"It will be okay. You have to trust me."
29
From the Grave
Anastasia
"But I trusted her," I said, not able to keep quiet as we were led to the graveyard, a group gathered as darkness fell. It was a small group, but I knew them to be a part of the Circle. how had they even gotten on campus like this? Hadn’t anyone noticed something out of the ordinary?
"She has been glamoured, Anastasia. You have to let it go right now. It won’t help. There will come a time for that, but this isn’t it," Desmond gritted out.
I was shaking, not just with the cold mist that was forming just like any other night in the Pacific Northwest, but with fear. I still didn’t know what it was they wanted me to do. I only knew that it couldn’t be anything good.
When we stopped walking, it was then that I recognized form the books I had read just where in the cemetery we stood. Like any other student, it was etched into my mind. Maybe even more so since I had personally seen the destruction he had caused in the form of the dead.
I found myself at the foot of the grave belonging to Alastair Grey, and just behind it, was the unmarked, decrepit plot that belonged to Constantine, the vampire that was responsible for the fear everyone had of vampires, especially the one at my side. But instead of a flattened piece of earth, I was not staring down into a duh hole. Had they really dug up Constantine? And if so, why?
"Welcome, again Desmond and Anastasia. So glad you decided to come without a fight. Maybe this will spare the two of you when the new regime takes over Blackwell."
"Don’t be coy; isn’t it the whole world you want?" Desmond asked, and I stepped out from him, though still holding his hand, and looked at him strangely. How did he know anything about what they wanted? Or was she just speculating because of their history? I hadn’t thought about it, but given his lineage, he was likely aware of the Circle's existence in the past.
"Baby steps," the woman said, an amused grim coming to her face.
"I still don’t get what you want me to do,” I told her, seeing a growing crowd in the background as we spoke. Part of me wondered if when my mother came, I should have just gone home. If I was a regular human, or appeared to be, would they be doing all this to us?
"Oh, it’s quite simple. We want you to bring Constantine back so he can take his place as headmaster again."
"You're insane! He's dead! I might be able to talk to him if his spirit is still lingering, but I don’t want anything to do with that monster."
"And yet you cling to his very flesh and blood even now," the woman teased. I instinctively held on tighter. "It doesn’t matter. The threat still stands. You will do what we say, and it is more than possible with the two of you. Follow me."
What choice did we have?
We followed her to the very back of the cemetery, coming upon a large circle, swaying side to side. They parted only long enough to let Desmond and I into the center, and I gagged as I saw the decaying bones that joined us. There was no question as who those bone belonged to.
"Your father did us all a service by never burning him like he should have. It’s what has made this possible tonight. Finally, Constantine will rise again. We have the knife, the grandson, and the necromancer." It was some sick speech she was giving, the last word catching my attention.
"What do you mean by necromancer?"
"Seeing the dead, speaking to them, levitating, all of those things are nothing compared to what you were meant to be. We have searched years for a potential, and all have failed until you. You're the necromancer, and you will take your boyfriend and his sword, place it with your hands on his bones, and bring back the rightful headmaster of Blackwell Academy. Or we will kill hundreds more to find the next person who can, and neither of you will be alive to stop it."
As if to prove her point, the woman pulled out a stake, and I knew I couldn’t say no.
"What knife does she mean?" I asked, tears coming to my eyes.
"The one used to kill Constantine. The same one that can bring him back with the help of a necromancer." Desmond’s eyes were trained on the woman instead of me as he said it, and I sensed a fear, hair standing on end at the back of my neck, that my initial suspicion had been right.
A whisper in my ear let me know Brady was around to see the whole thing. "I told you not to trust your boyfriend."
"Dd you know what I was and what they wanted this whole time?" I asked him, my hand falling from his.
"I won’t lie to you. I suspected what you were. I didn’t know exactly what they wanted other than information."
"He sold you out for freedom from his curse," the woman specified for him, and I fell to the ground in defeat, crawling towards the body. As much as I would rather die than feel my heart ripping apart inside of my chest, I still couldn’t let him die. Love was funny like that.
"Well!" I yelled at him as I made it to the bones, my hand on the yellowing hardness of the worst villain I thought I had ever heard of. "Get the knife. Let’s get this over with!" I screamed at him. He fell to his knees, his hand on mine as we held the sword together, glowing with orange and brown embers. The bones began to warm as muscle, sinew, blood, and skin stretched and formed around them, sticking together with an unknown glue courtesy of me, the necromancer.
As he rose, I saw no resemblance between Constantine and his grandson. His eyes were those of the devil and his hair dark. He looked like a modern Gomez Addams but less comedic and true darkness pulsating within him.
I watched in horror as he sucked dry every person there other than the two of us, Ms. Aberdeen, and the woman who seemed to be running the show.
Constantine, covered in the blood he drank, though the mist had turned to a light trickle washing some of it from his pale skin, caressed Ms. Aberdeen’s cheek like a lover. "Please, go and fetch everyone who leads this school, it’s time they knew the headmaster was back."
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Almost Dead (Blackwell Academy Book 1) Page 13