by Eli Constant
Water of Souls
A Victoria Cage Necromancer Novel, Volume 2
Eli Constant
Published by Eli Constant, 2018.
Copyright © 2018
Water of Souls: Victoria Cage Necromancer Novel, Book Two © Copyright 2018, Eli Constant Books.
Cover art © Copyright 2018, Covers by Christian
This book may not be reproduced, in any fashion, without the explicit permission from Eli Constant/Eli Constant Books. Eli Constant asserts her right to hold ownership of this work, and all works, set inside the Victoria Cage Universe. The unauthorized reproduction and/or distribution of this work is illegal.
This is a work of fiction. Any locations that resemble something in reality are used in a fictitious manner. Similarities to organizations and locales, existing now or in the past, are purely coincidental. Characters are creations of the author’s imagination. Similarities to actual persons, living or deceased, are also purely coincidental. The events in this book should not be construed as real in any capacity.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Water of Souls
Blurb
**Sex & Language Warning**
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Check out the next installment of
Water of Souls
A Victoria Cage Necromancer Novel
Book Two
By Speculative Fiction Author
Eli Constant
Blurb
Winter is supposed to be beautiful.
Snowball fights. Hot chocolate by a fire. Brightly-packaged presents.
It’s definitely not supposed to be about frozen bodies, serial killers, and boyfriends with secrets.
Victoria and Kyle are in the midst of a still-blossoming relationship, but she hasn’t told him the truth about herself yet. She’s not ready. Of course, he’s hiding something too. And he doesn’t even know it. Love’s complicated.
Then there’s Victoria’s work. Death doesn’t take a holiday, and neither can she. When a father walks into her business wanting a funeral for his missing son, she’s only sure of one thing—the father needs closure, and that’s something she can understand.
Then a body turns up, and things go from ‘odd grieving father’, to ‘murderously strange’ in a heartbeat.
With threats mounting, both in her professional and personal life, Victoria must solve a puzzle of death, dolls, and dark obsession.
If she doesn’t, someone she loves might die.
**Sex & Language Warning**
Victoria Cage has sex... people around her curse. There are dead people sprinkled between instances of profanity (okay, maybe the language isn’t that bad). The Victoria Cage series will also deal with some heavy material—child trafficking, gender acceptance, rape. If you can take the dark with the light, you might just love this series. Me personally? I’m all about the shadows in between.
-Eli
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Dedication
To my ‘old-school’ grandmother, who believes Victoria is too good to need the word f*ck so often. Just for the record- 75 in book one. 35 in book two. I’m afraid there was a lot of expletive substitution though. Dammit, you can only ask so much of a girl.
By the way- thanks for helping raise me. Thanks for helping raise my books now that I’m no longer a kid.
AND TO MY ADVANCED reader team. You guys are amazing. I can’t wait to use your names in books, and then kill each fictional one of you off in some brutal, memorable way. You’ve more than earned that already.
Chapter One
In the winter, when the trees have shed their leaves and the icy lake is visible from the second-story bay window of the Victorian that houses both my home and my business, I feel like there is a stillness about the world. A hope that when the snow melts and spring returns, that life will be a different sort of creature.
We didn’t get true winter in Bonneau before the war. It’s as if the alteration of the world occurred with that bloodshed and with the slaughtering of anyone with the necromancy gene. It is like a constant overcast of cloud and falling of rain has been brought forth to stay indefinitely. And even when it is not raining, there hangs a mist in the air that seeps into clothing and makes it hard to breath.
But we do breathe. That’s what we do in Bonneau, our little changeling town so close to Charleston and its seedy underbelly. We breathe and we survive. Survival is a most keen notion, always on my mind. Because I am something untamed. Something people fear. I am a necromancer. And now I am also the Blood Queen, some kind of supreme ruler over both fae courts. Or so I’ve been told.
I’m standing now, robe tied tightly about my body to keep out the chill that leaks in from around the windows that need to be resealed. Kyle is behind me in the kitchen, busy scrambling eggs and brewing coffee. We’ve been dating for nearly six months. It’s like we had that first date the month after I was released from the hospital, and we’ve never looked back. I’d still been slightly uncomfortable and having to wear a bracing device around my lower body to support my almost-healed pelvis, but the dinner had been lovely and then he’d somehow found a horse and carriage to drive us around Bonneau.
It was a miracle, according to doctors, that I was nearly fully healed even at six months. They said the crushing of my pelvis and the resulting damage to my nerves should have left me partially paralyzed. One of the benefits of being a necromancer slash Blood Queen with apparent healing powers I guess.
Kyle and I haven’t had sex, but we’ve come close and I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to go without jumping each other like cats in heat, but for now, we’re content to kiss and cuddle and do all the other things that lead up to the naughtier side of a relationship. It’s mostly me that’s holding us up. After what almost happened with Blackthorn... that left me a little scarred, even though only the tip of him made it inside of me. It was enough of rape though, even if the full length of him hadn’t found purchase. Some people would scoff at me for saying ‘enough of rape’. I know that. They’d write it off as indecent exposure or a milder form of sexual assault.
In my mind though, doing anything to a girl, or to a guy for that matter, that isn’t welcome is ‘enough of rape’. And ‘enough’ crosses that line into the reality of rape where there are shades of darkness and brutality. Period. And that doesn’t just apply to a person’s body. I’ve seen victims who have been so well and truly mind-fucked that they’ll never recover. That, too, is ‘enough’.
Also, I haven’t told Kyle what I am. I don’t know if I can. Jim told me I could trust him, before his spirit passed on. But that was a man on the edge, about to pass into the ether. If I told Kyle and his reaction was
anything short of total acceptance, I know that I would be heart-broken. I’d almost rather be burned alive for being a necromancer. Almost.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Kyle says, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I lean back into him automatically. Things are so comfortable between us. It has been since the beginning, just like breathing. It would be so easy to get lost in a relationship like this. Shit, I’m already halfway to nowhere-land.
“I’m thinking about how Bonneau never got a winter before the war. I remember never having snow or ice on the lake. Or maybe I think I remember because dad used to talk about it all the time. That must be it... I wasn’t even alive before the war.” I sound a little dazed, even to myself, and I reach out and graze my fingers against the cool window glass. I continue to gaze between the naked trees towards the hard, mirrored surface of Lake Moultrie. It’s still lovely and quiet, although lately, I have noticed an odd... smell about it. Not a smell I guess. A sensation, something that brushes my power. I think it’s been there for quite some time and I just haven’t noticed it. I hate that it’s there, or that it has come into my reality. It ruins the quiet peace of the expanse of water. It takes it one tiny step closer to becoming another Hellhole Bay. “The winter is beautiful now, but it also makes me feel cold inside. Does that make sense?”
He kisses the back of my neck and I squirm in his arms until I can face him. He’s let his beard grow out. It’s scruffy and manly and not at all like those lumbersexuals that I’ve seen in magazines. His is real—like he could, at any moment, go out and chop wood behind the house to keep our fires going. My fire is electric, but I still like the vision of him wielding an ax and being his inner outdoorsman.
“I know what you mean. My dad used to gripe that Bonneau had gone to hell because of the war. He didn’t like the cold very much.” Kyle kisses my neck again, giving it a little bite at the end. It’s the kind of good pain that sends my groin into overdrive. I’ve noticed, despite not feeling like I’m emotionally ready to give myself to Kyle sexually, that my body is beginning to get a little... hangry in that department.
“No?” I lift up on my tiptoes and he bends down so that our lips meet. It’s a quick and soft kiss, nothing out of control. It fills me though, in every way possible.
“He said it kept him from using his motorcycle and any place that did that wasn’t worth living in at all.” Kyle shrugs and touches the tip of his nose to mine, moving it back and forth in an Eskimo kiss. “Deep down, he loved this place.”
“Yeah, I think he did. Him and that motorcycle though. I feel like we should construct a statue in his honor. Maybe put a little plaque that says something to the effect of ‘I don’t need no stinking license’.” I normally go quiet when Jim is brought up, but now I join him in throaty laughter that seems to fall like a veil around us. It’s warm and wonderful.
I still feel it was my fault that Jim died; I don’t think I’ll ever feel otherwise. Kyle had asked me to handle his funeral. I’d wanted to refuse, but I hadn’t.
And I’d almost cried when Jim hadn’t risen on my table to say a few last words. I knew he wouldn’t. I’d seen him pass to the other side with my own eyes, but still I clung to the hope that the body I embalmed wasn’t just an empty, decaying vessel. He could be pulled back by force, but I’d never do that again.
My grandmother used to say ‘never say never’. She used to say that the fates took those words as challenge. And you never want to give the fates a reason to toy with your life.
Kyle smiles after our laughter fades. “Not a bad idea.”
“I’m full of good ideas in the morning,” I breathe out, leaning further into him until I think we might meld into one unified being, exuding repressed sensuality.
“Me too,” he murmurs and kisses me again. This time, it’s not so innocent. His hands stray down my back, moving to my sides as he continues downward. His fingers stretch ever lower and finally curl around the apples of my ass. He gives a quick, firm squeeze.
I place my palms against his chest and push away. “Not before coffee, you sexy mad man.” I walk away from him and make a beeline for the percolator; he’s set out one of my largest mugs and a smaller one that only recently made an appearance in my cupboard. He’s been doing that lately- leaving little things like a woman trying to edge her way towards an invite to move in. I don’t think that’s his reason or I’d talk to him about it. I think it’s just his way of showing he’s committed to trying this thing out, the very best we are able. So when I discover a second tube of different-brand toothpaste in the medicine cabinet or a little container of toothpicks in the spice rack, I don’t say anything. I just smile.
Filling the coffee cups—leaving only a little space at the top of mine for sugar and a lot of space at the top of his for cream—I suck in the scent of the dark roast and it zaps my brain cells with a little jolt of wakefulness.
Placing them on the little blue kitchenette table, I sit down on one of the chairs. It wobbles a little beneath me. “What good is having you around all the time if you can’t handle the upkeep?” I smile so he’ll know I’m joking and then I wiggle in my chair so he’ll hear the telltale squeak.
“How could I be so bereft in my duties?” He strides over and I gasp as he picks me up in the chair, lifts me so I’m smashed against his upper chest, and proceeds to move the chair leg to see exactly how loose it is. When he’s done, he plops me back down and I’m amazed the chair holds my weight. Actually, I’m shocked that he lifted me like a ragdoll. And I’m more than a little glad that I wasn’t holding my mug of hot coffee.
I’ve been working out and lost a lot of excess fat, but I’m still not a petite girl. I should be even smaller than am, but I’ve been lifting low weights and taking a self-defense course at the community center. It’s not the serious sort that Terrance would prefer, but he’s glad I’m at least doing something. Something to make me healthier, stronger, a better fighter.
Yet, working out means muscle. And muscle is heavier and bulkier than fat. I tell myself that the number on the scale is just that, a number, but it’s hard to see it not move when I feel I’m doing everything to make it so.
“Holy muscles, batman.” I breathe, my heart pitter-pattering like a frightened mouse. “Cute, but I’d rather you not do that again if I’m honest.”
“I got caught up in the moment,” Kyle’s voice is teasing as he moves towards the oven.
“Well, don’t let it happen again,” I tease, taking a long drink and letting the liquid burn its way down my throat.
“Scout’s honor,” but there’s a twinkle in Kyle’s eyes that says he’ll most certainly do it, or something like it, again.
My mantel clock clicks and then begins to ding softly.
I sigh. “I sometimes wish we could just have a normal Saturday morning together. Sleep in, make French toast, watch movies, go absolutely nowhere.”
“It would be nice,” Kyle says, pushing the already-cooked eggs around in the black pan. He’s looking rather gorgeous, his long hair—which is well past his shoulders now—is tied loosely against the nakedness of his back. He’s larger than he was when we first started dating, more muscled. He swears he hasn’t been working out more, though. I’ve been a little worried about him lately. He’s had a black out spell here and there. Some dizziness after, some memory loss. He’s been to a neurologist and they gave him a clean bill of health, chocked it up to all the life changes, the death of his dad, the stress. It sounded a bit shitty as an explanation, at least to me. Doesn’t seem to bother Kyle though. He says his grandfather had the same issue and that it would come and go, but he lived until he was 101. So we shouldn’t worry.
A girlfriend worries. That’s, like, our number one job. Well, number two maybe.
“But duty calls.” I know I’m pouting; I can’t help it. Kyle and I both know that the dead don’t work on the livings’ schedule. I work any day necessary. I don’t have proper weekends. “Someday, that clock and I are goin
g to have a come-to-Jesus meeting. And only one of us is going to survive.”
“At least have some eggs before you get dressed and go down. Although they’re not nearly as good as French toast and they’re likely bland as white bread. We really have to get you some proper spices,” Kyle turns off the burner and tilts the pan so that a generous portion of eggs plops onto the ivory plate he’s set out for me.
“Sounds appealing,” I laugh, “and I’ll leave the spices to you. I’m totally happy with my usual four.” And I am. I don’t really stray from onion powder, black pepper, salt, and sometimes oregano if I’m making spaghetti. Kyle though, he likes to show his fancy skills in the kitchen. Hey, sometimes I spring for a fresh lemon when I’m making fish. That’s fancy.
“Seriously, be ready. I’m afraid they’re less than egg-cellent.” He keeps a straight face, waiting for my response, but he breaks before I do—cracking into a toothy grin.
“Hush and give me some eggs. You’re terrible,” I say, stifling another laugh.
Kyle sets the two piled-up plates onto the table and sits down opposite me.
“Are you trying to make me gain weight back?” I say it as I’m picking up the fork and stabbing an entirely-too large amount of eggs onto the tines.
“Eat.” He admonishes, giving me a face that says ‘you’re perfect, Woman, and I’m just a little annoyed with you mentioning your weight’. I ignore the weight of his glance and chew my first mouthful of eggs. They’re salty, just the way I like them.
The cream and sugar are in two little bowls in the center of the table. I never use cream, but I’ve taken to poaching ten or so of those little shelf-stable ones from restaurants whenever I go. I’ve got quite the little collection now. Kyle takes three of the little pods and pops them open, one by one, until he’s made his coffee a beautiful pale brown. It is the color of Liam’s hair when he’s hiding his true form.