“Ah, yes. Death should always be both gruesome and memorable.”
Though scared, Val didn’t understand Mommy’s tears. Daddy had died plenty of times before, and they’d always revived him. He still played, still laughed, still cuddled with Mommy and shared happy times.
But now Mommy acted as if she’d lost something precious.
Val wanted to help Mommy see they could be okay. She reached out with her magic, though she’d been warned not to.
Her mother quickly reached out with her own power and smothered Val’s. A magical slap, and Val felt sorry for making her mad. But the longer she watched Daddy sag in the bad man’s hand, all wrong, the more she worried.
“Wait. I feel something.” Vladimir paused and threw her father to the floor. He crumpled like a bag of bones in a skinsuit that didn’t fit so well anymore.
“Stop it, Vladimir,” Mommy cried. “Val is gone. She passed away a year ago. We’re trying to move on.”
Val knew the story they told everyone. That she’d died because no one could know Val and her family lived happily ever after. Necromancers had to hide and hide well. So Val stayed quiet, certain she could raise Daddy after the bad man left.
Vladimir laughed, and Val heard the many voices that didn’t belong. They hurt her ears, made her eyes bleed and her heart stutter.
Mommy screamed and screamed. And when the bad man lifted her into his arms and dragged her from the room, she screamed some more.
Val closed her eyes and covered her ears.
But she couldn’t help hearing Mommy hurting. Pleading for mercy, for death. Then the taunts and dark laughter from the bad man.
Needing comfort, Val tried to raise Daddy.
He didn’t move.
Her way was blocked, and that had never happened before.
And then Val felt Mommy in the calm place. Heard her soft voice say, “We have to go, sweetheart. Hide, and don’t ever let the bad man find you. We love you.”
The bad man returned with a girl a few years older than Val. Ava, Talon’s special friend. He dragged her by the arm. “You know where the girl is, don’t you?”
The young girl with him sobbed, so pretty despite her tears.
“Tell me where she is or join Morgan. Pretty hard to fly without wing bones.”
Ava screamed and partially shifted shape, her arms turning to feathered wings as she tried to escape.
Laughing, Vladimir broke her wings and her back while the girl screeched in pain. Then he broke her neck and tossed her next to Daddy.
A larger adolescent eagle dove into the room, his talons out as he attacked Vladimir.
Val immediately raised Ava from the dead and let her shift, broken and all, needing to protect her friend, Talon, before the bad man killed him too.
She merged with Ava and used the girl’s talons to slice into Vladimir’s eyes.
He screamed. Hurting him broke her paralysis, and Val shot out from under the bed.
“Talon,” she cried. “Watch out. The bad man is killing people!”
He landed and shifted in seconds, tears tracking down his face as he stared in shock at Ava and her broken wings, the dead eagle’s talons raking Vladimir’s face.
“I’ll kill you, girl. And all you love. Every fucking one of them.” Vladimir roared with his magic.Demonmagic. “Everything in my path.”
Talon dropped to the ground, holding his ears.
Val roared back, knowing deep inside she’d never see her family again. That Talon’s special friend was gone forever, even now wanting to drift into the Beyond to join the ancients of her kind.
