Born in Darkness

by J. Kenner

  I watched Gracie push through the doors to the kitchen, and as I hurried to catch up, Egan waved me over. “For Tank and Leon,” he said, drawing two pints of Guinness.

  “I’m not on yet.”

  “Alice.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” I took the tray, searching the bar until I found Leon, the guy Deacon had thrown across the room. I assumed his companion, a big fellow with an acne-scarred face, was Tank. He looked somewhat familiar, but try as I might, I couldn’t place the face.

  I slid the pints onto the table, shifting my weight toward the door and trying to signal with body language that even though I was standing there holding beer, I wasn’t really on duty yet.

  “You back,” Tank said in a voice like acid on nails. “Missed you, we did.” His smile displayed of a row of rotten teeth.

  “I was sick,” I said, feeling my breakfast curdle in my stomach.

  “Egan said.” He looked me up and down. “Better now?”

  “Great.” I managed a watery smile, then hooked my thumb toward the back. “I should probably—”

  “Alice not so friendly today. Got you something on your mind?”

  I shook my head. “Not really.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Thought we were buds.”

  Well, shit. “You’re right. I’ve got stuff on my mind.”

  He cocked his head, his expression all but asking. Well?

  “Lucy,” I said, hoping Alice had shared personal details. “She barfed all over the carpet.”

  “Heh,” he said. “Bet Rachel not happy.”

  “Not at all.” I tried the thumb trick again. “Sorry I’m such a spaz. But I’m late, and—”

  I took a step away.

  “Hey!”

  I stopped, turned back.

  He tapped his cheek with his index finger, decayed teeth flashing a bone-chilling grin.

  I swallowed, then kissed my fingertips and pressed them to his cheek. “Time for me to go on duty,” I said, then winked.

  And then I walked away, holding my breath and looking straight ahead until the kitchen doors swung shut behind me.

  Fortunately, the afternoon was busy enough that I didn’t have any time to think about Tank and his scary teeth.

  I’d pulled a short shift, filling in for Trish, who’d taken the day off to spend time with a relative who was in town from Nevada or Arizona or some other state with heat and horses. I was grateful for the reduced hours today. After all, I had a busy evening planned.

  At fifteen minutes to the end of my shift, I started doing my side work, irritated to see that not only did I need to cut up some lemons, but there was only one lonely lemon in the fridge behind the bar. I looked around for Gracie, finding her near the table where Tank had been earlier. I didn’t remember him clearing out his tab, but he was gone now, and good riddance, too.

  Gracie caught my eye, and I held up the last lemon, then signaled toward the kitchen. She nodded, and I headed back, leaving the front to Gracie because Egan had disappeared to the stockroom fifteen minutes ago and still hadn’t returned.

  “Lemons,” I said, as I entered the kitchen.

  Caleb shook his head. “Downstairs. I used the last of ’em this morning and haven’t had time to refill.”

  “Dammit, Caleb . . . ”

  The bear of a man only grunted and tossed me the key to the walk-in. “Grab me another gallon of coleslaw while you’re down there.”

  “Only if you’re nice.”

  My black sneakers made next to no noise on the stone stairs leading down to the basement. Not that I was trying to be Stealth Girl, but I have to admit that even only a few days into the job, the idea of arriving in a room unannounced had become second nature. A trait for which I was grateful when I heard the voices down below.

  I edged to the side of the stairs, then folded myself into an alcove, drawing in a breath as if that would make me blend in with the stone and shadows. One hesitant step back up, but then I stopped. My conscience poked at me, but not much. Not when the form of the words started to settle in my head and I recognized the voice. Tank. And he was talking with Egan.

  “—haven’t got choice, Egan. The game, you know.”

  “I already played that game.”

  “Goods didn’t work. You got paid. How that fair?”

  I frowned, trying to follow the conversation. What goods? Drugs, perhaps? I’d done enough deals on my own to know that purity in drugs on the street was dodgy at best. And hadn’t Rachel mentioned the bar’s financial troubles? If Egan had gotten into dealing in order to up the cash flow of the bar . . .

  “I gave you exactly what you asked for. How is it my fault if it didn’t work? I did what you—”

  “You question me?”

  “Of course not. But—”

  “You gonna return money?”

  “I don’t have—”

  “But you can get?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know just where to get.”

  “Friday. Sunrise. You deliver, or you pay.”

  Tank stormed out, and though I knew I was well hidden, my heart pounded wildly in my chest.

  Friday.

  Tomorrow.

  I didn’t know what was going to go down, but I damn well intended to be there to find out.

  34

  I vacillated between action and inaction, then finally decided to act like the badass I was supposed to be, suck up my courage, and ask Egan if anything was wrong. He looked up at me over the shot of tequila he was pouring at the bar, his doughy face forming into suspicious lines. “What? What could be wrong? Other than Gracie up and giving her notice. Or not giving it. Last day’s today, and now she tells me. You know about this?”

  I shook my head and hoped I looked perplexed. “So that’s all that’s bothering you?”

  “What? That ain’t enough?”

  I debated a second, and then bit the bullet. Hard. “I overheard you and Tank. He sounded really pissed. And . . . well, it sounded like he was dragging you into something illegal.” Egan hadn’t seemed the type to run a drug shop under the table, but the truth was, nothing surprised me anymore. Not that I intended to accuse Alice’s uncle. Better to play the Are you getting sucked into something? card and see if I couldn’t get him to spill at least part of the truth. “I thought maybe you needed help.”

  For a moment he looked scared, then confused. Then, to my surprise, he burst out laughing. “Well, holy shit, girl, I guess that would sound like we were slipping a little heroin to the local populace. And Tank’s sure as hell got the look about him, doesn’t he?”

  I blinked, taken aback by his forthrightness.

  “For all I know, the bastard does deal,” Egan went on, as if the thought just occurred to him. “But not here,” he said, turning a gimlet eye on me. “I don’t hold with that, and you darn well know it.”

  “Well, sure,” I said, as if I did know it “So it wasn’t drugs. Was it, you know, dark stuff?”

  Egan gave me a tight little shake of the head. “You know better than that, girl.”

  I nodded. Clarence had specifically told me that Egan had fought with Alice’s mom over her involvement with the dark arts. A scary reputation for the bar was apparently okay with him. True scariness crossed the line.

  “Well, then, what is it? What’s going on?”

  The amused expression was back, and he chuckled as he passed the tray of drinks off to Gracie, pointedly not looking at her. “Bastard’s complaining the car I sold him doesn’t work. That ancient Buick? The puke-green one? Worked fine when he picked it up, but he’s saying I either return the money or get him another car, and . . . ” He trailed off with a shrug.

  “That’s it? A car? That’s what’s bugging you?”

  “You’re the one said I looked like something was wrong. Me, I’m just annoyed I got to deal with a prick like that.”

  It made sense, and because I saw the truth in his eyes, I felt foolish. At least I did until he smiled at me. “I’m glad you came back to work
here, Alice. It’s nice to have family who cares.”

  “Yeah,” I said, meaning it. “It is.”

  I leaned over the bar and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m late. Gotta run.”

  I was late, too. I was supposed to be at Zane’s, training hard and killing demons in the ring. Zane said it was to build both my confidence and my skill, but I knew there was another reason. They wanted me primed on demon essence. He and Clarence might give lip service to the whole “compartmentalize” thing, but I knew they wanted to keep me in a killing frame of mind. And how better to get there than to take a little hit of demon?

  Cynical? Perhaps.

  Maybe that was the result of an overload of demon kills, too.

  I didn’t know.

  All I knew was that I didn’t need the dark essence. Not today.

  Today I could get to that dark place all on my own. Because today, I was going to my own burial.

  I didn’t go to the service itself. Didn’t want to hear them eulogize me. Didn’t want to see how sparse the turnout at the church was.

  And I didn’t want to feel like a hypocrite because my family had brought my body into a place of worship.

  I’d lost my faith a long time ago, burying it with my mother. There was no heaven, I’d thought. No hell. And there was certainly no God looking out for us.

  There was nothing but emptiness.

  Now I knew better. But it wasn’t faith that had brought me around; it was hard, cold reality. I knew there were monsters in the dark. And, yeah, I was scared. Not for me with my badass skills, but for people like Rose who’d had their faith snuffed by monsters like Johnson and needed to find their way back into the light before the dark pulled them down.

  The small cluster of mourners at the grave site was already breaking up when I arrived. I hung back, out of place despite being the one person who truly belonged there. At first, I could only see Rose’s back. But then she turned, and I saw the way the skin clung to her bones like a wraith, and I knew she wasn’t eating. My death and her memories were sucking the life from her. Her hair hung limp, and even at this distance, I could see that her once-beautiful eyes were flat and dull.

  I told myself that it had been less than a week since I’d died, and that time would surely heal her. But I knew that was a lie. I wanted to help. Wanted to do something more tangible than saving the whole world.

  I wanted to go to my sister, but at the same time I knew that I shouldn’t. And right then, responsibility was warring with desire. I held back, waiting to see which aspect of me won the battle.

  From across the manicured lawn, I watched as Rose looked blankly at the few people who came up to offer condolences. Jeremy from the video store was there, too, and that tiny connection almost made me smile. Or it did until my stepfather stumbled next to Rose, useless with grief and alcohol.

  My stomach clenched, my blood cold. I’d promised I’d take care of her, but now, standing in a cemetery in the Flats, that promise seemed cold and hollow. How could I have been so egotistical to swear to deliver something that could never be? I couldn’t take care of her. I’d tried. I’d done my damnedest.

  And in the end, that was what it had made us both: damned. Me with the stain of sin, and Rose with the fears that kept her locked inside after dark, a prisoner in her own home, tormented by her memories, her fears, and her sister’s unkept promises.

  “Rose.” The word came out a whisper, forced past my lips by the tears that filled my throat. There was no way she could have heard me, but still she turned, and I saw her eyes widen. I froze, staying right there as she leaned over and whispered something to Joe, then marched to me.

  I stayed put, despite Clarence’s warning echoing in my ear.

  “Why have you been following me?”

  The question, so unexpected, brought me up short. “I haven’t. I mean, I waited for you that one time at school. But—”

  “But nothing. You stood there. And you watched. I saw you. And just because I haven’t seen you the rest of the times doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re there. I can feel your eyes. I can see you in the shadows. You think I don’t know. You think I’m stupid, but I’m not.”

  “I’m not following you,” I said, fear wriggling up my spine. “I swear it.” Someone was, though. Someone was stalking my sister, and the thought of that made me go weak in the knees. I needed to be here, protecting my sister, not off fighting amorphous evil with a capital E.

  She was still eyeing me warily, and I sighed, the sudden burst of exasperation with my little sister so familiar it warmed me. “If I were sneaking around following you, would I be standing out in the open at your sister’s funeral?”

  She thought about that, pouted a little, then shook her head. “Guess not,” she said, rubbing the toe of her polished black shoe into the damp grass. “So why are you here?”

  “To tell you that I meant it. What I said before. Lily was my friend, and I know she’d never have left you on purpose.”

  She nodded, eyes brimming with tears as she looked at me. Then her gaze dipped down and she frowned, her eyes narrowing as she reached toward me. I lifted my hand, unconsciously feeling for the locket I’d tucked inside my shirt. But it wasn’t inside. It was hanging out. Right where Rose could see it.

  I forced myself not to jump when her fingers touched it. And when she opened it I heard a little gasp.

  “She gave it to me,” I said. “The night she—well, she gave it to me for safekeeping.”

  Rose simply stood there, and I couldn’t tell if she’d bought my line of bullshit.

  I reached up for the clasp. “Do you want it?”

  She shook her head. “No. She wanted you to have it.” Her head tilted to the side, as if she were trying to figure me out. “You really are her friend.”

  “Yeah. I told you so. And I meant what I said. If you need something—anything—you can call me. Here. I’ve got a cell phone now.” I still wore black jeans and a black T-shirt under the red leather coat. Probably not the most respectful of outfits, but I hadn’t had time to change. Plus, I didn’t figure a skirt would ride well on the bike.

  I rummaged through all my pockets, but couldn’t come up with paper or a pen. Rose hesitated a moment, then opened a small black purse that I recognized as once belonging to our mother. She passed me a pad of paper and a ballpoint, and I jotted down the name of the pub along with my number and my name, remembering to write “Alice” rather than “Lily.” It was, I realized, getting easier and easier to think of myself as Alice.

  “I mean it,” I said, passing the paper back. “You need anything at all, you call.” Clarence wouldn’t be happy about that, but I didn’t give a flip. If someone was following Rose, I figured she might already be in danger. No way was I staying away knowing someone was watching her.

  She hesitated, then managed the briefest of smiles, the first one I’d seen touch her face in a long, long time. “All right,” she said, tucking my number back into her purse. “Thanks.” She looked back over her shoulder at Joe. “I gotta go.”

  She turned without another word and left me standing there, alone at my own funeral.

  Honestly, now that I thought about it, the whole thing was more than a little creepy.

  I shook the thought out of my head as I started to head in the opposite direction, my mind mulling over the question of who was following her. Clarence? To make sure I wasn’t sneaking over to the Flats to visit? But that possibility didn’t ring true, a fact that disappointed me. If it were him, at least I would have an answer. And an answer was better than this cold, vague fear that Rose was still in danger.

  “Sad day for that girl.”

  I spun around and found myself looking into Deacon’s black eyes.

  My hand went to the inside pocket of my coat, where I’d stashed my knife. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

  His head tilted to the side. “She’s important to you.”

  “Yes,” I said. I couldn’t bear to deny it out l
oud. And the truth was, he already knew it. I thought about what Rose had said, then remembered how I’d seen Deacon in the distance when I’d been walking the dogs. “You’ve been following me.”

  “Yes,” he said simply. No excuses. Just confidence. And a hint of danger. Yeah, well, I could be dangerous, too.

  “And the girl? You following her, too?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You tell me.”

  He came another step closer, and I felt that catch in my gut. A keening, visceral need that unnerved me. She’s mine, he’d told the boy on the dance floor. And damned if right then I didn’t think it was true.

  Was that why I was so hesitant to believe the worst of him? I told myself it wasn’t; I wasn’t so shallow as to be controlled by lust. At least, I didn’t want to think of myself that way.

  No, I was hesitant because I feared that Clarence was being fed bad information and that either intentionally or foolishly someone was trying to set Deacon up to take the fall for Alice.

  I couldn’t be sure, though. Not about that.

  But I did know that he was dangerous.

  About that, I had no doubts.

  “Why are you here?” I asked, walking away from the grave toward the far parking lot where I’d left my bike.

  “Apparently I’m following you,” he said easily. “So perhaps the real question is, why are you here?”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

  “And I don’t need one. It’s clear enough, Lily, why you came.”

  He never raised his voice. Never let victory flash in his eyes. But he’d won, and I staggered back before I caught myself. Only an instant. One small misstep. But he would have noticed. I had a feeling Deacon noticed pretty much everything.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to salvage something.

  “Don’t play games,” he said, his voice taking on a harsh edge. “At least do us both that favor.”

  I weighed my options and ruled out killing him. I could run. I could lie. But in the end, he knew who I was. Body and soul. And there was no point holding on to my secret. Not if I could use disclosure as a bargaining chip.