Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) (20 page)

I kicked the snow off my shoes and propped the front door open with one shoulder, my hands laden with shopping bags. Johnny skittered towards me and immediately began sniffing the plastic, the one bag where the chicken was stowed.

The heater had been pumping away while I was out and the trailer’s warm air melted the snow off my hair and coat. I listened to the heater whir as I crossed into the kitchen. I shrugged my coat off and hung it off the back of a kitchen chair. The plastic bags crinkled as I sorted through them. Water dripped from the faucet and
tinked
into the sink.

I searched for my phone and remember I had left it in the truck, wedged between the seat and the passenger’s door. With a grunt, I trudged outside to retrieve it. Cold wind gusted around me as I groped under the seat, the snow worming down the back of my neck. Once it was in my hand, I immediately checked my messages.

Nothing. No missed calls. Not even a spam email.

 Back inside, I turned on some Pandora radio and opened the refrigerator to shove the milk beside the tub of margarine. I thought about calling Leo back, just to hear his annoyed voice. He wouldn’t answer though. I knew he wouldn’t.

With the groceries put away, I tossed some Pop-Tarts into the toaster and scrambled a few eggs.
See, Leo? Protein.
I could totally do this waiting thing. I was a champ at waiting. Captain of the waiting squad, right here. Sitting around, eating processed carbohydrates and watching reality TV. Who had two thumbs and was awesome at waiting? Me.

When the phone rang, though, interrupting my decent sing along with Macklemore, I lunged across the kitchen to answer.

And immediately scoffed.
Fuck.
My mother. I took a second to scowl at the screen, and then swiped it with my thumb.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. The toaster popped, filling the kitchen with the heavenly scent of warm pastry and gooey marshmallow.

“Hi,” my mom said, her voice hard. Great. One of
those
phone calls.

“What’s going on?”

“Will you be coming with us to Lizzy’s house?” she demanded.

“No,” I said flatly. I pinched one of the Pop-Tarts out of the toaster. A crack bisected it, marshmallow oozing out and I gingerly dropped it on a plate. The marshmallow could burn your finger, if you weren’t careful. If you weren’t a pro at a Pop-Tart removal techniques.

Over the line, my mom sighed. “I wish you would act like a part of this family, Ebron.”

“Hey, maybe you could try spending a holiday here in town,” I said crossly. “You don’t have to drive six hours to be with family.”

“You know Lloyd only gets to see Lizzy a few times a year.”

“She should come here,” I snapped. I held the pan over my plate and scraped my eggs into a heap.

“She can’t drive six hours with the kids.”

“She drove them to the coast last summer,” I said, even as I knew it was pointless to argue with her. We both knew the reason Lizzy never came to visit Heckerson and it had nothing to do with distance and everything to do with minimizing contact with the dirt-bag who called himself her father.

“How do you know that?” my mom demanded.

“Lizzie’s my Facebook friend.” I squirted ketchup all over my eggs and carried the plate and a beer into the living room. Johnny trotted along at my side, his hopeful eyes fixed on my steaming dinner.

“I’m disappointed,” Mom said. “You could—you could bring Leo.”

I laughed outright. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s going to happen.”

I heard some scratching and then muffled whispers in the background. When my mom came back on the line, her voice was quieter.

“I would like to spend Thanksgiving with my son,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said and meant it. “I’m not going. I don’t want to be around him.”

“Oh, honey,” she said and took a breath. I hope she wouldn’t cry. I hated it when she cried.

“What will you do?” she asked, as though I hadn’t spent every holiday in recent memory alone on my couch.

“I’m going to a friend’s house,” I told her. “Me and Leo. I’m fine, Mom.”

“I worry about you,” she sniffed. “I went to afternoon church services today, Ebron...”

I sat up. “Oh?”

I listened to her breath for a second.

“Mom?” I prompted.

“Father Laski spoke with me after mass,” she said finally. “He’s concerned about you.”

I scoffed. “The fuck he is.”

“He is, and watch your mouth. He thinks you’re walking a dangerous path.”

“Being gay isn’t a dangerous path, Mom. It’s more of a road. A yellow one. Made of brick.”

“Ha ha,” she said. “Just, be careful, okay? I keep hearing things.”

“Don’t listen to Father Laski. He’s crazy. And I’m fine.”

“I hope so, honey,” she said. “I really hope so.”

Chapter 14

The phone woke me again, hours later, as I lay sleeping fitfully on the couch. I’d dreamt of bones again, a forest of swaying skeletons that I ran through. I’d kept calling for Leo, catching glimpses of him between the trees. I’d finally caught up to him in a dark graveyard, and together we’d stood surrounded by twisted vertebrae and hollowed rib cages, the wind rattling the bones.

“Where have you been?” I’d asked him. Behind him, skulls grinned at me.

“You have to clean them yourself,” he’d whispered.

 I sat up when the phone rang, panting and kicking at the sweaty blanket tangling my legs. The TV glowed, some home shopping thing that only aired at in the small hours. The heater still whirred and sweat dripped down my temples. Everything felt thick, like I had to swim through the humid air.

Blearily, I swiped at my phone.

“—‘lo?” I swallowed hard a few times, trying to loosen my tongue, to wet my throat.

“Ebron, it’s Chad.”

“Chad, what ti—”

“I need you, now,” he barked.

The words banged around in my brain, searching for something to connect with.

“Huh?” was the best I could muster. My mind was still half in the dream, seeing Leo stand there amidst the reaching bony fingers, the long club of a femur.

“There’s been a car accident,” Chad told me, still clipped and sharp, like the words were bullets he fired at me. “South on Highway 4. You are
needed
. Do you understand?”

“Oh,” I said. Then, “
Oh
. Yes. Okay. Yes.”

“Thank you,” he said and the professional and detached voice wavered just a bit, enough for me to hear the relief.

“I can be there,” I said. I thumbed off my phone and then sat there in the muggy darkness.  I could...

No. I couldn’t
.

 I’d promised Leo. No more resurrections.

You are needed.

Fuck. I couldn’t
not
.

I kicked my way out of my blankets. I took a shuffling step and put my foot on my crusted dinner plate. I scrubbed at my gritty eyes.

“Okay,” I coached myself. “Pull it together. Shoes. Coat.”

The snow had let off but cold wind blasted me, freezing the sweat on my face as I climbed into my truck ten minutes later. I took a long, fortifying sip of the fresh coffee I’d brewed and turned the ignition. The truck rumbled to life, very loud in the silence of the trailer park. The time on the dash read 12:56.

What road did Chad tell me? Highway 6? I ran our conversation through my head again, trying to work through the hazy cobwebs. It couldn’t be 6. Highway 6 was on the other side of the Interstate, in another county. Up through the mountains, the winding road that climbed in elevation.

I flipped the heat on max and eased the truck over the icy streets. Hunched forward, I clutched my warm coffee cup with one hand while driving with the other, frozen one. My body couldn’t decide if it was cold or hot. I couldn’t decide if I was asleep or awake.

I’m serious, Ebron. No resurrections!

I shook away the thought and focused on the icy roads.

Out past town, the road narrowed into a corridor through snow-dusted trees. Overhead, the moon shone through the few wispy clouds, just days away from being full. The brightness of it made shadows across the road, making the pine trees stretch and arc. The road wound up the mountain, curving into hairpin turns. I didn’t pass another vehicle after I left Heckerson.

I left off the gas pedal as the headlight caught the form of a deer, crashing through the underbrush. Holding my breath, I waited to see if she would leap into the road or dart off into the trees. Instead, she ground to a stop on the shoulder, and I passed her slowly, seeing her panicked eyes.

For miles I drove along on the slick stretch of midnight highway and just as I was starting to worry, wondering if I had dreamed it all or gotten the directions wrong, or if it was some sort of weird joke, I crested a hill and saw the flashing lights that made my spine straighten.

Emergency vehicles clogged the lonely, mountain highway and my heart began to pound. Because that—that was a lot of people down there. I saw a fire engine, two ambulances and half a dozen other cars, police and highway patrol both. Chad couldn’t really expect me to do it in front of all these people. I couldn’t just
perform
like that. Self-preservation, right? Everything with the witches and that gross lawyer and Dana... it was absolutely the worst time. I couldn’t ignore all Leo’s warnings, couldn’t just throw it all aside because...

Because someone was dead. Chad wouldn’t have called me if he hadn’t been desperate.

Things weren’t so easy anymore, though. Leo would... God, Leo would kill me.

Leo might
leave
me.

But...

Someone down there was dead and I could fix it.

I gritted my teeth. There really wasn’t much of a choice.

I expected someone to stop me as I drove up to the scene. Or at least someone to notice me. But as I got closer, I could clearly see that no one had any thought to spare for me. Radios crackled and people called to each other, but mostly all the attention centered on the vehicle that lay smashed on the dark highway like a crumpled soda can. I saw a flash of white sheets, of gurneys moving, but I pulled up behind the fire truck and lost my visual.

Chad appeared at my driver’s side window before I had even settled my coffee mug into the cup holder. He yanked the door and reached in to grab my elbow.

“Chad—” I protested, but he pulled me out, his face set into a grim mask. He hustled me along, into the fray.

“It’s recent, you shouldn’t have any trouble,” he told me hurriedly as we walked.

“Chad, there’re people everywhere—”

He set his jaw but didn’t stop hauling me along. We approached a bundled group of people in uniforms and he stepped right up to them. Most of them didn’t spare me a glance, but one tall, middle-aged woman detached herself and fell into step with Chad and I.

“I’m Diana Hewitt,” she informed me as we walked. Broken glass crunched beneath our hurried steps. Behind me, one of the ambulances suddenly flared to life and the shrieking
woop woop
startled me so much that I nearly jerked out of Chad’s grasp. Diana steadied me with one hand. A tiny, blunt, ponytail bobbed low on her head. Her shoulders were almost as broad as mine.

Panicked, I shot my eyes around the milling people. Another group bent together over a still shape and my heart dropped when I saw the pink satin spread across the blacktop. A sparkly purse lay a few yards away, scattered amongst a jagged line of twisted plastic.

“Kids from the Coronation dance?” I croaked and Diana gave a brisk nod.

“The driver just left for the hospital in Butte,” she said. “He’s banged up but expected to live.”

“Okay,” I said. “Who else?”

“Three,” Chad said gruffly. “Two are dead and one is dying.”

I halted abruptly, digging my feet in. Diana stopped at my side, her plain, pretty face concerned.

“I can’t do this in front of all these people,” I hissed at Chad.

“You do it in front of people all the time,” he replied calmly. “Half a dozen people watched you bring back Natalie, after we pulled her out of the river.”

“Things are different now. These people—”

“These people have heard about you,” Diana cut in. She fixed me with an intense glare. Her eyebrows curved over deep-set hazel eyes. “We’ve all heard things. No one is going to make trouble for you,” she continued. “Why would we do that? If it’s true, if you can do what they say you can do, then you are a tool that we want to
use
.”

I recoiled a bit, both at the metaphor and the hardness in her voice. “I might not be able to do it,” I protested. “Two dead and one dying? I have limitations, Chad, you know that, I can’t just—”

“Do the best you can,” he said, a note of pleading in his voice. “If you don’t... Ebron.”

Frustrated, I made a weird, sobbing little laugh but I found myself nodding. Like I could just walk away. Like I could really just let a couple of high school kids bleed out on the road, get scraped off the highway like roadkill.

“Half the town knows what you can do,” Chad said softly. “Do you think anyone forgets? How many lives have you saved, Ebron? People are
grateful
. Whatever it is you think that people think about you, you’re wrong.”

I set my jaw, trying to cage in the unexpected watery sensation in the back of my throat. I looked away, past the flashing lights and urgent chaos and into the cold darkness of the surrounding trees. I ached, expectantly, with uncomfortably familiar feelings, how I often felt in the small hours alone in my bed: lonely and small and overwhelmed.  The silhouettes of the pines reached into the sky and I took a second to look up. It wasn’t all that different from the higher planes; inky black scattered with stars.

“The dying one first,” I decided and Diana and Chad exchanged a quick look. Something passed between them, some shared relief. Maybe I was being more cooperative than they had expected.