Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) (20 page)

Out of the shadows pounces a large beast with three extravagantly pissed off heads—Cerberus.

“Shit,” I say, cowering behind Michelle, who happens to be cowering behind Gage.

He reaches down and picks up a stick with the speed of a ninja. “Where the hell did this thing come from?”

“She must have pulled it out of the mirror,” I say, keeping an eye on all three snapping jaws.

Michelle buries her dark curls into Gage’s back before peering over his shoulder. “I’ve been terrified of that thing since I was old enough to see the stupid painting on the side of the gym. I hate that monster. I thought it was fucking fake!”

“It is fake,” I say, “sort of.” That mirror must work like the rest of Demetri’s haunted crap. Whatever you’re afraid of has the power to manifest itself just by touching one of his effed up artifacts. I suppose it’s too late to suggest she develop an aversion to magnificent sunsets, or warm glazed donuts and chocolate milk.

It snaps at Gage, nips him in the wrist before circling around the three of us and hightailing it into the thick of the party.

The crowd erupts in screams as an infinite amount of expletives float up into the stratosphere.

I yank out my cell while Michelle and Gage head over.

Shit has hit the fan ~S

Really, there were probably a million other things I could have said to Marshall that were more to the point and less cliché in nature.

You’ve created eunuchs of both Oliver boys with a dull blade from the kitchen?

I don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about, but then again, the feeling is mutual I suppose.

We have an uninvited party guest—Cerberus!!! Help now! ~S

You’re having a party without me?

I can practically hear the indignation in his voice.

I take a few steps closer toward the chaos and see Gage trying to ward it off to the side yard, but it’s just sitting there, growling all of its ugly heads at him.

A large gathering of people have amassed in a circle and apparently find it perfectly sane to gawk at the alien being.

Ellis blinks into it several times. “Dude, I am so tripping!”

Marshall appears by my side and sighs heavily at the scene. “Is that all she brought?” He seems rather unimpressed.

“God, I hope so,” I say, trying to push Marshall over to the demonic canine but he resists.

“I’m not going out there. I doubt it would refrain from trying to attack. I’m in no mood for confrontation.”

“What do you mean you’re in no mood for confrontation?” I push him in the chest. “You have to help. We are having a supernatural episode that’s about to turn this entire island into a freak show once the rest of the planet figures out what kind of shit goes down here. Now go!” I point hard at the tempered crowd.

“I’m amused by your show of prowess—and by the way, do feel free to bring such heated aggression into the bedroom. In fact, I say we initiate the first rule of our union—spirited disagreements are only to be conducted sans clothing underneath the sheets.” He picks up my hand gives a kiss as if to sound the gavel on his pornographic solution to marital discord.

“Just get rid of it,” I hiss.

“I can’t. I’m tied up at the moment forming the guest list for our engagement party. Word on the golden streets is, the Soullennium is rife with envy and gossip. Tsk, tsk, it brings shame to the Kingdom. The quicker the celestial scene sees you for itself the sooner the jealousy can properly set in.” He gives a sly look before evaporating into thin air.

“Marshall,” I shout, but it’s too late, he’s gone.

Michelle steps out of the shadows, shaken and staring at the dead space he left in his wake.

“He was just here.” She grabs a hold of her temples and lets out a mind-numbing scream.

Shit.

Can this night get any worse?

The phone buzzes in my hand. It’s a text from Logan.

Counts just voted. Sorry Skyla. Treble has been overturned. 

Just craptastic.

Chapter 79

Heads Up

The pale fog cycles and churns as the monstrous creature, Cerberus himself, zips around the yard, scattering people in droves like pigeons. It charges up the porch and into the house where more howls of terror ensue, followed by the draining of bodies who had the iron stomach to handle the ripe scent of vomit.

The faint sound of glass breaking followed by the crash of random things of great heft, rain down from inside. Just fuck. Chloe and Ethan have reduced the house to rubble in less than an hour.

Gage heads inside armed with one of Drake’s baseball bats. He looks ready to beat the living shit out of the Fem busy destroying the Landon residence when little does he know I’ll be blipped out of existence soon.

“Can you believe this?” Brielle shakes me by the shoulders. “That thing just bit Emily’s face off!”

“It did?” Shit. This is worse than I thought.

“Not really, but she’s totally got a bloody lip,” she says vindictively.

“Yeah, well, guess who’s going to wish she was lucky enough to be around to watch someone steal her boyfriend?” I don’t realize that it comes out like a threat until Brielle cowers as if I were about to strike her. “
Me
,” I jab my thumb in my chest. “The Counts are about to take me hostage and it’s all stupid Chloe’s fault.” To say I hated Chloe, that I wished Cerberus would eat her alive, chew her face off with all three of its razor sharp jaws would be an understatement. I don’t care what Gage’s vision says about the “future me” begging to preserve Chloe Bishop’s life. If it’s the last thing I do before I officially get wiped off the map, I’m going to kill the wicked witch of West. That protective hedge dangling around her neck doesn’t stand a chance.

“Are you shitting me?” Brielle jumps in a show of agitation.

“Nope. And now she’s going to pay.” I stop shy of tracking down the blemish on my existence to add, “Just like she paid you to buddy up with me.”

Brielle slaps her fingers to her mouth. “Skyla!” She snatches me by the arm and pulls me in. Her eyes squint with a viral desperation. “I swear to you, I’m sorry I ever took a penny. I would have been your friend no matter what.”

I shrug like it didn’t matter, but the truth is it feels like I just slit the throat of our relationship and now here we are, watching it bleed out.

“Look,” I say, gently pulling my arm from her grasp, “it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll be gone soon.” I glance back at the crowd simmering around the periphery for any signs of my nemesis. “And so will she.”

“Let me do this.” Brielle sharpens her features like she means business.

“Whoever finds Chloe first”—I shrug— “more power to her.” I speed past Brielle because I’ll be damned if I’m going to deny myself the thrill of taking down my least favorite adversary.

I push my way inside the house, completely unfazed by the fact there’s a psychotic mythological creature running loose on the grounds—hell,
Chloe
is a psychotic mythological creature running loose on the grounds.

I snatch a long kitchen knife from the stash of cutlery my mother keeps embedded in a chopping block high on the sink.

The dining room is trashed, the china cabinet is split in pieces, mosaic glass and pottery are spread over the stone floors like confetti. In the family room, there’s a long gash in my mother’s prized three-piece sectional with its dual reclining seats and convertible cup holders. Tad is going to shit his intestines out all over the floor when he sees this mayhem.

A swarm of bodies line the walls. A wasted boy sleeps in his own vomit on the carpet while some couple from East makes use of Ethan’s glow in the dark party favors on Tad’s favorite chair. A terrified crowd starts to build in the living room again.

Gage comes trotting down the stairs and heads straight for me.

“He went up to your Mom’s bedroom and ran right through the wall.” Gage points wild-eyed at the concept.

“You see Chloe anywhere?” I ask unfazed by the Fem’s abrupt departure.

“She’s in your room—”

I don’t wait for Gage to finish. I propel up the stairs, hopped on adrenaline and a serious lack of time as I burst through my bedroom door.

Carly Foster, Carson Armistead, Emily, Nat, and Lexy, all cower in terror of Cerberus, their worst nightmare, while Chloe stands with her back to the door as their self-appointed fearless leader.

I don’t hesitate. I swing the blade, quick and swift—and to my surprise her head flies right off the base of her neck. Her decapitated body stands erect for several seconds while a geyser of blood pumps into the air before she collapses at my feet.

“I did it.” I pant, marveling at the fact I actually managed to lop off her prime appendage.

“Shit!” Gage explodes from behind—but before I could turn or move, a black haired beauty walks out of the bathroom looking an awful lot like Chloe freaking Bishop.

“Oh, shit.” I sniffle. I glance down at the severed head sitting perfectly centered on my desk, using my laptop as a pillow.

I did manage to lop off a head—only tragically it didn’t belong to Chloe. It belonged to Michelle-been-to-hell-and-back-Miller.

***

It all happens so fast, the body Gage cradles like a ragdoll, the bloodied head he shoves in my chest for safekeeping—him blipping us over to Marshall’s quicker than the blink of an eye.

I set Michelle’s bloodied head down on the island in Marshall’s kitchen and gape at it like a thing of horror. I did this. I was the monster at the party tonight. It wasn’t Cerberus—it was me.

“Good God up in heaven!” Marshall’s voice booms through the marrow of his haunted estate with a viral intensity. “Get her to the table.” His baritone vibrates through the cookware dangling from the ceiling. “Grab that,” he barks, pointing over to the bloodied globe that is Michelle. It’s only then I notice I’ve inadvertently set her down on a flat silver tray with metal leaves that protrude as handles. I make my way over to the dining room with Michelle staring blankly into my chest, nothing but the whites of her eyes gazing out, her hair completely congealed with blood on the side.

Gage lays her body along the length of the table, and I place her head down in the middle. Gage blips out of the room reappearing with Logan, then Dr. Oliver in tandem.

We all sit there for a moment in shock just staring at Michelle Miller’s head on a platter, wondering how the hell the night went so wrong so fast.

Michelle is dead and I’ve killed her.

I swallow hard at the concept. This is an entire lifetime of pain and suffering I’ve caused her family, not to mention the horrific trauma I’ve inflicted on the friends unlucky enough to witness the event.  For me, it’s a prison term in the least. If I wasn’t known as the decapitator before, I will be now. I’ve pretty much solidified that nickname along with a life sentence or two. This was an unprecedented level of recklessness on my part and now I was going to have to pay. I accept that, but I still very much feel the need to off Chloe.

“What in the hell are we going to do?” Dr. Oliver asks, white with shock.

“We’re not going to let her die, that’s for damn sure.” Marshall rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt. “Ezrina!” He roars. “You.” He points at Dr. Oliver. “We’ll need three vials of the venom at least. Be gone.” He snaps his fingers and Dr. O disappears without the aid of his teleporting offspring.

“Michelle is going to get the venom?” I say momentarily confused by the order.

“What the hell happened?” Logan wraps his arms around me from behind and nestles his head next to mine. We stare out in disbelief at Michelle’s grey features, her dark blue lips sunk in a pout.   

“I…” It occurs to me there is no justification for slicing off anybody’s principal appendage, and well, not even Chloe’s. It was a stupid idea. I’ll forever be a fugitive on the planet, people will be looking for Skyla Messenger, homicidal maniac, when in fact, I’ll be having the blood drained from my body in some demented dimensional plane. And my sisters thought their so-called friends made fun of them
now
—wait until they hear the playground chants constructed around my newfound manslaughter fame.

“She thought it was Chloe,” Gage interjects. “There was a Fem running around in the shape of Cerberus—everything was insane. She was just trying to protect herself.”

Not quite the truth but I’ll go with it as a bargaining ploy if I have to.

Marshall simmers in my direction. “I’ll have you know my bailouts are far and few between when death is issued.” He settles a bevy of supplies down at the far end of the table: a bowl of clean water, an entire stack of lemon yellow kitchen towels, a butcher knife the size of a watermelon.

Ezrina appears with a metal tray full of medieval tools fresh from the Transfer.

“Pretty,” she says upon inspection. She grabs Michelle by the hair and flips her over, judging the intricacies of the veins and arties neatly severed at an even length. “Clean,” she says to no one in particular.

Dr. Oliver comes in dazed from the kitchen with his shaman suitcase and holds it up to Marshall. “All here,” he says, pausing shy of Ezrina with the heart-stopping attention she commands.

The scent of clotted blood, thick as rust, clouds the air.

“Lay her down,” Ezrina instructs and points to the floor.

“I’m afraid I don’t keep house quite the way you do,” Marshall says, arranging his dining room chairs in a tight row, long enough to accommodate a body. “There are all sorts of staph waiting to descend. Lie here Skyla,” he says rather nonchalant.

“What?” Gage, Logan, and I gasp in unison. It’s sort of a lovely bond since we’ve never accomplished that particular feat before. Who knew a beheading would be the unifying event we so desperately needed.

“Skyla.” Marshall darts a scowl at me. Dear God, he’s even more cuttingly handsome with a pissed-off look on his face, and right now, I’d rather focus on just about anything than Michelle Miller’s head on a platter, especially since I put it there. “We’re going to save Shelly. Does this please you?”