22

Adam

“Trippy,” Jodi said as they drove into the city.

It tilted like a top, the buildings rising and falling out of sync with the road.

“At least the gravity is working,” Adam said, watching the edges of the city rise and fall. He did not like to imagine the Cutlass floating off into the sky.

The towers flashed with lights of every color, a neon bonfire coming at them from all directions. The buildings stood huddled so close that there weren’t always alleys. It resembled a forest. The dead drifted through it like falling leaves. They splashed against the streets like the first drops of rain on hot asphalt, leaving a steam like heat haze in the air.

These were the thin kind, the consumed.

Sanctuary had been a bruise, the hotel a bleeding scratch, but this city was the true rot, the damage done by the awoken demons.

“Every building,” Adam said. “Like the hotel in Albuquerque, every building is a demon.”

“Every one?” Bobby asked.

He’d folded in on himself, as if to hide from the place.

Adam didn’t blame him. He could feel the city watching them, sizing them up, waiting to see if they were predator or prey.

Other ghosts, more solid, were trapped within the buildings. Some were partially dissolved, their fists or faces pushed through the glass and steel as they tried to escape their fate. The reminded Adam of flies stuck to the long yellow strips his mother would hang in the trailer during the summer.

“This place,” Bobby said. “I mean we’ve seen awful stuff, but this . . .”

“Is hell,” Adam agreed. “These demons are feeding on the worst parts of the ghosts, their greed and desperation.”

“They’re evil,” Jodi said.

“I don’t know about that,” Adam argued. “You are what you eat. We all are. Maybe they are too.”

“We’re close,” Vic said. “I can feel the scythe. Stop the car.”

“I’d still like a gun,” Jodi said.

“And you’re still not getting one,” Bobby said.

“You’re both staying here,” Adam said, unbuckling his seat belt. “Vic and I will grab Mel and the baton.”

“Adam—”

“I need you to drive, Bobby,” Adam said. “Jodi, you help us get Mel inside. As soon as the doors close, drive.”

Adam gave his brother a nervous smile and climbed out. He popped the trunk.

The air tasted burnt, like char and something that may have been sweet once, like cake crumbs left in the oven. The water was only an inch deep. It flowed toward them, away from what had to be the city’s center.

“Keep the engine running,” he said, passing Bobby the keys as he climbed out to take the driver’s seat.

Vic took one of the pistols and checked its chamber.

“Remember, we only need to distract him,” he said.

Adam nodded and reloaded. His dad had been proud of his aim. That thought tasted like ashes in his mouth.

“You’re just going to walk in there?” Bobby asked, eyes darting between them. “You don’t know what you’ll find.”

“We’re going to flank him,” Vic said, nodding to the sides of the street. “I go right. Adam goes left.”

“Why does he go left?” Jodi asked.

“Because he’s left-handed,” Vic said.

“You two are codependent,” Jodi groused.

“If things go south, get back to Sanctuary,” Vic told Bobby.

“Floor it and stay on the road,” Adam said.

“This has to be a trap, Adam,” Bobby said.

“I know,” he agreed. “But we don’t know how long Mel has. We’ll be all right.”

Adam started walking, partly to keep from shaking, but mostly because he’d stop if any more doubt leaked in.

The watching demons kept their distance.

Maybe they were going about this all wrong, maybe talking to the demons would have helped. Whatever Shepherd might do to survive, he didn’t seem evil.

He outsourced it to Noreen and the others.

These demons though. They weren’t like Shepherd. They were like the hotel, maybe worse.

One glance at the buildings and the lost souls fused to them told Adam he wouldn’t find any reason here. Mostly he felt madness, the layers of the ghosts’ memories, the worst sort of memories, painted atop the demons’ spirits. They consumed the worst of life, so the worst of life filled them.

The neon lights and the haze mixed with the slow wobble of the turning, spinning street. Adam didn’t appreciate the distraction.

The Cutlass crept along behind them. Adam hoped Bobby would listen if things went wrong, that he’d get himself and Jodi away from here.

That tree, Vic thought. Does it look familiar to you?

Yeah.

The line between them was tight enough to hear each other’s thoughts.

It steadied Adam even as the sight of the Hanging Tree did not.

No wonder Vic could sense the Reaper.

The tree stood near Death’s trailer, always filled with crows and corpses, but here the bodies were ghosts. They wriggled in their nooses, the demon’s fingers that slowly strangled them, sucking out their lives.

Adam could sense the type of demon too, could practically taste it, the metallic tang of freshly spilled blood mixed with something acrid, like plastic tossed into a campfire. These ghosts were murderers, the worst of the worst, those who’d killed for fun, without remorse.

Mel lay slumped among the tree’s knotted, creeping roots. She wasn’t moving, but she didn’t look dead.

“Easy,” Vic said. He held his gun leveled, ready to fire when John made his move.

The link between them hummed. The eyes of the dead tracked their approach. The ghosts wriggled on their nooses, silently pleading to be set free.

The warlock wound pulsed as if to growl when John stepped out from behind the tree.

The bullet holes still bled, looking a lot like the hole in the back of Robert Senior’s head. John still wore the ragged jacket with the hood, the leather belts that crossed his chest, and the dirty jeans and combat boots. He’d lost the skull and sickle he’d used as tools in Guthrie. Now he carried only the scythe.

Adam could feel the magic, the stolen life that kept John alive. It hummed, close to the tune of his own power.

“Grandson,” John said with a pleasant smile, like Adam had come for a visit, like he hadn’t put three bullets in him or hit him with a car at their last meeting.

Adam put aside the roil in his gut and raised the gun, but he didn’t have the shot. John stood too close to Mel for Adam to safely fire.

The ghosts split their focus between Adam and John. The demon held still, despite its appetites. Fear wafted from it like smoke from a pile of burning tires.

“Just give her to us,” Vic said, gun trained on John, “And we’ll leave you be.”

“You don’t even know what she is, do you?” John asked with a sneer.

“I know she’s with us,” Vic said, shifting his feet to adjust for the city’s wobble.

“You two,” John said, waving the scythe back and forth between them. “You’re her latest attempt to get it right.”

“Get what right?” Adam asked.

“You’re ignorant, Grandson. Of your own history, of your nature, of her nature.” John nodded to Mel. “I’ll cure you of it before I kill you. A Reaper and a warlock, in two different people this time. She must think that will make you easier to control after she couldn’t control me.”

“You were a Reaper,” Adam said. Another important fact that Seamus or Sara should have imparted. That was how John knew how to control Boney, to keep it from returning to Vic. “You broke the seal to release Mercy.”

“Yes.” John’s grin was rictus. The magic he’d stolen hadn’t reversed the aging process. He might be strong, even vital looking, but the years remained obvious, like old piano keys or a smoker’s teeth.

“You weren’t so chatty last time,” Vic said.

“I didn’t hold all the cards then.”

John moved like he had when he’d taken Mel, impossibly fast. He dropped the blade of the scythe to her throat. A drop of fresh red gleamed on the blade.

“She fired you when she realized what you were after,” Adam said, trying to stay calm.

Vic had gone as still as stone. There was no chance to shoot now, not with a pistol, not at this distance, not with John’s speed.

The fire in his eyes said John knew it too.

They were blue, like Adam’s own. He’d always thought it his best feature, and now he wondered if he’d ever find that color pretty again.

“And what was it I was after, Grandson?” John asked.

“You want to live forever,” Adam said.

“We’re not here for you,” Vic said, trying to cut through the family drama. “We just want her.”

“Oh, there’s no way that’s true.” John laughed. “You think I don’t know how she works? She doesn’t do anything on her own. She can’t, you see. It’s against her precious rules. She uses fools and tools, like you and me. But I learned from her, and I’d be as dumb as you if I let this kind of leverage go.”

If he needs her, he won’t kill her, Vic said through their connection. Get ready.

“You should never have sent me here,” John said, holding the scythe beneath Mel’s head like a hook. John followed Adam’s gaze to the blade. “You need this to get home, don’t you? How about I give it to you, let you go?”

“You wanted me dead before,” Adam said.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” John said. “Here I’m a god. Even bullets can’t stop me.”

“And what happens to Mel, to the demons and the dead?” Adam asked.

He had to keep John talking, give Vic an opening.

“They stay with me, as subjects and leverage.” John looked to Mel. “She wants this one back, doesn’t she? That’s the reason for all of this.”

“She does,” Adam said. “Let us take her, and we’ll leave.”

“But you’ll come back. With nothing to hold over her, she’ll send an army after me. You aren’t her only fools.”

We’re not going to get the shot, Adam thought to Vic.

Don’t you dare, damn it, Vic thought back, sensing Adam’s intentions. That’s not an option.

Adam lowered his gun.

“Not if she can’t open the way,” Adam said. “Keep me instead. She needs both of us to open the door, right?”

“Two of you,” John said thoughtfully. “I see it now, how it works. There’s a weakness in that.”

He dropped Mel, raced forward in a blur, but not aiming for either of them.

Adam saw the flash of the scythe. He spun, aimed, and fired. Vic raced for Mel. Bobby gunned the engine, taking the opening as a chance to race for them.

John had ended his dash a little ways off.

Bobby was there. He and Jodi had Mel.

Then Adam felt it, the unseen cut.

To his right, Vic fell.

Adam had always been afraid to ask what would happen if the line between them snapped. He’d put it there to save Vic’s life, and John had sliced it in two.

The pain snapped into him, like the time he’d broken his wrist but hadn’t felt it until the bones separated.

Adam gasped. It hurt like nothing he’d felt before, not even the warlock wound had gone this deep.

Bobby shouted his name.

Get Vic! Adam thought it as loud as he could and hoped the little bit of telepathy his brother had shown when he’d killed their father was working now. Get everyone clear.

Adam coughed hard, and would not have been surprised to see blood in it. Sympathetic magic worked both ways. He’d saved Vic by linking them, now the cost had landed, the pain of the gunshot wound, suspended for so long, rebounded into Adam like he’d been the one to take the bullet.

John stalked toward him.

“There’s no way out now,” he said, smiling, pleased with what he’d done. He gestured to where Bobby and Jodi scrambled.

“But there is,” Adam said, forcing the words out as John advanced. “You missed one, Grandpa, one way out.”

Adam backed against the tree, felt the bark press into him, felt the demon’s sick hunger.

“I’m sorry,” he said, tears welling.

“For what?” John asked. He raised the scythe again. “For failing? You’re going to die here, Grandson, and even if you don’t, I don’t think you’ll do much harm in pieces.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Adam let the wound off its leash. It bit the heart out of the tree.

The demon and all it had consumed rushed into Adam.

John slashed out with the scythe, but Adam used the demon’s strength to catch him by the arm. He spun them around, bashed John against the tree with everything he had.

John dropped the scythe as Adam broke his arm with a stomp. A baton again, the scythe rolled away.

Kill. Kill him.

The voices screamed. So many voices.

Kill him. It’ll be fun.

The chorus filled him, drowning Adam in a tide of rage and hate.

Kill. Him. Fun. It will stop the pain.

“Sure,” Adam said, grinning.

“No,” John said.

“Do you hear them, Grandpa?” Adam asked. “Do you hear the dead?”

Eyes wide, John pushed himself back against the melting tree.

“They know you should be with them,” Adam gloated. “They want you with them.”

The wound drank Adam’s fear. It drank the pain and the confusion, leaving only madness and a dark glee. Adam laughed. Or maybe it was the voices, the dead. He laughed with them, and he understood the boy in Liberty House, the joy of bright blood and pain, even if it was his own.

“No,” John repeated. “No!”

“It’s all right, Grandpa.” Tossing the salt from his pocket, Adam whispered, “We’ll go together.”

The salt fell in a ring. Adam sealed the circle as the demon imploded and the world melted into nothing.