Page 73 of Awry
I still feel half dead myself.
I trace my mother’s name, top to bottom, immortalized in stone until the time when that too crumbles under the weight of existence.M … E … R … R … I … C … K …
Rath steps around me from behind, glancing my way for only a moment, then crossing to crouch by Mack’s body.He heaves a heavy sigh, then scrubs his face.He’s soaked through now as well.
How stupid is it to not have at least grabbed a coat and an umbrella?
I skip the dates of birth and death etched below my mother’s name.No last names are carved on any of the niches.Even if we didn’t use the name in our lifetime, we are all Gages in death.I run my fingers over the ornate script that I know reads ‘Mother,’ though it’s harder to distinguish those curves and curls with just my fingertips.My numb fingertips.
My mother, Merrick, was more than just a mother.And I often wondered — out loud, once — why that was all that is carved on her epitaph.
It was because of me, my aunt informed me brusquely.My mother’s entire life, all her talent and fierceness and love, had been distilled into one title, one purpose.Because she gave birth to the next Conduit.Me.
Rath, still crouched, shifts back on his heels, his amber-flecked gaze on me.There’s no moon or starlight through the clouds, so he’s just a dark shape.But I can see his eyes.I catch a hint of hisintenteven though I’m still deliberately not looking beyond the surface.
He scrubs his hand over his face a second time.I don’t bother, just letting the rain have its way with me.
“I always hated it in here,” he finally confesses ruefully.
“The graveyard?”I hear myself asking, even though I already know what he means.It feels similar to when the universe speaks through me, but more … more as if I’m being forced to acknowledge the connection between us?Or his … claim on me?
“Yeah.”He shakes his head, turning his attention back to the fallen shifter.“No wounds, no signs of a fight … no … decay … no signs of scavengers …” He clears his throat.“Looks like he just dropped, like Ingrid.”
“Heart attack,” I murmur.“And … there’s no decay or scavenging because … well, I suspect that the property has … had locked down somehow after … after …”
Rath hears something he doesn’t like in my tone, because he glances at me sharply, opens his mouth to say something, but then pauses instead.He inhales deeply, maybe scenting the air?Then says, “I’ll get Doc to confirm.”
“They were lovers, then,” I say, speaking the thoughts out loud as they form.I feel utterly disconnected now.My dying, and then the transference of the estate — for lack of a better way to encompass what’s happened — has left me … hollow.“All of them.”
“All three?”
Devlin, my aunt’s combat mage, is unaccounted for.But he is the barest of memories to me, so I don’t mention him or confirm Rath’s count one way or the other.
“Essence bound,” I say, rambling more than answering him.“And the connection could only have been this strong if … reinforced.Continually.Sex, the … physical and emotional connection, but also the transference of bodily fluids, tends to do that … with one of the awry at least.”
“I know,” he says gruffly.But then he sets aside whatever renewed pissiness he really wants to level at me and adds, “You knew Ingrid and Mack.You knew that they were Disa’s lovers.”That isn’t a question.Or an assumption.It’s a statement of fact.
“I must have.But I …” I don’t manage to articulate that sense of loss yet.I’m somehow missing pieces of my past — more than just the hazy moments that occur each time I die and reset — and I had no idea.Mack was at my mother’s interment.Ingrid’s residual essence is all over the estate, in the gargoyle at the front door, in the …
“You need sleep,” Rath says.
I just stare at him, swaying slightly.Am I somehow anchoring myself through him into this moment?If so, the connection is tenuous, malleable.
“Don’t make me carry you.”
I think he intends it as a threat.Low grade, yes, but it came out with warmth.A warm promise.
I catch the sound of a muted car engine.On the driveway, I assume, as the road is too far away for me to pick up such sounds.I should articulate what I need from the mage.From Harlee, I remind myself.I should make it clear I’m hiring her, that she reports to me, not to the Outcast MC.
“The bodies should be cremated,” I say instead.
“Always.”Rath’s voice is a much gentler rasp as he straightens from his crouch.He carefully steps around Mack’s prone body.
“And … interred here if they don’t have family.”
“I’ll make sure everyone knows.There might be … some sort of investigation requested.”
I laugh.The sound is hollow, thin.“No.There won’t be.”
