The necromancer, hidden beneath the upturned high collar of his trench coat and the hat pulled down low on his brow, stuck to the shadows as he wove his way through the headstones toward Henry Jones’s grave. Electricity charged the air, small currents ran through the ground beneath us, as he called up the power that gave him the ability to raise the dead.
Magic.
Plain and simple. There was no other word for it, and whatever kind it was, it was ancient. Something I’d never come across before.
Magic was everywhere. Some people just had to look harder than others to see it, but for people like me, people like Jackson, it was woven into the very fiber of what we were. Jackson ate sins for a living; I collected sinners. My neighbor read fortunes and my friend Smithie had a lump of coal that never stopped smoldering and could lead people to their death. So yeah, I was no stranger to magic, but this was different.
And not in a good way.
The necromancer closed the distance between us to two rows of graves before he stopped. Head cocked to the left, he took in a deep pull of air. The inhale and exhale of breath, followed by a slight smacking of lips all but echoed across the otherwise silent graveyard. Something glimmered, a quick flash in the moonlight. My hand found Jackson’s shoulder, fingers digging in as I realized what I’d seen. A smile. A wicked grin, barely visible beneath the hat brim and coat collar; gone as fast as it came. But a smile like that meant only one thing.
He knew we were here.
“Oh, shit.” Jackson’s hand clamped down over mine, his fingers finding the hem of my coat sleeve and giving a firm tug.
“He knows we’re here.” Every fiber of my being screamed to run, but my years of training and experience as a Reaper kicked in, drowning my fears in false bravado. “It’s now or never, I guess.” Pulling my gun from the waistband of my jeans, and making sure my body was still hidden behind the statue, I ignored the pins and needles in my legs and started to stand.
“You might want to save your bullets.” Jackson’s comment drew my attention to him, while his attention was focused not on the necromancer where I thought it should have been but to the earth upturning behind us.
“What in the hell?” Boney fingers shooting up from the ground sent us scrambling in opposite directions. I took cover behind a mausoleum large enough for only one casket to the left and Jackson behind a small statue to the right.
Neither provided the sanctuary we’d hoped. The ground continued to erupt, bringing forth an undead army the likes of which I hadn’t seen outside of a George Ramirez zombie movie. We needed a plan, and we needed one fast. Only one came to mind.
And Jackson wouldn’t like it.
“You take the undead. I’ll take the guy in the trench coat.” I waved my gun in the direction of where the necromancer had been standing.
“I’m a Sin Eater, not a zombie slayer. What do you expect me to do? Absolve their sins and offer the last rites? We’re in a cemetery, and they’re already dead. It’s a little late for that.” Jackson started patting himself down, turning out his pockets and emptying the contents on the ground, before triumphantly holding up a glass bottle filled with clear liquid.
“Holy water?” Shaking my head in disbelief, I checked the safety on my gun and peeked around the corner of the tomb.
“You have a better idea?” A prayer book in one hand, glass bottle in the other, Jackson pulled out the cork stopper with his teeth.
“I don’t, actually.” With a shrug and a wish of good luck, I stepped out from behind my cover and fired two shots in the direction of where the necromancer had been standing before I remembered I needed to maim and not kill him.
As much as I did not want to deal with the dead people grabbing at my feet and ankles while they tried to finish clawing their way out of their graves, I wanted to deal with an angry Apollyon even less. Big A had a temper and, despite my tendencies for outbursts and stubbornness, I’d yet to feel the brunt of it. I intended to keep it that way.
Wrenching my leg free from the last corpse to grab hold of my calf, I chased after the necromancer who was hauling ass out of the cemetery. On to the next victim if I had to guess. We’d stopped him from raising and twisting the spirit of Henry Jones, but poor Ms. Isaacs would be another story if we couldn’t make it through the army of the dead. If he succeeded with Ms. Isaacs, she’d need to feed.
Another dead kid.
Willing my lungs to take in more air and my legs to pump harder, I started gaining on the necromancer. He was almost at the gate. I wouldn’t catch him before he jumped the fence, got in his car and drove away. I stopped running and drew my gun. Aiming for his leg, which was easier said than done since he was still moving, I blew out a breath and squeezed the trigger. I missed; the bullet ricocheted off the pavement. The necro didn’t look back, never broke stride and reached the fence before I had a chance to take my next shot. He started to climb.
It was now or never.
Jackson’s voice rose above the commotion in the cemetery and the pounding of my heart in my ears. Was he praying? It didn’t matter. He could pray if he wanted to. He wasn’t screaming for help, so I blocked out the sound of his voice and tried to focus on my target.
Halfway over the wrought iron fence, one leg on either side, the necro was about to make his escape. Precariously positioned on top of the spiked fence posts, he was no longer a moving target, at least for the moment. I pulled the trigger and hit my mark. The necro howled in pain as the bullet burrowed into his thigh. He paused, and I thought I had him.
I was wrong.
From his getaway car just out of my reach, he looked right at me and I knew I was fucked. Shadows danced across his face, making it impossible to make out any distinctive features, but I could see his mouth was moving. Uttering words too soft for me to hear, he called on whatever power he had and focused it all on me. The ground rumbled, shifting beneath my feet. I knew what was coming—more reanimated dead people. Sparing a glance over my shoulder at Jackson, I confirmed what I’d already suspected. He had his hands full with a mob of angry dead people and wasn’t going to be much help with the necro.
Raising my gun, I took aim again and hoped I still had a few shots left. I was a novice when it came to guns and hadn’t been keeping track of how many bullets I’d used, but my plan was pretty simple. Just keep pulling the trigger until I emptied what was left in the clip. Sidestepping to the right, I tried to find stable ground before I fired. A hole in the ground opened up beneath my feet in time with my finger squeezing back on the trigger. Bullets cracked the sky, my shots going wild as I went ass over end into the hole. Skeletal hands burst from all sides, tearing at my clothes, my hair. I clawed at the earthen walls, trying to make my way out. Using a forearm protruding out from the left side like a step, I launched myself up just enough to grab ahold of the edge. Feeling damp grass beneath my fingertips, I cried out in relief.
My elation and near freedom were short-lived. Teeth clamped down on my thigh, a couple inches above the knee. Teeth, which remained fixed in the skull even after everything had decomposed, punctured my jeans and embedded in my skin. The warmth of pain dissipated as the blood soaking my pants cooled in the night air. Fear that I’d become one of them took over rational thought, tightening my chest and making it difficult to breathe. Two more skeletons pushed their way through the sidewalls, scratching and clawing my body. One hooked its fingers into the waistband of my jeans, yanking me down. My fingers lost purchase, slipping on the grass. A fingernail snapped back, breaking off down to the quick, as I dug in, terrified to fall to the bottom and join their legion of the dead.
The sound of squealing tires as someone peeled out of the parking lot broke through the panic taking over my mind. Reminded that I wasn’t in some Resident Evil scenario where I’d end up milling around Cathedral as one of the mindless undead, my thoughts flashed to the necro and how he’d slipped my grasp. Fury overrode the pain and exhaustion. Reapers never quit, and I never lost a collection. With the closes
t thing to a battle cry I could muster, I snapped arm bones, kicked leg bones, fighting my way out until the top half of my body lay on the ground outside of the hole. Face buried in the grass, elbows dug in, I tried to use my head and arms as anchors while I swung my left leg up. The added weight of the dead hanging on to my ankles made it difficult.
A scream ripped from my throat as hands grabbed me under my armpits. Reaching out with my right hand to swat the new attacker away, I stopped when I felt myself slip back toward the hole. Out of the hole was infinitely better than in. At least I stood a chance of running.
“Jackson!” Having worked alone for so long, I expected my next words to be more difficult, but having your ass handed to you by a horde of reanimated dead was a pretty humbling experience. “Help me!”
“No need to shout. I’m right here.” The Sin Eater fought his share of Cathedral’s residents before reaching me. Clothes torn, scratches covered his arms, and there was a gash on his forehead still seeping blood into his hairline. Battered as he was, he was still a sight for sore eyes. “I’ve got you.” Leaning back, he used himself as a counter lever, his body weight hoisting me up further out of the hole the necro had opened up.
“I lost him.” The sting of failure and hit to my pride hurt worse than the rest of my injuries combined. Jackson walked backward, dragging me the rest of the way out, before settling me on my feet. “He got…” I found myself choking on the explanation of what happened and how the necromancer got away. The words lodged in my throat as I caught sight of something just over Jackson’s shoulder.
Misreading my distress for shellshock, he stroked my hair, his fingers tracing my jawline as he offered reassuring words and did his best to console me. A part of me softened, the young girl I buried deep beneath my hardened Reaper façade who longed for companionship. But the sounds of the skeletons trying to climb their way out of the hole I’d just vacated and what I’d just seen over Jackson’s shoulder were enough to keep my wits and stop me from falling into his embrace.
“Jackson.”
He slid his hand around mine, lacing our fingers together, before trying to tug me in the direction of the main gate. “I’m going to help you over the gate. Wait for me on the other side.” He pulled another vial of holy water from his pocket with his free hand. “I think I’ve got just enough left to finish them off.”
“It’s my mother.” I ground out the words, anger washing away my moment of vulnerability when I noticed the silver chain with a guitar charm dangling from her bony neck.
Pulling my hand free from his, I nudged him aside and started looking for my gun. Jackson earned himself a gold star by not questioning me or missing a beat. Armed with his holy water and prayers, he went to work on the recently risen. It was dark, almost impossible to see anything but the ivory bones littering the graveyard, but I managed to spot my gun on the far side of the hole. It must have landed there after it went flying when I lost my grip as the ground dropped out from under me. More of my strength and confidence returned when my hand wrapped around the grip.
A large part of me hated knowing it was holding the gun that made me feel that way. I’d never relied on one before, but that didn’t stop me from pulling the trigger. Her exposed breastbone in my sight, I exhaled and took the shot. Bone shattered, and hundreds of tiny shards rained down around her feet. A far cry from the millions of pieces of my broken heart that littered the ground upon learning the truth of how I’d landed in Apollyon’s care.
She kept moving, and I aimed again, this time at her head. It took two clicks before I realized I was out of bullets. Tossing the gun aside, I fell into a fighting stance. Something feral stirred inside me. Some part of me that wanted to face my nightmare and rip her limb from limb. The other, more rational part of me knew that it wasn’t my mother, not anymore, and it wouldn’t stop her.
“Jackson.” I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, calling out for the Sin Eater. “You have any more of that holy water left?” I risked turning my back on my mother’s corpse when he didn’t answer.
He’d fallen deeply into prayer, chanting something over and over as skeletons dropped at his feet; a ring of dead piled around him. Without breaking cadence, he tossed me the glass bottle. Catching it, I pulled the stopper free and showered my mother with its contents. Nothing happened. No fiery show or crumbling corpse erupting in a cloud of dust.
“Shit. Jackson!” My mother grabbed my upper arms, pulling me into an embrace I’d imagined much differently as a little girl.
The crushing bear hug cut off my cry for help. Not that it mattered; Jackson was in a trance. He just kept chanting, louder and louder. Just when I thought my spine might actually pop through my belly button, I realized the walking dead surrounding the Sin Eater were dropping like flies. The holy water didn’t work on its own. The words activated it, like a spell.
My life kept getting weirder and weirder. I would have given anything at that moment to rewind those last forty-eight hours. I should have blown off Smithie’s invitation, ignored anything remotely having to do with a fi-follet and stuck to the case files piled up in my car. But instead, I ignored Hester’s warning and took a job from Big A that we both knew could get me killed. And for what? Because I was bored? Well, if chasing a necromancer, facing down a cemetery full of reanimated dead and all the emotional scars from your childhood in one night wasn’t a cure for boredom, I didn’t know what was.
Struggling with my Latin, I tried to mimic Jackson’s cadence and did my best to repeat everything he said. Choppy and awkward at first, it took two attempts before I fell into the rhythm. Jackson led and I followed round-robin style just like when you sing “row, row, row, your boat.”
Except surrounded by dead people and sung in impossible Latin.
There was a loud pop, followed by a wave of energy that knocked everything standing inside Cathedral, including Jackson and me, to the ground. Dirt and bone fragments rained down on us. Pain radiated from the back of my head clear to my tailbone from the impact. After rolling over to my knees, I started to get up when my lungs decided they didn’t much care for the particles of dead people I’d inhaled and uncontrollable coughing ensued.
“You okay?” Jackson was mid coughing fit of his own when he stumbled over and repeatedly patted me on the back. “Angelica, we need to get the hell out of here. The cops are probably on their way.” He hooked an arm around my middle, hoisting me to my feet, my back pressed against his front.
“Sometimes I forget you’re the new guy around here.” Talking hurt my throat. Ash and bone coated the inside of my mouth. “I would kill for something to drink right now.” My head lolled back, resting on his shoulder. “We’ve got time. I just need to make a call.”
Using Jackson as a crutch felt good. I was exhausted and my body hurt in places I didn’t even know existed before we blew up a cemetery. But, truth be told, it was more than that. He felt good, his arm wrapped around me, hand splayed across my midsection as he held me against him. We fit, like two puzzle pieces snapping together.
And that terrified me more than the reanimated dead and facing down my mother’s corpse and the ghost of my past she brought with her combined.
“I need my phone.” Forcing myself to stand on my own, I pushed away from Jackson and put some distance between us. After a quick pat down, I discovered my phone was among the casualties. “I think it’s down there.” I pointed toward the gaping hole filled with bone fragments. “Yeah, not going back down there. I’ll get a new one.”
Of course, while my phone ended up in the clutches of the dead, Jackson’s phone miraculously survived. He handed it over, no questions asked. Which was good, because I couldn’t exactly tell him who I was calling.
“Thanks.” Swiping the screen to unlock the phone, I called into the office. “This is Angelica Wright. I need a cleanup in aisle five.” There was a pause on the other end as they pulled me up in the system. Something caught my eye, a small glint of silver in on the ground. I bent over, pokin
g through the ashes until I found its source. My mother’s necklace. Hooking a finger around the chain, I held it up. The security guard came back on the line. My attention brought back from what could have been to what I should have been thinking about, I shoved the necklace in my pocket and answered the security question the guard had to repeat twice before I heard him. “Rumpelstiltskin.” I ended the call and handed the phone back to Jackson, shrugging at his confused expression before retrieving my gun. “It’s my password.”
“Rumpelstiltskin is your password?” Chuckling, he shoved the phone into his back pocket.
“Big A”—I started walking toward the gate—“I mean Apollyon hates it.”
“You call Apollyon, Big A?” The Sin Eater fell in step beside me.
“Yeah, he hates that too.” I sidestepped to the left, avoiding what remained of on old marble grave marker.
“Is that wise?” Jackson reached out, steadying me when my leg threatened to give out. “Antagonizing him like that?”
We reached the entrance. There was no way I was making it over the fence. Jackson pulled the wrought iron gate open until the lock and chain keeping it secure finally objected. There was barely enough space between the gate and post for me to squeeze through.
“Probably not.” After freeing the lock of hair that tangled in the chain when I wiggled through, I waited for Jackson to climb over. “But he hasn’t killed me yet.”
EIGHT
FUMBLING for the spare I kept in one of those magnet key holder things inside the wheel well, I tossed the keys to Jackson and informed him he was driving. My leg hurt. Everything hurt. Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t know the way or anything.
Hester peered through the curtain in the front window at the sound of my car pulling up to the curb in front of my apartment. One look at Jackson Reed and the old woman disappeared. Only to reappear a moment later with only her arm sticking out of the front door of her shop, a bundle of sage in her hand. Her eyes widened as she watched me get out of the car and hobble over to accept her gift, before narrowing back in on Jackson. She shook her head, muttering something about never listening and learning lessons, as she shoved the sage at me and closed the door, the bells hanging in the doorway tinkling against the glass as she locked it.
Shadows and Stars Page 91