by Cara Wylde
The prophecy said only a human could retire Valentine Morningstar. According to the prophecy then, all was lost. But the prophecy, as I’d recently discovered, was bullshit. All prophecies were. Glimpses of parallel dimensions hybrids randomly had access to when they dream jumped involuntarily. They thought they saw the future, and if two or more hybrids dreamed roughly the same thing, then they thought they were all having prophetic dreams. In reality, what was happening was that these half supernatural, half human fellows had inherited the rare skill of lucid dreaming, traveling outside of their physical body, and jumping to other dimensions from their human ancestors, but not the ability to understand it and fully control it. And what does one do when one doesn’t understand something? One misunderstands it.
Prophecies were huge misunderstandings of the way the universe worked.
I knew how it worked. But I was trapped now. More trapped than ever. The second I’d lost my humanity, I’d lost something much more precious along with it. My ability to dream. Not just dream, but dream jump. Universe jump. I’d lost my mother. I’d just found her, tucked away in a parallel dimension where Valentine Morningstar wasn’t the villain, and then I lost her again, for the second time in my short life. And my short life had now turned into a long, long one. I was twenty-one, looking at an eternity of years, decades, centuries, and millennia ahead, but did it even matter if I was never going to see my mother again? Did it matter when only GC and Francis were immortal, too? Granted that demons and fallen archangels lived super fucking long and aged super fucking slow, they still aged. They still died. And one day, only GC, Francis and I would be left… and what else? Who else?
Eternity, I finally gathered, was one scary bitch.
What’s a girl to do when she died once, then death was literally taken away from her, her mother was taken away from her, and she can’t even accomplish the one thing she is expected to accomplish: kill her evil father? Drink. Fuck. Smoke. Party. Drink more, fuck harder, smoke like a chimney, party like a crazy person.
That was my summer vacation. After classes were suspended, all students and professors went home, desperate to see something other than the oppressive walls of the Academy. I had no home to go to. Morningstar had taken all his money with him, which meant emptying both his vault and mine, but that was fine. I didn’t need anything from him. Living at his castle in Scotland was out of the question. The staff probably had clear instructions not to receive me. Had I been smarter, I would’ve bought myself a place with his money before he decided that I was dead to him. Which I was. Dead. But that wasn’t the point. Anyway, I couldn’t go back to my adoptive parents, either. I dreaded the day when I’d have to tell them what I’d become, so I avoided the moment like the plague. That meant avoiding them. Who else was left? Who else could give me a temporary home? Pazuzu’s mother was more than happy to take me in, but I felt like it wasn’t right. I wasn’t only dating her son, and even if she was okay with it, I wasn’t okay with her seeing me with four men under her roof. Granted it was a rather big, spacious roof. GC’s parents were ready to be just as accommodating, so I refused their kindness, too. Francis’s parents were another story. His father had divorced his mother recently and gotten remarried. But that wasn’t the problem. Saint-Germain Senior didn’t like me. At all. He hadn’t liked me when I was human, and now he tolerated me even less. He and Francis had gotten into a huge fight after Francis confessed to him that he’d asked the Great Old One to bring me back to life and now I was part of their little cult. Which turned out to be not so little, after all. He knew what my intentions were because he was a trusted advisor to the Council. As I learned, Grim Reaper Academy wouldn’t have even existed without him and the Saint-Germain fortune. Many institutions in the supernatural world wouldn’t have existed, and many companies wouldn’t have thrived if Claude, Comte of Saint-Germain, hadn’t traveled to the new world and unraveled the mysteries of the Great Old Ones, if he hadn’t pledged his life to Yig, who in return gave him eternal life, then passed his legacy on to his son, Leopold Saint-Germain, who then passed it on to his son, Francis Saint-Germain the First, who then passed it on to his son, Francis Saint-Germain the Second – my Francis.
I’ll never understand why these old families can’t think of any other bloody names. First, Second, Third, and so on and on. My GC was Third, by the way. Thank God Sariel was Sariel and Pazuzu was Pazuzu, otherwise I would’ve gone insane!
So, whatever. Long story short, Francis’s family didn’t like me. Which was fine, since I didn’t like them, either. His stupid father had been the one to convince the Council that Yig had to be left alone if they wanted the Academy to remain standing where it stood, on top of the cursed well. If anything were to happen to his god, he wouldn’t only withdraw his yearly monetary contribution, but he’d make sure all hell broke loose over the Academy, until not a wall stood erect.
I was forbidden from touching Yig. Not that I could harm the wretched monster in any way. When it came to the Great Old One, I was allowed to do one thing, and one thing alone. Feed it.
I didn’t want to.
I’d have to.
So, I moved in with Sariel in Limbo. Temporarily, of course. And temporarily, Francis, GC, and Pazuzu moved in with us. Sariel’s two-story house wasn’t big enough for the five of us, plus a pixie, but we made do. The guys took care of everything, and I existed, barely, between parties, nightmares, and constant laments that I myself was getting tired of. I got more tattoos, too. Breaking my own promise, I got a snake on my left arm, the tip of its tail nestled in my palm as its body wrapped around my wrist, forearm, elbow, up up up, its head resting on my shoulder. The Father of Serpents, as Mr. Lovecraft depicted Yig in his short stories. A snake, Yig was not. But I found the metaphor ironic. Like a snake, the monster had pushed its way into my life, when I wanted nothing to do with it. Nothing that didn’t involve killing it, slashing its tentacles into pieces, and sending its soul to the deepest pits of Hell. The tat was visible no matter what I wore. But that was fine. Morningstar wasn’t there to see it, and my guys were the only ones who knew why. Why I chose to scar my skin with ink the colors of the rainbow. So I wouldn’t scar it with blades.
My summer vacation was a blast. When September was just around the corner, I was almost convinced I’d beat it. The curse of the blood sacrifice, as I now called it. I was feeling fine. My senses dulled by alcohol most nights, my body preoccupied with the pleasure my men gave me… I was feeling fine. No, I wasn’t rotting from the inside. No, my pores weren’t giving off a slight odor of wet dirt and worms. I didn’t taste blood on my tongue, no. I was fine.
I was falling apart. Like Francis had told me would happen if I didn’t feed the monster. It only kept me alive if I did my part and kept it alive. Not that it was dying or anything… He had plenty of revenant servants who stopped by to feed it. Not just Francis, like I’d thought. Many had been returned to the land of the living by Yig, and there were many wells along the coast. The Great Old One’s tentacles extended far and wide, which made me wonder… How big was this creature?
A cosmic god, indeed.
“Mila, you have to,” Francis had gotten in the habit of telling me a few times a day. “You have to, or you’ll rot on your feet and die.”
“So I’ll rot and die. Because I’ll never,” I always said, emphasizing each word, “ever…”
* * *
Pazuzu had found her for me. He was a demon, and demons were in the business of sinful people. She was petite, with black hair and brown eyes, dressed in designer clothes. Nothing about her betrayed that she recruited barely legal girls from poor eastern countries to work in the west as dancers. That was what she told them. Once they got to the US, they soon realized their new job had nothing to do with dancing.
Francis had tied her up good, blindfolded her, and stuffed a rag in her mouth. As he and Paz pushed her to her knees in front of the well, she whimpered.
I was shaking. My head was throbbing, my ski
n burned hot with fever, sweat gathered at the edges of my hair, dripping down my temples. I felt sick to my stomach. Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed heavily, forced it back down. It tasted bitter. I’d already vomited twice. My ears buzzed. I could barely hear GC’s meek encouragements. What the fuck was he even saying? How could he be encouraging me? He was… telling me about her misdeeds, something about sex traffic statistics in North America alone. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to hear any of it. Sariel asked me if I wanted to know her name, and I yelled at him. What did I yell? Did I even use words?
“Mila.” Francis’s voice, quiet and gentle. “It’s time.”
I shook my head and took a few steps back. GC sighed, grabbed me by the arms, and pushed me toward the well. Toward her.
“N-no.”
“Mila, the quicker, the better.”
“N-no.”
GC stepped closer, hugged me from behind. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he’d scrunched up his nose the second he caught a whiff of my skin. I didn’t smell like someone who was alive and healthy. Because I was neither. I hated, hated it so much that Francis had been right. Refusing to feed the god meant rotting on my feet. My kidneys had started failing already, and only one was still functional. I was constantly sick, and I couldn’t hold down any food. Dark spots had begun popping up here and there, on my arms and thighs. I didn’t know what they meant, and didn’t want to research it, either. And, oh my God, I smelled! No matter how often I showered, no matter how much body lotion I lathered onto my skin, and no matter how many bottles of perfume I dumped on my clothes, the smell wouldn’t go away. Wouldn’t change, wouldn’t let up. I fucking stank!
So, here I was, on the first day of school, down in the cavern, with my guys, my pixie, and a very scared, very well-tied up woman who was going down the well. She was. She had to. But for the ritual to work, I had to say the right words and push her.
“Just do it,” GC whispered in my ear. I inhaled his fresh, manly scent, which made me feel even more uncomfortable in my decaying body. “It will take two minutes, and then you can put all of this behind you.”
But I couldn’t, could I?
“Mistress, you have to do it. I don’t want to lose you.” Corri’s voice was trembling. She was perched on Sariel’s shoulder, who was a few feet away. Not far enough to offend me, but not close enough to catch my distinctive scent, either. He might have been a Fallen One now, an archangel without wings or honor, but his nose was still sensitive and accustomed to noble aromas. Truth be told, since I’d turned into a revenant, Corri kind of favored Sariel and GC. She stayed away from Francis, although he was as perfect as could be, what with making his blood sacrifices on time, and usually steered clear of Pazuzu, too. Demons frightened her. Too unpredictable, she said. When he got angry, his eyes turned red, and then she’d have nightmares for days.
“You know the words,” Francis reminded me.
Yeah, I knew the words.
Pazuzu stood beside the woman, holding her firmly by the shoulders. The fight was almost out of her, but I knew that if she sensed she had a chance to escape, she’d take it. I wondered how much she understood from what was happening, from what was about to happen to her.
“Do it,” he said. There was something in his voice, something dark and cold. Distant.
Except for Francis, who was used to this sort of scene, I could tell the others weren’t in their element. They didn’t like what I had to do, nor what they had to do to help me, but they liked the consequences of not doing any of it even less. A blood sacrifice every three months. They’d accepted the idea, and now they were only waiting for me to accept it, too. I’d postponed the ritual long enough. Too long. Four months and a half had passed since I’d become a revenant, and I couldn’t prolong the pain and decay a day longer. Soon, I’d start losing parts of my body, or something. A toe, an ear…
Fuck, this is disgusting. What I am, what I have to do to stay the way I am. But once I did it, I’d be healthy again. Strong, and perfect, and good-smelling. I hadn’t had sex in a month. Sex would be nice… The moment I’d noticed there was something wrong with my body, I’d stayed away from my guys. What had I hoped to achieve? Did I really think that if I ignored the problem long enough, the god would forget what I owed him and let me be? That wasn’t how this new world I now belonged to worked, apparently.
Just do it, Mila. Just do it. Go on, you can do it. I believe in you.
But the last thing I believed in lately was me. Or my judgement.
I stepped up to the woman trembling on the floor. Pazuzu looked me in the eyes, and when I nodded firmly, he nodded back and stepped away. Francis moved to give me more space, and now it was just me and my victim in front of the well. Sensing my determination, the monster stirred in its sleep, its tentacles finding their way up the wet walls of the fountain and over the edge. I knew those walls… I’d touched them, scratched at them, climbed them…
I closed my eyes for a second, swallowed hard, then opened them, feeling like I was someone else, wanting to be someone else. If only I could detach myself from this body, this place, this moment in time… I couldn’t.
“Ancient One, hear me,” I whispered, my voice sounding like it was coming from beyond the grave. Because it kind of was. “Receive this sacrifice of flesh and blood, make me whole again. Ya stell’bsna y’bthnk orr’e syha’h. Ya kadishtu n’gha,” I continued in the nightmarish language of the cosmic being. “Zhro!” At that last word, a bouquet of tentacles covered in suction cups of all sizes, oozing green and black slime, emerged from the well, reaching out for the prey. I dragged in a breath, yanked the woman to her feet, and pushed her forward. I had to hand her to the monster myself. My steps echoed through the dark tunnels like claps of thunder. Her shuffling feet and desperate whimpers weren’t strong enough to drown them. That was all I could hear. My steps, my panicked breathing, my croaking voice saying over and over: “Ya kadishtu n’gha.” I know your darkness.
I pushed her against the low edge of the well. The tentacles enveloped her lithe body in a split second and dragged her down down down. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t struggle, couldn’t break free… And I briefly remembered how that felt.
I closed my eyes and waited.
The crunch of bones, the splash of something wet and highly abundant. Blood.
And I waited some more. We all waited.
It started with a flutter in my stomach, a stir in my heart. I knew my insides were mending.
Ten minutes later, I was young, healthy, and beautiful again. I smelled of wild roses.
CHAPTER TWO
There was this one thing I kept telling myself in hopes that one day I’d believe it. Being a revenant had its perks.
Heightened senses. As Paz pushed me onto the bed, I ran my hands through his long black hair and pulled him closer, until his lips pressed to my collarbone, and I moaned in pleasure. His tongue darted out to taste my skin, and that made my eyes roll in my head. It had been too long… My body was craving him… them. I was soaked between the legs, and my nipples were as hard as pebbles. Paz bit me hard, knowing how much I liked a little pain mixed in with his loving caresses, then looked into my eyes. His orbs were red. He was angry. Angry at himself for what he’d done, angry at me because I’d made him do it.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be.” His voice was low and husky. “You’re here.” He dug his fingers into my sides, as if squeezing my flesh until it bruised made me real. “You’re here with us.”
I looked past his shoulder at GC, Sariel, and Francis. After what had happened in the cavern, we’d found our way to my room at the top of the North Tower. GC had removed half of his clothes, and he was just getting rid of his boxer briefs, his hard cock bouncing free. Sariel and Francis were still shy around me. They’d only joined my little harem – as I liked to call it jokingly – last spring, and they were learning to share me with the false god and the demon, who were, nat
urally, more daring when it came to fucking. Paz and GC knew me. They knew what I liked, how I liked it, and they knew there were no limits to what they were allowed to do to me. The wilder, the better.
GC jumped on the bed, next to us, and pushed Paz firmly off me. The demon growled, which made me chuckle. I loved it when they fought over me like this. It made me feel like I was important, like I mattered.
“Shh, there’s plenty for everyone.” I reached out for GC and kissed him fiercely on the lips. He tasted of apple cider and pot. His favorite combination when he was stressed and needed to take the edge off. He’d surely had to take the edge off today. The first day of school, which we’d all skipped… We were skipping right now, arms and legs entangled, while the other students were in class.
GC started pulling at my clothes, carelessly, not at all interested in preserving their integrity. Maybe he’d forgotten I was penniless and couldn’t afford to buy myself a lousy pair of jeans. They’d dressed me all summer.
In turn, I started pulling at Pazuzu’s clothes, since GC had already taken the burden of his out of the way. As a shifter, he was a huge fan of walking around in all his naked glory, flaunting his six pack, ripped arms and thighs, and that perfect cock in its nest of golden hair, like his body had been built to be worshipped and adored. Oh, how I loved to worship him, though. On my knees, lips wrapped around that beautiful shaft, eager to earn the hot cum he’d shoot down my throat.
My tattoos came into view one by one. The sun and moon under my boobs, the fox on my right side, Corri’s detailed, realistic portrait on my shoulder blades… Geometrical figures, stars, flowers and birds scattered here and there, everywhere.
Garments out of the way and on the floor, we were three bodies, hot and needy, rolling around on the bed. Paz and GC were fighting for dominance, and my breasts and perfectly shaved pussy were their battlefield. As GC sucked on my nipples and Paz pulled my legs apart to bury his head between them, I made eye contact with Sariel. He was looking at me with hungry eyes, his hands trembling slightly as he undid the buttons of his shirt one by one. I licked my lips invitingly.
