Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) (31 page)

“I want to be a part of your life,” I protested. “I don’t want to be the side dish you visit every few months.”

“You’re not a ‘side-dish’,” he snapped. “You’ve never been the side dish. But you don’t know what you’re talking about. My life—the life I go to when I’m not with you—it’s ugly, Ebron. I don’t ever want you to see that.”

I studied his profile, the scruff on his cheeks, the curl of hair behind his ear.

“I don’t know anything about you,” I mused. I didn’t even know his last name. I’d asked those questions—years ago when we’d first met—and he’d never answered. Where was he born? How did he become a vampire? Did he have a house somewhere, friends, family? He was a stranger who knew me inside and out.

He jerked his chin towards the back door. “You want to be a part of that? That’s who I am, babe. Death and bodies and death, again. There’s no happy ending with me, okay?”

I said nothing. That meaty smell lingered on him and I had to look away. My throat clicked when I swallowed. From behind the back door, a sharp, snapping noise made both Leo and I jump.

“This is not okay,” I whispered.

“It’s done. It’s what we had to do.”

“You think I’m safe now?”

“Safer than before. The bodies are gone. The files are gone. Now just lay low for a while and hopefully people will forget about you. And keep away from that goddamn lawyer. And the goddam cop.”

I sighed. “It’s not over with him. I’ll have to figure something out.”

“We’ll do it together. But right now you should go home, Ebron,” Leo said again. He got gracefully to his feet and reached down to help me up. “Go home, get some rest. I’ll take it from here.”

I couldn’t help myself. I leaned into the comforting circle of his arms. He let me, wrapping me up in a hug and nosing along my jaw. I squeezed my eyes closed and thought that maybe I could still function, even with the darkness inside me growing.

The door rattled and we pulled apart. The Namordo scuttled into the room. A black garbage bag swung in its bony grip. It looked straight at me, those wide, pupil-less buggy eyes unflinching. It saw that I was watching, frozen in horror. No, not frozen. I couldn’t move, but I felt on fire, my whole body crumbling into ash. The creature opened its mouth and licked its chops, its tongue textured like a dried mushroom.

Leo growled and pulled me closer to him. The Namordo made another dry, huffing laugh and thrust the sack towards Leo. I couldn’t help but notice the bulge in the bottom, the lumps.

“The remains,” the creature clucked.

Leo gingerly accepted the bag, eyeing it with distaste.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s move on.” He gave me a gentle shove towards the door.

“You go home,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I nodded, unable to speak, my throat closed with revulsion. I looked anywhere but at the bag swinging from Leo’s hand.

The Namardo snagged my arm as I moved to pass it. Its grip crushed my bicep and I cried out, my knees going to water and I stumbled.

“Get your fucking hands off of him!” Leo lunged, hissing.

The Namordo let me go, and I flailed away, tripping over my own feet in my urgency. Leo grabbed my shoulders and steadied me. He shoved at my sleeve, trying to pull it aside to see the bare skin on my arm.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I gasped.

Leo whirled and snarled at the creature. “Don’t you ever fucking touch him. I’ll kill you if you touch him.”

The thing chuckled and I watched Leo’s eyes flash gold. He put a hand on my shoulder and pushed.

“Go,” he said without taking his eyes off the Namordo.

I did, loping towards the front door.

“Goodbye, pet,” the Namordo called after me. I ducked behind the counter, scrambling for my coat.  I glanced back at it. It smiled, showing me row after row of tiny teeth.

“I’ll remember you,” it said.

I fled out the door and didn’t look back.

Chad’s patrol car sat in my parking spot in front of my trailer. I cursed, slammed the steering wheel a few times and then cursed again. I’d hoped that he’d slink off to home and take a few days before confronting me. I should have known better.

I had to park off to the side of the trailer and then tromped through the berms of snow that had built up over the last few days. I heard the metallic squeak of a car door opening and then it slamming and when I came around the corner, Chad stood there beside his cruiser. He stared at me, his eyes dark and troubled, his arms crossed over his chest.

We regarded each other for second, and then we both looked away.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said in a small voice. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have told Diana.” I fought the impulse to look back at him, to apologize.  I hated the look on his usually cheerful face. Like I had just killed his puppy.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Chad—”

“Ebron,” he interrupted. “You need to do some explaining. Please.”

“Ugh,” I stammered. My mouth went dry. “Chad, look...”

“Please,” he said shortly. “Because you’re keeping something from me.” He held up a hand. “No, I get it. You don’t have to tell me everything. But... call it a gut feeling, but I just... Ebron, do you know anything about that girl? The one who disappeared from the morgue?”

“I didn’t kill her,” I said. Truth. “I swear. But I can’t tell you everything. You have to trust me.”

 He shook his head. “I can’t do that, Ebron. It’s my job. You’re hiding something and the way you get messed up in things—”

“Messed up in things?” I shot back, indignant. “People bring their problems to me, Chad. 
You
called
me
. I’m doing the best I can with what I got.”

“This is so wrong, Ebron,” Chad said. He sagged backwards and let his car support him. “At least be straight with me. What’s your boyfriend doing right now?”

“Chad,” I said. “No. I know I’m asking a lot. But you ask a lot of me. I agreed to help Diana—”

“For a price!”

“You don’t work for free,” I replied patiently. “And neither do I. But I’m willing to make a trade. You forget everything about tonight, and I’ll help Diana for the next year.”

“I believe you when you say that you’re didn’t kill this girl,” he added. “But you know something about it, don’t you? Please don’t lie to me.”

“Chad,” I said. “You understand that there are, um,
otherwordly
, elements to this, right? I mean, you get that now?”

“I get it,” he said, looking away from me and swallowing hard. “Your boyfriend, is he... like you?”

I snorted. “No. He’s something else.”

“Something otherworldly?” Chad asked skeptically.

I nodded.

“And that’s what all of this is about?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Chad whispered, shaking his head. “I don’t think I want to understand.”

“There’s so much more than just me,” I said. “So much more than just what I can do. I’m trying to protect you from that. That’s why you have to just forget this, okay? Just walk away.”

He kept shaking his head, and I wondered what exactly he suspected. Maybe his mind was blocking some, or all, of it out in an effort to keep his sanity. I had a horrifying flash of clarity that this argument had nothing to do with the subject at hand and everything to do with choosing sides.

“No, Ebron,” he said. He looked at me, then, his eyes awash with confusion and fear. I hated the look on his face, hated that good-hearted Chad had to see the maggots and flies under the world’s veneer. I thought, weirdly, of Chad’s little boy, tucked soundly into bed at this late hour. I wondered if Chad would go home and curl up next to his son and try to remember something good.

“This isn’t... this isn’t okay,” Chad said. “I can’t—I don’t—I don’t know you at all, Ebron. I can’t know you.”

He turned, stiff-shouldered and tense, and opened the door to his cruiser.

“Chad,” I called after him. “Chad, wait.”

He got in.

“Chad!” I called again.

“Chad, c’mon! Chad, wait!”

He slammed the door. The ignition started with a roar. He backed out of my parking space and drove away. If he looked back, I didn’t see it in the shadows.

Home looked different. Everything looked different. I pulled the blinds shut on every window and turned on every light until the trailer glowed, lit up like a Griswald Christmas tree. Johnny gave a startled yelp when I grabbed him and pulled him onto my bed with me. I just needed something solid. Something warm and alive. He sniffed at my skin and whined.

“I know, buddy,” I told him. “I know.”

I tried to read for a while, but the words blurred into black and I stared at the page. Late night TV couldn’t keep my attention, and it was too loud anyway. I couldn’t hear the creaks of the house, the groans and sighs. I waited until dawn for footsteps that never came, and finally fell into uneasy sleep just as the sun came up.

When I woke in the early afternoon, I looked in the closet in the spare bedroom, but there was nothing there but dust.

Chapter 20

“Anyway, I told him that he had until Christmas to buy a ring,” Brittany said, gesturing with her glass of wine. “And he said that he needed the money for a demolition derby. So I kicked his ass out.”

“You did the right thing,” I said, and took a deep swallow of my beer.

Dahlia passed through the living room, a tray of stuffed olives balanced on her hand like a cocktail waitress. “Anyone need anything? Everyone good?”

“Ooh, I need more wine,” Brittany said. She flashed a good length of thigh as she leapt up off the recliner and teetered into the kitchen on her spiked heels.

“I didn’t know this was a dress up thing,” I told Dahlia apologetically. She ran her eyes over my jeans and long-sleeved tee shirt.

“You look fine,” she said. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

“Well, you look amazing,” I replied. “And I’m glad to be here.”

She did. And I was. When I’d arrived in the mid-afternoon, I’d walked into a house bursting with more holiday cheer than I’d ever been exposed to. The turkey slowly turned brown in the oven. Half a dozen pies cooled on the counter. I waded through a sea of decorative pumpkins to get to the bathroom and once there, lifted a candy-corned shaped toilet seat cover and washed my hands with so-called “autumn leaf” scented soap. Back in the kitchen, Dahlia thrust a pumpkin-flavored beer into my hands while her oldest daughter, Christina, turned red with the exertion it took to mash the trough-sized bowl of boiled potatoes.

“Want some help?” I asked, but Christina just smiled, wiping at her brow with a potato-flecked forearm.

“Have some appetizers.” Dahlia shoved me towards the dining room, where a folding table groaned under the weight of mozzarella sticks, ham-and-cilantro pinwheels, and povitica bread. I hadn’t seen so much food since the aftermath of Dahlia’s last juice cleanse.

Now I sat in the living room, watching the muted football game on TV. Delicious smells wafted out from the kitchen, along with Brittany and Christina’s tinkling laughter. Danielle lay on the couch, propped up with pillows, her dark hair fanned out around her head.  She’d been asleep when I’d arrived, but woke up when Brittany’s phone blew up with a half dozen calls. Brittany apologized and excused herself. Danielle ignored her. She fixed her eyes on me and tracked my every movement as I crossed the living room floor and sank down into a chair close to her.

“Hey,” I said uncomfortably. “How you feeling?”

Danielle shrugged, not even glancing up as Dahlia poked her head into the room.

“Ebron, you need a refill?” she asked, pointing to my beer.

“I’m okay,” I said. Dahlia followed my gaze to her staring offspring.

“Danielle,” she called. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you,” Danielle replied, without breaking her laser-like focus on me.

Dahlia looked back at me and I shrugged. She frowned and retreated into the kitchen.

I slipped my phone out of my pocket and checked the time. Just before I’d left home, I’d texted Leo Dahlia’s address and a quick message:
there will be pie
. Not that I expected him to come. Obviously he had more important things to deal with. Things I couldn’t think about. I didn’t want to ruin Dahlia’s lovely Thanksgiving by turning into a blubbering madman.

Brittany clacked back into the room, her teeny little skirt fluttering about her legs. She took a sip from her topped off wine glass, and flopped down at Danielle’s feet.

“So,” she said to me. “Sucks your boyfriend couldn’t make it.”

“Yeah,” I said lamely and chugged my drink. The pumpkin beer wasn’t half bad, for something that tasted like a confused cookie.

“And how are you feeling, sweetheart?” Brittany asked, leaning across Danielle’s feet and patting her hand.

“Like I can’t wake up,” Danielle said, staring at me.

I had to hold the mouthful on my tongue until my throat began working again. Painfully, I swallowed it down. “Danielle,” I croaked helplessly.

“Ugh,” Brittany said, oblivious. “You poor thing.” She shook her head mournfully.

“I saw you in the stars,” Danielle said. “You were filled with light.”

Brittany shot a look between us. “Ebron? You saw him when?”

“When I was dead.”

My heart thudded painfully. Brittany gasped. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “Did you, like, have a near death experience? Oh, my God, that’s cool. What did you see?”

“Brittany,” I said. Danielle wouldn’t look away from me, staring, her eyes burning into me.

Blood in the hollow of the Danielle’s throat, the boy’s eyebrow torn clear off. The party dress crumbled like a smashed butterfly, glittering with glass and covered in blood.

“Did you see a light?” Brittany asked, from somewhere far away. I gulped my beer again. It fizzed up my nose and I coughed.

“No,” Danielle said. “It was dark. The light was coming from him.”

Brittany gave me a funny look. “From Ebron?”

“Yes,” Danielle said dreamily and I shot to my feet. I clumsily set my beer on the glass table, beside the coffee table book of Marilyn Monroe photos.