Page 61 of Messenger of Death
“Noted, but I still only have eyes for Sage. Sage, if you want to get naked and fornicate in front of the bonfire, I might have to stab anyone who checks out those glorious legs.”
“Empty classrooms are one thing. I don’t quite think I’m ready for public orgies, but this is nice.”
“Usually when I’m standing in front of a raging inferno, there’s some arson involved, but we can snuggle and see if any of the ghosts want to help.”
“Lay out the blanket and get comfortable. I’ll get us food,” Lucian said, shooting off.
Lucian was weirdly in tune with my diabetes. He always knew when I needed to eat something and he always had a snack ready when I did. He also knew how I took my coffee and which foods the dining hall offered that I liked to eat. I never made a big deal about it, even though no one had ever done anythinglike that for me before and itwasa big deal. I also knew Lucian didn’t do things like that for anyone and I didn’t want him to feel weird about it.
Liam spread the blanket out, and that was when I was approached by my first ghost. I didn’t have to ask who he was here for. He had the same red hair as me and we looked similar.
“Hi, love. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Um, okay. What was it supposed to be like?”
“I was supposed to be raising you, not watching over you from the veil.”
I drew in a breath. This was my father. And I’d only ever get to talk to him on Samhain until the Fates wove his thread again. I’d been robbed of that.
“I’m confused. I thought my mother tricked you. What do you mean raise me?”
“She didn’t trick me. I wasn’t a dalliance. We were in love and she was planning on escaping that man. She was on a mission trip in Ireland. Ruth was just going to miss her flight and go missing. We were going to raise you together. I still don’t know how he found out.
“He was incensed, especially when he realized she was pregnant. I think he finally realized their problems conceiving weren’t her fault, it was all on him. Blue had these hang-ups. He could have let her go, remarried, and adopted. That would have been the logical thing to do.
“He thought it would make him look bad to his followers if they found out his wife cheated on him and they’d figure out he was sterile. Quite literally, both of us just wanted Ruth away from him, so we never would have mentioned it. He could have gone back to America with a story about his missing wife and gotten so much sympathy.
“Instead, he told Ruth she was coming back with him whether she liked it or not. He shot me in the head and said hewould shoot her, too, unless she did exactly what he said. She had no choice. You both would have died. I’m not excusing how she treated you, but Blue Matthews found out about our affair and that she was planning on leaving him from an entirely different country. He’s rich and his reach is far. He would have found you and hurt both of you if you’d left and probably would have gotten away with it.”
Well, shit. That gave me an entirely different opinion of my mother and made me hate Blue Matthews even more. Lucian had already been back with food and, apparently, he heard all that. He passed me a giant coffee from the cart, those fairy fries I liked, and a Cornish pasty, which I was also obsessed with and the kitchen did well.
Lucian didn’t stop there. He gave Liam a box with a curry in it. Liam would eat curry for breakfast if they served it. They also had raw meat for the people who chose to attend the bonfire shifted. Khalid wasn’t the only one, and he happily started gnawing on his lamb leg.
“So, I may have been plotting with a little help from Liam and Khalid. We were just waiting for you to say you’re ready. All I have to do is press a button and the FBI would receive an anonymous care package full of airtight evidence and where tolegallyfind it once they got a warrant and raided his mansion. You’d be free, your mom would be free, and he’d go away for a very long time.”
I looked at the ghost of my father. Myentirelife would have been different if Blue Matthews had just let her leave. I’d have a father who loved me. My relationship with my mother would probably be functional. I would have gotten to be a normal teenager. All my classmates were behind because they had to sort through fact from fiction, but I was even more behind because I wasn’t even allowed to read the fiction.
“Do it,” I said.
“It’d be more satisfying to stab him myself, but I have enough underworld connections to order a beat down in the showers if you don’t want him outright shanked,” Liam said.
Khalid looked up from his leg bone and started making that haunting noise jackals made.
“I don’t speak jackal, but I’m pretty sure Khalid is agreeing with Liam,” Lucian said.
“He is. He said if I get to stab him, then he gets to shift and bite a body part off. I already got you a dick, and it’s so passé to copy gifts, so I think he should bite his nose and lips off. If they manage to save him after I stab him, he’ll have to walk around with his face fucked up.”
“He abused her. Never where it would show and she hid it from you, but if he was upset with literally anything or it was his fault, he took it out on her,”my father said.
“Do it. Do all of it. He deserves it.”
“I’m proud of you. You’re coming into your own. I have a message from another ghost. They were going to tell you themselves, but I asked to pass the message on since I’ll only be able to talk to you on Samhain until you figure out how to traverse the veil.
“I’ve been asking the shades about banished snake gods while I watched you try to figure it out. I know who he was before he was banished, but this is important. He can hypnotize people with his gaze, so you must never look him in the eye. Your friend Mazen is the only one who is immune to it since Set was the only one immune to it. It’s probably why Lola tried to keep him on their side.”
Mazen was with us. Mazen had been staying close to us since he found out about Hemlock and Harami. He’d been avoiding Lola like the plague and wanted to tell everyone what she tried to do to Liam.
“What? Harami was Egyptian?”
