Chapter Twenty-One #2
A spark of anger flashed across the tether.
“I’m not asking for his loyalty. I don’t want Will to feel indebted to me, and I’m not doing it out of guilt.
It’s— it’s about responsibility. Our ancestors left all their descendants with the repercussions of their bargain, and then, my parents died and left us, Will, and Aldorhaven at large to clean up the mess.
It wasn’t right, and before you say it isn’t my responsibility, you’re right.
It shouldn’t have to be, but I went into the Dysterwood and triggered this mess,” Oliver said, gesturing toward the tree-covered road.
“What they’ve done and what we do while we’re here has real consequences on everyone who lives here.
We can just go back to Manhattan, but they can’t.
If nothing else, I want to leave Aldorhaven better than we found it, even if that means getting rid of the Dysterwood and the Lady. ”
Felipe’s heart pounded in his ears at the thought. “Oliver.”
A whirlpool of feelings churned in Felipe’s chest as Oliver gently cupped his cheek.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t let Oliver walk into danger again.
He had nearly lost him twice, and the thought of Oliver taking on a god or demon, or whatever the Lady was, filled him with a soul-crushing dread.
Oliver was capable—more than capable—but Felipe learned early in his life that you didn’t put something precious in the hands of those who would destroy it without a second thought.
Oliver stared into his eyes, and something between love and hurt crossed his features at what he saw there.
His thumb stroked Felipe’s lip and cheek as his gaze darted to the papers clenched in Felipe’s fist as if that somehow held the answer to a question he needn’t ask aloud.
Gently pulling the pages from his hand, Oliver set them aside and put his hands on Felipe’s shoulders.
Their knees touched beneath the coverlet as Oliver’s lips brushed his.
“I love you, Felipe, but you can’t change my mind about this,” Oliver whispered as he wrapped his arms around him and hugged him close.
As Felipe pressed his face into Oliver’s shoulder, Mr. Turpin’s words echoed through his mind.
There were far more important things at stake than the dead, and Oliver needed every resource at his disposal to fulfill his role in all of this.
Felipe tightened his grip on his partner and listened to the steady beat of his heart on the other end of the tether.
More than anything, he hoped that role wasn’t what he feared it was.
***
FELIPE LOOKED ACROSS the rolling hills of scrubland toward the setting sun.
In the distance, he could make out the familiar silhouette of Senor Quintero’s ranch.
His heart sat in his throat at the thought of a demon or creature being anywhere near Louisa or her father.
They had enough problems as it was; they certainly didn’t need dead cattle or worse, but he would make sure that didn’t happen.
He and Alfonso had been tracking the creature for almost two days as it stole chickens and wreaked havoc at nightfall.
During the day, they slept in small doses, searched for the creature’s hiding spot, and tried to catch up to it while talking to each other as little as possible.
After the way Alfonso pounced on him the other day, Felipe had expected him to throw him in a ditch or heckle him the entire time, but he had been oddly civil.
Probably to impress the Patrón, Felipe thought with a roll of his eyes.
That way, if his grandfather asked him how Alfonso treated him on his first mission without his father or uncles, he could find no fault with him.
It hadn’t been long after Alfonso’s father returned that a man from the village spotted the demon and reported it to the Patrón.
When his grandfather declared that Alfonso and Felipe would be the ones to track it down and kill it, he had been shocked.
Demons moved fast, they killed indiscriminately, and the longer they were physical, the more dangerous they became.
He remembered times when his father, uncles, and cousins had gone out together to chase one down and still came back worse for wear.
They were incredibly hard to injure, let alone kill, yet his grandfather sent only two of his best novices.
This demon didn’t seem to be inhabiting a human and had only been loose for a few days, so maybe that was why their grandfather thought they could handle it.
If they couldn’t, they could always return home for help, though Felipe knew their pride meant they never would.
The night the Patrón announced Felipe and Alfonso would track down the demon the entire family went to the church for a special mass.
Every Galvan boy sent out on his first mission was blessed by the priest, and a feast would be held in his honor if he returned victorious.
It was as much a celebration of reaching manhood as his confirmation.
As Felipe knelt before the priest while he performed the blessing in front of the whole family, he had expected to feel the rush of adrenaline and power so many of his cousins had described after their first missions. Instead, he felt nothing.
Felipe’s steps slowed as he and Alfonso skirted a cluster of low trees and brush.
He smelled blood and organ meat before he saw it.
Half hidden beneath a bush lay the carcass of a dead coyote.
He wouldn’t have known it was a coyote if the tail hadn’t been left behind along with two half-gnawed legs.
A rope of intestines hung out of it along with more glistening offal the demon hadn’t managed to eat.
If there was a front half, Felipe couldn’t see it.
Only a few years earlier, the sight and smell of an eviscerated animal would have turned his stomach, but he had grown numb to it.
He sniffed again. The coyote was definitely fresh.
“Alfonso, I think we’re getting close,” Felipe said, raising the branch enough for the other man to see.
His cousin curled his lip and waved for him to cover it up. “I think you’re right. Let’s go higher up the ridge and set up camp. If it’s around here, we should be able to see it.”
By the time they reached the top of the ridge overlooking the trees and set up their scant camp, night had fallen.
The campfire popped and smoked, casting queer shadows on the hill as Felipe sat on the ground and half-heartedly ate his portion of salted pork.
In the distance, an owl hooted, and Felipe wondered if it was the same one that hooted too loudly outside Louisa’s window.
Felipe’s eyes scanned the trees below for any sign of the demon.
It was too close for comfort. He hoped the flame and smell of food being so near to its den would draw the monster to them instead of the Quinteros’ place.
If it hurt anyone he knew, he would blame himself for the rest of his life.
Silently sighing, Felipe eyed the flames.
While they were walking and searching, he had scarcely thought about putting the blade to his flesh, but as the quiet and the emptiness of night settled over him, it gave his thoughts space to fester.
When he looked up at Alfonso from across the campfire, Felipe’s whole body locked.
The man sitting across from him was a stranger.
The fire threw his face into stark relief.
Gone was the boy he had spent his entire life beside; all he could see now was the arrogant set of the man’s mouth and the harsh lines of his cheekbones and chin.
His eyes had sunken into the shadows until all that remained were twin flames burning straight into his soul.
Felipe fought the urge to freeze like a deer before a wolf, but he knew Alfonso, or whatever sat in his place, had already sensed his weakness.
As the figure leaned forward to warm its hands, his cousin melted from the shadows with a familiar smirk. “What do you think of your first mission, joto?”
“It’s a lot more walking and doing nothing than I expected,” Felipe replied, releasing an almost imperceptible breath of relief. It was just first mission nerves. Anyone chasing a demon for the first time would be jumpy. “Is it always like this?”
“No, most demons don’t have wanderlust. This one’s mixed up in an animal, and sometimes, they do that. The ones in people tend to stick close to home, but it’s easier to deal with the animal ones. They’re stupider and more likely to approach a campfire.”
Felipe nodded, though he knew next to nothing about being an invocador.
Where he had been all but cut-off from healing after too many failed lessons, Alfonso had been taken under his father’s wing to learn how to deal with demons and other creatures.
A stab of envy ran through Felipe’s heart that Alfonso’s father dedicated time to him every day; the two men were closer than ever while Felipe’s father drifted through his life like a disapproving specter.
It wasn’t fair that Alfonso got time and training to nurture his powers while Felipe’s had been left to rot when he didn’t progress fast enough.
Felipe gripped the stick beside him and prodded the flames with more force than necessary.
If he had his way, it would have been his hand in the fire.
Anything to douse his thoughts. Their ancestors had been ordained as familiares because they had the powers and strength necessary to fight demons and the people who summoned them.
Almost four hundred years later, every Galvan who could fight also had a power that was useful to the family; everyone but him.
At the snap of a branch, Felipe’s attention flickered to the trees below, but whatever made the sound was hidden by the brush. “I assume you aren’t going to exorcise the creature when we find it.”