Forsaken (12 page)

Damn.
“No wonder people have the corpses cut up.”

Simon shot her a horrified look. “No! What you did was right. Mutilation is unholy,” he retorted, then appeared chagrined at his outburst. “Sorry, it’s a hot button for me.”

“Really?” she jested.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “At least you’ve only got twelve more nights of this.”

Riley rolled her eyes at the thought. Twelve loooong nights filled with lying necromancers, a cold butt, and no sleep.

Thanks a bunch, Dad.

ELEVEN

“Whatcha want?” the bartender asked, his tattooed bicep announcing to the world he was “One of The Few. The Proud.”

A Marine.
Beck had never really liked the
Semper Fi
crowd, but at least he knew how they’d act.

“Shiner Bock,” he replied. “Start a tab.”

“Need to see some ID.”

Beck frowned. “I’m legal.”

“Don’t doubt it, but it’s the law now,” the man replied. “Gotta card everyone, even if they come in here using a goddamn walker.”

Beck fished out his driver’s license and tossed it to the bartender. The guy gave it a quick look and handed it back. “You look older. I’d have figured you for thirty.”

“Ya can blame the Army for that.”

“Where’d you serve?”

“Afghanistan.”

“Shit,” the man replied, grinning now. “No charge for the first beer. I was over there, too.”

The bartender placed a bottle of Shiner Bock on the bar. He reached for a glass, then changed his mind.

“Good call,” Beck muttered. He raised the beer in the air. “To those who didn’t make it home.” He took a swig and then raised the bottle again. “And to Paul Blackthorne. Rest in peace.” Then he downed half of it in one long gulp to ease the ache.

“That the guy who died down in Five Points?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah. He was good people.”
Good people always die sooner than the assholes.

“You a trapper?” the man asked, eyeing him.

No reason to deny it.
“Yeah.”

“I don’t hold much with trappers.”

“I’m not fond of jarheads, so we’re even,” Beck replied.

The bartender snorted. He picked up a glass of Scotch from the back bar and raised it high. “To those who made it home.”

“Amen,” Beck said, raising the bottle again, then downed the rest.

“No trouble, you hear?”

“None planned. Just wanna get drunk, maybe get laid. In that order.”

“Sounds good,” the bartender replied. “You want another?”

“Hell, yes.”

This was his second bar. Beck had started the evening at the Six Feet Under Pub & Fish House, the trappers’ favorite watering hole. He’d stayed there for a couple of drinks to honor Paul, as was custom, then decided he didn’t want be there anymore. Didn’t want to be around if anyone accused him of not doing right by his friend. Not that any of them had. They all knew better, but that didn’t mean they weren’t thinking it. He was, so why wouldn’t they be doing the same?

This bar wasn’t one of his usual haunts but they had his favorite beer. By the time he was on his sixth bottle, there were two voices competing for his attention: Paul’s was nagging about how he should be working, not drinking. How he had responsibilities now, at least when it came to Riley.

Responsibility wasn’t as strong a message as the anorexic redhead sitting next him, talking dirty. Real dirty. It was firing him up, and that he didn’t mind. It kept him from thinking about anything that hurt deep down.

“Come on, let’s get out of here. Take me to your place,” she urged, moving her hand a bit closer to where it counted. Her hair was a mix of brassy colors, and her eyes glassy from too much booze. Not that he cared.

Beck’s Rule Number One: he didn’t take any girl to his place. At least not one like this. If she was real fussy, they’d get a room at one of the cheap hotels. If not, his truck did just fine.

“So what’s yer name?” he asked, feeling he should know something about her before he screwed her.

“Does it matter?” she said, laughing.

“Yeah.”
Sorta.

“
Jamie.”

“Whatcha do for a livin’?”

“Nothing much.” She grinned as if that wasn’t a big deal. “I meet nice guys who buy me drinks.”

“And…”

“Then we go somewhere and fuck.”

Beck’s hackles rose. “Ya put out for drinks,” he said flatly.

She giggled. “Don’t we all?”

It was the wrong answer. This could have been Sadie a couple of decades earlier, working some guy for drinks and a night in the sack. Beck had been the product of one of those nights. No way he could go with this one now, not without conjuring up a lot of really bad shit.

He lurched off the bar stool, eager to be away from her. Too many memories were floating through his head, the kind that made him want to hit something or someone.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, tugging on his arm. It was the injured one, and the pain cleared his mind.

“The damned whole thing,” he growled. He threw money on the bar to cover their tab and headed for the door. The girl called out to him but he ignored her. As he reached the exit, he turned, hoping she wasn’t following him.

It wasn’t a problem. She was already pawing another guy, one who didn’t look like he was going to say no.

*   *   *

On a scale of
one to ten Beck knew he was about a seven when it came to being drunk. Decent buzz, but not too loaded. He’d learned how to handle the booze in the Army. You wanted to be intoxicated enough to feel good, but not too trashed to show up for roll call.

Except right now the feel-good thing wasn’t working out so well, not with that flashback to the bitch everyone else called his mother. He slammed the truck door and turned the key. The radio blared. He turned it off. A moment before he put the truck in gear he spied an Atlanta cop sitting at the corner in his patrol car, scoping the street.

“Shit.” He didn’t dare drive, not in his condition. The pigs came down hard on drunk driving: It was a lucrative bust, what with that new law. Not only did they toss you in jail but they took your vehicle and sold it to pay the towing and court costs. A thousand-dollar fine and a five-thousand-dollar truck? Somehow the bankrupt city never bothered to pay you the difference.

A few years ago he would have risked it, wouldn’t have given a damn, but now he had Riley to worry about.

Beck groaned. “Dammit, how’d I get into this mess?”

By not saving Paul
. It all came down to that. Now Riley was his responsibility, at least until she was eighteen or one of her family stepped up and took charge of her. Like he knew anything about playing big brother to some girl.

Beck pulled himself out of the truck, locked the door, and headed for the nearest Stop ’n’ Rob on foot. Once there he scoured the aisles, steering clear of the old guys buying cigarettes. He didn’t know how they afforded them, not at a hundred a carton. That had made it easy for him to kick the habit.

He needed to get back in the game tonight, but trapping while buzzed was a sure ticket to joining Paul in the dirt. He grabbed a six-pack of energy drinks and a large bag of peanuts—salty ones. The peanuts would make him thirsty, and all the fluid he’d have to chug would dilute the booze.

“Pack of rubbers,” he said to the clerk. “Extra large.” Why they kept them behind the counter he had no idea.

The clerk, a young black woman, gave him the once-over. He smiled in return. Though some thought it sacrilegious, the condoms were for Holy Water. He used them in places where the glass spheres weren’t welcome. Like swimming pools and shopping malls. Of course, he wasn’t going to tell the clerk that and ruin her daydream.

Once he was in his truck he started in on the food, alternating energy drinks and peanuts. He could remember when the drinks came in aluminum cans. Now they used thin plastic that cracked too easily, just one of the reasons he usually put the stuff in an empty whiskey bottle.

As he drank, the ache under his breastbone kicked in again. He’d like to believe it was sore muscles, but it wasn’t. It was the same feeling he had when his granddaddy died. Every time he lost someone he cared for a bit more of him went with them. In time, there wouldn’t be much of him left.

Now that Paul was dead he’d have to trap every night to keep both him and Riley in good shape, at least until her aunt came for her. From what Paul had said, the woman was like a buzz saw. Still, she was a relation and that was important.

“No more playin’ pool,” he said, shaking his head. No more doing what other guys his age liked to do. He’d lost his childhood to Sadie’s drinking, and now he was going to lose even more of his life to taking care of Paul’s kid. He twisted off the top of another bottle and took a long swig, followed by a handful of nuts. His stomach rumbled, complaining about the abuse.

By the time the first three bottles of energy drink were gone, he’d thought out a plan. It was a simple one: Find the fucking demon who’d killed his friend and waste the thing. It was an insane plan, but Beck didn’t care.

“I’m gonna carve ya up, ya bastard. Send a message to Hell.”

To do that he’d have to work the lower ranks of demons until one of them squealed on the Five, gave him an idea where to find it. He knew Paul wouldn’t want him jonesing for revenge, but he didn’t care. Beck wanted payback.

And not just for the kid.

*   *   *

In a few short
hours Riley knew one thing for sure—she needed earplugs. From what she could tell each necro had a different sales pitch, like infomercials. As predicted, Mortimer was the nicest. The next four had grown increasingly malicious. All but Mortimer tried to breach the circle and went away with scorched shoes and a bad attitude.

By the final visitor she was so bitchy, so sleep deprived, she’d told him off even before he’d opened his mouth. That had earned her a profanity-laced rant that would have impressed a rapper. Simon surged to his feet and told the guy to blow off, without using curse words. To her surprise, the necro had done just that.

After his rare flash of anger, her companion went to sleep, curled up in a sleeping bag, his hand thrown over his face like a cat. Every now and then he murmured to himself, though she couldn’t make out the words.

Much to Riley’s annoyance, she had to wake him a few hours later. It was either that or she’d wet herself.

“I’ll stay awake until you return,” he said, still half asleep. “Be careful.”

She took a deep breath and did exactly as he’d said, wincing as she stepped over the glowing line. Nothing happened but a brief flicker and that strange popping sound in her ears, like she’d crossed some unseen barrier. Riley trudged off to the cemetery office. It was spooky. The Victorians were big into symbols, like weeping angels and obelisks to represent resurrection and eternal life. That only added to the creep factor. It was really dark with no moon. The faint rustle of leaves made her turn around more than once. All that was needed was a thick fog and a baying wolf and it’d be the stuff of slasher films.

After she returned and Simon allowed her entrance, he slipped around the rear of the mausoleum for a quick pee.

Guys have it so easy.

When he returned he began to talk again. “Be careful when you’re here on your own. Necromancers can pretend to be cemetery employees, cops, you name it. They try to con you into breaking the circle or inviting them inside. Not everyone in the cemetery is after your dad’s body. But I’ve heard tales, you know?”

She stifled the shiver. His warnings delivered, Simon curled up and fell asleep. She wished she could. Instead, Riley snuggled in the sleeping bag and stared up at the night sky. A hunting owl winged by a few times, then perched in a nearby tree to announce his territory. She watched him for a long time. He seemed to be doing the same of her.

When a mouse skittered across the path, he was all business. With an expert glide and lethal talons, he collected his startled meal.

Her back began to cramp, so she rose and walked to her mom’s grave. The flowers they’d left a couple of weeks ago were withered now, victims of the night frosts. Riley knelt and brushed away the dried leaves that covered the plain granite headstone. It was nearly three years since Miriam Henley Blackthorne had left them. There wasn’t a day she’d not been missed. Riley moved to her dad’s grave, the smell of fresh earth filling the air around her. The flowers on top of the mounded earth were tipped with a thin layer of frost.

Mom was probably waiting for him on the other side. Riley crinkled up her face. That won’t be a good meeting. As her mother lay dying, she’d made her dad promise to keep Riley safe. Now their daughter was on her own.

Yeah, Mom is going to be severely pissed.

She touched the cold dirt, thinking of her father lying underneath it.

They’re together now.
It didn’t help. They were together and she was all alone. No one left to laugh at her jokes, hold her. Love her.

A bottomless pit opened in front of her, and a choked sob escaped her throat, then another as warm tears coursed down her cheeks. She bent almost double, crying for herself more than her parents.

Someone touched her and she jumped. It was Simon. He didn’t say a word, but opened his arms to her. She fell into them and continued to weep. He murmured comforting words, but she didn’t understand them. What mattered most was that he was holding her. When she could no longer offer up any tears, she pulled away from him and blew her nose, embarrassed she’d lost it in front of him.

“Sorry … I…”

“They know you love them and that you miss them. That’s what’s important.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she admitted.

“You’ll find your way. I know you will.”

Simon took her hand and led her to the sleeping bags. He tucked her in. He climbed into his own bag and wiggle-wormed over until their sides touched. Pulling his arm out, he had her rest her head on his shoulder. She snuggled in, grateful for his kindness.

“Your arm is going to freeze off,” she said in between sniffles.