How to Kill Yourself in a Small Town (9 page)

“I’m
sorry,” she said. “I have to go. I knew Tempie was here. I’ve been trying to
catch up to her for so long. I need to see if— I need to know she’s not a
familiar.”

The
memory of Colt in that fucking collar licking Mikal’s hand jammed its way into
my brain. I felt like taking another shot at Rian, but Desty picked that second
to touch the back of my neck. Her fingers were freezing. Goose bumps prickled
all down my back and chest.

“If
she’s not enthralled yet, I can save her,” Desty said. “I have to go. You
understand, don’t you?”

I
nodded and waved her off. Not everyone’s enough of a screwed-up asshole to just
leave their brother—or sister—rotting in Hell.

Desty
stayed crouched by me for another few seconds, but when she started to ask if I
needed any help standing up, I shook my head. My John Deere hat was on the
ground by the tire. I slapped it against my leg to clear the dust off and
pulled it back on.

“Miss
McCormick, if you’ll come with me?” Rian sounded like he was trying to impress
somebody with his courtesy, respect, and professionalism.

Stupid
fucking bicycle-cop.

“Yeah,
okay.” Desty stood up and followed Rian to his modified crotch rocket. She
looked back and I pushed myself up with only about thirty seconds of pain so
intense that I wished I would black out.

Rian
pointed the butt-end of his Maglite at me. “Soon as I get back to the mansion, I’m
reporting you to the Tracker. Go anywhere tonight but the Kelley farm or back
to town and you’re fucked.”

I
watched them drive away before I tried getting back in the truck. I had to keep
one arm tight around my side and pull myself up into the cab with the other.
Back when I bought the truck off of Jax’s cousin, I’d had enough money left
over to get some badass chrome straight pipes or a lift kit, but Owen told me
pipes would mess with the engine power. Dragging myself up onto the seat with a
broken rib sure made the straight pipes look worth the power tradeoff.
Hindsight and all that crap.

I
took off my hat, wiped the sweat off my face with my shirt, and let my head
drop back against the headrest.

Desty
thought she could save her sister, but only if Tempie wasn’t already a
familiar. I moved my upper body just enough to set off the rib and blow away
every image the word
familiar
brought to mind. And since foot soldiers
couldn’t make—couldn’t enthrall—anyone, Desty’s sister would be with Kathan.

My
high beams reached far enough down the road to light up the turnoff to Dodge’s
farm. There would be a couple coolers full of beer. Owen would’ve talked Rowdy
out of a jar of his home cooked ‘shine. I could be passed out in the back of
the truck in a few hours, get woke up around noon by Dodge’s coon dog, Clutch,
and head home to sleep it off.

Or
I could take the road opposite the turnoff to Dodge’s, head east a mile on
gravel, then north on Old 63. That would dump me out at the Dark Mansion in
about ten minutes.

The
Kelley farm, back to town, or fucked.

I put
the truck in gear. You’d think Rian would’ve been smarter than to give me a
choice.

Desty

The
midnight approach to the Dark Mansion combined the creepy suspense of a movie
about kids stepping out of cornfields holding bloody cane knives with the
supernatural paranoia of the Inquisition. But that’s what you get when you drop
a demonic cathedral into the middle of rural Missouri. I tightened my grip on
Moto-Cop’s uniform and focused on the way the wind pushed at the tar-stained
feathers of his wings instead of ruffling them.

He
stopped in front of the entrance and held the bike upright while I climbed off
the back. Up close, with the quarter moon behind it and the light from inside
trying to illuminate the front Hell Window—which I guess would technically be
considered a Hell Oculus—the place made me want to turn and run screaming back
to town. I slid my hands into the back pockets of my shorts and watched
Moto-Cop put down the kickstand.

“So—”
I tried to clear the shakiness from my throat. Tempie was in there. She was
inside the Dark Mansion, and I had to go in there because this was the closest
I’d been to her in months. “So, who is Tempie with? She’s with another foot
soldier, right? We’re going in so you can report to Mayor Dark and then we’ll
go to the barracks to see her?”

It
helps sometimes to lie to yourself out loud.

“Right
this way,” Moto-Cop deflected as he led the way up the steps.

Inside,
I kept my eyes down and ignored the urge to look at the Hell Windows. I had all
the skin-crawling I could stand without their help, thank you very much.

Another
foot soldier in fatigue pants and an army-green wife beater came down the hall
from what the tour guide had called the Permanent Residence wing.

“You
found Temperance’s sister?” Fatigues asked.

Moto-Cop
nodded, smiling the way gossips do when they have something juicy to blab. “Get
this—with Tough Whitney.”

Fatigues
smirked at me. I wished fallen angels wouldn’t look so freaking sexy while they
talked about me like I wasn’t in the room. At least I wasn’t panting or saying
things uncontrollably this time. Maybe I was building up an immunity to them.

“Well,
I need to report Tough to the Tracker,” Moto-Cop said. “He claims he’s just headed
out to the Kelley farm, but you know that kid.”

Fatigues
snorted. “Probably across the county line by now. You should’ve hauled his ass
in.”

Moto-Cop
shrugged as he backed toward the door.

“I
figured she trumped him,” he said.

They
nodded goodbye to each other and Moto-Cop left.

“Modesty,
I’ll be escorting you to Mayor Dark,” Fatigues said. His wings did an impatient
shiver as he swung around and left me behind. I had to jog to catch up and
speed walk to keep pace with his long legs.

In
the Permanent Residence wing, stone-tile floors turned into thick carpet. I
looked over my shoulder toward the door closing us off from the entrance hall.

“Why
isn’t Tough allowed to leave Halo?” I asked.

“You’ve
heard of Halo’s NP-human protection rules, haven’t you?”

“I
thought residents could leave for a day as long as their protector doesn’t
attack anyone while they’re gone.”

Fatigues
looked sidelong at me as if he’d been hoping I hadn’t actually heard of them.

“Tough
is considered a major flight risk,” Fatigues said. “He’s run away twice
already. The last time, he tried to kill a guy.”

I
watched our boots hit the carpet for a few steps. Fatigues and I were wearing
the same brand, but his were polished and the laces looked new. Maybe I was
just kidding myself because I sort of liked Tough, but it was hard to reconcile
the idea of a murderer with the cocky-in-a-crowd, shy-one-on-one redneck.

Fatigues
must’ve seen the disbelief on my face. He stopped walking and stared me down.

“I
don’t know what Tough’s got you thinking or what you might’ve heard,” he said,
“But all of the Whitneys are trouble. They want to rid the world of NPs. That’s
why Tough went after that guy in Nashville—because the guy is a mage and his
wife is a vampire. Tough hunted them down and tried to kill them.”

The
awful thing is I wanted to believe Fatigues. Do a search for
“fallen+angel+lying” sometime. Every article that comes up will say that fallen
angels are so convincing because they use the truth to lie.

“Tough
just doesn’t seem like—”

“He
is, so drop it.” Fatigues spun around and started speed-striding again. “Mayor
Dark won’t want to talk about him anyway. He’s more interested in you and
Temperance.”

“Why?”

“That’s
not my business.”

Fatigues
stopped in front of a door and knocked twice. I didn’t hear anyone grant us
entrance the way someone would if they lived in a cathedral, but the door
opened. He went in.

I
couldn’t move. My heart was beating so hard the
tempie-tempie-tempie
sound it made echoed off of my ear drums and the vibrations made me dizzy.
Fatigues said something to Mayor Dark and Mayor Dark said something back. I
couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear anything until—

“Desty?”
Tempie, the half of me that split off in utero, jumped through the doorway and
tackled me into the opposite wall. She smelled like caramel apples and our
house. “Kathan told me, but I couldn’t believe it! What are you doing here?”

“I
followed you,” I said.

“Followed
me where?”

“Everywhere.
I followed you from home. We’ve got to go back—”

“Stop
crying, nerd, I can barely understand you,” Tempie said.

She
let go of my neck and stepped back. For a girl who’d spent the last eight
months bumming around the country, having sex with guys so they would give her
tattoos and money, she looked good. Probably better than I did. Her hair was
long, streaked with copper highlights and she had a new nose ring with a black
starburst on it. She grinned and I realized she was wearing a lacy black
peignoir over a camisole that was too tasteful to have been picked out by any
nineteen-year-old, much less Tempie.

“This
is so awesome,” she said. “Kathan’s been—” She stopped and listened to
something I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, it must’ve been funny because she
laughed. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a sitting room. “Come on.”
Through the lace covering her back, I could see the wings she’d gotten in Santa
Barbara.

Fatigues
went around us on his way out. Mayor Dark stood beside a luxurious-looking
sectional backed by a ten-foot Hell Window. Like yesterday morning, he was
dressed in silk pajama pants as if he’d just climbed out of bed in the middle
of something.

My
sister. He just climbed out of bed in the middle of my sister.

I
tried not to grind my teeth.

“Modesty,
I’m glad to officially meet you,” he said, stepping forward.

“Mayor
Dark, can—”

“Please,
call me Kathan.”

Tempie
let go of my hand and went to his side. He put an arm around her and that voice
in my head trying to deny that this was happening started rambling. This wasn’t
right. She shouldn’t be looking at him like that, like a knight in shining
armor, like the one who made everything better. It wasn’t supposed to happen
like this. The dizziness came back and red started creeping in at the edges of
my sight.

“Forgive
my lapse in manners,” Kathan said, gesturing toward a recliner matching the
sectional. “Have a seat, Modesty. Someone should be bringing a snack soon.”

I
more fell into the chair than sat. I was staring into the middle distance, but
in my peripheral vision I saw Tempie look up at Kathan. He nodded. Permission
granted, she came and knelt in front of me, adjusting until we locked eyes.

“Hey,
nerd,” she said. “You’re not getting sick or something, are you?”

I
shook my head. “I traded a vamp some blood so he would tell me where you were.
And I guess before that, I sold—”

“Are
you serious?” Tempie asked. “You didn’t let him suck straight from your vein,
did you? That shit’s dangerous, Desty. You should know better.”

I
laughed. At least I wasn’t giving it up to some fallen angel because I was mad
at my daddy.

“Screw
you,” Tempie snapped and I realized I’d just said all that out loud. “Kathan
gives me power and unconditional love and—”

I
grabbed her wrist.  “I’m your freaking twin, Tempie. I know you. It’s not
poetic or romantic or whatever.”

“Let
go of me!”

“You’re
not going down in a blaze of glory,” I said. “He’s going to mess you up and
cast you out—”

Tempie
hit me so hard that little sparks appeared when I opened my eyes.

“Don’t
you dare say one more word about Kathan,” she said.

My
vision cleared. I touched the white-hot spot under my eye to make sure I wasn’t
bleeding.
She hit me. Tempie hit me.
The world blurred again, but this
time it was because I was trying not to cry.

Tempie
made a disgusted sound in her throat. “Jeez, you even take a punch like a
nerd.”

“Temperance.”
Kathan’s voice was warm and dark like melted chocolate, but it was also an
order. Tempie went running to him like a good little lapdog.

I
bit my lip and glared down at the floor. Tears dripped onto my knees. I sniffed
and wiped my eyes on the back of my hand, accidentally aggravating the spot
where Tempie had punched me. None of this was going the way it was supposed to.

Someone
knocked on the door. It opened and a cart was wheeled into the room, then the
door closed again.

“Modesty,
please, eat something,” Kathan said. “Whoever traded for your blood obviously
took too much. You need to refuel.”

On
the cart in front of me was a glass, a pitcher of orange juice, and a plate of chocolate
chip cookies. Add a blood vault and a few security guards armed with stakes and
crosses and it could’ve been an after-donation table at a Red Cross instead of
a midnight snack in a fallen angel’s lair. My stomach growled. That cheese
sandwich and pickles from this afternoon felt a million years away.

“You
don’t have to be afraid,” Kathan said. “They’re not drugged, magically or
chemically.”

I
didn’t know what else to do, so I ate one. It melted on my tongue, fresh out of
the oven. Why did everything fallen angels had have to be so darn good?

“I’m
sorry that I didn’t say anything yesterday, Modesty,” Kathan said. Hearing my
full name so often was weirdly formal. I felt like I should be sipping my
orange juice with my pinkie out. “To be honest, I was surprised to see you with
the tour group. I didn’t expect you to just turn up, literally at my door. I
actually had a few soldiers in Hannibal looking for you.”

I
sat up straight and looked at them lounging on the sectional together. Kathan’s
glittering black wings hung over the arm. Tempie had one hand on his six-pack,
her face resting against his jaw.

“Why
were you looking for me?” I asked.

“Are
you angry with me for making your sister my familiar?” Kathan asked.

“No.”
Right then I wasn’t feeling much besides failure and the throbbing under my
eye. “But I did come to take her home. Will you release her?”

Tempie
lunged for me, fists balled, but Kathan caught her arm. With her hair and
peignoir caught up in the forward inertia, she looked like one of those dogs
that had run to the end of its chain and gotten yanked backward.

“Temperance,
if you want to go with your sister, you may,” Kathan said.

Her
face crumpled up and tears glossed over her eyes. She fell on her knees in
front of him and grabbed a fistful of his pajama pants.

“You
promised, Kathan!” She sounded betrayed. Part of me—maybe the part slowly
coming out of shock—thought she deserved a taste of how it felt. “You swore!”

“Sit
down and stop that,” he ordered.

Tempie
did. Without even saying that she was doing it because she wanted to sit down,
not because he’d told her to.

Kathan’s
black eyes met mine. “I’m sorry, Modesty. She doesn’t want to go home with you.
From what she’s told me, there isn’t much left for either of you there.”

There
would be if Tempie came back.

“I
know you’re disappointed,” Kathan said. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to
find your sister and you feel as if she’s stabbed you in the back, choosing to
stay with me. She hasn’t. In fact, Temperance is looking out for both of your
best interests.”

“That’d
be a first,” I said.

He
didn’t get upset at the insult. I wondered whether Tempie could see that her
fanatical devotion was all one-sided.

“Modesty,
I hope you’ll listen before you judge what your sister has chosen to do with
her life,” Kathan said. His wings unfolded to allow him to lean forward on the
sectional and rest his elbows on his knees. Even half-naked, he looked like he
was making a business proposition and all of Hell was standing behind him. “I’d
like you to become my familiar. I told Temperance that if you agreed to it—”