Page 27

Heathcliff

The minute I step into the Grange, a bullet bites the wood floor near my feet.

“Fuck!” I shout, leaping back.

Hindley comes down the stairs, twirling his favorite pistol. “You stole my truck.”

“Borrowed.” He’d be even more pissed if he knew I’d borrowed it the other night, too, for the meeting at Moretti’s.

“You missed work.”

“So I missed one shift. Big deal.” I toss my bag onto the floor and close the door behind me as casually as I can, as if I’m assuming he won’t shoot again. “You have three other employees, Hindley. They all know the business better than I do. I’m just the muscle, the guy who lifts stuff.”

“Yeah, and we needed your muscle today.”

“I’ll work a double shift tomorrow.” I shuffle past the stairs toward the kitchen. A measured pace, like I’m tired. It’s body language I’ve learned by heart, the recipe for lowering Hindley’s boiling point to a simmer.

And it works. I’m rewarded by the click of the safety.

“We ain’t done talking about this,” Hindley warns, coming down the stairs and following me into the kitchen. “You can’t just up and take my truck, you hear? You gotta ask first.”

“You said I could use it if I paid the insurance,” I point out.

“Still mine though, ain’t it? Got my name on the title. You ask me every time you wanna borrow it, you hear? And you don’t stay out overnight, ever.” His voice is taut, a wobble of fear in the anger.

That quaver helps me understand what’s up with him. When I didn’t come back last night, he thought I’d left. That I’d gone off on my own.

Which is exactly what I plan to do once I’ve got enough money saved. But I can’t let him know that.

I yank open the fridge, grab two beers, and hand him one. “Hey. You and me, we don’t always get along, but you’re my brother. Family. This is home. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Hindley takes the bottle, his mouth working under his scruffy beard. “Yeah, well.” He clears his throat.

“How’s our patient?” I ask.

“Same as ever, I guess. When you gonna get him on his feet?”

“Soon, I hope. I’ll go see what I can do.”

As I pass Hindley, I keep my shoulders relaxed, my stride easy. He doesn’t follow me upstairs.

Again, like I’ve done a thousand times, I ask myself why I don’t grow a damn backbone, face him down, and refuse to put up with his bullying and bullshit anymore.

I guess I’m a coward. I don’t know how to exist without Hindley, his connections, and this house.

I don’t have a bank account. Hindley pays me my cut in cash and I keep it hidden in the house.

Since I was a stolen kid, I don’t have a birth certificate, a Social Security number, or a driver’s license.

How Buckland Lockwood got me into the Kinsale school system, I’ll never know.

Lucky for me, the police are real lax around here.

I’ve never been pulled over, so I’ve never had to show a license.

It’s a rural community, and lots of folks don’t bring their licenses along when they’re driving down the road or into town.

If I ever did get pulled over, I could say I forgot mine.

Most of the cops know me anyway, since I’m the one who comes to get Hindley if he ever acts up drunk out in public.

Whenever he has a run-in with the law, a donation of Lockwood lager to the sheriff’s private stash usually smooths everything over.

Yeah, I been too scared to get my own identity, to step outside the boundaries of this family. Hindley’s a mess and a mean son of a bitch, but him and the other Lockwoods are all I’ve had for years.

Except now, there’s Cathy.

“Catherine Earnshaw.” I whisper her name into the upstairs hallway, like a charm against the dark.

She and I are the same in more ways than I thought at first. The way she is, her situation—I get it. I understand her , and she understands me.

I head into our coma patient’s room, flip the light switch, and set the beer on the dresser. My back is to the bed, and in the amber glass of the beer bottle, I see something move. Something tall and quick.

I spin around, but there’s nobody, just the motionless figure under the sheet. Ian’s face is the same as always—placid, healthy, and unconscious.

Unnerved, I scan the room. There’s a lot of heavy furniture in here, pieces that wouldn’t fit anywhere else in the house, so they found their way into the guest room. My eyes narrow on the wardrobe, and I cross to it with quick strides, yanking the door open.

Nothing.

I’m exhausted. And I had an encounter with an actual god yesterday. This is probably post-traumatic stress, making me see random shit.

I pull the sheet down. Ian is still in the pajamas I dressed him in—an old flannel set of Buckland’s.

Carefully I check his limbs, his extremities, and yeah, his privates.

Still no piss or anything. Still no sign that he needs food or water.

His pulse is steady, his breathing is light and regular.

He doesn’t have a fever. And when I place my hand on his forehead and try to get a read off him, I don’t feel anything.

Which means no part of him is stuck in the Vague. He’s wholly here, just…not here.

Swearing softly, I sink onto the edge of the bed, brace my elbows on my knees, and prop my chin on my hands.

“What’s up with you, man?” I say aloud to the unconscious figure. “I need my cut of the payout, okay? I need you to wake the fuck up. I don’t know how to fix you.”

It’s possible Hindley screwed something up on his end of the resurrection. But it’s more likely that I failed to repair some vital part of the brain that controls consciousness.

No…that’s not it. I’ve healed my share of corpses. I know exactly what I’m doing, and I always get this sense of completeness when it’s done. No way I left anything unfinished.

Unless this guy is supernatural. Hindley mentioned something like that. But he didn’t know what kind of supernatural the guy was, so I have no idea how that might affect things.

I partnered in the resurrection of a couple supernaturals back when I was younger, when Buckland was still alive and he was training me.

Their resurrections worked the same as any others.

If Ian’s didn’t turn out right, he must be way different than anything I’ve encountered.

And he must not have suspected that a resurrection wouldn’t work right for him, or he’d have given us more details ahead of time.

Unless his brand of supernatural is so terrible he thought we wouldn’t bring him back. I remember the oily, slithering shape of his soul, the panicked sensation I felt, the wrongness.

I don’t feel that wrongness now, or I might be tempted to stick a knife in his heart and be done with the whole mess.

Besides, I need that payout money, for me and for Cathy. Especially since there’s no knowing when my own private business venture will bear fruit.

I work over Ian awhile longer, trying everything I can think of. But there’s nothing to heal or pull, no wandering spirit to seize and drag back into the body. He’s fine. He’s just…stagnant. Like a swamp lying perfectly still between cypress trees.

“Whatever is going on with you, I don’t know if you deserve it or not,” I mutter.

“But I’m doing the best I can, man. I got my own shit to deal with.

” I rub a hand over my face, releasing a deep sigh.

“I just found out I got Italian roots. Always suspected, but it’s for sure now.

I’m descended from Juventas, Roman goddess of life, with some weird connection to Celtic gods like Manannán and I…

fuck, I don’t know what to make of it. Can’t research this stuff online very well, you know? ”

I stare at the motionless figure, stroking the stubble along my jaw. “You don’t mind if I vent a little, right? I got no one else to talk to, and you can’t tell on me anyway.”

He lies there, silent and empty, so I keep talking.

“My girl, she’s a banshee, a herald of death, which is ironic considering what I can do, dragging souls out of the Vague.

It’s like we’re fated or something. Like I’ve always known her.

She’s my fucking soul, man, and she’s got to realize that it’s her and me, it’s us against the damn world… ”

Tears are forming in my eyes, and I’ll be damned if I cry right now. I gotta stop confessing all my crap to this unconscious guy, so I clear my throat and rub my eyes angrily before getting up.

I’m headed out of the room when I see it.

A black feather on the carpet.

I pick it up, peering at it. A single feather, long, glossy, and jet-black.

Ain’t no pillows in this house with feathers like that.

It’s fucking weird, but it doesn’t mean anything. Could have come from anywhere. Hell, I could have tracked it in here.

Just to be sure, I snap my fingers sharply in front of the unconscious man’s face. Not a flinch. I flick his cheek, poke his belly, pull a hair from his head. Nothing.

He’s not faking unconsciousness, that’s for sure. Besides, if he were, he’d have sneaked out long ago, to avoid having to pay us.

When I leave the room, I holler down the stairs at Hindley. “He won’t wake up. I tried everything.”

Hindley mutters several curses, and a dish smashes.

“Did you wear a black feather boa into Ian’s room?” I call.

“No, idiot!” he bellows back.

“Cool down. I don’t know your kinks, all right? Just checking because I found a black feather on the carpet.”

Hindley doesn’t answer, so I head for my room. I got two new tattoos, and they could use some air.