We stepped to one side, and the pallbearers brought the casket forward and paused in front of us, letting us take a long look.
That was my dad. No doubt in my mind. That was my dad’s overpreserved, leathery, gray, rotting corpse. He was naked except for a black blanket across his hips. Zayvion squeezed my hand gently in silent sympathy. Violet, on the other side, placed a lavender handkerchief on my dad’s chest, over his heart.
The pallbearers moved on. They walked slowly down the stairs, pausing every five steps so those in the crowd could look into the casket and agree that the body in that coffin was my dad. Once everyone got a chance to see him, the lid was placed upon the casket, and the pallbearers began the slow, long walk to my father’s grave.
We followed along behind, and no one spoke a word. Only the sound of our shoes on the grass and the rain on our umbrellas stirred the silence. Zay was beside me, his hand still in mine, no mint, but the scent of pine and a familiar warmth that was solid and real in this surreal moment.
We walked out to the thin gathering of trees, barren of leaves, stone angels grieving at their roots, black limbs spread against a stormy sky. A draped lowering device surrounded the newly re-dug grave.
The pallbearers placed the casket on the lowering device and lifted the lid on the casket one more time. All of us could see it was still his corpse. Wetter now, but still the same. A few people leaned in closer to get one last look. I did not feel the need to do so.
The pallbearers closed and locked the coffin lid and then worked the controls so the coffin could be lowered.
No one moved forward after that. Everyone watched as the coffin sank to the bottom of the grave, the equipment was removed, and the cemetery grave diggers—three of them wearing black raincoats and carrying shovels—cut shovelfuls of dirt and threw it into the hole.
No one sang. No one cried. No one gave words or comfort or remembrance. There was no sound at all except silence, raindrops, and the heavy thud of dirt upon pine.
After an unspecified time, the crowd began to break up. Each person walked past me and Zayvion and Violet. Some stopped and spoke to Violet in a low tone. No one spoke to me. Some made eye contact, looking for something or maybe trying to tell me something, and then looking away. Some turned so I never got a good look at them.
I tried to commit as many of their faces to memory as I could, inhaled to get the scents of them. Then they were gone, black coats beneath black umbrellas, beneath a dark sky.
The grave diggers were still filling the grave. Violet stood at the edge, watching each shovelful of dirt cascade down. Kevin, hands folded behind his back, stood by her side. I thought they looked good together, him painfully reserved but radiating strength and loyalty, her small, pale, and, I knew, fierce.
Violet’s shoulders shook and she put her hands over her face.
Kevin lifted his hand, hesitated with it just above her shoulder, as if weighing the consequences. Then the moment was gone. He quietly drew his hand away and stood, once again as only her guard—near her, but not touching her, his hands folded behind his back.
My heart hurt. For her. For him. For what they almost had.
“Allie?” Zayvion’s voice was quiet.
I looked over at him.
“Would you like to get out of the rain?”
What I would like was some kind of an explanation. Of where he had been the last five days.
But suddenly I realized I was really cold. My feet were numb from standing in the same place for so long. “Fine,” I said.
I walked over to Violet. Caught Kevin’s gaze. He sized me up.
Unreadable, that man. He tipped his chin down, just enough, I knew he was giving his okay.
I gently put my hand on Violet’s back. She had both her hands across her stomach now. She was shorter than me, thin, petite. Standing this close to her, touching her, made me realize how small and breakable she was, and I felt an overwhelming desire to protect her, to not let her, or my sibling she was carrying, get hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She did not look at me. Did not look away from the grave.
“So am I,” she whispered.
“Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded. “It’s going to take some time. More time,” she said faintly.
“If you need me,” I said, “I’ll be here.”
I wanted to say more, wanted to tell her words of comfort, wanted to tell her that I had spoken to him, to his spirit, but it seemed like the worst time ever to bring that up.
“Take care of her.” I said to Kevin. He nodded. I walked back to Zay, and he fell into step with me as we crossed the graveyard.
“Where were you?” I asked. I hadn’t meant for my voice to catch.
“Lobbying for you.”
“With whom?”
“Them.” He pointed in the direction of the people leaving the cemetery.
“Maeve stopped by.”
Zayvion, the graceful, the unflappable Zen master, tripped on smooth ground. “She did?” he asked as he pulled himself back up and dusted his muddy hands.
“That worries you?” I asked.
He took a deep breath, let it out through his mouth in a cloud of steam. “Honestly? Yes. Yes, it does. What did she want?”
“She and I . . . talked. She mentioned some teaching.”
Zayvion smiled and put his hands in his pockets. I could almost feel the tension draining from his body. “And you said yes, right?”
I shrugged one shoulder.
“Allie.” He sounded worried. “You did say yes, didn’t you?”
“You never asked me if I wanted you to lobby for me, Zayvion. You went out and decided my future for me.”
He stopped. Looked off at the horizon, his breath coming out in steam. It was still raining and he hadn’t removed his knit cap. He looked like he was trying hard to keep it together. Like maybe a lot was riding on this.
“You should have asked me,” I said.
He turned back to me, Zen, calm. Ready to hear my answer. “I see that now. Did you say no to her?” His eyes were brown, but flecks of gold sprayed through them, as if he were trying very hard not to use magic. Or maybe that was what his eyes always did when he was worried.
“No,” I said. “I told Maeve I want to learn. But don’t ever assume you can make decisions for me, Zayvion Jones. Men who do that don’t stay in my life. Period.”
“I’ll remember that.”
We started walking again.
“Thank you, though,” I said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “It is not an easy thing to learn. It means giving up a lot. A lot of your life. Paying the price.”
Yeah, I got it. Using magic was hard. But if I wanted to survive in this new secret world of magical back-stabbing, corpse-stealing soul suckers, I needed to learn the moves. An image of Pike flashed behind my eyes. Maybe if I had known more about this world, about Zayvion’s world, I could have kept him safe.
“Was it worth it? I asked. “For you?”
“It is now.”
He unlocked the car door and walked around to the driver’s side. I lowered my ducky umbrella and closed it. Then I opened the car door.
The overwhelming scent of summer—roses and irises—wafted out of the car. Zayvion was leaning on the roof, watching me with those warm brown eyes of his.
I bent and looked in. Roses in every shade of pink filled the car. Interspersed with the roses were irises in soft lavender and deep purple. There was even a bouquet of roses buckled into my seat.
Wow. It must have cost him a fortune to get that many flowers in the dead of winter.
“Well, well,” I said as I unbuckled the roses. “What would have happened if I told you I didn’t need a ride?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I had a good feeling about it.” He got in the driver’s side.
I got in too, maneuvering under the bouquet with one hand as I buckled my seat belt.
“I thought you
were going to bring these by my hospital room.”
“It was suggested. That didn’t work out how I wanted it to.” He started the car.
I stuck my nose in the roses and inhaled, long and deep.
Lovely.
“What didn’t work out?” I asked.
“Everything. I should have known something would go wrong when I saw Trager’s blood magic mark on you. I should have gone with you to the police, been there when you confronted Trager.”
“Zayvion, you are not my guard.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You aren’t. You know that, right?”
“Sure.” He didn’t sound very convincing.
“Did Violet hire you to be my guard?”
Nothing.
“Zayvion? Hello? An answer here?”
“Would you like lunch? I think I still owe you that date.”
“Zayvion. Focus. Are you working for Violet?”
“No.”
“So you’re not my bodyguard?”
“Did you want me to be?”
“No.” Yes. No.
It was confusing being me.
“We haven’t even decided if we’re going to date,” I said.
“We can take care of that. Let me take you to lunch.”
I suddenly remembered the card in my pocket. Davy’s invite for me to go to Pike’s last meeting. I glanced at the clock in the dash.
“You have plans?” Zayvion asked.
“No. Yes. Maybe. I have lunch plans. I think.”
“You aren’t sure?”
“It’s Davy Silvers. He’s a—”
“Hound. We met.”
“You did?”
Zayvion looked over at me, frowned. “Ah. Memory loss?” he asked.
“I don’t know. When did you meet him?”
“During the . . . in the warehouse with Frank Gordon. Do you remember that?”
“Some. Can you tell me about it?”
“Sure. How about over lunch? On our date.”
Was there nothing without a price in this city?
“Fine. Take me to O’Donnel’s.”
Zayvion turned the car in that direction.
We found parking in the lot behind what used to be the old treasury building that had been turned into the pub. We got out of the car. A few patrons were smoking beneath the awning, and we walked past them through the haze of smoke and into the back door of the pub.
The place was small but had two levels. Off in one corner was a player piano. Velvet curtains sectioned off parts of the walls, giving it plenty of private booths. Everything was black walnut, red velvet, and brass.
Classy.
I scanned the room, looking for Davy. The flame of a cigarette being lit caught my eye. Jack, the Whiskey Guy, leaned on a door to an alcove area. He tipped his chin up, turned, and walked into the alcove.
I strode across the room. Maybe more like limped. My feet were numb in my wet boots, and honestly, I’d been doing a lot more standing and walking today than I’d done in the last five. I was feeling pretty worn-out. My stamina was shot. The doctor said I’d feel a little stronger every day. He was an optimistic fellow.
Still, it was a small enough place that I held my own and walked into the alcove area, Zayvion behind me.
The room was filled. Maybe thirty or forty people. Most standing, a few seated at the table. They were grouped by vice, as I suppose made sense. Hard drinkers to the right, street drugs in the back, prescription meds to the left, and smaller pockets of those who used specialized pain-avoidance techniques—the cutters, smokers, sex addicts, exercise freaks, and gamblers—sprinkled throughout. Still, no matter what group they belonged to, everyone had a drink in their hands. Platters of food covered the table, and in the center of all that food was a plain black urn.
Oh. For some reason I didn’t realize this would be about Pike’s death. But that urn spoke volumes. I suddenly wanted to leave, wanted to be anywhere but here, face-to-face again with Pike’s death.
Sid, the Hound who looked like he should program computers for a living, appeared from somewhere in the crowd. He was grinning, his eyes half crescents behind his glasses. His cheeks were red. Probably from that glass of tequila in his hand.
“Allie, I’m so glad you came,” he said. “And you’re Zayvion Jones, right?”
“I am.”
“I’m Sid Westerling,” he said. “Davy mentioned you. Welcome.”
Well, that was not at all what I expected out of him. Hounds were notorious loners. Life did not let them make friendships. Life did not bring Hounds together. But apparently death could do both.
“Everyone,” Sid said to the crowd. “Attention for a moment.” He waited for the noise to die down. Someone pressed a glass of red wine in my hands. Zayvion had managed to snag a beer.
“We’re here to recognize and honor the life of a good man and a good Hound: Martin Pike.”
“Pike!” several voices called out.
“May he live on in our memories and hearts. To Pike!”
All glasses raised, and everyone drank.
“And that’s the end of my speech,” he said. “Someone else talk.”
“I’d like to say something.” All eyes turned to a younger voice. Davy Silvers slouched in a chair by the wall. Several people moved out of the way while Davy stood up on the chair. He bobbled his balance just a bit but did not spill the tankard of dark beer in his hand.
Was he even old enough to drink?
“Pike was . . .” He tipped his head back, closed his eyes. I could seen his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed back tears. “Not always a good man.”
A few people chuckled.
“But he was what he was. What we are. And he accepted us for all of our faults. ’Cause face it, we’re all a bunch of screwed-up losers.”
More chuckling. Davy looked back down. He wasn’t smiling. “And there was only one of us who was there for him when he needed it the most. Allie Beckstrom.”
Glasses raised, all faces turned to me. I gave a small smile and nodded. See, I’m good under social pressure. Having a notorious father will do that to a girl.
“To Allie,” Davy said.
“Allie!” the crowd agreed.
And then they waited. Waited for me to say something. Okay.
“Pike was my friend.” Wow, this was harder than it looked. “And the last thing he told me before . . . before he died was: it was worth it.”
Silence fell over the room.
“To Pike,” I said. “The strongest Hound I have had the honor to know. I wish he would have had a chance to find his island away from it all. I’ll miss him. We’ll all miss him.”
“To Pike,” the crowd said somberly.
Everyone drank, and I did too, because my throat was tight with tears.
“Pike would have wanted a new leader for the Pack,” Davy said. “A Hound as tough as he was. A friend. I elect Allie Beckstrom as the new leader of the Pack. All in favor, say aye!”
“Seconded,” Jamar’s baritone called out.
“Third—I mean aye!” That from bouncy, corpse-sniffing Beatrice.
“Wait,” I said. “No. Wait.”
Sid, standing next to me, was laughing.
“I’m not a leader. I shouldn’t be your leader,” I said. “I’ve only ever been to one meeting. I’d make a terrible leader. Vote for Sid, or Jamar or Beatrice.”
No one heard me because everyone was clapping.
Sid, his arms still crossed across his chest, leaned toward me. “Give it up.” His breath smelled of tequilla and lime. “They want you. And we need you. Pike’s death will destroy the ground he worked so hard to gain. You’re not gonna turn your back on your own kind, are you? What would Pike say?”
“I don’t have a kind,” I said.
Sid patted me on the shoulder. “You do now.”
A motion near the back wall of the room caught my eye. The cutter girl, Tomi, Davy’s ex-girlfriend, shouldered her way across the
room. She stopped in front of me and looked me straight in the eye.
“Tomi,” Davy called out from across the room.
She didn’t turn, didn’t look at him.