Rain fell everywhere at the Dar-ee Keen, on the inside and out. Water dripped from the square, buzzing light fixtures. It crept down the wall like a slow stain of tears beneath the crookedly mounted Employee of the Month photograph—from the look of it, a member of the Stonewall Jackson cheer squad, of course, though they all were starting to look the same.
No one worth crying over. Not anymore.
I scanned the nearly empty diner, waiting for Link to show up. Nobody was out on a day like today, not even the flies. I couldn’t blame them.
“Seriously, could you cut it out? I’m sick of the rain, Lena. And I smell like a wet dog.” Link appeared out of nowhere, sliding into the opposite side of the booth. He looked like a wet dog.
“That smell has nothing to do with the rain, my friend.” I smiled. Unlike John, Link was apparently human enough that the natural elements still affected him. He assumed normal Link posture, leaning back in the corner of the booth and doing his best impression of someone physically capable of falling asleep.
“It’s not me,” I said.
“Right. Because it’s been nothin’ but sunshine and kitty cats out there since December.”
Thunder rumbled in the sky. Link rolled his eyes.
I frowned. “I guess you must have heard. We found Abraham’s place. The Book wasn’t there. At least we couldn’t find it.”
“Figures. Now what?” He sighed.
“Plan B. We don’t really have a choice.”
John.
I couldn’t say it. I curled my hand into a fist on the seat next to me.
Thunder rumbled again.
Was it me? I didn’t know if I was doing it or if the weather outside was doing something to me. I had lost track of myself weeks ago. I stared at the rain dripping into the red plastic bucket in the center of the room.
red plastic rain
her tears stain
I tried to shake myself out of it, but I couldn’t stop looking at the bucket. The water dripped down from the ceiling rhythmically. Like a heartbeat or a poem. A list of names of the dead.
First Macon.
Then Ethan.
No.
My father.
Then Macon.
My mother.
Then Ethan.
Now John.
How many people had I lost?
How many more would I lose? Would I lose John, too? Would Liv ever forgive me? Did it even matter anymore?
I watched the raindrops bead on the greasy table in front of me. Link and I sat together in silence, in front of wadded-up waxy paper, crushed ice in plastic glasses. A cold, soggy meal nobody was even thinking of eating. If he wasn’t trapped at his own dinner table, Link didn’t even pretend to move the food around anymore.
Link nudged me. “Hey. Come on, Lena. John knows what he’s doing. He’s a big boy. We’re gonna get the Book and get Ethan back, no matter how crazy your plan is.”
“I’m not crazy.” I didn’t know who I was saying it to, Link or myself.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You say it every time you have the chance.”
“You don’t think I want him back?” Link said. “You don’t think it sucks to shoot hoops without him watchin’ to tell me how bad I suck or how big my head is gettin’? I drive around Gatlin in the Beater, blastin’ the tunes we used to play, and there’s no reason to play them anymore.”
“I get that it’s rough, Link. You know I get it, more than anyone.”
His eyes welled up, and he dropped his head, staring down at the greasy table between us. “I don’t even feel like singin’. The guys in the band, they’re talkin’ about breakin’ up. The Holy Rollers could end up as a bowlin’ team.” He looked like he was going to be sick. “At this rate, I’m gonna have nowhere to go but college, or somewhere even worse.”
“Link. Don’t say that.” It was true. If Link went to college—even Summerville Community College—it would mean the end of the world had finally arrived, no matter how many times Ethan tried to save us all.
Had tried.
“Maybe I’m just not as brave as you are, Lena.”
“Sure you are. You’ve survived all those years in your house with your mom, haven’t you?” I tried to smile, but Link was beyond cheering up.
It was like talking to myself.
“Maybe I just gotta give up when the odds are as bad as they are now.”
“What are you talking about? The odds are always this bad,” I said.
“I’m the guy who gets bit. I’m the guy who gets the F and then even fails summer school.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Link. You were helping Ethan rescue me.”
“Face it. The only girl I ever loved chose Darkness over me.”
“Rid loved you. You know that. And about Ridley…” I had almost forgotten why I’d brought him here. He still didn’t know. “Seriously. You don’t understand. Rid—”
“I don’t want to talk about her. It wasn’t meant to be. Nothin’s ever gone my way before. I shoulda known it wouldn’t work out.”
Link stopped talking because the bell over the door rang in the distance, and time stopped—in a flurry of bright pink flapper feathers and purple tin beads. Not to mention eyeliner and lip liner and anything else that could possibly be lined or shined or painted any of the colors of the cosmetic rainbow.
Ridley.
I barely thought the word before I flew halfway up out of my seat and toward her for a hug.
I knew she was coming—I was the one who’d found her at Abraham’s—but it was a different thing to see her making her way safe and sound through the plastic tables of the Dar-ee Keen. I almost knocked her off her three-inch platforms. Nobody walked in heels like my cousin.
Cuz.
She Kelted it as she buried her face in my shoulder, and all I could smell was hair spray and bath gel and sugar. Glitter swirled in the air around us, knocked loose from whatever sparkly goop she’d smeared all over her body.
Dark or Light, somehow it never mattered between us. Not when it really counted. We were still family, and we were together again.
It’s strange to be here without Short Straw. I’m sorry, Cuz.
I know, Rid.
Here at the Dar-ee Keen, it was all hitting home, like she finally understood what happened.
What I’d lost.
“You okay, kid?” She pulled back, looking me in the eyes.
I shook my head as my eyes started to blur. “No.”
“Somebody mind fillin’ me in on what’s goin’ on here?” Link looked like he was about to pass out, or throw up, or both.
“I was trying to tell you. We found Ridley, stuck in one of Abraham’s cages.”
“You know it. Like a peacock, Hot Rod.” She didn’t look right at Link, and I wondered if it was because she didn’t want to or because she didn’t dare. “A really hot one.”
I would never understand what went on between the two of them. I didn’t think anyone could—not even them.
“Hey, Rid.” Link was pale, even for a quarter Incubus. He looked like someone had just punched him in the face.
She blew him a kiss across the table. “Looking good, Hot Rod.”
He was stammering. “You look… you’re lookin’… I mean, you know.”
“I know.” Ridley winked and turned back to me. “Let’s get out of here. It’s been too long. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?” Link managed not to stammer, though his face was now as red as the plastic bucket beneath the leaking ceiling.
Ridley sighed, sticking her lollipop to one side of her mouth. “Hello? I’m a Siren, Shrinky Dink. A bad girl. I need to be back among my own.”
“Abraham, eh? That old goat?” Ridley shook her head.
I nodded. “That’s the plan.” For what it was worth, if it was worth anything.
The air was dark, and the ceiling lights of Exile only seemed to make it darker, instead of adding to the light. I didn’t blame Ridley for wanting to bring us here. It was the first place she always wanted to go when she was Dark.
But if you weren’t Dark, it wasn’t the most relaxing place in the world. You spent half the night making sure not to accidentally look anyone in the eye or smile in the wrong direction.
“And you think getting Short Straw The Book of Moons is going to help him un-kick the can?”
Link growled from the next seat. He insisted on coming with us for safekeeping, but I could tell he hated it here even more than I did.
“Watch it, Rid. Ethan hasn’t kicked the can. He’s just—bent it outta shape a little.”
I smiled. I guess Link could tell me Ethan was gone all he wanted, but it wasn’t the same when someone else said it.
And it meant Ridley wasn’t one of us anymore, at least not for Link. She really had left him, and she really was Dark.
She was an outsider.
Link seemed to sense it, too. “I need to use the bathroom.” He hesitated, unwilling to leave my side. Everyone seemed to have their own brand of bodyguard at a club like Exile. My bodyguard happened to be a quarter Incubus with a heart of gold.
Ridley waited until he was out of earshot. “Your plan sucks.”
“The plan doesn’t suck.”
“Abraham’s not going to trade John Breed for The Book of Moons. John isn’t worth anything to him now that the Order of Things has been set right. It’s too late.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re forgetting I’ve spent more time than I wanted to with Abraham in the past few months. He’s been keeping himself busy. He spends every day in that Frankenstein lab of his, trying to figure out what went wrong with John Breed. He’s gone back to the mad science drawing board.”
“That means he’ll want John back, so he’ll trade us the Book. Which is exactly what we want.”
Ridley sighed. “Are you listening to yourself? He’s not a good guy. You don’t want to hand John over to him. When Abraham’s not gluing wings onto bats, he’s been having secret meetings with some creepy bald guy.”
“Can you be more specific? That doesn’t narrow it down.”
Rid shrugged. “I don’t know. Angel? Angelo? Something church-y like that.”
I felt sick. My glass turned to ice in my hand. I could feel the frozen particles collecting at the tips of my fingers.
“Angelus?”
She popped a chip into her mouth from the black bowl on the bar. “That’s it. They’re teaming up for some supersecret takedown. I never heard the details. But this guy definitely hates Mortals as much as Abraham does.”
What would a member of the Council of the Far Keep be doing with a Blood Incubus like Abraham Ravenwood? After what Angelus tried to do to Marian, I knew he was a monster, but I thought he was some kind of righteous lunatic. Not someone who would conspire with Abraham.
Still, it wasn’t the first time Abraham and the Far Keep seemed to have their agendas aligned. Uncle Macon had brought it up before, right after Marian’s trial.
I shook my head at the thought. “We have to tell Marian. After we get that book. So unless you have a better idea, we’re meeting Abraham to make the trade.” I drained what was left of my frozen soda water, knocking the glass back down to the bar.