The Devouring Gray

by Christine Lynn Herman

  Justin didn’t understand how it was possible to be simultaneously proud of May, relieved she’d known what to say, and jealous that he hadn’t.

  But he was.

  The only power Justin had left in this town was charm and respect. And now May had shown that she could use those tools, too.

  This was his chance to prove he still mattered.

  “I’m going in,” he said, ignoring his instincts to run as he pushed open the darkened doorway and stepped into the restaurant.

  The cozy booths and dim lighting that Justin knew so well were gone. In their place was a dim, cavernous space, littered with yellow foam lining and overturned chairs. Two figures stood beneath the blacked-out neon sign, and in front of them was Isaac, his back pressed against the wall, his limbs folded inward like a crumpled piece of paper.

  The rituals were not designed to be easy. Justin had always known that the price of a hawthorn tree that did not bow would likely be his life.

  But Richard Sullivan had taken a different path to power. The town loved to whisper about the Sullivans’ large, messy family history, marred by disappearances and accidents. Yet Justin had paid the stories no mind until three years ago, when he’d jolted awake in the middle of the night with the taste of blood in his throat and the unshakable feeling that Isaac was in trouble.

  He’d followed his gut through the forest.

  What he found left him forever changed.

  “Isaac?” Justin’s sneakers crunched across broken plates as he stepped gingerly toward the back of the room. “Are you okay?”

  Isaac didn’t move.

  “Hey!” said one of the figures hovering beside him. “Get up!”

  “Yeah, get the fuck up!” said the other one, but there was no real strength behind the boys’ words. They were a pair of scavengers, nipping at a wounded tiger.

  “Guys,” said Justin, his voice low and steady. He had to get Isaac out of here before Augusta showed up. Before she took care of him, the way she’d taken care of Harper, or the way she’d take care of Violet if she learned what the girl could really do. “You should leave.”

  “Oh, great, the fucking cavalry’s here,” said the one on the right, crossing his arms. The light filtering in through the window glinted off his bald head, and Justin recognized Pete. “Prince Charming, running in to save the day.”

  “Except you’re too late,” added Theo as he flexed his biceps. The brothers looked nearly identical, but where Pete chose to keep his head shaved, glowing white and ghostly in the half-light coming in through the window, Theo let his dull brown hair grow long enough to tie back in a greasy ponytail. “He ruined our restaurant. Now he’s gotta pay.”

  “Listen,” said Justin, trying to adopt their slouching mannerisms, their deep drawl. “You sure it’s even worth it? He’s just sitting there.”

  “He made Ma cry,” said Pete, scowling. “Nobody makes Ma cry.”

  “Damn straight!” bellowed Theo. “We give him a job and this is how he repays us? You can’t just treat this town like trash because you’re founders. You don’t get to walk all over us anymore.”

  “You know the founders are here to protect you,” said Justin, trying to keep his voice even.

  “Really?” said Theo. “Well, look what your boy here did. Maybe it’s you we need protection from.”

  “Maybe it’s time to defend ourselves,” said Pete, lumbering forward and kicking Isaac lightly in the side of the leg. Justin tensed, but Isaac stayed still.

  “Stop,” Justin said.

  They didn’t listen.

  Now they were braver. Justin called out another protest as Theo moved in. “You little. Piece. Of. Shit.” Each word was punctuated by another kick, each one a little heavier than the last. Each time, Justin’s anger boiled a little higher, but Isaac’s body remained as limp as a rag doll.

  When Justin had found Isaac in the woods that night, he’d been unconscious, his hands and feet shackled to the earth. He’d stepped across charred bits of bone and ash and knelt down beside Isaac, sobs catching in his throat. Soot-streaked blood pooled in the hollows of Isaac’s neck, and Justin thought he was too late, that he was already gone. But when he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, Isaac stirred.

  His mother found them eventually—some of the nearby houses had heard screams—and she took them both away. By then, Justin’s fingers had been scraped raw from trying to break Isaac’s shackles.

  Later, Augusta had told him that the Sullivans’ ritual was a bloodletting, a test of strength and fortitude that proved they deserved their powers. But something had gone wrong during Isaac’s ritual. Four Sullivans, including two of Isaac’s brothers, were dead. Their bodies had been disintegrated to ashes and charred bones—nothing else was left. And his mother was in a coma.

  Within weeks, the remaining Sullivans were gone. They left Isaac behind, signed over to Augusta.

  Justin accepted the truth his mother had told him, and yet there was another truth, too, in the scar on Isaac’s neck, in the evidence he had seen that horrible night.

  The other Sullivans had scars on their shoulders, on their chests, on their backs.

  You did not draw a knife across someone’s throat as a test of fortitude.

  “Get away from him,” Justin said, stepping between Pete and Theo.

  Isaac sagged on the ground beside them. Justin had a brief flash of concern that he might be unconscious.

  “If you’re supposed to protect us,” said Pete venomously, “why does it seem like he’s all you care about?”

  And then his fist was swinging toward Justin’s face, and Justin realized, too late, that being a founder wasn’t going to protect him this time.

  That being a founder made him a target.

  The punch connected with Justin’s jaw, jerking his head backward, sending a splash of spots before his eyes as he reeled from the impact. And it was only then, as Justin stumbled into the wall, that Isaac’s eyes snapped open.

  Isaac grinned. “Bad move.”

  Pete’s and Theo’s eyes widened as Isaac unfolded, his arms and legs spreading toward the ceiling like bits of ink spilling across a canvas. He was still wearing his apron.

  “Run,” Justin said to them.

  Yet the boys just stood there as the air around Isaac’s hands began to shimmer. Within moments, the entire Diner was glowing; a maelstrom of reds and blues and purples bouncing off broken plates in violent, fragmented patterns. Isaac stepped in front of Justin, his outstretched arms shielding his friend. Pete and Theo exchanged confused glances, their eyes shifting uneasily between the boy in front of them and the door behind them.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Justin bellowed. “Run!”

  But he was too late. Isaac’s hands clamped around the boys’ wrists. The screaming started a second later, as first Pete, then Theo, fell to their knees, howling.

  Justin stared, horrified.

  Words would not help him here. And all he could think of was what Theo had said: Maybe it’s you we need protection from.

  He could not let this happen.

  He sidestepped Isaac’s arms, wincing at the sight of Pete’s and Theo’s skin flaking away from their hands, and stepped into the center of the shimmering air.

  “What the hell are you doing?” snarled Isaac, his voice barely audible over the screams.

  Justin reached forward and closed his hand around Isaac’s exposed forearm.

  The heat felt good at first, like basking in the sun. But quickly, the warmth became unbearable on his nose and cheeks. Yet Justin did not flinch. He did not move. He kept his eyes locked on Isaac’s until his friend’s gaze flickered away, and the room around them snapped abruptly back to darkness.

  Isaac would die before he hurt him. Justin knew that the way he knew his own name, the way he knew how to breathe.

  Pete and Theo collapsed to the ground, wailing at the stripes of raw flesh on their wrists, but a quick glance in their direction told Justin that their injuries we
re just surface wounds. Isaac hadn’t reached muscle.

  Justin was still holding Isaac’s arm. He let go, stepped back. Isaac’s eyes flickered down to their broken grip, then back up to him, his expression strangely disappointed.

  “Get out,” Isaac told Pete and Theo roughly. They scrambled to their feet and bolted, urine dribbling down Theo’s leg.

  Justin and Isaac were left alone in the ruins of the Diner, staring at each other.

  “He called you Prince Charming,” Isaac said finally, when the silence between them had gone on for far too long.

  “What?”

  “Pete. Prince Charming. You. Isn’t it interesting that they think you’re the one who always saves everybody?”

  Justin kicked at a bit of broken glass. “Well. Don’t I?”

  Isaac tugged the ever-present book out of his back pocket, shaking his head at the singed pages.

  “I’m not some charity case with a tragic past that you have to keep out of trouble,” he said, brandishing the novel like a weapon.

  “And I’m not some weak kid you have to babysit.”

  “I never said—”

  “Neither did I.”

  This was how it was between them now, how it had been since Justin had failed his ritual. A constant struggle for who was the saved and who was the savior, reversal after reversal. Each time their roles flipped, Justin could feel himself trying a little less hard to pull Isaac back from the brink.

  “So.” Isaac stuck the book back in his pocket and yanked off his apron. “I’m fired, right?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Justin, shaking his thoughts away. “And probably banned for life.”

  They left through the back door, and as they stepped out into the parking lot, the sound of their footsteps muted by a sudden deluge of rain, Isaac spoke again.

  “I don’t know why you haven’t given up on me yet,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”

  Justin turned to look at him, at the rain that dripped from Isaac’s dark hair down to the bridge of his nose.

  “I’ll give up when you do,” he said.

  Isaac’s mouth did something funny at the corners that made Justin wonder if he’d forgotten how to smile.

  He and Isaac tried so desperately to prop each other up because it made them feel stronger. Because part of Justin wanted Isaac to lose it so he could calm him down. So he could be needed. And he knew that part of Isaac was glad Justin had failed his ritual so that Isaac himself had someone to protect.

  He hated that part of Isaac almost as much as he hated the corresponding part of himself.

  Isaac’s shoulder pressed against his for a second, almost leaning, almost not, and then they walked into the parking lot, into the rain, waiting for Augusta’s deputies to find them.

  Founders’ Day dawned bright and sunny, yesterday’s rain clouds long gone, but Justin was in no position to appreciate any of that. Instead, he was stuck inside, staring his mother down from across the polished wooden table in the center of her office at the police station.

  He’d been dreading this conversation from the moment Augusta found him and Isaac behind the Diner. His mother had been too busy between damage control and Founders’ Day prep to corner him the night before, but Justin wasn’t naive enough to think that this would be a pleasant talk just because she’d slept on it first. Augusta’s anger was worse the longer she let it simmer.

  “I’m interested in what you have to say for Isaac this time,” she said. “Every property damage complaint we get, every furious mother, makes me less convinced he should be allowed to run around unchecked.”

  Justin hadn’t been lying when he told Violet that his mother’s lack of faith in him had made him begin to doubt her leadership. But the truth was that the erosion of that trust had started years before. What she’d done to Harper had left him perpetually concerned that she would do the same thing to Isaac. She’d been kind to him at first, taking him in, letting him stay in the town hall apartment. But Justin knew it was only to obtain Isaac’s loyalty: People only mattered to Augusta as long as they were useful.

  And Isaac was starting to tip the scales between useful and dangerous.

  “He’s the only Sullivan left in Four Paths,” Justin said.

  “The others will come back,” Augusta said calmly. “Eventually. They always come back.”

  “And how long will it take for you to earn their trust, once they do?” said Justin. “Isaac owes you everything. I’m not saying he’s not at fault here. But he’s never hurt an innocent, and he never will.”

  “The Burnham boys would beg to disagree.”

  “They goaded him into it,” said Justin. “The things they said to him, to me—”

  “Did not warrant what Isaac put them through.”

  “Mother,” said Justin. “They’re fine.”

  Theo and Pete were actually a lot better than fine. They were as good as healed after a few bandages at the clinic. On his way to the sheriff’s station, Justin had seen them recounting their version of events to every girl they could find. They’d even tried it on Violet, and immediately looked so remorseful, Justin had to smile.

  But Isaac had still hurt them. And that mattered.

  “They’re considering pressing charges,” Augusta said, leaning across the table. “Vandalism, aggravated assault.”

  “That’s ridiculous! It was provoked.”

  Augusta spread her fingers across the desk.

  “You’re not seeing the bigger picture here,” she said. “The town is upset with us. They need a scapegoat. And Isaac is an easy target.”

  Justin bit back the urge to tell her that he’d noticed just how upset the town was—no need to make her angry.

  “So convince the Burnhams not to press charges,” he said, trying to stay calm. “You’ve protected people before. I’ve seen it.”

  “And what will I do the next time?”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  “You said that after the grocery store incident.”

  Justin knew he had to play this like a deal—a deal she’d be foolish not to take. With Augusta Hawthorne, everything was about bargaining.

  “There won’t be a next time,” he repeated. “Because if this ever happens again, you can use your power on him.”

  It took a lot to surprise his mother, but Justin had done it. He could see it wash over her like a brisk breeze, her body stiffening, then relaxing as the idea sank in.

  “Fine,” she said at last. “Tell him he can participate in the Founders’ Day Pageant today, but he’s staying in tonight. An unstable patrolman out on the night of the equinox could be deadly.”

  “But we’re already stretched thin!” Justin leaned forward. “It’s not safe.”

  “I know,” said Augusta, meeting his eyes. “Which is why I’m putting you back on the roster. Consider it my way of seeing if pulling you off patrol was a mistake or not.”

  “Oh.” Justin tried not to feel proud, and then tried not to feel guilty about it. “Thank you. I won’t let you down.”

  “I’m sure,” said Augusta. “And, Justin?”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “I hope you understand that what you’ve just agreed to means no regrets. Not like with Harper Carlisle.”

  Justin forced himself to smile at her.

  “I understand,” he said, and then a deputy came to lead him to the holding cell Isaac was in.

  Isaac looked better than Justin had expected him to, considering. They’d treated the wounds the Burnham brothers had given him at the station clinic.

  “You here to spring me from the pokey?” he said dryly, sprawled out on the bench in the back of Four Paths’ one and only holding cell.

  “Nah,” said Justin. “Just came by to make fun of the prisoners.”

  “And you didn’t even bring any fruit to throw at me? Shameful.”

  The deputy started to punch in the code on the keypad at the other side of the cell. Isaac rose, yawning and making a
show of stretching his arms above his head.

  “You know they don’t even let us read in here?” he said as the reddish stone bars of the prison slid upward. “How inhumane is that?”

  “You’re supposed to meditate on your wrongdoing.” Justin barely recognized this deputy—his mother was clearly hurting for staff after Anders’s death.

  “Do I look like I meditate?” said Isaac, stepping through the bars.

  Justin gestured toward the exit as the deputy’s light brown forehead furrowed with annoyance. “Let’s go. Before they lock you up again.”

  Outside the police station, the sun shone brightly down on Main Street. People were everywhere, perusing stalls set up by local businesses who’d turned out to sell their wares at Founders’ Day and chatting on the sidewalk. But Justin sensed an undercurrent of unease beneath the bustling town. Tonight was one of the most dangerous nights of the year in Four Paths. The night when the lines between the town and the Gray began to blur.

  Which was why it was the perfect time for the Founders’ Day festival. It was a way to boost morale for the town and remind the people of their trust in the founders—even when the founding families were at their weakest.

  It was a smart idea. Justin was willing to bet a Hawthorne had come up with it.

  The crux of the celebration was the Founders’ Pageant, an event that was meant to symbolize the contributions the founding families had made to the town. One representative from each of the founding families would be “crowned” by the mayor, then sent to place a token of their family’s esteem on the town seal.

  For the past three years, Justin had been the Hawthorne to do the ceremony, joining a disinterested Daria Saunders, Isaac, and one of the Carlisle children in the town square.

  But Daria Saunders was dead, and this was Justin’s first festival since failing his ritual. The thought of wearing a crown and grinning at the crowd felt different now.

  All the things that had once been easy for Justin were slowly becoming impossible. He didn’t like it.

  “She took me off patrol, didn’t she?” said Isaac as they strode past the booth where Old Man Moore sold pigs—pigs that families desperately returned a few days later.