I expected the drive back to Gran’s to feel like a long journey. Yet, I’d been so caught up contemplating my conversation with Carter and vaguely dreading the inevitable questions George’s absence would trigger that I was absentmindedly parking the car before I realized the drive was over. Granted, I hadn’t actually killed him, but that was a technicality. I’d taken him out there with the express purpose of killing him. If Carter hadn’t shown up when he did, I would have done it. The part that troubled me most was how little I felt about the man’s death. It seemed like the murder of any human being ought to be met with some kind of emotion, but I was blank in those terms. I just didn’t care that the man was dead.

I didn’t like what that said about me. Was it just him, or would I prove equally indifferent in the future to the deaths of other people I didn’t like? Would I feel differently about it if I did the deed? The possibility that I’d be more torn up if I killed someone was something I clung to with desperation. I needed that reassurance because I suspected that Bill would sleep just fine if he’d killed George. Being like Bill was something I no longer aspired to. He’d kept something vital from me. He said he had good reasons for it. That was probably true, but the hurt was so fresh that the pain tainted everything that touched it. Bill had always carried himself with an effortless cool. That always makes an impression. Yet, that effortless cool had taken on an edge of cruel indifference in my mind’s eye. I knew that was the reaction of a child, but that knowledge didn’t change anything.

I stood on the walk outside Gran’s house and regarded the place. However things panned out with Carter, things wouldn’t be the same between me, Gran, and Bill. They just couldn’t be. I might find it in myself to forgive the deceptions, eventually. Even if I forgave them, though, the basic fact of their deceit would color everything moving forward. I’d question, however subconsciously, whether they were telling me the whole truth. There would be a gulf between the three of us and, hard as I might find it, that gulf would probably never disappear completely. For now, though, we had to survive Carter. That was assuming we even could survive him. The possibility felt terribly remote. I gritted my teeth and went inside. Bill saw me first when I came through the door and immediately rushed me into the bathroom.

He gave me a grim look. “Clean yourself up before the others see you. I’ll get you a clean shirt.”

He closed the door firmly and left me to examine myself in the small mirror. Christ, no wonder he rushed me out of sight. I looked like something out of a horror movie. There was dried blood splattered across my face and shirt like some demented Rorschach inkblot. I turned on the water in the sink and stared down at my hands while I waited for the water to warm up. There was more blood on my hands. At least a couple of my knuckles were split and, now that I was paying attention, I realized my hands hurt. I experimentally flexed my fingers. Everything seemed to move okay, but the fingers those Raven’s Council dicks broke sent tiny electric arcs of pain up to my brain. I watched in morbid fascination as black flakes broke free of my hand and dropped down into the sink. They turned immediately crimson in the water.

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I peeled off my shirt and soaked the cleanest parts of it. I used to shirt to scrub myself as clean as I could. There were towels folded neatly on a rack that I could have used, but I didn’t. Gran wouldn’t have batted an eye at it. I’d come home bloodied more than once. Unlike the towels, though, the shirt was immediately disposable. I dug around under the sink and came up with a small trash bag. I was about to shove the shirt into the bag when the door swung open. I thought about throwing the bloody shirt into the tub, but there wasn’t any time. Jessie stood in the open door. She looked from my face to the shirt and then to the bag. She grimaced a little.

“Throw that away before Annie sees it,” was all she said before closing the door again.

The shirt went into the bag immediately and I tied it closed. I peered into the mirror again. I looked like me again, if a painfully tired version of me. I’d take that over the version who looked like something a psychology professor would show off to his class at Psycho U. I dropped the bag on the floor and sank down onto the toilet seat lid. Gran had put a fuzzy pink cover on it in for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom. Maybe she just liked the color. I sat there as a weariness so profound that it left me shaking washed over my body. There’d been so much going on up until that moment that there wasn’t time to notice. Now, though, I felt all the healing I had left to do. I felt every minute of lost sleep, every ounce of stress, and I just wanted to curl up on the floor and lose myself to unconsciousness.

I didn’t get the chance, though. Bill opened the door and tossed a battered t-shirt to me. I unfolded it and found myself staring at a much faded Empire Strikes Back shirt. I felt sure I could have found some symbolism in that if I’d been less tired. As it was, I just dragged the shirt over my head and followed Bill out to the living room. I met a group of eyes that expressed a kind of dark certainty about what had gone down after I disappeared to find George. It was Gran who finally spoke.

“Well, I guess you best tell us what happened with him, Jericho.”

I gave her a hollow look. “Carter showed up.”

Everyone jerked at that announcement.

Bill eyed me hard. “What does ‘Carter showed up’ mean?”

“It means that I took George somewhere quiet and remote and far from prying eyes. Then, Carter just appeared out of nowhere.”

Jessie chimed in. “What happened?”

“He wanted to have a chat with me, so we talked. I learned a few things that no one is going to like.”

“Such as?” Annie asked with her face schooled into a mask of barely repressed disapproval.

“He’s not in this for power or personal gain. I don’t think he expects to get anything from setting his goddess loose on the world,” I said. “It’s so much worse than that. He’s a true believer.”

Everyone traded unhappy glances before Jessie spoke again. “Well, fuck.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how I felt about it too.”