Crown of Ashes

by Addison Moore

  I don’t hesitate pulling her in and wrapping my arms around her. Skyla is trembling, her breathing hitting an erratic pace the way it used to in the bedroom.

  “What’s happening?” I whisper just above her ear and steal the moment to take in her warm vanilla scent.

  “It’s this ring.” She rubs her thumb over a blue heart-shaped stone sitting on her forefinger. “Chloe gave it to me.” She pauses long enough to scowl over at the demon. “It has powers. Marshall said something a while back about it being a portal of power only the creator Himself is privy to. I wasn’t aware of the power it held until I woke that girl up in Ezrina’s lab.”

  “You woke the girl.” Dudley closes his eyes with a worrisome look of boredom. Dudley only invokes that placid expression when things have truly gone to shit.

  “Not me. The ring,” she insists.

  “This ring.” Logan comes over and picks up her hand, forcing the ring to sparkle in the dull light. Kate coughs and sputters behind us, but we take a moment to focus in on that ring with its eerie blue glow. “Where did it come from, Chloe?”

  Chloe giggles out a dark laugh as she heads to Kate and helps her stagger to her feet, unsteady as a toddler. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  “I think I do know.” Skyla hitches a brow over to the girl she’s pretending to favor. “Melody Winters said I stole it from her.” She tilts her head toward Bishop as Kate writhes unsteadily in her arms. “More to the point, she called me a time traveling thief.”

  Dudley offers up a slow clap, more of an insult than an encouragement, but I’m pretty sure he knows that. He seems to be up on his put-downs. “Now you’re warm, Ms. Messenger.” He cuts a look to the cemetery with its markers and stones in disarray. “And how in heaven’s name do the four of you think you’re going to excavate this bone yard of its bodies? Each person in his or her own crypt six feet under? In a concrete encapsulated tomb at that? Even with your shared strength and impressive powers, be they meager in comparison to my own, this will take you a year.”

  “Nice.” Skyla scoffs openly at him. “It’s good to see you offering your encouragement and support. Do you have any other brilliant, yet discouraging, line items you feel the need to point out? Because if you’re done, I suggest you find a tractor, or, better yet, use your most impressive supernatural powers to excavate the place for us.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I pull her in tight. “We’re not digging this place up.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re doing.” She abruptly removes my arms from her waist. She looks to Logan and me with something just this side of pleading. “It’s a part of the plan.”

  “The plan.” Chloe nods almost sarcastically. Why the hell can’t Skyla see that she’s pretending to befriend her for kicks? This is nothing but a game to Chloe.

  “I can’t help you, Skyla.” Dudley takes a few steps toward the graveyard. “Heaven will have my wings. This is something I’m afraid I’m unable to concern myself with.” He tips his head toward her as if he were about to take off.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” She latches onto his arm. “I forbid you from leaving. I forbid any of you from leaving,” she growls at Logan and me but offers a deadly glare to Chloe. “I need you. Celestra needs you. We need these bodies.”

  “Who did these bodies once belong to?” Logan is stern with his former wife. It seems waking the dead has the ability to piss off her ex-husband and her delusional spirit husband as well. Oddly, I’m not pissed. I’m just very fucking concerned.

  “Celestra.” She glances to Chloe as if to silence her. “Among other Factions. I took the cemetery map book from your father’s office.” She looks right at me. “It was the only way I’d know who was who. I needed to resurrect those I thought might be willing.”

  “Willing to do what?” My heart plummets to my feet because I can feel my brother’s name bubbling up her throat.

  “To thwart Wesley.” She sharpens her eyes over mine when she says it. “To thwart those millions of feds he has sniffing around the island.”

  “Shit.” I close my eyes at how far down both Demetri and Wes have sent us spiraling. “What are you going to do with them?”

  Chloe steps up next to me as if we were suddenly on the same team. If you ever find yourself on the same team as Chloe Bishop, just know you’re on the wrong side.

  “I know”—Chloe slings a hand over my shoulder casually—“we could put them in Tenebrous. The tunnels belong to you now, Skyla. So that shouldn’t be an issue.”

  “Tenebrous.” Skyla shakes her head. “Too far and too much work to transport them all. Besides, we need them handy, and we need them plausibly human. They’ll need to be present if they’re ever going to get caught.”

  “So they’ll be taken.” The words strum from me numbly. People who have already crossed that great divide are coming back for more hell on earth because my own brother has sentenced the Nephilim to a fate, ironically, worse than death—government experimentation.

  “Marshall”—Skyla struts toward him, tits out as if she were trying to seduce him—“you have to help. I need these bodies freed before morning.”

  “Impossible,” he shoots back, his chin up as if he enjoyed defying her on some level.

  “Oh, come on”—she gives his tie a firm tug—“nothing is impossible with you.”

  “All right.” I stride forward and carefully remove her hand from Dudley’s tie before I decide I need to knock him into eternity where he belongs. “I’ll do it. Show me what bodies you need excavated, and I’ll power through it.”

  Chloe huffs a laugh. “I’ll help. Skyla, you go home and let the little ones swing off your boobs or whatever it is you do with them.” She scuttles up to me with her hair and tits bouncing, and I’m quick to look away. “I highlighted all of the areas we hit in that journal your dad keeps.” She wags one of his composition notebooks at me. “You can use that as a road map. And don’t worry, Gage. A shovel fits in my hand, too. I’ll be right by your side as we power through it together.” Her hand glides over my shoulder. “It’s going to be a long, hard, sweaty night.”

  “There, you see?” Dudley sheds a shit-eating grin. “You’ve a hero or two to keep you on your morbid deadline.” He scowls toward the east. “I’d best check on Ezrina and see what’s become of her latest pet project.”

  “Marshall”—Skyla pulls him back as he starts to take off—“that girl looks exactly like Laken. You tell Ezrina she better have a damn good explanation for it. And for the love of all things holy, do not let me catch that girl down in the Transfer.”

  “I’ll pass the word along.” He tips his imaginary hat as he walks into the open arms of the fog. “Good night, all.” And with that, his body evaporates into a watery state before dissipating altogether.

  Chloe leans in toward Skyla. “What’s this about a Laken clone that Ezrina is housing?”

  “I’m sure Wes will fill you in soon enough.” Skyla takes the book out of Chloe’s hand. “I’m not leaving.” She locks her eyes over mine, and for a moment I could swear something real just bounced between us. “Ask your mom if she can watch the boys for a few more hours. She never picks up when I call.” She opens the book, and Logan leans in to peer over her shoulder.

  A slapping sound from behind gets our attention, and we find Kate pounding her foot against the ground as if she’s having a seizure.

  “Kate!” Skyla rushes over as Logan and I help the poor girl to a sitting position.

  Her lips contort as if she’s desperately trying to tell us something.

  Chloe scoffs. “It doesn’t work so well without the vocal cords, does it, Kate?”

  “Be quiet, Chloe.” Skyla pulls out her phone and hands it to the girl we were once close friends with. I know this is technically Kate, but seeing her like this, her limbs looking slightly mangled, her hair badly tangled from a few restless years in a casket makes her unrecognizable.

  Kate does her best to punch in the tiny letters popping up on Skyla’
s screen, but she’s choppy at best. I doubt we’ll get a clear message out of her this way.

  “Emksa?” Skyla shakes her head. “Kate, I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I’ll get a pen and some paper for you when we get settled back at the house.”

  “You’re taking her home?” Normally, I wouldn’t question Skyla taking a friend to the house. Hell, Chloe has slept in my bed more than I have lately. But Kate is dead—was dead. Her body is putrefied and most likely crawling with microbes that no antibiotic could hope to cure. “Not with the boys,” I say it lower than a whisper as not to insult our newly reanimated friend.

  “She’ll stay with me.” Logan gives her a light tap over the knee, and her leg goes slack as if it’s just slipped right out of joint.

  Chloe takes the phone from Skyla. “Wait a minute. Are you trying to say Emma?”

  Kate gives a spastic clap of the hands and touches her finger to her nose, an old charades’ trick to let someone know they’re right.

  “Emma?” I lean in and look into Kate Winston’s jaundice-colored eyes as she nods frantic into me. “As in my mother?”

  Her hand slaps against the ground, and her forefinger touches her nose over and over, bending the cartilage off to the side.

  The cemetery starts to rumble at top volume again as the thundering of a thousand corpses rises as they beg to be set free.

  Chloe sits down next to Kate and picks up her hand. “I’ll keep Kate company while the three of you tend to that unruly herd of the undead just clamoring to join us.” She gives a little wink my way. “Don’t get too tired. I have plans for you later.”

  Skyla groans. “It never gets old, does it, Chloe?”

  “How could it? Only someone as foolish as you would cut a man like Gage Oliver loose.”

  “Did you just call me foolish?” Skyla leans in, and Chloe shakes her head frantically as if she were a three-year-old about to be punished by her mother. “That’s not what I meant. I’m strictly speaking from the heart—or between the legs as it were. Gage isn’t a toy you toss to the side when you’re bored with him.”

  “I was far from bored with him.” Her voice grows curt, her expression tight. “I was betrayed, Chloe. A word you often confuse with greed. Your gain always equals someone else’s pain.” Skyla stalks off toward the thumping and rumbling out in the field. “Keep it down! I’m coming!”

  “We’re still friends, though, right?” Chloe calls after her and gifts her the middle finger once she turns her back.

  “Nice.” Logan shakes his head as he follows Skyla out to the chaos brewing in the cemetery.

  “I don’t think it’s nice, Chloe. I think whatever this thing you and Skyla have going on is downright bizarre.”

  “She’ll get over it. We’ve been arguing like an old married couple all week. It’s cabin fever, and believe you me, I’m sick of her shit, too. Kate and the rest of the dead-on-arrival gang should liven things up a bit.” She leans back and attempts to comb her fingers through Kate’s hair. The tiara Kate’s mother planted over her skull clings for dear life. But Kate stares off straight ahead, her lips mouthing the same thing over and over again at a frenetic pace. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was my mother’s name.

  It does beg the question. What have you done now, Mother?

  Logan

  The fog shrouds itself around the cemetery like a faithful witness as body after body is slowly exhumed from the ground, and from the mausoleum as well. In the future, I might suggest my brother bury anyone with a drop of Nephilim blood inside that den of easily accessible corpses in the event Skyla feels the need to summon the dead once again. Skyla has made it abundantly clear that this is her baby. Chloe didn’t play into the decision making one bit. In fact, Chloe isn’t exactly helping with any part of the process, and it makes me wonder if she wants to absolve herself of malfeasance altogether. Instead, she sits back with our old—newly resurrected friend, Kate, watching her mime out a conversation and laughing her ass off. Poor Kate has signaled that she wanted paper and a pen, but Chloe couldn’t be bothered. Why put someone out of their misery when you can torment them for hours? I would have helped Kate out hours ago myself, but, as it is, I’m covered with dirt, sweat, and blood. The blood is my own from a cut I incurred while prying open a crypt. Who knew I could bleed? I guess I’m a real boy after all.

  “Logan.” Skyla waves me over to the precipice where she’s standing. “Look at that.” She marvels at the small mounds Gage is tapping down with a shovel to minimize the damage we’ve done. “It’s not that bad. I can’t believe he’s gone back over every single hole we’ve dug and smoothed it over.”

  “You sound proud of him.”

  “I’m”—her lips screw up in a fit of confusion—“I’m just saying he’s going the extra mile.” She slaps her hands over her jeans. Whether or not Skyla wants to acknowledge it, she’s getting her figure back to her pre-pregnancy state. She looks great, and she’s a great mother like I always knew she’d be. “Can you believe this?” She looks over at the crowd of the walking dead, each in their formal prom-like attire. They all look pretty damn good as a whole, which is a testament to Barron’s embalming skills. “They didn’t all choose to come.” She wraps an arm around my waist. “Once I tapped their gravestone, I suppose they had a decision to make. And to be honest, I didn’t think this many would show. Not on this grand scale.”

  “One hundred ninety-two bodies. The oldest of which was born in 1805.” I should know, I’m keeping track and keeping them from straying as Drake and Ethan help transport them all in our trucks over to the house that Gage and Skyla purchased last fall. Yes, it will be crowded as hell, and feel like hell since they’ve all been privy to paradise, but, as Skyla pointed out, it’s far more spacious than a casket. Collectively they look stiff, but as the early hours of the morning fast approach, they’ve been testing out their old bodies, stretching and jogging in place as if readying for a marathon. Their voices, however, aren’t louder than a whisper, which is something that I’m hoping will clear up once those vocal cords get lubed up once again. The whispering phenomenon could be enough to trip up the feds long before we’re ready.

  “Amazing.” She offers a firm squeeze to my ribs. “And they understand completely that they’ll be ushered right back to eternity once their calling is through. The only thing I’m unsure about is”—she lowers her voice to a whisper—“God, Logan, what if they feel pain? I don’t see why they wouldn’t, but I hadn’t really considered it. That would be just as bad as putting the living through it.”

  “That may be so, but for them it’s a mission. They’ve got one task to complete, and they’re doing it for the good of the living. I think your biggest problem is sitting right over there.” I nod back to where Chloe is doing her best to remove that scarf poor Kate scrambled to retrieve. A rotten thing to do, considering it’s what’s securing Kate’s head to the rest of her.

  “Chloe won’t tell.” Skyla wraps her arm around mine like a vine. “I own her. I own Chloe Bishop.” Her voice drops into its lower octave, dark and seductive, as if the prospect of owning Chloe left her sexually charged. “She is my bitch just the way God intended.”

  “Things are going to end badly.” The words weren’t even necessary. At this point, anyone can surmise it.

  “They would have anyway.”

  Just as I’m about to beg Skyla for a hint on the dirt she has on Chloe, or perhaps more to the point the kinds of promises she might have made to her—and either has to be big in order for Chloe to do her bidding—one of the older gentlemen near me coughs explosively into his hand. You have to give it to them, still considering others when it comes to germs. There are some hygienic practices not even death can beat out of you.

  He leans in toward Skyla and me. “I was just saying it used to snow on Paragon—big giant heaps of”—he gags and bucks forward as a stream of neon green vomit spews from his mouth.

  “Shit.” I pull Skyla back as a chunky waterfall o
f putrid barf splatters through the air.

  A collective groan works its way through the crowd as body after body doubles over and pukes right where they’re standing.

  “Oh no.” Skyla covers her mouth with her hand as throngs of those long-deceased bathe the ground in a sea of vomit. “Shit, shit, shit!” She jumps back, and just as I’m about to grab a hose from the side of the mausoleum, Barron pops up—about as unwanted as a puking corpse in a cemetery.

  Crap. “Hey, Barron.” I give a quick nod his way as if our little corner of the world weren’t falling to shit. “What brings you out tonight?”

  “It’s morning in the event you haven’t noticed.” That mean glare he’s casting my way says it all. My brother has always been a man of few words, studious to a fault, and a peaceful, amicable soul. But, at the moment, he’s raging-bull mad, ready to fire off his anger at the first familiar face he comes across, and as fate would have it, that would be me.

  “What in the world is going on, Logan?” His voice shakes with fury. His glasses steam up, and it has nothing to do with the fog. “Why are you having a party in the middle of the cemetery, and why in God’s name are they all regurgitating their dinner at the very same time?”

  Skyla buries her face in her hands a moment. “We’re not having a party, Dr. Oliver.” I’ve always thought it was sweet the way she continues to call him by his proper name. She’s his daughter-in-law now. She could easily call him Barron, or Dad if she liked. “And they’re not regurgitating their dinner. I’m pretty sure it’s those embalming fluids you filled them up with. These people are actually at home. You see—Logan and Gage dug them up from their respective graves.”

  I blink her way, stunned at how easily she threw both Gage and me under the bus—and I also find it cute as hell.

  Technically, she’s right. It was Gage and I that did all the heavy lifting, but I can’t help but chuckle at the thought of Skyla omitting herself from the tragedy unfolding.

  “Fine.” She smacks me over the arm. “It was my idea.”