“Gage!” Logan calls my name from somewhere on the other side of the cemetery, but I’m expending all my energy prying off the plaque. It’s not until my Levatio strength, or something far more sinister than that in me initiates does the marker go flying like a Frisbee. The metal sheet beneath it bucks in and out like a heartbeat, and I shove the crowbar in as far as it will go until it too goes airborne like a flyingsaucer.
Logan gets closer. His shouting rises above the rabid thumping from inside of Kate’sgrave.
I reach into the dark mouth of the crypt to grab ahold of the casket, but it’s bucking like a bronco in that small concretespace.
“Shit!” I growl as I reach in with both hands and pull the trembling coffin out of the enclosure, and it flies right past me like a mahogany missile, falling to the ground with a thud and bringing with it an unsurpassed silence I thought I’d never hearagain.
The casket has landed on its side, splitting open as it rests over the marble floor like atent.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I kick the casket over onto its back to reveal her corpse in two pieces lying on the floor. Kate lies still in her formal gown. The scarf that was wrapped around her neck blows past me with the wind, but her head lies crooked to the side, face up, those eyes that were once sealed shut with my father’s eyelash glue fidget as if blinking to life. Her hands twitch, once then twice before tapping over the floor before snagging a finger around a single blonde curl. “Kate,” I whisper as I witness theatrocity.
She pulls at her head, tugs it over, rolling and bumping her face over the cold hard tile before grasping it with both hands and situating it on the base of her neck—her face is set a little too far over her shoulder, offering her an unnatural disposition. Not that anything about this is fuckingnatural.
“Kate?” There she is, blonde and petite as ever with pale doll-like features, a pert nose, and tiny little lips you can hardly tell arethere.
She slaps her hand over the floor as if begging for assistance before pointing to herskull.
“Your head.” I fall to my knees and do my best to twist her head in the right direction. “Hang on.” I leap over and gather the white silk scarf that’s wrapped itself around a fallen vase. In all of the earthquake-like melee, the mausoleum looks as if it’s been ransacked of all its flowers, leaving all of its plastic floral displays scattered likedebris.
I wrap the scarf around her neck and do my best to secure her head to the rest of her before pulling her up and cradling her stiff, cold body in my arms. I’m going to have to shower for a week before I touch the boysagain.
She pries her lips open with her fingers, then her eyes—two milky blue orbs stare back at me. There is nothing more disconcerting than having an eye or a mouth pop open during a viewing, so we like to glue them closed along with the mouth. But in Kate’s case, she was glued shut twice. My father is meticulous about the state of his corpses. And I’m sure he won’t appreciate the fact that I’ve been present during two reanimations in such a short span oftime.
“Gage,” she mouths my name as she settles her eyes over me. An eerie grimace takes over her face as she struggles tosmile.
Footsteps speed this way and stopabruptly.
“Oh fuck.” Logan staggers and sways on his feet as he gets in close. “What in the hell have you donenow?”
“I don’t know, dude. But something tells me we’re going to needEzrina.”
No sooner do the words leave my mouth than the cemetery rumbles and grumbles as if experiencing a seizure of itsown.
“Forget Ezrina”—Logan gives a suspicious glance around—“we’re going to needDudley.”
A shadow elongates over the cold stone floor and thenanother.
“No need to call Dudley.” Skyla appears with Chloe by her side, both bleached white with terror, their eyes set over the rolling earth as the gravestones disjoint, undoing the symmetrical,linearas hell pattern my father has worked so hard to perfect over the last few decades. “I alreadydid.”
“Skyla.” I gently lay Kate over the floor, and her body bucks as she crawls spastically sideways much like aspider.
“For shit's sake!” Chloe screeches. “Kill it withfire!”
“Oh hush.” Skyla bolts to her old friend and lays her hand over her forehead as if checking for a fever. “She’s warming up.” Skyla looks over to Logan and me, panting through a smile. “She was the first I tried to wake, and here sheis.”
“Only she’s not one of us,” Chloe snaps. “You let that stupid beating heart of yours get in the way, and, as usual, you’ve fucked things up before they’ve everbegan.”
“Shut the hell up, Chloe.” Skyla struggles to help Kate to her feet, and I jump over to assist. Kate wobbles before toppling backward, stiff as a board, and I help Skyla lay her back on the ground. “It’s going to be fine.” A single tear streams down Skyla’s face, falling over Kate’s forehead like an afterthought. And just like that, the color pours back into her flesh. Her lips turn a ruddy shade of pink as she manages to sit up and pant as if she actually had a working set oflungs.
Logan leans in to get a better look. “What the hell is going on, Skyla? Why is Kate sitting here? Why is the entire cemetery doing the graveyardhop?”
Skyla glances up at him with a vengeance in her eyes. “Stop asking so many questions, Logan, and get a damnshovel.”
There is a moment of pause as both Logan and I exchange a briefglance.
Skyla has done this? How has Skyla done this? More to the point, how has Chloe donethis?
“Shit.” I take a few steps back and nearly land on my ass until the ground stops quaking beneath my feet. “We can’t dig up the cemetery,Skyla.”
