Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) (11 page)

She’d believe that. She was a little behind the times and thought that Wal-Mart was an important step in humanity’s progression.

“Oh!” she said. “Okay. Are you going tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Leo shook his head violently at me and I quickly backtracked.

“No,” I said. “I need it tonight. Right now.”

She made a dubious noise. It was after seven, after all, and full dark outside and I flailed helplessly.

“Something for work tomorrow!” Leo hissed loudly.

“Yeah, I need some stuff for the shop,” I said. “And Wal-Mart’s open twenty-four hours, so... “

She sighed heavily. “Sure, fine, come get it. Fill it up before you bring it back.”

“I might need to borrow it for a few days,” I said. “How about I take the old Oldsmobile. You never drive that.”

Silence on the other end, and then a harsh cough. “You want to drive the Cutlass? I don’t even think that thing runs.”

“I can make it run,” I said. “How about we come out right now and look at it?”

“I guess, if you want. Ebron—”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, and thumbed the phone. I was tempted to throw it at Leo, but with his reflexes it would have been wasted.

“Okay?” he asked. His eyes tracked me across the room.

“Okay.”

“We’ll go get it, move the bodies, clean it up. No evidence to link us with them. We’ll be fine.”

“And then you’re gonna go? Get someone to help us?”

He nodded. “I don’t know how long it will take. A day or two. Maybe more.”

“I don’t want two bodies sitting in my store!”

“Give it a day or two, and they’ll be gone,” he said patiently.   “Let’s focus on the problems we can solve.”

“Okay,” I said with patience that was entirely feigned. “And what should I do if that lawyer comes back?”

“You do nothing,” Leo said, catching my eye and staring at me hard, obviously concerned that I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. “You answer his questions as vaguely as you can, and if he comes here, you do not let him in. And don’t tell him about me.”

I gave him duh-face, which he answered with bitch-face, and I turned to shove my feet into my boots. My fingers trembled as I fumbled with the laces, and when I finished I clenched them into fists. I couldn’t let myself fall apart. I grit my teeth and faced Leo again.

Leo reached for my keys and I scowled at him. He liked to drive when we were together, and although usually I didn’t mind, I felt too keyed up to just sit and be a passenger. He made grabby hands and I pulled the keys away.

“I’m driving,” I said.

He didn’t immediately back down, and we stared at each other for a second. For the first time since I’d known him, I could see strain around his eyes, fine lines that I was sure hadn’t been there before. I didn’t know how old he’d been when he’d been turned—I’d guess late twenties—but suddenly he looked, not old, but mature. More like a man and less like a vampire.

He gave a little huff and made a weird courtly gesture, like ‘by all means’. He waited while I checked on Johnny, refilling his water dish and patting his wiry head and then we were out the door and on to continue with the massive fuck-up that had become my life.

My mom greeted us in her bathrobe, a cigarette clamped between her lips. She immediately folded Leo into a long hug, ash raining down the sleeve of his black leather coat. Despite the devote Christianity she currently claimed, my mom was a hippie at heart and all about the free love.

Leo, inexplicably, liked my mom too, and readily complied as she ushered him into the house for whatever sugary obscenity she had on hand. I’d inherited my love of junk food from my mother.

Two feet inside the house and I began sweating in the tropical heat. The TV blasted from the living room and when I glanced in, I saw fucking Lloyd there, sacked out in his recliner, drool hanging unappealing down his chin. For one uncomfortable second, I saw Lloyd juxtaposed over a mental image of Carl Fogerty’s gaunt and sagging body, staring with sightless eyes at an empty TV. I quickly turned away, swallowing a toxic blend of revulsion, disgust, sympathy, and hate. What had happened with Carl anyway? Had he died? Or was he thrashing around in some hospital bed, strapped in while Dana sat nearby? When things calmed down, I needed to call her.

“Do you want coffee?” my mom asked, almost pushing Leo into a chair in the kitchen. It was eight o’clock at night and coffee and cigarettes had probably been her dinner.

“Sure.” Leo smirked at me as I followed behind them. I noticed the half-empty bottle of Seagrams 7 on the counter, and wondered how many sheets to the wind she was.

She wasn’t stumbling, so maybe she’d just started. Or maybe fucking Lloyd was the one hitting the bottle.

“You want some pie, honey?” she asked me, as she sliced off a huge slab of peanut butter pie and set it in front of Leo. He didn’t need people food, of course, but he liked the taste still, and I think he enjoyed the nostalgia of eating. He attacked it with relish, licking peanut butter off one fang when my mom wasn’t looking. I frowned at him and he grinned.

“So late night date to Wal-Mart, huh?” my mom quipped, and then started hacking, a forced painful cough that sounded like rocks banging against her chest.

“We thought it sounded fun,” Leo simpered, turning his shoulders in like a coquette, all fluttery because he was an asshole.

My mom smiled and I kind of hated him for making fun of her. To her, a drive to Butte probably did sound fun. She did nothing but work and drink. Sometimes simultaneously.

“Did you have a good evening?” I asked her gently and watched as she fumbled while pouring coffee into a chipped mug. Her hands shook a little.

“Sure,” she said, turning around and pushing the mug in front of Leo.  She gave him a tired smile. “I went and got my lotto tickets, so say a prayer for me.”

Even Leo was quiet after that. We sat at the table in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the TV. Leo finished his pie and took the dish to the sink himself, rinsing it off and sticking it in the dishwater with a familiarity that startled me. I’d still lived with my mom when I’d met Leo, and he stayed with me off and on until I moved to the trailer. It just never occurred to me exactly how enmeshed in my life he was. He knew that I kept the garbage can in the pantry cupboard and not under the sink. He knew what kind of dog food I bought for Johnny. He knew that I preferred Pepsi to Coke, that I liked showering at night, that cucumbers upset my stomach.

It made me feel weird, watching him all comfortable in my mom’s kitchen.  When things calmed down, I promised myself, I would talk to him. Figure out where the new walls were in our relationship. What we were to each other.

“You think the Cutlass will drive?” my mom asked me, sitting back in the chair and lighting herself another cigarette.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said. I stood to indicate that we were going to go. I paused, then leaned over and gave her a kiss on the check. The smile she gave me was pleased, surprised.

“Thanks, honey,” she said, and cupped my cheek for just a second.

Leo’s eyes met mine from across the room. I could tell that he was sorry for making fun of her. He kissed her too, making her flush and her eyes brightened a little.

“Good to see you, Hannah,” he told her and she smiled fondly. On the way out of the house, we passed the living room. Fucking Lloyd was awake and he carefully stared at the TV, trying to pretend he didn’t notice us.

Leo stopped in the doorway though, standing there with his hands curled loosely by his sides. Lloyd and I had never gotten along, not even in the beginning, not even a little bit, but when I was twenty Lloyd had stumbled upon Leo and I making out in my truck and then the floodgates had opened. He had always stopped just short of hitting me, though he hadn’t been opposed to shoving or throwing things. Once he saw me with my tongue in another man’s mouth, though, he had completely lost it, going straight for my face with closed fists, hauling me from the truck and beating on me.

 And then promptly found himself held six inches off the ground by his throat, a snarling vampire in his face. He didn’t know what Leo was, but he suspected that he was
something
. He hated both of us, but he was terrified of Leo and that made him hate me all the more.

“The boys are leaving,” my mom said, like our visit was a regular occurrence.

Lloyd grunted, and though his face pointed towards the TV, his eyes flicked to the corners, trying to see what Leo was doing.

“Hi, Lloyd,” Leo drawled, standing very still. I never really forgot that he wasn’t human, but every now and then he moved his body in such a predatory, unnatural way it was almost—but not quite—horrifying. Like now, how his knees sort of seemed to bend the wrong way, like a big cat crouching. His gold eyes glowed a little, just faintly enough that one could dismiss it as a trick of the light. It even gave me the shivers.

Lloyd just grunted again and I touched Leo’s elbow. He relaxed and walked out the front door without a backward glance.

I said goodbye to my mom, and she paused as she pressed the keys into my hand. Her red-rimmed eyes looked worried. “Ebron, you’re not in any trouble, are you?” she asked. “I heard there was a police officer talking to you.”

“He’s a friend, Mom. He just gave me a ride home the other night.”

She nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. “Sharon said that you and Cody had a falling out.”

The back of my throat suddenly felt tight. “Uh. Yeah. I guess we did.”

She watched me carefully, her eyes—the same dark blue as my own—searching over my face. She nodded and drew me down for an unexpected hug. “Be safe,” she said in my ear and released me so that I could stumble across the dark yard to where Leo waited.

Leo flicked on the garage’s overhead light and when my eyes adjusted, they immediately landed on the closed trunk of the 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Lawn-care equipment crowded the garage’s shelves and boxes stacked along the walls, but the Cutlass dominated my vision. I stared at it until Leo nudged my shoulder.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yep,” I nodded. “Let’s give it a try.”

I moved towards the car, grabbing the driver’s side door handle while Leo hauled open the manual garage door. Frosty air wafted in, diluting the cat pee smell.

Leaning into the driver’s seat, I jammed the keys into the ignition and gave it a turn. The engine sputtered, but didn’t start. Leo and I frowned at each other.

“I’ll go get the truck,” he said. “We’ll give it a jump.”

My eyes flew back to the trunk as soon as he disappeared into the dark yard.

I thought about Corvin folded up in there, wrapped in his stupid black duster, his waxen face frozen to the fuzzy upholstery of the Cutlass’s trunk. How much blood had seeped through? How much of his head was gone? Were there
chunks
missing? What had happened to his fedora?

I shuddered and turned my face towards the cold air blowing in from the yard. Better not to think about things. Better to concentrate on the unbroken snow in the yard, the pure white, that blankness. I could make my mind as blank as that snow, empty of thoughts or feelings. I could be that cold.

Headlights momentarily blinded me and then Leo crawled my truck right up in front of the Oldsmobile. He popped the hood and hopped out.

“The cables are in the back,” I said.

He shot me a glance from under his eyelashes. “You okay, babe?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You got a look.”

“I’m fine,” I said, and wrenched open the Oldsmobile’s driver side door, leaning in to stab the keys into the ignition again.

Leo connected the cables while I watched. He threw me a few more pointed looks, concern giving way to annoyance as I made no move to help him. “Hit the gas,” he grunted to me and the Oldsmobile started right up, no problem. Leo hopped back into my truck and backed out, parking it next to the garage.

“I’ll drive,” he said immediately when he returned and I didn’t bother arguing. The Oldsmobile smelled strongly of stale cigarettes and the cold seat squeaked under my ass as I slid in. A soft pack of Marlboro Lights sat in the center console, along with a plastic water bottle stiff with ice.

My Mom had driven the Cutlass as far back as I could remember, and I thought suddenly of those blissful years after my grandparents died and before she married Lloyd, when it had just been the two of us. I remembered warm summer nights, stopping at the Dairy Queen and melted ice creams dripping over our fingers. I remembered lying on her bed while she brushed her long blond hair, her favorite soap opera a blurred murmur in the background. And the time we’d driven two and half hours north to Modesty Creek, to visit their drive-in movie theater. We’d slept in the Cutlass that night, pulled off the side of the road and in the cold dawn, my Mom had wrapped me in a blanket and we watched the sun rise together, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the trunk of the car. She’d been fun once.

“Hey,” Leo said, snapping me out of my wool-gathering. He leaned in the open driver’s side and peered at me. “I’m going to grab that tarp folded up over there, okay? We’ll borrow it.”

I snorted. “Just grab it. I’ll buy her a new one.”

He poked around the back tool bench for a bit and then the trunk popped open and I froze. I listened to him rummaging around, my heart thudding hard against the front of my chest. Christ, I tried not to think about what he was doing back there. I didn’t want to think about dead eyes and cold skin and blood and

Fuck fuck fuck. Stop
.

The trunk slammed shut again. Leo glanced at me as he settled into the driver’s seat and started up the car.

“Ebron,” he started.

“I’m fine,” I said. I didn’t look at him. He waited, turned towards me a little, but eventually he heaved a sigh and put the Oldsmobile in gear.

He hit the gas and something thumped in the trunk as we pulled out of the garage. I turned my face to the window and thought of snow, freezing my heart until it was nothing but ice.

Twenty minutes later we parked the Cutlass beside the small loading dock in the rear of my store. Not terribly inconspicuous, but plausible enough if anyone were to express interest. Just two guys, transporting mysterious objects under cover of night. Just destroying evidence, no big deal. Maybe we’d still have time to catch a late movie.