The Trinity Bleeds (The Grave Winner Book 3)

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  Deep down, I must’ve known this was the only way I could defeat the two Sorceressi—by becoming one of them—because I didn’t care about power. They could spin my story however they wanted, try to convince me that I hurt my two teachers with a load of spiders inside my head warping my thoughts, stealing Darby’s Trammeler blood, resurrecting Ica, tearing holes in my clothes to make myself look more like One and Two.

  I knew the truth, though. The things that propelled me forward in life were the people I loved. That was it, and to keep those people safe, I would do anything. I had done anything, and now I needed to win, to defeat One and Two, once and for all.

  With this new energy buzzing through me, I really thought I could.

  Fresh air breezed over my knuckles, and I punched, tore, and fought the rest of the way out within seconds. My mouth opened automatically to suck in a breath, but I found I didn’t need to. Dead people don’t breathe. Lumping myself in with the magically undead skated a shiver of self-loathing up my back.

  I scrubbed mud from my face and eyes then gazed up at the night sky. Lightning sizzled across thin clouds, and behind the crackle, millions of stars and planets pinpricked the darkness in super high definition. Everything took on a bright blue tint. The dead Sorceressi Trammeler filter had no doubt turned my eyes the same glowing color.

  So I really was like them in every way possible. A silent scream held my mouth open, and trying to bite down or pushing at my jaw wouldn’t close it. If I could inhale, I would no doubt smell rot and death and…myself.

  I was dead. Dead and resurrected. A nightmare.

  Everyone I cared about would never look at me the same again. Did that matter? Yes. Yes and no. As long as they still had the ability to look at anything, I supposed I would just have to live with it. Or…something.

  The earth pitched and rocked below my feet, and between that and the howling wind that snapped at the black rags I wore, a steady drum beat at the ground. It sounded like something was leaking, or like a heavy rain pit-pattering against the leaves before splatting to the dirt.

  No, not rain. Blood.

  The Trinity trees—the only trees in the graveyard still alive because they were immortal—were bleeding. Because the final hinge on the door to the Core had been broken. Soon, all of the magical prisoners locked inside it would be freed, including Gretchen, the darkest Sorceress who ever lived. The whole reason I was in this undead mess in the first place.

  Disgust rolled down to my toes as thick as the torrential waves cascading from the split in Ica’s old ash tree. If Tram was here, what would he think of me now?

  He had said that when One and Two had their chosen Three, the Trinity trees would bleed. The collective power of the Trinity trees—ash, oak, hawthorn—combined with a trio of powers—Trammeler, Sorceress, Death—would crush the final hinge, and the Core would open.

  Because I had been made Three. Because I had allowed One and Two to shake up my belief in myself. Because I had allowed myself to die.

  Despite the raw energy coursing through me, a heavy dose of uncertainty needled through all of it, not about my power but about me. How could I make everything right again if I didn’t wholly trust myself? Because what if One and Two were right and the darkness hidden inside me, not the spiders, had made me make all the decisions that had led me here.

  Behind me, whispers swirled through the night, but I found I could understand them perfectly. Before, dead whispers sounded like a coded language I could never crack. Now, the whispers were almost deafening, hardly whispers at all, but real voices.

  What are we waiting for?

  Wait. Give her a chance to acclimate.

  Yeah, give me a chance to acclimate. As soon as I thought it, the whispers stopped. Were they inside my head? No, I could feel the icy burn of Sorceressi stares on my back. Slowly, I turned to face my killers.

  One stood at the foot of my grave, headless and waiting. Two, or Ica, puffed black smoke from the gaping holes all over her face, her foot just inches from Sarah’s body.

  An ache spread around my stilled heart. Sarah had fought so hard by my side, the one person I never thought I would be friends with, especially in death. But like me, she had lost. Only now, she was with her unborn son. She had gazed down at his grave as her body fell, and a look of peace had filled her haunted eyes. Now she lay at the foot of his grave on a nest of ash tree keys, her arms splayed out as if in a hug around her son’s headstone.

  I pushed myself from the ground to stare down the two Sorceressi. But a voice, one outside my head, dipped my stomach to my knees.

  “Leigh! Where are you?”

  Dad. Oh, God, no. He had been here beating on the gate before, and now he sounded much closer, as if he was inside the graveyard. He couldn’t see me. Not as a living nightmare. He couldn’t be here when the Core opened.

  My next thought sliced at my insides, and I glanced around the graveyard, my vision sharpening onto the smallest blade of grass. But I didn’t spot Mom anywhere. Dad couldn’t see her, either, returned from the dead just like me. It would kill him.

  I wanted to shout, to ward him off, but my jaw wouldn’t work and only a series of whispers burst from my mouth. So I reached inside the confines of my own head.

  What did you do with my mom? I growled at the Sorceressi.

  A strange gleam lit Ica’s eyes a brighter shade, almost like a smile would if she’d been alive. The eyebrow circled with what was left of her two tattoo lifted. What did we do? You’re the one who brought her back.

  I didn’t, never willingly, though the memories the spiders inside my head had buried before I puked them out flashed in terrible detail of me doing just that. Me, raising my mom from the dead, even though I’d fought so hard to keep her in the ground. It couldn’t be my memory, though. The spiders that had scuttled inside me must’ve planted it.

  “Leigh!”

  Dad was so close now, I could almost feel his breath crawling over the back of my neck.

  Please, I begged. He can’t see me like this, and if he sees my mom, it will crush him. Where is she?

  Leaving the graveyard out the fallen back fence, One answered, her headless body completely motionless. Her voice sounded like a knife scraping burnt toast, as though she had been a chain smoker in a previous life.

  Leaving to go where? I asked. She couldn’t just wander around Krapper while the Core opened. It wouldn’t be safe.

  Enough questions, Ica snapped. Kneel, and let’s get this done.

  Mom, back from the dead. I wanted to scream and cry until my throat caught fire. Would she go home, to the place she recognized? No, no she wouldn’t because I had surrounded the house with hawthorn twigs which would make it undetectable from the dead. That, and lilac petals to protect against anyone who had practiced dark magic. The house would be safe—Jo’s, too—but I desperately wanted Mom back in her grave where she would be protected.

  Ica’s smoke wafted closer until she stood inches away. I. Said. Kneel.

  The unmistakable sound of rocks crumbling underneath shoes filled the night over the shuddering earth.

  No, I said, my voice on the brink of a hiss.

  This is the center of the Trinity. One grasped my arm with scrawny fingers and yanked me to my knees. Do what must be done.

  Not here, I demanded and shot to my feet again.

  Ica snatched at my arm, her blue eyes narrowed into angry slits. Here. Now. Or I will kill your dad right in front of you, slowly.

  I knelt because I refused to play games with my dad’s life. Why didn’t I keep my thoughts to myself instead of announcing who it was shouting my name?

  Three, three, three, the Trinity has bled. Open the gateway between the living and the dead, the dead Trammeler Sorceressi chorused inside my head. Three, three, three, the Trinity has bled. Open the gateway between the living and the dead.

  Both their hands tightened around my arms, holding me in place, while their browned fingernails dug into my flesh.

  Say it,
One ordered then started up the chant again.

  I couldn’t. I didn’t want to, but Tram was inside the Core, taken by his own father, the Counselor, the ruler of the Core, and I had a feeling the Counselor wouldn’t just let Tram go since he served a greater purpose than just a lowly prisoner. Maybe I could find Tram before his dad drained him and his two sisters of blood and then walked the earth as a murderous immortal. One apocalypse could easily spark another, and my finger rested awfully close to the figurative trigger.

  Ica’s cold gaze centered on mine through a haze of her black smoke.

  A dark shadow shifted around the headstones just yards away, tall, lanky, and Dad-shaped. A few more feet, and he would be able to see me. I flexed my hands with indecision. Would he survive the Core opening right under his feet?

  Leigh!

  My name came like an explosion inside my head with shrapnel beating against my brain. I ducked my head while the echoes slammed against my skull. I could say it and try to save Tram. Or I could refuse and risk Dad’s life at the hands of Ica.

  Unless I killed her first.

  Dad’s warmth surrounded me the closer he drew. One and Ica held to my arms so tight, black blood streamed down my wrists and between my fingers. While they repeated the words, all their attention was aimed at me, but if Dad stumbled closer and interrupted us, Ica could kill him with a flick of her wrist. I knew it as well as my own death, and witnessing them break him would be my final undoing.

  Ica, still on her knees, turned her head and lifted her arms toward the approaching shadow of my dad.

  Oh, hell no.

  With both my arms still locked at my sides, I hissed, and the pollution known as Ica vanished.

  But One was already rising from the ground. If she had a head, she would be facing Dad. Then she wasn’t, though. She stood behind him with her hands dangerously close to his throat, and he acted like he didn’t even know she was there.

  A burst of black smoke wafted past, and I knew Ica was somewhere close.

  An iron stone crushed me with the weight of what I had to do. I splayed my fingers out to hover over the ground, because what else could I do? One, or Ica, would kill Dad if I didn’t.

  Three, three, three, the Trinity has bled, I started, and even inside my head, my voice cracked. Open the gateway between the living and the dead.

  One and Ica joined me in the chant, and the ground rumbled, longer that time. Hating myself for what I was doing, I glanced at Sarah’s corpse. For once, I needed to do something right, and I didn’t know how much time I had before the Core opened.

  I didn’t know how One and Ica had done it, or if there was a better way—if better was even the right word—but I flexed my stomach as if in a coughing fit until a black misty sphere floated from my mouth.

  But Sarah didn’t have a mouth for it to funnel inside and possess her. I didn’t have a lot of options, though.

  Please just let this work.

  The black mist swept into the blood and bone where her head used to be. Her hands flailed at her sides and picked up stray ash tree keys. Her arms and legs jerked into a windmill of movement until she stood and lurched toward Dad.

  He stopped in front of us, terror blazing behind his wide eyes, and just before Sarah hauled him to safety, he saw me. Dead, and at the same time, not.

  I closed my eyes against him, wishing he could do the same and unsee me for good.

  The ground gave one last heave, and a giant crack zigzagged the earth right out from under my feet. I was falling, falling into the opened Core, One and Ica at my sides, and hundreds of ash tree keys to set the prisoners free.

  But Dad and Sarah weren’t falling. He was alive and unhurt, at least physically. Still, his yells scrambled urgency through the black sludge clogging my veins. I desperately wanted to go to him, to keep him safe, to keep everyone safe, but I couldn’t. Not yet.

  Black shadows swept up to meet us, slowly at first and then faster and faster, their faces twisted in cruel, yet gleeful, smiles. The captured prisoners were now free because the final hinge on the door to the Core had been broken.

  And I had been the one holding the sledgehammer.

  Leigh

  Roots burst through the walls of the never-ending hole to catch us. Eventually.

  The combination of One’s and Ica’s roots tunneled the dark expanse rapidly, and I let them lead since I didn’t want to ride the hasty hell train to the center of the Earth.

  I wished all those times Tram had sped through earth and concrete with me, that I had the know-how to help him. We could’ve timed ourselves and made it a race if we hadn’t been trying to save the world all the time.

  And look at how well those efforts panned out. Tram was dead. I was dead, too, and had just risked all of humanity to save my dad. But knowing One and Ica, they would’ve found another way to bend me to their will. They always found my weak spot, and I was getting sick of it.

  What would Tram think of how epically I had failed him? I hated to think about it, which was why I needed to focus on ways to right all my wrongs. The first step was to rescue Tram from the Counselor, but once the roots dropped us into a dimly lit, vast cave of sorts, I realized that first step might not be so easy.

  The three of us stood on a narrow stone floor with cracks webbing the length of it, like a bridge that led to nowhere. An orange-ish light came from somewhere, but there weren’t any walls or a ceiling in sight to hold it. It didn’t waver or throw shadows like candlelight; it just existed somehow. Beyond the light’s reach, an immeasurable dark spread into nothingness both above and to the sides of the bridge.

  No magic down here, One warned, striding forward. Understand?

  Fine, Ica said and followed. What now?

  We find Gretchen, One answered.

  I followed, too, since finding Gretchen might mean finding Tram. No way could I find anything on my own here, yet One and Ica seemed to know exactly where they were going. I guessed I missed that particular telepathic memo.

  But the farther we walked, the more confused I became. There was nothing here, just an empty cavern with strange lighting bordered by an infinite vastness. And why were we walking in the first place? One and Ica vanished and reappeared elsewhere all the time. That was a regular theme in the many nightmares I had about them—their unpredictability—but here…it almost seemed as if they were feeling the place out. Almost as if they were afraid.

  One’s fingers twitched at her sides, and Ica glared down what was left of her nose. Both of them appeared to be marching into battle. And for what? To save a Sorceress who had spilled more blood than the Trinity trees in the graveyard. She deserved to be—.

  Ica let loose a hiss. My body crashed onto the stone floor and skidded sideways dangerously close to the edge of the bridge. Loose stones and grit rubbed over my bare skin, but I barely felt it.

  Keep your despicable thoughts to yourself, she growled.

  I picked myself up, unhurt, while a crazy laugh bounced around the inside of my head. She could hear everything? I started toward her to give her a full ambush of my thoughts, as well as a good fist-pounding, but the room had changed. In the direction I now faced, which used to be behind me, a network of small, narrow caves had carved themselves into existence.

  One and Ica faced them, too, their posture rigid, waiting.

  You hissed, you fool. I said no magic inside the Core, One said and backed away from both Ica and the caves.

  I did the same, trying to guess what was happening, what would happen next. The Core obviously had power inside it with tricks and secrets hidden away, just like One and Ica. Just like me. But I couldn’t begin to understand what might have given up a free escape just to lurk down here with us.

  Behind Ica’s billowing smoke, something exploded. Rocks of all sizes skated past her on the stone floor, and an awful moan echoed back and forth between the non-existent walls of the Core. A flash of gray…something…swept toward Ica and picked her up so her feet barely touched the groun
d.

  A whispered plea sounded in my head, but a crackling choked it off. Ica reached out, her fingertips glowing red, but before she could use her dark magic, her arm turned to stone. Gray rock snapped and cracked as it grew up her neck and over the back of her head to plug her ugly black smoke. The stone spread down her back in long popping streams until it reached her toes. Then, whatever held her, dropped her. Her body shattered into tiny pebbles and a layer of dust that coated the air.

  Before I could process all the different levels of happiness that coursed through me, a pair of oily black eyes found mine through the haze of dust and smoke. They were set inside a monstrous tree trunk that towered over all of us by at least four feet. A mouth gaped open below its eyes, stretched in a death scream like mine, but only a low moan rattled out of it. Its bark blended in with the caves behind it, not white, but a dull gray. Stone, I guessed, with thorns sticking out of it. A petrified hawthorn. Death’s tree.

  I balled my hands into fists and readied myself for its next move.

  The rocks that had once been Ica crunched underneath its roots that looked like feet as it stepped toward us. Its strides were enormous. I had no chance to escape something as tall as that with my short, stubby legs.

  Despite One’s demand that we not use magic in the Core, she snatched an ash tree key from my waistband and vanished, leaving me all alone with this thing.

  Oh, that bitch.

  Another explosion sounded behind me, another moan that scraped icicles up my back, but I didn’t stick around. I ran, to put distance between me and it—or them—and to give my brain time to sort out a plan.

  The only Sorceress power I knew was that I could accidentally conjure purple balls that smelled like lilacs, turn people into trees, and raise the dead. None of those would help me much right then. I felt more comfortable in my Trammeler skin because Tram was training me. Had been training me.

  My roots could take the petrified trees down. They had to.

  Mom, if you can still hear me, I need my roots.

  Even though I was dead, the mother-daughter psychic link we shared hopefully still worked because that was the only way I could communicate with my roots, too. Tram had told me to speak to them through my heart, and talking to Mom was the only way I knew how. Hopefully the lack of a heartbeat wouldn’t matter.