A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (34 page)

“What?”

“Hmm? Uh, I don’t know, that’s what I was going to say—that I don’t know.”

“He’s treating you bad, isn’t he? I knew it, I knew he would. He’s a total cocky frat-boy type,” Ferg said, throwing his finished cigarette down. It bounced away and continued to smolder where it landed. “I hate guys like him.”

“No, it’s not that at all, I promise.”

“You promise?” He gave her a sideways glance like he didn’t believe her.

“Yeah, I promise.”

“If I find out you’re lying, I’ll track him down and break his kneecaps, Kate, I swear.”

“Hey, calm down Tony. Seriously? This isn’t
The Sopranos
,” she teased.

“Trust me, I’m in no mood to let people off easy these days. I shouldn’t have let Emily get away. I’m an idiot”

“Oh, so that’s what this is about. You’re taking your aggression out on Ty?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I have no idea. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Ty hasn’t hurt me. Yet.”

“Look, I was stupid to break up with Emily, you should learn from my mistake. If you like Ty, he should know, before he leaves and you both regret it. I never thought I’d be saying stuff like this, but . . . I’m just being honest, Kate.” He stared down at a big truck hauling an even bigger trailer trying to maneuver through the narrow streets. Cars were honking at it as it grazed close to them. “Seeing her with that guy tore my heart and my guts out and it was like she was trampling on them with her adorable pink slip-ons. She was wearing these cute new shoes, did I tell you that? It’s weird that I noticed, but everything about that moment is seared into my brain.” He shook his head and rubbed his forehead like he couldn’t believe what he’d done.

The truck and its trailer made it around the corner and disappeared. Traffic resumed its normal pace. Kate didn’t know what to say. She’d only seen Ferg like that once before. Several years ago, when they first met. Some girl had broken up with him and he was an emotional mess for a few months, though he only ever let it out in moments like this: in private, when they’d go out for walks in the middle of the night or sit on the roof and watch the sunset.

“So, uh, what happened, exactly?” she asked. Rather than answer, he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Ooh, time to open the store,” he said and pushed off the wall and crossed the roof to the ladder.

“Right. That’s cool. You don’t have to tell me,” Kate said, following him. The rain had picked up again and it fell in her eyes and coated the rungs of the ladder. Ferg climbed down first—claiming that if Kate fell, he could catch her. She scoffed.

“I climb rocks, remember? I’ll be fine,” she reminded him. “In fact, I should be going first to catch you.” He was already down, so it didn’t do much good. 

“But do you climb rainy, wet rock?” he asked.

Kate made it just fine, managing to only feel like her grip was tenuous once. As they headed through the back door into the store, Ferg told her he had some stuff he wanted her to mail.

“What?” she asked.

“You won’t believe it, but we’ve sold a few items online.” He smiled. “Looks like it might work.”

Kate grinned, elated at the news. “That’s great. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner.”

He shrugged. “The crap with Emily has managed to eclipse it.”

“It shouldn’t. You know, last time I talked to her, she acted like she was still into you. I mean, she didn’t say that. But I could tell.”

“Why, what did she do? I mean,” he said, catching himself. He shoved a hand into his pocket and cocked his head, trying to appear cool about it. “What—what made you think that? That she’s still into me?”

“Just a feeling really. She was nice to me, and there was this look in her eyes, like this glint, as though she was hoping I’d say something she wanted to hear without having to ask me.”

Ferg’s forehead wrinkled and the corners of his mouth twitched downward. “That’s it? A feeling?”

“Uh, yeah.” At the front of the store, Kate tugged on the chain to switch on the ‘Open’ sign. Ferg unlocked the doors and then stood between the metal detector pylons and stared at her, his mouth pressed together in a firm line.

“Well, I was hoping for more. But I guess that’s something,” he said.

Kate went around the counter and punched her cashier code into the computer to log in. “Sorry. I wish I could say there was. My point is, just talk to her. I doubt she’s dating that guy. It was probably a one-off. Maybe they’re working on a project for school together.”

“Yeah, maybe. She’s not in school. Maybe it’s something else. I just—I couldn’t stomach it if it were more,” he said, clutching his torso as though to demonstrate how sick it made him.

“Don’t be melodramatic, just do it,” Kate said, eyeing him skeptically.

***

“Kate,” Ty’s voice came excitedly through her phone. She was sitting in her room, researching near-death experiences and astral projection. She had no idea why. It was the only thing she could come up with that might explain Will’s experience if he wasn’t dead, like he claimed.

“Yeah?” she said.

“Great news! There’s going to be a full moon this weekend.”

“Oooh, that is good news,” she said. “Uh, why is that good news?”

“It will make our climbing trip perfect.”

“Our climbing trip? What climbing trip?” This was the first she’d heard anything about a climbing trip.

“The one I’m planning, that I designed just for you. It will be a few miles outside Vegas at a super sweet climbing spot. And then, at night, we can hike a little. Desert hiking in a full moon is absolutely gorgeous. Have you ever done it?”

“Uh, no, but I have work this weekend,” she said, checking the schedule in her Google calendar on her laptop.

“You can’t get someone to cover for you?” he asked, sounding disappointed.

“Maybe, but—”
do I want to? He didn’t even ask.
No, he just took the liberty of planning it without asking if Kate wanted to go.

“Audra said she’d like to go, and Malcolm will be there too,” Ty said, as though that should appeal to Kate.

“Audra?” Knowing Audra would be there
did
make Kate want to go. However, Malcolm’s presence . . . definitely a deterrent. She sighed inwardly, still sort of paying attention to her research and highlighting a section of a website that spoke of demonic visitations by people who’d died and then came back to life. Malcolm. Damn. That’s what she got for pretending to like someone whose personality grated on her so badly.

“Yeah, I ran into her when I went to the Home Warehouse for a bolt-cutting tool—ours broke when I was trying to get a hold down. The head of the bolt was stripped. Malcolm and I had been talking about the possibility of getting away this week. Audra said she’d be in if we ended up doing anything.”

“So she didn’t actually say she’d be going for sure?”

“Uh, not exactly, no.” He laughed. “But I’m betting she’d be into it.”

Kate sighed. Ty was cute. He smelled good. He liked her. What would she do if she stayed home? Work, possibly see him if he didn’t go on the trip without her, and try to research how to find and rescue Will? She didn’t even know if anything Will had told her was true. For all she knew, he was a
demon
, trying to lure her into a hell-mouth or something. In her dreams, it all felt so real. She felt like she really loved him. When she woke up, she remembered how perfect the dream was, and she wanted him. But enough to throw away the possibility of something with a real, human man who was a mere phone call away?

“Let me see if I can get Luke to cover my shift,” she said, smiling hesitantly. Vegas. The desert. It all sounded very tantalizing suddenly.

“Great,” he said, his voice full of anticipation. “Call me when you know for sure. We’d want to leave Friday morning and come back Sunday afternoon.”

She hung up and stared at her laptop screen. She still knew nothing about Will’s situation and she had no way to figure out what she might need to do to save him.

The dream still had a grip on her. She continued to feel the sense of outrage that he was alive and trapped somewhere—the way it felt in the dream when he told her—but the immediacy had faded. She now felt pulled between figuring out what to do for him and making things happen with Ty.

Her phone rang again before she could resume her research. This time it was her mom. She sighed and accepted the call.

“Hi,” she said, sounding cheerier than she felt when talking to her mom.

“Well, there you are. I think this is my twentieth call.”

Kate grimaced. “Sorry. I’ve just been busy. Trying to find a new job, trying to keep the store from closing, dating . . . you know. Life’s a whirlwind.”

“Dating? You’re dating?” Her mother’s voice went a little shrill asking that. “This is the first that I’ve heard you’ve been seeing someone.”

“No. I mean, sort of. Just a few people. For fun. Nothing serious.” There was no way Kate wanted to delve into that subject. Curses! Why had she dropped dating into that casual list? She’d run out of things to say, that was why. She no longer had the excuse of schoolwork to fall back on when her mom brought up Kate’s virtual absence from family life. “Just, some of my friends have set me up on blind dates. That’s all. I haven’t even gone out with the same guy more than once . . . so, um . . .” She trailed off, uncertain if her mom was buying it.

“Anyone you could bring to dinner? This Sunday? You missed the last dinner when your brothers were here—they were very distraught about that.”

Kate knew this was a lie. Just another guilt-inducing tool in her mother’s medicine cabinet of control devices. Kate had exchanged a couple of texts with Owen since the dinner and he’d merely teased her about missing the dinner—a few jabs that he knew why Kate never went home. He joked about not wanting to go home either, but he did. Because he was a good son. A better son than she was a daughter, he’d ventured. Kate scoffed at him with a simple
mwah ha ha ha
.

“Yeah, sorry about that mom. I had to work, last minute. And this weekend I just made plans to go down to Vegas with my friends. Sorry. I’d love to be there, you know. I miss you and dad.” That wasn’t a lie, but the dinner invitation solidified her resolve to be out of town. She did miss her parents. As she said it, she noticed the little chasm in her heart where she hid her longing to be hugged by her mom and hear a bit of praise about how well she’d done in her short life. Not that it was true, necessarily, but still. It wouldn’t hurt to hear it from someone that they were proud of her no matter what. Even more, she’d love to be with her dad a bit without her mom around, henpecking him. It would be nice, she thought, to see her dad without the taint of how he’d let her mom down so much.

“Well, don’t worry about it sweetheart,” her mom said. “I know you’re busy living a single-girl life. I was young once too. I know the kind of pressure you have on you to meet people and socialize. Which friends are you going with? Just so I know who’ll be there. In case something bad happens, not that I’m suggesting something bad will happen, mind you. Will Audra be there?”

“Yeah, Audra and some guys that we’ve met at the climbing gym. We’ll be camping. Audra and I will share a tent, probably.”

“Call me when you get back. Just so I know you’re safe,” her mom said. “Can you do that?”

“Of course, mom. No problem,” Kate said, suddenly feeling like a jerk for not being free for a Sunday dinner. Again.

***

Kate woke up in the room with Will—their room. She was on the bed when her eyes opened and she stared at the dark velvet ceiling with its gems that glittered like stars or distant galaxies. When she sat up, she heard a thunderclap and was momentarily blinded by a flash of lightning that flooded the room. The smell of rain and electricity overwhelmed her before she had her vision back. As it returned, a figure emerged in the direction she was looking. A man, his back to her, his face turned toward the enormous bay window. The curtains were thrown open and outside the violent storm raged.

Candles burned in wall sconces and from five-foot tall free-standing sconces and flickered across a black long-sleeve shirt and the dark blue jeans the figure wore. His arms hung loosely at his side, but his hands twitched with a nervous energy.

Kate believed it was Will, but the man’s posture was unfamiliar. There was something animalistic to the curve of his back, the tilt of his head as he watched the storm. Will was always a bit more fun. Perhaps—if Will was right and he was a prisoner living in some cursed place—perhaps it was that he knew what he was now, a man trapped in a world he didn’t love, unable to die. That might be what was in this man’s stance.

He looked like he was ready to fight.

His back arched slightly as he appeared to take a deep breath, and then he stopped, mid-inhalation, and his head turned slightly. Kate saw the familiar profile—his nose, the perfectly proportioned lips, and the angle of his chin. It was Will. He turned around all the way.

“I thought I caught your smell,” he said, smiling at her. It was soft, almost gentle.

“What, are you a vampire? Or a werewolf?” she asked, teasing him. She stood up and took a few steps toward him, but she stopped before she got very close to him because of his grim expression.