Gage shakes his head. “My sister.”
Chapter 103
Head of the Family
The room spins on its axis, and for a brief moment, I think I’m going to pass out from the sheer genius Gage just espoused from his lips. The idea of filling Emerson Kragger’s “testament to all things goth” with sweet little ole Giselle is beyond brilliant.
I wrap my arms around him and breathe into his neck, savoring his cologne as if it were God’s own breath.
“You saved me,” I whisper.
Gage and the infinite ways he loves me is a spool of never-ending affection that gives without ever asking for anything in return. Well, if that condom he keeps handy is any indication, he might want something in return, but that too is because he loves me.
“Giselle?” Dad asks. “She’s become like a daughter to me.”
“Really?” I take him in as his eyes glow in the shadows. I love the thought of my dad knowing and loving Giselle. “You think she’d want to come back? I mean, I know it’s not her body, but they look so much alike.” Emerson is gorgeous—or she would have been if she ever bothered to smile. “Can we have Giselle back?” I bear into my mother for mercy.
“It’s not up to me.” She gives the slight hint of a smile. I can feel the love radiating from her like pinholes of light that penetrate through a tangible darkness. “Giselle would have to approve. It would mean she would have to leave Paradise. That’s a tall order for someone who hardly remembers this planet.”
“She loves us,” Gage starts. “She’s family and so is Skyla. I’m sure she would be more than willing to help.”
Marshall averts his eyes as if the odds were slim.
What is with these people? Doesn’t everybody want to live right here on planet Earth?
“Giselle?” My mother looks past my shoulder.
I turn to find Gage’s sister looking bashful and unsure of why we’ve called her while huddled around a headless corpse.
“Giselle!” I’ll be the first to admit, the whole idea doesn’t look too appealing. “I swear I will owe you everything,” I say, running over and giving her a death grip of a hug, no pun intended.
“What’s going on?” She steps out of my embrace and over toward Gage.
See? She totally trusts Gage. It’s all going to work out fine.
“Feel like trading Eden for Hades?” Marshall quips.
“Oh, stop.” I shoot him a dirty look. “Guess what?” I spring back with all the enthusiasm I can muster. “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has come up just for you!” Wow, if that doesn’t sound like a late-night infomercial for the lame and restless, I don’t know what does. “I’m mean, if you want a change of scenery, why not consider your options?” Again, it’s like I stepped in a steaming pile of stupid and I find the need to share the stench.
“What Skyla is trying to say is”—Gage wraps an arm around her—“we need you.”
“Giselle,” my mother starts in with her I’m-not-shitting-around voice, “would you like to enter back into the earthly plane bearing this corporal form.” She fans her hand over Emerson’s less-than-impressive state of being.
Well crap. It’s like both Marshall and my mother are working against me.
“I know it doesn’t look like much, but we can work with it,” I offer.
Giselle’s mouth falls open with disgust and she recoils right out of her brother’s arms and lunges for my dad instead.
“What’s wrong with you people?” She gasps over at Gage and me as if we had just asked her to do something morally reprehensible and celestially forbidden. Well, maybe running around like a Halloween decoration would be, but this is different. I think.
“She has a head,” I offer. Somewhere. “Marshall and I were just about to go and dig it up. You can come, too. You’ll be super pretty.” Shit. Inviting someone to come along on a headhunting adventure for a head you wish them to don like a hat is probably not the best idea. First, she’ll probably have one serious mud mask in place, and second, bad freaking hair day.
“Giselle.” Gage pleads without even asking the question. “I really would appreciate it if you would at least consider this.”
“Come, love.” Marshall takes up my hand.
Nevermore lets out a soft cry and swoops to my shoulder from off the mantel.
Marshall leers at me. Let Jock Strap and your father do the grunt work. We’ll have all the fun of getting down and dirty with it. His cheek slides up one side as if there were sexual implications involved, and truth be told, I’d be willing to fulfill an implication or two for a head right about now.
I hope Gage and my father can persuade Giselle to abandon Paradise while I go to central Hades to dig for the corporal apex of a newly decapitated Kragger.
***
The woods behind the Landon residence materialize in hues of blues and purples. A cloud of vapors suspend themselves over the ground, giving the illusion that the tree roots are moving, slithering over the earth, thick as anacondas.
“Do tell. What direction did you spy Ms. Bishop heading in?” Marshall bows sarcastically as if this were an exercise in futility.
“I don’t know. Aren’t you equipped with some kind of spiritual sonar? Use your infrared graveyard vision and look for a skull or blood—go.” I bat him away. “Go get her. I’m sure there’s at least a ten mile radius of forensic evidence.” Freaking Chloe. I’d like to reduce her to a head—mount her in my bedroom and throw darts at her nose every night.
“Sonar? Infrared graveyard vision? Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for the crime investigations chapter of Sector P.D., a rather elite group of graveyard go-getters.”
“This is no time for your paltry sense of humor.”
Nev pounces on my shoulder and I try to evict him by way of a hard shrug but he smacks me in the face with his wing a good three times and stays put.
“No offense.” I twist into him. “But you weigh a ton. This could all get done much faster if you hang out in the air. You can look for clues from the sky.” I’d hate to exclude Nev since he wants to be a part of it. “If you find her first, I’ll give you an eye.”
“There you go,” Marshall quips. “First, you present Giselle with a less-than-comely corpse, and now you’re ready to up the ante with a one-eyed cranium. You really know how to sweeten the pot.”
“Who said I was offering Emerson’s eye?” I hiss into him. “You weren’t exactly helping back there. I’ll have you know this Earth is paradise for some of us. In fact, some of us dream to linger well into our diaper wearing, hilariously delusional Alzheimer years and beyond, so stop being so high and mighty about where you’re from because this cadaver capital of the universe isn’t all that freaking bad.”
“Go on.” A smile pinches his lips and he blinks it away. “I’m enjoying your tirade immensely.”
“No!” I bite the word out.
“I’ll give you fair warning, a kiss is on the rise. I completely adore this feisty side of you.”
“Be quiet.” I shake my head incredulous at the thought of him getting a rise in his pants because of the fact I’m fuming.
“It’s coming.” He says it with a dark air as he steps in my direction.
“Kiss me and die,” I say, walking past him deeper into the forest.
“You’ll need this.” He holds up a rusted shovel that’s miraculously appeared in his hand and charges over. “And this.” He sears my lips with a molten kiss that burns for seconds once he’s through. Marshall and his incessant brand of lust—he’s on fire and so are his kisses. “I do believe you’re blushing.” He accuses with a stern look. “I dare say you’d like another.”
I open my mouth to protest and a vapor of fog emits in lieu of a reprimand.
I take up the shovel and walk past him while Nev nuzzles into my neck.
Child forgive me, I know where the head lies.
“Nev knows where the head is!” I jump up and press my lips against Marshall’s, quick as a fleabite. I’ll n
ever in a million years admit to wanting the first one. I thought I had died when he pulled away. Marshall is worse than crack. No wonder Michelle goes batshit every time he’s around. All she really wants is one more hit.
“Speak, you stupid bird.” Marshall touches his hand to Nev.
Accept my deepest regret. Nevermore shuffles like he’s about to fly away.
“Why are you apologizing?” I say it soft. “The important part is that you remembered. Just lead the way.”
Nevermore pushes off my shoulder and flaps slowly up above until he leads us to an arrangement of stones set in a circle.
“Looks perfectly satanic,” I say, pushing the stones away with my feet. “This is so Chloe’s style.”
“She’s the devil incarnate,” Marshall huffs while taking the shovel away from me.
“Is she?” I’m wide-eyed over the fact Chloe could, in fact, be the fallen one. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Marshall pauses with the shovel part way inflicted into the earth. “It’s a euphemism, Skyla. Chloe is but a minion,” he says, carefully uncovering soil until long tendrils of hair rise out of the dirt like the silken roots of a flower.
Marshall pads away all the clay he can before reaching down and pulling her up by the mane like picking a carrot out of the ground.
I turn my head at the hideous sight.
Her face is swollen, her lips are shriveled and both eye sockets have inverted—the eyeballs themselves, suspiciously missing.
“Who did this?” Marshall asks Nev in an accusatory tone.
I muster the nerve to look back at Emerson’s gaping eye sockets with nary an eyeball or eyelid left.
Nevermore shrieks, then bows his head as if to say he’s sorry.
“Oh, no.” I shake my head.
“I’m afraid, oh, yes.” Marshall confirms.
What girl wouldn’t want to trade in Paradise to become a blind, mutilated corpse?
Every girl, that’s who.
I am thoroughly and completely screwed.
Chapter 104
Headed for Trouble
The faint sound of voices emit from the Landon House adjacent to the woods.
Tad and Mom’s voices carry over the evergreens and rise up to the dismal sky with their pronounced dissatisfaction in one another. They’re arguing again—probably over the fact their daughter barricaded herself in a prospective crime scene then disappeared into thin air. I bet Demetri is combing the island pretending to look for me in hopes to makes his lap rocket more enticing to my mother.
I glance back down at Emerson’s less than comely severed head and withhold the urge to vomit.
“What the hell, Nev?” I say, landing my hand over his cool glossy plumes. It’s bad enough poor Emerson’s head was hacked off, but having her eyeballs pecked out by a raven has to be an all-time low.
I thought Ms. Bishop had abandoned it to be devoured by wild beasts. I wanted to procure the delicacies for myself.
“Heathcliff.” Marshall glides his hand off Nev’s back in disgust.
The voices from the house grow with intensity. The volume increases until it’s painfully obvious they’re packing up their argument and hauling it in this direction.
I bet Tad is finally going off the deep end and is luring Mom out here to hack her to pieces. Good thing Marshall and I are here to protect her.
Marshall kicks at a stack of leaves before rushing us out of Dodge—so much for my mother’s safety.
“I’m not overreacting,” Tad snaps. “Would you stop for a minute?”
“I don’t want the kids to hear,” Mom hisses back. “Skyla did not steal anything.”
What the hell? I pull Marshall behind the fat trunk of a sycamore and listen in on their accusatory conversation.
“She steals, she lies, she runs away,” Tad crows. “What more evidence do you need? She knew where the money was hidden right from the get go when we moved here. I bet she cases out the bedroom every chance she gets.”
I should so sue Tad’s ass for character defamation—hell, character assassination. I have no clue what the hell they’re talking about.
I reach over and clasp onto Marshall’s hand.
I bet Chloe stole a shitload of money and now Tad is blaming it all on me, I say.
Language, he reprimands.
“Skyla has a job.” Mom defends. “Besides, I know for a fact she didn’t steal that money. I did!”
Mom stole the money? What forbidden bodily fluid is she in the black market for this time? Honestly, I’m afraid to go there.
I peer around the trunk to catch a glimpse of Tad’s gobsmacked expression.
Ha!
“What would you do that for?” He grates.
“I needed to pay the clinic one final installment, and I may have overextended the checking account with a few minor purchases for the baby.”
She means Beau, I say. The baby she stole from Brielle.
Mom clears her throat in an effort to resuscitate him. “Also, I bought you that collection of beers from around the world that you’ve had your eye on.”
“Cans or bottles?”
“Bottles.”
“That’s why I love you.” Tad gurgles the words out with a kiss.
Eww.
Giggles ensue, and I can’t bear to look. The sound of pine needles compressing fills the quiet of the forest, then the progressive rustle of leaves being disrupted in the most caustic manner erupts at a quickened pace.
Are they? I squint into Marshall for confirmation.
He peers over and frowns.
Most aggressively, he confirms.
Let’s get out of here. I for sure don’t want to stick around for the sound effects.
I give it less than three minutes, he scoffs.
Seriously, let’s get Emerson’s head back to my mother so she can seal and heal. We don’t have time for this.
He sighs. The thing we don’t have is a head, Skyla. I dropped it to take up your hand.
“Shit,” I hiss.
A slight moan escapes from just beyond the bushes. I’d rather graft Ellis’s lips to my neck than listen to Mom and Tad get it on.
I covered it with leaves, he informs leaning out to take another look. They’ve completed their mission—and at a minute and thirty-five seconds. It leaves no imagination as to why your mother seeks affection from a celestial being.
Mom purrs with delight. “This is so comfortable,” she whispers. “We should come out here more often. This could be our spot.”
“Our codeword can be raking the leaves.” Tad barks out a laugh.
“Speaking of leaves, this mound makes the world’s softest pillow. I have a feeling raking the leaves is my new favorite hobby.”
Pillow? I give Marshall a curt look before confirming my worst nightmare. Mom and Tad just had relations lying over Emerson Kragger’s oh-so-comfortable cranium. There has to be all kinds of bad baby-making juju involved with that.
We wait patiently while they recompose themselves, listening as Tad goes on and on about how he’s got a surprise up his sleeve to spice up their love life. I’d rather eat a bowlful of Kragger eyeballs than listen to him count the ways he plans on sodomizing my mother.
“You’re such a tiger,” Mom coos.
“Izzy helped me out in that department.” His voice dissipates as they head to the house.
I bet she did.
Marshall and I rush back, and he snaps up Emerson by the scalp.
Marshall doesn’t bother waiting for Nev, and the forest inverts like a dream.
***
Giselle stands to greet us as we reenter Marshall’s living room. She looks so much like Gage with her dark hair and eyes like the bluest part of the ocean, dimples you could dive into—it’s astounding.
Gage gives a promising smile as he rises to greet me.
“Looks like you’ve got a willing victim.” My father plops a hand on Giselle’s shoulder, happy to have solidified the body-swapping match.
> “Is that the head?” She nods toward Marshall who artfully hides it behind his knees. “Well, let’s see it.” There’s a note of unmistakable glee in her voice. “I want to see my new face.”
Without thought to practicality and perhaps sanity or reason, Marshall thrusts Emerson’s apex forward and holds it out like some macabre victory prize.
An assortment of sticks and leaves poke out every which way in her wild mane and her mouth is partially impacted with mud.
Giselle shrieks in horror and digs her face into my father’s chest.
“Way to go, Conan,” I snipe at Marshall.
“Her eyes.” My mother takes a breath at the sight. “Skyla—she’s severely damaged.”
“I know, I know.” I fall onto the sofa and hug a pillow, accepting my fate.
“Well,” my mother says, clapping her hands, “let’s get to work.”
Work? I perk up a bit.
I watch amazed as Candace Celestial Messenger barks out orders and Marshall obeys every last one like a seasoned cabana boy.
She calls for bowls of water, a paring knife, two sticks of butter and a pair of scissors. She kneels on the floor and inspects the body for other signs of trauma.
You never know, Chloe might have gaffed Emerson’s stomach or plucked out her heart while it was still fresh and beating before the big hack attack. Who knows what tender vittles Chloe might have noshed on in an effort to completely piss off Emerson.
Gage and I go over and watch as my mother mercilessly dunks Emerson’s damaged head in a small pool of water, carefully pulling her fingers through the hair as if she were combing out a child after a bath.
“I’m not really sure about this,” Giselle’s voice trembles.
“Yeah,” Gage exhales, “maybe this isn’t the best idea.”
They’re right. Besides, I can’t even imagine how pissed off Emma will be once she realizes her long-dead daughter has come back as a bona fide zombie. From the looks of things, I gather Giselle wouldn’t make such a great impression on the teen scene either.
“OK, just forget it,” I say.
“Forget what, Skyla?” My mother doesn’t bother looking up. She simply continues plucking and picking. She scoops up a stick of butter and injects it into Emerson’s mouth extruding what looks like a thick brown piece of crap from the opening of the neck. “Nothing but fresh Paragon soil.” She says it low for those of us wondering how she got Emerson to defecate from the back of her throat.