He slapped down three cards on the concrete floor. Death, the Empress, the Devil.
Think, Adam, think, get inside it —
The closest fluorescent buzzed harshly, suddenly over-bright, then just as suddenly out.
Adam’s subconscious fled through Cabeswater’s consciousness, both of them tangled up in this strange bargain he’d made.
Death, the Empress, the Devil. Three sleepers, yes, yes, he knew that, but they only needed one, and anyway, what did Cabeswater care about who was sleeping on the ley line, what did it need from Adam?
His mind focused on a branched thought, traveled along a limb, to a trunk, down to roots, into the ground. In that darkness and dirt and rock, he saw the ley line. Finally, he saw the connection and where it broke and understood what Cabeswater was asking him to repair. Relief washed over him.
“I get it,” he said out loud, falling back, catching himself on the cold concrete. “I’ll do it this week.”
The shop immediately returned to normal. The radio had resumed playing; Adam hadn’t heard the moment it had started up again. Although Cabeswater’s means of communication could be terrifying — apparitions, black dogs, howling winds, faces in mirrors — the point was never to intimidate. He knew that. But it was hard to remember it as the walls shifted and water beaded on the inside of windows and imaginary women sobbed in his ear.
It always stopped as soon as Adam understood. It only ever wanted him to understand.
He heaved a big breath next to his tarot cards. Time to get back to work.
But.
He heard something. There should not have been anything, not anymore.
But something was scraping on the shop door. It was a dry, thin noise, like paper tearing. A claw. A nail.
But he’d understood. He’d promised to do the work.
He wanted to tell himself that it was only a leaf or a branch. Something ordinary.
But Henrietta was no longer someplace ordinary. He was no longer someone ordinary.
“I said I understood,” Adam said. “I get it. This week. Does it need to be sooner?”
There was no response from within the garage, but outside, something light and uneasy moved past one of the windows, high off the ground. There was just enough light to see its scales.
Scales.
Adam’s pulse sped, his heart beating so hard that it hurt.
Surely Cabeswater believed him; he had never let it down before. There were not rules, but there was trust.
A noise came just outside the door: tck-tck-tck-tck.
The garage door hurtled open. It sounded like a freight train as it roared along its tracks on the ceiling.
In the grim evening, in the deep-blue-black rain of it, a pale monster reared. It was needle claws and savage beaks, ragged wings and greasy scales. It was so against everything that was real that it was hard to even see it truly.
Terror owned Adam. The old terror, the one that was just as much confusion and betrayal as fear itself.
He had done everything right. Why was this still happening if he’d done everything right?
The horror of an animal took a scratching, slithering step toward Adam.
“Shoo, you ugly bastard,” said Ronan Lynch.
He stepped out of the rain and into the shop; he had been hidden in the dark in his jacket and his dark jeans. Chainsaw clung to his shoulder. Ronan lifted a hand to the white beast as if casting off a ship. The creature drew its head back, side-by-side beaks parting.
“Go on,” Ronan said, unafraid.
It took flight.
Because it was not just any monster; it was Ronan Lynch’s monster. A night horror brought to vicious life. It floated up into the dark, strangely graceful once its face was out of sight.
“Damn, Ronan, damn,” Adam gasped, ducking his head. “Oh, God. You scared the shit out of me.”
Ronan smirked. He didn’t understand that Adam’s heart was actually going to explode. Adam wrapped his arms over the back of his neck, curling into a ball on the concrete, waiting to feel like he wasn’t going to die.
He heard the garage door rattle closed again. The temperature rose immediately as the wind was locked out.
A boot shoved Adam’s knee.
“Get up.”
“You ass**le,” Adam muttered, still not lifting his head.
“Get up. It wasn’t going to hurt you. I don’t know why you’re pissing yourself.”
Adam uncurled. He was slowly getting enough function back to be more annoyed than afraid. He pushed to his feet. “There’s more going on in the world than just you, Lynch.”
Ronan turned his head sideways to read the cards. “What’s this?”
“Cabeswater.”
“What the f**k is wrong with your face?”
Adam didn’t reply to this. “Why was it with you?”
“I was at the Barns. It followed the car.” Ronan prowled around the Pontiac, peering at the process inside with a disinterested lack of comprehension. Chainsaw flapped down to crouch on the engine block, head ducked.
“Don’t,” Ronan warned. “That’s toxic.”
Adam wanted to ask what it was that Ronan had been doing at the Barns all of these days and evenings, but he didn’t press. The Barns was Ronan’s family business, and family was private.
“I saw your shitbox in the lot on the way back,” Ronan said. “And I figured, anything to avoid Malory for a few more minutes.”
“Touching.”
“What do you think of the idea of researching Greenmantle’s spiderweb? Possible? Not possible?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Do it, then, for me,” Ronan said.
Adam laughed in disbelief. “Do it for you! Some of us have homework, you know.”
“Homework! What’s the point?”
“Passing grades? Graduation?”
Ronan swore in a way that indicated further disinterest.
“Are you just trying to make me angry?” Adam asked.
Ronan picked up a socket from the worktable on the other side of the Pontiac. He studied it in a way that suggested he contemplated its merit as a weapon. “Aglionby is kind of pointless for people like us.”
“What is ‘people like us’?”
“I’m not going to use it,” Ronan said, “to get some job with a tie —” He made a hanging motion above his neck, head tilted. “And you could find a way to make the ley line work for you since you’ve already bargained with it.”
Adam retorted, “What’s it you see me doing right now? Where is it we even are?”
“Insultingly close to that Toyota is where I am.”