“It’s done,” he said when his cousin answered. “I’m off paper.”
“Hallelujah,” Ben O’Farrell sighed. “Congratulations.”
“Congratulations to you for keeping me straight.” Ben was also his lawyer.
“Group effort,” Ben said. “Speaking of which, you have to come to New Moon tonight.”
“Why?” he asked, wary.
“Kitty’s planning a surprise party for you, to celebrate. I couldn’t talk her out of it. Sorry.”
Kitty, Ben’s wife. Cormac had introduced them, years ago now. He still didn’t know quite what to think about that. Smiled a little, though he wouldn’t have if anyone had been watching. “She would want to do something like that, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes, she would,” Ben said, laughter and affection plain in his voice. “I thought you’d want some warning.”
“Yeah, thanks. And Ben—thanks.”
“You’re welcome. You should call my mother next. She’ll want to know.”
“I will,” he said, and hung up. His Aunt Ellen had been the one to take care of the Jeep while he was gone. Along with Ben and Kitty, she was his only family.
Cormac’s manslaughter conviction had gotten him a slap on the wrist. There were so many other things he’d done that would have gotten him a longer sentence, a worse time of it if he’d been caught. If he’d gone down another road. The older he got—the longer he actually survived—the more grateful he was that Ben and his family had steered him away from that.
I’m grateful as well, Amelia said. I’m not sure I would have liked you, if we’d met in your younger days.
“I’m still surprised you like me now,” he said. “You saying I’m not just a relationship of convenience?”
Hm, you’re that, too. But still, I’m glad I met you when I did. She knew without him having to say it, that in his young wild days she might have tried to talk to him, but he sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to listen. He would have been one of the ones she’d driven mad.
Amelia was one of those forks in the road that no one could have predicted.
* * *
SCREAMS, TERROR, the smell of death, a
prison drenched in blood, fear sliding into a riot, unnatural and haunted. A monster, a shadowed thing with legs and arms but no visible face, with long claws and a wicked laugh. It had haunted those prison walls and would have killed him. It had already sliced open three men’s throats, leaving their cell mates screaming in insanity and setting the whole prison at the edge of disaster.
Cormac had faced the demon down with nothing but his orange jumpsuit and bare hands. Then she’d been there, in his mind, guiding his hand. The spirit of a long-dead magician, a Victorian adventurer hanged for murder, who’d found a way to keep her soul alive—she said she could destroy the demon, but she needed his body, his living flesh and muscles, in order to do so. Finally, Cormac believed her. And not just because he didn’t have a choice.
She had knowledge, but she needed him to fuel her spells. Her fire burned through him, tore the demon to pieces—
He woke up sometimes still expecting to see the washed-out ceiling of his prison cell, to feel the pressure of the bars on his back. He still shivered when he remembered that feeling, that something was lying in wait for him, waiting to rip open his throat, and he had no place to go.
Then he remembered her touch, the fire she brought with her.
He’d resisted her. He’d hated giving over part of himself, no matter what the reason. She hadn’t been very happy about it either—she’d begun by trying to dominate him. Grab control and exert her will without having to argue with him. Slip on his body like a new suit. Of course, that wasn’t an option.
They needed time to figure it out, but in the end they learned that they were stronger working together than they were apart. They could do more. They had a better chance for survival. And that was all either of them ever wanted.
* * *
HE BOTH did and didn’t want to go to New Moon that night. He usually felt like that about the downtown restaurant that Ben and Kitty owned. The sense of obligation was … discomfiting. He didn’t like feeling that he owed them, or anyone, something. Loyalty was difficult. It was an anchor holding him in place. At the same time, knowing he belonged here, with people who wanted to see him—that was a prize. A trophy for surviving, not just prison but his whole life so far. The number of times he probably shouldn’t have made it, the number of guns he’d faced, the number of monsters—both human and supernatural—he’d sought out and mingled with hadn’t given him great odds.
Yet here he was. The feeling of belonging was growing on him, like a pair of leather boots finally breaking in to mold to his feet.
The place was a few blocks south of Colfax, part of a collection of funky shops and restaurants that had sprung up around Broadway and the art museum in the last decade, an old brick block of a building that might have been a small-scale factory or warehouse sixty years ago, gone through refurbishment a couple of times over, and now had what reviewers called character.
He hesitated outside the restaurant’s front door and took a deep breath.