Chapter 33
Peter and Elliot both give me pointed looks when I arrive at the gateway with Reid in tow. He’s got Sophia’s butterfly wings on and the Maleficent horns on his head. He looks like a child’s idea of a demon, which gave me a good laugh. Him, not so much.
Once Astera’s pleasant chill curls around us, Sophia pulls me aside to ask why I’ve dragged the narc along if I’m not planning to seduce him, which I have no good response for.
He seemed lonely only feels half-true. A more honest answer would be He seemed lonely, and I wanted to keep hanging out with him.
My teacher. A demon. Both reasons why this is an utterly terrifying thought.
Regardless of my reasoning, when we get in line outside Cobwebs, I’ve come to the obvious realization that I invited our instructor out to party with us and that may not have been my finest decision-making moment.
While Elliot chats with a group of buff Ninja Turtles and Peter helps Sophia with her bra strap, Reid stands in his makeshift demon costume, staring out into the night.
The Half City buzzes as it always does on Halloween.
Jack-o’-lanterns and violet string lights decorate windows and fire escapes.
The sidewalks are so concentrated with drunk twentysomethings in wigs and face paint that they spill onto Main, where cars honk in gridlock traffic.
On Halloween it’s always better to walk.
It’ll take you twice as long in a cab or on a subway full of masked teenagers with rolls of toilet paper stuffed in their backpacks.
“Hi, babes,” Cobwebs’ owner greets us at the bar’s entrance. She’s dressed as a fifties film star—cat eye sunglasses, beauty mark, and a polka-dot scarf around her head. “Your other half’s already inside.”
“Thanks,” I tell her.
“Cobwebs’ owner knows James?” Sophia asks, nose pinched in distaste.
I clock Reid’s stony expression and shake my head. “She means Penny.”
“I don’t believe in friend jealousy.” Sophia brushes a snake from her bangs. “But if I did, that would hurt.”
Inside, Cobwebs is an undulating mass of skin and sweat and fake blood.
“Thriller” blares through the speakers, and artificial fog hangs sticky and sweet in my lungs.
I spot Penny past a punch bowl filled with something galactically purple.
She looks like she’s stepped off the set of a sixties variety show in her minidress and go-go boots.
Her blond hair has been teased and sprayed to the high heavens beneath a white pleather headband.
“You might have been born in the wrong era,” I tell her.
“Viv! Oh my god, you look so insanely hot.” She squeezes me in a quick hug.
“She’s right,” a voice murmurs behind me.
Remember what I said about hunters taking things in all at once in a way that humans can’t? Well, in this moment a few things happen at the same time.
I recognize James’s voice, and an ocean wave of disappointment crashes over me. I have the shocking thought that I wish Reid were the one to say those words. He’s the person I wore red for. Not James. It could never have been James.
And I come to the startlingly freeing realization that this isn’t going to work.
I didn’t think Harker had changed me much. Maybe I feel less alone, and my dagger technique is stronger than it used to be, or maybe I know more about arcane relics and how to wield them. But I didn’t anticipate that it would change my outlook on my boyfriend.
Or, more honestly, my outlook on myself.
That’s why I was dating James, right? Because it was important to my mother, and what she thought of me was important to how I saw myself?
For whatever reason, those tides have shifted.
And it’s a relief to know that it’s not entirely because I’ve developed a harmless attraction to my combat instructor.
“Thanks,” I tell him, accepting a chaste kiss on the lips. “James, you remember my colleague Reid.”
“Hey, man,” James says, tucking me more closely into him.
Reid only studies me under James’s arm. The look in his eyes is worse than annoyed or jealous—he looks upset with himself. Like he’s not sure why he came. “Hey.”
“Interns!” Penny squeals.
The pang in my heart only lasts a second before I see Penny absorb Sophia, Elliot, and Peter into hugs of their own.
It’s a sight that could make even a cold, hard aeon huntress shed a tear—my friends are becoming friends.
I pull my camera from my purse and snap a shot of them together. Plastic snakes and paisley swirls.
“You guys look incredible,” Penny tells them. “Wait! Peter, I have something for you.” Penny fishes through her bag and pulls out a Spider-Man trading card in a plastic bag. “One of my students’ fathers is a comic illustrator. Apparently he has a bunch of these lying around.”
Peter nearly staggers back into the jukebox behind him. “It has the trademark corners from Marvel’s first manufacturer…Is this an original from 1966?” His awe is palpable as he holds a card of the same superhero he’s dressed as. “Thank you, Penny.”
“God, Penelope,” Sophia groans. “You’re such a good person.”
Penny only smiles earnestly at them both.
James makes no effort to hang with my new friends, and I’m grateful.
I was nervous about Reid and James meeting again after the strzyga incident, but I’ve actually lost track of Reid in the crowd.
My eyes scan over the throng of costumed revelers, but Sophia’s repurposed butterfly wings are nowhere to be found.
My gut twists at the thought that maybe he’s already left with someone.
And not out of fear that he’s drinking someone’s soul but out of shameful schoolgirl jealousy.
Maybe they’re already pressed up against each other in the back of a dingy Astera cab.
A little maniac in my brain is shouting Hands off!
But I can’t stop the train of thought. It’s like pressing on a bruise.
The pain bleeds into some kind of perverse pleasure, and I push harder just to explore what’s there.
I think about Reid’s perfectly full bottom lip brushing over someone’s thighs.
Will he crave her soul the way I know he thirsts for mine?
“What inspired the switch-up this year?” James asks over the din.
I shake breathy moans and demonic grunts from my mind.
“They were out of Catwoman costumes. What are you?” He’s essentially costumeless in his moss-green polo and dark pants.
“A billionaire, get it?”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t, actually.”
“It’s aspirational.”
Wow, how did I wait so long to do this? “Can we talk outside?”
I don’t wait for a response. James’s hand is warm in mine as I yank him through the crowded bar, nurse hats and pirate hooks in every direction. I don’t care if Reid’s gone home with fifteen girls, I tell myself. I need to do this either way.
It’s a feat to make it outside, where I inhale cool night air. I love Halloween, but I could do without the crowd it draws to our usually undisturbed bar.
“Listen, James—”
“I already know what you’re going to say.” He releases an accepting sigh. “And I’m not upset.”
Relief breezes through me. “You aren’t?”
“Of course not. I’ve known you since we were kids, Viv.”
“I’m sorry.” I take his hand in mine. “I wish it could have worked out between us.”
James’s relaxed features harden into an angry confusion. He yanks his fingers away. “What?”
“What are you—”
“I thought you were going to apologize for being so MIA lately. For embarrassing me in front of my friends. For all the weird behavior—”
“Embarrassing you? I saved someone’s life.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“Viv—”
“No, you know what? I am sorry. I’m sorry your self-esteem is so brittle.”
“Come on, Viv. You’re telling me this slutty getup isn’t some kind of olive branch?”
Partially I’m upset that he’s right. Some other version of me—one I feel all too divorced from now—was hoping to earn his interest back with sex tonight.
But I also wore the costume tonight for me. Maybe Reid gave me the idea of stepping outside my dark cocoon, but I liked how it felt to be bold. I liked that this one fucking year, I didn’t dress up as something virtuous or benign. I’m dangerous, and this year I didn’t try to hide it.
“We’re done.” There’s an assuredness in my voice I didn’t expect.
James doesn’t miss a beat. “Penny is going to be devastated. And your mom.”
“I’ll handle them. But I think you should go.”
“You know, everyone told me I was out of my mind to date you. That you’d cause me nothing but problems. Your own mother told me I could do better.”
The words land like a slap across the face.
I guess I thought that eventually my mom and I could recover whatever closeness we had when my dad was alive. That despite how many times I’ve disappointed her, I could do enough right to earn her love again.
Clearly a fool’s errand. “Guess you should’ve listened.”
He shakes his head and one perfect blond lock falls into his face. He brushes it away like it’s offended him. “You’re a prickly, difficult person, Viv Abbot. I was nothing but patient with you, and this is how you treat me?”
“I must have left your Medal of Honor back home with my underwear.”
His eyes flash with furious heat, and then he shakes his head once more before stalking off toward his driver and parked sedan.
Back inside Cobwebs, I find Sophia flirting with a shirtless fighter pilot. I tell her James and I broke up and that I’m going home early. She tries to leave with me, but I refuse to cockblock her. I just want to be alone anyway.
I search the crowded bar for Reid for ten pathetic minutes before I realize he’s long gone, and I don’t blame him.
Visions of my jealous back-of-the-cab fantasy spin in my head until I feel queasy.
So dumb on so many levels. I told him to come out with us and immediately abandoned him to break up with my boyfriend. I have nobody to blame but myself.
Penny’s sitting in one of the vinyl booths, laughing with Peter and Elliot, trying on some girl’s phoenix wings, and I can’t bring myself to interrupt with bad news.
It would be selfish anyway—I’m only trying to beat James to her so I can relay my side of the story first. But she’s my best friend.
Nothing is going to change between us over this.
I repeat the words like a mantra as I slip out of the bar and into the night.
I plan to walk a little, maybe discern a real vamp from all the plastic-fanged ones, Harker rules be damned, when I spot Reid leaning against the wall on the other side of the bar.
He’s shed his phony wings and horns and is holding them thoughtfully in his hands.
And that’s…all he’s doing. He’s not on his phone or smoking or anything.
Just staring out at the city like he was earlier. Taking in the merry and the macabre.
I walk over to where he stands and follow his eyeline over bustling Main Ave.
Across the street, a cowboy is passed out against a busted window.
On a basketball court behind a chain-link fence, I’m pretty sure a soldier and a cheetah are having sex.
Down here it’s a little dicey—everyone around us is decently fucked-up, and there isn’t a child grasping fistfuls of candy in sight.
I think of Nora and me as kids down in Lethe, sprawled out on the floor in sugar comas.
The two of us stuffing full bars of chocolate and bags of fruity gummies into as many cabinets and couch cushions as we could before our mother would inevitably stash the remains of our trick-or-treat haul away to be doled out over the coming months.
Only minutes later, my dad would steal the candy back for us—a heroic feat.
I remember how my mom wasn’t able to contain her laughter when we tried mightily to hide the smears of chocolate on our faces.
How she carved pumpkins with us while my dad put on the spooky episodes of our favorite shows.
How she looked bundled up in his oversized sweaters when the heat was finicky and the wind howled.
Sometimes it hits me like a sucker punch how much I miss it. Not just my dad but how we were when he was alive. Nora and me. My mom. That version of her would never have told James he could do better. His death didn’t just break my heart, it broke our entire family.
“It’s my favorite night of the year,” I say to Reid, candy corn–scented memories fading.
Reid nods, watching a guy in a Ghostface mask scare the living crap out of a squealing Tinker Bell. “Only night they dress up like us instead of the other way around.”
“Exactly.” All these mortals, masquerading as things eldritch and occult. And tomorrow we’ll resume our lifelong performance as mortal. Both Reid and me, demon and hunter. “How long have you been out here?”
“Long enough to overhear that conversation with your pet,” Reid admits, eyes still on the busy street corner. “Or ex-pet, I should say.”
“Don’t sound so broken up about it.”
When he turns to face me, the weight of his haunting beauty threatens to compress me into the sidewalk. “I’ll never understand what a girl like you was doing with a guy like him in the first place.”
“No, you won’t.”
Reid shakes his head, confounded. “The prick had no idea how lucky he was.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I press my hands to the silk of my dress.
“And the shit about your mom—”
“It’s fine,” I say.
“It’s not. She all but abandons you when your father dies, and then tells your boyfriend—”
“Really,” I interrupt. “It’s fine.”
He shakes his head like it’s all some great cosmic injustice. “Don’t worry,” he sighs. “I get it.”
Our subway ride home from Shiloh comes back to me, fuzzy-edged and dosed in Valium.
Like a lot of people who take up with the wrong crowd, I was trying to please other people.
Who?
My parents.
And it’s only now that I wonder if in some twisted way, Reid’s broken from expectation too. I mean, he was a member of the Brood. And now he aids the enemy in defeating his own people. I’d guess by his family’s standards, he’s a traitor.
We stay there for a while, leaning against the graffiti-smeared wall, watching the wicked night creep on, lost in thought.
“So,” Reid says in the end. “No underwear, huh?”
I erupt in laughter. It feels like emerging from the deep end, chlorine replaced by air. “I’m going to kill myself.”
“And here I thought you were trying to kill me.”
In the streetlight, his eyes are a navy so dark they’re practically black. Wistful, hungry, isolated. He smooths a hand down his face in the kind of exhaustion I know too well. Wanting with no hope of having.
When he faces me again, he’s not the demon I thought I knew.
“No, actually,” I tell him. “Not anymore.”