“You will be. I plan to do averythorough job,” he said, pulling a pained groan from Felipe. Kissing him once more, Oliver stepped back with a self-satisfied grin and reached for his pajamas. “The walls in this place aren’t that thick, so Gwen would certainly hear you, even if Mr. Allen doesn’t. And I don’t think I can survive the mortification of her giving me a look at breakfast right in front of Mr. Allen. I hope you don’t mind taking a raincheck until we get back to the Paranormal Society or Gwen and Mr. Allen go out, whichever comes first.”
“I can wait,” Felipe replied as he sank back onto the bed with his letter and watched Oliver put on his pajamas. As Oliver settled in beside him, the lingering arousal sluicing across the tether gave way to something far more pensive and heavy. Slipping his fingers between Oliver’s, Felipe gave them a squeeze. “You all right, love?”
“Yeah, just thinking about this whole mess. My parents tried to break free of the cycle my ancestors created, and in the process, they made things worse for everyone but me.” He let out a laugh that was barely more than a breath and stared up at the ceiling. “I didn’t do it or even ask them to do it, but I feel guilty that it was done in my name. Whatever we do to fix it, it needs to be something that will help Willand free my mother if she’s still in there.”
“Oliver, I’m not certain—”
“No, we’re going to find a way to do it. We have to. I can’t leave knowing nothing has changed for him. He doesn’t deserve to be locked up like that.” As if sensing what he was thinking, Oliver put his hand over his and added, “You’ve had Louisa with you for most of your life and then Agatha and Teresa, but I know what it’s like to have no one. My nana died when I was nineteen, and until I came to the Paranormal Society and met Gwen, I had no one I considered family. Will might share blood with nearly everyone in that house, but they aren’t there for him. He has no one. I know— I know you’ll say that doesn’t mean I have to do it, but I want to. He’s been trying to fix things for years, and he’s losing hope. The least I can do after everything is try and help him.”
Oliver stared into Felipe’s eyes and held his hand, silently pleading for him to understand. He did. He truly did, but he didn’t want Oliver to be disappointed or hurt because families did that more often than not.
Felipe sighed. “I get it. I do. Just don’t let your guilt cloud your judgment. Even if Will is your cousin, we don’t know him or where his loyalties lie.”
A spark of anger flashed across the tether. “I’m not asking for his loyalty. I don’t want Will to feel indebted to me, and I’m not doing it out of guilt. It’s— it’s about responsibility. Our ancestors leftalltheir descendants with the repercussions of their bargain, and then, my parents died and left us, Will, and Aldorhaven at large to clean up the mess. It wasn’t right, and before you say it isn’t my responsibility, you’re right. It shouldn’t have to be, but I went into the Dysterwood and triggered this mess,” Oliver said, gesturing toward the tree-covered road. “What they’ve done and what we do while we’re here has real consequences on everyone who lives here. We can just go back to Manhattan, but they can’t. If nothing else, I want to leave Aldorhaven better than we found it, even if that means getting rid of the Dysterwood and the Lady.”
Felipe’s heart pounded in his ears at the thought. “Oliver.”
A whirlpool of feelings churned in Felipe’s chest as Oliver gently cupped his cheek. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t let Oliver walk into danger again. He had nearly lost him twice, and the thought of Oliver taking on a god or demon, or whatever the Lady was, filled him with a soul-crushing dread. Oliver was capable—more than capable—but Felipe learned early in his life that you didn’t put something precious in the hands of those who would destroy it without a second thought. Oliver stared into his eyes, and something between love and hurt crossed his features at what he saw there. His thumb stroked Felipe’s lip and cheek as his gaze darted to the papers clenched in Felipe’s fist as if that somehow held the answer to a question he needn’t ask aloud. Gently pulling the pages from his hand, Oliver set them aside and put his hands on Felipe’s shoulders. Their knees touched beneath the coverlet as Oliver’s lips brushed his.
“I love you, Felipe, but you can’t change my mind about this,” Oliver whispered as he wrapped his arms around him and hugged him close.
As Felipe pressed his face into Oliver’s shoulder, Mr. Turpin’s words echoed through his mind. There were far more important things at stake than the dead, and Oliver needed every resource at his disposal to fulfill his role in all of this. Felipe tightened his grip on his partner and listened to the steady beat of his heart on the other end of the tether. More than anything, he hoped that role wasn’t what he feared it was.
***
Felipe looked across the rolling hills of scrubland toward the setting sun. In the distance, he could make out the familiar silhouette of Señor Quintero’s ranch. His heart sat in his throat at the thought of a demon or creature being anywhere near Louisa or her father. Theyhad enough problems as it was; they certainly didn’t need dead cattle or worse, but he would make sure that didn’t happen. He and Alfonso had been tracking the creature for almost two days as it stole chickens and wreaked havoc at nightfall. During the day, they slept in small doses, searched for the creature’s hiding spot, and tried to catch up to it while talking to each other as little as possible. After the way Alfonso pounced on him the other day, Felipe had expected him to throw him in a ditch or heckle him the entire time, but he had been oddly civil.
Probably to impress the Patrón, Felipe thought with a roll of his eyes. That way, if his grandfather asked him how Alfonso treated him on his first mission without his father or uncles, he could find no fault with him. It hadn’t been long after Alfonso’s father returned that a man from the village spotted the demon and reported it to the Patrón. When his grandfather declared that Alfonso and Felipe would be the ones to track it down and kill it, he had been shocked. Demons moved fast, they killed indiscriminately, and the longer they were physical, the more dangerous they became. He remembered times when his father, uncles, and cousins had gone out together to chase one down and still came back worse for wear. They were incredibly hard to injure, let alone kill, yet his grandfather sent only two of his best novices. This demon didn’t seem to be inhabiting a human and had only been loose for a few days, so maybe that was why their grandfather thought they could handle it. If they couldn’t, they could always return home for help, though Felipe knew their pride meant they never would.
The night the Patrón announced Felipe and Alfonso would track down the demon the entire family went to the church for a special mass. Every Galvan boy sent out on his first mission was blessed by the priest, and a feast would be held in his honor if he returned victorious. It was as much a celebration of reaching manhood as his confirmation. As Felipe knelt before the priest while he performed the blessing in front of the whole family, he had expected to feel the rush of adrenaline and power so many of his cousins had described after their first missions. Instead, he felt nothing.
Felipe’s steps slowed as he and Alfonso skirted a cluster of lowtrees and brush. He smelled blood and organ meat before he saw it. Half hidden beneath a bush lay the carcass of a dead coyote. He wouldn’t have known it was a coyote if the tail hadn’t been left behind along with two half-gnawed legs. A rope of intestines hung out of it along with more glistening offal the demon hadn’t managed to eat. If there was a front half, Felipe couldn’t see it. Only a few years earlier, the sight and smell of an eviscerated animal would have turned his stomach, but he had grown numb to it. He sniffed again. The coyote was definitely fresh.
“Alfonso, I think we’re getting close,” Felipe said, raising the branch enough for the other man to see.
His cousin curled his lip and waved for him to cover it up. “I think you’re right. Let’s go higher up the ridge and set up camp. If it’s around here, we should be able to see it.”
By the time they reached the top of the ridge overlooking the trees and set up their scant camp, night had fallen. The campfire popped and smoked, casting queer shadows on the hill as Felipe sat on the ground and half-heartedly ate his portion of salted pork. In the distance, an owl hooted, and Felipe wondered if it was the same one that hooted too loudly outside Louisa’s window. Felipe’s eyes scanned the trees below for any sign of the demon. It was too close for comfort. He hoped the flame and smell of food being so near to its den would draw the monster to them instead of the Quinteros’ place. If it hurt anyone he knew, he would blame himself for the rest of his life. Silently sighing, Felipe eyed the flames. While they were walking and searching, he had scarcely thought about putting the blade to his flesh, but as the quiet and the emptiness of night settled over him, it gave his thoughts space to fester.
When he looked up at Alfonso from across the campfire, Felipe’s whole body locked. The man sitting across from him was a stranger. The fire threw his face into stark relief. Gone was the boy he had spent his entire life beside; all he could see now was the arrogant set of the man’s mouth and the harsh lines of his cheekbones and chin. His eyes had sunken into the shadows until all that remained were twin flamesburning straight into his soul. Felipe fought the urge to freeze like a deer before a wolf, but he knew Alfonso, or whatever sat in his place, had already sensed his weakness.
As the figure leaned forward to warm its hands, his cousin melted from the shadows with a familiar smirk. “What do you think of your first mission, joto?”
“It’s a lot more walking and doing nothing than I expected,” Felipe replied, releasing an almost imperceptible breath of relief. It was just first mission nerves. Anyone chasing a demon for the first time would be jumpy. “Is it always like this?”
“No, most demons don’t have wanderlust. This one’s mixed up in an animal, and sometimes, they do that. The ones in people tend to stick close to home, but it’s easier to deal with the animal ones. They’re stupider and more likely to approach a campfire.”
Felipe nodded, though he knew next to nothing about being an invocador. Where he had been all but cut-off from healing after too many failed lessons, Alfonso had been taken under his father’s wing to learn how to deal with demons and other creatures. A stab of envy ran through Felipe’s heart that Alfonso’s father dedicated time to him every day; the two men were closer than ever while Felipe’s father drifted through his life like a disapproving specter. It wasn’t fair that Alfonso got time and training to nurture his powers while Felipe’s had been left to rot when he didn’t progress fast enough. Felipe gripped the stick beside him and prodded the flames with more force than necessary. If he had his way, it would have been his hand in the fire. Anything to douse his thoughts. Their ancestors had been ordained as familiares because they had the powers and strength necessary to fight demons and the people who summoned them. Almost four hundred years later, every Galvan who could fight also had a power that was useful to the family; everyone but him.
At the snap of a branch, Felipe’s attention flickered to the trees below, but whatever made the sound was hidden by the brush. “I assume you aren’t going to exorcise the creature when we find it.”
“Nah, like I said yesterday, we’re just going to kill it and go home.”
“Do they know who summoned it?” Felipe asked. There hadn’t been time for him to gather any information. Once his grandfather announced he would be accompanying Alfonso to track and kill the demon, he had been spirited away to pack, pray, and prepare. In the past when demons or strange creatures had appeared, there had been a flurry of speculation in the compound. If someone was dabbling in witchcraft enough to summon something, they needed to be dealt with swiftly and harshly. When Felipe looked up from poking the fire, Alfonso was giving him the same shrewd look he had outside the church. With a shake of his head and a stretch, it was replaced with a languid smile.
“Don’t worry about it. Our fathers are handling it.” Alfonso craned his neck toward the dark expanse of the hill behind him. “I’m going to take a piss. Call me if you see anything.”
Felipe watched Alfonso walk into the shadows beyond the firelight. As he listened to his steps fade away, fear sharpened his senses. Choruses of crickets and cicadas sang in the trees in time with the rising moon. Somewhere in the distance, coyotes yipped and mournfully howled, and Felipe wondered if they were calling for their fallen mate. He hoped that the coyote had been old and sick because if the demon had caught a coyote— He didn’t want to think about it. Felipe added another stick to the fire and watched the flames lick up its length.
