Ossified State (Chronicles of the Wraith Book 2)

by S. C. Green

  “Not yet!” I cried back.

  The bird screeched as it swiped its talons at the tiger’s eyes. Pookie batted at the bird with her giant paws. It would have looked comical if the raven weren’t in serious danger of being eaten.

  The raven began to shift, its black feathers retracting into a black wool coat and flawless skin, its curved beak distorting into angular features and high, sharp cheekbones. Its beady black eyes became two almond-shaped, lustrous green orbs. Long fingers with nails coated in chipped black polish closed around the tiger’s neck.

  Who the hell is that? It was a woman. A female Reaper. But that was impossible.

  Pookie tried to step out of the hold, but the woman held tight. Instead, the tiger tossed her head about, trying to throw the woman off. She cried out as Pookie slammed her back against the concrete. Her grip loosened, and the tiger slipped through. She grabbed the woman’s sleeve between her teeth, growling as she dragged the screaming woman inside the complex.

  “Shoot her!” I yelled to Harriet.

  “Pookie, stop,” a throaty voice yelled from above.

  An old man loomed over the balcony three storeys above, his tangled white beard dangling over the railing. He clapped his hands three times. Pookie immediately plopped her ass on the concrete. She snapped her head back to stare at her master, dropping the woman’s arm immediately.

  “Don’t shoot, Harriet!” I yelled.

  Whimpering, the woman curled into a ball, holding her arm tight against herself.

  I ran toward her and placed my palm on her back. “Are you all right?”

  She groaned, but nodded. She rolled over, her long coat bunching up beneath her, patting her body for signs of damage.

  I gripped her under the arms to help her to her feet. She leaned heavily against me, her trembling legs struggling to support her weight. Up close, she was more gorgeous than I’d thought, her skin as pale and luminous as moonlight, her eyes wide and expressive, her figure lithe and sensuous and impossibly tall. Her jet-black hair, shaved into an undercut on one side, shone like glittering gemstones under the faded light of the dome. Several earrings glittered from one ear, and she wore a silver locket around her swan-like neck. She was wearing the coat of a Reaper, and she’d just transformed from a raven form … but that didn’t make sense. May was the only female Reaper left in the city. Where had this woman come from?

  “I’m okay,” she whispered as if to convince herself. “He didn’t bite me. I’m okay.”

  “Who are you?” Alain took the woman by the shoulder and gently turned her to face him. “Where did you—”

  The woman looked up at him, and Alain’s whole body stiffened. His face paled. He stared at her as though he’d seen a ghost.

  The woman let out her breath in one long gush. She reached up with her hand and brushed his cheek, tucking a curl of his black hair behind his ear. The gesture seemed strange, and also incredibly intimate.

  I glanced between them, a dark, ominous weight settling into my gut. What’s going on here?

  That beautiful face leaned close to Alain, her lips poised, as though she expected him to kiss her at any moment. I stumbled backward, blinking hard at the two of them, as my hands fisted at my sides. She was just some crazy kamikaze woman so desperate for food that she attacked a tiger ...

  … a crazy woman who could transform into a raven. Who seemed to know Alain.

  This woman’s presence here didn’t make any sense. But by the shocked look on Alain’s face, I knew he recognized her.

  “Alain?” I prompted.

  He didn’t reply, didn’t even blink as he stared into her eyes, completely spellbound. A bitter taste thickened the back of my throat, and I forced a swallow.

  “Mom?” May’s breathless voice sounded from behind me.

  The woman snapped her gaze away from Alain and focused on May.

  Mom.

  With cold dread, I realised exactly who the woman was.

  Raine. Alain had spoken of her only once when he was trying to stop me from falling for him, when he was trying to stop himself for falling for me. Raine was his last partner, the woman who had torn out his heart and left him broken. She worked in some government division, helping to keep the existence of Reapers a secret while fighting for their rights under the law. She left the city the very day the dome came down, leaving Alain and May inside to die at the hands of the wraith. Was it an ugly coincidence, or had she known the dome was coming? Had she abandoned her family to save herself? The question had gnawed at Alain and May for the ten years they’d been under the dome.

  Now she was here, and she lifted her arms out to receive her daughter, her beautiful face bright with delight.

  My legs wobbled. My lungs seized, and I gasped for my next breath.

  “Alain?” I choked out. I marched to his side stiffly and pressed close, reassuring myself with the steadiness of his body. It seemed so petty, as if I needed to stake a claim on the man I loved, but I couldn’t help it. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

  “Who is this?” Raine held a hand out to me, but her narrowed gaze searched his face.

  Alain opened his mouth, but no words came out. I clutched him tighter, as though hoping to pull him into me, to remind him that he was part of me, that seeing him react to her twisted a knife through my heart.

  He broke away and raked his hands through his curls as he glared up at the dome. Then his gaze darted between Raine and me, filled with dark, cold pain that had long since been buried and now bubbled to the surface.

  “Alain?” Raine asked again, stepping toward him.

  I reached out a hand to hold her back, my palm resting against her flat stomach. I got a glimpse inside of her, a tidy womb, an intestine curled into fastidious rows. Even her organs were model perfect. I tried to shove aside the image and focus on the woman. Raine.

  Her fingers drew up instinctively, wrapping around my wrist, though she did not try and remove my hand. Her gaze lifted to mine for the very first time, and I read her own sorrow there. However she’d managed to find her family again, this reunion was likely not going the way she’d envisioned.

  Well, tough twatwaffles, lady. She’d left her family inside a dome to rot for ten years. I wasn’t about to let her forget it.

  “Stay away from him,” I growled, shoving her away.

  Alain took one last look at her, then at me. He shook his head, his face drooping with sadness. I knew what he was saying – it was too much for him. He needed to be alone, to process. I nodded. He lifted his arms. Feathers sprouted from his black coat. His face contorted, becoming the hooked beak and beady eyes of the raven. He fanned out his wings and took off, fluttering away down the street.

  A single, perfect tear fell down Raine’s cheek as she watched him go. “I guess I deserved that,” she said, her voice achingly, impossibly bright.

  I, on the other hand, didn’t feel like crying just yet. I knew that Alain had left because he couldn’t deal with seeing her, with looking at his past and his future standing here together. He needed a moment to gather himself, which meant I had to deal with the immediate situation before I crushed something with my bare hands – the totally normal response for a pregnant woman in this particular situation.

  I turned to May, who had shuffled over to stand beside Harriet, her hand resting on her lover’s shoulder as though she was struggling to stand up under her own weight. Her glare shot daggers at the woman who claimed to be her mother. Raine tried to step toward her, but I kept my hand pressed against her.

  “You stay right here until we’ve sorted this out,” I told her, letting all my rage surge into my words.

  Raine blinked, sending more tears running down her face.“May, please—” she whimpered, holding out her long fingers toward her daughter.

  May didn’t move.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” Harriet said, the butt of her gun resting against her shoulder. “But in case anyone’s forgotten, we’ve still got to get past
the fucking tiger.”

  “Pookie, come here,” Sharky croaked from the balcony.

  The tiger obediently pushed to her feet and loped inside.

  “Sorry!” Sharky yelled down. “I tripped down the stairs last week, and I’m not as fast on my feet as I once was. She got away from me.”

  “It’s fine, Sharky,” I yelled back. “Are you okay if we come up? We can trade you for food.”

  “I have some medical training,” Raine said, her eyes glistening. “I could see to...Sharky.”

  “For you, Syd. O’ course,” Sharky called back. “I’ve got Pookie’s lead in my hand now.”

  “Fine. We’ll be up in a sec. I just need to deal with a situation down here first.” I turned to Raine. “You stay down here. I can take care of Sharky. We’ll call you if we need you—”

  Raine twisted away, ducking around my outstretched arm and running toward her daughter. Harriet’s weapon swung toward her. Raine clutched her locket at her throat with one hand, her other outstretched toward her daughter’s face.

  “My May,” she cooed, her voice soft and sweet like birdsong. “Look at you. You’re beautiful. I can’t believe you’re nearly eighteen, practically a woman—”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” May spat, her voice like poison. “Don’t speak as if you care.”

  “I do care, darling. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to find a way to get back to you.”

  “I’ve been right here!” May screamed. “I’ve been trapped inside this horrible grey prison, and I’ve seen the most unimaginably horrible things, and all because you left me here. You left me and Dad to go to your precious job.”

  Raine’s face paled. “I didn’t want to. You have to believe me. I only—”

  “No. You don’t get to come here after all this time, after all Dad and I have been through, and expect us to forgive you, to absolve you of your guilt for abandoning us.” May’s dark eyes flashed. “What did you think, that you’d just walk back here, and we’d fall into your arms and be a family again? I don’t need you. I have a new family now.” She wrapped her arms fiercely around Harriet’s shoulders.

  Raine’s whole body sagged, her regal stature disappearing in an instant. She downcast her eyes, tears falling freely down her cheeks.

  “Wait.” Harriet’s eyes narrowed at Raine. “You’re May’s mother.”

  May glared at Raine with a viciousness I’d never seen in her before. “She’s no mother of mine.”

  “Just hang on a second here.” I stepped in front of Raine, not wanting this to end in a firefight. “There’s a lot of unanswered questions here, but—”

  “I’ll say there is. She came back through the dome,” Harriet said. She hadn’t lowered her gun, and it was now pointing at my chest. “How?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Raine sobbed behind me. “I’ll tell you everything. I promise. Please, May—”

  “Shut up!” May screamed, her voice reverberating through the empty street.

  Harriet cocked the trigger.

  Raine choked back her tears.

  I wrenched the gun from Harriet’s hands.

  “Hey!” She protested.

  “I don’t like this any better than you do,” I said. “But we’re not cold-hearted killers.”

  “I am.” Harriet grabbed at the weapon, but I held it out of reach.

  “Let Alain and May get their answers first,” I said. “Then we’ll decide what to do.”

  I glanced around, aware of how much noise we were making. Would we attract the attention of one of the gangs? Behind us, a dark alley stretched between two office blocks. I squinted into the darkness. Was that a shadow moving against the brick wall? No, it couldn’t be. Harriet’s girl, Julie, stood at the entrance of the alley, her gun poised. She’d have heard someone approach.

  “You better get back,” Harriet growled and pulled another smaller gun from inside her jacket. “My trigger finger gets awfully itchy when it comes to people who’ve hurt May.”

  “Wait,” I cried. ”Let’s not do anything we regret here. Harriet’s right. Raine got into the dome somehow. She may have a way to get us out. We should at least listen to what she has to say.”

  Fuck. Sometimes I really hated when I talked sense.

  “Yes! I can help you get out,” Raine said, her voice wobbling. “I just wanted to save my family. I just wanted—”

  “You’re too late.” May sneered. “We don’t need you. We already saved ourselves.”

  “The wraith are gone,” I explained with a glance over my shoulder at Raine. “We destroyed them, sent them all to the underworld.”

  “I know.” She sniffed. “I mean, I knew they were gone. It’s my job to monitor the dome. Yesterday, I saw the flash, and our computers stopped registering the wraith presence.”

  “You can thank me for that.” The words tasted bitter because I’d lost so much in the process.

  “Who are you?” Raine asked, her voice containing no hint of suspicion, only desperation.

  “I’m Sydney Cale, formerly of Crabtree Lane.” I turned and extended a hand. “And I know who you are.”

  Raine wrapped her long fingers around mine, holding my hand in a heartfelt embrace. I flinched.

  “Thank you, Sydney.” My name sounded like a symphony on her lips. “Thank you for what you’ve done here.”

  “Destroying the wraith is only one of our problems,” I said, yanking my hand out of her grasp. “There’s practically no food left. Rival gangs are slowly taking over the city. They have guns and control over most of the food that’s left. We’ll all be dead within days if we don’t find a way out. That’s probably the only reason you’re still alive right now. Harriet really is quite trigger happy.”

  “Then I can help you. We know a way out,” she said, her voice soft. “I found a secret way into the dome a few years ago – a passage so deep underground it runs underneath the dome. But we couldn’t use it. We knew we wouldn’t last long inside with all the wraith, and we couldn’t risk accidentally exposing the tunnel and letting the wraith out. As soon as I saw they were gone, we put our plan into place.”

  “Who’s we?” I glanced around and settled my gaze on that dark alleyway. I gestured for Julie to take another look.

  “My friend Jack and I found the secret tunnel,” Raine explained. “He was going to come with me tonight, but he ended up with a bullet in his leg. I’ve brought along Red for protection.” She looked at Julie, who was inching down the alley with her gun against her shoulder. “I wouldn’t bother. He’s not there anymore.”

  “Who’s Red?” I demanded.

  Raine pointed to a window across the road. “He’s up there.”

  I squinted to make out the figure standing in the window. Through his body, I could just make out the corner of the desk and a filing cabinet. He inclined his head toward me, blue, inhuman eyes boring into mine. His blackened mouth gaped wide. It looked as though he were laughing.

  “Shit!” Harriet swung around and fired a stream of bullets at the figure. The window exploded, raining glass shards to the concrete.

  The figure disappeared.

  I whirled on Raine. “A wraith? You brought a wraith back in here, after we all just nearly died to push them out? What kind of fucked-up person are you?”

  “Red is different,” Raine snapped, She stood a bit straighter, towering over me. “He’s not a cold-hearted killer like the rest. He talks to me. He’s here to protect me.”

  “He’s a wraith,” I said through gritted teeth. “The last wraith I knew who talked killed thousands of people. Explain to me the difference.”

  “Red has never been behind the dome. He’s lived in a lab all his life, and I used to be the Reaper in charge of monitoring him. Red and I made an agreement years ago that we would help each other get inside the dome if there was ever a chance. He’s quite old-fashioned, so he’ll never go back on his word.”

  “And what could he possibly want inside the dome? All the wraith in here wa
nted to do was escape and feast out in the real world.”

  “Not Red. He has to get to Brookwood Cemetery so he can hopefully find his true love. She was buried there. He was hoping she was one of the people who became a wraith.”

  “If she became a wraith, she’s long gone now.”

  Raine sighed down at her feet. “Red doesn’t know that yet. I’m hoping you won’t tell him. I don’t know what he’ll do when he discovers that.”

  “This is absurd.” This woman was keeping a secret from the wraith so she wouldn’t hurt its feelings? And what would this friend of hers do when it discovered – as it quickly would – that all the wraith were missing? This was rapidly becoming a nightmare.

  “What’s all this belly-aching about down there?” Sharky called down from the balcony. The tips of Pookie’s ears poked above the ledge.

  “Nothing that can’t be solved with a little matricide,” May called back.

  I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

  “There’s been more than enough death around these parts,” the old man called back. “I think I can see some men heading in this direction. They’ve got guns. Don’t stand around there waiting to be fertiliser. Get up here.”

  “Thanks, Sharky,” I called back. “Is Pookie secure?”

  “I’ll put her back in her own room now. She won’t disturb ya, I promise.”

  I placed my hand on May’s shoulder. Her whole body trembled. “What do you want to do?” I whispered. “If you want to go after your dad, that’s okay by me. I can stay here and watch her for you.”

  May nodded as she pressed her mouth together. She handed Harriet’s rifle back with shaky hands. “I can’t … I can’t even look at her right now. I’ll find Dad. Make sure he’s okay, send him back to help you out.”

  I didn’t exactly want to be near Raine, either. I wanted to find Alain. But I wouldn’t have a chance if he was in his bird form. Besides, May needed him as much as he needed her right now. They had to work out how they felt about Raine’s return, what boons they were willing to grant her. My part would come later.

  “Don’t worry about me. As long as I’ve got Harriet, I’ll be fine. Give Alain my love. Tell him …” I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say. “Tell him it will be okay.”