Cold realization sliced through my chest as Ms. West’s words clicked into place.
I knew. I understood.
The Edimmu. The undying. Human, but not human. All my questions about how the Kings were dead and yet they breathed and hurt and acted as living people. About how they saw cruelty as the answer to all their problems.
They weren’t dead at all.
They were changed.
This is madness.
“You’re not dead,” I whispered. “You were never dead. This school… it’s a nursery. You’re the god’s children.”
Chapter Seven
Ms. West nodded. “I knew you would understand, Ms. Waite.”
Trey’s eyes blazed. “That’s absurd. How could my mother have slept with a creature made of shadow and malevolence? I am Vincent Bloomberg’s son. It’s his cruelty that runs in my veins.”
Ms. West laughed, the sound like shattering glass. “Cosmic gods do not rut in the dirt like humans. His reproductive process involves an exchange of energy. Some of yours for some of his. You were born of your parents as a boring human and then we created you anew, the god and I, from his recipe and my skills. In some ways, you might say I am your real mother.”
Trey’s face betrayed his horror and disgust. The Deadmistress tossed back her head and laughed – an unhinged, maniacal sound.
“Trapped in this school, at the mercy of your teenage hormones, you were supposed to breed like rabbits, and your children would have been less human than you, and on it would go until the god’s race reigned over our universe. But of course, we didn’t know how human physiology would react to the god’s energy – it appears the ritual has made you all sterile.”
“You’re sick.” Trey grabbed her shoulders and shook. This only made her laugh harder. Quinn finished his drink and poured another. He still wouldn’t look at me.
My mind swam with thoughts and memories, putting together everything she said against what we already knew. “Only the teachers knew about this… this breeding.”
“The Eldritch Club wanted the god’s power for themselves, not to create a race that would one day rise up to surpass them. They could never know the truth. And so, I told the stories I had to tell to make myself indispensable to them. I told Vincent what he needed to hear – that I could obtain this power for him, but it would come at a price. For the first three years, I conducted preliminary experiments on lower life-forms – rodents, dogs, sheep, the vagrants Vincent found to act as caretakers at the school. I moved souls around between bodies, carving them into pieces, mingling them with the god’s energy to see how they reacted. Then I experimented on the ghosts and ghouls that haunt this house. These old stones contain a lot of restless spirits – the perfect vehicles for further experiments. I achieved exceptional results, but none that pleased the god as his first progeny. Interestingly enough, it was the family history of an old work colleague that gave me the final answer.”
Deborah? I leaned forward. “Let me guess – something to do with Parris and his final ritual.”
“Indeed. Parris had figured out some aspects of the god’s being. Back in his day, science and the occult were intrinsically linked – both concerned with knowing the secrets of the natural world, and with controlling it. Parris also conducted experiments, sacrificing many members of his coven in his quest to uncover the god’s secrets. Finally, he thought he had the answer – he’d designed a ritual that was a crude version of the one we used on you boys, only he thought it would bind the god’s power to himself so he could control it. One of his foolish acolytes, a Rebecca Nurse – from whom my colleague was descended – decided to stop him. From across the country, her ritual blocked Parris’ at the exact moment a mob from the town set fire to this place. Parris died in the blaze, but the fire also raged through the connection between the two rituals, burning Rebecca and her coven to a crisp. And so, my idea was born.”
“The fire,” Trey said bluntly. A shudder ran through Quinn’s body.
“Indeed. Fire is raw, pure energy. It also acts as a conduit that can carry different types of energy – that’s why it’s used so often in ritual magic. I wondered, what if I repeated that ritual, but instead I used the fire to bring the god’s energy into the bodies he had chosen?” Ms. West beamed. “I know. It’s genius, and somewhat above your comprehension. Allow me to attempt to explain. As you writhed in the flames, the trauma made your souls pliable. I pulled out pieces of your soul and gave to you a piece of the god in return, then I bound you together and placed you in the ground while the binding took hold. When you rose from your grave like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, you were born anew.”
The sigils carved into their tombs were the binding. I remembered how Ayaz explained that sigils could be used to control a demon or spirit or to bind them to a place. I knew the sigils had to be important. My legs wobbled from the horror of it. I slumped into the chair and sat on my hands, hiding the curls of smoke that rose from my palms as my anger bubbled inside me.
Across the room, Quinn squirmed. He grabbed the Scotch from Ms. West’s desk and took a glug straight from the bottle.
Trey’s fingers dug into Ms. West’s shoulders so hard he tore the fabric. “You’re saying that… that you chopped off a piece of my fucking soul and replaced it with a piece of the god?”
“You should be proud to be chosen by him! I told Vincent that every Eldritch Club member who wanted power from the god would have to offer up one of their own children for sacrifice. I knew that the child they each chose would be a product of their own cruelty and avarice – the perfect receptacle for the god’s first offspring. Everything you have been tasked to do from that moment on has been designed by me to mold you in the god’s image.”
“Everything you told us and made us do – hurting the scholarship students so they would make fitting sacrifices… it was a lie.” Trey’s hand slid away from her throat. He stepped back, anger rolling off him.
“Oh, please. You stepped so easily into your role of chief torturer that if I’d told you the truth, it wouldn’t have made a difference. You’re cut from the same cloth as your father – he thought I was his loyal servant, but I’ve manipulated him this whole time. It was so easy – you were all too consumed by lust for power and control that you could not see my deception. The whole trick was too easy. I told the Eldritch Club that any member who wished to partake of the ritual should invite their sacrifice to the dance, and that they must be prepared to bury their corpse. I thought we’d have a handful of willing parties, but in the end, the temptation proved too great for any of them to resist.
“245 students with souls to be sacrificed. 42 faculty members who volunteered to run the school and nurse the god’s children in exchange for immortality. And a freshly dug graveyard, ready for a second birth. We organized the dance, invited the chosen students, and made sure the doors were locked. We stoked the flames and lay down beside you, knowing the fire would bring us greater rewards on the other side. While the god’s servants gave us his immortal touch, the Eldritch Club did the rest – carrying the corpses down to the graveyard and burying the bodies in their designated places so the severed souls would find their way back to the right vessels.