Chapter 1 Funeral Pyre
FUNERAL PYRE
BAZ
Verfallen Asylum was still burning to the ground. Flames licked my skin like a warm tongue. Fire couldn't hurt me—genetic leftovers from my phoenix ancestry. The rubber soles of my boots, however, were beginning to melt as I watched from the patchy lawn.
Despite that, I wasn’t in a rush to peel myself off the ground and rejoin society.
It'd been hard to keep track of time inside, but if I had to guess, I’d spent about fifteen years behind the stone bricks of that collapsing penitentiary.
Maybe even closer to twenty now. I wasn’t sure how old that made me, only that I was probably too old to be properly socialized.
Then again, who’s to say a man like me could’ve ever been taught those types of things.
I was a killer, after all. Of animals, of friends, of strangers, and especially of family.
With that in mind, I pulled out the note my sister had written before washing me completely from her mind.
Wasn't that just adorable? Wipe your hard drive of all the family files.
Where could I sign up for that type of therapeutic memory loss?
Really though, who was going to be inappropriately obsessed with me now?
I stood up and walked closer to the violent heat. One last time, I read the line asking me to touch some grass, then I threw it towards the flames, watching the paper blacken and curl. Hadn’t even breached containment for ten minutes and, I had to say, wasn’t exactly enjoying the experience.
Suddenly, Nemo ripped me back, pulling me away from the inferno and across a hundred feet of weeds and dead grass.
That was dramatic. I rolled my eyes and tried to not fall on my ass as I was dragged.
He flung our bodies against a chainlink fence and began hauling me up and over.
Although he was more than capable of handling my dead weight, when the wire threatened to shred my mask, I looped my gloved fingers through the metal and climbed up on my own.
His arms brushed the sides of my body from behind, caging me in as if worried I’d fling myself back towards the asylum.
Pile of ash or not, I wasn’t looking forward to leaving my prison, and he knew that.
It didn't matter where I was—a mental hospital, or a family mansion—freedom had never been part of my life.
Leaving the asylum was going to isolate me more than staying would have.
I was freer in there than out.
At least there I had group therapy and cafeteria time. And when I happened to accidentally kill a few orderlies or misplace a couple bodies in my room? No one gave a shit.
I jumped down on the free side of the fence before Nemo leaped over, hacking on smoke that I breathed easily. I leaned against the fence while Nemo cleared his lungs. Other escaped inmates ran around the place like maniacs, ripping their clothes off and screaming at the moon.
This was going to be a shitshow. I sure hoped whatever little town we were hidden next to was prepared for the onslaught of hundreds of deranged, supernatural murderers. But let’s be serious, they were colossally fucked.
“Shit,” Nemo rasped. “I’m marking smoking off the list of things to try.
” I stared at him with surprise. Unlike me, he’d never experienced anything beyond those walls.
He’d been born in the basement, a science experiment that was half werewolf, half monster.
Right now, though, he only looked like a man.
Had he fantasized about what he might do outside of the asylum?
If so, he’d never told me about it. His lips were shiny with spit from coughing before he wiped them off and grabbed me.
My hands wrapped around his wrists while he fisted my jacket.
“What the fuck were you doing?” He snapped.
“Only saying goodbye. Why?” I asked. “Think I was trying to kill myself?”
“Your boots are melted,” he said. “I can smell the burnt rubber.”
“Just wanted to be the last one at the funeral. I was fine.” I shrugged him off. “And don’t worry, I’d never kill myself over a building.”
“Don’t kill yourself over anything.”
“Touchy. Look, if I haven’t grown suicidal by this point, I can’t imagine what would inspire me to do it now.”
“You were stalling.” He turned away, giving one last lung-clearing cough before his dark eyes slid to the burning building. Despite the blazing fire, the stone walls didn't waver. “A lifetime there, and I didn’t even know what it looked like from the outside.”
“Let’s stay a while to—”
“No,” he cut me off. Nemo looked down at his white scrubs with a curled lip, as if he wanted to immediately rip every reminder he’d lived there from himself.
I swallowed my words. For a long while, I’d insisted we stayed locked up when we could have broken out.
Had he dreamed of leaving? I groaned. I hated guilt. Thankfully, it was a very rare emotion.
“Orson has a car; they're waiting.”
We turned to leave, and I jumped away in shock from the man standing behind us. The chainlink rattled as my back hit it. The only thing immediately stranger than the man being entirely nude was that he was soaking wet. Hadn’t anyone told him this was a bonfire, not a pool party?
Nemo thrust his arm in front of me, pushing me harder into the fence. I clicked my tongue and sent him a harsh look. But the illogical idea that he’d protect a stranger made me quickly realize he wasn’t doing that at all. He was protecting me, not them.
When had we gone from attempted murders to white knighting?
Long, brown hair was plastered to the stranger’s gaunt cheeks and thin neck. Water dripped from his pointed chin and ran in rivulets down protruding bones. The scent of salt and rot wafted off him as he swayed in front of us, unbalanced on his feet.
He was as abnormally tall as Nemo but with sickly pale, green skin. Despite how wrong everything looked about him, it was obvious he was used to being intimidating. His striking expression bore into me with a sense of dominance. Well, wasn’t that cute?
“Basilisk,” the man said. I knew that voice. I’d heard it in my head, put there by a creature swimming behind glass. It couldn’t be the sea snake. If he could shift, why stay trapped in that sickening tank in the basement?
He collapsed onto the ground. His skin wasn’t just off-color, it was also the wrong texture. Patches of translucent, yellow scales were covering his face and body. He sucked in a breath of air, and it made his lips turn blue as if inhaling was causing him to slowly suffocate.
“I don’t have much time,” he rasped from the grass. His words were wet and gurgling. I looked at his ribs and saw gaping slashes. They were pale gills that blackened and dried as I watched them spread for nonexistent water, like a mouth widening for breath.
“I am dying.” His webbed, clawed fingers scratched a book he had in his hands.
“No shit.” I looked at Nemo. “It’s the massive sea snake. Levi.”
“The dragon?” Nemo asked. Levi gave a wet chuckle. His blue eyes reminded me of Bree’s, and I felt the strange urge to help him.
“Is there water nearby?” I asked, looking around. But all I saw were trees and a parking lot.
“Supra will come for you,” Levi said. “The one behind everything…” He began to cough, and turned to his side. Something thick and foul was spit up on the ground. It looked like a glob of gelatinous skin. The scent of rot increased, and Nemo covered his nose.
“You knew about Supra?” Nemo asked. Levi wiped his mouth.
“Before, I was…” He pointed at his chest, trying to find the words.
“I was his focus. Then the monster scientist. After him, there is the basilisk.” He sounded half mad, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was dying or because he’d gone insane in the basement.
A long, clawed finger tapped the book in his hands while he stared at me.
“He’s coming for you.” Well, I already knew that, but it seemed impolite to tell a dying man he was wasting his last words.
“Supra is coming for me?” I gasped, clutching my chest for extra measure. The least I could do was make the poor guy think he was imparting something important.
“Damien,” he rasped. Another big inhale. Now his whole body was turning blue.
“Wait, who?”
“He is Supra, and he will find you.”
“He can try,” I said. Levi grinned up at me as if he thought I was naive. I narrowed my eyes. “Why would he want me and not you, or Zero?”
“He is greedy. Always wants more. And you … You are his more, right now. Read this,” he gripped the book tighter. “So you know what you’re up against.”
“What does it say?” I asked.
“I can only guess. It's in French.”
“Sounds useful,” I said sarcastically, crouching down in front of him. “Final question: why do you care?”
“Snakes stick together?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah fucking right,” I responded. Levi smiled at me. Then his blue eyes began to glow in that preternatural rage I’d witnessed when he was a monster behind glass.
“I hope that you will be his death.”
“You want me to kill him for you?” I asked with disinterest.
“Do it for yourself,” he whispered. His skin darkened and his gills gaped so wide I could see inside him. He lifted his hand and pressed two fingers to his lips, kissing them.
“Bise,” he breathed, sending out the kissed salute. French. For a man who didn’t know French. Weird.
“Mhm, see you later,” I said. He died fast, but his body didn’t get the message. Bones crawled and skin bulged, seemingly desperate to turn itself back into being a sea dragon. Scales pushed out like seedlings.
“Great, now he’s moulting,” I said. Then it stopped as quickly as it started. What was left of him lay half-shifted by the fence, already cooling.
“He was old,” Nemo said. “You could see it in his eyes.” I reached over for the book in Levi’s hands.
“What do you think he meant?” I asked, running my finger down the binding. “All that about him, Zero, and me?”
“You’ve been warned twice about the same thing,” he said. “The people behind the asylum.”
“Not people.” I flicked open the leather cover. Inside, scrawled in looping cursive, was a name: Damien D'Bolique. “A person.”