A Torment of Savages (The Reanimation Files Book 4) (12 page)

I saw fear fight its way through her hostile expression, but she fought to suppress it.

“I’m not the only one they will come for,” she said. “They will do everything in their power to silence you.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of them,” I said. “I’m sure you know enough about me to know I can take very good care of myself.”

“This is nothing like anything you’ve ever dealt with, girl. Your cockiness will be the death of you. You don’t know what you’re probing at. Walk away and you may still live.”

“I’m not going anywhere and I know exactly what I am getting into. A few centuries ago, your ancestors decided to lay waste to their male counterparts, the dead warlocks, by pulling their ghosts out of their bodies and banishing them to the Afterlife. Since then the dead witches have kept their bodies hidden and have been leeching off their magic. Well, guess what, one of those dead warlock’s ghost is back. Through that open necromancer circle I’m sure you’ve heard about. I got a firsthand account from him, and now I’m here for you to tell me everything you know.”

The look on Leena’s face showed that I had surprised her by how much I knew, and there was no suppressing the fear now.

“Tell me what you know,” I said. “Or you get exposed and left at the mercy of your fellow dead witches. Trust me when I say that if they come after me, they won’t be able to touch me. You? Oh I think they will do very bad things to you.”

Leena was trembling, and sweat beaded her forehead. “You already know too much…oh God…you know…” She looked like she was going to be sick.

“Leena, just tell me. Tell me about those bones. Tell me if you know where any dead warlock bodies are.”

Leena muttered and shook and turned her head this way and that before her gaze finally settled on me again. “What does it matter,” she whispered. “I was born to carry a curse, and now you’ve stumbled upon it too.”

“Leena…”

“I didn’t kill any of those babies,” she said.

“I know. I took a few bones and found out that they are all older than you. How did they get to be part of your household?”

“I inherited them,” she replied, looking down at where her fingers were twisted around each other in her lap. “From my ancestors. Find one dead witch alive today who doesn’t have the same thing hidden somewhere. This burden was passed on to all of us.”

“The burden of hiding the bodies of dead warlocks who were killed soon after birth?”

Leena nodded. “I hated it. It’s wrong; I know it, so many of us know it. But this is the way it’s been for so long, to come into the light now would bring down the entire, worldwide dead witch community. It would be catastrophic for everyone. So each generation was instructed to keep the secret. To let the dark deeds of our ancestors stay buried. It is a great shame.”

I frowned. “So the practice continues, but you feel ashamed? And are too scared to do anything? That’s disgusting, you are murdering innocent babies!”

“No!” Leena exclaimed, tears welling in her eyes. “That’s not the way it’s done anymore. It’s not. Things had to change, they just had to.”

My eyes narrowed. “So what changed? What did you do differently if not kill the males? As far as I know there is no prominent dead warlock presence these days.”

“I don’t know that it’s much better, but at least the babies stayed alive. At least we weren’t forced to have to…” She took a shuddering breath and closed her eyes briefly.

“Leena, what are you talking about?”

“The babies, the boys,” she said, looking me in the eyes. “Around the turn of the century we came up with a different way. Pregnancies were hidden, births happened in far-away places among dead witches only…and then the babies had their magic drawn out with runes and were given up for adoption.”

“What?” I said sharply. “You drained their magic then gave them up?”

“It may have made sense to drain their power and keep them, but then they would grow up to wonder where their magic was. It would not be possible to hide from them the knowledge that dead witch magic doesn’t skip generations. So the mothers took their son’s magic and gave them up. They left the babies at orphanages anonymously, then would show up within a month or so and adopt their own sons back. That way they got to keep their child, but he would grow up thinking he was a non-paranormal who was adopted by a dead witch and never question his lack of dead magic. It is one of the reasons dead witches are such huge patrons of adoption services. Many of them run adoption agencies specifically so they can make sure the mothers get their babies back.” Leena’s eyes were filled with tears. “It was still a horrible thing to do, but at least they lived…the babies lived.”

My mind was reeling. I of course thought about Jian, Tielle’s son. I had just learned that he was adopted, now it was almost certain that he was actually Tielle’s biological son who had no idea he was a dead warlock.

“That is unbelievable,” I said. “It’s heinous to do that to a baby. The only saving grace is that they lived, but a paranormal person living without the magic they were born with is not living a full life.”

“I know,” Leena said softly. “A lot of the children grew up sickly and incurred all kinds of mental and developmental problems. We know what we did…we know.”

“My God.” I sat back in my chair, staring at Leena. I was trying not to let this knowledge overwhelm me. I still had more questions to ask.

“What about Dr. Raymond Perlysse?” I asked. “He was a very public figure and a dead warlock. And I know there have been other dead warlocks around over the years, how do you explain them?”

“They slipped through the cracks,” Leena said. “You can’t expect every single dead witch to be on the side of keeping these things hidden. There were those who went through great lengths to protect their sons and allow them to keep their magic. Some dead witches left their babies at safe houses with their magic intact and never tried to get them back. By the time the higher ranking dead witches found out, they were unable to track the babies down. In Dr. Perlysse’s case, I can’t say that his mother would have done that, but I do know that after he was born the house they were occupying caught on fire and he was one of the few survivors. His mother perished. No one who responded to the fire knew anything about our practices; they just thought they saved a newborn baby. He was put up for adoption and thus was able to grow up with his magic.”

“I see. And he grew up to become someone who contributed something positive in the medical community. Oh, the horror.”

Leena looked ashamed, but I had no sympathy for her.

“So, do you know where any of the dead warlock bodies are?”

Leena shook her head, looking sad and withdrawn. “I am not high ranking enough to know that information,” she said. “They exist, that’s all most of us know. Where? You’d have to question someone higher up the chain.”

“So does that mean you don’t benefit from siphoning off the magic from one of their bodies?”

“Is that what you think? That each and every dead witch out there has their own dead warlock that they draw magic from? If that was the case then we would all be mighty powerful and you can be sure there’d be more squabbles to rise to the top of the ranks than there are now.”

“From what I understand, the dead warlock numbers were smaller than the witches, so no, that’s not exactly what I thought.” Someone higher up on the chain, she’d said. It made sense that higher ranking dead witches would be the ones with this knowledge. They were the strongest, even though I now knew that not all of their strength was their own. I thought about Tielle. She was high ranking, had done the adoption thing with her son, and I recalled how quickly she had recovered from being attacked by Isabelle’s beastie. I was sure she had a boost of magic from a dead warlock to thank for that. Tielle would definitely know where the bodies lay, but I couldn’t just go up to her and ask her outright. We had a good relationship now, but I was sure the moment I mentioned dead warlocks and the messed up things that happened three centuries ago she would turn right back into the Tielle that had imprisoned me and tried to strip my reanimation power.

“Many of us wish for things to be different,” Leena said, voice soft. “It is a heavy burden to have to walk around pretending like we aren’t standing on top of a dark, suffocating secret like this. But there’s nothing you can do.”

“You could let the boys keep their magic and grow up knowing who they are,” I said. “Give them a fair chance at the life and magic they were born into. But no, you all are too scared to go against the will of the bigoted, fearful ancestors who came before you.” I shook my head. “You’re right to feel ashamed and burdened. You deserve those feelings.” I took something out of my purse and held it in my closed fist. “This will come to light. Soon. Trust me on that.”

“You cannot expose or secrets without destroying yourself,” Leena said. “You may be extraordinary in certain ways, but you cannot stand against a world of dead witches who do not wish to see our entire community crumble.”

“What crumbles and falls can be rebuilt,” I said. “You are all cowards. But what I expose and whether or not I get destroyed is of no concern of yours.” I stood up and leaned over her. She shied away from me, her eyes widening when I opened my palm to reveal the rune that lay there; an emerald with flecks of gold. A frown creased her brow. She did not recognize the rune.

While I’d been holding it, I had channeled energy into it to activate it. Now I held it up against her temple. She tried to move away from me, but since she was restrained, she could only crane her head away, which was no escape. She opened her mouth to scream, but I clamped my hand over her mouth.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “Just erase your memory.”

It was a Memory Rune, one of the runes Renton had revealed during a press conference that seemed like it happened years ago. I had acquired this one from Micah before I left his apartment. I would erase her memory of our conversation then question her about her tainted rune business so I’d have satisfactory information to take back to Tielle.

Leena’s eyes were wide and fearful, her breath hot against my palm as she continued to try to speak or scream. I felt something twist in my gut, something that told me that doing this was wrong, especially since it was against her will, but if I didn’t do it, Leena would let it be known that I was in on the dead witches’ long-buried secrets and then there’d be no hope of helping Kyo get his body back. I had to keep the upper hand any way I could. I still felt like utter shit doing this though.

“You won’t remember this conversation with me,” I whispered. The Memory Rune pulsed stronger once I started speaking, and I could feel its magic channel into Leena. Her eyes went blank and her entire body went limp as her mind yielded to my words. “You won’t remember that Selene Vanream knows anything about the dead witches’ history with the dead warlocks…”

A sudden, terrifying scream jolted me and I stood up straight and sucked in a gasp. My connection to Leena and altering her memories was abruptly broken. I whipped my head to look at the closed door as more screams started. It sounded like there was suddenly a lot of commotion going on outside. What the hell was going on?

I turned to run out and investigate when I remembered Leena and turned back to her. Her eyes refocused and she quickly looked up at me with confusion on her face.

“I know who you are,” she said. “That Selene girl. Why are you here?” She looked at her surroundings then at her handcuffed wrists. Another scream resounded. “What is going on?” She sounded afraid. But it seemed like my memory altering had worked despite the abrupt ending. She didn’t remember our conversation.

“I’m going to go check on it.” I ran out of the room, wishing I had my rune gun, but I hadn’t brought it with me to date night. When I yanked open the door I was met with chaos. There was so much going on that my eyes didn’t know where to focus so I could begin to figure out what was suddenly plaguing the hospital floor. People were running in all directions—doctors, nurses, visitors, many of whom were trying to help patients get away. From what though?

A man went sailing through the air and slammed into a wall with a sound that made me certain he had broken several bones. Another woman started screaming, then it was abruptly cut off, and I knew it wasn’t because she had chosen to stop screaming. Finally, I saw what was happening.

About seven men and women, dressed in hospital gowns, were on the rampage. I hadn’t immediately picked up on them because I didn’t think the threat I’d be looking for would be coming from people who were supposed to be laid up. I was shocked when I recognized the PTF officers who’d been stationed around the open necromancer circle. They were running everywhere with speed I knew was beyond their capabilities. Above the screams of the frightened people, wild, guttural sounds filled the air, and I realized they were coming from the PTF officers. I saw flashes of red as well; their eyes had turned into glowing orbs of fire, and even the way they moved was less than human. Some of them scampered on all fours, some of them leaped from one spot to another, others just rampaged like they were huge, feral beasts beating down everything in their paths.

I was thoroughly confused and more than a little frightened, but I jumped into the melee. There was blood everywhere, and people on the ground in broken heaps. I tried not to let my gaze linger on them. I approached one of the PTF officers; a middle-aged woman a few inches taller than I was, and knocked her to the side. She’d been about to punch a teenage boy, who looked terrified beyond all reasoning.

The woman didn’t go down quietly. She snarled, and snapped her teeth inches away from my face. She grabbed my shirt with both her fists and yanked me forward, slamming her head against mine in the most skull fracturing head-butt I have ever received. She shoved me away and I catapulted into the nurse’s station. Since it was a low desk, my back bent backward over it and I crumpled to the ground. Pain radiated from my head and the middle of the back. I felt weak, I was gasping, and my vision wouldn’t stay clear. I tried to get up, but even supporting myself against the nurse’s station, I was not having an easy time staying on my feet. When I attempted to stand on my own, I swayed.