by J. A. Saare
His footsteps retreated from the bed and paused for several seconds. Then I heard the door open and close with a snick. It was the snick that urged me to action. I scrambled from the bed, collecting my clothes with hands that were entirely worthless, failing several times in my attempts.
I had no concept of time as I dressed, but I knew it took much longer than usual, considering I couldn’t button my jeans, pull on my socks, or slide into my boots. Memories of Ray, ones I’d kept dead and buried, were very much alive, breathing and threatening to take over—worse than my most vivid nightmares. Due to Disco’s invasion, Ray was alive again. Several years’ worth of work at building up a wall completely demolished in minutes. With them came memories of Jennifer, of her pain, of her journey from fucked-up to psychotic, as well as my own fears, insecurities and weaknesses.
“Come here, Rhia,” Ray whispered in my head, taunting me. “I have something for you.”
“Get your shit together, right now,” I snapped, swiping at the tears that continued to flow down my cheeks. I only had a few more minutes, maybe less, until Disco came back. And I refused to be waiting for him like a sacrificial lamb, crawling on hands and knees to appease him, just so he wouldn’t do anything more to hurt me.
Just like I had with Ray.
The moment I slid the necklace on, peace overcame me, shrouding me in something other than grief. I called upon its radiating presence, using it to help me stand upright and exit the room as quietly as possible.
I heard voices as I came to the foot of the stairs, the meeting of the family coming to an end, and rushed to the door. Once I opened it and stepped outside, I took off at a dead run. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but one thing was for certain.
I wasn’t going to do the walk of shame. Not when I could outrun it.
Chapter Twenty
“Wake up, sleepyhead.” A gentle touch on my shoulder had me on guard and I jumped from the couch I’d crashed on, ready to do battle. When I acclimated to my surroundings, I realized I was at Goose’s home. I knew where he stashed his extra key and had used it to get inside. I hoped his home was a place I would be safe, a place Disco wouldn’t come looking for me. The amulet would make sure he couldn’t track me down, but it didn’t prevent him from trying.
“Hey, it’s all right.” Goose didn’t come closer. “It’s only me.”
I shook my head, attempting to stem the flow of dreams that had arrived the moment I’d fallen asleep. Nightmares of Ray laughing at my tears, forcing me to take him exactly as he wanted, driving into me over and over again despite my pleas to stop as Jennifer watched from a chair in the corner.
“How about I make us some coffee?” Goose stood exactly where I’d first spotted him, watching me carefully.
Clearing my throat, I nodded. “Coffee sounds good.” At the very least, if I did vomit, it would be something liquid and not solid.
As he left to walk to the kitchen, I made a beeline for his bathroom. The light hurt my eyes, but only for a moment. When I saw my face, I wanted to kick myself in the ass. I recognized the woman in front of me. The swollen, puffy eyes, the tearstained cheeks. I’d sworn in a time not so long ago I’d never return to this state, not for anyone or anything.
Taking a fortifying breath, I turned the knobs and waited until the water steamed. It blistered my hands and face as I scrubbed at my skin, removing traces of the previous night’s events. When I surfaced, the puffiness was still there, and I was red all over. It didn’t do me any favors superficially, but it helped mask the grief I still felt.
Goose was waiting in the kitchen, and I sat at his table. A cup of coffee was waiting for me, full of cream and sugar. I took a hearty sip and followed it up immediately with another. I tasted a hint of chocolate and mint, which should have set my stomach off but soothed it instead.
“Gabriel’s looking for you,” Goose informed me as he took a seat, and I started to stand when he lifted his hand. “I told him you weren’t here.”
Suspicious and leery, I placed my ass on the cushioned chair. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you never run. In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never run from anyone or anything. When I found you on my couch, I knew that something very bad must have set you off.”
“Disco didn’t tell you?” I reached for my cup again.
“He told us about the time travel, which I confess, I find hard to believe. He also told us why you did what you did last night and the repercussions that would have occurred had you not interfered.”
After taking a heaping swallow, I asked, “That’s it?”
“That’s it. He ended the meeting and went back to his room. When he discovered you’d left, he tried to find you on his own until the sun rose. Right now he’s relying on me to find you. I went by your apartment, so I called and told him you weren’t there, which was true. When I found you here, I called and told him you weren’t here either. I figured I’d give you time to sort things out.” He hesitated and produced the warm smile I knew so well. “Or to talk to a friend, if you want.”
It was so tempting to lay it all out there, but Goose was Disco’s familiar too. It wouldn’t take much for him to sort through his memories to find out how I felt about what he’d done.
“I don’t want to talk about it. It wouldn’t do anything right now but confuse me even more.”
“I heard your screams.” Goose sounded furious, and when I peered past my steaming mug, he looked it as well. “We all did. Paine wanted to intervene, but the family stopped him. We all know something bad transpired between you and Gabriel. Something very, very bad.”
Very, very bad? That was putting it mildly. “Then you also know if Disco didn’t mention it, it remains between us.”
He was still angry, but he relented. “Fair enough.”
Goose’s phone rang and I almost jumped from my seat like an edgy alley cat. He motioned for me to stay put and went to the phone hanging next to the kitchen door.
“Hello?”
I could hear Disco’s voice through the phone. “Have you found her?”
“Not yet. I was going to get a shower and hit Central Park.”
“Call me the minute you find her.” Was that panic in his voice? The part of me that wanted to believe it was quickly suffocated by the hurt portion that always managed to keep such thoughts out. You didn’t hurt those you loved. Once bitten, twice shy. It was more than a great eighties song—it was a motto worth living by.
“Don’t worry, I will.”
Goose hung up the phone and returned to his chair. “See, I wasn’t lying to you. No matter what happens between you and Gabriel, you can always trust me. Our friendship stands outside the confines of the vampiric family. It always has. You can trust me, Rhiannon.”
Damn it to hell, I wanted to cry again. “I can’t trust anyone right now.”
“Then when you’re ready, I’m here, okay? I’m just putting it on the table.”
As the steady thrum of the amulet warmed my skin, I knew there was something I could trust Goose with, even if he wouldn’t want to help.
“There is something you can help me with.” I pulled the jewelry from my sweater so he could see, and his eyes narrowed.
“I told you to get rid of that thing. It’s no good, I can feel it.”
I allowed the stone to drop to my shirt. “It doesn’t matter. Good or bad, I now owe a debt that has to be repaid within a year. Coming back wasn’t something that was free of charge.”
“You ended Zagan’s bargain.”
I nodded. “That I did, but it came with a price.”
The tension coming from him was palpable. “You made a deal with another demon?”
“No, I made a deal with a fallen angel. Marigold Vesta, to be exact.”
Goose dropped his mug, causing coffee to spill all over the table. He made no rush to clea
n it; he simply gawked at me as if I’d lost my mind. When he managed to find his tongue, he sounded bewildered.
“A fallen angel?”
“I don’t know much about her.” I retrieved the notes I stuffed into my back pocket and tossed them at him. “Just the information I was given in the future.”
As he began sorting through the papers, he asked, “What deal did you make with her?”
That was the whammy, wasn’t it? “She wants to be brought back to life. She said her remains are hidden in a location she is unaware of, and she wants me to find them and deliver her from Hell.”
I almost thanked Goose for keeping the papers in hand versus dropping them into the coffee, since his fingers were trembling. “You made a deal with a fallen angel who’s trapped in Hell?”
“Yeah, and get this.” I took a sip of coffee, hoping he didn’t take off screaming. “She’s Lucifer’s own concubine. How cool is that?”
“Only you would do something so foolish.” He rose from his seat, placed the papers on the counter, and went for the Bounty paper towels. “Pissing off the overlord of Hell isn’t exactly smart.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice, believe me. It was either make the deal or remain in a Hell world you don’t want to know about.”
I averted my eyes when he started at me, reminded too much in that moment of the daughter he would never meet because of what I’d done, the very daughter who had sacrificed her life in order to achieve a different, brighter future.
“So what are you planning? I don’t dabble in this sort of thing.”
I nodded, thinking aloud. “But Sonja does. Which is why she and I are about to become bosom buddies. She was the one who gave me the information you’re holding in your hand while I was in the future.”
He stilled in his cleaning efforts. “I wasn’t aware Sonja was interested in black magic.”
I wanted another sip of coffee, but I answered before I partook. “I’m sure there are a lot of things you don’t know about Sonja.”
Goose left the stained towels on the floor and took his seat across from me again. “Are you aware of the price that must be paid to bring a being back to life? I’m not talking about reanimating a zombie, or recalling one from the dead only to banish them back to where they came from.”
“A life of equal offering to the being that is being recalled from death.” At his stunned look, I couldn’t help but laugh. “I did my studying like a good girl when I was recovering at Disco’s. I’m not as stupid as I once was.”
“Then you know the life has to be equally as strong as the entity you return to life. If you’re going to reincarnate a fallen angel, that’s going to require more than an animal sacrifice. You’re going to have to kill someone in order to do it.”
Nodding, I kept my eyes on my coffee. “I’m aware.”
“Jesus, Rhiannon!” Goose rose again, knocking the table as he did with his leg. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you! You would actually consider killing someone? It doesn’t bother you to end a life?”
A loaded question, one I’d asked myself several times. Could I kill someone else in order to revive Marigold? Would I have the willpower to take the life of someone else to bring her back to life? At first, I thought the answer was no, but after a night spent with Disco, I remembered that not all lives are created equal.
The world I returned to, while admittedly better than the one in the future, was one still filled with murderers, child rapists and serial killers. With those who would kill their own families in their sleep, kidnap, rape and strangle the innocent. No matter how much time passed, there was always someone out there who didn’t deserve to draw air, didn’t deserve to enjoy what qualified as a demented, fucked-up life.
“I don’t expect you to understand, and I’m not asking you to help with that. I just need all the information you can gather on Marigold Vesta. I need to figure out where she’s resting, how to get there, and I need to know as soon as possible. My clock started ticking the minute I got back.”
“I’m not sure if I can do this.” When I glanced at Goose, he looked almost green. “I can’t kill someone.”
I placed my cup on the table and looked him in the eye. “You won’t be. As soon as I have the information I need, I’ll do this on my own. I’m not asking you to stain your hands. I’m just asking you for some information. That’s it.”
“It’s the same thing though, isn’t it? The minute I give you what you need, you’ll find someone, take them to Marigold’s grave, and you’ll bring her back using their life as an offering.”
I didn’t turn from him, knowing he needed to hear it, accept it, or walk away. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers for.”
The phone rang again. Goose stomped to the phone, yanked it off the receiver, and thrust it against his ear. “Hello?”
“You haven’t left yet?” This time, it was Paine I could hear through the line.
“Obviously not,” Goose snapped.
The surge in Goose’s temper exasperated Paine’s. “What’s keeping you?”
“Things like caffeine, a shower and a change of clothes, for starters.”
I heard Paine sigh through the phone. “Just call us when you find something, all right?”
“As soon as I find something, you’ll be the first to know.”
The call ended just as abruptly as the first, and I was already making my way to the room that doubled as Goose’s office. I couldn’t stick around. I had plans to make—the sooner the better—and I didn’t want to risk bumping into anyone aside from Goose.
“Rhiannon, wait.” Goose was right on my heels, so that when I turned, we were face to face. I didn’t expect the hug he gave me, since Goose wasn’t the mushy type, but I accepted it nonetheless. There was warmth there—comfort and friendship. “You never have to run from me. No matter what happens, I’m here. I just want you to know that.”
I pulled away, smiled and tapped him lightly on the chest. “Then stay by your phone. When I work out the details, I’ll be in touch.”
As I walked to the door, his question stopped me. “You’re not planning on running away again, are you?”
This time, my smile was very real. Goose had said one thing today that reminded me that no matter what, I was no one’s butt monkey.
As I opened the door, I glanced over my shoulder. “I don’t run from anyone or anything, remember?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hoisting my duffel over my shoulder, I waited to exit the Greyhound bus, courtesy of the narrow walkway between the seats. Once the other passengers walked to the door, it was my turn to get off. The warm and humid Florida air was refreshing, reviving me after the long trip from the big city.
A couple of cabbies asked if I needed a ride, but I politely declined, walking slowly across traffic in search of my destination. Fortunately, it wasn’t very far. This was a trip a long time in the making, and I needed to brace myself for what might greet me.
After several miles of pondering the unknown, I stood in front of the Florida State Mental Hospital. It looked like a normal establishment to the unknowing eye, but I knew better. Inside the building were people with a lot of demons trapped inside of them. Demons that made the pits of Hell look like rainbows and sunshine.
I passed through the glass double doors and walked toward the receptionist’s desk. She was on the phone and indicated I should wait until she finished her call. As she prattled on, I glanced around, noting that not much had changed since my last visit.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked after she ended her call.
I nodded, lowering the duffel, and dropped it to the floor. “I’m here to see my sister.”
“Name?”
“Jennifer Cunningham.”
The receptionist smiled. “Another visitor, that’s great. I’m sure Jennifer
will be glad for the company.”
Alarms sounded, nice and loud. “Another visitor?”
The receptionist’s smile waned. “Your mother was in to see her earlier. She comes by once a week. You just missed her.”
I recovered, but not quickly. “Carrie was here?”
She nodded. “She’s been coming by weekly for the last few months.” Glancing up, she questioned, “You didn’t know?”
“No.” I tried to shake off my shock. “I’ve been out of town for a while.”
I sensed the receptionist’s distrust. “Your name please?”
“Rhiannon Murphy.”
When she saw me on the approved list, her smile didn’t return. I wasn’t sure why, but I honestly didn’t care. I had the right to be here, and there was nothing she could do to stop me.
“Sign in here.” She shoved a clipboard at me and reached for one of the temporary name plates that would grant me passage to Jennifer’s room.
I signed in, waited until she finished, and took the sticker. Because I was in a bitchy mood, I avoided hitting the trashcan when I tossed the paper backing toward the receptacle, giving her something else to do while on the job. After I affixed the tag to my shirt, I retrieved my duffel.
“Is she in the same room?”
“She hasn’t been moved since her arrival.”
I bit back a curse and started walking past the people in wheelchairs in my path. If Jennifer hadn’t been moved, it meant she was still in the ward for bona fide psychopaths, marked as a danger to herself and those around her. I wasn’t sure why I thought that would change. Perhaps some part of me hoped that in some way she’d made progress in my absence.
The overwhelming odors of piss, shit and vomit were impossible to cover with the best cleansers in the world, and I tried not to gag. It was a short walk to the elevator, and when the doors closed, I breathed a sigh of relief. As I traveled upward, I dry washed my eyelids, begging my body that was exhausted from hours of travel to hold out for a little while longer.