Eerie (7 page)

“Why did an Envoy kill Holly?”

The brothers froze, most of them mid-bite, and they looked at each other in shock. Then they all shot their anger at Fin, who looked just as surprised as everyone else. He shook his head and shrugged as if to say, “Don't look at me!”

Hailey looked patiently at each of her uncles, her grandfather, and Fin, but they each looked to someone else expectantly, and in the end, nobody answered her.

“Somebody . . .” Hailey said. “Anybody?”

“Where did you hear that word?” Uncle Pix finally said in a horrified voice, as if Hailey had just dropped an f-bomb.

“I don't know.” That was the God's honest truth—she had no idea where or even when she'd first heard it. “In a dream, I think.”

The brothers exchanged worried looks.

Perhaps now was not the time to mention the Envoy on the balcony last night, she thought.

Hailey drummed her fingers on the table. Suddenly, everyone was too busy pushing food around their plates to talk to her. One revelation was sufficient for the day, she determined. If she delivered another shock, one of her uncles might have a coronary and keel over. She decided to just let the dust settle and changed the subject.

“Fin said he'd take me to the funeral home today to see the bod—” Hailey cut herself off and took a deep breath. “—to see Holly,” she corrected, as her chin trembled.

The brothers turned angrily to Fin again, who was acutely and completely engrossed in reading the wax paper cover on the butter and refused to look up.

“I'll drive you myself,” Pix grumbled. He pointed his finger at Fin. “And
you
,” he ordered, “you stay away from Hailey. She's not one of yer
innumerable
conquests!”

“You just told me this morning to look out for her,” Fin said, dropping his fork and holding his palms up.

“You can look out for her from a distance—arm's length or further!” Pix's face went red when Fin rolled his eyes.

“Fine.” Fin sat back in his chair and gazed at Hailey.

Hailey didn't feel like she needed Fin looking out for her at all. She had an Envoy watching her back. What could be more secure than that? However, there was nothing in the world more soothing than riding in Fin's car.

“Uncle Pix,” Hailey said timidly, “may I please ride with Fin today?”

Pix looked like he was going to blow a gasket. He opened his mouth to say no, but as soon as he saw Hailey cringing away, he sighed and dropped his shoulders.

“You may,” he said smiling at her, but then he shook his fist at Fin. “You keep yer hands to yerself!”

Fin, sitting safely out of Pix's reach, winked at Hailey.

“I saw that,” Pix hollered from the kitchen.

Fin pushed back from the table and helped Hailey with her chair.

“We'll meet you there,” Hailey called as she and Fin walked out the door. “We have to make a quick stop along the way,” she informed Fin when they reached his car.

“I'll take you wherever you want, Hailey,” he said, sounding distressed as he opened her door.

Hailey froze and looked up at him.

“Are you alright?”

His eyes bounced around the ground a little before he looked at her. “I'm sorry about last night,” he said softly, his head slightly bowed. “I don't even know why I left, and I didn't even realize I was driving ‘til I hit the tunnels . . .”

Hailey didn't know what to say, but she did know she wouldn't try to conjure her feelings from last night. Never had she been as low as she was when she realized Fin had abandoned her, and that was the last place she wanted to dwell. The muscles in her throat pulled, and her eyes stung as she looked at him.

“No worries,” she said, taking his hand and smiling through her tears. She trusted he had a darn good reason for leaving, and she believed he regretted it. “Thanks for coming back,” she added and patted his hand before she got in the car.

Fin held onto her hand for several seconds after she was seated, so long that she looked up to see if he had something else on his mind.

He only gazed at her.

“Fin?” Her cheeks heated. “Can I have my hand back?” She smiled but couldn't look him in the eye.

He let her hand slide out of his and closed her door.

“Could we stop at the church?” she asked with misty eyes after he started the car. “I want to light a candle and say a prayer for Holly.”

“Woman,” he said, “I would drive you anywhere.”

Chapter Ten

The Girl Who Died

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

- Napoleon

The candle wick sparked briefly before it took the flame, which rose up, trembling. Hailey closed her eyes as Holly's favorite song rang in her ears.

“ . . .a candle in the night outshines the sun . . .” a serene voice sang in her head.

Fin placed his hand on her shoulder, and Hailey looked up at him—her candle in the night.

“She really wanted you to kiss her.”

“What?” Fin asked, smiling down at Hailey.

“Yeah,” Hailey nodded, returning her gaze to the candle. “Holly was crazy for you. She thought you were—how did she put it—the paragon of hotness,” Hailey chuckled, stealing a glance at Fin, whose mouth twisted as she spoke.

“The . . .paragon . . .of . . .
hotness
 . . .” he whispered as if he were thoroughly enjoying how those words sunk in, and a giant smile spread across his face.

“But she never heard you snoring like a chainsaw,” Hailey said, trying to banter, but it came out sounding sad. “Will you pray with me?”

His face hardened, but then he knelt down with her, made the sign of the cross and folded his hands as she whispered.

“Father God, please make a place in Heaven for Holly to dance. Help her find Mom and Dad. Please forgive me for being angry with You. And please help me accept that she's gone, because my heart keeps telling me she's alive, and I'm afraid she's still out there, hurting and waiting for someone to find her.” She sniffled softly. “Please bless Fin. Thank You for bringing him into our lives. Without him, I'd be lost. Amen.”

She wiped her cheeks and stood, but Fin remained penitently on his knees, and Hailey strolled outside.

“Sorry,” he said when he caught up to her.

“Don't be,” Hailey said kindly, and Fin hurried to get her door.

“There were some things I had to . . .straighten out with the Big Guy,” he explained as he pulled away from the curb, and Hailey felt somehow comforted by that.

The House of the Rising Sun was a beautiful, polished stone building with vaulted ceilings and stained glass, stretching at least twenty feet high. It sat on a hill overlooking the Ohio River, just a few blocks from the church. Hailey's uncles were already inside with the mortician when she and Fin arrived.

“I wanna see her,” Hailey blurted as soon as she saw Uncle Pix. She didn't mean for it to come out like that and quickly remembered her polite words. “I'm sorry,” she said dropping her eyes. “Could I please see her now?”

“Of course, dear.” Pix motioned to the mortician. “This is Mr. Tod. He's prepared Holly for the service.”

A kind-looking man in his forties waddled over and shook her hand.

“Miss Hartley,” he said gently but not at all hesitantly. “There are some things I'd like to tell you before we go see your sister.”

Hailey gave him her full attention.

“There was substantial damage to her head and to her face, which may make it hard for you to recognize her. Her body was too badly damaged for us to embalm, and she also had some burns, which has made her skin color very dark. There's also some charring on her face and head.”

“How do you know it's her?”

“The coroner made the identification using her dental records,” Mr. Tod said, but Hailey still needed to see.

“I'm ready,” she breathed. Her heart slammed against her throat.

Mr. Tod led the family toward a room with long, heavy curtains, hazy light, and a polished wooden casket, which sat, lid closed, against the far wall. Uncle Pix stopped Mr. Tod in the hallway, mumbling something about a list of people who had access to Holly's remains, but Hailey never broke stride and in fact quickened her pace. The casket was so close. She had but to open it, and then she could see—they all would see.

One of the brothers shouted, “Wait!”

Hailey threw open the lid and staggered back.

A charred, skeletal head wearing Holly's hair gaped at her. The rest was pieces.

Hailey saw the ceiling and the dim light fixtures spin above her before she hit the floor. Fin fell beside her, cradling her next to him.

“That's not Holly,” she managed, the room swinging like a pendulum under her.

On the night before the burial, there was a gathering at the pub. Nobody called it a wake.

Someone sang a sad, slow tune in old Irish, which Hailey understood perfectly even if she didn't know what the words meant. The song ended, and hush dropped like a heavy curtain over the Hullachan.

Holly was dead.

The church held a Requiem Mass the next day. Every seat was filled.

Hailey sat down, blinked once, and it was over.

The next thing she knew, she was standing over Holly's open grave.

Numb.

Squatting down, she wrapped her fingers around some loose Earth, red clay she squeezed into crumbles against her palm. She buried her sister at 2pm on a windy Sunday. She dropped a fistful of dirt onto the casket.

And just like that, Holly was gone.

Cobon waited for the last human to leave the cemetery before he revealed himself to Asher.

“Lovely service, wouldn't you agree?”

Strolling with his hands clasped leisurely behind his back, he approached Asher, who stood unmoving in the shade of a giant oak, facing Holly's grave.

“I especially liked that bit about perpetual light,” he continued, taking his place at his brother's side. “Though,” he said, rocking back on his heels then forward again, “I doubt that even the temporary light of this wretched planet could ever find
all
of her pieces . . .”

Asher said nothing.

Cobon pressed his lips together. “Well, not in that mausoleum anyway.” He leaned closer to Asher. “Too many cracks and crevices.”

Asher remained lost in his own thoughts, uninterrupted and quite obviously unamused.

“In fact, I think some of her is still stuck in my fingernails.” He scraped a bit of dried blood from his thumb and flicked it away.

When Asher still took no notice of him, Cobon dropped his hands and impatiently quickened his cadence.

“Magnificent soul, though—pity I had to shred it, what a waste.”

He looked for a moment with Asher at Holly's fresh grave.

“Simply exquisite that one, even my wicked humans thought so. Oh, they were happy enough to ravage her, but they just couldn't bring themselves to kill her—I had to wait hours for her to bleed out.” He shook his head in short, minute bursts and muttered almost angrily, “Lucky I found a black widow to ensnare the girl—chop her foot off. Otherwise, those two buffoons would've failed to even get her into the car.”

Asher was unaware of a third human involved in this scheme, and he tried not to show it . . .tried hard not to show a sudden, intense concern for his girl, but Cobon might've sensed it. Asher's jaw had tightened, ever so slightly.

But still he said nothing, and Cobon spoke even faster.

“Oh, but she's not the one you care about, is she—not the one you protect. I saw you, of course,
touch
her.” Cobon looked as if he'd just bitten into a lemon. “Resilient, that one . . .downright un-charmable—” he gulped some air “—of course, you interrupted me on the balcony—and she shut me out of her mind anyway. Tell me, how will you control her?”

“I will not control her,” Asher said slowly.

Cobon leaned back, drawing a deep, cleansing breath and letting it out with a smile.

“I hate it when you ignore me.”

“I ignore your madness.”

“It's not mad to dispose of a few wretches, is it?”

“The girl was no wretch. You took a life before its time, brother. Again.”

Cobon shrugged.

“Maybe, but only just. Call it an act of mercy—collateral damage, if you like,” he reasoned. “And you're the only one who cares.”

“The others grow intolerant of your—”

“The others grow desperate,” Cobon spat. “And in their desperation, they grow more tolerant. This place . . .” He brought his hands to his head and clenched them into fists. “This place is driving us all mad. We don't belong here, Asher, we have to go home!”

Asher searched Cobon's eyes, and Cobon let him.

“You were there, Asher. You saw them all, watching and waiting.”

Cobon looked him up and down.

“Even you stood by as I ripped her apart.”

Asher dropped his eyes. He had stood by and done little more than watch as the girl endured unspeakable atrocities. She'd cried out several times and once even looked Asher dead in the eyes.

And he'd looked away, ashamed.

He hadn't looked again until it was over, until her final thoughts evaporated. She'd projected quite a beautiful image as she'd suffered, of dancing with her little sister, and he had thoroughly enjoyed it.

That bothered him.

“Why do you linger here?” Asher asked.

Cobon frowned. “I've lost my rock,” he said, kicking the ground. “I've looked for it everywhere. I even tore those two buffoons apart, but I just can't find it.”

Asher knew perfectly well where the black stone was. After a doorway into the Aether
didn't
open, Cobon had flown into a rage and flung his precious rock onto the cemetery grass. Asher had seen it, and he had very stealthily taken it. The rock was in his pocket, and he wasn't about to tell Cobon that.

“Your experiment failed,” Asher said flatly. “The passage is shut. Your rock is finished.”

Cobon shook his head.

“No . . .no, I'd know if it were finished. I can still . . .” Cobon raised his shoulders. “feel it, I just can't find it.”

Asher returned to gazing at Holly's grave.

“And you?” asked Cobon. “Why do you linger? Amused by your female? You do so adore your pets,” Cobon said, frowning. “I might have claimed dear Hailey for my own, you know, but . . .” Asher squinted, and Cobon continued with some hesitation “ . . .well, what good is a human who won't obey?”