Born to Raise Hell: The Owl Shifter Chronicles Book Three

by Qatarina Wanders

  Emily made to go to him, but Aunt Anastacia stopped her with her hand. Emily looked at the witch questioningly.

  “Let him alone,” Aunt Anastacia instructed. “Let him find out about Rina first.”

  Emily could see the wisdom in the woman’s words. So she stayed put and waited.

  “Emily?” Michael looked and saw her standing right next to Aunt Anastacia. As soon as he saw her, he looked relieved. “Are you all right?”

  Emily opened her mouth to speak. Yet, words failed her. Instead, a whimpering sound came out of her mouth.

  “We defeated them,” Michael said, a smile of triumph coming onto his face. At his side, Joanna made a noise. He got distracted for a moment and turned to attend to her. There was a little metal shard in her right hip, which he removed without fuss. He didn’t even need to use magic.

  “We made it,” Michael informed Joanna, helping her to her feet. “We defeated the enemy!”

  Joanna took one look at Emily and saw the expression on Emily’s face. Darkness descended in her eyes. “If we won, then why does Emily look like that?”

  Michael looked back at Emily and then noticed something he should have noticed at first. Rina was not by her side.

  “Where’s Rina?” The fear in his voice was loud and undiluted. He ran into the road, toward Emily. “Where’s Rina?”

  Aunt Anastacia slid to Emily’s front, while Emily retreated two feet back. Michael’s attention was then drawn away from them to Emily’s dad, who still knelt over Rina’s motionless body.

  “Rina!” Michael screamed and dashed to the body. “No! No! No!”

  “She’s gone,” Dad whimpered.

  “Get away!” Michael shoved the man away and threw himself on Rina’s body, weeping.

  John Davies made to touch Michael, but Everet grabbed his arm and motioned for him to lay off the teenage rove.

  Emily fought back tears. Guilt flooded her like a dam bursting its bounds. This was all her fault. She should have known better than to trust that Marion would not come after them. She should have known better than to trust an Alfred.

  If she’d stuck with the initial plan to go out in the morning, Rina would still be alive. And to think that Rina had objected to the plan only to be persuaded into going by the young man she loved. The same someone who had been persuaded by Emily’s grit at wanting to talk to Marion.

  This was all her fault. Rina’s death was on her, and it killed her to know that she, for all intents and purposes, had killed the innocent girl.

  What would they tell her parents?

  “No!” Michael screamed again.

  Emily felt the explosion of magic and flinched. She half expected Michael to shoot to his feet and attack her for killing Rina. But he didn’t. Instead, he channeled his magic into Rina’s body.

  Rina’s body jerked once, flooding Emily’s mind with hope. But then it settled back on the ground, dead as a doornail. Michael tried again and again. Again and again the body would jerk, but it remained dead. It was like channeling electricity into a dead body. It jerked, but it never came back to life.

  Rina was dead, and there was no changing that. No one told Michael to stop. No one dared tell him to move on. Everyone watched sadly as Michael used up all his magic trying to bring Rina back. After thirty-something jolts of power, he was so spent that he fell on top of her, wailing.

  His cry of anguish cut through Emily’s throat. Her eyes filled with tears that streamed down her cheeks and into her hair at a nonstop steady pace. Her sisterly instinct told her to reach out and comfort him, tell him that things would be better. She wanted him to feel the love that bubbled in her heart for him. But she knew he didn’t feel that way about her. Especially now.

  Joanna came to Emily’s side. She, too, was crying as she wrapped one arm around Emily’s shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. Emily didn’t resist. It made her cry even more.

  They all waited patiently for Michael. Dad, Everet, and Kendrick stood at one side, while Emily, Joanna, and Aunt Anastacia stood in the road. After a few minutes, Michael stopped crying. He pulled himself off her body and stood to his feet.

  His face was blank—unreadable. His eyes dark and hooded. Emily knew he was practically combustible. She had to tread carefully. Even though his magic couldn’t affect her, she didn’t want to get into a fight with him.

  Michael stepped toward them, his chin lifted.

  Everet, sensing that Michael was about to do something he’d probably regret, called with a loud voice, “Michael, stop.”

  Michael didn’t heed his father’s warning. This prompted Anastacia to come between them.

  Michael disregarded this motion. But he stopped before them and set his eyes on Emily.

  “He pays for this,” was all Michael said. “We’ll kill him.” His voice was hard and came forth through gritted teeth.

  Emily could see the determination in his eyes. Michael wasn’t going to stop at anything to kill Marion. Even if it meant his death, he was going to try and avenge Rina’s death. Emily was past caring for Marion. She too was angry. She, too, wanted him to pay.

  This could be the reason why Michael didn’t attack her. He needed her. Maybe if he didn’t need her, he would be blaming her right now. Nevertheless, she didn’t care. She could never make it up to him. Could never make up for Rina’s death. But she sure as hell could try.

  Emily brushed past Aunt Anastacia and stood directly in front of Michael, looking him right in the eyes. After holding his gaze for a few seconds, she nodded. “We’ll take him down.”

  Michael nodded. He looked past her to Aunt Anastacia and said, “I want to cremate her.”

  “That’s a bad idea,” said Everet. “She’s got parents. We need to tell them. There needs to be a body. Then they can sign the death certificate. There’s a procedure for this sort of thing. We can’t just cremate her.”

  Michael ignored his father, not even turning to meet his gaze for once. He looked at Aunt Anastacia with pleading eyes.

  “Please,” he begged. “I don’t want the vampires coming to turn her. I don’t want anything supernatural happening to her.”

  Emily didn’t think that was even possible after someone was already dead, but she wasn’t sure and didn’t want to argue, so she kept mute.

  Aunt Anastacia didn’t respond. She looked between Michael and Everet. She finally heaved a sigh, glanced at Everet, and said, “How do we explain all the things that have happened so far?”

  Everet responded, “The same way we always do. Supernatural activity.”

  “Yeah, but these kids were with her. Why didn’t they get hurt?” asked Aunt Anastacia. “And remember one of her parents works with federal law enforcement. You don’t want that kind of attention on the town.”

  Everet wasn’t satisfied. “I don’t think they’d appreciate it that much. I’m a parent. I would be livid and heartbroken if something happened to Michael and he was cremated without my consent.”

  Aunt Anastacia said, “I understand that. But the circumstances surrounding her death are too suspicious . . .”

  “So we just brush it under the rug like it never happened?” Everet scoffed. “Remember, I’m a law enforcement agent. I can’t stand by—”

  “Dad!” Michael swiveled on his heels, his fists crackling with electricity. Everet shut his mouth, his eyes widening in fear.

  Everet was about to speak, but Kendrick put his hand on his shoulder. “Let the kid do what he must, Boss.”

  Everet glanced at Kendrick. “You support this?”

  Kendrick nodded, solemn. Everet glanced at Dad, who also nodded his approval.

  “Look, Everet, leaving her body here could be dangerous. We don’t know what these roves are capable of.” Aunt Anastacia glanced to the spot where Emily’s fire demon had roasted the rove and the other creatures. “And they are amassing for a war. We can’t chance her coming back as a vampire or a werewolf or even a zombie.”

  “That’s not even possible!” Everet
shook his head vehemently. “Even a rove can’t reanimate a corpse.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” Anastacia disagreed. “They are evil enough to practice necromancy, and they have no lack of undead monsters on their side.”

  Everet’s mouth parted in disgust as the concept sank in.

  “This town is charged with too much supernatural energy to let her lie in a morgue. Plus, we don’t know if civilization will remain standing by tomorrow. For all we know, we’re standing on the precipice of the end of the world.”

  Everet turned calm as he considered this. “When you put it that way, it makes a different sort of sense.” He sighed. “Right. Let’s do this.”

  Aunt Anastacia turned to Michael. “Okay, Honey.” She snapped her fingers. There was a jolt of magic in the air. And a jar appeared in her hand. “You do the honors. Remember what I taught you. Steady flow.”

  Michael nodded, taking the jar from her.

  They all gathered about the body. There was something fundamentally wrong with what they were doing. Emily still thought so. In some ways, she related with Everet’s point of view. This felt awfully similar to brushing Rina’s death under the rug.

  They’d barely even moved her. She still lay there in an obtuse angle. Her neck was snapped to the right. Her legs were broken in more places than one. She had a ghastly look on her face—her mouth twisted in a harrowing scream. This was wrong on so many levels.

  But Emily followed along. Michael was the closest to Rina, and they let him decide what they did with the body. Perhaps it had not really sunk in that Rina was dead. And the fact that Emily blamed herself for what had happened to Rina worsened the whole thing. She felt sour. Furious. A cross between pity for herself and inordinate rage against Marion and his family and all they stood for.

  She’d vowed that they would pay. And pay they would. She didn’t mind burning them down and ending their lineage anymore. The fire demon stirred within her. Before now, that might have been off the table. But that was different now. Now they had drawn first blood. They had also drawn their last. Now they would pay with their lives. All of them.

  Michael stood by himself on one side of Rina’s body, while the rest of them stood on the other side. They were silent as Michael looked his last at Rina.

  This is really happening, Emily thought to herself.

  Michael started by saying a few words. His words were solemn and often broken with bursts of tears. They listened through it all. Joanna encouraged him now and again. It took him fifteen minutes to finish all he had to say.

  When he was done, he looked up. “Emily.”

  Emily snapped to attention, glancing at Michael.

  “Can you say a few words? Please?”

  Emily froze. Surely she couldn’t have heard him clearly. Did he ask me to say a few words? Emily glanced at Joanna for confirmation. Joanna had a wan smile on her face, and she was nodding slightly.

  Emily glanced back at Michael. This was so wrong. She had no right to say a few words over Rina’s dead body. She was about to decline when Michael said again, “I know you both rarely got along before all these problems. But I know she’d want you to say something.”

  She swallowed hard, tears forming in her eyes. She wanted to say no, but how could she say no to her brother? Instead, Emily nodded, a few drops of tears spilling from her eyes.

  Michael sighed with relief and flashed her a smile. It made Emily feel all the more guilty. She didn’t deserve Michael’s goodness. She deserved his wrath.

  Or maybe this was his wrath. Making her say something over the girl she’d indirectly killed. Maybe he knew the guilt would tear her apart. Sticks and stones may break the bones, but words hurt a long time after. Maybe Michael understood the power of emotional pain, and maybe he was using it as a weapon against her.

  Just to be sure, she took one more glance at Michael. He’d already bowed his head, waiting for her to say the final words. He didn’t look like someone who wanted to torture her. But then again, he rarely did. He could be a master showman after all. Of course, if he could come up with this ingenious plan of playing on her emotions, why couldn’t he have a poker face par excellence?

  Stop it, will you?! Selena retorted so loud that her discomfort radiated through Emily’s mind.

  What? Emily complained. I could be right.

  Yeah, but you also could be wrong, Selena replied. So you’d rather sour the good thing that exists between your brother and yourself based on a notion that he’s out to get you? A notion that has no proof, save for the warped version of a logical conclusion in your mind?

  When put like that, Emily couldn’t fault Selena’s reasoning. Yet, she wasn’t ready to accept that Michael genuinely wasn’t angry with her and wasn’t out to extract vengeance from her. Like, she’d seen him angry so many times. She’d come to accept his personality to be incendiary and unfavorable toward her. A case in point was the argument they’d had in the car coming here. The one that led to her lashing out at him.

  Michael couldn’t change all of a sudden. Could he?

  Really? Don’t forget tragedy changes people, Selena pointed out.

  True, Emily agreed. But Michael? She wasn’t so sure.

  Emily cleared her throat and returned her attention to Rina’s body. She could now see the wisdom of cremating the body. It was skewered in a gruesome way. It took all her willpower to look the girl in the face. No parent should ever come and see their child like this. Never.

  “Rina was brave, confident, and bold. She died for what she believed in. Truth is, we’re all going to die,” Emily said finally. “Maybe sooner than we think. Maybe we’ll never defeat this evil we’re up against. Maybe we’ll defeat it, but at great cost.

  “So, Rina, know that you’re not alone. Your sacrifice today will never be forgotten. And I promise you that we will build a monument in your honor if and when this is all done.”

  Emily looked up at Michael, took note of his surprised look, and nodded. She stepped back to join Joanna and Aunt Anastacia.

  “Thank you for your kind words, Sister,” Michael said softly.

  Emily felt a cold feeling flush through her chest. Sister? She still couldn’t understand why Michael was being so kind to her.

  Death makes you realize a lot of things, Selena said. He’s always been angry with you because of something you did in the past. Maybe he realizes that, as he’s lost Rina, he might lose you, too. Petty grievances don’t hold water when put side by side with loss.

  Emily saw The Owl’s point. She wondered if it was true. Was Rina’s death going to bring Michael and her together finally?

  Emily desired that. She wanted Michael in her life—she wanted him to be an integral part of her existence. If Rina’s death was going to accomplish that, then maybe she didn’t need to beat herself up about it. That didn’t mean she didn’t feel responsible for her death, but she could take solace in the fact that she didn’t die for nothing. Because if she and Michael were united in this way, maybe, just maybe, they stood a chance against Astaroth.

  Michael placed the urn on the ground beside the body. His eyes watered again as he looked upon Rina. Then he spoke a few words in an unknown tongue. As he did, Emily could feel the steady build of power in the air. Before long, his right hand caught on fire. He stretched out the hand and the fire leaped off it and landed on Rina’s body.

  The fire spread across the body until it was fully enraptured in the flames. Michael continued chanting. The power in the air continued building.

  Someone somewhere started to sing. Emily assumed Aunt Anastacia. A sad Celtic song, and it rose in a crescendo as the fire burned Rina’s body to ashes. Soon, everyone joined in, the men giving the song a sweet bass underlay.

  It was a beautiful moment, one that turned on the waterworks for Emily again. She could feel Michael’s stress and strain in the power buildup. She could sense his anxiety, his fears, his pain in the way the power saturated the air around them.

  She watched as
the ashes from the burning body rose into the air in a single orderly line and poured into the urn, like a stream. The song was punctuated by pops of fire. The warm glow of the burning body swamped them, chasing away every feeling of coldness. But it did nothing to warm the cold feeling in their hearts.

  The song continued for as long as the body burned. As the last ash particle landed in the urn, the urn’s cover floated into the air and landed neatly on the lid, shutting it effectively.

  Silence.

  Michael picked it up and stared at it with tear-filled eyes. “Finished.”

  18

  They spent the next hour rounding up all the remaining bodies in one spot so they could be incinerated as well. Emily, Michael, and Joanna were allowed to go down to the safe house temporarily, while the adults took care of clearing out the road. They were also going to be keeping an eye on their surroundings in case the Alfreds came for a second round.

  Once they got to the anteroom, Michael announced that he couldn’t sleep and needed company. Joanna was too banged up to stay up with him, so she called it a night and went inside. Emily decided to stay with her brother.

  They sat side by side on the couch in silence for a long while. The TV was tuned in to a local news network, and the weather forecaster was going on about strange weather patterns all over Texas. Emily didn’t need a prophet to tell her that this was the evil rove’s doing. They were getting ready for an apocalypse.

  Before now, Emily had always held on to the hope that they would make it. Somehow, through some stroke of luck or genius, they were going to win this. But Rina’s death proved one thing to her. They weren’t invincible, and this was real shit. Death was imminent. They couldn’t joke about it.

  “You know what scares me most about all this?” Michael muttered.

  “Hmm . . .” Emily reacted immediately, stiffening a little bit. This whole dynamic between her and Michael was very new. Michael was usually not calm, especially not toward her.