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Messy. Very messy. Unplanned, if I had to guess. Spontaneous even.
I tweaked an eyebrow at Kent, a silent question I knew he wouldn’t answer. He gave Everly a brisk nod, and the young witch, looking sickly pale, knelt and began to examine the marks across Marcus’s chest.
“They’ll work,” she said at last. She hurriedly got to her feet and averted her eyes from the body. “The marks are crude but efficient.” Her eyes flickered among the crowd in a brief moment of worry. She thought what she’d said might offend, and offense could bring consequences.
“Very good,” Kent said softly. Then, louder, all theatrics once more, “Long have we waited for this day, my children. Long has the Deep One waited for this, waited with utter patience and mercy. Today, the first of three go to Its depths. May two more follow.”
“May two more follow,” the crowd murmured, save for Everly, whose lips were pressed into a thin, hard line on her pretty face.
“Servant, bear the sacrifice up to the mine,” Kent said.Servant. Fucking hell. I wanted to gag him with his own tongue. “Jeremiah will accompany you. This sacrifice is his to offer.”
A figure stepped forward, reeking of body spray. Jeremiah, of course. This messy, unplanned, absolute botchery of a sacrifice was all thanks to Kent’s dear son. I rolled my eyes, but hauled naked Marcus up off the ground and, without a word to Jeremiah, stalked away into the trees, away from the fire’s light.
Jeremiah tried to make a point of walking ahead of me, but I kept my pace just fast enough that he couldn’t. The boy had even less patience than his father.
“Slow the fuck down, Leon,” he said. “Or I swear I’ll have Dad rip your balls off next time.”
“Temper, temper.” I shook my head, but slowed. I’d let the asshole lead, let him revel in his little power trip. Staring at the back of his head at least let me fantasize about cracking it open. “So, this one’s yours, eh? Have a little trouble with him?”
“Bastard tried to run,” he said, then laughed darkly. “He didn’t get far. Squealed like a pig. I think I understand why you enjoy killing so much, Leon. It’s a fucking rush.”
I grit my teeth. “Don’t think you understand death from one messy murder. Just wait until your God wakes up. It’ll teach you a thing or two about death.”
I’m sure he would have loved to snap back at me, but we’d arrived. There, in the shadows of the trees, was the White Pine mine shaft. Boarded up for nearly a century, the stained wood framing of the entrance had been covered with numerous runes: some carved, some painted, some branded. A metal sign dangled from the wood on a broken chain, reading, CAUTION: OPEN MINE. DO NOT ENTER. The ground was mossy, and numerous white-capped mushrooms grew in thick clusters around the shaft’s opening.
The ground itself was vibrating. The trees were restless. An odd smell, like deep water and rotting algae, permeated the air. Somewhere, deep in those flooded tunnels beneath our feet, an ancient God was stirring.
I didn’t spook easily, but I still got a chill.
“Well, here you go.” I shoved Marcus into Jeremiah’s arms, who leapt back with a yelp and let poor Marcus thump down into the mud.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” His voice shot up in pitch. He wasn’t sounding so cocky anymore. “I don’t want to touch that!”
“It’syoursacrifice.” I shrugged. “You really want a demon to claim your offering to the Deep One by tossing him in?”
Jeremiah wavered, his eyes flickering between the corpse and the mine. His throat clenched as he gulped. I really didn’t give a fuck how the damn body got down there, but if I had the opportunity to make Jeremiah squirm, I’d take it.
Finally, with a groan of disgust, Jeremiah hauled Marcus up into his arms; no easy task, considering the dead man was nearly his same size. He trudged toward the mine, and stopped just outside the entrance, peering into the utter blackness beyond.
How much would I suffer if I just shoved him in? Two sacrifices for the price of one. Kent should consider it a real bargain.
But I resisted. Vengeance would come, someday.
Or the Deep One would wake and kill me first.
With a grunt, Jeremiah threw Marcus down into the darkness. His body hit the ground with a thud, there was a shuffle as he rolled, and then a splash as he hit the water in the flooded tunnel below. The smell of sea water intensified, and the wind picked up, rattling the pine needles above. My stomach lurched unpleasantly, and Jeremiah quickly stumbled back from the mine, wiping his hands on his cloak. He didn’t say a word to me, just marched back down the hill.
I stayed for a moment, staring into the darkness. My toes curled at the rumbling below, my skull vibrating with the force of it. The tides would be high tomorrow. These trees would begin the long, slow process of trying to pull their roots up from the dirt, as if they could walk away from the thing below that felt sowrong.
Then, from the darkness, there came a howl. Like the scream of a fox, but drawn out into such an agonized cry that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
It was time to leave. I didn’t feel like dealing with that now. Or ever.
The God wasn’t the only thing waking up.
There was something magical about going back to a place I hadn’t stepped foot in since childhood. Those early memories felt hazy, like a feverish dream, an entirely different world than what I’d gotten used to in Oceanside. Smoking joints and drinking Modelo on the beach had been my teen years, but when I was little? My world was those deep green forests that seemed to go on forever, full of fairies and unicorns, my little kid brain bursting with so much imagination that my dad thought I’d never manage to settle down and just exist in the real world.
He wasn’t wrong. The real world was boring and involved office jobs, stiff collared blouses, and way too many uncomfortable shoes. It also involved getting to retire to Spain—hence why I was driving back to my childhood home, while my parents finished the process of selling their house in Southern California to retire luxuriously on the Spanish coast.
