Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) (30 page)

“Are you okay, buddy?” he asked, looking earnestly into my face. “I can’t believe you ended up in the hospital. I’m so sorry, buddy. You all right?”

“I’m fine,” I sniffed. “It’s not that. I just. Fuck.”

He moved his hand to my back and rubbed a few soothing circles. “Take it easy. There you go.”

“What happened to the kids, Chad?” I asked, my voice still watery.

He kept rubbing for a bit, his face turned in with sympathy.

“They’re fine,” he said. “They kept them overnight for observation, but as far as I know, they’re all all home now. Good as new.”

“Good,” I murmured. The pressure of his big, warm hand on my back felt anchoring. My insides rolled, ready to boil over again at the slightest provocation. “Good, I’m glad.”

I sagged, my knees going rubbery. Chad guided me over to my lumpy chair by the picture window and pushed me into it. He hiked up the front of his pressed slacks and crouched in front of me.

“Hey now,” he said. God, was this his daddy voice? Was he talking to me like I was one of his tantrumming kids?

“You did good, Ebron,” he continued. “You did what you could, and because of you, three teenagers who
were
dead will be with their families for Thanksgiving. You did good, buddy.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said stubbornly. Would Misty spend her holiday alone, desperately waiting to hear from her son? Was there anyone to help her? Did Morgan’s family even know she was gone?

“You don’t sound happy,” Chad said. He shifted on his haunches, rearranging his considerable weight onto his heels.

“Everything is so fucked up,” I whispered. Chad frowned and patted at my knee.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you saved people, Ebron. You did. Diana was so thrilled.”

“Yeah, speaking of her,” I said, hardening my voice with effort. “I thought you weren’t going to tell her. What happened to that?”

He had the grace to look abashed. “I’m sorry. But like I said, I knew you would do the right thing.”

“I don’t do it for free,” I replied. I wiped at my eyes, straightening my spine. I had to pull myself together, harden my heart and remember why I was here. I had to remember what was waiting outside. Or possibly in.

Chad just wrinkled his forehead at me. “Diana did text me,” he said slowly. “She said you, uh, charged her to fix the last girl.”

“I have bills,” I said, feeling my hackles rise. “This shop doesn’t make much. I do two or three jobs a year, and it helps a lot.”

His eyes searched mine. “Two or three a year?” he asked. “How much do you charge? Wait, did you charge my sister for, y’know, Natalie?”

“Of course,” I snapped. I remember the day well, holding Chad’s tiny little niece in my arms, her limbs rubbery and cold from the water, her hysterical family falling upon her with relief when she suddenly sputtered and coughed.

“She never said,” Chad murmured, looking at me like he’d never seen me before. Wait, did he think—

“Did you think I did it out of the goodness of my heart?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” Chad said, like it was an obvious fact. “Why wouldn’t you? You can bring people back from the
dead
—why wouldn’t you help?”

“Shh,” I said, without thinking. I cast a nervous glance towards the backroom. How well did a Namordo hear? It didn’t exactly have ears...

Chad followed my gaze. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just... look. I help people. But I don’t do it for free. Doctors charge for their services—so do I. Doesn’t mean I don’t help. Don't you get paid for what you do?”

“I guess,” he said, but his forehead stayed wrinkled. I saw his gaze drift towards the back of the room again. Slowly he got to his feet. “So you’ll continue to help Diana—if she pays you?”

“I don’t care who pays me,” I snapped. “But I’m not going to be on call twenty-four seven for you guys, not without some sort of compensation. It takes a toll, Chad. It
hurts
me.”

He look chagrined. “I didn’t know that before. I thought—”

Something clattered, loud, from the back room.

Chad whipped his head in that direction, and then looked back at me. “Aren’t you alone?”

“Um,” I stammered. My eyes flickered back and forth between Chad and the back door. Nothing came out of my mouth. “Uh,” I tried.

“Ebron,” Chad said, sounding surprised. “Who’s back there?”

He took a step in that direction and I made a mistake.

“Don’t,” I said and shot out my hand to grab his arm.

His eyes narrowed. His face turned to stone. Right before my eyes, my buddy Chad turned into hard-ass cop Chad. His stance changed into something poised and waiting.

“Who’s back there?” he asked again, in a clipped bark.

“It’s Leo,” I said desperately. “He’s just waiting for me. It’s no big deal. Chad...”

“Okay,” Chad said, staring hard at me. Clearly something had pinged his cop spidey-sense and frankly, I was surprised it had taken him this long to find me suspicious.

Chad took a slow step towards the back door and I moved, half blocking him. His eyes narrowed and he made a small, inquiring noise.

“What’s going on, Ebron?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just Leo.”

“What’s the deal with him, anyway?” Chad asked. “Something’s off about him.

“Off?” I echoed, completely unconvincingly.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Something not quite right.”

“Chad,” I said softly. “You have to understand something.”

“What?” he said, equally as soft. “What do I need to understand?”

“I don’t do it for free.”

His face didn’t change. “What are you saying?”

 “I need a favor.”

“O-kay,” he said, narrowing his eyes because Chad was no idiot. “What do you want?”

“I want you to leave and forget you were ever here,” I said.

Chapter 19

Leo poked his head out of the backroom just as Chad’s police cruiser turned a corner and disappeared from view.

“We all clear?” Leo called across the room.

“We’re fine,” I said, turning away from the window.

Leo nodded. The Namordo slipped past him and stepped into my shop, its head rotating reptile-like as it took in the room. The sight of it in my warm and cozy store gave me an almost visceral reaction, like seeing mold on bread, or a maggot on your meat. Before I could voice my opposition, it scuttled up to me and stopped, its opaque eyes rolling in my direction. I strained away from it, even as it raised one skeletal finger to my cheek.

Recoiling, my heart leaping up into my throat, I banged my head on the metal window-frame and Leo leapt at the sound. He was beside me in an instant, snarling at the Namordo.

It made a high, clicking noise and shuffled away.

“Don’t touch him,” Leo warned and pulled me against his side. Not to say that I didn’t appreciate the sudden show of possessive protection, but the thing was still too close for my comfort and I retreated behind the counter.

“Your pet smells so good,” I heard the thing croak and Leo snarled again. 

“I’m okay,” I whispered. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The Namordo cocked its head towards me, blinking its shining black eyes.

“Everything good with Officer Friendly?”

“What?” I forced my eyes back to Leo. He frowned.

“Are we good?”

“Yes,” I said. “For now.”

Leo nodded and stepped towards the background. “Let’s do this then.”

The Namordo chuffed, like the perversion of a laugh. “You’re anxious,” it said. “How delicious.”

Leo shot the creature a murderous glanced, and waited until the Namordo took the hint. It smirked—ghastly on its lipless mouth—but moved back into the storeroom. Leo followed, his spine a rigid line. Despite myself, I trailed after them, horrified but unable to stop myself.

I leaned in through the doorway, keeping distance but still able to watch. Leo shook his head at me, clearly disapproving. I looked away. The sound of the bathroom door popping sounded very loud.

 I wiped my palms on my jeans. God, why was it so hot? I took a deep breath and wished I hadn’t. The Namordo reeked, its meaty smell making my guts roll up into the back of my throat. I reached for the doorframe to steady myself and accidently hit the light switch. The room plunged back into darkness.

“Fuck,” I scrambled for the switch and flipped it back on. “Sorry.”

Leo glared over his shoulder at me. “Calm down. Christ.”

I made a noise that could have been a laugh, but it strangled in my throat. I took an unsteady step forward. Leo disappeared into the shadows of the room, and then reappeared, dragging a heap of tangled limbs and trailing shrouds. He swore and then dumped it all into a pile half way through the bathroom door. They spilled across the floor together, the tarp covering Corvin falling away. Leo crouched down and unzipped Morgan’s body bag, making a high-pitched metallic
burr
.

I recoiled at the sight of them, Morgan’s face peeking out of the dislodged body bag. Her mottled skin, her sunken features, they disgusted me. One of her arms—the one Leo had broken—lay oddly angled, twisted against her side. I caught a tiny glimpse of nipple. I looked away, shooting my gaze up to the only safe place to look—the ceiling. I thought of her smirking face when I’d last seen her and hated how the indignity of death made me pity her. 

A stuttered, breathy sound brought my eyes down from the ceiling and I looked to Leo. He scowled at the Namordo, who, I realized, was laughing.

“Your pet is squeamish,” it chortled and made another scratchy sound.

Leo glanced at me, watching the creature from the corner of his eye.

“You should wait up front, Ebron,” he said to me.

I involuntarily peeked at Morgan again, my gaze flickering over the tattoo on her shoulder—a rose? Was that a rose?—and sticking on her well-manicured fingernails. I wondered... God, what was her name? Her real name, the name that would appear on her obituary. Did she have an apartment in Denver somewhere? Houseplants that were going unwatered? Milk that was spoiling in the fridge? Friends that were waiting for her to call?

“Yeah,” I said abruptly. “I’ll wait up front.”

I turned on my heel and stilted my way to the door, each step drumming with the beat in my head: “Not. Okay. Not. Okay.” My mind began to float away, my thoughts turning slippery. How could I be part of this? I desperately tried to shove all my horror and revulsion away, onto the dusty top shelf of my mind with all the other things I didn’t want to think about. Instead, everything else toppled out, bombarding me with every failure and mistake and misstep I had made.

I made it to butcher block counter and just went down onto my knees, crawling along the floor and bracing my back against one strong wooden leg.  I drew my knees to my chest and stared straight ahead, falling apart, disaster on every side.

This is what it came down to, huh? All the choices I’d made had led me here, to another broken night surrounded by death. A low sound started in my chest, and built higher and higher to a sharp keen that flew out of my mouth. My hands knotted into fists and I slammed them impotently against the scuffed wood floor. A dull pain shot into my hands, but it wasn’t enough, not nearly. I grabbed handfuls of my own hair and tore. I clawed at my face.

The tears burned the skin under my eyes, and I sat sniffling for a bit. My throat felt raw. I searched for the energy to get to my feet and go brew myself some tea, something soothing, but my legs felt limp. Sweat dried along my brow and I shivered. I didn’t want it to be this way.

The door clicked and my head shot up. Leo stepped into the front room. His face wore a stunned, frozen expression I had never seen before and nerves burst in my belly.

We locked eyes. It was his fault, right? Just as much as it was mine. We had done this, together, the two of us. I’d killed Corvin to protect others; he’d killed Morgan to protect me. Could I really blame him for that? I was the one who’d opened the door to all of it in the first place. It was me—and what I could do—that kept him here.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and the backs of my eyes burned again.

Leo shook his head. He crossed the room and dropped down to sit next to me, close enough that our shoulders touched.

“No,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let you stay.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” I sniffed. “I do what I want.”

He snorted and bumped his shoulder gently against mine. “I know you do, babe. Believe me, I know.”

We sat in silence, long enough for my tears to dry and my thumping heart to slow. Faint noises came from the back room, snuffling thuds that I tried to ignore. I couldn’t let myself think about what was going on in there. I couldn’t let myself think about how far I had fallen.

“You should go home,” Leo said finally. “We’ll take care of everything here and I’ll do a thorough cleaning.”

“Thorough,” I repeated.

Leo shrugged. “Yeah. There’s... scraps.”

“I wonder if Misty has filed a missing person’s report yet. That’s Corvin’s mom. She used to come here every morning.”

“They’ll never find him. Not after this.”

Something yawned in my chest and then pulled tight. I drummed my fingers on the floor beside me.

“So she’ll never know. She’ll spend the rest of her life searching for her son.”

“Ebron,” Leo said, catching hold of my twitching hand. “Stop. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t forget that he was a fucking killer.”

“So am I. So are you,” I snorted out a breath. “We’re all killers here.”

He heaved a sigh. “That’s not going to help. Thinking like that. We all do what we have to do.”

“Yeah,” I agreed darkly. “Maybe I need to... rethink a few things.”

I didn’t mean him, but I saw the thought enter his head anyway, and I put a hand on his forearm. “Not you,” I said quickly. “I’m sure about you.”

“You shouldn’t be,” he said, staring at the ground between his feet. “I never wanted you to get involved with my life. That’s why I tried so hard to keep you away from it.”

“That’s why you always leave?”

He lifted one shoulder, giving a sardonic twist to his mouth. “Worked out great, as you can see.”