The Dead (The Thaumaturge Series Book 1) Page 4

  Yeah, and that was exactly the problem. I hadn't changed. I was still hopelessly, agonizingly in love with him and he still didn't care. I was pushing thirty now, still living in a dirt bag trailer hoping for a pity fuck whenever he showed up, which, let's be honest, was less and less often. One of these days, it was going to be the last time. One of these times, he would walk out the door and never came back. I wondered how many months and years I would go, waiting for him. How long I would keep hoping, alone with no one to touch?

  “Hey, where are you?” he murmured into my ear. “Come back.”

  I'd gone soft, lying limp and he slowed his movements, looking down at me with an utterly flummoxed expression.

  “Sorry,” I said, embarrassed and angry both. “Got a lot on my mind.”

  Leo looked at me steadily, not replying. Under my hands, I could feel the muscles in his arms trembling a bit. I relented, tugging him down and kissing him lightly on the lips. “Sorry,” I said again, and undulated beneath him to signal my willingness.

  His eyes closed at the sensation, and he began thrusting again. Emotions swirled in my chest, and I clamped down on them relentlessly, ignoring everything but the physical. Soon enough, I was moaning for him, my eyes squeezed shut. Our bodies moved together with practiced ease, his hips snug into my thighs, his forearms hooked under my shoulders. He kissed me while we fucked, and when I came again, I gasped into his mouth.

  Later, afterwards, we lay together. He draped himself over me, his head tucked against my shoulder and his legs nestled comfortably between mine. He mouthed my neck, a habit that he had started early on and that he did frequently after sex. He would suck a little, then lick, and then rest his fangs against my skin, as though imagining what it would be like to bite me. It had made me nervous as fuck the first few times he did it, but now I liked it, the slow and easy attention on my neck.

  I made a little purring noise and I felt him smile, his lips moving from below my ear to trail down to my jaw.

  “Do you like that?” he whispered, sucking a little.

  I didn't have to reply. The moan that escaped me was answer enough.

  “So what's the matter?” he asked after a bit.

  “Hmm?” I was too relaxed to remember my earlier moodiness.

  Sudden sharpness against my throat and I went still. But he didn't bite, just lightly held my throat between his teeth, like he was practicing. I let out a breath when he drew away and he said, “You said that you had a lot on your mind.”

  “Oh. Nothing. It's nothing.” I shivered when the air touched my neck, wet with his spit.

  “Ebron.” he kissed me, very gently, and I slid my arms around his shoulders, tracing the muscles there, squeezing a bit to feel the firmness of them. I looked up into his face, and ran my palm over his scratchy stubble. His bottom lip was swollen. I touched that, too, my thumb just resting against the warm swell. I'd do anything for you, I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him that and so much more.

  He pulled away and I let my hand drop. He rested his forehead against mine and waited there.

  “Anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

  I thought about saying, stay. Just stay with me. I could tell him, make a decision. Love me or leave me, but you have to pick one. It was right on the tip of my tongue to tell him, I love you. I love you. Does that matter at all? It was so close to the surface. Surely my eyes were telling him every truth he didn't want to hear. But instead all the emotions balled up inside me and stuck in my throat and I shook my head, trying to give him a look of wide-eyed innocence. I tried to look as though the question surprised me and just answered, “No.”

  He must have known. There was a half beat of pause while his eyebrows came together, but all he said was, “Business is good?”

  “Yes. Both of them.”

  “And your mom?”

  “She's fine, Leo, stop.”

  He met my eyes. “Then what?”

  “Hang out for a bit,” I said instead, too casual, though that wasn't what I meant and he knew it. He nodded anyway, his forehead moving against mine, and then he kissed me again. I wondered if he could hear how my heart was pounding.

  “I really did miss you,” he said.

  “Where did you go?” In general, he didn't tell me where he went or what he was doing when he wasn't here with me, but sometimes he liked to share small details. Places he'd seen. Places he still wanted to go. Strange people he'd met.

  He didn't answer at first, and I figured that he would just ignore the question. I took to kissing the top of his shoulder, where it rested upon mine and he sighed a little and moved against me.

  “I was in Mexico,” he said suddenly. “It’s been years since I was there.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Well, it was warmer,” he said, giving me a smile that made it all the way up to his eyes, and made my heart speed up a little. Why couldn't he always look at me like that? I would have done just about anything to keep that smile on his face.

  “I was in this tiny village,” he said. “All the kids were wearing Nike tshirts.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  He paused again, and then rolled onto his back, settling himself in the crook of my arm. “Someone told me that there was a woman there who could raise the dead.”

  I whipped my head to the side to look at him, surprised. “Was there?”

  He shook his head. “No. I mean, I found the woman they were talking about, but she couldn't . . . do what you can do. She might have been something, had some sort of power, but I think mostly that she was just a good hypnotist.”

  “Hmm.” I thought about it for a while. “Guess you're stuck with me then.”

  He smiled again, that same eye-crinkling smile and let his hand trail down my stomach to my suddenly attentive penis. “It's too bad, I know,” he smiled wider. “The old woman didn't have any teeth.”

  I laughed and he tickled my belly and then we kissed again and he ended up staying almost to dawn.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning I got up early, took another shower to clear the cobwebs from my brain, and headed out to my truck with my chin tucked into the collar of my coat and a travel mug of hot coffee in one hand. Leo had been gone when I had woken up, and I took a second to look into my spare bedroom. It was empty, of course, except for some stray free weights I had picked up at a garage sale and now used to hold the carpet down. The closet door was closed though, and I knew better than to look inside. The trailer felt still and small around me. I could have almost dreamed the prior night’s activities, if not for the Post-it note stuck to my car keys that read only, “See you tonight” in Leo's oddly fancy penmanship.

  I slipped on the slushy, wooden steps of my trailer and righted myself somehow without spilling my coffee. A thin layer of snow blanketed the ground. Despite the numbing cold, I expected that the afternoon would be sunny. Early November weather could be unpredictable.

  As early as it was, the trailer park remained beautifully silent, the cars lumpy white mounds and the trees dripping snow from their branches. I scraped my windshield, and sat in the truck, waiting for it to warm up while my breath puffed out before me. I shivered against the cold and took in the morning.

  The snow put me in a good mood, and I felt vaguely embarrassed for my moodiness the night before. Whatever it was I had with Leo – and it remained very loosely constructed – it was a damn sight better than nothing. When I really thought about, he was really the ideal ... partner. Boyfriend. Whatever. We were never around each other enough to get on each other’s nerves. We had done some stupid shit together, particularly when I was younger, and we had bailed each other out, always had each other's backs. I trusted him. Plus, the sex, though infrequent, was fantastic. It had to be enough. I couldn't start thinking otherwise.

  I headed to work and parked in the snowy lot. The building I owned had been given to me as payment for a resurrection, and I’d decided on a tea and herbs only because it sou
nded plausible and because a sex shop felt like it would attract the wrong crowd.

  Sandwiched between a hair salon and a private art studio, my shop did well enough. I had an established customer base of mostly young professionals, the few dozen men and women in our tiny town that had REI gear, listened to NPR, and wanted something other than gas station coffee. Heckerson had a seasonal influx of ski bums, thanks to the nearby ski hills, and those kinds of people seemed to really like my selection.

  There were others, high school weirdos who bought sage and yarrow; the tiny hipster population that came in several times a week to drink tea and bitch about the rednecks. Others, too, like the Christian stay-at-home moms that treated all their kids’ maladies with herbs, and the intense survivalist guy that regularly cleaned me out of aspen bark and red Korean ginseng. Whatever – I was grateful to be able to pay both for my groceries and my heating bill. Of course, selling tea and herbs was not my only source of income.

  I let myself in the front door, and moved behind the counter, stashing my car keys and coat. On my way to the storeroom, I gave the back counter a cursory once over, looking for any evidence of last night’s activities. There was none, other than a few crumbles of rosemary and some melted candles. I reminded myself to get a new mop head and went on my way.

  In the storeroom I cranked the heater and grabbed my work tablet out of the safe. I took my time wandering back up to the front, enjoying the quiet. I gazed out the frosted windows at the slowly waking street. I munched on leftover Halloween candy, eating the mini chocolates where I stood and crumbling the wrappers in my hand.

  With the roar of the old heater and some Pandora radio to keep me company, I worked in a contented daydream, preparing the first tea blends of the day. These I poured into two porcelain cups, and with them in hand, headed out the front door to the beauty salon beside my shop.

  The cold stung my bare hands and bit through the thin sweatshirt I wore. The cups steamed in the frigid air, and I rapped at the beauty salon door with the toe of my boot.

  “Ebron, I could kiss you.” Dahlia said, holding the door open for me.

  I hemmed and hawed, but obligingly tilted my cheek towards her and she smiled a little. She stood on her toes to give me a peck, taking one of the cups from my hands.

  “Is this the hibiscus blend?” she asked, putting her nose over the cup and taking a deep breath, her eyes fluttering close.

  “Yeah, the same one you liked last week,” I replied.

  Another voice called out from further within the shop, and then I heard the click of high heels.

  “What a gentleman!” Brittany exclaimed, taking me by the shoulders and kissing me on each cheek, her flaming red hair brushing my face. She smelled like vanilla and hairspray.

  Aside from Leo, and my cousin Cody, I had few friends. But from the first day my shop opened, Dahlia and Brittany had been my most loyal customers, as well as a valuable and unlimited source of town gossip. I brought them tea every morning, and they made a fuss over me, and somehow they had laced themselves into my life.

  Dahlia owned the salon, and she juggled that with being a dedicated long distance runner and a mother to two teenage daughters. Not long after we’d met, she had confided to me that she occasionally traveled out of state to compete in drag king contests.

  “See?” she’d said, holding up her iPhone, showing me picture after picture of performers in waistcoats and fedoras. “That’s me with the sideburns.”

  “It’s an art,” she’d added, looking at me intently, looking I’m sure for any sign of revulsion or disgust. Sheltered hick that I was, I hadn’t known that such things existed.

  “You look good.” I’d drawled, giving her a wink that immediately made her relax. She did, too - the well-tailored suit she wore flattered her sleek runner's body. I thought she looked good as a dude.

  We had become a lot closer after her confession. We took turns buying each other lunch. We texted. She had gotten drunk on my couch while she cried about her crumbling marriage.

  I’d gone to high school with Brittany, where she’d had a reputation as a troublemaker, mostly due to her ever changing unnatural hair colors. She’d intimidated me then, with her brash attitude and her filthy mouth, but now I sort of loved them both, and I looked forward to seeing them every morning.

  Brittany took the cup from my hands and took a sip. “Oh, that’s good,” she moaned. “It’s so fucking cold out, my car wouldn’t start this morning.”

  “Need me to take a look at it?” I asked.

  “No, it’s okay. Travis got it running.” Travis, her live-in boyfriend, usually unemployed and always a douchebag.

  Dahlia was staring at me funny and I tilted my head at her. “What?”

  Without a word, she hooked her finger under the frayed collar of my sweatshirt and pulled it down. Brittany snorted and I twisted, looking at the mirror behind me.

  And, of course, Leo had left a fucking hickey on my neck. Figures. I felt my face get red and they both laughed.

  “Want some cover up on that?” Brittany asked, grinning unabashedly.

  “Will it show?”

  “The make-up? No. Come on.”

  My face burning, I followed Brittany into her cubicle and sat in her swivel chair while she riffled through her supplies. Dahlia leaned against the sink, her dark eyes amused.

  “Leo back in town?” she asked. “Do we get to meet him this time?”

  I didn't reply, and they both laughed again. Brittany pressed her fingertips to my neck, dapping something cold and weird smelling on my skin. I stayed still; keeping my chin up with as much dignity as I could muster, and pretended to ignore the little delighted looks they kept giving each other. After a second, Brittany came around to face me, peering in professional review.

  “Looks way better,” she told me.

  “Thanks,” I said, glancing up at her, and she smiled fondly.

  “Group of people checked into the Comfort Inn last night,” Dahlia said suddenly, apropos of nothing. Brittany and I both looked at her, waiting, and she shrugged.

  “My nephew is the night manager,” she continued, taking sip from her cup. “He said that they checked in real late, and that they were, in his words, “spooky as all hell.”

  “Halloween was a week ago,” Brittany said, as though that explained anything.

  “I just thought that you should know,” Dahlia said, still looking at me. “Bryler said that they might have been witches.”

  “Witches?” I couldn’t help but give an incredulous snort. “Why does he think that?”

  “Bryler said that they were all dressed in black and that they had, uh, whatdoyacallem, pentagons around their necks, instead of crosses. And one of them offered to read Tarot cards for him.”

  “Pentacles,” Brittany corrected.

  “Whatever.”

  “What the fuck would witches want with me?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know,” Dahlia said, and the significant look she gave me made me sober quickly. “You do have a medicinal herb shop.”

  “And teas,” I protested weakly, but I felt suddenly numb.

  “I should – get back,” I stammered, standing. I gave Brittany another kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, love.”

  Dahlia touched my wrist and gave me a tight smile. “Just looking out for you,” she said. Her eyes fell to my neck again. “Just be careful.”

  I nodded, taking her small hand in mine and squeezing it.

  “Thanks,” I said, and went back to work.

  Now my head was all fucked up again, and I tried to talk myself down, telling myself there was no reason to be worried. Dahlia didn't know about me. She didn't know that I could raise the dead. She didn't know that Leo was a vampire, only that he was my sort-of, kind-of boyfriend. There was no reason for me to be worried.

  Except that she was kind of right.

  It probably wouldn't be a good thing to have witches aware of me. Were witches even a real thing? I had no experience with them,
but then, I was dedicated to self-imposed isolation. Leo's existence would indicate that maybe the world wasn't quite as normal as I wanted it to be.

  Though I had a pretty steady stream of customers visit me, no witches came to my shop. Aside from Misty, the foul-tempered hag who unfortunately was one of my regulars, no one came in who resembled a witch either in manner or dress. But the worry stuck with me, and I jumped every time the door opened, only to relax at the sight of my regular customers and chide myself for my skittishness. This was fucking Heckerson, Montana, after all. It was very possible that these people were wearing clothing that did not include flannel or denim and Bryler had interpreted that as witchcraft.

  There was little to be done, though, and rather than sit anxiously staring out the window, I made an effort to be chattier than usual with my customers. In general, I maintained a certain distance from other people, because I felt it risky due to both my sexual inclinations and my supernatural abilities. Neither were topics I really wanted to broach with people. Being gay in an isolated rural town was bad enough, but having the ability to raise the dead was another thing entirely.

  My customers were friendly enough, and I made light conversation with them as the morning dragged into afternoon. The weather changed again and the sun burned off any lingering clouds. Around two I found myself alone in the shop. The long narrow room flooded with sunlight, growing pleasantly warm, and I sat down near the front picture window with a book and a cup of tea.

  For a while, I read in peace. My stomach gave a low grumble, alerting me to the fact that I hadn’t eaten lunch. The thought reminded me of tomorrow’s impending dinner at my mother’s, and I scowled, setting the book aside. I was still scowling, trying to come up with a plausible excuse (plague? a brain hemorrhage?) when the bell over the door tinkled.

  I swung my head towards the sound, with an expectant smile that froze on my face when I saw the group of people crowded into the shop. I had thought that I was prepared, that I was expected them, but they still were a shock.