The Bone Witch (The Osseous Chronicles #1) - Ivy Asher Page 0,1
take a nap or something?
I mean, I get it, I’ve had a long day too, but as much as I want to think that there’s been some kind of a mistake, deep down I know that’s not how this works.
I scramble for my purse. Phone. I need my fucking phone. The trill of my ringtone suddenly fills the panic-laced air all around me, the sound like a cannon going off in the eerie quiet of my apartment. With shaky hands, I scramble to open my bag. I finally find my still ringing phone but drop it in the process of trying to accept the incoming call. The phone goes quiet as it clangs against the floor, ominous silence once again filling my apartment like a dense fog. I clamber to pick it up. Adrenaline slams into me like a sumo wrestler, and with a trembling grip, I open up my recent calls and click my cousin’s number.
My alarmed gaze lands back on the velvet pouch. I pinch myself and blink profusely, testing that I’m not currently hallucinating or somehow passed out and experiencing a fucking nightmare. My call barely makes it a full ring before a silvery tenor voice answers.
“Leni? Did you hear?” Tad demands, out of breath and in place of the friendly hey you that he usually greets me with.
“They’re here,” I choke out, cutting off whatever he’s about to say. “They’re fucking here!” I shout into the phone, you know, just in case he didn’t hear me the first time.
Tad goes silent, stunned by my panicked revelation as much as I am.
“Holy shit,” he whispers reverently, and I nod in agreement regardless of the fact that he can’t see me. We’re both silent for a beat. “Gwen is going to shit kittens,” he finally blurts, and I begin to massage my temples.
Shit. I didn’t even think about that.
I shove that thought in a drawer and close it. One messed up thing at a time. “How is this happening?” I whisper, awe slowly filtering in and filling up the cracks in my soul not currently cemented by shocked dread.
“Ma just got the call ten minutes ago.”
“How?” I ask as comprehension shoves through my surprise and worry. The dots start to connect, and reality walks up to me and cracks me one right in the nose.
“They said she died in her sleep.”
“Did the necros smudge?”
“Yeah, no traces of outside magic. It was definitely natural causes,” he reassures me.
“Fuck,” I concede, closing my eyes and dropping my head back in defeat.
“Lennox Marai Osseous, you watch your language,” Aunt Hillen orders, and with an exasperated growl, I pull my phone away from my ear and make a strangling motion at it.
“Why am I on speaker?” I demand of my cousin, but he ignores the question, instead whisper-shouting, “She has them,” to his mother.
“Well, fuck,” Aunt Hillen exclaims with a shocked gasp, and I immediately choke on an astonished laugh. I hear Tad coughing with his own amusement. I don’t think either of us have ever heard her swear before. If shit wasn’t currently hitting the fan and spraying all over the place, I’d be pressing the record button and trying to get her to say it again.
“I have to call Magda!” she declares excitedly, shock still evident in her tone. “I bet she and Gwen are searching every nook and cranny right now, looking for the pouch.”
Smug satisfaction rings in my aunt’s tone, and I know the rest of the family is going to love that Magda and her prissy little shit of a daughter aren’t going to get their hands on the bones and subsequently the power that comes with them. I suppose that should be some small consolation, but internally, I’m begging the gods to choose anyone else but me.
I catch a hurried, “Congrats, Leni,” before my aunt disappears, off to become the bearer of bad news that she’s always wanted to be to the snooty side of the family.
Tad chuckles at his mother’s hypocrisy, and even I crack a small smile despite the clusterfuck I now find myself square in the middle of.
“I think you just made my mother’s decade, Leni. Shit, I guess I now have to call you Lennox, or would you prefer Oh Powerful One instead?” Tad teases.
“Supreme Being will do,” I deadpan as I try to fight off a new wave of bewilderment and vexation. “Crap, everyone is going to get all formal with me, aren’t they?”