Insidious: (The Marked Mage Chronicles, Book 1)

  “Kat?” The voice called out from downstairs, and I stiffened.

  Mom.

  Brittany’s cruel smile widened. “Second servings, I see.” She pulled herself out of the bookcase, and the effort rattled the top of the stand, toppling over a mammoth volume. Just as she moved forward, the book fell, smacking her right in the head. A dazed expression met her one working eye before she collapsed onto the hardwood floor.

  “Kat?” Mom called out again, this time anxiously. Her footsteps trampled up the stairs, sending my thoughts into a frenzy.

  I limped across the room as fast as I could, throwing the lock into place on my door. I knelt down beside Brittany, seeing her breathing, but still thankfully unconscious.

  “Thank you, Jane Austen,” I sighed, picking up the trusty all-in-one volume. Who’d have thunk it? A book could literally save a life.

  “Kat, is everything okay?” My door rattled as Mom twisted the locked knob.

  Crap, crap, triple crap.

  “Ah, yeah, I’m fine,” I called out, trying to calm my shaken nerves.

  “What happened?”

  “Hmmm?” I looked around at the mess, feeling a new surge of panic arise.

  “What was all the noise?”

  Shit!

  “My, uh, bookcase…it fell,” I replied clumsily.

  “Oh my god-”

  “Yeah, but I’m okay.”

  “Well, could you open the door?”

  “It’s a bit messy in here at the moment.”

  “Kat.” Her tone made it clear this wasn’t a request, solidifying it with a knock on the door.

  “Just give me a sec.” Sweeping the books out of the way, I bent down and grabbed hold of Brittany by her underarms. The hardwood flooring gave me little resistance as I dragged her body across the room, hiding her figure behind the other side of my bed. Blood from my leg spotted the floor as well, so I frantically snatched up some laundry from my hamper and tossed the random articles over the various stains. I hobbled back over to the door and pulled it open, forcing Mom’s knuckles to bat the air as she prepared to bang on it.

  “Heavens.” Gawking at the mass of books still splayed across the floor, Mom tried heading inside, but I stepped in her way.

  “I’ll take care of this,” I assured.

  She looked down at me crossly as I blocked her second attempt to move around me.

  “Don’t-”

  She further examined me, and I was grateful to be wearing black pants so that she couldn’t see the blood running down my leg. That still didn’t stop her from noticing the dab of sweat on my forehead or my flushed cheeks as I struggled to conceal my pain. “What has gotten into you?”

  “Nothing. It’s just…you’re not wearing any shoes,” I quickly countered, looking down at her feet. “There’s glass all over the place. I don’t want you to cut yourself.”

  Voices echoed from downstairs as she noted the several shattered candle jars on the floor.

  “Did you invite people over?” I asked wearily.

  The question seemed to catch her off guard. “Oh, yes. Sophia and Ashley joined me for yoga, and they stopped by for a drink. Is that a problem?”

  “No, I just ordered a pizza, and I didn’t want to interrupt,” I assured. “Go back down to them. I’ve got this.”

  She hesitated, but Mom eventually agreed, leaving me. I closed the door and locked it once again, racing back over to check on Brittany. The girl was still unconscious, laying haphazardly on the small area rug surrounding the bed, so I grabbed my purse.

  Yanking out my cell, I dialed his number. “We have a serious problem.”

  I could hear the engine of the old beater rumbling from down the block, and I waved my hands frantically at the sight of Reese cutting through the Mandrakis’s backyard.

  “Is it really that hard for you to stay out of trouble, or were you just inventing an excuse to see me again?” he mused with his cell to his ear.

  “Ask that to the body lying on my floor,” I said, wielding an iron poker. Just in case Brittany came to, I was prepared to put her to sleep again. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t feel; a proper concussion still knocked you out.

  Reese arrived within five minutes of my call, leaving me just enough time to stack my books in the corner and sweep up the remaining debris. He made his way under my windowsill, looking up at me expectantly.

  “What do we do?” I whispered. “Should we call Nathan?”

  He shook his head. “There’s really only one thing we can do.” Reese opened his coat and pulled out a sizeable blade.

  I immediately shook my head. “No, you can’t kill her.”

  “You said she was a Hellhound, yes?”

  “Yeah, but I thought maybe… I don’t know. Maybe Mr. Reynolds can keep her prisoner or something, interrogate her…”

  “She won’t tell him anything-”

  “She’s only seventeen,” I snapped. “She has a family!”

  His brows pinched together. “How do you know?”

  “She’s one of the missing students from Hersey,” I muttered, feeling tears prickle the corners of my eyes. I’d seen her mother on the news begging for answers, pleading for her daughter’s safe return.

  “I understand your hesitation, but you can’t do anything to save her. She’s lost.” The sympathy in his eyes confirmed his words. “And you won’t be doing her any favors by handing her over to Nathan. You saw what he and his men wanted to do to me when they thought I was one of her kind. Reapers want to see them suffer. He’ll brutalize her in every manner possible, prolonging the pain for as long as it takes until her body gives out. Do you really want that for her?”

  I looked beside me to the unconscious girl. “Throw me a blade.”

  “Come again?”

  “It’s the only way to kill her, right? Silver?”

  “Apart from removing her head,” Reese admitted. “Though I wouldn’t suggest the latter. It’s a bit messy, as you can imagine.”

  “Exactly. Throw a blade up to me.”

  “Yeah, there’s a saying about running with scissors that comes to mind. I’m pretty sure the same applies to chucking deadly knives,” he argued.

  I stepped aside, hiding behind the wall. “Just do it.”

  A moment later a sliver of silver came hurtling through the window, hitting the corner of my bed. The blade ricocheted off the mattress and bounced back at me. I howled as I scrambled away, only to realize the dagger was still encased in its holster. I gripped the handle, prying it out of its sheath. I hovered over Brittany with the blade tip primed at her, seeing her chest rise and fall. Sure, the girl had stabbed and strangled me, and my calf still hurt like a Mofo. But I’d already started to heal.

  “I can’t.” I fell back, snatching up my phone. “I can’t do it, Reese. I can’t pierce her in the heart… What if I just stab her in the arm or something? She’s allergic to the steel. Wouldn’t that be enough?”

  He sighed. “No, that’ll just hurt her, not to mention make her really, really angry.”

  How could I kill an innocent person, someone who didn’t have any control over their actions? It wasn’t her fault what she’d become, just as it wasn’t mine.

  I snapped out of my train of thought, looking out the window. “Reese?”

  Where the hell did he go?

  A soft tap registered at the door, and I jumped, dropping the blade in my hand.

  “You gonna let me in?” the magician whispered.

  Seriously? How did he get in here?

  I unlocked the door and grabbed him by the lapels, pulling him inside. Knowing him, he probably waltzed into the house without bothering to go invisible, just to make things interesting.

  “That her?” he queried, spotting Brittany as he rounded the bedside.

  “No, that’s my neighbor. We got into a fight about who the best boy band was, so I clobbered her.” I gave him a light backhand to the chest. “What do you think?”

  He knelt down, study
ing her face. “Talk about a cat fight. What happened?” I pointed at the silver frame, and a small smile formed on his lips. It immediately vanished though as his gaze traveled up to my leg. “You’re bleeding.”

  Before I could protest, he swept me up and settled me down on top of the bed. His fingers slowly glided up my calf, hiking the pant leg.

  “I’m fine,” I assured. “It’s already healing.”

  “Did she bite you?”

  I shook my head.

  “We don’t have much time,” he murmured.

  “Have you done this before? I mean…kill someone who isn’t attacking you?” I asked weakly, looking at the girl’s unconscious frame.

  Reese eased my pant leg back down and turned his attention to Brittany once more. “It’s merciful in comparison to what end she’ll face elsewhere.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look. I climbed off the bed, making my way over to the rubble still sitting at the foot of my bookcase. A thunderous crack erupted, and Reese’s frame came hurtling beside me. He bit down on a howl, prying out a shard of broken frame glass from his abdomen. I spun around. Brittany’s burnt face sneered up at us as she staggered to her feet.

  “There’ll be nothing merciful in what I’m about to do to you,” she spat, flashing Reese a wicked set of bloodstained teeth. But that wasn’t the only thing bleeding. Blood coursed down her hand from where another large shard of glass was pressed firmly in her palm, the barbed end primed at Blackburn. She sprang forward. As if stepping outside myself, instinct seized control over my mind. I dropped to the floor, plucking up the dagger I’d dropped not a moment before. The girl was mere inches from plunging the jagged glass into Reese’s neck when she suddenly gasped, hobbling backward.

  It took a moment for my mind to finally regain command over myself as my eyes traveled down. My fingers were still wrapped around the handle of the dagger, now plunged in the left side of the brunette’s chest. Warm liquid pooled over my hand and I gasped, recoiling back until I hit the wall. I was covered in her…in her blood. Just as I’d witnessed in the alley with her male counterpart, Brittany’s pained expression turned brittle, as did the rest of her until there was nothing left but a pile of ash splayed across the hardwood floor.

  My hand instinctively shot to my mouth, but I shrieked, slamming it back down to my side before my bloodied digits could connect with my lips.

  “Kat—” Reese’s arms caught hold of me as my knees buckled under. “Kat, you’re okay.”

  “I just…”

  “I know.” He settled me on the floor, brushing the mess of hair from my eyes. My whole body shook, and he sank down in front of me, purposely blocking my view of the poor girl’s remains. “Hey.” Reese angled my face up to his. “Thank you.”

  Chapter 23

  By the Way

  I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After taking a shower, I came back out into my bedroom. Reese had cleaned up everything, but as I sat on my mattress, my stomach churned. How could I sleep not two feet from where I had just killed someone? Every inch of me was still stained by an invisible taint. It didn’t matter how hard I scrubbed at my skin, how much I lathered, how much soap I used. Brittany’s blood was still there. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it.

  “We can go back to my place, if you want,” suggested Reese. “The bed in the basement is all yours. My mom won’t know.”

  I shook my head, hearing voices still echoing from downstairs. “Mine would, if you could even call her that.”

  Reese followed me down the hall to a distant guest bedroom. A lush sofa sat in the corner beside a lofty bureau as a massive king-sized bed took up the rest of the space. Neither of my parents ever came into these bedrooms, and they hadn’t come in to wish me goodnight since I was five, so I didn’t need to worry about either walking in on us or wondering why I wasn’t in my room.

  I had been dreading the moment when I’d be left alone, and Reese didn’t need me to ask. He slid off his tailcoat and shoes before removing his vest as well. In nothing but a half-unbuttoned dress shirt and black jeans, he settled into the sofa, draping his jacket over himself as a makeshift blanket. My other concern rested with having another uninvited visitor, so I flipped the door lock into place before nestling into the fluffy comfort of Egyptian cotton sheets.

  ***

  I shrieked as arms safely ensnared me around my waist, hoisting me up before the rogue waves splashed my feet. I’d been swimming at several local beaches all summer, but even by the ocean’s standard, the water was shockingly cold. Blaine set me back down in the sand once the waves receded back into the ocean. The moon’s distorted reflection rippled in the surf as it hung low in the sky. No one had ever mentioned Devil’s Bay before, and I couldn’t be happier that Blaine had taken me here.

  I had never seen water like this. With each wave that piled on top of one another, the ocean glowed—literally glowed—a bright neon blue. Bioluminescence he had called it. The marine life apparently emitted this mystical luminosity through photophores as a reaction to the disturbance in the water.

  “You like it?” Blaine asked.

  I didn’t need to answer. He could tell by the ridiculous smile on my face that I loved everything about it, soaking in every detail as if to stow them away in my mind for safe keeping. I still nodded. “How come no one else is out here? I mean, it’s so beautiful. You’d think the entire beach would be filled with onlookers.”

  “Well, that’s kind of the thing. We’re really not supposed to be out here,” he whispered mischievously. I shot him an uneasy look. “During the summer months, we tend to get a lot of folks, homeless and tourists mostly, that like to sleep out on the beach. This stretch isn’t particularly well lit, so police patrol the area at night to kick out trespassers.”

  “So we’re breaking the law?” I couldn’t stop smiling.

  “Kind of fun, isn’t it?”

  “Kind of freeing.” I came to a stop, looking out into the water again. My gaze dropped to the ridiculous heels in my hands. I suddenly hurled a shoe. It disappeared into the night, only showing itself again by way of a splash in the water with glimmering blue lights swirling beneath the surface.

  Blaine laughed, watching me throw the remaining heel. “Dare I ask how much those cost?”

  “Asides from my dignity?”

  “It really is mind numbing, isn’t it? The parties, the gossip, all the bullshit.” He sighed, nodding down at his pristine suit as he brushed the rogue strands of black hair from his eyes. “But hey, at least we don’t have to wait much longer till we can get out of here.”

  The waves splashing up onto the shore seemed to stretch out, as if begging to kiss my feet. I didn’t move. “You never really escape it though, do you?” It wasn’t a question. “Sure, you go off to college, but it’s one of your parents’ choosing. You take the classes they’ve already decided for you, you get the degree they want, and then you’re groomed to take over the family business. What choices do we really have?”

  Blaine’s expression turned sorrowful. He knew this all too well. “True love should never come with conditions.”

  “That’s what they make you believe.”

  “Perhaps, but as they say, ‘Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.’” He extended his hand out to me. “‘That’s why it’s called the present.’”

  A new smile tugged at my lips. “Quoting Alice Morse Earle, are we?”

  He winked. “We may not be able to control our futures, but we can decide what we do in the here and now. Fuck the lot of them, even if only for tonight. Let’s paint the town red.”

  ***

  Glass blasted into my face, the final roar of the car engine exploding like a cannon as everything around me crumpled in on all sides. Blood. There was blood everywhere. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Every effort to refill my lungs ended with nothing but a rasp. And the pain. Not one inch of me was spared from the devastation. It was as if the vehicle had been put through one of t
hose car crushers from the junkyard—with me still inside.

  A strangled gasp next to me fought off the darkness threatening to overwhelm my vision. I could barely manage to move my eyes in the direction. Blaine. Blood masked most of his face, but he was still alive. Barely. Just as his eyes fluttered shut, two bright flashes illuminated the inside of the pulverized cabin.

  Something shattered on the other side of Blaine. I tried cocking my head, only I couldn’t. More glass splayed out onto my lap. What was left of the driver’s window had just been obliterated. Shadows lurked from outside, but I couldn’t make them out. What I could though…

  A gigantic blade gleamed in the limited moonlight.

  “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”

  I shot up from the mattress, hands clasped around my throat as I awoke with a violent gasp. Reese startled awake at the sound, and he was at the bedside in an instant. My breathing was so fast and hard, I was practically choking on the air.

  “Hey.” Reese’s voice was low and unnaturally gentle as he brushed away the sweaty locks of hair plastered to my face. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Sitting beside me on the mattress, he wrapped his arms around me, continuing to hum the words until my breathing slowed and the threat of wrenching subsided.

  “He was still alive,” I rasped. “Blaine…someone did that to him after the accident.”

  “Did what?” Reese whispered.

  “He was decapitated.”

  His breathing faltered. “Come again?”

  “Blaine,” I muttered. “I overheard at the funeral that his head got taken clean off…along with other things.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Danielle told her friends, and her dad’s a police sergeant. So if anybody would know-” I shook my head in disbelief. “Who would do that?”

  “The question’s not who, but rather why? Someone’s clearly out to make an army of Hellhounds. Why kill a perfectly good specimen?”

  Whether the room was actually cold or not, I wasn’t entirely sure, but a chill had sunken deep into my bones. Laughter. It had been coming from outside the car. Whoever had butchered Blaine had been laughing.