“Then Ryder came down to San Diego.” It was the shift in my world Dempsey hadn’t planned on. The arrival of the Sidhe into the city changed the dynamics, and the distant threat of Elfhaine was suddenly on his front porch. “That’s why you kept hounding me to do runs. To keep out of the city.”
“Figured that was best. I’d already gotten sick, and, well, we had a good thing going. Me out in Lakeside and you bringing in your bounty to clean up there. Things went to shit when the Post saddled you with that pointy-eared bastard. About lost my fucking mind when that asshole took you up to Elfhaine. I figured things would go to hell in a handbasket and we’d have to blow town but… then I got sick.” He turned his head, meeting my gaze head-on. “Someone up there wanted you. Someone up there knew about you. Knew Tanic had you. Now, I don’t know what they were going to do with you, but my guess is it wasn’t going to be good. Ryder seems to be on your side, but I don’t know if that’s a lie and he’s playing you or he’s ignorant of what happened. Either way, I’ve done my best by you, and, well, it’s time for you to step up and understand what’s out there.”
“Did Jonas know? Sparky?” I don’t know why I wanted to hear him say they were as clueless as I was about all of the lies he’d told me, but I wasn’t surprised to see him nod. The pain of it went deep, scoring down into my belly and guts. “Why? I mean, why did you even feel like you needed to make this shit up?”
“Because I needed to protect you. Or at least that’s what it came down to later. In the beginning? And I’m going to be honest with you, boy, because, well, you deserve it. The fewer people who knew I’d taken you out from under Tanic’s nose, the better,” Dempsey said with a shrug. “There’s an outstanding contract on you, and I more than a few times thought about turning you in because it’s been a shit road trying to haul you up. Right now, lying in this bed, I’m glad I didn’t, but it was close a few times. Especially when I was down hard.”
“You’d have handed me over to….” I didn’t finish it. I was a bounty Dempsey didn’t finish, a contract remainder he’d been dragging around for decades, and the people I counted as my family knew about it. “So, what? I was like a piggy bank for everyone? Something someone could eventually smash open and cash in if things looked dire?”
“At the start of it, yes.” He sugarcoated nothing, stabbing me deep with his bluntness. “At some point I began thinking of you as my apprentice, and then, well… my son. I did the best I could with you. And now that’s all I can give you. Because mark my words, boy. You best be watching the horizon for ainmhi dubh, because the devil’s coming for you and he’s coming hard.”
Three
LIGHTNING AND thunder rolled over the Presidio, the skies thick with dark, churning clouds glittering with sharp white electrical spikes. A heavy humidity settled over San Diego, pressing its weight down on everything until it was nearly impossible to breathe.
Or that could have just been me standing at the edge of a circle of mourners, waiting for either the gods to reach down and smite us for mourning a man some say was impossible to love or the damned priest to finish droning on about Dempsey as if he were some kind of angel come down from the Heavens to right every wrong set upon this Earth.
He clearly did not know the man, but apparently redemption and soul whitewashing were big in the Catholic Church.
People shuffled around me, their soft murmurs grating along my bled-raw heart. Ryder stood to my right, an odd glimmering blond comfort, and I was thankful for his silence. I couldn’t absorb any more drops of false condolences and prayers for Dempsey. I was still reeling from the last few hours I’d spent with him, sorting through my emotions and the false truths I’d been told. It wasn’t until the babble of harsh Latin stopped that I realized everyone was looking at me, expectant and impatient.
Oh yeah.
The brick.
I held it in my hands, too tightly probably, because I couldn’t seem to open my fingers to place it in the outstretched palms of the Post’s honor guard. The curved wall behind him was mostly hollows, but there were a few similar white bricks set into its winding arc through the Presidio’s northern garden. It was a peaceful slice of greenery and flowers, with sweeping willow trees providing shade for water ponds and comfortable benches no one ever sat on.
The wall itself was a marble river winding down the gentle slope, its thick face punctuated with rectangular hollows meant to fit the square stone boxes the crematorium provided to the Post for the rare Stalker who died someplace their body could be recovered. It was the final resting place for very few, usually those without families or, worse, abandoned by all but other Stalkers. We were a curious, antisocial bunch, but no one could understand the destruction and gore we lived in like another one of our kind, so it was only fitting we would gather together in death as we did in life.
One such hollow was waiting for Dempsey, a brass plate already gleaming above the gaping wound in the marble river, a metallic black sleeve fixed into the space to lock down the brick once it was put into place. All I had to do was give the brick to the man standing in front of me.
It was just so hard.
I felt like I needed to tell the man in his dress blues what he needed to know before I could hand him my father. Important things like he hated for his eggs to be runny. Over hard was his preference, but he could never flip them, so he usually ate them scrambled. While he liked a good cigar, any type of stogie would do, and he’d pitch a fit if someone splurged on an expensive box but squirrel them away to smoke on a special occasion. His whiskey had to be neat, and his beer needed to be ice cold. The telenovela he liked came on at three in the afternoon, and he didn’t need subtitles because he understood Spanish. The guard was going to have to make sure Dempsey cut his toenails or they would grow long and sharp enough to cut through his socks.
And most importantly, he always wanted to know what happened after every run. Mostly so he could criticize and tell someone how he would’ve done better.
“It’s time, Chimera.” Ryder’s hand was at the small of my back, his long fingers brushing over my spine. “It’s time to let go.”
My knuckles hurt, and I choked on the anger boiling in my guts. I wanted to scream at him that I didn’t get enough time. I never would. And the people who were around me who should’ve been a comfort were nothing more than a pack of liars who kept my own secrets from me, secrets I should’ve known in order to protect Dempsey. I was lost and drowning in a sea of emotions, my hands aching from gripping the brick too tightly and for too long.
“Goodbye, Dad,” I whispered as I brought the brick up to my lips to give Dempsey the one and only kiss I’d ever given him. “May the road rise up to meet you and may you always hit what you aim for.”
I placed the brick in the guard’s hands, and somehow the absence of its weight made me feel heavier. Brushing my fingers down my left thigh reminded me I didn’t have any of my guns, their cold hard comfort left locked up in my truck. The world was unsteady beneath my feet, and I couldn’t find anything to anchor myself with. Not until I found Ryder’s hand once again on my back, a spot of warmth in the blizzard raging inside of me.