by Eli Constant
Copyright © 2019
Body of Ash: Victoria Cage Necromancer Novel, Book Three © Copyright 2019, Eli Constant Books.
Cover art © Copyright 2018, Covers by Christian.
Editing by ‘The Editing Soprano’, April Bennett.
This book may not be reproduced, in any fashion, without the explicit permission from Eli Constant/Eli Constant Books. Eli Constant asserts her right to hold ownership of this work, and all works, set inside the Victoria Cage Universe. The unauthorized reproduction and/or distribution of this work is illegal.
This is a work of fiction. Any locations that resemble something in reality are used in a fictitious manner. Similarities to organizations and locales, existing now or in the past, are purely coincidental. Characters are creations of the author’s imagination. Similarities to actual persons, living or deceased, are also purely coincidental. The events in this book should not be construed as real in any capacity.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Body of Ash (A Victoria Cage Necromancer Novel, #3)
Blurb
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Check out the next installment of...
Body of Ash
A Victoria Cage Necromancer Novel
Book Three
By Speculative Fiction Author
Eli Constant
Blurb
Fire, fire, burning higher, fairy better fight.
Victoria’s a necromancer, fairy, Blood Queen... hot freaking mess. Her identity is so twisted up in supernatural nonsense that all she wants to do is go back to embalming bodies and coffin brochures. Being in love should make things easier, but when your beau’s a bear and you’ve got a fairy suitor waiting in the wings, romance is just another complication.
While preparing the victims of a tragic fire for their funerals, Victoria discovers that their deaths were not accidents, as the police have ruled. Soon, she’s hot on the trail of a Firestarter who’s been scorching his way through the surrounding counties. It’s about more than murder and flame, though.
Bodies with their hearts missing. A dark coven. And a gate to hell.
It’s not long before Victoria goes from the hunter to the hunted. But she’ll do whatever it takes to bring the arsonist to justice—even if that means getting a few burns along the way.
**Sex & Language Warning**
Victoria Cage has sex... people around her curse. There are dead people sprinkled between instances of profanity (okay, maybe the language isn’t that bad). The Victoria Cage series will also deal with some heavy material—child trafficking, gender acceptance, rape. If you can take the dark with the light, you might just love this series. Me personally? I’m all about the shadows in between.
-Eli
Dedication
TO MY DAD, AND THAT time I made hot dogs with ramen noodles outside in a ‘witch cauldron’ I found in the woods. You ate it without throwing up—which says something fundamental about your parenting.
You’re also the reason I know how to build a fire, and possibly why I’m a little obsessed with watching things burn.
I might need therapy. Xx
Chapter One
DEAR BIG SISTER, LIAM was banished before he could make the Light Prince aware of your location. Please, do not fret. I have enlightened him on the matter. Love, your baby brother. -B
FOR WHAT FEELS LIKE the millionth time, I’m staring at Braeden’s handwriting and the words that have made my future more uncertain. And, Jesus, my future was already about as precarious as a cat balancing on an electrified wire several hundred feet in the air.
I have come to a conclusion though—one that has nothing to do with how to handle balancing Kyle, my Berserker beau, and Liam, my would-be fairy suitor (and trust me, that’s a problem that really needs solving). No, what I’ve decided has to do with the letter I’m holding. And the long and short of it is:
My little brother, I mean little half-brother, is a grade A asshole.
I’ve spent the last three months on pins and needles, waiting for some sort of fae soldier detachment to show up at my door, string me up, and forcibly carry me to Mr. ‘Prince I might be made to marry’. It was the absolute worst thing Braeden could have done—leaving me that damn note. Anticipating something is way harder than just getting the damn something over with. About a month after the note had arrived, I’d told Liam to just go ahead and take me to the Light Court. We’d get it the hell over with, because anything was better than the waiting game.
We fought over it, more than once. He said it was probably just a scare tactic. I said the ‘not knowing’ was going to drive me crazy.
In the end, no matter what I said each time we argued, he refused to turn me over. And he also reminded me that he’d be thrown back in jail if he returns, so it wasn’t just about me. Mostly, I think he doesn’t want me to go meet my marital destiny because, well, he wants to be that destiny. He’s not around as often as I’d like right now. I hate to admit that I miss him when he’s gone. I want his presence. I feel ungrateful sometimes—he’s leaving to keep me hidden. He’s planting false leads and whatever else will help me stay free. I’m glad nowadays he’s letting me know when he’ll be gone. And he’s even gotten a cell phone. I can text my fairy any time I want. If I want to. I wish I didn’t want to.
Of course, there’s Kyle too, who also wants to look towards ‘our’ future... if the promise ring he’s had in his coat pocket the past month means anything. We haven’t known each other long enough, not really, but the bond between us grows stronger with every passing week. It’s undeniable, hard to fight. A supernatural pressure forcing our bodies together. I’m his to protect. The animal in him is mine to call. I shouldn’t need anything else.
Which makes it even harder to deal with the way my body responds to Liam also. If I’m magically in love with Kyle... And if I’m emotionally in love with Kyle... Then why do my pants want to hit the floor when Liam enters the room? I don’t like it. This isn’t the girl I was raised to be, or the girl I want to be. I say girl, because a woman should know her mind and her heart. Shouldn’t she?
God, when did my life get like this? Once upon a time, I was just a necromancer minding her own business, helping the occasional spirit or two wrap up the loose ends of life. Now I’m a confused, muddled mess and the only solution to all of my problems is to stop being who I am. And that’s damn well not going to happen.
“Tori!” Dean’s hoarse voice carries up from the basement. He’s been cleaning up the store room and the crematory termination, where the ash from the bodies collects after burning, and he’s been coughing nonstop. Things weren’t that dusty down there, but he likes to be dramatic, pointing out what a shit housekeeper I am. Hell, that’s what I have an assistant for. “Tori!” Dea
n hollers again, “did you mean to leave all this stuff out in the embalming room?”
“Yes!” I yell back. I’m not naturally loud, so it always feels like I’m straining my vocal cords when I have to go louder than my usual volume. “Several bodies are coming in about an hour.”
“Several?” Dean’s confusion reminds me that I haven’t told him about Terrance’s call yesterday. Business has been so slow the last few weeks that I was just glad for some work, even if we were getting a fraction of what we normally make for the same job. That’s a city paycheck for you. I hadn’t even thought about cluing my assistant in. I say ‘assistant’, singular, because Max had up and quit not too long ago. He’d become a bit flaky, coming in late and skipping out early, so I wasn’t exactly surprised. I found out through the grape vine that he’d moved to Texas with his girlfriend. Never thought he’d be one to fall head-over-heels, especially since he’d dated a different girl every week not too long ago. I was happy for him, though, and the loss of that help hadn’t been too painful. Again, work’s been light.
Instead of shouting back to Dean this time, I get up from my desk and walk the thirty feet or so to the open door that leads down into the basement area of the Victorian. I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the frame. “Do you know that new Thai place on West Oak that opened only a few months ago?” I wait for Dean to nod. I can see him there, swiping at ‘supposed’ cobwebs in his hair. “It burned down. Middle of the night. The family renting the apartment above the restaurant didn’t make it out.”
Dean’s face crumples and he stops acting like there’s something in his hair. “Jesus, that’s terrible. It just happened?” He makes the last a question.
It’s my turn to nod. “Over the weekend while you were camping with Mei. The county’s short a coroner for the next month, so Chief Goodman’s asked me to step in. Doug’s on some sort of second honeymoon with his wife. The fire department’s ruled it an accident, so no autopsies, but I still have to do a general once-over of each person.”
“Any kids?” Dean asks the question tentatively, like he doesn’t want the answer. Shit, I don’t blame him. No one in my line of work likes to handle children.
“Yeah. Two of them.”
“Dammit.” Dean shoves his hands into his pockets, “I can’t stand when it’s kids.”
“You and me both,” I say, uncrossing my arms and standing upright. I feel tired suddenly, like the weight of the world is getting a bit too heavy on my shoulders. It was good to have the work, perked me right up in a way, but I couldn’t think too long about the small bodies about to grace my embalming table or all the new-found perkiness was going to zap right out of me again.
Dean’s about to say something else, but a thunderous knock makes us both jump. I glance at the time on my watch. “Probably the Chief,” I say and wave a hand at Dean as a goodbye. I walk away from the basement stairs into the foyer, steeling myself for what’s coming. When I swing open the large, dark-wood door that’s creaking just slightly on its brass hinges, Terrance’s face, looking grim and aged, greets me. If you can call a muffled ‘hey, Tori’ and a frown a greeting. His knock had spoken louder than his words. He needed to hit something; he didn’t want to talk.
Sometimes, getting physical is the only way to stay sane.
“Hey, Terrance. Come on in.”
He brushes past me, his massive frame hunkered over so that he looks six inches shorter than he should. “You ready for them?”
“Yes. I still can’t believe they didn’t have any other family though, Terrance. Surely there’s someone we can track down. I’d like to bury them properly. I’d like to...” I hesitate, biting my lip and then sighing, “I’d like to know what the kids liked, so I could do something special for the service.”
“No will, Tori. No relatives that we can track down. They paid the restaurant owners in cash every month. We couldn’t even find any identification in the wreckage and they didn’t do a proper rental agreement for the place.” Terrance fast tracks it to the mourning room and settles into the wingback chair there.
“Were the kids old enough to be in school yet? The school would know something I’d think,” I follow him, settling myself against the soft cushions of the burgundy couch. The material is the kind that you can run your fingers over again and again, going different directions, and leave patterns behind until you deliberately smooth them away.
“An infant and a toddler, Tori. You know,” he sighs and leans his head back against one of the wings of the chair, “I don’t think they were here legally. I think that’s why they didn’t have a car or IDs and they paid for everything in cash. The wife was working for a local cleaning company that cashed her check for her and he wasn’t working as far as we can tell.”
“Oh.” My mouth stays in a little ‘o’ shape a little too long after I speak the word. “I’ll do what I can then, Terrance. I’ll try to make it nice, even if it’s just us here to put them in the ground,” I say, reaching forward and putting my hand on his knee, “it was good of you to start that fund to help with the funeral expenses for folks without family.”
“I’d rather not need it. I’d rather everyone have someone that loved them be around to say goodbye,” his voice is a whisper and he closes his eyes and then opens them again, sadness touching the lovely navy blue of his eyes. I haven’t noticed before now, how the lines around his eyes have deepened in the last year. I can’t imagine the stress he’s under on a daily basis, and I sit around thinking I’m carrying the weight of the world. “Tori, there’s not a lot in that fund yet. I mean, I only started it after Ms. Leeds died and you had to donate everything to give her a proper funeral. I doubt it’ll be enough to even cover cremation for all four.”
“It’ll be enough and we don’t have to burn them. I...” Swallowing, I push the words out, “really hate burning kids, Terrance. I’ve got a plot at Burnside we can put the kids in and we can spread the parents’ ashes on top maybe. Would that be okay? I can’t remember if there’s a code against two bodies in the same plot. There used to be, but things changed last year.”
“I’ll look into it,” Terrance speaks as he rises from the chair in a fluid motion that shows none of the sadness in his voice and eyes. He seems to be hardening his resolve, one cell at a time. “We will have to chain the coffins, do the concrete thing, if we don’t burn them. That’ll cost. Might be better to mix the ashes into the concrete. No grass, you know, and we won’t be able to afford the fake stuff to make it look nicer.” A tear finally escapes his right eye. I’ve never seen Terrance this beat up over something. “Some rich people have been able to lobby for burial without the precautions, as long as it was on their own lands. I don’t think it’s fair. People can’t even be equal in fucking death. Anyways,” he swallows hard, “the transport wasn’t far behind me, I’m going to go wait out on the porch and get some fresh air.”
“Okay,” I say, standing. I don’t know what to do with my hands. They want to touch him, to comfort him. Yet I also get the feeling that he doesn’t want to be touched more, that he’s dealing with the death of this family and the kids like it’s a personal hit. I’m not sure why. People die. Tragedies happen. At least this time, it had been an accident. A terrible accident, but still an accident. I always think murder is far, far worse. Finally, I settle on simply moving closer to Terrance, taking his hand, and giving it a firm, quick squeeze. I can’t help myself.
He looks at me, an odd expression on his face. “Tori, if any of the family members... if one of them wakes up, you let me know.”
Puzzled, I nod slowly. “Um, okay. This is an accident, though. Right? I mean, if they wake up it’s going to probably be just the normal unfinished business scenario. A ‘hey, can you send a note to my mother’ sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s all it’ll be,” Terrance moves away, flexing the hand I’ve touched.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I’m only a few feet behind him. He’s got the f
ront door open already. He’s hovering though, unspoken worries tickling his mouth. I can feel the tension of those unsaid things like a weighted blanket against my skin.
“No. The family died in the fire, they couldn’t get out. It started in the restaurant,” he says the words mechanically.
“But you think there’s more to it.” It’s not a question. I see the cop intuition twitch in his eyes.
“Maybe,” he sighs out, “I’m probably wrong, but I’ve learned to listen to my gut over the years.”
“I’ll let you know then, if any of them wake up and tell me something that might be important,” my voice drops to a whisper mid-sentence as footsteps begin padding softly up the basement stairs. I have to be more cognizant of my surroundings. Talking with Terrance, I’ve totally forgotten that Dean was down in the basement. It still feels odd to be open about what I am, but it is getting easier. With Terrance at least. I’m not quite ready to jump out on the porch and scream my truth to the mauling masses. I’m not ready to see if they’ll wait long enough to find out whether I’m good or bad. Because if they don’t wait? Well, I know what happens then.
“Thanks,” Terrance mumbles as he walks out of the open doorway. His entire body seems to relax a fraction once he’s outside in the fresh air.
The three months since Braeden’s note has seen the worst of winter fade into the first touches of spring. It’s still very chilly in the morning, the air akin to leaning into your open freezer and letting a rush of cold dance across your skin, but in the afternoons when the sun is high and warm, albeit usually hidden, it’s lovely even with the perpetual cloud cover. I miss full winter a bit. I miss the way it washed the world in a nearly virgin paleness. But I’m also keenly looking forward to tank tops and the ice cream truck singing its song as it travels our streets.
“I always forget you’ve got cherry trees planted here.” Terrance is standing at the top of the stairs, looking out over the lawn that is starting to take on the emerald hue of summer and the trees that are beginning to burst into riotous soft pink-white blooms. They’re early this year, which worries me. If we have a late freeze, they’ll be ruined.
