Chapter Seven
Dec 23, 6am
Davy stood in frontof the open fridge, phone pinned between his shoulder and ear as he checked the contents of the shelves. He seemed unwilling to give up the idea of a secret stash of bacon.
Finally, he plucked a grape out of a bowl and tossed it into his mouth.
“I’m just the messenger,” Davy said, voice slightly muffled by grape. He burst it between his teeth and swallowed it. Hill, reminded, reached down and touched the crumbled cookie packet shoved in his pocket. He resisted the urge to sneak a bite, and Davy reached into the fridge to grab a carton of milk. He didn’t read the label. “I know it’s early there, but Mr. Jones is calling in his debt and…”
He paused to listen to the angry objections on the other end of the call. While he waited for them to finish, he rolled his eyes at Hill and made a “blah-blah-blah” gesture with his free hand.
“I think I see the problem,” he said finally. He grabbed the top of the carton and twisted the lid off with a pop. “It’s just notmyproblem, and I don’t think you want to make itDavy’sproblem. Whatever deal you made with Fraser, take that up with him. It’s nothing to do with Davy.”
He added the milk to his coffee, a generous glug that lightened it nearly the color of his hair, and smirked at whatever was being said.
“Yeah, I thought so too,” he said and hung up.
“You’re enjoying yourself,” Hill said. “Sleep well?”
Davy shrugged as he tossed the phone down and picked up his cup. Steam spilled out over his hands, and one of his tentacles curled around his hip to flick at it. Like a cat with a length of string.
“Like the dead,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, the Beyond doesn’t have phones. It’s fun to yank people’s chains without having to back your mouth up.”
Hill thought of the receptionist at CIRATTA. He was about to ask, until he remembered the…wet…sound, like a swallow, as she plugged the wires into her body.
“And it’s for a good cause,” Davy reminded him. “To save my little brother’s soul…after I give him an ulcer.”
He snickered at his own joke and took a drink. The face came a moment later as he wrinkled his nose and smacked his lips. He jabbed his tongue out like a lizard. Hill rolled his eyes at the drama.
“It’s potato milk,” he said and pointed at himself. “Vegan, remember?”
Davy narrowed his eyes and then picked up the carton to check. He pulled a face.
“Who thinks ‘you know what, let’s milk a potato’?” he grumbled as he tossed his coffee down the sink. “When they die, I wanna be there. Their stigmata is going to be weird as hell.”
Hill shrugged. “I prefer oat,” he said. “But they didn’t have any so close to Christmas.”
“That makes sense,” Davy said as he rolled his eyes. “There’s always a run on oat milk leading into the season. You don’t want Santa getting the shits halfway through his run.”
Hill ignored that.
“So is that what we’ve been doing all day?” he asked. It was meant to sound non-judgmental. He was fairly sure that it didn’t, but he pushed on. “Just prank calling Fraser by proxy?”
It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected from transgressing the social and spiritual barriers to raising the dead.
“Sure,” Davy said as he filled the mug with cold water. “Why not. I gotta get something out of this, since you won’t let me kill him.”
“This isn’t a game,” Hill objected. He lifted his hand so Davy could see the hole carved through it, light visible from the other side of the wound. Davy glanced briefly at it as he took a long drink of water, and Hillaggressivelytried not to notice the way his throat worked as he swallowed. “I didn’t defy the Church and do this to myself so you could play games. My dad—”
“Helped cover up my murder,” Davy reminded him. He set the mug down on the counter and dried his mouth on the back of his hand. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve done worse, and I don’t hold it against him. But don’t expect me to shed any tears for him now he’s in the dirt.”
That was…a good point, Hill supposed.
He…
For a second he stalled on how to regulate his emotional state without his tried and tested tool kit: deep breathing, a drink so cold it hurt his teeth, a corner to dig his shoulders back into. None of those things would work right now.
Maybe the corner, but…Hill glanced at the nearest one and putthatthought out of his mind.
