Phantasma: A dark fantasy romance (Wicked Games Book 1)

TWO NIGHTS UNTIL PHANTASMA

Very few things were considered unusual when you came from a family of prolific Necromancers. Every day of Ophelia’s childhood had consisted of corpses being dragged in and out of Grimm Manor, trips to the cemetery, listening to her mother complain about yet another possible Demon-inflicted virus sweeping through New Orleans, or spending hours reciting lessons on each type of paranormal being she might one day encounter. Shapeshifters, Vampires, Witches.

But waking up to Ghosts lurking in her bedroom and hallways the morning after she had found her mother’s lifeless body was strange even by her standards. She wasn’t sure if she would ever get used to the pale blue beings popping in and out of sight around her. For their part, the Ghosts mostly ignored her, passing through Grimm Manor and around the streets of New Orleans like aimless will-o’-the-wisps as she and Genevieve attended to the practicalities of their mother’s death. If she paid them no attention, most gave her the same courtesy. Some, however, seemed to enjoy making her squirm. When she accidentally caught the gazes of those, they refused to look away. Watching her every move. Beckoning for her to talk to them.

The two of them had been up since dawn. Or rather, they had been out of bed since dawn. Ophelia had spent the morning preparing her mother to be taken by the city coroner while Genevieve collected everything they’d need to get a death certificate and release an obituary in the New Orleans Post. Now, it was only an hour before dusk, and she and Genevieve were about a block from the coroner’s office to say one last goodbye. Unlike other mortals, Necromancers didn’t bother with traditions such as funerals or wakes. They said their goodbyes to the corporeal forms of their loved ones and then waited until the opportunity to reach them in the afterlife presented itself. Having any sort of grand ceremony felt too final when they had such a connection to the dead.

Ophelia wondered if the solemn tension that clung to the humidity in the air was only in her mind, or if the city somehow felt the grave loss of one of its own. If it knew that she would never be able to fill Tessie Grimm’s shoes and it was grieving.

The new weight of magic sitting in her core churned her stomach. It would only be a matter of time until she felt the urge to expel it in some way. Too much energy left to build up without release would corrode her internally.

“Are you alright?” Genevieve murmured at her side.

“I’m fine,” Ophelia lied.

Instead of calling her bluff, Genevieve graciously moved on. “Have I ever told you how much I hate living in a city so humid?”

“Almost constantly.”

“It always destroys my curls,” Genevieve griped as if Ophelia hadn’t spoken. “Hell must be less humid than this.”

Ophelia snorted. “You know what they say. Come to Hell—we may have Devils and Demons, but at least your hair won’t get frizzy.”

Genevieve wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, don’t mention them. That’s just asking for one to show up.”

That wasn’t how it worked, of course. Unless you actually stumbled upon a Devil, or they stumbled upon you, individual Devils could only be summoned if you invoked the right words or names—as was the case for many paranormal beings. Which she was almost positive Genevieve knew, but, then again, her sister hadn’t received the same brand of education as Ophelia. And even if Genevieve had, Ophelia was certain her sister wouldn’t have had any desire to retain it. Genevieve almost always changed the subject at the mention of Devils or other such beings. Meanwhile, of all her mother’s lessons growing up, Ophelia found the ones about the Nine Circles of Hell particularly enthralling. More than the hours and hours of lectures about how to reanimate corpses to do your bidding, how to talk to the dead, and how to avoid being possessed… the tales of the territories of Hell had always been Ophelia’s macabre fascination of choice.

Probably because, unlike her own reality, there was the possibility of something fantastical promised with a place like Hell. Handsome Devils, and Wraiths and Demons, that might sweep you into their magical, dangerous world. Like one of the dark romance novels she’d read in Grimm Manor’s library when she couldn’t sleep. And maybe danger shouldn’t be as appealing to Ophelia as it was, but most of her life had been spent sequestered within the dusty walls of Grimm Manor and she craved something to make her heart race. Something other than the unfamiliar magic now thrumming in her veins.

Of course, as with the magic, Ophelia was quickly learning that the idea of something was only pleasurable when it stayed an idea. A distant daydream. Having any sort of power was as foreign to Ophelia as the prospect of adventure or romance. And she wasn’t sure it was settling well in her core. Watching her mother deal with the dead had never disturbed her, but the idea of manipulating such a fragile thing as life itself, made her almost wish she had discovered her mother’s tragic fate after the midnight deadline and not received her magic at all.

If you aren’t home before dark, you and Genevieve will die, the Shadow Voice whispered, unfurling like smoke in her mind as it awakened at her anxiousness.

For as long as she could remember, the voice had been there, in the darkest corners of her mind, telling her to walk through certain doorways or her entire family would perish. Making her knock incessantly on doors to buy a moment of silence with her own thoughts. Harping on at her to commit the most gruesome crimes on the most vulnerable beings. When she was younger, she had worried she was possessed. She had packed all her bags and made it a mile up the road to spare her family of her evil, before her mother found her and explained that the Shadow Voice wasn’t actually real. It was just a fixture of her mind. One she would have to live with forever.

The sun will set soon, the Shadow Voice pressed on. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

She pushed the voice away, shifting her focus to the morgue finally coming into view ahead of them. Genevieve hooked her arm in the crook of Ophelia’s elbow, searching for comfort as they marched into the quaint building, sending the tinkle of a bell through the small, front sitting area.

“Hello, dears,” the familiar man greeted them. Their town was small enough that the man acted as both coroner and funeral director, not to mention whatever other odd, macabre job might come up. He was older, maybe sixty or so, with salt-and-pepper hair and a white mustache that desperately needed a trim. “This way.”

They followed the coroner out of the waiting room and down a hall to the very back of the building. He held open the door for them as he waved them into a large room filled with coffins.

“I hate this,” Genevieve whispered.

Ophelia gave the room a quick scan, eyes snagging on the single open casket to their right. She swallowed thickly as she approached, nearly choking on her dread as she peered down at the woman inside.

The simple cream dress their mother had been wearing the night before was long gone, now replaced with an intricate black chiffon gown that made their mother’s already fair complexion look even more pallid. Their mother had been the one to originally pick this dress in case her spirit decided to stick around—Tessie Grimm was adamant about not spending eternity as a Ghost in a corset—but seeing the dress on display in the coffin now, Ophelia thought it might have been the wrong decision.

“Shit. This just makes her look…” Genevieve wrinkled her small, pointed nose as she stepped up by Ophelia’s side to look into the coffin herself. “Ghostly. I told you we should have gone with the purple one.”

Ophelia sighed, tapping her knuckles—one, two, three—on the side of the casket to soothe her mind. She agreed about the dress, but it was much too late now. Besides, the window in which their mother’s spirit could return had long closed anyway. Souls that decided not to immediately cross to the Other Side came back within hours of their death. Which meant this would be their final goodbye. The dress they picked hardly seemed to matter.

Ophelia knew she ought to be happy their mother’s soul had been at peace enough to pass over, a sentiment she repeated to herself during the grueling process of threading a needle through her mother’s delicate eyelids before the coroner had collected the body from the house this morning—an old Necromancer’s trick to ensure the soul could rest peacefully without being disturbed by any unwanted resurrections. Still, there was something nagging at the back of her mind, telling her that this goodbye was not forever. It’s why she had yet to shed a single tear.

“If you could just sign here, Miss Grimm,” the coroner prompted, shaking her out of her thoughts as he tapped the back of her hand gently with a pen.

Ophelia grabbed the pen from him, tapping the back of her hand twice more before scribbling her name on the bottom of the parchment he had placed atop the closed side of the casket. The coroner gave her an odd look as he observed the tic, but only nodded in thanks as he tucked the pen back into his jacket pocket with a soft pat.

“And you’re both sure you don’t wish for an autopsy?” he pressed. “I know all the signs point to a heart attack, but she was awfully young for her heart to give out without⁠—”

“You aren’t cutting open our mother,” Genevieve inserted, firm. “It’s bad enough Ophelia already sewed her⁠—”

Ophelia elbowed her sister in the gut. Sewing a corpse’s eyes shut with Demon-blessed thread was a well-kept secret in the Necromancy community. Otherwise normal mortals might start taking up the practice themselves, and render a Necromancer’s ability to reanimate or have someone else possess them null and void. Which meant their mother would not have been able to profit off those wanting to resurrect their dead loved ones for one grotesque reason or another. Not that most people had the stomach for such a task anyway—Genevieve certainly hadn’t, nearly losing her breakfast when she walked in on Ophelia finishing up the stitches—and Ophelia herself had waited until the last possible second to perform the necessary measures on their mother’s corpse before the coroner arrived to collect the body.

“Never mind,” Genevieve finished with a mutter. She reached into the folds of her dress and procured the paperwork she had worked on all morning. “Here’s her birth certificate and the obituary we wrote.”

The man scratched at his thick white mustache, eyes flicking between them as if he was wondering what to make of their strange manners. “I’ll have a copy of the death certificate sent to Grimm Manor as soon as possible,” he finally said, taking the papers from Genevieve’s hand. “Take a moment to say your farewells. I’ll be waiting just outside the door to lock up after you both.”

The girls nodded in dismissal and turned back to their mother as he slipped out of the room.

“She isn’t coming back, is she?” Genevieve murmured.

Ophelia took a deep breath. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“We’ll be okay,” Genevieve said, more to herself than to Ophelia. “If it was a problem with her heart, it was probably just a fluke. I’m sure she hasn’t passed anything onto to us. After all, Grandmother was as healthy as a horse her entire life, and she probably would have stayed with us much longer if not for the accident. Mother wouldn’t want us to worry.”

“No, she’d want us to move on. It’s just like her to leave me here, alone, to carry on our family legacy.” The sound that came out of Ophelia’s throat was something between a laugh and a sob. “I don’t know how she expects me to do this without her. I will never be as good as her. I’ve only gotten half the training she did when her own mother died.”

“No one can expect you to be perfect, Ophie,” Genevieve reasoned.

“She did,” Ophelia countered, memories of their mother’s deep disappointed sighs every time she messed up reciting a spell or didn’t think on her feet quickly enough. “She may have never pressured you to be perfect, but I was always held to a different standard. And even if Mother hadn’t always expected greatness of me, I can’t help expecting it of myself.”

“Ophelia,” Genevieve scolded. “That’s hardly a fair thing to ask of yourself.”

Ophelia wrinkled her nose but didn’t comment further. Genevieve didn’t understand. How could she? Genevieve had been allowed to roam free their entire childhoods while Ophelia had been cooped up inside Grimm Manor learning the family business. The Shadow Voice taunting her every time she made a mistake.

If Grandmother had been responsible for bringing the Necromancy industry to New Orleans, Tessie Grimm had been responsible for making it an attraction to both tourists and locals alike. Grimm Manor had a steady flow of foot traffic between the hours of dawn and dusk, Monday through Saturday, as the people of New Orleans ran to Tessie Grimm for just about every haunting request one could imagine.

Can you contact my brother on the Other Side so I can tell him I’m sorry?

Can you resurrect my girlfriend so she can tell the police I didn’t do it?

Can you convince a Poltergeist to possess my husband and make him more tolerable?

All of which was now on Ophelia’s shoulders alone.

“We have to move forward,” Genevieve continued, interrupting her thoughts. “Find our closure so we can carry on her legacy.”

“You mean so I can carry on her legacy,” Ophelia corrected. “You’re not tied to Grimm Manor. It is not your burden, nor would I ever wish it on you.”

Ophelia bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath before her grief and anxiety boiled over. She’d much rather focus on her rage. Rage that her mother had left her here to take over the family magic, and Grimm Manor, long before she was ready. She knew it was probably in poor taste to be so angry with the dead, but her anger was easier to stomach than the grief that hid beneath her skin. Fury and spite could fuel her, propel her forward, but if she let her grief take over, she wasn’t so sure she’d be able to dig herself out of that pit.

Genevieve gave her sister an indignant look. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not going to up and leave you forever, Ophie. Besides, we don’t have to make any decisions on Grimm Manor right away, okay? You don’t need to take up Mother’s mantle of helping every Tom, Dick, and Harry in New Orleans just because she and Grandma did. I know it seems overwhelming right now, but just because we inherit Grimm Manor doesn’t mean we must⁠—”

“Stop,” Ophelia demanded as she looked back down into the casket.

Genevieve pressed her lips together. Ophelia didn’t know how to tell her sister yet—Genevieve was still so full of dreams that the two of them would go off and travel the world together like they promised each other as children—but now that their mother was gone, the fate of Grimm Manor was pretty much made up in Ophelia’s mind.

Ophelia reached over and brushed her fingertips against their mother’s hollow cheek. Once she left this room, she would only be able to see Tessie Grimm in her memories. Memories of the eccentric woman drinking seven cups of tea a day until she smelled of vanilla and chai mixed with the scent of spell salts and magic. Of her soothing voice reading books aloud in the manor’s library before lunch, and the metallic clanging of swords during fencing lessons in the evening. Of her teaching Ophelia all the rules of magic and dealing with the dead while Genevieve took her piano lessons in the parlor. Of the smell of gumbo and honeyed cornbread every Sunday in the winter.

“We’ll meet again, some day,” Ophelia vowed now.

If you don’t knock on that door three times in the next five seconds, the insidious Shadow Voice in her head whispered, you’ll die too.

Ophelia sucked in a breath as flashes of her own untimely death flicked through her mind. A shadowy figure standing in front of her, ripping into her soft flesh with claws as long as her fingers.

Tick, tock.

Her muscles seized as fear rushed through her, and her movements became frantic as she turned for the door.

“Ophelia? Shit. Is it the voice again?” Genevieve asked, dashing forward in her pink taffeta skirts, a hand reaching out with concern.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Ophelia tripped over her own hem as she lunged for the exit, rapping her knuckles against the solid door three times before the Shadow Voice counted off the last second. Then, silence. The voice was gone again, evaporating from her mind like mist.

“Dears?” the coroner spoke from the other side of the door. “Did you knock? The door isn’t locked, you know.”

Neither girl bothered to explain as Genevieve moved to wrench open the door. The man gave them a look of pity as they stepped out before locking up and leading the two of them to the exit. Genevieve shot a small glare at him. Genevieve hated pity.

“Good luck.” The coroner bowed his head to them as they stepped into the late afternoon sun. Ophelia dipped her chin in thanks as she followed Genevieve, her younger sister not bothering with any niceties as they stalked away.