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I watched as they closed the casket and lowered Marcus down. From a distance, his face looked normal. Like he was sleeping. It had been years since I’d seen him in person. I’d only seen his photos on Facebook, his pictures from prom, his wide smile when he got promoted to soccer captain. I should have known how much danger he was in. Jeremiah Hadleigh was on the team with him. I’d seen their group photos together. I’d seen them tag each other in Facebook posts.
I should have known. I should have warned him.
But he wouldn’t have believed me.
My mother was there, seated in the front row, her long brown hair streaked with gray. She was thinner than I remembered her, hunched in her seat, silent and still as she stared at the coffin. She’d done the same thing when Dad left: just sat at the kitchen table and stared, stared as if whatever life that had been inside her was gone.
I think when you lose someone, a little part of yourself goes with them, and never returns.
But where Marcus had gone — no life, no love, no peace could wait for him there.
Nearly all the kids in Abelaum knew the legends, but I knew they weretrue. A God in the mine had made a deal with three men: they could live, but in six generations, they had to pay back God’s mercy. Three lives spared must one day be three souls given.
The survivors lived on. They had their families. They had children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. On and on. Abelaum had been built on that old mine, so half the town could trace their ancestry to its workers. The survivors’ story became myth. But always, in the shadows, those who were devoted to the Deep One continued their work. They gathered new worshippers, they watched and waited. They waited for the day the sacrifices could be given.
And now, here we were: the sixth generation. The sacrificial lambs.
As the mourners got up from their chairs and began to disperse, my mother stood alone by the grave. She buried her face in her hands, and my stomach twisted as someone came to her side. Tall and slim, with slick silver hair and a fitted black suit, Kent Hadleigh put his arm around her shoulders and let her weep into his chest.
I was armed and I was confident I could make the shot. My hand wouldn’t shake as I took aim at his head, my finger wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. It wouldn’t end it, but it’d be a damn good start.
My fingers brushed against the pistol, strapped to my side, caressing its cold surface. God, the satisfaction I’d feel to see his blood and brains sprayed out on the ground. I couldn’t look at him and not see him as he had been that night: cloaked in white, fitting a stag skull mask over his head, merciless to my cries.
I was meant to be the sacrifice, but when they couldn’t have me, they’d taken Marcus.
I lowered my hand. I left the gun alone. Killing Kent now would start a war I wasn’t prepared for. At least not yet.
Around midnight, the clouds began to clear. The cold starry sky stared down at the little graveyard, the damp grass, the mist creeping in from the trees. I hated funerals: the sobbing, the ceremony, the empty words given by preachers, the choked-up speeches. But in the quiet night, watching my brother’s grave from afar, I felt like I could truly say goodbye.
Marcus, after all, had always been quiet. It hurt to think that I didn’t know if he’d stayed that way. But as a child, he’d always been careful with his words. He’d never been quick to anger. He’d been thoughtful; the kind of kid who’d pluck dandelions and give them to me on my birthday. I’d always believed that living with Mom would break him, enduring her anger and her sadness. I thought he’d get caught up in that same cycle of pain.
I’d never know if he was happy. I’d never know if he stayed kind. Part of me hoped he hadn’t changed, and maybe that was selfish of me. People never stayed how you found them. Over minutes, hours, months, years — the people you’ve met become strangers, and you have to meet them all over again.
It was strange honestly; the pain I felt was based on memories of a person I didn’t know anymore. He and I only had a past.
They’d taken everything. The Hadleigh family, and the cult they commanded, didn’t need to kill me to take my life. I was a dead woman walking. What was left? A mother who hated me, no future, no home, no hope. Just a fury so deep and dark and burning that it could rival a God.
I was getting tired, but I didn’t want to sleep. I planned to stay out under the trees all night, and in the morning, maybe I’d have some semblance of direction again. I’d never had a plan in life, because plans couldn’t account for Gods and monsters. But now, I felt like I needed one. I needed something solid, something to grasp, something to light up the dark.
The dark had been closing in for so long I couldn’t even see out of it anymore.
The mist had crept in across the grass, shrouding Marcus’s grave. It was late in the night, and the streets were empty. It was probably safe for me to go down and sit with him for a while, but it felt too intimate. I didn’t deserve to be so close to him.
Then, near the grave, something moved.
I went utterly still, every muscle tensing. Goose bumps prickled up my back as I watched a dark figure move across the lawn. Blond hair...tattooed skin...golden eyes.
Panic burst through me. My limbs twitched and every nerve tingled, demanding I run. My lungs felt like they were being squeezed between cold, rough hands. I didn’t dare move. If I even breathed too hard, he’d hear it.
What the hell was Kent Hadleigh’s pet demon doing here?
I kept every breath as slow and measured as possible, despite my initial instinct to hold it. I rested my hand against my gun, even knowing that a bullet wouldn’t kill him. My mind was racing: run...hide...fight...or wait.
I waited, keeping myself still in the shadows. He’d see me if he glanced my way. Wild paranoia that Kent had sent him after me made my heart pound painfully, but Kent couldn’t possibly know I was back in Abelaum; not even my mother knew.
The demon wandered, glancing at graves as he passed them, before he reached the freshly turned earth that was Marcus’s resting place. Anger made my skin burn as he stopped and read the headstone...and began to dig into the grave.
I bit my tongue in an effort not to yell. My nails gripped tight against the tree behind me, as if I could anchor myself there. If I ran at him, if I tried to fight him, he would make quick and careless work of me. Fantasies of shooting him, of managing to kill him, were abound in my mind but they were only that — fantasies.
