Chapter 13
Dima
Ilie in bed, arms behind my head as I watch my witch pace back and forth at the foot of the bed, tits jiggling under my shirt she wore to bed.
“Gabe? Heeeeeey,” she pauses her pacing, “seriously? How many foster sisters do you have? … Yeah, that’s better.
” She starts the pacing again. And her voice becomes muffled as she paces out the door for a moment before making her way back in.
“Can you meet me at the cemetery? Yeah, no, that’s where I like to hang out nowadays.
Look, I’ll explain everything when I see you…
. I need your gift… Thanks, Gabe, OK, love you.
Bye.” She jabs at her phone screen then tosses it onto the bed.
I roll up to sitting, then stop abruptly when Kristie puts her hand up in a stop motion.
“Do that again. Lie back down and then sit up. Slowly. Wait, let me grab my phone.”
My brows pinch in confusion but I do exactly as I’m told. I lie back flat, before slowly crunching up in bed, the sheet falling away slightly.
“Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff,” she murmurs, phone trained on me.
“Shuck me like an oyster and slurp me raw, you are pretty.” She taps the screen with a flourish.
“Put that in the clit cache for later.” She takes one long look at the goofy look on my face then launches herself at me on the bed, landing directly on top of me in a fit of laughter.
I wrap her tightly in my arms as she wriggles and giggles and my heart feels fit to fucking burst with sheer joy.
I never knew how stoic and empty my life felt until I met the woman in my arms. She stops her wriggling, settling on top of me, her hands folded one on top of the other as she grins down at me.
She’s still haunted, but I no longer see the fear so strong in her eyes.
“Dima,” she whispers, “thank you.” She leans up, pressing a quick kiss to the tip of my nose.
“No, thank you, Ved’ma moya.”
She tilts her head, brows pinched. “What for?”
“Everything.”
We lay there, staring at each other for long moments until I can feel in my soul all her walls come crashing down, one by one. We jump when her phone notification goes off, breaking our connection.
She flails a little, running her hand over the bed trying to find where she threw her phone. She swivels her body until she’s ass up in the air, her thick pussy lips on full display under the tee she’s wearing.
“Aha!” She holds it up in the air. She flops on the bed next to me, scrolling through her phone.
“Right pretty boy, time to get up. Gabe’s leaving his house, he’ll be at the cemetery in half hour so we gotta get moving.
Hustle!” she claps her hands twice, walks into the bathroom and slams the door behind her.
* * *
“I really should have chosen a less creepy place to meet up, but, well I guess it’s fitting.” she mutters under her breath, her Doc Martens crunching through the dead leaves littering the ground.
I follow her through the winding path, headed toward a massive man standing with his back to us, head down. Kristie’s footsteps speed up until she’s close enough to quietly call out.
“Gabe?” He spins on his heel, eyes darting between Kristie and me.
He’s even bigger up close. His bright gold eyes in complete contrast with his dark face, his thick curly hair closely cropped around the sides. As big and striking as he is he exudes a gentleness about him that is hard to fake.
“Kristiana,” the bass in his voice is gentle and soothing.
“La Strega to you,” Kristie says, rolling her eyes.
“Nah, you’ll always be Kristie to me.” This tickles Kristie as she grins and steps forward into his outstretched arms.
“You look happy kid,” he says quietly, but loud enough for me to hear. His eyes never leave mine.
She pulls back, and shrugs coyly. “Maybe.”
He gently cups her face, staring at her intently. An odd look passes over his face before it disappears as quickly as it came.
“So, wanna tell me why we’re meeting at Maddigan’s?” He glances at the headstone behind him. Basic. Plain.
“Yeah, so, I’m not sure he’s dead,” Kristie says, eyes darting to me then back to Gabe.
He stares at her for a beat, blinking once. Twice. “Come again? I don’t think I heard you right.”
Kristie throws her hands up. “I know how it sounds, but weird shit is going on. I’m killing guys left and right and the whispers keep telling me Maddigan is somehow involved.
” Gabe’s brows slowly rise higher and higher.
“Don’t look at me like that. I know it sounds crazy.
But you could like,” she waves at the headstone, “You know. Just maybe double check?”
Gabe stares at her, the only thing moving are his eyes as they dart between her and me.
“Oh yeah, this is Dima. He has the ability to find people. And I’m really hoping he doesn’t die.”
“Good to know,” he says drily before looking at me. “And you’re like, what? Helping her?”
“Pretty much,” Kristie answers for me. “He’s my beautiful assistant.” She wiggles her brows at me.
“Right.” Gabe places his huge hands on his hips and lets out a breath. “You do know that I could have just done this from my home, right? I don’t need to be here.”
“Huh. No, I didn’t know that. But we’re here now I guess.”
Gabe rolls his eyes at her, then turns to look at the headstone. He places his feet shoulder width apart, hands loose at his sides. His shoulders rise and fall gently as his breathing slows and his fingers start to wiggle.
“Jazz hands,” Kristie murmurs to herself and I shake my head at her.
She snuggles in next to me and we watch Gabe, even though he doesn’t seem to be doing much at all, it’s intriguing as hell. I knew people like us existed in the world, I just have never had the pleasure of spending this amount of time around them.
His head tilts to the side, and his fingers stop moving, his breathing changing cadence. Then he straightens, fingers start to move again before stopping abruptly. Gabe shakes his hands out, squats and places them on the headstone.
“That’s new,” Kristie whispers.
Gabe stiffens once more, then turns to look over his shoulder at us. His face pinched in confusion.
“What?” Kristie asks suspiciously, snuggling deeper into me.
“I need to speak to Mama.”
“It’s bad?”
“It’s… interesting.”
“Argh, great. Awesome. I love that for us. Give us an hour and we’ll meet you there.” Kristie says, already with her back to him, making her way down the winding path to the carpark.
“Where are you going?” Gabe calls in his low voice.
“To get rid of someone off my list. Stress reliever!” she yells over her shoulder.
I nod once at Gabe, ready to turn on my heel and follow her.
“Dima? Look after her, yeah? She deserves to live in the light.”
I nod at him. “See you at Celene’s.”
Kristie
I frown down at my phone wondering why the hell the Sanificatore are calling me. They never call. Glancing at Mama, Gabe and Dima I tip my head toward the door, already making my way in that direction.
Hitting the call answer, I hold my phone to my ear, not even bothering with saying hello. We’re not really on hello terms.
“La Strega, we have a disposal problem.” The lightly accented voice says over the line. Even though the family have been in the US for generations now, they only ever stick to themselves, marrying into other Mafia cleaner families in the old country.
“How so?”
“Had an overflow of trash. Between last night and this morning, you’ve been busy.”
I huff quietly. “I’m cleaning out the family business. Lot of trash around.”
A grunt sounds out over the line.
“How big of a problem is this?” I ask, leaning around the doorway to see what the others are up to.
“Probably want to hold off putting out the trash for a day or so.”
“No.” I hesitate for a moment before hanging up.
Huh. That’s new. Normally I do what I want, when I want, consequences and people’s feelings be damned. I wonder if Dima has made me a better person? I mean, clearly not, as I still hung up on them, but at least I thought twice about it.
Heading back inside I stand in the doorway to Mama’s reception room, gazing in.
It’s crazy to me that here in this room is everyone I care deeply about and the gnawing fear I usually have doesn’t seem to feel as suffocating as usual.
It’s almost as if I can savor this moment without worrying about anyone dropping dead out of nowhere.
I walk in and plop myself down on Dima’s knee, ignoring the soft look that dances across his face. I have to keep my bad bitch vibes even if I go all gooey inside when he wraps an arm around my middle and pulls me into him.
“Everything alright?” His warm breath tickles my ear.
“Yeah. My cleaners are a little behind.”
He grunts, then presses a kiss to my temple as I settle into him. The room quiets and Gabe side-eyes me. He was never one to come right out and say stuff, which on a normal day is annoying, but with this whole Maddigan thing hanging over our heads it’s down right infuriating.
“Ugh, fine. I’ll go first.” I turn to look at Mama, seated at her little table, Gabe stuffed in a tiny chair across from her and a pitcher of her favorite sweet tea between them.
“You know how I said whoever was doing this was like Maddigan?” Mama nods sagely.
“Well, I, ah, how do we explain this?” I look at Dima over my shoulder.
He clears his throat, “Somehow Kristie and I share gifts. I can hear whispers and she can see the lost. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Celene?”
“Mmm-hmm, dat’s a strange ting, cher.”
“Very strange,” I reply, giving her a bored look. Her lips twitch but she hides it behind her glass of tea, bringing it to her lips and taking a sip.
“Anyway. We have both seen Maddigan in our visions, but, at the same time, he’s not Maddigan. It’s like someone wearing Maddigan’s face. I don’t know how to explain it. Anyway, I asked Gabe to meet me at the cemetery-”
“Why dere?”
“So he can, you know, talk to Maddigan.”
Mama gives me an odd look. “Chile, Gabe can speak to him anywheres. Don’ matter where he at.”
“Yeah, I know that now.”
“I don’t know how you didn’t know before,” Gabe interjects, just to be a shit stirrer.
“You always kept to yourself!” I point out.
“I was busy talking to all the dead people visiting me!” he argues back.
“Well, and I was too busy worrying about everyone dying and then coming back to talk to you to notice, obviously!”
“Nuff now! Always the same, always bickerin’. You love, but you love fightin’ harder. Ain’t neither o’ ya hold the keys to death.”
“Sorry, Mama,” we both say at exactly the same time. Eyes darting to each other. I roll my lips between my teeth to stop the giggle that wants to rise up, as it always did when Mama would tell us off.
“Now den, tell me what for we sittin’ here.”
Gabe fidgets in his seat, looking exactly the way he did when he was a scrawny kid with an unkempt afro. Now he’s a 6’6” hulk of a man but still I see the boy as if he’s in front of me. I know that sooner or later Mama will snap at him to spit it out if he doesn’t break the silence.
I let out a sigh and decide to throw him a bone. “I wanted Gabe to see if he could talk with Maddigan. Just so I can put that idea to bed and we can find out exactly what the fu-uuuudge is going on.”
“Yeah. But, well, his body is there. Where we lay him. I checked. But-”
“But what?” Dima, Mama and I all speak at almost the same time.
Gabe glares at us, still struggling to find the words. “But not all his soul is there. I can feel him, where he lies, but also, I can’t.”
“De soul fracture?” Mama sits forward, placing her glass on the table between her and Gabe. I don’t miss the slight tremor in her hand.
“I don’t, I mean, maybe? I’ve never come across it before,” Gabe says, running a hand down his face.
“Izlóm dushi,” Dima whispers.
Mama tilts her head in his direction. “You hear dis fore’?”
Dima clears his throat, gripping me tighter. “Maybe.” He pauses. “Where I come from, we have a belief that a soul leaves the body at the last sigh. Not in one long breath, but in echoes. If you call the name as the echo fades it will come to you. That is how power is claimed, not inherited.”
“And how a fragment of the soul can lie with the deceased,” Gabe murmurs.
“De soul fracture,” Mama adds quietly.
We sit in silence, with our thoughts. I thought my side quest was just getting rid of some evil bastards, cleaning them out of the family. Not fight half the soul of my late foster brother. You couldn’t make this shit up.
“How do we reunite Maddigan’s soul and lay him to rest, Mama?” Gabe asks.
He looks pale, ill at ease and I know that this will be causing him physical pain.
It’s how his gift works. He helps souls rest. Brings them peace.
When he can’t it causes him stomach complaints and headaches.
I bet the thought that his brother of the heart is lying with only part of his soul is paining him.
He shifts awkwardly in his seat, moving around as if struggling to get comfortable.
“De soul painin’ ya?” Mama asks, eyeing Gabe.
“Just, my joints are aching like crazy. I’ve never felt this unwell with a restless soul before,” he mumbles, worry crossing his face.
Mama closes her eyes and tilts her head back.
Her lips move but we’re met with silence, as if the words are meant for the ears of those no longer with us.
We sit in the silence, the loud ticking of the clock on the wall drawing my attention to the date.
October 29th. Great. This shit would happen at Halloween wouldn’t it?
Mama nods at Gabe’s words. “We gon’ finish dis, an’ when we do, yo’ pain gonna ease.” She leans over patting his leg before turning to me. “Kristiana, you need to fight dem shadows, de puppets Maddigan’s soul still holdin’ on to. Dima, you stand by her, be de shield she lean on.”
“Always,” Dima’s low voice rumbles over my shoulder.
“So, I just kill whoever has the shitty part of Maddigan’s soul?”
Mama’s eyes darken and she scowls. “I don’t care what you do wit’ dat thing dat stole yo’ brother’s soul. Jus’ bring Maddigan home, let him rest easy. Save yo’ brother, save de innocents.”
I dip my chin. Souls are not in my wheel house, but bringing death? That I can do.