Victoria Cage Necromancer BoxSet

by Eli Constant

  I laugh out loud. “I hate you.” I’m talking to my subconscious, the bitch. The very next road will be Crawford Lane. And that road leads to Emoryridge Way. And that road leads to Blackdog Lane. And at 15 Blackdog Lane… Jim’s house. Kyle’s house now.

  My stupid brain has taken me to Kyle’s and the roads are getting so bad that I really don’t see any way around going there. My other choice is to pull over and wait it out on the side of the road. That seems intolerably stupid considering my boyfriend’s house is only a few turns away.

  If he still is my boyfriend.

  I take the left onto Crawford and I suck in a breath. I don’t plan on releasing it until I’ve pulled into his driveway, gotten out of the car, and readied myself to face the music. I mentally walk myself through it—what I will say, what he might say, what the outcome could be.

  I’m so lost in the possibilities that I don’t see the figure run out in the middle of the road.

  And the car makes impact before I can change course.

  “Oh… no… God, no.” I slam the car into park and throw my door open, stumbling out into the cold. I should have put on a heavier jacket. I’d taken it off after getting back from the graveside service and I’d been too frazzled to remember it when I left again. “Please don’t be dead. Please.”

  When I make it to the front of the car, slipping and sliding around in my flats, I find nothing on the ground. There’s not even a dent in the front of the Bronco.

  I spin around in the whited-out evening. There is enough light left to see by, but not enough to penetrate the curtain of snow that is falling down like a great sheet. “Hello!” I keep spinning, holding myself against the cold. “Hello! If you’re hurt, please come back. Please, let me take you to the hospital!”

  I walk a few feet away from the car and then I go around it in a wide circle, trying to focus on anything more than a yard or so from my face. There’s nothing though, no answer. “Please! I want to help you!”

  “I very much doubt that, big sister.” The voice hits me like an icicle falling from its perch and shattering against the ground. Little fragments of cold stick into my skin and instantly burn with the frost. “I’ve missed you, believe it or not. Your existence makes my life infinitely more interesting. You see, those at the dark court think it’s an asset to have their Black Prince intimate with the Blood Queen. What say you? Shall we join forces?”

  Braeden’s words fly about me, carried on the wind, but I can’t see him. The knowing he’s there, but the not seeing… that is infinitely worse than having him stood in front of me in a warehouse with the former dark fairy Blackthorn readying to do his worst.

  I’m spinning again, spinning and spinning until the world is nothing but a swirling hell. I scream into the snow, bloodying it’s purity with my anger and fear. “Never! I’ll never do anything to help you! Leave me alone!”

  I freeze and see him then, materializing, made from a million snowflakes. He rushes at me, his mouth gaped wide and his eyes a blazing blue fire instead of the hazel I know them to be. “We can be one, you and I.” He rushes through me and it is like having my body torn apart and then jarred back together again.

  “Leave me alone!” I feel like I am screaming so loud that I will breach the veil into the ether and anti-ether. “You’re a fucking monster! Leave me alone!”

  “I know you are, but what am I.” His voice bleeds into my brain.

  My hands go to my ears, pressing down to keep him out of my head. I scream and the sound carries with the wind. I’m near houses; I have to be near houses. I know this road. There’s the rambler with the peeling white paint and the little Cape Cod with the broken second story window. I scream again, as loud as I can, so loud that my throat aches with the effort and the cold air rushing inward.

  In the distance, I hear… what I think is a roar? I listen for it again, but there’s nothing save for the wind rushing past my body and Braeden hovering nearby, looking at me with those eyes glowing with power.

  I begin to run, leaving the Bronco’s door open and its engine thrumming. I know Braeden’s right behind me. I can feel him, I can feel his blood rushing inside of his ethereal form. I would know it anywhere, because it shares so much with mine.

  “Please help me!” I scream into the night. Fear has overtaken me, overtaken everything. I cannot even summon my power to try and clot his blood inside his veins. Of course, while he’s in such an intangible form, I do not even know if that would work. There’s so much I do not understand still. I need Liam. Where is he? “Help!”

  I stumble and fall as the roar sounds again, this time too close and too distinct to chock up to imagination. My palm strikes a scattering of gravel beneath the snow and I cringe as a stinging pain works its way up to my elbow. I roll over on my back, cradling my hurt hand to me.

  Braeden is hovering above me, a floating and terrible specter in the darkening evening. “Leave me alone.”

  Wetness is trickling from the scrape on my palm, it falls and hits my pink blouse, now exposed by the jacket because the buttons have come undone and the sides of it are lying against the snow-coated road. “Leave me alone!” My voice is almost gone. I attempt to scream after I’ve whisper-yelled the same three words again.

  Adrenaline is thumping through my body, like it is a part of my blood that has always been there and always shall be there. I feel it, moving around looking for an outlet. It finds one within the wound on my hand and I feel the blood power finally sprout within me. I reach for Braeden with it, not just to recognize that it is him and that our blood shares certain properties bequeathed by parenthood, but to find a weakness, any weakness that exists within the form he is currently in.

  But the power finds no hold in his translucent manifestation.

  “You’re a coward.” I will my voice to be as loud as it can.. “Stop hiding behind your magic and face me.”

  And he does. His snowflake form hardens and molds until he is his whole self. It is too dark now to see his eyes, but I know they are hazel now, not brimming with fae power. A pale cloak floats about him, undulating with the wind.

  My power smiles within me then. His blood is not speaking to me from some faraway, untouchable place now. It is not only giving me information; it is allowing me inward, to feel and manipulate.

  When I touch him, my own blood still dripping on the silky pink material of my shirt, he knows it. His eyes widen and he recognizes his mistake.

  “Tricky, sister. I’ll give you that.” He rushes towards me and falls to press his left knee sharply into my stomach. I gasp, instantly losing connection with my power and his blood. “Weak, untrained little Blood Queen. You’ll never rule if your control is so hesitant and poor.” He leans forward and presses his hands about my throat. He squeezes and I hit him with my hands, my hurt palm leaving blood on his pristine cloak.

  He continues to depress my throat until I can see stars in the sky, which is impossible against the landscape of the snowstorm raging around.

  I have almost faded, decided to stop fighting back and close my eyes, when something large slams into Braeden and sends him flying away. I am cognizant enough to see his form dissolving from solid back into snow.

  And then I close my eyes and give in.

  Chapter Twelve

  I come to slowly, the world piecing back together like a puzzle possessed by its own will, determining its own pace.

  I see the fireplace, once the red-brown of natural brick but now painted an off-white, like snow that lays untouched on the ground, yet becomes dulled by exposure to the elements. I see the brass lamp with its ugly brown shade that I teased Jim was thrift store fodder. And I’m lying on the floral sofa that’s at least thirty years old, with springs that jam into your ass when you sit down.

  It’s Jim’s house. Not much has changed, but change is happening. Kyle’s been remodeling. This fact brings back Jim’s death in stark clarity. Shifting, I sit up and my head spins, but only for a moment. Several deep, steadying breaths
and I’m fine.

  “Kyle?” I whisper his name. Surely he’s the one that brought me here, but there’s a gut feeling roiling around in my stomach that tells me to be cautious. “Kyle, are you here?”

  There’s something between a growl and a whimper that floats to me from the half bath next to the kitchen. I stand and I begin to walk towards it, noticing that the door to the bathroom has been half-ripped from its hinges and the wood is splintered down the center.

  “Kyle?” I’m almost to the door and I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what I’m about to see, even though I cannot possibly anticipate what is making the bestial noises.

  “Tori.” It’s Kyle’s voice, given to me through a pillow and sounding like he’s been screaming at a football game for several hours.

  I rush forward, now knowing it’s him. And I’m stopped in my tracks as soon as I spy him on the bathroom floor. I don’t even know how he’s managed to fit in the small space. Kyle is larger than he should be, by at least three feet in length and a foot in breadth. His body is covered in bear-like fur, but it is slowly receding, slinking into his skin through his pores to disappear like they’ve never existed. As the fur goes away, his body too begins to shrink back to normal size.

  When he is himself again, shivering naked on the bathroom tile, I move closer and kneel. “Kyle, are you all right?” It’s not the question I want to ask. I want to say ‘Kyle, what are you?’

  But I did not give up my secrets willingly and I will not ask him outright. I do have some sense of fairness, buried deep, next to the place I keep unending patience. Don’t get me wrong though, I also sort of want to beat him to death for treating me like I was something ‘other’ for being a necromancer and here he is— some deformed, half-bear thing that can change at will.

  Or is it at will? God… what is he really?

  “Tori, what happened?” Kyle wraps his arms around the toilet, the lid down thank god, and he pulls himself up. “I heard you screaming and then… fuck, I don’t remember. I blacked out I guess. And then I woke up here. How the hell did I get in the bathroom?”

  He’s managed to pull himself up, his body barely fitting, jammed between the wall and the front of the toilet. His knees are as close to his chest as possible. It’s not very easy for really muscular men to fold themselves tightly together. There’s just too much in the way.

  “Let me get you something to put on.” I stand and back out of the bathroom, not taking my eyes off of his face, making sure he doesn’t move. What am I scared of? That he’s going to go wild again and attack me? Yeah, that’s definitely what I’m afraid of. Even though I’m relatively sure he’s the one that saved me from Braeden. Kyle doesn’t protest my leaving. I think he’s in shock. Sat there, staring at his hands and legs and body as if he’s been betrayed.

  It only takes a moment of rummaging through a walnut-hued beat-up dresser to find a pair of jogging pants and a tank top. I bring them back to Kyle. He’s no longer sitting on the floor, but standing up, examining his face in the mirror. “Here.” I hold the clothes out to him, realizing I’ve forgotten any underwear.

  “I don’t know why I’m naked, Tori. Who the hell blacks out and wakes up naked?”

  “Put on some clothes and we’ll talk about it.” I take a deep breath. “We’ll talk about everything.”

  Reluctantly, Kyle takes the clothes in my arms, quirking and eyebrow when he digs through and doesn’t find the boxer-briefs I’ve forgotten. I leave the bathroom again, going to sit on the recliner with the busted arm rather than the sofa with the assaulting springs. I feel like it takes longer than it should for Kyle to dress and join me.

  “I—” Kyle tries to speak first, but I stop him.

  “No, me first.” I fold my hands in my lap and I straighten my shoulders. “I’m a necromancer. I was born a necromancer. My family lineage goes back to the Bagers in Denmark. Yes, those Bagers, the ones who were accused of doing the really awful things during the Rising. But my family had already left Denmark by then. My grandmother wasn’t like them and neither am I. Before my dad died, I’d planned on being an artist. I’d planned on being anything but what I am now, but life doesn’t always go as planned. So now, my life is literally about the dead, every minute of it, except for when I’m with you and I can get away from that life. And I do good. I help people. I’m not a bad person, I don’t hurt people and raise zombies for pleasure, no matter what society says.” There’s more to say—about the fae about Liam about my brother, but I stop there. I tell myself it’s to let Kyle digest everything, but really, it’s because I’m afraid to push him too far into understanding.

  I’m afraid he’ll leave me and that my first real relationship since Adam died will be over.

  He’s staring at me, a nearly sick expression on his face, and the look makes me crumble, like I am burning and flaking and turning into a pile of ash even as I sit on the recliner.

  “Tori, sorry, I—” And with that, Kyle gets up from the sofa and runs back to the bathroom. I hear him vomiting, a suffering and wet sound that is followed by chunks of digested food and bile plopping into the toilet bowl water.

  I want to go and help him, to hold his hair back as he’s sick, but I don’t know if he wants me to come near him. Especially with the way he was just looking at me. But I go anyway and I wet the corner of the hand towel hanging on a thin silver rack and I pull his hair back gently and wipe his forehead, removing the sweat that is beading there. And I murmur to him, telling him that everything is fine. Even though I’m sure it will not be.

  When he hasn’t thrown up for a while and he’s just kneeling on the floor, his body shaking again, I hook my hands under his arms and I pull upwards. There’s no way I could lift him, but he helps me along. With my right arm around his waist, I help him walk back to the sofa.

  “The recliner please.” His voice is even more hoarse now than it had been when I’d first found him in the restroom. “So I can lay back. Those springs in the sofa are hell, don’t know why dad didn’t chunk the old thing.”

  “Same reason he didn’t toss out that ugly lamp I guess.”

  Kyle chuckles and it is pitiful, but also the best sound. If he can laugh, then maybe we’re okay. Right? A girl can hope.

  “Sorry about that. It’s not what you said, I hope you know that. I was just feeling so sick. Whatever the hell happened to me must have been bad. I’ve only thrown up one other time in my life. And it was nothing like that.”

  “I’m glad to hear it wasn’t what I was saying that made you sick.” I’m seated back on the stupid sofa again and Kyle’s looking comfortable leaned back in the fluffy chair, the broken arm not impeding his coziness.

  “God, no.” He looks at me and then looks away again. “I tried to get you to come back this morning at the apartment. I wanted to talk it out. It just caught me off guard and I didn’t know how to deal.”

  “I can’t imagine why. Boyfriends get told all the time that their girlfriends are zombie-raising freaks.” I try to smile, but the expression fades before it can be born. “I can’t change who I am, Kyle. If you can’t accept it, all I ask is that you don’t tell anyone. I don’t want to die, not when I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

  “You’ve really never hurt anyone? Even on accident?”

  I fidget. “I can’t honestly say no, Kyle.”

  He looks like a wounded bird. “So you have hurt someone.”

  “Yes. Last year, when I was trying to save those girls. And there’s been another time. I don’t hurt people unless I have to, Kyle. Unless I have no choice.”

  I wait for more questions, but Kyle stays silent.

  “First I have to preface this by saying that those I hurt weren’t human. One was a fairy, believe it or not, and the other was a golem—literally made of mud. And I hurt them because A- they attacked me and B- I was trying to save those girls.”

  “A fairy.” He murmurs. “I didn’t know that fairies existed.”

  “I’m not the only preternatur
al creature walking the earth, Kyle. Vampires exist. Lycanthropes exist. Shit, if you want to know the truth, finding out from Liam that I’m not the only non-human around made me feel a hell of a lot better about life.” I want to point out that he himself is something other than human, but I think he’s still too confused to talk about that. I stand and pace and then freeze when Kyle’s next question comes. I hadn’t meant to mention Liam, my absentee fairy guardian who holds a little more than friendly like towards me.

  “Who’s Liam?” There’s the thinnest sliver of suspicion in his voice, but it beats the wounded bird by miles, so I don’t get pissy over it.

  “He’s… also a fairy.” I sit back down, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my knees. “I met him last year, at the funeral of Lilly Miller, one of the girls who was kidnapped but didn’t make it. He’s been helping me come to terms with some new powers I have and helping me learn the truth about what’s out there,” I point towards the window, “in the big bad world.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. He upped and disappeared about two months ago. We’ve had no contact since. I think maybe he was called back to the light court for some reason.”

  “Do you care about him?”

  I can feel the importance of this question, like what comes next hangs in the balance of the answer. “Yes, as a friend. I think he likes me more than that, but that’s on him, not me.”

  “But he’s gone now?”

  I nod and swallow the ball of grief that wants to push its way up from my stomach. Crying over Liam will not help my case. Besides, he was only a friend. I didn’t care about him in any other capacity. (I’m a shit liar, even when it comes to lying to myself).

  “If he comes back, I’d like to meet him. I don’t want any more secrets, Tori. If we move forward, if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we have to be honest with each other. Even if it hurts.”