What Gifts She Carried Page 15

  I gave him a quick nod before I hurried to the front door. Elf sat in front of it, hissing and spitting. Not at me, but at the crack underneath. As I drew closer, away from the blinking bright lights out back and into the darkness by the door, I could smell why. Decayed corpse seeped inside and forced its way through the leaking blood in my nose. But Ica wasn’t dead. Yet. Was she? It couldn’t be her. She couldn’t have died and been resurrected so fast. She couldn’t be.

  The steady thump of music from the backyard stopped. My heartbeat roared in its place.

  “Maybe it’s Sarah,” I whispered to Elf.

  “It’s not Sarah,” a voice said behind me.

  I whirled around, jamming a fist over my mouth to muffle my yelp. My twin bleeder stood right behind me.

  “Lily, what are you still doing here? Escape out the back with the others,” I ordered.

  She set her mouth into a thin, determined line, holding a finger just above it to catch the blood. “This is the third shirt I’ve ruined with bloody noses lately, and this one’s silk. I have a right to know who’s ruining it and why.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “But why can’t it be Sarah outside?”

  “Because her mom built a barbed wire fence around the backyard so she can’t get out.”

  “Oh no.” Poor Sarah. But if it wasn’t her, then who was it? Mr. Benjamin was below Tram’s roots.

  I tried to control the panic that was no doubt creeping over my face. Blood from my nose dripped down my chin onto the tile in steady plops, reminding me of the precious seconds I was wasting.

  I reached over the yowling cat and nudged him out of the way with the door. Night held everything on the other side of the screen in a firm grip. Not even the pinpricks of stars winked through, and only a sliver of moon shimmered in the passing clouds. The smell of rotten death wormed over my tongue since I could barely breathe through my nose.

  A lone figure stood outside, facing the street, with a wide set of shoulders hidden underneath a bulky sweatshirt and blond curls turning in the breeze.

  When I opened the screen door a crack, the stink knocked into my stomach. I reeled back to get my senses under control again.

  “Tram?” My whisper surrounded others that were not my own. They came from in front of him.

  He put a hand behind his back, palm out and fingers splayed, a warning to stay back. Adrenaline stormed through me because I knew I wouldn’t. Not for long anyway.

  Tram’s shoulder twitched. He took a step backward. Something was wrong. Tram didn’t shrink away from anything. I tightened my grip on the screen with slick fingers, ready to spring.

  If it wasn’t Sarah, Ica, or Mr. Henderson who stood behind his bulky frame, then it had to be...

  My tongue grew thick and cottony. I tried to swallow, tried to draw a breath through a closed throat. Did One and Two escape, too? My fingers fumbled for the holes in my shirt.

  Lily groaned and sagged against me.

  “Lily, what—”

  As soon as I saw her face, I gasped. Blood dripped from her eyes in red rivers of tears. It rushed over her lower eyelashes, drowning them, and mixed with the steady drip from her nose to drench most of her face.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I have to know...the dead bird,” she said. All the blood on her mouth wet the words and mangled them into something barely recognizable.

  Maybe Tram could help her. Maybe he could explain why she was bleeding much worse than me.

  “Tram?” I said again, louder. Lily’s sagging weight against me stumbled my feet forward, and the screen door slammed shut behind us.

  Tram jumped at the sound. Seconds passed. Whispers threaded through the night to knot around my rattling heart.

  Pale, claw-like fingers poked from behind Tram’s head and curved over the top of it. Tram’s legs buckled under the force, but he clenched his refusal to kneel in his fists. Was someone forcing him to bow to them?

  Hell to the no. I dug my fingers into Lily’s arm and pulled her after me down the steps to the yard.

  “Tram, who is that?” I demanded, ignoring Lily’s whimper.

  His legs finally collapsed underneath him, and he dropped to his knees. Behind him stood a dead girl I’d never seen before. Her mouth gaped open, as black as the broken-necked bird that sat on her shoulder. A single strand of blonde hair curled over the strap of a dirty white dress on her other shoulder. A slice of moonlight caught on her pale skin, giving it an ethereal gleam. Dark streaks oozed from her glowing blue eyes and out her nose. When her gaze settled on me, I shivered at its piercing chill.

  My heart skidded sideways as I opened my mouth. “Wh-who are you?”

  Only a garble of whispers answered me. Tram turned his head slowly as though it hurt him to look at me. But it hurt me so much worse. Blood leaked from his eyes and nose, too, drenching the front of his green sweatshirt.

  I stumbled toward him. The dead grass under my boots gave a sickening crunch. “Tram, what’s happening?”

  Before he could answer, before I could even take a breath to shout her name, the black bird hurtled toward Lily and dove down her throat.

  I heaved a strangled cry and reached toward her as if I could somehow help. Like she’d helped me.

  She staggered to the side, clawing at her neck, until she fell to her knees. Then her arms dangled loosely at her sides. Her shoulders and head slumped forward for several heartbeats. When her head snapped up again, her eyes glowed blue.

  “Sister.” A sinister voice that ripped sandpaper claws up my back fell out of Lily’s bloody mouth. “How nice to see you again. You.” Lily raised a jerky arm toward me, freezing my fingers’ crawl to the back of my skinny jeans and an ash tree key. “Try anything, and I’ll snap your lover boy’s neck.”

  Tram bit back a groan as the dead girl, her hand still on top of his head, bent it at an odd angle.

  I threw up my hands. “Fine. Just don’t hurt him. But please, let Lily go. She has nothing to do with—”

  Lily gave a laugh that sounded like dead leaves scraping over rocks. “I don’t think so. Her father needs her too much.”

  Father. Sister. I looked from Lily to the dead girl, at their blond curls and glowing blue eyes. Were they sisters? But their father? Tram caught my eye. Blood swam over the inside of both of his. His blond curls lay against his cheek, soaked in red, too.

  I switched two of them.

  Brother. Sisters. Father. Mother. The Trinity babies. Triplets.

  The blood streaming from all our faces marked us as the same. We were bleeding out our true essence. Our true Trammeler Sorceress essence. All of us were the same. We were all Trammeler Sorceressi.

  Tram hung his head when the puzzle pieced together in my stare. He was a Trammeler Sorcerer. He was a Trinity baby. He and Lily and the dead girl were Gretchen and the Counselor’s true babies. And Mom had switched two of them at birth, but I still didn’t know what that meant exactly.

  Lily cried out and fell to the dead grass in a pile of jerking, twitching limbs. Her eyes flashed normal then back to bright blue with every lurch.

  At the same time, the moon, our only source of light, blinked out behind a charge of thick, dark clouds. A rush of arctic wind bit at my cheeks and tossed my hair into my eyes. Lightning forked across the sky in thorny paths, its brilliance reflected in the boiling clouds. The hair along my arms lifted as another bolt zipped down to the tree in the Monroe’s yard. It cracked open with enough power to flatten my face to the ground.

  A sharp chemical smell mixed with the death stink and pulsed spasms through my stomach. I curled up and dug my hands into the dead grass to keep from heaving, but it splintered apart into black bits between my fingers.

  “Keep crying for your father, my siblings.” The corners of Lily’s bloodied mouth curled up in an evil smile. “Because here he comes.”

  Chapter 15

  Out from the center of the halved tree stepped a man in a simple black suit, crisp white shirt, and tie. Long,
silky white curls flowed down his shoulders. Hollow pits in his cheeks sharpened every bone in his face. So did the inch long thorns that jutted out from every inch of skin. A white, milky substance dripped from where they stabbed into him. His eyes matched the color of this strange liquid, empty of everything except power.

  Tram immediately covered his head with his hood, fighting to stand only to sink to his knees again in front of the man. “My Counselor.”

  The dead girl knelt next to Tram, and Lily said in her rough voice, “My father.”

  “You have found them.” It came out of his mouth as a real voice from pale lips that moved. They didn’t sag open in a terrified scream.

  “They cry for you,” Lily said. “Your true children cry tears of blood and joy.”

  He looked down at Tram. “You? You are my son?”

  “I didn’t know, my...my father,” Tram said, his hood sinking farther over his bloodied eyes.

  “What better way to hide you than under my own nose,” he said and flicked a finger at Lily. “And this one. What is she?”

  “She pretends to be just a Sorceress,” Lily said with the dead girl’s voice. “The traitor Kassandra suppressed her Trammeler power and my brother’s Sorcerer power so they would never be found out as Trammeler Sorcerers.”

  The traitor Kassandra. Mom. I switched two of them. She suppressed some of their powers with the tokens I still had in my pocket. I could feel the points of the leafy necklaces with a press of my wrist.

  “But your spell makes all Trammeler Sorcerers bleed their true essence.” The Counselor strode toward the dead girl, his steps making no noise over the black grass, and touched the top of her head. “You may rise, my Aneska. You did well.”

  With a deep bow of her head, the dead girl obeyed.

  The Counselor flicked his pale gaze to me, and his empty eyes narrowed. I willed myself not to recoil at the burning sensation in my nose as he came closer. Even though he seemed the size of any normal man, he seemed to tower over me. Another crack of lightning burst the sky open behind him.

  “This one doesn’t cry blood for me,” he said.

  “No, and the smaller version of her is gone,” Lily rasped.

  The Counselor grinned, and it stretched his papery skin from the top of his scalp to his pointed chin, tipping the ends of the projecting thorns up with it. “That’s too bad. If she’s anything like her traitor mother, I’m sure we’ll meet someday. There’s a special place in the Core just for small ones.”

  A fire sparked under my skin. I dug my fingers into the crumbling grass to keep myself from flying at him and tearing the thorns from his face.

  “Never,” I snarled.

  “You sound like your mother, stubborn until the very end, or what she led me to believe was her end.” He folded his hands together in front of him while observing me in my half-squat. “Let me see if you look like her, too. Rise.”

  “I don’t work for you. You don’t get to—”

  “Leigh, stop,” Tram warned.

  I glanced at him and then up at the Counselor, who pushed his mouth into a chilling frown.

  “This is the girl?” he asked. “The one who enjoys wasting my time for every warning bell that rings? When will you learn that Trammelers and Sorceresses must not enjoy each other’s company? Trammelers hunt Sorceresses down so I can interrogate them. Period.”

  Tram’s gulp sounded so loud over the grumbling sky. “Yes, my...my father.”

  The Counselor twisted his hands apart to stare down Tram. “Then control her.”

  I rose then, following the hot venom climbing into my throat. “Nobody controls me, not even Tram, so you can look at me all you want to see if I’m really my mom’s daughter, but you leave him out of it.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, Tram dropped his blood-caked face into his hands. He could back up the whole lack of control thing with at least a dozen stories if he wanted to, but if it meant he would get hurt, I wouldn’t let him.

  A long, pale finger bristling with thorns crept under my chin to wrench it up. Sharp ends pierced my skin as he twisted my face closer to his. More thorns were just centimeters away from stabbing into my eyes. His chemically-spiced breath rolled from between his white lips and burned through my mouth with every inhale.

  “Would you like to know how I controlled your mother?” he asked.

  The pressure and pain under my chin made it difficult to speak, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. “You didn’t.”

  “Wrong. I did control her, up until she turned traitor by helping my lovely wife and then faking her own death.”

  “What?” I tried to shake my head, but his grip wouldn’t let me. “But she’s...she’s really dead. She didn’t fake it.” She was dead. The bright red hole in my heart proved that. So what was he saying?

  “Now, she is dead, yes, but to stop being in my employ, she faked her own death to try to live a normal life among humans. Just before she cheated me from my own children when she made a deal with their mother.”

  No sooner had he reinforced what I already knew about Mom than a painful knot tied up the shard of hope I’d allowed myself to feel. Of course she was really dead. Otherwise, she would be here at my side instead of making me go through this alone. Still, that knot made it hard to swallow.

  “She’s the one who started this unofficial, anonymous Trammeler business since Trammelers don’t just quit. They never quit,” the Counselor said. “A number of my Trammelers faked their own deaths after she did so they could lust after everything with a bit of sorcery in their blood.” He looked over his shoulder at Tram, who quickly averted his bleeding eyes. “I’m sure your...what do you call him? Tram? I’m sure he’s been tempted to do just that for you. Would he make the warning bells ring constantly if he hadn’t at least thought about it?”

  “He wouldn’t fake his own death,” I said. “He’s too devoted to what he is.” So devoted that it blinded him to see that his boss craved torturing him.

  “Once upon a time, your mother was just as devoted. Someone, or the very idea of someone, made her forget her dedication, though, and turned her into a very dangerous woman. That same someone has power over my son.” He gave me a pointed look, just as penetrating as the sharp thorns in his skin. “Too much power. Tell me, do you care for him?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Tram’s gaze snapped up to meet mine. “But she doesn’t love me. Even if I quit, we could never be together anyway, so please don’t hurt her.”

  Questions formed on my lips, but his words had stitched a tightness over my tongue. How could he know what my heart wanted when even I wasn’t really sure? But even as these thoughts buzzed around my head, the answers became clear in the sadness emanating from his gaze.

  “No, of course not. I wouldn’t dream of hurting the traitor’s daughter.” The Counselor released my chin with a cold chuckle and turned toward Tram. “Not physically, anyway.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Tram asked, tearing his gaze from mine to look up at his approaching father.

  The Counselor’s fist swooped down on Tram’s face with the crack of knuckles on bone. Tram’s head swept to the side. Booming thunder smothered my gasp. I started toward him, not at all sure what I planned to do. There wasn’t much a ninety-five pound girl could do against Death himself.

  Before I could get any closer, Aneska aimed her eerie blue gaze at me. That same white milky substance that dripped from the Counselor oozed up in a wide ring around me and Lily, thickening over the tips of the dead grass. It billowed up a toxic-smelling mist and gave off a steady sizzle, a warning I decided to obey. I stayed put. But my fingers didn’t.

  “Don’t you dare question me,” the Counselor roared at Tram. “My child or not, you are still a Trammeler. This girl has fed you too much of her defiance.”

  Tram kept his head bowed, silent.

  “Aneska, do you have everything ready?” the Counselor asked.

  “Almost, father. Mother will be mortified.
”

  “Yes, I believe she will,” the Counselor said with a malicious grin. “I can’t wait to see the look in Gretchen’s eyes when she looks upon our true children instead of the fakes the traitor switched them with. She fought so hard to keep them away from me, which will make it even more delightful when we’re all reunited.”

  While they were preoccupied with each other, I snatched the leafy tokens out of my pants. The front pocket of Lily’s blood-soaked silk shirt opened a little more with every lurch and shake, and I pitched the necklaces inside. Whatever happened, her Trammeler powers wouldn’t stay suppressed for long.

  “I won’t have to pump myself full of chemicals constantly just to walk the earth once I have my true children with me,” the Counselor said and plucked a thorn from next to his thumb, nodding. “I won’t have to endlessly question and torture Gretchen’s followers into telling me where my own children are.”

  “Your Trinity children will bleed for you, and together we’ll give you the greatest gift of all,” Aneska said through Lily.

  The Counselor gave a wicked grin. “Immortality. The freedom to walk the surface of the earth at my leisure without these chemicals to keep me alive. To choose those worthy enough to walk with me.”

  “What about your duty? Who will rule the Core? What if it opens?” Tram asked in a rush.

  The Counselor twirled the thorn between his fingers, that same terrible grin stuck on his face. “Oh, I’m counting on it opening. I’ve been waiting for someone to open it for years since that’s the only way I can escape my duty as Counselor of Death. I’m ready to live,” he said, and then he plunged the thorn into Tram’s forehead.

  Tram’s mouth popped open in a silent scream. Dark liquid, so much darker than the blood seeping from his nose and eyes, leaked from the thorn. But it also dripped inside him. His mouth lolled open further, revealing an echo of the night sky. The color on his face washed out to a pale, paper-white. His skin shrank away to his bones, squeezing his bulky frame into almost nothingness so that the biting wind could snap at his loose sweatshirt. He pitched over onto the dead grass, unmoving, eyes closed. Gone.