Avian’s phone rang in his jacket pocket while he was still looking down at Cyn, and when he moved to answer it she saw his wings.
They weren’t black anymore. They were snowy white.
“What happened?” she asked. But other than giving them a brief glance, he didn’t have time to answer. Moving farther away, he took his call.
“Hey, Mint. You got good news for me?” There was a pause, then he said, “Yeah. It worked. We’re here now, so I guess we’ll see how it goes. Thanks. I owe you one.”
All Cyn could do was stare at his wings. In the dark, they were especially vivid. With his horns now gone, and the burn marks covered, Avian looked like one of those fallen angels they liked to plaster all over romance-book covers.
He scowled when he turned back around and caught her staring. “Sorry,” Cyn said. But she wasn’t really.
Avian took his jacket off and folded his wings in before carefully putting the jacket back on. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “These are going to stick out.”
“Hair dye,” Cyn offered. “Black hair dye should work.”
“Great. Like I need one more thing on my to-do list.”
For some reason, that struck her as absurdly funny, and Cyn laughed at him.
“Is that amusing?” Avian asked.
Cyn grinned. “Actually, I find everything amusing right now. I feel good. Really good. I can’t believe it actually worked. Vincent’s gone!” She stood up and looked around. Everything felt different.
Then she noticed that Joe’s orange toolbox and medical supplies were gone. “Hey, where’d Joe go?”
Avian glanced around too. “Guess he took off. Things weren’t looking too good at first.”
Cyn opened her mouth to ask what happened but then shook her head. “You know what? I don’t want to know. It’s all good now. And even if I’m not totally fixed, if another soul comes along, at least it’s not Vincent.”
They started heading back through the cemetery, and Cyn couldn’t believe how good she felt. Happy. Which was something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Not even the realization that if Joe was gone then their ride was gone too could dampen her mood. They could always walk back to pick up Avian’s motorcycle.
When the cemetery gates came into view, Cyn finally brought up the car situation. “You know that if Joe’s gone, we don’t have a ride, right?” she said. “I mean, we can walk. It’s no big deal, but I—”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Avian said.
“Why not?”
“Because we can get a ride with him.”
Avian pointed beyond the gates, and Cyn looked to see what he was pointing to. A white car was sitting there, with a guy standing by the front of the hood.
The guy took a step toward them, and Cyn’s heart stopped for the second time.
“Hunter?”
~ ~ ~
For a dead guy, Hunter Vasquez looked pretty good.
As she stood staring at him, Cyn wondered if this was all a trick and she was dead too. If she’d never really woken up after Avian stopped her heart.
“Can you see him?” she finally said. “Avian, can you see a guy standing over there? Is he . . . alive? Or dead?”
Avian took a minute to answer. “That’s something you should ask him.”
Cyn frowned, but Hunter started moving toward her. “Cyn!” he called out. “Cyn!”
“Keep it down!” Cyn started walking to him. “Don’t you have any respect for a cemetery?”
Hunter pulled back and waited for her to come the rest of the way. As soon as she got close enough to the car, she could see a bouquet of red roses sitting on the passenger seat. “Either this is the most cliché afterlife dream ever, or this shit is really happening,” she muttered.
Crossing her arms, she stopped just short of him. “What. The. Fuck. Is. This.”
“I know this is confusing, but I—”
“You were dead, Hunter. I saw it with my own eyes. I killed you!”
Hunter shook his head and held out his hands in a pleading gesture. “I know you think that, and I’m sorry. I never thought it would go this far.”
“What would go this far? Were you playing some kind of sick frat-boy prank on me?”
Avian came up behind Cyn and stopped beside her. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you didn’t kill your boyfriend.”
Cyn whirled around to face him. “Oh, yeah, you think? Did you have something to do with this too? Is this all one big joke? Who the hell are you to—”
“I’m the guy who realized you didn’t kill him when I read your memories and didn’t see it there. The only memory you had was of waking up next to him. So I made a call to a friend in Louisiana, Mint, and he looked into it. He’s the one who gave me the dirt on Hunter’s brother, by the way.”
“So, what, you were, like, working some case or something? Playing detective?” Cyn spat.
“No. I was trying to help someone.” Avian moved closer and held her gaze. “You.”
Looking up at him made Cyn suddenly remember what it was like to be right up against his chest, and the back of her neck grew warm. She readjusted her wig. “What happened, then? Why did I wake up in bed covered in blood?”
Avian looked pointedly over at Hunter.
“There are these . . . people that I know,” Hunter said slowly. “Actually, my brother knew them, and he helped me get some work with them.”
Cyn’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God, Hunter. Was it the vamps?”
“You know about them?” Hunter’s face was filled with surprise.
“Yeah. Your fucking brother stalked me and then kidnapped me because he thought I was the one responsible for your murder.” She laughed harshly. “Or so-called murder. He said he was working with some vampires that were going to turn him.”
Hunter nodded. “The Navarro coven.”
“So, when were you going to tell me about this little surprise?” Cyn asked. “And how does your not being dead play into it?”
“You weren’t supposed to be brought into it at all. Those were the rules. I did the job for them, they left you alone. But then Declan mentioned that he wanted to be turned, and somehow they thought I wanted to be turned too.” He glanced away. “In order to do that, you drink their blood and then . . . you have to die.”
“So that’s what happened. One of these little vamp buddies of yours ‘killed’ you to turn you. And I got stuck picking up the pieces.”
“You didn’t exactly pick up the pieces, Cyn.” Hunter’s face turned hard. “You just left me there. You stole a car and ran.”
“Because I thought you were dead!” Cyn exploded. “And I thought I was the one who went psycho and killed you! Do you have any idea what that was like, Hunter? The hell that you put me through letting me think I was a murderer?”
“I didn’t think it would turn out like this.”
“That’s the part that hurts the most.” Cyn’s voice was sad. “You didn’t think about this at all.”
She turned away from him. Looking up at Avian again, she searched his eyes. “You really didn’t believe I did this, even from the beginning, did you?”
“No. And for the record, you didn’t kill Father Montgomery, either. Declan did. The police investigating the murder told me they found his hotel room, and there was evidence in it that points to him going to the church to find you. He must have run into Father Montgomery there and thought he could make him tell him where you were.”
“But I had a knife. And I remember finding it there, in the church.”
“You found it after the fact. You never actually saw Father Montgomery, you just picked up the knife and left. Probably because of what happened in Sleepy Hollow.”
“So Father Montgomery died . . . protecting me?” Cyn’s voice broke.
Avian reached down to touch her cheek. The rosary beads were still tied around his wrist. “He died doing something honorable. He wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Cyn briefly turned her face toward his hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. She glanced up one more time at him and then pulled away. “Don’t come looking for me, Hunter,” she paused long enough to say. “Ever. No matter how long you live.”
Then she turned back to Avian and gave him one last smile before heading toward the exit to the parking lot. “And you? Do me a favor and get a helmet, okay?”