The Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund (PUFF) is the bounty system where Hunters get paid by the government for eliminating monsters. Some creatures, hybrids, and humans who’ve been touched by the other realms can earn PUFF exemptions through good behavior.
Eyes Like Mine
Melissa Olthoff
It would’ve been nice to go to college.
Go to classes and earn a degree during the day, get a little wild and a lot stupid at night.
Instead, I was stuck in nowhere Indiana in a life I didn’t want. All because of a curse. A real curse, one that had wound its tendrils through my family tree like kudzu. Pretty, deceptively powerful, and eventually deadly.
My mother had called our Fey-touched sight a gift.
I called it the reason I no longer had a mother.
Regardless, the end result was the same—glamour didn’t work on the women in my family. Ever since a distant ancestor had managed to spectacularly piss off a Fey, we could see past the illusions monsters used to hide from humanity. And because my great-whatever-grandmother was an overachiever, the Fey hadn’t just cursed her. He’d cursed her and every female descendent until the end of time—or until our line died out, whichever came first.
So normal had never been an option. But it would’ve been nice to pretend…even if it was just for a few years. Ball State, the number-one party school in the country, was less than two hours away, but it might as well have been in a different country.
Because I wasn’t a college student.
I was a monster hunter.
“You know, Taylor, I could be at a party right now,” I muttered.
I kept my rifle low, finger lying along the trigger guard, and carefully stepped over a flattened section of cornstalks, dirt crunching faintly under my boots. Something had crashed through this part of the field, but it was too large for what we were hunting. Likely deer or maybe bored teenagers, though even teenagers probably had better things to do than mess around in Dirk Kessel’s back forty on a Friday night.
Unlike me.
I sighed and kept walking, breathing in the earthy, slightly musty scent of corn and dirt with every step.
“I could flirt with a hot guy, jump on the back of his bike, get drunk under the stars and make fun life choices. But nooo.” I shot my brother an irritated glare as he matched my pace in the next row. I only caught glimpses of his broad frame through the dried stalks, but I could see enough to note the matching irritated expression on his face. “Here we are, spending another Friday night cleaning up a mess. No, not a mess. An infestation.”
“An infestation of monsters, Essie,” Taylor said in a low voice, pointedly speaking quieter than me. “And you’re supposed to be working on making smarter life choices, not fun ones.”
“God, you talk like you’re fifty, not twenty-four.”
“And you talk like you’re fourteen, not twenty,” he shot back, still keeping his voice low.
“Well, I’ve been doing this since I was fourteen, so…”
“Grow the fuck up, Essie,” he said gruffly. “Focus.”
I rolled my eyes and ghosted deeper into the field, towering stalks rustling in the persistent breeze. The night sky was cloudless, a smattering of stars and a sliver of a moon providing more than enough illumination for my Fey-cursed eyes. As chilly as it was in late fall Indiana, there was enough humidity in the air for fog, mostly rising from the farm’s stock ponds. The mist snaked along the ground, wound through the fields and pastures, combining with the stupid cornstalks to limit our visibility. Add in the cover of rustling leaves, and it was no wonder we’d already been out here for over an hour with nothing to show for it.
“Taylor, we’re hunting dard,” I said dryly as I raised my Ruger 10/22 rifle in emphasis. Perfect for taking down small game. Or small monsters like the dard, an invasive species from France that glamoured themselves as harmless cats. The farmers welcomed them because cats kept the mice population under control, while in reality, the dard were helping themselves to the farmers’ livestock. “We might as well call ourselves Pest Control.”
A flicker of a smile finally cracked the granite of Taylor’s face. “You have to admit, O’Connell’s Pest Control has a nice ring to it.”
“We’d probably make more money too,” I grumbled, thinking about how expensive even online college classes were, and how few I could afford to take each semester.
While dard could in very rare cases be dangerous to people, they were considered so low a threat you had to search way down the government’s PUFF table to find them. Even if we took out the whole nest tonight, they were worth barely enough to restock the fridge, let alone pay for an extra class. At the rate I was going, I’d graduate in the next decade or so with a boring degree in finance I’d probably never get to use.
We cleared the latest field without finding a trace of the little assholes, concealing stalks falling away between one step and the next and leaving us standing out in the open. Taylor flexed his broad shoulders and scanned our surroundings with sharp but perfectly ordinary eyes.
A flicker of motion caught my attention, a flash of a reptilian tail with a faint blur around it, as if it were slightly out of focus. Gone by the time I’d finished turning, rifle stock pressed firmly to my shoulder. I took my finger off the trigger, sighed, and tilted my head toward the decrepit building visible above the swaying brown stalks of the next field.
“Wanna check out the creepy barn next?”
“Not particularly, no. But if it gets the job done…” Taylor grimaced. “You’re not the only one who’d rather be somewhere else tonight, you know.”
I snorted. “Is it a recliner? Maybe a lawn chair so you can sit in our front yard and yell at everyone to ‘make smart choices’?”
“Focus, Essie,” he ground out, taking the lead, his rifle up and ready.
We’d already searched the main barns and outbuildings closer to the farmhouse, but this one was tucked out of sight of the main road and didn’t look like it’d last another winter. Leaning against a rusted tractor like a drunk hanging onto his buddy after one too many shots at the bar, the metal roof was more rusted hole than actual roof, and there was a gaping opening where a door should be.
Nope, not creepy at all.
Cautiously, we crept up to the entrance. The thick scent of carrion and copper coated the back of my tongue, and cracked bones littered the dirt. I eased one last step forward. More flickers of motion, more blurred outlines—and eyes glowing in the dark shadows.
I flicked on the Trinity 1000-lumen LED flashlight mounted beneath the barrel of my rifle and swept the beam across the interior of the barn, getting a rough count of a dozen of the cat-headed, gray lizards. Spiky brown manes rose up along their spines, and they hissed like vipers, flinching away from the harsh light.
“Jackpot,” I crooned, trying not to spook them into running. “They’re all dard.”
Once Taylor had confirmation that none of the creatures crawling all over the rusted machinery or perched on rotted straw bales were actually cats, he began picking them off, one controlled shot at a time. I was less precise, but I carried extra ammo for a reason, and I made up for my lack of precision with enthusiasm. It helped that the dard were partially stunned by the flashlight, one of the reasons we’d hunted them at night. Only two managed to dash past us into the foggy night, and we trotted after them as soon we’d cleared the barn.
We ran straight into Dirk Kessel.
Oops.
“Drop the peashooters,” the old farmer growled, rheumy eyes glinting with steel as he stared at us down the barrel of an ancient shotgun. His lanky frame was stooped from age and years spent working his land, but his hands were steady and that double-barrel shotgun didn’t waver an inch.
Farmers were tough bastards. Even farmers closing in on their eighties.
I glanced sidelong at Taylor and took my cue from him, pointing my rifle at the ground but not dropping it.
“Sorry, sir,” he said respectfully. “We didn’t mean to trespass.”
“Well, you did,” Kessel snapped, outrage stamped on his weathered features. “The fence should’ve been a goddamned clue-bird. What in heck are you doing on my property?”
Taylor slid forward half a step, trying to keep the farmer’s attention focused on him rather than me. “We were tracking a coyote.”
The farmer grunted, unconvinced, and flicked on a flashlight every bit as powerful as the one I carried. There must have been a sale at the local gun shop, because in the instant before I was blinded, I swore it was the same brand as mine. Hissing in discomfort, I squinted at the bright light and fought back the urge to shield my eyes. I didn’t want to get shot by accident.
And then Kessel cursed, the flashlight focused squarely on my face.
Damn it. I should’ve risked being shot.
The chain around my neck seemed to grow heavier, the metal exemption tag beneath my shirt cold against my skin. Too bad it wouldn’t mean shit to this old man.
I’m human, but my eyes are decidedly not. Human eyes could be bright emerald green, but they sure as fuck didn’t reflect a golden color at night the way mine did. The technical term was tapetum lucidum, a reflective layer that made seeing in low light easier and somehow tied into my ability to see through glamour.
I can’t imagine what I looked like to Kessel, but for the first time his shotgun wavered, hands shaking. He panned the flashlight from me, to Taylor, and stopped on all the little furry bodies lying in the dirt behind us in the barn.
“What in God’s name…” The old man trailed off, horrified at what looked like a massacre. The dards’ glamour hadn’t faded in death, and it very much looked like we’d just slaughtered a bunch of cats for funsies. “What are you, some kind of devil worshippers?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Taylor said, desperately trying to salvage the rapidly deteriorating situation. He faltered, cleared his throat, and I jumped in the gap.
“It was um…the coyote.” I smiled hopefully at Kessel, and he flinched at my eyes before he did what most people would do—he came up with a rational explanation to explain the eye shine away.
“Crazy kids and their stupid contacts.” He shook his head, hands steadying. “Unless that coyote’s name is Wile E., he didn’t shoot a bunch of innocent cats. Get the fuck off my property. I see you again, I’ll sink a load of buckshot into your backsides.”
Cautiously, Taylor sidestepped around him, but I didn’t move. Dards weren’t worth much, but without samples to back up our claim, they weren’t worth anything at all. And I had a feeling the farmer was the type to take care of the not-cat bodies before we could sneak back.
Kessel followed my gaze, and his expression hardened.
“Sick freaks.” He fired a blast into the air. “I said get!”
We ran.
Rather that stick to the dirt path, Taylor made a beeline for the closest fence and the county road beyond it. A wild laugh bubbled up at the ridiculousness of running from an old farmer like a pair of teenagers. I peeled one white-knuckled hand off my rifle and threw up a pair of devil horns.
“Hail Satan!”
Taylor shot me an incredulous look as Kessel fired another, much closer warning shot. “Really, Essie?”
I cackled like a lunatic and ran faster.
If I couldn’t make fun life choices, I could at least make the life I was stuck with a little more interesting.
“I still can’t believe you did that,” Taylor muttered as he pushed the grocery cart down the brightly lit aisle.
I strolled along next to him, scanning the dozens of cardboard boxes for my preferred cereal. “I still can’t believe you’re surprised.”
After escaping Kessel’s property without getting peppered with buckshot, we’d secured our gear in Taylor’s pickup truck and headed to the grocery store.
Just another glorious night for Batesville’s premier—and only—monster hunters.
We might have lost out on the PUFF for those little pests, but at least we still had enough in the checking account for some food. Wincing at the price tag, I bypassed the cereal I really wanted and grabbed the off-brand version. My steps slowed when we reached my favorite aisle. Dinner had been a sad peanut butter sandwich, and I could think of no better reward for a mostly successful hunt than chocolate.
My lips curled into a smirk. No better reward that I could find at a grocery store, anyway.
I turned my attention back to the extensive chocolate selection, ignoring Taylor’s increasingly impatient huffs. I’d picked out two chocolate bars and was debating if we had enough money for a third when his patience finally snapped.
“Would you hurry up?” Taylor called over his shoulder, trying to beat an old grandmother to an open checkout lane. He lost. “I’ve got someplace to be.”
“Got a hot date?” I teased as I sauntered after him, clutching my three chocolate bars to my chest like a dragon with new treasure.
When Taylor avoided my gaze, giving far too much attention to unloading our cart for checkout, my eyes widened. I dropped my prizes onto the belt and grabbed his arm.
“Wait, do you really have a date? It’s Lizzy Hallstrom, isn’t it! Oh! Or Nora Kensington! Or—”
“Becca Thomas.” His face reddened and he swiped a hand through his dark hair, messing up the short waves. “It’s just a first date at Ducky’s, no big deal.”
His nervousness said it was a big deal. I took a good look at his clothes, but outside of a few scuffs of dirt on his boots, he looked presentable enough for the local pool hall.
“Tell you what, why don’t I just drop you off? I can bring the groceries home.”
“You sure?”
I pointed at my chocolate bars. “Trust me, I’m sure.”
It took longer than either of us wanted for the bored teenager to ring up our groceries. My attention wandered to the old TV blasting the local news. Another suicide. The fifth one this month.
Trying to ignore the newscaster’s terrible attempt at sympathy, I grabbed the bag with my chocolate bars and wandered over to the corkboard near the exit to see if there were any part-time jobs posted. The internet had been a thing forever, but folks around here still preferred to advertise the old way. All I could find were far too many missing person posters, and I turned away from the bleak images to dig through my grocery bag.
A wan-faced woman shuffled toward the exit, hands clenched tight around the handle of her cart and shoulders hunched. I took a step back so she could pass when a chill snaked down my spine. My head snapped up, and my gaze locked onto the spectral figure hovering next to her.
Motherfucking ghosts.
I didn’t know if they were really a person’s spirit or just an echo left behind by their passing, but most were harmless remnants, imprints that lingered in the cracks of grief and heartache. Some were a little more than that. Judging by the way the woman subconsciously flinched away from her hitchhiker, this particular ghost was strong enough for some part of her to hear the hate he was spewing. Vague, middle-aged features were contorted into a snarl as he silently berated her. I fought back the urge to snarl back, but only because the asshole couldn’t hear or see anyone other than the person they’d fixated on.
My nails bit into my palms, the sharp sting an outlet for the familiar frustrated anger curling through my chest. There was a reason there wasn’t any PUFF for ghosts. We couldn’t kill them, couldn’t affect them, couldn’t do a damn thing to stop the dead from being assholes.
But sometimes I could do something for the living.
Before the woman could scuttle by, I whipped my hand onto an abandoned cart and jerked it into hers. The clash of metal startled her into actually lifting her gaze from the scuffed linoleum, and I winced at the dark circles beneath pretty brown eyes.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I was distracted by my chocolate.” I lifted my bag sheepishly and gave her a warm smile. “I love your hair, by the way. I can never get mine that straight.”
Her whole face brightened at my genuine compliment, and the ghost faded just a little. Small things helped. The chocolate bar I slipped into her cart while she was distracted would help too. Not because it was magic, but because it was delicious.
“Thanks.” She smiled shyly, and I realized she couldn’t be more than a few years older than me. “And your curls are gorgeous.”
“Thank you!” I tucked a dark auburn lock behind my ear and grinned, loving the way her tormentor faded even more, features growing indistinct as the woman’s own spirit strengthened. With a little luck, he’d continue to fade until he was nothing more than a bad memory. “Hope you have a great night!”
Taylor frowned at the woman as she walked away, shoulders just a little less hunched than before. “Someone you know?”
I smiled. “Nope.”
Our town was small, but not that small. A few minutes later, after paying far too much for groceries, we headed to Ducky’s. An upbeat song popular over two decades ago drifted out on the chill night air, a few rough notes here and there telling me it was a live band, and a pretty good one at that.
Taylor pulled down the visor and checked himself in the tiny mirror, smoothing his hair down. “Do I look okay?”
Biting my lip to hold back a grin, I brushed off the dried corn husk clinging to his sleeve and gave him a thumbs-up. He slipped out of the passenger seat and shut the door, but I rolled the window down and hollered after him.
“Remember to make smart life choices!”
A handful of people smoking outside laughed, and he shook his head. “Grow up, Essie.”
“Never!”
I drove out of town, a pretty crescent moon sailing high overhead. As I turned onto the overpass that would take me over I-74 and toward the ramshackle old farmhouse we called home, my headlights flashed over an animal near the middle of the bridge.
Abruptly, I slammed on the brakes.
That wasn’t an animal.
A young man, barely more than a boy really, stood next to the guardrail, staring down at the highway traffic below. Throwing on my emergency flashers, I pulled over as far as I could on the narrow bridge and slipped out of my truck.
“Hey!” I called out, desperately wishing Taylor was here with me. “Stop!”
Every line in his body tensed, and I lifted empty hands as I eased closer. A spectral haze floated next to him. Between one blink and the next, it solidified into an ethereal woman, so distinct I could see the golden hue of her eyes and the inky black of her flowing hair. She whispered in his ear, a sweet melody that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
Resting one hand on his arm, she caressed the guardrail with the other. An invitation.
He climbed over it.
And then she looked at me. She looked at me.
Golden eyes ensnared mine, and my steps stuttered to a halt. She could see me. It was an effort to look away, but she wasn’t important right now. The trembling boy on the other side of that guardrail was.
“Hey, you don’t really want to do this.”
“You’re wrong.” He glanced over his shoulder, despairing expression backlit by the bright headlights of the semi-trucks barreling past. “I really do.”
“No!” I leaped forward, hand outstretched, but I was too far away to stop him.
One second, he was perched on the edge. The next, he was gone. A horn blared and brakes squealed, but there was no stopping that kind of tonnage on a dime. Even if he’d survived the fall, the semi-truck had surely finished the job.
I pressed a hand to my mouth to swallow my cry.
The spectral woman tilted her head. Smiled at me. And vanished.
Goose bumps raced down my skin, and cold fear belatedly washed over me. Ghosts couldn’t see random people. But she’d seen me, and she’d been cognizant enough to enjoy my reaction to her victim’s death. Stumbling and shaking and two seconds away from vomiting, I stepped up to the guardrail. Four slash marks had cut through the metal exactly where her hand had caressed.
Like a knife through butter. Or claws.
Definitely not a ghost, then. So what the hell was she?
By the time I made it home, the groceries were warm and I needed something stronger than chocolate.
I’d called 9-1-1, waited on the side of the road just beyond the overpass, and told the county sheriff what I’d witnessed—minus the not-a-ghost part. Every time I blinked, I could still see red and blue lights flashing, still see the despair on that young man’s face, still see those beautiful golden eyes.
And when I drove home, it felt like something watched me the entire way.
Floorboards creaked under my boots as I stomped inside, carrying all the groceries in one trip. I’d go back for our hunting gear after I got some food in my belly and my hands stopped shaking.
“I’m home!”
My voice echoed in the big house, bounced off dust-cloth-covered furniture and empty rooms. It was too much space for just the three of us, but we were too sentimental to let the place go. Also, with the way the housing market was, we wouldn’t get nearly what it was worth. My nose wrinkled at the pile of dishes in the sink, the new cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, and the muddy tracks across the kitchen, and then I decided it was a problem for Tomorrow Essie.
The squeak of wheels on hardwood announced my Uncle Will’s arrival. “Hey, kiddo. How’d the hunt go?”
“Well, we didn’t get shot by Kessel for practicing the dark arts, and we got all of the dard except for two…but we couldn’t get samples so we lost out on the PUFF.” I buried my head in the fridge, searching for something other than chocolate or alcohol. In an attempt to distract my uncle from the lost income, I added, “Hey, you ever hear of a spirit that can see the living? Not just their victim, but other people?”
Silence.
I kept rummaging. I was certain I’d put my leftover Chinese in here but I couldn’t spot the white container. Damn it, if Taylor had stolen my food again, I was going to stab him with chopsticks.
“Ha!” I reached all the way in the back, where the container had gotten shoved behind a gallon of milk that may or may not have expired a month ago. “Found it.”
“Essie.”
At the grim note in my uncle’s voice, I pulled my head out of the fridge, Chinese food clutched possessively in one hand.
Will O’Connell had been a big man once, but he’d slowly wasted away, useless legs shriveled and twisted. He’d been wheelchair-bound ever since the Monster Control Bureau team that killed his wife nearly beat him to death for daring to try to protect her.
Some days, I think he wished they’d succeeded. Most days, he remembered he was all we had left, and he endured when I think he otherwise would’ve eaten a bullet.
“If it saw you, it couldn’t have been a ghost,” he said as I grabbed a set of chopsticks and dug into my second dinner. “You steer clear of whatever it was until we figure it out, then you can go hunting.”
“Got it,” I mumbled around a mouthful of cold noodles.
My uncle disappeared into the depths of the house and came back half a container of Chinese later carrying a stack of leather-bound books balanced in his lap. He never smiled anymore, but his expression was bright with interest as he wheeled himself to our battered kitchen table and gently set the old books on the scarred surface.
“Tell me everything you remember, and we’ll do some research.”
It wasn’t exactly how I wanted to end my Friday night, but it beat curling up in a ball and remembering the way that barely grown boy had just…let himself fall.
By the time Taylor got a ride home from his date, it was past two in the morning, and we were deep into the old family journals and Uncle Will’s favorite bourbon. Taylor’s long stride faltered at the edge of the pool of light illuminating the kitchen table, and he visibly braced himself before he took a seat and poured himself a drink.
“What happened?” Taylor finally asked, hand tight around the glass.
I took a deep breath, the air heavy with the scent of savory pork lo mein, sweet gun oil, and musty old paper. Decided it wasn’t enough, took another…and told him what happened after I’d dropped him off.
“Shit.” He took a long swallow of bourbon, draining half his glass before he set it down with a quiet clink. “What’ve you got?”
“We’re still not sure.” I slumped in my chair, eyes burning from reading the widely varied styles of handwriting in those journals, some barely legible. “It could be a White Lady or a lamia. Maybe even a banshee variant we haven’t seen before.”
Uncle Will shook his head. “Golden eyes. You’re sure it had golden eyes?”
The flashing lights and the fatal despair had faded away, but I still saw those eyes every time I blinked. Beautiful and wicked and cruel.
“I’m sure.”
He laid a thin hand on the oldest of all the journals. The one we only brought out of the safe when everything else had failed us. Great-whatever-grandmother’s journal.
“I think it’s something that’s been Fey-cursed.”
I stilled. “Like me.”
My eyes reflected gold because of the curse, but I’d never been able to see what they looked like. Were they wicked and cruel like hers? And how badly had she been cursed for her eyes to be solid gold?
“No, not like you.” Taylor gripped my shoulder. “Whatever that thing is, it’s a monster.”
“A monster we’re going to hunt down.” I forced a smile. “Maybe the PUFF will be enough for me to take extra classes next semester. Or finally replace the roof. Oooh or a vacation.”
But Taylor shook his head firmly. “No, Essie.”
I sat up straight, frowning. “No? What do you mean no?”
Uncle Will ignored us, carefully stacking the journals and setting them aside in favor of my beat-up old laptop. The screen had been cracked for years and half the letters on the keyboard had worn off, but it did the job.
“No, we’re not…” Taylor frowned at our uncle. “Since when do you know how to use a computer?”
“Essie taught me,” he said absently as he pecked at the keys with his index fingers.
“I tried to teach him for years,” Taylor grumbled at me.
I gave him a slow smile. He didn’t need to know that the screen had an extra crack in it from when I’d slammed it shut in frustration after hours of beating the basics into our firmly old-school uncle’s thick skull.
Another few minutes of painfully slow tapping and Uncle Will stopped, sighed, and looked at us. Nights like this, it was hard to remember he was only in his fifties. He looked damn near as old as Dirk Kessel and nowhere near as strong.
“I took a look at the public county death records. The number of suicides has steadily increased in the past decade. Officials blame it on cost of living, lack of job opportunities”—he waved a dismissive hand—“you know, the usual when they don’t know why people are dying but need to give some kind of explanation. Those numbers aren’t completely terrible until you combine them with the number of missing persons reports. Mostly vagrants passing through that nobody would miss.”
Flashing back to the grocery store corkboard, I hoarsely added, “Most, but not all.”
Taylor leaned forward. “Is there any pattern?”
Uncle Will nodded and turned the laptop so we could see the cracked screen. He’d pulled up a local area map and added pins color coded by year, with red being current. There was a lot of red. All of it centered on Batesville.
“Something’s been feeding here for years, right under our damn noses,” he said grimly. “And it’s stepped it up in the past month.”
My gut tightened, certainty sinking into my bones. “She’s getting ready to do something big.”
Taylor reached over and firmly shut the laptop. “Which is why we need to call it in to someone who has the firepower and training to take whatever it is on.”
Something ugly burned in our uncle’s eyes. “Boy, if you mean the MCB—”
“I’m talking about the Chicago MHI team.”
Uncle Will relaxed, but my hands tightened into fists. “Taylor, no. What can they do? They can’t even see her.”
“You said it clawed the guardrail. That means it can go corporeal. That means they can see it and kill it.”
“We need the money,” I snapped.
“We need to be smart.”
I rolled my eyes. “Smart life choices are boring, Tails.”
“Boring is better than dead, Esther.” Taylor swayed back just far enough to avoid my fist, an amused smile on his tired face before he sobered. “I’m calling it in tomorrow.”
Hours later, when both men were asleep, I crept back downstairs and opened my laptop. The map was still up, and I looked for a pattern to the kills. A triumphant smile danced on my lips when I found one.
“Jackpot,” I crooned as I zoomed in on the blank spot in the center of everything.
Three possible locations jumped out, three places that Fey-cursed bitch might be nesting. Three chances to hunt her down before the stupid MHI team arrived. If they even decided it was worth their while. They might not. From what I’d heard, they’d been busy lately.
So I made one of those smart life choices Taylor was always harping about. After a brief stop in the guest bedroom we’d long-since converted to an armory, I went back to bed. Exhausted and slightly inebriated was no way to start a hunt. I might want to have a little more fun, make things a little more interesting, actually earn enough money to not be poor—but I wasn’t stupid.
Unfortunately, neither was Taylor.
He kept me busy the next day. First on the shooting range running drills to improve my shitty aim, then on the endless home improvement projects needed to keep our house from completely falling apart. The sun was setting by the time I managed to escape, and only because Taylor got a phone call. Gaze sliding toward mine, he muttered something about Becca Thomas and dinner, snapped at me to stay with Uncle Will tonight, and took off in his truck.
Perfect.
I changed into sturdy hunting clothes and loaded up what I needed in my old Mustang, but I didn’t climb in the driver’s seat right away. Instead, I tilted my face up to the sky and breathed in the twilight, the air crisp and earthy with the scent of my favorite season. Something wild in my soul settled into calm focus.
Everyone has their pregame rituals.
“Essie!”
My head snapped down, and I found my uncle on our front porch, hands white-knuckled on the push rings of his wheelchair. His expression twisted, lines deepening on his craggy face.
“Be careful, kiddo.”
I gave him a teasing smile. “I promise to make smart life choices.”
“If we were smart, we wouldn’t be in this business.” He wheeled himself down the ramp and toward his beloved garage. “Don’t be smart—be better than the monster you’re hunting.”
A casual salute, and I slid behind the wheel and started the car. The rough purr of the engine vibrated through the leather steering wheel, urging me to go fast, but I kept my speed nice and controlled all the way into town.
Out of the three possibilities, the old cemetery seemed the most likely on the surface, but it was at the edge of that cleared space on the map. I parked the car under a burned-out streetlight in the middle of Batesville’s derelict downtown and smiled at the old marquee with its broken lights and faded posters.
The abandoned movie theater, on the other hand, was dead center.
The locks had been broken by bored teenagers ages ago. After checking my gear one last time, I pulled open the door and slipped inside. The scent of stale popcorn slapped me in the face, and silence filled my ears. Flicking on my flashlight, I swept it across the lobby. Unimaginative graffiti marred the rotting wallpapered walls, and debris was scattered across the once beautiful travertine floor, no different from the last time I’d snuck in. Definitely not like some kind of Fey-cursed not-ghost was nesting here.
I swept my gaze across the space one more time before focusing on the closed double doors leading to the one and only theater room. Glass crunched under my boots as I crept across the lobby, flashlight in one hand and the single-edged knife I’d grabbed from the armory in the other. I’d spent far too much time sharpening it, but if Uncle Will was right, it was going to be far more useful than the Sig Sauer P365 holstered on my hip.
My fingers tightened on the leather wrapping the hilt and protecting my skin. The Fey curse that twisted through my soul didn’t react well to the metal, and while the pain wouldn’t kill me, it would certainly distract me.
My heartrate increased the closer I drew to those doors, a thundering roar in my ears, and sweat trickled down my spine. I’d gone on solo hunts before, but never after something quite this…nebulous. There was a whole lot of wiggle room in “Fey-cursed not-ghost,” especially one who could claw through a steel guardrail. Resisting the urge to tug on the stab-proof vest under my button-up shirt, I let out a slow breath, tucked my flashlight under one arm, and reached for the door handle.
“There’s no need for that,” a sweet voice whispered in my ear.
I whirled around knife-first, dropping my flashlight in the process. It bounced and rolled across the floor, light cutting across the lobby wildly before it fetched to a stop against a broken chair. That was fine. I didn’t need a light to see my quarry, her entire body lit up in a spectral light only eyes like mine could see.
She’d drifted back out of reach of my strike with unearthly speed, inky black hair moving gently in a breeze I couldn’t feel and golden eyes burning past my every defense and peering straight down into my terrified soul. Up close, she was strange and beautiful in a way humans simply couldn’t be.
Because we’d been wrong.
“I’ve been watching you,” she crooned. “Ever since you saw me.”
So very wrong.
“If you wanted to talk, Fey-touched child, all you had to do was ask.”
She wasn’t Fey-cursed.
She was Fey, and so far out of my league it was laughable.
My grip tightened on my knife. At the time, cold iron had seemed like a smart precaution. Now, I was pretty sure it was the only thing keeping her from attacking. That, and a curiosity she didn’t bother to hide as she drifted around me, gliding more than walking with that unnatural Fey grace.
I licked dry lips. “Who are you?”
“A bold question.”
Icy cold slithered down my spine at her tone, and I offered her a polite smile and an apology. “I’m sorry, lady. My Fey etiquette is rusty.”
“That’s quite all right.” Her head tilted, smile deepening as she drew in a deep breath. “Your fear smells delicious. Flavored with bravery, impetuous youth, and…a touch of the Twilight Court. How long it’s been since I walked their forest paths beneath purple dusk and soft starlight. For that treat alone, I’ll offer you a story.”
Oh goody. The urge to ask for safe passage instead of story time danced on the tip of my tongue, but I held the unwise words back.
Look at me making smarter choices already, Taylor!
My breath shook and I risked a casual step toward the door. She blocked my path, her golden eyes gleaming with mischief and malice.
“I will not give you my name, but know that I am a Lady of the Wild Hunt. Unjustly cursed.” A hand flashed out, caressed the side of my face before I could jerk back, the touch at once impossibly gentle and icy cold. “Not cursed to see like you, but cursed to stay.”
Warmth trickled down my cheek.
“I am being punished by the Hunt Mistress for allowing prey to escape. He was far too pretty to die…until I was done with him.” She lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “For ruining the hunt, I was sentenced to fifty years anchored to this place.”
There was real frustration and longing in her voice, and I felt unwanted sympathy stir. I was tied to this place by my heritage and lack of money, nebulous chains just as real as hers.
“How long have you been trapped here?”
The question slipped out before I could stop it, but she didn’t seem offended this time.
“Long enough.” A slow smile, elongated canines gleaming white in the spectral light. “The Mistress left me a loophole, a way out of my snare. If I can amass enough power, I can break the geas that binds me and be free.”
Power…
“The suicides, all those missing people.” Cold fear gripped me, any urge toward sympathy dying. “You’re feeding off their deaths.”
“Oh no, sweet child, no.” She laughed, a chiming, light sound that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “I’m feeding off their souls. And after this evening’s feast, I only need two more.”
She glided closer, and I retreated, holding my knife crosswise in front of my torso. My back slammed into the theater door, and I couldn’t breathe for the fear. But my hands were steady and my blade didn’t waver, a flimsy shield between us as her voice slid into a satisfied purr.
“This latest soul tasted like aged wine. Pain and guilt, grief and sorrow, all flavored by sweet relief. Delicious.” Her tongue flicked out, tracing her sculpted lips. “I give thanks to the good fortune of our paths crossing, child.”
Her head titled as if she could hear something I couldn’t and her smile turned catlike with anticipation. My heart thudded in my chest.
Once.
Twice.
Two men burst through the front door, guns leveled at my face. A flashlight blinded me, and a fresh spike of fear shocked through me. Those were MHI patches on their gear. And my eyes had just reflected gold like the monster they were hunting.
“Drop the knife!”
“I can’t,” I gritted out. It was the only thing keeping me safe.
The chain around my neck grew impossibly heavy, a reminder that it could’ve helped keep me safe too. I was a fucking idiot. I knew Taylor had called MHI. I should’ve pulled it from beneath my shirt so it hung in plain sight before starting this hunt.
“Last warning,” the older man barked. “Drop it or we will shoot.”
My gaze flicked from the armed Hunters to the spectral Fey standing between us. They couldn’t see her.
Fuckfuckfuck.
Death by Fey bitch or death by Hunters. Either way I was dead.
She breathed in my terror with a satisfied expression. “I’ll see you soon, Fey-touched child. You know where to find me.”
She closed one golden eye in a wink and vanished from even my sight. She was gone.
I dropped the knife.
“I have an exemption!” I shrieked over the sharp clatter of metal hitting the dirty floor.
My voice was easily an octave higher than normal, and my hands were shaking so badly that I probably would’ve dropped the blade even if they hadn’t ordered it.
This was how my Aunt Matilda died.
The really shitty thing was if it wasn’t for the MCB showing up to “help” during the zombie outbreak that took out my parents and most of our company, my aunt would’ve survived. And maybe my uncle wouldn’t have been broken in both body and spirit. But they’d seen her reflective eyes and shot first and asked questions never.
Thank fuck these guys weren’t MCB.
“Let us see it,” the older Hunter snapped out, voice hard and unyielding.
My hands were shaking so hard it took long seconds before I was able to pull the exemption tag from beneath my shirt. The gold-and-red seal of the MCB glinted in the harsh light, PUFF Exemption stamped in bold letters beneath. There was a whole litany on the back that could be summed up with, “If you shoot me you might go to jail.”
Cold comfort if you were dead.
The older Hunter jerked his chin at the younger one, a rugged guy around Taylor’s age with a long scar cutting down the side of his face and his arm in a sling. “Check it, Lawrence.”
Lawrence holstered his sidearm and approached. There was a smooth competence in the way he moved, in the way he kept the other Hunter’s firing line clear. Professional and deadly.
Also stupid hot, but that wasn’t relevant right now. Maybe later.
“It’s legit.” Lawrence raised a brow at the tiny metal dog tag my uncle had insisted I add to the chain since exemption tags didn’t have names. “Esther?”
“It’s an old family name,” I growled, still shaking from my near miss. “I go by Essie.”
“Aw fuck.” Lawrence sighed as he read the rest of the dog tag, that simmering promise of violence disappearing between one blink and the next. “You’re O’Connell’s sister. He’s going to be pissed—”
“You’re damn right I am.”
My eyes widened as my brother stalked into the lobby with a third MHI Hunter following on his heels. I spared the newest Hunter a quick glance—noting the walking cast on his left foot, the recently broken nose, and the intelligent dark eyes—before glaring at Taylor.
“I thought you were on a date with Becca!”
“Because that’s what I wanted you to think!” he roared in exasperation. His gaze narrowed on my face. “Are you okay?”
I swiped my bloody cheek, hissing at the sting, but it felt like a tiny cut. “Fine.”
“Thank fuck.” He sighed, some of his anger fading away. “How did you even find this place?”
“Uncle Will’s map.” My chin lifted. “There was a pattern—”
“Yes, Essie,” he said dryly. “I saw it too. And the cemetery and the junkyard. Remember who trained you?”
“Apparently not good enough, O’Connell,” the oldest Hunter growled as he stalked up to me.
He looked like he was in his forties, and he moved carefully, favoring his right side. In fact, all three MHI Hunters looked like they’d been on the losing end of a recent fight. Or maybe that was what winning looked like. They were still breathing, after all.
He stooped and picked up my knife. When I reached for it, he pulled it back, a dangling carrot to get what he wanted.
“Why didn’t you drop it when I told you to?” he demanded, an irate glint in his faded blue eyes. I had a feeling if he had killed me, he might have felt bad about it, but he wouldn’t regret doing whatever was needed to keep his team safe.
I held his judgmental gaze. “Because I was holding off the bitch threatening to eat my fucking soul.”
“It was here?” Lawrence glanced at the older Hunter. “Did you see anything, Mac?”
“Just a stupid girl with cat eyes refusing to drop her knife,” Mac grumbled.
“They’re not cat eyes,” I grumbled back, deliberately mimicking his voice.
“They’re green and reflect gold.”
“Yeah, and they see things ours can’t,” Taylor jumped in.
“Yeah, Tails, they do,” I snapped, angry all over again. “So why the hell did you leave me out of this when you know damn well I’m the only one who can see her when she’s incorporeal?”
The intelligent Hunter in the walking boot propped his shotgun over one shoulder and arched a thin brow. “I’m guessing it’s because you pull shit like go after a Fey-cursed spirit alone?”
“Fuck you…”
“Alphonse,” he supplied helpfully.
“Fuck you, Alphonse,” I finished, a brief smile tugging at my lips before my mirth fell away. “And she’s not a spirit. She’s Fey.”
Taylor dragged a hand through his hair and cursed viciously. Quickly, I briefed them on what she’d told me. It wasn’t until I reached the end that I faltered.
“She said I’d know where to find her, but I don’t—”
Ice sank into my bones. She’d come dangerously close to thanking me, avoiding the taboo by the thinnest of margins by expressing gratitude to our paths crossing.
And the soul she’d described…
I felt the blood drain out of my face and swayed. “Taylor! Call Uncle Will!”
Taylor paled and whipped out his cell phone. Seconds ticked past, each an eternity where I silently blamed myself. I’d felt eyes on me the entire way home last night. I’d led that bitch straight to our home. And then I’d left my crippled uncle alone.
Slowly, he lowered the phone. “He’s not answering.”
Oh, God. I knew where she’d been, where she’d gone back to. “I know where to find her.”
Lawrence and Alphonse exchanged a loaded glance, silent words passing between the men in a flicker of expressions. Then they looked at their team leader. Waiting.
Mac flipped my knife in his hand, catching it by the tip and extending it to me hilt first.
“Lead the way.”
I didn’t remember the drive home. Didn’t remember racing down the driveway, gravel spitting behind spinning tires. Didn’t remember bypassing the house in favor of my uncle’s garage. The one where I’d spent an entire summer “helping” him restore my old Mustang but mostly just getting in the way and providing him with beer.
But I’d always remember the feeling of my knees hitting the oil-stained concrete in front of his wheelchair. Remember how his hand was still warm…remember the way his blood and brains still oozed down the drywall, copper and worse thick on my tongue and a scream trapped in my throat.
Too late. I’d known we’d be too late, but hope had refused to die until I knew for sure.
Vaguely, I was aware of Taylor and the MHI team searching the garage, half the overhead fluorescent lights burned out and leaving pools of shadow between the partially disassembled Chevy truck and the half-rebuilt Suburban. I’d already looked before I’d fallen next to my uncle, seen nothing, but now I rose to my feet and drew my knife.
I felt eyes on the back of my neck and turned a slow circle.
“Boys,” I murmured.
Instantly, I had everyone’s attention. Hands tightened on weapons. They felt it too, even if they couldn’t see her. She’d said if I wanted to talk…all I had to do was ask.
“Hey, bitch! I want to talk to you!”
A phantom hand slid down my arm in a gentle caress.
“I’m no longer interested in talking,” she crooned in my ear.
She’d eaten my uncle’s soul. Maybe killing her would set him free, maybe it wouldn’t.
My smile was all teeth. Either way, she’d be dead.
I spun around, iron knife leading the way, but she flitted out of reach and laughed. Judging by the reactions, the men heard that. The beautiful sound bounced off the walls, the concrete, the cars, coming from everywhere and nowhere, impossible to pinpoint, impossible to track. But the scrape of metal on concrete was, and I spun around in time to see her go corporeal with a freaking tire iron in her hand, the chrome-plated steel no danger to her flesh.
“Down!” I bellowed at Alphonse.
The lean, intelligent hunter moved and the tire iron whipped through the space his skull had been a fraction of a second earlier. Alphonse kept moving, clearing the line of fire with impressive speed considering the walking cast on his foot. Thunderous gunfire filled the garage. My ears rang in protest, but that didn’t stop me from shifting my knife to my off-hand, drawing my Sig, and adding my own bullets to the mix.
I think she stayed corporeal to taunt us.
Because none of us managed to hit her.
Fast, she was so damn fast as she glided across the garage, feet barely seeming to touch the floor, as if she was too good, too pure to sully herself by touching the oil-stained concrete. An impression entirely at odds with the length of chrome-plated steel elegantly gripped in one fine-boned hand.
In a heartbeat, she’d crossed the length of the garage and lashed out with the tire iron again, catching Mac a glancing blow to the side. The tough bastard roared in pain and unloaded his Remington 870, pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun in her face.
She didn’t like that.
“Rock salt’s a bitch, ain’t it?” Mac growled over her piercing shriek, sidestepping and pumping the action, muzzle tracking her as she clawed at her skin.
Another thunderous roar, another piercing shriek…and then she dropped the tire iron and lashed out with her bare hands. Claws sliced through the barrel of the shotgun. If it wasn’t for Mac’s quick reaction, those claws would’ve sliced through his forward hand as well. Blood still sprayed, and he stumbled back, clutching his shredded arm.
She spun and lashed out at Lawrence, but the rugged hunter was faster than he looked. He avoided the first strike and the next, emptying his handgun as he dodged. The slide locked back as he fired the last round, but she didn’t let up for even an instant, giving him no chance to reload.
A barked “Down!” and Lawrence dropped without hesitation. A thunderous roar, and Alphonse managed to tag her with rock salt again. The Fey bitch shrieked, the sound almost as full of rage as pain.
She went incorporeal and I called out her location to Taylor, armed with another iron knife. It wasn’t the first time he’d fought blind, and we trained for hunts like these, where I could see and he couldn’t. Grim-faced, he struck with controlled violence and the tip of his blade scored her arm. Her scream nearly dropped me to my knees, and she jerked out of reach of his next strike, some of her grace lost to agony.
She’d been playing with us before, but the iron had really pissed her off.
And so had I.
Golden eyes found mine, burning with rage and pain. She moved, insubstantial form blurring across the space between us. I darted back. Not fast enough. A flicker and she was solid once again. My Sig was torn from my hand, a tiny snap and a shock of pain announcing at least one broken finger. Clawed fingers flashed toward my belly, canines gleaming in a wicked smile. I twisted away. Cloth tore and fire scored my side, but the stab-proof vest beneath my shirt deflected her claws just enough that my intestines didn’t end up on the ground.
Snarling in frustration, she backhanded me, and I tumbled across the floor, fetching up against the Suburban with bone-jarring force. She smiled at my pained cry, licking my blood off her hands before she went incorporeal again as bullets tore through the space she’d been standing. A high-pitched whine filled my ears, and everything seemed just a little skewed.
“Where’d she go?” Mac barked, turning a slow circle, injured arm cradled to his chest and a large sidearm in his hand.
I sucked in a shaking breath, metallic copper and smoke heavy in the air, and pressed my hand to my side. Risked a glance down and found only shallow cuts.
“Essie, where’d she go?” Lawrence and Alphonse shouted in overlapping voices.
A sharp shake of my head, and the world finally snapped back into focus. I staggered to my feet, swept my Fey-cursed gaze across the garage, but I didn’t see her. Frantically, I stalked toward the center of the garage, trying to see everywhere at once, and then Taylor let out a hoarse cry behind me. I spun toward my brother as his knees hit the dirty floor, gun pressed to his own temple.
“I’m sorry, Essie.”
The Fey bitch was wrapped around him. Her inky hair floated on a spectral breeze, and her golden eyes turned to molten honey as she crooned sweet venom in his ear. Taylor’s expression twisted, a familiar guilt in his eyes, one he’d always tried his best to hide.
“So sorry I couldn’t give you the life you deserved.”
“Taylor!” I dove for the bitch, iron knife leading the way. She vanished even from my sight, and I flew past my brother.
Bang!
“NO!”
My heart stopped as I tumbled across the floor. Somehow, I managed not to stab myself, but in that moment, I couldn’t have cared less. Because it was my fault, all my fault.
I should’ve gone for his gun.
I whipped around, so convinced he was dead that for the first time in my life, I almost didn’t believe my eyes. Taylor was alive, restrained by Lawrence and Alphonse and struggling like a madman, but he was alive. I nearly vomited from the relief.
A frantic heartbeat later, sanity returned to his eyes. My brother slumped in their hold, panting as if he’d just run a marathon.
“Fuck that bitch.” Taylor gave me a wild grin before tugging on Lawrence and Alphonse. “I’m fine. Let go.”
Metal scraped concrete.
My head snapped to the side, eyes widening, mouth stretching open in warning.
Too slow.
The Fey darted toward the three men, discarded tire iron in hand. She swung so fast, the chrome-plated steel blurred into a shining silver arc—and she broke Taylor’s skull as easily as if she’d crushed a watermelon.
I’ll never forget the sound. Never forget the blood and worse that splattered all three men. Never forget how my brother fell, dead before his body hit concrete.
My warning cry twisted into a scream, denial and rage and agony all tangled together. She attacked the other Hunters, but I couldn’t look away from Taylor, lying on the floor. Desperate shouts rose when she vanished again. I caught a flicker out of the corner of my eye, cold brushing the side of my face before sorrow and grief tried to drown my soul.
Sobbing, I crawled toward my brother’s body, knife clenched in one hand like a safety blanket. Laughter chimed in my ear, and then bullets were flying just over my head, so close I swore a round tugged at my hair.
I didn’t care.
Cared less when cold coated my skin and despair splintered my heart.
Time stuttered around me. Gunfire and shouting, then cold despair so thick I couldn’t breathe. More gunfire and a bellow of pain, then agonizing loss sapping the strength from my limbs. Stutter-stepping time, gunfire then grief, over and over until I reached Taylor.
And then there was no more gunfire, only grief.
My iron knife clanged against concrete, safety blanket slipping from numb fingers as I collapsed at his side. A keening cry hurt my ears, and I only vaguely realized it came from me when fresh pain tore at my throat. I couldn’t look at my brother’s face because it was gone, couldn’t even collapse on his chest because of the thick coating of gore and gray matter soaking his shirt.
So I picked up his hand. Clean, unbroken, whole. Pressed it to my forehead and rocked.
“Essie, where’d she go?”
My fault, all my fault.
All your fault.
He’d wanted me to stay out of this, wanted me to make smarter choices. We stuck to small things for a reason and a Fey was anything but small…just like my ego. I’d thought I was good enough, thought I could earn us enough to climb out of the hole, and I’d gotten Taylor killed. A man no amount of money could ever replace. My brother, who’d been almost a surrogate father since our parents died.
“Fuck’s sake, Essie! Snap out of it! Where is she?!”
Cold shivered through my skin, guilt pulling me down beneath dark waves.
My fault, all my fault.
Yes, your fault. All your fault.
Our parents wouldn’t have even been there the night of the zombie outbreak if I hadn’t seen the monsters skulking in the dark. My mother had been distracted, hadn’t noticed. If I’d just kept my mouth shut they’d still be alive.
“Essie, get the fuck up and fight! We need you!”
I deserved the guilt, deserved the icy cold creeping through body and soul.
My fault, all my fault.
All your fault, the sweet voice agreed. So many mistakes, so much to pay for.
All I did was get the people I loved killed, and now they were all gone.
“ESSIE!”
I wasn’t cold anymore.
My fault…
Yes, but you can see them again. They’re waiting for you. Go to them.
The sweet voice was right. It was only fair that I joined them. How else could I apologize for everything I’d fucked up?
My hand dropped to my holster, but of course it was empty. A rictus of a grin twisted my lips. I might have lost my gun, but I still had my knife. Clumsy from grief and despair, my fingers missed the wrapped hilt and brushed against the iron blade. Pain shocked up my arm, hit between my eyes like a freight train, cold agony that burned murky thoughts clear.
My eyes snapped open—when the fuck had I closed them?—and found ghostly fingers caressing the side of my face, gripping my shoulder.
That fucking bitch was in my ear, crooning sweet poison.
Terror and rage shocked me the rest of the way awake. If I’d still had my gun I would’ve blown my own brains out. Instead, I had my knife. And she’d done me the favor of snuggling up real close to ensure the kill. My hand tightened around the hilt, the only part of me I moved. Muscles coiled tight, tighter, and then I exploded into motion, turning and stabbing the blade into her chest.
Her scream was like an ice pick straight to my brain, and warmth trickled out of my left ear. Cold iron forced her to turn corporeal, and she struck at my face with those deadly claws. I jerked back, but again I was too damn slow, and fiery agony tore across the side of my face. Blood and maybe worse blinded my left eye as I scrambled away from her.
My eyes, she’d gone for my eyes.
Gunfire in a continuous roar filled the garage, and another piercing scream threatened to burst what was left of my eardrums. I clamped my hands around my ears, flattened myself to the cold concrete, and desperately hoped I wasn’t going to get hit.
I didn’t want to die.
Long seconds later, the gunfire stopped.
Silence—and then a very real, very corporeal body hit the floor.
For a moment, the only sound I could hear was my pulse pounding in my ears, and I just lay on the floor shaking. I wasn’t sure how long, but I blinked and Lawrence knelt in front of me with the med kit my uncle had kept on one of the workbenches in his hands.
“Let me see.” Strong fingers gripped my jaw and tilted my face up to the light. He let out a slow breath and helped me sit up. “Hold still.”
As he examined the shallow, bloody cuts beneath my ruined vest, I saw Alphonse tending to Mac’s shredded arm on the other side of the garage. Then Lawrence cleaned my face, and there was pain, nothing but pain. More pain when he cleaned and bandaged my side and splinted my broken finger. I didn’t mind. Better to lean into the pain than stare at my brother’s mutilated corpse or my uncle’s slumped body.
“You’re okay, Essie.” Lawrence’s voice was low and gentle, like he was speaking to a wounded animal. “You need stitches, but she missed your eye.”
I tried to summon the ability to care. The desire to die had been nothing more than the Fey bitch’s manipulation, but the guilt? That was all mine.
My whole family was gone now.
I was alone.
And nothing anyone could say would ever convince me it wasn’t my fault.
Weeks passed, and the weather progressed to my least favorite part of autumn—constant damp and cold rain. It was the middle of the day, but I was surrounded by gray. Gray skies, gray gravestones, gray rain…black clothes.
I’d laid fresh flowers on my parents’ grave markers, and my aunts’ and uncles’, their stones all weathered by eight years of Indiana winters. I placed a flower on top of Uncle Will’s gleaming marker, a bittersweet smile tugging at my lips at the thought of him finally being reunited with his beloved wife. I’d decided that killing the Fey bitch had released all those stolen souls, and I wasn’t interested in learning otherwise.
A shaking breath, and I moved on to Taylor’s fresh grave. My hands crushed the remaining flowers, and my heart faltered at the pain raging through me, bright and sharp and breath-stealing. My brother, my fucking rock, the person I’d relied on to keep me from making too many stupid choices…
“I’m so sorry, Tails.” My voice cracked, broke. “So sorry.”
A stupid part of me waited for him to call me Esther.
But he was gone, and I’d never hear his voice again.
I had no idea how long I stood there. Long enough that I was soaked to the skin and numb with cold.
A footstep behind me, a polite scuff against wet grass to let me know someone was there. I looked up as a familiar monster hunter stopped next to me, but I didn’t bother wiping away my tears. The rain did a good enough job of hiding them. Also, this was Lawrence. I’d already sobbed all over the poor man on a dirty garage floor when my shield of physical pain had finally broken that awful night. What were a few tears mixed with rain compared to that?
“You lost the sling.” I’m not sure why it was the first words to tumble out of my mouth, but Lawrence flexed his arm.
“And your stitches came out,” he said with a crooked grin.
I’d been right, all those weeks ago. The man was stupid hot. I wished I cared. My fingers tangled with the chain around my neck, playing with the links to give myself something to fidget with other than the red and tender scars on the side of my face.
“What are you doing here?” I finally asked when it was clear he wasn’t going to volunteer the information.
“I knew today was the funeral.” Lawrence stared down at the freshly turned soil. “Taylor was…maybe not a friend, but an acquaintance. A good man. Didn’t seem right to let you stand alone.”
“The funeral was two hours ago.”
“Ran into some trouble on the way.”
I noted the split knuckles and the fresh bruise on the side of his jaw. A few weeks ago, I would’ve demanded details about the monster he’d fought, but I was emotionally drained. All I could muster was a nod and a vague sense of gratitude that the other hunter was okay.
“I also came to give you this.” Lawrence held out a card with MHI and a green happy face with horns on one side, and way too much text to read in a glance on the back. “There’s a new training class starting in a few weeks. Thought you might be interested.”
I stared at the card for a long moment before I finally accepted it. “Why?”
“Because you can blame yourself for the loss of your family”—he tapped calloused fingers against the scars on his own face in emphasis—“or you can do something about it. Your choice.”
He didn’t linger.
I was grateful for that, too.
Carefully, I tucked the card away to protect it from the rain and stood in front of Taylor’s grave until the gloomy day gave way to twilight. Then I knelt, kissed my fingertips, pressed them to the cold stone…and walked away without looking back, that card burning a hole in my pocket.
If I couldn’t make fun life choices, maybe I could make better ones.