nightclub. It couldn’t have been, but it looked like that
woman.”
Everyone was staring at me when I looked away from
the TV.
“Excuse me,” Peran said as he took out his phone and
stepped back into the adjoining room, closing the door
with a quiet click.
Kai was still staring at me with a leery look like I might
jump up and grab him.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s just... there is a story the adults tell us as
children.” He shook his head. “You can’t be her.”
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“I can’t be who?” I asked, sitting forward. Kai leaned
away from me, and I threw myself back at his reaction. It
was like he feared me.
“He thinks you are The Black Crow,” Nick said with
a grin. He raised his glass like he was toasting me, then
downed the last of his bloody drink.
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CHAPTER NINE
“What is a Black Crow?” I asked.
Nick stood up and then flopped down on the bed
beside me, his hands behind his head. “The Black Crow in
mythology can summon the dead with a sweep of her hand.
Her power is endless.”
“I can’t summon the dead with a sweep of my hand,”
I said.
“Can you not? Have you tried?” Nick replied.
I bit my lip, remembering the magic that flooded the
graveyard when I ran from The Sanctuary.
Peran came back from the other room. “Niri is on his
way.”
“Why?” I asked, not wanting to continue this
conversation, but my mouth ran ahead of my brain.
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“Because he thinks you are the Black Crow and if so,
you need way more protection until you figure out how to
use your magic.”
“My magic raises wraiths. I know that” I said
stubbornly.
“For now,” He said with a grin. I was starting to dislike
that grin of his.
I tossed back the blankets and shut myself away in the
bathroom. Their voices murmured still, but I ignored them
and stared at my reflection in the mirror.
I tucked my hair into the back of my hoodie, but it
shone in the lights of the bathroom. I held out my hand
and let a bit of magic seep through my skin. It glittered and
flowed like a river that rose to the surface. I had no idea
what normal was for a necromancer. Maybe I was weird,
different. I pulled the magic back and watched it disappear
under my skin. I saw a flicker in the corner of my eye and
spun towards it. As I watched, a wraith floated up through
the floor to materialize in front of me. The woman's lips
moved, but I couldn’t hear her. Her mouth moved so fast.
She waved her arms like she was trying to get me to
understand, but I shook my head and backed away.
Her face pleaded, and I watched as she fell to her knees
in front of me. A tear rolled down her face, and I took
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another step back. I hadn’t summoned her. She shouldn’t
be here.
I reached behind me and fumbled for the doorknob.
My heart was pounding in my chest.
“Nick,” I called, trying to get my hand to work on the
knob while also keeping my eyes on the woman who was
yelling now. There was no sound, but her features were
angry and her mouth moved so fast. I closed my eyes and
leaned against the door. “NICK!” I yelled. There was a
banging on the door behind me, but I couldn’t get it open.
Suddenly, hands grabbed me. I screamed and fought
against them, my eyes still sealed shut.
“It’s just me,” Kai said, scooping me up like I was a
child and flashing me back into the main room. He set me
on the bed and then grabbed Peran and disappeared with
him.
I covered my head with my arm and curled up on the
bed. Nick reached out, and I felt the connection to him
snap into place, and my breathing got a little easier until,
from the bathroom, a woman's voice began to scream.
“He has come! He has come!” I covered my ears and
me and his hand ran in flat circles on my back. The
screaming continued a moment longer and then stopped.
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The sound of my laboured breathing was the only
noise in the room. My heaving chest ached, but I forced
my shaking hands off my ears and pushed up from Nick's
chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered between pants. I covered my
face as the tears fell. My nose ran too, and suddenly I was
a hot mess. I pulled the collar of my hoodie up and wiped
my face. Deep breaths hardly helped to slow my breathing,
but I kept trying. Each shaky breath was a bit calmer than
the one before it. Nick said nothing. He just kept rubbing
my back. His strong arms were holding me together.
The bathroom door clicked open, and Peran stepped
out followed by Kai. They looked composed and normal,
not hysterical. My heart sank further, and shame washed
over me. I was weak. I tried to turn away, but Nick didn’t
let go.
“Let go,” I said.
“There is nowhere to go, Selena. Just stay here a minute
and calm down,” Nick said. Worry lined his face, not
ridicule like I expected.
“I’m not your Black Crow. I’m nobody,” I said, pulling
away from him again. He let me go, but he was right, there
was nowhere to go. I collapsed on the bed and hid my face
in the pillow. The tang of blood reached my nose, and I
knew that Peran had sent the wraith away with his blood.
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I could have done the same if I had my knife and hadn’t
panicked.
Shit.
I dragged the blanket up to my chin and crushed my
eyes closed, begging my mind to stop and let me fall into
oblivion. Long after the lights went out and the sound of
the TV ceased, I finally fell into sleep.
The smell of bacon and coffee woke me. I peeked an
eye open, and another eye was inches from my face, I
moved my head back a few inches, and Nick's face came
into view. He smiled, and I groaned, burying my face in the
pillow.
“Come on, Selena. Time to get up. Big day ahead. City
to see! Stuff to explore!” Nick was way too awake.
I rolled over and scanned the room. The source of the
delicious smells was a cart with a covered tray on it.
“Is that for me?” I asked, still eying the cart.
“Well, it's not for me,” he replied, chuckling.
I rubbed my eyes and then pulled back the covers and
stretched before stumbling across the room towards the
prize.
“Do vampires never eat?” I asked him as I uncovered
the tray of breakfast foods. It was way too much for me to
eat, but I grabbed a piece of bacon, shoving it in my mouth
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and then the cup of coffee in one hand and a croissant in
the other and moved back to the warm spot in the bed.
“Some juvenile vampires eat food, mostly becau
se they
need to sink their teeth into things, like a child who sucks
their thumb, but adults rarely bother.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Thirty-two.”
The sip of coffee I had just taken tried to squirt back
out again. I coughed, and Nick patted my back.
“I forget you don’t know anything about us. About me.
It feels like I’ve always known you. We stop ageing at
eighteen. Some of us luck out and look magnificent —
others are not so lucky.” His crooked grin was back.
I shook my head and took a bite of the croissant. It was
light and buttery. I hummed my simple joy of a well-baked
pastry, and Nick laughed.
“I’m glad I'm not a vampire,” I said before taking
another bite.
The door between our room and Peran and Kai’s
opened, and they both came in.
“Hey, Selena. How are you feeling?” Peran asked.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“No need to be sorry. Niri just arrived. He is on his
way up,” Kai said, sitting on the end of the bed and turning
on the TV. He always seemed to be watching the news. I
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just like the news, but it was getting weird.
I stuffed the last of my croissant into my mouth and
then slid off the bed and grabbed some clean clothes out
of my suitcase. I had a quick shower, singing a song in my
head so I wouldn't think about what had happened here
the night before. I didn’t wash my hair, it was fine. I got
into the clean clothes, and when I stepped back out, the
jolly old wizard was standing in my room.
“Hello, Selena. I love that you think of me as jolly,” he
said, smiling, and I remembered he could read my mind.
Shit.
He chuckled. “I just wanted to have a chat with you.
Maybe we could go somewhere a little quieter? Would that
be all right?”
I chewed on my lip but nodded.
He set his arm on my shoulder, and the world went
sideways. Before I could blink, we were in a graveyard,
headstones lining the hills as far as I could see in every
direction.
Niri strolled forward at a leisurely pace along a pebbled
path. The sun was hot on my skin, reminding me of old
summers when I would spend the day in the cemetery. I
found peace among the graves. The crunch of pebbles and
the song of the birds were the only sounds for a while until
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we came to a grave, it was unmarked, but for a small stone
that peeked out of the ground. My magic wanted to spill
out and touch the soul beneath the grass, but I dared not.
Niri crouched down, his old bones creaking. He dusted
away the dirt and grass clippings from the marker. It said
Johnny Doe, with a date.
My heart began to race.
“He was the first that Peran raised. The first victim.”
Niri said.
I wanted to run. To leave the cemetery and never
return.
Niri straightened and then his gaze shifted from the
small marker to me. “Peran found his killer, but not the
boy's name. The boy had been with the man for so long,
he couldn't remember his own name.”
“I can’t,” I said, taking a step backwards.
“I’m not asking you to do anything. I just want to start
a conversation with you,” he said, his eyes shifting back to
the grave. “Peran had nightmares for months. I think he
would not want to come back to this place even now if he
had a choice. But when we caught the man who killed him,
he had another boy locked in his basement. That boy was
only four years old. That boy went home to his mother.”
A tear stung my eye then slipped down my cheek.
“Tell me about the wraith you saw last night,” he said.
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“The woman was screaming. I didn't give her my
blood, so she was silent, but I hadn’t raised her. She just
came to me. I think I might have seen her earlier at the
nightclub.” I tipped my face up to the sky to stop the tears.
“She came to you,” he repeated.
“I think so. How else would she have appeared?” I
asked.
He just nodded instead of answering. There was no
other way for her to appear. A wraith needed necromancer
magic. Usually, I had to give it to them, but something was
different now.
A loud caw split the air, startling me out of my
thoughts.
“So, it has come,” Niri said.
I was about to ask him what he was talking about when
a big black crow soared down from the trees and dove
straight for me. I had no time to react; it hit my stomach
like a freight train and disappeared in a blast of ebony
feathers. I choked and coughed, doubled over with the
wind knocked out of me. I couldn’t catch my breath, I just
gasped like a fish on dry land.
I coughed so hard, my eyes watered, and my lungs
burned. I sucked in the first full breath and coughed one
last time, feeling like my lungs were coming out through
my mouth. I reached up and pulled a long midnight black
105
feather from my throat, then promptly vomited in the
grass.
When I finished heaving, I pushed myself over
backwards and lay in the grass with my eyes closed. The
sun burned on my eyelids as I lay catching my breath for a
minute.
“What just happened?” I wheezed, rolling my eyes to
the side to get a look at Niri. His face was a look of
amazement.
“You are the one,” he whispered. “The Black Crow.”
“Shit.”
I closed my eyes again and just let my mind settle.
Magic was a part of my life, but apparently, now it was my
life. Warlocks and vampires and stupid birds.
Magic swirled, and I tried to clamp it down, but it
pressed at my skin. At first, it was testing, like a shark
bouncing off the cage the divers were in, but then it pushed
harder until it felt like my skin would split and my insides
would burst out. I tried to hold on, but it was no use. An
invisible force lifted me to my feet as the magic burst out.
Dam broken, glittery blue waves rocked from my
hands and out in an ever-growing circle around me. I heard
a crow calling as my magic reached the limits of my sight.
Then I heard a whisper. It was a quiet voice I could barely
hear over the rising racket of the crow.
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Someone was calling to me — from beyond the grave.
107
CHAPTER TEN
Niri took several steps back, his look of awe, morphing
to worry.
“Perhaps this isn’t the best time to raise them all?” he
said like I controlled the magic right now.
I ignored him and focused in on the single voice that
was calling me.
“Please, you have to help me!” It whispered.
I spun towards the sound of the voice. It was coming
from th
e farthest reaches of the graveyard. I squinted my
eyes, blinking into the sun. I could see a shape. The magic
drew back into my body and pushed my legs to move.
I sprinted, leaving Niri behind. My legs raced across
the sloping grounds, weaving between gravestones and
past shrubbery, to get to the one I needed to talk to.
My heart jumped in my chest as the figure came into
view. It was a young woman, standing on freshly turned
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soil. I skidded to a stop. Her face was a ruin. Tear streaks
cut through the bloodstains on her face. Her mouth was
open in a silent scream. Shaking my head, I tried to turn
around, but the magic held me like my feet had become
stuck to the grass. I struggled to get away, thrashing my
arms to keep from falling, my eyes locked on the terrified,
bloody woman.
“I can’t,” I screamed, and I heard a Crow caw. He
swooped down from a tree landing beside me, then
hopped two steps forward. He bobbed his head and cawed
at the woman, and she closed her mouth. Her face relaxed,
and she floated like a calm wraith except for the blood on
her face.
Niri sifted in beside me, his hand extended. I looked
down to find a pocket knife folded in his palm. I looked
back at the woman; her face calm, her mouth closed, her
eyes blinking at me and I took the knife.
The crow cawed and hopped towards me. He stayed at
my side as I stepped towards the grave. His black feathers
glittered in the sun and ruffled in the light breeze. My magic
had pulled tight, so it was just surrounding me and the
rectangular dirt patch before me.
She waited patiently; her face still relaxed. I stepped
onto the dirt, and the bird joined me. He pulled a worm
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from the turned ground and ate it with a few quick snaps
of his beak.
Gross.
I looked back at the wraith. Her form settled on the
dirt like most did when I raised them. I knelt before her, as
far as I could get while still kneeling in the dirt and I
fumbled open the knife. Her eyes watched my hands
patiently.
With the pocket knife opened, I took a deep breath and
pushed up my sleeve. A shiver ran down my spine in
anticipation. My magic froze and waited for its chance to