Chapter 23
Deacon’s bike is waiting for us outside the Windsor along with the rising sun.
The morning casts pomegranate hues over the mountains that separate the Hesperides from the NTC high-rises.
But the city is draped beneath a blanket of coral-pink clouds and a snowfall, the wind breathing flakes of it softly through my still-damp hair.
From the back of Deacon’s bike I call Fiona, who already knows—the Elders just sent for her to advise on how best to track me down.
I don’t tell her anything about where I’m going so she can’t be compromised before them, but suffice it to say, I’m not coming back to Harker until I’m syrabraxa-free.
Even then, I don’t know if the Elders will allow me back as an aeon and a murderer, but that’s a problem for future Viv.
I call Sophia next. She answers with a whispered, “Do not come back to Harker.”
“That was fast.”
“They already sent out a school-wide email saying you are a person of interest in the deaths of four Citadel hunters. Guessing that was your murderous demon brother-in-law?” Someone groans beside her, asking her to take the call in the other room.
“That better not be Landon.”
Deacon’s head turns at the mention of our captor, but I shove his strong shoulder to get his eyes back on the road.
“Are you kidding? Fiona told us the Elders sent him after you. He’s dead to me, Viv.” Sophia swears. “I can’t believe he—I’m so sorry.”
“No need to be sorry, Soph. None of us knew.”
She asks where I’m going, and I tell her Fever Dream and that I’ll fill her in on the rest later and to please get Penny and Hound packed up and bring them there as soon as she can.
As Deacon speeds us toward his club, slants of warm sunrise slip through the buildings, reflecting off windows and turning the city the color of a fizzing mimosa.
He stops at a red light and I spot a man leaving his apartment to take an early-morning run.
As the city begins to wake up—fresh-baked dough and floral steam from the nearby Laundromat in the air—I check the time.
Shutterbug is just opening. “I need to run a quick errand.”
“What am I, your chauffeur?”
“It’s important.”
When the light changes from red to green, I direct Deacon to curve the bike around a lamppost and head east toward Babylon.
We park outside my favorite camera shop and climb off the bike, just in time to be stopped by a young girl.
She’s got long front teeth that will need braces and a zest for life you only find in eleven-year-olds.
Her teal uniform shines under the morning sun as she pushes a basket of cookie boxes down the street.
The girl grins up at Deacon and me. “Can I interest you in a box of cookies? Proceeds raise money for Astera Children’s Hospital.”
Deacon eyes the sweets. “I’ll take five of the coconut ones.”
“That’ll be thirty dollars.”
“Twenty or no dice.”
The girl frowns in thought. “Twenty-five.”
I stand, stiff as a board, as Deacon, in his stolen Citadel hunter uniform with his still-bloodied hands, offers the girl a wad of cash like a drug dealer and takes five boxes of cookies in one massive hand.
“Thank you so much, mister.” She beams, pushing her cart away.
I gape at him as he rips open a box, digs out a cookie, and pops it in his mouth before throwing the rest of them into a nearby trash can and moving toward the shop.
But I am rendered still. His mouth is filled with cookie when he says, “Are you coming, or…?”
Deacon Graveheart: mass murderer, criminal kingpin, charity-cookie enthusiast. “I don’t understand you at all,” I admit, walking toward the entrance.
“Demons can’t like cookies?”
“You tossed the other four boxes in the trash.”
“Homeless Asterans can’t like cookies?”
“You don’t care about the homeless!”
Deacon looks genuinely confused. “Who said that?”
“Never mind,” I sigh in exasperation. A little bell jingles when we step inside. The scent of old leather, paper dust, and the chemicals used to develop film fill my nose. I exhale so loudly Deacon shoots me a look like I’m the freak.
At the counter I ring the bell and am greeted by Hugh, the older gnome who owns Shutterbug. Gnomes blame the big lawn ornament lobby for their reputation of pointed hats and Santa-style white beards. But they, like mortals, come in all shapes and sizes and cultivate all manners of craftsmanship.
So while there are garden gnomes who can build incredible tree houses into mighty oaks, most are engineers, chefs, or mailmen, like those at Harker.
Tinkerers of all kinds of machinery, gadgets, and inventions such as cameras.
Hugh himself has fixed my half-frame at least a dozen times, and I never have to lie to him when the black gunk clogging the shutter is wraith blood.
“Film’s all done,” he tells me with a smile, barely tall enough for his navel to reach the countertop. “Some interesting stuff on that second roll. Trying out abstracts?”
That’s the film from Reid. I am grateful once again there are no secrets between Hugh and me. “It’s not mine, actually. What did you see?”
Hugh shrugs his small shoulders. “Looked like a bunch of blurry nonsense to me, but who am I to judge art?”
On our way out, Deacon asks, “Why stop here?”
“Remember a few weeks back when I told you Reid left me a gift? It was a camera, and the roll of film inside was full. I just had it developed, so I can look through the images. Maybe there’s a clue in there to where he is.”
“You’ll never let it go, will you?”
I climb back onto his bike. “Nope.”
“Maybe my brother did leave you a clue while he’s been staying at the school.
” Deacon looks behind him at the oncoming traffic, waiting for his chance to merge.
His face is perilously close to mine, and I scoot back slightly.
“Or maybe that scarred groundskeeper was a lying cunt and it’s a bunch of snuff shots of Reid’s mutilated body.
A parting gift from Finn.” Before I can say a word, he finds his gap and peels off into the road.
With that lovely thought rattling through my head, I make the decision to look at the photos once I’m alone. If Deacon’s right—if this camera somehow has proof that I am never going to see Reid again—I can’t experience that in front of Deacon.
We whizz the next few blocks to my apartment.
Elliot texted to say he’s bringing Penny and Hound down to Fever Dream, and I told him I’d stop here to get a few more bags.
There have been a handful of things I needed from the apartment over the last few months, but we’d all agreed it was too risky to swing by.
Today, with my Deacon-size bodyguard, may be my only shot.
We walk the flights of stairs in silence. Finn seems to have given up on staking out the building once he realized we’d abandoned it, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still get in and out quickly.
When I let Deacon into my apartment, it’s freezing and all of our plants are dying.
“Why’d my brother give you a camera anyway?” Deacon asks, closing the door behind him.
“I like to take photographs.”
“Really?” Deacon runs a finger along the top of our cabinets, nearly at his eyeline. “What of?”
“People, mostly.” I flip through the mail—unpaid bills and art supply catalogs. I toss them in the trash before heading for the bedroom.
“What kind of people?”
“I don’t know. People who are…behaving like humans.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I turn abruptly at the threshold of my room and nearly slam my forehead into his chest. “What is this, 60 Minutes?”
Deacon raises his hands in surrender. “Sheesh, what crawled up your ass?”
I ignore him, grabbing one of Penny’s old sleepaway camp duffel bags and throwing as much as I can inside. I’m elbow deep in my lingerie drawer when Deacon leans on my dresser to observe.
“You could have stayed downstairs, you know,” I tell him.
He takes one lacy pair between his thumb and forefinger and toys with the fabric. “And risked Finn snatching you before you could get more panties? Never.” I slam the drawer shut, barely missing his fingers. “Or maybe I just couldn’t pass up the chance to see your depressing little huntress hovel.”
“Hey,” I snap. “Penny and I love this apartment.”
“What’s with your fixation with the blond mortal anyway? You and my wolf, both.”
I don’t like his tone. “She’s loving and compassionate and social and warm and a terrible liar and actually thinks the world is a good place.” She’s everything I’m not. “And your wolf can’t have her.”
“I told him the same thing,” Deacon says, flopping onto my bed. “What’s a werewolf going to do with a mortal girl besides shred her?” When I whirl on him, eyes wide with fury, he actually cowers. “You really are on one today.”
“Excuse me if I’m not excited to be evicted from yet another place only to move in with a white-haired Neanderthal. What do we do if your uncle finds out you’re keeping his aeon from him, huh?”
Deacon’s jaw tics. “Do you want the honest answer?”
“Yes,” I sigh, folding T-shirts into the bag on my bedroom floor.
“Hopefully I’ll have gotten what I need out of this arrangement by then.”
“And then what? You said you didn’t want an apocalypse.”
He spreads his hand over my bedspread, fingers long and grip wide. “I don’t.”
I sit up on my heels, understanding lacing through me. He’s not planning to turn me in. He’s planning to…“You’ll kill him. Once he doesn’t have this woman to lord over you.”
“And Finn too probably.”
“Who will be High Thane then?”
“Some long-lost nephew will come out of the woodwork. They always do.”
Like heads on a hydra, as he said. I nod to myself as I grab a couple pairs of sneakers.
“Show me your photographs.” When I look up, Deacon’s eyes hold an intensity I’m not comfortable with. But for some reason rejecting his ask feels like losing some game of intimacy chicken.
“They’re over there,” I say with faux ease, pointing out my door to the wall over the couch. “Knock yourself out.”
While Deacon peruses my meager gallery, I toss in the bag a few pairs of yoga pants and sweaters for me and some overalls and floral dresses for Pen.
“I see what you mean now,” Deacon says from my doorway. His voice is in that low register again. “About people behaving like humans.”
“Yeah.” It’s all I can think to say. Intimacy chicken is not for the faint of heart.
“You like that one angle. Through the window.”
I don’t like how he says it. Like he knows me. Like he’s seen me hide behind my camera lens or eat alone in the dark or sit in a bath until the water cools just to feel the chill on my skin.
But it is true, I do love looking into people’s lives.
Not in a Joe Goldberg kind of way—but catching those little moments, the ones when you’re given a glimpse into someone’s psyche: The father washing dishes after dinner while his kids play.
The older couple, lit with the glow of the film they’ve just put on.
The woman hard at work building a dresser.
That look of pride when she completes it, bloodied thumbs be damned.
“It’s nice to see people who aren’t performing humanity, but actually living it. ”
“You do that a lot, huh? Perform humanity.”
I know where this is going and I’m not interested. I don’t respond, heaving a fistful of tights and scarves into the bag.
“Even though you’re not human,” he continues, still looming behind me.
My eyes finally snap to his. “I am human.”
“No, Viv.” His face is severe. “You are something more.”
I can think of only two things as we leave the apartment for Fever Dream, stuffed duffel in tow. One, that today was the first time Deacon ever called me Viv. And two, that in all the time Reid and I spoke of my photography, he never once asked to see it.