More Than Flesh & Bone

Chapter 21

OH SHIT BAR

"Do you always drive like this?" Not-Morticia complained from the backseat. "No wonder you crashed the first time."

I rolled my eyes, choosing to ignore her while I tried to focus on Zed and what he was saying.

"Are you even paying attention?" he asked from the passenger seat of the Impala, clearly frustrated.

"Yup. Totally paying attention," I said, not mentioning the ghost in the backseat who was being a pain in my ass.

"Then what do you think?"

I blinked. "Think? About what?"

"Addie," he groaned. "I just went through it. We need to decide what we're going to do about Zayne. I think…"

"I already told you. Baseball bat. That's my thought on the subject, and I'm standing by it," I said, flipping on my turn signal. I may drive fast, but I wasn't a completely reckless idiot. Usually.

Zed sighed. "And I already told you that isn't an option. We can't just beat the shit out of him with a baseball bat."

"Sure we can," I answered, pulling onto the off-ramp. "We ride up to the house. He'll be shocked we're alive, like 'whaaaa?,' and then we beat him up. Easy."

Zed shook his head at me, subtly grabbing the oh-shit bar as I took the loop a little too fast. I smirked.

"And then?" he asked. "Beating him up is nice and all, but it's not a solution. We need to bring him before the Council."

I side-eyed him. "Look how well that ended for us the last time. What do you think they'll do when they realize I'm not a reaper even though 'the blood doesn't lie,'" I said, mimicking the weird witch lady.

"I don't know," he answered. "But they can't kill us because the blood rite can't be undone. So whatever the punishment is…"

"See?" I said, motioning with one hand. "That right there is why we shouldn't go to them. You assume we're going to be punished for something neither of us can control. What kind of bullshit is that?" I demanded.

Zed looked away, the muscle in his jaw ticking.

"Shouldn't you be looking at the road?" Not-Morticia piped up from the back. She leaned forward, putting her head between Zed's and mine. I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of responding to the snipes from a twelve-year-old that probably died before cars were even a thing.

"I can't be the one to punish him, Addie," Zed said quietly. "I know you don't like the Council, and I'm not exactly their biggest fan right now either, but they exist for cases like this. These kinds of things are what they're meant to handle."

"Psychotic zombies, who are high on power?" I answered lightly, also pretending not to see his glare.

"Bad supernaturals that put the whole community at risk."

I pulled into the decrepit parking lot outside the Bitter Brew. The lot was mostly empty, apart from the ghosts. I knew they weren't living because they weren't dressed for this century.

"We can talk about this later. Right now we need to see what Eliza knows," I said, stalling. From the look on Zed's face, he knew it.

"Fine," he breathed. "I'll drop it for now, but as soon as we're done here, we need to finalize our plan. It's not safe…"

"Blah blah blah," I said cutting him off as I got out of the car. "Why don't you try loosening the hold on that stick in your ass just a little bit, Zed? All that stress can't be good for your health. Or mine…" I added as an afterthought, wondering if the blood rite would also pass along minor things like heartburn and indigestion.

"How are you not taking this more seriously?" he asked, coming around his side of the car to join me.

Not-Morticia followed along beside us. "He's right, you know."

"Fuck off," I growled, trying hard to ignore the dozen or so new ghosts that were also trailing along in our wake like we were leading some kind of macabre parade.

"Hey," Zed said, hearing my curse and thinking it was aimed at him.

I sighed as we reached the door to the coffee shop. "I am taking this seriously, Zed. It's not like I'm over here throwing a party and burying my head in the sand."

His firey eyes scanned my face, lingering on my lips just long enough that I felt an answering pull in my stomach. "Alright."

With him satisfied for the moment, we walked into the shop and up to the counter.

"Hey, Eliza in?"

The same barista dude that was always behind the bar shook his head. "It's Thursday. Eliza doesn't work on Thursdays."

"Oh." Shit.

Zed and I exchanged a glance. It hadn't crossed my mind that she did something as mundane as taking days off.

"Well, when will she be…" I was stopped short by the appearance of a head through the black beaded curtain.

"Sorry, I'm running a little late. Come on back."

The slight widening of barista dude's eyes was the only sign that he was startled by Eliza's appearance. Apparently, none of us really knew the woman that ran the occult shop in the back, although I couldn't help but feel a little vindicated as we passed him.

"So," she began when we reached her counter, "you needed to see me?"

I crossed my arms and cocked my hip, debating for less than a heartbeat how I wanted to play this. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, deciding to go on the offensive.

"Tell you what?"

"That I was going to die… again."

Eliza lifted a brow, her brown eyes shifting between Zed and me. "Did you now?"

"Oh, cut the shit, we all know you know way more than you're saying."

She smiled, her entire face warm and almost proud as she assessed me. "Fate is a tricky thing. Events must play out as planned to ensure a certain outcome. To interfere…" she broke off and shrugged, "It jeopardizes everything."

"So you're saying I had to die?"

She nodded.

"Why?" Zed interjected.

"For things to come to pass."

"Are you talking about the Council? The blood rite? Zayne?" I was shooting off questions like they were accusations.

Eliza was completely unfazed. "In a sense." She shrugged.

"What does that mean?" I asked in a hard voice.

"It means exactly what I said. The future is like smoke. I can see the makings of what will happen, but it changes when the wind blows. Every decision you make adjusts the future. There are more possibilities than there are blades of grass."

I blinked, thinking about that as I leaned an arm against the counter.

"But can't you just say what happens so I can do the right thing?"

Eliza shook her head, exasperated with me.

"It doesn't work that way. If I tell you what to do, that also changes the outcome."

I pressed my lips together. It was an awfully convenient excuse. Even if it did make sense.

"Did you know Zayne was the one that killed my brother?" I asked. Her answer would determine how much we could really trust her.

"No," she said, reaching down to grab a rag from below the counter and started wiping the faded surface down. "I didn't see that until your deaths. Even with the gift of sight, I can't see everything."

I relaxed a little. While secretive and more than a little weird, at least she wasn't just letting him run around killing people and doing nothing.

"Addie isn't a reaper," Zed said, redirecting the conversation once more.

"No, she isn't," Eliza agreed.

"But if you knew that, why didn't you say anything?" I asked, turning to put both hands on the counter.

"You never asked," Eliza pointed out. "But even if you had, you weren't ready to know. Had you know, the Council would also know now."

"Bree's mom," I said, understanding dawning on me. "The compulsion."

Eliza nodded. "The compulsion." A slight grin played on her lips. "Things happened as they needed to. You found the right path all on your own."

"And if we hadn't?" I asked.

Eliza shrugged. "The world would continue on, I suppose. There are endless other ways this could have gone. Most of them recoverable."

I stared at her, my mouth slightly ajar. This whole future-seeing thing was getting a bit trippy for me.

"Okay," Zed said. "But if she's not a reaper, then what kind of supernatural is she?"

Eliza paused, her hand with the rag going still.

Her eyes lifted to regard me. There was weight there. Knowledge I didn't yet know or understand. Truth that I knew without a doubt was going to change things.

"She's not a supernatural at all," Eliza said. "Addison is something else entirely."

"Um…" I struggled for words as the sound of a record screech echoed in my mind. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Zed managed to get his shit together before I did. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Eliza rolled her eyes. "What part of 'not a supernatural' did you not understand?"

I grinned despite myself. It was exactly the kind of comeback I would use. I'm pretty sure Eliza was my spirit animal. Ability to see the future notwithstanding.

Zed grit his teeth, the vein in his neck pulsing wildly. "If she's not a supernatural, what is she?"

Eliza gave a lazy shrug. "There's not really a word for it." Seeing that Zed was about to lose it, she held up her hand and kept talking. "She comes from a time before human things such as language existed. The words we have today, they cannot fully encapsulate all that she truly is. It would be like saying a shark is a whale. They both live in the water and have fins, but they are hardly the same."

I put a hand on Zed's arm as I leaned closer to Eliza. "Okay, so am I the shark or the whale in this scenario."

Eliza's grin was a little scary as she replied, "You, my dear, are the creature the shark fears."

I lifted both eyebrows. "So… I'm like a dolphin? A pod of dolphins? Well, there's only one me, so that can't be right…"

"Addie," Zed said in an exasperated breath.

"Not the point, got it," I said, leaning back from the counter and putting on a serious face. "What am I, Eliza?"

She placed a surprisingly rough hand on mine. "You are one of Death's Daughters."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was going to end this chapter on "Addison is something else entirely", and save the last part for the next chapter, but I resisted the urge to end on a cliffhanger... You're welcome!