Chapter Four
NEVER GIVE SOMEONEin shock a cup of anything hot.
That was one of the more practical things Jonah had picked up from under his granny’s kitchen table as she traded hexes for favors, chickens, and cash. People in shock were pliant. They’d drink boiling water if they were told to and only register their blisters too late.
Jonah didn’t have any milk in the fridge, so once the coffee was brewed, he added a splash of cold water from the tap to cool it down.
He took it through into the main room. Luke sat on the couch, hunched over with his elbows braced on his knees and his head in his hands. His fingers were buried in his wet hair, dug down through the curls to press against his scalp. He’d scrubbed his teeth in the bathroom until his gums were bloody with it, but it didn’t seem to have helped the nausea.
“Here,” Jonah said.“Drink this.”
Luke glanced up at him and pulled a sour face. “I’m not… I’m not drunk,” he said, each word carefully overpronounced. “I don’t drink. I’ve been sober for two years.”
“It’s for the shock,” Jonah said. “Drink it or just hold it. It’s up to you.”
After a second, Luke straightened up. He wiped his face on the filthy sleeve of his hoodie and reached for the mug. His hand shook as he took it, enough to slop tepid coffee over his fingers. Despite his protests, he drank the coffee on autopilot.
“This tastes like shit,” he said after a minute.
“Yeah, well, it’s free,” Jonah said. He perched on the arm of the couch and then grimaced at the stink. Alcohol sweated in sour waves from Luke’s pores, strong enough to make Jonah’s eyes water. He moved over to the worn rattan chair on the other side of the coffee table. Some long-gone cat had shredded the leg, and it creaked under Jonah’s weight as he sat down. “How long have you known Deborah Slater?”
Luke wrapped both hands around the white cup and stared into it at the murky liquid. A bruise was just visible on his temple as it spread down from his hairline, scabs of blood dried into his hair and the stubble that brushed along his jaw.
“I don’t know her,” he said. “That’s the point, remember. A fucking A.”
Apparently, drunk Luke swore a lot more than the sober version. Jonah kind of liked it.
“She’s in trouble,” Jonah said. “In” trouble and “was” trouble—close enough as far as he was concerned. “And her trouble just tried to kill you.”
A visible shudder racked Luke. He nearly dropped the cup but managed to tighten his grip and set it down with exaggerated care on the coffee table.
“I’m not Catholic,” he said. “This isn’t about the rules. I don’tknowher. She started to come to meetings about six months ago. All I know is that she usually wants to share and that she isn’t going to stay sober long.”
“Why not?” Jonah asked.
Luke shrugged. “She thinks it’s OK as long as it’s funny,” he said. “It’s not rock bottom if you can mine it for a good story to tell at parties, you know? Or maybe that’s not fair. She’s not the one who reeks of vodka.”
He stripped his hoodie off in sudden disgust, balled it up angrily in his hands, and then didn’t know what else to do with it. So he just sat there with it on his knees, his knuckles white as he clenched his hands into fabric-filled fists.
“Not exactly your choice,” Jonah pointed out. “That has to count for something.”
“Yeah, you know better than that,” Luke said. “Excuses can’t mean anything, ’cause there’salwaysan excuse. My mom died. My dad kicked me out because I suck cock… A monster sicked Tito’s all over my face!”
His voice broke, and he hunched over, one hand up to cover his mouth as he panted raggedly.
“You’ll forget,” Jonah said after a second. “Not all of it, but most of it. The edges will go, and it’ll just be a spooky story one night.”
“Promise?” Luke asked with an uneasy laugh.
Jonah didn’t. Some people didn’t forget. Something in them just wasn’t up to the whitewash, and they ended up on antipsychotics or in Babylon—whatever their local equivalent of Babylon was.
“Only works if you’re alive,” Jonah said. “That thing is still out there, looking for you. If we’re going to stop it, we need to find out why it wants you dead.”
“So… so what? Deborah’s a witch?” Luke asked.
“No,” Jonah said. That part he was sure of. Like knew like. “But she’s involved in this, and that got you involved. So… I need to talk to her.”
Luke screwed his face up as he thought, eyes squeezed closed as if it would help him concentrate. After a second, he groaned in exasperation and gave up.
