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Backwoods Banshee

Page 29

by David R. Slayton

They exchanged a look but didn’t speak for a moment.

They sat down every month to look at their bills. An auto mechanic and a cook. They were making it, but the edge was always in sight. They weren’t alone. They had people they could rely on. They had Bobby, Annie, and Vic’s family.

It wasn’t like they’d be able to buy a house in Denver unless they won the lottery or the market crashed. If they hit true rock bottom, they do the last thing he wanted and put a second trailer on his mother’s property.

Adam stared out at the sea of tombstones. They glowed in the green moonlight.

“Do you think any of these plots are for sale?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood. “Maybe we could afford one.”

“Hmm.”

“I was kidding.”

“I know.” Vic looked distant as he took in the scene. “I was just thinking that there should be somewhere for everyone, spirit world and mortal, to hang out.”

Adam reached out to squeeze Vic’s hand.

“What’s that for?”

“It’s just a nice thought, that’s all.”

And that was Vic. He put other people first, almost always, and he rarely made a big move without thinking about how it would affect the world. He deserved everything he wanted, a restaurant of his own, the chance to make himself happy. Adam didn’t know how, but he’d find a way to make it happen.

They walked on.

Some of the Lost Ones were grouped around open fires. Many of the tents were painted with the Wolf’s head.

Adam put aside the memory of the mask crunching beneath his foot, and the look of shock on Ian’s face when he ran him through. It didn’t matter if it never happened, if he found a way to prevent his nephew from becoming that bitter man, Adam would never forget the moment.

Eyes followed them as they walked among the graves. Adam didn’t recognize any of the figures gathered around the fires, but their narrowed eyes said he and Vic weren’t welcome. He might not be an immortal, but he also wasn’t a Lost One.

He recognized someone in the third group.

They’d spoken before, in the park, when he’d gone with Dautre to try and find out where the boggins were coming from. She should have been a girl. Her dress was old-fashioned, and Adam would probably have placed it from the 1800s. Her hair was braided into two long pigtails, which didn’t match her face. It had too many lines, too many years piled on it, for him to ever think her young.

“Do you remember me?” he asked her.

She looked up from the flames to take him in.

“Yes. You came before, to ask me about the Wolf.”

She sounded suspicious. He couldn’t blame her.

“Yes, back at the Bone Garden.”

“But not this one.” She squinted at the tombstones. “That one had a fire.”

“Right, the big one that came every day.”

“Yeah . . .” She sounded distant, miles away in her head, as she remembered the cemetery that burned once a day, a memory of what had stricken it, long ago in the mortal world, before it had been a park.

Adam didn’t know if her expression came from being a Lost One or if it was something about her in particular. Then she shook it off and focused on him again.

“Did you find him?” She narrowed her dull green eyes. “Do you know where he is?”

There was hope there, beneath her anger. He didn’t know how to tell her that yes, he had, and now the Wolf would never come for them.

“No, but I’m trying to find out what he wanted.”