by Lucy Auburn
“Some people eat them.”
“Some people grind up crickets into power bars that they sell on the internet as protein-packed fuel, but that doesn’t mean I have to be some people.”
“Okay, fine.” He crosses his arms, an annoyed look settling onto his face. “Die, if that’s what you’d prefer. What do I care?”
I sigh. He has a point; I’m being kind of a brat. It’s just that when he said he’d give me a talisman, I didn’t think it would be this gross. Or if it has to be gross dead animal parts, it could at least be something cool, like a bobcat claw or a shark tooth necklace.
No one is going to look closely at the black opal, see that it’s a chicken foot, and be impressed with my prowess. People don’t hunt chickens and put their body parts on necklaces to prove they did it. There’s a reason why “choking the chicken” isn’t a euphemism for something cool.
But I pull it on over my head anyway. Once it’s resting against the dip of my collarbone, I can’t really tell that the black opal is a chicken foot. It just looks like a swirly shape. And the silver setting is the only part that touches my skin.
“Am I supposed to notice that it’s doing something?”
“Ideally no. It should only activate when you use your powers or call on your quartet. It neutralizes the part of the connection that’s slowly draining your vitality. Think of it like a charcoal filter that removes bad smells from the environment.”
That isn’t exactly sexy or cool, but I guess it works.
And if it keeps me alive long enough to figure out how exactly to say goodbye to the guys without my heart being metaphorically ripped out—something I know from experience hurts when it literally happens—well, chicken foot necklace it is.
I just hope it doesn’t repel the guys. If I’m going to have this little interlude with them, deadly dangerous or not, I want to figure out what they mean to me before I say goodbye.
For real this time.
Chapter 10
I can’t sleep. I toss and turn in my crumb-covered sheets, even the barest hint of moonlight streaming in through the window enough to keep me awake. I’ve slept on actual pieces of cardboard on hard cement, but somehow this big soft bed won’t drag me down into dreamland.
I’m thinking about them, about my powers, what drew us together and will inevitably tear us apart. I tell myself that it’s for the best I keep my distance from them until I say goodbye, but something about that feels wrong. It’s like swimming upstream.
I’ve been alone for so much of my life that I forgot what it was like to have someone there for you at any moment, ready to support you.
I didn’t know I was starving for that kind of connection until I got it long enough to want to keep it.
The black opal rests against my chest, warmed to my skin; Meyer said not to take it off unless I absolutely had to. It’ll protect me, he said, but only for so long. Until I figure out my powers and he studies his centuries-old journal long enough to end this strange connection before it kills me.
How can something that feels so right, so natural, be this deadly?
Giving up on the thought of sleeping, I throw the sheets off the bed and pad into the bathroom, flicking on the light. The overheads are bright this time of night; it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sudden glare. But the warm shower beckons, and it only takes me a few moments to get the water warm enough to steam the mirror, strip off my clothes and climb in. The first thing I do is pour shampoo into my palm and get to work scratching at my scalp, my thoughts wandering as I massage my head.
Even though I only got this nice upperclassman room because of all the prejudice against me in the regular dorms, I still appreciate it. Sharing a bathroom with someone would’ve sucked. Homeless street rat that I am, I still appreciate a little privacy when I’m showering.
Silently, I correct my own thoughts. I’m not a homeless street rat anymore. I have a home, even though it doesn’t feel entirely homey. This place is mine, according to the headmaster; and I can stay here for as long as it takes to get on my feet post-graduation.
I wish Sara could see me now.
Maybe in a way she can.
I don’t know if the afterlife exists in the way we normally think of, but now that I’ve seen impossible things I have to admit that there’s probably something after death. Right now, Victoria is headed there, if she hasn’t made it already. I wish I knew what it’s like; I’ve died twice, but both times I was yanked back without ever really seeing anything but black nothing. No great beyond, no harps or hellfire.
I know four somebodies who can answer all my burning questions about dying.
Just like that I’m thinking about them. I’m lonely, and I want them here. So even as my fingers jerk in my hair, even as I realize I’m shampooing my head in the shower and thinking about the demons, it’s too late to stop it. They show up, summoned by the part of me I can’t control: my subconscious.
And there’s not enough steam in the world to hide my naked body from view.
I feel their eyes on me. Shocked, heavy, full of desire. Torn between two opposing impulses, I put my hands over my breasts—then drop them—cross my legs and uncross them.
I don’t know what would be worse: if they like what they see, or if they don’t.
“Dani.” Ezra’s voice is rough, distant. “You should dismiss us. There’s no threat here.”
“Oh, I can think of a threat or two.” Sebastian licks his lips, eyeing me from head to toe then back again. “I also think I know why her heart has been beating so fast that she summoned us.”
Mateo grins. “Do you think she was having another naughty dream?”
“I don’t know, but I find myself with the urge to take off my own clothes,” Lynx murmurs.
Yanking open the shower door, I grab my towel and wrap it around myself, baring managing to spare the time to rinse the shampoo from my hair. My cheeks are burning up, and not from the heat of the steam, but from the four sets of eyes that just saw me naked.
It isn’t the only time they’ve walked in on me in a compromised position.
“It was a mistake!” I squeak out, embarrassed by the high pitch of my own voice. “Oh my god, can’t you guys just... look away while I get dressed?”
Suddenly four sets of eyes are staring at the floor, the ceiling, their fingernails, anywhere but at me. I would almost believe that I’d compelled them to obey me, except Mateo keeps sliding his eyes close to me and then away again, like he’s tempted but doing his best not to give in.
I admit to myself that he’s not the only one who’s tempted.
But as I slide my towel off and use it to dry my body and hair, the black opal magic necklace rubs against my skin, reminding me of everything that’s at stake here. Meyer said that the more the bond is forged the worse it could get.
Demon sex isn’t exactly worth dying for... probably.
But, I admit, there’s a big part of me that’s tempted to gamble it all away just to surrender myself to them. That part only grows as I move through the bathroom to pick my pajamas up off the counter, and they shuffle awkwardly so they’re not looking at me.
“Not looking, not looking!” Mateo calls out in a sing-song voice.
“God, that’s creepy,” Lynx mutters. “Just don’t look. It’s the bare minimum thing to do when someone accidentally summons you while they’re naked.”
He has a point. “I swear I didn’t mean to bring you all here. I’ll dismiss you again in a sec, let me just get my clothes on.”
“I don’t mind. In fact I can think of a few reasons why I’d like to be summoned like this more often.”
Sebastian’s voice is a low purr that shoots through me. I’m facing the mirror, and for a moment I feel something brush up against my arm, a presence that shoots sparks through me. Frowning, I look up towards my reflection, but he’s already moving away, eyes trained steadily on the empty shower as I pull on my pajama bottoms and make myself look presentable.
I could keep them here with me. I could strut out in front of them, fully naked, and tell them not to look away. Those eyes of theirs, once so strange and frightening to me, could devour me head to toe.
“Dani.” Ezra sounds impatient. “Ready to dismiss us now?”
Of course, a certain green-eyed clit-blocker would get in the way. Irritation shoots through me, and I suddenly find myself spinning on my heel and striding straight up to him, staring up into his far-too-handsome face. He blinks down at me, green eyes narrowed and tired.
“Why are you like this?”
“Like what?” he spits out.
“Bossy. Domineering. And a huge fucking downer. I get it; I failed to send you guys home. You’re stuck with me and you don’t want to be. But why are you suddenly acting...” I take a deep breath to calm my stupid, trembling-too-much voice. “You said you wanted to stick around to protect me. And now it’s like you couldn’t give a fuck what happens to me one way or another.”
He rears back, confusion in his eyes, and I feel like I struck him. “Is that what you think?” His voice, usually so strong and commanding, is soft. I don’t know what to do with it—don’t know this Ezra who looks at me like I’ve hit him where it hurts. “You may think I don’t care, Dani, but just because I’m a demon doesn’t mean I’m evil.”
“I didn’t say—”
Ezra cuts me off. “You heard what that Grim said.” His mouth twists into a slanted line. “Something wrong happened to bond the four of us together. It’s why we’re stuck in this in-between place most of the time, why you summon us to your bathroom accidentally. You’ll die if nothing is done to stop it. The wounds that White Phoenix made in your chest will split back open until your heart gives out. And you think I don’t care because I don’t want to be one of four reasons why your body falls to pieces?”
Lynx clears his throat. “Ezra...”
“I said what I said.” He stiffens, takes a step back—even though it means standing in the bathroom counter, half his incorporeal form buried beneath white marble and hardwood cabinets with (you guessed it) gold phoenix logos embossed above the drawer pulls. “I’m tired, Dani. I want to go home.”
Sebastian’s sudden harsh words come as a shock. “You hate home. You don’t even call it that. Purgatory is a literal torture hole.”
“We do call it Little Hell for a reason,” Mateo quips.
“Yeah, well, we’re going back there,” Ezra snaps. He shoots me a miserable expression. “I’m not sticking around to watch Dani die.”
Taking in a deep breath, I grab the black opal necklace, ignoring the skittering in my stomach as its little clawed chicken talons scratch against my skin. “Meyer said this would protect me. All I have to do is study and I’ll... I’ll be able to do it.”
“Good.” He’s so clipped, distant and cold; nothing like the Ezra I looked up to as a leader. “The sooner this is dealt with, the better.”
“Right.” I close my eyes, take in a deep breath, and let everything out—every emotion, every thought, just like Yohan taught me.
When I open my eyes, they’re winking out of view, fading bit by bit. Sebastian is the last to disappear, and before he does he reaches out to brush the tips of his incorporeal fingers against my cheek, almost as if he wants to leave a little bit of himself behind.
I shiver, and it’s not just because of the physical sensation. There’s something else there now, a burning thing that’s more than just desire.
Heart in my throat, I push the bathroom door open and sink onto my messy bed, no doubt getting stale cake crumbs in my hair.
If getting attached to the demons is going to kill me dead, they might as well start measuring me for a casket and buying the rouge to make my blood-drained cheeks look lively.
Because I’m totally fucking doomed.
Chapter 11
Tuesday, 8:30 AM, Phoenix Fire Casting 101 with Yohan Cheng
I have to stifle a yawn as I go through the second door into the fireproof classroom for Phoenix Fire instruction. It’s not that I’m afraid Yohan will see me yawning; I’ve got a bagel in my mouth and I don’t want to drop it on the floor.
Typical Yohan being Yohan, he’s awake and frighteningly bushy-tailed as I walk into class. He’s pacing around the room, doing his stretches. When I get in he points to the door, says, “Sit,” and settles into a plank on the hard ground like its nothing. “Also, finish that bagel in the next twenty seconds or I’ll light it on fire. You know tinder isn’t allowed in here.”
“It’s food,” I try to say around the bagel’s deliciousness, but it comes out more like, “Zis floof.”
“Rules are rules.”
I roll my eyes, but I know better than to argue the point, so I scarf down the bagel as I settle into a light hamstring stretch on the ground.
Since this room is dedicated to teaching young phoenix how to use their wings, there’s nothing here that’s flammable—at all. From the desk to the floors, wall, and metal wastebasket in the corner, which never has anything in it, this place is fireproof. And the sealed double-door entrance keeps any errant flame from ever escaping.
Looking at Yohan in his picture perfect plank, I study him for signs of weariness or grief. If Meyer was right, his sister Victoria died sometime in the night, but here he is at the first class of the day ready to teach me. It seems like a weird way to act in a time of street, but then again I’m the girl who keeps dodging the stairwell with Kayla’s memorial picture hanging in it, so clearly I know nothing about trauma.
“You want to ask me about Victoria.” He dips out of the plank and crosses his legs beneath him in a pretzel shape that makes me wonder how a man so much older than me can do that when I’d probably strain something if I tried.
“I didn’t want to pry.”
“You did.” I feel called out, and find myself brushing bagel crumbs off my mouth and chest instead of meeting his eyes. “It’s okay, Dani. The two of you are linked; I’m the first to admit that. Curiosity is natural.”
“I just don’t understand how you can be here when...”
He nods slowly, expression thoughtful. “She passed last night in her sleep. It was peaceful; I was there at her side.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
I blink at him. “Really?”
“Death isn’t simply the absence of life, Dani. It’s peace. It’s an ending to pain and torture.” His eyes settle into the distance, full of memories. “One of the things you’ll have to make peace with is the knowledge that all living things die, and while this is a tragedy of its own, it’s also the blessing that makes life worth living.”
I realize, suddenly, that though I summoned the demons in the shower last night because I was thinking about death and wondered if they had any answers on it, I never got around to asking them anything specific. I was too busy being naked and flustered.
But maybe Yohan, who became a phoenix at a young age, knows more than me. He certainly seems to have made his peace with death, as he says.
“Do you know what happens to us after we die?”
“No.” His eyes suddenly take on that taskmaster expression instead of peaceful melancholy, and I sense what’s coming next. “But I do know that if you don’t summon your fire for me at least once today in class, you might as well just lay down in the middle of the street and wait for a Grim to come rip your still-beating heart from your chest.”
“So I take it class is starting now.”
“Class began three minutes ago.” Raising a brow at me, he motions for me to cross my legs, just like him. “Empty your head. Steady your breathing. And do exactly what you did yesterday in Meyer’s class, or I just might cut that teal hair from your head with my fire.”
I gulp, because I believe him.
Ten minutes later, I’ve got my hand outstretched, a little dancing flame simmering between my fingers, black and red-orange with a promise of what’s yet to come. I’m very proud of it—it took tapping in
to my Grim time-bending powers to summon—but Yohan looks so unimpressed I’m afraid he might burn off my hair anyway.
“Do it again, and this time, make it useful.”
I foresee a long week ahead of me, though as far as I know psychic powers aren’t real. Not that I’d be shocked if they were. I don’t think I could be surprised by anything this crazy paranormal world throws at me.
Tuesday, 10:00 AM, Weapons Combat with Kade
It turns out that holding a sword starts to feel pretty normal after you’ve done it a few times. In fact, it’s downright fucking liberating.
Swish swish. Slice slice. Stab stab.
I’m starting to understand the attraction of disemboweling someone with this thing. Maybe that makes me a little bit sick, or damaged in some way, but fuck it. The damn thing is so shiny. When I really get going in practice with Sam, it feels more like an extension of my arms than something I’m holding onto.
I think tapping into my Grim powers is somehow helping me, because when I watch Kade demonstrate each sword form and mimic his movements, I find myself picking them up faster and better than before. It’s like my mind is filling in the gaps where my body is ignorant.
And Kade is noticing. “Nice work, Carpenter!” He paces between our neat rows and watches as we return to the start of the forms and move through them again. “Excellent Iaido. The ability to cut your opponent with your katana while drawing the sword puts you a step ahead. If the edge of your blade weren’t blunt, Leong would be in trouble.”
Sam quips, “I think I’d be in trouble against Dani no matter how blunt her blade.” He gives me a rakish smile. “If nothing else, she’d eat me fast.”
He’s talking about my infamous food-guzzling meals, of course, which he’s witnessed over a dozen times by now. But there’s a playfully suggestive edge to his words that makes me falter in the middle of adjusting my feet. All it takes is a brief opening and I can feel the tip of Sam’s blunted blade against my phoenix-branded combat uniform.
