Forbidden

by Jana Oliver

  “Do you want to talk about what happened inside the Tabernacle?” she asked in a low voice.

  Riley shook her head immediately. How do you explain what it was like to see people you know being ripped apart and eaten? What it felt like to think you were going to die the same way?

  Ayden’s comforting hand touched her arm. “When you’re ready, I’ll listen.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be,” Riley admitted. “It was too … horrible.”

  “Is Beck okay?” her friend asked.

  “He got clawed up, but he’s alive. Simon—” Riley jammed her lips together. Just thinking of him made her want to cry.

  “Is he going to make it?” the witch asked. Her hand was still on Riley’s arm, warm and reassuring.

  “I … yeah. They didn’t think he was, but now he is.”

  Ayden frowned, like she didn’t understand Riley’s verbal gymnastics. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  Riley couldn’t hold it back. Someone had to know her secret. “Ah, well, you see, I made a deal with this angel, and…”

  The witch’s frown deepened. After a quick glance around to ensure they weren’t being overheard, she leaned closer. “What do you mean by deal?”

  Riley told her about the agreement with Heaven.

  “My Goddess,” Ayden murmured. “You sure it was an angel?”

  Riley nodded. “And she came through. Simon’s getting better.”

  “Once Hell finds out you’re on Heaven’s team, it could get complicated,” her friend warned.

  Riley snorted. “More complicated than last night? That Five was after me. It was the one who killed my dad and the same one who tried to flatten me at the law library.”

  “Which happened before your deal with Heaven,” Ayden said. “Oh, Goddess, you are in trouble, aren’t you? Have you told Beck any of this?”

  “No, and I’m not going to. I’ll work it out on my own.”

  “It’s not showing weakness to ask for his help.”

  “No way, not from Beck,” Riley retorted. “End of subject.”

  * * *

  Ayden walked with her as far as the witches’ store. “Try the Deader tent two aisles over,” she suggested. “The man there might have heard about your dad.”

  “But you said I shouldn’t go near the necros.”

  The witch raised an auburn eyebrow. “I know you’re not listening to my sage advice, so I might as well steer you in the right direction.”

  “And if that guy doesn’t know anything?”

  “Then work through the summoners who were hounding you at the cemetery. Minus Ozymandias. Do not go near that man, do you understand?”

  “Got it.”

  “Really got it or just saying that to make me happy?” the witch pressed.

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Ayden rolled her eyes, then reached for something on the counter. After giving Riley another hug, she handed her a small plastic bag full of herbs. “Brew yourself a cup of tea with this right before bed; one teaspoon should do it. It helps clear your head and might keep you from having nightmares. I’m thinking you need that right now.”

  Riley smiled. “Thanks, Ayden, for everything.”

  The witch traced something in the air between them. It looked like a complex symbol.

  “What was that?”

  “Just waving away a mosquito,” Ayden replied.

  In January? You are so lying.

  FOUR

  The Reanimate Palace, as it was called, wasn’t doing much business. Four Deaders stood in a row, staring at nothing, a grayish tint to their wan faces. From what she’d heard, if their bodies were treated carefully they could remain outside the grave for almost a year.

  If her dad’s body had been in pieces after his battle with the Five, no necro would have wanted him. Instead he’d died from a single shard of glass driven into his heart by the demon’s windstorm. A pristine Dad meant a potential reanimate. Her father was one of a kind: It was rare any trapper ever made it onto the reanimate market.

  Riley cocked her head, studying the four forlorn figures—two males, two females. One of the guys was about her age. One minute he was dead, then he was standing inside a tent while people decided whether to buy him or not.

  That so has to suck.

  The government outlawed slavery in 1865; that date had been drummed into her head by her father, the history teacher, but the dead were another matter entirely. Recent court cases had ruled the deceased had no civil rights, so there was a bill in Congress to rectify that big hole in the law. It was stalled in committee, the victim of a well-financed lobbying campaign by the necromancers. Meanwhile people like her dad were stolen out of their graves and trafficked to those who could afford to buy them.

  Riley took a deep breath to calm her nerves and walked into the tent. The salesman immediately moved forward with oily ease.

  “Good afternoon. Can I help you?” he asked. It sounded like he sold bootleg designer purses. Anything but dead people.

  “My dad was reanimated last night, and I need to know who did it.”

  “The summoner should have left a notice at the gravesite, if it was a legal reanimation.”

  “It wasn’t,” she said. “I didn’t give anyone permission to do that.”

  “Ah…” the fellow said, moving back behind a folding table that served as a makeshift desk. He riffled through a stack of cards and then offered her one.

  “Contact this guy. He’s the summoner’s ombudsman in Atlanta. He handles all complaints about ripped-off corpses.”

  The card was familiar. A number of them had been left just outside the circle that once protected her father’s grave. Of the necromancers she’d encountered, Mortimer Alexander had been the nicest, always polite. He’d claimed he wouldn’t reanimate a corpse without the family’s permission. If that was true, then he’d be her best bet to find her dad.

  Riley studied the address on the card. “Little Five Points?”

  The sales dude grunted. “Necros like it there. They say it has a kind of magical vortex or something.”

  “Is there?”

  The guy shrugged. “If Mort can’t help you…” He handed over another card.

  GONE MISSING DETECTIVE AGENCY. YOU LOST ’EM, WE FIND ’EM.

  “They charge for this?” she asked dubiously.

  “Sure. There’s always money to be made in death,” the guy remarked.

  Riley hurried out of the tent before she hit him.

  * * *

  Ori followed the girl’s movement through the market from his position near the five fountains. After they’d talked, Riley had gone to the witches’ tent, where she met someone who apparently was a friend, given the intensity of their greeting. Then they’d moved to the tent that served drinks. Now she was speaking with someone at the tent where they sold corpses. Others might not see it, but he could tell she was hurting, both inside and out. That wasn’t a surprise after the death of her father and last night’s battle.

  “Too close,” he muttered. By the time he had realized what was happening at the Tabernacle, he’d almost lost her to the demon. “Won’t happen again.” He would be following her from this point on. It was only a matter of time before the Five came after her, and he’d be waiting. At least her boyfriend was out of the way for the moment.

  One less complication.

  Ori scratched his chin in confusion. Higher-level Hellspawn were always on the lookout for souls to harvest. Why hadn’t the demon made her a deal—her life for her soul? Then the fiend could use that valuable bargaining chip to buy favor with others of its kind. That was how Hell operated—an endless line of favors owed all the way up to the Prince of Hell himself.

  Riley was on the move again. Ori tracked her to her car and watched as she pulled away. No sign of the Geo-Fiend. Sometimes he couldn’t get a break if he tried.

  * * *

  Riley’s hope that she could zip into the hospital, spend some time with Simon, and
then retreat without anyone else seeing her was just not in the cards. Her father had once remarked that after every disaster there is a time of reckoning. After the smoke clears and the bodies are toted off, the survivors and their families need time to come to terms with what has happened. Put things into perspective.

  Since Riley was one of the survivors, her boyfriend’s family wanted to hear her story. Before she realized what was happening, she was shepherded into a private waiting room set aside for the Adler family. There were ten of them, and they all looked like Simon—lanky and blond.

  Someone whispered, “She’s a demon trapper?”

  Riley was getting used to that. It came with the territory.

  Simon’s parents didn’t rise from their seats; their faces were pale and lined. They appeared more exhausted than when she’d met them this morning. The others settled in around the couple, talking quietly among themselves and shooting furtive glances at Riley. One of the women carried a sleeping infant. In the midst of the group was a toddler who wandered from person to person showing them his stuffed dog. It had big blue eyes, just like the little boy. As he made his rounds, he received lots of hugs and kisses.

  I could so use a hug right now. Ayden’s had worn off.

  When the little one stopped in front of her, Riley smiled and touched his blond hair fondly. “He looks so much like Simon,” she said.

  “Just like him when he was little,” a young woman replied. It was Amy, one of Simon’s sisters. “He used to drive me crazy following me all over the house.” She had her hand placed protectively over a noticeable baby bump that pushed against her blue knit top.

  “Come here, son,” the child’s mother urged. The toddler wandered in her direction, babbling and waving his little toy.

  Mrs. Adler stirred. She had a kind face. “When Simon first mentioned a trapper named Riley, I thought you were a boy. You look so young to be catching demons.”

  “Lots of people think that,” Riley replied.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” the woman added. “You must miss him deeply.”

  Riley could only nod. She took a long sip of water from a plastic cup. She didn’t remember where she’d gotten it, but there it was. The Adlers didn’t press her for answers as she organized her thoughts.

  How do I tell them that everything went wrong? That the demons weren’t supposed to get across the line of Holy Water. That they had coordinated their attack like an army.

  Just get it done.

  “Ah … we didn’t see it coming,” she began.

  Simon’s father leaned forward in his chair, brows furrowed.

  “Simon and I met before the meeting. He’d just put down the ward, you know, the Holy Water circle we do to protect ourselves from the demons. Then we went outside for a while.” And that was about as much as she could say about that. It’d been his idea to go around the back of the building. His idea for them to kiss and hold each other close and talk about the future. She remembered how good that had felt, how she’d never wanted it to end.

  “Riley?” Mr. Adler prodded.

  “Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “We went back inside for the Guild meeting.” Riley hesitated. This was where she’d told the trappers about the Holy Water, how some of it was counterfeit. The Adlers didn’t need to know that. “The demons just appeared out of nowhere.”

  “How did the fire start?” Simon’s father asked.

  “Pyro-Fiends. There were a lot of them. They just went crazy. It was the Threes that broke through the Holy Water ward.”

  “Threes?” Amy asked, perplexed.

  “They’re…” How could she explain these things? They were so much a part of her world now. “They’re Grade Three demons. They’re about four feet tall,” she said, indicating their height, “and all teeth and claws. They eat … everything.”

  There were gasps around her.

  “That’s what hurt my son?” the man asked, his voice edged with a quaver.

  She nodded. “They broke through the ward, and one of them got between us. Simon shouted for me to run, and it went for him. If he hadn’t said anything…”

  It would have come for me instead.

  That would have been okay. Better than watching the thing tear into him like a big cat, shredding and clawing, Simon’s blood spraying into the air in a fine red mist.

  She shuddered at the memory, the cup shaking in her hand. “I hit it with a chair and then one of the trappers carried Simon outside.”

  Which wasn’t all that had happened. She wasn’t telling them about the others—the ones that were burned or torn to pieces. Ethan, Morton, Collins … so many.

  Mr. Adler touched her hand gently, jarring her out of her dark thoughts. Riley looked into the eyes of her boyfriend’s father. Simon would look like this in thirty years or so. He would age well, as long as he stayed alive long enough to do it.

  “It is not your fault,” he said softly.

  Wish I could believe that.

  “The Guild’s doctor said someone treated my son’s wounds with Holy Water and that’s why they’re not infected,” his mother said. “The surgeons sewed up all the damage, and from what we’ve been told, he’s healing really quickly.”

  “Holy Water does that.” Providing the wound was caused by one of Hell’s fiends.

  “They don’t know what to make of the fact that his brain is working again,” his mother continued. “Father Harrison said it was a miracle.”

  That’s the truth. Her boyfriend’s family would be making funeral arrangements if Riley hadn’t agreed to Heaven’s terms.

  “He was so brave last night.” Riley’s heart swelled at the memory. “He didn’t back down at all.”

  “Sounds like our son,” his dad said, smiling faintly at his wife, a glint of tears in his tired eyes.

  “He’s a really nice guy,” Riley said, then felt foolish. They knew that.

  “He likes you a lot,” his dad replied. “He smiles whenever he says your name.”

  Riley didn’t reply. If she said anything more, she’d start to cry, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever stop. The energetic toddler wandered over again. He patted her knee with a chubby hand.

  Riley bent and hugged him, feeling his warm breath on her shoulder. The tears came anyway. Then she got hugs from every member of Simon’s family. All of them said they were praying for her.

  Like I’m one of them.

  * * *

  Simon’s hospital room was less crowded with equipment than it had been this morning. The machine that had helped him breathe was gone, and in its place was the soft hiss of oxygen.

  Her boyfriend’s wavy blond hair held flecks of dried blood. His gorgeous blue eyes were closed, and he was breathing deeply, just like the night he’d fallen asleep at the graveyard. The same night he’d held her as she wept for her dead father.

  Would Heaven have let him die if I’d said no?

  There was a slight moan from the bed. Both of Simon’s hands and arms were bandaged, and the image of him trying to fend off the demon’s slicing claws returned before she could block it.

  Riley carefully took one of his hands in hers. Simon painstakingly pried his eyes open.

  “Hey there,” she said. His gaze finally settled on her face, and he gave her a bewildered look.

  “Water?” he croaked.

  Riley hunted around until she found a glass of ice on the bedside table. She remembered this from when her mom was sick, and after fumbling with the electronic controls to help him sit upright, she gingerly placed a piece into his mouth. He sucked on it, but his bloodshot eyes never left her. After three more pieces, he pushed the spoon away and she returned the cup to the table.

  “Riley,” he whispered.

  “You scared me, guy. You can’t do that again,” she said, smoothing back a lock of hair. It refused to stay in place. Dried blood wasn’t a great styling product.

  “You’re alive,” he said. It sounded like he hadn’t been entirely sure on that point.r />
  “Because of you,” she said.

  “No.” Then he grimaced, extracted his hand from hers, and slowly pulled down the blanket. It was hard going, what with the thick bandages. He wasn’t wearing a gown, but a pair of drawstring pants. Riley barely suppressed the gasp—his chest and stomach were covered in a patchwork of bandages.

  “Itches,” he said, wincing, carefully scratching near the edge of a piece of adhesive tape.

  “Tell me about it,” she said, pasting a false grin on her face. Her demon-clawed thigh still demanded a lot of lotion to keep it from driving her nuts. “It means you’re healing.”

  It hurt so much to see him like this. He’d be marked for life.

  Like me.

  “You killed that demon,” he said simply, letting his arms fall on the bed as if the scratching had depleted his energy. “You saved my life.”

  “I didn’t like seeing my guy getting chewed on.”

  Simon shivered in memory. “Its claws burned like fire,” he said, not looking at her now. “I thought it was going to…” His voice trailed off.

  You thought it would eat you alive. Like the Three that had attacked her a few weeks back. She still had nightmares about that, still felt its claws imbedded in her thigh and its rancid breath in her face.

  Riley gently squeezed his hand again, waiting for the questions that were sure to come.

  “How many…?” he whispered.

  He’ll have to know eventually. “Thirteen that we know of. There’re probably more in the rubble they haven’t found yet. Another four are in bad shape.”

  “Who died?”

  “Simon, I—”

  “Who?” he demanded, his attention returning to her.

  Riley gave him the names, and with each his face grew more solemn. He closed his eyes when she told him about Ethan, one of their fellow apprentices.

  “He was so happy,” Simon whispered.

  Ethan had a reason to be happy. He and his fiancée were looking for an apartment and were planning a wedding sometime in the summer.

  Now he was dead.

  “Who else?” Simon asked, his voice so quiet she almost didn’t hear it.

  “That’s it. Both of the masters are hurt: Stewart has a concussion, and Harper’s got a couple of cracked ribs.”