Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) (18 page)

“Tell me,” he said, when I’d taken two more hits and rested my head against the driver’s side window.

“What’s your name?” I’d asked instead.

“Leo.” He paused and then gave me a flirty smile. “Not many humans know my name. I hope you’re worth the while.”

“I think I am,” I said, because even then I’d known that what I could do was immense and extraordinary.

He smiled wider, showing me his fangs, and that’s when I’d started to—not worry exactly—but understand, in the way that one might understand the danger, if one were to reach out a hand to a shark. I wasn’t scared—not yet—but I knew it was in no way
safe
.

“Yeah,” he’d said. “Yeah, I think you might be.”

Chapter 11

I stayed on the mountain for a little while longer, then headed back to town as the bright morning turned into a colder afternoon. My cheeks and ears felt hot and cold at the same time. Dry socks and some hot tea sounded like heaven, and I thought that I was overdue a lazy afternoon of Netflix. With any luck, the rest of the world would leave me the hell alone for a few hours and I could get myself in the right headspace for whatever was to come.

Inside, Johnny leapt all over me, sniffing aggressively at my jeans and shoes. I felt a pang of guilt for leaving him alone all day while I went for a walk in the woods. I dumped my coat on the recliner, and headed back into my bedroom. Leaving my clothes in a heap on the bathroom floor, I got into the shower and the hot spray revived my cold skin and made my muscles relaxed.

The hike had relaxed my stormy mind. I could just take the clutter and set it all aside. The bodies, the problems, the people trying to break down my doors and take my secrets. I could box it all up, lay low, wait for life to get back on its axis again. For the world to right itself.

Then it would be me and Leo, the way we’d always meant to be.

I slid my hand down to my dick and gave it a few pulls. The hot water beat against my shoulders. The steam whirled up around my face. I slowly stroked myself, closing my eyes against the spray.
Tug tug
. I thought about Leo’s mouth and nothing else.

Later, warm and drowsy, I settled into the living room, with a mug of hot tea and wearing cozy, frayed sweats. Johnny hopped up on the couch next to me and dug frantically at the cushion for a few minutes before curling up with a groan.

“I hear you, buddy,” I told him. He thumped his tail.

For background noise, I picked something apocalyptic from my Netflix’s list and grabbed my phone to peruse my social media.

I had a missed call. From an unfamiliar number.

The names of all the people I wanted to avoid raced through my head all at once—
CodyDanaChadMom—
fucking Jonathan Weber—and my stomach turned sour again. I tossed the phone down and crossed the room to dig through my coat for the Tums.
CodyDanaChadMom.

I crunched through a few Tums. Gross. I hated the purple ones. I looked at the empty space on the couch and the tea cup sitting on the coffee table and saw my relaxing afternoon fly out the window.

“Okay,” I sighed and grabbed my phone off the table. I swiped to my recent calls and looked at the out of state area code. Settling back on the couch, I reluctantly opened Box 1 and readying myself to deal with whatever fresh bullshit was coming my way. Presumably it was possible that it was a wrong number or a political pollster or hey! Maybe I’d won a cruise. But unlikely. Because that number looked an awful lot like a Colorado area code and there was only one person from Colorado who would call me.

My heart pounded as I looked again at the number. He probably wouldn’t answer anyway. I could just leave a voicemail—something casual, breezy, not too long—and then ... or no, maybe I could just text him? Because really, nobody actually
called
anybody anymore. But if he didn’t have texting on his phone, then he would just call me again and I would have to talk to him anyway. Then again, who didn’t have texting on their phone? My
mom
texted. Better to leave a voicemail.  But he might answer. Chances of him answering were fifty-fifty and those sounded like terrible odds.

I bit my lip and pushed ‘call’. Words appeared on the screen, telling me the call was connecting and my heart began slamming into my ribcage because
what the fuck did I just do?
I didn’t want to talk to Marcus. I sure as hell didn’t want him back in my life. I scrambled to hit ‘end’ but before I could a voice came out of the speakers, small but undeniably there. I put the phone back to my ear, cursing myself. I should have just texted.

“Hello? Ebron?” The sound of the deep, clipped voice threw me.

“Uh,” I said. “I’m here. Uh, Marcus?”

“No,” he said, like, obviously. “This is Jim.”

“Oh,” I said. Jim? The leader of the coven, Jim? The powerful witch who’d given me the power-up energize when I’d needed help resurrecting Cody? That Jim? How delightful
.
Ugh.

“Are you free to talk?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to inject the same amount of effortless annoyance that he did and failed.

“We received a phone call. An attorney named Weber.”

“Oh,” I said, grimacing. “Yeah. He’s, uh, here in Heckerson.”

“Ebron, this is very important. I need to be assured that ... that, you know,
precautions
have been taken.”

“What?” I said. “Precautions?”

“Yes,” he said patiently. “That you’ve cleaned up the mess.”

I made a disgusted noise. “Yes, Jim. I cleaned up the mess. No need to thank me or anything.”

“This is hardly my fault,” Jim replied hotly. “Your
friend
is the one who did this. Not us. We had a plan, and then your friend showed up and—” he broke off with a sigh, long and exasperated.

“I didn’t know about it until yesterday,” I felt compelled to point out. “He didn’t tell me, and Marcus lied to my face about it.”

This time, his sigh sounded like a hiss. “I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t know that you didn’t know.”

“Okay,” I said cautiously. “So where do we go from here?”

“As I said,” he replied. “This lawyer has called. This is worrisome, Ebron.”

“Ya think?”

“I’m not sure you understand who exactly this lawyer represents.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t. Want to explain it to me?”

He paused, for a long time. It grew drawn out, and uncomfortable and I ground my teeth in exasperation, determined not to break the silence. When Jim came back on the line, he sounded wary. “There are a number of organizations that seek out people with unusual abilities. Also, unusual people like you. And like your friend, for example.”

My friend the vampire. A shiver went down my back.

“I was under the impression,” I said carefully, “that people like us—like him—are not... known about.”

“Not as unknown as you’d think,” Jim replied. “There’s a big world outside of Heckerson.”

“And these people are sought out for what purpose?”

He paused again. I switched my phone from one ear to the other. Beside me, Johnny sighed and put his head on my leg.

“I’ve heard different things,” Jim said finally. “But what it comes down to is that these organizations feel that people with special abilities should be researched... monitored. Registered.”

“From my cold dead hands,” I murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing. So that’s why they called you? Are they monitoring you?”

“They’re looking for Corvin, not me. I don’t know why.”

“You’re a witch, too, though,” I said. “Why don’t they want you? Not special enough?”

He ignored the jab. “I’m not sure that they don’t want me,” he said icily. “But he’s very interested in Corvin and Morgan. They’re the ones who were dabbling in dream walking and that’s very advanced spell work. I’m calling because I want to know that you’re dealing with things.”

“It’s under control,” I said. I swiped my free hand over my tired eyes.

“Are you certain?”

“Things got a little messy,” I admitted. “But we’re trying to make them right.”

“Nothing can make this situation right,” Jim snarled. “Two of my coven—
my friends—
are dead.”

“Your friends were murderers!” I retorted. “It was self-defense!”

“Corvin, maybe,” he said. “I might concede that. But Morgan? No, Ebron. You’re lying to yourself if you think that her murder was justified. She could have been helped.”

“She killed my cousin,” I threw back. “Funny how you keep forgetting that.”

“That’s—I didn’t mean—she—”

“I’m not going to argue this with you,” I interrupted, my voice rising despite myself. “It’s done. What else do you want from me?”

“Is there an investigation?”

“How the fuck should I know? Probably. Isn’t that what happens?”

“A lot of people know that Morgan and Corvin went with us to Montana. What do I tell the police if I’m questioned?”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s really not my problem.”

He took a breath, calming himself. There was a pause and some muffled shuffling and then Jim’s voice came back on, a little louder. “I could make it your problem, Ebron.”

My spine went straight. “Don’t you fucking threaten me. You brought all of this to my door, don’t forget. You’re the ones that came to me.”

“I knew nothing about what Corvin had planned!”

“They murdered three people, you arrogant son of a bitch. Just because I fixed that doesn’t make it any less true.”

He made a strangled noise and the line went silent again.

“Look,” I said tightly. “I’m handling things on this end. You just keep your mouth shut. Corvin and Morgan are gone for good and this will eventually blow over.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said.

“Don’t take any more calls from that lawyer.”

He snorted. “I hadn’t planned on it. But Corvin’s mother has been calling, too. She’s getting increasingly frantic.”

I felt a pang. Murderer or not, he’d had a mother who loved him. “Well, I’m sorry for her. But people disappear every day.”

“She lives in Heckerson,” he pointed out.

“I know,” I said. “I’ll deal with her too, if necessary.”

“All right.” He said, suddenly awkward. “Um, Ebron. Marcus wanted me to tell you that he hopes you still have his number.”

“Oh,” I said. I traced the green threads on the blue and green plaid throw pillow, making a square and then a rectangle. “No. Tell him I lost it.

“Oh,” he said, sounding pained.  “Okay.” He paused again. “Goodbye then.”

“Bye.”

I ended the call before he thought of anything else and then sat there staring for a few minutes, my mind blank but for the blood pounding in my temples. I couldn’t decide if this made my life any more or less terrible.

Chapter 12

The walls started to close in on me around six that night, and I finally ventured out to seek both food and a distraction. I couldn’t sit around in front of the TV any longer. My restless mind kept bringing me back to dark places, to worries and fears. I pulled on my coat, hopped in my truck and headed across town to hit McDonald’s.

Saturday night in Heckerson, Montana. Neon lights lit up the bars I passed. I wondered if Cody was out for the second night in a row, drinking away his existential crisis. I wondered if Chad watched football at home, wearing his team’s jersey while his wife ferried him beer from the kitchen.

When I was a young teenager, I’d imagined that I would move away from Heckerson and I would live in a beautiful city somewhere, and have the sort of bustling social life one sees on TV. I’d imagined friends hanging out at my apartment and weekend hunting trips and going to bars together in a loud, happy group. I’d wished for a different life, but I’d also wished to be a different person, the sort of person other people actually wanted to be around.

I guess maybe I dreamed about all that until I turned seventeen. Until I met Leo. After that, those dreams didn’t matter much.

My stomach full, I drove through the slushy streets towards my shop. The large front window looked gloomy, haunted. I couldn’t help but think of Corvin and Morgan, dumped in there like so much trash, their bodies rotting. Would I see them if I ascended? If I went up just for a look around? Corvin, unlikely, as I’d blasted his poisoned soul out of the astral planes, but Morgan? Did she roam around alone, searching for him? Or had she followed all the other souls, on a path I didn’t know or understand?

I looked away from my shop’s dark window to gaze at Dahlia’s brightly lit one. I barely thought about it before I turned into the parking lot and put the truck in park. Snow swirled around me as I stepped out and I gloomily wondered if it was here to stay. Probably. I could hardly remember a Thanksgiving without snow and Thanksgiving was five days away.

Heavy gray clouds hung low in the sky and in the evening gloom, the glow from Dahlia’s window looked especially bright. I paused beside my truck, looking at her cheerful window decorations. Her car sat gathering snow in the parking lot. I crunched across the wet gravel to her door.

A little bell tinkled by my ear as I pushed open the door and immediately Dahlia’s head poked out of her booth. I saw worry in her face for just a moment before her expression smoothed out into haughty amusement.

“Well, well,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I was out and about,” I said. “Shoot, I should have brought you dinner. Are you hungry?”

She scoffed and waved a hand at me. “Oh, it’s fine. I’ve been snacking all night.”

I crossed the room to her and pulled her into a hug. She smelled like vanilla and hair products and she could only hug me back with one arm—the other hand held a wooden broom. I released her and looked down at the pile of multicolored hair tangled on the floor.

“Thanks,” she said, stepping back. “I needed that.”

“You doing okay?”

She gave a little sniff and I detected dark circles under the eyes. Her mascara had flaked a little, leaving tiny black smudges dusted across her cheeks.