“Calm down, kids.” Hood pulled out into the late-evening traffic. “No one is clawing off anyone’s face back there.”
Softer, Linus asked, “Why does this matter so much to you?”
Because Lethe had put a bug in my ear. Because I wanted to know why I couldn’t let him be. Because I thought for so long that I loved a man who could never love me back, and I was terrified of caring for one who might have deified me the same way I had sainted Boaz.
The way Linus looked at me…I had to be sure he saw me. Not his crush. Not his muse. Me.
And I wanted a good, long look at him. Not snatches of truth and snippets of real. I wanted it all.
I had no clue where my heart was in this, but my head was learning to be smarter about these things. Every time Atlanta crossed my mind, my gut twisted, and my temper blazed hot enough to scorch us both. Maybe Woolly was right about talking out my feelings. Maybe bottling this up was toxic for me.
“Boaz was an open book, and he still lied so well I couldn’t tell them from the truth.”
A stillness overtook Linus, and wisps of black mist licked at his ankles before trickling over mine.
“Using that logic, you must believe since I keep my own counsel, I’m more likely to deceive you.”
Until I blurted it out, I hadn’t realized that was the exact thorn in my side. “Yes.”
“Boaz had a luxury few of us can afford. He led an obligation-free life. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, with whom he wanted. He read like an open book because his pages were blank. He was a hedonist. He craved the fame of infamy. He spat on his familial obligations while using their resources to pursue his own passions.” The mask ripped away as black swallowed his eyes. “I have many advantages, but I didn’t have that one. I wasn’t allowed to shuck responsibility and do as I please. I wasn’t permitted the freedom to say what I thought, to conjure my own dreams, to embrace who I am.”
“Who are you?” I whispered so softly even Hood might have missed it.
“All great necromancers skirt the edge of darkness.” Night blossomed across his chest, the stain spreading like blood until the tattered wraith’s coat I had only glimpsed settled about his shoulders. “I am Maud’s heir in the worst ways.” The moonlit scythe I recalled materialized in his hands as if summoned. “I’m a lot of things, Grier. I’m a lot of people. They can’t all fit in me at once. I have to show them to you one at a time.”
Chills blasted my arms as the darkness spread over my lap, licking at my skin with icy tongues of energy.
“I want you to see me. I want you to understand. I want you…” He bit the sentence in half. “Each of the masks you condemn serves a purpose. Each is every bit as real as the others. Your favorite version of me? It’s just that. Another mask designed with you in mind.”
Heart pounding, I opened my hand and allowed his magic to pool in my palm. “You’re wrong.”
“No, Grier, I’m not.” The gloom swirled away, evaporating from his skin like fog exposed to sunlight. Slowly, he leaned forward until his eyes, lightening to blue, were on my level. “Let me be honest with you. Believe me when I tell you the person I am when I’m with you is who I always wanted to be, but I’m not him. Not all the time. Not even most of the time.” A tired smile bent his mouth. “You’re the only person who’s ever fought for me, any facet of me, and you’re the only one who’s seen this many.”
I braced for the ultimatum I sensed coming.
“You’re the only one who can decide if you can live with my duplicity.”
“Is it really duplicitous if you’re open with me about it?” I wasn’t being flip, I was honestly conflicted.
“That much I can promise you. I’ll let you in as far as you want to go.”
Two men. Two different approaches. One hiding what might hurt me, the other embracing what might frighten me. The first showing me what he wanted me to see, the second peeling back the layers to reveal what I wanted to know. They couldn’t be more different. So why was parsing my feelings for one from the other still so difficult?
We let the droning insects and wildlife calls fill the silence for us on our trek out to Maud’s favorite spot. It wasn’t heavy or awkward, but it was there. The wall I kept banging my head against. Except now I had a pillow to cushion the impact if I chose to use it, if I could accept that a lie from Boaz and an omission from Linus each carried a different weight.
“This isn’t right.” Linus broke into my thoughts. “Look at the grass. It’s tamped down. Someone’s been here recently.”
“It’s public land,” I reasoned. “Plenty of necromancers harvest in the area.”
We rounded the bend and set eyes on what should have been one of the largest wild patches of woundwort in the preserve to find the stalks cut to the root and the entire harvest stolen. Okay, so it technically wasn’t ours either. But Maud had tended this plot. She couldn’t help herself. Plants adored her, and I had often wondered if she had hedge witches in her line.
But that had been years ago. This was truly a wild bit of earth now. Or it had been before someone came in and razed it to the waterline. Only the trampled nubs above the buried tubers remained.
Good news for the area. This meant it would regrow. Bad news for those of us needing supplies for an upcoming resuscitation. Looks like we would have to search elsewhere to fill our quota.
“Are you experiencing déjà vu,” I asked him, “or is it just me?”
“There are boom years when more than the usual number of vampires are resuscitated,” he said, wading out deeper in search of any salvageable plants, “but demand for easily sourced necromantic supplies is never this high.”
“What’s the purpose of all this?” I started my own search in the nearby weeds. “Who’s the target?”
“You’re the obvious answer,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
“Only someone aware of the upcoming resuscitation would know what supplies we would be gathering. They might be targeting Maud’s protégé rather than her heir.” Giving it up as a lost cause, I swatted a stand of cattails in annoyance. “Whoever is doing this knows Maud well enough to guess where you would go for supplies.”
Black mist whispered between his fingers as he wove the dark strands back and forth. “I don’t like this.”
Mesmerized, I watched too long, and my answer came a beat too late. “That makes two of us.”
“I question the timing. The clan who petitioned for a new member might be sworn to the master.”
“They must have suspected you and I would work together. It’s common knowledge you’re tutoring me.” And that he was living with me. “It came out during Amelie’s trial.”
“The contract might have been a ruse to draw you out into the open,” he said, going rigid. “Have you seen Hood since we arrived?”
“No.”
Proving his hearing was far superior to ours since we hadn’t heard his approach on soft paws, Hood stuck his blocky head out from the stand of cattails where I had been moments earlier and uttered a droll, “Woof.”
“I’m assuming you heard all that.” I tucked my hands away from him. “Are we good to keep going?”
Offended, he grumbled as if to say I’m here, why wouldn’t you be safe? before ditching us.
“Guess he answered that question.” I examined the sky but saw only the moon. “Where’s Cletus?”
“Back at the van,” Linus said, distracted. “I left him as a deterrent.”
“You expected this to happen?” A heads-up would have been nice.
“You were shot at by a vampiric archer with no apparent ties to any clan. He’s a shadow. A mercenary. A thug for hire. I expect another of his ilk to attempt finishing what his comrade started.”
“Seriously?” I wheeled on him. “You’re telling me you let me out of the house to act as bait?”
“I don’t let you go anywhere. I invite you to accompany me on errands when I feel certain I can provide adequate protection to keep you safe.” His gaze slid past my shoulder. “Hood has taken an arrow for you. He would do it again. It’s his nature.” His eyes snapped back to me. “It’s mine too, where you’re concerned.”
“Cletus isn’t shabby either,” I admitted, still grumpy and unconvinced.
This reminded me of how Boaz used Oscar as bait for the dybbuk. I didn’t want to be used as a lure.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” he promised. “They won’t take you while I’m alive.”
Oh, Linus. I should have known the life he would be gambling with was his.
“What made you pick this contract?” Necromancers only accepted one a year at most after they put their apprenticeship behind them. Practitioners on his level would accept a petition once every three to five years. “How long has it been since your last progeny?”
“It’s been six years.” He went on to answer my unasked question as well. “This will be my third.” He mulled over the rest while leading me back the way we came. “I hoped to share this experience with you, so that was a factor, but I wouldn’t have accepted if I didn’t feel the individual in question will make a solid addition to the clan sponsoring her.”
“A woman?” I fell in step with him. “Does that change the experience?”
“For some, yes.” He lifted a shoulder. “I keep those relationships professional.”
“I never put any thought into it, but I like the sound of that.”
Some necromancers took their clients on as lovers. They believed that an intense physical connection with their creator helped strengthen the bond between a fledgling vampire’s soul and its body. Me? I always thought it sounded too much like taking advantage, inventing a fringe benefit. But I came from good stock. Marchands weren’t required to stoop so low, and their blood was in my veins. Woolworths had no need for gimmicks, and Maud was the same as a mother to me. I wouldn’t have had to resort to such tactics to ensure a resuscitation stuck. Blood and talent would have guaranteed that for me.