breathed out now and looked into his mossy eyes, feeling his fingertips on my temples as he allowed me to steady myself.

  “Can you… see her?” I asked, feeling my brow crinkle along with my spirit. I concentrated on calming down, but I couldn’t stop from crying. “Her spirit?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded, and his fingers untangled from my blue hair as he pulled away. I collapsed to the floor with my hand covering my mouth, more tears spilling down my face. My parents, Grayson, and Helaine. Only four people could have this uncontrollable effect on me.

  Should I tell her that I love her out loud so her spirit can hear it? I couldn’t say it, but she knew anyway.

  Stan nodded over at Gregory and Maddi. Already kneeling, he put his face near Helaine’s. She remained beautiful: smooth pale skin and freckles. I hated to see what she’d look like tomorrow when we called her parents and forced them to see her this way. I sobbed again.

  “She’s not breathing S—”

  And then he put his lips to hers, kissing her—no, breathing into her—something that wouldn’t heal the knife wounds. This murder room brought out a side of him I never thought I’d see, and I was thankful for him—thankful that he could act under pressure when the rest of us were crumbling, but I still had no idea what was going on.

  I looked to Maddi, and her expression and emotions told me things were going to be okay, even though her lips made a frown and her face was dotted with tears. How could that be? I held onto her hope, sucking the lime green emotion into myself.

  “What…” I trailed off, confused, but then Helaine drew in an unbearably primal breath as if she had forgotten how to use her throat. Her fingernails scratched the ground beneath her as she struggled toward sitting. They made a horrifying screech until her palm found the rough stone floor.

  “The chalice,” Helaine said to Gregory at once. “I threw him the chalice. The murderer, he touched it last.”

  “Good girl,” Gregory approved, still wearing a defeated look. I couldn’t see his guilt as a color, but I could feel it. It wasn’t his fault.

  “What is going on? You can all hear me?”

  “You’re alive…” I said.

  I crawled to her and embraced her, and she leaned into me.

  “I’m…” She looked at her hands as if she didn’t want to admit that she had been dead. “How is this…”

  “It’s the gift of Spirit,” Stan explained, standing up. “I can talk to the dead, and I can heal people now as a mentor, but no one knows I can also bring people back to life if they’re holding on strongly.”

  “I fought like hell,” Helaine said. “But it wasn’t good enough.”

  “Listen to yourself!” I lectured. “You held on in the afterlife long enough for Stan to pull you back. And Stan…”

  As I got to my feet, I forgot about the awkward dreams and the protocol of the Coven. I stood closer to Stan than I ever had, and looked up at him, my thoughts absolutely clear and fixated on his face. I reached up to wrap my arms around Stan's neck and hugged him as big as I had Helaine. He returned the gesture by resting his hands lightly on my back. I closed my eyes and blinked back more tears. The sandalwood and fresh pine of his scent calmed me better than anything. I knew I was safe. I felt him support me as I fell into him. He helped me back upright after a few seconds, reminding me I could stand on my own.

  “I don’t know how to say thank you,” I told Stan. “She’s my best friend. She’s my sister. And…”

  Rose, Stan thought, so no one else could hear. Just make it to induction and become a permanent member. You don’t have to repay everyone who has done something nice for you. I don’t do anything on condition. Besides, I want to keep Helaine around too. She’s my friend.

  Tonight, you saved my life too.

  Stan’s green eyes widened, and I wasn’t sure exactly what I saw in them, but I did know he probably hadn’t done this before and wasn’t prepared for my vehement thank yous.

  “What…”

  I looked back to Helaine, who was staring down at her leggings as if something was wrong.

  “That’s what happens when someone dies, love, and usually it’s way worse,” Maddi explained. “At the moment of death, it’s not just your heart or your brain that shut down.”

  “I didn’t expect him to stab me in the heart—”My eyes grew huge at the realization that she remembered—“and I guess it scared the piss out of me.”

  Maddi moved her hands, doing a silent spell before Helaine could even think about being embarrassed. “Like we said, usually it’s way worse when we find a dead body.”

  “Thank you,” Helaine said.

  “How many were there?” Gregory asked Helaine lightly. You could hear the relief in his voice, but like Helaine, he knew that there was work to do.

  Stan pulled Helaine upright—which is the least you can do after you kiss a girl—and she leaned on him as if she couldn’t stand, but he let her, and steadied her by the arm.

  “Four. I only saw three.”

  “You fought three off at once?” Maddi gawked.

  “Yes, and with no powers because they had this talisman. It’s over there, still around his neck.”

  “That I need,” Gregory said.

  “Do you know what it is?” I asked him.

  “A hunch. Let me see it,” he said, walking over to the talisman. “You did a smart thing making one of them touch an object, Helaine. I would expect nothing less from a witch trained by the element of earth.”

  “Thanks, Gregory,” Helaine told him. “I’m sorry about the bodies…”

  In this underground room, three other people I didn’t care about were dead, and Helaine had done it. Her eyes went wide as if she were reliving the moment in her memory. She looked back at the lifeless figures who had tried to take her life.

  “They tried to kill you,” Maddi said, “fuck it because they did kill you. They got what they wanted, and what they deserved.”

  We all fell quiet and looked at Maddi. Perhaps I had drained a little too much of her hope.

  “Is that your official statement to the press?” Helaine asked Maddi with a half-smile.

  “No.” she shrugged guilty, unable to produce a smile. “Let’s get you home, love. When someone is brought back they need to eat food fast. Your body burned through all of its energy. Are you lot okay with that?”

  “You and I stay?” Stan asked Gregory, leading Helaine over to me so she had me to lean on now.

  “Yes. We will file a report with O’Callaghan because these witch hunters are human, and I’ll bring the talisman back home. We will deal with it there.”

  “What is the talisman?” Helaine asked.

  “It might be…synthetic ether,” Gregory told us.

  “Ether? Used to take away powers before we exile someone?” I asked.

  “Treya had ether, so when she was exiled, we couldn’t take her powers. Both her and Rudolph were only exiled. Since she’s gone, one of you will get ether when you are fully initiated,” he said.

  “In the meantime?” Helaine questioned.

  “In the mea
ntime, we don’t have ether to use, not for another year. I’d like to say you might not have to use it, but…” Gregory looked around. “Go home, Laurence. And Avereis, go with.

  “Thank you,” I told Gregory. Even though he often took the lead, he still acted as if he was the big brother, and I couldn’t be happier that our eldest member was a caring and kind-hearted earth witch.

  I glanced back at Stan when we were leaving, and as if he could sense me looking, he smiled and nodded, as if to tell me he’d never dare let us down.

  I owed a debt to him now, whether he wanted it repaid or not, and I would guard his life as he did Helaine’s. I didn’t want to have to repay the favor, but I had the sinking feeling that this wasn’t the last time someone would decide they had the right to take our lives.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Coming Back

  Helaine

  They say that when people die and are brought back to the world of the living, that some see darkness, and others see light.

  I heard music.

  It was only a handful of high notes that sounded like the pattern of a stair, each one reaching up higher than the last.

  That was the only thing I remembered.

  I thought I could make it to the tattoo shop before closing, and Onyx said he’d wait down the street a little way, but that he was not going to fail at watching me again. He blamed himself for canceling our lesson that day. I reminded him that Edward and Stan were still alive and he kept them that way for eighteen years. I reminded him that sometimes bad things happened.

  “Mum,” I said.

  The door clanged shut behind me, the bell on the door coming to a halt. Did one of the notes it made belong to the song I heard on the other side?

  “You scared me, Helaine,” my mother said, a hand to her heart. “I was just closing up. It’s been a quiet day.”

  She always dressed younger than her age at work, wearing DIY t-shirts and strappy tank tops that showed off her tattoos, her hair up in a ponytail with pieces framing her face. Mum couldn’t ever be just the President’s wife, and that would have been a deal breaker for my dad marrying her anyway.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  “Of course. Grab the lock and meet me in the break room.”

  In the back, she handed me a cup of tea and I stared at it. The room smelled like popcorn. No one else was here and something scared me about telling her.

  “I’m back,” was all I could say, and it turned into an unsettling whisper.

  “From where?” She said, looking at me as if I might have been possessed.

  “The dead.”

  I saw her worst fear come true, and the worry on her face aged her five years. She gulped and silenced herself. I didn’t like that I was telling her any of this, but having served as spirit, she was the only one who could possibly understand. She reached across the table and put her hands on mine.

  “What happened, Helaine?”

  “There were witch hunters after me.”

  “Why?”

  “Moon was supposed to get in to serve some sort of agenda—and I don’t even think she knew about it—so when the Coven picked me instead, I was as good as dead. I fought so hard, and Stan... I understand the gravity of what you and dad did now better than ever. Freedom is worth more than keeping a secret.”

  I had told Mr. Jones Moon was alive to secure my own freedom in death, and I knew I shouldn’t have.

  “To us, freedom is worth everything, but you need to guard the secret of what Stan can do,” she warned me. “The Mages and Coven witches have taken memories of the power before, but they can’t take them from the spirit element.”

  “I just came from a council meeting with them, and they let me keep it.”

  I took another sip of my tea, tasting more weeds than chamomile flower, and decided I was sick of this morbid conversation.

  “Can you pierce my nose?” I asked her suddenly. “Like a diamond stud.”

  “You’re eighteen now. Of course I can,” she said.

  Mum was never opposed to me getting piercings or tattoos and had pierced four holes in my ears herself. Her only condition was that I wait until I was eighteen to get any tattoos or other piercings because she didn’t want me to regret them. Dad also had something to do with it.

  She sat me in the chair in piercing room number two and put her gloves on.

  “I’ll tell dad,” I said, as I checked out the purple dot on my nose where the stud would appear, and the lowered the hand mirror from my face.

  “It’s up to you,” she told me. “It’s Coven business, but he does have the right to know if there is danger in his city.”

  “He hates to call it ‘his city,’” I reminded her.

  “Our city then,” My mum corrected. “One, two, three.”

  My eyes watered, but it was nowhere near the pain of being stabbed. It only took her a second to put the stud through my nose.

  Mum held the mirror up for me as I wiped the watery tears from my face.

  “I love it.”

  “Just don’t get something pierced every time there is an attempt on your life,” she warned, “or we’ll have to move to dermals eventually and those hurt badly. Maybe a whole lace up your back?”

  I giggled, glad my mum didn’t protest me being in the Coven, trusting me to make it out of my ten-year appointment alive. I knew that my mom understood why I was in the Coven and how important it was to me. My hero approved of me, and there was no greater feeling in the world.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  A Kiss of Death

  Rose

  No one in the city knew that Helaine had died, and no one was going to find out. It was like waking up from a night terror—the kind that made you jump up and scream in bed—a mara sitting on your stomach. It was a terror that no one dares disrupt. Everyone you know lets you walk aimlessly around your own house, frightened and alone because interrupting would just make it worse.

  I reminded myself that it was over, and there was no use dwelling on something that ended with the best, most impossible solution. Gregory and Maddi agreed that we should all have a few days off to collect our thoughts, and I spent a great portion of that time painting.

  It was nearly one a.m. when I asked Helaine to come down to my room and I shut the door behind her, earning a pointed, skeptical look. Even though Helaine seemed fine, same personality, the same sense of humor, she had only left the house once since the attack.

  “I haven’t told you the honest truth about my powers and what’s happening,” I said to Helaine behind my closed door. Right away, I could tell she was happy that I didn’t want to talk about her death. “And now, after what happened, I feel even guiltier.”

  “Well if you want Water back, I’m not trading you,” she said seriously and then smiled. “And stop it with the guilt. Your conscience is far too big for a nineteen-year-old witch, Rose.”

  “My conscience is taking over my life,” I explained, “and not the disciplined superego, the subconscious, the id.” Helaine acted like she was following my comment, but I wasn’t sure. “Ever since the channeling of powers I did during Imbolc, I’ve been having dreams that bring out my subconscious.”

  I settled into the azure chaise lounge and she sat in my desk chair. I would pick the chaise when I was about to spill my darkest secret.

  “Nightmares?”

  “I think so, but my subconscious mind seems to differ.”

  Mischief lit up her face. Helaine knew exactly what I was getting at, and the sudden hot blush in my face was a big clue.

  “What kind of dreams?”

  “S… steamy ones.”

  “You can’t even say it.” Helaine looked like she could squeal in excitement. “How far do they go?”

  “Not too far. I can stop them. I’m not completely out of control.”

  “Why not let them go all the way? It’s a dream. All I’m saying is that they’ll probably stop after you let them play out. I’m being mature about this. Se
e? Serious face.” I knew it was stupid, so I was glad that my best friend was taking me seriously. “It’s not a bad idea to let things run their course.”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t want them to go farther.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re about… Stan.”

  “They’re what?!”

  The way she flailed with her hands reminded me that Helaine knew me better than anyone else. She was just as shocked as I. She sat back into the support of the chair, signaling that I could go on.

  “It happened after the powers mix up with Jaime and after I invoked Brigid on accident. I thought it would stop. It hasn’t. It’s gotten worse.”

  “Well it does make sense,” Helaine said. “He’s royalty, and I for one think he’s cute, but not in the way you think he is.” I groaned and she shot me a cheesy smile. “I wouldn’t be guilty for liking Hades, king of the underworld. Ma déesse, he saved my life, Rose!”

  “But I am guilty,” I explained. “It started off like he was a guide in my dreams, and then things got out of control.”

  “He’s not home now is he?” Helaine asked, nudging her head of red hair towards the direction of his room on the floor we shared. If he was passing by in the hall he could clearly hear us.

  “No, he left around midnight again without saying anything. There is no way I’d risk him reading our thoughts.”

  Helaine shrugged, and I could see gears turning behind her big brown eyes.

  “You’re an empath coming into your powers, not just a witch. You’re spending all of your time with him. He’s your age and single. If you had sex dreams about anyone, they’d be about him.”

  “Shhhhh!” I whispered. “And they’re just like… kissing dreams. Touching… dreams…”

  “Sorry,” she whispered back, but with sarcasm.

  “And they won’t get that far, will they? I have no point of reference.” Before this year I hadn’t even kissed anyone, well not since I was younger. They would have to stop somewhere. “There’s no one I have to talk to besides you. It sucks because I have a great support system. This is just too embarrassing.”