Nope, I had that covered with my handy name-engraved-in-flesh prompter. Skin. Was there anything it wasn’t good for?
Three more deaths to survive. Fail and I’d die again. For good.
The tenth death was pretty much everything you’d expect from being crushed under a ton of rocks.
After the eleventh death, I realized the joke was on me. There weren’t twelve deaths to relive before I either got out of here or experienced mine. There were thirteen. Gavriella had died twice, and I got to enjoy both.
The first one, when she was still Gracie, wasn’t so bad. An electric blast of magic sent my heart into convulsions and then quickly stopped it altogether. It was no picnic, but in the scheme of things, it was one of the milder ones.
I trudged along the path in Sheol, fuzzy once more on my name, and who or what awaited me at my destination. Wherever that was.
Black shadows flowed along either side of me. So pretty. I pushed my hand through some kind of invisible shield to poke one and the little fucker leeched onto me, sucking on my soul hard enough to make my eyeballs feel like they were going to implode.
I tried to dislodge it, but it had bellied up to the bar and wasn’t going anywhere. More shadows descended upon it. There was a tussle to drink me dry. Wow. I must be some kind of a saint with a primo soul.
The original shadow was dislodged and a fatter one took its place, crowding the rest out. Except I could taste this one. It was dusty, like everything else in this joint. If you’re gonna drink me, I’m gonna drink you back, suckah.
A silky red ribbon flew out of me and into the shadow. Red forked branches appeared, and beautiful white clusters exploded. Whoa. Cool.
The shadow disappeared. Not shadow. I furrowed my brow. Repha’im. And I am Ash… Someone. Madonna only had one name. Good enough.
Pain stabbed my chest. I sucked in a breath…
…bound by heavy chains to a chair. My ribs were cracked, blood caked my lashes, and my left arm hung at an awkward angle from the latest round of tortures. None of that compared to the stain on my soul. I, Gavriella Behar, had taken magic from innocents, used by Chariot to sow chaos, fear, and evil, and too cowardly to end my life and deny them this abhorrent act.
The chains loosened and I fell forward into someone’s arms. The woman’s features were blurred by the light shining behind her, like a halo, but my magic recognized hers and my breath caught. The missing Jezebel. She lived.
The world spun, my heart breaking.
Now I would condemn her to her fate. Another stain on my soul. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That the road ahead of her was hard and lonely and in the end I wasn’t sure we made any difference at all, but I was too weak. Or maybe too well trained.
I secured her promise to stop Chariot.
Poor girl.
Death reached its bony fingers toward me, cackling.
I came to on my knees in the dirt. The hands braced on the ground were mine, yet unfamiliar. Death surrounded me; I tasted it on my lips. So easy to stay here and fade away.
Ash.
The word carved into my flesh.
The woman who promised.
The Girl Who Lived.
Images assaulted me, my life rushing up to fill me with strength and power. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine.
I stood up. I might walk a path of darkness, but it wasn’t this one. Not now.
“I am Ashira Cohen.” I sounded like a rusty chicken, but I made noise and it was beautiful. Forgetting was death, but remembering was life. “In the name of Serach, Tehilla, Liya, Catriona, Atef, Vasilisa, Thea, Rachel, Nikolia, Freyja, Vishranti, and Gracie Gavriella, I claim my life.”
The Repha’im scattered, rising into the sky like a black funnel until they were lost to sight.
“In the name of the goddess Asherah, I demand passage back to the living.” Head high, I stepped off the path.
And when my next step took me to the almond tree, back in the grove, I started laughing. I used the ring to get out of there. Fun as it had been to fall through the void and almost be hit by a car that one time, I didn’t want to cheapen the experience by doing it too often.
Rafael dropped the book he was reading in the library. “Are—are you dead?”
“What? No, not currently, I think, though it’s been a little touch and go lately.” Granted my skin was bluer than it should have been, and I still bore traces of all the deaths I’d relived, but that was no reason to insult me. I picked at the scab on the “A” carved into my arm.
Rafael swallowed audibly. Heh.
“It bleeds. I’m alive. All good.” I peered at the letters. “Geez. I really did that? Nice penmanship considering.” The world went fuzzy, my legs gave out on me, and that was all she wrote.
When I woke up, I was lying on the library table, which had been cleared of all books and papers. Rafael wiped his brow. “Thank heavens. No. Give it a moment. I’ve healed you, but your injuries were extensive.”
He was pale but bore no signs of arousal. Whew. Thank goodness for regular old healing magic.
I checked myself over. “Not even a scar. Much appreciated. I wasn’t looking forward to going through life looking like Sally in Nightmare Before Christmas. You know, if she’d had a Thanksgiving mishap with
