Whispering Willow Cemetery was deserted, but it felt far from empty. Mounds of soil were piled before shadowed headstones. Windblown tree branches created spindly fingers on the narrow dirt walkway. A shiver walked the knobs of my spine, and I had the strangest feeling that if I made the wrong move, I’d be invited to join the local residents.
Or compelled.
I hurried down the path that led to Sexton’s small domicile. It wasn’t a house. It was far too small to properly house anyone larger than a squirrel. It wasn’t a shed, either. People kept tools in a shed.
My guess: it was a doorway to wherever Bertrand Sexton went when he wasn’t here. There was no way to know for sure. I wasn’t about to go inside.
I knocked on the heavy door, my knuckles making a thin, metallic sound against the wood. Weird. But then, this was Sexton. It would’ve been easier to count the things that weren’t weird about this place.
“Paging Lord Bertrand Sexton,” I said.
The door opened, and a whoosh of frigid air blew me back several steps. “Betty?”
“Yes. It’s me. Sorry I didn’t call first.” I rubbed my upper arms in an attempt to warm up. The temperature tonight was mild, but that breeze had been deep-freeze cold. “I, uh, need something, and I think you’re the only one who can help me.”
He exited the doorway in a tangle of elbow twists, knee bends, and head bobs. The demon was, after all, seven feet tall with the build of a gaunt insect, and the doorway barely seemed large enough for me to fit through.
“You are in need, and you have come to me. I am pleased.” The smile that spread across his face was made of square white teeth allof a similar size. Like the way a kid might draw dentures. It wasn’t his usual smile, and it creeped me right the hell out.
Nevertheless, I continued.
“I brought you a gift.” I held out the package Cecil had prepared. “Belladonna tea. The demon-grown strain is flourishing in my partner’s care.”
That was probably because the plant and gnome had a lot in common. Both were mostly good but also sort of evil.
“There’ll be more soon,” I said. “Cecil and I are just, eh, trying to be careful how much we harvest. As you know, it’s difficult to grow demonic plants in this world.”
“Wonderful. I thank you and Mr. Cecil.” He held out a skeletal hand, and I set the package in his palm. His cold fingers sprang like a trap, ensnaring me in his grasp. Every grain of soil clinging to my hand made a hard jump to the left.
“Uh, Sexton?”
“You carry your living soil on your flesh.” The creepy smile widened. “You have established a connection with the mother.”
An odd way to put it, but this was Sexton.
“Yes.”
“Yet, you do not seem happy.”
“I’m not. See, there’s this guy.” Saying it like that imbued the situation with a casualness I definitely wasn’t feeling. “Not just a guy. A man. An important man.” I cleared my throat. “It’s Ronan Pallás. He’s missing.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I’ve looked for him,” I said, my voice breaking. “No one knows where he is or even if he’s alive.”
“You would like me to ascertain his standing in the realms?”
Again, a strange way to put it, but also again, this was Sexton.
“I need to know that he’s all right.”
“And if you discover he does not want to be found?”
Ouch. The idea that Ronan had run away without letting me know and was perfectly fine somewhere while I was sick withworry and looking for him hurt. Hard shot to the kidneys sort of pain.
Yet it had been the song playing on the radio in my head these last few days as I searched for the witches. A haunting, back-of-the-brain dirge that dragged out all my insecurities surrounding my feelings for him.
“If it turns out he doesn’t want to be found, I can accept that.”
