Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1)

by Martina McAtee

  Stella’s face came into view and her cold hands yanked up his shirt. There was a loud snick and then his vision went black as razor sharp steel cut through the layers of scar tissue across his abdomen. The scent of his own blood, making him sick. “Bind him,” she barked at the two.

  “Why? Look at him. He’s not going anywhere,” the girl said, giving voice to his own thoughts. He was hardly a threat.

  “Do it anyway,” she snapped. “Don’t question my orders, Lola. Astrid might like you but I think you’re an idiot.”

  Even in the state he was in, he couldn’t miss the look Lola threw at the back of Stella’s head before she did as she was told, binding his hands roughly with some kind of plastic pieces.

  Stella didn’t notice, shoving his head roughly. “Yeah, you definitely don’t look like much now. Killing you will be a kindness after this.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Ooh, burn.” She laughed. “I’m going to assume your girlfriend’s magic has thrown you a little off your game.”

  Mace tried to swallow what felt like wadded sandpaper in this throat, “What are you even getting out of this?”

  Stella laughed and slapped his face, “We all have our parts to play.” She looked at somebody else, “Let’s go, it’s getting late.”

  As they drove he swam in and out of consciousness. Doors slammed and another opened. Hands yanked him free, catching him under the arms and dragging him along, toes of his shoes scraping for purchase along concrete until they entered a darkened building. He tried to pick his head up but lacked the strength.

  As his eyes adjusted, he caught glimpses of rows of grey metal lockers. The school. Why the hell were they at the school? Blood oozed from the wound on his stomach splattering on the floor as they pulled him along.

  They tossed him roughly into a wooden chair in the center of the room. He fought just to remain upright in the chair. Stella’s face appeared as she squatted in front of him. She yanked his head back, rolling it around, laughing as his eyes fought to track her. She held up what looked like a paintbrush of all things. That couldn’t be right. “This part is going to be a bit uncomfortable for you, I’m afraid but given the state of you, I don’t think it really matters much.”

  He barely had time to register what she aimed to do before she jabbed the brush into the wound on his stomach. He grunted.

  “Normally,” she told him conversationally, “this part of the ritual is done by the witch who will perform the spell but given the fragile state of our little necromancer I think it’s best we try to do as much for the poor dear as possible, don’t you?”

  She moved to the floor, using his blood to paint a circle, frowning when his blood didn’t go as far as she’d hoped. “Hmm, this won’t do.”

  She pulled the knife from her belt and went for his stomach before stopping short. “I wonder…” she started, a cruel smile spreading across her face. He looked at her in confusion, before he lurched to his feet. He only made it two steps before he came up short. Unable to move. He looked at her. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not doing anything.” She cut his hands free and handed him the knife twisting her hand in the air. He grunted as his hand turned the knife on himself. He was too weak to resist the compulsion. The knife dug far deeper this time, the blood pouring freely.

  “Much better. Now be a dear and draw this for me, will you?” she shoved the drawing in his face.

  “Careful, Stella, my brother has to live in that body.” Astrid cautioned from the doorway, waving in somebody carrying what looked like a body over his shoulder. “Put her over there.”

  “You’ll fix it later.” Stella told her, waving off her concerns. “Now that we have the decorations under way, maybe it’s time to invite our guest of honor?”

  The newcomer dropped the girl on the floor in the corner and stopped, looking hard at Mace and the blood pouring at his feet. His vision cleared. “Tate?”

  Tate’s face twisted into a frown and he gave him a long look before he left.

  He groaned as the witch plunged her hand into his stomach, not sure if it was blood pouring from his lips or saliva. He knew he couldn’t die but if he could, he imagined this was what it felt like. Stella waved her hand and he hit his knees. “Get to work. You have a lot to do.”

  Astrid gasped, “What are you doing?”

  Stella walked towards the hallway door, both hands coated in his blood, “Leaving some breadcrumbs.”

  77

  EMBER

  Everywhere Ember went, Kai and Rhys were two steps behind. She was restless. She couldn’t stop wandering. She knew it irritated her new bodyguards but she just didn’t care. She was tired of people staring at her, whispering about her. She just wanted to be alone. It was New Orleans all over again.

  She scanned the crowd, looking for any signs of Mace. She’d texted him three times but still nothing. She wanted to apologize. She had no idea why she’d acted the way she had. She couldn’t even remember what made her so angry. She thought for sure he would have come back by now. It wasn’t like he couldn’t take care of himself but she couldn’t shake the feeling something was really wrong.

  Maybe it was just this night. The full moon. A funeral that seemed more like a college frat party. Her magic rolled along beneath her skin, letting her know it was displeased. She needed Mace; her magic needed his. It itched to touch him. It wanted the coolness of his skin beneath her fingertips. It wanted the taste of him on her tongue. Somewhere deep down, in a dark place she didn’t want to acknowledge, she knew it wasn’t her magic at all. She was so screwed.

  She found herself navigating through the sea of bodies, gyrating together to music booming from the speakers Wren and Mace wired earlier. It was surreal. Animals she’d only seen on the nature channel prowled the woods of her backyard. It was like she’d rolled a four in in a game of Jumanji. She’d seen wolves, panthers and even a jaguar pad silently out from the tree line. They all watched her warily, giving her a wide berth as if she was somehow the predator in their midst.

  She found a seat on a log far enough away from the crowd but close enough to appease her security detail. She knew they didn’t want to be babysitting either.

  They did their part to pull the focus from her. Kai was drinking, tossing back the last gulp of what she’d counted as his third beer. She wasn’t sure if he was drunk but he was drunk adjacent, giggling too much, occasionally losing his footing. Rhys would steady him, letting his hand linger on her cousin’s lower back for just a little too long.

  The music changed from a loud rowdy song to one with a slow throbbing bass beat and Kai stumbled again, falling forward into Rhys’ lap and whispering something in his ear. The wolf looked startled and aggressively shook his head no. Kai only laughed.

  She watched dumbfounded as her cousin climbed into the Adirondack chair Rhys currently occupied and wrapped his arms around the wolf’s neck. He moved in time with the music, hips rotating suggestively in a sloppy version of a lap dance. It was painful to watch but Rhys didn’t seem to share her opinion. As always, he watched her cousin with a single-minded intensity, glowing green eyes hungry.

  The shifters watched too. Kai told her it was because they couldn’t believe somebody as high ranking in the pack as Rhys would waste their time with a reaper like him but Ember wasn’t so sure. Both her cousin and Rhys were attractive and they both seemed to draw an equal amount of attention.

  In most circumstances, Kai was level headed but tonight he didn’t appear to be himself. If he saw another shifter watching the two of them for a little too long, he’d hold their stare, laying down a challenge he had no way of winning. Each time her cousin challenged another shifter, Rhys stepped in, partially shifted, accepting the challenge Kai issued.

  Isa was forced to step in each time, issuing hasty apologies and hollow excuses about heightened emotions. It was a funeral after al
l. They had just lost one of their own. The injured party had accepted the alpha’s apologies and shaken hands but Isa was losing her patience with the two of them.

  Her phone vibrated against her leg and she cursed the way her stomach flip-flopped hoping it was finally Mace. It was a text message from an unknown number.

  Do not react to this message. Tristin’s life depends on it.

  Ember’s brow furrowed as she tried to puzzle out what it meant. She looked around, realizing she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Tristin. She thought she’d escaped upstairs to her room.

  Ember tried to compose her face into some semblance of normal. She could already feel her magic thrumming to life, beating against her veins. She hoped the heavy base music masked the violent pounding of her heart. Texts came in one after another.

  You are cordially invited to the resurrection of Quinn Talbot.

  Actually, it’s not an invitation, it’s a summons.

  In fifteen minutes, there will be a distraction. You have forty five minutes from now to get to the school or we start severing body parts.

  Reapers don’t have advanced healing and your cousin will have a hard time reuniting with her beloved if her ring finger is missing.

  Her phone vibrated again and a picture of her cousin appeared. She lay on the ground, unconscious, blood trickling from a wound at her hairline.

  If that isn’t enough incentive, we have your soul eater too but he’s not quite as photo ready as your cousin.

  They had Tristin. They had Mace. She’d sent him away and now they had him. She clenched her jaw, willing her body not to show any of the panic she felt. She couldn’t do anything to mask the scent of her distress. She just had to hope that the amount of sweat and pheromones in a group of people this big would take care of that for her.

  Time slowed to a crawl. One minute seemed like ten. Kai stood as a stranger approached. He was tall and lean with dark hair and yellow eyes. He seemed to know Kai, smiling and running a finger along Kai’s cheek. Ember stood as Rhys sprung to his feet, placing himself between the stranger and Kai. Kai ran a soothing hand over Rhys’ arm but the wolf was too far gone, partially shifted and advancing on the other guy who danced back on agile feet, laughing in delight.

  The music was too loud to understand what they were saying but whoever this guy was, he was the distraction. Rhys lunged, taking him to the ground. There was the slick sound of bones moving under skin and a panther broke from Rhys’ hold. Kai yelled for Rhys to calm down but Rhys shifted, his wolf going for the panther’s throat. Kai yelled for Isa, standing frozen as a crowd began to form.

  This was her chance.

  She turned and ran for the path. Getting there on foot was her best chance. There would be no way to get into the house, grab the keys and get the car out of the driveway without being caught. She had no idea what she was walking into. She willed herself to calm down. She really couldn’t afford to lose control. Tristin and Mace were counting on her.

  78

  EMBER

  She was ten minutes early. She stood outside the school, wiping her shaking palms against her jeans. It seemed a bitter sort of irony that this is the place they’d chosen to battle it out. She’d always found school intimidating, a dangerous labyrinth she was forced by law to navigate five days a week. In New Orleans, it was awkward stares and whispers about her appearance. Here it was actual threats of violence and death. She honestly wasn’t sure which was worse.

  The doors to the main hall suddenly looked more intimidating than a maximum security prison. Behind those doors was nothing but darkness. Of course, they’d killed the lights. She took two steps forward before she lost her nerve again. Just do it, Ember, she thought. She took a deep breath and stepped through the doors.

  How had it come to this? She had always just wanted a place she belonged. She’d wanted a family. She’d wanted to be normal. She leaned against the now closed doors, blinking her eyes, needing them to adjust to the darkness. Why couldn’t that have come with her superhuman powers? She fumbled with her phone, jolting when her flashlight app flared to life, blinding her.

  She swept the phone back and forth, half expecting for a lumbering monster to come bolting from the shadows. Her heartbeat slammed against her ribcage, offbeat and stuttering like she’d had too much caffeine. She wanted to turn and run. She couldn’t do what they wanted. Nobody could.

  Her footsteps echoed like gunshots in the empty hallway, holding her phone before her like a talisman hoping it would somehow ward off the anxiety ratcheting higher with every step. Would anybody notice she was gone? Would anybody come to look for her? They wouldn’t even begin to know where to look. Could they track her scent?

  She was such an idiot. She was holding her cell phone. They had said not to tell anybody but what else would they say. She didn’t want to get anybody hurt but she couldn’t do this alone. She stopped and pounded out a text on the keys, making her words as succinct as possible. She hit send and quickly deleted the text.

  Tristin and I are at the school. Witches. Help.

  She hoped she didn’t just get her cousin killed. She was afraid for her cousin but a thought nagged in the back of her head. Was Tristin really in danger? She had gone to a great deal of trouble to bring Quinn back once. Had this been her and Astrid’s plan all along? She licked her bottom lip as fear clawed at her lungs. Could Tristin have set this whole thing up? Would she knowingly sacrifice Mace to save Quinn?

  She took two steps forward, stumbling in the dark. Her hand shot out blindly to steady herself, landing on the warm metal of the lockers. As she walked, she dragged her hand along the metal, using them to steady herself.

  Sweat trickled from her hairline and slid down her spine. Somebody had turned the AC off or maybe it was off for the holidays. She pushed damp hair away from her face, recoiling as a foul scent hit her. The smell of copper clung heavy in the air, so thick she could taste it. Slowly, she turned her flashlight towards the floor, dreading what she’d find. Along the floor, a rust colored smear stained the linoleum as if something was dragged down the hall and around the corner.

  That was blood. That was a lot of blood. Could somebody lose that much blood and live? Mace couldn’t die but Tristin could. She didn’t want to think about whose blood that was. This time when her magic came to the surface she didn’t even try to stop it. She welcomed the feeling. Instead of slithering just under the surface, it curled around her, swaddling her in a hazy warmth, temporarily dampening her anxiety.

  On some level, Astrid had to know Ember wasn’t capable of doing what she asked. Astrid wasn’t crazy like Stella. She had to be able to see reason, right? She swallowed as a thought had her frozen in her tracks. What if Tristin was already dead? What if this was simply a trap? What if this was Allister all along?

  She had to try though. She had to believe Tristin was alive. Besides, they still had Mace. She let her thoughts linger for just a moment on those quicksilver eyes and that predatory smile. It would serve him right if she left him there. She couldn’t believe he was forcing her to do this alone.

  All he had ever done was tell her she’s not ready and now he needed her to save his stupid ass and she wasn’t ready. She so wasn’t ready. What if she killed everybody…again? Why had he gone so far away? Why had he listened to her when she told him to leave? He said he’d be close. He lied. All he ever did was lie.

  She wanted to be brave. She really did. She wanted so badly to be the hero she’d thought she could be just a couple of weeks ago. Before she knew what her magic did; what it was capable of. Heroes didn’t die. All the books and movies said so.

  But she wasn’t the hero, she was the villain responsible for an entire town’s unhappiness. A villain who was a crying, sweaty mess with snot running down her face. She had done everything wrong and now more people were going to die.

  She wiped her face with her shirt. Breathin
g in and out, in and out. Sparks shot from her fingertips. She had to get it together. She had to do this. She had to go in. She couldn’t be the reason that anymore people died. She looked at her phone. She was out of time.

  She grabbed hold of the door handle and pushed, stepping through the doors and stopping short. The scene before her was like a horror movie. Six figures stood shrouded in blood red robes, faces cloaked in shadow. A thousand candles lined the bleachers of the gymnasium.

  Once upon a time she probably would have laughed at the theatricality of it all. Maybe even made a snarky comment about it. Not anymore.

  Somebody had painstakingly painted a large circle in the center of the room, that same brownish red blood from the hallway, a dozen runic symbols embellishing the inside. She shuddered as she contemplated the amount of blood required to make something that big, that elaborate.

  Mace sat in the center of the circle. A noise escaped her at the sight of him. He wasn’t tied up but he sat unmoving, head down, blood pooling beneath him from a wound Ember couldn’t see. Tristin was nowhere in sight.

  The doors clattered shut behind her and she jumped with a yelp. All eyes turned to her and a figure stepped forward from the shadows, pushing back the hood of their robe. Astrid. Ember felt herself relax just a bit. It wasn’t Allister. There was the slightest chance Astrid might see reason.

  It wasn’t Astrid who spoke however, but Stella, stepping forward from behind her. “Excellent, you showed. I knew you would come for one of them, though for the life of me I can’t imagine why. Astrid didn’t believe me but I knew. It’s kind of sad, really.”

  Ember searched the room for any sign of her cousin her fear turning to anger when there was no sign of her. Her sudden anger caused a ripple in her magic and Ember let it ride. If that melodramatic bitch touched one hair on her cousin’s head she was going to personally rip her fingernails out. She could reason with Astrid but there was no reasoning with Stella. She was insane.