“I’d never suggest otherwise.” I offered her a smile.
She visibly relaxed. “Are you searching for Miss Winchester?”
“How did you guess?”
“You are always looking for Miss Winchester,” she replied bluntly.
“Touché.” I chuckled. “Where can I find the merry little bibliomaniac?”
Mary frowned. “Will I ever become used to your odd idioms?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Indeed. Well, she is in the first-floor parlor with that handsome sentinel of hers and the fellow with the peculiar silver hair. You may tell the latter, when you see him, that I do not appreciate his hound barking at me.” Mary looked affronted, smoothing down the already smooth front of her dress.
I gave a nod. “Of course, Miss Foster.”
I made my way up the creaking staircase that led to the house. Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed Mary watching me go, a sad expression on her face. It couldn’t be easy for her, existing here. It couldn’t be easy for any of the spirits to have to watch the living every day, remembering the life they’d had before the Winchester rifle took it. I wondered if Mary would ever cross over, but she’d been here this long… maybe a half-life was better than no life at all.
Is that what I have? A half-life? This servitude was, at least, keeping me breathing. But it couldn’t last. One way or another, I’d stop serving Erebus. I’d either go back to a real life, with the hope of doing all the normal stuff people did, or stop existing altogether. Escape or death, death or escape. Two terrifying options. What if I came close to escape, only for death to catch me? That would be worse than accepting the inevitable outcome of every servant of Erebus, bar one. But I had to try.
On the other side of a long corridor with sickly green wallpaper, I found the parlor and knocked.
“Come in!” Melody called from the other side.
I found her ensconced in an armchair, with Luke standing over her and Nash seated opposite. They looked like they were about to stage an intervention.
“Have you been expecting me?” I joked.
“Not at all, what a pleasant surprise!” Melody chimed. “We didn’t think we’d see you until tomorrow. You were supposed to be researching with Ryann, weren’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, does everyone know my business?”
Melody looked puzzled. “You texted me to tell me where you were.”
“Oh.” My cheeks flamed. “Well, then… I’ll let you off the hook.”
“How did it go?” Luke flashed a knowing smirk.
“I’ll be wheezing for a week from all the dust.” I crossed to the spare armchair, which was also a sickly green, though darker than the walls. Where had they found all this ugly furniture? “I had to bounce early, due to allergies.”
Luke snorted. “Sure you did.”
“Be nice.” Melody shot him a warning look. “Anyway, why do we have the pleasure of your company?”
“I can’t just swing by?” I sank into the chair and unleashed a mighty sigh.
“Of course you can! But I get the feeling this isn’t a casual visit, considering everything that’s going on.” Melody smiled. “I can’t wait until all this is over, and you can just swing by whenever you feel like it. Goodness, won’t that be strange? A good kind of strange, I mean. It’s just… I’ve never really had friends, and I’d like to know what it’s like.” She lowered her gaze and fidgeted. “Sorry, that was a bit TMI, wasn’t it?”
My heart went out to her. “Not at all. It’d be nice to have a normal life, but I should warn you, you’ll be sick of the sight of me when this is over. You’ll wish you’d never made friends with me and my folks back at the SDC.”
Her eyes brightened. “I could never get sick of any of you!”
“I’ll remind you of that when you’re on your sixth coffee date of the week.” I shot a friendly wink in her direction.
“Why are you here, again?” Luke cut in, clearly not appreciating my excellent winking skills.
“I’ve made a decision.”
Luke narrowed his eyes. “What kind of decision?”
“I’m going to hunt down Davin and take that bastard’s amulet from him.” I waited for rapturous applause. Instead, Nash gave a discreet nod, which was almost as good.
“About time. I’ve been waiting for you to come back and say you’re ready to find that cretin.” Huntress gave a bark of appreciation, and Nash ruffled her fur. “Count me in, as long as I get to settle my own score.”
“Naturally,” I replied.
Nash nodded to Melody. “Actually, we’ve already done some of the groundwork for that.”
“You have?” I glanced at the Librarian, who jittered with excitement.
“Oh, yes. Nash asked me to search for an obscure tracking spell, one which bypasses some of the defenses Davin seems to have. It’s an oldie but a goodie. We’ve been gathering ingredients while you were away—I hope you don’t mind. It was just so we could really get the ball rolling when you came back. You know, if you decided to go ahead with finding Davin. You seemed set on it when you left, so we thought it’d be a good use of our time to get everything in order,” she rambled.
“Wow… I… well, I wasn’t expecting that.” I gaped at them. They’d been a busy bunch of bees.
Nash scratched the spot between Huntress’s ears. “Some of the ingredients were harder to come by, it being such an old spell. But we figure we can use my blood instead; it’ll replace just about anything that’s missing.”
I shook my head, amused. “After all the effort it took to get eight measly vials from you, now you’re just giving the stuff away?”
Nash remained stony-faced. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d cracked a smile. “I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve come to realize that I’ll never get any peace or normalcy in my life until Davin is dead. I knew that before, when I chose to curse myself. But I should’ve realized it was only a temporary measure—and one that would’ve killed me, instead of the person who deserves to die.”
He subconsciously brushed his fingertips across the crook of his elbow, where the blood had been drawn. “If we can find a way to keep Erebus away from us and out of the magical world, that’s a big win in my book. But that can wait. Davin first.”
“So, we’re all on the same page?” I glanced at Melody and Luke, who hadn’t said a word.
Melody nodded eagerly. “I’m all for it. Anything that can get you out of your deal sounds all right by me. I wish my mind palace could do more, but I keep drawing a blank when it comes to escaping Erebus’s service. Whether that’s purposeful, and all Children of Chaos evasion tactics have deliberately been blocked, or there really is no other way… I couldn’t say. But as long as we have a shot, that must be good, right?”
Bless her. She had more enthusiasm in her little finger than most people had in their entire bodies. Namely, Luke. He looked as stony-faced as Nash, evidently unimpressed that I was, yet again, roping Melody into something a bit dangerous. Melody peered up at him with imploring eyes, likely bracing for the tirade of “Nope. Not a chance. Not gonna happen” about to spill from his mouth. Instead, he rasped a resigned sigh.