Rose turned her head to face the wind god who was ranting into her ear. Her nose wrinkled as though she smelled something foul. Her eyebrows caved downward into an angry V.
“Run,” Rose said.
“What?” Thorne barked. “I don’t want her to run. I want her to die.”
“No,” Rose corrected him. “You. You run.”
Thorne’s mouth opened. He looked back and forth between the two Wilde sisters. Ash watched Thorne’s bravado quickly fall away. No more arrogance, no more megalomania, no more speeches about convoluted religions or a new world order—just sheer, liquid terror dripping off him like an ice cube under the Mojave sun.
Then he fled. Ash stuck out her leg as he passed, and he tripped and flailed, but righted himself long enough to plow his way out of the back of the chapel.
Rose waited until he was a good ten seconds away from the Mound. She smiled. And in the voice more of a demon than a child, she rasped to the unseen Thorne, “I found you.”
A not-too-distant “Nooooooo!” echoed out of the gardens beyond. The long wail was overpowered and clipped short by the sound of a thunderous explosion. Through the branches that formed the roof of the chapel, the sky flashed red.
Silence.
Ash turned back around, expecting Rose to show some sign of anger or contempt for the man she’d just disintegrated. Instead the little girl had dropped into a sitting position on the ground. She was tugging absentmindedly on a stray branch from the nearest pew, like she’d forgotten all about Thorne already.
Ash shivered and stepped over to the altar where Wes lay. She pulled the IV out of his arm. His breaths were shallow, and when she pressed her head to his chest, she could hear that his heart beat slowly. Still, he did not stir. She would just have to wait patiently for the sedative to wear off.
Well, she realized, maybe there was something she could do to accelerate the process. She extended her hands to the roof overhead and let her makeshift flamethrowers consume the mangrove branches in fire. Gradually the hole in the ceiling widened like an opening eye. She tried not to take too much pleasure in destroying Lily’s final villainous creation, this perverse cathedral of pain and suffering.
When Ash had finished, the moonlight streamed through the new skylight in the ceiling down onto Wes’s altar. He trembled under the light, and his eyes shot open. They were black to the corners. Whatever power he drew from the night coursed through his veins, ushering the sedative out of his system.
Ash couldn’t help but remember the night of the Blackwood Academy masquerade ball—it was barely more than a month ago—sitting next to Colt as he stirred from unconsciousness. Only, then it was Colt who’d had the bag of secrets.
This time Ash was the one with the dark skeletons in her cupboard.
This time Ash was the one saddled with the decision whether or not she should tell Wes the truth.
Tell him that she’d murdered him in the last life.
That she’d enjoyed murdering him.
Could their fledgling love survive all the baggage from their previous life?
And more important, could their love survive the baggage from the last week?
Wes interrupted her thought process from careening any further into dark territory. He groaned and stretched his arms way over his head. “This is going to make for one punishing hangover,” he said in a groggy voice.
Ash laughed. “Don’t be such a baby. A couple of Advil and a few minutes basking in the moonlight, and you’ll be fine.” She couldn’t help herself—she leaned in and kissed him.
When the kiss ended, Wes’s eyes dipped to look at her lips. “Or maybe I just need a few more of those.” Then his eyes tracked to the empty spot next to Ash where Aurora might have been standing if she were still alive. The romance of the moment derailed in a fiery wreck.
Wes climbed down onto the Mound floor. He took in the pews, the partially destroyed ceiling, the altar he’d been lying on. “I guess I found religion,” he said.
“That’s not all we found.” Ash stepped to the side so he could see little Rose, who was now tottering and walking up and down a pew bench as though she were a tightrope walker.
Wes let out a long breath. “And now it gets interesting.”
With the explosion that had killed Thorne, Ash knew it wouldn’t be long before the Villa Vizcaya gardens became a crime scene too. She walked over to the pew where Rose was playing. There was so much to say to her, and Ash had none of the words to explain things. She held out her hand and smiled. “Come on, Rose,” she said. “It’s time to go.”
Rose didn’t even hesitate. She grabbed Ash’s hand and hopped down off the bench. For the time being at least, it seemed that this little child really was a child. For now. “Where are we going?” Rose asked.
The question startled Ash for some reason—in part because she wasn’t fully sure she knew the answer to it. She started to say, “I’m going to take you . . .”
But the funny thing about the word “home” is that sometimes it’s too big and complex for even a sixteen-year-old to fully understand.
And sometimes the word “home” is too small to fill the spaces left behind by the people who have gone.
THE SIBLING PYRE
1934; Elche, Spain
One blast of fire from you sends the girl in the monk’s robe crashing through the front door of the cathedral.
The old wooden doors buckle and splinter, but the girl just keeps on going. She rolls across the dusty road like a tumbleweed in a hurricane. The motion throws back her hood, revealing her Polynesian face, which is quickly bruising from where you blindsided her with your fist.
It’s been years since you last saw Violet, but she looks more like you than ever.
She is nothing like you.
Violet takes off into the massive palm grove beyond the steeple. You’re hot on her trail as you chase her into the forest. From your childhood days on the farm, and the bank heist getaways in the years that followed, you know that Violet has always been slightly faster on foot than you.
But you’re the one with the endurance.
The rain picks up, a cold drizzle at first. The clouds roll over the sky like a train coming into the station. By the time you reach the tree line, the rain sweeps over the forest in heavy, pulsing curtains. The palm fronds form natural gutters that pour water onto your head.
It has taken you five years, four continents, and tens of thousands of miles to find your treacherous sister.
You’re not about to let a little bit of rain stand between you and your revenge.
Ahead Violet darts rapidly between the trees, but you can see her growing weary already, her running form faltering, the way her legs look unsteady with every footstep in the watery grass.
You’re so focused on Violet’s feet and closing the distance that you lose your own footing in a deep puddle. You splash down to one knee. You’re quick to get up, but by the time you regain your balance, the damage is done—Violet is out of sight, hidden somewhere among the trees.
You walk cautiously now. The cold rain washes clean any heat trails Violet might have left through the grove. The persistent white noise of the rainfall against the fronds and grass means you have to listen even more carefully for the sounds of any wet footsteps. The sky grows darker by the second as the pregnant clouds amass overhead. The temperature, too, is falling.
As if cold rain could stop your fire.
The lightning bolt hits you in the chest as Violet springs out from behind a tree. But the electricity pulsing from your sister’s fingertips stuns you only briefly, and once you’ve pushed through the pain, you emerge in a rage on the other side. The fire blossoms out of your hand and strikes Violet in the chest of her monk’s robe. She slams headfirst into a palm tree behind her, and drops to the ground, still. A barrage of dates rains down around her like marbles.
You drag Violet by her legs through the muddy grass. She moans something you can’t understand. With her only half-conscious,
the rain dies to a steady trickle.
Nearby a post has been planted into the ground to support a small palm that’s much shorter than the others. Even with the support of the post, it looks sickly and twisted, starved of sunlight by all the taller palms around it.
You make quick work of tying Violet to the opposite side of the post. By the time you’re finished, she looks just like the scarecrows the two of you condemned in the fields of Maine. Just like those scarecrows, she’ll get the kind of quick trial she deserves.
Violet stirs. “What . . .” She tugs at the bonds securing her to the post. They hold true. Her eyes go from dazed to alert. “I . . . I don’t understand. Why are you doing this, Little Sister?”
“Why did you kill my husband?” you demand to know.
“Kill your . . . wait, Colt?” Violet shakes her head. “I didn’t—”
Your open hand slaps her across the face, and her head rotates around as far as it will go without breaking her neck. The slap leaves a welt. Inside, you feel a different kind of sting. The tears well in your eyes. This was supposed to be all about anger, about cold revenge, but sorrow is percolating up with it. “Why? Why did you send the assassin? Why did you do it?” you sob. You hit her again. “Why, damnit?”
“You have to believe me,” Violet whimpers. “I would never—I didn’t even . . . I mean, you know I was never keen on Colt, and I’ve always been suspicions of his intentions, but even then, I wouldn’t . . . Lucy, you have to believe me!”
It’s the first time you feel doubt. For five years you’ve pursued her with unflagging certainty. You’ve fantasized about what you would do to her for betraying you. For sending that assassin to murder Colt. For her insistence that, if you weren’t by her side, then you might as well suffer as she did. Miserable. Vengeful. Alone.
Now there’s something in her voice, in the broken sobs that have rendered her unable to speak, in the way she hangs limply from the post, that makes you want to believe her. This is your sister. There is a feeling inside you—and questions, too—that are growing as you watch her.
But then there is that other feeling. The sinking in the pit of your stomach. The clicking in your ears. You can see the hair rising around your head.
You dive off to the side just as the lightning bolt forks down from the sky. One prong of the lightning bolt sinks its electric fist into the ground where you were standing before. The other rips through the nearest palm tree as though it were made of copper wire. Despite the dampness, both the tree and the grass beneath the lightning strike burst into flames.
You brush the mud off your arms and stand up slowly. If it were at all possible, you feel even more rage now for the girl strapped to the post than you did on your nightmarish wedding night.
“Lucy,” Violet whispers. “That was only in self-defense. You wouldn’t believe me, so I panicked. I’m sorry. Look me in the eyes, and you’ll see that what I’m telling you is true!”
You have no desire to search for truth and penitence in your sister’s eyes. Instead you’re watching the fire trail left by the lightning. The palm is already engulfed in flames. The circle of fire in the grass is widening rapidly.
Violet notices too. The rain picks up again, but the droplets just hiss and turn to steam when they hit the fire.
“You can stop this!” Violet shouts at you, and you wonder if she’s referring to more than just the fire. She wriggles against her restraints, and her apologetic tone caves into anger. “Damnit, Lucy, put this fire out now!”
“You started it,” you say. You smile at the double meaning.
“I didn’t kill your husband!” Violet curls her legs up—the fire has crept all the way around her wooden post.
“You know the funny thing about wildfires?” you say to her. “Sometimes they’re good for a forest. Sometimes they burn up all the little weeds that threaten to strangle and suffocate the life around them.” You turn to your sister. “You are a weed, Violet.”
The little sickly palm tree ignites behind her. The fire courses up its trunk. Violet’s eyes bulge when she feels the heat at her back. “I didn’t kill your husband,” she repeats, “but . . . but I can tell you who did!”
You pause. “Fine. If you didn’t send the assassin, then who did?”
“It was . . .” Violet turns to blow out a small fire on the shoulder of her robe. “It was Gracie!” she finishes. “Gracie did it.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re blaming this on our dead baby sister?” You shake your head. “Have fun in hell, Violet.” You turn 180 degrees and walk away.
“She’s alive!” Violet pleads with you. “You’re punishing the wrong sister! The wrong sister!” But her words will be lost soon, because the cathedral bell is chiming now, and you’re walking farther away, and the rain thickens even though it won’t save her. Still, between her shrieks, and through the bells and rain, you hear three words echoing over and over again in your mind, three words that you’ll never believe but that will haunt you for the rest of your days anyway.
The wrong sister.
The wrong sister.
The wrong sister.
THE CANDELABRA
The Netherworld
It was a strange thing, having a new sister.
Ash watched little Rose, who was in turn staring through the glass window of Wes’s condominium. Whether the girl was watching the torrential Miami rainstorm outside or staring someplace else altogether, Ash would never know.
On top of trying to acclimate to the new addition to her family—and what that would translate to when Ash returned to the real world of school, friends . . . her parents—Ash had a pressing decision to make:
Was she really about to barge her way into the Cloak Netherworld to retrieve her other sister?
On the one hand, part of her was tempted to let it be for the moment. It had been more than a month since Eve’s abduction. What was another few days, or even a few weeks? Maybe it made more sense to let Rose get her bearings around Ash, one-on-one, before Ash introduced her to the unpredictable elder sister, who was about as calming an influence as fireworks in a room full of sleeping children.
It’s not like Ash and Eve had parted with a hug and an “I’ll miss you,” either. Eve had tried to murder her boyfriend and had nearly drowned Ash herself. Ash had burned her own hands into the flesh of Eve’s wrists. And before the Cloak dragged her to hell, Eve spent her final moment on earth conjuring a tsunami to crush Ash and Colt. Their history of attempted sororicide was a lump too big just to sweep under a rug and move on.
Then there was the horrible vision from the prior night. She’d let Eve burn to death in that palm grove, had let the wildfire purge her like some weed. Eve was her sister, not just another delusional god who’d had it coming. She was family.
The vision had proven once and for all that their violent sibling rivalry wasn’t unique to this lifetime.
It was in their DNA.
But it was reflecting back on the dream that finally made up Ash’s mind.
No matter how much Eve may have deserved her fate in the last life—
No matter how much Eve may have deserved her imprisonment in this life—
No matter what Eve being back on earth might mean for the future—
Ash couldn’t live with herself if she condemned Eve to death two lifetimes in a row.
The circle of violence had to stop now.
Wes stepped in front of her, fresh from his night’s rest and looking surprisingly clear-eyed, considering that he’d spent much of the previous evening in a drug-induced coma. He flipped a chair around and straddled it, leaning on the chair back. “So,” he said.
“So,” Ash repeated. She slumped back against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms.
Wes glanced at the little girl in his window. “Why do I feel like my bachelor pad just turned into a kindergarten classroom?”
Ash snatched an apple out of the fruit bowl. “Well, heads up, teach.” She lobbed it underhand at him
.
At first Wes went to take a bite out of it, but something made him stop just short. He lowered the apple and gently balanced it on his knee. “So this is the part where I ask you not to put yourself in danger again. Then you tell me that you have to, that Eve is your sister.”
“Is that right?” Ash asked.
Wes nodded. “I come back with a list of very practical reasons why you shouldn’t,” he continued, “pointing out that you don’t even know whether there’s oxygen where you’re going, or an atmosphere, or a gravity that won’t crush you like a sardine can in a trash compactor. Meanwhile I know that everything I’m saying is falling on deaf ears because, if all the volcano goddesses I’ve ever met share one thing, it’s an immovable stubbornness when they’ve resolved to do something.”
“Just one of our many adorable qualities,” Ash added.
“So rather than ranting uselessly at you for another half hour, I cut my losses: I tell you that the two of us are going right now. That way you can’t give me the slip and make the journey to hell by yourself as soon as I’m not looking.”
Ash pursed her lips. “I guess I should also skip the part where I try to convince you that this is my fight, and my fight alone . . . and that someone needs to stay behind to fix dinner, because there might be three hungry Wilde sisters ready to eat when we return from hell?”
“Glad we’re reading from the same script.” Wes stood up and opened the nearest cabinet. “We’re out of food anyway, so the four of us can order takeout when we get back.”
Ash wandered over to Rose and knelt beside her. While Rose seemed to understand English well enough, it was another thing completely to explain to her that she needed to open up a portal into hell . . . especially when Ash had no idea how it worked. If it weren’t for last week’s vision, when Rose opened the rift that ravaged and swallowed the pursuing boat, Ash might have believed that Rose’s power was something Colt had completely fabricated.
“Rose,” Ash said. She reached to brush a strand of Rose’s hair that had fallen into her eyes, but checked herself. It still felt too intimate for a sister she’d just met. She did, however, make a note to get the girl to a hair stylist soon after they got back. “I need you to take me someplace that . . . that apparently you’ve been before. A place with . . .” She fumbled for a word to describe the Cloak. “A place with monsters.” She immediately cringed. Great, Ashline, she thought. Let’s scare the shit out of her. Using the word “monster” around a six-year-old wasn’t exactly starting off on the right foot.
Embers and Echoes Page 28
