Hoarfrost (Blood of Cain Book 2)

by J. L. Murray

  "Who's lying now?" he said. "My real name, my given name, is Jacob. Jacob Solomon."

  I raised the bottle to my lips again letting the shitty vodka wash over my insides. "I'm still calling you Dekker."

  "Can I tell you all this now?" he said. "Can I just tell you everything?"

  "We need to take care of Esme," I said. "We need to help her survive the next 24 hours so she can take care of her son and have a life. We need to figure out what the hell to do with Abel. You can tell me when this is all over if you still want to. I'll listen."

  "Frankie–"

  "Just tell me something true," I said, remember something he said to me a lifetime ago. "Tell me one true thing."

  "I've loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you."

  "Tell me something I don't know."

  "I killed my father," he said. "He was a bad guy, and he deserved it. And everything else sort of spiraled out of control from there. I was twenty.”

  "I killed my mother," I said. "See? It was meant to be."

  "You're a goddamn romantic, Frankie Mourning."

  But my chest ached when he touched me, and even the vodka couldn’t dim the face that laughed at me inside my head. The face of my sister, Rebecca, coming out of the lake, shaking me, taking me home. Going into the water as my sister and coming out as a monster. She'd been an imposter, too. Just like Dekker. It wasn't the same, I kept thinking. It wasn't the same, it’s just a name.

  He hadn't lied on purpose, I knew him. It couldn't have all been lies. Becky had been a monster, and Dekker...did it make it better that he lied on purpose? And kept on lying? Did it make it better that it wasn't some monstrous possession that had brought the lies, but simple hubris? An ego, a wish to keep me, the desire to come looking for me, keep tabs on me, find me no matter where I was. Did that make it better than what happened with Becky?

  He leaned in to kiss me and I stood, feeling darkness swirl inside me, waking from the sleep the Morrigan had thankfully given me. "We should check on Esme," I said, trying to breathe. I grabbed my boots and slipped them on, walked to the door.

  "Frankie?" said Dekker. But when I looked at him, he just shook his head and closed his eyes. He might have been crying, but turned his face away and I couldn't see. I wanted to go to him, put a hand on him, wrap my arms around him and tell him it was okay, that I was okay.

  But it would have been a lie.

  SEVENTEEN

  Esme was gone.

  "I thought you said she was here," I said, standing in the middle of what was once a living room. Now it had mildew crawling up the wallpaper, empty bottles neatly stacked against one wall chronicling Abel's drinking habits, and a single moldy couch, now empty. The front door was wide open, a fresh, salty breeze blowing in and carrying away the smell of rot.

  "She was here," said Dekker. "Shit!"

  "Calm down," I said, walking toward the door. Dekker came up behind me, looking over my shoulder. I could see a silhouette standing motionless against a sky mottled with clouds.

  "What's she doing?" said Dekker, starting past me. I put a hand on his chest and he looked down at me, surprised.

  "I'll go," I said. "Let me talk to her."

  "Why? I know her better than you do. I worked with her."

  "She doesn't need a coworker," I said. "She needs a friend." I left Dekker staring after me and walked slowly towards Esme. She was standing on what turned out to be the edge of the world, a low cliff that fell sharply into the sea. I could see a ridge that descended diagonally down to the shore, a path down to the beach. Esme's feet were bare and I remembered the feeling of my own bare feet, barnacles cutting into my skin, on the beach by Jason Halloran’s house. I'd wanted to die then. The only thing that kept me alive was the idea of saving Mirabel. The image of Jason's ruined face flashed in my mind and I knew I wasn't the hand of justice from an avenging angel. I was as bad as the rest of them. But I could do this one thing. I could save Esme, I could keep her alive and she could have at least part of her family together again.

  I stopped, standing next to her, my feet as close to the edge as hers. "I can't feel anything," she said, her voice soft and hollow. "I know I should, but I can't feel it."

  "You will," I said.

  "I know." She raised her hands in front of her face. "You should go. You should get the hell away from me before I kill you, too."

  "I'm not sure you can kill me."

  "You're not FBI," she said. "So who the hell are you?" She was staring out at the sea, eyes unfocused, her hands still raised as if she were a surgeon about to enter an operating room. Slowly, she lowered her arms, letting them hang limp at her sides. I watched a light blinking in the distance, the faraway flash from a lighthouse up the coast.

  "My name is Frankie Mourning," I said. "A few months ago, I wouldn't have told you that. I wouldn't even be here, because a few months ago, I wouldn't have stayed to help anyone. But for some reason, a while back, I started telling the truth. So I'm going to tell you exactly what's happening, Esme. You might not believe it, you might think I'm crazy."

  "I feel like I'm the crazy one," said Esme. "Did it really happen? Did I really...burn him?" Despite her emotionless tone, her eyes filled with tears.

  "I’m very sorry, you're not imagining it. It really happened, but none of this was of your own volition."

  "That doctor," she said. "He did something to me?"

  "What do you know about Cain and Abel?" I said. Blinking, she glanced at me, then looked quickly back to the sea.

  "From the Bible?" she said slowly. "I don't know. What everyone knows, I guess. Cain killed Abel, I think. My parents weren't religious, so I don't know what you're asking."

  "That’s right. In the Bible, Cain killed Abel," I said, "But what if Cain and Abel were still alive? What if they acquired some sort of powers and waged war on each other?"

  "What the hell are you trying to say?"

  "The doctor, Saladin, that’s not his real name," I said.

  "I figured that out, thanks."

  "His name is Abel and he's thousands of years old." She was looking at me again, this time with hate filling her eyes. A tear slipped down her cheek. She balled her hands into fists at her sides.

  "I just killed my husband," she seethed. "Do you think this is a fucking joke?" Tendrils of smoke rose from her hands and her eyes widened in fear as she stumbled, slipping on the edge of the precipice. I caught her arm to pull her back and she fell to the ground. I knelt in front of her.

  "I warned you that I was going to tell you the truth," I said, as she struggled to control her emotions. She gasped for breath, blinking tears, on her hands and knees on the ground. I now sat cross-legged in front of her. "There are things in this world that no one knows about. Dark, horrifying things. I'm one of them. And now, for the time being, so are you."

  "No," she said, shaking her head. "This isn't real, none of it is real."

  "That doctor was Abel, and he passed his powers onto you. He's running from someone even older and more powerful than he is. He used you to throw them off his trail and save his own skin."

  "Abel? Powers? What the hell is any of this? Why do you know about it?"

  "I'm going to stop him and save you, Esme, but you have to trust me."

  "Trust you?" she said, looking at me. She slumped over, letting herself sit on the ground and sat across from me in the dirt and sand and gravel, the ocean at my back. Esme narrowed her eyes, getting to her knees. "You've done nothing to make me want to trust you. Everything in me tells me I should shoot you. Put a bullet in your head, and your boyfriend's, too. None of this started until the two of you came here. For all I know it's you that's doing this." She rose, standing over me, looking down. I remained sitting calmly, letting her glare, letting her seethe.

  "You know that's not true," I said quietly. "The bodies, the frozen bay. Dekker came here to help you. If we weren't here, you'd already be dead. And If I hadn’t been here, what Abel's running from would have gone for you the moment
your husband died."

  "Who's Dekker?"

  "That's a really good question, actually," I said.

  "What is going on?" she said, crying again. "Why is this happening?"

  "Everybody wants to rule the world," I said, shrugging. "And weak men will always try to save their own skins. Even if they have to use the innocent to do it. Esme, look at me." She did, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Esme, I'm here to help you. Do you believe me?" I stood up slowly and held a hand toward her. She looked at it, then met my eyes.

  "How did Jerry know your name?" she whispered.

  "Do you really want to know?" I said.

  "Yes.”

  I lowered my hand and nodded. "Okay," I said, “here it is. This thing, this creature who’s hunting Cain and Abel, she sent Abby and Jerry looking for me. They were supposed to deliver a message. A terrible poem. I don't understand why, but that’s how she explained it, right before she kicked my ass."

  "Something made people kill themselves to write poetry?" she said. "That makes no sense!"

  "Let's just call it a message I don't understand," I said. " Not yet. But I promise you, I am going to kill her. For what she did, the people she's murdered, I'm going to kill her and take her back to where she belongs."

  "You keep saying she."

  "She calls herself the Mother of Hearts," I said, my voice heavy. "But most seem to call her the Mother. She's from...somewhere else, and she's very old and very powerful. She isn’t supposed to kill me, because apparently her boss doesn't want her to. Though she has made it known that she would like nothing better than to rip out my heart. So my only choice is to get stronger and kill her, or find someone else who can. I don't know what else to do."

  Tears were streaming down Esme's cheeks, but she was angry, her fists still curled, and smoke had begun to seep from her hands again. She stared at me for a moment. "I just killed my fucking husband. A fake FBI agent is telling me what to do, I feel something bad inside of me, like I'm going to explode, like I'm going to take the whole goddamn world with me. And now the fake agent is informing me the weird scary creature, this Mother of Hearts, she's too strong to beat. My husband is dead, and I'm a powder keg, and you're saying hang in there, champ! We'll figure something out, you and me!" Esme spat and it sizzled on the ground. "Fuck you, whoever you are. Frankie whatever. Fuck you and fuck off, I wish I never met you."

  "Believe it or not, I know how you feel, Esme."

  "You know how I feel," she said, her eyes going cold, her lower lip trembling. "You're saying you, a criminal, someone who doesn't even really know what the fuck is going on, you know how I feel?"

  "You'd be surprised," I said. I sat down in the dirt again, motioning for her to join me. She lost some of her anger as she looked at me, as her lip continued to tremble. She loosened her fists and the smoke dissipated. She closed her eyes for a second, and then, with a sigh, sat down next to me.

  "About a year ago," I said, "I died."

  "You died," she said, looking out at the sea. "Really."

  "A couple times now, actually," I said. "Sounds crazy, right?"

  "Fuck off."

  "Lethal injection the first time," I said, continuing as if she wanted to hear. Maybe she didn't want to know, but she deserved to know what was happening to her and I was the one with the information. She might not like it, but I knew she would hear me out. "And when I woke up, these wraiths were following me around, telling me to do stuff I didn't want to do."

  "Stuff?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Ordering me to kill bad people. And to kill monsters."

  "There's no such thing as monsters," she said automatically, as though she had said it hundreds of times before. She laughed a dry, humorless laugh. "I guess that's not true. I'm one of the things you're supposed to kill?"

  "No," I said, then, softer, "no." I cleared my throat, collecting myself. "This is temporary, Esme. I promise."

  "You said she was too strong, this Heart Mother. I'm still not convinced she exists, not like you say she does." Her words came slow, as if she had tired of fighting it, of fighting me.

  "You'll have a chance to see for yourself, I'm sure," I said grimly. "Look, I'm going to help you, but you also have a job here: survive. You have to live through this, at least for your son."

  At the last word, Esme flinched. She looked away, her breath ragged.

  "You could call him," I said gently. "You don't have to tell him about his dad just yet. But you could call him and tell him you love him."

  "I can't," she whispered.

  "It wasn't your fault," I said. "He won't blame you."

  "Whose fault was it, then?" she said, her voice emotionless now. "Should I tell Matty that his father died because a famous personage from the Bible gave me secret powers? Should I tell him I was mad and set his daddy on fire, but it wasn't my fault? Should I tell him a criminal who claims to be dead told me everything was going to be okay so he shouldn't worry about it?"

  "I didn't say it was going to be easy," I said. "But as someone who's lost my family, I'd want to hear my mother’s voice. Because if something does happen to you, Esme, he's going to remember."

  "I thought you were going to save me," she said.

  "I am."

  "Then fucking do it," she said. "Take this shit out of me. Can you take it? Can you make it stop? It burns all the time, like my insides are on fire. Like there's acid in my veins."

  "Not yet," I said, "But it's going to happen."

  "Where's my gun?" she said.

  "What?"

  "Where the hell is my gun?" She was standing, her whole body shaking. "Give it to me, and I'll put myself out of my misery. Before I hurt anyone else, before Matthew knows what I did. Give me my gun, Frankie Mourning."

  "You left it in the fire," I said.

  "I'll find another," she said. "Or I'll find another way. Think this cliff is high enough?"

  "Esme, stop it," I said.

  "He'll never know what I did," she said.

  "He's not going to know," I said. "It was a freak accident. They've already said you weren't at fault."

  "Freak accident?" she said, her voice growing shrill. "Freak is right. I am a freak and I killed him. I killed Will and there's no hiding from it." I could feel the heat rising from her. Smoke rose from her fingers and from her mouth, and tiny flames licked out of her eyes. "What would you do if you killed him?" she said, her too-bright eyes looking toward the house, where Dekker watched us intently from the porch. "Would you just keep on keepin' on? Would you get over it? Or would you just let it all go?"

  I shook my head. "I’m not sure. It's always on my mind, though. Always." I met Dekker's eyes and he stood up straight, ever ready to help. But it made my chest ache to look at him, so I looked back at Esme. She was vibrating, the flames peeking out of her fingers now, filling her eyes, and when she opened her mouth, it glowed orange within. I kept my voice level, calm, because that's what she needed right now. A friend to talk her through it. Solid ground as the world was crumbling all around her. "If I killed him, I'd probably do something I'd regret. And if it was my fault, I'd probably start a war of my own."

  "A war?" said Esme, forgetting her anger for a split second. The flames eased, the smoke cleared. "A war with whom?"

  I looked out to the sea. The water was choppy, a chill wind blowing our hair away from our faces. "Everyone," I said. "Everything. No one would be safe."

  "I don't want to hurt him," Esme said after a moment, her voice thick. Without looking I knew she could feel now, the shock was passing and she could feel the pain. I wished I could take away. The burst of fire had passed for now, the heat dissipated, and I suddenly felt cold without it.

  "You're not going to hurt your son," I said.

  "How do you know?" She was crying, though all her tears had dried up. "How can anyone know what's going to happen?"

  "No one can," I said. "But I'm either going to keep you alive or I'm going to die trying. Do you believe me?"

  She nodde
d slowly. "Yes," she said. "I guess I do."

  "Don't hurt yourself, Esme," I said. "Not before we fix this." I remembered Dekker saying the same thing to me.

  "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "What should we do first, then?"

  I frowned, looking out at the water. A strange chill had replaced the breeze. And the smell of dust.

  "What the hell is that?" said Esme, following my gaze. The dark waves brightened, freezing in peaks that turned bright white, traveling toward us, crackling and fanning out until the all the water was frozen, a thick layer of hoarfrost rising on top of the ice.

  "Son of a bitch," said Esme under her breath, watching with sharp eyes. "It's happening again."

  She moved quickly, forgetting herself, forgetting everything but instinct. The need to find out what was happening, who was killing people. She started down the trail that led to the water before I could stop her, her bare feet slipping on the earth that was now covered in a thin layer of frost.

  "Esme!" I screamed over the cacophony of the quickly rising wind, shards of ice pricking my cheeks, and the creaking and groaning of the sea of ice. Dekker was running from the porch, right behind me as I slid down the treacherous trail on the side of the cliff, Esme faster than we were. By the time we got to the bottom of the cliff, she was already running across the frozen sea.

  "Jesus Christ!" said Dekker.

  I took a step forward, queasy at the thought of walking across the top of an ocean. A memory seemingly of another person walking on water filled my mind for an instant, but it didn't feel like me. Another person had done that, in another life. Someone better, stronger than me. I remembered my vision of fire, the sea covered in hoarfrost just as it was now. But when I looked to the distance, I didn't see the golden glow of flames, and nothing was lighting up the sky. I took another step and the raven with the white eyes landed on the ice in front of me. Other ravens filled the air above me.

  "Where's Abel?" I called to Dekker.

  "Still tied up. Frankie, this is crazy."

  "It's why I'm here," I said, something catching in my chest. It was filling me up again, the darkness inside of me. It scratched against the inside of my skull, softly for now, but I knew it was only a matter of time. Would it tear me apart if I let it loose? Would it just grow bigger and stronger? Or was it really a part of me, like Abel said?