The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,45

them, and then Gabriel spoke again. “I want you to know that I don’t want you dead, even as a joke. Look at this.” He shrugged out of his jacket and gestured to the tattoo that spilled across his shoulder behind his thin black tank top: four blades tangled together, roots winding around their hilts. “It’s a family tattoo.”

“Let me guess,” he said, unwilling to think about the fact that Gabriel had chosen to include him even after everything that had passed between them. Four of them, together, like they weren’t all just as destroyed as the house they’d once lived in. “You told the artist to make one of the daggers a little longer so you could tell girls it was yours?”

Gabriel’s smile widened into something more genuine, and Isaac saw a flash of the people they had both been, before everything, standing in this same room when it was a home instead of a ruin. “You’re still a smartass, huh?”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “That wasn’t a no.”

Gabriel turned his head to the side, clearly suppressing a laugh. Isaac realized how much he looked like Caleb now, stocky and broad-shouldered, dark curls clipped short along his head, stubble dotting his jawline in a way that Isaac was trying to work on.

“Sorry I’m late.” The voice was Violet’s. Isaac turned to see her at the edge of the trees, her cat trailing at her heels. She was dressed simply in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a fleece-lined corduroy jacket, and she looked exhausted, her red hair pulled back in a thin ponytail at the nape of her neck. At the sight of Gabriel the tiredness on her face disappeared, replaced by a far more alert stare.

“I don’t think we were formally introduced,” she said slowly. “You’re Gabriel Sullivan.”

“And you’re the daughter of that Saunders lady who ran away.”

Violet shrugged, the shadow of a smirk dancing around her lips. “Seems like you and my mother had running away and crawling back in common.”

“Fair enough.” Gabriel jerked a head toward Orpheus. “The hell is that thing?”

“He is my companion,” said Violet, frowning. “He goes where I go.”

Orpheus yawned in Gabriel’s general direction, then walked up to Isaac and rubbed his head against his leg. Isaac leaned down to pet him, grinning as Orpheus licked his palm with a sandpapery tongue.

“I think he’s getting used to me,” he said, scratching behind the cat’s ears. Animals did not particularly care for Isaac, but this one seemed to be different. Maybe the cat liked him because they were both supposed to be dead.

Violet’s voice sounded a little strained, almost like she was embarrassed. “Um. Yeah. Anyway?—the corruption is particularly bad back there. I know we’re immune, but I still suggest we be careful.”

“How are your relief efforts going?” Gabriel asked. “Isaac, does your power help? Maybe you should do something about the yard.”

“Not as well as it should,” Isaac said, tensing. He was not in the mood for a demonstration, and he certainly wouldn’t be doing it in his backyard. The altar was back there. It was the only part of his home he hadn’t disintegrated, because he wasn’t ready to face it. Besides, if he disintegrated the trees, the corruption would simply creep back from the ashes like a cockroach that refused to be squashed.

“What about you?” Gabriel asked, turning to Violet. “Half the clinic is talking about how you can possess the trees.”

“I wish that’s what I could do,” Violet said, shaking her head. “I move branches and roots out of the way?—like an override, not a command.”

“We’re all doing our best.” Isaac was not about to watch his friend be criticized when Gabriel couldn’t heal anybody, either. “That’s why we’re working together, right? To try to find a way to fix it, because our powers aren’t enough.”

“Right,” Violet agreed, nodding. “But why did you want us to meet you here?”

“Great question.” Gabriel swung his backpack off his shoulder and pulled out a shovel, tossing it onto the ground like a challenge. “The Sullivan archives are right under our feet. We’re here to dig for answers.”

“Sullivan archives?” Isaac echoed slowly. He’d never heard of such a thing.

“Our family history,” Gabriel said. “We kept all of our records in the cellar, in a place Mom and all our uncles called the archive room.”

“We have a cellar?”

“They wouldn’t have shown you,” Gabriel said. “I wasn’t even supposed to know about it.”

Isaac pushed down a thread of hurt and tried to focus on the positive