Unbearable by Tracy Cooper-Posey Read Free Book Online Page A

sitting on the sofa with rum and eggnog in her hands, while the fire popped cheerily next to her.
    Donna clenched the glass. “I’m out of the business,” she told us. “I mean, really out. No playing around hunting demons to keep my hand in.”
    We all stared at her.
    Her hands were shaking and she gripped the glass harder. “Oscar…Oscar died three weeks ago. Pancreatic cancer,” she added. “I think he’s probably had it for a long while. We only found out during the summer, though. He went very fast. Only, it wasn’t fast enough. I sat there and watched him writhing in agony….” She took a big slug of the rum and eggnog and looked down at the creamy liquid. “If I thought I might have been able to get away with it, I would have finished it. But….” She sighed.
    I didn’t say anything. No one did. Donna wasn’t looking for sympathy or empty platitudes. She was here on a mission. It radiated from every stiff line of her body.
    She kept her gaze down on the glass. “Oscar told me something before he died. He said that he was the one who planted the map in Jimmy’s trailer, the day Jimmy died. It was Oscar who helped the gargoyles.”
    I glanced at Nick and Tally. They did not look surprised. Perhaps, like me, they had guessed a while ago.
    Nyanther studied Donna, too. “The gargoyles threatened his family, didn’t they?” he asked.
    She looked up at him, surprised. “Yes,” she said at last. “That just explains it, though. It doesn’t excuse it. Especially not because Carson….” She hesitated, looking at Tally. “I know it probably doesn’t help, but Oscar paid , Tally. Over and over, he paid. He screamed, sometimes, it was so bad.” She swallowed and looked down at the glass again.
    Then she pushed the wrapped gift along the sofa, closer to Nick. “I brought these. You might need them one day. I know I won’t. They’re house wards, strong ones. I think they would stop Azazel himself.”
    Nick didn’t reach for the box. So I did. I unwrapped it quickly. “Thank you, Donna,” I told her. “We appreciate your gesture.”
    There was a shoebox beneath the gilt paper and inside were a dozen plain stones, smooth like river stones. Despite their plainness, I could feel their power, like a magnetic field. They were indeed strong.
    Everyone was sitting and watching Donna with harsh expressions. They were reliving the memories that she had provoked. The express train we had been hoping to avoid was upon us, after all. Nyanther had lost his own people, too. His expression was brooding as he considered her.
    So I got up and picked up one of the two last bottles of gargoyle anti-venom that we had left from this batch, that had been sitting on the bookshelf. We had distributed the rest to key contacts across the country and even more to Alasdair and Mairead in Scotland.
    I held out one of the two bottles to Donna. “Here. A small gift from us.” I told her what it was.
    She clenched the bottle in her fist, her knuckles white. “Thank you. I hope I never need it.”
    “What will you do now?” Tally asked, her voice at least kind, even though her face was drawn.
    “Me and the girls moved back to Manhattan,” she said. “Oscar wanted to live in California to get away from it all. I never did get around to liking it. I have a job in a diner. It’s not much, but it pays the bills. That’s something, I suppose.” She drank the last of the eggnog and put the glass aside firmly. “I gotta go. The babysitter would only stay until seven.” She looked at her watch and got up.
    Nyanther got to his feet. “I’ll see you to the door,” he said. His gaze flickered toward me, then moved deliberately toward Tally.
    He took Donna out to the front door.
    I moved to sit next to Tally and picked up her hand. “Hey.”
    She shook her head. She was sitting quite still, staring straight ahead.
    Nick dropped down into a crouch in front of her, looking up at her. “We always thought it was Oscar,” he