Cael flung him across the room. He grunted as he slid, head cracking audibly against the leg of the table. He moved to stand.
Cael was already advancing on him. “I’m going to enjoy this. After what you did to Rena, did you really think the next time I saw you you’d walk away? Are you really that arrogant?”
“Yes, he is,” Quinn answered.
Cael turned on him, noticing him at last. He looked the kid over, taking in the crooked glasses, beanie cap, jeans and converse. Mace could practically see the wheels turning in the collectors head. Quinn put his hands up defensively, misreading his sudden interest. “Look, he’s a total dick but we need him,” Quinn told the reaper. “Well, my friend needs him. My friend needs you.”
Mace pulled himself into a sitting position, watching with interest as Cael stared at the human. “Who the hell are you, kid?”
Quinn dropped his hands but still made sure to keep the door at his back. “My name is Quinn Talbot.”
The reaper startled, “What?”
Quinn grimaced, “Yes, of the Talbot family. Yes, my father is Allister Talbot. Yes, he’s the head of the witches’ council. No, I’m not a witch. Can we move on now?”
Cael stood frozen, forehead furrowed. He looked at Mace and then at Quinn again. “What are you doing here?”
“My best friend, Kai, he’s a collector like you.” Quinn looked over the reaper before saying, “Well, not exactly like you. We live in Belle Haven.”
Cael’s eyes darted towards Mace but Mace stayed quiet, for once letting the human handle things. It was clear, Cael still wasn’t over Rena and he still blamed Mace. With reason, Mace conceded, but it was four years ago.
“Your friend is a collector in Belle Haven.” He repeated like he was testing the words on his tongue. “What do you need from me?”
Quinn swallowed. “My friend, he did something stupid and now the Grove is probably coming after him.”
He watched the clouds roll over Cael’s face. The Grove may be the only thing in the world he hated more than Mace. “Go on.”
“A few weeks ago, my friend had a name pop on his arm for a collection. He didn’t complete the collection.”
Cael’s mouth turned down, “We’ve all had a botched collection. Did he fix it?”
Quinn took a shaky breath. “She didn’t die.”
“What?”
“He actively prevented her death.”
Cael gave one last leery look at Mace before gesturing for Quinn to sit. Quinn thunked down heavily, pulling off his cap and raking his hands through his hair.
“It couldn’t have been his first collection?”
Quinn shook his head. “No.”
“So, why her?”
“He knew her.”
“That’s not possible.”
“But he did. She was his cousin.”
Cael yanked the chair out, spinning it and sitting on the chair backwards, “Tell me everything.”
48
TRISTIN
Tristin jabbed the end button on her cell phone as her call yet again went straight to voicemail. Quinn said he’d be home. She’d left work early just to talk to him. Now she stood in an empty house, her only clue to their disappearance a hastily scrawled note on the dry erase board in the kitchen.
He’d gone out with Kai and Mace. She wasn’t surprised about his disappearance with Kai, but Mace? It seemed impossible. What could the three of them possibly be doing? Had Mace forced them to go with him? Should she be worried?
She heard the creak of the front door opening and stormed into the living room stopping short when she saw it wasn’t Quinn. Ember dropped her bag by the front door and let it swing shut.
Tristin rolled her eyes, “Oh, it’s just you.”
Her cousin stared at her, eyes bleary and face blotchy. Tristin had just enough time to process her cousin’s emotional state before the girl burst into tears.
Tristin froze. She was excellent at dealing with moody, cranky wolves. She knew how to deal with flesh eating monsters and shrieking harpies but she did not know how to handle a crying girl, especially one she didn’t particularly like.
“Are you okay,” she asked, voice stilted. She took a step towards her and stopped, realizing she had no idea what to do if she reached her cousin. The other girl crumpled to the floor and just sobbed.
Tristin opened her mouth to say something-anything really-to console Ember when the other girl looked up and said, “Did you know? Is that why you hate me so much?”
Tristin had no idea what it was she was talking about but winced at the girls words. She didn’t hate her. She just didn’t think her life was worth trading for her brothers. She didn’t think it was fair that she was stuck with the most useless power in the world and Ember waltzed into an active power like reanimating.
“I don’t hate you,” she said, begrudgingly. She plopped down on the bottom step of the staircase, keeping a safe distance between the two of them. “I don’t even know you.”
“You don’t want to know me. You never even gave me a chance. Now I don’t want to know me either,” Ember wailed.
“What happened?” Tristin asked, bewildered.
The girl looked at her and the floodgates opened. Tristin listened, horrified, as Ember told her everything. Her stomach churned, her insides slippery at her cousin’s revelation. She should be furious. She should really hate her cousin now. Her actions set in motion the most catastrophic thing to ever happen to them. But she didn’t. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling but she didn’t hate her. She didn’t have to. Ember hated herself enough for everybody.
As they sat there, Ember’s sobs resolved into dry little hiccups. Tristin finally said, “Listen, we’ve all done horrible things without thinking. We deal with monsters and magic. None of us are innocent.”
“Are any of you mass murderers?” Ember rasped, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
“You were little.” Tristin shrugged. “We were both little. What if you only did what you did because I screamed?”
Ember looked up, startled. “What?”
“It’s possible, right?” she asked. “My scream could have been what set everything in motion?”
Ember narrowed her eyes. Tristin could see she wasn’t buying her pep talk. She didn’t blame her. This wasn’t really her thing. Isa was the one who made everybody feel better. Isa, Kai and Neoma were the heart of their pack. Quinn was the brains. Tristin, Rhys, Wren and Donovan were just soldiers. They liked orders and absolutes. She longed for Isa or her brother right now.
“What is the Grove going to do to Kai?”
“I don’t know,” Tristin told her.
“I don’t get it. If he knew saving me would get him in trouble with the Grove, why did he do it?”
“That’s my brother. He’ll never save himself to sacrifice somebody else.”
“So now, what? They kill him?”
Tristin sucked in a shaky breath, “He upset the balance.”
“Does anybody ever get sick of hearing that phrase?” Ember asked.
A smile played at Tristin’s lips, “It does get thrown around a lot.”
“Why do you think my uncle said Kai would be okay?”
“I really don’t know.”
They sat for a few minutes until Ember stood up. “Sorry, I fell apart on you.”
Tristin shrugged, “It’s okay.”
“Did you find anything on your trip? Did you find out anything about your banshee powers?”
Tristin looked at her then. She didn’t know what they’d found. The book was still hidden in the woods and Quinn was nowhere to be found. The answers they needed could be in that book. She wasn’t going to wait around on him all night. “I don’t know. Quinn decided to take off with my brother and your boyfriend.”
“So would that make Quinn
your boyfriend in this scenario?” Ember asked, brow arched.
“Touché,” Tristin sighed. “Want to get out of here? We stashed a book just outside of town. Let’s go see exactly what the book has to say about…well, everything?”
Ember looked around as if suddenly remembering something. “Hey, where’s Romero?” she asked, hysteria creeping into her voice.
“They took him to the restaurant even though I’m sure that’s violating a thousand health codes.”
“Well, technically, if having dogs in a restaurant is a health code violation, they violate that one every night.”
“Don’t let Isa hear you making dog jokes,” Tristin warned.
Ember smiled but seemed uncertain. “So you’re sure he’s okay?” Ember asked, distrustful.
“Yes,” Tristin said, exasperated. “I promise your smelly dog is still very much with us. Do you want to take a ride with me or not?”
“Yeah, sure. I need to get out of here.”
“Okay, I’m going to go get a flashlight. It’s getting dark. You should probably go wash your face. You look like a raccoon.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Oh and put on some jeans or you’ll be eaten alive by bugs. We are going deep into the woods.”
There was a muffled, “Awesome,” as Ember trekked up the stairs.
49
KAI
Kai stared at Tate, incredulous. “You’re making that up.”
“I’m not.”
Tate turned to lay so that his head slotted alongside Kai’s, both gazing up at the silks waving from the cold air. Kai said nothing. He didn’t know if Tate was being presumptuous or if he just wanted contact like most shifters. Tate’s hair brushed against Kai’s face and he turned his cheek into it without thought. Tate practically purred in approval, nestling closer. Shifters loved scenting each other. It stood to reason panther’s would be the same. It was just a little harmless bonding with a new friend, Kai reasoned, and if he happened to come home smelling like another guy, so be it.
“Tell me more,” Kai said. He snagged the bottle from Tate’s nimble fingers, tipping it back, embracing the fire as it burned its way down. He was pretty sure this is what battery acid tasted like.
“Well, the short version of the story is that about three hundred years ago a coven there slaughtered thirteen virgins in an attempt to summon the Morrigan.”
Kai choked, praying moonshine didn’t shoot out of his nose. “The Morrigan? The Celtic goddess?”
“Yep, that’s the one.”
Kai didn’t know whether to laugh or balk at the absurdity. “Who would be crazy enough to think they could summon a goddess?” Witches, Kai thought to himself, always witches.
“It wasn’t that crazy, in theory. Your town sits on top of the crossroads of two extremely powerful energy streams. Hell, the entire state is made of limestone. They figured virgin’s blood would amplify their magic. Figured with the supernatural signal boost, they might have the juice they needed to summon the deity.”
“But why? Why summon her? What did they want?”
Tate tipped his head to look at him, “They wanted access to the one type of magic denied them since the beginning.”
“Death magic,” Kai said, shaking his head at the arrogance.
“Yes. This coven revered the idea of death magic so much; they named the town after it. They thought their reverence of the dead would be enough to sway the Morrigan to gift them the powers of necromancy. Like the old ones.”
“Except those are stories. Necromancer’s don’t exist.”
“Dinosaurs don’t exist now either but that doesn’t mean they never did.” Kai gave a sharp nod, acknowledging the truth of the statement. Tate knocked his head against Kai’s. “Shelby says a thousand years ago, necromancers weren’t that unusual.”
Kai pulled a face. He didn’t know what to say to that. It all sounded insane. He still couldn’t help but ask, “Did it work?”
“Did they summon the Morrigan or did she give them the knowledge of death magic?” He laughed, “The story goes, the Morrigan was so displeased with the town she cursed them and all magical beings, so that in order for one to inherit their magic, another would have to die.”
“You’re saying our town summoning the Morrigan is the reason all supernatural powers come at the cost of somebody else’s life? It wasn’t always that way?”
He shook his head. “It does have that sort of divine irony the gods are fond of. A rather fitting punishment for people who were so eager to get their hands on death magic.”
“So what happened to the town after that?”
“We must maintain the balance,” he intoned with mocking.
Kai snorted, “The Grove?”
“The beginning of it, anyway. The gods wanted somebody to be held accountable for the supernatural creatures here on the ground. It took a hundred years for the Grove to become the Grove. That coven set in motion a chain reaction we are all still paying for today. Even after they summoned the Morrigan, the magic in the town stayed amplified.
“The Grove has tried to fix it. They neutralized the coven, salted the grounds and tried to power down the mystical radio tower broadcasting to every monster out there. It seemed to work for a time but they set guardians in place just in case something or someone decided to try again.”
Kai raised a brow. “I don’t know, man. Sounds like the plot of a bad Sci-fi movie. Do people actually believe this?”
“Some of us were there when it happened.”
Kai’s eyes cut to him and the panther looked away, realizing his slipup. “Us?” he prompted.
“Yes, us.” Tate told him, looking him in the eye.
“But that would make you hundreds of years old.”
“Yes, it would. Your math skills are amazing.” He laughed.
“But you’re a shifter.” Kai stared at the side of his face. “Shifter’s have a normal life span just like the rest of us.”
“Mm,” Tate looked at him, “but that’s not all I am.”
Tate’s eyes bled from yellow to black, blood vessels around his eyes bleeding dark, like Ember’s had in the car. He jumped back, side crawling away, heart pounding as adrenaline thundered through his veins. “Sweet mother of crap.”
50
MACE
Mace watched as Cael tried to digest the story Quinn told him. Periodically, he would look at Mace for confirmation but Mace would only shrug. He hadn’t been there but the boy had no reason to lie. He could tell the reaper found the story as bizarre as he had. Nothing about Kai’s situation made sense.
“So you’re saying he found her in New Orleans?”
“Yes.”
“How’d he get there?”
Quinn looked confused at such an obvious question, “He drove.”
“Your friend and the girl, his sister, drove out of the city, unescorted?”
“What? Yeah, what do you mean unescorted?”
Cael didn’t answer, just leaned back in his chair. “What happened when he saved the girl?”
“They brought her back to Belle Haven.”
Cael shook his head, tapping his clothed wrist, “What happened to his mark? The girl’s name?”
“It disappeared.”
He nodded as if this is what he thought he’d say. “Your friend is being set up.”
Quinn sat up straighter, “How do you know that?”
“Collectors don’t collect people they know. They certainly don’t collect family members, which I’m willing to bet your friend suspected all along. Collectors also tend to work within certain…territories. Long distance travel isn’t convenient in our line of work. They wouldn’t have sent him to collect her all the way in New Orleans. This had to have been another red flag for him. Had this been a legitimate collection, the name wouldn�
��t have disappeared simply because you rescued the girl. Death will find a way. Just because she thwarted it once, doesn’t mean it won’t try again. The Grove likes to pretend they maintain some sort of balance but, in reality, the balance has maintained itself just fine since the beginning.”
“So it’s like the movie Final Destination? Like, if Ember was really supposed to die, death would have just kept chasing Ember until she finally did?”
Mace chuckled at the reapers confused expression but Quinn didn’t notice. He was grinning, his look of relief making him look even younger than he already did. “This is great. If the universe never meant for Ember to die, Kai didn’t do anything wrong. The Grove can’t come after him.”
Cael sighed. “I said she wasn’t meant to die, I didn’t say they couldn’t come after him.”
“What? But why?”
“Somebody went to a lot of trouble to get your friend to that cemetery in New Orleans. They obviously wanted the girl brought back to Belle Haven. That doesn’t mean the Grove won’t make an example out of him. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t the Grove’s intention all along.”
“The Grove may be setting up Kai?” Quinn asked, bewildered. “That makes no sense. He’s not even a good reaper. He doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time.”
“You said the sister, she’s a banshee?”
Quinn looked uncomfortable at the sudden shift in topics. “Well, yeah, sort of, her powers were dormant for a long time.”
“Let me guess, until the cousin came back into the picture.”
Quinn swallowed hard, not sure how much to tell the reaper. “Um, yes, I guess so. Why?”
Mace watched as the collector started putting the pieces together. He knew he’d say nothing more than he had to but Mace would love to know what Cael was really thinking, “Listen, kid. I can’t say for sure why anybody would go to these extremes to set all this in motion, but tell your friends to be careful. If the Grove didn’t start this, somebody with a great deal of power did. If the girl’s name disappeared off his arm, he can argue she was never meant to die in the first place. If they try to punish him anyway, you know it was the Grove who set this in motion. But I doubt that will be a real comfort once they get ahold of you.”
Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) Page 31