AlcyLeyva_AndThenThereWereCrows_EbookFormatting_Nook

by And Then There Were Crows (retail) (epub)

  “Okay. Look. I’m … I never knew, okay? Never knew it wanted to … It said that you were important. That wasn’t the agreement we had. No one. No one was supposed to die.” He dropped his hands over his bald head and started rocking back and forth. “I don’t … I can’t feel any more sorry than this. I mean it. I needed something, I dunno, something good to happen to me for a change.” He was so shaken up that tears were rolling down his face.

  Petty saw this and gave me a look with those blackened eyes to back off. But I didn’t.

  “What happened? Why did it attack my sister?”

  It took Phil some time to calm down. When his rocking became more manageable, he replied, “I told you before. It’s like an aura, and yours is big. Really fucking big. It can cling to things—people you know or stuff you wear. Your sister …” Phil turned his head toward Petty. “I’m sorry. It told me that it only wanted to get to know her, to get to know Grey and team up in the future. We were supposed to take our time letting her know. That’s what we agreed. I worried about it, I did, but none of that was supposed to happen. Never to hurt anyone. We were never supposed to hurt anyone.”

  “All right. It’s okay. We understand,” Petty interjected.

  “You don’t get to say anything. Nothing.”

  She rolled those dead eyes.

  I turned to the demon. “And you? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  The creature’s yellow eyes darted around the room. The first time it had eaten another demon, it had changed from blobby to this guy. But if it ate the demon disguised as Gary, I wondered why there was no change this time. Why did it look exactly the same?

  I turned back to Phil. “What did he do?”

  “He saved her life,” Phil insisted. “I watched him tear that other demon a new one, bite it to shreds. He even stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. The entire bird. But instead of swallowing …” Phil started getting antsy again. “I don’t know what he did, okay? Only he knows. But to me, it looked like he chewed up the other demon and … gaveyoursistermouthtomouth.”

  “He … what?” I screeched.

  The demon shot Phil a nasty look for ratting him out, but quickly set its ears down when it spotted me giving him the evil eye.

  “You’re telling me that my younger sister is now possessed by a creature from hell? This is what you’re telling me?”

  Damn near ready to shake apart, Phil couldn’t find the words to reply. And that’s when Barnem finally put in his two cents. “Actually, it’s not as bad as that.”

  I wanted to laugh but my mouth couldn’t form the smile to make it not sound like a madwoman’s cackle. So I scoffed and sat back. “Oh? Do tell.”

  “Actually, Petunia is dead. You can tell by all of the …” Barnem spun his hands around his face and body, silently trying to imply all of that. Then he finished off by saying, “Her body has expired, but her soul is being anchored to the corpse somehow. Maybe the demon inside of her is the only thing powering the body.” When I gawked at him, the Seraph then realized. “Oh no, wait. That’s waaay worse than what you originally thought, wasn’t it? Yeah. My bad.”

  Petty’s gaze bounced around at all of us. “All right. So I might be dead and all, but I’m still in the room. What does that mean? I’m a zombie now?”

  “Ahhhh!”

  “Not a zombie,” Barnem explained casually. “Zombies are reanimated flesh. You’re more like … I dunno, a refurbished corpse?”

  “Gahh!”

  “Refurbished? Like a phone?”

  “UHhhh!”

  “Sure. If the phone had a low data plan and was powered by a network of pure unspeakable evil.”

  “That’s it!” I shouted. “That’s it. That’s it! Get Out! You get out!” Spinning toward Barnem, I added an emphatic, “You definitely get out.”

  One by one, they all got up to leave. But one shove to her chest made Petty realize that even though I was through hearing from the weirdos in the room, I was now ready for a sisterly heart to unbeating heart.

  As it neared the door to its room, the demon turned around and gave Petty a nod and a chest bump as if to say “stay strong.” But as soon as it caught me staring, it scampered off and closed the door behind him.

  Being in a room with her, after everything she’d said, after everything that had happened, was excruciating. On one hand, she was more like the sister I knew. She acted less stuffy, her accent was present but not overbearing (the right level for her years abroad), and she didn’t dress like a Mary Poppins stunt double.

  And on the other hand, she was a possessed corpse.

  “I messed up. Way before this. Way before coming back. I really, really fucked up,” she said, cutting me off before I started my barrage of questions. She slumped into the chair as if trying to disappear into it. She kept staring at her hands; bending her fingers, clacking her black fingernails together.

  I don’t want to say that it made me break in any way—I was still livid—but how do you stay pissed at someone so down on themself? And dead.

  With my arms still crossed, I sat across from her. “What happened?”

  Her eyes widened as if remembering something painful. Those black orbs didn’t blink, they stared off into space. I also realized, sitting so close, with the sun from the window falling on her dull skin, that Petty’s hair was different, too. It lacked the bounce and curls she had when she was living, hanging instead like a thick curtain. There even was a change of its tone; darker, almost a mat black. The whole thing bothered me so much that I tried to focus on anything but her face.

  “I was out walking one day, popping into the usual boutiques they have nearby the flat that we stayed in. Shopping for nonsense. Halfway through, I felt this pressure, right in the back of my eyes. So, thinking it was a migraine, I went to fetch a few pills from my purse. But the damn bottle slipped right out of my hand. Just like that. One second, I had it …” She laughed, but in no way because she found it funny. “The damn thing landed like an atom bomb. The can rolled one way, the pills scattered all over. All over. All clacking at once.”

  I knew, even before she finished, what she was describing. “A panic attack.”

  She winced as if I had struck her across the face. There was so much that she was wrestling with at once, and I realized that it was because that this was the first time she had spoken about it. To anyone. To herself. When it started, I couldn’t look at her directly. Now, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It scared me. The way her face and body changed through everything she said. Everything. So familiar.

  “I …” She sat upright and fixed herself. “I didn’t think much of it. Stress, I thought. I didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t feel the need.” Her face softened. “When it happened again, it was at a dinner. In front of guests. Blake … You can explain away dropping one dish, but I guess when I couldn’t explain why it had happened fifteen times, he figured that he wasn’t up to trying to explain it to other people.” Then this flash of rage appeared as she said, “So he left me. Me, goddamit! Idiot, shithead, fuckface. Threw me out with only my clothes and the luggage with my name etched into the handle for company.”

  And then she fell apart, but not in any way that I could recognize. Her face contorted. Her eyes bugged out. She flashed some gray tongue. She started making a “gal, gakk, gakkk!” sound.

  “Petty. What are you doing?”

  She went back to looking normal. “I was trying to cry, but I don’t think my tear ducts work.”

  I went and had a seat next to her. She quickly leaned into me as I extended my arm.

  “I’m a fucking screw up, I know.”

  “Yeah. Yeah you are.”

  “And I said some terrible shit to you before.”

  “Yeah you did. But you know what’s more important?”

  Sighing, Petty nodded. “That I’m your sister.”

&nbs
p; “No! Oh God, no! Please. That’s gross. That you make sure you pay Mom and Dad back. That’s what’s important. You can be stupid with me all you like. But that money…”

  “The money!” Petty jumped up and started walking in circles. “Okay. So you remember when I said I spoke to Mom and Dad? A few weeks ago? Right before I came? So, I did. They called frequently. Once a week.”

  I didn’t like the sound of this. “What are you getting at here?”

  “It’s, uh …” She started hopping on one leg, as if the words would fall out of her like a ketchup bottle. “So Mom’s backup account? The one I asked for? It was actually backup account number two.”

  “I’m lost.”

  Petty took one big breath. “They left money in an account for you that was supposed to help you pay the rent and cover expenses while they were away, basically emergency funds that they told me about it and I was supposed to tell you about, but then the whole fallout with Blake happened and I really needed it, so when she gave me the info to share with you, I just emptied the account and lived out of a flat in the shittiest neighborhood that had crime and roaches and weird times when the street lights weren’t working and why are you picking up that lamp?”

  I pulled the plug out of the wall and checked the weight, tossing it from hand to hand. “Oh nothing. Please, continue.” Petty only backed away and I said, “Oh, are you done? Because the gist of this amazing revelation, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, dear sis, is that you lied to me about Mom and Dad and then stole money. Money that would have helped me pay the rent and therefore avoid this whole damn demon mess in the first place!”

  Petty stood up straight and tried to sound as sweet as possible. “You know, I feel like we are forgetting the touching moment we just had on the couch. The hugs. The feels. We should go back to that.”

  Before I could re-murder my own sister, we both heard a man scream in the hallway. Instantly, a face popped in the hole in my kitchen.

  I couldn’t hear what he was saying over his snarling. It might have been in Polish. Or maybe he was speaking in tongues. And his face was going from blueberry to plum pretty damn quick. But it was pretty obvious what all the screaming was about.

  I hid the lamp behind my back as the Grey sisters waved to our super, Lou, who barged in baring his teeth.

  “Grrrrrrey!” He froze as he spotted Petty. He stood there, trying to process this dead girl. You could see the tension in his flushed cheeks and brow. “Petunia?”

  It was the only thing he got out before my sister acted shocked and slapped on that terrible accent again. “Lou, my dear. How are you? How is your wife? To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  My sister the liar.

  CHAPTER 24

  Petty had no choice but to stay with me. It was a serious strain on our relationship and I barely had any time to really unpack most of it … okay, all of it. But I blamed this on Barnem who screwed this whole thing up. With the election four days away, and our master plan to take out Mason Scarborough reaching a complete standstill, I threw myself into the planning to take my mind off of things.

  And by “planning” I mean sitting and watching Barnem pace around for hours.

  “You’re starting to wear out my floor.”

  “Funny,” he replied sternly. “Just as funny as it would be if this entire city would turn into cannibals. Or if mad men ran the streets in packs. That would be hilarious!”

  Petty sighed. “Is he always like this?”

  “No, no,” I said, skimming through my phone for news on Mason. “He’s usually worse.”

  The two stopped to stare daggers at each other.

  Petty sucked her blackened teeth. “Some angel you are. Hey, aren’t you supposed to have a halo? Or a harp?”

  “I have your harp right here, you rotting—”

  “I found something!” I sat up, feeling my heart race in my chest.

  Stopping what he was doing, the Seraph peered over my shoulder. “You found something? On Mason?”

  It wasn’t about Mason. Not at all.

  I cursed my stupid mouth and stood up.

  “I’ll be right back. I have to see someone. But first, I have to pick something up.”

  ****

  Donaldson looked at me through the crack in his door. “I regret to remind thee that I am rebuked from thy home. We shan’t talk.”

  “I made a mistake.” I could tell by his face that he was about to say something, but I jumped in first. “Yes, yes. I’m just as shocked as you. Save the smarm. I made a mistake.” I had two things in my hand. One was a brown paper bag and the other was my phone. I pushed the phone against the crack, showing him the pic of Hilary Clamp.

  Donaldson sighed and let me in.

  As I walked in, I noticed that there were tons of plastic bags everywhere, each one sporting the logo of the bookstore Donaldson worked for. Booke & Ende was pretty well known for its readings and signings, but the bag’s contents didn’t look very book-ish. They were filled with streamers and disposable plates and thick letters for banners. “Bookstore bat mitzvah?”

  He groaned. “I wish. Stupid event at the job coming up in a few days.” He stopped talking right away. I had broken a line between us, the way we could both just talk and let things fly. Now he was definitely more guarded. More than that, I could tell he didn’t want me there.

  “Hilary Clamp,” I read from the news article, dated only two days prior. “Wanted in three different states with her partner. Robbed two stores. History of violence. Once held up a lady and her five year old at gunpoint. This was all before she was fished out of the Hudson. You were trying to tell me that when you came to my apartment.”

  Donaldson shrugged. “What’s your point?”

  I tossed him the brown bag and he caught it against his chest. I pulled up one of the stools as he carefully opened the bag. Peering inside, he suddenly looked like a kid on Christmas.

  “Oh my god.”

  Five minutes later, Donaldson and I were both enjoying a burger from Burly’s. But not just any burger. Oh, no. I had them put together the legendary “Burger Burger.” Between the large bites of this burger stuffed burger, I asked him, “So? How does it taste?”

  “Like grease. Like sweet, joyous grease and a future cholesterol reading that’s going to make the doctor look at me and I’ll be all like, ‘I know the plight of my people, Doc. But it was oh so worth it.’”

  “It’s an edible abomination,” I agreed.

  I didn’t have to go further. As soon as he had let me into his apartment, I knew Donaldson had forgiven me for acting like a jackass. Maybe even before. I wasn’t sure how or why I knew this. Donaldson was smart and definitely cautious with other people, so I couldn’t blame it on his ignorance. It was just that, for some reason, he had this odd healing factor when it came to me. Like I said, I didn’t have to go further than enjoy this time, but I felt he deserved it.

  “I’m not easy.”

  Donaldson nodded. “Newsflash.”

  “I’m serious. My sister is staying with me right now. And as much as it bugs me, it also reminds me that there was a time when it was just the two of us, plus my mom and dad. You know, small circle. Until recently, it’s stayed that small.”

  “Now it seems like the world is ending, huh?”

  I blinked at him. “Sure.”

  Donaldson wiped his mouth. “Look, I get it. I just didn’t want you suddenly seeing yourself in Hilary Clamp. She was just some woman who made a bad decision and got mixed up in the wrong thing.”

  I blinked a second time. “Sure.”

  “I’m serious. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t work so hard to be or not be someone, Grey. I can tell it’s hard enough being you.”

  I was ready to toss him a quip to lighten the mood. If there was anything I hated more was a goddamn compliment. But I didn’t
have to think of anything to change the subject to because there it was hanging out of the bag by my feet.

  I held up the banner. “‘Make New York Nice Again’? Oh shit!”

  “Yeah. That’s what I’m working on. Floor plan, ticket sales. He’s a bit of an idiot, this Mason. But he bought out the bookstore for an event in three days. Can you believe it? The day before he inexplicably gets elected Mayor of NYC and he’s throwing a party for himself to meet and shake the hands of the ‘real people of this city’. The guy’s a joke.”

  Wide eyed, I pointed my Burly’s Burger Burger at him.

  “Donaldson, I have a plan.”

  ****

  Barnem shook his head. “That’s the worst fucking plan I have ever heard in my life. And I’ve lived for several thousand centuries.”

  “It’s the best plan!” I insisted. “And it’s the only plan. Donaldson gets us tickets. We get in. And then we wait until Mason goes to the bathroom or goes to the coffee table or whatever, and we jump the guy.”

  The demon snapped his fingers as if this was a brilliant idea.

  “No. It’s a terrible idea,” Barnem sniped.

  The demon turned to me, shaking its head as if I was the one being ridiculous.

  “Who the hell’s side are you on? Look, Barnem. It’s a small venue. A bookstore. We just need to find a small, quiet space for our shadow guy here to do his thing. What can go—”

  “A-hem!” Phil raised his hand to ask a question as if he was still in school. “It’s coming with us?”

  I had demanded he put his life on the line for this, and Phil was more than inclined to help make things up. Seeing how the Shades worked, he didn’t want that to happen to anyone.