Deadtown (44 page)

He got up, too, and blocked my way. “My
ex
-wife. Her name’s Elise. We only got divorced two months ago. I haven’t gotten used to calling her my ex yet.”

“Your ex.” Yeah, right. “So what was she doing answering your phone at seven o’clock in the morning?”

“Staying in the guest room. She sold her condo because she’s moving to Chicago. The timing worked out that she needed a place to crash for a few days.” He ran a hand through his curls. “Sit down again. Please. I’ll explain.”

He looked so eager and sincere that I slid back into the booth. For a minute, anyway. “Okay,” I said. “Explain.”

He opened his mouth, then stopped, like he didn’t know where to begin. He bit his lips. Finally he spoke. “Elise and I got married right out of high school—way too young. It was a mistake, but not a terrible one. We grew apart. No big fights or anything, we just kind of drifted down different paths. I’m a cop; she’s an architect. We didn’t have any kids. After a while, there was nothing to connect us anymore.” He paused, glanced at me. “She moved out two years ago. We stayed friends, but we were both happier living apart. When Elise started thinking about taking a job in Chicago, we decided we might as well go ahead and get the piece of paper that says ‘divorce.’ But our marriage ended a long time ago.”

I tried to digest what he was saying. “Is this true?”

“It is, I swear. Call Elise. She’ll tell you. In fact, I think you two would like each other.”

“Whoa, let’s take this one step at a time.” I wasn’t exactly ready to become pals with the ex-wife yet.

We set up a dinner date for Saturday night in the North End. And then we talked for hours. He was warm and funny and full of stories, his blue eyes flashing as he told them. And my stories didn’t freak him out. Since he’d seen me shift into a Harpy, he’d already seen me at my worst.

Or maybe it wasn’t my worst. Maybe there was a little bit of me in there, like he’d said. A spark, he’d called it. Maybe that spark was the real me.

 

 

BEFORE I FELL ASLEEP THAT NIGHT, I THOUGHT ABOUT MY father. I remembered when he was teaching me to drive: showing me how to work the Jag’s clutch, staying patient even when I kept stalling out in traffic with half a dozen cars honking behind us. I saw him dancing Mom around the kitchen as he belted out Welsh songs, Mom laughing and trying to pull away before the potatoes boiled over. I remembered sitting close to him on the sofa, Gwen on one side and me on the other, as he read to us from a book of Welsh fairy tales. And I saw him teasing Aunt Mab, his eyes twinkling, as my stern aunt blushed like a schoolgirl. He was the only person I knew who could get Mab flustered.

He was gone, and I’d never get him back.

But I had set things as right as I knew how. I’d restored the balance of power, sending my father’s murderer back to Hell, where it belonged. At what cost, though? I wondered, my guard down as sleep approached. To conquer Difethwr, I’d had to bind it to me. And a bound Hellion is a treacherous thing.

You know what to do,
Aunt Mab had said. But binding Difethwr had never been my plan. I didn’t know where that binding spell had come from; the words had simply arisen and poured forth, erupting from me like a geyser. Had those words come from me, from my spark, from some deep-buried ancestral knowing? Or had they come from the Destroyer in me, a demon’s trick to escape Baldwin’s bondage and strengthen its mark in me?

I didn’t know. But the thing was done. Difethwr and its legion were in Hell, and I was free of the mark’s torments. There still had been no burning, no weakness, no surges of uncontrollable anger. All seemed well. For now, anyway.

As I slipped into sleep, I heard a noise. It sounded like a laugh, a deep rumble that rose up through the floor and grew, many voices joining together in a crescendo before sinking back into silence. I’d heard that laugh somewhere before, hadn’t I?

Or maybe it was just a dream.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nancy Holzner
grew up in western Massachusetts with her nose stuck in a book. This meant that she tended to walk into things, wore glasses before she was out of elementary school, and forced her parents to institute a “no reading at the dinner table” rule. It was probably inevitable that she majored in English in college and then, because there were still a lot of books she wanted to read, continued her studies long enough to earn a master’s degree and a PhD.

She began her career as a medievalist, then jumped off the tenure track to try some other things. Besides teaching English and philosophy, she’s worked as a technical writer, freelance editor, instructional designer, college admissions counselor, and corporate trainer.

Nancy lives in upstate New York with her husband, Steve, where they both work from home without getting on each other’s nerves. She enjoys visiting local wineries and listening obsessively to opera. There are still a lot of books she wants to read.

Deadtown
is Nancy’s second novel. Currently, she’s having a blast writing its sequel. Visit her Web site at
www.nancyholzner.com
.