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

by Martina McAtee

  “I could have loved you,” she whispered, just for him to hear. “I think I did love you. How could this not be real?”

  The bewilderment in her voice hurt like a physical blow. Tears filled his eyes. The feelings weren’t his, couldn’t be, but somehow that made it worse. He’d done this to her. Was still doing this to her. Suddenly, he was talking, words spilling from his lips without his permission. “Who’s to say what’s real, Luv?” He wanted to touch her so badly. “Maybe you do love me. If you do, then I’m lucky, because there is nowhere in this world or any other where I’ve ever been deserving of it but I’m still selfish enough to take it.”

  He took a shaky breath. “Maybe everything I’ve felt for you is just an illusion. I’ve spent hundreds of years feeling nothing. I gave my soul away so I could feel nothing. But you come along and you are all feelings; guilt, doubt, pain, love. Everything I tried to avoid.”

  She flinched. “But, Ember, if I had to spend eternity feeling another person’s feelings, it would be you, just you. That must mean something, right?” Her breath caught, her hand so close to his cheek. God, but he wanted to touch her. “But this was never a redemption story. The bad guy doesn’t get the girl. Monsters don’t get happy endings.” He smiled a little. “The universe is very strict about these things.”

  She was sobbing now. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Of course, you do, Luv. Finish the spell. Bring back your friend. I know you’ll never truly understand this but I feel it’s true. If I was capable…if I am somehow capable of loving anybody it’s you.”

  With that, he turned his cheek. He wasn’t going to make it any harder on her than it had to be. She stood frozen. “Go on, then.”

  She swallowed hard, nodding jerkily. She painted the last symbol and looked at the others before grabbing his face and pressing her lips to his.

  He’d kissed her many times before but this time it was different, like somebody pouring water into his lungs, the pressure so great he was choking on it. He could still feel it even as she pulled away.

  She stepped back, “Unum quod que-” her body convulsed, eyes bleeding black again, Ember no longer Ember. This time the voice that fell from her lips was not hers at all, it was a male voice and the words were that same ancient tongue spoken moments ago. It was nothing Mace had ever heard before.

  Panic filled him in a way that could only be described as human. He fought Stella’s compulsion as he stared at the thing squatting inside of Ember. He couldn’t leave her like this but it was too late. His vision was fading, Ember’s face was all he could see. He tried to take her in. He knew there was no place to go from here, no heaven, no hell, no in between. He was simply ceasing to exist. He wanted to remember those violet eyes and her wild hair. He wanted to see her smile. But the slick grin that split across her face was not her own.

  “I’ll take excellent care of her,” it whispered.

  Then nothing.

  82

  TRISTIN

  Ember fell to her knees and Mace’s body went limp. Ember buried her head in his lap, sobbing hard enough to make her whole body shake. Tristin had no idea what she just witnessed but that strange bubble of power drained from the room so quickly, she felt woozy. Everything just felt wrong.

  “Did it work?” Astrid questioned her father.

  “Break the circle,” Allister demanded.

  Astrid rushed forward, shoving Ember to the floor and slapping Mace’s face. “Quinn? Quinn!”

  Mace exploded off the chair, knocking it backwards, hitting the floor and crawling backwards to the wall, gaze darting around the bizarre scene before him. “Astrid? Tristin? What the hell is going on?”

  Astrid wrapped herself around Mace’s body. “Quinn?”

  “Yeah,” he shoved his sister back. “Astrid, what did you do?”

  She looked confused, then hurt. “What do you mean? I brought you back.”

  “Oh, God, Astrid,” Quinn said. “You shouldn’t have done this. What were you thinking?”

  He stood, doubling over and covering his abdomen-Mace’s abdomen-with both hands. He looked down, eyes roaming the scars along his belly and chest and the huge wound there. He looked horrified.

  “This isn’t me. Oh my God. This isn’t my body. Who’s body is this? Oh my God,” His face blanched white, breath heaving. Tristin was almost positive he was having a panic attack.

  Astrid came forward, “You’re hurt, let me fix this, okay.”

  He jerked back, “Don’t touch me.” He was reeling, unsteady, looking around in a panic.

  Tristin stumbled out of Allister’s loosened grip, dropping to her knees and grabbing his face. “Hey, Quinn. Listen to me. Listen. You have to breathe. Okay? Please. Just breathe with me, okay?” He was sweaty and his eyes unfocused but he nodded. “Astrid has to fix you, okay. I’m right here. Just breathe with me.”

  To Astrid she said, “Do it.”

  This time he didn’t protest as she lay her hands across the gouge in his flesh. Tristin watched as the skin pulled together, not fully healed but better.

  Mace’s eyes-Quinn’s eyes-looked at her with dread. She met his gaze. She’d helped them do this to him. She’d been so eager to do this, so desperate to see him again that she’d never stopped to consider Ember was right and he was happy. She never thought he could be at peace without her. She’d been so selfish. She deserved to watch him suffer for what she’d done.

  “I can’t look at you like this,” Stella said, stalking up to Quinn and waving her hand. He lurched to his feet against his will. Tristin jumped up to step between them but Stella was already whispering a spell.

  As she watched, Mace’s features shifted, merging and morphing until it was just Quinn standing there, whiskey brown eyes and messy hair, minus the glasses. He looked at himself like he didn’t trust her magic but Tristin couldn’t help herself. She flung herself into his arms, wrapping herself around him. He pulled her close and she felt like she could breathe for the first time in forever.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m so sorry,” she told him, kissing his cheeks, his forehead.

  “I know,” he told her, voice resigned, hands roaming her back. “I know.”

  Allister stepped forward and Quinn stiffened in her arms.

  “I should have known you’d be here.” Quinn said, pushing Tristin behind him. “How could you have agreed to this?”

  “I didn’t. Not at first.”

  Ember stood, swaying on her feet, taking in the scene.

  “Ember, dear,” Allister said, “come to me, please?”

  “I don’t think so,” she told him, drifting closer to Tristin. Tristin grasped her wrist and didn’t let go when Ember’s magic sparked.

  “It wasn’t a request. Stella, the blade.”

  Astrid looked to her father and then to her friend, “What? What are you doing?”

  “I’m doing what I intended to do all along.”

  “This wasn’t part of the plan.” Astrid stood in front of her father. “We got Quinn back. Let’s just go home.”

  Allister sighed, “You are completely incapable of seeing the bigger picture.”

  Astrid’s mouth fell open like she’d been slapped.

  Stella came forward, a wicked looking dagger in her hand. The blade was black but the handle was white with sharpened spines that looked to be made from shards of bone. There was no way that bastard was shoving that thing in her cousin’s heart. She wasn’t losing another person tonight.

  “There is no way you’ll get away with this,” Tristin told him.

  “This isn’t an after school special, dear.” Allister laughed. “The coven would never turn against me. My children would never speak against me, especially since one of them is technically dead. What are you going to do? You don’t even have an active power. With Ember’s power, there i
sn’t a force in the world who can stop me. Ember, come here. I won’t ask again.”

  Ember fought, but there was no getting past Stella’s freaky mind control. She staggered towards him. Tristin made to follow her, having no plan at all, just a need to say she tried to help but then the gym doors burst open, startling everybody. The pack poured in, partially shifted and snarling. There was only a heartbeat of hesitation before they went for Allister.

  Tristin’s chest lightened. Allister was no match for four wolves. There was a bright light and a sound like an explosion and everything was still. The wolves were frozen in place, victims to one of the witches’ spells, though Tristin couldn’t say which one.

  Nobody moved until a blur of motion came from the gym door and her brother slid to a halt, eyes falling on Quinn’s face. Kai hadn’t been there for the glamour spell but she could swear she recognized his friend anyway.

  He looked to the others, realizing he was the only one not affected by this magic. He rushed forward, stopping only when Ember whimpered. Allister held her back against his chest, blade to her heart.

  Tristin couldn’t believe this was how it ends. After everything they’d been through. After everything they’d lost. Allister wins and they die. The moment Allister killed Ember, Isa would give the order to challenge the coven. The wolves would lose.

  Allister laughed at Isa. “You’re too late.”

  Quinn pressed against her from behind. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to say goodbye. Instead he simply whispered, “Scream.”

  And she did.

  83

  EMBER

  The sound that pierced the air was unlike anything she’d ever heard before. It had no impact on the reapers in the room but the others reacted as if electrocuted. They fell to the ground, clawing at their ears. The wolves howled, spell broken, bolting back out the gym doors, trying to protect themselves from the soul splitting shriek.

  The knife clattered to the gym floor, Allister apparently not immune to a banshee’s scream. His face contorted, blood trickling from his ears. Ember took two steps back as Tristin went silent leaving nothing but the echo of her scream bouncing in the giant room. Tristin’s face drained and gravity became too much for her.

  Kai rushed to his sister, catching her as she fell. This time when the doors opened, the wolves were in human form, shaky and bleeding but all in one piece. Ember let go of the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Her people were okay. Her people were alive.

  Everybody but Mace.

  That brought her up short, a pain slicing through her chest, sharper than any knife blade. Mace was gone and she had killed him. She’d blinked him out of existence.

  He killed your father, a voice nagged.

  Even knowing that she would have saved him if she could have. She knew that made her a horrible person.

  “Ember!” Isa screamed.

  Ember could do nothing but watch as Allister grabbed the knife from the floor and lurched to his feet. Ember had no time to react. She was going to die.

  “No.” It wasn’t her voice but Quinn’s. He rushed his father, shoving him backwards, a blur of limbs and movement. Allister still held the knife. “Quinn, no.” Ember cried but it was too late. The slick sound of metal slicing through flesh filled the room and blood poured to the floor.

  Astrid screamed. Quinn stumbled back looking at the knife protruding from his father’s heart. “Dad?” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Allister wrenched his own hand from the blade, reaching for his son. Quinn took his hand, his expression softening. “I’m so sorry,” Quinn said again.

  Allister’s face bled into a look of disgust as he forced Quinn’s hand around the blade, squeezing until he cried out and then gasped.

  “What’s happening?” Astrid asked, reaching for her father.

  “No,” Isa barked. “Don’t touch him.”

  They all stood there suspended as the knife did what it does, Allister’s magic pouring into Quinn until his father’s eyes drained of life, his body fell to the ground. Ember had this horrible sense of déjà vu.

  Quinn still held the knife.

  “What just happened?” Quinn asked.

  “Dude, did you just absorb your father’s magic?” Kai asked.

  “I don’t know,” Quinn told him, shaking the spines of the knife loose with a shudder. It fell to the floor. They stepped away from the knife like it might come alive and attack them.

  Tristin raced forward, tugging Kai’s flannel shirt off his shoulders so she could wrap it around Quinn’s hand. Ember stood frozen. Not sure what she should do.

  “Do you feel any different?” Tristin questioned, eyes wide and still so pale.

  “Nope,” he said, staring at his father’s body. “That just happened, right? I just did that? I killed my father. That wasn’t some magic trick or optical illusion? He’s-He’s dead. Oh, God.”

  Ember gaped at Allister’s body. Blood, so dark it looked black, oozed from the wound over his heart. So much blood. How had this happened? She looked to the members of the coven present. They would tell everybody what they’d done. Nobody would be safe. The Grove would come back and this time they would kill all of them.

  She sank to her knees next to the older man feeling for a pulse she knew wasn’t there. “I’m sorry,” she told him sincerely. “I’m so sorry but you have to wake up.”

  “Ember, what the hell are you doing?” Kai asked warily.

  “I don’t know.” She told him, hoping Tristin was right; hoping that all these magical power surges were nothing more than psychic panic attacks because if Tristin was wrong she was going to kill everybody. But if Allister stayed dead, they were all dead anyway.

  “Ember, I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t.” Isa told her. “If you try to bring him back you have no idea what you’ll get.”

  Ember looked at her alpha, “I don’t care what I get as long as he comes back, Isa. He just has to come back.” She glanced at Quinn, wincing at her insensitivity. “Sorry.”

  He shrugged, expression blank.

  To Isa she said, “If Allister is dead, the Grove comes back now. Right now.”

  “This is a really bad idea,” she heard Donovan say from the doorway but it was too late. She’d already made up her mind.

  She took a deep breath and dropped the wall between her and her magic, shaking off the fear and the anxiety. She let her magic take over, power surging through her. This time it settled around her like a blanket, thrumming through her, with a steady warm pulse. She was fully herself and yet also her magic when she saw the sparks arching off her fingers. She could do this. Just like the bird. She pressed her hand to the center of his chest. Nothing happened. She tried again. “Come on. Come on.” She whimpered to herself. “Just do it.”

  “Ember-” Tristin tried but it was too late. Ember slammed her hand against his chest and gasped as the energy left her body.

  The force hit like the shockwave of a bomb, knocking everybody backwards. Allister’s eyes flew open and he sucked in a breath, violently forcing air back into his lungs. He stared at Ember in horror. “What did you do?”

  “Holy fucking shit, dude, I think my cousin just resurrected your dad,” Kai said.

  Arms engulfed Ember as Astrid chanted, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Ember nodded slightly, shoving Astrid away just in time to puke everywhere. Would she ever stop vomiting? Thick black goop and something like dirt poured from her mouth and she wondered absently, if she was dying. Is this what dying felt like?

  “Ember,” Kai yelled, but she threw her hands up. “Stay away from me, I don’t know what this is,” she managed before she vomited again.

  The gym doors opened once again. Two figures stood shadowed in the doorway and for one terrifying second, she feared it was the Grove come for them months too soon.
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  “Josephine?” Isa asked.

  The swamp witch, Ember recalled, not able to keep her head up long enough to see the woman. Rhys nudged Kai, “Isn’t that Ember’s boss, what’s his name?”

  “Miller,” Ember managed, head snapping up to see if it was true. It was another bad idea. Another wave of nausea hit her. Ember watched the little old woman teetering along next to her former boss and wondered if she was dead and this was purgatory. Behind them were a group of partially shifted wolves.

  Ember tried to look for her own wolves to know whether these new wolves were friend or foe but she lacked the strength.

  “Well, it appears we did not arrive in the nick of time,” the witch rasped. Cane tap, tap, tapping on the floor.

  “What is going on?” Quinn whispered.

  “I have no idea,” Kai told him, mouth barely moving.

  84

  TRISTIN

  Tristin stared between the old witch and the tall well-dressed old man her confusion growing by the minute. So this was Ms. Josephine. She didn’t look like much to Tristin but she obviously wielded a great deal of power because the seven wolves standing behind her stared at her like she was their alpha.

  She wore a purple and blue housecoat, white tufts of hair standing on end as if she’d rolled out of bed. She looked crazy to Tristin.

  “Well, y’all have created some kinda mess here.”

  Isa came forward, “Josephine? What are you doing here?”

  She smiled at Isa, patting her cheek, “Donovan sent for me. We were…delayed. Full moon.” She said as if that explained everything.

  “Donovan?” Isa’s eyes turned to the young wolf, who’d all but melted into the shadows. “What does Donovan have to do with this?”

  Josephine waved away the question.

  “Edgar,” she told the oldest wolf, pointing to the coven members still lying on the ground. “Take these children outside,” she scoffed, “but don’t you let ‘em leave.” She pointed at Allister, still sitting on the ground, dazed, “and this one, you lock him up good ‘til I know exactly what’s what.”