by Sierra Dean
The next time he looked up, I was right behind him.
Chapter Forty-Three
He froze, eyes darting from the bat to my face then back again.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked.
He nodded, swallowed hard, and stared at the bat.
“I’m going to need you to put down your tools. And don’t try to do anything stupid, like throwing something at me or running. You left your gun in the locker. I know you aren’t strong. And you know I am strong, so don’t fuck with me, okay?”
He dropped the tools on the concrete and lifted his hands like I was an old-timey bank robber here to steal his cash. He looked pathetic.
“What’s your name?”
“Jeff.”
He didn’t even have a name worth remembering. Jeff. Who the fuck would care about a guy named Jeff? After today, no one.
I kicked the tools away, even though none of them were really suitable as weapons. I was holding the bat with both hands, not easing up for an instant, ready to hit him in the head with it if he so much as flinched.
“Where’s the bomb you’re going to put under the stage?”
This got his full attention. “H-how do you kn-know about that?”
“I know everything,” I snarled. “I know you’re going to blow this car up in the valet line at five, and when that doesn’t do what you wanted, you’re going to turn the front lobby into a crater.”
Jeff didn’t seem able to comprehend what I was saying. “H-how?”
“That’s what you’re going to tell me. Where is it?” I touched the bat to his temple when he didn’t immediately reply. “Just know, Jeff, that no threats I make here today are idle ones, okay?”
His frame visibly sagged, and he sat on the front bumper. “It’s built into the stage. I went in after construction was finished and wired the whole base of the stage with C4.”
My gods. It was a wonder the lobby hadn’t been totally obliterated.
“And this?” I pointed to the car. “Is this ready?”
He shook his head and looked down at the tools spread across the floor. “I was so close.”
I stopped myself from breathing a sigh of relief, because the truth was he had been so close. He’d almost gotten exactly what he wanted.
“In a different version of this,” I said, “it goes exactly according to plan.”
Jeff stared at me, his confusion evident. This man, this sad, pathetic sack of organs and blood and air, had killed twelve kids. He’d killed Sawyer and my sister and so many other innocent lives. He’d stolen everything that mattered to me, and he had the audacity to look pitiful because I had taken away his toy.
A shudder of revulsion washed over me.
I should have called the police before I followed him, but the law was too fair. The law would give him a trial, and he would stay alive for years before being punished by death.
I had called someone very different before I stepped out of the shadows, a call that didn’t need a phone, so it didn’t matter how far belowground we were. The nice thing about calling a god is that they’re always listening. One prayer is all it takes when they’re already listening for you.
When the smell of sweet, fresh hay filled my nostrils, I knew my chance to take revenge was over.
Macha’s steps clomped loudly, echoing across the low ceiling, her hooves clattering against the concrete in a way that made each one sound like a gunshot. Jeff flinched and paled as they got closer. A sheen of sweat broke out over his skin. I’d feel sorry for him if I had an ounce of compassion left in me.
She appeared then, towering nine feet tall, looking majestic and horrible all at once. It was a skill the gods were well versed in, wearing two faces at the same time. Her long braids hung down over her shoulders. The crows on her head preened and spread their wings wide, making her crown huge and impossibly grotesque.
The blood on the hem of her dress glittered like rubies in the low light of the parking garage, like it was fresh. Beneath the skirts, her horselike legs shuffled.
“You brought me what I asked for,” Macha said to me, giving Jeff a cursory glance. “He does not seem so imposing.”
“He’s the one who killed your initiate.”
She stepped closer to him, and he quivered, shifting away. Macha laughed, and it made my skin crawl.
“Oh, no no, little man. You don’t get to bow and scrape now. You don’t get to flinch and tremble. You made your little dirt bed, and now you will lay in it. You are mine now.”
“Wh-what is this?” he begged me.
“Divine intervention.”
I dropped the bat on the ground and turned away as Macha descended. Jeff screamed, a high-pitched sound like a rabbit in a trap, and then the scream died in a wet gurgle.
When I looked back, Macha and Jeff were gone, and the only sign they’d ever been there at all was the smell of hay and the spray of fresh blood across the inside of the car’s hood.
Chapter Forty-Four
Nothing happened.
It was as if Jeff had never existed. With the exception of the explosives they discovered inside the Crown Vic, and the others that were found wired to the stage, that is.
Everything was quietly removed in the dead of night by the Las Vegas P.D. bomb squad. The press, even those who were staying at the hotel, never caught wind of the story.
The next day the public addresses were made, Imelda did the whole song and dance of how we, the clerics, were the earthly hands of god, and how everything we did was for the people. It all sounded cheap and hollow to me.
I didn’t fight with anyone at breakfast, so there was no reason for Sunny to chase after Sawyer. It meant they were both sitting right beside me for the speeches, in the row farthest from the stage.
The bombs might be gone, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
The speeches ended in a round of applause, rather than the sound of an explosion. When everyone started filing out, I stayed in my seat, staring up at the stage.
Nothing happened.
Cade stayed next to me as Prescott and Sunny got up, drifting apart from each other to speak to other people they knew. Sawyer tailed my sister, wanting to soak in the last minutes of the convention while they lasted. The last time Prescott and Sunny had been side by side he’d put his hands on her and snuffed out the glow inside that made her Sunny.
Part of me hated him for it.
It wouldn’t happen now, not like that, and he had done it to ease her suffering. Nothing about what Prescott had done in that alternate version of today was bad or wrong, and yet I hated him. The ember of my bitterness burned in my chest. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to let it go. He was death, and could sense death’s presence like I could sense rain. Had he known what was going to happen to Sunny? Had he kept quiet, even though he knew it would destroy me?
“You’re still being weird, you know,” Cade observed.
I yearned for him in a way I didn’t know possible. The previous night, when I hadn’t gone to the hospital, I had waited in my room for him until dawn. I had hoped in ways that defied reason that he would know how badly I wanted him to come and would show up without an explanation of why, simply because he knew it was what I needed.
He never came.
I had never risked myself, so he had no reason to be mad at me for it. The fire my brush with death had lit inside him never sparked. So he played it safe, and our chance was gone.
I’d fallen asleep waiting for him and woken up as alone as ever.
The crew had moved in to disassemble the stage now that the public-facing part of the convention was over. I tried not to picture the collapsing scaffolding and how it had pinned so many in its metal husk, including Sunny.
It was over. That future was dead.
Taking a risk, I reached over and took Cade’s hand, squeezing it firmly. “I’m okay.”
He didn’t immediately recoil and instead traced his thumb over my knuckles, moving with such slow, practiced gestures I felt
sure he remembered what had happened between us.
How does someone just forget that?
Because it never happened.
When I looked back at him, he was staring at me, his expression beyond my comprehension.
“You’re a strange lady, Tallulah.”
“You have no idea.” I pulled my hand away, not willing to risk any of the remaining convention staff coming across us like that. A little pang of anxiety clawed at my chest. “When am I going to see you again?” Now that the mandatory parts of the convention were done, we were both free to be moved onto more pressing work.
I’d never asked him that question before. We usually went with the flow and saw each other when it happened to work out that way. I wasn’t content to just wait anymore, though. I didn’t want it to be another two months. That was too long, and the features of his face got worn from my memory every day I didn’t look at him.
He smiled in a mysterious way that could have meant anything, then bumped me with his shoulder. “There’s always a need for some bad luck in the Pacific Northwest.”
“You should come see me,” I announced. Maybe it was too much, too pushy, too…wrong. I couldn’t take it back once the words were out, though. Instead I tried my hand at a flirtatious grin and added, “Even someone as unlucky as you might get lucky someday.”
I left him like that, with a send off just coy enough to be cute, just bold enough to be sexy.
We’d lost our chance once, but that didn’t change how I felt. It didn’t undo the potential that existed between us.
I had worried that by giving up our night together that meant I had to give up Cade entirely. But we were more than one night. He was more than a heat-of-the-moment fling.
If we were meant to be, he’d find his way back to me eventually.
I’d waited this long.
I could wait longer.
Chapter Forty-Five
Leo and I dropped Sawyer back in Lovelock a few days later.
Yvonne had probably been hoping the girl would come back to her with hopes dashed and a general distaste for all things cleric related. Sawyer was more somber on her return than I expected, but with Leo and me by her side she explained what she’d learned in her absence.
She was a cleric to Pele, and that meant she had to go to Pele’s temple.
That temple happened to be in Maui. Rough life, kid.
I hadn’t made contact with Sawyer’s new priestesses yet. Ultimately it wasn’t my job to deliver her to them, and a small part of me hoped she might change her mind and pretend she hadn’t learned the truth.
The decision would be Sawyer’s in the end. I left her and Yvonne with the toll-free number to report cleric initiates. I also didn’t mention anything about Sawyer’s part in starting the wildfire. She hadn’t done it intentionally. She admitted on the way home the whole thing had happened when she’d gone for a drive with a boy from her class, but she hadn’t explained it more beyond that. Any heightened emotion could trigger an onset of her powers. Could have been good, or bad, but she chose not to tell us. I chose not to tell Yvonne. There was no sense in making her an outcast in her own home.
It was hard to tell how Yvonne took the news. I knew she cared about Sawyer, but the kid would have her future set if she joined Pele’s temple. She’d never need to worry about money or having a roof over her head again. It was the kind of sure thing Yvonne couldn’t promise her.
Maybe Sawyer would choose the quiet life, but I doubted it.
I had a feeling when I got to Las Vegas next year there’d be a lot of gossip about the new Pele initiate.
My phone vibrated as we were pulling out of town, and Leo put it on speaker for me. The sound of a familiar voice on the line made Fen pip noisily in the backseat.
“Hey, Lula-Belle,” Sunny said.
“Hi, Sunshine Marie.”
Sunny paused. “Hello, Leo Marquette. Don’t think I can’t hear you snickering.”
“Hi, Sunny.” He covered his hand with his mouth like he could hide his smile from her. Gods, he was over-the-moon crazy about her. What a disaster.
“I didn’t get a chance to see you before you left this morning. I had to head back to Arizona so early, I’m sorry.”
“Duty calls,” I said, shrugging. We’d shared our tearful farewells the night before, but I think we were both a little sad we didn’t get one final goodbye before we headed our separate ways this morning.
“Did Sawyer get home all right?”
“We just left her. I don’t know what she’s going to decide, but at least she knows what her options are now, so that’s something, I guess.”
“I like her.”
“Me too.” And I did. I had tried not to, but in the long run it wasn’t up to me to decide who I liked and who I didn’t.
“I had a thought on my way home, maybe it will help your detective friend with his case,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Remember I had that session on how people are using social media more and more to pray?”
“Yeah.”
“One of the things they brought up was how people are using these ridiculous hashtags that are doing more harm than good. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I was reading the handout on the plane and noticed there’s this new Instagram trend going around. Parents are uploading pictures of their kids’ sigils. They’re tagging them with stuff like #godsblessed and #clericintraining.” She heaved a sigh.
I glanced over at Leo. “Hashtags?”
Sunny continued, “People are pretty much advertising their cleric children on social media because they’re proud.”
“Fuck me,” Leo groaned. “That’s how he figured out which kids were potential initiates.”
“I think so,” Sunny replied sadly. “Nothing secretive or super smart. Their own parents were putting them in the target without realizing it.”
I felt sick. It was something that stupid and simple. One person’s parental brag was a psychopath’s Yellow Pages for who to kill.
“Thanks, Sunny.”
“All right then, Lula-Belle, I gotta get back to the temple. Don’t be a stranger, though, okay? And bye-bye to you too, Leo.” She hung up.
Honestly, I’d talk to her every day if I could. But she and I both knew it didn’t work like that. Our phone use was monitored, our most frequent numbers checked and cross-checked, and periodically we would be audited on why we had so much communication with another cleric.
They were trying to minimize the connections like those between me and Cade, but they also wanted to make sure something like my bond with Sunny wasn’t given an opportunity to flourish. They knew we were sisters and some chatter was to be expected, but if they ever got the idea I was growing dependent on her in any way, they would drive a wedge between us so quickly we wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye.
I didn’t want to go another five years without seeing her, but I would play it safe for both our sakes. Now that she was alive, I wouldn’t risk losing her forever. Not again. I knew what it did to my heart, and I didn’t think I’d survive going through it a second time.
We got back to Seattle early the next morning. Another night, another shitty motel. At least I hadn’t been visited by any irate goddesses or picked up any teenage stowaways. After I dropped Leo off at the temple, I made my way to the twenty-seventh precinct police department, where I suspected Detective Stowe was about to start his morning rotation.
I had a file folder with me, one I had requested the LVPD let me bring to Stowe in person. They’d been hesitant, but had agreed after it occurred to them how much potential paperwork I had saved them from doing. And now, thanks to Sunny, I had a pretty good idea of how the killer had stalked his victims.
I made my way through the lobby of the old brick building, the walls painted a deep gray green that reminded me of the ocean, and was directed by the civilian receptionist to an area at the back of the second floor, where I would likely find Stowe.
Sure e
nough, I heard his snapping gum before I saw his face.
When I took the chair across from his, he jumped a little, startled by my arrival. “Ms. Corentine. Did we have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Is something the matter?”
Oh, where to begin?
“Well, I was under the distinct impression you were a homicide detective. I thought you might like to solve a homicide.” I dropped the manila folder on his desk and gave him a few minutes to flip through it and absorb the contents.
“What is this?” He glanced up at me.
“It’s a police report, Detective.”
“I can see that. But why are you giving it to me?”
I leaned forward in my chair and turned the page so he could see the contents listing for the home of one Jeffrey Turner, formerly of Boulder, Colorado. I waited until he got to the part about finding belongings for all twelve of the deceased children.
The detective asked, “How did you get this?”
“Las Vegas P.D. Detective Ambrose. He’s available to take your call any time, but I asked that he might let me bring this to you in person. Seems like Jeff Turner had plans to make a pretty messy spectacle in Vegas during the Convention of the Gods this week.”
“A convention you just happened to be attending, naturally.”
I gave a thin smile. “You wouldn’t like me nearly as much if my life was boring.”
He chuckled softly. “Ms. Corentine, if your life was boring, I feel like the world would probably be a much safer place.”
“You have no idea.”
A few more weeks went by, the newspapers forgot about the dead girl—her name had been Brielle Marx—and life in Seattle returned to some semblance of normalcy.
November came on cold and bleak, which meant soon enough I’d have to start making my way south again. There was less cause for me to be in the Northwest when winter settled in. Rain was needed elsewhere, and I went where the rain was most in demand.
I tried not to be in the same place as the cleric for the snow goddess. That guy was a dipshit of the highest order.
