38. Psychopomp

thirty-eight

“Veles,” she named the Slavic shepherd of the dead in a whisper. A door creaked open somewhere in the duplex, and Milla pressed her back against the wall. “Nepthys, Owuo, The Baron, Hel, the Valkyrie, Viduus,” and any of the chthonic psychopomps she could think of. Those tasked as escorts and guides. Names she had memorized as a witchling, terrified of her Way and seeking a connection, a reason, coming faster and faster as terror overtook reason. “Aminon, Hecate, Hermes, Morana, the Horned God—”

“Not the Horned God,” Tobias stated. “He slumbers below.”

“Nae helping, Tobe,” Darkly muttered.

Milla shrank to the floor, gripping her head and trying to breathe, but that Horned God-damned band was back around her chest, winching tighter and tighter. No one was supposed to be able to get into the Neitherworld. It had taken Milla, Ezra, and dozens of witches to do the impossible, but these ritualists had managed it and salted Darkly’s realm. They had almost trapped him in there, and now they were summoning and capturing Shades.

Who were they summoning? How did they get in? What were they trying to achieve?

Was it more of Marie’s witches trying to finish what she had started? She tried to think back, tried to bring any one of their faces to mind, but they all wore masks, and she’d been too drunk on Ezra, on champagne, on her Way.

Horned God, the room was too small, and the furniture was too big for the space. She needed to get out where there were no walls and no witches.

“I can’t do this.” The tight, tiny words left her like a wheeze, barely squeezing out of her lungs. It was the same thought she repeatedly had as they prepped for that Horned God-damned ritual, the one coherent thought she had when she Saw what came next.

Goddess, she had Seen it. Old Gods on earth, wild, unfettered magick, and the end of humanity as they knew it. C.R.O.W. had been founded in the aftermath of the Hundred Years’ War, regulating magick and locking away the Forbidden and Foule after bloodshed had ravaged Europe. Uncountable witches had been slaughtered like pigs or burned on the pyre, and Milla had Seen what would happen if they unleashed that hell on the world again. She had Seen it, and she could not bear the guilt of success.

“Tobias, I need a complete list of all attending covens and third parties.” Lou barked her orders, sending the witches into a flurry of motion. “Vampires, cultists, any desecrants approved to be on the grounds.”

The Loa had only been the start. What was it Marie said?

Things long kept from this world slipped through when you failed.

But she had not failed; she had stopped. She had saved them all and sacrificed Ezra, and if she fed the ritual at Beltane, if they had her Way, backed by all of that power …

“I can’t—” There was not enough air in her lungs, and the room was too loud, the lights too bright.

“Rai, pull every sanctioned ritual they expect to be performed. Every bit of magick, down to the intent the Mix Witches have decided to imbue in the alcohol.”

Milla pressed her palms to her ears, burying her face in her knees, but the sound would not stop. The tingling in her fingers and toes would not stop, and when it did not stop, the world stopped, and she couldn’t—

Shades fell around her, and Darkly followed, gathering Milla to his chest as he sat on the floor. “Sh, Milla. I’ve got you.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?”

“We can’t feed that ritual.” His arms tightened around her, and Milla sank into the embrace. “What if I can’t control my Way? What if I’m the reason they succeed?”

“Keir, you’re on interrogations. Pull whatever you can. I don’t care how long they’ve been haunting the space; we need—are you listening?” Lou’s voice carried across the room, and somewhere in the duplex, a door slammed. Darkly kissed the top of Milla’s head, boldly ignoring his sister. He rubbed his palm up and down her spine, and she matched her breathing to the cadence, using every trick he had taught her.

Darkly, his arms, the rumble of his voice and steady pressure of his hand, the cotton of his shirt against her cheek, his lips against her ear.

“How are we going to do this?” A wave of nausea rolled up from her belly, drying out her mouth as she looked at Darkly. A smile flickered, there and gone again.

“Dinnae ken.”

“Ugh, Goddess. Donny, you’re on wards,” Lou doled out the last of her orders. “Call the Panhandle Coven; I want to know everything they are doing to keep the grounds secure from prying eyes and the names of the casting witches.”

“Of course,” Donmar rumbled, the floorboards creaking under his feet as he walked the hall.

“What about us?” Milla pressed her cheek against Darkly’s chest, knowing she looked pathetic and not giving a singular shit about it.

Lou cocked her head, eyes gleaming. Shining white hair slipped over her shoulder, sparkling in the morning light. “We run you at exhaustion,” she said coldly. “And we drown her Way.”

“Lou, no.” Darkly stiffened. “You cannae keep poisoning Milla.”

“I can and I will. She owes the ritual, and it’s my reputation on the line. What happens when I can’t deliver a Death Witch, hm? Have you considered what that means for you? Once C.R.O.W. decides I’m no longer fit to babysit their Forbidden and Foule pets, what do you suppose happens next?” Darkly’s arms tightened, and he dropped his head. “Can’t cleave yourself, can’t cleave her. Fancy a visit to the salt and marble?”

He shook his head, stubble snagging in Milla’s hair.

“Good.” Lou sniffed. “Exhaustion and tea. We’ll present her as weak, a non-issue, showing the covens she is no threat and giving these ritualists as little as possible of her Way. Now get up; there’s work to be done.”

Milla refreshed the browser, willing the number in Southern Gothic’s account to be bigger. According to Rai, her tea would not be ready until that evening; something about hawthorn and the optimal time of day to grind cloves. With the rest of the team occupied, there was nothing to do but wait. She hated waiting almost as much as she hated Lou’s idea. Weak was how Ezra wanted her. Broken and reliant on him to teach her, guide her, and train her for their ritual. Weak was what she had been hiding in St. Augustine until her Way burned, and weak was the witch who tried to raise her Gone ex-husband.

For the last year, Milla had worked to leave that weakness behind. She had the store, Diego, and Julie. She had the beginnings of something good, a strong foundation, and now she was back at square one: weak and at the mercy of C.R.O.W. And Lou and the billionaire who bought the building.

“It’s about industry,” Stefan Holfstaedter said in the video on her phone. “And the economics of the thing. Invisible hand and all.”

She scowled at the billionaire in his perfectly tailored Oxford and tastefully undone buttons, then frowned at the depressingly small number in Southern Gothic’s bank account. Goddess, she couldn’t even fix this.

“Stop hyperfixating.” Julie slammed the tablet face down, bright blue eyes intent on Milla. “You can’t keep that silver fox from buying the building, so focus on something you can do.”

“If they hadn’t revoked my right of first refusal, I could have—”

“Bought the building with your ex-husband’s life insurance policy.” She rolled her eyes. “I know, sweetpea, you keep bringing it up. But they did, and you can’t, and we just have to make it work. Which it won’t if you don’t fix whatever happened there.” Julie pointed down the hallway, and they both turned their heads toward Celine Dion’s muffled wailing. “If I have to listen to All By Myself one more time, Milla, I’m going to kick the door down and take one of your creepy railroad spikes to his stereo.”

“They’re not creepy.” She crossed her arms. “They’re locally sourced.”

“Locally…” Julie grunted. Or maybe it was a scoff. It was sometimes hard to tell with her. “They’re from an abandoned rail line that’s haunted by the ghosts of little children who died on a bus. What is wrong with you.” She swept the tablet from Milla’s reach and waved it at the hall. It vanished, allowing Julie to cross her arms and hit Milla with a mom glare. “Go. Talk to him. Listening to power ballads that loudly is a verified cry for help.”

“Where’d the tablet—”

“ Go. ”

Milla squeaked and scurried away, but not before glancing at the counter display, where the tablet was back in its dock.

Celine Dion’s voice bled through the particleboard door, wailing about loneliness. That was heartening. Julie was right, if Diego was already drowning himself in power ballads, it meant he was processing what had happened and might be ready to talk about it, which gave Milla an easy in.

She rapped twice on the door and waited, silently celebrating when Celine’s voice cut off. A moment later, the door cracked open. She took it as an invitation and pushed it wider as Diego resumed his seat at the sewing table, a needle pinched in his teeth. He had repaired the tiny room in her absence and replaced the carpet, but the edge of the table was still blackened and shriveled from the panic attack Darkly had barely been able to shield.

A long moment passed in silence as Diego threaded a bobbin and inserted it into his sewing machine. Milla cleared her throat, and when he did not look up, she said, “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

Folding a hem on a swathe of flannel, he pulled the needle from his teeth and slid it into the fabric. “Why would I not be okay.”

“After this morning,” she prompted. “And last night, That was … a lot. I was worried that you—”

“I am fine.”

“Diego, come on.” She leaned against the doorframe. One look at the witch was enough to shatter the lie. He’d come to work in rumpled pants and a plain t-shirt, not a cuffed hem or accessory in sight, and she strongly doubted he had showered that day. His hair hung lank and a little greasy, which Milla had not seen since she introduced him to leave-in conditioner and blowouts. “Talk to me.”

“Why?” He finally looked up, his red, puffy eyes magnified behind his glasses. “So you can make this about you, as well?”

“Whoa.” Milla pressed a hand in the air, halting that before it started. “I never—”

“I, I, I—I am so sick of hearing you say ‘I.’” He slapped the side of his sewing machine. “If I wanted to speak with you about this morning or last night, do you not think I would have done so?”

She opened her mouth, stopping the next “I” before it escaped. Diego choked on a bitter laugh, muttering under his breath in Spanish as he turned on the sewing machine. A hum filled the office, and he adjusted the flannel on the plate, feeding it through.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” Milla had to raise her voice to be heard, hating how it sounded like she was shouting at him, but if Diego was so determined to be mad at her, she at least deserved to know why.

He stilled, foot leaving the pedal, and the humming died away. “Because he was for me,” he finally said. “He was mine, and he was wonderful, and I did not want your influence decaying something so beautiful and new.”

He might as well have reached into Milla’s chest and squeezed her heart. “That’s not fair.”

“Is it not?” Diego glared at her, his eyes, normally so warm and inviting, full of cold, angry blame. “He is a cultist, Milla. When have you ever had a kind word to say about them? When have you ever taken the chance to get to know one? Never. You call them drunks and weirdos. You spit at any mention of them; why would I tell you about Trav when you hate the very thing he is?” He clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring. “When it is probably your fault he is one?”

“I didn’t know!” She moved into the room, and Diego narrowed his eyes.

“Always your excuse,” he hissed and pressed down on the pedal, shouting over the hum of the sewing machine. “You did not know, you did not think, you did not want—” He blinked, and tears streamed down his flushed cheeks. “You did not know those were my bones; you did not think that ritual would raise me. You did not want to take responsibility for your actions. You never have, and witches are missing, Milla. People are getting hurt; I am getting hurt because of it.”

The flannel snagged on the needle, and he grunted, reversing the feed. It jammed a second time, and he flicked frustrated fingers at the fabric. A raw snarl tore out of his throat when nothing happened, and Diego threw his body back in the chair, slapping his hands on the table and staring at the edge.

“Everything I am is an extension of you .” He spoke in a carefully calm voice, pacing out the words to ensure Milla absorbed every last one of them. “Do you know how that feels? My Shade is not even my own, Milla. It is a shred of yours. I only exist because of your mistakes, and I finally had something of my own, only to find out you tainted it before I even had a chance to—” His voice caught, and he pinched his mouth closed, bringing tear-sheened eyes up to hers.

Milla had no words. What could she say? Never in his second life had Diego yelled at her; never had he spoken a harsh word. A look, sure. A stern critique paired with a guiding hand, yes. But never this animosity.

The moment stretched, Milla caught in his unwavering, unblinking gaze. It filled the tiny room, drowning out all sound until all that remained was her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Her pulse was so heavy she felt it pounding in her temples and tingling in her fingers and toes, rushing in her ears like the quiet hiss of hushed laughter.

Diego’s phone buzzed, and he blinked, releasing Milla from his pain. She lurched forward as the world caught up to the moment, and sound rushed in—a car horn blaring on Hipolyta, the jangle of bells, and Julie calling out, “Hello.”

“Everything changed,” Milla said.

“Aplicación estúpida,” Diego scowled at his phone and cleared the screen before frowning at her. “Yes, Milla, things change. People change, and they adapt. You might consider doing the same.” The pedal clacked as he slammed his foot down, and the sewing machine whirred to life. “Dejame solo,” he said. Leave me alone . Adding as an afterthought, “Por favor.”

She backed out of the room and closed the door, making it two steps down the hall before she froze.

Tobias leaned on the counter, a bright, broad grin lighting up his face as he watched Julie rambling animatedly about something.

“And this one?” He pointed at the glass without looking away. Julie flushed a bright pink and glanced down, pressing her fingers to her mouth as she giggled.

“That’s the Victorian.”

“Ja? With all those triangles?”

At her answering giggle, Milla palmed her face, sighing when Celine Dion resumed warbling in the sewing room.