by Eli Constant
That causes a lump to form in my throat.
The tenth letter says nothing save for “Heal fast, big sister. –B.” The writing is clean and precise and it causes the lump of sadness to dissolve into anger… mixed with fear.
Since the medicine has dulled my senses and I can do little to speed the recovery of my body, I switch on the television. It’s on the shopping channel. Home goods shown off by well-formed women keep me company until my breakfast arrives. It’s hard to believe it’s only Sunday morning. It’s hard to believe so much has happened, that so much has changed.
I’m all together one of those strange creatures of the woods, the creatures of storybooks, that alter and mold until they are unrecognizable.
I think of Lilly as I eat my breakfast. I think of her because there is one particular floral arrangement that is pure white. Lilies and more lilies with only a little spring-hued green to break up the gorgeous monotony. My entire hospital room is a garden. A garden in which all I can see is pale-hued lilies now.
A garden of lilies, in memory of the little girl who did not survive. I wonder who sent those. I wonder who would be so callous. Or maybe the person didn’t know what their floral arrangement would mean to me.
A knock at my hospital door followed by Kyle entering, has me feeling the keen sting of déjà vu.
“Your guard’s quite a bit nicer this time.” He smiles. He doesn’t know the pain his words bring.
I feel myself dissolve a little, dampness once again creeping into my eyes. I didn’t even like Darryl. But that’s not the point. He’s dead. As much as I have learned to love… or perhaps love is too strong a word. As much as I have learned to live with what I am, and even appreciate my gifts at times, I still do not care for death.
I remember reading something when I was younger, something that has stayed with me since, residing keenly in my mind to be brought forth whenever I have need.
Death is not the thing to fear. It’s life that’s fickle, dearest friends. It’s life that is the painful thing. And when death comes, you shall not mind. You will pass along to quiet times. Again it is the life that stays, the living mourns when ends your days. So keep to heart when you are sad. Death is your friend. It’s life that’s mad.
It is always the living that grieve. The dead have it easy.
Unless, of course, they’re drawn back by a necromancer or a sadistic fairy and bound to a clay body to become a servant for an even crazier fairy. Yeah, maybe that’s a case where death is not the friendly one.
“What are you thinking?” Kyle’s voice breaks into my thoughts.
“About the girls,” I sigh, “about everything really.” My mind is a carousel, going round and round. Thinking about too much. A computer with a thousand browsers opened at once and I’m threatening to crash under the strain. “Can you see if there’s a card on those lilies?” I point at the off-white bouquet that sticks out like a sore thumb among all the riotous surrounding color.
“Sure,” Kyle says, going to the flowers and gently digging among the blossoms until he comes away with a card. “You’re a popular gal.” He moves to hand me the card. I shake my head.
“No, can you just read what it says, Kyle,” my voice almost catches in my throat. I have a feeling who’s sent them. I don’t want to hold the card in my hand.
“Tempting, tempting. Love- B,” Kyle reads the card, confusion in his face. “You know what that means?”
“Unfortunately,” I mumble. He stares at me, waiting for another explanation. So I come up with one. “Just an asshole that I hope never to see again.” Of course Braeden wouldn’t just send one card, he’d send two. Because he’s completely, utterly, evil.
“Want me to toss the flowers?” He moves, ready to get rid of the reminder of whoever it is that I don’t like and don’t want to be reminded of. But the flowers also remind me of Lilly. That reminder, I do not want to toss like trash.
“No, it’s okay. Just throw away the card. The flowers, unlike that jerk’s personality, are nice.” I’m glad when Kyle doesn’t press the matter further.
There’s so much to think about. Where is Braeden? When will he return? Because I know he will return. What enterprises was he talking about? What will happen, now that I’m the Blood Queen? Where is Liam? And… how is he related to my half-brother. I recoil a bit, thinking of the lust I hold for him and the greatness of feeling I know he feels for me.
“I saw Chief Goodman on the news. He said the other girls were recovered.” Kyle is sitting in the visitor chair, thrumming his fingers on his thigh. “They gave you credit for helping.”
I don’t acknowledge nor deny. I don’t say anything. Instead I look into his face as he struggles with a thousand emotions that run just beneath his surface.
“Tori,” Kyle takes a deep breath, “next time you’re in trouble or heading in to trouble, I hope you know you can rely on me. That’s something I did inherit from my dad. We take care of our friends.”
“Is that what we are? Friends?” I smile, moving my head around against the pillow, trying to fluff it. He sees what I’m doing and stands to help me.
Kyle takes the pillow gently from under my head. He squishes it side to side and top to bottom; he waves it a bit through the air, and then he lifts my upper body just enough to slide the pillow back in place. “Better?” he says. He hasn’t sat down; instead he stands close to the bed, his body close to mine.
“Perfect, thank you,” I whisper, feeling the shiver run through me. Kyles gaze travels to my mouth and I feel my heart flutter in anticipation. Before I can say anything he leans over the bed and presses his mouth to mine.
His hands are on the sides of my face and my arms reach up to wrap around him, pulling him closer. I am lost in that kiss. A kiss so different to the one I shared with Liam.
Too soon it’s over and Kyle stands back up, his gaze still on my face. He looks nervous, uncertain and I worry for a moment that he’s changed his mind. That he doesn’t want this…whatever this is that’s been building between us. and then he speaks.
“Victoria,” he clears his throat. “Things are really complicated with me right now. I have a lot going on…a lot of changes are happening in my life. I don’t know if now is the right time for us. I’m adjusting to a new life… to changes.” He frowns, clearly unhappy with his own words, and I open my mouth to say something, anything. Embarrassment claws up my neck and cheeks, but he puts up a hand to stop me from talking and he smiles. “But I know that I want to see where this leads. I know that I can’t keep away from you, no matter how hard I try.”
I smile, relief flooding me. Because I feel just the same. I hardly know Kyle, but I know that I want to get to know him better. He’s safe and handsome and kind. And then I think of something he’s just said. “Wait, you’ve tried to stay away from me?”
Kyle laughs and runs a hand through his hair and it’s his turn to be embarrassed. “Not exactly.” He looks like he might say something, but then he stops himself, a flicker of a different expression crossing his face.
“Are you okay, Kyle?” I ask.
“Yeah, yeah,” he responds quickly, “I’m fine. Jesus, this isn’t the right time for this. I just can’t keep taking a step back when all I want to do is rush forward. You do that to me.”
I stay quiet, looking at him, reading my body’s reaction. There is something there, something that wasn’t there when we’d first met. What had started as a mild attraction to the ‘boy-next-door a girl should bring home to mom’ had become deeper, more pronounced. If I listen to the blood inside my veins, I can almost hear it pulse faster the closer he is to me.
This isn’t like with Liam. It isn’t bad-boy passion, it is something more ingrained. Something both natural and unnatural. I can’t think about sex, not right now, not whilst I still hold the memory of Blackthorn’s invasion into my body so clearly in my mind. He hadn’t completed the act of rape. He hadn’t pushed himself fully inside of my body, but…
An invasi
on of one’s body, even if it is just a finger or a mouth or touches across the groin that are unwelcome, that is close enough to rape to leave a scar that will not fade completely, no matter how much time passes.
Looking at Kyle though, I know that in time I will be ready. Emotionally and physically. And Adam would want that, for me to finally move on and find someone to love again. It pains me to think it, no matter how true.
“Kyle,” my voice sounds odd in the room, reaching into shadowed corners and boomeranging back to us, “I think I understand what you mean. What I do to you… what we do to each other. It wasn’t like this at first.”
Kyle smiles softly and then he changes the subject so abruptly that I think I might suffer whiplash. “Well, how about some good coffee? I’ll make sure to get four of those delicious milkshake ones.”
I cringe. “Sounds super.”
He laughs again. I could get used to that sound easily. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do you wrong like that. I won’t be long. Besides, we’ve got an unconventional date to plan. I’m guessing today’s out unless you make a miraculous recovery, but that just gives us more time to plan.” He leans in and brushes his lips against mine softly. When he leaves, I find that I want him to come back immediately, with or without coffee, and kiss me again.
My guard ducks in after Kyle leaves. It’s Steve. “You doing okay, Tori?”
“I am. And I’m really, really sorry about Darryl,” I need to say it to someone, say it when I’m coherent and not passing out from body trauma.
“We all are. He was an ornery cuss, but he was one of ours.” Steve absentmindedly pats his badge and the thin black stripe running across it. “Fuck, Tori. It was the worst damn thing I’ve ever seen. He was skinned. Fucking skinned. He looked like an installation at that art project that came through Charleston last year after they finally reopened the museum.” Steve swallows hard. “Like he was inside out. He was still holding on too. Still breathing when Debbie found him in their house.”
“Oh my god, Debbie.” I couldn’t even imagine the horror of finding the man you love mutilated. Adam had been messed up from the car accident when I’d identified the body, but nothing like that.
“Yeah.” Steve’s voice is a whisper. “We didn’t even know Darryl’s attack and the missing girls cases were connected until we saw his fucking skin on the ground at the warehouse. Jesus fucking Christ. Who keeps a man’s skin?”
I don’t answer, because I feel it’s a rhetorical question. Even if I did answer, what would I say? My psychotic half-brother who’s a fairy and prince of the black court is the kind of thing that would harvest and wear a man’s skin? I’d probably be headed to the psych ward of the hospital if I said that. “I’m really so sorry, Steve.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, sniffing once and then forcing a smile back on his face, “All right, I’m here if you need anything. Chief stayed with you until about 7 this morning. He said he’d check in later when you were awake. He’ll need to take your official statement too.”
“He stayed with me?” I’m surprised. I shouldn’t be though. It’s Terrance.
Steve nods. “Yeah. Remember, you need anything, I’m right out here.” He cocks a thumb behind him.
“Thanks, Steve.”
“Anytime,” he replies, his forced smile somewhat faded.
When I am alone again, I turn off the TV which has been droning on throughout my conversations with both Kyle and Steve. I need stillness and silence. I need to keep digesting.
So I almost jump out of my skin when the bedside table phone rings shrilly.
Jump out of my skin… too fucking soon for that.
I reach over, groaning and aching.
“Tori!” The adorable voice and the way the ‘r’ is butchered tells me immediately who it is.
“Mei? How did you know where to reach me?” I’m surprised and that shows in my voice.
“I stopped by your house with dumplings. Dean told me, said Chief Goodman called and told him. Are you okay? Can I visit? Do you need food? Hospital food is so bad!” Mei’s chattering might be off-putting to other people, but I absolutely freaking love it.
Because it’s the sound of a friend. A friend that has nothing to do with death.
I have a friend.
I have a friend, an evil half-brother I never knew about, a guardian fairy that mixes my feelings up inside like a blender, and a future date with a really, really, really great human guy.
I nearly slap my forehead, Mei still chattering on the other end of the line. I have to call Dean. He’s going to have to handle the Tachlon funeral tomorrow. Thank god the body was already embalmed. Seriously, my job isn’t a Monday through Friday gig. It’s for life.
My name is Victoria Cage. Blood Queen. Purported ruler of the Light Fae and the Black, one of which does not want my authority and the other may want it too much. Necromancer. Funeral Director. Orphan. Still overweight girl, who’s gone from single to ‘it’s complicated’.
Ain’t life grand?
Water of Souls
A Victoria Cage Necromancer Novel
Book Two
BLURB
Winter is supposed to be beautiful.
Snowball fights. Hot chocolate by a fire. Brightly-packaged presents.
It’s definitely not supposed to be about frozen bodies, serial killers, and boyfriends with secrets.
Victoria and Kyle are in the midst of a still-blossoming relationship, but she hasn’t told him the truth about herself yet. She’s not ready. Of course, he’s hiding something too. And he doesn’t even know it. Love’s complicated.
Then there’s Victoria’s work. Death doesn’t take a holiday, and neither can she. When a father walks into her business wanting a funeral for his missing son, she’s only sure of one thing—the father needs closure, and that’s something she can understand.
Then a body turns up, and things go from ‘odd grieving father’, to ‘murderously strange’ in a heartbeat.
With threats mounting, both in her professional and personal life, Victoria must solve a puzzle of death, dolls, and dark obsession.
If she doesn’t, someone she loves might die.
Turn the page to begin book two, Water of Souls!
Chapter One
In the winter, when the trees have shed their leaves and the icy lake is visible from the second-story bay window of the Victorian that houses both my home and my business, I feel like there is a stillness about the world. A hope that when the snow melts and spring returns, that life will be a different sort of creature.
We didn’t get true winter in Bonneau before the war. It’s as if the alteration of the world occurred with that bloodshed and with the slaughtering of anyone with the necromancy gene. It is like a constant overcast of cloud and falling of rain has been brought forth to stay indefinitely. And even when it is not raining, there hangs a mist in the air that seeps into clothing and makes it hard to breathe.
But we do breathe. That’s what we do in Bonneau, our little changeling town so close to Charleston and its seedy underbelly. We breathe and we survive. Survival is a most keen notion, always on my mind. Because I am something untamed. Something people fear. I am a necromancer. And now I am also the Blood Queen, some kind of supreme ruler over both fae courts. Or so I’ve been told.
I’m standing now, robe tied tightly about my body to keep out the chill that leaks in from around the windows that need to be resealed. Kyle is behind me in the kitchen, busy scrambling eggs and brewing coffee. We’ve been dating for nearly six months. It’s like we had that first date the month after I was released from the hospital, and we’ve never looked back. I’d still been slightly uncomfortable and having to wear a bracing device around my lower body to support my almost-healed pelvis, but the dinner had been lovely and then he’d somehow found a horse and carriage to drive us around Bonneau.
It was a miracle, according to doctors, that I was nearly fully healed even at six months. They said the crushing of my pelvis and the re
sulting damage to my nerves should have left me partially paralyzed. One of the benefits of being a necromancer slash Blood Queen with apparent healing powers I guess.
Kyle and I haven’t had sex, but we’ve come close and I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to go without jumping each other like cats in heat, but for now, we’re content to kiss and cuddle and do all the other things that lead up to the naughtier side of a relationship. It’s mostly me that’s holding us up. After what almost happened with Blackthorn… that left me a little scarred, even though only the tip of him made it inside of me. It was enough of rape though, even if the full length of him hadn’t found purchase. Some people would scoff at me for saying ‘enough of rape’. I know that. They’d write it off as indecent exposure or a milder form of sexual assault.
In my mind though, doing anything to a girl, or to a guy for that matter, that isn’t welcome is ‘enough of rape’. And ‘enough’ crosses that line into the reality of rape where there are shades of darkness and brutality. Period. And that doesn’t just apply to a person’s body. I’ve seen victims who have been so well and truly mind-fucked that they’ll never recover. That, too, is ‘enough’.
Also, I haven’t told Kyle what I am. I don’t know if I can. Jim told me I could trust him, before his spirit passed on. But that was a man on the edge, about to pass into the ether. If I told Kyle and his reaction was anything short of total acceptance, I know that I would be heart-broken. I’d almost rather be burned alive for being a necromancer. Almost.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Kyle says, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I lean back into him automatically. Things are so comfortable between us. It has been since the beginning, just like breathing. It would be so easy to get lost in a relationship like this. Shit, I’m already halfway to nowhere-land.
“I’m thinking about how Bonneau never got a winter before the war. I remember never having snow or ice on the lake. Or maybe I think I remember because dad used to talk about it all the time. That must be it… I wasn’t even alive before the war.” I sound a little dazed, even to myself, and I reach out and graze my fingers against the cool window glass. I continue to gaze between the naked trees towards the hard, mirrored surface of Lake Moultrie. It’s still lovely and quiet, although lately, I have noticed an odd… smell about it. Not a smell I guess. A sensation, something that brushes my power. I think it’s been there for quite some time and I just haven’t noticed it. I hate that it’s there, or that it has come into my reality. It ruins the quiet peace of the expanse of water. It takes it one tiny step closer to becoming another Hellhole Bay. “The winter is beautiful now, but it also makes me feel cold inside. Does that make sense?”