Falls the Shadow (Sparrow Falls Book 2)

by Justine Sebastian

  He rolled to his side and forced his eyes open to look at Mooncricket who slowly rolled his head to the side to look back at him and smile. It was faraway and stoned, but it looked good on him.

  “It’s nice that you love me, you know,” Jeremy said. “I just thought I should tell you that.”

  Mooncricket’s smile got bigger as he turned over to face Jeremy, so close they were breathing each other’s breath.

  “Cool,” he said as his eyes drifted closed.

  Jeremy stroked his hair and watched him until his own eyes closed. Then he was sinking. He was falling.

  He was flying, held tight in the arms of Thanatos.

  25

  After the incident in the front yard, Tobias went to work like usual and tried to pretend nothing had happened. When Dawn Marie tried to broach the subject he either ignored her or talked about something else entirely unrelated to the matter. He could tell she was getting fed up with his avoidance, but he didn’t want to hear it and didn’t want to discuss it. It was enough that all he could do was think about it; dragging it out into the harsh light of day to dissect it would not do him any good. In fact, he worried it would have the opposite effect: he would lose his temper again and break something else. Maybe someone’s neck this time because he was that pissed off and anger with no direction tended to go in all directions once it was let off its leash.

  He assisted Mr. Greene in arranging a funeral for the following day though Tobias was the one doing most of the work. Mr. Greene had been coming in more regularly than usual, back to working full-time instead of the semi-retired position he’d taken for the last couple of years. He was distracted though, tired and not on his game, which was to be expected. Tobias didn’t know whether to ask if there had been any new developments in Helen’s case or if he should leave it alone.

  Mr. Greene decided for him while they were standing outside smoking after they’d assisted the bereaved in choosing the right casket. The grieving widow had patted Mr. Greene on her way out and said, “And I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am to hear about Helen. We’re all praying for her.”

  “I thank you,” Mr. Greene had said, professional as always, but since then he’d been more than quiet; he’d been brooding.

  He took a drag off his Benson & Hedges menthol and flicked ash on the concrete between his feet. On the other side of the parking lot the crows watched them with great interest.

  “I miss my little girl,” Mr. Greene said.

  Tobias nodded, but said nothing; Mr. Greene wasn’t done yet and he knew it.

  “I tell you what though,” Mr. Greene said on an exhale of smoke. “I don’t think she’s ever coming back. I wouldn’t say that to my Rosetta or to Thias in a million years, but I think they know it, too.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Greene,” Tobias said. He wasn’t uncomfortable, but he didn’t know what to say either. While he agreed with Mr. Greene, it wasn’t something he should say aloud, regardless of what the man himself thought.

  “Not so sorry as I am,” Mr. Greene said. “This has been one bad summer, that’s for damn sure. I lay awake all night thinking about how bad it has been. I swear, boy, it’s like this summer is just eating people up. Swallowing them whole.”

  “It is a bad summer,” Tobias said, thinking about Hylas. “There’s been so much loss this season that it’s hard to fathom it sometimes.”

  “Mhmm,” Mr. Greene said with a nod. “My baby’s dead, Tobias. My baby is dead and I don’t even know where she’s at so I can get her and bring her home.” He shook his head and wiped at his eyes though they were dry. “What if she was scared? What if she laid there alone and hurting for a long time?” He took a deep breath. “What if she called for me and I wasn’t there to help her?”

  “Mr. Greene, I—”

  With a sharp wave of his hand, Mr. Greene cut him off. He sniffed loudly once then said, “Damn crows is everywhere in this town lately. You noticed that?”

  Given the sheer number of crows currently taking up residence on his own property, Tobias would have to be blind to miss it.

  “Yes, sir,” Tobias said. He wouldn’t push the issue about Helen. He thought Mr. Greene had said what he needed to say for the time being; had gotten the thing that was weighing on him most heavily out of the way. In time, the rest might come and Tobias would be there to listen when and if it did.

  “Been that way for weeks,” Mr. Greene said.

  “Yes, sir,” Tobias said. They’d been there since Hylas’s funeral, which Tobias was sure Mr. Greene knew very well.

  “You know what they say about crows?”

  “They’re pests?” Tobias ventured.

  “Shit, son, you know better,” Mr. Greene said, cutting his dark eyes to the side to look at him. A ghost of smile flitted around his lips. “Don’t you play dumb with me this late in the game.”

  “They say that crows are harbingers of death,” Tobias said then.

  “Exactly.” Mr. Greene pointed at the mass of black bodies gathered in the trees on the edge of the parking lot. “And what do you think that damn many crows means?”

  “A lot of death,” Tobias said. He no longer thought of the masses of crows gathered around Sparrow Falls as a murder of crows; he thought of them as a megadeath.

  “Mhmm,” Mr. Greene said again. “And ain’t shit we can do about it.”

  “It’s only a superstition, Mr. Greene,” Tobias said. “I’m sure if we looked into it then we’d find a legitimate reason for there being so many crows around now.”

  “Like what?” Mr. Greene asked. “You gonna blame it on El Niño or something?”

  Tobias smiled faintly at that then shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so, no.”

  “Then what?”

  “It could have something to do with environmental pressures, climate change. Things like that.”

  “No, it don’t and you know it,” Mr. Greene said. He stubbed out his cigarette in the standing ashtray beside the door.

  “I don’t know what I know,” Tobias said.

  “I think that’s a story we can all tell at some time or the other,” Mr. Greene said. He once more pointed at all of the crows. “But mark me on this, Tobias, them birds ain’t a good sign. They’re an omen.”

  “Of what?”

  “Something real ugly, that’s what.” He clapped Tobias on the shoulder with a low mmm sound then said, “I need to be getting on to the house. Rosetta don’t like being left alone in the evenings no more since Helen and them birds freak her out something fierce, too. They’re all over, you know.”

  “I have seen them, yes,” Tobias said.

  He put out his own cigarette and walked back inside with Mr. Greene. Dawn Marie was there earlier than usual, going through their cosmetics and marking on a sheet of paper what they were running low on. She smiled and waved at Mr. Greene as they walked through and he paused long enough to kiss her cheek.

  From somewhere near the cabinet they were standing beside, Gary said, “Oooh.”

  “Hush up, Gary,” Mr. Greene said, but he was smiling as he tipped Dawn Marie a wink that made her laugh.

  “We’ll get Mr. Hunt ready for tomorrow and don’t worry about the rest of the paperwork, I’ll handle that, too,” Tobias said.

  “I know you will,” Mr. Greene said as he put his hat on in preparation to leave. “You’re a good boy, Tobias.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Tobias said.

  Mr. Greene laughed and shook his head. “Weird, too.”

  “I know,” Tobias said.

  “All right, well I’m off,” Mr. Greene said. “You watch him, Dawn Marie, don’t let him get into any trouble.”

  “I’ll try to keep him away from all the hookers and cocaine, Mr. Greene, don’t you worry,” Dawn Marie said.

  Mr. Greene laughed again as he walked back out the heavy door of the room, still shaking his head, probably trying to imagine Tobias with a passel of hookers and a kilo of cocaine. Even Tobias couldn’t picture that.

/>   “I’m going to do that paperwork,” Tobias said. “We’ll start on Mr. Hunt around eight.”

  “Sure, Toby,” Dawn Marie said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but blew her bangs out of her face instead then went back to doing inventory.

  They had Mr. Hunt all prepped and ready for his early morning service by ten o’clock. It had been an uncommonly silent, tense few hours where even Gary couldn’t rouse either of them into much conversation. He finally settled on harassing Lenore instead until Tobias snapped at him for bothering her. Gary informed him he was a peanut-head—whatever that meant—then went off somewhere to sulk.

  “Are you ever going to talk to me?” Dawn Marie finally asked as they were cleaning up their workstations and putting everything away for the day.

  “I had hoped to avoid it entirely,” Tobias said.

  “This is fucking serious, Tobias.” She rarely used his whole name, was in fact the only person who ever called him Toby. For her to use Tobias clearly said that she meant business.

  “I know that,” he said. “Don’t you think I know that? But there’s nothing I can do about it right now and discussing it will accomplish nothing.”

  “It might make you feel a little better,” she said. “You bottle everything up and to bottle this up on top of it… Well. You’re going to explode, just one day, boom and then where will you be?”

  “Presumably in a messy semi-circle of meat and fluids,” he said as he picked up the broom to start sweeping.

  “Stop it,” she snapped, slapping her hand down on the steel table. “Just stop it. I was there yesterday, I saw what happened to you and it was awful. Whatever—whoever—is causing this is fucking serious and they’re going to really hurt you if we don’t do something.”

  “Fine.” Tobias leaned the broom against the wall and spread his arms out to his sides. “If you have any ideas then please illuminate me. I have no idea what’s going on, which has been the standing situation since this first started. I can’t go chasing after someone if I don’t know who they are.”

  He knew where they were or thereabouts, but he wasn’t about to go sharing that tidbit of information either. If he did, Dawn Marie would want to sally bravely forth and start a bunch of shit that would probably get one or both of them killed or seriously injured. Tobias was willing to put himself in danger before he’d ever willingly put Dawn Marie in such a situation; she was his friend, not a soldier to be sacrificed.

  “I’ll think of something,” she said. “I will. We will.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” he asked.

  Dawn Marie fisted her hands in her hair and pulled while making a growling sound of frustration in the back of her throat. “I don’t know, okay?” she said. “There. I said it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try.”

  “And you think I don’t?”

  “I know you do, but…” Dawn Marie trailed off with another frustrated groan and shook her head. “Fuck.”

  “Precisely.” Tobias picked the broom up again and resumed his task.

  When they were done, Dawn Marie hesitated by the door on their way out. “Look, if we’re not going to do anything tonight about… about the thing… then I was thinking I might go over to the fairgrounds and walk around for a little bit,” she said.

  “Hot date?” Tobias asked, pleased he kept the annoyance out of his voice.

  “Yeah, sort of,” she said. “It’s this guy I met online the other night. He lives out in Hackley, actually. He’s been wanting to meet up for a few days and I told him maybe we could meet during Old Home Week.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tobias said. He stared at her, wondering who this person was and what kind of asshole he would turn out to be. “And what is this fine gentleman’s name?”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “You’re forgiven. And his name is Keith,” she said.

  “He sounds nice,” Tobias said.

  “Right,” she said. “You hate all the guys I meet.”

  “Because they’re all assholes,” Tobias said. So much for keeping things neutral.

  “Whatever,” Dawn Marie said. “I’m gonna go. I’ll catch you later.” She pushed up on her tiptoes and pressed a soft, warm kiss to his cheek. “Bye, Toby.”

  Tobias went rigid at the contact and barely heard what she said. He was caught up in the nightmare her kiss had blossomed in his mind. Dawn Marie in the dark, the ridged bed of a pickup truck biting into her back and shoulders. She was fighting like a wildcat, cursing and screaming, kicking and slapping even as the cloth of her panties ripped. She was yanked roughly across the bed of the truck and the weight was suffocating as it covered her. The hands around her neck were hard and calloused, the fingers strong as iron that didn’t weaken in their grip one bit as she tore bloody gouges into her attacker’s forearms.

  Then there was pain and horror and nonono and the fingers squeezed tighter. The wee crack-snap of her hyoid bone as it broke. The spinning dizziness. The all-consuming fear as darkness reared up and her struggling heartbeat became an ocean in her ears.

  Then there was blackness. Stillness. Nothing ever again.

  Tobias gasped, eyes flying wide open at the vividness of what he had just seen. Rarely had he seen someone’s death so clearly, Hylas’s had really been the only other one. Even then he hadn’t felt it the way he’d felt Dawn Marie’s death; her rape and murder.

  She was walking away by then, unaware of the internal drama he’d just suffered through. She could not go to the fairgrounds, not alone and damn sure not with Keith.

  He pushed away from the door and moved across the parking lot quicker than he thought he could. He tried to speak, but his tongue was numb in the floor of his mouth, deadweight and useless. So he did the next best thing: he grabbed Dawn Marie around the waist and dragged her back toward the funeral home. He wasn’t thinking clearly at all, could only think, Keep her away from that man.

  “Toby! What the fuck?!” Dawn Marie screeched as he picked her up and carried her the last few feet back inside Greene’s. He put her down to pull the door closed behind them.

  She whirled on him and pushed him hard, though it barely swayed him on his feet.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she snarled.

  “You’re not going to meet that man,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed as she cocked her head to the side. “Oh, yeah? Who says?”

  “I say,” Tobias said, spreading his feet to better block the exit. She couldn’t go out the front doors without setting off the alarms there, so she was stuck with him.

  “Fuck you, man,” Dawn Marie said. “You don’t want to even talk to me, but suddenly you’re dictating my life? That’s not how any of this works. Get the hell out of my way.”

  “No,” Tobias said. “I will not get out of your way. Listen to me, Dawn Marie. You can’t go meet that Keith guy.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because he will kill you,” Tobias said. “I saw it when you kissed my cheek.”

  She took a stumbling step backward. “Holy shit,” Dawn Marie said. “Are you serious? I thought you said you never looked.”

  “I wasn’t looking this time,” Tobias said. “It just happened.”

  “Oh, my God,” Dawn Marie said. “You really saw it?”

  “Yes,” Tobias said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that then?” she asked then pushed him again, though nowhere near as hard. “You scared the hell out of me, just grabbing me like that. I thought you’d totally lost your mind for a second.”

  “Gone full-on Psycho?” Tobias asked then shook his head. “No. I… panicked. I couldn’t think past getting you away from him. I’m sorry if I scared you, but I won’t let some son of a bitch do… what he would have done to you.”

  “What would he have done to me?”

  “It isn’t important,” Tobias said. “Just cease contact with him, that’s all you need to know.”

&
nbsp; “Like hell it is,” Dawn Marie said. “What was he going to do to me?”

  “No,” Tobias said.

  “That bad, huh?” she asked. “Did he stab me to death?”

  “Worse.”

  “What?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I feel like I have to know,” she said. “It’s a thing.”

  “That is a terrible thing,” Tobias said.

  “Believe me, if you told people face-to-face that you had seen their deaths, they’d want to know, too,” Dawn Marie said. “We mere mortals are strange monkeys.”

  “Right,” Tobias said.

  “Can I give you a hug?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “And you’re not going to freak out and see more awful crap?”

  “I have no idea,” he said honestly.

  “Fuck it,” Dawn Marie said as she stepped into him and gave him a hug. “Tell me how I died,” she whispered against his chest. “I know, I know, it’s fucked up, but it’s driving me nuts.”

  “He—” Tobias hesitated and clenched his jaw as a new wave of anger, delayed in its arrival, but all the stronger for it, washed over him. “He choked you to death while he… um… while…”

  “Fuck,” Dawn Marie said, voice shaking. “Stop. Stop. I get it. You don’t have to spell that last part out for me.”

  “Thank God,” Tobias said, holding her tighter.

  “You really are my hero, you know,” Dawn Marie said.

  “I am nothing of the sort,” he said.

  “Sure you are. You’re mine anyway,” she said as she stepped back. “Know what else you are?”

  “What’s that?”

  “My date to Old Home Week,” she said. “I really do want to go and if we see Keith-the-Rapist, maybe you can put the fear of everything into him. But mostly… mostly now I just want to have some drinks with my best friend and maybe ride the Ferris wheel with him.”

  Tobias hesitated for a moment, but only a moment, less interested in drinks and rides than in the possibility they might well spot Keith. It would make him feel better to hit someone; it was a rare thing for him, but the way he’d felt lately he thought it might be therapeutic.