Weird, I thought, weird and creepy and also ew. And then I figured that Mother must have used his witch abilities as a reason to dump him. After all, Daddy didn’t have a bit of magic in him. Or maybe she’d been an even colder fish when she was younger.
“Is that true?” Finn’s voice cut into my thoughts, and I started.
“Is what true?” I rubbed my eyes and wondered what the roommates had sold potion-wise, whether we had enough cash to stock up our fridge, and whether we would be able to pay the electric bill. I needed to get a job, but I had taken quite a load of classes. I wasn’t sure that I could handle a job as well.
My phone buzzed as I threw a ball of light into the air again. When I pulled it out of my bra, I saw my sister, Branka’s, name. The stupid wench. She was too good at knowing when I was in trouble. I declined the call knowing that she’d get her revenge. By Hecate, I thought, what if she let Mother answer my next call?
“Is it true that your mom didn’t train you at all?” He sounded sick at the idea. Which was weird I thought. She did train me. But not in necromancy. She gave me a freaking arsenal of spells and made sure I could use them without thought—instinctively by sheer, endless practice. It had kept me alive, so I wasn’t frustrated by that version of my childhood anymore.
“Mother? I assume you mean in necromancy. But, to be honest, I barely knew about necromancy before I got to St. Angelus. I hadn’t even realized I carried the ability until there was some trouble on the island where I was raised. When I came to St. Angelus, I had no idea it was such a big whoop to be a Hallow. I didn’t even know that was my Mother’s maiden name.”
I stretched as I realized again how hard my Mother had screwed me. But really, when your mother was Autumn Jones—manipulations and half-truths were pretty normal.
“My mother tried to convince me to go to Grace College. If I had—she’d never have said a word about Hallow House or necromancy or any of it. That’s how she works. She pushes and tugs and manipulates until you don’t know which way is up. But yeah, she didn’t train me in necromancy.”
Finn stopped. I could see that he’d fisted his hands and he looked furious.
“Does the Hallow Council know?”
“Sure,” I said. “Dr. Lechner was on it, and she knew all about my history. She lectured the shiz out of me before the big bad slaughtered her. Plus Dr. Hallow did my entrance exams. Look…Finn…I didn’t know about the trouble here. I had no idea things had gone so wrong. But also…I’m not the keeper. I really and honestly don’t have the Talisman. I haven’t looked for it, but it’s magic right?”
He nodded. I could see him pretty clearly in the brightness of my ball of light. And my voice was pretty gentle as I said, “My mom is a super-villain, badass witch. But, I don’t think she could have kept the Talisman from appearing if she wanted to. That thing is pretty ancient isn’t it?”
He ignored what I had said and reached out to cup my cheek. “You’re…”
What in the world was happening? His hand was warm and heavy on my cheek, but in ways I had never expected from him. I’m sure my eyes were wide in shock as he held my face in his hands. But then he dropped his hand away and said, “It’s dangerous for you here. If you aren't going to be the keeper, then you need to leave.”
“I am not leaving,” I said. “I am staying here with Martha and Chrysie and Felix and no one is going to stop me.”
“Then,” he countered, “You have to stop being such a terrible necromancer. You have to learn Rue. If you don’t…”
I waited but it was like he didn’t know how to say what came next. Or maybe he didn’t want to scare me. Because when he finally spoke he said, “If you can do what you seemed to. If you can sense ghosts before they form…. If you can… Rue, you need help.”
I waited. What was I supposed to say to that?
“You are a ripe plum asking to be scooped up by some evil necromancer.”
“Are they so evil then? Surely there are no more evil necromancers than other witches or humans.”
“We have a thinning that hasn’t been monitored or cared for over decades. We’re like a magnet for the evil necros.”
“Well suck it,” I said, shivering as I heard his conviction.
“You should run,” he said. “Go someplace with a well-kept thinning. Learn about necromancy there. Then come back.”
I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t trying to get rid of me through manipulation. He could so easily be using everything he’d said as a way to get rid of me. I had no idea what his intention was…and I was so used to people lying or giving me half-truths to get me to do what they wanted that I thought I needed to figure something else out.
“No.” Such a simple statement. But one I was going to stick to. I wasn’t a runner, and I wasn’t running from the home I had been searching for over all of my life.
“Please, Rue.”
I shook my head, holding back all of my distrust.
“Then let me help you.”
I shook my head again. It didn’t matter that he was pretty. It didn’t matter that he seemed sincere. It didn’t matter that I could use an ally against the Hallow Council. What mattered is that I could not be sure of where he stood.
CHAPTER 3
Martha, aka Hallow House, shone in the distance. She was a beacon calling me home. Generations upon generations of my family had lived there. They’d worked their magic there and infused the house with their powers. It had given Martha quite the personality and given me someplace that made me feel entirely at peace. Even after my Mother had finally come back to the house—Martha had made it clear that I was mistress there. A feeling I had enjoyed more than I had words to describe.
And I got to live there with friends. In fact, they felt like family. Back at home…which wasn’t that long ago, I’d only had my sister and one other occasional friend. But now I had Felix, Chrysie and even another witch named, Jessie. It was Felix I’d called when I had left my mother to go after the necromancer who had hurt her. Felix had just been my dreadlocked, upperclassman, dorm mentor. We'd barely started planning our black market potions sales. Which sounded as shady as hell, but we didn’t sell anything too naughty. And when I'd called, he'd answered. Without pause.
When I walked inside Martha, I found a deserted mess. Thank Hecate. But then I saw Chrysie staring at a woman who looked an awful lot like my mother. The two of them had turned when I entered and we stood staring at each other. The woman was slim where my mother was large. She had a soft face, where my mother’s was hard and cold. And her eyes were swimming with tears.
“Um,” Chrysie started, but immediately petered out.
“Hi,” I said carefully. Tears were not in my mother’s arsenal of parent tricks. Usually, it was the typical witch-mother bull crap of truth potions and magic. Although Felix had explained more than once that my childhood was, in fact, not typical at all.
“This..this…." Chrysie's mother was at a loss for words. Considering, she'd barely discovered her daughter was a vampire, so I didn't blame her.
I mean…when Chrysie had gone off to college, she’d been a naive young witch. Bouncy and nervous and cashing in on the same scholarship that I was. Now she was a vampire. She wasn’t the sparkly sort of vampire. Or the kind who couldn’t go out in the sun. Or the one who ate young children. Chrysie was a dead person held together by magic, fuel, and potions. The potions were blood-based—hence the myths. Only witches could make vampires. Or vampires who had once been witches. When the murdering ghost-ridden monster who’d killed a lot of our family had killed Chrysie—the good folks at St. Angelus college paid a vampire-witch to change Chrysie to allay the political ramifications of losing so many kids to a monster they’d never been able to catch.
I suppose that the fact that Chrysie was sort of alive was not enough comfort for her mother, Elspeth. I wasn’t sure it would be enough for any loving parent.
“Mom--” Chrysie tried to soothe her mother, but somehow her voice echoed around Martha e
erily.
“Stop that, Martha,” I said and the echoes snapped off.
"Chrysie is going to be okay,” Felix said, shifting back from the crying mother and daughter. He apparently wanted to flee and knew he probably couldn't get away with it.
“I...I'm sorry. Who are you?"
I couldn’t help but notice how her eyes kept going back to Chrysie, welling with tears, and then Chrysie’s mom would blink rapidly until she was under control.
“He lives here,” I said carefully. I had a much better skillset at handling furious parents over weeping parents. What did you even do with a weeping parent? Pat their backs? Agree to whatever they wanted to make it stop? Wasn’t Elspeth an adult? Surely she was capable of communicating without crying?
“Lives here?” Her voice cracked as she asked and her eyes welled further.
Chrysie flinched in the face of those tears, but I had my gameface on. The mask of no emotion. I was using the Autumn is my mother skillset. I wasn't sure it transferred.
“Chrysie,” I said gently, “Felix and me.”
The tears fell over. I wasn't sure of the cause. Was it because Felix was a male? Was it because Chrysie wasn't in the dorms? I mean...she had been murdered there. I looked to Chrysie and Felix but I couldn't read anything on their faces.
Clearly, Elspeth had shot right over the edge of functioning into mother panic. Her tears were blinding her to the real concern. Chrysie's paleness.
“Mom, I can’t leave…” The whine in Chrysie’s voice was irritating. The way her skin was ghostly white was freaking me out though. Not that she’d attack or anything. But we had learned that keeping her in the rosy stage of vampirehood was better than letting her get too pale and weak. I rose and crossed the room to the container of nuts, but it was empty.
I shot a look at Felix and he shook his head. He was watching Chrysie carefully too. Her hands had begun to shake when Elspeth’s crying rose a notch. She was making me want to slap her. I reminded myself that I wasn’t good at things like empathy, but her hands were pressed to her face, great gasping, wracking painful things seemed to be fighting their way out of her. I had never seen anyone act like this. Not ever.
I thought I probably cried when Chrysie died. Or at least I thought about crying. And when my mother was hurt and I visited her in the hospital. But, that had been a silent thing. This was a performance. Except it wasn’t. Because Elspeth wasn’t performing so much as a victim to her tears. And, maybe this was the way other mothers acted.
I couldn’t understand it. And that made me feel like less of a being. Which I hated. But what I hated more was the way that Elspeth’s tears were lashing into Chrysie. Since Elspeth was occupied, I walked out and into the kitchen where I made Chrysie a couple of massive sandwiches and returned to the living room.
I hadn’t hurried and Elspeth had simmered down to the sort of crying that came with hiccups and long breaths. Chrysie's arms were wrapped around her mother and she was sort of rubbing her and patting her at the same time. The tears had mostly stopped but seemed to be sneaking out of her eye here and there while she was unaware.
I handed Chrysie the plates and said to Elspeth, “I’m sorry that your daughter died. But she’s still here.”
Elspeth blinked and nodded. I wasn’t sure if she agreed or if she was even hearing me. I mean. She seemed to be capable now of only saying, "My baby, my baby."
I looked at Chrysie, but my cousin was eating the sandwich I’d made her with a sort of ravenous hunger that I would have never believed was possible before I began living with a vampire.
“Did she take her potion?” I asked Felix.
He shrugged a reply and we both looked to Chrysie. Elspeth was glancing between all of us with a worried look on her face. Chrysie nodded that she had taken it and then shook her head. Her subsequent shrug was more disconcerting. Another dose would probably be better than nothing.
“Martha?” I asked the house and a wardrobe in the corner creaked. Felix crossed and poured Chrysie her potion.
“Who made that?” Elspeth demanded as Chrysie sipped. Oh, I thought, there is my mother in her. For that was the sharp question of a lioness.
“I did,” I said waiting for her complaint about my age. Or the risks. But Elspeth surprised me. She examined me and then said something entirely unexpected.
“I’m not surprised Autumn’s daughter is an excellent witch.” Elspeth pressed her lips together. “I wish…”
But she didn’t complete her thought. She stared at me for a long time and then cupped my cheek to say, “You look so much like…”
Again she didn’t finish, and I wanted to know what she was going to say, but Chrysie shifted and we both turned to look at her.
“I am sorry that Chrysie died. But it’s not my fault.”
Elspeth took one of those shuddering breaths and then said, “I know, sweetheart. I mean…that same monster killed my aunt and uncle. It's my fault. I should never have let her come here.”
I blinked at the affection in her voice. Because it was directed at me.
“He really can’t live here,” Elspeth said, looking at Felix. Who did step back now? He looked like he wanted to run away. I hoped that meant he trusted me to stand up for him. But he didn't quite flee, and I did what a good friend did.
I shook my head and then said, “But he does live here.”
I got where she was coming from—sort of. Chrysie was her kid. Elspeth cared about things like how and where Chrysie lived. “He’s our friend. He gave up his dorm. If we kick him out, he won’t have anywhere to go. And…Elspeth? This is my house.”
Elspeth blinked and said, “I…I know. And, really…I always expected Hallow House to open up for one of Autumn’s daughters. She would never have left it to anyone. The council asked me to try after Autumn left. But of course…it didn’t even twitch for me.”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my face as she spoke. I wasn’t sure why she was here and I’d been awake for longer than a day, socialized on a massive scale. I mean…I was a running-in-the-night sort of person. Everything about this was foreign and weird to me.
I was so tired that I’d almost forgotten that I found a dead body, talked to the cops, and maybe had been manipulated by a person that I denied I had a crush on. But in the privacy of my mind, I had to admit that Finn was a lovely piece of man flesh.
I was pretty proud of myself when I looked back at my day. I wasn’t even shrieking at Elspeth right now. I had been in deep, deep waters (for me) all day long, and I wanted to crawl into my massive bed and let Martha and the magic of the house take all my cares away.
Thinking that made me lose patience with Elspeth and her prattling. She was nice. The way she was holding her vampire daughter’s hand and occasionally reaching over to touch Chrysie’s hair was downright sweet. But Elspeth seemed to be standing between my bed and me. Would it be ok if I left?
I looked to Felix for direction. He’d been silent the whole time. Even now, with calmed down Elspeth, his face was expressionless.
“Shall we make coffee?” I asked the question, but I needed something before I fell over.
He nodded and the look of relief that flashed across his face told me he was as uncertain of what to do as I.
When we got to the kitchen, I looked around before I hissed, “When did she get here?”
“After almost everyone was gone. Jessie pushed the last couple out of the back doors and escaped that way herself as Chrysie’s mom was coming inside. I feel like I got caught sneaking-in as if I was in high school. We’re college kids now. The dorms are co-ed. What’s her deal?”
“Who knows? Maybe she’s freaking out in general cause—you know—Chrysie died and everything.” My voice was a croak. I was so tired. I didn’t have it in me to deal with family I had just met and didn’t know what to expect. At least with the Hallow Council, you knew they were looking to screw you over.
I pulled out the coffee can and looked around for the filter when Felix
shoved me aside and took over.
“How much money did we make?” I laid my head on the counter and sat down. My hips hurt. That didn’t seem to be normal. I hoped it was the magic use and running and not that I was suddenly ancient. “When did I sleep last?”
“You got up yesterday before me and went for a run, and I got up at 6:00 am.”
“Are we stupid? We should have slept in. We’re too stupid to live.”
“Apparently,” he said. He caught the coffee directly into a mug and handed it to me with a vial of my own energy potion. I took a double dose which had him raising his eyes, but… I was barely functioning. And my tolerance to my potion was such that I could sleep while taking it.
Felix had backed off of normal doses of the potion to 1/2 doses after he’d accidentally overdosed. I woke up some when it hit me and then more when he showed me a literal pile of cash.
“Did you count it?”
“Didn’t have a chance,” he said as he opened the cupboards and pulled out cereal.
He shoved the cash into a drawer. Martha would take care of it. She was such a good house. I patted her counter as I thought about that.
I wanted eggs, ham steak, avocado, and tomatoes.
Elspeth and Chrysie came in as I was pouring myself Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.
“That isn’t going to give you the energy you need,” Elspeth said.
I didn’t disagree. But, I took a bite before I said, “Ok.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say about anything. I was eating cereal that we’d taken from the cafeteria when we’d gone last. We could eat at the cafeteria whenever we wanted and I’d continued to use my, apparently, limitless student account to buy all the snacks the student store sold, but none of those places sold the solid protein that Chrysie needed to a ridiculous amount and I couldn’t find real avocado anywhere on campus.
“At least in the dorms, I felt like you’d be ok,” Elspeth said as she opened the cupboards, took out a bowl, and joined me with the cereal. I wondered how often she'd been here as a child. She was so at home here. Did she have a room of her own? Had she known my grandparents well? Would she tell me about them?
Hungry Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery Page 3