Hallow Graves

by Amanda A. Allen

  I didn’t agree. But I knew her decision had been made. And the truth was, she had set me up. But she couldn’t make me pick up the talisman. The final choice would be mine.

  She had known that too.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  The two Presidium sharks must have been with Elizabeth. She had arrived before them, taking the lead to walk ahead. She had glanced at the scene of Dr. Lechner’s death while I sat as far as I could get away without leaving. I saw her eyes snap around the scene and then she stepped away letting the sharks take a look. Female shark barely even glanced while male sharked looked in and then turned to me.

  My mother hadn’t arrived yet. I wanted her so bad. But I remembered that Elizabeth was here and that my coven leader, Hazel, had sent her. I knew Hazel loved me like I knew Bran and my Dad did.

  I suppose it was normal that they wouldn’t interview an adult with her mother present, so they didn’t wait for her. I suppose that I should have expected nothing else, but I wanted my mother. Elizabeth, sent by Hazel or not, was not my mother and Elizabeth didn’t have the same investment of emotion in me. Her life wouldn’t be materially altered if they convicted me or ruined my life.

  I felt as though a blanket of darkness had overcome me. I almost couldn’t move, the force was so strong. It seemed almost as if I was doomed. That nothing could be done to help. At that moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the ceiling was caving in on only me.

  “Why were you here?” The female shark snapped the question with cold, emotionless eyes.

  “Some Hallow chick came and tried to manipulate me. She mentioned that Dr. Lechner was a member of the Hallow Family Council. I wanted to…ask some questions.”

  “Manipulate you about what?”

  I stared at them. What did they care? Finally, I answered, “They tried to revoke me as a Hallow or something. They were too late.” My words were wooden. I felt as though the cold was climbing my legs, coming for me. When it reached my heart, I would be done. Even now, I felt the ice crystals forming in my chest.

  “Did you kill Dr. Lechner?”

  “I know all kinds of magic,” I told them seriously. The sharks blinked as if they couldn’t believe I was bragging at a time like this.

  “Not necromancy,” female shark said. She probably couldn’t help herself.

  “Right. I’m a big Hallow Necromancer failure. But I know lots of other things. I couldn’t even tell you how that spell was done. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “You’re the supposed rightful keeper of the thinning,” male shark said, trying and failing to give me a sympathetic look. “That means you’re capable of more than you claim.”

  I looked to Elizabeth, but her face was a mask. Everything about her was cold, she held none of the vibrancy of Chrysie. Was it age? Was it being a vampire? Would Chrysie slowly succumb to coldness and boredom? And then, I realized that for her—

  Sweet Hecate, how many times had she found a human she had once known as nothing but blood and meat? Was she undisturbed by Dr. Lechner’s death? The woman had been so vibrant and life-filled as she’d snatched my dreams away the other day.

  “Why would I kill Dr. Lechner?” I demanded. She had been nothing to me days ago. She’d been the head of a magical department. I’d wanted to do magic. I had been excited to be her advisee.

  “She blocked you from taking the classes you wanted,” female shark supplied as if not being able to take Dream Magic was worth turning someone into hamburger. Gods I would never be able to eat a hamburger again.

  “Me and every other kid she’s advising,” was all I said. I felt exhausted. I felt as if being here was draining me. I felt as if I could curl into a ball on the floor and give up. Why keep fighting? Keep struggling? For what? For strangers to pin horrible crimes on me? Because of the circumstance of my birth? Granted my mother was a manipulative cow.

  “She only advised you.”

  Why? Gods and monsters. Why? I didn’t even bother to answer. I let my eyes close and wondered how long it would be before they bound my magic? Or took my life?

  “Veruca could not have known that any more than she could have handled the power to manipulate the ghost who killed Lechner. There is no question that she is untrained as a necromancer.”

  “She’s the Keeper of the Thinning.”

  That statement made me snap my eyes open. I was only the keeper, the rightful keeper, or the heir when it was convenient for them, never when it would be a positive for me.

  It had been the female shark who spoke, but I had seen the look between the two Presidium investigators. She might be proceeding as the “bad” cop, but he didn’t disagree with his partner’s assessment.

  “No,” Elizabeth said casually, “She’s the rightful keeper. She has no more manipulated the ether of the thinning than she has taken flight off of the bell tower.”

  “You are being naive,” female shark said. “You don’t want to believe it because Hazel likes this kid. Well, Hazel has been wrong about a lot of things. It’s why she’s on that tiny island instead of where she could be.”

  “This isn’t about Hazel,” Elizabeth interjected calmly.

  Hecate, they had some argument about my coven leader, Hazel, that had turned them against me? Was that why they’d fixated on me?

  I was exhausted and freezing as I said, “I didn’t kill Dr. Lechner. Or Chrysie. Or the other one that died. I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Listen, kid,” female shark started.

  I pressed my lips together. Not because I was going to cry but because I needed to hold back the curses that were ready to start pouring out of my mouth. Literal, magical curses. I was going to lay a hexing on them that would make my morally challenged mother proud. Instead, I clenched my teeth together and breathed in deeply through my nose. As I did I caught the scent of ash.

  Elizabeth wasn’t arguing with the sharks if you could call it that. She was simply ignoring their argument and idly replying here and there.

  “Do you smell that?” I stood.

  I couldn’t help it. I felt another intense chill climbing my back, and this time I remembered when I’d felt it before. In the bath. Right before I’d seen Chrysie’s spirit.

  “Don’t try to distract us, kid,” male shark said, shedding his feeble attempt at good cop.

  But Elizabeth breathed deeply and nodded.

  “Which way?” She asked. The cold boredom was gone. She was like a cat ready to leap. Suddenly, in that predatorial move, I realized that Hazel had sent a killer to protect me. Gratitude suffused me, and I thought I might live.

  Then I remembered that my mother had been coming. Oh, gods…she was a Hallow. She’d been a target before. The door to the office snapped open with the sheer terror I felt. I closed my eyes, having no idea what I was doing. But I spun as if I were playing pin the tail on the donkey and then I pointed towards the part of me that was sending my internal warning to shrieking.

  It took only a few steps to see a body in the shadows of the receptionist desk. A large body. Oh, gods.

  The sharks paused, but I pushed past them with the force of my shove and my magic. I bounded to her side and dropped to my knees. Sweet Hecate, it was my Mama. I didn’t even know what to do. I reached out a shaking hand and felt for her pulse. It was faint. I then closed my eyes tightly, ignoring the awareness that shouted we were in a lot of danger. I pushed aside everything but the depth of my power.

  I could only do it because my mother had ensured I could. I found my power again and again while she had harassed and scared and yelled and irritated me until I could find my power regardless of the circumstances. She had said she was filling my arsenal. I had thought she was crazy.

  I was wrong. So very wrong. Love flowed through me to her. She was horrible. She was wonderful. She was Mama. I had full control of my magic, but my hands shook as I took her hand in mine.

  I adjusted my grip on my power and quested until I found—
not the oak grove, but the ancient Hallow cypress grove, and I delved into it, asking for power. And because I was who I was—the rightful Hallow heir, the cypresses fed me their power and I fed it into my mother drawing her back from the brink of death.

  When I opened my eyes, I found the sharks and Elizabeth had waited for me. Why I didn’t know. Weren’t they the professionals? Perhaps not. I stood, and there was so much anger in me. So much fury, it crackled along my hair which I could feel rising off of the back of my neck.

  “May I have a phone please?”

  The sharks looked at me as if I was crazy. But Elizabeth answered. I wanted to call Bran—but she was across the country. I wanted to call Hazel—but the same handicap existed. I called Felix. I didn’t have anyone else.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Felix, I’m at the Quietus Building outside of Dr. Lechner’s office. I don’t know any healers, but I need one here right away.”

  “Are you okay?” He asked.

  “No,” I snapped. “I’m not okay. But it’s my mother.”

  My voice cracked, and a tear slipped down my cheek. My mother’s eyes opened. She tried to speak and couldn’t.

  “It’s okay, Mama,” I said speaking to her while still on the phone with Felix.

  “I’m coming. Monica knows someone. I’ll be there in minutes.”

  One of the sharks was speaking into a phone. The other had pulled some sort of gun. It screamed power and magic at me, but I didn’t care about any of that. Elizabeth stood ready, on the balls of her feet. It had been Elizabeth who had waited for me. I realized.

  The sharks hadn’t wanted to proceed without the ancient vampire. They were afraid. It was there in their wide eyes. The slight tremor to the gun. The way they jumped at the wind.

  I didn’t get up even though they were waiting. I pulled out the chalk I knew my mother had in her bag, and I lifted her with my power, drawing a pentacle on the floor around her and writing the symbols for protection and healing with a shaking hand. My hand might have been quivering, but my symbols were perfectly executed.

  I drew a secondary pentacle with her blood. Such a powerful substance left there for me on the ground. It was bound in blood and the power of an ancient family. It was done with skills that she’d ensured I’d had. And my focus had been born of love for her. I didn’t need to look to see that my wards and spells had snapped into place. She was as safe as anyone could be. This building would have to collapse to hurt her further, and I’d anchored her to life. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  She’d live to make me despise her another day. She’d live to harass and torture me until my very goals in life were simply not to be her, but I also knew, without question, that should I someday have a child. I’d be equipping that child’s arsenal with the very one she’d given me. I hadn’t understood the love that the torture of learning had been. She had ensured that I would be as safe as she could make me.

  There had been nothing but love for me in that. Even as I’d hated her. Even as I’d worked against her. Even as I’d turned to another for guidance. She had made sure I could do the things that would help me survive the night. As much as I loved Hazel—she hadn’t done the same.

  My mother was many, many things. But she loved her daughters with a fierceness that was only becoming apparent to me as I matured.

  When I was done. I looked at Elizabeth and she shot me a questioning glance. It wasn’t are you okay? It wasn’t are you ready? It wasn’t a command to stay behind. It was an acknowledgment of who I was. The stupid, untrained, but rightful Hallow Keeper. Hecate’s eyes. I guess when you’d lived so long, everyone was young. She didn’t have any special care for me because I was barely an adult.

  “I…” I started to say no. Whatever had done this—it had nearly killed my mother and she had been the rightful and trained Hallow heir. But then again…it had nearly killed my mother. Some ghost didn’t get to come in and do that. If anyone was going to kill my mother, it was going to be me and Bran, together, after we listed our grievances.

  “Yes.” That was all I said, of course. But perhaps Elizabeth understood. She didn’t seem disgusted by my mother like the others. Was my mother horrible to people? Yes. Had she been a crazy, controlling, mean, intrusive parent? Yes.

  Had she bought me red shoes when I turned five because I had wanted them so much I dreamed of them? You bet your last ounce of power she did. Had she carefully taught me magic line upon line and attended each and every thing I had done in school? Yes. Did she have a box of all my art? Yes. Yes, she did.

  She was horrible. She was wonderful. She was my mother. I knew exactly what she was like, far better than anyone else, and I was going to kill this ghost so hard, it would be terrified to cross the thinning or whatever you called it again.

  “Is this what killed, Chrysie?” I spoke to Elizabeth. With my power quaking through me I felt the terror of the sharks, and I realized that they were not, in fact, sharks. Or maybe they were. But I was a monster, and I was not afraid.

  And neither was Elizabeth.

  “Probably.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone called it here, of course,” Elizabeth said. “Ghosts can be terrible and destructive. But this one…there are too many signs of controlling. Like the darkness in your dorm room.”

  The sharks had sidled along the wall of the hallway, carefully scouting each entrance. Elizabeth strolled along, almost unconcerned. But then again, the sharks were ahead of us. It wasn’t like their decapitation wouldn’t alert us to the arrival of the ghost.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  Elizabeth walked forward as casually as ever. I doubted I’d be following in her wake as casually if not for the fury that was riding me and the terror of losing my mother. How would I face Bran?

  Or gods beneath, my dad?

  “Where are you going,” I finally asked Elizabeth. She was too calm. Too much like she was going for fro-yo with some childhood BFF.

  “I’m following the scent of blood.”

  Hecate that was nasty. I took a deep breath, and I felt…I didn’t know. But I didn’t want to go this way. Was it wussing out if I turned aside? But I wasn’t feeling a lessening of fury. Just pulled another way.

  “I want to go this way,” I told Elizabeth. She was walking towards the school cemetery. It made so much sense.

  It was wrong.

  “The blood goes this way,” Elizabeth said.

  I made a doubting face, and the sharks told me to get a move on.

  “You are not Presidium, Rue. Go that way if you wish, but I must follow the trail I sense.”

  I met her eyes, knew she was both right and wrong, and knew I had to go.

  “She can’t leave,” male shark said. “She’s our suspect.”

  “Maxwell,” Elizabeth said, “your idiocy is making the back of my teeth hurt.”

  I turned aside. Because my power was rolling through me, or my anger, or all of it—I felt spirits all around me. There was a kid my age but with vintage style clothes on. There was a little girl with blue eyes. There was a…

  There was the scent of ash. And something that smelled dark and cold and dead and wrong. The wrongness was what made me want to stay behind. Until I remembered the site of my cow of a mother, who was very good at magic and morally challenged to boot, and yet they’d gotten past her when she was capable…

  …of just about anything. I should be afraid. But my power was rolling through me like the biggest adrenaline high ever, and I was spurred on by an image that was torture. The bloody, almost dead, vision of my mother. I needed to face her attacker and win. Because otherwise I would never be able to face my family again.

  Instead, I was going to find this killer, throat punch them to death, and then…a hand snaked around my throat. I grasped it and surged my power in, but they were ready. And they weren’t hurting me.

  “What do you think you’re doing,” a low hard voice whispered.

  “I was thinking I
’d find a killer and kill them,” I said honestly. “Is that you?”

  “If it is,” the voice said, “you’re in trouble.” His hand was on my throat, and I didn’t disagree. You would think I was in a lot of trouble.

  Except, of course, for my mother and her arsenal that had prepared me for more madness than one would expect.

  And then I completed a complex maneuver that had him on his back. I used my power to move him since whoever this was, he was way too big for me to throw around without the strength my magic provided. That was probably why my mother had me train with a lion shifter back home.

  “Did you kill Chrysie?” I asked him. My hand was on his throat, but I was too well aware that he was big, thick, and muscled. If he wanted to hurt me, and he was a magic user—and I could tell he was—I was probably in trouble. I couldn’t burn through my power with him. I needed to find the killer.

  When he shook his head no, I didn’t think he was lying. I suppose I’m an idiot, but the truth was…this person was too young for the killer of all the Hallows who had died. I was starting to get an idea of who I thought was the killer, but it seemed so unlikely.

  “Who are you?” I hissed.

  “I’m the head of the keepers.”

  I laughed at him. A laugh so loud I snorted. It was…of course he was. Of course. I couldn’t avoid meeting them tonight. Though I had to hand it to him, it seemed to me he was following the right trail too.

  “What are you laughing at,” he asked. And then shook his head. “Never mind. You need to get out of here. There’s a ghost that has been killing people. It’s dangerous. You don’t realize what you're risking.”

  I cocked my head and examined him. It was dark, and the trees were thick. The moon, of course, was covered in clouds. So I could see only the outline of a man shape.

  “Yes, I know,” I said simply. I didn’t have time for him. I needed to get moving, so I brushed past him and headed towards the Hallow Cemetery, where someone was making bad choices. I could feel their magic and was sure that something was happening. Those bad choices were the type that would lose someone something. Their freedom? Their life? I wasn't sure, but I intended to ensure that it was whoever had hurt my mother who was doing the losing.