Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (8 page)

She clutched her stomach, looking at Isa with dread, “I’m so sorry,” she managed before vomiting the most foul black sludge onto Isa’s very old and very expensive Persian rug. Isa had just enough time to look dismayed before she caught Ember’s limp body in her arms.

13

EMBER

E
mber dreamed she was in the ocean. All alone in frigid black water she floated upon gently cresting waves, eyes narrowed against the blinding white sky above. Water filled her ears until the only sound she heard was her own steadily thudding heartbeat. She didn’t mind the chilly water. It was a balm to the scorching heat of her skin. She could stay like this forever, floating in a vacuum of silence.

It didn’t last. Frantic voices shattered her peace, muffled and far away. She tried to protest but a heavy weight descended on her, sucking her under the surface. She gasped, water filling her nose and mouth as she struggled, arms thrashing, tearing against her unseen attacker. Each time she broke the surface she was shoved back down again. She fought to wake up, panic clawing through her chest. Her dreams never felt this real before. She needed to wake up or she was going to die.

She wasn’t dreaming. She opened her eyes, viewing the world from beneath a foot of water. Amorphous shapes moved above her and she fought against the large hand at the center of her chest holding her under. Then it was gone. Arms flailing, she scrambled to gain traction as she broke the surface, coughing and sputtering, expelling water from her burning lungs. Her oxygen deprived brain was swimming and she struggled to stay conscious.

Were they trying to kill her?

She looked around, trying to visualize her attacker. She was in a bathtub. She was in her underwear. She wasn’t alone. Kai, Tristin, Quinn and Rhys were all against the far wall, arms akimbo, limbs entangled as if thrown across the room. Three of them stared at her in horror but Quinn smiled like he knew a secret. She opened her mouth to ask why they were doing this to her but she only choked up more water. She felt herself losing consciousness again, slipping back into the water.

The last thing she heard was Quinn saying, “Take her out. She’s had enough.”

When she woke again, she was in somebody else’s clothes and tucked into an unfamiliar bed. Quinn sat in a wooden chair next to her. He was pouring powders into a steaming cup. “Oh, good, you’re awake. Drink this.”

Ember narrowed her eyes at him, sitting up with effort. Her whole body ached. “What is it?” She sniffed the cup suspiciously, “Is this some kind of potion? I thought they said you were human?”

“It’s true. I am but a simple, useless human.” She arched a brow in his direction. He sighed. “Sorry, it’s not witchcraft; it’s just herbs, some yarrow tea with a few other things thrown in. I’m hoping it will help with your fever, even though I’m pretty sure this isn’t the flu.”

She sipped the tea, wincing at the taste, “You don’t seem useless.” As far as she could tell, Quinn was the only one with any real information.

“Sorry,” he told her again, blushing. “I’m not always this annoying. My father tends to put me in this mood.”

She nodded. “I can relate.”

“Anyway, since we don’t have a hospital around here and our healer sort of parted ways with her grip on reality eighteen months ago, I do what I can.”

“Did she train you?”

“I trained me. I have an IQ higher than Einstein and an eidetic memory. I could probably teach myself open-heart surgery with the right YouTube video.”

“So you take care of everybody?”

“I don’t know about that. I keep them alive. It’s not like we can go to the local hospital with a werewolf scratch or a vampire bite.”

He sounded a little defensive, like he was used to having to justify himself and his usefulness. She didn’t say anything, watching as he jostled small bottles and vials in the box at his feet. His human brown eyes were almost luminous in the dim lighting of the room. He had freckles smattered across his nose and he pushed his glasses up the bridge almost like a nervous tick. He had a sweetness to his face the others didn’t.

“So, I had a fever? Is that why you tried to drown me?” she finally asked.

He grinned at her. “Technically, I ordered Rhys to try to drown you.”

She couldn’t help but smile back, “Awesome, thanks. All my future nightmares will be much more vivid.”

“Normally, you don’t plunge somebody into ice water to help a fever but yours was so high, I took a chance. There was no way we could take you to a hospital with a fever that high. Any human would have been dead.”

It was weird to hear somebody say it aloud. “So I’m definitely not human?”

“It seems more unlikely by the minute.”

She swallowed the last of the bitter tasting tea, “Does it bother you? Being human?”

He swallowed hard, eyes meeting hers briefly, “Me? No, not really. I mean, if I really wanted to be supernatural, I could have somebody bite me. A shifter, vampire.”

“They can do that? That’s a real thing?”

“It’s illegal in our country, but in other places, yeah. I could be…something.” He took her cup, “Still wouldn’t be enough to interest my father. If I’m not a witch, carrying on the family name, I’m nothing.”

She touched his hand, “If I know anything, it’s that nobody should have to work this hard to interest their own father. Screw him.”

He smiled and Ember fell a little in love. “You sound like Kai.” He said.

As if he’d heard them, there was a knock on the door and Kai stuck his head in, “Hey, Cuz, can I come in?”

She nodded, feeling heat prickle along her skin. “Sure.” To Quinn she said, “I don’t think your tea is working, I feel sweaty.”

He grimaced, “Sorry, that’s how it works. It helps sweat out the fever.”

“Gross, thanks again.”

There was another terse knock at the door and then Rhys barged in, hair wet, bare chested and sweatpants riding low on his hips. Ember was pretty sure she was gaping but she couldn’t help it. Rhys’ abdominal muscles had muscles. If there was such a thing as an eighteen pack, Rhys possessed it. Ember didn’t even like him and she was grudgingly impressed.

“Isa wants to see Ember downstairs when she’s feeling better,” he said. He looked at Kai, “and she said to tell you, you’re working a double tomorrow.”

Kai said nothing, openly glaring at Rhys’ bare torso as if it had offended him. Kai swallowed hard, dragging his gaze back to Ember, heat flaring in his cheeks.

Oh, Ember thought, that explained the weird tension.

Rhys waved a hand in front of Kai’s face. “Hello?”

A strangled noise escaped her cousin. Rhys’ lip twitched. He sniffed the air, frowning. She couldn’t imagine ever getting used to this. Kai crossed his arms over his chest, fixing a scowl onto his face. He kept his eyes to the floor. “Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

Rhys slammed the door with more force than necessary.

After a few awkward minutes, Kai said, “So…how are you?”

“Considering my night? Okay, I guess. Embarrassed.”

He flopped down on the bed next to her, crossing his legs at the ankles and snaking an arm under her pillow. “Why, because you threw up some horrifying black goop and then passed out in a rather spectacular display of melodrama. Happens all the time.” He told her, waving his hand like it was just another night at Casa de Werewolf.

“Really?” she asked, doubting him.

Kai laughed, “No, not really. It was really disgusting. And awesome.”

She rolled her eyes at her cousin as he nudged her shoulder with his. She wanted to move over, feeling crowded by his presence. He didn’t seem to feel the same. After a minute she asked, “What is happening to me?”

Quinn and Kai exchanged looks before Quinn conceded, “We don’t know. Truthfully, this whole thing is weird. You aren’t human but you aren’t a witch.”

“And I’m definitely not a reaper, like you and Tristin?”

Quinn thought for a minute, “It seems unlikely but really it’s hard to say at this point. Witches and reapers both inherit their magic but there is only supposed to be one reaper per family.”

“Why?”

“The common theory is because it’s a form of soul magic. It’s a supernatural failsafe to make sure that no one family has access to that kind of power.”

“But you and Tristin are both reapers.”

She felt Kai shrug next to her, “The witches said it was a technicality because we’re twins, they say our magic may have split in utero or something. They probably would have looked into it more but then Tristin’s powers never resurfaced so people stopped worrying about it.”

“So, there can’t be more than one reaper but there can be more than one witch in a family?”

Quinn nodded, “Most supernatural creatures, including witches inherit their magic only when another witch in their line dies. So when a witch dies, their magic passes to the next who bares the mark.”

“The mark?”

“Sometime around puberty a mark appears signifying they are the next to inherit.”

Ember sat up on her forearms. “What does this mark look like?”

“It varies for different families. My families mark looks like an olive branch. Kai and Tristin’s look like the moon. If both your parents are supernatural the mark will signify whose magic you’ll inherit.”

Ember’s heartrate sped up; she pushed her hair aside for Kai, showing him the full moon shaped birthmark at the base of her hairline. “Like this?”

Kai inhaled sharply, “How long have you had this?”

“My whole life, I guess. It’s always been there.”

She looked back and forth between her cousin and his friend, distress etched across their faces. The mark was obviously freaking them out. Now it was freaking her out too. “Why? Is this bad? What does it mean? Oh God, did I accidentally murder somebody or something? Is that why I can’t remember anything?”

Kai looked horrified, “No, jeez, Ember. It’s just you shouldn’t have that mark. If you were a witch, you would bare the mark of your father’s house, not your mothers.”

“Wait, my father’s house? Are you saying my father was a witch?” Her laugh sounded harsh even to her own ears. “My dad was a drunk. He was barely a college professor.”

Kai looked away, “I can only tell you what we know about your family. Your mom was a reaper; your dad was a witch, a witch from a pureblood family. That carries a lot of weight in the witch community. It’s not that you couldn’t be a witch; you just don’t smell like one and you wouldn’t bare the mark of our mothers; plus, Quinn’s dad would have been able to sense it. Other than that, we just don’t know.”

“So maybe the witches are wrong. Maybe more than one reaper can exist in a family.”

“Or maybe the witches are lying.” Quinn said, voice bitter.

“Does your mark look like mine?” Ember asked Kai. “Is it a circle like mine?”

“Not exactly, it’s a crescent moon. Tristin and I both have the same mark.”

After a minute of Quinn staring into nothing, he looked at Ember, brown eyes serious. “Ember, do me a favor, keep your hair down until we know more about your powers. I think it’s better nobody knows about your mother’s mark for now.”

She nodded, mind trying to process the ins and outs of magic. There was just so much she didn’t know. “So what about the wolves, do they have to inherit their powers?”

Quinn shook his head. “No. People in shifter families are either born shifters or humans. Humans born to shifter families can decide to take the bite when they are eighteen or they can stay human. Occasionally, an alpha shifter will bite a human not born into a shifter family but it’s illegal here and the Grove takes that sort of thing very seriously. Vampires can transfer the virus with a bite but on rare occasions, vampires can be born.”

“Pregnant vampires? Seriously?” Ember rubbed her temples. “This is so confusing.”

“Magic is fluid. It’s not something we can explain scientifically. People aren’t born ghosts, poltergeists or furies, same with the harpies, they are turned that way due to circumstances, it is usually vengeance driven. Demons are demons because they sold their souls. Wendigo, selkie and chupachabra aren’t really even necessarily supernatural, just rarely seen hybrid creatures with bad attitudes. It would take me days to explain everything and even that wouldn’t help because the real information is being kept from us, guarded by the witches and hoarded by the Grove.”

“What is this Grove you keep talking about?”

Kai scoffed, “Depends on who you ask, the witches will tell you they are the supernatural system of government in charge of keeping the balance but that is because the Grove has let them take over on a local level with all other supernatural people answering to them. You have to wonder who would think it was smart to put humans in charge of the super humans.”

“Wait, the Grove is human?”

“No, the Grove was human.” Quinn told her. “They’re druids; humans who sold themselves to the gods in exchange for magic.”

“So you can buy your way into magic? Why wouldn’t everybody do it?”

Quinn’s mouth twisted, “They are slaves. They spend hundreds of years in servitude before they can call themselves one of the Grove. They endured years of torture at the hands of their brothers. They are taught to speak all languages, forced to know all things. A wrong answer to a question asked by the Grove can lead to a fate much worse than death. When they have proven themselves, the Gods release them to serve as mentors and tormentors to those stupid enough to want to follow their example. They start out as humans but they end up monsters.”