“We don’t have a choice.” She pulls out her phone, and before she can touch her thumb to the screen, Dudley strides on over as if this were the norm—as if the ground jumping, the jackhammering of a thousand corpses begging to escape their casket prisons were an everyday occurrence—and apparently on Paragon, it’s not far fromreality.
“Silence!” His voice roars over the dark expanse, and in a show of bravado on his part, a miracle on nature’s part, the fog rolls back like a scroll, receding from the graveyard as if it were chased by a demon, or in this case a Sector—and for a good five solid seconds the graveyard returns to its unanimated state. “Skyla,” he barks, looking back at her with his face screwed up in anger. “What in heaven’s name have youdone?”
That tone he’s invoked with her sets a fresh rage percolating in me. “Don’t talk to my wife thatway.”
Skyla bursts past me as she gets in his face. “Don’t you act surprised. I was kind enough tobriefyou!”
“When it was nothing more than a fantasy.” His voice hits its upper register, his chest is puffed out like a gorilla, his nostrils flaring. He doesn’t take those heated eyes off her. He is pissed as hell and doesn’t mind showing it. I’ve yet to see Dudley agitated. For sure I’ve yet to see him reach that level withSkyla.
I don’t hesitate pulling her in and wrapping my arms around her. Skyla is trembling, her breathing hitting an erratic pace the way it used to in thebedroom.
“What’s happening?” I whisper just above her ear and steal the moment to take in her warm vanillascent.
“It’s this ring.” She rubs her thumb over a blue heart-shaped stone sitting on her forefinger. “Chloe gave it to me.” She pauses long enough to scowl over at the demon. “It has powers. Marshall said something a while back about it being a portal of power only the creator Himself is privy to. I wasn’t aware of the power it held until I woke that girl up in Ezrina’slab.”
“You woke the girl.” Dudley closes his eyes with a worrisome look of boredom. Dudley only invokes that placid expression when things have truly gone toshit.
“Not me. The ring,” sheinsists.
“This ring.” Logan comes over and picks up her hand, forcing the ring to sparkle in the dull light. Kate coughs and sputters behind us, but we take a moment to focus in on that ring with its eerie blue glow. “Where did it come from,Chloe?”
Chloe giggles out a dark laugh as she heads to Kate and helps her stagger to her feet, unsteady as a toddler. “Wouldn’t you like toknow.”
“I think I do know.” Skyla hitches a brow over to the girl she’s pretending to favor. “Melody Winters said I stole it from her.” She tilts her head toward Bishop as Kate writhes unsteadily in her arms. “More to the point, she called me a time travelingthief.”
Dudley offers up a slow clap, more of an insult than an encouragement, but I’m pretty sure he knows that. He seems to be up on his put-downs. “Now you’re warm, Ms. Messenger.” He cuts a look to the cemetery with its markers and stones in disarray. “And how in heaven’s name do the four of you think you’re going to excavate this bone yard of its bodies? Each person in his or her own crypt six feet under? In a concrete encapsulated tomb at that? Even with your shared strength and impressive powers, be they meager in comparison to my own, this will take you ayear.”
“Nice.” Skyla scoffs openly at him. “It’s good to see you offering your encouragement and support. Do you have any other brilliant, yet discouraging, line items you feel the need to point out? Because if you’re done, I suggest you find a tractor, or, better yet, use your most impressive supernatural powers to excavate the place forus.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I pull her in tight. “We’re not digging this placeup.”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.” She abruptly removes my arms from her waist. She looks to Logan and me with something just this side of pleading. “It’s a part of theplan.”
“The plan.” Chloe nods almost sarcastically. Why the hell can’t Skyla see that she’s pretending to befriend her for kicks? This is nothing but a game toChloe.
“I can’t help you, Skyla.” Dudley takes a few steps toward the graveyard. “Heaven will have my wings. This is something I’m afraid I’m unable to concern myself with.” He tips his head toward her as if he were about to takeoff.
“Oh no, you don’t.” She latches onto his arm. “I forbid you from leaving. I forbid any of you from leaving,” she growls at Logan and me but offers a deadly glare to Chloe. “I need you. Celestra needs you. We need thesebodies.”
“Who did these bodies once belong to?” Logan is stern with his former wife. It seems waking the dead has the ability to piss off her ex-husband and her delusional spirit husband as well. Oddly, I’m not pissed. I’m just very fuckingconcerned.
“Celestra.” She glances to Chloe as if to silence her. “Among other Factions. I took the cemetery map book from your father’s office.” She looks right at me. “It was the only way I’d know who was who. I needed to resurrect those I thought might bewilling.”
“Willing to do what?” My heart plummets to my feet because I can feel my brother’s name bubbling up herthroat.
“To thwart Wesley.” She sharpens her eyes over mine when she says it. “To thwart those millions of feds he has sniffing around theisland.”
“Shit.” I close my eyes at how far down both Demetri and Wes have sent us spiraling. “What are you going to do withthem?”
Chloe steps up next to me as if we were suddenly on the same team. If you ever find yourself on the same team as Chloe Bishop, just know you’re on the wrongside.
“I know”—Chloe slings a hand over my shoulder casually—“we could put them in Tenebrous. The tunnels belong to you now, Skyla. So that shouldn’t be anissue.”
“Tenebrous.” Skyla shakes her head. “Too far and too much work to transport them all. Besides, we need them handy, and we need them plausibly human. They’ll need to be present if they’re ever going to getcaught.”
“So they’ll be taken.” The words strum from me numbly. People who have already crossed that great divide are coming back for more hell on earth because my own brother has sentenced the Nephilim to a fate, ironically, worse than death—governmentexperimentation.
“Marshall”—Skyla struts toward him, tits out as if she were trying to seduce him—“you have to help. I need these bodies freed beforemorning.”
