“Suffer,” I moaned into Amadan's shoulder as I collapsed, tired and angry with myself. Suffer because I don't want to. Suffer because I have to. Suffer because I know that no matter what I do, I'm stuck with this life. I can never escape. Faerie is part of me and I'm part of it.
Liadain, Samael moaned and with that one, tiny sound, I knew that he did care. That he did miss his mother. That he loved her. And that, though I may not reciprocate his feelings yet, he loved me, too.
And I knew in that moment that I would never forgive myself for what I had done and that I would never want to.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
REAVER
“Reavers are universally accepted amongst the fae as the bêtes noires of the spirit world. A reaver is not a true member of the undead but a soul, esp. human or sidhe in origin, corrupted by an outside magical source. Catalysts for reaver transformations include but are not limited to: spiritual or corporal possession, rape, or extreme torture.”
The sound of the coffin lid closing held so much finality and foreboding that I almost choked on my own sorrow. Cold mahogany gleamed my owl eyed expression back at me like a finely, polished mirror. I'd always been pale, but today I looked almost … bloodless. I made a mental note to ask Corey if there was something wrong with my glamour.
Rachel is dead.
The feelings that surged through my chest and emerged from my swollen lips as melancholy whimpers were different than I'd first expected. It was a deep, cold pain like frostbite had taken over the parts of my heart where I held the people I cared about most.
Rachel was a traitor to the court, Samael whispered in my head, voice metallic, unforgiving and lifeless. But who was he trying to convince? Me or him? Something was going on that he wasn't telling me; that much was obvious. After my initial cloud of grief had parted slightly, I'd replayed the scene in my mind several times over. Nobody had ever told me what Rachel had done, not really. I shook my head, still angry. I didn't want to believe that Samael and I had once been an item. Not in my past life, not ever. Forget her and move on, sweetness. The CRL is on their way there. I beg of you, be out before the first ichthus plastered Chrysler pulls into the parking lot. Samael's voice was hard as iron, and I almost expected my ears to leak blood like the fae did when they came in direct contact with that particular substance. I growled low in my throat eliciting stares from both my mother and sister. I hadn't wanted to invite them, but when they'd found out via a mutual friend, I couldn't keep them away.
The two of them exchanged nervous glances before flanking me and laying concerned hands on my upper arms.
“Georgette,” my mother schmoozed, pretending to care. “She's in a better place now.” Annette French and her Born Again, Bible Belt daughter exchanged another glance. This time it had more to do with Rachel and my previous relationship than anything else. I couldn't help who I fell in love with. Man or woman, bodies didn't matter to me. People did.
I wanted to tell them both to fuck off. They didn't believe Rachel was in Heaven anymore than I did.
She could be at the scales. Right now, Scatach's cold hand could be reaching in and clutching her fragile, little heart.
Another whimper escaped my throat, and I nearly retched as a hand grasped mine. But it wasn't my mother or sister, thank the Gods. It was Corey.
“What am I going to do?” I asked him. Eyes as full of tempests as the rough Irish seas from which Corey's ancestors had crossed, glared down at the coffin. Please talk to me, I whispered in my head. Please. We hadn't spoken since I'd left for Char's. Either I was in the dog house, or he'd let it go … The latter wasn't like him, but I had to hope. He was all I had left.
You have me, sweetness. I ignored Samael's pleas.
“We're going to kill the people who did this,” Corey said. I jumped, surprised but relieved. He was in shock … maybe he's forgotten what was said at the house. Let that be true. “Make them wish they'd never set their sights on us.” I glanced around carefully, but the mob in black suits and dresses that were way too tight and way too short for my lover's final going away party, were too busy pretending to be sad to notice what we were saying. They were hiding behind vases of lilies and sun kissed hands acting as if I didn't notice what they were whispering about me.
Everybody blamed me for Rachel's death. It could have been because I'd arrived at the police station with her blood on my hands and her still body in my arms. But I didn't think so and neither did the cops, luckily. I still had no idea how I'd gotten out of that one.
Most likely, it was because her new girlfriend, Sandy, was there. I still found it hard to believe that I'd only found out about Rachel's newest squeeze by going through her contacts. I didn't know much about the girl, but Sandy hadn't taken her watery, blue eyes off of me since I'd first walked in. She sat in the back row, legs crossed beneath the only appropriate dress in the room save for mine and my mother's. I knew she'd been spreading rumors about me. I didn't care.
“I hope so,” I replied lamely. “If we ever get the chance.” My earlier conviction was gone, adrift in a sea of grief. Corey shook his head.
“We'll get one.” His eyes flickered to the door and back to a bouquet of lilies. At least Samael and Corey had been talking. They both knew there was a chance the CRL might show up. Corey was glad; he thought it was the perfect opportunity to study them in public, and that with a crowd this big, it would be fairly safe. I, on the other hand, was worried, but I couldn't leave. I had to stay here and finish this. I gazed into the eyes of the black and white portrait on the casket. I could go to the Other Place now and see her.
Too dangerous, sweetness, Samael growled against the edges of my skull. The sound reverberated through my brain and made my knees go weak with discomfort and just the slightest hint of lust.
Go away, I crooned into my own head, pleading desperately with him. If you're not going to be helpful then just leave me alone.
Never, my Liadain. Never, my sweet, sweet Georgette.
I tried to ignore him and waited for the funeral director to start the services. We were having a non-denominational reading that I prayed would start soon and take away some of the awkwardness in the room. I glanced once at the door, checking not only for crazy religious murderers but also for one MIA faery. I was worried about Amadan. I had half-expected to see him here, suited, glamoured, but I hadn't seen him since our car ride yesterday. He'd disappeared right after we were finished, getting out of the car and walking naked through the parking lot until he'd disappeared behind some trees. Samael was refusing to answer any questions about him, and when I'd tried to talk to him about it, he'd gone silent for hours.
“I haven't forgotten,” Corey whispered to me, peach-pink skin stretched tight around his eyes. I turned to face him slowly, my thoughts a jumbled mess, scattered. It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. He smoothed a hand down the lapel of his suit and adjusted his blood red, silken tie. “But I understand that this isn't the time. If I can get you to finally come home afterward, we can discuss … everything.” I swallowed and tried to maintain a neutral face. He remembers. Great. But how much? Hopefully not the part about Amadan tasting the pleasures of my bed. Faerie queen he could probably handle, but that … I wrinkled my nose and nodded slowly, worry worming its way into my gut.
“Master,” Elizabeth chimed, fluttering in the front doors like some kind of damned pixie. Her body passed right through the majority of the mourners who barely gave her a sideways glance. They might be able to feel the icy cold against their skin, but they'd never know what it was unless she wanted them to.
Ignorance will be the death of this race, Samael agreed, Lucullan voice oozing between the cracks in my brain. He sounded distant now, distracted. I continued to ignore him. I turned to face Elizabeth and did my best to pretend that I wasn't hearing voices in my head. It wasn't easy. Samael liked to talk more than any sane person should. If you've been around as much as I have, you start to realize there isn't much worth talking about
that won't make you feel suicidal. It was depressing as hell.
“What is it?” Corey snapped, more aggressive than he should have been. He was the one who'd asked Elizabeth to keep watch. She barely seemed to notice, her tiny hands twisting together in concern.
“They're here!” At those two little words, I felt my blood chill, cold as death. “There are lots of them … with … ” Elizabeth held her palms out in front of her, voice squeaky and alarmed. “Big guns, huge! And there M.E.T. trucks pulling in the parking lot!”
The Coalition of the Righteous Living. Pretty name, horrible people.
The Mandatory Eradication Team. Even worse. If they were here, we were in deep shit.
You could've given me a better warning, Samael. There was no response from my self appointed faerie soul mate. I tried again. And you never said they were armed … Still nothing. Not good.
“Fuck.” Corey's vehement swearing drew the stares of just about everyone in the room. Without caring what they thought of us, he grabbed my hand roughly and dragged us both towards the emergency exit behind and to the left of the altar. He had guns stashed there, I knew. I just hoped it would be enough.
The doors were already opening. Hot, white noontime sun burst through the shadows of the funeral parlor reflecting off of Rachel's casket and driving painfully into my eyes. I held up an arm to shield myself from it.
Two men dressed in white robes stood at painful odds with the gleaming black, semi-automatic machine guns in their chubby, ringed hands. A slight, wisp of a woman stood between them. A familiar wave of blonde hair curled softly around her waspish face. Recognition registered a deadly ring in my subconscious. This woman had to be related to the woman that was buried in our backyard, the blonde from the library with the cross. There was no doubt in my mind when her eyes locked onto mine. Hate and rage burned a fiery hot path to her soul, and I was grateful that she, at least, was holding only a brown skinned Bible instead of a gun.
“Fear not, Living People,” she announced the words like an esteemed title, holding one hand aloft and one across the gold embossing on the cover. “We come only for the Dead.”
The mass of mourners exploded into frenzied panic, dragging Corey and I with them like a riptide off of the Pacific Coast. We were torn apart, our hands slick with sweat grasping desperately for each other, but the mob now had a mind of its own. I went for the door that separated the funeral home from the residence. Luckily, the Esperanza Family was an especially trusting bunch and the door remained unlocked.
I slammed it behind me and threw the one and only dead bolt into place before heading for a flight of carpeted stairs.
A burst of gunfire sounded behind me and only hastened my retreat as I stumbled clumsily around the bend in the stairwell and past a very pale and very terrified Mrs. Esperanza.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I screamed at her, but she wasn't my concern at the moment. I couldn't even help Corey or Lou or my mom.
I took the first door on my left which happened to open into a cheery little guest bedroom, complete with white linens and several framed pictures of the Virgin Mary. I slammed the door behind me and checked for a lock. There was none.
Looking around frantically, my glamoured heart palpitating painfully against my chest, I decided on the dresser. It was heavy enough to bar the door for at least a few minutes while I figured out what the hell I was going to do. The furniture slid easily into place, just before another round of gunshots shattered the wood at eye level.
I dove onto the puce carpeted floor with a grunt and immediately began crawling towards the window. I had to at least see if there was an easy escape route. I knew I could probably take the two men down though I was loath to find out how much a machine gun wound would hurt in my glamoured state.
The window seal was fairly low to the floor in the style of an older house, and I lurched to my knees to get a better look as the dresser shook behind me, bits of clothing exploding outwards against my back as it took the bullets meant for me.
The scene outside was worse than I'd expected. At least two dozen members of CRL’s M.E.T. were lined up along the fence, clothed in their black Kevlar vests and combat boots. Several bodies lay limp on the funeral home's perfectly manicured sod. Blood drained in little rivulets in the cracks between the walkway's paving stones and splattered against the white columns of the porch.
I turned my head to the side and vomited.
Where was my mother? Where was my sister? Where the fuck was Corey?
A loud crash resounded in the little room as the dresser groaned forward and smashed into the floor. I released the window with a yelp and it slammed into the sill, shattering. Thoughts of my family were forced from my mind by necessity.
Help yourself now so that you can help them later.
The brass handle on the door turned slowly as I raised myself to my feet and prepared for a fight.
The diminutive little blonde came in first, a grin of holy rapture spread across her features as if Christ himself had finally come. Her arms were outstretched, Bible hanging limply from her left hand. The two men in robes were once again flanking her.
“Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none,” she intoned, eyes rolling back into her skull. She began to shake as if she were having a seizure and foam sprayed from the corners of her lips. One of the men put out a hand to steady her as the other focused his instrument of death on me.
Samael, I called out to the place inside of me where I'd felt his presence continuously since our first meeting in the dark of our abandoned house. It felt oddly empty. I hadn't noticed it until just then because of the commotion, but that little bit of soothing warmth where his magic had touched mine was gone. Samael? I cried, forcing more power into the sending. I need you. I threw away any remaining vestiges of pride that I'd tried to hold onto. I wasn't beyond begging. Help me, Samael, please.
A whisper of magic across my skin let me know that he was still there, however faint, and had heard me. But he still wasn't responding.
The blonde was using the corner of one sleeve of her scarlet robe to wipe the spittle from her chin. While I'd been distracted trying to communicate with Samael, she had stopped shaking. My confusion at her actions was wiped away the moment that she spoke.
Her lips were pulled back across her teeth as if her skin had suddenly become too small for the bones beneath it. Her eyes were bulging outwards as if they were about to pop and blood trickled down each cheek like perverted tears. The voice that percolated from her mouth was certainly not that of a twenty-something woman. It wasn't even human.
“Greetings, Georgette.” His voice (at least I think it was a he) was like a mental assault on my psyche. It was low and noxious, like swamp gas made sound. Worse even than that though was the touch of his magic on my skin. It had begun to ooze out of him the moment he'd spoken his first word and though I couldn't see it with my eyes, I could feel it wrapping around my neck and torso, teasing along my clit and vulva, and slithering down my thighs.
It was an assault of the worst kind and it left me reeling. I had been waiting for an opportune moment to attack, but now, I was having trouble even keeping my legs from buckling underneath me.
As I pulled Corey's magic closer around me to steady myself, I felt my glamour flicker and die.
The men gasped at the sight of my mottled flesh. One of them even managed to drop his gun to the floor before retching. It was, to say the least, borderline offensive. I wasn't nearly as toxic looking as that thing that was standing before me.
With every passing second, the blonde looked less human and more … well, more like a monstrosity. If anyone in that room was the spawn of Satan, it certainly wasn't me.
“What the fuck do you want?” I coughed, voice ragged with the return of my damaged throat. At least you're still alive. I thought. And Corey, too. I knew he had to be around somewhere since I was still standing. No necromancer, no zombie. It was a fact of life. Or death rather.
The creature laughed, loud and raucous, as the two men, now recovered from the horrid sight of me, gazed at it with rapturous love. It was absolutely disgusting. I almost wished that whatever spell it was using on them would work on me so that I wouldn't have to watch the slow transformation.
Its hair was falling from its scalp in clumps leaving ragged bone white patches in its wake and its hands had become twisted and gnarled, adding several new joints in the process. Boils were beginning to sprout from what had once been porcelain perfect skin and the whites of its eyes had gone dark with the scarlet sunbursts of broken blood vessels.
“What do I want?” it choked out in mock laughter. I glared at it, scared but pissed. How had the CRL found out about the funeral anyway? I'd only called Rachel's friends. They had no right to be there. No right to disturb the last sacred rites of a woman that I cared so much for. Samael had known last night that they were coming, but how? I felt suddenly foolish. He'd tried to warn me, but I hadn't listened. I couldn't have. I had to see her one last time, even if it was just in the silken and mahogany arms of a coffin. I was an idiot. “Do you really think I would miss the funeral for my son's mother?” it croaked, taking a lumbering step forward. I watched, horrified as it came towards me.
“Gadrael,” I whispered, the realization of the moment harsh and painful. This was the man who had raped Rachel. This was the man who had killed me. This was a man that needed to suffer, die, be resurrected, and start the process all over again. He was standing right in front of me and there was nothing that I could do about it. I had never felt more helpless in the whole of my life than in that moment. Never.
Gadrael, or rather his grisly avatar, chuckled and reached a gnarled hand out to touch my face. I held back a scream, begging silently in my mind for someone to save me. My undead strength would be nothing against the sticky, dirty folds of his magic. I knew that without even trying.
Sweetness, jump. It was Samael, albeit a quieter, more sustained version of him, like a whisper in my bones. I knew M.E.T. was out the window, that as soon as I jumped, I'd be blown full of holes.
Gray and Graves: A Dark Fae Menage Urban Fantasy (The Three Courts of Faerie Book 1) Page 19
