27

Adam

“This is bad,” Adam said. “What is she thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Bobby said. “But I might panic too, knowing an evil druid who might be my ancestor wants to eat me.”

Adam gaped at his brother.

“Great,” he said. “Now you develop a sense of humor. Super helpful, Bobby Jack.”

Bobby shrugged.

“Are you panicking?” Adam asked.

“No,” Bobby said. “I think I’m still numb.”

The trailer felt a little more alive since Adam had first come here. It smelled of cooking and showers, of people and living.

“How do we find her?” Bobby asked.

“I could try a spell,” Adam said. “But I’d need hair or something. Fingernails or blood.”

“Plenty of her hair in the shower drain,” Tilla said. “But you take that stuff outside. I don’t want it in my house.”

“Yes, Mom,” Adam said.

It hurt a little, that she still didn’t accept all of him, all of what he’d been born, but he pushed it aside when she returned with a damp ball of hair.

Adam raided the kitchen for a pinch of salt and headed for the burn barrel.

Bobby watched Adam scoop up a little mud and mix it with the hair and salt.

“So this is magic?” Bobby asked.

“One kind of it,” Adam said. “Sympathetic. You use a little of something to find or affect the rest of it. But keep quiet, okay? I’m not great at this kind of thing.”

Bobby nodded.

Adam had thought over the last few days that he wasn’t getting stronger, but something else.

Clearer, he decided. His Sight was getting clearer.

It might be the warlock wound, or it might just be that he’d started learning to use what he’d always had a bit better, like a singer who only had a few songs, but learned to sing those tunes really well.

It only reminded him how outmatched he was.

If the dark druid was their great-grandpa, and he was a warlock, then he’d had decades to build up his magical reserves, to make more charms from black dust and bog iron.

Adam focused, put thoughts of the threat aside. He had to find Jodi.

He poured his will into the little ball of mud he’d made, set it atop the trash in the burn barrel, and lit it with his cigarette lighter.

The smoke rose, a tendril of black. Adam reached out, cupped it in his hand.

Jodi, he silently called. Where are you?

Eyes closed, arms straight, Adam opened his palms to his sides. He spread his feet a little, made sure nothing was crossed, and kept reaching.

He followed the smoke. It tasted and felt like burgundy red and the smell of carnations. There. That was Jodi.

Adam chased it until something cold slithered against his senses. He felt the canes rise around him, their thorns stretching toward him. Retreating, Adam opened his eyes with a gasp.

“What is it?” Bobby demanded.

“The druid. He’s watching. I think he sensed me, almost had me.”

Adam felt around inside, trying to get an idea of how much energy he had. That was something else that had changed, and it worried him.

He’d always flown under the radar, been too low in wattage for things to see him, but the druid had his number now. Like Argent had said, Adam was known.

He couldn’t hide anymore.

“I’ll try again later,” Adam said, breathing hard. “But I need to rest first. Not enough gas in the tank.”

Sometimes he hated being this weak, this powerless.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Bobby asked.

Adam shook his head, but he smiled.

“What?” Bobby asked.

“I just appreciate you asking, that’s all.” Adam started back toward the trailer.

“We could try to find her the old-fashioned way,” Bobby suggested.

“That might work,” Adam said. “It’s how I did it before. But tomorrow, okay?”

His head was still spinning. He needed food and sleep.

“Of course,” Bobby said.

They ate together, the three of them. Mom made mac and cheese with bits of boiled hot dog in it.

Adam didn’t complain, though he had to admit that he hadn’t eaten it since he’d been a kid. Maybe Tilla was feeling nostalgic, having her sons home again. That or she was just using what groceries Bobby had picked up. Maybe Adam’s big brother was the nostalgic one.

He took his plate to the sink, rinsed it, and set it down a bit clumsily. It didn’t break. His mom had used melamine plates and bowls since she’d caught on to their dad’s temper tantrums. Or maybe they were just cheaper. Maybe it was both.

Too many maybes. Too many questions.

“Go crash,” Bobby said. “I’ll clean up.”

“Thank you,” Adam said.

He stumbled into their room and with a bit of tired paranoia, checked that the tarot cards were still safe in the grate.

Binder blood. Binder magic, he thought, stretching out. Shit. That might be the way.

Sue had left Adam the cards, gifted them to him. They’d been passed down through the family, and a little of each practitioner clung to them.

Maybe Adam couldn’t use them to find Jodi, but maybe he could use them to find John.

He needed to sleep. He ached, but the idea lingered like a broken tooth he couldn’t stop prodding with his tongue.

Adam eyed the donuts he’d bought for Early as a breakfast option but let them be. Bobby had bought cereal, some store brand Os. Adam contented himself with that. Sue had kept milk around for Spider. He’d always come begging when Adam poured some in his coffee or oatmeal.

Adam checked the shadows, half expecting a needy purr.

They piled into Bobby’s car.

“Where are we going?” Bobby asked.

“Somewhere we can find Internet,” Adam said. “That’s how I found her last time, looking at her accounts.”

“You think she’d be dumb enough to post about all of this?” Bobby asked.

“Let’s hope so,” Adam said.

“I wish you’d stayed behind, Mom,” Bobby said.

Adam watched Tilla scoff and narrow her eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Like hell,” she said. “I need some air.”

Bobby winced and Adam chuckled.

He’d never doubted that he got his stubbornness from her, just like he’d never doubted that she was his mother, unless he’d been switched at birth.

Adam still liked the idea that he might not be Robert Senior’s son, but he knew it was the truth. It was one more thing for later, to be put aside until Adam could wrestle with it and come to terms with the hatred and anger he’d always felt from
his dad.

“She just hiked to town?” Bobby wondered absently.

“It’s how I got to Sue’s after Liberty House,” Adam said. “It’s not hard. Still, Jodi probably had someone pick her up, probably that clown Billy.”

“So where do we find him?” Bobby asked.

“We follow the terrible band he’s a roadie for,” Adam said. “I’ll go to the library.”

“Do you want to get some lunch, Mom?” Bobby asked.

She shrugged but nodded.

Adam liked that she didn’t let Bobby push her around. At the same time, he wished they were both safe behind Silver’s wards.

“Be careful,” Adam said, climbing out of the car. “Both of you.”

The library was always quiet, but today the place was empty.

The band didn’t even have a website. Still, Billy couldn’t dress like a clown all the time, could he?

Adam went back to Jodi’s social media accounts, started looking at who she followed and who followed her.

He gave a little shudder with how easy it all was, the amount of photos and information people put online. Social media was social.

He hoped the druid wasn’t web savvy. It wouldn’t take much to hunt Jodi down. Then again, there were other Binders to prey on.

If the druid were their great-grandfather, killing Jodi next didn’t make much sense. Adam pushed aside the ick factor and tried to think like a farmer or a rancher.

Tommy had his daughters. They’d have kids someday.

Bobby had been trying to have kids.

If the druid were smart, he’d pick off people like Noreen, Binders done having children or unlikely to. Jodi was young. She might settle down at some point.

Unless it was about more than the blood. Maybe there needed to be magic in there too.

But Noreen hadn’t had any, so why kill her?

Unless, magic being life, everyone had a little. Noreen might not have been worth much, but the druid could have snacked, if not gotten a meal.

Had Jimmy had magic? Was he like Adam in other ways?

If so, it had been a long time between Jimmy and Sue.

Why kill Noreen? Why go after Jodi?

If it was John, and he was pushing one hundred, then maybe there were diminishing returns. Maybe the trick didn’t work so well when he repeated it. Or maybe he’d killed them in different ways.

Sue and Noreen had been quick, in the trailer park and the hospital, places with people around. John had killed Jimmy out at the farm. He’d been able to take his time. Perhaps there was something about that.

Adam couldn’t find any Billys linked to Jodi’s profiles. No Bills, Wills, or Williams either.

At this point Adam’s one lead was the body. He needed more information. He needed help.

Adam wiped his browsing history and closed the tabs.

He felt in way over his head. The last time he’d felt like this Mercy had outmaneuvered him and Vic had gotten shot, starting the whole thing between them.

It was time to stop making the same mistakes over and over.

Adam left the library and walked over to the police station. It was still afternoon.

“Is Sheriff Early in?” Adam asked the deputy at the desk.

She hadn’t been one of the two out at the property. A Black woman in her thirties, she didn’t smile at him but looked up with curious eyes.

“He’s in his office,” she said. “What do you want?”

Adam pitched his voice a little higher and tried to sound respectful.

“I’m Adam Binder, ma’am,” he said. “I was hoping he might have heard something about the body we found at my family’s farm.”

“I’ll see if he wants to talk to you,” she said, walking back into the office behind her.

“He’s here now?” Early sort of roared. “Get him in here.”

The deputy appeared and waved Adam back.

He took a breath and headed in. Early sat in his desk chair, a little red-faced. The coffee mug on his desk was half empty.

“Have a seat, Adam,” he growled.

Adam obeyed.

Early took a breath, let it out, and repeated it, clearly trying to calm himself

“We think it’s Jimmy all right,” he said. “No reason not to. His wallet with his driver’s license was in his pocket. The body’s the right height and size, and it’s been in there long enough for it to have happened in 1992.”

Early picked up his laptop and turned it around so Adam could see the screen.

“What we don’t get is this stuff.”

Adam flinched.

It was what he expected, but that didn’t make it easier. They’d laid the body, Jimmy, on a plastic tarp. It contrasted with the dried, desiccated skin, the ruined clothes. His chest had been ripped open, brutally, as if by an ax.

“His heart is missing,” Early said. “They stuffed him with mud and sticks.”

Adam didn’t move. He repressed the nod of understanding. The druid would have used clay to make a poppet, something to represent the heart. He’d switched them and stolen Jimmy’s life.

There would be bog iron and obsidian dust in it. The sticks would be blackberry canes.

This was how it had been different. Giving Sue and Noreen heart attacks would have been too quick for John to fully power up. Plus, they were older. The ritual he’d used on Jimmy had taken a while, hours at least. Jimmy had been young, and sacrificing him had bought John twenty or thirty years.

Adam’s stomach wrenched to think of his poor cousin, bound, waiting to die by the hand of the grandfather he’d loved and trusted.

“What sick shit is this, Adam?” Early demanded. “What is your damn family into?”

So it was back to grumpy cop.

“I’m not into anything. Like I said before, Sue read people’s cards. She didn’t do”—Adam waved a hand at the screen—“whatever this is. And I don’t either. But I think someone out there really believes in it. Have you looked my cousin up online?”

“She was trying to get in on Sue’s business, you know, pick up her clients,” Early said. “Word is she was at a concert the other night where more of this crap went down.”

He jabbed a finger at the screen.

“But she didn’t do this. Neither of you were born when Jimmy died.”

“No,” Adam said. “No, we weren’t.”

Early’s eyes narrowed.

“There weren’t any defensive wounds. He was struck from behind by something hard.”

Just like Dad, Adam thought.

He couldn’t say that Robert Binder hadn’t deserved it. Adam couldn’t think that. That would make Bobby a murderer.

But Jimmy, by what little he knew, hadn’t deserved the fate he’d met. Adam looked at the pictures again. No one deserved that.

“And the blow was solid,” Early continued. “From someone taller than Jimmy. We can rule out your great-aunt.”

“I think your theory is right,” Adam said, being honest. “I think it was great-grandpa John.”

“He had the chance,” Early said. “He was living all alone out there by then. Add homophobia and you’ve got motive. But he’s been dead for twenty years, and I still don’t see any way that kind of hate gets you this.”

Early nodded back toward the screen.

Adam had to step carefully here. This was why he’d come. He needed Early on Jodi’s trail, but didn’t want to get Bobby or his mom into trouble.

“I think Jodi thinks this stuff is real,” Adam said. “I don’t know if she learned it from her mom and she learned it from John, but the last time I saw her, she was talking about a birthright. I think she blew up the trailer.”

“You didn’t mention this the other night,” Early said.

“I thought it was nonsense, you know?” Adam asked.

“Some of the people at that bar said they saw her and some guy.”

“Who?” Adam asked, trying not to grip the chair arms.

“He was wearing clown makeup, part of a shitty band.” Early shook his head. “They were all wearing clown makeup.”

Adam tried to find a way to slip Billy’s name in, to do it in a way that wouldn’t tell Early he’d been there the night of the attack. Then again, Adam hadn’t found anything on Billy. It might be of no use. He decided not to take the risk.

“We’re going to find her,” Early asked. “And we’re going to find out what she knows.”

“I hope you do,” Adam said. “If I hear from her, I’ll tell you.”

That would blow up in his face. Early would find out that Jodi had spent some time at the trailer, but Adam didn’t see a way out.

The jail was pretty secure, and even John, if that’s who he was, probably couldn’t take several bullets. Maybe Adam could get Silver to ward the place. Maybe, if they had Jodi in a secure spot, he could figure out a way to lay a trap.

It was time to get smart.

Adam had gotten lucky twice against the druid. His luck wasn’t likely to hold a third time.

“You sure you don’t have anything else to tell me?” Early asked, leaning forward.

“No,” Adam said. “I don’t know where she is. And I’m honestly worried about her.”

Early nodded, thinking hard for a moment.

“You can go,” he said, dismissing Adam and seeming to forget that Adam had been the one to visit him.

Outside, the day was sunny with only a little wind. Adam hadn’t missed the constant rush in his ear. He’d missed the rain. It never rained in Denver. Here, in autumn, it rained all the time. It was almost Halloween.

They’d never gotten to trick or treat as kids. Tilla had taken them into town for Truck or Treat at her church, where people had decorated their tailgates, but Adam had always wondered what it would be like to have a house in the city, to give candy to little kids.

He’d hoped to spend it with Vic. He had notions of giving out candy at Bobby’s house, maybe watching a horror movie.

Of course that was if Vic had the night off. Halloween had to be a big night for cops.

Adam shook his head. His dreams and the idea that he and Vic were possible were becoming more hazy, less real by the day.

He was so absorbed in the thought of it, the misery of it, that he stepped right into someone as he left the station.

“Sorry—” Adam’s heart immediately ached as the man’s grief slammed into him. Tommy.

His older cousin managed a wan smile.

“The sheriff asked me to come by,” he said. “I guess it’s about what they found?”

Adam nodded. He didn’t want to speak, be the one to deliver confirmation. It was the coward’s way. How did Bobby do this, tell patients bad news?

“It’s okay, Adam,” Tommy said, seeming to sense what he wasn’t saying. His smile remained thin, but it stayed on his face. “After all this time it will just be good to know, to put him to rest, you know?”

Adam thought of his dad, of the bones Jodi had dug up, and the whole mess surrounding that. If Early found her first, the truth of his dad’s death could get dragged into the light. Maybe it was time for that too. Maybe it was time for no more Binder family secrets.

Adam was ready to try it Vic’s way.

“I do,” Adam said. “I really do.”

“Well, I’d best get to it,” Tommy said, looking at the door Adam had just exited.

Adam nodded. He really didn’t know what else to say. There wasn’t a card for “sorry your whole side of the family is being killed off by a malevolent ancestor who might be your grandfather.”

He walked for a bit, taking in the streets, the cars. Guthrie’s history made it beautiful, but it was still a town with shops and noise. It was nothing like Denver, which dwarfed it. Some instinct was whispering, trying to tell him something, but it was too quiet, too vague for Adam to pull it into the light.

Turning the corner, he saw Bobby and Tilla.

Adam could understand them better now. They’d carried a secret together for so long, and they’d had to raise him, keep it from him.

“How did it go?” Bobby asked.

Adam shook his head. “Nothing on Jodi or Billy, but I saw Early. It’s definitely Jimmy.”

Tilla lowered his head, pursed her lips.

“Can we go by the cemetery?” Adam asked, getting an idea.

“Why?” Tilla asked.

“I want to see it,” Adam said. “Something’s bugging me but I can’t figure out what.”

They returned to Bobby’s car and drove the short distance.

Adam had to admit that the fridge on wheels rode so much smoother than the Cutlass.

He needed to check the suspension, to get it back to Jesse’s garage. How would it go with Jesse if Adam and Vic broke up?

For the first time, Adam had someone and someone else’s people. It wasn’t just Vic. There was Jesse, and Chaos—even Maria.

Vic’s family was so different than his.

They climbed out of the car and Adam led them toward the graves.

It wasn’t different from any of the Oklahoma cemeteries he’d visited, and he’d visited a lot of them. They were quiet, good meeting places for supernatural beings, and some had come up far too often in his search for the druid.

Cemeteries in Oklahoma were flat. They had few tombstones. Most of them required walking and reading the plaques set into the ground.

He’d always been a little disappointed by it, especially in his goth days. He’d wanted crypts and angelic statues, not simple markers of granite and bronze with just names, dates, and phrases. Now that he had a better idea of who and what Death really was, he wasn’t so keen for a closer look.

“How did great-grandpa die?” Adam asked Tilla.

“Heart attack,” Tilla said. “It was a surprise. He wasn’t that old.”

“It’s why you should give up smoking, Mom,” Bobby said.

Tilla rolled her eyes.

“He’s not wrong, Mom,” Adam said. “I want you around awhile.”

For once she didn’t have a retort. They reached Sue’s grave. She lay beside James Senior, in a line of Binders born and married in, but the whole thing started with John and his wife, Evelyn.

John’s epitaph read: Beloved Father and Grandfather.

Sue’s plot was still freshly churned. They hadn’t been careful with the earth they’d disturbed and it splattered the bronze markers.

Adam knelt to get a better look. Sue’s plaque was shiny, unlike the others, which could use a polish.

“We should have brought them flowers,” Tilla said. She looked over at Sue’s grave and cut her eyes to slits. “That Noreen took all of Sue’s.”

Adam shook his head. He didn’t want to speak ill of Noreen. They hadn’t buried her yet, and she had a spot here waiting for her.

He wondered who would make the arrangements. Probably Tommy. Adam couldn’t imagine Jodi being up for it.

“What do you remember about John and Evelyn?” Adam asked, nodding to his mother to get her back on track.

“I never met her, but John was at our wedding. He had a bit of a German accent. The Binders are German.”

“Your family too, right?” Adam asked.

“By way of Wales,” she corrected. “I’m glad it takes a monster and a murder to get you interested.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Adam said, blushing, though by the look in her eye she wasn’t too annoyed. “So Evelyn died and John stayed out at the farm?”

“It was always just switchgrass and rattlesnakes out there,” Tilla said. “He took work as a carpenter. Built most of that house himself.”

“It’s solid, still standing,” Bobby said. He looked at Adam. “Do you think we need to go back out there?”

“I don’t know. I wish we could find Jodi. I’m worried about her,” Adam said.

Tilla scoffed.

“I didn’t say I like her, Mom,” Adam said.

“Well, if you go, I’m going with you,” Bobby said. “He almost had you last time.”

“What are you going to do, lecture him?” Adam asked. “He killed Jimmy. He’s going to kill Jodi. Maybe you too if he gets the chance.”

“I’ll borrow Mom’s shotgun,” Bobby said, and Adam had to concede that yep, they were both Tilla’s sons.

Beloved Father and Grandfather.

More like beloved monster, Adam thought.