Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (36 page)

He groaned against the shell of her ear and her breath hitched, offering more of her throat for exploration. There were so many of them. He felt drunk. He couldn’t think of anything better in the world than exploring Ember and all those souls.

He wrenched himself away from her, attempting to put some space between them. Ember stared at him, eyes wide, chest heaving. Her violet eyes glowed and her hair seemed electrified. She seemed electrified. She looked like a goddess. In a way, he supposed she was; the goddess of destruction, wreaking havoc on him and his entire world. She was a walking disaster and all he wanted was more. More of her lips, more of her souls, just more. He wanted it so bad he wasn’t sure he could stop himself.

“Did that help?” she asked, voice raw.

He nodded wordlessly, eyes roaming her face. His fingers itched to touch her. “We can’t do that again.”

Something akin to disappointment flickered across her face and her hand unconsciously reached for him. He had no choice but to move closer. Her hands roamed his chest. He could no longer feel the souls as he had moments ago, just that thrum of magic constantly humming between them. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed to see she’d severed the connection.

She seemed conflicted too. Her face flushed red at the way her hands moved over him seemingly of their own accord.

“Is this me or the magic?” she asked, frustration leaching into her tone.

“Touching me?” he asked. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Her arms wound around his neck, breathing shallow. “I don’t know.”

“I told you, Luv, we shouldn’t do this again?”

“The feeding or the kissing?” she inquired before she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his throat. He felt her smile as he swallowed hard. She liked the effect she was having on him, that much was clear. She let her lips drag along his throat, across his jaw, behind his ear just as he’d done to her. She was a fast learner, he thought. He let her explore, every muscle in his body straining to control his instincts.

This was a terrible idea. This was the absolute worst thing to do in this situation but he wouldn’t tell her no. He placated himself by reasoning he couldn’t tell her no. It was much easier to think he was powerless to stop her than to think he didn’t want to.

The door opened.

“Ugh, yuck. There isn’t enough bleach in the world to un-see that.” Kai stood, arms folded, smug expression on his face.

Ember stepped away, face flushing. “I’m gonna go.”

As Ember made her way out, Kai looked at Mace. “We need to talk.”

62

TRISTIN

T
ristin stood, mouth open, attempting to process what she said. She glanced at the front door and back again. She wasn’t sure what scared her more, the others overhearing or being out here alone with Astrid. She was clearly unstable. “What are you talking about?”

“We…are…bringing…him…back,” she repeated, jaw thrust forward, eyes daring her to contradict her.

“The coven?” Tristin whispered, again looking around to make sure nobody was within earshot. “That’s crazy, witches can’t do death magic.” She couldn’t imagine Allister or Alex ever agreeing to such a thing.

Astrid rolled her eyes, pulling a face. “Of course not, stupid. You, me and your idiot cousin.”

Tristin grit her teeth, praying for patience. Astrid was grieving too. She’d just lost her brother.

The other girl stepped closer, “Are you going to say something or do I need to talk even slower?”

Tristin gaped at her. Even when she was asking for a favor, she was horrid. She wished Isa could see the real her, “Well, gosh, when you put it like that how could we refuse?”

Her lip curled, “I’ll kiss your ass when my brother is back safely, until then I’m not interested in anybody else’s feelings.”

Tristin’s stomach clenched, eyes dropping to stare at her feet. She hated Astrid for even hinting at the possibility. It’s not like she didn’t want him back. There wasn’t a single part of her not aching for him to be there. She didn’t know how to be her without him. She hated herself for that but it was true. He forced her to be stronger, harder, and more self-aware. Bringing him back wasn’t an option. He wasn’t a puppy. He was a human.

“Please tell me your whole plan doesn’t revolve around Ember because she is the worst reanimator ever.”

Tristin didn’t know if that was true or not but she would say anything to stop her insides from shaking right now. Ember was the only reanimator she knew, but given her track record, she was sure she was probably right.

“Ember is the plan.”

“You’re nuts. It will never work. Ember blows up as many animals as she reanimates. Besides, reanimators can’t bring people back permanently.”

“Then it’s a good thing she’s not a reanimator.” Astrid snapped, losing her patience.

Tristin’s head snapped up. “What?”

Astrid smiled, expression smug. “Don’t you think it’s weird that none of the animals she’s returned have crossed back over?”

Sure, Tristin thought it was a little odd but Mace insisted it wasn’t permanent. Reanimators lack the ability to anchor a soul to a body. It was only a matter of time before the magic wore off and they crossed back. It’s why he didn’t want Ember getting so attached. Yet, all the animals were still here, none of them slobbering corpses.

“I guess.” Tristin said carefully, “So if she isn’t a reanimator, what is she? Witches can’t bring somebody back from the dead.”

“A necromancer can.”

Her heart sank. Astrid really was crazy. Necromancers, she thought, Astrid was smarter than that. She’d put all her hopes into a fantasy; a witch/reaper hybrid with god-like abilities. They talked about them in mythology class along with Loki and Icarus. They weren’t real. “Necromancers don’t exist.”

Astrid shrugged. “Neither do banshees and yet here you are.”

Tristin chewed on the inside of her cheek. She wanted to believe it was possible so badly but it just couldn’t be. “What makes you think Ember is a necromancer?”

“I overheard my father talking. He’s planning something, probably something super horrible. He told somebody on the phone that she was a necromancer. My father doesn’t throw words like that around easily. If he thinks she’s a necromancer then so do I.”

Allister had more information than any of them. If he believed it…It made more sense than anything else currently happening in her life. Still, she couldn’t help but remind Astrid, “Ember might be able to restore the souls of dead animals but the last time she tried it on a human it didn’t go so well.”

“You mean her mother?”

Tristin narrowed her eyes.

Astrid just smiled. “Yeah, I know about that too. My father is far too casual about the conversations he has in our house now that Quinn’s gone. She was five years old. Imagine what she can do now?”

“I don’t have to imagine. I’m not talking about Ember’s mom. I’m talking about Ms. Carlton, our math teacher and Mike from the garage. Ember accidentally yanked them back too, well their bodies anyway,” Tristin said. “Her powers are out of control. She blows up a dead animal at least once a week. It’s pretty gross.”

Astrid’s face contorted. “Well she can’t blow my brother up because he’s currently occupying our mantle in a tacky cardboard box marked temporary while waiting for the gaudy urn my father purchased. Now, some would call that box ironic but I consider it a sign from the other side that they aren’t quite ready for my baby brother yet. Either way, she can’t do much more harm than that.”

Tristin stared at her, annoyed at herself for even entertaining this crazy idea. “Just suppose I said I’d consider this. You just said Quinn’s been cremated.” She choked on the last word. “Where do you plan on putting his soul once Ember yanks him back from the other side?”

Her eyes shifted to the left and she tapped her manicured nail against her temple. “I’ve got that all figured out. All that’s needed is an empty vessel and I know exactly where to find that.”

A chill crept up Tristin’s spine. Astrid was as smart as her brother and way more cunning. She didn’t want to know why the witch looked so pleased with herself. “So, let’s pretend everything goes according to plan, then what; Quinn spends the rest of his days masquerading in somebody else’s body?”

Astrid rolled her eyes, “Oh buck up, sourpuss. One little glamour spell from me and all you will ever see is the face you fell in love with. Consider it an early wedding present.”

Tristin felt like she’d kicked her in the stomach.

“The rest of the world will see someone else. It’s the only way we can get away with this.”

“We will never get away with this. This is insane. We have the Grove coming back. This is going to get us all killed. We don’t have a spell, we don’t have a coven, and we don’t have any idea what we’re doing.”

“Just leave the details to me. You just need to get your cousin to agree to this.”

“She’s not ready,” Tristin told her. “She’ll never agree to this. Not only that, she will rat us out to Isa and we will all get in trouble.”

“Then we’ll just have to give her some incentive.”

“What does that mean?”

She shrugged, “I’ll think of something.”

“Nobody will ever agree to this.”

“I have some of the things I need in place. You just need to make sure Mace keeps Ember under control.”

Tristin side eyed the girl, “Mace? Didn’t realize you two were on a first name basis.”

“We are now. He works for my father.”

“What?”

“You think you know what a jerk my dad is but you haven’t even scratched the surface. He’s not the person people think he is but I’ll worry about him when I have my brother back.”

“You’re crazy,” Tristin said.

“Maybe,” she smiled, “but if we get my brother back, does it matter?”

63

KAI

M
ace eyed him warily. It wasn’t like Kai was eager for this conversation either. He’d allowed himself to ignore the problem for the last seven days because, honestly, he just didn’t have it in him. As long as Mace and Ember were where he could see them, where was the harm? But now they were making out? He definitely couldn’t handle that right now.

“It’s been a week. When are you going to tell Ember you work for Allister?”

Mace scrubbed his hand across his face, “It’s not that simple.”

“Why? Because you’re developing a thing for her?”

“No. Because she needs me right now.”

“She’s been fine.”

“No, she hasn’t.”

“She’s not blowing things up…well, as much. She hasn’t knocked any pictures off the wall or boiled her own blood, relatively speaking, isn’t that better?”

Mace sighed. “No, it’s not.” He stared at Kai for a long moment, as if gauging something. “She hasn’t learned control; her magic has just found a way to…divert her excess energy.”

Kai looked at him, “Huh?”

Mace sat down on the dining room chair, elbows on his knees as he rubbed the heels of his palms across his eyes. Not for the first time, Kai noticed Mace looked terrible. He had black circles smudged under his eyes, his cheeks sunken in. He looked tired.

“Your cousin is channeling her magic through me. She’s tethered our magic together.”

Isn’t that why they had allowed him to stay in the first place? Kai must be missing something because Mace looked freaked out. Considering Mace was immortal and hundreds of years old, Kai could only assume it was bad, very, very bad.

“So what does that mean?”

“It means instead of Ember learning control of her magic-to call it at will-she is just on full juice all the time and diverting it to me so as not to cause any mishaps like blowing up birds or raising an army of revenant zombies.”

Kai let that information sink in. “Is this a side effect of the binding spell wearing off? I would have thought by now that the magic would have, I don’t know, righted itself?”

“Right, we never did get to that part of our story, did we?” Mace said, almost to himself.

Kai’s pulse quickened, “What part?”

Mace waved him off. “The point is our connection is having some rather unfortunate side effects.”

Kai smirked, “Like you ramming your tongue down her throat in the formal dining room?”

Mace gave him an epic eye roll. “Like she has bound our magic together, both literally and figuratively.”

Kai waited for him to continue but he didn’t. He just stood there staring at him expectantly like he was waiting for him to comprehend how catastrophic this news was. Finally, Kai said, “Seriously, I’m trying to get why you are so spooked but you’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

“Your cousin has me on a supernatural choke chain. I can’t go more than a few hundred feet without her magic yanking me backwards; painfully, horribly, grotesquely backwards.”

Kai’s lips twitched. He couldn’t help it. Mace had been terrorizing people for two hundred years only to be magically neutered by a seventeen-year-old girl.

“Laugh if you like, mate, but I can’t leave. If I can’t leave, I can’t feed. No feeding for me equals very bad things for everybody around me.”

Kai narrowed his eyes, smile fading. “Yet you look just slightly better than you did this morning.”

Mace’s eyes slid away from him, checking a spot on the floor.

“Is that what I walked in on? Were you feeding off her? What the hell, dude?”

“She offered,” Mace grumbled. “Besides, it wasn’t her I was feeding on.”

Kai looked around the room, hairs rising at the back of his neck. There was nobody else there. He was so tired of feeling as if he didn’t get it. He would like everybody to stop being so enigmatic. “How so?”

“Look, she’s not what you think she is.” Mace dropped his voice, “She’s channeling a ton of very ancient magic and that magic has decided that I need to be…close.”

Kai arched a brow at him, “You looked pretty close to me and it sure didn’t look forced.”

“It’s complicated.”

Kai snorted. “I bet,” he said, giving Mace an eye roll of his own before his brain registered something. “Wait. What do you mean Ember is channeling ancient magic?”

“Your cousin is somehow tapped into whatever frequency the dead seem to broadcast on in this town.”

“Huh?”

“She’s all soul’s radio,” Mace growled in frustration. “She’s playing all the souls of the eighties, nineties and today.”

Kai’s brain hurt. “Can reanimators do that?”

“No,” Mace huffed, “but necromancer’s can.”

“Necromancers?”

Mace faced him, “Tell me it hasn’t occurred to you?”

Kai flushed. It hadn’t occurred to him. Even with everything he’d talked about with Tate, it never occurred to him. He was an idiot.

“Does Ember know?” Kai asked.

“No, but Allister does.”

“You told Allister? Seriously?”

Mace scrubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Allister already knew. He’s had plans for Ember this whole time.”

“The whole time? Did he know she’d come here?”

Mace shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not really part of his inner circle. I was hired to watch and report…and to retrieve that package.”

“Right, the package,” Kai said, digging his thumbs into his eyes with a sigh. “What was in that package anyway?”

“The blade of Osiris,” Mace said. “It’s a transference device.”

“Transference?” Kai chewed that over. “Well, it obviously doesn’t transfer anything good. How does it work?”

Mace winced. “When you plunge the dagger into the victim, the handle pierces the flesh of the user. It will transfer the power from the victim to the killer.”

“Killer.” Kai took a deep breath, trying not to panic. He wasn’t losing any more people. “So it kills the person whose power you want to take?”

“Yeah, it’s a nasty little bit of blood magic. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

“And he plans on using that on my cousin.” Kai’s anger flared and he let himself entertain the idea of punching Mace in the throat. “And you were going to help him do it?”

“No.” Mace said, before reconsidering. “Well, yes. Kind of. I didn’t know he planned to kill her when this started. I mean, I suspected it was his intention but I didn’t really care because it didn’t pertain to me.”

Kai gaped at him. Seriously, was this his defense? Hope he didn’t end up going in front of a jury. “Oh, save the judgment, Reaper. I’m the bad guy. It kind of goes with the territory. Besides, I wasn’t exactly privy to his plans until I saw the knife.”

“So what did you do with the knife?”

“It’s in a safe place.” Mace answered.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“Having that knife could put all of you in danger.”

“Dude, we are already in danger. The Grove will be back and I don’t believe for a second they will wait until we turn eighteen. If we haven’t gotten our crap together we are all going to die…just like Quinn.” His name stuck in his throat and he swallowed convulsively, trying to calm the sudden storm of feelings his name evoked.

“Listen, mate. I understand what you are saying but this is more than just Ember. Allister isn’t a good guy and if he gets ahold of that blade and Ember’s magic he will be more powerful than anything out there.”

“Won’t the Grove step in at that point?”

“Do you think they’d believe us? Allister has been their lapdog for a very long time,” Mace reasoned. “Besides, think of the damage he could do in the meantime.”

Kai didn’t want to think about that. “Ember deserves to know the truth. She deserves to know you’ve been lying to her.”

“You don’t know what you are asking. This is all going to go sideways very quickly.”

Kai shook his head, determined. “No. You are going to tell her. You have until the bonfire. Then I’m telling her myself.”

Mace looked at him with tired eyes, shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”