If I were going off the property, I definitely needed Ossy there, just in case something went wrong. He was already in town, so my first agenda item was to find him. With that plan in mind, I grabbed a cloak off the hook and opened the door.
Hale came running toward me just as I was about to head out. “I want to go with you.”
He followed me outside.
“Our only hope of protecting this place long-term is for you to stay here. We need you more than anyone right now.” He was the only witch we had. Even if he didn’t know how to use his magic, he still had it.
Donn seemed to want to leave us alone for now. The only demons on-site, or hellhounds for that matter, were the two on our side. Donn hadn’t sent anyone else, so Hale was safer on the farm.
“I can tell when somebody’s a witch, too.” He waved his finger around his head like someone did when they thought a person was crazy, except that wasn’t what he meant. “They sort of show up, and I can just feel it, you know?”
I’d never felt another person, except for Ossy. Even his presence was more of an emotional response.
Ossy was in a sudden panic. Feeling his emotions ramp up made my own anxiety spike. Buddying up might not be a bad idea.
I held out my hand to him, and he took it. Then I pulled the hood up and projected us onto the sidewalk on Main Street in Hollowbrook. Not that I’d ever seen it before, but every Main Street had sidewalks with little shops along them, right?
I’d never used a cloak before. It was the coolest thing. I mean, obviously, I was a reaper, so the cloaks worked for me in theory. But for the first time, I knew they also worked in practice.
The thought was all it took. We ended up in front of the bank. The building had a big clock at the top, with hands that ticked, including a second hand that moved around the face. It was the biggest clock I’d ever seen. The time read half-past eleven.
Main Street looked typical, with a florist shop and an antique store across the street. An ice cream shop had a line out the door, right next to a hardware store having a sale on lawn chairs and garden tools. The hardware store also had a bench outside with two older men sitting on it, holding paper coffee mugs. Together, they watched the souls walking around, and there were a lot of them. Like, a lot, a lot. It was unreal how many dead people there were. One man scowled and shook his head. The other had wide eyes. The most fascinating thing was that the older men could see them. Fascinating. And odd. In fact, it was one of the weirdest things I’d seen in a while, and I was the reaper’s assistant, so I’d seen some pretty weird shit.
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach and gripped Hale’s hand tighter. “Stay close, Hale.”
He nodded. “I see the shadows.”
That wasn’t what I had noticed until Hale pointed them out, but they were very problematic. They moved in dark corners, searching for beloveds.
I needed to find Ossy. The sooner, the better.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ossy
As soon as I landed in Morgana’s office, I knew Phin wasn’t there. I could sense his absence.
Panic set in even deeper than it had when I saw Donn. It went all the way to my bones. My hands shook. Morgana never looked up from her paperwork when I teleported into the office. You would think magically appearing in front of someone would startle them, but she was so used to it that it didn’t even faze her. “Donn is in Hollowbrook.”
Morgana’s gaze snapped up. That caught her attention.
Even Ezul raised his eyebrows.
Joel must have been in the living room because he came into the office. His eyes were wide. The whites were a little bloodshot, and the pupils were dilated.
“Donnie Death is in Hollowbrook?” Something about it made him giggle. He left the room, and as he did, I heard him yell, “Hey, Miles! Donnie Death is in Hollowbrook! The god of death is visiting our town! We’re fucking famous, man!”
Miles, being far more down-to-earth, had an appropriate response. “That is not good news, Joel. It means we’re allscrewed. I, for one, don’t want to go back to that scary-ass place. Fuck the dark. And fuck Donnie Death.”
“I got a hellhound out of it, so whatever.”
The hellhound chuckled.
“One you don’t even like.”
“I like him... I like you. It’s not about that.”
I forced myself to tune them out. Those two were the most entertaining people I’d ever met, but we had bigger problems.
