Vex (2 page)

Demetri extricates himself from the crowd, stands shoulder to shoulder with Logan. He raises his hands over his head and ignites a hard clap.

A choir of voices breakout—deep and resonant.
“I am an immortal. Flesh and bones and such as these are not tethered to my soul—”

I glance up to see if Logan is moving his lips—to see if he’s memorized this incantation.

His eyes are glazed over with passion. Logan’s voice is prominent in the crowd as though he were leading the chant himself. He cuts a cold steely look right through me. It nauseates me, fills me with disdain for someone I would have trusted with my soul just moments before I entered these woods.

I give a hard callous look.

I want him to know that I have seen the enemy—one that I hate far more than Demetri Edinger, and his name is Logan Oliver.

Chapter Two

The Stars in the Sky 

Numberless stars spark against soft purple velvet. I tune out the witchcraft around me and feel the dizzy spin of time and space as I lock my gaze on a motionless night.

Large spirals of light dance across the universe. They sway like frozen tendrils unfurling their fiery glory. I want to be with them, ignite in flames just to share in their eccentric beauty.

They say the only way you can truly kill a Celestra is by fire. I would gladly lend myself to the flames to peer down eternally over this sinful disgrace of a planet that houses cowards such as these.

A smoldering flame of hatred fans deep inside my soul. Gage would never let this happen. He would never hold up a knife and chant while thinking about the places to cut me best—strategizing about how to make me bleed in front of strangers, and enemies, and the man who elicited the death of my father.

Logan has become a traitor of the highest order. Under the guise of a peppermint moon, he professes his wickedness, resolves his desire to slaughter me. The fact I’m going to kill him one day galvanizes itself like a brand over my heart.

Something stirs inside me as I let my rage for him percolate in a vat of loathing. A strange hum pulsates through my bones, agitates the cells that govern my body. I begin to gyrate, flex in and out of the stone as though it were malleable.  

A gasp emits from one of the girls, and the assembly ceases its steady stream of movement.

“Skyla, no!” Logan warns as if I would ever listen, as if I could control what’s happening.

I think of my father, of Marshall, the moon, the Landon house, which until tonight I had dubbed traitor central.

The stone begins to spin. I rotate slow and steady on its surface as though I were on a carrousel, bound in traction at the mercy of some unknown source.

I hear screams—an echo of
holy shit.

“Skyla!” Logan is panicked.

I must be doing this. My hate for him acts as fuel. I’m going to launch myself like a missile off this God-breathed rock and hopefully squash them all like bugs from the effort.

I focus in on Logan’s horrified expression. I let the others whir by in a dizzying blur and keep my eyes fixated on him in an effort to hone my anger into a perfect brew of hatred.

The stone spins at demonic speeds. I’m going to be sick. Projectile vomiting is a very real possibility right about now, and I let out a scream that my father can hear in his grave back in L.A.

The world dips in and out of focus.

The sky showers down its stars. The screams from the crowd blend together in one horrific roar.

I think of the Transfer that houses all those long glass caskets. The blue liquid swills in my mind, infiltrates my senses with an antiseptic stench.

The stone beneath me sizzles, sparks fly out at random, everything blends together—rushes in as one. The only clear thing I see is the light from the castrated moon.

Marshall blinks through my mind.

Then I disappear.

***

I squeeze my eyes shut in an effort to stave off the harsh bite of nausea. I let out a horrific moan and roll my head over my neck.

I find myself sitting, and straighten in surprise.

My eyes spring open. I’m no longer in the field under the watchful eye of the Counts. Instead, I see the last thing I want—a stark white room.

I bounce to my feet and fall back against the wall, holding my cramped stomach.

“Skyla?”

I twist just enough to see Marshall and Ezrina hunched over a small table with rows of sushi set out before them, each with chopsticks frozen midflight.

I don’t freak out over Ezrina, or where I am, or the fact Marshall tried to spear me with a thousand arrows just hours before. Instead, I lose the battle with my intestines, and splat foaming vomit and bile all over the floor.

“Get her out!” Ezrina’s voice carries unnaturally. It reverberates in my skull.

There’s an opening to my left. I don’t over think it. I just bolt. I fall against the wall and clasp my hands along the cool painted mortar, pulling myself further and further down a series of disorienting corridors.

I bend over my sopping dress, clear as velum. It adheres to my body like wet paper as I bow my head between my knees and vomit again just shy of my shoes.

A familiar blue glow lures me down the hall. It comforts me, reminds me of Gage and those eyes I love, that infectious smile. It stirs memories in me of that day we spent at Rockaway Point, the pitch-colored sand beneath our feet, his bare skin over mine. I want to cling to him in my thoughts, weave myself into his soul in an effort to make it through each debilitating moment I’m forced to spend without him.

I stumble into the sky colored room filled with human aquariums. Perhaps this is where they’ll put me? Maybe Gage will come down here one day, mourn for me as I spin silent on display.

Marshall appears by my side.

“You could have chosen a thousand locales, and here you are with me. I’m flattered, really.” He leads me by the elbow, moving us along quicker than my tender stomach will allow.

We come upon a stainless sink, and he spins the faucet, sending water sputtering out of a long coiled hose that looks like the one used for food prep at the bowling alley.

Marshall attempts to wipe me down with a cool wet towel. I bat his hands away—dry heaving into the boxy metal basin.

It takes something just this side of forever before I can feel like myself again, before the room stops swirling into a blue tornado and the ground feels solid beneath my feet.

Marshall overturns a metal bucket, instructs me to sit and does the same.

“Do tell,” he frowns, “what happened.”

“Logan,” I take a deep breath, “he dragged me to this Count ritual, and they were all wearing hoods and chanting.” I hold a small towel over my face and breathe into it. “I saw Demetri,” I say as though it might have some sort of effect on him.

Marshall pins me with an icy stare.

 “Well, then, Ms. Messenger. Sounds like you’ve just witnessed the inner circle.”

“It sounds dangerous.”

“There’s no other word to describe it.”

“I want to go home.”

“I’m afraid not,” he examines me from head to toe. “I’m keeping you here with me, Skyla. You’ll be mine for a little while more.”

Chapter Three

Spooktacular

Marshall takes me on a grand tour of the facility.

I was right. Ezrina’s hideaway
is
a lair, a maze that stretches out for miles, football fields—acres. It seems to extend far beyond the borders of Paragon, and I can’t fathom how.

“Are we below the island?”

“Where would you get that idea?” he asks, propelling us forward at unnatural speeds.

“It always seems like I’m falling down when I end up here.”

“What if I told you we were above the island?”

Just the thought makes me dizzy.

“I suppose I’d have to believe you.”

“Well, then, you’d be foolish because we are neither below nor above terra firma. Feel better?”

I’m not sure if he means physically, so I just nod. Truth is I feel like crap. I’m emotionally and physically wrecked.

“Am I time traveling?”

“You are.”

“When?”

“Summer. We’ve yet to meet, and you’ve yet to set foot on Paragon,” he pauses. “Although, I’ve always known you. I waited for you to arrive on the planet.” He examines me briefly. “When you’re through here you’ll return to the stone from whence you came,” he gives a sly smile, “I’m sure that tickles your intestines.”

“It pisses me off,” I say weakly.

“The Counts would have left by then.”

“Why? Are you keeping me here for years or something?” God—this is turning into some kind of celestial kidnapping.

“An undisclosed amount of time will pass,” he pats me on the back as though he’s consoling me over the fact I’m being held captive, by him of all people. I don’t care how abrasively handsome he is, I don’t want Marshall. I want Gage. “I’ve placed a binding spirit around the vicinity should you try to travel your way out, or, heaven forbid, Gage the blue eyed Sage decides to teleport himself to your side. I hope you’ll think long and hard before disclosing my true identity to those living and deceased. Let’s not have a repeat performance of Ms. Bishop’s verbal faux pas.” He glares at me with renewed interest. “She is the only one you’ve babbled to.”

I nod feverishly. “I need to see Gage.”

“No.”

We step outside under a navy colored sky, no stars, just a smooth blank darkness that presses down on me with its full weight. I turn back and see the doublewide doors to the Transfer outlined with an arch of bones. Figures. Most likely human skeletal remains as evidenced by a plethora of elongated femurs, attached ulnas and radius’, the fibulas and tibias, a smatter of hands sprayed throughout for garnish. It’s artistically macabre, beautiful in its own disgusting way.

“Creepy,” I whisper.

Marshall links his arm with mine, progressing us through narrow twisted corridors, cobbled streets with buildings that butt up to one another.

“Market,” Marshall points over to baskets brimming with fruits and vegetables laid out in rows on a stand. “It’s free, take only your fill. Other humans prattle about.”

The road opens to a clearing, and a white mansion surrounded by a wrought iron fence with delicate spears, pointing skyward greets us.

“You have a room at the estate,” he says it directly in my ear as though this might arouse me on some level.

“Great,” I gulp down my fear.

Hoards of people move swift in the distance. A woman and a man walk arm in arm just like us. The woman wears a velour gown with a petticoat underneath that peeks out at the world like a dusting of fresh snow with every other step. The man she’s with sports a short dark mustache. He wears a suit with a high collar and a strange thin tie that creates circular loops at the base of his neck.

“They look so,” I struggle to find the right words, “old fashioned.”

“Eighteenth century. It’s all the rage in this part of the netherworld.”

As the couple approaches, I notice their faces have a certain invisibility factor. I can see them and see through them simultaneously. I cover my mouth from the shock of it. The woman stops short and cuts me a death stare before carrying on her conversation without missing a beat.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t incite them,” Marshall scolds. “Once you have them riled with anger, they’re rabid. Just looking at them puts them in a mood. No eye contact with the dearly departed. That’s the first rule, and absolutely no speaking to them. They don’t stand for the whole
poor me I’m so human
, ploy. The last visitor I housed didn’t fare so well.”

“What happened to him?” My hand flies up to my throat involuntarily.

“
She,
” his lids lower in my direction, “found my rules difficult to comply with. They shackled her to a millstone, threw her in the lake.”

“Did you save her? Is she OK?”

“Dead. Don’t bother shedding a tear. Death becomes her.” He steps up our clip as we enter through the iron gates that forge together at the top creating a rather menacing skull locked in a scream.

A ragged looking man waves to get our attention from the balcony. He hops over the baluster, and hangs himself successfully by a threadbare rope. His body swings like a Halloween decoration—a pendulum.

I let out a cry of terror that burns through my lungs, hot and sultry like a battle cry.

“I’m not staying here.” I try to pull Marshall back.

“Relax, Skyla. You’ll appease them if you scream at every horrific act of terror they try to delight you with. Look,” he motions back up at the body. The body has vanished, and the rope silently sways as a testament to what just happened. “Most everyone here has long since perished. Mostly Counts and Fems, not your usual social circle. Far from the in-crowd, more like the sin-crowd. Keep to yourself.” He pats my hand as we walk onto the expansive porch. The front doors hold their high polished shine. Marshall twists the gold hardware before motioning me inside.

It’s black as a moonless night. A thousand useless candles offer their dim light to the walls, the halls, the waxed chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. The air is unnaturally crisp and holds the slight scent of apples.

A choir of screams go off at regular intervals, ear piercing, blood curdling cries that raise the hair on the back of my neck. They leave me unsettled until I’ve all but pushed myself through Marshall from holding on so tight.

“I do rather enjoy the intimacy, but I need to breathe.” He loosens my grip just enough.

We walk through a grand room. An oversized piano plays old ragtime music at a frenetic pace. About two-dozen disembodied spirits decked out in eighteenth century garb dance in dizzying circles while laughing and engaging in ceaseless chatter. A few nod in our direction with menacing grimaces. I bury my face in Marshall’s chest, let him lead me blind through endless twists and turns until we stop all movement.

“First floor rooms are always a bit inferior,” he bemoans.

I open my eyes to see the dark gnarled wood of the door bend and expand as though it were breathing.

“Marshall,” I end his name on a high-pitched wail.