Celestra Forever After by Addison Moore
“That makes no sense. You just said they wouldn’t know what to look for—that it was nucleic acid. Essentially the codes are already hidden.”
Nev glances around before leaning in further. “He knows Ezrina’s link to Celestra—to Skyla. He’s simply testing her abilities. We think he may have already found a way to mask the genetic code and plans on using this to his advantage.”
“His advantage?”
A girl cackles in the corner, and I turn to find a vamped up Michelle Miller wrapping her arms around my brother. Emily and Lexy are with her, and Lex offers a spastic wave in my direction. I give a brief nod before turning back to Ezrina and Nev.
“I don’t get it.”
“Heathcliff.” Ezrina closes the laptop and looks to Nev impatiently—but I have a feeling her impatience lies with me.
Nev takes over. “Wesley has vowed to protect all Counts who side with him in the Steel Barricade. They have until the end of the week to make this grave decision. Those who choose not to stand with him will be cast aside along with the enemy.”
“He’ll never rule the factions.” The Justice Alliance won’t allow it. “It’s a pipe dream.”
“Something tells me he’s not interested in ruling the factions.” Nev wraps an arm around Ezrina’s shoulders, and the two of them stare at me with their long, morbid faces. “He’s more interested in dismantling them.”
“Dismantling?” Crap. “Of course. If there are no factions, he and his band of cowards rule the roost.”
“Exactly.” Ezrina’s eyes narrow in on mine. “Now tell me, Logan, what do you think Wesley wants with a hidden genetic code?” Her lips tighten because she already knows.
I close my eyes. “To protect those within the Steel Barricade.” A thought comes to me. “Nev said you think he’s already done this. I don’t get it. If that’s true, why have you on a mission to try and hide the code?”
Ezrina bleeds a necrotic smile, and for a moment I see Chloe’s wickedness lurking in the background.
“Oh, young Oliver.” A dark laugh gurgles from her. “If I cannot find a way to hide the Nephilim markers then Wesley has nothing to fear. I am the best. Wesley knows this.”
“If you’re the best and you can’t come close to hiding jack shit, then what the hell do we have to fear?”
Ezrina turns toward the large front window as rain presses against the glass soft as tears. “There is one just as knowledgeable as me. He shares Wesley’s thirst to destroy Celestra. Heaven help us if he’s able to cloak the Counts.”
“Who is this person?”
“You’ve met him.” Nev bears into me. “He was your spirit guide in the tunnels.”
“Ingram? That piece of glowing shit?”
Ezrina picks up the cleaver next to her and hoists it back before launching it at the oversized picture window at the front of the store.
The Gas Lab reverberates with the sound of shattering glass. The window has spider-webbed into a thousand miniature pebbles with the hatchet still embedded in the center, the handle flexed up toward the ceiling.
Ethan walks in, and his jaw unhinges. “Effen’ cool! Keep up the good work, Rina.” He gives a thumbs up before heading to the back where Liam sits with the girls.
I turn to Ezrina, her face as pale as stone, her eyes ablaze with fury. It’s clear that her long departed other half is capable of eclipsing her scientific abilities, and the mere mention of the fact infuriates her. I’ll have to use this to Celestra’s advantage.
I slip a set of keys across the counter. They belong to the house I built for Skyla. The one I wish she would live in so that in some small way I can feel like I’m doing something to keep her safe and warm even if I’m not the one sleeping next to her at night.
“I’ve got a state of the art lab that says you can find a way to hide that genetic code before that information ever gets into the Counts’ hands.” A smile curves on my lips, but I won’t give it. “You’re not going to let Ingram destroy Celestra once and for all, are you?”
Her nostrils flare. Her eyes widen with a revenged based fury that can only propel her to do great things for our kind.
“Ingram is taunting you,” I whisper. “He thinks he finally has an edge over you.” I lean in. “Prove him wrong.”
Ezrina slaps her hand over the keys and strangles them.
Ingram and Wesley will never know what hit them.
And if Ezrina doesn’t find that code before they do, the rest of the factions won’t know what hit them either.
14
Wild Abandon
Skyla
The universe warps and pulls until I’m spit out onto the rolling green lawn of the ethereal plane—a blade of grass spiking up my nostril. I sit up and sneeze three times in a row.
“I’d bless you but I’m afraid I’m too angry to mean it.” My mother’s voice barrels over me like the heat from a nuclear wind. “Rise.”
I jump to my feet and glance around, still slightly disoriented as to how I got here. To my surprise I’m robed in a bath of light, and thankfully so since I’m not too keen on showing off my bare assets to anyone other than Gage.
The three goofs that flank my mother sit on their invisible thrones above the lake, glowering at me. Candace Messenger, the woman who I will probably never refer to as mommy, speeds over with her hair blown back, her sharp features etched into a hard look of rage.
“What were you thinking?” she hisses, and for the first time my mother looks a whole lot more like an angry teenager than a wise woman of the Decision Council. “Are you prepared to be a parent? Do you realize I have very little jurisdiction to have pulled you from the situation? I could be tried for treason.” Her words slit harsh and jagged like a rusted blade.
I lean in with a rage of my own brewing in my heart. “Do you realize I’ve been waiting to speak with you?”
She inches back and gives a quick blink.
“You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?” I dig a finger into her chest.
“Skyla.” She takes up my hand, but I yank it right back. “I realize there are things we need to discuss.”
“Like why the hell does Chloe Bishop get to globe trot when I thought we had locked her in the armpit of the universe? And what the hell does that dragon have to do with Gage?”
She swallows hard. The veins in her neck quiver like snakes.
“Skyla, has Chloe been a burden to you?”
“Oh my, God.” I suck in a never-ending breath. “Do you even realize what it is you’re saying?”
“Yes, I realize you have a history—”
“Lizbeth and I have a history. Chloe and I have a deep-seated hatred for one another that only death by fire or permanent banishment can cure. What’s the matter with you? Are you in your right mind?”
“The future is fluid to an extent. People—decisions can change things. Do you remember me telling you this?”
“Skyla?” A familiar voice calls from behind, and I turn to find my worst nightmare coming true—Chloe Bishop herself. “Have you come for a visit?”
“What the hell is she doing here?” My mouth falls open because for one, it feels as though I’ve just been hit with a ton of bricks made entirely of shit.
“What are you doing here?” Mom looks panicked, and, holy crap, if my mother can’t control Chloe Bishop we’re all in trouble.
Chloe latches onto my arm like a desperate leech about to have her belly sliced open. Now that’s one happy ending I can wrap my head around. “Skyla, you have to listen. Trust me—you don’t want to banish me. I promise, I will tell you everything.” She darts her wicked gaze to my mother for a second. “She’ll never tell you what she’s done, Skyla—she won’t fess up.”
“Be gone.” My mother raises her fingers and Chloe’s body bursts into a billion microscopic pieces that buzz around me like a swarm of angry bees.
I hold my breath in the event Chloe tries to worm her way into my system. Evidently nothing is beyond her grasp. I wouldn?
“See?” I point hard at the arid space she’s left behind. “Her leash is far too long. I thought the terms of our agreement were to keep her bound in the Transfer for all eternity?”
“The terms of our agreement were to give her Ezrina’s punishment. The Counts dictate where she’s bound. Ezrina was free to roam the earth, as well as the ethereal plane as long as her captors allowed it. When I punished Ezrina and sent her to the Transfer I gave the Counts free reign over her comings and goings.” She leans in. The muscles in her jaw clench as if I had exasperated her. “Her punishment stipulated servitude to the Counts. She is a charge of the Countenance.” She reiterates as if to make things as clear as that crystalline lake behind her. “I knew they would be lenient.” She gives a little laugh as though it were common knowledge.
“Holy crap.” I throw my neck back, and a cry escapes me because, dear God, I think I’ve just been bested by Chloe once again.
“Of course, I am your mother—and, as the overseer, if you see her as a threat to your personal safety—”
“Yes!” I shout so loud the water ripples straight through to the falls.
“Skyla.” She gives a sly smile as if she’s keeping something from me—and she probably is. “Banishment of this type would ensure you have no access to Chloe nor she to you. It would be a variant of the protective hedge. Binding spirits are involved.”
“Chloe must smell this coming from a mile away. She’s been after me for weeks to keep her around. She’s even promised to tell me secrets she thinks not even you would let me in on.” I put air quotes around the word secrets, but I think we both know I’m patronizing her. “Now, are you ready to answer my questions?”
Her pale eyes settle over mine, and it’s like looking in a mirror.
“You, my love, came very close to allowing Gage to plant new life in your womb.”
“You, my love, are skirting the question. The dragon—what does it have to do with Gage?”
Her features harden. Her lids slit to nothing.
“Do you love him?”
“Do I love Gage? I think we’re back to you being out of your mind.” I take a step in until we’re just about nose-to-nose. “I love Gage Oliver as much as you love toying with my life. I love him more than anything in this universe. I would sacrifice the world and everything in it just to have him. And I’ll make sure death comes nowhere near him for the next several decades. He’s mine, and there’s not a soul who could ever take him away.”
“Very well.” She raises a hand and the ethereal plane evaporates in a lavender fog.
“Wait! You didn’t answer my question!”
“Yes—you love Gage. Let me put it in words you can understand; you answered your own damn question.”
I land back in my bed and feel around for Gage, but he’s gone. The room holds the scent of spring flowers and stale pizza. Oddly enough it smells startlingly familiar. The moon casts a shadow along the wall, and I catch a glimpse of my four-poster bed with the canopy on top. I’m in my old bedroom right back on Paragon.
Candace Messenger doesn’t make a mistake. She wanted to separate me from Gage—my own husband—by an entire body of water.
“Very funny, mother,” I whisper, leaning over to turn on the light.
The cool comforter washes across my skin, and I peer down only to confirm that I’m naked as the day I was born. At least my clothes are still with Gage. Speaking of Gage, I’ll have to borrow Mia’s phone and text him.
Chloe wafts through my mind like the wily horned devil she is.
And, after I send my sweet husband a quick message, I think I’ll take the Mustang for a drive—right through the granite wall at the base of Devil’s Peak. It’s the only portal I know of that will land me right in the pit of hell—otherwise known as the Transfer.
It’s time to end a few mysteries, and, as fate would have it, the only one willing to help me do so is the devil herself.
I send a text to Gage and let him know I’d be home in the morning. Home. Everything in me warms at the sound of that.
I drive through miles of crystalline Paragon fog, white as a blizzard. It’s so dense, it’s a wonder I don’t drive off the side of the cliff, let alone through it. I carefully maneuver the Mustang to the base of Devil’s Peak and give a momentary satisfied smile as I land over the exact spot where Chloe’s shallow grave once sat. I rev the engine a few times before throwing it back into drive and slamming my foot to the floorboard. It’s time to defy gravity, and, hopefully, a few dimensional planes.
The Mustang lurches forward, picking up speed like a jet engine ready for flight. The mountain of granite fast approaches like a shadow staining the sapphire sky. It comes at me with its looming ferocity as if it were charging me, not the other way around. The Mustang comes up on it, and my voice saws through the virginal silence of the island like a chainsaw hacking through the night.
The Mustang gyrates and quivers, and for a brief moment that wonderful vibrating feeling that only Marshall can exude runs through me like a pleasing electrocution. For a second I’m dumbfounded that I didn’t bother to bring him with me.
The Mustang thumps down on the depressive cracked soil of the Transfer, and I let out a breath of relief.
On second thought, Marshall would have tried to talk me out of such a stupid, stupid idea. I drive down toward the haunted mansion as far as I can without running over an entire mob of frenzied dead Counts with their yesteryear fashions.
“The hoops skirts, the handlebar mustaches”—I mutter as I get out of the car—“obviously they’re being punished for fashion crimes.” I make my way toward the dilapidated mansion, the very one that Demetri himself duplicated on Paragon, albeit a rehabbed version and stop dead in my tracks.
“Oh. Holy. Hell.” I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Situated behind the mansion and slightly to its left is a monstrosity that looks like it was ripped straight out of a horror novel. “Dracula’s castle.” It all makes sense. Of course, Wesley, Demetri’s egotistical son, is going to out douche his father, but, wow, the size and scope of this tall, dark and horrific eyesore is definitely crying out compensation issues. Big castle little dick syndrome seems to be a very real thing down here in the Transfer.
I head over in that direction instead, since it’s most likely housing the idiots I’m looking for. There’s no doubt in my mind that Chloe isn’t shaking the sheets with the heir to the evil throne—and the idea wrenches my heart far more than I ever thought possible because, well, essentially Chloe is sleeping with Gage.
I push my way through the gathering crowd while slapping errant hands away that dare tug at my tresses. I swear, it’s like they’ve never seen a person before which makes no sense whatsoever since they themselves are once-upon a people. They’re forever laughing and dancing and having an all around great time with one another, or at least it seems so whenever I pop in. It’s ironic in a way. On earth we always seem to be embroiled in one drama or trauma after another. And, here in the Transfer, these ghosts from long ago seemingly have it made—no death, no pain, no bothering to open the door. Speaking of which, I trot up the walkway to the castle of corruption.
“Knock, knock!” I shout, walking right past the opened double doors, each adorned with a ferocious lion’s head that looks pissed as hell to be here.
It’s spacious inside, dimly lit with candlelight, and the flicker of a fire brightens the cavernous room to my right. The fireplace is stunningly huge, large enough to park my Mustang in if I wanted.
A pair of overgrown glass coffins filled with blue keeping solution sit to the right and left of the entry. Wesley rises from a tufted leather chair, looking every bit like my husband, and my knees turn to water at the sight of him. “Looks like you took a cue from Ezrina in the decorating department.” Although the tanks are notably empty. “Still hunting for victims I see.”
“There’s nobody I want to bring back.” He waves a hand ove
I walk past him and stare up at the ornate gilded mirror hanging above the fireplace with its carved roses, its three-inch long thorns spiking out of it.
“Chloe’s touch.” He stands beside me as we stare up at the atrocity together.
“You know what they say—you can’t buy good taste.”
“And apparently you can’t buy good manners,” a female voice sings from behind. I turn to find Chloe herself wrapped in a flowing scarlet robe that Wes probably dyed with Celestra blood. “Let me guess, you’ve come to negotiate?”
Here she is—the exact person I tore through spiritual planes to visit—Chloe Bishop. Sometimes the only person who will tell you the truth is your enemy— especially when they know it’ll hurt.
“There’s nothing to negotiate, Chloe. According to my mother, the Counts have already gifted you with enough freedom to make me miserable for decades.”
“My roaming privileges are at your mercy. You and I both know that. Looks to me the negotiations are back on the table.”
“Chloe”—I close my eyes a moment—“why do you make everything so damn difficult? Just please tell me what you know, and I’ll leave you alone.” I have every intention of leaving her alone and zero intention of leaving her to wander the free world.
She takes a step to my left with her hair flowing long like an ebony river. “Skyla, you and I both know you’ll be back at Mommy Dearest’s side once I give you the gut wrenching news. I mean I really couldn’t blame you.” She cocks her head, mocking me in the process. Even while groveling for her life, Chloe is a bitch—full steam ahead. “The devastation that will incur—the gnashing of teeth, the tears—will certainly call for a loving mother to wipe them away.”
“Devastation?” I pull her in, digging my fingers into the soft flesh of her arm. “What’s happened, Chloe?”
“Relax, Skyla.” She yanks free. “I’m not going to tell you without an oath stipulating that you won’t have me bound. I’ve been saving this secret for a moment like this, and believe me”— her neck arches back as though she were sexually aroused, and, knowing Chloe’s twisted mind, she probably is—“I have waited so long to tell you these words.” She cuts those wicked eyes over mine and glowers in a state of bliss that I have never seen in her before. “When you learn the truth, Skyla, your entire universe will implode into that hole where your heart once sat.”