“And you know what it is she intends?”
Franklin’s gaze slides to me, a heaviness settling around his eyes. “Enough of it, yes.”
“But the other Power she means to wake—”
“I have faced him before.” He touches his chest instinctively. “And this time will be different.”
“Franklin.”
“Nah.” He leans his forehead against hers. “It’s all right.”
Laurel clings to him, fresh tears cutting glittering tracks across her oaken skin. But she doesn’t argue.
Franklin looks at me while his sister cries on his shoulder. For a moment, I see his past laid out as clearly as I used to see the future—all the sacrifices made to try and protect her. I see how desperately he wants it to be over. How, even now, he would drain his life away to keep her safe.
“Do you think they’ll come back?” I ask in an attempt to change the subject.
“Not tonight.” Franklin looks around the ruined living room. “And I don’t think we should stay here.”
Laurel nods in agreement. “We should go somewhere else.”
He squeezes her hand reassuringly. “Why don’t you go get some clothes? Put some shoes on. And we’ll go.”
“Okay. I’ll just be a few minutes.” She heads down the hall toward the bedroom.
I rest my chin on my knees, exhausted. The rush of adrenaline that came with facing the Sisters is fading, the familiar chill and fatigue settling back in.
“You should probably clean that,” Franklin says.
“What?”
He nods at my hand, the knuckles torn and bleeding from punching the Sister. “You should wash that. There’s probably some bandages in the bathroom.”
“Right.” But when I try to stand, I plop back down, shaking with the effort.
Franklin’s eyes narrow, and he stands up, not too steady himself. “Wait here.”
I wait, trying to breathe, wishing I could curl up on the floor and go to sleep right there. Franklin returns in a moment with a plastic first aid box tucked under his arm. “Come on.” He pulls me upright and guides me into the kitchen.
I lean on the counter with one hand and stick my bloodied fingers under the faucet. The cold water stings, but I grit my teeth and let it run ‘til the torn skin is clean.
Franklin has the first aid kit open, antibiotic cream and a roll of gauze sitting on the counter. He squeezes a dollop of ointment on each wounded knuckle, then begins winding the gauze over it—putting loops between each finger like I'm prepping for a boxing match.
“Lucky you didn't break your hand,” he says.
“They are stronger than I expected.” I look at him, realizing the kind of courage it must take to face that kind of magic knowingly. I had always assumed he didn’t fully understand what he was facing with Percy. Now I am not so certain.
He knots the gauze on the back of my hand and trims the ends up neatly. “There. If you have to hit someone again, you should have a little protection.” He pauses, looking at me. “What?”
“I think I may have underestimated you.”
“Egh.” He tucks the remainder of the gauze back into the box.
“You know that I won’t hold you to this deal if you don’t—”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’ll help you. And you’ll take care of the Sisters.”
I nod. “Yes.”
Franklin licks his lips, rearranging the things in the first aid kit until the lid closes properly. When he looks up, his gaze is intent. “You have to understand, Delaney. I would make a deal with the devil himself to keep Laurel from having to face this again.” A flick of his fingers indicates the trashed living room down the hall, the situation in general.
“Ah.” I grin, exhausted, and tired of being so serious. “Then it’s a good thing you met me first, isn’t it?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is it?”
I could reassure him that I don’t mean to hurt him, but I know that sometimes not meaning to hurt someone isn’t enough. “Tell me something, Franklin Jones. I understand why you would deal with me now, but what about before? The first time with Percy?”
He shrugs. “I’ve seen what happens when Powers are left unchecked.” There’s a sense of wariness to him. Wondering perhaps what will keep me in check once I’m back in my bones. Besides my good nature, I mean.
“I’m ready.” Laurel stands at the door of the kitchen. She’s changed clothes and pulled her hair back with a scarf. A backpack hangs over one shoulder, and she holds a small duffel bag in her other hand.
“All right. Let’s go.” Franklin takes the duffel bag from her, and we go back out of the house through the garage. The air is soft and smells of earth and pine needles. Overhead, the sky is the color of a bruise, all purple and blotchy with clouds.
Franklin locks the door behind us, and we move to the car, quick. Down the street is the hollow rumble of plastic wheels on pavement—a neighbor dragging their trash can down to the curb. Laurel shudders and clutches at Franklin’s arm, watching the shadows under the trees in an undeveloped lot across the street.
But it remains quiet.
Franklin opens the trunk and tosses the bag in while Laurel climbs into the back seat. He shuts the trunk, takes a final look around. “Come on.”
I collapse into the passenger seat, barely getting the door closed before he puts the car into gear. The streetlights blur overhead, and my eyes slide closed as we head back into the rush and swirl of the city traffic.
13
The motel is a kitschy sprawl of one-story brick around a faded blue swimming pool. There were a handful of cars parked outside the row of paint-blistered doors when we signed in—the noise that’s come through the wall, mostly couples paying $30 for a couple hours away from prying eyes.
As the windows grow light with the approaching dawn, the whine and groan of enthusiastic lovers fades, replaced by the rumble and sigh of traffic filtering under the motel room’s door to tease me awake. My hand aches. All of me aches, but my hand is more distinct.
I wiggle my fingers and immediately regret it, knuckles throbbing as if I have just rubbed them against the dirty sidewalk outside. There’s a bottle of acetaminophen on the table beside the bed. I dump a couple tablets into my hand and shuffle into the bathroom to get a glass of water.
Alex’s face stares back at me in the mirror, pale and gaunt. I resist the urge to smash it, and swallow the pills, washing them down with a glassful of lukewarm water from the faucet.
The door between my room and the one Franklin and Laurel opted to share is open. I peek in and see they are both still asleep. Laurel curled up under the covers like a baby—knees to chin—while Franklin sprawls in the other bed as though he fell asleep when he touched the blankets. For all I know, he did.
I’m still trembling with fatigue. Mortal bodies do not handle conflict with Powers well. Maybe Franklin has a bit of the Touch without knowing it. Maybe he’ll die before he turns forty. But it doesn’t surprise me he’s spent.
My satchel is on the floor between the beds in my room, and I pull my notebooks out and spread them across the covers, turn on the light, and settle down to read. It is habit more than anything else; I know what is in between the scuffed covers. I know what I need to do next. But it is comforting to read the words again, since I can’t feel the threads around me.
I rummage in the paper bag Mama Lettie gave me, then unwrap a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My stomach churns at the thought of eating, but I know it’s necessary. There are only a few days left, but I won’t make it to the end of them if I don’t eat.
There’s a whisper of movement in the doorway.
“You want a sandwich?” I hold the bag up, gaze fixed on my notebooks, but I know that it’s Laurel standing there in the shadows.
She shuffles forward, wary. Arms wrapped across her chest as she settles on the far edge of the other bed. “What are those?”
“Research.” I flatten out the corner of a curling bit of pape
r—printed copies of various news articles I found at the library. “Leverage.”
Her brows draw down in a scowl. “Franklin would have helped you without me involved. Probably.”
“Yes.” I had been uncertain about Franklin at first, but he is proving to be more of a paladin than a street magician. “But Martinez is tricky.”
Laurel tilts her head, her fingers ticking against her knee. “The FBI agent,” she says after a moment. “Doesn’t he want revenge?”
“Ah.” I had avoided Martinez before. He was smart and, despite his blank exterior, good at reading people. It had made sense to keep my distance because the things I needed Percy to see were things that would have prompted Martinez to make sure I was put back in Greenhaven.
It wasn’t until I started trying to track down the Sisters that I realized Martinez was connected in much the same way as Franklin. That his partnership with Percy was not coincidental, but deliberate.
I’d had to dig deep to find the original articles, morbid pieces of journalism that focused less on the loss of Francesca Martinez and more on the peculiarity of her murder. Headlines full of Satanists and Devil Worshiping Cult. Columns full of concern about what it meant for the young women of the community and the bluster and fear of a dozen preachers. At the end of the first story was a single line: Martinez is survived by her young son.
Connected in the same way as Franklin, but with greater loss and deeper anger. The rest of the clippings, awkwardly following his career with the FBI through brief mentions of his name, didn’t say he had pursued that path because he wanted the women who stole his mother’s magic to die. None of them indicated he had transferred from team to team, always chasing the Sisters, always a few steps behind.
But I knew there was a reason I had never been able to separate him from Percy. Not without later disaster. Because Martinez chose to stay with Percy, not just as his handler—keeping tabs on a hidden Power for the department—but as a friend. Forcing them apart, fracturing that bond, meant Martinez always came back later, cold and clinical, to put an end to a couple of monsters.
Laurel fidgets, pulls her knees up against her chest. “I suppose we all want revenge.”
“Oh?” I don’t mean to seem doubtful, but I suppose she hears it in my voice.
She licks her lips. “Maybe not Franklin. He just wants things to be normal. Not dangerous.”
“But you want revenge.”
“Yes.” A glance toward the door to the other room, but it remains empty. She leans toward me. “You saw what they did to me. You know what they have done to others. Franklin stopped them last time, too, but...” She touches her face—the deep lines around her eyes and mouth, the gray hair at her temples. “You’d never guess I was younger than he is.”
“I’m sorry.” I reach for her instinctively, but she flinches, turns her head to stare at the growing sliver of light between the curtains. I tuck my hand back in my lap, reminding myself that she has reason to distrust anyone who is a Power. “Have you seen them come after you again?”
She stares at her toes. “No,” she says finally. “I’ve only seen you stop them.”
There’s an edge to her voice I can’t quite figure out. “Somehow you don’t seem too thrilled about that.”
“Because I’ve seen what happens afterward.” She glares at me. “I’ve seen the cost of you getting your bones back. I know what follows you.”
I blink at her, confused. “What?”
Her lip curls back from her teeth. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it. Other Powers crawling back from the dead to seize a place in this world. It starts with you.”
“Oh.” I do remember the thing she’s talking about. A thing so far distant that even when I could see my threads clearly, it was still mostly shadows and whispers. “You mean Daddy. He’s been trying to get back here for a while.”
“And he will succeed because of you.”
I understand her fear now. Ain’t nobody wants to see Daddy come back. And the twinge of guilt because—even more than Franklin—she wants to be free of the Sisters, no matter what the cost down the road.
I try to smile, harder every hour in this dead form. “I won’t let that happen.”
Laurel balls up her fists, but doesn’t hit anything. “I have seen it.”
“Once you see the future, you can change it.”
“You can change it.” Her shoulders droop, hands falling back into her lap. “The rest of us must suffer what is coming.”
I think about Martinez, choosing friendship with Percy, choosing that friendship over his other loyalties, and binding himself to Percy’s future whether he realized it or not. Everyone has the ability to change the road ahead, my gift lies in seeing how many roads there are, in changing the future of others every time I change my own.
“There is always a choice, Laurel.” My smile feels thin as a sheet of toilet paper, and as worthless.
Laurel nods, more a gesture of habit than of agreement. “Make certain they cannot hurt anyone else.” It’s a whisper, but my skin crawls with the edge in her voice. She doesn’t wait for a response, already slipping back into the other room.
I glance down at the notebook in my lap.
The photo at the top of the article is grainy, but Martinez—standing in the midst of the team he worked with in Texas—stares up at me. Solemn. Determined.
He wants revenge.
14
There’s a Waffle House across the parking lot from the motel. Once the sun is fully up above the horizon, I put my shoes on and walk over to buy pancakes, eggs, and bacon for the three of us.
The lady behind the counter looks at the gauze wrapped around my knuckles. “Rough night, honey?”
I shrug. “I’ve had worse.”
She grins, dry, and tucks a yellowy strand of hair behind her ear. “Haven’t we all?” She pulls her pencil and receipt book out of her apron pocket. “What can I get you?”
Going back across the parking lot, three Styrofoam boxes in a plastic bag in one hand, a pressed paper tray with three cups of coffee in the other, the city hums around me. The hiss and growl of traffic, the invisible prickle of electricity flowing through a million wires—for a moment this flesh trembles with it as though body and soul will shake apart.
I gulp a breath and bite the inside of my cheek. Not yet. Not yet.
The sensation passes, leaving me cold and numb. But still breathing. I fumble the door to my room open and set the coffee and food on top of the dresser next to the TV.
Franklin leans through the doorway from the other room. “Where were you?”
“Breakfast.” I hand him a takeout container and a cup of coffee. “There’s cream and sugar here, too.” I dig the handful of sugar packets out of my pocket, then the tiny thimbles of cream. The other pocket is full of little tubs of syrup.
Franklin shakes his head. “That’s okay.” He takes a quick sip from the cup. “Are there forks?”
“In the bag.”
He grabs a set of plastic ware and settles on the edge of the bed. “How’s your hand?”
“Sore.” I peel the lid off a cup of coffee, tear open a handful of sugar packets and stir them in with a few splashes of cream. It still tastes mostly brown and hot, but it helps to chase away the clinging chill.
Laurel stands in the doorway, wary. “Franklin?”
“There’s food.” He swallows a mouthful of pancake and points to the boxes on the dresser. “You should eat. It’s good.”
She makes a face. “Are there hash browns?”
“Pancakes,” he says. “Just eat.”
“Fine.” Laurel collects her breakfast and plops down at the head of the bed.
I take the remaining container, a couple of syrup tubs, and sit down on the other bed. My stomach churns. I taste coffee and acid on the back of my tongue. The food does little to settle the nausea, but it covers the sting of the reflux and fills the cold hollow under my ribs.
Franklin washes down the last few
bites of egg with his coffee, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “Now what?”
“Now we talk to the Sisters.”
He frowns, but nods reluctantly. “I suppose you know where to find them.”
“Yes.” I rummage through my notes, find the book with the address written in it.
Laurel peers over his shoulder. “That’s a dangerous part of town. Lots of folks with the Touch. Magicians.” Her gaze slides over to me. “Powers, even.”
“We won’t be there long.” I lick the last smudge of syrup from my fingers. “We shouldn’t be there long. Best if you stay here though.”
Laurel looks at Franklin, worried. “I don’t know.”
He touches her knee, reassuring. “It’ll be all right. And we’ll be back soon.”
“But—”
“You’ve seen it. We’ll be back.”
Laurel shudders, but nods. “Be careful.”
“Of course.” He tosses his empty container into the trash, tips the last of his coffee out of the cup. “Let me get my keys and jacket and we can go.”
“Sure.” I open the book of sonnets where I have hidden the page copied out of the Book of the Dead. The piece of paper, torn out of the notebook, is folded up so there is less temptation to read those forbidden words out loud. I still have to resist the urge to look at it, and, instead, tuck it into my jeans pocket.
Laurel watches me from the bed, sullen. “You take care of him.”
“Yes.” I can’t help but grin. “I’m not done with him yet.”
She scowls, unamused. “If you hurt him...”
“No one’s getting hurt,” Franklin says from the doorway. “Not today, anyway.” He shrugs into his jacket. “You ready, Delaney?”
I nod.
He points at Laurel sternly. “Lock the door behind us. Stay inside. We’ll be back soon.”
15
A handful of soup can lights in the ceiling provide just enough light in the bar to make out the little tables with wobbly chairs scattered across the sticky concrete floor. This time of day it’s also deserted.
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