The Serpentine Butterfly Read online

  Demetri doesn’t say a word. He simply nods and bows his head in an earnest show of disrespect.

  Demetri Edinger is wicked incarnate, the very devil whom Chloe employed to kill my father. In a cosmic, arabesque twist, Gage Oliver’s father killed mine before we ever met. There’s an irony in there somewhere I don’t care to ever dissect.

  I bring my husband’s cold fingers to my lips before returning his hand gently to his chest. My body slides off the stool as my feet slowly propel me toward the shadowed devil at the door.

  “Skyla, no,” Logan pleads, but I don’t bother to listen. We both know where this desperate train is headed, and it’s already left the hellish station.

  Demetri’s eyes connect with mine, a cesspool of radiated darkness. He holds a desperately grieved expression, one that rivals my own, and for a moment, I let myself believe that it’s genuine. For the first time in the history of our passing, I believe Demetri Edinger is exhibiting a human emotion, and that emotion just so happens to be desolate pain sponsored by death.

  I fall prostrate before him, clasping my hands over his ankles before touching my lips to the leather—kissing the shoes of the devil himself—hell, I would kiss his heels, lick his bare soles to bring back Gage.

  “I beg of you, in the name of all that is good, all that is holy, all that is right, bring my husband back to me. Do this, and I will forever be in your debt.”

  “Ms. Messenger,” Marshall barks from behind. “I bid you to stand, right this moment.”

  “Demetri.” His name whispers from my lips over and over like an ancient chant, a holy hymn, like a demonic incantation that’s already come to fruition, but unlike all of the times I’ve hissed his name before, this time the inflection falls in his favor. This time Demetri can right all of the wrongs he has pressed upon me and prove to be my savior. “Bring your son back. The only son you love, the only son who can and will bring you the glory you so achingly yearn for.” There. I’m offering the keys to the kingdom, the keys to his cherished dominion. This act, right here, is damnation for my people on a silver platter, and I want it. I demand it. I need Gage back, no matter how high the cost. Life is priceless, and for me that means there is no ceiling, no demand too high, or unreasonable—not in this black hour of my deepest grief. There is no man on Earth who can bring Gage back to me. My own mother in heaven isn’t answering my plea for mercy—nor would she. Perhaps this monster, whom I’ve longed touted as my enemy, this storm cloud of a presence in my life can finally bring some respite. “Give me Gage. Bring him back to me.”

  His hands float down to mine as he helps me to my feet. Demetri doesn’t meet my gaze. Instead, he strides toward the center of the room where my heart is splayed out inside a steel casket awaiting the grisly detailing of last rites that only a mortician can provide. I rush to my husband’s side and feather his hair back with my fingertips. Emma still dutifully holds his hand, quietly sobbing into the stillness of her child.

  “Come, my son,” Demetri calls to Gage as if he could hear him.

  Instinctually, I lean in and offer one last kiss to those precious lips I hunger for.

  “I love you,” I whisper as we part.

  A brilliant white light envelops the room. It swallows the color, steals the definition from the borders of the objects, the people, as the brightness expands from the nexus of that steel tub, and in a flash both Demetri and Gage dissipate to nothing. The light, the evil, the dead, all have vanished. Gage is gone, and for the first time since I laid eyes on him at the bottom of that cliff, my chest swells with a sense of relief.

  “Holy shit.” Ellis staggers forward. “Fuck. You’ve done it now, Messenger.”

  I smack him on the arm. “It’s Oliver.” Mrs. Gage Oliver, I remind myself. And that’s what I intend to be until kingdom come, so my mother and her destination station hippy-dippy friends can suck it.

  My gaze snaps back to Marshall. “Take me to the Elysian Fields, Ahava, wherever the heck my mother is holed up—hell, take me to the throne room. I need to speak to someone about this right now. Better yet, take me to the Transport. Is he there? Can you take me to see Gage?” A renewed hope fills me as startlingly honest as the one that filled me a moment ago when Demetri disappeared with his body.

  Marshall taps his finger over his lips, his brows redefining themselves as if he were thinking this through.

  “I said now!” My voice rattles off the stainless counters and hollow walls as if it were my intention to wake the dead, and, in this case, it might be too late.

  “Skyla”—Logan wraps an arm around my waist, his voice warm and moist over my neck—“I’m going with you.”

  The sky lets out a horrible growl as darkness covers the dismal afternoon, and it looks more like evening outside the opened mouth of the room. Rain sets in, hard and fast, as if someone flipped a switch.

  “Neither of you shall go anywhere.” Marshall pulls out his driving gloves as the rain hacks down like axes over the island. “At least not with me. I assure you, Ms. Messenger, you are in good hands with The Pretty One.” He nods from me to Logan; a solemn expression takes over his features. “I am so very sorry for your loss.”

  “The hell you are.” The words speed out of me before I can properly assess them. I’ve pissed Marshall off once before and swore I wouldn’t touch those flames again, but now I’m the one who’s pissed, and for Gage I’d dance in a bonfire. I am.

  “Emma, Barron”—he turns to the Olivers without paying any further attention to me—“please accept my condolences. Your son was a good man. I’m sure the memory of him will live on in ways you could never imagine.” He glances to me without meeting my eyes. “I’ll be around if you need me.”

  Emma gives a stiff nod before turning to me. Her eyes round out in two blood-red spheres. Her nostrils flare with anger.

  “Where in the hell did you send my son?” Her tone is curt, her eyes narrowed to hateful slits. Gage isn’t gone five minutes, and the gloves come off—not surprising. It’s no secret that Emma has never been a fan of my marriage, a fan of me in general. Although, she didn’t seem to mind me too much when I was with Logan. Emma, just like my own mother, has been Team Logan right from the beginning, each for their own nefarious reasons.

  I step in close until we’re just about nose-to-nose, not an ounce of pity running through me for this woman. “Your son is with the man whom you thought best to father him.”

  Marshall glances back before exiting and pauses.

  “Skyla.” Nevermore steps in and gently tugs at my elbow.

  “No.” I yank out of his grasp without ever taking my eyes off hers. “You tell us where that wicked bastard might take your son. You’re the one who knew him intimately, not me.”

  “Skyla.” Ezrina clicks her tongue. “The devil has ears. There’s no use in name calling once you ask a favor.”

  Emma seethes at me. Her orange-stained lips pull erratic at the sides of her mouth as if she were holding back a river of damning words.

  “Go ahead and say it.” I dare her—I want her to.

  Her body flexes in a brief moment of retaliation as if I had pricked a pin in her uptight, self-righteous anger.

  “At the end of the day, Skyla”—a thin smile flirts with her lips—“this will all pencil out to be your fault. You and I both know it, don’t we?”

  “Emma!” Barron objects, pulling his wife out of the room as if breaking up a fistfight. Her words were far more effective than a slap.

  “Mom!” Giselle cries as she scuttles out right along with them. Giselle who looks eerily like her brother in female skin—Kragger genes aside. I’m glad she followed them out. I don’t think I could take more than a glance in her direction.

  “Let me get you out of here.” Logan clasps my hand and pulls me toward the back exit, the very same hole in the wall they rolled Gage through on a gurney. “Where do you want to go?” He swipes an umbrella off the ground as we head into the rain-soaked Paragon afternoon.

  “
I want to go home.”

  Logan drives me to the Landon house as my tears rival the flood streaming from the sky. I tell my mother I’m not feeling well as I charge upstairs and vomit convulsively into the toilet for an hour straight.

  Logan stays with me the rest of the day and well into the evening. He asks to spend the night, but I tell him to go. I lie and assure him that I’m okay.

  The truth is, the only man I want to spend the night with is the one I can’t—I desperately want to spend the night in the arms of my loving husband, Gage.

  Life in Stages

  LOGAN

  The clouds twist and turn, laboring to deliver their trauma over Paragon. Any more anguish, any more grief, and I’ll crawl into the hell Demetri has Gage holed up in and put an end to this nightmare myself. If Gage is truly dead, if his time—although spurned by his own hand—had finally come, I have a backup plan that just might work out for my nephew, regardless if he wants it or not. I plan on shoving life down his throat, then wringing his neck for even thinking of taking his existence off the shelf in the first place.

  What in the fuck has gotten into him? As much as the evidence points to suicide, there’s no way in hell Gage would pitch his soul into eternal darkness. That’s what life without Skyla would be. I should know. My own death has led me to the answer.

  Damn. I head down the steps just outside of the Landon house and hear voices coming from the street. An expensive SUV sits blocking the driveway as three shadowed figures hold a lively discussion at a furtive pace. I jog on over to check it out. Skyla’s stepfather, Tad, comes into view, then Chloe and—my stomach drops. It’s Wes. I know it’s Wesley Edinger, or whatever the hell his last name is, but it’s his startling likeness to Gage that knifes me—a twin to my nephew, the deepest cut in the most mortal wound.

  “What’s going on?” I nod into their tightknit circle.

  “I’ll see you both later.” Tad waves them off with an exasperated hand. “I’m sure once Althorpe gets wind of this, they won’t be happy. A bonus is a bonus!”

  “I’ll double your bonus,” Wesley offers with a forced smile. “No need to involve Althorpe when it isn’t necessary. I’ll notify payroll. You’ll have your check in the morning.”

  “You better believe it, Greg. I’ve worked my ass off for that good-for-nothing company for years. It’s about damn time Tad Landon gets his due.” He storms up the steep driveway, up the rickety wooden stairs, and into the log cabin with the slam of the door.

  “You’ll get your due, all right, old man.” Wes needles the doorway with a glare that spells out broken neck more than it does paycheck.

  “So, did you hear the news?” I turn to Chloe and her wicked brand of beauty. Her whiskey eyes shine like cut glass in the dim light, and her high-cut cheekbones, her oversized bow-shaped lips are all marketable as beauty, but, to tell the truth, I’ve always thought there was something reptilian in nature about her. Chloe, who has both obsessed and professed her love for Gage over the years, looks oddly composed tonight as if she hasn’t shed a single tear, not vomited once in the toilet, unlike Skyla. I’ve never seen anyone so sick with grief. No, it’s safe to say they haven’t heard—in the least, not Chloe.

  She and Wes exchange a brief, yet secretive glance.

  “What news?” Wes nods as if he were taking over the conversation, as if I needed to get through him to speak with Chloe. I’m not sure I like his protective, chest puffed out, this-is-my-girl attitude when it comes to the demon to my right, but then again, they are breeding. Maybe it’s his kid he’s really trying to protect.

  “Gage is dead.” I look directly into Chloe’s soulless eyes as I say it. I want to twist the knife a little. It’s her constant, furtive effort to derail Skyla that has caused this. Emma was wrong. At the end of the day, this wouldn’t pencil out to be Skyla’s fault. It would be Chloe’s fault in ink, in stone every single time. She and Demetri, her demonic supervising spirit, have collectively killed both Gage and me. After all, it was Chloe who sliced my head off during the Faction War. She’s the reason I’m standing here on borrowed time in a Treble that was drummed up just for me. I’m nothing more than a visitor on this planet, a sojourner on some grim, pointless mission.

  “What’s this about?” She looks from me to Wes. Her face twists in knots, because deep down, Chloe knows I wouldn’t shit around about something like this. “I knew something happened.” She swats Wesley on the arm. “You tried to tell me that everything was fine! But I knew. I knew.” The veins in her forehead bulge as her rage directs at Gage’s lookalike.

  I remember when I was young, this go around, life felt so free and ridiculously long, as if it had the power to stretch into a golden eternity. Death’s sting was for others, something I would never have to taste. I was a foolish youth who believed that deep down in his misshapen heart he was immortal. But life doesn’t work that way. I’m non-living proof, and unfortunately now, so is Gage.

  Wes lets out an exasperated sigh as the wind picks up; a light peppering of rain sizzles against my flesh. “What happened?”

  “He fell off Devil’s Peak.” I shoot Chloe a quick look. A long while ago, after Skyla killed Chloe, the Counts took her body. Once they were through with her, they buried her in a shallow grave at the base of the nefarious locale. I’m sure Chloe finds the irony somehow bittersweet. Her burial plot is the exact marker of his demise.

  “He fell off Devil’s Peak?” Chloe’s entire person goes rigid. “Gage wouldn’t kill himself—not the Gage Oliver I know. Somebody must have pushed him.”

  Pushed him. Something in me wants to cling to Chloe’s theory. The rain starts in as I stagger toward my truck. “Nobody pushed him. He left a note.”

  * * *

  The night sours. The bourbon-colored sky pisses down its wrath, erasing any memory of the fact it’s springtime. If it was a few years back, Gage and I would be suiting up, getting our asses kicked on the field by the coach as we ran that extra mile we knew we couldn’t. I miss those golden West Paragon High days—Gage and I front and center, leading the team to victory after victory. Then, Skyla showed up like a rainbow after a storm, the promise of brighter tomorrows buried in her smile, and cheered us from the sidelines. But we weren’t a unified front around Skyla. Gage and I entered into a war long before the factions ever did.

  My phone goes off in a series of consecutive texts, and I check it. None of the messages are from Skyla, so I ignore them for now.

  I do another drive-by of the bowling alley, the house on White Horse, the cemetery, the Landon house in some OCD figure eight loop—two times, maybe six. I know where I really belong, behind the gates at the Paragon Estates with Emma and Barron, with Liam and Giselle while we bury ourselves in grief. But Gage is out there somewhere, with Demetri of all fucking people. Where the hell did he take him? The Transfer? Tenebrous? Heaven, hell? It all seems like one in the same these days.

  A thought comes to me. Candace. She likes me. For whatever reason, I’ve found favor in her eyes. Thank God Skyla is unable to gain access to her mother tonight. It would have ended in disaster. She’s too hopped up on rage. And as much favor as I’ve found in her mother’s eyes, Gage has left that much of a bitter taste in her mouth. Skyla vying for Gage through marked aggression would not have gone over well in the heavenlies, at least not with the original Ms. Messenger around. But maybe I can talk to her. Reason with her—in the least, discover where Demetri is holing up his body. The body. I grimace at the thought of my nephew—hell, my brother, relegated to nothing more than a corpse, an empty human vessel.

  I pull over and shoot Dudley a text. We need to talk. I’m headed over. Marshall Dudley has been my supervising spirit for a few unsettling years now, and it’s about damn time I start tapping into a few favors. I scroll through the rest of the messages that are vexing my phone. Ellis wanting to know if he can do anything. Liam letting me know Barron and Emma have gone to bed. Giselle wishing I would save the day and bring Gage back before the sun went do
wn. They were all sent hours ago. I’m sure Giselle is disappointed to see that I’m nobody’s savior, just a dead man walking, driving as it were.

  Our family is staggering, right along with the heartbreak of our friends. Just trying to imagine a life, a single moment without Gage, is hollow and cruel, and I don’t want any part of that horrific reality. I do love Skyla, but if having her married to Gage is the only way I can keep that blue-eyed ball of trouble around, I’m all for a lasting union between the two of them. My stomach clenches as if it objects my valiant effort.

  “Fuck you,” I say out loud before killing the engine and making a run for Dudley’s overgrown estate. The door is unlocked, so I let myself in.

  “I’m here,” I growl as I enter. It’s warm inside, toasty in fact. A swell of voices warbles from above, and I try to distinguish for a moment if he has a woman up there, or judging by the giggling sounds of it, a couple of them.

  “Here you are.” Dudley jogs down the stairs, still dressed to impress the ovarian crowd with his tailored Italian suit, his sleek silver tie that wags from side to side like a metallic tongue. I’ve never seen him in anything but a suit. At the most, his jacket comes off. Who knows, maybe he’ll lose his welcome-to-Earth pass if he dresses down for the occasion. Candace and her cohorts are all a bit formal and uptight. “What is it you need? I have visitors that have spanned continents and generations, time continuums as it were. They’re quite entertained by modern advances. It’s exhausting me to no end. One of them attempted to stick a fork in a socket.” He gives a bored grimace as he leads the way to the living room. Dudley doesn’t bother to take a seat, just crosses his arms and continues to glare in my general direction, his impatience growing like bread mold.

  “Gage is dead.” I sit hard on the unforgiveable sofa cushions. It’s as if he had this crap crafted and imported from the Stone Age. Probably did.