by D V Wolfe
I felt a tingle of annoyance. “Why would that be supposed to happen? Is fate just that big of an asshole?” I tried my best to keep my voice low, but there was anger burning in my gut and exhaustion. I was tired of beating my head against this particular wall. It would have been easier if Gabe had just laughed and agreed what I’d done was stupid and we were both just drunk and right there. That was all. Could have happened to anyone, end of story.
“Well there’s no doubt that Fate is an asshole,” Gabe said. “If it wasn’t, neither of us would be where we are.” I didn’t answer. He understood. There really wasn’t anything else to say. “But,” Gabe began. “It doesn’t mean we can’t make Fate work for us.”
I felt my eyebrows narrow. “What are you talking about? We don’t make Fate work for us. Fate makes us her bitches. I mean what choice do either of us have?” I said, looking over at Gabe. “Either we suck it up and do our shit or a lot of people die and go to the pit.”
I saw the muscles working in Gabe’s jaw and he sat up, his hand going to his knee and forming a fist, his gaze hardening on the horizon. “Why do we have to save these people? Why us? How is that fair that we have this bullshit on our plates? We didn’t ask the universe for seconds.”
I snorted. “Well, you might have a case. I don’t. I signed the paper. I made the deal.”
“You were fifteen!” Gabe shouted and I felt my eyebrows shoot up my forehead as I turned to look at him. “You didn’t know what the hell you were doing.”
“There aren’t gray areas in Hell,” I said.
Gabe turned his head to look at me and those ridiculously blue eyes forced me to meet them like metal shavings to a magnet. It was annoying when he did that. Like those eyes weren’t going to give me a choice. I was getting sucked in whether I liked it or not. I think that’s what happened the day I kissed him.
“Is there room for a gray area with us?” Gabe asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice coming out soft. I quickly cleared my throat hoping he hadn’t heard the note of hope that had slipped out. I should have just said no. Because there weren't any gray areas for us. There was him and his family’s obligation and me and my suicide mission.
Gabe reached out and took the hex bag from me and threw it on the table. His chair screeched across the wooden porch as he moved it closer to me and something about the noise woke me from the lull I’d been in. I stood up and stepped away from him. He looked up at me and I could see the hurt. I could feel the same expression on my face. Why did we have to do this? Why couldn’t we be like me and Stacks or me and the kid?
“Gabe,” I started. “What’s the point?”
Gabe stood up now and closed the gap between us. I felt the splintery porch brace at my back; a 4x4 that wasn’t weather-treated and had begun to shed its outer layer from the constant humidity.
“How about being happy?” Gabe asked, pausing, not cornering me. Gabe was always aware of his size and if I’d been a vampire down a back alley he would have invaded my space and sliced my head off, but I wasn’t and he waited, watching me with those blue eyes. “What about getting something we want out of life for once? Just once. Still carrying the mantle and doing our jobs and saving the world and all the other bullshit Fate volun-told us we’re doing. But this one thing, just one, for us?”
It sounded so good. I could close my eyes and feel his callused warm hands skimming over my skin, ever so lightly, making me shiver. I wanted that. I fisted his dirty t-shirt midway down his chest, level with my eyes, and pulled him towards me. I saw the slightest darkening in his gaze and that half-smile before I felt his lips crash onto mine. My skin was on fire and humming. Every part of me felt alive as if I was coming out of a deep sleep. Pins and needles and his beard against my cheek, tickling the skin. Some strange emotion was sliding over me, trying to get a toe hold. Happiness? How long would this last? I knew if I let go, it would be over. But there would be other times, more of this if we could just...but even if we... it would just make everything harder. I forced my fingers to uncurl from his shirt and I lowered my face away from his. I felt his arms slide around my back, hugging me to his barrel chest. I let my head rest against him, hearing his strong heartbeat echoing in his chest, under my ear.
“Gabe,” I whispered and I felt his head lower to rest on the top of mine. I didn’t want to say anything else. For once, I wanted to just stand in this moment, and not move or think or say anything. Don’t think. Just do.
But the pain was back, twisting at my chest. I couldn’t do this to him. “We can’t. I don’t have much time left,” I felt his arms squeezing me to him tighter. “It will just make the end...that much worse...for both of us.”
“I’ll find a way,” Gabe breathed into my hair. “There’s got to be a way.”
I shook my head and let my arms wrap around him as far as they would go, holding him as close to me as I could. “You can’t break a deal,” I said. Especially not when the demon holding the contract is sitting comfortably in Hell.
Gabe was pushing at my shoulders, pushing us apart again. He’d finally gotten it, he understood. I tried to be relieved, thankful that we weren’t going to make this any harder with what was coming ahead. I glanced up just in time to close my eyes as his lips met mine again. More urgent this time, like a drowning man gasping for air. Of their own accord, my hands went to his hair, running my fingers through the thick locks, feeling my breath catch in the back of my throat as he wrapped those bear arms around me, pulling me up onto tiptoes and against that broad chest.
“Hey, Bane!” Noah called. “Your phone…” Gabe and I broke apart and Gabe stepped past me, still facing away from the front door. I felt the heat on my cheeks as I glanced over at Noah. His face was white and he looked like he’d just been sucker-punched.
“What about my phone?” I asked. I glanced at the porch table and realized it wasn’t scattered amongst the other equipment.
Noah held it up. “It was ringing. So I answered it. It’s Sprig. He says he needs to talk to you.” Noah tossed the open flip phone down onto the porch table and turned on his heel, heading back inside. I didn’t have much patience for Noah’s theatrics or a slow-minded Puca. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to process what just happened with Gabe, so I picked up the phone.
“Hi Sprig, what’s new? How’s your sister doing?”
“Bane,” Sprig shouted into the phone. I pulled it away from my head, and I was about to contemplate aloud why everyone seemed to think I was deaf and the irony that if they kept this up, their wish would come true, but he yelled. “She’s gone! She’s gone!”
“Hold on,” I said. “First off, quit yelling. And who’s gone? Kess?”
“Vix!” Spring screamed into the phone. “Get it together, Bane! Vix is gone. She was here this afternoon. She laid down to take a nap. I was sitting in the next room with Kess. She got up to check on Vix and when she didn’t come back, I went to look for her. I found Kess knocked out on the floor and the window open. Vix is gone!”
17
Inside my head, the word "fuck" was getting batted back and forth like the ball at a pro tennis game. What came out was, “Calm down Sprig. Get in your car and go look for her. She was weak when we saw the two of you last. I’m sure Kess has been working some mojo on her but even at full strength, how far could she have gotten at this point?”
“Maybe ten miles,” Sprig murmured.
“Ok,” I said, making a mental note to never challenge Vix to a foot race. “You can drive that in every direction in an hour or so, right? Just go look for her. She’s probably in those woods behind Kess’ house. Is Kess ok?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Sprig said. “I helped her into bed. She’s resting now. Vix got her around the throat.”
“Sweet girl, your sister,” I said.
I could hear the frustrated tears in Sprig’s voice and it unnerved me. “She doesn’t mean it. Something is wrong with her. Something is making her like this.”
I didn�
�t want to waste time arguing with him. “Call me when you find her,” I said.
Sprig hung up and I folded the phone and slid it into my pocket. Gabe had turned back around now and was looking at me, his face a protective mask.
“Everything ok?” He asked.
“Not really,” I said. I looked at him. He was just standing there, hands dug into his biker jeans pockets, hair wild from me running my hands through it, looking like a bad decision I wish I could make. I shook my head and looked down. “None of this is right. I can’t do this to you, Gabe. I just. Can’t.”
“I’d say it’s too late for anything you could have controlled,” Gabe said, taking a step closer to me. “And too early to be worrying over consequences that haven’t happened yet.”
I spun away from him and grabbed a roll of salted tape off the table moving to the nearest window and tearing off a piece as long as the window sill. “The consequences will be there. We can set our fucking watches by it, Gabe.” I shook my head and tore another piece the length of the doorway. “I’m not doing this. Not to you, not to me. So chalk what just happened up to temporary insanity.”
Gabe sighed. “This isn’t over.” I didn’t say anything. “So who was on the phone?” He asked, opening the leather bag from his duffle and pulling out a handful of cat’s eye shells.
“Sprig. Remember those Pucas I told you about?” I asked.
Gabe paused. “Yeah, a brother and sister that were taking innocents for joy rides on the highway?”
I nodded. “That’s them.”
“Why didn’t you end them?” Gabe asked.
“Because they didn’t kill anyone,” I said. “They scared the shit out of a few innocents, but they don’t have blood on their hands.” I could feel annoyance at his tone beginning to fan into anger.
Gabe shook his head. “Not yet. So what, you’re going to wait until they start a body count to get serious about taking them out?”
I was seconds away from punching him in the face. “If they were a threat, I’d have dealt with them. They’ve been behaving themselves.” Well, up until now.
“And the panicked phone call?” Gabe asked, one eyebrow drawing up to his hairline. I had to look away. It was distracting.
“Sprig, the brother. There’s something wrong with Vix right now. She has something called ‘will sickness’. A while ago the kid and I had to go get her and Sprig from a highway rest station,” I said, drawing back the slide on the sawed-off to reload.
“And let me guess, bury some innocents?” Gabe asked.
I flipped the sawed-off back over and set it on the table. “I told you. They weren’t killing innocents. If they were, I would have killed them. No. She had several trapped in the bathroom with her but she was hurting herself, not them. They all made it out just fine and drove away.”
“And what did you do? Drive away and hope for the best?” Gabe asked.
“You’re an asshole,” I said. And I moved away from him, scooping up a handful of hex bags and moving to the directional corners of the porch to place them.
“Pucas are bloodthirsty and vicious,” Gabe said.
I swung on my heel. “Have you ever actually met one?” Gabe glared back at the table and picked up a roll of salted tape, tearing a piece off and bending down to lay it across the porch’s threshold. In his anger, he hadn’t measured first and the tape was an inch too short on either side.
“I took them to Kess Dorfin’s house so that she could figure out what was wrong with Vix,” I muttered. “And that’s not going to keep anything out. If it doesn’t cover the whole threshold, the spell won’t hold.”
“I know that,” Gabe spat. He began to pick at the tape to pull it up. “You took them to Kess? Who puts LSD in salt shakers and is the reason there’s an urban legend about a deer woman in Kildare?”
“She’s a Celt druid,” I said. “And she’s the real thing. Can you think of anyone else who would know how to deal with a sick fae?”
“If Kess can keep a leash on them,” Gabe muttered, balling up the piece of tape and replacing it with a carefully measured and torn piece. “So why the phone call?”
“Apparently whatever Kess was doing for her isn’t enough,” I felt all the fight leave me. I didn’t know what to do. Gabe was right and it pissed me off to admit it. If Kess hadn’t been able to cure Vix and Vix had not only busted out but hurt Kess enough to knock her out, I had a bad feeling that Vix was losing the battle with whatever was controlling her. And if she ran into any innocents...there was a hand on my shoulder and I turned to look at Gabe.
“You’re big on second chances,” Gabe said, his voice soft. “And third and fourths. For everyone but yourself. Why is that?”
“Bane!” Rosetta barked from the doorway.
I spun to look at her. “What?!”
Rosetta was trying to scowl but a grin was dancing at the corner of her mouth. She surveyed the porch to keep from having to meet my gaze, “Will you get in here and fortify the rest of this place? Salt tape and hex bags on our front are all well and good, but it’s not worth a damn if our ass cheeks are flapping, unprotected, in the wind.”
“So poetic, isn’t she?” I said to Gabe. Slightly relieved to not be alone on the porch with Gabe, I scooped up more hex bags and a roll of tape on my way by the table. I glanced back at Gabe. “You get first watch.”
After I got the inside of the trailer hex bagged and salt taped, Rosetta had me watch something she was boiling on the stove. It smelled awful and when I stirred, the corpses of a raven and a dove caught on the ladle. Entrail reading. She had them boiling in holy water which I confirmed when it spit and gave me a six-inch welt on my arm.
“I hope,” I hissed as I came back out into the main room, blowing on the welt on my forearm. “That you’re not planning on cooking anything else in that pot, ever again, Stacks.”
Stacks shrugged. “When do I cook?” I supposed he had a point. I glanced at the newest pile of pizza boxes next to his recliner. We didn’t call him ‘Stacks’ for nothing.
“Entrail reading?” I asked, looking at Rosetta. “Really?”
She nodded. “This is some big bad hoodoo stuff, Bane. The kid found some stuff about a ‘reign of Dukes and Princes of Hell’ and it’s serious end of the world, rivers of blood, ash from the sky business.”
Noah had his head down, the blue light reflecting back from the laptop screen and draining his face of all color. But he was pissed. His expression was tight and determinedly not looking in my direction. Stacks had a tower of books next to him where he sat at the table and Rosetta sat across from him, her Bible open to one side and two other books in front and to her left and she was cross-referencing all three, turning pages as she looked for something.
“Where did the poor entrail victims come from anyway?” I asked her, glancing back towards the kitchen.
“Stacks had them vacuum-sealed in his freezer,” Rosetta said, turning a page and not looking up. Ok. Never eat anything cooked or stored at Stacks’ house.
Stacks grinned up at me. “And you said I wasn’t prepared.”
I sighed and looked around at the table. “Anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“Just cover our asses so we have time to find what we’re looking for,” Stacks said, turning his attention back to the book in front of him.
“Hard to do when you’re sucking face with someone,” I heard Noah mumble. Stacks and Rosetta both turned to look at Noah and then look back at me.
I felt the heat rising in my cheeks as Rosetta set her know-it-all gaze on me. I kept my head down and headed back onto the porch. It had started to rain and Gabe was moving around, making sure the table and our supplies were kept dry. He looked up when I stopped just in front of the door to look at him. This man, who had a bigger weight on his shoulders than me, was standing on a tumbledown trailer porch in a podunk Indiana town that was being overrun by a mob of pissed off demons, with possibly more on the way, because me, a deal-signing Kansas bumpkin, had mes
sed up their plans. He didn’t have to be here. He could literally be anywhere else, doing more important things.
