Crown of Ashes

by Addison Moore

  Chloe gives a solemn nod. “It’s in every paper. Every talking head is flapping their frantic jaw about it. You can’t open the Internet without reading another story of a scary clown sighting, a monster chasing children in the woods. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket, Gage Oliver, and—” She looks to Skyla a moment. “And what?”

  “Precisely.” I swallow down a laugh. “Skyla—Chloe doesn’t see a problem with any of this. Whatever it is you’re doing with her has to stop. You’re dancing in the flames.” I pick up her cool fingers and cradle them in my palm. “I promise you, things are going to end badly. She killed your father,” I whisper the horrible reminder. “Logan, too.” It hurts just to say it.

  She retracts her hand. “I know.” Skyla closes her eyes a moment and takes a deep breath as if trying to keep from getting sick. And then just as easily, her eyes snap open like a ventriloquist doll and she gives an eerie blink. “But we’ve moved on.” She reaches over and takes up Chloe’s hand, and now it’s me who’s going to be sick. For a moment, I try to recall which arm of hers once belonged to Chloe, and if she’s holding her own hand by proxy—but then, Chloe is no longer in her own body. She’s in Ezrina’s.

  Chloe bleeds that desolate smile, the smile of death, the smile that says I am ten steps ahead of you both—and you will most certainly be sorry you ever fucked with me.

  And trust me, I’m already sorry.

  “Skyla and I have mended fences.” She bounces my wife’s hand on her lap, and I want to free her. Every last part of Chloe is nothing more than a bear trap. “We’ve moved on from our childish ways and become a united front.” She looks to Skyla and gives a somber nod as if encouraging her to go along with the farce.

  “United,” Skyla says with her eyes locked over on the girl who has been her enemy as far back as I can remember. “Chloe and I are going to change things, Gage.” Skyla doesn’t take her eyes off the sinister devil next to her. If I were to suggest one thing with this strange demonic friendship brewing, it would be just that—keep your eyes wide open. “We are going to start with you.”

  “With me,” I say more to myself than anyone else in the room.

  Chloe lets out a bubbling laugh. “She’s traded you in for me, Gage. Isn’t that something?” She loses herself in a stream of laughter she can’t seem to contain just as Lizbeth breezes back into the room, forcing her to pause and appraise the three of us.

  “What’s this?” Tad balks. “She’s traded in Greg for a woman?” He staggers over with his arm swinging wide, still locked up in that baseball bat of a splint. His face is red and glossed with petroleum jelly to keep his skin from crusting over. “Is that what’s going on here?” he huffs as he struggles to get the words out. “Lizbeth!” he barks at his poor, emotionally neglected wife. I’ve no doubt that right there is the reason she seems so attracted to Demetri in the first place. He has a way of shining the spotlight on her whenever he’s in the room. And Tad has a way of ripping her to pieces with his caustic tongue. The math is pretty easy to do. “Your daughter here has given Greg the boot so she can entertain her lady friend.” His eyes bug out so far, I’m half-expecting them to shoot across the room. I want to say I feel the same way, Tad. My own head demands to explode over this bizarre union.

  “It’s not like that.” Lizbeth digs her fists into her hips, ready to go ten rounds if she had to. “Skyla and Chloe do not have an intimate relationship. For God’s sake, use your head. She’s got Gage Oliver to fulfill her needs. Why in the heck would she look in any other direction?”

  A sheepish grin comes to me as I look to my wife. But Skyla rolls her eyes at the idea. I know what she’s thinking. Lizbeth has had a bizarre infatuation with me since the beginning. She’s as much on my team as Candace is on Logan’s. Too bad for me, Lizbeth has no say in just about anything that has to do with my destiny. Demetri pops to mind, and I glance up at her as if seeing Skyla’s stepmother for the very first time.

  “Shit,” I hiss, stunned. Lizbeth might just be my saving grace after all. Nobody has pull with my father like she does.

  “I know!” Tad does an odd little tap dance. “I’m just as shocked as you are.” His head juts out over and over in his wife’s direction like a chicken. “Like it or not, Lizbeth, I heard the whole thing with my own two ears! She’s traded him in for a new model, and that new model is missing a few boy parts!” He blinks back as if he’s just slapped himself. “Wait a minute. This might be the only form of birth control that will work. On second thought, congratulations, girls. I’ll have Lizbeth bake a cake to celebrate. If we gather all the loose socks in the house, we might be able to fashion together a rainbow flag.”

  “Chloe’s got a kid,” I whip the words out before Tad decides to throw my wife and her fictional lesbian lover a party. “And a husband.” That should nail the coffin on that rainbow-colored conversation.

  “Jumping Jehoshaphat, Lizbeth!” Tad bucks as if the thought of another mouth to feed has him gripped with pain. “No way, no how are we taking in boarders. This nonsense has got to stop. Greg”—he grunts as he turns my way, and I narrowly duck in time, avoiding a splint to the eye—“you get that house of horrors of yours whipped into shape, you hear me? As soon as princess here has a castle of her own to fill with all the screaming babies she wants—I’m sure she’ll hightail it right back to you.”

  “Tad Landon!” Lizbeth barks so loud the boys start in on a bleating cry from the living room. “Now look what you’ve done,” she seethes through her teeth. “Don’t you ever try to kick my daughter out of our home. Skyla and whomever she loves is more than welcome here.” She ticks her head my way. “You, too, Gage.”

  I blink over at Chloe a moment who isn’t missing the opportunity to gloat.

  Holy crap. What alternate universe am I living in?

  “Come on, Tad.” Lizbeth leads him back to the table. “We’ve got mountains of unemployment paperwork to fill out. I want to be on the first ferry to the mainland in the morning. Those unemployment lines are just about as fun as the DMV.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, Lizbeth. In fact, I might even take up gardening, or golfing. The leisure activities I’ll have time for now are endless!”

  Two tiny bodies run past me, naked—covered in what looks like chocolate—but holy hell that smell gives it away. That ain’t chocolate.

  Lizbeth screams at the sight. “Misty and Beau Landon! I have had it up to here with your potty shenanigans!”

  Misty dives in and wraps herself around Tad’s legs, and he lets out a yelp while hobbling toward the back. “Open the door, Lizbeth! We’ll clean the little shits off with the hose!”

  Shit, indeed. I lean in to Skyla. “Tad lost his job?”

  “That’s right.” Her nose wrinkles with her growing irritation—and perhaps the stench. “That three-headed, zero-hearted father of yours swiped it right from under him. Tad is persona non grata at Althorpe. Maybe you can put in a good word for him, now that you and Daddy Dearest are playing on the same team.”

  There’s a strange sexual connotation there that I’m not touching. “I’m pretty sure your mother has more pull with him than I do.” Especially in that arena.

  “What?” both Skyla and Chloe shout in unison. Skyla and Chloe doing anything in unison is unnerving on just about every level.

  “It’s true.” I’m pained to think that she’s taken it as a slight. I lean in and whisper, “In a single conversation, your mother could sweet talk my father into just about anything.”

  “Holy hell.” Skyla tosses up her arms. “Just when I thought you couldn’t sink any lower, Gage Oliver. Okay, playtime is over. Go and head back to the cave you crawled out of.” Her finger darts to the door. She might as well have socked me in the gut—I couldn’t feel worse if I tried.

  “That’s not what I meant.” My eyes never stray from hers. “I love you, Skyla. I will always love you.”

  I take off for the living room where the boys finally look to be rest
ing, sleeping peacefully in the swings. They’ve either been hauled back downstairs or someone yanked out the new set from the garage. No sooner do I get out the door than Chloe appears by my side.

  “Whatever it is, you can save it,” I toss it out there before she segues into her head games. Chloe is a master at just that.

  “Aren’t you in the least bit interested?” She blinks those spider lashes at me.

  “No.”

  “Know this. I’m always on your side, Gage. I’m a lot of things, and one of them is loyal to a fault—to you.” Her finger curls under my chin, and I turn my head.

  “Don’t think for a minute that Skyla doesn’t know that.” I head to my truck, jumping down the stairs two at a time. “And I don’t need you on my side, Chloe.”

  Every damn side she’s on is the wrong one.

  Other than Skyla and the boys, there is just one more person I’m anxious to see today—my brother. I park the truck back at the house and don’t even bother leaving the driver’s seat before teleporting to the Transfer. I land on solid ground in this dark, hellish nightmare of a pit. The Transfer is a plane that belongs to the Counts. With little to no light, a perennial darkness seeps over the landscape in tones of violet and navy blue. There’s a jagged line in the sky that looks as if it were ripped open then stitched back together again, and I marvel at it because I’ve never noticed it before. A battered and bruised countryside appears with cobbled roadways, weed-riddled hillsides. Everywhere you look dozens of long dead spirits tread transparent yet not forgotten with their old-fashioned dress codes, men in dapper suits, women in full hoop skirts, ghostly pale tits out to there. A group of them scuttle by without bothering to go around me. And a mean shiver runs up my spine as a robust woman walks right through my chest.

  “Nice,” I muse. “Happy New Year to you, too!” I call after them, annoyed as I iron my shirt with my palms, and the entire group breaks out into a cackle. They’re a jovial bunch, I’ll give them that.

  I glance back and spot a dull blue light emanating from the cave-like entrance that leads to Ezrina’s old stomping grounds. Ezrina was once bound to the Counts for hundreds of years, no thanks to Candace and her linear march for justice. Too bad for Ezrina, Candace sees justice through an unforgiving lens, but Skyla managed to talk her mother into giving both Ezrina and Nevermore another chance, and that’s precisely why Nev is wearing Pierce Kragger’s dead body like a sports coat, and Ezrina is tooling around in Chloe’s old haunted shell.

  Chloe.

  Just the thought of her makes my stomach boil in its own acids. I stalk down the road past the old—original—mansion with its haunted White House appeal. It’s cavernous inside, dark as crap, illuminated with the dim light of a thousand dusty candles. There’s a piano set in the formal living room that some old coot is constantly bouncing on, and for whatever reason, the entire phantasmic estate holds the scent of fresh apples. Skyla and I exchanged our wedding vows there last September. September thirteenth to be exact. It was a day to remember, with both the living and the dead present, and I would do anything if we could rewind time and go right back to that magical moment. I wouldn’t have missed the birth of my firstborn son—Logan cut Nathan’s cord. I would have had a minute to think on how I might have escaped the covenant I had entered into, but, in reality, deep down inside, I realize there was no escaping my true destiny. Demetri had sown the seeds to my destruction the moment he ejaculated me into existence.

  I grimace at my raw and rather disgusting analogy as I enter through the gates of my brother’s estate, an exact replica of the one down the road but bigger, newer, and all around better. Not that living in the Transfer is anything to boast about. Surely the fact he’s raising my niece in this haunted hovel is something we will most certainly have to address. The child needs sunlight for God’s sake. She’ll wither down here physically, and with Chloe Bishop as her mother, who the hell knows what she’s up against emotionally.

  “Wesley?” I bark as I enter the massive foyer. The entire mansion has a medieval appeal. It’s clear he’s taken the décor into a whole different era. The OG mansion down the road is Victorian through and through. “Wes.” My voice roars in duplicate before my brother comes bounding from the hall. A tiny pink bundle in his arms screws her tiny fists into her eyes as if struggling to rouse herself.

  “There she is.” I give her foot a soft pinch as Wesley lays her down in a playpen and tosses a blanket over her waist. Tobie is a dark-haired, bright-eyed beauty, plump and happy despite the fact her mother neither cares to feed her nor cares for her in general. Chloe has left all the work to my brother, which he in turn has relegated all the work to Ezrina. “The boys have colds.”

  “So, you’ve come to share your germs?” His dark brows arch with something just this side of fury, and a dull smile twitches on my lips. Wesley Edinger is my exact representation. It’s odd because he was only vaguely that in the beginning, and as Demetri’s sinister scheme laid out, it became painfully clear he was a Johnny one-note when it came to propagating his genetics. I’d say I was the mold, but Wesley is slightly older by a year, I believe. I don’t really care at this point. As far as I’m concerned, we’re both equally impotent when it comes to defying our wicked father.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t kiss her. I won’t kiss you either, sweetheart. Where’s Rina?”

  “She’s not feeling well.” He kick-starts a dying fire until the room lights up with the inferno-like blaze.

  “I guess there’s a first time for everything.” I consider this a moment. Ezrina is the great physician, just one notch below the Almighty. It almost doesn’t make sense. “Skyla and Chloe have teamed up. What the hell is up, Wes?” I twist my fist into his T-shirt and pull him in close. “We’re on the same team now—remember, brother?” I force a smile to come and go as I glower at this demented version of myself. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I know nothing.” He offers me a firm shove off his person. “Why would Skyla of all people even get near Chloe? Skyla is dangerous if she thinks that’s a good idea.” He takes a few steps over to the bar and fixes himself a shot of whiskey, neat, and offers it to me.

  I wave it off. I have enough poison coursing through my veins these days. “Your wife is the dangerous one, Wes. Find out whatever you can and report back to me. We need to stick together. We need each other. This can be damning to both sides.” Appealing to his ego and his people is the only way to approach things with my knockoff brother.

  “So that’s where she’s been.” Wes sways on his feet a moment, his drink swilling in his hand as he considers this. “That means Chloe has an all access pass to Paragon. She hasn’t been around the house but twice in the last two weeks.” His gaze remains fixed on the flames licking free from the fireplace. “Chloe and Skyla.” He shakes his head. “Nothing good is going to come of this.”

  “But logic dictates something very much will come of this. Any news on the warfront? Skyla mentioned the Videns are back in the wild. Back to haunting the masses? So you’re setting up the rogue Factions for a fall.” That’s about as much as I can figure. Wesley isn’t all that much into secret motives. He operates in your face for the most part, and that’s the most frightening enemy of them all. “You are moving in a singular direction. Panic the public, point the finger at the Factions unwilling to bow at your feet, and then play the part of the false savior you are.”

  That dark grin of his widens, his brows twitching with amusement at the fact I’ve reduced his menacing plans to a nutshell. “You, my brother, are the savior. Make no bones about it. I am simply your humble servant.” He offers a mock bow. “Do you like the clowns? I thought it was a nice touch myself. Sort of an ode to Skyla if you will. The world is in near hysterics. Some of the moronic humans are getting in on it, too. Their copycat tactics have only added to the chaos.” He toasts their efforts, and the amber liquid in his glass glows in the light of the flames. “They need us, Gage. They’re already begging for someone to step in and
end the madness.”

  “Somebody let me in on the fact that the Videns didn’t go in willingly. Demetri is outright using my people.” I swallow hard at the idea of having people in general. When the Videns were gifted to me—me as their fearless leader—I wanted to laugh. I’ve never taken a gift Demetri has tried to shove in my direction seriously, and now it’s becoming clear I should have done just that. I don’t know them the way a leader should know their people. I had no idea what they were up against, and yet here I’m up against the very same thing—my father.

  Wes ticks his head to the side as if he’s genuinely surprised to hear it. “Who said that?”

  I’m leaving Ethan out of it. “That’s not the point. The point is, I need to make a concerted effort to speak with the Videns and find out what’s going on.” I’ll start with Em’s family and work my way out. “If this is true, you and I will both work to rectify the situation. You don’t need them, Wes. You have enough minions, enough defectors from the rest of the Factions to set the world on fire.”

  “Now that is true.” He toasts me once again before knocking back the rest of his drink. He sucks in a quick breath through his teeth before setting his glass onto the counter. “I’ll work with you if that’s the case. But not before launching a full-scale investigation of my own.”

  A dull smile comes to my face. “You don’t trust me.”

  “The river runs both ways.”

  The clicking of heels comes from the entry, and we turn to find the queen demon herself haunting the doorway—Chloe.

  “Here you are.” Chloe breezes into the room and smirks over at Tobie before settling in our midst. “I was so confident I’d find you here. This is the first place I looked.” She hikes up on her tiptoes and offers an unwarranted embrace. “What I’m doing is for your benefit and mine,” she whispers hot into my ear, and I pull her off me. “Skyla needs you asap, so do not pass go, do not stop by home to check on your poor sick mother. Head straight to Landon jail. The boys are waiting to have the snot sucked out of their noses by yours truly. I bet you’re thrilled you fathered an entire liter of snotty little pups, aren’t you?”