6

Adam

Adam drove into town. Normally he’d take a moment to appreciate Guthrie’s historic redbrick streets and beautiful architecture, but right now everything ached.

He already knew which funeral home she’d be at. Guthrie had a few, and Sue had done some trade with the owner of one, giving her free tarot readings to ensure a discount on services when the time came. She’d put aside some savings to handle the rest as to not worry him, which was so very Sue, so very practical that Adam choked up as he parked.

The home was just that, an old converted house. The wooden floor creaked beneath his feet, but Adam didn’t feel any ghosts or any supernatural energy at all.

A woman came out from the back to greet him.

“Sue Binder?” Adam asked.

He didn’t feel like crying now, just sunken, like everything inside him was heavier, pulling him toward the ground.

“Of course, honey,” the woman said. She had tight blond curls and wore a pantsuit made from some stiff fabric. But her eyes were kind as she gestured toward a converted bedroom.

The lighting was low, and a portable stereo in the corner pumped out gospel hymns. Sue wouldn’t have liked that. She hadn’t had much truck with Christianity. Maybe that was why his mother had hated her so much.

Adam waffled between turning it off or asking for a different CD. He considered slipping in something she’d prefer. She’d always joked that she wanted Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places” playing when they lowered her into the ground. She wanted a margarita machine at the reception. He’d suggested the Chippendale dancers for pallbearers and she’d teased that he just wanted them for himself.

He smiled, almost.

Adam knew he was just trying to avoid looking where he didn’t want to.

The coffin was white, metal, and so small. It sat open, with a row of plastic flowers along the lid’s edge. There were vases of similar fake blooms in the room’s corners.

Fake flowers. They couldn’t even afford real ones.

He should have brought something. Irises were her favorite.

Adam let out a long breath and finally faced her.

She lay too pale, too still. Her hair, which had always reminded him of gravelly snowmelt, was combed and fixed too tight in a bun.

She wore a simple dress, off-white. At least Noreen had made certain she had it. Sue hadn’t wanted the home to dress her, thought it would be a silly waste. This had been her final wedding gown, and she’d joked that lightning would strike her if she tried to wear pure white on yet another trip down the aisle.

The embalming was supposed to make her look restful, but she only seemed wooden to him, devoid of all the life she’d had, all the humor, and all the dry wisdom that she’d never hesitated to rain down on his head.

Adam exhaled. He had no prayers. He had no gods, and the closest things he’d met to them were jerks.

He felt strange, standing there alone. He didn’t know what to say. He was sorry he hadn’t been there. He was sorry he’d never get to tell her that.

“Sue’s will was very clear,” Mrs. Jenkins said. “Everything she had went to your cousin Noreen.”

Adam sank back into the chair across from her. The desk was big, wooden, and covered in paperweights and pictures of smiling family members.

“When did she last change it?” he asked.

“About a year ago,” Jenkins said.

She was an older woman, maybe in her fifties, with round glasses and kind eyes. Adam didn’t know her. She hadn’t been one of Sue’s clients or one of his mother’s church friends.

“On purpose,” Adam muttered.

“What’s that, honey?”

“She did it on purpose,” he said. “Left Noreen everything.”

“Noreen is her daughter,” Jenkins said. “And for what it’s worth, it’s not much. Just the trailer, its contents, and her wedding rings.”

Adam didn’t say what he wanted to, that when you were poor, a little was a whole lot. Not to mention that those contents included his things, his clothes and paperbacks.

He didn’t really care about any of it. They were just things, but the idea that Sue would leave him homeless, without somewhere to go . . .

Had she known he’d meet Vic, that he’d have reasons to stay in Denver? Had she seen it?

Sight wasn’t supposed to work if you were too close to the person, and she’d loved him, hadn’t she?

“Thank you for your time,” Adam said, finding his feet though his legs felt wooden.

“Will I see you at the funeral?” she asked.

“You’ll be there?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I handled all of your great-aunt’s divorces you know.”

“I didn’t,” he said, standing. “I didn’t know that. Thank you.”

“Of course, dear,” she replied.

Outside, the day was sunny, the sky clear.

Guthrie was small, with a main drag of little shops and art galleries that came and went with the economy and all the hopes and pitfalls of a small business. It was a beautiful place, historic, and normally Adam would enjoy walking around a little.

A funeral. Sue’s funeral, and Adam had nothing to wear.

He climbed back into the Cutlass and drove back toward his mother’s place, passing the park with the pond and then the Beacon, the old drive-in theater.

Oklahoma was flat. The Cutlass was like a toy car on a table. Adam had never thought much about it until he’d gone to Denver. The mountains there were like a wall to the west, always in sight, always giving you a sense of direction.

Here was switchgrass and scrub oak, low trees and long stretches of yellow and ruddy clay. In Denver it was all houses and buildings with little yards. Adam knew it wasn’t New York or some dense city, but still, it had been different than what he was used to.

Everything had been different than what he was used to. Vic and his family, the way he could talk about what he was thinking or feeling, the way Vic would kiss Adam like no one would care. Like them together was normal—like he was normal.

Thinking of Vic brought a warm feeling that turned blue in his gut. Adam should have called by now. He still had cell service.

Adam needed to call.

What would he say?

Hey, I’m in Oklahoma. There’s a funeral. Sue . . .

Enough. He was a man, not a boy, and he cared too much about Vic to screw it up by acting like this.

Adam pulled over, unlocked his phone, and found himself dialing Bobby instead. It would work like a warm-up, help him screw up his courage to call Vic.

Voicemail.

Adam hung up.

“Just call him,” Adam said.

Instead he looked at his unread texts.

Where are you?

Jesse. Shit. And Vic. Double shit.

Adam had run off, ignored everything, and now he felt that sinking feeling that said he wouldn’t be able to fix it, that it was all too complicated to just type a response.

He dialed Jesse.

“Wonder Bread, you’re alive!” Jesse called into the phone.

“Shit, Jesse, I’m so sorry,” Adam blurted. “My aunt died and I kind of freaked out.”

His drawl had kicked up with his stress. He sounded like his mom when he cussed. He took a long breath.

“Are you okay?” Jesse asked, voice calm. No anger.

Adam blinked. That was not the reaction he’d been expecting. Jesse was his boss.

“Am I fired?” Adam asked, quietly.

“No, Vic got the details from your mom and brother and filled me in, but call me next time. And you sure as shit better call him. He’s worried about you.”

Adam swallowed. “I will.”

“How long are you going to be gone?” Jesse asked.

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “Things got complicated last night.”

“How so?”

“There was an accident,” Adam said.

Jesse’s pause told Adam he wasn’t going to settle for that.

“My aunt’s trailer blew up,” he said, cringing. “And her daughter was hurt.”

“What?” Jesse demanded.

“They had a meth lab or something,” Adam said. He didn’t mention the druid, the magical attack.

“Way to keep it boring,” Jesse said with a whistle. “You in trouble?”

Adam looked over his shoulder. He sensed nothing, no one, no thing, watching him or dogging his steps. Still, he’d only sensed the druid’s magic right as he’d blown up the trailer.

“Maybe,” Adam admitted.

“You’d better call Vic,” Jesse said. “He’s worried about you, and he could help.”

Not with this he couldn’t, he thought, then replied, “I will. Right now.”

“Be safe,” Jesse said. “And tell me when you’re back in town.”

He hung up.

Adam dialed Vic’s number before he could find an excuse not to.

It rang and rang.

Then voicemail. He almost hung up, but let it beep.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s me. Sorry I bailed. I just—Just call me back. I’m sorry. I . . .”

Adam hung up and shook his head.

He felt like a moron for being bothered that Vic hadn’t answered. After all, Adam had been the one to go silent. He had no right to be upset if Vic didn’t want to talk to him.

Adam exhaled through gritted teeth.

He didn’t want to mess things up with Vic, but what if he already had?

He couldn’t do anything about it right now.

He climbed back in the Cutlass and started driving again. He could skip the funeral, go back to Denver. He’d gotten his chance to say goodbye at the funeral home.

But that meant running from the druid, leaving Noreen and Jodi to whatever he had planned. Adam didn’t want to think about Noreen, but he should visit her.

Guthrie only had one hospital. Adam hadn’t been there, but he knew where it was. He almost didn’t turn around, but Noreen was family. And she might have some answers, some clues to the druid’s attack.

Adam checked his gas and parked.

The front was brick with a long, covered porch to shelter cars dropping off patients.

He pushed through the doors with an exhale, ready to fend off the energy, the anxiety, and sticky sadness of sick and worried people.

It didn’t come. The place was peaceful and his shoulders softened.

Adam even found a half-smile for the woman behind the desk.

“I’m here to see Noreen Binder,” he said.

“Room 212,” the woman said, nodding in that direction. “Sign in here.”

She pushed a clipboard over and Adam headed that way with a quick squirt from the hand sanitizer dispenser. No one was at the nurse’s station. No one questioned him.

Noreen’s door was open. She lay in a hospital bed, with a ventilator tube in her nose.

She lay still, pale and pink in the light from the window. The purple and blue veins running through her thick ankles were strangely personal to Adam. He almost threw a blanket over her to hide them.

Noreen didn’t stir as Adam stepped closer. He paused. He didn’t want to wake her.

“She’s pretty out of it,” a voice said from behind him. “I don’t think you need to worry about waking her.”

Adam turned to see Sheriff Early standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” Adam asked.

“Came to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere,” Early nodded to Noreen’s wrist. Adam hadn’t noticed the handcuffs chaining her to the bed.

“Is it like them to sleep like this?” Adam asked. “Meth users?”

“Yeah,” Early said. “Coming down is rough. They crash hard.”

He seemed colder than he had the night before.

“Will she get to go to the funeral?” Adam asked.

“If she wakes up, I’ll bring her myself,” Early said.

Adam gave a little nod, uncertain how to thank him or if he wanted Noreen there. Sue would have, wouldn’t she? She’d left Noreen the trailer.

“What do you know about the satanic stuff we found at your aunt’s?” Early asked, bluntly cutting into Adam’s thoughts. “I was hoping to ask Noreen.”

“Satanic?” Adam asked.

Early pulled out his phone and brought up pictures. Adam’s old room. Painted black with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the walls and ceiling. It looked like something he’d have done in his goth days. Early flipped to the next pic and Adam gaped.

“Are those . . . a person?” he asked, leaning toward the phone, trying to make out the bones.

“Coroner says yes. Could be wrong. He identified a deer as a person once.”

“I have no idea what they were doing with those,” Adam said. “Or why they’d do that.”

He stared at his old desk, now piled with human remains. There was a drill, a Dremel tool, and fishing line.

“Wait, go back to the room,” Adam said.

Early thumbed the photo to the black walls again.

There. It looked like a wind chime, like the ones Sue had made to set her permanent wards. With a nod, Adam reached to expand the picture.

More bones, drilled and hung together. Symbols had been carved into them.

“What the . . .”

“You recognize it?” Early asked, eyes narrow.

“No,” Adam said. “It’s nothing Sue would have done.”

“Neighbors say it’s your old room.”

“You think I did this?” Adam jerked a thumb at himself. “This is some twisted shit.”

“I remember what Duncan used to say about you,” Early said. “That you talked to yourself, to people who weren’t there, that your brother had you taken away to an institution.”

Adam ground his teeth at the mention of Liberty House.

“This is sick,” Adam said, nodding to the picture. “Sue would have killed me for painting her walls black, let alone for doing any of this other crap.”

Early looked Adam over.

“That’s what the neighbors say too,” he said. He pocketed his phone. “Said you were a good kid, liked to help people out.”

Adam swallowed a frown. He wasn’t a kid. But worse than that, Early had asked the neighbors about him. He had to be a suspect.

“Any sign of Jodi?” he asked. “She has to have the answers you want.”

Adam wanted them too.

Using bones like that . . . it was death magic, the kind Adam didn’t do, the same kind the druid did. He could be after Jodi. He could come back to finish Noreen.

Adam had no way to ward the hospital or to protect her. He might even be putting her in danger by being there.

“No,” Early said. “Any ideas?”

“None,” Adam admitted, and he was being honest. He didn’t know his cousin, didn’t like her.

“You call me if you find anything,” Early stressed, eyes hard.

“I will,” Adam said.

He drove back to his mom’s, thinking about what Early had showed him. The bones had been carved, but he didn’t know the symbols. He didn’t know the magic. He’d seen the druid’s work. The other warlock had tortured magical creatures to make his charms. This was similar, but Adam hadn’t felt it, hadn’t sensed it when he’d gone to the trailer, and he felt very certain that it had been there before the attack.

The sun was close to setting. It hadn’t rained again but the air remained damp, almost chilly. It was so different than the air in Denver. Adam could breathe here, without the altitude and dryness.

He parked at the gate, went through the ritual of opening it, driving in, and closing it behind him.

By day the ivory-and-brown box he’d grown up in was more pathetic than sad.

His parents had cleared a space for it, put in a concrete slab, and installed a skirt that hid the underside. They’d had enough trees removed to make something of a yard around it, but his dad’s thumb had always been black, not green, and Adam’s mother wasn’t very interested in gardening. All that remained of Robert’s efforts was mud and switchgrass. The scrub oaks had started to encroach, reclaiming the space, and now Mom’s trailer was a bit obscured.

She had a couple of sheds, neither of which Adam had any desire to open.

Those had been Dad’s territory, where he’d thrown tools and anything he’d bought on a whim, like the fishing rods he thought would provide catfish for dinner, only he never caught anything and snapping turtles kept taking his bait.

Adam’s memories of the lake, just a little walk through the woods, were hazy. They weren’t happy, not exactly, but he’d enjoyed the trees in spring, the emerald light and birds passing through the leaves.

He wondered now how much of that had been the spirit realm, leaking into the real world through his uncontrolled Sight.

Adam let himself into the trailer.

“Spider?” he called, but the cat did not answer. There was no sign or smell to indicate that he’d ever been there.

Adam sighed. Maybe his Sight was out of control again, but he didn’t think so. He wished he could have asked Early for a copy of the wind chime photo. It was important. All of his senses said so.

He could try to contact Silver, but the Knight of Swords was far too important for another lesson in how to master his powers. They were at peace . . . sort of. Adam had forgiven Silver for abandoning him, and Silver seemed to accept that Adam had moved on and found something new with Vic.

So no, Adam didn’t need Silver or Sue to mentor him anymore. He’d figure out what was going on with Spider—if he saw the cat again.

For now, he had to think about the funeral. He had nothing to wear. Even if he’d been able to get his clothes from Sue’s trailer, he didn’t have a suit or anything appropriate. He had a few things back in Denver, at Bobby’s house. But nothing Adam had with him would work, not for Sue.

He imagined Bobby tsking at him, disappointed in Adam’s life choices, and lack of wardrobe.

Adam crept to the trailer’s back bedroom. He hadn’t been here in years, but if he was lucky, Mom would have kept Bobby’s old clothes. She seemed to have kept everything else. Bobby was taller than Adam, broader shouldered. His stuff might fit a full-grown Adam.

The room was small, but it was bigger than the one he’d had at Sue’s. He and Bobby had even had their own little bathroom.

It still had the dark-brown wood paneling that Adam remembered. His mom could have gotten rid of the toys or the old simple bunk beds, but from the look of things, she’d simply closed the door like her boys might return at any moment, like they might still be boys.

Adam opened the closet. There weren’t many clothes. A sports jacket from Sears. Adam slipped it on. It would do if he had no other option.

Then he opened his side of the closet and found it full.

But these weren’t his clothes, and they weren’t all Bobby’s.

He pulled out a hanger with something wrapped in a plastic garbage bag. A moth ball rattled around the bottom and gave out a whiff of ammonia. Adam pulled the bag up to reveal a brown suit.

Dad’s. These clothes had been his dad’s.

His mom had moved them from her closet. So she’d made one change at least.

Adam remembered them hanging in her bedroom. He’d waited for his dad to come home, never really gotten that he wouldn’t.

There were fewer now. His mom had purged most signs of Robert Senior by the time Adam was in high school, but these had been nice enough that she’d kept them.

Adam dug a little farther and found another suit, this one navy, a shirt, and a tie.

Black would be best, but navy would do.

Adam didn’t even have shoes. His sneakers, which he’d bought for work at the garage, would have to serve.

He shook his head.

Bobby would hate it, Adam showing up in old clothes, blue not black. Well, Bobby wouldn’t be there, would he?

Adam wasn’t certain how he felt about that. His feelings toward his brother remained mixed, a ball of wires he couldn’t untangle. Still, facing a funeral crowd of his extended family, especially Sue’s side of it—Adam could have used the backup.