Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  I jumped back, but the Sorceressi still clutched my wrists.

  Two leaped in front of me, and Ica’s hand disappeared inside her chest. Black ooze bubbled out onto Two’s grey scraps of clothing.

  Ica grinned and twisted her hand, still buried inside Two. Her other arms squirmed through the air. “This will work, too. If I can’t be your Three, then I’ll be your replacement.” Needle-like fangs lengthened over what used to be her lips. She reached for Two’s arm. “And I’ll suck out all your Trammeler blood.”

  Two stiffened while Ica buried her fangs into her arm.

  One sank to her knees and closed her eyes. I had to follow since she still wouldn’t let me go. She held her arms out so her fingertips, and those of my left hand, hovered just above the ground. Her whispers swirled through the night just like the smoke rising from the burning graveyard.

  Two’s glowing blue eyes began to fade in and out. Ica’s teeth were still attached to her arm.

  “Just let Ica be Three. I don’t want it.” My frustration and helplessness collected in my fist. I swiveled around to face One and punched her in the face. A loud crack, then pain twisted through my hand. I gave a shaky gasp. The skin was split wide open over my knuckles.

  One stood, dragging me up with her, and hissed, long and loud toward Ica. The force knocked me down, but she didn’t let me go.

  Ica jumped back from Two and glared at One with blood streaming from her mouth. All her teeth were gone. All of them.

  “You bis!” A red bubble popped from her mouth at the end of her garbled words.

  Two fell to her knees. One hissed again.

  “I can’t see,” Ica shouted. Her eyes were now empty red holes.

  A scream climbed into my throat. I fought it back down, afraid my mouth would be ripped away next, just like Ica’s teeth and eyes.

  Ica growled and charged forward.

  One hissed again. Ica soared into the air and smacked against a blackened tree with a deafening crash.

  Then One tightened her grip around my wrist, hoisted Two up with an arm around her waist, and dragged us both down the path.

  Twisting my wrist in the Sorceress’s icy grip only earned me a tighter, bone-grinding hold. Blood streamed from the knuckles of my other hand and trickled to the rocks below in steady plops. There had to be a way to stop this.

  “We see you, Trammeler.” Jo’s screech followed us up the path.

  I shot a look behind me at her crumpled frame and swallowed thickly. Better me than her, but my heart boomed with terror.

  “You and your volunteers are hiding inside the Trinity trees. You want a war, you’ll get one,” Jo growled.

  Next to us, a hand shot through a grave and grasped the ground. I jumped and gave a sharp yelp. Another hand on the other side of the path split open its grave.

  Prickles crawled over my skin. The squelchy sound. The sound my heartbeat now buried. It was the sound of the dead rising up through their muddy graves.

  Mom.

  I choked on the fright that dripped at the back of my throat. “No. Don’t do this.” I yanked at One’s grip, but she held fast. “You don’t have to do this. She…she can’t come back.”

  More fists shot through their graves on either side of us. Heads, too. Rusty moans parted their dry lips.

  I could sense we were nearing Mom’s grave. I’d been here so often I’d memorized every dip and curve of the path.

  She was coming. I didn’t look. I couldn’t look.

  “Listen to me,” I shouted, tears springing to my eyes. I circled around to face both of them, still cuffed in One’s fingers.

  Mom. A Trammeler Sorceress. I was, and always will be, her daughter. Which makes me a Trammeler Sorceress. Just like them.

  I opened my mouth and I hissed at them. A tornado force wind burst out of me. One dropped Two to the ground. Their few strands of red hair whipped straight out behind them. Both of them shielded their glowing eyes.

  I ran out of breath, and gasped in another, blinking at what I’d done. “Leave. The dead. Alone.” My voice somehow slipped through my clenched teeth. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

  My back faced Mom’s grave. I could feel it in the crawling of my neck hairs. If they stopped now, she could continue to rest.

  One jumped up, locked an icy hand around my throat, and squeezed. I wheezed for more air, but she had my throat clamped shut. I clawed at her hands to try to pry them loose. Her grip finally lessened when she bent to circle an arm around Two’s waist and hoist her up. I pulled in as deep a breath as I could.

  One straightened and started forward again, Two sagging at one side and me with a dead hand around my throat on the other. I was forced to walk sideways to keep up, facing the side of the path Mom’s grave was on.

  “Stop this,” I groaned, but One tightened her grip to shallow my breath enough to keep me quiet.

  We were getting closer, both to Mom’s grave and to mine. I let my eyes sink closed, but the images behind my eyelids were just as awful as what was happening around me. Mom. First one hand, then the next shooting out of her grave. Her head with a few strands of blonde hair caked with mud. A gaping mouth.

  My eyes snapped open. I choked on a sob and stared at the path underneath One’s feet.

  The ground rumbled. I fought to stay upright as it vibrated beneath me. Snaps and cracks boomed. Something whistled behind me and silenced a dead moan.

  We stopped walking, but quick footsteps continued. I risked a look around. Human-shaped shadows sped across the graveyard. Glowing white beams raced toward them just as fast and knocked them down. Were those the dead? Was that my teachers killing them again?

  Mom, go back to your grave. Please.

  I realized we were standing at the edge of Sarah’s grave in the center of the Trinity trees. A large pile of dirt lay next to the deep emptiness. I stared down into the dark that would soon take me. I just wanted Jo to be her old smiley self and Mom to be in the ground waiting for Dad and Darby to join her naturally and for all this to be over. If my becoming Three helped make that happen, so be it. Even for a little while before the final hinge on the door to the Core broke, I wished for a tiny piece of normal for the people I loved.

  One dropped to her knees, dragging me by the neck down with her. She tightened her grip, as though she was warning me to behave. Only a sliver of air could enter my lungs. The sky seemed to grow darker in the edges of my vision.

  Two clung to the side of Sarah’s grave. Black fluid soaked both her front and back. They both whispered next to me.

  Blue light rose up from the grave and engulfed the three of us. A weight, much heavier than the one that crushed my chest after Mom’s death, settled on top of me. My body seemed to sink into the earth while the weight plunged deeper.

  One dropped her hand from my neck, and my head drooped forward. The only thing I saw was my grave right in front of me. I tried to lift my gaze, tried to lift a finger to fight, but couldn’t.

  The ground lurched, and I pitched backward. Shouting mixed with shrill whistles and jumping flames. White, fiery light zoomed past my nose and struck One in the side. Unfazed, she pulled me closer and whispered more nonsense, then tossed me into the grave.

  The impact six feet below sucked the air right out of me. I couldn’t draw my next breath for what seemed like an eternity. The cold, rigid ground knifed into my back. Four earth walls pressed in, muffling the battle above ground, squeezing out the last shard of hope I hung on to.

  The dirt mound piled next to the grave sloshed down on top of me on its own, drenched with the day’s rain. Panicked realization dragged air into my burning lungs with quick, sharp gasps. I would soon be buried alive.

  One and Two peered over the edge of the grave. Two’s eyes sparked a faint blue. Black ooze trickled from the corners of her sagging mouth. A tree branch snaked over the upper corner of the grave and dragged One backward. Two stared after her, clutching the wound in her chest.

  The knuckles of my punching hand b
urned where it’d met the dirt and rocks on the way down. I tried to move my fingers, toes, anything, but my body didn’t obey. Mud splattered my face, up my nostrils, into my eyes, but I couldn’t blink it away. More and more rained down on top of me. My arms lay useless at my sides.

  A cold calm seeped into my bones. This was how it was supposed to be. To save Darby. To save Jo.

  Red mist spun over the grave and knocked Two flat. Was that Ica, still fighting for my place?

  The sky exploded with white light. I hoped Mom stayed away from here. The last thing I wanted to see before I died were her lifeless eyes staring back at me.

  More mud fell from the side. I could only see out of one eye now. My heart rocketed against my ribcage, the only thing that could still move. I willed my body to work, but it just lay useless. What had One done to me? Why couldn’t I fight back?

  One and Two held onto each other over the side of my grave. Two’s eyes had dimmed to blue pinpoints. More white, fiery beams flew over the dirt pile toward the Sorceressi but had no effect.

  Shouts echoed nearby.

  Someone stepped up to the foot of my grave. I tried to focus through my single eye to see who it was.

  Sarah. She gripped a shovel tight in one hand and a load of ash tree keys in the other. Her gaze flashed a burning hatred between One and Two.

  Ica leaped up on the mound of earth on the opposite side of the grave, spraying me with more dirt. How could she still see with no eyes? Her arms wormed above her head and at her sides.

  Something boomed. Ica stumbled and sent down waves of dirt. It pressed down on me, as though it wanted to keep me there, too.

  Sarah threw the ash tree keys down on top of me with hardly a glance. Something twisted around the fingers of my bloody hand. What was that? The keys?

  Two lurched away from the side of the grave, like something had dragged her.

  Sarah brought the shovel behind her head, angry eyes glued on One.

  Ica reached down for me with several arms. Blood gushed from her mouth and mangled her words. “Get out of my grave.”

  Something black erupted from my fingers and slithered up one wall of my grave.

  Then mud flooded down on top of me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Something banged and screamed. It took me a moment to realize the noises came from inside me. My panicked heart and desperate lungs. The sounds of my body dying. My mouth gave a twitch like it wanted to open, but I clamped my teeth together to keep it shut.

  But I needed air. Now. That need swept through me and sounded alarms inside my head.

  My arms. They’d moved. Heavy mud suspended them above my head, as if I’d raised them to block the falling death sentence. The weight One and Two used to make me accept my death had somehow been ripped away. Now only wet earth crushed me. But I could move.

  Adrenaline fought its way through my panic. Curling my hands into talons, I viciously tore at my grave.

  Air. I needed it right this second. My lungs blazed.

  The cold soil lodged under my fingernails and wrapped around each finger as I clawed up, up, forever up.

  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. It would open on its own and make me suck down death. I ripped the earth apart and fought upward.

  My grave swayed back and forth. Something thick and rough found my wrist and yanked. But it wasn’t enough.

  Don’t. Open. Mouth. But I had to. Oh, God, I had to.

  The thing around my wrist gave another tug.

  Sparks of colors like dyed snowflakes burst behind my eyelids. Someone was strumming a guitar and singing the song Mom and I wrote together.

  Turn and face the world. Laugh at it fearlessly. And know I’ll always be your girrrl.

  I willed another shot of adrenaline to poke my veins and scrambled upward. The thing around my wrist released me.

  My grave swayed again, and the earth above me split apart just as I punched through into the open. When I dragged my head out, wind kissed my face. I took great big gulps of air, my lungs burning with an awful pain. It was the best pain ever.

  “Leigh!” Someone took my arms and yanked me the rest of the way out.

  Gasping for more sweet air, I collapsed, too tired to clear the mud from my eyes and open them. Someone wiped at them for me with a gentle touch. I blinked a few times then gazed into Tram’s glistening green eyes. They captured the glow of a nearby fire and burned with intense relief.

  He cradled me to him and rested his chin on top of my head. “I thought I lost you.”

  I just shook my head, unable to say anything because I couldn’t stop sucking in air. Two words finally managed to roll out between breaths: “What…happened?”

  “It’s over.”

  I pulled away to look at him. It couldn’t be over.

  “Two is so weak, she can’t stand. And One is without a head, thanks to Sarah.”

  Smoke gave gray curves to the night, and I breathed it all in.

  “Sarah?” I couldn’t bring myself to leave the safety of Tram’s eyes and look around for her.

  “She launched a shovel at One while the volunteers and I were dragging her down into the ground.” He raised his eyebrows. “It was pretty easy to do when her head popped off, even in the center of the Trinity trees. And Ica hurt Two so much, it was easy to drag her below my roots. Once they were both captured, all their spells broke.”

  “But…they’re both…alive?” Every word cracked the plaster of mud on my face.

  Tram scooped some off my face and flicked it to the ground. “Yes, they’re alive. But don’t worry. Herman is underground with them and has his spider spray with him in case they decide to make a break for it again. The volunteers will guard them all day, every day. And Ica can’t do anything about it.”

  I grabbed the neck of his sweatshirt and pulled him closer. “How…do you…know?”

  A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Look behind you.”

  My heart stuttered. I felt my eyes widen. Ica was behind me? I didn’t want to look around and see her or Mom back from the dead or Jo possessed by Sorceressi or the grave I had just dug myself out of. A sob broke from my mouth, and I shook my head violently.

  Tram placed his hands on both sides of my face and rested his forehead on mine. “Trust me.” He pulled away and turned my head for me.

  A streak of muck now joined his eyebrows where he’d touched me. I kept my gaze locked on it for as long as possible, my unibrow lifeboat in this sea of scary, but then my head was turned too far to comfortably see it. A shudder jumped under my skin and shook my eyelids closed.

  “Leigh, just look,” Tram whispered and brushed his fingers over my squeezed lids. “I promise it’s okay.”

  I took a few deep breaths and opened my eyes. There was Ica. Standing over me with some of her arms raised toward the stars while the rest arched into Sarah’s grave to get me out of it.

  She was a tree. A dead one. Her toothless mouth hung open as a hole in the trunk. Black smoke surged from where the gashes in her face had been. And etched into the bark was her black three tattoo.

  “How?” I asked.

  “You tell me.”

  Mud caked the tear over my knuckles, and something black was tied around my fingers. Something bumpy and curved, like an ash tree key.

  “Sarah gave me ash keys,” I said between breaths. “I was bleeding, and they tied around me in the grave. Something shot up from my fingers at Ica.” Inhale. Exhale. “And…I guess I turned her into a tree?”

  But how exactly? It was too much to process.

  “The Sorceresses must have drained her power enough to prevent her from changing into a spider, so I feel her inside the tree’s branches. I’ll keep her there until the Counselor is ready to convict her.” He smoothed my hair away from my face and held me to him. His heart beat into my back. It echoed mine, strong and alive and still here.

  “Did you know I was a Trammeler Sorceress?” The words felt so strange coming out of my mouth. I and Tram
meler and Sorceress. Me. It didn’t make sense.

  “I didn’t. I didn’t know you were Anonymous’s daughter, either. I never met your mother since I only spoke with her on the phone. But I knew something was special about you to make One and Two want you, I just didn’t know what. When we went to the library to get the spider venom out of you, I started to dig up some of your family tree but was interrupted by One and Two before I found anything,” he said as he rested his chin on top of my head. “But you’re not a dead Trammeler Sorceress, and so the third hinge on the Core is still intact.”

  “Right,” I whispered. My brain blurred everything around me except mine and Tram’s beating hearts. I couldn’t deal with anything else.

  “Leigh, I didn’t let you leave my sight. I was in the trees the whole time watching.” His voice sounded strained, tired. “But I had to wait to see how the war between One, Two, and Ica ended. I hoped they would end each other. Then One and Two raised…”

  I swallowed, my mind numb. “The dead.”

  “Yes, to keep the volunteers and me away from you, and they came at us with such force.” He stroked my hair and rocked me back and forth. “You weren’t supposed to end up in this grave.”

  I let my eyes drift closed to the dark, let it coil around me, but it seeped into my eyes, my nose, my lungs. It was killing me. I jerked my eyes open again and took mouthfuls of air to reassure myself I wasn’t dead.

  Somewhere far away, sirens sounded.

  Quick footsteps beat the ground behind us.

  “Leigh, are you okay?” It was Callum. He fell to his knees next to me and grabbed my shoulders. “You’re all…” His gaze swept over me, taking in my mud-soaked appearance. The rest of the color in his face drained away when he looked at the hole I’d just dug myself out of. “I—I couldn’t get to you fast enough. There were too many…”

  Still leaning against Tram, I reached for Callum, my arm limp. “My mom?”

  Callum shook his head so fiercely he probably heard ringing in his ears. He knew what I was asking but didn’t meet my eyes.