Avalon's Last Knight - Jackson C. Garton Page 0,72
groping the darkness. “There’s so much more I need to know! Don’t send me back just yet! What do I need to do with this goddamn scabbard? Olivia! Viviane!”
When I finally regain my senses, I find myself sitting in the back of Mordy’s SUV, my head propped against the warm window. Morgan and Gwen are seated beside me, each of my hands resting in one of theirs.
“Lance,” Morgan says. “Can you hear me?” I stare at her blankly. “He’s not saying anything. Should I pinch him? His eyes are wide open.”
“Hey,” I say, putting my hands up. “No need for violence. I can hear you all right.”
Gwen is the next to speak. “Goddamn it. You’re going to send me to an early grave. What happened back there?”
An image of Olivia pops into my mind. “The Lady of the Lake spoke to me.”
“Are you serious? What did she say?” Gwen is a bundle of nerves. “Well?”
“That we need to destroy the Merlin,” I say, my eyes landing on the hilt of the sword that now rests in between the passenger seat and center console. “And his godforsaken Holy Grail.”
Chapter Fourteen
The Banshee
“Will you move in with me?” Arthur pops the question like he’s been holding it in for a while now. “Er. I mean…”
“What?” I say. For the past two and a half months I’ve been staying with him, so I don’t understand his request. “What do you mean? What do you call what I’ve been doin’?”
He squirms underneath my weight and shifts his arms, placing them behind his head. “I dunno. I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here.”
I push up from the truck bed and scan his face, searching for a motive, anything to indicate how he’s feeling.
Arthur’s been acting strange lately, not like before, when he had been concerned with Mordy, but overly affectionate and adhesive. Last week when I’d come home from the mausoleum with my arm covered in blood, wearing a tattered hoodie, he’d insisted that I be more careful, more attentive of my surroundings, even raising his voice at me. I had never seen him so passionate about anything before. We haven’t spoken about me returning to Lexington yet—which will happen in two weeks—and I’m not sure if I should use this opportunity to discuss it.
“I guess what I mean is… I want you to actually live with me. Obviously not while you’re in school, but like, when you come back. It would be our home. You don’t have to if you don’t wanna. It’s just a thought. Actually, never mind, forget I said anything.” Sometimes Arthur acts and sounds like an unsure teenager, an indecisive kid trapped in an overgrown body. I bend down and kiss him, to stop his lips from quivering.
“How long have you been sittin’ on this?” I ask, brushing his lip with my finger.
“I don’t really wanna tell you because you’ll think I’m a freak,” he says, keeping his eye on the side of the truck.
I have witnessed demonic possession numerous times now, spoken to an Aztec goddess and accepted some snake dagger from her, and opened a fucking casket in search of a magickal scabbard, and he thinks I’m in a place to judge him. “Just tell me.”
He shakes his head and attempts to change the subject. “When did you say Gwen was supposed to get here?”
“Arthur.” I drag my knees across the aluminum and straddle his torso. This catches his attention immediately, and he turns to me. “You’ve never been shy around me.”
“That’s not true,” he says, his hands sliding up and down my thighs. “There are lots of things I keep to myself.”
“At this point there’s nothing you could say that would freak me out, so why don’t you just tell me?”
“Since you got here,” he admits, in a whisper. “I mean, fuck, you’re about to leave me in two weeks, and then I won’t see you until November. That’s what…three months? Holy shit, that’s a long time. I won’t see you again until Thanksgiving!”
So there it is. “Is that why you’ve been acting weird? Hey, don’t close your eyes. Look at me.”
“Things were really awful for me last year,” he replies. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, because it wasn’t your fault, but I was a fuckin’ mess. You have no idea. Gwen had to talk me out of driving to Lexington more than once. And yes, I already know that I sound like a fucking psycho.”