AllFreeNovel
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“Halen!” River calls out loudly from up ahead.
“I’m coming.” I drag my eyes away from the dark forest, heading back inside the tomb. The air grows thick once again, but the music vaporizes rather quickly. Waiters duck around the crowds of people, balancing rock glasses filled with whiskey. With nothing but the sound of plastic chafing across concrete, we’re back in formation on the platform.
Dad’s eyes bounce over each of us. What could he possibly want with dead corpses?
“Phase two, which is important for the finale. Unzip your bags and place the remains in Noctem.”
My knees hit the ground as I unzip the bag. Death has long since passed their bodies, but it does nothing to stop the smell of decayed liquid flesh and dusted bone marrow. I think I prefer theirs to the perfume of rotten eggs and rust.
With my bag now half open, the ambience of one thousand candles showcases Stella’s expertise. Jesus. She really did a number on him. I need to stay focused. If I allow distractions to slip into my head, it allows a window of opportunity for one of them to ride in with it.
Dad’s shoes come into view before he kneels to my eye level. “Amica mea…”
Everyone had already tossed theirs in Noctem and I was still staring back at the nightmare below.
My tongue sticks to the bridge of my mouth as I tremble on fragile legs. Dragging the bag up the bowl of metal while stepping around the side to use my foot as an anchor to haul him up, I pull back until it unfolds in. Unzipping the other half, his body rolls out of the plastic.
After tossing the bloody bag to the side, I stumble back to my place in line.
“Kneel.” Dad’s demand is as powerful as his energy, and we’re all once again at his mercy.
He flicks a match against the metal before tossing it inside. “Recite the tale that’s in front of you.” I shuffle backward until the Latin passage is as clear as day. Sable and gray smoke clot the already swollen air, as death settles around the charcoal fragrance of rose and oud wood. The herbs. I’ve never—seen them—
The room becomes cloudy, and my eyes burn as the riddle leaves my tongue.“Here I kneel, for you to take, accept my sins as payments, until my final date.”Weighed down by the dense congestion of air, my chest caves in as everything tilts in threes.
What the fuck.
Delirium too thick to swallow, I’m suddenly weightless, before everything turns black.
Something heavy and long slaps my cheek with cadence. Cotton replaces my tongue as my eyes open to opaque movements and a throbbing head.
“Wake up, sleepyhead.” Stella wiggles her finger above my face, her midnight hair tied to the top of her head.
Stella has the aesthetic of a demonic goddess. Even during times when we should all look like shit. Like after fainting. “You were out even longer than I was.”
Rolling to the side, I push up from the ground with my palms. I’m still trying to brush away the fog from whatever the hellthatwas, when the lingering smell of ash and lavender lulls me awake.
War sits on a slab of concrete, with Mom directly beside him. The buzz of a tattoo gun draws my attention when she dips it into the same copper bowl we all drank from and brings it to his chest.
Stella squeezes my hand. “Look!” She turns her head to the side, exposing the EKC insignia on the side of her neck. Stella has no tattoos, but as per usual, she goes to the extreme. Things like slicing up a man’s face like she’s Scissorhands and getting her first tattoo on her neck. The familiar shading of a city built on top of a skull. It’s up to every generation what tattoos theydecide on, but they all have to match. I don’t remember what Dad’s is since all three of them have so many tattoos they look like a walking sketchbook.
“Where are you putting yours?” We both head to where Mom is. I once heard that she worked in a tattoo shop in her younger days, after running away from Dad for the billionth time and trying to start a new life in New Zealand. Her art is a sugary glaze of destruction. It’s still only her pieces that hang on the walls of the Castle.
“I don’t know.” I turn over my shoulder to find the concrete seats that were once filled with people, now empty. Our parents are chatting amongst each other with Pop and Nanna, and it’s not until my eyes swoop back ahead of me when I notice Priest motionless on the ground.
A merciless web of protectiveness fractures my heart as my feet instinctively move toward him, but hands catch my arm.
“Leave him,Amica. He will come out when it’s time.” Dad’s tone is gentle, the kind he only uses for me and Mom.
“What happened?” What if I said something I wasn’t supposed to?
His weak smile isn’t enough to bathe my fears. “I’m sorry,Amica.”
“Sorry for what?” I ask, but his back is already turned to me as he saunters back to Mom. “Sorry for what, Dad?” Everyone falls silent.
His arm laces around my mom’s waist as he finally turns back to me. “For what may come.”
War
