Page 34 of The Sin Eater (Carnival of Mysteries #27)

Ezra

T hey don’t arrive till after six p.m. Micah does text me— something something traffic yadda yadda —which is either the truth or the lamest excuse ever. Anyone who’s lived in Seattle for any amount of time knows that traffic is A Thing and you don’t make plans without accounting for it.

I lurk in the parlor where the leather couches are more comfortable than the chairs in my room and the whiskey’s not so easy to get to.

Technically, I’m close enough to the end of the week where I’m drunk off my ass that I should be lightening up anyway, and something about the Great Ouija Board Encounter has me steering clear of the liquor.

I can start drinking after I talk to Micah and his friend. For now, though, I need to keep my head in the game until I know what they want.

And until I figure out if they can help me with my little psychic vision problem.

By the time they wander in, I’ve made a dent in a book about local history and I’m having doubts about my new clean and sober act.

Micah’s in a rain-splattered leather jacket and Geordi’s wearing a sleeping bag of some kind.

Okay, that’s harsh. He’s in a purple puffer coat that comes to his ankles and has a stand-up collar that covers his chin.

They decline my offer to get us a table in the hotel restaurant. “Probably want a little more privacy for this conversation,” Geordi says.

So that’s not concerning at all . “We can stay here or go to my room.”

They exchange a glance and it’s Micah who answers. “How ’bout your room?”

“Sure.” We have to pass the front desk to get to the stairs to the second floor. That takes us past Comb-over Dude, who silently side-eyes us.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous about unlocking the door. Like, what if the Victorian spiritualists are back? Or, I don’t know, we walk through the gates of hell or something?

Fuck that noise. There’s no heaven and no hell, and if that also means there’s no sin, then I’ve been wasting my damn life. Either that or Mom and Dad could have let me be a weird little psychic princess, without all the sin eating bullshit.

Some day the parents and I are going to have words.

“You guys can sit at the table,” I say, and plant myself on the end of the bed. “There are a couple bottles of water in the fridge if you want some.”

Geordi unwraps himself from his blanket-coat and drapes it over the back of the chair before sitting down. “I’m okay. This hotel is really very cool.”

“Yeah,” Micah says. “How’d you find this place?” He sits too but keeps his jacket on.

“Googled best hidden hotels or thereabouts and this one came up.”

He scans the room. Thanks to housekeeping, there are no empty plates or glasses, the trash can is empty, and the bed has been made. “Kinda clancy.”

“Clancy?” Geordi squints at Micah, who shrugs like he really is cooler than the rest of us.

“It’s what happens when you mix classy and fancy.”

I slow blink, shaking my head. “Anyway, what was so important you had to drive all the way out here to talk to me about it?”

They share another look, this one longer, weightier. “We were worried about you,” Geordi says, his expression giving nothing away.

Micah’s got more of a smile. “Yeah, the way you took off when I suggested you might be a sin eater had me concerned.”

Those words. Sin eater . They burn, or maybe it’s the shame that causes pain. Muscles rigid, I glare at both of them. “Way to get right to the point, dudes.”

“You asked,” Micah says with enough faux sympathy that I figure he’s going to play good cop to Geordi’s bad cop.

I’m on my feet and halfway to the whiskey bottle before I realize what I’m doing.

“Just didn’t expect you to go for the jugular right away,” I mutter, stuffing my hands in the pockets of my jeans.

I’m facing the mirror that hangs over the dresser, whiskey within reach, resolve holding firm-ish.

Instead of pouring a drink, I watch Good Cop and Bad, reflected in the glass.

“You said you’d only had the one psychic episode,” Geordi says. He and I share a glance through the mirror.

“I’ve had a second.” Grateful for the smallest subject change, I start telling them about the Victorian women and the Ouija board.

By the time I’m done, I’m more relaxed, as if sharing the story has made it easier to manage.

I sit back down on the bed, legs crossed, determined to handle whatever they hit me with next.

“So I’ve been doing some research.” Bad Cop is back, and ngl, my determination flagged right there.

“Not, like, stalking you,” he says, “but I wanted to make sure I knew who we were dealing with.”

“Why?”

Micah clears his throat. “Look, Geordi can help you learn to control your psychic power.”

Such a nice guy . I can’t help my grimace, despite the fact that he just gave me what I was hoping for.

“SPAM works with people with a variety of extra, you might say extraordinary, skills.” Geordi reclaims the speaker’s chair. “And in return for our help, you can help us.”

“You realize your org is named after a processed meat product, right?”

Even Micah-the-good-cop frowns at that one. “Yes, Ezra, we’ve heard all the jokes already.”

“And I doubt you’d come up with a new twist on it, anyway.”

Ooh, ouch, Bad Cop. Way to land a hit . Stifling the urge to try and prove him wrong, I grit my teeth and grind out, “So what do I need to do to control... whatever this is, and what’s it going to cost me?”

Geordi leans back in his chair, assessing me so intently I feel stripped bare. Awkward and scary, yes, but as long as he doesn’t start talking about eating sin, I can handle it.

“Here’s what I know. You were born in Bella Vista, Arkansas to a family with an odd amount of social isolation given their obvious financial resources.”

I’m off the bed and headed for the whiskey before he finishes. “Whoa, dude, that’s personal.”

He catches my eye in the mirror, freezing me in place.

“I didn’t go any deeper than that. I didn’t look at your third-grade report card or dig up when you lost your virginity.

” He gives a small shrug. “I do know that there were rumors attached to your family, at least to the older generations. You seem to have gotten out before—”

“Before what?” I gasp, like he’s smacked me in the chest.

He shrugs. “Before rumors got started about you. Your choice of profession and your family’s history make it fairly obvious you inherited the gift.”

“More like a curse.” I shut my eyes, grasping the neck of the whiskey bottle.

“Curse, if you prefer. I’m not wrong, though.”

I want to bluster, to tell him to go fuck himself. Only knowing that he might be able to help keeps my mouth shut.

“I have a question,” Micah says. I meet his gaze in the mirror and see sympathy without pity, and that keeps me from pouring myself a stiff one.

“Our best guess is that you chose to work as a morgue tech to practice your family gift, or curse, or whatever, right?”

I give him a half-assed shrug that might mean yes.

“So how did you know who needed to have their sins eaten?” Bad Cop asks.

The words lacerate my exposed bits. “Don’t say those words out loud. I can’t tell people what I am. It’s like the first rule of fight club, but there’s no fight and no club.”

“You can’t tell people you’re a sin eater?” Geordi asks.

I bow my head against the fire burning deep in my belly. “Stop. Please.”

There’s a period of silence. Might be thirty seconds. Might be ten minutes.

“You literally can’t tell people.” Geordi’s voice has a touch of wonder to it, like he’s going to nod his head and call me an interesting specimen or something.

“No.” I struggle to draw in enough air to say something, anything, that will make them stop.

I can’t.

“I can see why you’d call it a curse,” Micah says, and I swear to god a tear leaks down the side of my face.

There’s another pause, this one weighted with expectation. Maybe they think there’s something more I can give them. Joke’s on them. I got nothing. They know what I am. For the first time in my entire life, someone outside of my parents knows what I am.

It fucking sucks.

“Okay, here’s what I think.” Geordi again, less interesting specimen and more I’m the dude in charge . “You are psychic, but your family channeled your gift into one specific purpose. If you want, we can try to help you break free of that.”

I manage to blink open my eyes. They’re both staring at me through the mirror. Neither looks angry nor disgusted, and I manage to inhale enough air to speak. “That’s what the voice said in my vision,” I say. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

“Good.” Geordi relaxes a fraction. “We’ll probably have to share you, though, outside of the TTGB Division.”

Whatever. In for a penny, in with both feet, I guess, so I keep my mouth shut.

“You shouldn’t have to tell anyone about him for a while.” Micah directs his comment to Geordi, and I bite back a quick I’m right here .

Geordi shrugs, like he’s mentally tabling whatever conundrum they’ve been parsing.

“So here’s what we’ll do. When you get back to Seattle, I’ll meet with you and our other resident psychic to see if we can get a handle on what’s going on.

Once we know what you’re working with, we can develop a plan. ”

“Why do I feel like I’m meeting with HR at work?” The snark breaks free before I can control it. Both of them laugh, though, so it’s okay, and I finally turn around and face them.

“It’s his bedside manner.” Micah says. “He worked the same magic on me.”

“Huh. So do you have extraordinary powers or gifts or whatever?”

Micah’s smile dims enough to make me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. He gives Geordi a long look that clearly asks a question.

“Up to you,” Geordi murmurs. Micah tips his head, and there’s a hawk sitting on the table where Micah used to be.

I’d back up but I’m already jammed against the dresser. “What the fuck?”

Geordi doesn’t look fussed at all. “He’s a polymorph, which means he can take on any form he chooses, although raptors don’t belong in the house, Jenkins.

” He adds extra emphasis to the last phrase and by the time he’s done speaking, Micah’s back in his chair, with a sheepish grin and not a hair out of place.

“How the fuck did y’all do that?”

“Now you sound like you’re from Arkansas.” Geordi stands, obviously intending to leave now that he and Micah have blown my fucking mind.

“It’s who I am.” Micah’s still sitting, which is good because I have questions.

“I’m going to head down and see if we can get a table for dinner,” Geordi says. On his way to the door, he extends his hand. I take it, too rattled to do anything but, and as we shake, he says, “We’ll make things better for you, Ezra Huckaby. I’ll make things better for you.”

We shake hands, he leaves, and I slouch over to the bed. “All I wanted to do was get drunk and figure out where to go next.”

“Where to go?” Micah asks. “What do you mean?”

I lay on my back, arms flopped out, arms closed. “I can’t stay in Seattle, man. I blew it all up.” I want to lay there until everything goes away, so of course Micah has questions.

“You quit your job?”

“Nah, the medical director talked me into taking a leave.”

“Move out of your apartment?”

“Didn’t want to break the lease until I knew where I was going.”

There’s a long silence and I sorta melt into the bed. There’s one thing I absolutely did blow up, and as long as Micah doesn’t go there, then I won’t have to either.

“Your boyfriend, then?”

“Ah man, you went there.” I roll over and bury my face in my arms. Somewhere Gram is saying, bless your heart, Ezra Lane . “Yeah, I pretty much screwed the pooch on that one.”

“What?” He’s laughing, so now I can add annoyance to the mix of sadness and shame I’m dealing with. I’d managed pretty well not thinking about Damon, and I don’t really want to start now.

Liar.

“The carnival dude, the one with the weird eyes, said I should tell him the truth, but I didn’t. I couldn’t, like, literally could not make the words. He’s got a thing about honesty, or whatever, so after y’all called me out, I texted him and told him I was blocking his phone.”

I roll onto my back, eyes closed. “And he hasn’t tried to text me back.”

“You told him you blocked him and now you’re mad that he hasn’t texted you?” Micah’s laughing for real now. “How old are you, man? That shit is right out of junior year of high school.”

“Shut. Up.” I grind the heels of my hands into my eyes.

“Okay, so, it doesn’t sound irreparable to me, to be honest.”

Sighing, I tip my head so my chin is the highest point on my body. “Damon Clemens is so far out of my league it’s not even funny. He’ll never... I mean, there’s no point.”

Micah stands, offering me his hand. “Come on. Let’s get something to eat.”

I let him haul me to my feet and, after giving my hair a once-over in the mirror, I follow him to the door.

At the top of the stairs, he turns and says, “A sincere apology can go a long way, but you have to mean it.”

He jogs down the stairs, the truth of his obviously hard-earned experience echoing behind him.

Again, I follow him. The decision is easy. I want the help he and Geordi have offered me, and I want to get to know Micah better.

And for the first time in over a week, there’s the smallest flicker of hope in my heart.

Over the course of a dinner that turns out better than it ought to have, I get an actual text from Damon, and that flicker turns into something like a plan.