1
The bored hum of fluorescent lights buzzes steadily in my ear. The sound moves around me like a confused bee that’s mistaken me for a flower, and I fight the urge to swat it away. My nose tingles with a building sneeze as the overwhelming smell of strong disinfectant fights the underlying scent of decay. Goose bumps crawl across my body, and shock wars with panic as my wide eyes dart around, trying to make sense of what’s happening.
I’m not dead. Alive.
Somehow, I’m actually here—naked—and surrounded by refrigerators designed to hold bodies.
Fuck.
I just crawled out of one of them.
My heart—the one that I felt stop beating in my chest just seconds ago—hammers inside of me. The cadence is taunting. Like some schoolyard little shit chantingnaa na-na naa na, you can’t catch mebefore sprinting away. I press my hands against my body, testing the limits of myself, and look down, needing to confirm with my other senses what my palms feel.
Yep, flesh and blood, just like always...but how?
Moss-green eyes dripping with anguish flash in my mind. Desperate lips pressed softly against my own, and a broken plea to “come back to me” settles like an anchor in my soul.
Rogan.
I know he did this. That somehow, against everything we know about mortality and magic, he brought me back. He saved me. I just wish I knew how it was all possible. I felt the truth in his words when he told me that he and Elon didn’t know how they cheated death. I saw the confusion, the pain, and the frustration in his eyes as he revealed what it cost them. How, despite their efforts to figure it out, they still aren’t any closer to puzzling together why they’re alive when they shouldn’t be.
Did the tether do this?Could it be powerful enough to have managed this miracle?
My thoughts drift to Elon, and pain lances through me. I can practically feel him in my arms still, our blood pooling around us as death first claimed him and then came for me. I don’t know if he’s back from his second brush with death. I have to hope that he is. Could he also be here, in another room maybe, wandering around just as nervous and desperate to figure it all out as I am?
Worried uncertainty builds in my chest, and I press my hand over my heart in an effort to calm myself. My fingers brush over a hard, smooth texture that’s unfamiliar, and I look down to discover a scar on the left side of my chest. It’s a jagged-edged circle almost the size of my fist. There are small lightning-like lines flaring away in the direction of my shoulder and some angled down toward my sternum. The damage is new, a permanent reminder of what happened to me in that godforsaken church, but it looks as though it’s had years to heal.
Astonishment dazes me, and I press my other hand to my stomach in an effort to root myself here so that I don’t float away on the insanity of this moment. I know Rogan and Elon went through this. As far-fetched as it was to believe when Rogan told me, I did. I just never thought I’d experience resurrection firsthand. It should be disorienting, and yet here I am, my mind and body working just as they always have, my memories intact and the rest of me reeling.
My stomach gurgles, but I can’t tell if it’s hungry or upset. A delicate whoosh of air startles me as the air-conditioning clicks on, working to cool an already chilly room. A faint bang somewhere far away focuses my buoyant and bewildered thoughts. A distant but distinct sound of footfall reaches me, and I flinch at the unexpected noise. Reality comes stomping in like an overexuberant marching band, and fear starts to whirl around me like the spinning flags of a color guard.
I’m alive when it shouldn’t be possible, and I need to get the fuck out of here before someone else discovers that too.
Immediately I start looking for a place to hide, but there’s nothing else in here beyond the walls, lights, linoleum, and body-fridges. There’s no table to hide under, and the tall rectangular windows in the double doors are not going to shield me from anyone’s view. The footsteps draw closer, and I debate crawling into the chilled stainless steel slot I just crawled out of. I immediately reject that option. I think I’d rather be discovered at this point than to ever have to crawl back into that fucking thing. I’ve never had an issue with claustrophobia, but I suspect that might change now. Just one more thing to add to the list of shit Ineedto speak to a professional about.
I rub my temples, my head snapping up just as the footsteps sound like they’re right on top of me. Alarm takes over, and unbidden, it calls on my magic. Suddenly, the steps start to fade away, the distance between me and whoever is out there, growing by the second. My magic doesn’t calm, and I’m not at all prepared for the massive surge of power that continues to flood me despite the fading threat. I wince against the too full sensation while simultaneously recalling what it felt like for this magic, my magic, to fail. For my abilities to blink out like a dying torch as my body fought against the damage it sustained from Jamie and her spelled bullet.
My breaths become heavy as sensations suddenly assault me. I can feel the heat of the bullet as it tore through me. Smell the gunpowder and blood as it mixed with the musty scent of the stone surrounding me. I clearly see the blade of the ritual knife as it sunk into Elon’s chest. Hear a tormented scream as it shreds my throat and ricochets around that cursed church. Jamie’s face once again melts in front of me, slowly sloughing off to reveal the demon currently wearing her like she’s the outfit of the day.
Terror snakes around me, and I close my eyes and shake my head.No. I’m not there. It’s over now.But even as I think the reassuring words, I know I’m lying. It’s not over. I look around at the greige walls and linoleum of the morgue I’m standing in and realize that it’s all just begun.
An anxious shiver brushes up my spine, and I stare at the double doors across from me. My magic surges, ready for the possibility that someone might push through them any minute now and discover my naked ass just standing here. Would they recognize me, know that I should be lying on a cold metal tray just like all the other bodies in here? Or would they think I’m some kind of sicko who snuck in here to do who knows what to the bodies in this room? A shudder courses through me with that thought, and my magic flares, begging for a target, for a threat to go off on.
I don’t hear the footsteps anymore. Then again, it’s hard to hear anything over the booming pulse in my ears right now. Power starts to overload my system, and several loud bangs explode all around me. I scream, whirling around in search of the danger. I snap my mouth shut, cutting off the shriek that’s betraying my location, and find several of the refrigerator doors that were behind me shoved open, the bodies they once contained now on the floor. I can feel my unexpected hold on them, my magic claiming their skeletons, my power permeating their blood.
Shit.
I scramble away from the dead and try to rein in the power pulsing out of me as panic tries to take over. I swear I can feel the absence of their souls. I was magically strong before my showdown with Jamie, but what’s happening now is a whole new formidable level. One that I need to get a hold of immediately.
The bodies slide clumsily toward me as I take another step back, and I swallow down the scared squeal that tries to escape. Ragged breaths saw in and out of my lungs, and I attempt to tamp down my racing trepidation. It’s two older men and a woman my age. I try not to look at the three naked corpses too closely, not needing any more fodder for nightmares than I already have. But it’s hard not to see that some are stiff, others aren’t, and all of them have a bluish cast. Thankfully, their eyelids are closed and none of them are looking at me, and yet I feel as though they’re judging me for not staying dead like I was supposed to, like they have.
I take another hasty step back, and the magic-animated bodies scoot closer.
“Stop it,” I snap at my hands as I watch the dead in horror. “Bad magic!”
I look at the open refrigerator doors that the bodies spilled out of and bite back a whimper. A woman sneaking out of the morgue is hard enough. A woman sneaking out of the morgue with three bodies dragging behind her...yeah, that’s definitely going to attract the kind of attention I really can’t afford right now. I can sense with my magic that the other fridges in here are empty, and I’m at least grateful that this situation isn’t worse. Three magic casualties are more than enough.
The sound of a door slamming makes me jump. I spin back to the double doors behind me, expecting someone to be heading right for me, but there’s no one there. Cautiously, I peek through the windows, scanning the darkened room beyond for any signs of life or movement. I hold my breath for one second, then another. Nothing moves and no one comes running in my direction, searching for the source of the blood-curdling scream that just rent the night air. At least I think it’s night, who knows.
