“Have a seat, Hogan,” Ryder said. “These women are about to blow your mind.”
Oh. Oh. We were going to tell him. All of it. The rest of it. Bring him into our merry little band of life-on-the-liners. Bring him into our family.
It meant something. It was a big decision and a part of me hoped Jean wasn’t making it just because I’d been hurt.
“You’re up.” Myra sort of waved at Jean, giving her the floor.
Jean took in a breath, let it out, then turned to face Hogan. He read her mood and pushed a stool over near her then dropped down on it. “All right. Go.”
“Gods are real. They vacation here. They put down their god powers, and live like mortals. You know a lot of them. They’ve all left town recently because we’ve had some problems lately.”
Hogan’s eyes flickered to the brace on her leg, cast on her arm, then back to her. He leaned forward, arms across his knees, fingers laced, and nodded. “Go.”
“Okay, so it’s more than just gods. There are also some supernatural creatures in town. Um, vampires, werewolves. Valkyrie, gillmen, giants, elves, nymphs, gnomes, sirens, kelpies. Like a lot of different kind of creatures. They’re not vacationing. They just live here because it’s safe. Usually safe. Because we keep it that way. Us Reeds. And well, Ryder too, and a couple other people, but mostly us Reeds.”
She waited. He waited. We waited.
“Speak,” she said, exasperated.
“That it?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want to know if you believe me. If you think I’m insane.”
“I know you’re insane, but that’s a thing I like about you.” His smile was bright white against the darkness of his skin. “You think I don’t believe in that sort of thing? Gods and monsters and all that?”
“Nobody believes in those sorts of things,” she said.
“Uh-huh. There’s some churches that would argue with you on the gods. They’re all about the believing.”
“God. One.”
“More than one kind of church, more than one kind of god gets believed in.” He shrugged. “You say there’s monsters, I say fine. So long as they come to my bakery, not that new one that doesn’t even use real butter, and just so long as they don’t try to hurt you.”
“Hogan….”
“No. I don’t care about what’s in this town as long as it has you, Jean.”
“Aw…” I accidentally said out loud.
Jean threw me a scorching glare and Ryder snorted.
“You’re just going to take my word for all this?” she asked Hogan.
He unfolded his fingers, then strung them back together again. “I’ve seen some folk around town do things you’d think a person can’t do. Maybe some of them were a little more than human, and I think that’s okay. That’s not such a bad thing, us being different but still all fitting together, don’t you think? It might even be its own kind of beauty.”
And yes, even drugged up and hurting, I could tell this was a continuation of a conversation they’d been having.
I pressed my lips together so another aw didn’t escape.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. So that’s what it is. The secret I’ve been keeping. And now you know it, and now you have to help me keep it.”
He nodded. “How about I just keep treating everyone the same and keep my mouth to myself?”
“Well, not always to yourself,” she said.
That got a big grin out of him, his entire body smiling, from relaxed shoulders to open hands, to bright eyes.
“Wouldn’t want to be stingy,” he agreed.
“Yeah.” Jean was looking at him like there was no one else in the room, and that word came out mostly breath and want. I was pretty sure I was about to see more of my sister’s love life than I’d bargained for.
“Maybe you two could go get dinner, or lunch, or whatever time it is meal,” I said. “Talk it over, kiss it over, whatever, somewhere private where I don’t have to watch.”
Jean nodded, barely sparing me a look. “We’re done with this for now?” she asked Myra.
“No,” Myra said, “but you should probably take your meds and get off your feet for a while.”
“Good idea. I need a bed. Breakfast in bed.”
“It’s dinner time,” Hogan said.
“Dinner at the drive-thru, breakfast in bed.”
He stood and walked over, helping her up onto her feet and handing over her crutches. “Your wish, my pleasure.”
I opened my mouth, and slapped my hand over it again before any more sappy sounds came out of it.
They made their way out of the room and Myra waited a whole half-second before turning on me.
“This ends here and now, Delaney.”
I fished around on the bed and made a point to hold up the morphine button so she’d clearly see it as I depressed it.
Click.
“We’ll make some new rules,” I agreed. “I’ve got my law-and-order boy right here to help us out.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
I knew it wasn’t, could see the cruelty of what we had been through, what my choices had put her through in all the micro-fine lines of her face, as if grief had been painted beneath her skin and had permanently changed her.
“I know. I hear you, really hear you, Myra. And it’s not just the morphine talking.” I smiled, but was pretty sure it came out goofy and didn’t do anything for my case.
“You can’t,” she said, “you can’t…the list is so long, I don’t even know where to start.”
“I can’t put my life on the line like it isn’t attached to anyone. I can’t leave us like Dad left us, like Mom left us. I can’t think my pain is a small price to pay for other people being safe. I’m required to live out as many decades as possible here, until you and me and Jean are old ladies in rocking chairs, smoking cigars and arguing over bowling games and fences.
“I’m not allowed to die again. Not for a very long time, and when that time comes, it will be because I’m ready for a new adventure, not because I’m cutting this one short.”
She opened her mouth, shut it, sniffed, then blinked.
I opened my arms. “C’mere, Mymy. I’m gonna be fine, and so much not as stupid. Stupider, as I was.” I made a face, my nose felt numb. Okay, maybe the morphine had kicked in. Didn’t make my sentiments any different.
She finally got up out of her chair, and sat next to me on the bed. I was still sitting too. She carefully rested her forehead against my shoulder and let me pat her back.
It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but we both needed it, so we stayed there for a long time.
I was getting sleepy, sort of fading in and out with the rhythm of her breathing and my own heartbeat and drifting thoughts, when one thing hit me.
“What kind of deal did you make with Bathin?”
“What?” She wasn’t leaning on my shoulder anymore. As a matter of fact, she was sitting in a chair again, Ryder curled up with his back toward us on the sort-of-recliner thing they’d brought into the room, his coat over his hips as a blanket. I wondered where his dog, Spud, was tonight, who was looking after him. Wondered if he was home alone in Ryder’s nice lakeside cabin or if maybe his next door neighbor the Jinn was looking after him.
“Delaney?” Myra said.
Right. I had a question. A question for her. “Bathin,” I said. “He gave me back my feelings, but he still has my soul. I know he liked keeping them from me. And you, Than said you did something, made him give them back? My feelings back? What kind of deal did you make with him, Myra? With the demon.”
“I didn’t make a deal.”
“Demon. You made a deal.”
“No.” She shifted in her chair and put down the tablet she’d been writing on. That was when I noticed she had several file folders, an accordion file, and a stack of paper spread out over the low coffee table in front of her chair. She was working at night in my hosp
ital room.
We were going to have to talk about new rules for her too. Like there was a time of day when she was no longer allowed to work.
“I told him he owed us,” she said. “Told him he owed you and owed me to give your emotions back. Because selling off your feelings wasn’t a part of the deal you’d made with him.”
I sat there a moment, rolling that around in my head. “And he listened to you?”
“Yes, he did. I’m the law here, Delaney, and if he wants to stay in Ordinary, he’s going to have to follow the law.”
Huh. Funny how me being the law hadn’t made a bit of difference to him. I was pretty sure him doing what she said had nothing to do with her badge.
“He likes you.”
“Demon. Incapable of real emotions.”
“Does it say that somewhere in a book?”
“Several.”
“Maybe he’s different?”
“All of them are different, none of them desire anyone for anything other than pain and manipulation.”
“Right,” I said, even though I wasn’t agreeing. I wasn’t disagreeing, either—I mean, Myra knew her beans. If she said demons weren’t relationship material, I was more than willing to believe her. But I’d seen Bathin in some pretty key moments. Moments when he didn’t think I was watching him watch her.
“I think we need to keep an eye on him,” I mumbled as I felt sleep reaching up to draw me down again.
“It’s on the To-Do list.”
“Do you think he was working for Lavius?”
“He said he got jumped by Lavius. Agreed to his terms, to bring him Rossi. Said he played a part but never served him.”
“You believe that?” I did, because I knew he’d been in cahoots with Dad and Death. I was just curious as to what she’d say.
“I believe he did what he had to, to save his own neck.”
“And that’s….”
“Typical. Never trust a demon. But he has your soul, and he’s still here. That’s something.”
“Right.” I nodded. “If only we knew why he was really sticking around.”
She pretended not to hear me. I pretended not to see her blush. Then I closed my eyes, letting Ryder’s soft snores lull me down.
~~~
When I woke up next, it was to the scent of hot chocolate being waved beneath my nose.
I moaned, a soft, needful sound and opened my eyes.
“Hey,” I started, then stopped. I had expected Ryder, or maybe Jean. Not Bathin.
“Morning, little trooper. How about some contraband cocoa?”
I looked around the room. Myra was gone, but Ryder was still there. He was sort of crunched up on his other side now, his arm over his eyes, one hand on his gun which rested in the holster on his hip.
From the sleek blue light and dark shadows filling the room, I could only assume it was the middle of the night, that in-between hour when it felt like time wasn’t ever going to mean something again.
“He’s out cold. Been up for a couple days, sitting with you, covering the police work, dealing with the exit of deities.”
“Myra?”
He waved the mug of cocoa at me again. “What about her?”
“Where is she?”
“Why would I know?”
I just gave him a look. “Where is she?”
“At Jean’s house. They’re staying together again tonight. Oh, they say it’s because Jean might need help in the middle of the night with her injuries, but we know why they’re really clinging to each other like frightened children. Life is such a fragile thing, something you’ve reminded them of quite a lot lately.”
“Don’t be an ass.” I moved the bed so I was sitting up a little more. “And pass the damn cocoa.”
He handed me the paper cup, which had no lid but an obscene mountain of whipped cream on top. Just how I liked it, really.
“She’s right. You’re much more fun when you get all moody.”
I sipped cocoa—well, took a couple bites of whipped cream and ignored the bait. I knew Myra wouldn’t have offered my continued pain as a source of amusement to talk Bathin into giving me back my emotions. I knew my sister. She had threatened him, and I was pretty sure it was with more than just snapping a piece of chalk.
“Did you make her promise you anything? Did you trade her something for my emotions?”
“A gentleman never tells.”
I tipped the cup, got down to the cocoa. It was rich, warm, and delicious. Actually, it tasted just like the cocoa from the Perky Perch.
“Good thing I’m not asking a gentleman then. Tell me, Bathin. I get that you don’t like us, I get that you want to wind us up and watch us wobble around. What did you take from my sister in exchange for my emotions?”
He studied me for a moment, that uncommonly handsome man who was neither of those things. Finally: “Nothing. She asked, I returned them.”
“Just like that.”
“Do you believe me?”
“No. But I believe her. She said the same thing.”
“Well then. Maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf. Changed my ways. Reformed for the good of Ordinary, for the good of all.”
I took one more sip of cocoa, holding the cool whipped cream and warm cocoa in my mouth for a moment, savoring, before swallowing. Then I handed him back the cup.
“I liked it when you at least pretended to tell the truth. Maybe go back to that.”
He grinned, a hot slash of teeth. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You didn’t honor our deal,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“You said you’d let Dad die in exchange for my soul. But you kept him. In you.” It sounded just as bad out loud as in my head.
“I promised you I would release him to the afterlife of his choosing. He chose to remain with me as a favor to Death, for a very limited time.”
“That’s a lot of risk and what-if’s on my father’s mortal soul.”
“Or it’s just fate.”
“Know her?”
“We’ve met. I’m not a fan.”
“Good. Free will’s a lot more fun.”
He chuckled. “Isn’t it just?”
I closed my eyes, too tired to get in an argument with him, and not really seeing any reason to at this point. He had my soul. But I’d get it back.
I was a Reed, and a damn stubborn one.
“We’ll see,” he said as he rose. Right. He could read my mind. I pictured him doing some unlikely things with his anatomy.
He laughed, then walked across the room, and settled down in the chair where Myra had been sitting.
I didn’t know why he was staying in my room.
I didn’t know why it was oddly comforting either. But the nightmares that were my memories were waiting for me down there in my slumber, and I thought that maybe having a demon occasionally—well, mostly, okay, only when he felt like being—on my side wouldn’t be a bad thing right now.
When I slept, I dreamed of fire and ash. All the flames were warm, and the ash that fell from the velvet sky melted against my skin with the sound of my father’s laughter.
Epilogue
“They put locks on it,” I said.
“Still not seeing a problem.” Ryder offered me a French fry from his plate. We were sitting at a table at Jump Off Jack’s, our local and award-winning brewery. It was where Ryder and I had gone on our first date.
“I didn’t say it was a problem. Just. It’s not. Not the same.”
I’d told him about the whole Mithra take over I’d seen happen. Then I’d filled him and Myra and Jean and Hogan in on the death-favor with Dad and Bathin.
Ryder had been furious when he heard Mithra had possessed him. I knew there was going to be a lot more reasearch into what Mithra could actually enforce in contracts. Myra was on board for finding a way to make sure Mithra couldn’t take over Ryder’s body again. Even Bathin said he’d be happy to help. We told him no, but still, he offered. br />
Demon.
Chris Lagon, a gillman and brewmaster and owner of this joint, deposited two fresh beers and gave me a wink. “Town feels all roomy now. Wasn’t sure I’d like it, but it’s growing on me.”
“They’ll be back,” I said, knowing he was talking about the gods who had left.
Now, a full two weeks after they had been forced to pick up their powers and pack up their bags, the town was both getting back to normal and still sort of holding its breath, waiting for the gods to return.
Like the ghost girl at the lighthouse waiting for her love to return from the sea.
Except we weren’t going to pull any tourist dollars off our absent god situation.
“Beers are on the house. I’m working up some holiday brews and need the feedback.”
“No rhubarb?”
He laughed, a liquid bark that sounded a little like a sea lion, something I would never say to his face, since I liked free beer.
“No rhubarb. Pumpkin, spices, coconut. Give it a go.”
I lifted the deep, dark beer that had a shaft of red where light hit it the hardest, and sipped. Gods, that was good.
“Amazing,” I said. “This is a winner.”
Chris gave me a half bow, and then wandered off to the next table, depositing a sampler tray.
I took Ryder’s fry and bit down into the heat and crunch and salt of it. My appetite was still off. So was my breathing and sleep schedule and range of motion.
Basically, getting shot with a blood and dirt bullet meant to take out a vampire left all sorts of lingering pains and weirdness.
I was recovering, and as far as the doctors, ancient texts, and witches could tell, I would be whole in the long run. But the short run was still sort of a day to day thing filled with pain and change, and hope for tomorrow to be better in small ways.
“Why don’t you tell me why you don’t want to go home.” Ryder picked up his beer, took one drink, then pushed everything to one side of the table so he could fold his elbows down and watch me. See me.
I resisted the urge to rub at my neck, where the bite from Lavius had faded to soft red freckles I wasn’t sure I’d ever be rid of. The tie between us though? That was gone. Blessedly so.