Dead girls didn’t have to attend classes or worry about their divorced parents. They didn’t have to think about the reporters plastering their cheating dad’s face all over the internet or writing gossip articles about all the money their mom, rightfully, took him for. Dead girls didn’t have to scramble to learn a new university layout, attune to new environments, students, or professors. They simply got to have their brains scrubbed off the sidewalk and neatly tucked into a comfortably cushioned coffin.
It should have struck me as odd that I found myself envious of the recently deceased, but there was something morbidly alluring about the idea of eternal rest right now.
I was just so, so tired.
Worn down from the emotional whiplash of my family falling apart, exhausted from my course load at Oxford and soon to be new classes for my final year, and squished under the heel of loneliness, I moved through the motions as stiff and slow as a robot with a low battery. I unpacked my bag, folding my thingsinto the dresser and the closet full of old items that likely no longer fit after four years in another country.
The years of stuffing my face at greasy chip shops had helped fill out my flat chest and ass into something resembling curves, and for that I was thankful. I couldn’t resist a plate of fish and chips. Any sort of steaming hot potato was my personal kryptonite.
Dead girls didn’t get to eat french fries.
Okay, get it together, Ophelia.
I shook my head and tried to stop imagining what that dead girl might have looked like. Who she was or what she had been studying. It hardly mattered now that she was gone. A ghost in the memory of students who would return to classes without her. The lecture halls would never feel her presence again. I couldn’t concern myself by wondering if she’d had friends or people who loved her. As much as I sympathized with the tragedy, I didn’t know her, and my own life was enough of a mess.
With a fire started, I grabbed my things and went to the bathroom down the hall. Normally I would have taken advantage of the vintage claw-foot tub, but with exhaustion dripping from my pores I opted for a quick shower to scrub the grime of a long flight and the day’s bizarre energy from my skin. Once freshened up and wrapped in a luxuriously soft towel, I made my way back to my room.
Atap tap tappingon a hall window made my step falter.
I clutched the towel tighter, peering out the window at the now pitch-dark world. A hazy landscape painted in the hues of night stared back. Nothing more than a lingering fog dragged itself across the lawn, and stars twinkled in the inky sky. A whistling wind rustled the bushes, and an overgrown branch reached out like a skeletal arm, scratching against the windowpane with each gust, not unlike nails on a chalkboard.
An exhale rushed from me, and the odd tension in my shoulders released.
The fresh warmth in my room from the crackling fire helped to drape a blanket of comfort and security over me. I dressed in an oversized old t-shirt stolen from some boyfriend ages ago, then proceeded to pluck up the thick binder on the bed about my upcoming courses. With nothing more than starlight and the golden-orange flames dancing on the walls, I curled up on the cushioned seat in the bay window piled high with pillows. Cradled in a plush embrace, I flipped through the syllabus, planning to get a head start on my final courses.
Silence settled on the house, only broken up by the gentle crackling of logs burning in the fireplace. A gentle wind blew past, howling in the dark of the night. And I was so focused on unraveling the details of my new university before sleep stole me away that I didn’t notice the yellow eyes glowing from the tree line. Watching.
Watching.
Watching.
2
“It started with an Ashcroft. It will end with an Ashcroft.” A deep, unrecognizable voice spoke through a white owl-themed mask.
Thatgot my attention.
I shifted from my vantage point in the rafters, ensuring I heard every word exchanged.
After hours of sitting in the dark, damp recesses of the abandoned warehouse, the fuckers had finally said something worth listening to. Other than their usual culty bullshit drivel, that could last for hours. Their usualsermonsoften held no value, no clues, no tips about what their next move might be. And this one name, and a name I knew well, rose like a beacon to point me in a new direction.
But what the fuck did they mean?
There weren’t any Ashcrofts currently in Kilbride.
A prickle of unease skittered down my spine.
If that family had any remaining sense, they’d continue staying away. Despite my deep regard in the past, I didn’t have any hope for the future of that legacy given the news flashing across the tabloids. A disappointment smeared across a redeemed heritage. I almost snorted at the irony but couldn’t risk garnering the attention of the bastards below.
Beyond the veil of reality, these bastards were a foregone legend written in the margins of Kilbride’s history. Nothing more than folklore and fantasy drenched in secrets. A society ofmonsters disguised as mortals, wearing the masks of the most influential founders of the city’s affluent society and among the school board’s members.
Apostles of the Cult of Moloch.
Six of them huddled together, faces hidden in a mockery of their true forms, and figures shrouded in reddish-brown robes. The surrounding warehouse wasn’t the home of their ritual gatherings. Moldering concrete riddled with cracks and a faltering foundation, and dead leaves scattered on a slick floor boxed us in. There wouldn’t have been a breath of breathable air in the suffocating space if not for the broken windows permitting scant traces of silvery moonlight.
The high energy and twitching demeanor of Moloch’s disciples bore the signs of a last-minute calling. I’d been lucky to pick up their traces through all the red tape currently on campus.
A tragedy written as an accident. One dead student. One poor girl pushed from the tower, and authorities had swarmed the grounds of the prestigious university for hours, stomping around evidence they were too blind to see.
