Chapter 12
Calling what they’d done a mess was an understatement.
Even without the corpses, there were toppled tombstones, gaping holes in the ground, and all the carnage from the grimoire’s magic. It looked like Thistle Cemetery had been struck by a very selective earthquake, a horde of giant moles, and a plague, all in the same night.
Whenever Miles did a little gravedigging, he made a point to clean up after himself, to leave things as neat as he’d found them. That wasn’t an option tonight.
“What do we do?” Emily asked, ashen but resolute. Zombie gunk and dirt were smeared down the front of her coat. “We can’t leave all these bodies like this.”
“We’ll have to.” Miles didn’t want to say it, but Charlee nodded in agreement. “Even if we had more than one shovel, we’d never get them all reburied before morning.”
“The workers will just think it’s a messed-up prank,” Charlee added. “Or graverobbers.”
That wouldn’t explain the dead plants, but Miles had learned that when the average person was faced with something unnatural, they looked for the easiest explanation.
There’d be uncertain whispers, but the moment someone suggested a bad batch of pesticides or a spreading fungal disease, they’d be forgotten.
Emily worried at her bottom lip. “I don’t like it. It feels disrespectful.”
The corpses were littered across the ground like a kid’s broken toys, a clutter of body parts, bones, and torn clothing.
“We’ll lay them in a line,” Miles said. It was the most they could do. Not much, but something.
Charlee and Emily went over to a still-decomposing woman in a blue dress, glittering clips hanging from her greasy clumps of hair. Charlee took her feet and Emily her arms, carrying her over to an open stretch of withered grass.
Standing silently, Gabriel stared at the nearest dead bird. It was small, some kind of sparrow maybe, speckled white and brown. Black ooze leaked from its empty eyes like obsidian tears.
A lump formed in Miles’s throat. “We’re going to clean up a bit.” He tentatively touched Gabriel’s elbow. He’d take any reaction, even one of Gabriel’s frustrating dodges right now, but he didn’t move. “Then we’ll get out of here.”
“I should help,” Gabriel remarked, but he didn’t shift, didn’t even blink. He sounded empty.
Miles wanted to take his hand so badly it ached in his bones.
“No, it’s okay. Stay here and”—what? Rest? Recover?— “wait. We’ll be quick.”
It wasn’t that Miles didn’t think Gabriel could do it; it was that he shouldn’t have to. Not just because he’d saved Miles’s life. This kind of work—dirty, cold, sweaty work that left filth under your nails and the stink of decay in your nose— was Miles’s normal. Gabriel was meant for nicer things.
He expected an argument, but Gabriel didn’t protest. That scared Miles more than anything. But in the tunnel, it had taken him time to recover enough to even hold his own weight. He’d be okay once he had time to shake it off. Once they were out of here and he could stop looking at the wreckage.
Miles went to where Emily had a body by the shoulders— leathery stretched skin holding bones together—and stooped down to grab its feet as his own heels sank into the damp dirt. It was unnervingly light, easy to carry over to Charlee, who was straightening another corpse’s pink lace dress.
They worked in silence until the dead were neatly laid out in passably dignified positions.
A few were little more than dust and bones that broke apart when lifted, so were left where they’d fallen.
If it hadn’t been for the grimoire’s magic fueling them, they never could’ve made their way out of the ground.
The air was filled with the smell of freshly turned soil and rot.
“It’ll have to do,” Charlee declared grimly.
“Yeah.” Miles didn’t feel great about it, but his priority was getting Gabriel out of here. “Let me get all the ritual stuff”— he gestured to the fallen bottles, baby teeth, and coffin nails scattered in the damp grass—“and we can head out.”
Charlee joined him, but Emily picked up the shovel and went over to Gabriel.
“Hey,” she said. “I thought we could bury the birds before we go. We won’t need a big hole.”
Gabriel’s gaze slowly focused on her. “It’s irrational, but I don’t want to leave them like this.”
“It’s not irrational.” They’d just spent half an hour hauling bodies to spare them the indignity of being found scattered around like trash. All creatures deserved respect, even in death. Emily tilted her head towards a tree outside the dead zone. “Let’s dig there. It’s a nice spot.”
She led the way, shovel over her shoulder and Gabriel trailing behind.
Charlee pulled Miles’s attention back. “You okay?”
He took the teeth from her and dropped them back in their bottle one by one. “Not really.”
His body hurt from what the magic had done to him, trembling with the echoes of pain. His mind was scattered and uncertain, and he kept checking that his shield was up.
And his heart ached for Gabriel. For the emotions he’d felt, and for what he’d done.
Charlee leaned into him, a steady, comforting weight. They watched together as Emily finished digging a shallow hole at the base of the tree.
“What about him?” Charlee tracked Gabriel as he made his way to the first bird, lifting it carefully with the shovel.
“You almost sound concerned.”
She shrugged, tucking the bottle of manchineel sap into the bag.
“As much as I’d like to, I don’t hate him.
Even when he makes stupidly frustrating decisions, it’s because he’s trying to keep you alive.
Hard to hate someone with the same priorities as me.
” She slid Miles a sideways look. “Don’t tell him I said that. ”
“He probably wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
“So really, is he okay?”
“I doubt it. Gabriel’s a lot of things, but he’s not a killer. And whether it was his fault or not…” Miles scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t know how to help him with this.”
He’d experienced the forlorn swirl of Gabriel’s emotions, how loudly fear and self-loathing resounded through him. Tonight could easily send him into a downward spiral.
Miles knew Gabriel struggled, had heard it in the dismissive way he talked about himself, so quick to decide he was beyond saving.
The lonely chill he radiated, even in his own home.
The way he spoke about Felicity and his absent dad.
But this was the difference between seeing a Band-Aid and knowing there was a wound, versus peeling it back and taking in the infected gash.
“He shouldn’t be alone tonight.” Charlee handed over the grimoire, safely packed up in its containment box.
The last thing Miles wanted to do was drop Gabriel off at his dreary, empty house and let him dwell on what had happened, but—
“I can’t exactly invite myself to the Hawthorne estate for a sleepover.”
Charlee grimaced, the way she did every time he mentioned Gabriel’s house. “I meant he should come home with us. Stay with you.”
“You’re joking.”
“Why would I joke about that? We’ll sneak him in, and I’ll run him home in the morning before school. Your mom’s avoiding your room like the plague, she’ll never know he’s over.”
She was serious. She wanted to sneak Gabriel into their house, under his parents’ noses, and… What? Throw a slumber party?
Miles’s body went hot, then cold.
Before he could respond, Emily and Gabriel rejoined them.
“We were just saying that you should come home with us for the night, Gabriel,” Charlee told them. “If you want to. Miles thought you wouldn’t want to be alone tonight.”
Gabriel would protest. Of course he would. And Miles wouldn’t take it personally, he’d honestly be relieved because—
“I don’t want to be alone,” Gabriel admitted. He crossed his arms, as if the admission had cracked him down the middle.
Charlee nodded, like that was that. “Emily, do you want to—?”
“No offense, but I really need to collapse in my own bed tonight.” She snagged her backpack from the ground with a groan. “And not get up for at least twelve hours.”
“We’ve got school,” Miles reminded her.
She swore. “Can we all agree to save the late-night cemetery sessions for the weekends from now on?”
“How about we just avoid cemeteries altogether for a while?” Miles suggested tiredly.
“Deal. Now let’s get out of here.” She glanced back at the corpses, regret heavy on her face. Knowing they’d done all they could didn’t make it any easier to leave them like this.
She hurried towards the gate, Gabriel following behind her like a shadow. Miles tried to grab him to insist he shouldn’t let Charlee pressure him, that they’d drop him off at home, but he slipped out of reach.
Miles whirled to Charlee instead. Her face was the picture of innocence. “What are you doing?”
“What?”
“You know what. No way you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart when you’ve been trying to keep me away from him since day one.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve got a weak spot for pathetic-looking strays.” She shook her head at his expression. “You can’t make him go home when he clearly doesn’t want to.”
“It’s not cool of you to push us into this.”
“Please, I’m doing you both a favor. He gets to spend the night with his big cuddly boyfriend instead of going home to his murder house, and you get to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t have a breakdown.
” She snagged her gunk-smeared shovel and started trekking after Gabriel and Emily.
“I’m too tired to argue. Tonight was a shitshow. Let’s just go home.”
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