Page 69 of How I Met Your Murderer

Dearest Chloe,

I don’t know what to say or where to start, but how’s this? I’m sorry I wasn’t there on your special day. I should’ve been standing next to you as your Man of Honor, holding your bouquet and making faces at you so we wouldn’t cry, and instead you had to do it all without me. I hate that I wasn’t there to tell you how proud I am of you and Annie, and to bore you both with cat facts.

I’ve been thinking about your wedding a lot lately because not being there is one of my biggest regrets. I bet you wore something you thrifted for a steal, and Annie had on a designer gown that somehow perfectly coordinated with yours. I hope it was beautiful. I hope everyone loved the traditional Chinese banquet Annie’s family would have planned for the reception, and I hope you danced until your feet hurt. I hope you still laugh the way you used to after two cocktails on the rooftop with me in the middle of the week.

Before I go, I need you to know that I had every intention of being there; I didn’t jump off some tourist attraction, I fell. I was so excited to stand beside you and support you for once, instead of always being the little brother you had to worry about. But hey, one bit of good news: there’s no hypoglycemia in the afterlife.

I don’t know how things are for you now—honestly, trying to imagine it is hard for me, because I miss you and Amy and Elena so much I can’t stand it, but I hope everything is good. I hope Annie makes you tea in the mornings and that you still keep plants alive better than I ever could. I hope you’re surrounded by people who see you the way I always did: the bravest, kindest person in any room. And I hope that if you’re still in endocrinology, you do what you set out to and cure type one someday. Even though I won’t be there to celebrate, I hope you know that I’d be the one cheering for you the loudest.

I miss you, and us, and knowing what your days look like.

When you think of me, I hope the memories are soft and warm. Tacos and margs on a Monday night. Mario Kart with the cats. Faneuil Hall feasts. The one and only time we tried ice skating. I hope you know I loved you more than I ever said out loud.

—Love you, E.J.

All right then, Chloe. I hope it’s okay that I’ve passed this along. From what Eric has shared about you (a lot), I feel like we’ve already met. It’s clear that he was always very loved by his sisters, even when he was frustrated with your parents at times. Thank you for that, because it’s what I would have wanted for him, too.

If there’s anything you want to know about Eric’s time at Ardruin in the afterlife, I’d be glad to share what I can. Or just to have a chat, if you feel like it. I don’t want to intrude, but I thought you might want a connection to this part of him.

Maybe it could be a comfort.

Wishing you continued health and happiness.

Take care,

Raff

twenty-one

Liability Sorted

Raff

Days to Halloween: 20

There were only nineteen days left where I’d have the chance to wake up and find Eric’s eyes already gazing at me, waiting to greet me with the morning. Nineteen chances to lean over and kiss him right away, so I could be the first good thing to happen to him that day. So even though the weight of many souls rested heavy on my shoulders, I laid there for as long as my sore, stiff body would allow, captured in his eyes. I rather liked how I looked in them, my sharp features set in a way that said I was ready to fight to the death for him.

I was.

And while Eric read over my email to Chloe to give the official okay on sending it off, I started my battle with the Dolans. If I could succeed where Lorcan had failed, and convince them to shut Céad Míle Fáilte down somehow, at least I’d know I had deprived Gary of any future victims—no more souls for him to trap and one day absorb like a nice, juicy burger. Maybe, starved of its food source, the elemental would eventually wither away. Or maybe, like Niamh had suggested, the spirit was as much a part of the stain on this land as the blood that had once soaked it, and it would be here in some capacity forever.

I wouldn’t know unless I tried.

But there was also the matter of the spirits already here. Even though some of them were starting to look like Halloween decorations themselves, they were still just people. Síofra was so excited to “play magic” in our first D&D session that evening, like she hadn’t had many chances to pretend and imagine in life. And Gráinne, who the elemental had murdered just like Eric, was always bounding out of her latest hidey-hole to crash into my legs and give them a massive hug. We had four different secret handshakes I was losing track of, though that might have been mostly thanks to the lack of sleep. I liked Donnacha and his old mare, no strangers to hard work and doing their duty. I liked the way Brother Fintan had caught the measure of what was going on between me and Eric and smiled with warm approval despite all the centuries and beliefs that separated us. I even liked listening to Liam Donnelly’s fishing yarns he was always telling if I said I had five minutes (when he really wanted thirty).

I cared about every single one of them. And if our suspicions were right, and the elemental felt threatened by my presence, it was going to keep taking them and using them to make itself stronger as long as I was here.

But I couldn’t leave Eric. Or the living, for that matter. I was stuck, and the only thing likely standing between me and becoming a future snack for a power-mad spirit was the black salt pendant I wore. Sure, I had ExorSquad’s guns with their electrical pulses—but they’d barely blown a hole in the bog bride from the inn, who was a level three at best. Not an entity that could shape a hand out of water and strangle someone with it.

What was I going to do if Gary decided to try absorbing Eric? Zap the elemental with a weapon that would probably misfire and hit Eric, and make everything worse?

I needed something more reliable. The black salt in my pendant—it had left me untouched so far, despite being the apparent target of the elemental’s wrath. I considered pouring the salt across every window and doorway in the castle, but then, that didn’t make sense—Gary had so many little unseen pathways into the building. The elemental was a part of the stone and the roots growing beneath it. If it wanted to get in, it would.

But if I had a whole jar of that black salt, I could pour some in the water, toss it in the fire—use it to poison the elemental’s favorite mediums wherever it started to manifest. After I talked to the Dolans, I’d go back and get more from Niamh, and then have Eric rub it all over himself so at least I wouldn’t be worried about him every minute of the day.

The castle, its undead lodgers—I was a part of them now, too. Had been since sometime before I realized Eric had plucked my heart from my chest and decided to keep it, but after that first day when he stole my club pin.

And maybe they didn’t know they were counting on me, but I still wasn’t going to let them down. Even if, at the end of it all, I was guaranteed to walk away alone.