Chapter 3
Corbin
I was sitting on my bed and meditating, the moonlight shining in on my bare skin, when my mother’s deck of tarot cards appeared in my mind.
I hadn’t read the cards in ages, and although I tried to let them float by, they were insistent, refusing to leave me to my meditation. I knew a sign when I got one, so I opened my eyes and got up to look for them.
I didn’t keep a lot of possessions when I traveled, but I tended to collect things when I settled somewhere.
I always ended up with a lot from the forest—stones and wood that caught my attention, dried herbs, pinecones—anything, really.
Crow had brought me a dead beetle that was almost perfectly preserved, and that was sitting on my dresser, waiting to be cast into a piece of jewelry.
Then there were the things I traded or bought from people.
Sometimes a candle, a woven bracelet, or a basket called to me, and they always served a purpose.
Some things, like the mortar and pestle I’d gotten from a wrinkled old woman decades ago, became a part of my permanent collection.
I could have made my own mortar and pestle—I enjoyed carving stone—but this one had some inner light that lent my salves a little extra kick.
I didn’t question my instincts, and I liked to collect things.
I eyed the beetle again on my dresser, briefly distracted.
I could cast it in metal, paint it, and give it to Sebbie.
The beetle represented transformation and rebirth, and didn’t that fit with Sebbie?
Perhaps Crow had been thinking just that when she’d given it to me.
I felt the whisper of the deck again before I could get distracted by metalwork, and I continued to rifle through my things, eventually finding it at the bottom of a travel bag.
It was a well-loved and well-worn deck, and I took it out, letting both hands hold the cards for a moment, letting us get to know one another again.
I walked back across the hardwood floors to the bed, leaving only the moonlight to light the room.
I settled cross-legged on top of the covers and began shuffling the deck.
My mother had taught me to shuffle with purpose. I breathed deeply, and I brought the deck up to exhale onto the cards to remind them who I was. It had been a long time, and we needed to be reacquainted. I also wanted a little of my spirit in the deck, even though it had a personality of its own.
I shuffled them, occasionally giving them breath, occasionally just holding them and letting my mind wander. Then I followed my instincts and split the deck, taking the card that lay on top of the split pile. I turned it over, and I huffed out a laugh when I saw the card.
I had forgotten that this deck was sassy as shit.
It had come from my mother’s people. I regularly checked up on the family line, even if I never told them who I was.
An old grandmother had gifted me this deck, and she had said it was from my mother.
I knew better than to question someone old, wise, and a descendent of our family, so I thought of this deck as an extension of my mother.
She’d been sassy, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the deck was as well.
I had drawn the six of swords.
I picked it up and handled it, noting all the details.
There was a boat, and the water was in waves on the right side but calm on the left.
There was land in the distance with trees, but it was all a gray-blue, matching the water.
The boat was bright red and had three figures on board.
The boatman was standing with a staff in the choppy water.
The boatman’s footing was firm as he stood on the bench seats, and he wore a yellow tunic, green leggings, and a blue shirt.
In front of him, seated, was a figure draped entirely in yellow, and a smaller figure, probably a child, was in blue.
In front of that, the six swords were in the boat.
They were the same gray-blue as the water and the land.
I vaguely wondered if I had ever noticed before that the staff was in the rough waters, but the ferryman steered them toward the calm and the land. Not that I had ever thought of the boatman as a ferryman before, but, as I said, my mother’s deck was sassy as shit.
The six of swords usually meant a journey, travel, or moving forward. It was clear the deck was telling me to move forward with Sebbie. I had forgotten how impatient this deck could be, which was the opposite of me.
I liked to wait for the right time.
I put the card back in the deck, then I left the deck on the windowsill. Perhaps some moonlight would renew the deck. If I thought a little spitefully that a little sunshine tomorrow might fade its attitude a bit, I certainly kept that thought to myself.
I pulled on clothes and made my way to the kitchen. Jude was drinking tea and eating pastries at the kitchen table, and I helped myself to some of both.
“I think Thea’s out stalking your mate. Shouldn’t that be your job?” Jude asked.
I shrugged. “Crow’s there.”
Jude snorted in amusement, then we settled into silence as we ate and drank our tea. I didn’t pick on him about his sheriff, so he wouldn’t pick on me about my grim reaper. Jude was good about things like that.
Eventually we heard a car door, and Thea came in.
“Here comes the sun,” Jude joked, because Thea did not look sunny.
She threw herself into a chair, grabbing a pastry off the table.
Jude and I looked at each other, both unsure where to go from here.
Thea was a hellhound, but she was a mystery to us in a lot of ways.
She wasn’t a typical hellhound, for starters.
She hadn’t known what she was growing up.
Beyond that, though, she was also a girl.
Not that being female was bad. Of course it wasn’t bad.
It just left us puzzled more often than not.
Jude and I had both had mothers that raised us, so I think we tended to want to protect her and look out for her.
Her not acting like a typical hellhound didn’t help our instincts, either.
Only she wasn’t a mortal, and she was very capable of taking care of herself.
More often than not, I think we just pissed her off, but she was patient with us. Jude didn’t seem to mind pissing people off, so I let him take the lead.
“What’s wrong? You have more of an attitude than normal. Have you not gotten to kill anyone lately?” Jude asked.
Thea leaned forward, resting her head on the table. Jude and I looked at one another again. What did that mean?
Thea eventually raised her head and stared at me. I wanted to point at Jude. He had asked the question. If anyone was going to get in trouble for… something… it should be him.
“I’m unsure why you’re upset, but I imagine it’s Jude’s fault, not mine,” I told her. “He started with his lyrics thing.”
Jude grumbled, but he didn’t deny it. He was annoying. He tried to be annoying. If he’d done something to annoy Thea, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
Thea just glared at me, though.
“It isn’t nice to throw your siblings under the bus,” she commented.
“But it’s Jude. If anyone deserves to be thrown under a bus, it’s him, because he probably did something to warrant it. Plus, he’d survive. He’d probably throw himself under a bus just to freak out the driver.” I shrugged.
Thea looked at Jude, who nodded, then shrugged.
“You guys are so freaking weird. This whole place is so freaking weird. Sometimes I think I hit my head and I’m hallucinating it all.
” She sighed, looking down and picking at her pastry.
“I did go out earlier in the day to the city, but I didn’t kill anyone.
Things felt… I don’t know. Weird. It’s like there’s an itch under my skin or something. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
Huh. Jude and I both pondered that. We knew Thea didn’t smell things like we did—she had feelings. Her abilities were unknown even to her, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have credence.
“Was it in one particular area?” Jude asked. “Maybe you’re starting to hone your gift and you’ll be able to hunt like we do.”
Because Thea didn’t hunt like the rest of us.
We went searching for hellbound souls to kill, and we could smell when there was one close by.
Thea didn’t seem to actively hunt at all, which further confused us.
She’d said that she’d occasionally killed in retribution when someone she cared about was harmed, and she’d put herself in risky situations and killed her attackers, but she didn’t go out with the specific goal of finding some random hellbound mortal to kill.
“I don’t know. I didn’t have the urge to kill someone. Things just felt… weird.” She turned and stared at me then. “Although maybe that’s also because of your crow-loving buddy, although I talked to him after my city visit.”
“Sebbie?” I asked, perking up.
She snorted. “Is there another weirdo out there hanging with the crows? Because two of you is enough. Sebbie totally thinks you’re cute, by the way.
He told me we were gonna be besties, and he made me pinkie swear to it.
” Her face twisted in some sort of half-smile, half-grimace.
“He said we’re going to do each other’s nails and other bestie shit, so in the spirit of middle school girl energy, I feel the need to tell you that he was totally distracted by you when we were stuck in that cult’s basement. He thinks you’re a hottie.”
I smiled, pleased that Sebbie had talked about me.
“I am not passing notes between you two, though. Gotta draw the line somewhere,” she muttered.
“That’s okay. The crows can do that,” I told her. They had already delivered a stuffed crow to Sebbie. Perhaps it was time to up our courtship game.
She just stared at me for a moment. “Oh my god, Corbin. I was being sarcastic. You’re grown-ass men. You can pass your own fucking notes. Or better yet, just fucking talk to each other.”
“Yeah, Corbin, just talk to him,” Jude chimed in.
Before I could say anything, Thea pointed at him. “You shut up. You can’t talk. You break the law in order to talk to your crush, you lunatic.”
Jude smiled at her like he’d been complimented.
“Do you think he’s ready to talk to me?” I asked, drawing her attention back to me. If both the deck and Thea thought it was time for Sebbie and I to move forward, perhaps I ought to listen.
Thea looked thoughtful, picking at her pastry again. She wasn’t like the rest of us, but that was good—she gave us a different perspective.
“I asked him about the day with the cult, and he really doesn’t remember what happened. He thinks I stabbed the woman and the lights went out. Then someone found the light and turned it on.” Thea paused, looking up at me. “Corbin, how can he not remember anything else that happened?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure what the answer to that was. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how he doesn’t know anything at all.”
“Would you have believed us if we told you that you were a hellhound?” Jude cut in.
Thea snorted. “Nope. I didn’t believe Wilder when he first told me.”
“Exactly. All people have a strict idea of what constitutes reality. We may think odd things happen, but we put everything into a context that we can understand,” Jude said.
“Corbin over here grew up knowing he was different. His mom was a witch, so he was taught that you don’t always see everything there is to see about the world.
He grew up with a different view of reality. The rest of us…” Jude spread his hands.
“We explain it away,” Thea finished. “We rationalize it. We don’t believe the weird shit.”
“Yup,” Jude agreed.
“So how did Wilder get you to see the truth about yourself?” I asked. “Perhaps that can help with Sebbie.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna work,” she answered. “I never did believe Wilder. I had to turn into a fiery dog to realize that he was right, and even then I still sort of didn’t believe him, so… Yeah. Good luck with Sebbie.”
I wondered if there was some way for Sebbie to take on his true form, just as Thea had turned into hers. Then again, perhaps having a grim reaper walking about on Earth wasn’t the best idea.
Never mind the fact that I wasn’t sure I would survive it if Sebbie did embrace his true form in my presence.
I wasn’t sure anyone with him would. Having never encountered a grim reaper, or a ferryman, for that matter, I had no idea what they actually did in their true forms. Never mind that I still didn’t understand how Sebbie could be both those things at once.
I wasn’t sure if we had all died in that basement room or not, and I really wasn’t sure how Sebbie had brought us back.
Dating my little reaper was definitely going to prove to be interesting. Hopefully I didn’t accidentally die again in the process.