“Jack,” I began.
“You called me Grandfather, earlier,” he reminded me, and there was something about him that suddenly seemed very old and frail, and not even remotely immortal.
I tasted the word in my mouth. “Grandfather. Is there anything I should know?”
“Nothing. And nothing that would harm you . . . or her.” His glaze flicked down to my stomach, then bounced away—to the television set, the window, anywhere but my eyes.
My entire body prickled: pins and needles. The boys and their rough dreams, struggling to wake. Not a good sensation. A warning.
But nothing happened. No explosions. No doorways opening to other worlds. My grandfather walked around me, and the putrid scent of him, that miasmic, fecal funk, made me swallow hard and lean against the table.
“A bath sounds delightful,” he called out over his shoulder. “I saw a hose by the barn. I think I’ll turn it on myself first, just to get the large chunks off. And the vermin.”
I shook my head and turned off the kitchen television set. The front door opened and closed. I didn’t move from the table. I didn’t look at the bloodstain in the linoleum. Or out the window, where I’d probably glimpse one of the thousand demons hiding on this farmland.
I stared at my stomach instead, at my hands resting on my stomach. Specifically, my left hand. My wedding ring.
I’d never indulged in feelings of loneliness. Too dangerous. I’d learned that after my mother’s murder. Loneliness could swallow you up, like a disease. Make you vulnerable to anything, even a smile.
But then I’d stopped being lonely. And what was more dangerous? Loneliness? Or having friends and family who could be taken from you?
“Grant,” I murmured, reaching for him—which was as easy as opening myself to the love we shared. Always there, always burning. Heat speared through my chest, straight to my heart: golden light, hot as the sun, warming bone and blood. Our bond. In life, until death.
My cell phone rang.
I pulled it from my jeans, and smiled to myself when I saw the number. Like magic. I could cross vast distances in a heartbeat—travel through time—and at this very moment, five demons slept on my skin.
But a telephone felt like the biggest miracle of all.
“Hey,” I answered, hearing a static buzz across the connection.
Grant said, “They’re dying.”
CHAPTER 11
I never had a dog when I was growing up.
Once, when we passed through Miami, I made the mistake of warming up to a stray mutt that was rooting around the bench where my mother and I were having ice cream. She told me not to feed the dog my waffle cone—but, whatever. Dog was hungry. Dog had big eyes.
Dog needed a home. I was twelve and needed a dog. He wasn’t very big, and he had a goofy grin and big, floppy ears. He stuck close to me like it was love. My heart wanted to put him inside me and never let go.
I didn’t let go. I convinced my mother to let us take him. The dog was overjoyed. We put him in the station wagon and drove out of Miami.
Then, that night, the boys woke up.
And the dog, terrified by them, ran away.
I cried so hard. I looked for him like crazy. My heart broke over that dog. I worried about him for years. Sometimes I still worry, even though I know he must be dead. All I hope is that he found someone who loved him, that he didn’t go hungry. I hope soft hands touched him and made him a home.
Peace. For the dog.
And very little peace for me.
IT was hot under the trees, and the flies that grazed my tattooed arms stuttered as though electrocuted and dropped dead into the grass.
There were a lot of flies. No discrimination when it came to dead bodies. Demons, humans, were all the same. Meat. Blood. Bone. I stood beside a dead Mahati—old, wrinkled, wrapped in the braids of his hair. Bloody vomit covered his lower chin and chest, and his one remaining hand was caked in a viscous red slime that still glistened in the afternoon light. The stench was vile.
Four feet away lay another Mahati, this one still alive. A child, with whole limbs and smooth silver skin pulled taut over jutting ribs. Vomiting had already begun, splashed over the grass: a color of red that was sharp as a prick in my eyes.
His mother crouched beside him. She didn’t look well, either. Patches of skin around her throat and chest had darkened to the color of tarnished silver, and there was an unfocused roving quality to her gaze that couldn’t settle on her child—or Grant, who stood over the young demon, singing: a low reverberating om sound that slithered over my tattooed skin like a million little snakes.
I’d found him like this. No attempt at conversation, not even on my part, but I’d placed a bottle of water in his hands, along with a bag of pretzels; and he’d stopped just long enough to eat a bite, drink the bottle, then carry on. All the while, watching me with those dark eyes. I wanted to reach inside his brain and give it a good shake.