Chapter 27
I step back automatically. “Not possible.” Though the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me that it’s true, that it must be. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
“I’m afraid it is.” Nova folds her arms across her knitted sweater- vest. Red to match her pants and shoes.
“Daddy got a little frustrated with my ambitions and stuck me in the naughty corner. You see, back in the day, I did some research of my own.” She gives me a mocking smile.
“Did you know Danvers is still the largest site of magical residue in this country? All those ‘witches.’ I just needed to figure out how to access it. Between classes, of course. But then I do one little ritual to generate additional power, and Daddy flips out.”
“Please stop calling him that,” I say over the nausea turning in my stomach. I don’t know if it’s generational or indicative of some other twisted aspect of their relationship.
At her mention of ritual and power, I suddenly wonder if the girls who died, whose names are carved into this memorial stone, were part of her process. If that’s why my father bound her here, surrounded by these possessions.
“Did you kill those other girls?” I blurt.
Nova pauses, her forehead crinkling in confusion.
“Of course I did. How else do you perform a ritual to resurrect residual magic? I needed their energy. And their fear—that part was important, too,” she adds matter-of-factly, as if reciting frequently overlooked ingredients for her “special” brownie recipe or something.
Okay, so, no serial killer. Just my sister.
“I thought he would come back for me after he had time to calm down. He didn’t like that I was aiming for his job.” She rolls her eyes. “He’s gotten lazy. Sentimental. Only one plague in the last hundred years? It’s pathetic. He’s not even trying to compete with War.”
“What?” I croak.
“But instead, I guess he decided to start all over. With you.” She edges closer, right up to the metal corners of the typewriter—the frontmost boundary. I have no idea what ritual this is that’s holding her in place; something to do with death objects, maybe. But I don’t know.
There’s so much I don’t know. I feel like I’m falling, frozen in that endless moment of panic and anticipated pain that comes right before you smash into the ground.
But Nova, I bet Nova has answers.
She’s someone like me, someone exactly like me, who knows what it means to be Death’s daughter.
Yes, but she’s also a murderer, more than a little batshit, and seemingly pissed that I even exist.
“I wonder what he thought when you chose to come to school here,” Nova muses, staring at a point over my head. “Maybe he thought another daughter was turning against him.” She nods thoughtfully, her tongue caught between her teeth. “Yeah. I would have enjoyed seeing that.”
Her attention snaps back to me. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You’re here. Let me out. I’ll handle your little territory problem for you.”
Territory problem? I don’t know what my face is doing, but I can imagine when she huffs impatiently at me.
“Don’t look so surprised. Years of quiet and your sad little baby bites of magic, and then all of sudden death and magic and power spilling all over the place?
The spawn, they’re challenging you and you’re trying to claim Beecher to keep them out.
” She braces her hands against the invisible barrier to stare at me, and that painful twinge of magic grows stronger.
It sizzles like ice against an exposed nerve.
It doesn’t seem to bother her, though. Or maybe that’s what she wants me to think.
“That would make sense,” I say slowly. Instinct is screaming at me to keep my mouth shut. Telling her that Death’s succession planning skipped right over her seems like a very bad idea.
“But you don’t want it.” She points at me, stepping back to pace her tiny pen. “The territory or the responsibility.”
“How do you know that?” I ask, feeling oddly defensive, even though she’s right.
“Because you’re hiding from the magic, trying to pretend to be human.” She sniffs dismissively.
I hesitate for a moment, but it’s not a secret. “I just want everything to go back to normal.”
Nova tilts her head at me, as if I’ve finally said something that interests her.
“I can fix this,” she says slowly. “I’ll help you, if you let me out. Just give me your hand and pull me through. The barrier won’t keep you out, just me in.”
“Jo,” Devon says behind me, his tone taut. “We need to go. Now.”
I don’t turn to face him, but his shadow is cast on the wall in a new brightness. Another flashlight or his phone? I hope Chessa and Carter are still out by the van.
“I’ll chase off the other spawn, then I’ll leave Beecher for good. It’ll be all yours, promise. I’m never coming back to this place.” The sour turn of her mouth speaks to truth. “And I’ll keep dear old Dad off your back. Well, until he’s on his.” She laughs.
God, I hope she means by killing him. Of all the aspects the Old Ones theoretically have inspired in story and legend, particularly mythology, weird incest shit is one I hoped the humans had come up with on their own.
For a moment, though, I’m tempted by her offer. The thought of accepting makes my chest burn with longing, a match strike against the dry tinder of weariness and burden that I did not ask for.
I’m not stupid; letting her out would let loose a terror on this world. She would kill casually and at random.
But is that any different than what Death already does?
The fact that he was threatened by her probably spoke more to his insecurities than her flaws.
She should be the new Death. She’s clearly a far better fit for the role than I would be, even if she has to battle Death for the right.
Part of me would actually love to witness that particular power struggle. (From a safe distance.)
If I let her out and she follows through on her promise, Beecher would be safe, my home, my people would be safe. The only reason they were ever in danger was because Death trapped her here, starved her for fifty years, instead of just killing her. Or accepting that she could beat him.
In the distance, the sound of muffled conversation outside the mausoleum drifts toward me. Shit, someone else is here.
A shoe scrapes on the cement at the entrance to the mausoleum, and I tense. But it’s just Devon, moving to stand next to me. “We’re out of time,” he says quietly. He hesitates, then adds, “Don’t do it, Jo. He chose you for a reason.”
Nova stiffens. “Chose you? Who chose you? For what?”
Shit.
I don’t answer.
“Oh.” Nova makes a soft sound, more like the involuntary expulsion of air after a punch.
Here we go. I brace myself for an explosion, the earth shaking beneath my feet.
“Death. He named you as his successor.” Her expression cycles rapidly through confusion and disbelief before landing on icy rage.
“He did, yeah,” I admit.
On the other side of the barrier, I’m steeled for her fury, her loathing, her declaration of injustices done to her. Her loud bark of laughter catches me off guard. She clamps a hand over her mouth, shaking her head, then lets go, her whole body trembling silently with … hilarity. Apparently.
“He chose you? He could have had me, but he chose you instead? It’s just … have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?” She dabs her fingers at the corners of her eyes where tears shimmer. “I told you, he’s pathetic.”
I shift uncomfortably. Even though she’s not saying anything untrue, it still somehow feels insulting. Especially when it goes on and on and on …
Eventually, Nova settles herself back on the floor with one of those exhausted-sounding sighs that comes after a fit of the giggles.
“So, now what?” she asks, dabbing her nose with her sleeve.
“You’re going to take my life and my power for yourself?
Keep me from hurting anyone else.” She pitches her voice to a squeaky, mocking tone, like the do-gooder animated character everyone hates.
I was so ready for an attack, to defend myself, that it had never occurred to me that I might have to be the one trying to kill.
Nova stretches her arms over her head. “Of course, you’ll have to let me out to kill me.” She taps the barrier lightly, sending a painful shiver across my skin. “No power in or out.”
Disparate facts click into place in my head. No power in or out. That’s why I couldn’t claim Beecher. My power smashed into the barrier and rebounded right back into me. Like accidentally biting into an unpopped popcorn kernel.
Except …
I shake my head. “But you can reach through the barrier. You have. That’s how you were feeding.”
“I can. But I’m special, don’t you know?
The first.” Nova smiles up at me, her mouth curving with bitterness.
“He left me here with nothing but time and unfettered determination. But you, on the other hand, baby sis, I’m beginning to think that you are a whole lot of untapped potential wrapped in the sad little shell of a human wannabe.
” She reaches out and places her hands on the floor, on either side of the typewriter.
“And that’s just too bad. For you, I mean. ”
I start to step back but find I can’t move. My feet are pinned to the floor, and then slowly, like invisible tentacles wrapping around my calves, her power rises and begins to pull.
“Devon,” I say.
“I know. I feel it,” he answers, voice taut.
Through the ground. She’s somehow sending her power through the ground. What the hell? That shouldn’t be possible. Should it?
“Daddy really thought he had me,” she says conversationally, “pinning me in here, but he never took enough time to consider what innovation my desperation might lead to. I can’t leave, I can’t break the barrier, but learning to tunnel under it?
” The look of cold triumph on her face sends a chill over my skin.