Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (29 page)

“I was born in South America but I lived in Florida long enough to call it home. Not the panhandle, though. Further South, near the Everglades.”

Kai pulled a face; he didn’t ever want to go back to the Everglades. It took him a minute to realize what he said. “How do you know I’m from the panhandle?”

“Everybody knows who you are,” he told him. “The supernatural world gossips more than the tabloids.”

Kai sat up on his elbow. “What do you mean?”

“You are the boy who saved his charge instead of collecting her. Everybody is talking about what it means.”

“What it means? Like how soon will the Grove come flay me alive?”

Tate blinked at him, expression quizzical. “I guess. But just what it means in regards to the legend about the curse.”

“Legend?”

“Boy, they weren’t lying when they said they keep you cut off in that town. Is it true they control all information?”

“Isn’t that what it’s like here?”

He thought about it for a bit. “Not really. The Grove chooses who they bother and who they don’t. Information is available if you know where to look for it. I mean, if you choose to behave yourself then I guess you are limited in your sources but those of us with a slightly looser idea of right and wrong can usually find what we are looking for.”

Kai chewed on that thought. He laid his head back down scooting closer to Tate. “So what’s the legend?”

Tate hesitated before asking, “Did you know that once upon a time your town was named Necromancy?”

“Necromancy?” Kai repeated. “Catchy. Why the name change?”

Tate smirked at him, “Ritual slaughter tends to leave a need for rebranding.”

Kai gawked at him. “What?”

47

MACE

A
udrey led them down a long empty corridor until they reached a room at the end. She didn’t enter, just gestured to the doors. “He’s inside.”

Mace pushed the door open, gearing himself up mentally to deal with the reaper. They had some unfinished business. He only hoped the Cael was willing to see reason. He heard Quinn’s gasp, loud in the quiet of the room, before he saw the reaper in the corner.

Cael had that impression on people. He’d grown up collecting. He may look young, but his years of experience were written across his skin. Bands of black ink swirled along both arms from shoulder to fingertip. They crawled along his neck, across his bare head and disappearing underneath the black shirt he wore.

Mace knew it was only the beginning. Cael’s collections were legendary as was his reputation for having no sympathy or remorse. He had just enough time to make eye contact before he found himself pulled off his feet by the collector, large hand squeezing his throat. It was a testament to the reapers physique. He didn’t possess any supernatural strength, just a dedication to violence and an overwhelming need for revenge. He slammed Mace hard against the wall, rattling the pictures residing there.

“You,” the reaper growled. “You have the audacity to show your face to me?”

Why was that always everybody’s first reaction to him? “Me, yes.” He managed to choke out. Cael shook him, forcing Mace to remind him, “You realize this is useless, I’m already dead.”

“Let’s test the theory,” Cael told him, reaching for the blade he kept strapped between his shoulder blades.

“You didn’t fare so well against me last time,” Mace reminded him. “None of you did.”

The hand tightened. “Don’t,” Cael warned him. “Don’t you dare talk about that day.”

Mace didn’t want this to escalate. He needed him cooperative and alive. “I’m not trying to start a fight. I just need some information.”

Cael flung him across the room. He grunted as he slid, head cracking audibly against the leg of the table. He moved to stand.

Cael was already advancing on him. “I’m going to enjoy this. After what you did to Rena, did you really think the next time I saw you you’d walk away? Are you really that arrogant?”

“Yes, he is,” Quinn answered.

Cael turned on him, noticing him at last. He looked the kid over, taking in the crooked glasses, beanie cap, jeans and converse. Mace could practically see the wheels turning in the collectors head. Quinn put his hands up defensively, misreading his sudden interest. “Look, he’s a total dick but we need him,” Quinn told the reaper. “Well, my friend needs him. My friend needs you.”

Mace pulled himself into a sitting position, watching with interest as Cael stared at the human. “Who the hell are you, kid?”

Quinn dropped his hands but still made sure to keep the door at his back. “My name is Quinn Talbot.”

The reaper startled, “What?”

Quinn grimaced, “Yes, of the Talbot family. Yes, my father is Allister Talbot. Yes, he’s the head of the witches’ council. No, I’m not a witch. Can we move on now?”

Cael stood frozen, forehead furrowed. He looked at Mace and then at Quinn again. “What are you doing here?”

“My best friend, Kai, he’s a collector like you.” Quinn looked over the reaper before saying, “Well, not exactly like you. We live in Belle Haven.”

Cael’s eyes darted towards Mace but Mace stayed quiet, for once letting the human handle things. It was clear, Cael still wasn’t over Rena and he still blamed Mace. With reason, Mace conceded, but it was four years ago.

“Your friend is a collector in Belle Haven.” He repeated like he was testing the words on his tongue. “What do you need from me?”

Quinn swallowed. “My friend, he did something stupid and now the Grove is probably coming after him.”

He watched the clouds roll over Cael’s face. The Grove may be the only thing in the world he hated more than Mace. “Go on.”

“A few weeks ago, my friend had a name pop on his arm for a collection. He didn’t complete the collection.”

Cael’s mouth turned down, “We’ve all had a botched collection. Did he fix it?”

Quinn took a shaky breath. “She didn’t die.”

“What?”

“He actively prevented her death.”

Cael gave one last leery look at Mace before gesturing for Quinn to sit. Quinn thunked down heavily, pulling off his cap and raking his hands through his hair.

“It couldn’t have been his first collection?”

Quinn shook his head. “No.”

“So, why her?”

“He knew her.”

“That’s not possible.”

“But he did. She was his cousin.”

Cael yanked the chair out, spinning it and sitting on the chair backwards, “Tell me everything.”

48

TRISTIN

T
ristin jabbed the end button on her cell phone as her call yet again went straight to voicemail. Quinn said he’d be home. She’d left work early just to talk to him. Now she stood in an empty house, her only clue to their disappearance a hastily scrawled note on the dry erase board in the kitchen.

He’d gone out with Kai and Mace. She wasn’t surprised about his disappearance with Kai, but Mace? It seemed impossible. What could the three of them possibly be doing?
Had Mace forced them to go with him? Should she be worried?

She heard the creak of the front door opening and stormed into the living room stopping short when she saw it wasn’t Quinn. Ember dropped her bag by the front door and let it swing shut.

Tristin rolled her eyes, “Oh, it’s just you.”

Her cousin stared at her, eyes bleary and face blotchy. Tristin had just enough time to process her cousin’s emotional state before the girl burst into tears.

Tristin froze. She was excellent at dealing with moody, cranky wolves. She knew how to deal with flesh eating monsters and shrieking harpies but she did not know how to handle a crying girl, especially one she didn’t particularly like.

“Are you okay,” she asked, voice stilted. She took a step towards her and stopped, realizing she had no idea what to do if she reached her cousin. The other girl crumpled to the floor and just sobbed.

Tristin opened her mouth to say something-anything really-to console Ember when the other girl looked up and said, “Did you know? Is that why you hate me so much?”

Tristin had no idea what it was she was talking about but winced at the girls words. She didn’t hate her. She just didn’t think her life was worth trading for her brothers. She didn’t think it was fair that she was stuck with the most useless power in the world and Ember waltzed into an active power like reanimating.

“I don’t hate you,” she said, begrudgingly. She plopped down on the bottom step of the staircase, keeping a safe distance between the two of them. “I don’t even know you.”

“You don’t want to know me. You never even gave me a chance. Now I don’t want to know me either,”
Ember wailed.

“What happened?” Tristin asked, bewildered.

The girl looked at her and the floodgates opened. Tristin listened, horrified, as Ember told her everything. Her stomach churned, her insides slippery at her cousin’s revelation. She should be furious. She should really hate her cousin now. Her actions set in motion the most catastrophic thing to ever happen to them. But she didn’t. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling but she didn’t hate her. She didn’t have to. Ember hated herself enough for everybody.

As they sat there, Ember’s sobs resolved into dry little hiccups. Tristin finally said, “Listen, we’ve all done horrible things without thinking. We deal with monsters and magic. None of us are innocent.”

“Are any of you mass murderers?” Ember rasped, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

“You were little.” Tristin shrugged. “We were both little. What if you only did what you did because I screamed?”

Ember looked up, startled. “What?”

“It’s possible, right?” she asked. “My scream could have been what set everything in motion?”

Ember narrowed her eyes. Tristin could see she wasn’t buying her pep talk. She didn’t blame her. This wasn’t really her thing. Isa was the one who made everybody feel better. Isa, Kai and Neoma were the heart of their pack. Quinn was the brains. Tristin, Rhys, Wren and Donovan were just soldiers. They liked orders and absolutes. She longed for Isa or her brother right now.

“What is the Grove going to do to Kai?”

“I don’t know,” Tristin told her.

“I don’t get it. If he knew saving me would get him in trouble with the Grove, why did he do it?”

“That’s my brother. He’ll never save himself to sacrifice somebody else.”

“So now, what? They kill him?”

Tristin sucked in a shaky breath, “He upset the balance.”

“Does anybody ever get sick of hearing that phrase?” Ember asked.

A smile played at Tristin’s lips, “It does get thrown around a lot.”

“Why do you think my uncle said Kai would be okay?”

“I really don’t know.”

They sat for a few minutes until Ember stood up. “Sorry, I fell apart on you.”

Tristin shrugged, “It’s okay.”

“Did you find anything on your trip? Did you find out anything about your banshee powers?”

Tristin looked at her then. She didn’t know what they’d found. The book was still hidden in the woods and Quinn was nowhere to be found. The answers they needed could be in that book. She wasn’t going to wait around on him all night. “I don’t know. Quinn decided to take off with my brother and your boyfriend.”

“So would that make Quinn
your
boyfriend in this scenario?” Ember asked, brow arched.

“Touché,” Tristin sighed. “
Want to
get out of here? We stashed a book just outside of town. Let’s go see exactly what the book has to say about…well, everything?”

Ember looked around as if suddenly remembering something. “Hey, where’s Romero?” she asked, hysteria creeping into her voice.

“They took him to the restaurant even though I’m sure that’s violating a thousand health codes.”

“Well, technically, if having dogs in a restaurant is a health code violation, they violate that one every night.”

“Don’t let Isa hear you making dog jokes,” Tristin warned.

Ember smiled but seemed uncertain. “So you’re sure he’s okay?” Ember asked, distrustful.

“Yes,” Tristin said, exasperated. “I promise your smelly dog is still very much with us. Do you want to take a ride with me or not?”

“Yeah, sure. I need to get out of here.”

“Okay, I’m going to go get a flashlight. It’s getting dark. You should probably go wash your face. You look like a raccoon.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Oh and put on some jeans or you’ll be eaten alive by bugs. We are going deep into the woods.”

There was a muffled, “Awesome,” as Ember trekked up the stairs.

49

KAI

K
ai stared at Tate, incredulous. “You’re making that up.”

“I’m not.”

Tate turned to lay so that his head slotted alongside Kai’s, both gazing up at the silks waving from the cold air. Kai said nothing. He didn’t know if Tate was being presumptuous or if he just wanted contact like most shifters. Tate’s hair brushed against Kai’s face and he turned his cheek into it without thought. Tate practically purred in approval, nestling closer. Shifters loved scenting each other. It stood to reason panther’s would be the same. It was just a little harmless bonding with a new friend, Kai reasoned, and if he happened to come home smelling like another guy, so be it.

“Tell me more,” Kai said. He snagged the bottle from Tate’s nimble fingers, tipping it back, embracing the fire as it burned its way down. He was pretty sure this is what battery acid tasted like.

“Well, the short version of the story is that about three hundred years ago a coven there slaughtered thirteen virgins in an attempt to summon the Morrigan.”

Kai choked, praying moonshine didn’t shoot out of his nose. “The Morrigan? The Celtic goddess?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

Kai didn’t know whether to laugh or balk at the absurdity. “Who would be crazy enough to think they could summon a goddess?” Witches, Kai thought to himself, always witches.

“It wasn’t that crazy, in theory. Your town sits on top of the crossroads of two extremely powerful energy streams. Hell, the entire state is made of limestone. They figured virgin’s blood would amplify their magic. Figured with the supernatural signal boost, they might have the juice they needed to summon the deity.”

“But why? Why summon her? What did they want?”

Tate tipped his head to look at him, “They wanted access to the one type of magic denied them since the beginning.”

“Death magic,” Kai said, shaking his head at the arrogance.

“Yes. This coven revered the idea of death magic so much; they named the town after it. They thought their reverence of the dead would be enough to sway the Morrigan to gift them the powers of necromancy. Like the old ones.”

“Except those are stories. Necromancer’s don’t exist.”

“Dinosaurs don’t exist now either but that doesn’t mean they never did.” Kai gave a sharp nod, acknowledging the truth of the statement. Tate knocked his head against Kai’s. “Shelby says a thousand years ago, necromancers weren’t that unusual.”

Kai pulled a face. He didn’t know what to say to that. It all sounded insane. He still couldn’t help but ask, “Did it work?”

“Did they summon the Morrigan or did she give them the knowledge of death magic?” He laughed, “The story goes, the Morrigan was so displeased with the town she cursed them and all magical beings, so that in order for one to inherit their magic, another would have to die.”

“You’re saying our town summoning the Morrigan is the reason all supernatural powers come at the cost of somebody else’s life? It wasn’t always that way?”

He shook his head. “It does have that sort of divine irony the gods are fond of. A rather fitting punishment for people who were so eager to get their hands on death magic.”

“So what happened to the town after that?”

“We must maintain the balance,” he intoned with mocking.

Kai snorted, “The Grove?”

“The beginning of it, anyway. The gods wanted somebody to be held accountable for the supernatural creatures here on the ground. It took a hundred years for the Grove to become the Grove. That coven set in motion a chain reaction we are all still paying for today. Even after they summoned the Morrigan, the magic in the town stayed amplified.

“The Grove has tried to fix it. They neutralized the coven, salted the grounds and tried to power down the mystical radio tower broadcasting to every monster out there. It seemed to work for a time but they set guardians in place just in case something or someone decided to try again.”

Kai raised a brow. “I don’t know, man. Sounds like the plot of a bad Sci-fi movie. Do people actually believe this?”

“Some of us were there when it happened.”

Kai’s eyes cut to him and the panther looked away, realizing his slipup. “Us?” he prompted.

“Yes, us.” Tate told him, looking him in the eye.

“But that would make you hundreds of years old.”

“Yes, it would. Your math skills are amazing.” He laughed.

“But you’re a shifter.” Kai stared at the side of his face. “Shifter’s have a normal life span just like the rest of us.”

“Mm,” Tate looked at him, “but that’s not all I am.”

Tate’s eyes bled from yellow to black, blood vessels around his eyes bleeding dark, like Ember’s had in the car. He jumped back, side crawling away, heart pounding as adrenaline thundered through his veins. “Sweet mother of crap.”