7. Seraphina
7
SERAPHINA
“BUT DID YOU DIE?”
I’m heaving by the time I get back to the beginning of the hiking trail, my feet bruised and bloody and my mental state worse for wear. I want to stop, to rest, but I force myself onward, only allowing my pace to slow when the grass and rubble turns to concrete beneath my soles. As the lights of the city filter into the space the shadows once possessed, I finally allow myself to stop and catch my breath.
Not two seconds later, a feminine scream sounds off somewhere in the far distance, and my insides squirm. Two distinct pops fill the air, and the night returns to its deadly quiet. A deadly reminder of what could have happened to me.
I blow out a breath as the air around me sours. I wait several moments for police sirens I know will never come, then send out a short prayer to the gods above to help that poor soul cross over. It’s the only help she’ll be receiving…
Blinking hard against the emotion welling in my eyes, I pull my dagger from its sheath and continue my journey. I should go home, but after that interaction with the stranger, I need something to ground me. So, rather than head back to my apartment, I cut diagonally through the city toward the mountains on the northern outskirts of the city limits.
It takes well over an hour, but eventually I make it to the Moriton Mountain Preserve. I head straight to the back, passing through a small gap in the fence the park rangers never bothered to fix. I squeeze through a small space between the cypress trunks and deeper into the woods, my feet taking me down the overgrown path I know by heart.
Another hour, and I enter the small clearing at the base of the Moriton mountains. The autumn wind bites at my exposed flesh, and I stick my tongue out, tasting the moon-kissed air as it whips through my silvery hair. Stepping up to the wall of rock, I place my palm on the small indent at the level of my shoulder, then quickly step back as a panel of pure rock shudders open. Elvira isn’t expecting me tonight, so I hope she doesn’t freak out?—
Shwick!
I duck at the last second, just missing the dagger destined for my skull. A dull thunk rings out as it lodges into one of the cypresses behind me, and I straighten with a glare toward the shadowy person standing in the shadowy tunnel of rock. “Must we do this every time?” I grumble, eyeing the mossy green aura shifting around her in the dark.
The silver-haired woman steps into the moonlight, the green hue around her dulling as she leaves the shadow of the tunnel. The weathered skin around her mouth tugs upward as she lowers the second dagger to her side, eyes dancing with thinly veiled affection.
“Only if you keep insisting on sneaking in like a naughty teenager.”
I roll my eyes despite the laughter building in my chest, finally stepping into the passageway. Elvira pockets her dagger and steps in front of me, blocking me from moving any farther into the tunnel.
At the same time as she leans in to scour my face, she reaches out as if meaning to touch my arm. But right before she makes contact, she pulls back like something burned her. “You’re skin and bones. Haven’t you been eating?” Disapproving eyes take in my frame which has, admittedly, lost a few pounds since last I saw her.
I sigh, closing my eyes with a shrug. “When I remember to.”
“So that means no.”
I open my eyes, finding irises the color of bloodstone boring into my soul. “What?”
“Why are you here, Seraphina? And what on earth happened to your feet?”
I shrug again, not wanting to detail my strange encounter with the man by the lake. “Got drunk at the club. Couldn’t drive, so I had to walk here and… heels are a bitch?”
Elvira folds her hands over her chest, looking me up and down. “A weak excuse, but I won’t pry. Though, I do need an answer to my first question.”
I blink at her.
“ Why are you here?” she reiterates, her eyes creasing with worry. “Did something… did something bad happen with Ivan?”
I shake my head vehemently. “No, not at all. I just… I missed you guys.” Not a lie, but not the whole truth either.
A wave of relief washes over the old woman’s face as her aura explodes with color, but a moment later, it dies down, and her smile is replaced with her usual look of cold indifference. “Going soft on me, dove?”
I smile at her nickname for me, still finding humor in the irony all these years later. When I first met Elvira ten years ago, she lived on the streets like me. She took one look at the scrawny fourteen-year-old rummaging through the trash—covered in so much soot and grime that it colored my hair gray—and dubbed me her “little bird." At first, I found the name offensive, not realizing it was a term of endearment. Now, I covet it.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Vee. ” A small smile lifts my lips at the scowl my own nickname for her elicits. I pat her shoulder fondly before pushing past her into the passageway, and the door shudders closed behind us, shaking the walls of the stone walkway as we descend into the depths of the cliffside. After a few seconds, we step into a large circular foyer, the walls and floor of which are set in a deep, shimmering onyx. I blink rapidly to adjust to the light flickering from the iron sconces, breathing in the familiar scent of damp earth and stone.
“I missed this place,” I whisper, catching Vee’s eye over my shoulder.
“It’s only been a week.” She shakes her head with a low, husky chuckle as she hobbles toward the three colored doors at the end of the room, her walking cane tapping lightly against the stone floor. “I find it hard to believe you miss this old damp place that much.”
“Maybe it’s not the place I missed, but the people living in it.” I bump her shoulder with mine playfully.
Vee tuts, shoving me away with a sneer at the contact—though, I don’t miss the way her emerald eyes soften. “There you go with that nonsense again. Save it for the twins.” She pulls open the middle door, which is cast in a glimmering silver hue.
I’m thrown backward off my feet as a thousand pounds of pure fluffy predator barrels into my chest. A scream falls from my lips, though it morphs into a full-bellied laugh a moment later as Sviato, my male tiger, drags his tongue across my cheek. His sister Savyne begins kneading my belly as I lay sprawled on my back, her great weight pushing out the last of the air in my body.
“A little help?” I choke, looking at Vee for assistance as Sviato lays his massive head across my windpipe.
Vee shakes her head with a scoff. “You made your bed, Seraphina. I warned you not to coddle them so when they were cubs.”
Savyne chuffs low in her throat as if in agreement with the cranky old woman, then plops down across my stomach, nuzzling her face against my chest with a force strong enough to leave bruises.
“Must your love be so violent?” I reach up to play with her fuzzy black-tipped ears. Sviato grumbles jealously at the contact, flicking his one good ear back against his skull as he narrows his eyes at his sister. The other stump of an ear twitches slightly, and Savyne reaches a paw up and bats it as if mocking her brother for the missing appendage.
“Hey! That’s not nice!” I bop Savyne’s nose lightly with my forefinger. She rears back with a look like I insulted her ancestors, pressing down with more of her weight on my chest.
Sviato growls unhappily, rearing up to swat his sister off. She bounds away with a flick of her fluffy white tail, looking over her shoulder with her fangs slightly bared. I give Sviato a few scratches, then he bounds after his sister, batting at the tip of her tail playfully—all earlier indiscretions forgotten.
I roll my eyes with a breath of laughter as I roll to my stomach, heaving in a breath as I push to my feet. “I thought they would never get off.”
“But did you die?” Vee grins, pulling open the green-tinted left door. I shake my head, pursing my lips as she chuckles loudly. “Then I don’t see the use in complaining. Come on, dove, let’s get some meat on those scrawny little wings.”
I follow Vee through the door and down a narrow passageway encased in the same glittering onyx as the circular foyer. We pass by two stone-colored doors on the left—a storage for canned goods and Vee’s personal alchemy chamber—before coming into the large open space we’ve dubbed as the living quarters. A small kitchenette rests in the far-right corner, taking up just as much space as the three large meat freezers adjacent to it.
A rust-orange couch lies in the center of the room, positioned a few feet back from Vee’s VCR player, which is currently blasting Casablanca on full volume. My eyes catch on the rubber duck lying on top of the TV set, a smile brushing my lips as I take in the sunglasses and pink bikini adorning its chest.
“You have a new favorite?” I turn my gaze from the duck to where Vee bustles around the kitchen. She stops what she’s doing and looks up, a chuckle shaking her chest as she realizes what I’m talking about.
“Oh, that? No, I just ran out of room on the bookshelf.” She points at the oak bookcase taking up the entirety of the left wall. It is—in fact—filled to the brim with tiny rubber ducks, their outfits ranging anywhere from a green pirate with an eyepatch to a cowboy complete with a hat and revolver. My favorite, though, is the pure black duck sitting at the center of the shelf, its beady eyes seeming to stare at me through the walls of its glass case.
I was fourteen when I learned of Vee’s obsession with the plastic fowl. When you live on the streets, it's smart to only keep possessions that assist with survival—blankets, scraps of food, sharp or pointy things for protection—yet Vee had insisted on carting around a plastic trash bag full of the rubber ducks. The way she protected them reminded me so distinctly of a mother goose with her babies. But when I brought it up to Vee, her eyes turned so sad that I decided to never speak of the plastic oddities again.
That is, until I found the onyx-colored duck on one of my evening dumpster dives. I’d been living with Vee for only a week, but something in me said she would love this little treasure. When I presented it to her, a rare smile tugged at her skin, and she wasn’t even angry that the only food I managed to salvage was a half-eaten chicken sandwich.
Since then, she’s taken extra special care of that duck, going so far as to buying the glass case that costs a hundred times more than the piece of trash could ever be worth. I asked her why once, but she just laughed, patting my knee in a rare display of affection.
“You’ll understand when you’re old and weary like me, Dove,” she said, her bloodstone eyes shimmering with emotion. “When gravity pulls unkindly at your bones and all your friends are dead, your family and pets returned to the earth… it’s then when we realize how much the little things mattered.”
I pull my gaze from the wall of trinkets and join Vee in the kitchen, finding her bent over a frying pan. “Whatcha cookin’, good lookin’?”
Vee waves me away with a disgruntled huff, expertly flipping the omelet she managed to scrounge up in the thirty seconds I was admiring the ducks. “Don’t bother me while I’m working, girl,” she huffs, sliding the fluffy half circle of egg onto a cracked porcelain plate.
I grab the plate from her hands gratefully, using my fingers to get the omelet into my mouth as Vee looks on with a mix of disgust and shock. “Who told you it was okay to eat like a starved shrew? Really now, Seraphina.” She shoves a fork at me, and I just grin, horking down the rest of the egg mixture before she has a chance to do anything about it.
“Seraphina May Valez!”
I swallow the mammoth of a bite, grinning at her cheekily. “What? I didn’t want to waste a dish.”
Vee shakes her head, shuffling toward the couch and plopping down with a sigh. “Are you staying the night?” she asks, all earlier disapproval forgotten as she nestles into the cushions and gets ready to watch her shows.
I really should be heading back into the city to my apartment so I can prepare for my meeting with Ivan tomorrow. But just as the thought passes, Savyne climbs onto the back of the couch, giving me a look like, Well? Aren’t you coming?
With a resigned sigh, I sit down on the seat at the other end of the couch, making room for Sviato to somehow position his massive body between Vee and me on the center cushion. I lie back, rubbing my eyes as a yawn threatens to take hold. Vee was right—I hadn’t been eating—and now that my belly is full and I’m relaxing with three-quarters of my family, I can’t deny how tired I am.
How long has it been this time? Three days? Four?
Time blurs together during the really bad bouts of insomnia, and the longer I try to make out how long it’s been since I last slept, the more my head pounds. I focus on emptying my mind, dulling my sense of my surroundings as I pretend to pay attention to the black-and-white film blaring from the VCR.
I settle further into the cushions, breathing in a deep breath as I allow my eyes to close. Just for a second. I’ll only rest my eyes for a minute, and then I’ll get right back to watching Vee’s show. I’ll get right back to it in just a few more minutes.
Just a few… a few more…. a few…
I fall into a dream, except the dream feels a lot like a memory.
And it’s not even a memory, but a nightmare.
The vision takes root, pulling me apart and pressing my parts together into a mangled mass of flesh, blood and bone. Crows circle above, beady black eyes pinned on my skull— cracked open like a ripened melon to reveal the stinking, rotting brains within.
Worms. They whisper. Tasty, juicy worms.
A small crow streaked with silver-tipped feathers lands on the yellowed grass nearby, its beak open wide and coming closer.
Closer.
Closer.
CO
LS
E
R
And it’s not even a beak, but a mouth rimmed with hundreds of pointy, serrated teeth. Teeth for biting. Teeth for tearing.
Its eyes swell to the size of dinner plates, then shrink down to pinpoints, all the while the slurping, salivating mouth draws nearer.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please don’t.”
“ Please, please, please. ” It mocks in a voice that belongs to someone else. “ Please don’t. Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll do ? —”
“SERAPHINA!”
I wake in a frenzied daze, my vision hazy and a sheen of sweat coating my exposed skin, seeping into the couch cushions. I desperately try to blink away the fog, and my gaze locks onto Elvira’s face, desperate to hold on to something concrete.
“Where am I?” I whisper, my vocal cords scratching against sandpaper with every word. “What day is it?”
“It’s midnight.” Vee’s bony shoulders go taut with concern. She even goes so far as to place a hand on my forehead, the rare moment of contact causing me to jump. “You were having a dream.”
“I was having a nightmare, ” I correct, caught between the desire to shove her hand from my itchy skin or pull her closer. “I’m fine now,” I murmur, the former winning out as I brush her hand aside.
“Is it the same one?” Vee’s aura deepens to a green that’s practically black as I nod. “When’s the last time you slept, Seraphina?”
“Come on, Vee. You know I don’t keep track of those kinds of things?—”
“How. Long?”
“Ninety-two hours.” I sit up straighter, focusing intently on the film still blaring from the television. “Not the worst my insomnia’s been.”
“It’s also not the best.” Vee leans closer, her orange-flecked eyes taking in my profile intently. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have ground you up some Valerian root tincture.”
“Eh. You know how that stuff gives me the tummy rumbles.” I wave her off with a chuckle that sounds more forced than I intended.
“Seraphina…”
“I’m fine, Vee.” I move to stand from the couch when Vee’s grip on my arm stops me.
“Seraphina, please ,” she whispers, her eyes filling with a deep sadness. “Let me help you.”
I think about refusing for a moment, but the raw look in her bloodstone eyes has my words dying in my throat. “Okay.” I rest my shoulders back against the cushions. “Okay. I’ll take some of that tincture.”
Vee rushes out of the room toward her alchemy chamber, reappearing only a minute later with a hissing purple liquid. I scrunch my nose as she shoves the dropper toward my mouth, and I take a deep gulp of air to steady myself before opening my mouth and letting the tincture coat my tongue.
I fight the gag that tries to force its way out as I choke down the awful, bitter liquid, dutifully ignoring Vee’s little chuckles as she sits front row to my struggle.
“Better?” A smirk tugs at her mouth as my eyelids begin to droop against my will. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
I only manage a weak nod as I fall sideways onto Sviato, barely registering as Vee places a handknit blanket over my shoulders to tuck me in for the night. I close my eyes, pretending to be asleep as Vee rustles around the space before retiring to her bedroom.
As soon as I’m sure she’s gone, my eyes pop back open, and it’s an intense battle against the drugs coursing through my veins. But even as sleep tugs at my consciousness, whispering sweet nothings to lull me into its clutches, I resist.
Because it’s better to go without sleep than risk having the same cursed nightmare twice.