Page 95 of Divine Oaths

From the open slits of their masks, the stench of liquor and smoke tinged the bodies of the two Sigmas who pinned me to the ground. They’d been drinking and smoking, and who knows what else. And if they heard their vulture leader, they showed no sign of it. One of them tore part of my skirt, the sound of ripping fabric a violent, piercing thing. The other slipped his hands along the length of my thigh, past the band of my underwear.

I kicked and screamed and clawed, landing a blow in the stomach of one of the crows, while the other pushed me against the trunk of a tree. For a brief moment, through the lace openings of my gloves, my fingertips connected with his skin.

The vision yanked me into the past, to moments before as the members started the campfire and donned their masks. I didn’t recognize the face of this crow, but I’d seen him on campus, in one of the engineering buildings. He was a senior and through Sigma, he’d already gotten a job at a massive venture capitalist firm.

The vision ended abruptly as a hand pulled the crow off me and violently threw him to the ground. I screamed as the vulture descended, but his voice was soft, pleading.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Sianna.”

Gasping, I recoiled from Kasem, wrapping my arms around myself and my torn clothing—my mother’s dress. One of the last things I had that belonged to her.

I’d known he’d be here with the other Sigmas, but him watching this happen, being a part of it? It made me sick to my stomach.

“You know what they are and you’re working with them. Even though they killed Melvin, your own ancestor,” I whispered. “Why would you be a part of this?”

From the slits in the mask, confliction churned in his gaze.

“This is my first time being a part of the hazing as a member. I swear,” he said. His voice was steeped in bitterness, and he wouldn’t meet my gaze, but I saw the truth in his words. Guilt and self-loathing had already begun to consume him when he spoke. “Every year, they have a different chapter member take part in it. Keep us connected to Sigma, or so they say. This year, it was my turn.”

“So they’re passing the mantle. You let them humiliate you as an initiate, and now they’re having you do their dirty work.”

“It’s a rite of passage,” he said. “And it’s what I have to do as part of the conservatorship. Become a member of Sigma and a chapter leader.”

I yanked the mask off his face, anger and hurt and everything else oozing through me. Kasem looked windswept and surprised, as if I’d pulled him from a dream and back into reality.

He pursed his lips, searching for words. But then Luke’s scream—and others’—cut through our impasse. In the dark, something had taken to Luke and the crows. Multiple somethings.

I clung to Kasem as a creature emerged from the swamp. Silver scales gleamed against its body, and its snout bore sharp pearly white teeth that dripped with a shimmering, oozing silver liquid. Its body stretched across all fours, with a spiked tail curving into the night. Within the depths of its pupilless eyes, crimson veins pulsed, a bloodthirsty hunger glinting in its gaze.

An alligator, but mutated, like a corpse awoken from the dead.

Fear rippled through me. In an instant, the silver creature was on Luke and one of the crows, its bellowing roars striking terror through the night. With its massive jaws, the creature gnawed at Luke’s bound feet and the crow’s right thigh, tearing through their flesh in bloody abandon. And then, bathed in blood and carnage, its hunt began.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Through nature to eternity

LUKE AND THE SIGMA CROW were the first to die. Their flesh and limbs were separated, their skin torn away, human blood and bones and marrow seeping from the creature’s crooked mouth.

And then it turned on the remaining Sigma members. The creature devoured them, biting and ripping their flesh apart, one by one in a massacre of blood and gore.

Kasem pulled me up by my waist and we ran, hand in hand, sprinting away from the creature even as it began to pursue us. Faster and faster we retreated, despite the muddy ground writhing at our feet, slowing us down. Just as the creature drew closer, Vivian appeared at our side. Her eyes were steely, determined, and she wilted a slew of roots in the gator’s path, catching it by its feet.

“We have to go back,” I said. “Kasem, we can’t leave him.”

“Get Sianna back to campus,” Kasem told Vivian, ignoring my pleas. “You said you would take care of her.”

“And I have,” Vivian snapped. “What do you think I was trying to do? She doesn’t listen. She’s more stubborn than you are.” Tears filled her lashes. I didn’t know ghosts could cry. “Luke was my friend. He could see me better than most people at Westfield could. And now he’s dead. Gone. Hasn’t your family and their wicked curse taken enough lives?”

In front of us, a group of initiates were headed our way. They were being pursued by one of the vultures in a silver mask.

I waved to get their attention.

“Turn back! It’s not safe!”

They sped past me, splitting in separate directions while the vulture continued his path toward us. The Sigma pushed me and Kasem apart. Terror seized me at the thought of him launching himself at me like the others. But instead, he grabbed Kasem and pushed him against the tree.

“Diaírei kaì basíleue,” he whispered, drawing a silver rope from his side.