Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gabriel
I hate Halloween.
The costumes. The noise. The complete abandonment of everyone’s goddamn common sense. It’s a nightmare for my instincts, my magic bucking in my chest every time someone in a mask pushes through the front door of the bar.
By the jukebox, a woman screams. I turn sharply, but it’s just a girl in a red leather minidress, devil horns perched on top of her blond hair, fucking around with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
I set down three shot glasses, harder than I need to. “I fucking hate this holiday.”
“Tell me about it.” A little girl in a rainbow sequin tutu climbs up onto the stool in front of me. “Everyone is giving out the cheap shit.” She lifts a pillowcase and rattles it around. “Someone gave me raisins. Can you believe that?”
I frown and glance over the top of her head, looking for the adult who should be monitoring her language and candy consumption. “Sorry, honey. You can’t sit at the bar.” I scratch my jaw. “Actually, you can’t be in here at all.”
“Relax. I’m just waiting for a friend.” She picks up one of the menus. “What are your appetizers?” She frowns. “And why isn’t there anything seasonal on this menu?”
Because I have a fundamental opposition toward cutesy cocktail names and anything that involves gummy worms suspended in alcohol. “Uh. We have pumpkin porter from the brewery down—”
“Great,” she says, kicking her sparkly boot-clad feet back and forth. “I’ll take one of those.”
“You will not take one of those.” My forehead creases. “Where is your mom?”
The little girl grins at me, all teeth. “Dead.”
“Your father, then?”
“He’s dead, too. So sad. I’m just a small little girl all alone in this cold, dark world.” She pouts her bottom lip out, then flicks her fingers at me. A pulse of magic brushes against my front and I freeze. “Fetch me a beer, bar boy.”
“No.” I narrow my eyes. “What are you, and why are you here?”
She grins, eyes sparkling in awareness. “What are you, and why are you asking?” Her eyes dart to the tattoos on my arms. “Ah. A Guardian.” She leans over the bar for one of the small bowls of peanuts. “A very busy one, given the amount of little mementos you have.”
I don’t like the imbalance of knowledge between us. “What are you?”
“Reaper,” she answers succinctly. She pushes the sleeve of her ballerina costume up, extending her hand over the bar. “Aelia.”
I ignore her hand, keeping myself perfectly still. If she’s here for Darcy—if she’s come to collect—
“I’ll ask again,” I say, letting my grip on my magic slip, just a little. She clocks my tone and folds her hands back in her lap. “Why are you here? And what do you want?”
“And I’ll tell you again,” she replies, her amusement vanishing. Some of her power rises to meet mine. “I’m meeting a friend.”
“Is your friend named Gideon?”
Her mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again. “What do you know?” she finally asks.
“I know I want you to get out of my bar.”
She shakes her head and stays right where she is. “No. You need to tell me right now. What do you know?”
When I stay silent, she grabs a peanut and lobs it at me. It smacks me in the forehead. She picks up another.
“I don’t have time for your goody-two-shoes bullshit, you over-grown bird. If you’ve seen Gideon, I need to know. Now.”
The second peanut hits me in the throat. I grab the bowl from in front of her before she can throw another. “No one has seen Gideon in centuries.”
“I am aware.” She picks up a plastic fork someone must have left from one of the food trucks and brandishes it like a weapon.
She looks ridiculous. A little girl dressed like a ballerina, hellfire in her eyes and holding a utensil like she’d enjoy nothing more than scooping out my intestines with it.
“Which is why I need to get to my friend before he does. Capisce?”
A low buzz fills my ears. The ache between my shoulder blades intensifies. “Your friend,” I manage. “What’s her name?”
If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it.
“Her name is Darcy and I came here to warn her. She’s out of time. Gideon has come for her.”
“I don’t know why you didn’t leave the candy. You’re slowing us down.”
“You’re slowing us down,” Aelia responds, petulant, one of her arms buried in her massive pillowcase as she rifles around for something. She withdraws her hand as we turn a corner, holding a Tootsie Pop in the air victoriously. “Here it is.” She holds it out to me. “Want one?”
“No.”
What I want is to find Darcy. The longer we look without so much as a glimpse of her, the more anxious I become.
Aelia sighs, hustling to catch up. She’s still in her sequins and tutu, and she blends in seamlessly with the crowd of children on the street. We get a couple of odd looks, especially with Aelia wielding her scythe like a poorly paired prop.
“I told you not to bring that thing.”
“Shocker, big guy, but you don’t tell me what to do. I’m not walking into a confrontation with the head of death itself unarmed.”
“You’re sure he’s here?”
“Positive,” she says. “He dispatched Ferrymen to three separate locations where traces of her magic were found.”
“Three locations?” I ask, confused. “She’s been here the whole time.”
“I know that, you idiot. I’m the one who planted her magic at those other locations. I checked there first hoping to run the Ferry-men in circles for a while longer, but Gideon had already burned through. I can only assume this is his third and final stop.”
“Shit,” I mutter, picking up the pace. “Where is she?”
We’ve checked her house, the bakery she likes, even Frank’s. But the first two spots were empty, and Frank’s windows were dark.
“Yeah,” Aelia agrees, Tootsie Pop hanging out of her mouth like a cigarette. “Shit is right, bird man.”
We step off the curb and cross the street, making our way toward the small garden on the east side of town. It’s right at the edge of the water and I know Darcy likes to go there when she’s feeling over-whelmed.
“Stop calling me that,” I mutter, but I’m distracted. I’m scanning every face, looking for hers. Listening for her smoky laugh in the crowd.
Aelia grips my arm and drags me to a stop. She’s surprisingly strong for someone so small. “Hold on. What’s that?” We backtrack until we’re standing at the mouth of an alley. A massive dark brown blur is weaving around the discarded trash bins, his nose low to the ground. “Is that the zombie dog?”
I whistle, and Tater Tot’s head snaps up. He barks once, then turns and starts trotting in the opposite direction.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter. I start after him, uncaring if the tiny demon child is with me or not. “Tater Tot!” I call. “Wait!”
Aelia hustles alongside me, her bag of candy bouncing over her shoulder. “She named the dog Tater Tot?”
“Don’t get me started.”
We follow Tater Tot down one alley and into another. The streets are full of families now, the sun sinking over the horizon. Lights from flashlights and glowing pumpkin necklaces make the shadows seem longer. Two blocks over, someone screams.
We both move faster.
I clench my teeth, frustrated. My wings ache to expand. I keep having to shove the hilt of my sword back into my skin. I’m sore and furious and so damn worried I can’t see straight.
The farther we follow the dog, the closer I tiptoe toward panic. The scars across my chest throb in time with my phantom heart-beat. The pain of it is almost unbearable.
We break free of the cobblestone streets and down a long and winding dirt path. It’s easier to follow Tater Tot now, one long road that leads to towering wrought-iron gates. He stops there, turning circles in front of one of the massive stone pillars that hold them in place.
The stone is chipped, great blocks of it crumbled at the ground like some sort of beast took two handfuls and pulled.
Ivy crawls along the edges, creeping toward the rusted-over handles.
At the top of the pillars are two massive stone angels, their wings torn away.
And beyond the gate, tombstones stand like sentinels.
“Of course,” Aelia pants. “Had to be a graveyard.” She bends at the waist. “How horribly fucking cliché.”
Tater Tot whines at the gate, trying to nudge his nose between the bars. I scratch my fingers between his ears, and he turns beseeching brown eyes up at me.
“Is she in there?”
He snaps his teeth, impatient.
“Yeah, I know the feeling, bud.”
I reach for the chain that secures the handles and give it one hard yank. It falls to the ground with a clatter, and the doors swing open. Tater Tot immediately rushes through, weaving between the grave-stones and heading for the hill on the western perimeter.
“We should split up,” I tell Aelia. Frankly, I don’t trust her not to be on Gideon’s side. My only priority is getting Darcy out safely. “You follow the fence and I’ll follow the dog.”
“Fuck you, I’ll follow the dog. Clearly, he knows where she is.”
“Could be a trap.” I force myself to be nonchalant. To shrug. But it feels like there’s an entire hive of bees beneath my skin. “Maybe Gideon has a box of Milk-Bones, I don’t know. Just follow the fence and I’ll—”
“What the hell is going on?”
Frank stands on the curb next to his truck, his arms banded around three big bouquets of dried daisies. I drop my head back and sigh at the sky, my fingers pinching the bridge of my nose.
Can nothing be easy?
The last thing I need is another mortal to keep track of. I glance down at Aelia staring at Frank with her massive scythe. Better to have her inside than out, I guess.
I jerk my head toward the graveyard. “Go,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of this.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t take orders from you.”
But she slips through the narrow opening in the gate anyway and quickly takes off after the dog. Not the fence, like I requested.
Christ, I’m—I’m stretched too thin. I don’t know who to protect or how. Too many things are fighting for my attention and I can’t—I can’t—
“Whoa. Easy.” Frank teeters closer, setting his flowers down carefully against the sidewalk. He grips my shoulders with his bony hands and forces me upright. “You’re all right. What’s going on?”
I shake my head. I don’t have time for this. “You need to leave,” I rasp.
He frowns. “Why?” He glances over my shoulder toward the broken gate. The chain that I just broke with my bare hands. “Who was that little girl?”
“Nothing. No one. Frank. Listen to me—” How can I possibly explain?
I have no idea what I’m walking into. Where Darcy is or what state I’ll find her in.
Graveyards are already a sacred space for the dead.
Add in a handful of immortal beings and Halloween and it’s a fucking recipe for disaster.
I drag my hand roughly over my head. “Please. Go home. I’ll find you later and explain, but I need you to not be here right now. ”
“Can’t.” He bends down and collects his flowers. “Got orders to fulfill.”
“I feel like there are better times, Frank.”
He makes a disgruntled sound. “Well, I’m late with ’em. Had a bit of a week.”
On the other side of the graveyard, there’s a loud bark. I turn to see Aelia cresting the hill, a blur of pink among the slate gray.
I don’t have time for this.
“Get back into your truck, Frank.” I layer the order with enough of my compulsion that he shudders under the impact of it.
I’d feel guilty if I weren’t so determined to get to Darcy.
I wedge myself through the narrow gap in the gate, calling to him over my shoulder.
“Worry about the flowers tomorrow. I’ll check in with you later. ”
I don’t wait for his answer. I’m busy running toward the hill at a dead sprint, expecting the worst.
Darcy alone. Darcy hurt. Darcy without control of her magic. All of it twists and turns together to form a perfect storm of worst-case scenarios.
But when I finally get to the top of the hill, the other side of the graveyard spilling out at my feet, it’s not any of those things.
It’s worse, because Darcy is not hurt or maimed or held against her will.
She’s at the base of the hill looking perfectly fine, standing next to Nate with a guilty expression on her face and a massive scythe in her hand.