“Yeah, I don’t know what that means, either,” she says with a slight chuckle, “but we don’t want to do anything that looks like intent.We can’t get Eddie into more trouble.”
“Anything,” I say and step closer.“Anything for you.”
“Good.”She nods.“Let’s muddy the waters, then.We make it risky to hang Eddie with this.Vincent can’t swing if this particular rope frays.”
The name puckers her lips when she says it.I clock the way her mouth holds it like poison she intends to spit into her holy chalice later.
“And Devlin?”I ask, because the monster inside is pacing already, but I keep my heel on its neck.
Her gaze slides to the petrol station door, to the darkening day, toward a street where a woman bled because we thought we could save her.That look could peel paint.
“We need to find him first,” she says.
“I’ll set that table,” I say.“Then we take his certainty from him first, then his face.Quiet or loud as ye like.”
She nods.“Keep me posted.”
I bow my head the smallest bit.“Aye, my queen.”
She smiles again and breathes out, a thread of sound that trembles and then steadies.
“Thank you,” she says, and the word does something daft in my chest.“For not trying to fix it yourself.For just…being here.”
I am not built for soft, but for her, I find a way.I reach toward her and tuck a strand of black hair behind her ear, my knuckles barely brushing her cheek in a reverent touch.
“Always, Prayer,” I tell her, the low of it catching on the hook in my throat.“Till the world burns or I do.”
She leans into my palm, and I feel it like a sunrise through prison bars, but my Prayer doesnae do soft much either.She straightens, and her armor slides back up, buckle by buckle.
“But James.”
“Aye?”
“No blood in the sheriff’s department.We save it for Devlin.”
“Aye.”The beast sulks, then settles.“Devlin gets all the music.I’ll wait until after your shift when Eddie’s private investigator is watching over ye.”
She nods.
“Where would he run?”she asks herself more than me.
“Men like that dinnae run.They roost and dare ye,” I say.“I’ll catch his scent.”
I turn to go, but I pause with my hand on the door and look back.
Her beautiful face is still a ruin, but it’s ruin with scaffolding.The sort you can build a cathedral from if you’ve the patience to bleed for it.
My favorite kind.
I step into the dark.The van yawns open round me, familiar as my sins.
The monster in me stretches out and purrs on its chain, its tail lashing, pleased for the work.
Soon, we’ll unmake a story.After that, we end a man.
Sleep while you can, Devlin.Dawn’s coming cruel, and my queen’s got her crown back.
Chapter 13
