Stolen Secret

by Emily Kimelman Gilvey

  “Maybe Mother Earth doesn’t want to get all fucked up before something is done about it,” Megan suggested, a bitter note in her voice. “And maybe she’s never the same after. Maybe she’s scarred.”

  Good point.

  “I’d like to talk to Ophelia without her trying to kill me,” I said.

  Issa nodded. “I believe that, if I could look at her blood under a microscope, I may be able to learn how the spell works. I may be able to figure out how it becomes contagious.”

  Tyronios stood and crossed to a far shelf. He pulled down a large volume and brought it over. “There is a spell in here.” The book groaned as he opened it to the index. Groaned.

  “What the fuck?” Megan asked, standing in a blur of motion.

  Tyronios did not look up from the page. “This is a very old grimoire. Spirits inhabit it.”

  Sure, riiiggghhhttt….

  “That’s fucking nuts,” Megan said. I could not have put it better myself.

  “Here.” Tyronios looked up at Issa. The vampire moved to his side of the table and leaned over, reading the spell.

  “We will need the entire society,” Issa said. “Will they help us?”

  Tyronios nodded. “Your cause is ours.”

  The chanting of the society rose, but the shimmering bubble of magic stayed empty. Power crackled in the air. As the veil between the void and this world thinned, my ears popped.

  A crouched figure flickered within the bubble. Ophelia looked up at us, her hair loose on the one side, her black halter top now covered with a leather jacket. She looks so cool.

  What an insane thought to have at this moment! Talk about conditioning. Everything I know in the world has changed, and I’m still judging fashion choices. Wow, the world is fucked. Zombies or no.

  Ophelia rose to standing, her body solidifying as she did. “Well, well, well.” She smiled at the accumulated warlocks. “Aren’t you a powerful little society.”

  She ran her hand along the magic wall and it sparked, the bolts of electric energy spreading out over it and fading away. Her smile faltered but did not disappear. She met my gaze. “You learn quickly.”

  “I bet it runs in the family.”

  She laughed. “You are afraid to face me alone.”

  I shrugged. “I wanted to ask you some questions without you taking a run at me.”

  She raised both brows. “Ask away.”

  This shouldn’t be so easy. “How do you think the zombies got started?”

  She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath as if summoning patience. “I find the story tiresome. I’ve heard it so many times.”

  “Who told it to you?”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she leveled her gaze on me. “Our mother. My father. They just love the story of his wedding gift to her.”

  So, not from a broken family. Didn’t spend her childhood completely unaware of her parentage, thinking she was crazy and being abused. I’m gonna go ahead and admit I’m jealous of my sister. Awesomesauce.

  “Nice that you were raised by both parents,” I said, keeping my voice light. “Kind of a gross wedding gift though.”

  Ophelia chuckled. “You know, I always thought that.”

  “I’d love to hear the story.”

  Her eyes narrowed, assessing me. She was tasked with killing me. Would the story she had to tell help in that cause or hurt? How could a story change the outcome of our battle?

  How could anything but a story change it?

  “Mother hates humans now.”

  “But she helped create them.”

  “She helped create Adam—never agreed to the abomination of Eve.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Silence. Ticktock. Ticktock. “Eve doesn’t seem so bad.”

  Ophelia just stared at me. Her eyes began to glow. Instincts leaped inside me, and I surrounded the bubble with my chi. She burst out of it, seeming to be everywhere and nowhere at once.

  Then she was on me, her face close, breath hot on my cheeks.

  Daggers of Ophelia’s chi dragged me toward the void. I struggled, trying to use my own chi to pry her grip loose. But it wasn’t working. My body started to splinter.

  Megan grabbed my arm. “You can’t have her!” she screeched, the sound echoing into nothingness as we disintegrated.

  No time, no space, no nothing….

  We came back together as dust settles on a surface—drifting slowly through space, gravity a suggestion rather than a law.

  Megan’s hand still held my bicep. Vision returned. Ophelia’s eyes blinked in front of mine.

  I exploded my chi out, flinging her back. She soared through the air, arms cartwheeling, and landed on her feet, knees bent, twenty feet away.

  “She is your familiar?” Ophelia asked, her eyes on Megan.

  “Yeah,” I answered, even though I had no idea what that meant.

  Moaning. Zombies, lots of them. Their hunger beat at me like a baseball bat. I resisted the urge to curl into a ball of pain.

  Ophelia smiled. “They herded them into the desert,” she said, waving her hand. The sand at Ophelia’s feet blew away, revealing rotten corpses. They stirred as the moonlight hit them.

  The landscape stretched around us, a flat desert. The ground writhed. My heart beat faster as figures began to rise, sand falling off them like water.

  Megan’s hand tightened on my arm.

  Ophelia laughed as the first zombie stumbled forward, its skeletal form draped in tattered rags. The landscape writhed as thousands rose, their movements jerky. Puppets with the strings pulled taunt.

  Bony fingers grasped my ankle, the sand shifting under me. I created a circle of power, driving the dead things from my space. Their wretched forms knocked into more of the undead. They pressed against my power, trying to reach my flesh, pathetic pleas whimpering from their broken bodies.

  Ophelia’s laughter still reached me, but I could no longer see her through the thick crowd of dead between us.

  “This is horrific,” Megan whispered.

  Sweat trickled down my spine. Hunger pressed through my protections, awakening my own need. I had to stop them. Stop them for good.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  Magic pulsed inside the skulls of the undead. There were so many.

  My hands rose as some long-silenced instinct took over. My chi grasped the illumination inside them—the pulsing light that glowed in their skulls.

  I yanked.

  Time slowed. My power held the orbs of light just outside their skulls, and the bodies remained standing. A heart beat and they dropped—puppets without strings.

  Megan stayed close to me, her cold, solid body a pulse of light that I could see and feel. She is afraid of me.

  She should be. Everyone should be.

  The lights that I held began to fade without a cage to hold them, like a flame without a wick to burn. The texture of this light was not like the energy that came from Megan, or me, or any other living being.

  What did it sound like? I listened. Silence. The lights flickered, almost gone now. I pulsed power into them, trying to keep them alive as one might blow onto coals. Instead of a soft glow and a small flickering flame, I ignited an inferno.

  The energy burst the orbs and leapt to the bodies below. The zombies exploded into flames.

  I opened my eyes. We were surrounded by a raging fire. The stench of burning flesh and hair rose in thick smoke.

  Megan huddled close to me. I put an arm around her and lifted us into the air on my power. Below us a sea of fire raged. It crackled and popped. Like a song… music.

  Insight tore through me. I know how to stop the zombies.

  Chapter Six

  “It’s a song!”

  “What is?” Megan asked. The left side of her hair was burned. The air stank of smoke. The ground was razed. Ophelia was gone—she must have jumped worlds.

  “The curse. It can be broken with a song. And I know it.”

  Megan licked
her lips, eyes narrowed. “I’m still confused.”

  I laughed. “Sorry.” The relief I felt at figuring it out couldn’t be contained, and I laughed again. Megan’s eyes narrowed further.

  The night sky twinkled with stars, the moon a mere sliver floating on the western horizon. My body hurt all over, as if I’d gone to the gym and punished myself—lifted weights beyond my capacity, sprinted on the treadmill at a 5 percent grade, thrown a medicine ball around for fun. The battle left me sore but in a good way.

  And I had the answer!

  But how could I explain this to Megan? “Okay, let me think,” I said. Megan glanced around. The hair at the back of her head was burnt as well. Soot stained her hands and was smeared across her face.

  “There is nowhere to sit down and gather our thoughts,” she said, looking back to me. There was nothing but scorched, smoking earth all around us.

  “Let’s get out of here.” I grabbed her hand and tunneled us into the void. In the nothingness, I sensed Telescopo where I’d gone to Emmanuel’s palace.

  We burst through, materializing in a dark, hay-scented space. A cow mooed indigently. We stood in an eight-stall barn.

  “We need to find a fiddle,” I said, pulling Megan forward. There were double doors at the end of the barn aisle. I pushed one open and peered out. The farm house lay in darkness. I reached out with my chi and discovered a sleeping family—mom, dad, two boys, and a girl. Oh, and two dogs on the back porch.

  We needed to be quiet.

  Megan and I slipped out of the barn and into the cornfield, disappearing into the stalks. “There is a town not far, if I’ve got my bearings right. We can find instruments there.”

  “Okay, but can you tell me a little more about your… plan?” The way she said plan didn’t sound like she had a ton of faith in it.

  The ground was muddy, the corn thick, and the sharp leaves pulled at my hair and clothing. “There is a song. Ouch.”

  “What?” Megan stopped.

  “Nothing, a leaf cut my cheek. It’s like a paper cut, you know? Super painful but not a big deal.”

  Megan covered her mouth to suppress a laugh. “What?”

  “You’re complaining about paper cuts. Seriously? You just took on an army of the undead and destroyed them.”

  I grinned, which totally made the slice on my cheek burn by the way. “And I figured out how to stop them. To undo the spell.”

  “Just tell me already.”

  I took a deep breath, smelling the dewy night and sweet corn. “I’ll try. Here is what I think happened. You know how everyone thinks my ancestors were somehow involved with the creation of the zombies?” Megan nodded. “I’m guessing the spell was wound using my blood—well, my ancestor’s blood because of our ability to steal life force but also to give it. I can make your heart beat.”

  “Okay,” Megan said, but she didn’t sound sure. “Go on.”

  “Assuming Felix, the shifter god, gave this as a”—I held my hands up to create quotes—“‘wedding gift’ he has something to do with it. He used his blood—so, he basically used the blood of my ancestor and his blood, which together created the power to be dead, but walking around and decomposing. They basically shift into being dead and can’t get back because the soul flees the body when it dies. But it’s magic, so it can be undone. I mean, we can’t get the soul back in, I don’t think, but we can definitely stop them all. And I’m pretty sure that if we get it right, we can stop it from ever happening again.”

  “So what does that have to do with a song? And how it’s contagious?”

  “Right, so the thing that binds the blood, really that binds everything, is vibration. The only difference between me and you and the corn—” I grabbed a leaf and shook it. “—is how the particles vibrate. We are all made of the same stuff.”

  “Just singing a different tune.”

  “Exactly. And you know how a song can get stuck in your head?”

  Megan nodded slowly.

  “It can get stuck in your blood too.”

  She scrunched her face. “Sorry, but I still don’t get how that helps us undo the zombies.”

  I sighed. “Okay. So, when I first started feeding.” I paused for a moment, my mind racing back to the first few experiences I had after Megan disappeared—when I’d kissed Issa and almost killed him. When I hadn’t known what I was and the shame I’d felt at my behavior. At my hunger.

  “What?” Megan asked.

  “Nothing…” Megan stepped closer. Wind rustled the corn. I admitted, “I was just thinking about shame.”

  “Shame?”

  “Yeah.” I stared down at my boots. Was shame another trick to try to keep humans under control? If, instead of feeling shame about my hunger, I’d embraced it, could I have stopped the zombies sooner?

  “Darling?”

  I blinked, focusing back on Megan’s face.

  “Something about shame and a song and particles that vibrate?”

  “Right.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “So, one of the things I noticed when I first started to feed was this song that I could hear. And I knew. I just knew that it was the song of the universe. I could hear the rhythm that all other rhythms are based on.” Megan stared at me, her mismatched eyes wide. “I sound crazy.”

  “I wouldn’t use the word crazy… but I’m not getting it.” She dropped her gaze. “But I am a vampire; we can’t sing.”

  “So you say,” I mumbled. “I’ve never seen you try since you turned.”

  Megan’s lips firmed. “I don’t have the music in me anymore, Darling.”

  Anger shot through me, surprising in its ferocity. “Yes, you do.” I stepped forward, placing my hand over her heart. Beat. I commanded.

  Megan’s eyes widened as that long-still organ thumped once. I closed my eyes. Megan’s chi swirled around her, black with fear and gold with hope. But where was the music? I pressed my hand harder against her chest and pushed life force into her. She gasped, and her energy pulsed with a rainbow of colors.

  I listened closely, trying to tease out the music within her. It wasn’t in her exterior aura. I dove my mind into her body, searching through her inner power. It was here somewhere. I could feel it.

  “Darling.” Megan’s voice sounded far away as I careened through her, my mind outside my body, inhabiting my power. There!

  It hid under a blanket of death, of regret, of shame! I tore at it. “Please,” her voice whispered. I slowed, pausing. Her light sputtered. Oh no, I was killing her!

  Megan stumbled away from me as I withdrew my power. She fell back into the corn, the stalks breaking with a crack, the fresh scent of corn sap permeating the air. “Megan!” I dropped to her side.

  So still, so cold…

  But light still pulsed in her. I hadn’t killed her, but I almost did. Why would freeing the source of her music kill her?

  I sat back on my haunches. Megan’s eyes blinked open. The usually bright blue one was now tinged with a hint of the moss green. I’d given her some life… which could be her death.

  She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around. “What happened?” She held a hand up to her chest, rubbing at the spot over her heart.

  “I tried to free the music inside and nearly destroyed you. I’m sorry.”

  She gave me a weak smile. “No harm, no foul.”

  “Ha, right.”

  “Do you still want to try to find instruments here? I mean, we could go back to the Warlock Society and talk to Issa about all of this. They may even have instruments.” Megan leapt to her feet, agile and quick as ever. I stayed crouching. “What?”

  “For some reason, I brought us here instead of back there.”

  “Why?”

  I stood slowly, looking around. All I saw was darkness and corn. “I don’t know, but something is tugging at me. I need to….” Closing my eyes, I tried to listen to the instincts inside of me. I spun the engagement ring on my finger.

  A fresh breeze carried the scent of w
ood smoke. The chirping of crickets rose and fell. My heart beat steadily in my chest. This world hadn’t seen a zombie in a millennium. So the air smelled fresh. It had recovered from the damages of mankind’s pursuits.

  I crouched down again and touched the earth, listening. A song played in the soil. “It’s different,” I said.

  “What is?” Megan whispered, as if she didn’t want to disturb me with the question.

  “The song of this world.” I opened my eyes. “The spell was cast in a world that had never been infected with zombies. And it must be undone in a world that is ravaged by them.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I opened my eyes, witnessing the energy of the corn, of the crickets, of the wind—nature burned with its own power. Emmanuel could feed from it. But I needed touch—physical connection.

  Slowly, I rose to standing again. “We can go now.” I held my hand out for Megan. She intertwined her fingers with mine.

  “Hey, I wanted to ask, what does it mean that I’m your familiar?”

  “No idea,” I answered before pulling her into the void.

  The chanting of the warlocks reached me in the space without substance. I followed the sound.

  Issa’s eyes widened. “A song?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not just a song,” he said, his brow furrowed. “There is a spell as well, I’m sure of it.”

  “Agreed. We need to unwind the spell. I don’t know how to do that. I just know about the song and that it needs to happen in a world with zombies.”

  “And you know the song?”

  “I’ve heard it.”

  “Can you play it?” Megan asked.

  I wet my lips. “I think so.”

  “On the violin?”

  “Yes….”

  “You sound super sure. It’s totally reassuring,” Megan joked.

  I laughed, something easing in my chest. “The song is only one part of the battle here though,” I said.

  “We need your sister’s blood.” Issa blurred to a book and brought it to me, tossing it on the table. He sped away again and returned seconds later holding a manila folder, putting it down next to the leather-bound book more gently.