Defying Fate by S. M. Reine

Author:S. M. Reine [Reine, S. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Adult
Publisher: Red Iris Books
Published: 2013-04-04T06:00:00+00:00

XIII

Allyson Whatley was given a hero’s funeral. Everyone at the Union base lined up to watch the processional carrying her coffin into the cemetery, while cannons fired and music played over the base’s PA system.

Zettel delivered the eulogy in front of the cemetery gates. He said every nice thing about Allyson that he could think of, and made up a few others to pad the speech.

She was determined, he said, she was smart, and she advanced the Union’s understanding of magic by decades. But there was little to be said for her personality beyond a professional level, and he felt that it was better not to remark upon it at all.

Staring out into the sea of black uniforms, indistinguishable from any other Union gathering, Zettel wondered what his funeral would be like, and how many people would be there.

He hoped that there would be no burial. He wanted to die fighting and leave nothing behind but a legacy.

When he was done, he gave a flag to Allyson’s partner. He told her that he was sorry for her loss, but as he stared into her tear-streaked face, he felt no grief.

He had worked with Allyson for six years, and she had been the closest thing to a friend he had in the organization. Certainly, she was the only person he trusted.

But her death only left him angry.

The body was never put on display—the damage to her corpse was too severe for a mortician to conceal. The onlookers dispersed shortly after his speech. Once they were gone, Allyson was removed from the cemetery again, because she wasn’t being buried. She was being put into the Vault.

Zettel had sent a message to his superiors asking why. She wasn’t a demon—she wasn’t going to be resurrected. She was dead. Gone forever.

They never sent him an answer.

Zettel pushed her drawer closed himself. The lock clicked.

A young commander caught up with him when he tried to leave the Vault.

“Sir,” he said.

Zettel kept walking. “Not right now.”

“I apologize, sir, but it’s urgent. When the staff came in to prepare the drawer for Allyson Whatley, they found one of the other refrigerators open.”

He stopped.

“Which one?”

Together, they walked down the aisles until Zettel reached a row of refrigerators that he knew all too well. He had personally supervised the storage of the bodies there after the devastation in Reno.

One of the drawers had a red light over the door, indicating that it was unlocked. Zettel pulled out the table and stared into the dead face of Elise Kavanagh.

James Faulkner hadn’t just destroyed half of Fallon, hijacked an airplane, liberated a prisoner, and killed Allyson Whatley. He had also broken into the Vault to visit the body of his former kopis.

Why? What was Faulkner trying to accomplish?

Zettel had too many questions and not enough answers, but he knew one thing: he was going to make that bastard pay.

On a hunch, he opened the adjacent refrigerators. The father of all demons hadn’t been touched, but the mother’s hand had been skinned. Her palm was nothing but raw meat.

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