Hell Bent

Chapter 34

I went back to the inn. Found myself sitting at my desk, staring at Eleanor’s angel statue.

There was one more death I needed to deal with.

Just before dawn I texted Terric and Zay. Told them I was going out of town to clear my head for a day or two. Mountains or coast, I hadn’t decided yet. And if they needed to reach me, I’d have my phone on.

Then I stuffed the phone in my sock drawer, made sure the clerk would look after the ferret, and picked up Eleanor’s statue since she made several gestures that she wanted me to do so.

I left.

Headed to Seattle. Lost myself to the drive and my thoughts.

Stopped for coffee once and bought a red rose from a roadside vender. Took me some time to get where I wanted to be. Finally found what I was looking for.

A graveyard where Thomas had a plot. Where Dessa had a headstone since there wasn’t anything left of her to be buried.

I had still been in the hospital, sitting in Terric’s room waiting for him to prove he was going to live through another day, when they’d done this.

She’d told me she had family. But the Hounds who had spied on the burial said only a minister had been there.

It make me think that was why her brother’s death hit her so hard. He was all the real family she had had.

I rolled slowly through the graveyard, parked, and got out of the car. Wandered to the southwest corner. I had forgotten to bring the files with me, but I had a decent memory of the layout.

Eleanor always seemed a little wary in graveyards, though I never understood what she feared. Because, seriously, she was a ghost.

I finally found the grave. A headstone was already placed and simply read DESSA OLIVIA LEEDS, along with the dates of her birth and death.

Eleanor touched my hand, where I held the statue of death with angel wings. Then she pointed at the grave.

“Are you sure?” I whispered.

She touched my heart and nodded. So I placed the statue there, Death’s weary head lowered, the scythe useless in his hands, as his wings stretched out for a sky he would never know.

Eleanor stood beside me, her arm cold around my waist.

I didn’t know how long I stood there and stared. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. It rained, stopped, and rained again.

Eventually I became aware of a heartbeat that wasn’t mine. Blinked and looked around. Terric stood just a short ways off. Noticed me trying to decide if he was a mirage or not. Came walking over.

Bastard had followed me up to Seattle. I wondered how many Hounds he’d had tracking me. Probably dozens. I hadn’t been very observant lately.

But at least he didn’t say anything, just came closer until he was beside me, looking down at her grave with me.

Everything around me was dead. The grass over her grave, the trees and bushes.

I remembered the rose in my hand, the only flower I’d ever bought for her. I knelt, but once my knees sank into that cold, wet, dead grass, my hands started shaking. I suddenly realized it was pouring rain, merciless. And very, very cold.

I placed the rose where I thought her heart might be. But the flower had been in my care for too long. It was withered. Dead.

Just like everything I touched.

I wiped rain off my face. “I can’t even keep a flower alive,” I said. “Everything dies. Anyone I . . . care for is going to die. I’ll make them die.”

“I’m still alive,” he said.

“Not forever. Not for long,” I said.

“Maybe.”

That admission, that it was a very real possibility for me to kill everything I laid a finger on, for me to kill him, did more for me than any attempt at comfort.

“You can still make choices,” he said. “Choose to be a man.”

“No,” I said, the memories of drawing on Death magic, the memories of surrendering to its vengeful need filling me with a shudder of pleasure. I wanted that. The pleasure. The oblivion. “I don’t think so. Not anymore.”

Terric knelt in the rain next to me. Reached out and placed his fingers on the dead rose. Bent his head, like a man grieving, or praying.

I felt magic draw to him like a mist over the grass. Felt it filling the words he spoke.

The rose trembled, then washed with life again, velvet red petals, deep green stem and leaves, and roots that reached out and dug deep into the rich earth. Planting there in the newly green grass. Growing. Alive.

The bushes around us stirred as if caught in a wind, and new sprouts pushed up from the ground.

He pulled his hand back and caught me with his gaze. He was still human. Still Terric.

“We do this together,” he said. “You’re not alone, Shame. And, yes, we might not be men anymore,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we have to be monsters. Our fate is still our own.”

“Do you believe that?” I asked quietly.

“I’m trying to,” he said. “Because it’s all that keeps the madness away.”

He stood. Held his hand down for me. I took his hand and pulled myself up onto my feet.

“Did it hurt?” I asked.

“What?”

“Admitting you’re not perfect.”

He scowled at me. “Shut up, Shame.”

I smiled and shut up because, well, most of the time, Terric was my friend. Sometimes he was more than that. A brother.

He hung his arm over my shoulder.

We walked away from the grave. Walked away from the death we’d never be able to leave behind us, walked away from the past we could not escape.

I guessed we had decided to face the madness together, or die trying. Sounded good to me. Might even be fun.

I wrapped my arm around his shoulder too and he leaned his head against mine.

It wasn’t much of a beginning.

But it was ours.