“Uh, we have a study group tonight.” So much for my last words being the truth. “We’re doing a project about pirates.”
Dad rubbed his stomach like he was hungry. Without his jacket, I noticed how thin he looked. Less like Barbie’s beefcake boyfriend Ken and more like stick Ken, probably because his Barbie wasn’t around to feed him her amazing cooking.
“But he’s a senior and you’re a sophomore,” he said. “How can you be in the same class?”
I left the warmth of Darby behind and stood. “It’s this new thing Mr. Lane is doing for history class.”
“Huh. I like Callum,” Dad said, patting his stomach.
“Yeah, I know. You’ve mentioned that.”
A sudden rush of emotion pushed me forward into his arms. I crushed myself into him and tried to memorize the smell of his spicy cologne, the feel of his five o’clock shadow against my cheek.
Darby snapped her book closed. “It was dark magic that made the yard like the Henderson’s, Dad. Leigh said so.”
Dad pulled away. “What do you know about the yard, Leigh? I’ve been on the phone with the Kansas Department of Agriculture most of the day.”
Everything and nothing. Too much and not enough.
“I have to go to the study group.” When I backed toward the door, my eyes brimmed with tears. They fell on my already soaked and bloodied Girrrl shirt when I bent to pick it up from the floor. Hoping the shadowed room would hide my hair, I ripped the towel from my head and threw the shirt on over my long sleeves, ready as I would ever be. With my hand on the doorknob and my heart buried under heaps of misery, I said, “I love you.”
Then I fled the room.
Darkness grasped the overcast sky and squeezed out a few more rain showers. Callum drove around while I collected myself. When the tears finally stopped, I directed him to the graveyard. He didn’t argue, but his lips pushed together like he was fighting the urge.
I held Gretchen’s picture in my lap and fiddled with the broken frame until it came apart. How could someone so pretty be so evil? I flipped the picture over, and small, neat letters lined the top. December 1995 – 3 months along with my Trinity gifts.
“Three months along.” I pointed to the words so Callum could see. “Was she pregnant?”
Callum glanced at the back of the photo, then pulled in front of the graveyard. “With Trinity trees or what?”
“Babies.” Trinity babies. Oak, ash, and hawthorn. Three. Triplets. I tossed the picture to the floorboards and flung the door open. Babies couldn’t help me now.
Callum broke the lock on the gate with a crowbar from his trunk, then we walked through in silence except for the jangle of the empty flagpoles. Each step I took sucked the life from nearby grass and trees. They withered and blackened. Each blade, each branch, curled in on itself and died. Only the rocky path stayed white.
“So where’s your tree dude now?” Callum asked.
I glared at him. The night wasn’t the only thing to darken his face. “He’ll be here.”
“Wonderful.” He aimed an icy stare at the rocks like they were giving him the middle finger.
“I would’ve been dead days ago if it wasn’t for him.”
“Well, Perfect Man isn’t so perfect since he let this happen to you. I hope you know that.” He picked up a rock and flung it through the air.
“He didn’t let this happen to me. He tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen, Callum.”
He chucked another rock, and it smacked against a nearby dead tree. “Maybe he didn’t try hard enough.”
I stopped, my blood burning. “If you want to make a list of all the things wrong with certain people, you should start with yourself. Now stop throwing rocks at him.”
Lightning streaked across his eyes as he met my burn with his own. “You know what your problem is, Leigh?”
I started walking again, but he pulled me to him nose to nose. Fury quaked through my body. He took my fists in his hands, probably so I couldn’t use them on him.
“You only look at guys when they notice you first. Like really look at them because, of course, they’re cool if they like you,” he said, and every word gushed with sarcasm. “And Tram is super cool because he’s some tree dude with powers.”
His breath blew hot on my face. I struggled against his grip, but his hands were iron cuffs.
“Let me go.” I could barely hear myself over my raging blood. Why did he want to have this discussion right now?
Rain slid down his nose onto mine. “But you know what I see when you look at him? When you talk about him? I see lust. That’s it. And I know a thing or two about lust. Just ask me about Megan.” He squeezed my fists as if that would help get his point across. “Lust doesn’t last.”
My anger exploded with a scream. A loud, piercing one that tore across the graveyard.
Callum dropped my hands and stepped back.
“You are so pathetic.” My seething shook the words. “You don’t know me like you think you do, and you definitely don’t know Tram.” I stepped closer to him. “I can’t wait until you go play baseball for some stupid college far, far away from me.”
He dropped his gaze to the path.
“I hope you meet someone there smothered in lip gloss and spray painted in tight clothes,” I spat.
“Me, too.” He crossed his arms over his chest, still not meeting my eyes.
I shook my head and hurried down the path. Away from his stupid face and his stupid brain. God, I hated him. I spun around. “I hate you.”
“I don’t care.” He shrugged, strolling toward me, his expression sincere. “Just as long as you’re not dead.”
Something creaked. Long and low.
I stared in the direction of the sound, listening, waiting. It sounded like it came from the Heartland Cemetery gate, but I couldn’t be sure. The light of the clouded moon didn’t reach that far.
Callum stood stiff, staring in the same direction. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
The rich smell of clean dirt filled my nose, and I breathed deep. It reminded me of the way Mom smelled after she pulled weeds from her lilac bushes. My throat tangled at the thought.
I might get to see you tonight, Mom. It might only be for a second, but hopefully it’ll be enough time to hug you.
A new sound broke the silent night. It came from every direction. A squelchy sound like when mud sucked at my boots. I reached out and took Callum’s hand.
He squeezed it and moved closer. “I think something’s coming.”
I opened my eyes wide so they could take in everything around me all at once, but the only things that moved were the dead and skeletal tree branches. The squelchy sound grew. So did the dirt smell.
The darkness shifted. A shadow emerged from the direction of the gate. Callum and I faced the figure, both of us crushing the other’s hand bones. More shadows emerged behind the first one. All walking down the path toward us.
Clouds spit out the moon, which tossed its beam on the first figure. He was a shadow no more. Blond hair, green hooded sweatshirt, gashed face. Tram greeted me with a smile, and I’m sure it hurt him to put it there over his bruises.
I forced my hand from Callum’s bone shattering grip and ran to Tram.
“No one was at What Gifts She Carried when I got there,” he said when I stood in front of him.
“Then we’ll deal with them here,” I said, my voice sounding much more confident than I felt.
Two of the figures behind him both swept green hoods from their heads.
I gasped. “Ms. Hansen? Mrs. Rios? You’re okay?”
Mrs. Rios shook her pixie bangs out of her eyes. Bandages wrapped both of her hands, and deep gashes covered one side of her face. “No, but I will be after One, Two, and Ica are sent to the Core.” Her eyes shined with moonlight and tears. “I’m sorry I left you at my apartment, Leigh.”
Ms. Hansen stuffed her hands in her brown pants pockets and shivered. “She wo
uld have died otherwise.”
“I was afraid then. A coward.” Mrs. Rios swiped at her cheeks with her bandaged hands and shook her head. “But not anymore.”
Ms. Hansen stuck a chunk of her hair in her mouth. “We’re here to help you.”
Another smile rippled across Tram’s swollen mouth when I met his eyes again. “I’ve been recruiting volunteers, but I could only find three people willing to help.”
The third figure stepped out behind my teachers. Herman, the exterminator. Two large canisters were strapped to his back, and a spray hose hung from his hand. He threw up his other hand in a stiff wave.
Tram touched the side of my face. “There’s too much at stake to do this alone.”
Butterfly wings kissed my heart with his words. Hope, a feeling which had been lost lately, rose up inside me. With more people on my side, magical or otherwise, maybe I stood a chance tonight.
I brushed a light fingertip over his lips. “Thank you.”
The squelchy sound became even louder, surrounding us on all sides.
Callum cleared his throat loudly and stepped up behind us. “What is that sound?”
“I know who you are now,” a new voice said from beyond the white path. Dead grass crunched to the left of us, and a dark figure emerged.
Ica.
A collective gasp erupted from everyone at once.
Smoke still drifted from the black holes all over her face, tracing the curves of her Three tattoo. Blood stained her skin and her red lacy suit. Rage filled her eyes.
“I recognized you in the high school hallway the first time I saw you.” She came up to me, her face too close to mine. “You look just like her.”
My own anger slithered down into my stomach and coiled around my tight fists. I tried not to breathe in her smoking face. “Back off.”
Ica grinned. “You’re Anonymous’s daughter.”
I stepped back, her words slamming into me. The anonymous Trammeler who disappeared. But I was no Trammeler’s daughter. What was she talking about?
Ica moved forward, watching my face. “Anonymous found Gretchen’s cult headquarters.”
The breath caught in my throat. I gasped for another.
“Get away from her,” Tram growled.
“She said to back off,” Callum warned and lunged at her.
Ica raised a finger, and a red web spiraled out. It surrounded Callum, cocooned him.
Callum stared spikes at her through the snarl of red.“Mmmmmm,” was all he could say.
“Let him go,” I shouted.
The ground shook.
Ica brought her head close to mine. “It’s a shame Anonymous drove away from What Gifts She Carried at such a dangerously high speed.”
Mom. Anonymous. My mom. Anonymous Trammeler. All of it pulsed under my skin like the aftershock of a slap, but there was no way she could be telling the truth.
“It will be me tonight, Leigh,” Ica said in a low voice. “I am Three. If One and Two put you in their grave, I’ll. Kill. You. First.” She jabbed at my chest with each word.
I snatched her finger before she could poke me again and shoved her. “Don’t ever touch me.”
Roots tore through the ground in front of Ica. She sneered and raised her arms. Four more arms extended out of her sides. Six arms lengthened to three times normal size and waved around her head. All of them snatched at the roots and broke them in half like they were sticks of butter.
Herman snuck up behind her, spray hose readied.
Ica stared down at her legs like she expected more to happen. The livid expression froze on her face before her mouth lifted in a grin. “Smell that? That’s the sweet aroma of death and power. Soon it will be mine.”
Smell it I did. One and Two’s stink eclipsed the growing earthy odor.
They were coming.
Chapter Twenty-One
The rotten smell suffocated me. I turned on the path to face the Trinity trees, but night hid them. The squelchy sound intensified.
Something was definitely coming. From everywhere all at once.
It seemed like everyone was holding their breath. No one moved. Even the rain had stopped.
A faint cry from the direction of the Trinity trees pricked the silence and slashed through my heart. “Leigh!”
I knew that voice. “Jo!”
I took off at a dead run.
“No,” Ica yelled behind me.
The darkness rippled. My feet lifted from the ground. I hovered just above it, caught in mid-sprint. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even turn my head. Another cry sounded from the Trinity. A plea for help. Desperation jetted through me. But everything in my body was locked.
A deep cracking drowned out the squelch sound. The earth growled.
“Now, Herman,” Tram yelled.
“No! It should be me. The three of us will be—” Ica interrupted herself with a piercing scream.
I fell to the ground in a heap.
Nearby trees stretched their limbs and roots out to Ica ten steps behind me, caging her in a tightly woven box. All of her arms curled in on top of her. Smoke billowed from her entire body. The air smelled like burning rubber but couldn’t mask the growing rot.
Mrs. Rios’s lacy wings sprouted from her back. She flitted upward, and a beam of white light shot from her mouth and surrounded Ica’s cage. Ms. Hansen aimed glowing fingertips at Ica. Herman pointed his spray hose at her, too.
Jo.
I had to get to her. I jumped up and ran right into a Sorceress.
One stood in front of me. A sudden gale snapped her scraps of clothing.
Reeling back, I fought to control the tremors that wobbled my body.
Booms behind me flared white into the darkness.
“We knew you’d come.” A voice ripped down my spine with sandpaper claws, but One’s sagging mouth never moved. “You’re always saving someone.”
Two appeared out of thin air right next to One. Jo hung limply from Two’s outstretched hand, her long legs bent under at odd angles. Her whole body lurched and twitched.
My friend’s mouth opened to speak, and black mist gusted out with every word. “This time to save me.” Jo’s eyes snapped open. They glowed blue, just like One and Two’s.
Two dropped her, and Jo fell to the rocky path with a gasp. She thrashed and twisted, whimpers forcing themselves out of her clenched jaw.
Helplessness drove me to my knees. I reached out, but Jo writhed too much to touch. My eyes blurred. A sob escaped me. “Please. I’m here. Take me, and leave her alone.”
“We won’t take any more chances with your blood until it’s ours,” Jo said in that raspy voice, her body bucking. Black mist waved across her face and in front of her blue eyes.
“No.” Callum lunged to his sister’s side. Red web still clung to him. Strings of it trailed behind and floated around him in an eerie dance with the wind. “Choose me instead.”
“Callum, don’t,” I breathed.
“Leigh is Three,” Jo rasped.
More booms and explosions sounded behind me.
“I won’t let you have either of them,” Callum shouted.
“Stop it, Callum,” I yelled.
One and Two hissed.
Callum lifted from the ground and flew backward toward a nightmare tree.
A scream ripped from my lungs.
A tree’s branch caught him by the legs before he slammed into it. Was that Tram’s doing? Callum’s momentum flipped him over. He hung upside down from the branch, swaying back and forth, a clock’s pendulum marking the seconds until my death.
A loud blast rocked the earth, and I fell to my stomach next to Jo. Ica’s cage was now a fiery pile of wood. Flames leaped toward Ms. Hansen and Mrs. Rios, both lying on the ground. Unmoving.
My throat tightened. I didn’t see Ica.
“We’re wasting time.” Jo’s voice scratched the air and chilled me just as much as the Sorceressi’s fingers circling both my wrists.
They dragged me up and
pulled me forward.
“No!” Ica shouted behind us.
One and Two led me down the path, away from my possessed best friend and toward the Trinity trees and Sarah’s grave. My grave.
The world spun in slow motion. My heart tripled the tempo of my feet. I kicked out at One and Two with everything I had, but they kept dragging me forward.
“It should be me. You promised me if I freed you, it would be me.” Ica dropped in front of us from a line of red web attached to a dead tree branch. Fury and the spreading flames behind us lit her face. Billowing holes and dripping blood distorted her entire body. Her six arms flopped to her sides when she hit the ground. “I want the Trinity power.”
“You’re just a Sorceress, not a Trammeler,” Jo rasped several feet behind us. Her voice carried like we were right next to her. “Gretchen was both. We’re all both.”
Both. A Trammeler and a Sorceress. A Trammeler’s daughter. A Sorceress’s daughter. Was Mom both, too? The world seemed to tilt while this news barreled into me.
Red sparked in Ica’s eyes. “But I’ve done everything for you to free Gretchen. Turn me into a Trammeler.”
One and Two’s grip tightened on my wrists. “Only Trammeler blood, Sorceress blood, and death will make the Trinity trees bleed and open the Core.”
“What? Those are the gifts?” Ica’s chest heaved with every breath.
“Those are the three most powerful gifts, the gifts Gretchen carried, her flesh and blood stolen by Trammelers and now trapped deep inside the Core by their father.”
By their father. The Counselor? Which meant he had children. He and Gretchen. Was that why Gretchen wanted the door to the Core to open when she’d resurrected her sister? To free her children who were trapped inside?
“Our Sorceress blood gives us strength to destroy the three hinges, death lets us into the Core, and our Trammeler blood gives us keys to the prisoners’ cages. The trinity of gifts.” Jo’s voice twisted my stomach. “And the third and final hinge opens when Leigh dies.”
Ica nodded. “Oh, she’ll die all right.” She lunged and swung an arm toward me. Black fog clung in wisps to each of her fingertips.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 20