Chapter 17 #2
“We obviously let other things through!” she hisses, looking back up at me with fury blazing in her eyes.
But I can see the fear underneath it. “It was us. We’re the reason for the crack in the planes.
Sabra’s mother’s prophecy was about us, don’t you get it?
What we did to stop the Devourers has also let other spirits through into this world. ”
I start to shake my head in automatic denial but then pause to actually think about it.
Because a lot of the conspiracy sites I’ve been tracking online have mentioned other disturbances lately.
Strange things, like monsters made out of rock who disappear into the shadows at night.
Or evil women who seduce men and drain their souls out of their bodies, leaving them as shriveled husks.
But I just assumed it was woman-hating incel bullshit taken to the next level with people’s heightened paranoia since the Devourers came.
I look around the room at the uncanny precision of the dismembering. I can’t imagine anything human strong enough to pull a body apart with such disturbing exactitude. “What does the missing heart mean? Is there anything you know of from another plane that would do something like that?”
“The mages have barely mapped any of the other planes, much less used their instruments to look through to the other side to see what lives there.” Her voice is tight with frustration. “You know that.”
I nod slowly, but I’d hoped for something more concrete.
I don’t know what I hoped, exactly. I just hate seeing Phoenix so distressed.
I hate even more that she’s blaming herself for this.
“You were trying to stop the end of the world,” I say as I reach out a hand to help her as she tiptoes among the body parts back to the doorway.
She ignores my outstretched hand completely.
“I should have found a better way.” Her voice is small in a way I’ve rarely heard.
“There was no time. And it wasn’t all up to you, if you’ll remember. The danger came from the angels in the first place. If anyone’s at fault, it’s someone from my plane.”
“Well,” she hunches her shoulders inward like she’s trying to make herself smaller, “then I went and got a hero complex about it and fucked things up even worse.”
I scoff at that and hold my arms out to gesture at the world outside the window. “The planet’s still here. How is that worse?”
Her eyes squeeze shut, and briefly, I see emotion flicker across her face.
Pain. Self-judgment. A thousand other things she never usually lets me see.
I want to pull her into my arms and let her know that, for once, someone else is here to help shoulder her burdens.
It’s dangerous to want that, but I don’t like seeing her in pain all the same.
I try words instead since she won’t let me touch her.
“You aren’t alone in this,” I whisper, taking a step closer to her.
But that only makes her eyes flash open with a fury I can’t understand. “You have no idea what I am.” The words come out sharp, but there’s something broken underneath them. She shoulders her way past me toward the door. “I have to fix this.”
I follow her out into the hallway. “How exactly are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to find whatever did this and send it back where it came from.”
“Did you find some clue in there that I missed?”
Our feet leave red tracks on the tile hallway. Phoenix doesn’t notice until one of the adoring policemen she used her compulsion on earlier offers to exchange shoes with her. Phoenix looks down at her boots with an expression of distaste.
Irritated, Phoenix wipes her feet off on a student’s welcome mat outside their dorm room. She orders the policeman to clean it and the hallway up. The man nods eagerly and rushes off to find cleaning supplies.
“Besides the fact it was a non-human who did it? No.” She looks away from me, and I see her jaw tighten. “The scent of blood was too overpowering for me to pick up anything else.”
I nod in understanding. The overwhelming presence of it to a blood magic being must have been like trying to see through a fog.
“All the blood itself was a clue, though,” she says as we keep walking down the hallway toward the stairs.
“Blood isn’t just symbolic of human life in various religious contexts.
” She lets out a long sigh. “For some spirits on the other side, it can be a tether. Like a source of energy that also ties them to this plane.”
I frown as I process this information. “Is that what Sabra and her mage friends told you?”
She waves a frustrated hand in the air between us. “Let’s just call it a bit of family lore and leave it at that.”
I want to ask more questions but don’t push. Instead, I focus on the case at hand. “So you think the blood helped give the spirit passage through from the other side?”
Phoenix bites her lip in that way she does when she’s thinking hard about something.
She gives the briefest nod. “It’s a possibility.
In the other planes, they don’t always understand what this realm is or how it works.
But human blood and the energy of bloodletting—and the soul that ebbs from the body at death—provides a huge amplification of spirit energy.
It’s why blood sacrifice was so popular in ancient religions across different cultures. ”
“Whoa,” I say, following her thought processes, connections snapping together. “One of the reasons you think your professor might be onto something with his theories?”
Her expression softens slightly. “Yes. I think there was power in the blood, as they used to say, and it was more than just metaphoric. It fed the spirits who’d come from other realms, strengthening their ties to this one and feeding their power.
The more worshippers they had, the more temples, the more blood sacrifices they could demand. ”
I nod as we start down the stairs. “That’s dark. Getting humans to do your dirty work for you.”
“Yeah, well.” She huffs out a breath as her boots echo on the concrete steps. “The spirits didn’t exactly have a conception of the worth of human life, did they? Just like humans don’t consider much about the lives of the cows they slaughter to eat.”
I have to acknowledge the truth in that. “Fair point.”
“Most spirits previously spent their lives in intangible darkness on other planes. Matter often works differently in those places. They became wild and greedy once they got here and were able to manifest physical bodies for the first time.”
“Sounds to me like you’re the one who could give the Professor a lecture on this topic.”
We’re at the bottom of the stairs when Phoenix spins on me. “What is with you?” There’s genuine confusion in her voice now along with the irritation. “You keep bringing him up. I thought you’d be excited to hear his theories validated.”
I don’t want to look like a jealous bastard. I really don’t want to put any more pressure on Phoenix and this pretense of a marriage we’re trapped in.
“Nothing,” I say with a smile I hope looks genuine as I hold up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m just wary of outsiders knowing our business.”
The hard line of her mouth doesn’t budge. Her eyes search my face for something. “Well, I suggest you get over it because I think we should call him and ask for his input.”
“What?” This does surprise me genuinely. “You can’t do that.”
It’s apparent she doesn’t like me telling her what she can or can’t do.
I gesture back up the stairs toward where we just came from. “You just said no human could have done that.”
“He doesn’t have to know specific details about the crime scene,” she says with exaggerated patience.
“But he’s more familiar with all the various factions of ancient religions that were active back in the day.
He might have a clue about the first great exile and if there’s some sort of weakening or opening in the planes. ”
“Maybe that’s true. I guess that makes sense.” I’m trying to be reasonable even though I don’t like it. “But isn’t it equally possible this could be a completely new spirit we’ve never encountered before. We should call Sabra first and see if she sees anything we missed with her magical sight.”
Phoenix bites her lip again. “Maybe you’re right.”
I frown because I can’t help myself. Is it just me, or does she really want to bring the Professor in on this investigation?
“Look, I’ve seen something like this before,” she says, and her voice has gone quieter.
More vulnerable. “My mother was possessed by an ancient goddess while she was pregnant with me. One who was trying to break back into this world. She was pissed she’d been kicked out of this plane and killed a lot of people on her quest to get back in. ”
“What?” I’m genuinely shocked by this revelation. “You never told me that.” We spent so much time together and she never told me. I thought we were so close.
“What happened? How did your mother kick the goddess out of her body?”
Phoenix swallows and looks at the ground. “Apparently I did. When I was born.”
I can only stare at her. No wonder she knows so much about spirits in the dark and what they want. And no wonder she’s so afraid of what they just let through.
“Yeah. Well.” She looks away from me. “It’s another reason I wanted to study with Professor Rossi. I think I finally identified who possessed my mom based on his research. And I want to make sure we’re all on guard in case she tries to come back again.”
“Fuck, Phoenix, why didn’t you tell me that sooner?” I take a step toward her. “Is that why you’re different from Vlad? The goddess changed you somehow?”
“What?” She looks surprised by my question, and a little bit of color comes into her pale cheeks.
“Oh. No. That was just a coincidence. Sort of. The other goddess could sense there was spirit activity and blood magic going on with my family and got interested in us because of it. It’s why she chose my mom.
Anyway.” She waves a hand dismissively and looks away from me again.
She starts walking with a firm stride out of the building as she pulls out her phone. No doubt to text the Professor again.
“You don’t think this is her work, do you?” I point back up toward where we came from.
“No,” she says with certainty in her voice. “That goddess preferred to explode people’s heads from the inside out, but she left the rest of the body intact and whole.”
Again, I’m left chasing after Phoenix’s retreating back as she walks quickly toward the car.
But this time, I’m also trying to process everything she just told me.
A goddess possessed her mother while pregnant with her.
Phoenix has been researching ancient deities.
And she’s been carrying this fear alone, maybe for a long time.
I catch up to her at the car. “Phoenix, wait.”
She pauses with her hand on the door handle but doesn’t turn around.
“Thank you for telling me. About your mother. I know that couldn’t have been easy.”
Her shoulders tense for a moment. Then she opens the car door. “Yeah, well. Now you know I take this seriously.”
“I always knew you took it seriously,” I say softly. “I just didn’t understand why until now.”
She finally looks at me over the roof of the car. There’s something in her expression I can’t quite read. “We should go. I need to call Sabra and probably your brothers too. If spirits are coming through, we need to know what we’re dealing with.”
I nod and get into the passenger seat. As she starts the car, I watch her profile. The determined set of her jaw. The worry lines between her eyebrows that won’t smooth out.
I wish she’d let me help carry some of this weight she’s put on her own shoulders. But I’ll settle for being here beside her while she figures out how to save the world again.
Even if she won’t admit she needs me.