Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) (6 page)

“Come on,” Leo said, pulling me carefully to my feet. His face gave nothing away, but his eyes kept flickering to mine. He studied my face as I braced myself against him when my knees threatened to give out.

Dana stared down at the corpse, her chest heaving with her stuttered breathing. She turned terrified eyes on us, tears steadily leaking down her cheeks. She gestured helplessly. “What do I do now?”

We all looked at the writhing corpse. It struggled to lift its head off the recliner, rotating its head in jerky twitches of its neck. Its mouth smacked open and closed.

“Dana,” I said, staring at the thing in disgust. “I’m so sorry.”

Her tear-filled eyes turned on me. “What—what happened?!” the last part came out a wail. “Did it work?”

“I could fix his body,” I explained. “But his soul... I couldn’t find his soul.”

“What does that even mean?” she cried. “Is he alive?”

“Well, technically,” Leo said. “The lights are on, but no one’s home, if you know what I mean.”

“Christ, Leo,” I muttered under my breath.

Dana’s brows knitted together and she looked back and forth between us. Her mouth trembled. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m pretty sure that he’ll stop. I mean, he’ll go... back. I think. I’m pretty sure.” I swallowed a few times, trying to work spit down my sore throat and trying to think of something—anything—of comfort to tell her. When I could think of nothing and the silence stretched on too long, she looked away with a little sob.

“Go back?” she asked, tears flowing freely down her face again. “You mean die again? He won’t stay like this?”

“I’m pretty sure,” I said. I turned to Leo for support, but he just tugged on my shoulder a little, trying to get me to move towards the door.

“What do I do?” she cried.

“Call the police,” Leo replied. He tugged at me harder, locking one hand around my wrist.

“The police?” she cried. “And tell them what?”

“Tell them that you just found him like this,” Leo said patiently. “He’s alive, technically. They’ll take him to the hospital.”

Her eyes cut to me. “How long will he stay like this?”

“I don’t know,” I said miserably. I looked at the corpse again, watching him writhe in the confines of the chair.

“You couldn’t reach him,” Leo prompted. “You came to check on him and found him like this.”

“But—but—”

“He has a heartbeat,” I said, leaning heavily against Leo’s side. “He’s technically alive, but I don’t think it will last. Not without the soul. I don’t know what else to tell you, Dana.”

“I just don’t know,” she whispered.

“Dana, I am so, so sorry.”

“Ebron,” Leo whispered. “I can take care of it, if you want.”

“Shut up,” I whispered back but Dana’s head shot up. She fixed onto Leo with hard eyes.

“No,” she said. “You won’t... do that. I don’t want you to.”

Leo shrugged. “Then call the police. I think Ebron has Officer Metz's number, if you want that.”

“Fucking asshole,” I muttered to him, but he didn't even look at me.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, suddenly noticing that Leo was manhandling me through the maze of garbage. “You're leaving me here? It's after midnight and you're leaving me with... him?”

“We can give you a ride to town,” Leo offered, but I could tell his patience was wearing thin.

She began to cry again, helpless, angry tears spilling over her cheeks. She covered her mouth with one hand and just cried. We waited for a beat, but when neither Leo nor I spoke again, she turned her red, desperate eyes back on us.

“Just go,” she cried. “Just go.”

“I'm sorry,” I said again, but she turned away. I could still hear her cries, even as Leo bundled me into the truck. Or I thought I could.

“So that didn't go well,” Leo said a few miles down the road. I rolled the window down and shoved my head out, hoping the wind would blow the smell out of my nose and my memory.

“I told you I couldn't,” I said, a little peevishly.

“I know, I just—what happened?” Leo tugged at my sleeve impatiently, pulling me from the window.

I sat back deep into the bench seat and exhaled. “I went too high. I couldn't breathe.”

“Too high,” he repeated softly.

“Yeah. Higher than I usually go. Fuck, Leo, we shouldn’t have done this. We shouldn’t have left him there with her. We left her there with a fucking
zombie
.”

He was quiet for a long time, chewing at his lower lip with one long, delicate fang. The sight of it simultaneously disgusted me and turned me on, which made me hate myself and I tucked my chin into the collar of my coat. The full body pain explosion had mostly faded, leaving a beast of a headache throbbing in my temples and behind my eyes. Glass half full though; I could say with certainty that I was no longer drunk.

“I can go back,” Leo said finally, and I turned to look at him slowly. His voice was strange, tentative and for a second I didn't realize what he was offering.

When I did, though, my stomach corkscrewed and my heart thudded. “Leo. Jesus Christ.”

“I'm just saying,” he said softly.

“What, exactly? You're just saying
what
?”

“A fire wouldn't be out of the ordinary. There was a wood stove—”

“You mean her, too, don’t you? Burn the house with both of them inside. You'd seriously kill that woman? She has
kids
.”

“Who the fuck cares?” he snapped back. “People die every day. I'm just saying—”

“No! Leo, fuck! You can't be like this! You—you just can't!”

He scowled. “You gotta start thinking self-preservation, Ebron. What have I been telling you? You keep calling attention to yourself. That cop. This woman. Why am I the only one between the two of us concerned with keeping you alive?”

“My life is not in danger,” I growled, shoving the ice scraper to the floor and then giving it an extra kick for emphasis.

“You don't know that!” he yelled.

“Do you?” I yelled back.

“Let's recap,” he said, all snotty. “Last week—murderous witches. This week, weird cop wants you on the payroll and we end up at the hoarder-from-hell death house. Fucking
zombies
, Ebron!”

“Chad isn’t going to say anything. And I shouldn’t have used that word. Zombies aren’t a thing.”

“Well, you sort of just created one, there. Congratulations, Doctor Frankenstein. Anyway, that’s not the point. How do you think it will look, her showing up at the hospital with that thing? Just days after—after—”

“Oh, you mean just days after we stole a body from the morgue? Yeah, weird shit going on in Heckerson lately.”

 “So let me cover this up,” he growled, glowering at me. “Let me keep you safe.”

“So,” I said through clenched teeth. “You want to kill yet another person to help cover up the murders that we’ve already committed? Clever. Love it.”

He glared and took a turn much harder than was necessary, making my stomach ball up and knock into the back of my throat. We turned onto the highway and lights in the distance caught my eye. As we watched, an ambulance approached and then went screaming by us, turning onto the rural route.

 “I'm trying to look out for you,” Leo said into the heavy silence. “You'd be dead a couple times over if I hadn’t been there last week. Or who knows, maybe those witches were planning on kidnapping you and harvesting your organs. My point, Ebron, is that you apparently have no interest in saving your own skin, so I have to do it for you.”

I stared sullenly into the side mirror, watching the rotating lights of the ambulance disappear into the trees. My whole mind was a seething, boiling mass of cascading emotions. I very badly wanted to hit something. I squeezed my fists until I could feel crescents cutting into my palms.

“Hello? Ebron?”

“I get it, Leo. Shut up. Please, God. Just shut up.”

He kept shooting me glances with various degrees of hostility, but I just stared out at the fences whizzing past the truck. We finally pulled into the trailer court at almost two in the morning. I jerked groggily when the truck bounced over the speed bump. I must have fallen asleep, my face mashed up against the window. When Leo parked the truck, I got out first, and stood there numbly, looking up at the dark sky.

 The truck door creaked and then slammed. I couldn't hear Leo's footsteps, but then he stepped in front of me. I expected anger. When I risk a glance up, his eyes were full of confusion.

“What is going on with you?” he asked softly.

“I killed that man,” I said. “Corvin. I killed him.” That wasn't what I had meant to say and I winced, kicking the toe of my boot into the chain link.

Leo moved closer, enough so that when he sighed I felt his breath warm against my cheek.

“You had to kill him,” he said quietly. He raised his hand and cupped my face, pressing his thumb into the hollow under my ear. “That's what this is about? Don't feel guilty over
him
.”

“I could have brought him back.”

“Ebron. Fuck, babe, you barely had enough left in you to bring back Cody and those other witches.”

“I should have tried. I could have gone back and tried later.”

He dropped his hand to my shoulder and gave me a little shake. “Fucking stop it. You can't fix everything, Ebron. It's not all on you.”

A noise made its way out of my chest, worming up and slithering off my tongue in a whine. When I inhaled, my breath was jagged and very close to a cry. Leo's hands tightened on me. His eyebrows drew together.

“What, Ebron? Fucking tell me,” he shook me again, his voice suddenly pleading.

“And then you... what you did. You killed that girl. And then we...”

He eyed me cautiously. “We had to. I know it’s hard, babe, but we had to.”

“She’s in the bathroom at my shop, Leo,” I said. My voice sounded like a plea. My eyes stung and I blinked rapidly, tears spilling over despite myself.

“I’ll move her,” Leo said quickly. “We made mistakes, Ebron, but—”

“You killed her!” I cried. “And then we stole her fucking body. I’m a murderer, an accessory to murder and fucking grave robber. None of this is okay, Leo.”

“I know, I know,” he said, grabbing my arms and rubbing up and down. “We’ll fix this. I promise, I’ll fix this. But you can’t fall apart on me. You can’t freak out, call attention—”

“I’m not calling attention to myself!” I snapped. “I’m just living my life. My life, which includes dead people and vampires and apparently fucking zombies. But I can’t handle anymore killing, Leo, I can’t. And you! I don’t know how you can just be so... fucking
casual
about it!”

He stood so close I couldn't take in the expression on his face. My vision reduced to one elegant dark eyebrow, the stubble on his cheeks, the bridge of his nose.

He sighed heavily and let me go, moving back a pace. “I know it's hard for you to understand, but I don't care about other humans. My sole concern is you, keeping you safe.”

“Why? What does it matter? Why aren't I just as disposable?”

“You know why.”

“Oh, I see. So if I couldn't do what I can do, you wouldn't be here at all, is that what you're saying? If I was normal and we met in the woods that day...”

“If you were normal, we never would have met,” he snapped. “I would have killed you and eaten you.”

I shoved uselessly against his chest. “Fuck you, Leo. How can you be like this? What I did to Corvin, what you did. What we did. Christ.” I raked my hands over my face, a gaping, desperate feeling taking over and making me want to rage, or run, or beg or something. I looked back at him. “I can't be like this.”

“You're not,” he said immediately. “Stop.”

“I’m a murderer!”

“Stop!”

“You stop!”

He growled, low and aggravated. “I'm not used to this, Ebron! It's been a long time since I had feelings. You make me—” he stopped, gesturing between us. “Feel. Things.” He huffed. “It's uncomfortable.”

“I don't want to be a killer,” I said, testing how the word tasted on my tongue.

“You're not a killer. I'm a killer. That crazy witch was a killer.”

“That's not—you're not like him.”

He sighed, a little sadly. “Yes, I am. I'm exactly like him.”

“He wanted to hurt people—”

“And how many times have you put a body back together for me? The only difference between Corvin and me is
you
.  Why don't you get this? People would kill to have you, Ebron.”

“Please,” I whispered, stricken.

“There's no moral high ground here, babe. You want to help people, I understand. But you're going to get noticed again and by the wrong people. Self-preservation, Ebron.”

“And you're the right person?” I asked woodenly. My face felt like it was going to explode, it hurt so bad.

“What?”

“You said I was going to get noticed by the wrong people. Are you the right person to have noticed me?”

He scoffed, and looked away, gazing past me and shaking his head. “I don't know,” he said. “Maybe I'm not, but I’m the devil you know. At least I don’t want to hurt you. I want—I want you to be
safe
.”

Silence stretched between us and I waited, hoping that I would think of the right thing to say. I felt utterly drained, empty of everything but exhaustion. Finally I sighed and took his hand, running my thumb over the bumps of his knuckles.

“I need to go to bed,” I told him and he nodded. He followed me into the trailer and I started down the hall to my room.

“Leo,” I said, looking over my shoulder at him. He looked up, his eyes sad and wary.

“We have to fix this,” I said.

“I will,” he replied and I nodded.

 I went straight to my room, stripping clothes as I went. I swallowed a few aspirins and crawled into bed. But I had so many nightmares that by dawn I was already awake, staring at my ceiling and trembling.

Chapter 5

I spent the next morning alternating between snapping irritably at customers then hiding in the back of my store, and nervously pacing by the front window, plagued by a suffocating sense of doom. I had the shakes, couldn't concentrate, and spent an embarrassingly long time in the bathroom. I was, perhaps, more hungover than I had ever been in my life, and coupled with the after effects of the failed resurrection, I felt like I had gotten a chemical burn and then been kicked in the head. All I wanted was to curl up somewhere dark until I either died or the symptoms passed.