Gutsy, p.10
Gutsy, page 10
“Fantastic.”
Noble was quiet, and I wanted to go lean against his side, but he was busy warming his hands and ignoring us. Also, I was slightly worried about the murderous glint in Sage’s eyes when he caught me looking in that direction. The light danced on Noble’s black eyepatch and made his hair glow, and I felt terrible all over again for dragging him into this after the hell he’d been through already. I was a horrible friend. And why, oh why, does he smell like every treat in the world?
“Come on,” Sage said and punched my arm. It fucking hurt.
After a trip to the car, we struggled back to the clearing with the box. Upon our arrival at the hole, Sage tipped the cardboard on its side, and the thud had me wincing. He ripped the tape off and for some reason sliced open the garbage bags inside. We rolled Eddie out and he flopped onto the ground in an unpleasantly bendy sort of way. His insides glimmered in the firelight, the ribs like pearls stuck in raw meat.
“Shouldn’t rigor have set in?” I asked.
Sage shrugged. “Bodies do weird things. It hasn’t been that long, and he was in the car.”
“Grand.” I kicked snow over him. “Is the hole deep enough? I’m not sure it is.”
Sage lifted an eyebrow my way and looked positively devious wreathed in dancing shadows from the fire. “I’m hoping a bear or something will dig him up and eat him.”
“What?” I gaped. My mum would have been horrified at my manners, corpse notwithstanding.
He grabbed the cardboard box and bags, then tossed them on the fire. The rags went into the hole. “I threw his phone and wallet out of the car in the city,” Sage said absently. “We really just want him to disappear.” He took the bucket that had been stuffed in with Eddie and scooped snow into it, setting it beside the fire.
“You did what?” Noble asked, and I grunted in agreement.
“Well, we couldn’t have your place be the last one the phone was turned on at. They’ll check his phone records.” Sage’s voice took on the patient tones of an adult talking to a child and I hated it.
Horrified, I stood frozen as he tossed a bundle of greenery onto the fire. A cloud of pungent smoke that reminded me of the stink of marijuana drifted around the clearing, and I frowned at him. “That wasn’t Eddie’s.”
“No, I brought it from home. Where is the talisman? You have to do this. Into the flames. Let’s go.” He pointed at my left pocket where I’d tucked my keys, which he’d had to return so I could drive out here.
I scowled, then dragged my key chain out, studying the artwork one last time. Warmth pulsed from the painted circle and stone. It felt too good. Seductive. Evil? “Damn it all.” I removed my keys and stuffed them in my pocket, then shuddered as I tossed the craft onto the fire. Sage and Noble leaned toward me, eyes wide, and I blinked back at them. We turned to watch the key chain burn, then their gazes were back on me, searching up and down my body.
“What?”
“Do you feel any different?” Noble asked.
“Tingles or something?” Sage scrunched his nose and managed to look cute, even though I knew he was armed.
“No, I can’t say that I do.” I shrugged.
“Hmm.” Sage frowned at the fire.
“What hmm?” I asked as outrage blazed to life in me. “Did I destroy that for no reason? I wanted to keep it.”
Sage waffled a hand in the air, squinting. “I would’ve thought you’d feel a reaction, but. . . I don’t know. Sometimes these things are unpredictable.”
“Great,” I muttered, warming my hands over the flames. I didn’t miss the way Sage put himself between me and Noble, and my vision went watery as the sweet, teasing scent hit my nose again. I couldn’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks because there were too many to blink away.
Sage wandered toward the hole and took the shovel, dragging Noble along with him. It was a relief when he started tossing dirt over Eddie. Bone-deep exhaustion began to sink into me, to the point where I was ready to fall down and nap where I stood. When Sage was done, he used the shovel to move the burning wood from the fire to the spot where we’d buried Eddie. I glanced around the dark woods and the sensation of being watched crawled over my skin. The wind calmed and an eerie silence settled over everything. Even my breath seemed too loud.
Sage must have caught me giving him a questioning look because he grunted.
“What are you doing?”
“This way it will just seem like people came out here for a campfire. It’ll explain the fresh disturbance of the ground well enough for someone who doesn’t investigate too closely.” He patted the shovel on top of the red embers. “It’ll settle. I’ll come back out here in a few months to make sure no bones are sticking out. But, I mean, the real hope is something will dig him up and just eat him.”
I gagged.
“Really?” he asked with a harsh, deep laugh that didn’t suit his slim body, and I flipped him off when he smacked my ass rather hard with the shovel. “You snacked first.”
Noble whapped him with the back of his hand, then kept doing it until Sage cackled with laughter.
Eventually the embers faded, and I mumbled a prayer for Eddie, though I felt like a hypocrite doing it. Sage dumped the bit of melted snow from the bucket onto the fire, then scooped more over to douse the flames. The hiss and tendrils of smoke left me uneasy, but Sage kept piling on snow until the hellish red glow of burned wood was black.
Dark.
Snuffed out—the same as Eddie.
As we walked away, I sucked frigid air into my lungs and could feel the night creeping in on us without the fire as protection. It wanted to steal me away, called to me. I could hunt in the dark forest. Out there, with no one watching, I could escape. I quivered with the need to race off, and the strange impulse scared me so badly it froze my limbs. A shove from Sage got me moving again.
It took forever, but the Audi came into sight.
“Can you drive?” I asked. I didn’t care which one got us home, though I’d never seen Noble drive and wasn’t sure he could. My stomach was upset, and this time I was certain the cause wasn’t strange magic, assuming I believed that, but rather guilt and fear for my soul.
7
JOURNEY
Eddie’s murder was never far from my mind during the week following what I was now referring to as “the incident.” Once we’d arrived back in Vanheim, the desire to meld with the shadows and lie in wait for a victim had faded.
Mostly.
I also hadn’t tried to take a bite out of anyone else. I’d spent two separate nights scrubbing the kitchen top to bottom again, under Sage’s advisement, feeling absolutely insane the whole while. It was tempting to imagine I’d hallucinated Eddie’s corpse, but that wasn’t true, and I’d always prided myself on being a realist.
And Noble had smelled so delicious I was terrified to be alone with him. I’d nearly taken a bite out of him, and one taste wouldn’t have been enough.
But on the Friday following the midnight burial, I woke up, went to hop in the shower, and almost died. I’d flipped on the light switch and happened to glance down, only to notice a subtle shade of green discoloring my abdomen, not quite the vibrant mossy hue that had shaded my skin before I’d. . . eaten Eddie, but it was the slow creep of seasick green that had overtaken me previously while I was going out of my mind trying to figure out what was wrong with my body.
I poked at the flesh on my stomach, even after I finally got into the shower, to the point I bruised my muscles. Horror clawed through me as I stared at the discoloration while hot water pelted my head and blinded my eyes so that I had to blink it away and shake my head. Breakfast didn’t taste good that morning, and even though I ate twice as much as usual, nothing was filling.
A dull ache began to distract me from every activity. I couldn’t read, couldn’t clean my kitchen—I hadn’t felt brave enough to hire someone new. I couldn’t settle into anything. I had a class but skipped it.
When I woke up Saturday morning I was scared before I even cracked my eyes open, but the need to piss won out and forced me from the bed. I flipped on the light switch in the bathroom, then went to the toilet. Afterward, I took a deep breath and faced the mirror.
“Fuck,” I snapped as I studied my reflection. “It’s happening again.” My cheeks were less healthy and carried a tint that reminded me of the algae in a fish tank I’d had as a child. No matter what I’d done, the creeping green had grown back, and eventually the fish had all died. My stomach roiled as I tried to call Noble, but he wasn’t answering his phone, so at barely seven in the morning I got ready for the day, then went over to his apartment.
This constituted an emergency.
It took forever to find a place to park my car, and I was shaking as I finally sprinted to his building and went upstairs to hammer my fist against the door numbered 509, not caring that I was too loud. My knuckles were beginning to ache when the door finally swung inward. Sage stood with a surly tilt to his pink mouth in his boxers and one sock. The lack of anything appealing about his smell was reassuring—at least, he wasn’t registering as an appetizer.
“What?” he demanded and pushed his hair up and back away from his face.
“Can I come in?”
He grunted, and I followed him inside as he shut the door. He flopped onto the couch, and I lifted my shirt to show him my stomach.
“Fuck,” he snapped and bent to grope under the couch. He pulled a gun out that had me nearly swallowing my tongue, and I froze when he pointed it at me.
Noble came from his bedroom out into the living room dressed for the day and gasped. He slapped his hand to his eye and hid that way. “What are you doing?”
Sage leaned back, but his aim never wavered. The metal gleamed in the soft light of the lamp in the corner that lit the room. “Just making sure I don’t look like prime rib. Can you keep yourself under control?”
Noble scowled at Sage and hissed out, “Stop that.”
Whining, I lifted my shirt and pivoted toward Noble. “He’s not wrong. It’s happening again. I’m hungry and I’m going green.” I laughed hysterically. “I feel hollow, absolutely empty inside.”
Sage lowered the gun to his side and frowned, although it wasn’t lost on me that he didn’t put it away. “This started when you pissed off that witch.”
“He was not a witch.” I yanked down my shirt and huffed. “How ridiculous.”
Sage bounded from the couch, stomped over, and shoved me hard on the shoulder. “Semantics. Maybe we gotta take you to him to get this fixed—unless you want to eat someone else?”
My mind blanked and embarrassment had my cheeks burning. “See Pious again? This is ludicrous. I don’t need to bother a man I met once.” My gut sank. There was no way this could have anything to do with him. . . right? But Sage wasn’t wrong, this had all started after I’d upset him. But on the other hand, burning the artwork he’d made hadn’t stopped me from going green again. I frowned at Sage.
“You can figure out how to hide the next body alone,” he said direly, waving his gun around.
Noble made a warning sound in the back of his throat, and Sage lowered the gun again.
Panic ate at me. “My father invested money with Pious. Maybe I can find out where he is that way. I mean, I suppose I have no choice. I have to try something to end this. I can’t just go around eating people.”
Sage stilled and his face went oddly blank as he shivered, and then he gave me a sweet smile. The gun relaxed down against his side. My skin crawled at the shift in his attitude and expression because it was too different—he even stood with his hips cocked to the side in a soft, friendly way. “If you get me a full name, I can search for him online.”
Sighing, I dragged my phone out and texted my father, asking for the information. Noble paced the living room, staring at me the whole while, and Sage seemed twitchy, as if maybe he really did imagine I might lunge for him.
“I can’t blame you for thinking I’ll take a bite out of you, but I’m not that hungry.”
Noble made a yikes face.
Sage just shook his head. “That’s exactly what someone who wanted to eat me would say.”
Grunting, I shrugged. How could I argue with him? I was surprised when my phone rang and fumbled it to my ear while pressing the screen to answer.
“Hello?”
“The police are here, son.” My father’s voice was like a glass of cold water over the top of my head. “They want to talk to you, too. Our cleaner went missing. That fellow, the one who was the son of your mother’s friend. They said his name was Edward, but I could have sworn it was Evan. Your mother was in charge of that business, you know.”
Sickness curled in my stomach. “Oh? How peculiar. Yes, Eddie was what everyone called him.”
“Come over. As for Pious Sturms, did you want to invest with him? It seems like a good, solid cause.” Dad sounded much more cheerful talking about money, which made sense because investments were likely his favorite topic out of anything, anywhere to discuss.
“Mm. I’ll be right there.” Once I hung up, I gave Sage the name and a rundown of the situation.
He nodded, tapping away at his phone. “I’ll work on it. Answer all the cop’s questions as truthfully as possible. Say Eddie came and did his job and left as usual. Don’t say he wasn’t there.” Sage waved a hand at me but didn’t look up from where he was typing.
“I thought you weren’t the serial killer?” I snarked.
He shrugged. “I lived in one and I worked Homicide. It’s difficult to remember things, but I made myself.” He smiled. “Better get going. Don’t keep the investigators waiting. It makes you look guilty.”
“Is it safe to hug you?” Noble asked, inching toward me. “Please be careful. I don’t want anything else to happen to you.” He darted across the room to wrap his arms around me, and Sage’s face went red, though if it was from jealousy or because he was worried I’d bite Noble, who knew? I slunk out of the apartment with one dire thought preoccupying me: What if I did chomp Noble? What then? Would he die? Was I venomous? I rubbed at my chest and clomped down the stairs out of the building to my Audi.
Traffic was light on the way to my parents’ house because it was outside of the city, so in a shockingly short amount of time I found myself walking up the steps to their front door. I’d barely lifted a hand toward the knob when the door snapped open and Mum brushed past me, dropping a kiss on my cheek as she went. “Tell them anything you can. This is dreadful.” She didn’t stop walking, though, her no-nonsense black skirt swirling around her knees and her black hair flowing beautifully around her shoulders. Apparently not even a dead man was worth her being late.
“Yes, Mum.”
Dad patted my shoulder, and I waved after them as they went toward his car, which was warming up in the drive. “The bobby’s inside!” Dad called.
With a sigh, I went into the house and found a man in a police uniform, which I hadn’t been expecting, standing in the foyer. I’d thought he would be a detective in a suit, like the people who ran investigations on television. His back was stick straight as he stared at a painting on the wall of the Tower of London. The art piece was absolutely dreadful, done in grays and browns, but Mum had bought it when I was younger and she was homesick, and no one had gotten around to replacing it.
My nerves ate at me. “I know it’s early, but would you care for a drink, officer?” I asked as cheerfully as I could. “I’m a college man, you know. We drink and study.”
“Why not?” he answered, turning toward me. Amusement sparkled in his brown eyes. He wasn’t bad-looking, with broad shoulders and a dimple in his chin. I caught a tantalizing whiff of him. My mouth watered. “I’ve actually been awake most of the night. Officer Dubro.” He held out a hand and I had no choice except to shake with him. I clenched a little too hard, but he didn’t seem to notice, and his gaze warmed.
Grinning, I let out a long breath and dropped his hand. “Follow me, then.”
I took him through the downstairs and into my father’s study, then went immediately to the bar along the wall to the left. Officer Dubro followed me inside and glanced around with his eyebrows raised, until his attention landed on the shelves of alcohol that rose higher than my head. “Wow.”
“My father is a collector. Here,” I said, snatching up the Macallan Lalique fifty-seven-year-old scotch. “You should try this. I’ll never be able to afford a bottle unless my old man dies and leaves me everything.”
Officer Dubro chuckled as I poured us both a glass, then carried one over to him. I almost moaned at his scent, not the obscenely expensive scotch, when I caught a good whiff of him, butterscotch and savory spices teasing my nose. Now that I knew what my body was missing, I craved the taste of flesh again, and adrenaline pelted through my system. Our fingers brushed when I handed off the glass and my belly flipped.
Officer Dubro gave me a tired but thankful grin. “This is a formality, but have you seen Edward Tilly? His family is worried, and they’re not in the country. It’s a mess.”
Taking a deep swallow of my drink, I hummed. The scotch burned all the way to my belly but did nothing to stop my hunger. “He did his job at my apartment same as ever last week, then left. I’m afraid I haven’t seen him since. It’s a pity. I do hope he’s found well.”
Officer Dubro made a sound that translated into something akin to condolences and gave my arm a friendly pat as he chugged his drink, and then he set the empty glass on my father’s desk. I winced at the mistreatment of the Macallan, but what could you do?
“Fine stuff, thank you. You and your parents have been helpful. It’s tough when we have someone missing.” He had the easy appearance of a man who didn’t suspect a thing, and guilt burned away in my stomach like a hot coal. I hoped like hell none of the storm inside showed on my face. “Can you take me out? I think I forgot the way.” He gave me another tired smile, and I couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under his eyes. He’d probably been looking for Eddie all night.
