2
ADDIE
This was how I found myself holding the leash attached to a man that I’d definitely kissed before. I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that he wasn’t in his human form right now. Had I been able to look into human eyes and see his disdain for this situation, it might have been easier.
Right now, the wolf happily wagged its tail. Tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth, the beast sauntered ahead of me but didn’t tug on the leash at all. It took about ten minutes before Maddox shook himself and returned to his normal, curmudgeon behavior.
All the while, people commended me on having such a well-trained dog. Each time, I gave them an awkward smile and a shaky thanks. They looked at me oddly, but I figured I would never have to deal with them again after this.
When we rounded a corner and I saw the scaffolding that had nearly crushed me weeks ago, my heart flipped inside my chest. The scaffolding had been replaced and affixed to the building’s façade once more.
I gave it a wide berth, which prompted Maddox to give me a funny look.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “You weren’t there.”
Of course, that sounded like some sort of inside joke, which made me laugh. In the end, I looked crazy. Maddox shook himself as if trying to cast off the bit of manic humor that had passed over me.
“Smell anything yet?” I asked.
Oddly enough, there were no ghosts wandering the streets here. It was quiet. I should have appreciated the silence, especially since I left without any sort of veil to block out their voices, but I found myself unsettled.
There should have been people out here—dead people, of course. I’d yet to go anywhere that didn’t have a ghost or two wandering around. People went to old, historic buildings in search of ghosts when all they had to do was look around themselves. The dead often held onto old grudges or secrets which kept them from moving on.
The last time I’d been here, I’d been so overwhelmed by spirits that I hadn’t noticed the scaffolding nearly falling on my head until it was almost too late.
Maddox had mentioned the town lying low, like they were all hiding from something. Were the ghosts hiding, too? Where was the man whose body had been stolen by Bez? Where was the woman wondering about her child?
Those two certainly hadn’t passed on to the afterlife. So, what was going on?
I couldn’t help but wonder if my fight with Bastien had affected the spirits here somehow. I’d tapped into something powerful and dangerous that day. It still sat inside me, thrumming with unworldly power.
Was this what Vi felt like? I’d glimpsed divinity that day. I knew it deep down in my core.
When I closed my eyes, I saw the face of the woman again. She was beautiful and ageless on one side, but the other half of her face was nothing more than a sun-bleached skull with hollow, dark eyes.
What did she want with me? Who was I but a Reaper treading dangerously close to the end?
Before I could think too long about it, Maddox lunged forward. His nose hit the ground. He sniffed, pulling the leash right and left as he dragged me forward.
He’d found a scent.
My heart flipped. What was he smelling that made him so determined? Was it blood? Death?
I opened my arcana to my surroundings, letting it flow out of me and spread in every direction. The greedy, skeletal hands of my power touched everything it could. Oddly enough, I felt nothing around me.
Death was everywhere. It was in your half eaten hot dog, in the composting banana peels, and in the tiny little bugs dead on the sidewalk. There was almost nowhere that I could go where death didn’t follow me.
However, my arcana could grab ahold of nothing today. I couldn’t even sink those skeletal fingers into the earth, which was comprised of only dead things. This left me deeply unsettled. My power had to be on the fritz somehow, and I didn’t like it.
All my life, I’d wanted my power to go away. I’d wanted a normal life where I didn’t hurt those around me. This was…the opposite. My power was here, but I could do nothing with it. I found myself brimming with energy that I couldn’t expend. It left me on edge, nervously chewing on the inside of my cheek.
This coffee wasn’t helping either.
Maddox dragged me forward, faster and faster, until we reached the edge of town. Entering this neighborhood, I peered around. It was full of homes, their sprawling lawns filled with kids’ toys and landscaping materials as the owners enjoyed this bright weather.
The sight made the coffee burn in the pit of my stomach. It curled and tried to rise, but I kept it down while Maddox pushed forward.
Then I noticed something ahead: a flicker of a form.