Ossified State (Chronicles of the Wraith Book 2)

by S. C. Green

  “It’s prophetic,” Harriet replied.

  I longed to ask her to elaborate, but didn’t dare.

  We reached a tiny apartment building. Sydney started up the stairs. I followed with Harriet hovering at my back.

  “Why are we here?” I asked.

  “This is our home,” she replied, clearly making a huge effort to keep her voice neutral. “Such as it is.”

  “What about the Compound?” I asked. “Surely that would be a better place to stay? There are supplies there and all the Reaper’s magical implements. It would be much easier to fortify and protect than this place, unless you’ve got a tiger in there, too.”

  “No tiger,” she said. “But we can’t go back to the Compound. It’s not safe.”

  “Why not?”

  She laughed bitterly. “You have a lot to catch up on, princess.”

  “I was just there. That’s where I went first, to try and find May and Alain. The gate was open, and it looked like the place had been abandoned.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “It did? Curious.”

  “There might be someone there. I didn’t have time to check it out thoroughly. I heard May’s screams and came running.”

  “It’s possibly worth investigating either way. If they left in a hurry, they might have forgotten food stores or weapons we could use.”

  “Why would the Reapers leave?” I asked. The Compound was an old mental asylum, and its thick walls, small windows, and labyrinthine grounds made it one of the safest buildings in the city. It was practically a fortress. Tactically, it would make no sense to venture outside.

  Sydney and Harriet exchanged a glance, but neither bothered to answer my question.

  On the third floor, Sydney pushed open a door at the end of the hall. Harriet shoved me inside. The five of us could barely squeeze into the tiny apartment even though there was very little furniture – a filthy couch, a small coffee table, some IKEA bookshelves. Five tiny kittens bounded around the room, sinking their claws into the furniture and running steeplechases along the walls. A kid’s bike stood behind the door, the handles covered in a thick layer of dust. The women set down their boxes on the kitchen counter. Sydney opened the room’s only window, and the raven on her shoulder fluttered down to sit on the windowsill.

  Harriet, her arms empty now, took Julie’s gun and nestled it against her shoulder as though it were a cherished child. She sent the other two women away with a handful of apples and instructions to tell ‘the others’ where to get more. Again, I wondered who the others were, but I didn’t ask. One should never get too chatty with a girl carrying an assault rifle.

  “You should go, too,” Sydney told Harriet, her gaze wandering to me.

  Harriet stepped in front of the door and crossed her gun over her chest. “I’m staying right here.”

  Sydney sighed. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea—”

  “That’s May’s mother. I’m not going.” Harriet glared at me.

  “Fine. But keep that gun out of her face. She knows a way out of the dome.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that,” Harriet said. “I want out of here just as much as you do. I won’t do anything to harm the princess. I’m only staying for May’s behalf.”

  Sydney went over and sat beside the bird on the windowsill, stroking its sleek black feathers. As she did, a second raven swooped down from outside and landed beside her. It was larger than May, its muscular talons curling around the sill with ease, beady eyes focused instantly on May, who spun around and flew back out the window again.

  “It’s time you came out of there,” Sydney said to the large raven, tapping his wing. “I’m not interrogating May’s mother without you present.”

  Alain didn’t waste any time in transforming. His wings spread wide, encompassing the entire width of the window. Black feathers shone in the dim light, framed with a grey halo from the window beyond. The raven’s body twisted, elongating as it formed the shape of a human, the feathers retracting into its flesh, the beak flattening, becoming a face. It had been years since I’d last seen a Reaper transform – most in prison or working for the government were given a drug to suppress the change. But here, where the government hadn’t held sway for ten years, at least my daughter and Alain had the freedom to be what they truly were.

  Alain’s black boots slammed on the floor, his long legs bent at the knee as his coat swirled around him. By the gods, he was beautiful. Time had hardened his already severe features, giving him an air of gravitas and wisdom far beyond his age. His tousled black hair fell around his face in drooping ringlets. But his eyes--those deep, astonishingly blue eyes that had once stared at me with such love--now carried very different emotions.

  Alain stood and folded his arms across his chest. “You have some explaining to do.”

  I cleared my throat and opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. My throat closed. The tears I’d been fighting back ever since I’d seen him again spilled over. I sucked in another breath, trying to get a hold of myself. “I know. I’m going to try, I promise. But first, should May transform? She should probably hear this too.”

  “She’s here,” a voice said from behind me.

  I whirled around. May stood in the doorway, her eyes burning into mine with cruel ferocity. I hoped that behind her anger, there would eventually be love.

  Harriet placed her arm protectively around May’s waist, pulling her close. That familiar sense of loss stabbed at my chest. I’d missed so much of May’s life, including all her self-discovery, all the joy and pain of her first love.

  “Well, go on,” Harriet snapped. “You have our attention.”

  I took a deep breath. As quickly as I could, I explained what had happened since the dome came down, how there’d been a huge uprising against the government’s treatment of the city, led by the Reapers. How that uprising had been quashed. How the organisation I worked for now operated under a more sinister mandate, and were responsible for the imprisonment and deaths of many Reapers and Reaper sympathisers.

  “My parents.” Sydney closed her eyes. Her hand sought Alain’s, and he squeezed it. “That must’ve been what my mother meant when she spoke to me from inside the Mimir. They died protesting the dome.”

  I stared at her. “What? You were inside the Mimir? But…that’s impossible. Humans can’t—”

  “We’ll explain later, if we feel it’s necessary,” Alain cut in. “Continue, please.”

  I shifted my gaze between him and Sydney then nodded. “Because I refused to help the government talk to Red, they threw me in prison along with the rest. Many Reapers died in prison. There weren’t enough cells to hold us all. They pumped us full of drugs to suppress our abilities, drugs with terrible side effects. Some went mad, others became suicidal. For a few months, I shared a cell with a Reaper who ran at the wall repeatedly until he caved in his own skull.”

  Sydney covered her mouth and breathed into her palm.

  “Shit,” Harriet muttered.

  I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant about death, but I still saw Trajan’s cracked skull whenever I closed my eyes. I swallowed thickly and plowed onward. “I was lucky. The drugs only rendered me infertile, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Conditions were appalling. Many didn’t survive, especially not among the human sympathisers. If your parents were among the humans, then I’m truly sorry.”

  “You survived,” May said, her bitter tone implying she wished I hadn’t.

  I looked away from her and gazed at one of the happy kittens in the corner swatting at a fly. “Just barely. The loudest voices were silenced. I was not so loud then, but that was some years ago now. Now, no one cares. No one remembers the Reapers or the rebellion. They barely remember the dome. Only Jack and I remember.”

  “Who’s Jack?” Alain demanded.

  Hope glimmered within me. Was that jealousy? Well, that was something.

  Sydney’s nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed with murderous ra
ge.

  “He’s … my friend,” I said. “We worked together at the station just outside the dome. We—”

  “Continue your story,” Sydney cut in, her voice sharp, and perched on the open windowsill.

  I nodded. “After a time, I was allowed free. As much as they detested us, the government could find no other way to deal with the massive numbers of souls waiting to be ferried to the underworld. They had to put the Reapers to work again. But this time, they wouldn’t allow Reapers to run the place, to make and enforce our own laws as long as we stayed secret. Now, Reapers are slaves. We no longer have the status of people. We are property of the government, specifically, the Reaper Institute.”

  “How is that possible?” Alain asked.

  “The Reapers who live outside this city are in a prison, just like you.” I gestured out the window. “Only, instead of a dome, they’re trapped by this drug that forces them to remain in service. They keep us apart in work camps and trap us inside large cages while we do our work. They clip our wings, so we can’t fly away. Many Reapers have had their minds broken.”

  “And you?” May asked, her chin tipped up. “What about your mind?”

  “I’m not on the drugs anymore.” Tears formed in the corners of my eyes as I remembered what it had felt like as my brain melted between my ears. “When they sent me to the monitoring station, they gave me a guard. He was supposed to administer my drug, but—”

  But he fell in love with me. Alain didn’t need to know that about Jack. It would only complicate our already fraught encounter. I’d never fully contemplated Jack’s feelings for me before, but as my trailing sentence hung in the air, I knew it was true. The way Jack looked at me, how he’d do anything for me. Hell, the man just got shot in the leg helping me kidnap Red. And I’d repaid Jack by leaving him. Like I’d left Alain and May.

  The all-too-familiar guilt tugged at the edges of my mind, threatening to blow through my body at any moment. In my darkest days in prison, when I’d been trapped for hours at a time with only my tortured mind for company, I’d always hoped that if I could just get to my family, the guilt would abate. But every minute I spent in the dome gave me more to feel shame about. This was the life I doomed my daughter and my lover to. How could I expect them to ever forgive me for it?

  Alain was saying something to me, but I’d been lost in my thoughts. He frowned and repeated the question. “What about the souls? Surely they’re not just letting the air clog up with un-reaped souls?”

  I laughed, my voice hollow. “That’s exactly what’s happening. People can barely breathe in the cities without accidentally inhaling their grandmother. Jack and I live in the middle of nowhere, and even there, I can feel them in the air, choking me. Every time I go into the city, the pull to reap is like a wave of agony washing over me, but nothing I can do can help stem the tide of souls left to wander the earth. People die much quicker than we can get Reapers to come take their souls, and there are no longer enough Reapers left to service the dead. The government works us in exhausting shifts with no sleep for days at a time. The ghosts crowd around the entrances to the camps, anxious to be the first person a Reaper sees, so that they may be first in line to be reaped. Reapers are dropping dead from exhaustion and exposure, but the government doesn’t care, not when they can make more of us in labs.”

  Alain studied me for a long moment as if wondering if he should believe me. “This is what you’ve been doing?”

  I shook my head. “I was different. They found out that I’d been talking to Red. They wanted me back at my old department, trying to dig a way out of him to destroy the wraith, some weakness they could exploit. But I would only do what they asked if it meant I could get you guys back. When it became clear to me they had no intention of ever lifting the dome, even if I found a way to destroy the wraith, I … made things difficult for them.”

  “Difficult how?” Alain asked, one eyebrow lifted.

  “I reprogrammed things, like security codes. I made simulations of wraith and made them walk through the boardrooms during meetings. I made everyone terrified that at any moment I would set the captured wraith free. Basically, I terrorised them. They would've killed me, but my boss, Arnold, was sympathetic. At least, he was until it became clear that Red wouldn’t talk. One night I snuck in, shut off the recorders, and spoke to Red in secret, about how we could both get what we wanted. Arnold must have been watching me, because he found out about my breach, and I got sent to jail for a time, and then I worked reaping souls, and then I was in a breeding programme. When that wasn’t successful, they decided I was more trouble than I was worth and sent me to the one place they knew I’d do a good job – to a monitoring station outside the dome. I’ve been there for the last five years, waiting for the chance to find you.”

  “Fuck,” May said and looked down, her dark hair hiding her face. “Fuck it all.”

  It was so strange hearing my daughter, whose last words had been about celebrating the birthday of her pet caterpillar, swear. May held Harriet’s hand so hard her knuckles were white. Harriet shot me a horrid stare, part hatred, part gleeful triumph.

  “Explain to me again how you got inside,” Sydney said.

  I told them about the tunnel, careful to leave out any details that might tell them exactly where it was. The gun in Harriet’s arms was still pointed at my head. Knowing where that tunnel was was the only bargaining tool I had for my life. I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to dispose of me.

  “This is brilliant.” Harriet grinned, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “You take us back to this tunnel, and we’ll get out of here right now.”

  “You can’t,” a voice hissed behind me. “Not yet.”

  I whirled around. Red stepped out of the wall, his translucent body shimmering with pale grey light.

  May screamed. Sydney nearly fell off the windowsill. Alain’s face tightened.

  “Get that fucking thing out of here!” May shouted.

  “Quiet,” Harriet snapped at her. “If that wraith has survived, we need to find out how.”

  Don’t you talk to my daughter like that, I fumed silently. But now was not the time to defend May’s honor.

  “Red, I’m sorry. As soon as I get my daughter to safety, we’ll come back and look for Annabelle,” I said.

  “It’sss no good. Shhhe’s gone.” He hung his head. “I’ve been to the cemetery. I have found her grave. Shhhe hasss been cremated. Shhhe never rose again like me, and shhhe never will.” His face crumpled like paper screwed up in a fist.

  I read his heartache across his features as surely as he must’ve read my own. “ I’m so sorry.”

  May sneered at Red. “Who cares? You’re a wraith. Every person in this city is dead because of your kind. Don’t expect sympathy here.”

  “We should go,” Harriet demanded. “Now.”

  Red shook his head, his mouth twisted into a strange frown.

  Sydney held up her hand for silence and regarded Red with slitted eyes. “Why can’t we go?”

  “Because …Within the Sunn chemical plant, there isss a weapon that could control the government. You could ussse it to force them to free the rest of the Reapersss.” Red met her steady gaze with his icy cold stare. “For good.”

  7

  Sydney

  What had this whack job wraith been smoking in his past life?

  I glanced at Alain, but I couldn’t read his expression. Usually, those blue eyes gave his thoughts away, but when they kept flicking to Raine, I couldn’t fathom what was going on in his head. I hated that. It made me feel lost, distant from him. As if Raine’s presence had already altered what we were, what we had.

  Even Harriet appeared stoic, thoughtful. Were we even entertaining this ridiculous idea? Why were Alain and May not reaping the wraith with their new powers? Maybe I could call up whatever it was that I’d done when I’d gone inside the Mimir and do it myself.

  Before you even know what he’s going to say? I admonished. That’
s a little reactionary of you.

  But it was a wraith. I was allowed to be reactionary. Everyone else wanted to talk to the ghoul. Fine. I would oblige them.

  Alain kept his arms folded tight around his chest. “What kind of weapon?”

  “I didn’t come from Brookwood Hill Cemetery. I wasss ... what I am, before the chemical ssspill occurred. I usssed to work in the plant yonder. After I died and rossse, I went to the authoritiesss for help. I wasss ssscared, and desssperate. They placed me inside a grey tube – a prototype for what would become that dome – and continued to experiment on my body. I’ve been trapped ever since. The only memories of my old life come as fleeting snippets, and today, while I ssstood in the room on the other ssside of the tunnel, I had another one. I had been in that room before.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Harriet snapped. “Where is this weapon?”

  “Hold your horsesss.” The wraith lifted a hand and held it in the air. Blackie batted at his ankle, a confused look on his face as his paws swiped through emptiness. “Some of the workersss at the plant usssed that room for union meetingsss, but after strange thingsss ssstarted happening at the plant, we would meet there in sssecret, a sssmall group of usss, ready to expossse what we’d found to the world.”

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  He scratched his head. “I don’t exactly remember. It wasss sssomething about the immortium, the chemical we were creating.”

  “This is ridiculous!” May yelled. “Let’s just finish him.” She wrapped her coat around herself, ready to transform.

  “No.” Harriet grabbed her arm, almost forcefully. “The wraith didn’t appear by accident. That’s what he’s saying. That’s important.”

  May looked to me, her face desperate. I shrugged.

  “Fine.” May slunk back.

  A niggling feeling tugged at my mind that had nothing to do with the wraith and everything to do with the way Harriet leaned forward, her eyes dancing with something approaching...menace? Whatever it was darkened her whole face and shivered my insides.