A Torment of Savages (The Reanimation Files Book 4)

by A. J. Locke

  I wanted to curl up somewhere and hide forever. But I couldn’t do that. So that meant I had to face the world. The dome dissipated by itself after a short time. Once it was down, the media swarmed.

  The dead bodies astounded them. What astounded them even further was the fact that out of all the Savages, only my boyfriend had been saved. I explained over and over the fact that I had bested Revath, sent her back to the In Between, and took what I thought was a rune containing every Savage’s soul, intending to reanimate them all. I stressed that I had not known only Micah’s soul was in there but it was hard for anyone to believe me. And of course I had to explain that I once again carried evolved reanimation power, but that I was bound to an animal ghost not a human one, and would not again encounter the Rot or anchor human ghosts. Those were all the details I gave. As it was, the reporters were too focused on the dead bodies and missing souls to give too much attention to my reanimation power. Especially since it had done nothing to help these people.

  Finally, people from the PCC, sent by Tielle, showed up and got the press off us. After being checked out by paramedics with paranormal training, Micah and I were allowed to go home while dozens more ambulances arrived to take care of the bodies. I couldn’t look at them as I left the park. If I did, I would not have been able to keep my legs under me.

  It was four days later and Micah and I were still holed up at my house. After the first day I had stopped watching the news reports. I couldn’t listen to them list the names of all those victims and talk about who they were married to, how many kids they had, what they did for a living, what wonderful human beings they were. It would devastate me every single day from now on when I woke up each morning and remembered that I could not save them. I obsessed over how I could have done things differently until I felt like screaming and pulling my hair out. I should have found some way to make sure everyone’s souls were in that rune. I shouldn’t have just barreled in and made a hasty decision. Micah kept telling me there was nothing I could have done differently, that I was brave, that in the end I had defeated Revath, but it felt nothing like a victory. Too much had been lost for this to feel like a victory.

  And if that wasn’t enough, there was still the matter of Ethan’s incarceration. I had not been able to bring myself to leave the house to go visit him, which I felt terrible about. But Micah and Kyo did visit, and said he was due for a bail hearing in a few days. It would have happened sooner had it not been for Revath and her chaos. So the glimmer of hope was that we would be able to help Ethan make bail so he could come home. After that, we’d have to see how to deal with the murder charges. Tielle and her lawyers were still handling it.

  Micah seemed to be fully recovered from his ordeal. He had no memory of his ghost being inside that rune, which was good. And of course he had no knowledge of being a Savage, but it did pain him to think of the harm his darkness-filled body had committed. It was hard for him to deal with the blood on his hands. Dozens of people had been killed or injured because of the Savages.

  I was sitting on the couch, not really paying attention to what was on the television, which was some makeover reality show that I usually enjoyed watching. Micah had gone on a grocery run after first trying to get Kyo to do it before realizing the newly reanimated man who still did not have a full grasp on the modern world would not be so great at grocery shopping. I knew he just hadn’t wanted to leave me. The alone with Kyo part was sort of left unsaid. The vibe between the two of them wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t a headache I wanted to take on.

  Micah did express his amazement that I’d been able to get Kyo’s body back. But he was pissed to uncomprehending heights at the fact that Tielle had put me in the hospital because of my investigations. He was going to quit the PCC, but after many lengthy conversations, I convinced him not to. He was doing good work, for one, and at the end of the day it was in our best interests to keep Tielle close at hand. Besides, one of us in this relationship needed to maintain a steady income. The realization that his Alchemy work was helpful to others and thus important was what convinced him to stay. But I could not stop the verbal assault he’d unleashed on Tielle after one of his visits to Ethan. Since we were no longer in the spirit of hiding things from each other, he’d told me about it, as well as the fact that security had to come and remove him. I was shocked Tielle hadn’t fired him on the spot. Guess she realized she’d deserved it.

  “Here.”

  I looked up to see Kyo holding out a cupcake. We had more sweets than anything else, which was the main reason for the grocery run. I took it, but didn’t take a bite. That’s how you knew something was truly wrong with me. Kyo sat down and started to eat his.

  “It’s always cupcake time with you,” I commented.

  “Well, right this moment it’s because it’s my birthday.” He flashed me a smile, then his face sobered and regained the watchful look he’d been giving me since I’d been home. He had tried in his own way to make me feel better, such as funneling me cupcakes every chance he got, but he hadn’t probed or tried to get me to talk about things, which I appreciated.

  My eyes widened. “Your birthday? Uh…happy birthday. What day is it today?” I couldn’t even tell you what season we were in right now.

  “April third,” Kyo replied. Guess it was spring. I clutched the knit throw that was around my shoulders a little tighter. It wasn’t particularly cold in my house, but more often than not I felt chilled to my bones.

  “So, how old are you now?” I tried to sound teasing but didn’t quite manage it.

  “Hmmm,” Kyo pretended to look thoughtful. “I guess I’m about three hundred and thirty. But really, I’m just thirty.” He gave another quick smile.

  “The big three-oh,” I said. “We should be doing more than having cupcakes.”

  “Got a bottle of sake around anywhere?” Kyo asked.

  I managed a half smile. “I deal more in rum, but I don’t think I can drink anything right now. But we will celebrate. Once Ethan makes bail and is home.”

  “No need,” Kyo said. “Eating a cupcake with you is good enough. Celebrations seem like such petty things in light of everything.”

  “You can’t let go of the small things,” I said softly. “The small, mundane, easy things about life are what keep us grounded. Keep us from losing ourselves. Keep us from becoming a nightmare we can’t wake up from. How do you wake up from yourself…”

  “Selene?”

  I blinked and turned to Kyo. I hadn’t realized I was talking out loud. His voice and expression were concerned.

  I swallowed hard. I had not forgotten the massive amount of dark power I drank from those Savages. It had turned ordinary people into monsters. I shuddered to think of what it would do to me. The caveat seemed to be that my soul had to be removed for the darkness to truly take over, and if that was done, the type of monster I would become would literally be a hundred times worse than any one Savage. Still, that deep, powerful darkness was always on the edge of my psyche, teasing me, trying to draw me in. It and my dead magic were an overwhelming combination, and I felt all of the control I had practiced with Magda slipping away. I had to get strong enough to control this, or else I would be lost.

  “I feel so horrible, so terrible,” I said, staring at the cupcake. Luna was standing on her hind legs with her paws on my knees, trying to reach it. She managed to lick some frosting before I moved it away. “I don’t know how I can face the world. All those people lost. So many other people in mourning. They’re angry and confused and upset because I got to walk out of there with my boyfriend, but they lost someone they love. And not only that…where their souls actually are right now…” My breath caught in my throat. “If their friends and family knew where their souls were…” My eyes filled with tears. “I really wanted to save everyone, not just Micah…everyone.”

  “I know,” Kyo said soothingly. “I know.” He put his fingers under my chin and forced me to look at him.

  “I would take that burden from
you if I could,” he said. “You don’t deserve to carry it.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “It’s my fault. I didn’t make sure that the rune had everyone’s soul. I just made a decision and hoped for the best.”

  “Sometimes there are no easy options,” Kyo said. “It’s not always as clear as A is good and B is bad, so you can choose A and everything will be all right. Sometimes the only options don’t turn out so good and we end up making choices that feel like they are eating up our soul every moment of the day…”

  “That’s exactly how I feel,” I said softly.

  “I know what that’s like,” he said. “Where I was for the past three hundred years; I know.”

  “How do I deal with this? How do I get past it?”

  “I don’t know that you ever can,” Kyo said gently. “You can lock the pain away, but you still carry it with you every day. Eventually it becomes a little lighter to carry.”

  “All those people, Kyo. Their souls are suffering in the In Between. I left their loved ones to suffer here. I can’t lock that away, there is no locking that away. I just want to forget. I want to forget…”

  “I wish I could help you do that…”

  “Forget,” I breathed, my eyes widening as I thought of something. There was a way I could forget. I got up from the couch and ran into my room, rummaging around my handbags until I found the one with the Memory Runes that I had gotten from Micah. I had used one on Leena and it had been defective, but if I could have the rune fixed, then it could be used on me with no problem. I could ask Magda to help me.

  “Selene, what’s going on, what are you doing?”

  Kyo was standing in my bedroom doorway. He glanced down briefly, and I knew he was looking at the glowing red eyes peeking out from under my bed. Snake Eyes was enjoying his pocket of darkness.

  “Nothing’s wrong, but maybe something will be right.” I gave Kyo a gentle push over the threshold so I could close the door and quickly change into jeans and a light sweater. I slipped the rune into my pocket, and headed back into the living room where Kyo looked no less confused.

  “I’m going out,” I said, to which his eyes widened because it was the first time in four days that I had said such a thing. “I have to do something alone. When Micah comes back tell him I will be back soon and I’m all right.”

  “At least tell me where you’re going,” Kyo said, following me to the coat closet where I threw on a pair of Converse sneakers and my denim jacket.

  “Just trust me, please? I need to do something for myself.”

  “I don’t like how this sounds. Are you going to see Magda?”

  I bit my lip. Damn him for figuring it out. “Look, Kyo, just stay here okay.”

  “You’re going to ask her to use a Memory Rune on you, aren’t you? I saw you with one just now.” He grabbed my wrist before I could open the door. “Selene, wait, talk to me!”

  “What more is there to say?” I whirled on him and snatched my wrist back. “I feel like I am slowly dying with the weight of this bearing down on me every moment of the day, Kyo. I don’t know how I could possibly live with this. I can hardly function knowing…knowing…” I stopped to take a breath and try to stop the tears that were once again threatening to fall. “I need to forget this. If you can live with your three hundred years of darkness, fine, but I can’t live with my four days of mine and you should not judge me. I am just trying to make my life a little easier to live.”

  “But Selene, even if you forget, everyone else still knows, still remembers. People are still going to want to talk to you and question you about what happened. How is it going to look when you are faced with these questions, with these grieving friends and families, and you show them that you can’t even remember anything? It’s not going to make anything better.”

  I stood there and stared at him. He made sense, obviously he did. I hadn’t thought this out at all. All my energy deflated like I’d been punched in the gut, and I sank back onto the sofa, trying not to cry.

  “This is not okay,” I said.

  Kyo sat down next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Forgetting about this by using a rune seems like it would be an easy fix, but it wouldn’t really be a fix at all.”

  “I know,” I said, staring at the floor. “The only thing that can make this better is if I freed everyone’s souls from the In Between.” Wait. My head snapped up and I turned to Kyo.

  “What?” he said, brow creasing slightly.

  “Free everyone from the In Between,” I repeated. “That’s what I need to do.”

  Kyo’s eyes widened. “A noble thought for sure as I appreciate my freedom and the return to my body more than I could ever say, but how in the world do you propose to free every single soul from the In Between? And where would they go? Only some dead warlocks have bodies they can come back to.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I have absolutely no idea how I would even pull this off, but that is the answer. Don’t you see, it’s about more than just the dead warlocks, Kyo. There are violent ghosts and ghost monsters there, sure, but remember what you told me? All those poets you met, they aren’t bad ghosts, they were just victims of their time. Ghosts with unfinished business who were circled away because that’s how it was done in those days. They and every other ghost from past centuries before ghost agencies were established and necromancers worked to settle their affairs. They don’t deserve to be there. My grandmother’s ghost…doesn’t deserve it either.”

  “I agree with you,” Kyo said. “The In Between serves its purpose in regards to ghost monsters and violent ghosts, but they’re in the minority. The majority of ghosts there are just victims, as you said.”

  “Exactly. As are the ghosts that Revath took. It would be wrong for us to leave them there. We need to figure out how to get them out and move them on to the true Afterlife. Those who have a body to come back to I can reanimate. I have no idea how I can pull this off, but I will figure something out.” The determination in my voice was a welcome change from the despair.

  “I’ll help you any way I can,” Kyo said. “I’ve already seen you do the damn near impossible. If anyone can do something as monumental as save all the ghosts in the In Between, you can.”

  I smiled. For the first time since the showdown with Revath, I felt a spark of hope flare inside me. I would focus on what I could do to help the ghosts in the In Between instead of dwelling on what I hadn’t been able to do to save the former Savages. I didn’t need to use a Memory Rune. I got up to go put it away, but just then the doorbell rang.

  “Must be Micah,” I said as I went to open it. He had a key but his hands were probably laden with groceries. I had given him quite a list of things to buy.

  I opened the door, expecting to be greeted by an armful of grocery bags being shoved at me, but was startled when I saw who was standing there. I blinked and had to take a moment to gather myself in the midst of an unexpected visitor. It was Amy.

  “Uh, Selene…hi. I’m sorry for showing up like this but…”

  “Oh, yeah. Hi, Amy. Look, I’m sorry for not answering your calls or following through with plans to meet up but things have been…” I trailed off because while I’d been speaking I’d looked her over and my eyes had stopped at her mid-section. Her very large mid-section, which she was covering with her hands protectively. I dragged my eyes back to her face. She looked hesitant and edgy.

  “Well, the reason I needed to speak to you is…is this. She glanced at her stomach, then back to my face, holding herself a little straighter as she delivered her next line.

  “I’m pregnant…with Micah’s baby.”

  ~ About the Author ~

  A.J. Locke is originally from Trinidad & Tobago but has resided in New York City for over ten years. She knew early on that she wanted to be a writer, penned her first novel at fourteen, and hasn’t stopped since. Creating is her passion, and other than writing she enjoys drawing, painting, graphic design, and any other creative whim that may take her.


  Discover more about A. J. Locke here

  http://iqurae.blogspot.com/

  https://twitter.com/maqueripe

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/AJ-Locke/522250584507699

  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6883907.A_J_Locke

  ~ Also by A. J. Locke ~

  Affairs of the Dead

  The Reanimation Files Book One

  A.J. Locke

  Help ghosts, stop a thief, and try not to die…

  Necromancer Selene Vanream helps ghosts settle their affairs so they can move on. But when breaking the rules gets her in trouble, she’s bumped down to tracking ghosts trying to avoid the afterlife. Ghosts like Ethan Lance, who claims he was kicked out of his body when someone else jumped in. Which might be plausible—if such a thing were possible. And if Micah, Selene’s partner, didn’t pull her into an investigation of brutal murders that lead directly back to Ethan.

  But when the whole mess puts Selene’s life in danger, she suddenly has very personal reasons to get Ethan’s body back. Between her uncomfortable relationship with Micah, and problems with her boss, Selene learns just how much trouble it can be when you don’t follow the rules…

  Buy Affairs of the Dead here

  http://www.amazon.com/Affairs-Dead-J-Locke-ebook/dp/B00CF0OWAW/

  The Ravaging In Between

  The Reanimation Files Book Two

  A. J. Locke

  Selene is slowly dying...too bad that’s the least of her problems.

  You could say that Selene Vanream has a lot of problems. First there’s the Rot that’s slowly killing her, despite everything Ilyse and Micah are doing to find a way to save her.

  Then there’s Andrew, the ghost of her boss who is anchored to the living world. Selene would like to ignore him, but anchored ghosts with unsettled business turn into anchored beasties, so she can’t write him off. The government has sent a team to post up at Affairs of the Dead and keep an eye on her, which includes making sure she plays up to Andrew to keep him from turning.