Chapter 21
I jerk to a stop, breath catching in my throat.
Then, pushing down instinctual panic and the urge to run in the opposite direction, I force myself forward, toward the tree and the strange material beneath it.
The bit that’s moving in the breeze is most definitely arm-and hand-shaped. In fact, on the forearm portion, I can see the faint outline of ink. A tattoo. It’s not distinct enough for me to read it, though.
“It looks like skin,” Devon says with disgust. “A shed skin.”
He’s right; it looks as though someone shook loose the outer layers of their skin. Now that I’m closer, I can pick out the shape of a leg and a foot in the heap, even the intricate whorls of an ear.
Clothes lie nearby, an ice-encrusted sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.
Boots, one flipped sideways and the other still upright.
Under normal circumstances, I would assume they’d been tossed out of a moving car as a prank or forgotten on a vehicle roof and fallen off.
But in this moment, the abandoned clothes only add to my growing sense of dread.
I edge around the base of the tree, trying to wrap my head around what I’m seeing.
The skin is grayish, flaking, and light—light enough to be carried on a breeze until it wrapped itself around a tree, like a discarded shopping bag.
Within the husk, small bright white fragments remain, reflecting the weak sunlight.
It takes me a moment—and a flashback to high school anatomy—to recognize one of those small pieces as the rounded portion of a ball joint.
Bones. The bright white bits are bone.
I clap a hand over my mouth, fight against the urge to vomit.
What is this? From what I can see, the skin is whole. Not torn. Oh, and also, normal humans don’t shed their skin. Not like this. And they sure as hell don’t disintegrate their own bones.
Is this part of whatever spawn has been killing people?
The bloop-bloop of a siren at the far end of the street reminds me we’re on a timeline. Once all the other students clear out of here, someone will notice us.
I bend down and gingerly extend a finger to touch the … thing. It feels like dried out skin, just a little thicker than what you might remove after a bad sunburn.
When I yank my hand back, with the intention of scrubbing my hand on my legging, the husk crumbles instantly, scattering the bits of bone across the frozen ground.
Shit.
I pick out one of the bone fragments—it’s a duller white than the snow so it stands out in contrast. But it, too, disintegrates as soon as I pinch it between my fingers, leaving only a chalky residue.
As if all the nutrients, all the life has been drained right out of it. Like a kid sucking the air out of a water bottle until it twists up and crumples in on itself.
Not possible. This is not possible. Chills skitter across my skin. This looks a lot like Death. But Death on steroids or something. My father never bothered with the physical body, just tore life from humans when needed or when he felt like it.
This is different. But not different enough that it could be War or Sanguine or any of the other Old Ones or their spawn.
But I am the only child of Death.
And Death is not here.
“Jo,” Devon says, cutting into my thoughts. “I think that’s another one over there.” He points across the street to where another vaguely human-shaped husk flaps against the cemetery’s wrought iron fence. A pile of bright blue fabric lies in a heap next to it.
“Yeah,” I manage.
If students are missing, as Kenzie said, I have a very bad feeling about where they might be.
Dizziness swarms me, a thousand buzzing bees waiting to sting.
I don’t know how Death plans to transfer power to me.
Maybe he already has, without my knowledge.
It’s possible; I have no idea what that would look like or feel like.
And my control, never perfect to begin with, might not have been able to handle that sudden influx. What if this is the result?
That you’re killing people, eating them like a giant sucking marrow from teeny-tiny bones in some kind of twisted fairy tale come to life?
I can’t breathe. My lungs are locked in the shallow grave of my chest, and they can’t expand enough to bring in the oxygen I need.
It’s a panic attack, another one.
I kneel on the ground, letting the ice-encrusted grass burn through the thin layer of fabric covering my knees. The seeping cold is an immediate—and uncomfortable—distraction.
Devon crouches down next to me, his hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
That I’m not must be clearly written on my face, because he reaches down and catches my cold hand in his. I brace for the surge of his power, like before, the warmth of lust swirling through me.
But this time, it’s just his hand in mine, a steadying warm comfort.
A reminder of what it means to be accepted for who I am. That I can be powerful and incredibly vulnerable and a mess at the same time. I might be a monster to my friends, but I’m also still me.
“It’s okay,” Devon says. “You’re okay.”
He says it over and over again, patiently waiting.
After a moment, the tightness in my chest eases, and I can pull in the needed air.
He nods encouragement at me, and I want to cry.
No. Not allowed.
“Let’s keep going.” I stand. I need to see what’s happening in the cemetery, if that’s the source—
“Dev!” A voice calls after us.
We turn in unison to see Aadesh hurrying down the stairs of the Theta Iota porch toward us. “Aadesh, what are you still doing here?” Devon asks.
I shift to one side, blocking Aadesh’s view of where the husk was, though there’s nothing left to see, really.
Aadesh reaches us, out of breath in his hurry.
“We can’t find Jack. I’m hanging posters.
” He holds up a stack of pages in his hand and a roll of clear tape in the other.
“Jack’s mom is freaking out. He was supposed to call home for his sister’s birthday last night, but he didn’t.
His phone is going straight to voicemail, and no one has seen him since he left to take the trash out yesterday afternoon. ”
I remember that. Desh asked me yesterday if I’d seen him. With a sinking heart, I realized we had two more pieces of the puzzle that might go together.
“Did, uh, did Jack have a tattoo by any chance? On his arm…” I pause, trying to figure out which side of the arm we saw on the husk. “Between his wrist and his elbow?” I say finally. That would work either way, I guess.
Aadesh frowns at me. “Yeah. It’s our crest. So you did see him?”
Fuck. I shake my head. “No.” It’s not exactly a lie. I haven’t seen Jack. Just what’s left of him.
“Oh.” Aadesh’s forehead crumples in confusion. “Okay?”
“We’re in the middle of something, but if you give me a few minutes, I can help,” Devon says, shooting me a questioning glance.
“No, it’s okay, you can go now,” I say.
“Jo, no,” Devon says.
“I’ll be fine. Right across the street.”
Aadesh looks back and forth between the two of us, as if watching a sporting event for which no one has explained the rules.
“The cemetery? Why?” he asks finally. “I’m pretty sure it’s off limits because of the sinkhole.” He nods toward the cluster of emergency vehicles and personnel.
“Research project,” I say at the same time Devon says, “Photography final.”
I offer Aadesh a casual shrug. “Need some photos for my final research project before I leave campus.”
I’m not leaving, but I don’t want to offer any incentive or example for anyone else to stay.
“Oh, okay,” Aadesh says uncertainly. I’m hoping he doesn’t question exactly what kind of research project I might be doing in a graveyard for a psychology class. “But aren’t we supposed to stay away from—”
“Come on,” Devon says, crossing the grass and taking the tape from Aadesh. “Let’s get these hung up so you can go home.” He claps Aadesh on the back, and I see the tension release from Aadesh’s body, replaced by a relaxed looseness that speaks to comfort and ease.
Aadesh beams at Devon. “Thanks, bro. I appreciate it. You’re such a great guy. Has anyone told you that?”
“You know, I think I’ve heard that a time or two,” Devon says, leading Aadesh away.
The secondary cemetery gate on the far side is closed but not locked. It opens with a shrill metal-on-metal squeal. I grimace and check to see if anyone is looking in my direction. But everyone in the street is still focusing on whatever is going on behind the barricade.
The cemetery in the middle of Old Campus is a bit of a Beecher oddity.
The church that once stood here was the focus of life in Beecher in the 1600s.
It’s been gone for ages, but the accompanying land passed from one owner to another until Beecher—at the time Beecher Women’s Teaching College—bought it.
The only condition was that the graves had to stay.
So Beecher University grew up around the graveyard, like skin growing over an embedded pencil tip from where that kid Dylan stabbed you in second grade.
The newest graves are on this side. An alum who became a huge donor in the 1950s—I should know his name.
Dr. Kelleher is always going on about finding “this generation’s blah blah” in reference to him.
The first university president is buried here, too.
And his dog. The most recent—and last—is from the seventies, and it isn’t a grave at all but some kind of memorial in the form of a giant empty mausoleum.
More an art piece for lives lost too soon than anything else.
Because that’s when the city sort of lost its shit about the university running its own unsanctioned and unregulated graveyard in the middle of a bunch of college kids, living, eating, and drinking the water.
Eventually, the university built new buildings on the other end of campus, shifting away from the graveyard.
All of which makes this odd little cemetery the perfect place to be ground zero for whatever is going on, especially if it’s somehow related to Death. Or me.
I skirt around the newer graves on this side. They seem mostly untouched, the ground maybe a little more raised up in places, like a blanket under which a sleeping body has shifted position.
I shudder at the mental image, heading directly to the older section where the original settlers were once buried.
Here, the sandstone grave markers are thin and sharp at the edges, worn by weather and time.
Several of them are now on the ground, in pieces, and the earth has been torn open in deep runnels that reach right out into the road, where the asphalt is lifted up.
Nothing here looks like someone crawled out of a grave—most of those stories about being buried alive or vampires rising from the dead came from the Old Ones or their spawn.
If injured severely enough, it takes time to heal and recover, especially for spawn but even for the Old Ones.
Unfortunately, if the good townsfolk are a little too quick to bury you, well, that’s what you get for almost dying in the old days, I guess.
But while the grass is torn and the earth rumpled like a bedsheet after a weekend bender, there’s nothing person-sized.
Also, four hundred plus years would be a long time for recovery.
“All right. I’m here,” I say. “What do you want?”
“I can feel you.” I turn slowly in a circle. “If you want me, I’m standing right here.” My hands tighten into fists, the tension rising in me. “Stop being such a coward and going after human kids who have no way to fight back.”
Above my head, the crows resettle themselves with a dramatic and surprisingly loud flutter of wings, startling me.
But nothing else moves, and there is no other response.
Frustration burns in my chest. “Let’s go, asshole,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m tired of this.” My throat aches with the need to shout at my invisible foe. But I can’t risk drawing the attention of the authorities in the street.
This time, that twinge of magic flexes, growing stronger for just a second, in response. But it fades to that same background baseline just as quickly as it started. So quickly that I wonder if I imagined it.
But no. Instead, I’m pretty sure I’m being taunted. Like a bully on a playground giving you a little shove as he passes by to remind you of your place.
Fine. They want to play? Let’s play.
I flip the edges of Carter’s coat out of the way and drop to my haunches in the narrow open area between the old graves and the new section of the cemetery.
Taking a deep breath to squelch my remaining misgivings, I close my eyes and focus on the borrowed warmth and life inside me—my power.
I imagine it swirling around in that same sunny yellow vibrancy that I pictured all those years ago, when my father first taught me how to feed. How to kill.
I reach my hand out, locking my fingers into the frozen blades of grass, my knuckles pressing into the ground.
Then I push. Just like I tried to push life into Izzy. I visualize the yellow light flowing from me, a direct line down my arm and into the ground.
Beecher is mine. This territory is mine. Beecher is mine. This territory is mine.
Oddly, after all my fears and hesitation, claiming the territory and repeating those words silently to myself, feels right. Like this is what I’m supposed to be doing.
A sensation of movement starts up within me, and it is accompanied by the cool absence of the departing power, which makes me shiver.
It’s working!
The thought barely has time to flash through my mind before the flow stops, abruptly, sending power rippling back toward me.
It rebounds into me with sizzling force, knocking me over and snapping the connection.
I land on my back on the ground, hard, knocking the air out of my lungs. My arm, from my shoulder to my fingertips, is numb and tingling. It’s a version of what I would imagine grabbing an electric fence would feel like.
“What do you want from me, motherfucker?” I shout when I can breathe again, no longer caring who can hear me. I kick my heels against the ground, as if it’s to blame and this is the only retaliation I can manage. Which is closer to the truth than I’d like.
“None of this looks particularly magical,” a voice says dryly. “Or effective.”
I freeze. I know that voice. I’ve heard it in my ear, in breathy words against my throat, in whispers licked into my belly. Because while the man is a tightly wound control freak, get him into a closet and he goes down like he wants to live there.
And about an hour ago, I thought I would never hear it directed at me again.
I sit up.
“Carter?”