Fashionably Dead (45 page)

“Mother?” I gasped. She was breathtaking, but there was something wild and untamed about her now. Unhinged might be a better term. Her pale green dress, stained with my blood, billowed around her. It was definitely my mother, but she appeared to be transparent.

“In the flesh.” She flashed her teeth at me and gave a brittle laugh. “Well, almost.”

“Are you a ghost?”

“No, darling, I’m in between worlds . . . for the moment.”

“Can I touch you?” I needed to touch her. I had always needed to touch her and I had prayed my entire life that one of these times she would want to touch me back.

“With those filthy hands? I think not.” She gave me a withering stare. “Besides, as you can see, I’m not quite corporeal.”

She leaned toward me with a real and gentle smile on her face. She was so pretty. My body tingled to be the recipient of that look. I reached for her. She reached for me and released a blast of red lightening from her hand. It grazed my shoulder, sending shock waves of excruciating pain through my body and bitch-slapped me back to the reality of the abusive relationship I’d always had with my mother. I refused to make a sound. How did that lightening get through my shield?

“Whoops, sweetie.” She made a sad face. “Did that hurt?”

I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream in agony, but I refused to cry in front of her. I stood silently and watched her.

“You see, Astrid,” she said, her voice clipped and business-like, “I have three hours to find someone. Someone very important to me.” She smiled and reached out to me. I flinched away. Her smile disappeared and her eyes turned cold and hard. “I need to borrow your body.”

“What? No!” I was shocked. Fear and anger knotted up inside of me. She was not taking my body, whatever that meant. I was not the only one inhabiting my body right now and I sure as hell didn’t want her to know that.

“You don’t have to be a bitch about it,” she hissed.

Then from behind me, a pathetic chorus of voices began calling out.

“Take mine.”

“I’ll die for you, sweet mother.”

“Take me, mommy.”

“I am yours, mother.”

“I love you.”

The Rogues began wailing and moaning and crying. They were calling her Mother.

Holy shit, she was their mother? They were the brothers and sisters Julie told me about?

This was fucking fantastic. Those killing machines that ate people were my siblings? I’d bet a lot of money that we shared the same Demon King daddy. I felt ill.

Her eyes whipped to the corner of the room where the Rogues, her children, were chained. She gasped and quickly masked her astonishment and rage at their presence. She was such a good mother. Her tone was venomous. “You’re worthless,” she screamed at them. “Look at you chained like a common human.”

Their wailing was pitiful. They were begging her to use them, to love them. I thought I had nothing in common with them, but I was wrong. We all wanted that monstrosity’s love.

Her voice was low and calm. Truly terrifying. “None of you have accomplished what your sister has.” She pointed at me. They spat and bared their fangs. “I had such high hopes for all of you, but you failed me. For five hundred years I’ve been giving birth to you hideous creatures and I hate all of you.” She smiled at them. The wails increased to deafening volumes.

“Shut up,” she screamed. She floated toward her children and they cowered in fear. “There, there . . . ” She gave them a hostile glare. “Don’t be frightened. All I ever wanted was for one of you to release me between my wretched mortal lives, but you were too stupid and useless to do it.”

She shot lightening at two of them, severing their heads off. “God, that felt good!”

Joy bubbled in her laugh and her eyes shone bright.

“The stupidest and most worthless one of all accomplished what none of you could. Bow to her,” she shrieked, killing three of my brothers who dared to defy her. “Bow to the bitch. She has released me.”

They bowed. I’d pretty much had all of her compliments that I could take. She was batshit crazy and I had to get rid of her. Except I had no idea how.

“Are you a Demon?” I asked her.

She pivoted mid-decapitation and gave me a lovely smile. “No, my sweet,” she cooed, “your daddy is a Demon. He’s Abbadon, King of the Demons.

I glanced back. The Elite Guard had surrounded the King. They looked dull and colorless to me. They were cloaked. She couldn’t see them.

“What about Julie, Mother?” The puzzle that was piecing itself together did not look good. “Is she really my sister? We look nothing alike.”

“I know.” She eyed me with disdain. “Juliet is beautiful . . . hard to believe you’re sisters.”

Why did her hatred still hurt? “We must have different fathers.” I tried to goad her into completing the picture.

“Yes,” she sighed and looked wistful and lost. “She’s quite old.” My mother’s voice dripped with jealousy. “She’s immortal, just like you, Astrid.”

“How old is she?” I asked. Please say a hundred or two hundred or even four hundred. Do not say five hundred or so. Do not let her be Ethan’s sister. Do not let my mother be the . . .

“She’s five hundred and nineteen, isn’t she, Petra?” The King stepped out from behind the Elite Guard and shed his cloaking. He confronted the horrific creature that had given birth to me.

“Brilliant,” Petra screamed in delight. “I don’t need your body after all,” she told me. “Astrid, Astrid . . . God, if I’d known you’d be so useful, I would have treated you better. You brought me what I wanted. You’re such a good girl!”

Her eyes were wild and she shivered in anticipation.

The puzzle came together in my mind with a sickening click. My mother was Petra, the banished wife of the King. Juliet was her daughter. Juliet was my sister. Juliet was Ethan’s sister. Which means I mated with my brother. Wait. Think . . . They have different mothers and we have different fathers so . . . I’m so confused, but I’m pretty sure that Ethan and I weren’t committing incest. His father was the Vampyre King and mine was the Demon King. His mother died in childbirth and mine was the psychotic bitch flying around the room trying to kill everybody and take over the world. We were safe. Thank you, Jesus. As relieved as I was that I hadn’t mated with a relative, I was also terrified that my lovely mother was getting ready to do some bad mamba jamba.

“What do you want, Petra?” I asked, stepping between her and the King.

“Isn’t it obvious, dear?” she replied sharply. “I want to live forever. I’m so sick and tired of dying and starting over, time after time,” she moaned. She was coming unhinged. I watched in fascination as her eyes turned black with fury. “What I’m really sick of is fucking your Demon father. I hate fucking Demons and producing worthless shit,” she screamed.

Her eyes blazed with insanity. She flew on a gust of wind back to the Rogues who, despite her hatred of them, reached lovingly for her. “You are scum,” she spat as they sobbed. She laughed maniacally and blasted them with red lightening, killing all of them instantly.

She wants to live forever. She wants the King. She wants . . .
Oh shit, no.

I unsheathed my katana and waited. She flew around me. I kept the King behind me the entire time. Heathcliff, Cathy, and Venus sprinted in and we had the King sandwiched between us. Gemma moved forward with Sir James and the rest of the Elite Guard drew their weapons.

“Do you think you can kill me with your little toys?” She was positively gleeful. “I’m a spirit, you imbeciles. Watch,” she yelled. She ran her body through Sir James’ outstretched sword. Nothing happened. She was becoming more transparent with each passing moment.

“Shit,” Cathy muttered.

“Agreed,” Heathcliff whispered. “How in the hell do we kill her?”

“Astrid, I think this is where you being the Chosen One comes in,” Venus said. My panic escalated.

“Don’t forget,” the King added, “I know her quite well and I’m not helpless. I’m completely armed.”

“With all due respect my Liege, not against a transparent flying psycho witch shooting red lightening out of her hands,” I said and I started to laugh. I tried to suppress it, but I couldn’t. The utter insanity of what was happening was too much. It was either laugh or freak out.

We were Vampyres trying to kill what basically amounted to a ghost, who happened to be my mother and the former wife of the King. She wanted to drink the King’s blood, rip his heart out and eat him. Then she planned to take over the world with my Demon daddy, which besides being disgusting, was so not going to happen today.

I had apparently been created for this exact moment and I had absolutely no idea what in the hell to do. I didn’t know how to kill her and therefore I couldn’t keep the King safe. I let my spirit leave my body and tried to enter her, but there was nothing to enter. My spirit floated through her as if she wasn’t there. If she was non-corporeal, how was she causing such damage?

“I don’t have much time, Astrid,” she said through clenched teeth. “Move away from my husband, or I’ll kill everyone in the room.”

“Can’t do that, Mom.” I decided on a new tactic. “Does my father know you don’t like to fuck him? God, I wouldn’t want to have sex with something that disgusting either. I don’t know how you did it for five hundred years.”

She began to hiss and turn more transparent.

“I don’t think he likes you much either, because after he beat the hell out of you, he stood there and watched while all of his friends ate you . . . and he laughed the whole time.”

“Shut up,” she hissed. Her face hardened with rage and her flying became erratic.

“It must suck to get knocked up century after century by someone who hates you. If memory serves, I believe he called you a bitch. Now that’s just not nice.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” she shrieked. “Abaddon loves me.”

She raised her hands in the air and red lightening rained down striking everywhere. I threw my body over the King. Heathcliff, Venus, and Cathy piled on top. Petra let out a piercing wail and wave after wave of dark Magic surged through the room. I couldn’t see or hear. The evil juju she was causing felt like icy pinpricks all over my skin. I knew I was screaming. I could feel the vibrations in my body. I had just lost the ability to hear it.

Then it stopped. It was over. We all stood up and realized Petra was gone. So was the King.

“Oh dear God, where is he?” Sir James began to frantically search the room for the King.

Cathy and Venus dug through the rubble while Heathcliff looked through the pile of dead Rogues.

“Astrid,” Gemma said. “Where did she take him?”

“I don’t know.” I dropped to the ground and hugged my knees to my chest.

“Where are they?” Gemma asked again.

“I told you I don’t know,” I ground out, my jaw clenched tight.

“Yes, you do,” she said calmly. “Focus.”

I closed my eyes tight, fighting against my desire to attack her. Why did she think I knew? They were all wrong. I was not the Chosen One. I was nothing.

I tried to focus. On what? I didn’t know. I pushed everything out and let my spirit float freely inside of my own body. I had never done this before. The minute I relaxed, images raced through my mind like a crack addict channel surfing. Ethan’s smile, Nana’s eyes, Angelina Pitt’s scattered remains, Samuel’s middle finger, Ross’ Velcro hair, Abaddon’s claws, undulating Demons, Petra and the King surrounded by the gorgeous rocks at Diamond Caverns.

“The caves,” I gasped. “She took him to Diamond Caverns, near the Portal to Hell.”

“It will take at least thirty minutes flying at full speed,” Heathcliff said, tucking his dagger into his belt and readying himself.

“He’ll be dead,” Sir James said.

“It will take me thirty seconds and he will not be dead. It’s not his day to die,” I told them. I flung my arms out scattering Fairy Glitter everywhere and disappeared.

***

Ethan burst through the doors of the Town Hall, followed by Luke, Princess Raquel and Princess Lelia. “We lost Juliet, but it’s definitely her.” He scanned the room quickly. “Where’s Astrid? Where’s my father?”

“Queen Petra took your father to Diamond Caverns and Astrid transported after them,” Sir James told him.

“Goddamn it.” Ethan turned to leave.

“Ethan!” The serious tone of Sir James’ voice stopped him. “She’s pregnant.”

Ethan blanched and everyone except Gemma gasped. “How? That’s not possible,” he whispered.

“She’s the Chosen One. It’s ordained,” Sir James smiled.

Ethan’s fists clenched as tears of disbelief and joy threatened to fall. This was something he had never even imagined, something no Vampyre had the right to even dream of. This was the secret she was going to share tonight. He gathered himself, turned to his people and roared, “Fly. Now.”

As they hit the air, Cathy flicked her fingers at the Town Hall. It exploded and burst into a raging fire equal only to the white hot fury burning through Ethan’s body at the thought of harm coming to the two . . . no, the three people he loved most in the world.

Chapter 42