Page 13 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

I snatched my arm away from her and cradled it to my chest, cupping protective fingers over the bracelets. My look of warning rebuffed her, and she set the shears on the floor. Even then, I wished she would give them a push and send them skittering like TV cops did when relinquishing their guns in a hostage negotiation.

Sitting upright made me woozy, and the pain persisted. I could have used some downers about now.

Sleepless shadows ringed Sully’s mocha brown eyes as she scrutinized me. Waiting for me to blow up, judging by the way she leaned back, poised for a speedy retreat.

She didn’t say anything as we both sat there, considering the weeks of failures that led to this success.

I knew about Evander and what he said in the park.

I knew why Loren didn’t like him.

I knew that I’d been an addict as long as I could remember, all the way back to the day Loren dragged me out of the scientist’s torture chamber. He saved me then and had been saving me ever since.

More than those things, I knew about the demon bitch who had kept my boyfriend captive for the past century. The woman who owned his soul and made his life a hell from which he could not escape.

Her name was Moira.

Indy

We ordered breakfast in.Lunch, too. I picked at the food, unwilling to test my stomach with more than a few bites. Sully chattered about her spell work, notably not asking about the waterfall of memories spilling into my brain. It was better she didn’t; I wasn’t sure I could put words to the things I was thinking.

By the early evening, I was sober but mired in memory. I was good for little more than fetching Sully supplies and nodding along to her explanation of what to expect. She gestured this way and that while her words became a nonsensical drone. I may have been physically standing a few feet from her, but I was mentally lost somewhere in the 1970s, begging Loren to take me to Studio 54 where I might run into Andy Warhol.

It was one of a thousand moments—a million—all clattering together until they stopped me in my tracks. Emotions rolled in on top of them, so potent and raw that I found myself on the floor, sobbing while holding a box of chalk.

My collapse brought Sully in a flurry. I tried to shoo her away but ended up folding into myself instead. The chalk tumbledaside while I balled up, trapped in the endless loop of my equally endless life.

At first, the recollections of Loren had been intoxicating. He was my comfort; the one thing that remained constant decade after decade, death after death. But then I saw how things had changed over time. Steady, steadfast Loren wasn’t quite the rock he used to be. He had eroded and was crumbling, retreating from me, and I knew why.

“I ruined his life,” I sniffled while Sully rubbed my back. “He could’ve moved on if not for me. Could’ve had someone who wasn’t so…” My jaw clenched as I gritted out, “Temporary.”

Sully made a soothing sound. “Honey, you’re not temporary?—”

My head snapped up, and I pinned her with a glare. “Are you kidding? I’m practically disposable. Single use.” My fists clenched because I remembered dying, too. Trying and failing to cling on while some higher authority restarted me over and over like a damn videogame character.

“Ten years at a time?” My voice trembled. “What kind of bullshit is that?”

I stared at Sully, hoping for an answer. She knew so much about phoenixes, maybe she could tell me why my existence suddenly felt like a cosmic joke. A curse on me and everyone around me.

Rather than answer, she sighed. “Indy…”

“I’m fine. I’m fucking fine.” I flapped both hands in a fevered dismissal. “Let’s just get this done.”

Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed the chalk and led the charge toward the space we’d cleared in the middle of the living room.

Pillar candles were arranged in a circle around the thick line of rock salt like the kind they spread on Brooklyn’s icy streets every winter. As Sully approached, the candles litsimultaneously, adding a yellow tone to the hues of dawn beaming in the windows.

She came up behind me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders to give me a side hug. “Loren adores you, you know,” she said. “And when we get him back here, I’m sure that will be the first thing he says.”

I snorted, suddenly teary again. “He’s not gonna say anything, Sully. I’ll be lucky to get a nod and a grunt.”

Sully’s mouth tipped in a gentle smile. “But you’ll know.”

“Yeah.”

I knew.

Scooping a book from a nearby stack, Sully opened to a marked page. It was the summoning spell she’d mentioned last night, complete with an incantation and a pentagram to scribble on the floor. With the rug rolled aside, we had ample space to begin the sketch.

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