Tobias allowed a thin sliver of a smile at that. He understood perfectly well why that so rankled Aaron. It sounded a lot like something Hylas would have said. It made sense, they’d all picked up some of the little quirks of Hylas’s speech, much as Dawn Marie had done with Tobias.
They loaded Hylas into the hearse and then waited for Mitch and Callie to get into the limousine driven by Helen that would follow behind the hearse. Tobias had every right to ride in the car with them, but he didn’t do it. Instead, he drove his father’s truck, which had already been pulled into line behind the limo. Dawn Marie followed him and everyone else fell into line after them, a long snaking train of shining fiberglass bodies and the dull metal gleam of Nick’s old blue and white Chevy pick-up truck.
As they drove, the sky grew dark and Tobias thought for a moment that the sun had gone behind a cloud. Then he glanced up and nearly slammed on the brakes.
It was the crows; a huge black mass of them like a moving blanket thrown across the sky followed the funeral procession through town. They kept pace with the slow-moving snake of cars. By the time they made it back to Gallagher House, many of the crows had already arrived and sat perched like sentries in the pecan trees lining the driveway.
Everyone but the hearse and Tobias parked in the circular drive or on the lawn beside it; Tobias stopped long enough to pick up his father, Nick and Aaron, then drove on around the house toward the cemetery. The little lane leading up to the cemetery was barely wide enough to admit the hearse, but they persevered and Tobias followed.
They stopped behind Mr. Greene then got out of the truck to wait for the rest of the mourners, led by Dawn Marie, to make it to the cemetery. All around the grounds more crows perched and Aaron spent most of the wait smoking and giving the birds suspicious looks. Lenore preened Tobias and Aaron sidled away from them both with a look of deep mistrust. Nick watched, but didn’t seem bothered by the birds so much as mildly bemused; though he did keep glancing toward the far corner of the cemetery and the unmarked grave there. If anything there would give him pause it was what lay beneath the poppies swaying high and bright in the afternoon sunlight.
By the time the rest of the mourners reached them, their carefully styled hair and neatly done make-up was in the state of disrepair Tobias had known they would be. Ladies fanned themselves with pieces of paper; men mopped their brows with napkins or handkerchiefs. Armpits were ringed with wetness and everyone was wilted by the heat that had soared into the upper nineties with a heat index of around one hundred and ten. No one talked and they all walked slower with each step they took as Dawn Marie led them to the grave that had been dug for Hylas the evening before.
Tobias nodded to Mr. Greene once everyone was in place, seated beneath the shade offered by the awning over the grave site. Mr. Greene opened the door to the hearse and they hauled Hylas out again for his last walk. Tobias stumbled and nearly flinched when he felt his father’s hand on his elbow.
“Steady, son,” Mitch said with a heavy breath. “We’re almost there.”
“Yes, sir,” Tobias said.
Thus began the long walk to the very top of the hill, the spot with the best view of the lovely little cemetery. The poppies whispered against their trousers, nodding, papery blooms brushed the tails of their coats. Insects hummed in the long silky grass and a squirrel barked at the intruders. A wet breeze blew through the trees and made the carefully trimmed cypresses sway with its touch. Scores of crows observed them, still silent, still curious, ever-watchful.
At the grave, Mitch said a few more words about Hylas and then stepped forward to lay a flower on the casket. The mourners all filed past after him, each one laying a flower taken from Tobias’s gardens atop the casket, already bedecked with its wreath of roses and irises. Then the whine of the little motor came as they began to lower Hylas into the cold, dark earth and Tobias felt his entire world tremble, the infrastructure of him threatening to collapse. He held on though and when it was over, he stared down at the coffin in its deep hole then stooped, lifted a clod of dirt and dropped it in. Mitch and Callie followed suit and just like that, it was over. There was nothing left to do but walk back down to the house and drink, eat and talk in low, hushed tones until someone got drunk enough they remembered how to laugh.
“Come on, Toby,” Dawn Marie said.
“Yeah, Tobias, come on now,” Mitch echoed.
“I’m going to wait here until they’ve filled it in,” Tobias said.
Dawn Marie’s lip quivered again and his father looked down at his shoes then up at him.
“You don’t have to do that, Tobias,” Mitch said. “God knows you’ve done enough already because I’ve been so goddamn useless. Let this one go. Give yourself a rest from all this… this…”
“Death?” Tobias offered.
“Yes, damnit, all this death,” Mitch said. He wiped at his face, swiping away sweat and a small freshet of tears from beneath his light blue-green eyes.
“After this,” Tobias said. He spread his feet slightly apart and folded his hands in front of himself. “I’ll be along directly.”
“Son—”
“Come on, Mr. Mitch,” Dawn Marie said. “He’s not going to budge. You know how he is.”
“But damnit, Tobias,” Mitch said. “I hate this more than anything, but you cannot keep doing this to yourself.”
“I’ll be all right,” Tobias said, staring down at the casket with its flowers speckled with soil. “Y’all go on now, I’ll take care of it.”
“Tobias,” Mitch started, really gearing up for an argument that he had to know he would lose.
“Mitchell, leave him alone,” Callie broke in. “There ain’t a lick of use arguing with him and you know it, just like Dawn Marie said.”
“Dad damnit,” Mitch said. He started to walk away then stopped, turned on his heel and came back. He stared at Tobias and he looked back, waiting for the explosion that did not come. Instead, Mitch grabbed him in a hug so tight and fierce it took his breath away. Tobias could not remember the last time his father had hugged him and it so took him by surprise that he didn’t immediately embrace him back. Then he did and once more, he felt his world threaten to collapse it was so overwhelming.
“Thank you,” his father whispered harshly. “For being a good son and great brother.”
Tobias did not know what to say, so he only nodded and that seemed to satisfy Mitch. He released him and with one last quick nod, he walked away to join Callie. Tobias looked at Dawn Marie who stood a few feet away watching him.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You are a pigheaded bastard,” Dawn Marie said as she walked back to him and stood on his left side.
“He is that, but we love the boy,” Mr. Greene said as he took the place on Tobias’s right.
“Thank you both,” Tobias said with the first real smile he’d had in ages.
“Don’t mention it, fucko,” Dawn Marie said. Her voice was tight and watery, but she still punched him lightly on the arm then laughed when Lenore pecked at her for the trespass. “Sorry, lady,” she said around her laughter
It was time to move this along to its final end and Tobias knew it. He motioned to the men waiting in the back of the cemetery, half-concealed in the shadows where they’d been waiting with their shovels. It was a truly old-fashioned burial, but there was no way any kind of large equipment could have made it up the narrow trail to the graveyard on Tobias’s property.
As they came forward, Tobias looked up and saw Nick leaning against a tree trunk near the entrance to the cemetery. He didn’t come any closer, but he nodded at Tobias and Tobias nodded back. A moment later, Aaron appeared on the other side of the entrance, smoking, a bottle of vodka dangling from his hand. He didn’t wave or nod, but he watched as well.
They said their last silent goodbyes to Hylas Mitchell Dunwalton, Esq. When the final shovelful of dirt was tamped down on the grave, Tobias felt heavy and light all at once, swaying on his feet. There was no more pretending
Hylas had only gone out for a snack run or to do an interview. As he wept silently, the crows broke their silence and began to caw and flap their wings. It was a jarring cacophony of sound so loud that it echoed over the grounds of Gallagher House and sounded like music inside Tobias’s head.
14
One of the pitfalls of living with a bona fide junkie was that they could become disruptive without any notice or care that they were being a pain the ass. The night of Hylas Dunwalton’s funeral, Jeremy had gone to the show in Houma and picked up a pretty waif of a thing by the name of Michael. He hadn’t been big as a minute, was possessed of a filthy mouth and a boyishly handsome face that, when coupled with his slight stature, gave the impression of a foul-mouthed twelve year old. Every time he said “fuck”, Jeremy had wanted to tell him to watch his mouth; that was how young he looked. He had latched onto Jeremy with the tenacity of a stoned limpet though and while he wasn’t Jeremy’s usual flavor, he’d decided he would do because the pickings were slim at Acoustica’s that night.
He’d brought Michael home, dosed him and carried him out to the barn, once again baffled by how small the man was. Then he’d gone inside to check on Mooncricket—to make sure Mooncricket was down for the count. He had been nodding in the recliner near the stereo, Soilent Green playing loud enough to rupture his eardrums—and drown out any noise that might issue from the barn.
Satisfied, Jeremy had left him to it and gone back to spend some quality time with Michael. His hands were shaking with nervous excitement in a way they had not done in years. He was going to do it really right this time, he was going to call for Thanatos and he would come to him. It would work, goddamnit, it would. Jeremy prepared Michael’s body lovingly, listened to the hum and whisper of the shadow wraiths as they gathered around him and touched his naked skin. His breath quickened as he made the first cut, his pulse throbbed in his erect cock. He opened his mouth to begin his prayer to Thanatos, to call him out of the ether where he was lost, far away from the passing of time—far away from Jeremy.
Then he’d heard it: A knock at the double doors of the barn followed by Mooncricket’s softly slurring voice. The shadow wraiths spat in outrage and Barghest growled.
“Jeremy,” Mooncricket called. “Jeremy… I can’t… I can’t find my lighter. Hello? Are you in there?” Louder banging. “Jeremy, hey. Hey, Jeremy. I need to talk to you.”
Teeth gritted, Jeremy whispered under his breath a command that stirred a breeze as the wraiths hastened to obey him and blow out the candles. On the altar, Michael bled out from his cut throat, the sound of the small waterfall of thick blood pattering onto the grass made Jeremy ball his hands into fists. Ruined. It was all RUINED.
“Aw, man, Jeremy,” Mooncricket said. “I’m cold. Why am I cold? This sucks, dude. I can’t find my lighter. Can I borrow yours?” More banging at the barn doors.
Jeremy tugged on his jeans and told himself he would not kill Mooncricket. He wouldn’t even hit him. Would. Not. He promised himself that as he walked down the center aisle of the barn in total darkness, the body on the altar behind him well hidden by the night and the shadow wraiths gathered around it, crooning their disappointment.
Jeremy opened the barn door, shoved Mooncricket back then slammed the door. He would not hit him. I won’t do it, he told himself.
In the end, he settled on kicking him and pushing him down; tried to rationalize it away as, At least I didn’t hit him.
Still, his “no abusing the junkie boyfriend” streak was officially broken. In the end, Jeremy dragged Mooncricket back into the house by his hair and left him lying in the kitchen while he went to find his fucking lighter. He threw it at Mooncricket then stepped over him, ignoring his pathetic apologies.
“Stay in the goddamn house,” Jeremy said. “If you don’t, I’ll cave your fucking skull in.”
Mooncricket began to weep then and Jeremy was not moved as he went back into the moonless night to do the best he could with Michael’s body. It was pointless though, the ritual had been ruined and Jeremy could do nothing but follow through with the halfhearted actions of a man stuck in a mindless routine. He let the wraiths love him when he was done, let them slide inside and out of him, all over and under, until he could barely think any longer. Then he finished the job and disposed of Michael, not at all proud of that night’s work and still so mad he could barely think straight even after he left Michael on the steps of the post office: Special delivery!
One month and three days passed before Jeremy went out again. No matter how much he wanted to go right out and try again, he could not. He’d been careful for so long, doing everything he knew to do to avoid capture, that to fuck it up so close to actually succeeding in his goal was unthinkable no matter how much he despised the wait.
On the night he went out, Jeremy made sure he left Mooncricket even more heroin than before. There was a half-life on the doses he took because of his longtime abuse of the drug and subsequent tolerance for it. Jeremy blamed himself for not factoring that in before. He left Mooncricket so out of it that he didn’t even notice when Jeremy wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. He was no more than a beautiful doll when he was that wasted and Jeremy found him even more exquisite; just an object, a work of art that lived and breathed. He had all the moving parts and you could fuck him if you wanted to, but he wasn’t even real when that much heroin was pumping through him. Jeremy did often wonder if Mooncricket was going to ruin the upholstery on his sofa one day when he nodded so deeply he up and pissed his pants.
Jeremy promised himself he would not hurt Mooncricket for it if he did and it really was a promise he hoped he would be able to keep.
The bar was called Dementia and the band playing was named Assimilate or Die. They were pretty good, a little too punk and not enough metal in sound for Jeremy’s taste, but the lead vocalist could actually sing really well when he took a mind to.
He leaned against the bar and watched the crowd moshing in the small pit that had formed near the stage. It was one of the great things about shows in small venues versus shows played in arenas: in small venues, the pit lived on; all of those sweating, writhing bodies crashing into each other with wild abandon that would leave bruises as reminders the next day. It was packed inside Dementia and Jeremy looked away from the pit, hoping to catch the eye of something pretty and hungry. Something that would let him take it home and cut it open. He’d been half-hard since he left his house and his cock twitched at the potential of all that blood. His heart leapt at the thought of finally laying his eyes on Thanatos again, of being sucked in and spit back out at himself in the reflection of those polished obsidian eyes.
Jeremy took a long swallow of his beer, fingers of his other hand curling into a fist that he shoved in his pocket. God, he wanted so bad, all of them hungered and yearned inside of Jeremy and filled him up. He was never alone with the souls and memories stored inside his mind.
Hurry! Hurry!
Take your time. Choose carefully.
Burn them all.
Call to him now.
Wait. Don’t jump the gun.
It was confusing, that roar of sound, all of them murmuring, whispering, yelling at once. They all wanted the same thing, but their methods conflicted, their varying levels of patience collided and crashed apart inside Jeremy’s head. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, deeply; the music washed over him and tore their voices apart as it swelled with the pounding of drums and the screaming of guitars. The vocalist, a big, handsome man with a scar in his eyebrow, roared into the microphone and the crowd went wild. Jeremy found himself smiling in response, head beginning to bob to the beat as the song got angrier, meaner, left its punk rock trappings behind and pelted him with death metal rage.
Someone bumped into him, startling him out of his nearly transcendent state.
Jeremy snapped his eyes open and turned his head to look at the person who had just knocked into him. It was a girl with her hair in a tall, neon red Mohawk. She glanced at Jere
my and raised her thin, arched eyebrows at him. Her skin was pale and her eyes were an even paler blue. She had multiple facial piercings and gauged ears, the tattoo of a black butterfly on the side of her neck an inky silhouette against the nearly translucent whiteness of her milky skin.
With another smile, Jeremy leaned closer to her and yelled to be heard over the music, “Can I buy you a drink?”
The girl gave him a careful once over then smiled back. “Sure. PB and J,” she said.
“Good choice,” Jeremy said as he raised his hand to signal to the bartender. PB and J was a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and a shot of Jameson whiskey. If she was drinking those all night, she’d be good and bombed by the time Jeremy decided to take her home. He was happy to buy the girl with the glacier-blue eyes all she wanted.
“What’s your name?” he asked after he got their drinks.
She downed the shot of Jameson like a real pro, all the earmarks of a budding alcoholic in the ease with which she swallowed the whiskey. She licked her lips then said, “Medusa. What’s your name?”
“Charon,” Jeremy said on a whim. He usually lied about his name anyway, but unlike a lot of the people who frequented such establishments as Dementia, he tended to go with more normal names: Eddie, Ted, Karl. When he was feeling particularly fanciful, he would introduce himself as Herman, But you can just call me H.
“Cool,” Medusa said as she bobbed her head to the music. “These guys are fuckin’ awesome, am I right?”
“Yeah, they’re really badass,” Jeremy said. “You been into them long?”
“Since the beginning,” Medusa said. She drank deeply from her beer and Jeremy sipped his shot. “I saw them play their first gig back when One Eyed Jacks was still The Shim-Sham.”
“Damn,” Jeremy said. “That’s intense.”
“No, dude,” Medusa said. “That’s love.”
Jeremy laughed and raised his shot to her. “I can dig that very well. Love is obsession, yeah?”
“Fuck yeah,” Medusa said.
Falls the Shadow (Sparrow Falls Book 2) Page 20
