Exhumed

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  This was going to be a long one—I’ve had this book in my head for years (since, oh, about 2005 when I originally finished Bloodlines).

  Instead, I’ve decided to just let the book speak for itself. If you have questions, gentle reader, I am always available to answer them.

  I will say, I decided to dedicate this “To those of us who are the heroine and the monster” because that’s what Zara is, what I am, and what I think a great many people—when stripped down bare and raw—can be. Monsters aren’t creatures that lurk in the dark; we’re all capable of violence. Beneath the snark and the fun, Zara is capable of some truly terrible things. It’s who—and what—she is. My job as the storyteller is to tell her story truthfully, to not flinch from any of the details, and as this story is among the most personal I’ve ever written, trust me, I wanted to flinch. Do Zara’s actions and choices make her unsympathetic? Maybe.

  I’m okay with that.

  Most people assumed the title of this book, Exhumed, referred to Nate. Or, perhaps given the tagline, “Some people just won’t stay buried,” Mishka. Really, though, I think it’s about Ana. About raising Ana from the dead, about seeing Zara’s past reconcile with her present. About tearing down who Zara is, seeing what remains of who she used to be, and then seeing what is left with the pieces.

  Following this note is a short story, this time from Mishka’s perspective, set in the week before her death in Bloodlines. She has more than a few answers to share, and Fated raises questions as well.

  Will Zara be back as a narrator? Right now, there’s more from her in the novella Damaged and perhaps in upcoming short stories for the Tales from Alchemy Red line. Nate also has a novella set during Exhumed available exclusively through my website called 9 Crimes.

  The original plan was for Zara and Nate (and Rodney Ballsgalore) to be back in the potential sixth book, Solace, and the eighth, Viral (which was to be narrated by Nate). Right now, that’s very much up in the air and dependent on that nasty little thing called “sales” because this is a business, as much as it breaks my heart to say so. I hope they’ll be back, dear reader, as there are many more stories I want to tell you.

  If they aren’t, Oblivion is still going to end with a bang.

  Fated

  A Mishka Thiering Short Story

  There is a scene in nearly all movies about pregnancy that begins the same way: a woman peeing on a stick, either locked in her own bathroom or perhaps at work, and nervously awaiting the results.

  What I find odd about this near universal scene is that I didn’t need to.

  I knew already.

  Perhaps it’s because I’m a witch, supposedly “sensitive” to things. Perhaps it’s something normal women experience as well. But it was less than half an hour after sex, lying in bed, that certainty descended on me and I knew it with total, utter clarity.

  I was pregnant.

  ****

  Four weeks later, I left my doctor’s office with a stack of literature in my purse, prescriptions, and I’d honestly forgotten what else. My mood was foul and I glared up at the happy spring sunshine.

  While my powers might be relatively vast and varied, I had nothing in my arsenal to cast clouds over the sky as I wanted.

  The streets were busy, citizens rushing around me to wherever stupid humans spent their days. My ankle-length skirt swirled around my legs and I shouldered my coach purse, which thumped against my side as I briskly walked.

  Prenatal vitamins. Ultrasounds. Decisions to make about doctors and midwives. The names of doulas. Lamaze class.

  I still remembered the idiot girl with the big grin who escorted me from the room after my doctor left and I’d dressed. “Do you need to call your husband to pick you up?”

  I came extremely close to throwing her across the room and through a wall but left the office before I did any bodily harm to anyone.

  I hadn’t a goddessdamn clue what the hell I was going to do.

  There were options. Keep it and tell him. Keep it and not tell him. Terminate the pregnancy and not tell him. I’d gone over options for weeks already, even as I told myself it wasn’t true—that I wasn’t pregnant, just so paranoid I could be and it would ruin everything. But no, the IUD failed, and I was knocked up with my sham-husband’s baby, and I wasn’t sure how things could get worse.

  Things didn’t get worse immediately, of course. That would be too much a coincidence.

  The “worse” waited until I was twenty minutes from the doctor’s office, waiting in the dark subway for the car doors to open with a crowd of other people around me. My arms were crossed under my breasts, hugging my purse to me, and the air was chilled, spilling gooseflesh up my arms. Business men and women, teens, and the mix of other people going Goddess knows where were tense, shifting, the charged energy of people in a hurry, impatiently waiting. At last the subway car doors opened and those inside poured out, all tired expressions, busy with iPods or cell phones. I took a breath and prepared to board the evacuated car.

  Everyone froze.

  I tensed, squeezing my bag. Worry crawled up my spine, my heart thudded.

  What the hell?

  Lights sparked brighter in the subway car, shifting from the hollow glow of fluorescents to something warm and full of sunny depth. I glanced back and forth, where the platform had grown dark and still.

  Movement caught my attention, shadows shifting on the stairs. A figure descended. His overcoat was long and black, fanning around his legs, and under it was a pressed charcoal suit. His face appeared as he reached the bottom step; he was an older man with thinning silver hair and a long gaunt face.

  I didn’t recognize him, but since we were the only two people in the subway not frozen in place, I assumed he was here for me.

  My mouth formed the words of a spell automatically, pausing on the last one as I waited to see how this would go.

  The man approached, cold gaze on me, thin lips giving me a smile that held no warmth. “Miss Thiering.”

  “What?” I snapped.

  He wasn’t taken back by my tone, but instead extended his arm, gesturing to the open subway car door with a black-gloved hand. “I’d like to have a few words with you.”

  Being both a witch and quarter-demon, I’d seen my fair share of odd things, dealt with my fair share of odd “people.” But being both those things, I also knew such oddness also meant danger to me.

  “I wish you no harm,” the man said, as if—and perhaps he actually did—knowing my thoughts. “Quite the contrary, actually. I’d like to ensure you don’t die this coming Friday.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat, my pulse pounding almost painfully as fear spiked adrenalin through my veins. At last I nodded and stepped onto the subway car, still clutching my purse and going over in my head every possible spell I might have to knock him on his ass and get me out of there.

  The door dinged and slid shut behind him. I perched tentatively on the edge of the nearest seat, braced for what might come next. My companion dropped to sit elegantly across from me, his chin tipped up with the thick air of wealth and power around him.

  With the barest jolt, the subway started moving. I breathed deeply, glancing at the unmoving figures outside the windows as we passed them. The background changed, shifted from the dark subway to pure blackness, then crisp, white light invaded the space. Rolling hills of emerald green and rich blue skies passed in a blur.

  Wherever we were, it wasn’t in the city any longer. Perhaps not even the dimension.

  I straightened my back and squared my shoulders. “So what are you?”

  He waved me off, still wearing his black leather gloves. “That makes no difference. It’s who I am that should interest you.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “My name is Adrian Lachlan. I represent the Court of the Black Vale.”

  My heart beat harder, prickles running up my spine. Oh my Goddess.

  “I believe you’ve been hoping to speak to us,” he continued.
/>   I forced my voice to be calm, professional. “Yes. Is there still a position in the Court?”

  “For now.” He tipped his head in a slight nod. “I and a few others would like to see you fill it. You don’t have much time, however.”

  “Why? What happens on Friday?”

  “On Friday, Miss Thiering, your primary rival will attempt to have you killed.”

  My primary rival? I had no idea who else even knew about the Court, let alone who was competing with me.

  “Sean O’Connor,” Lachlan said.

  “Oh. Him.” I leaned back in my seat with a smile. Nate’s father already had a countdown over his head—I needed my husband to inherit his money, after all, so I would have extra resources to join the Court. “I wouldn’t worry about him. I’d been debating about having it done this Friday anyway, so I can definitely just commit to—”

  “Not that Sean O’Connor.”

  I frowned. “Nate’s brother? But he’s—”

  “Been alive and well this past year. Faked his death. He’s already preparing his application.”

  My stomach turned. “Application?”

  “A showing of power. That’s how one applies. We have no room for second-rate witches or low class demons.”

  “I’m Lo’s daughter,” I bit out. “Hardly either of those.”

  “Indeed, hardly. But you aren’t, however, that significantly powerful, are you? Not yet.”

  His meaning was abundantly clear—something I’d been thinking on for weeks. My mother had trained me from the moment my demon father’s power appeared in me to hide it, suppress it, to the point that I wasn’t sure how to call upon the most basic of it now. I kept expecting instinct to take over, but it never did. And with my extensive background as a witch from birth, demon magic was perhaps too different, too foreign for me to rely on naturally.

  Or perhaps my only choice now would be to unlock the full thing.

  “I’m working on it,” I said. “I have my sacrifice—”

  Lachlan’s lips twisted in a wry grin. “You’ve been taught these things, have you?”

  My face flushed hotly, somehow feeling like a child being mocked before a scolding. “My mother explained it.”

  “Right, of course. Heaven. Quite an irony, don’t you think, that someone with such a name gave birth to the antichrist’s child?”

  “If it wasn’t a secret, I’m sure it would’ve made a wonderful anecdote for their next solstice party. Is there something wrong with what she told me?”

  “How about you repeat it for me?”

  Something was wrong—I felt it in my marrow—but I repeated the gist of what she’d hurriedly told me when I was sixteen. “My basic power isn’t that much stronger than a regular part demon, unless there’s a sacrifice. Someone of power—a demon or a magic user, the stronger the better—who loves me. If a demon directly from or descended from the Oblivion dimension takes the life of the sacrifice, I get power. A lot of it. Am I missing something here?”

  Lachlan drummed his long fingers on his knee, leather creaking with the movement. “Is there a reason why you haven’t done it yet?”

  Protests played on my lips. I needed time, of course. I wasn’t just after magic—I wanted his money as well. I wanted to be sure I didn’t need him for anything else.

  “You knew something was off, didn’t you? Your instincts would tell you right away.”

  My shoulders slumped and I frowned, thinking, searching. Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s why I put it off...

  “Not to sound cliché, but love goes both ways, Miss Thiering. The sacrifice has to be great. You are invoking the power of a hell dimension, after all.”

  I met his gaze. “Excuse me?”

  “Perhaps Heaven neglected to mention this because she didn’t want you to. Perhaps she thought it was her life that would be in danger.”

  That would’ve been wishful thinking on her part—I wanted as little to do with my mother now as I had in childhood. “So if I love my husband, then I can have him killed and it won’t be wasted?”

  “That area is...” He tilted his head to the side and gazed briefly at the ceiling as he thought. “...hazy, at best. Persons of your lineage aren’t exactly common. At best, there are rumours, legends. Possibly myths.”

  I tightened my arms around the bag in my laps, as if that could shield me somehow. “And an example would be...?”

  “That you are to do it.”

  I blinked. Swallowed dryly. A voice played in the back of my head, whispering one little word.

  Yes.

  Yes, that was what I’d been missing. Perhaps any demon would do or perhaps the original instructions were garbled along the way. Regardless, I was part demon from my father’s dimension after all. I could perform the sacrifice to be sure.

  If I loved my husband.

  “This detail might have been more useful to me before I picked a mark,” I said.

  “There are other options.” Lachlan nodded, gaze lowering on my mid-section. “The child you’re carrying, for example.”

  Ice blasted through my veins and for a terrifying moment, I understood my place in the world wasn’t where I thought it was. All my plotting, my using, my manipulations of people—that was all minor league stuff compared to this man.

  “Go to hell,” I said simply.

  He raised his hands in mock defeat. “Whatever you say. Just a suggestion. But I do know for certain that your sacrifice must be important to you. Beyond that...accounts vary. Your choice how you want to handle it.”

  I thought on this, fighting to remain still and not tap my feet nervously as I wanted to. The bright day outside continued to roll by, wherever he’d send this subway, I couldn’t say. “And that’s the way to apply as a member? Unlock my demon side and I’m in?”

  “It will...go a long way to convincing the others. You do still, however, have to contend with Mr. O’Connor’s attempt on your life. Dead people don’t receive membership.”

  “What’s he planning?”

  “A rather big show, Friday night. He’s simultaneously attacking every coven on the continent.”

  Holy hell. “Everyone?”

  Lachlan nodded. “Everyone. Including your parents.”

  Or, rather, my mother and her idiot husband I hate. “Friday is O’Connor—senior’s—party.”

  Again, he nodded. “With many prominent coven members in attendance. I would advise you to not go.”

  We’d been talking about sending Zara that night anyway, since she could slip in and out easily with the crowd. Now...now nothing had to be done at all. We could just wait.

  Of course, by then Nate’s apparently-alive-brother would have the position I’d wanted for over a year now.

  Unless you get rid of Nate that night too.

  “He knows who you are as well,” Lachlan continued. “You’ll be targeted that night.”

  “So I have to stay out of his way, fall in love with my husband, have him killed, and then I’m in? Or close to it?”

  “There is one more thing I would like you to do.”

  I stiffened. Always a catch. “Which is?”

  “On Friday, O’Connor is going to make a move to start capturing more vampires.”

  And ‘more’ implies he already has a few. Funny, I hadn’t heard anything about some missing—I had ears everywhere. Of course, Nate’s brother being alive also took me by surprise. “And?”

  “And I would like it if he was unable to take Ana Fidatov—you know her as Zara Lain—alive.”

  I tried very hard to stay ahead of people, or at least keep up, but Lachlan had completely lost me. “Zara? She’s a nobody. Why do you have a problem with her?”

  “If she is not eliminated, one day she will kill me. An hour later, she will kill you.”

  I eyed him warily, the prickling sense of warning crawling across my skin. “Are you a precog?”

  “No.”

  Then how do you know? But then, the Court had any number of reso
urces at their disposal.

  Resources I wanted.

  “Will that be an issue?” Lachlan asked.

  “Why is she going to kill me?”

  He waved me off. “I haven’t the slightest and it doesn’t concern me. But it will happen and it will be bad. It is in everyone’s best interest if she is removed sooner rather than later. Being part of the Court, I can’t act independently on certain matters. You, however, are not. Yet.”

  Kill Zara. Not that I felt I owed her much loyalty—I was sure she’d turn on me in a heartbeat if it served her purpose. I could have her kill both Nate and his father on Friday night, which would put her at ground zero for the big attack. It’s a bit of a challenge to kill a vampire, but generally blowing one up tended to work. And it would save me having to do it myself.

  Goddess, I’m planning to kill my husband, my de facto best friend, and let my mother and stepfather die, all in the same breath.

  I tightened my arms around my stomach. I needed to terminate this pregnancy, as well—I definitely wasn’t fit for parenthood and especially couldn’t be the knocked up one in the Court. What, was I supposed to get a babysitter for meetings? Maybe they had a daycare? Ridiculous.

  I glanced at Lachlan again. “Is there a particular reason why you’re telling me this? Why do you want me in the Court?”

  “We have our share of warlocks. Someone with your talents—or at least potential talents—would be useful.”

  Their share of warlocks. “What are you, Mr. Adrian Lachlan?”

  He smiled unkindly, the skin around his lips stretching uncomfortably as if the action was foreign to him. He peeled off one of his black leather gloves, set it on the seat next to him, and reached into his pocket to withdraw a business card. “You may reach me here directly when you’ve completed your application process.”

  For a second, I squeezed my hands into fists and held back, then I extended my arm to accept the card. My fingers locked on the corner of the small square of cardstock, skin brushing his—

  He’s three and sleeping on a mattress stuffed between a wall and a bedrail. I take the bedrail everywhere and have for years because it quickly became obvious a crib wasn’t an option when we didn’t stay anywhere for long. We have to keep moving, have to keep running, because I’m out of money and I don’t have enough power, and I stare at him, aching. I never knew. Never ever knew it would feel like this—that it could almost hurt to love someone so much, but that’s me and my little boy. Now I have to get him up, get him in the car, feel my heart break again while he sits silently in the backseat, no longer asking me why we can’t stay. He knows not to bother. We’ll never stop running and I’m so scared—just SO FUCKING SCARED—that I’m going to lose him, or that he’ll lose me—