Good Bones: The Nearing Novels, #1

By Hannah Renfield and Billie Ives

Death shouldn't be a matter of perspective.

 

For Decan Delaney, it's finite, an ever-encroaching threat she already escaped once. Her parting gifts: a painful scar and a branded rib bone, connecting her to a wave of dark magic she doesn't understand. 

 

But for occultists Jacek Lorde and Adler Raventhorpe, death is more of a suggestion. Over multiple lifetimes, they've shared love, magic, and a host of beautiful guests in their bed.

 

When Decan brings the mysterious bone to Jacek and Adler, she doesn't expect to want them the way she does. Doesn't expect their attraction to become something so captivating, so inescapable. Doesn't expect that she is the final thread weaving Jacek and Adler together with a darkness that has been hunting them across time. A darkness that binds them to Decan in ways they never could have imagined.

 

And once the darkness finds them, there is no coming back. 

 

If unleashed, it will tear them apart forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Billie Ives
• Release date: Sep 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201461461

Hannah Renfield

Hannah Renfield lives in the Canadian prairies with a floofy, lemon-meringue of a bird, a jumble of crystals and a few dozen bottles of fountain pen ink. She paints watercolour pictures of happy monsters and quirky haunted houses, comfort-watches horror movies, and has played The Last of Us too many times to count.   Her favourite kinds of stories speak of the beauty in found families, non-traditional relationship structures and crooked kinds of love.

Book preview

Chapter 1

EVEN IF DECAN DELANEY saw the omens, she would have ignored them.

Not that she didn’t believe in them, or felt immune to their scratching, grasping fingers.

On the contrary. She knew a knife when she saw one, even when the blade was more metaphor than metal. Today’s knives were golden autumn sunshine, a twinge in her scar, and the perpetual cold across her shoulders, like an arm she couldn’t shake off. A ghost or a curse, maybe. A beckoning from some forgotten grave, asking her to stick around for a spell.

A spell.

She might have laughed if the thought didn’t flood her veins with ice.

Had she understood—had she wanted to understand—she might not have been on this sidewalk at all, shivering even in the warm glow of late morning sun. Might not have shifted the strap of her bag away from the tender scar on her chest with a grunt, the action making her feel much older than thirty. She might not be glaring at the seemingly cheerful storefront across the street, watching customers churn in and out as they grinned vapidly at the sign promising tarot readings, metaphysical supplies, and more!

She might not have been especially sensitive to the thud of her heart, hard and loud and foreign in her chest. Off-rhythm, just a half-beat faster than it used to be.

Different since she came back.

When another 2 a.m. rolled around and found her flipping through late night news stations, notebook in her lap and pen hanging listlessly from her fingers, it was hard not to think about it, hard not to bitterly wonder if the damage to her body made her a prophet or a god or just some incredibly well-preserved zombie.

That thought made her colder, angrier, than the idea of omens.

For all the weird shit in the town of Nearing, Connecticut, she was pretty sure zombies weren’t part of the equation. She’d never seen one, at any rate.

Monsters, though. She knew them in spades. And omens?

Omens could fuck off.

Her scar, the bunched, silvery-pink tissue nestled high on her left breast, twinged again—telling her this was a bad idea. Everything from the too-golden autumn daylight to the perfectly crisp apple-scented air, to the angrily chittering nightjar in the tree above, seemed off, like still water in the Everglades. The monsters, the things that would bite and rend and tear—they were still there, close and waiting. They were just out of sight.

This, at least, Decan knew, and she granted herself one pardon: this was desperation, not stupidity.

She had to go into the shop.

She’d already circled the block twice. There was a new set of earbuds she didn’t need in her pocket, courtesy of the little convenience store on the corner. The coffee she didn’t want warmed her hand, the bitter smell bringing a small comfort. Her palms were sweaty, her pulse too hard, adding to the strange rhythm kicking in her chest.

She just needed another minute before she went in.

A car zipped by, too close to the curb. Her hand jerked, sending a splash of coffee up over the lid.

"Ow. Shit."

Unlike the surrounding storefronts, The Goat wasn’t decorated for Halloween. Instead of gauzy cobwebs and plastic jack-o-lanterns, witches’ hats, and bats, its windows were decorated more simply with bundles of sage and rosemary; an assortment of candles in deep, rich jewel tones; shallow dishes of stones and bones; and an ever-changing lineup of books on ghosts, spirits, spellcraft, and journaling. Otherworldly all on its own, a mahogany-and-gold-ink-calligraphy sort of shop that seemed timeless and Victorian at the same time. Modern, but deeply influenced by the past.

She might have liked it, under different circumstances. Not quite dark, not quite bright—a glowing, autumnal sort of shade about the place. The look of true magic. Of real spells.

How these things looked in the daylight, before the charade of still water broke and churned with blood and teeth.

She touched the bag tucked under her arm, and though she couldn’t feel the shape of the bone inside, she saw it in her mind’s eye, clear as the storefront.

Her scar flashed hot, making her hiss through her teeth. It happened more often now, these flaring lashes of pain in what should have been dead tissue.

Not unlike her, she supposed.

The nightjar rustled the skeletal branches of the thin tree, its voice gritty and sharp. She pulled her jacket tighter, resting the lid of the cup against her lips just to absorb the heat.

A shadow darkened her eyeline.

She didn’t look right away, instead making a show of digging through her pocket with her free hand. She didn’t turn her head, looking from her periphery at the streets around her.

No one.

And still, it felt wrong. Like someone was there, just out of sight.

Not as bad now as at night, but still something. A curse, maybe. A bullshit poltergeist. A bad-luck charm that kept her cold. Leena would have an answer. Leena would have had a list.

Decan didn’t have any of those things, and that was why she needed to go into the shop, even if she had to get the truth from some fucking magicians.

She scowled as she made herself cross the street.

It’s okay, she told herself. Proximity won’t kill me. It’s just a little magic.

Defiance turned to bargaining as soon as she touched the door handle.

Ten minutes.

Her heartbeat, loud and hard and wrong, kicked harder in her chest, hard enough to echo all the way down into her fingertips.

I can do ten minutes.

Twisting the handle, she opened the door, wincing at the creak of the hinge. Bells rang out and she looked up. Beaten copper, tied with red string.

A carved, wooden table overflowing with doilies and cards and hammered silver bowls filled up the left side of the shop. Dried flowers hung from the ceiling on pink and crimson ribbons and the shelves glinted with shiny, carved stones. The back corner was nothing but books, flanked by a deep gold velvet couch. Two kids sat reading—both of them lengthwise, the soles of their sneakers flat to each other—heavy books in their hands as incense burned on the oval table, sending up grey, swirling smoke. Probably fifteen. Not kids exactly. Young enough that Decan felt old.

The space was suspiciously homey. Warm with wood and old textiles. A suggestion of lineage. Old magic. A presumed history that supposedly gave magic weight and credibility. Witches and occultists tended to come in two forms: new age and old school. New Age with names like Soulfood, or House of Sky or Soulstice, shiny and bright with rocks in white bowls.

Old school was The Goat. The name written in shadow on the beaten wooden floor. They’d swept recently, or maybe the morning had been quiet.

Grateful for the other customers mulling around, Decan watched a middle-aged man lift spheres to the light as two girls pawed through a bin of small rocks. An older woman ran her index finger along a bookshelf.

Decan moved off by herself, glancing around, trying to look like she wasn’t looking for anything.

Welcome to The Goat!

She flinched, spun, cup brought up in defense.

Only to find she had to look up.

All legs from the time she was fifteen, Decan had quickly gotten used to looking down on anyone shy of five-ten. Not in the pejorative sense.

At least, not always.

And yet, up she looked into a radiant grin, shockingly clear aqua-blue eyes, and a face that, had it not been so openly friendly and genuinely joyful, she would have instantly distrusted. Men this handsome were supposed to be mean. This was the kind of handsome you stayed away from. Strong jaws, aquiline noses, full mouths, and unabashedly pretty flaxen hair—the type of man who showed up on romance novel covers or starred in spicy late-night HBO dramas.

Decan had no time for omens or their ridiculously hot wranglers, but it struck her as the wrong kind of funny that the autumn light chose that moment to flare off something metallic in the window, hitting that smile and the man wearing it with a perfect, glimmering beam of sunlight.

Another kind of spell, she reminded herself sharply. Not the one I’m here for.

He extended his hand, easy as anything. Adler Raventhorpe. If this is The Goat, I guess I’m one of the shepherds.

Such a dad joke that she couldn’t help but snort. He didn’t seem to mind.

What brings you in, Miss...?

Her eyes flicked to his hand, much, much bigger than her own. She forced her shoulders to relax, only allowing herself to touch his fingers, just up to the knuckles. They were warm and unfairly soft, save for the rough little callouses on the very tips.

Decan. Delaney.

That grin glowed even brighter. He looked pleased. Genuinely, radiantly pleased. Decan Delaney. Magical.

Her lips thinned, turned down at the corners. Instant and mostly unintentional. He laughed, patting the back of her hand. Not distracting at all.

Sorry. Poor choice of words, I take it. Let me guess. He pinched his chin with his free hand, scanning her wrist, her throat, the bag tucked protectively to her hip. Looking for jewelry, she imagined, or some other indication of what she was here for. The way the TV psychics scanned people before they scammed them.

She was suddenly very aware of the torn-out knees of her jeans and the thinness of her jacket, especially against his exquisitely-fitted sweater and jeans—could people tailor denim? Adler looked like he’d just stepped off the pages of a fall magazine—no, an autumn magazine, and she...

Well. Death warmed over felt too on the nose.

Hm. You’re not a skeptic. He smiled again. No, you know the difference between— he tipped his head toward the display window, toward the world outside. —What they call magic and the real thing. Question is, what’s got someone who’s frowning at spells looking for one?

Decan had expected condescension. Defensiveness. But Adler Raventhorpe offered only curiosity.

And a shine in his eye that was as much mischief as it was enchantment. Are you a little magic yourself, Decan Delaney?

She shouldn’t have liked the way her name rolled off his tongue. Shouldn’t even be standing here, letting a magician talk to her, touch her like this.

This was dangerous. She had to leave. She had to get back outside.

How soon before her vision blurred, before her head was all stuffed with static? How long before her legs gave out and she woke up in the dark, if she woke up at all—

The door flew open, striking the jamb with a crack. Decan yanked her hand away, jerking toward the sound. Adrenaline hissed through her veins, temples pounding and stomach tight.

A couple, playful and loud and drunk only on each other, stumbled in and tossed out a quick, giggling apology as they made a beeline for what looked like a shelf of leather-bound journals.

Decan closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe.

Fuck fuck fuck!

Decan?

She shoved her hands into her pockets, not wanting to look at Adler, looking instead at her feet—

Her feet.

Now steeped in a puddle of coffee.

Fuck!

No, hey, it’s all right. Customers are always a bit louder this time of year. Sorry they scared you.

Decan shook her head, forcing out a shaky laugh. Sorry. Uh. Here, let me... do you have a bathroom in here? I’ll get some paper towels. Fuck, I’m sorry.

Nothing to be sorry for. He smiled again, but Decan saw the practice in it this time. Saw the wary edge as he leaned down and retrieved the now empty cup. You wait right here. I’ll get this taken care of.

Then Adler disappeared and Decan was alone, staring at a cooling puddle. Embarrassed and angry and hot with both. She’d forgotten to bring up the bone in her bag, and now she had to wait, standing next to her mess like a jittery little dog that hadn’t been housebroken.

As much as Decan hated magic, she hated her fear of it more. Raking her fingers through her hair, she blew out an angry breath and tried to focus on something a bit more tangible. She found herself at one of the round tables, leaning in to trace her fingertips over a pile of tarot cards: smooth black matte with intricate foil silhouettes, silver from one direction, opalescent from another.

The Moon.

The Magician.

The Lovers.

She scrunched her nose and tucked her fingers into the safety of her fist. The next table housed a silver tray of dead, curled plants surrounded by an array of small stones, rocks she didn’t have a name for: pillars with pointed tips of varying colors and sizes. One a delicate, pearly pink marbled through with white. Another larger tower, deep purple, wide as her hand and heavy with a glittering geode pocket. And another, something tall and thin that swirled together in (even she had to admit) a rather pretty twist of green, blue, and clear gemstone. Tentatively, she pressed the pad of her thumb against the sharp point. Nothing happened. No zap. No pain in her scar. No blood.

Just a creak of the floor behind her. Decan whipped around and looked up.

Again.

All angles to Adler’s broad curves, in jaw and in body. A smile less light and more lightning. Leaner, hair dark, the sharpness of his cheekbones prominent above the short, well-kept beard just a tease beyond scruff.

Adler Raventhorpe was ferociously handsome, the kind of man who made potential lovers fall to their knees. Jacek Lorde? He was a man who made lovers fall to their knees and beg.

Jacek she knew. Knew of, rather. Not from magic circles, more Leena’s thing than hers, but from The Sparrow. Still magical, The Sparrow, just of a different persuasion—less Hecate, bequeath and more Mistress, please, popular beyond the boundaries of town. Apparently so was Jacek. He was one of the few who made everyone beg, looked at and savored but never touched, because Decan only touched Leena at The Sparrow. Decan had seen firsthand what the man could do with ropes, but had never done more than watch and lap up stories. She still thought of those stories sometimes, when the endless 2 a.m.'s rolled around. Not with heated curiosity, or even with envy. Not anymore. More with a resigned sort of longing.

Whatever secret desire she might once have had to cross paths (and leather cuffs and yes, maybe even her safeword) with the magician, it—like so many of her desires—died when she did. But unlike her, it hadn’t come back.

Jacek fucking Lorde. His name was annoying, like a magic spell gone wrong, because didn’t they all go wrong? Weren’t they all catastrophes in waiting? That, or fake: cold and hot psychic readings, information gleaned from the internet. That magic was the shit you did when you couldn’t handle reality. The other kind, well. She wouldn’t think about the other kind. That Jacek Lorde made a living off the fake kind, rocks and tarot cards and incense, didn’t make him honest and it didn’t make him interesting.

Well, maybe it still made him a little bit interesting. Worth watching in the same way she watched horror movies. Through the splay of her hands so she didn’t have to see the whole of it. When the credits rolled, a hunk of glass wouldn’t save anyone.

And yet, his sudden appearance, his angles, his reputation: they soothed her. For the first time that day, Decan was grateful, because she knew how to handle someone like Jacek Lorde. It let her take this vulnerable, open sore inside herself and stitch it up, clumsy and crude, but enough to bury whatever softness Adler had been searching for.

She wasn’t about to be taken in by the town’s most magical couple. Not by a fucking long shot.

Suddenly, she felt like herself. Solid as stone. Able to look at Jacek as if through a pane of glass.

Better. Distant.

This she could do.

Chapter 2

JACEK LORDE HAD OTHER plans. Stepping closer, he extended his hand, the pane of glass suddenly more like an open window. He pushed the crystal tower away from her fingers and placed it back on the table. Not today.

"Not what today?" Decan kept her voice flat, not willing to show interest. Not that she felt it, anyway.

Today, Jacek said, too tall and too smug and too attractive. You’re not shopping for fluorite and tarot.

Attractive didn’t erase asshole. Well, I’m not here for a coffee. Decan frowned at the puddle on the floor, the tips of her ears burning.

Ah, it was you, then. Not to worry, Adler’s gone to get the mop. In the meantime, how about I surprise us both. He curled his hand around a heavy, wide-rimmed bowl full of small crystals. Close your eyes. Maybe we’ll see your future.

My future?

Humor me, Jacek said, smiling in the way of secrets and mockery. Close your eyes and pick something.

That bowl. Deep and wooden, filled with odd-shaped rocks. Clustered so their strange, singular patterns mixed with edges of shadow. Leaf green, bright, citrus orange, faded pale pink, Deep, shimmering black. Colors that would have been familiar outside, away from this place, seemed more intense and less trustworthy between these walls. Nestled together like they were waiting for her.

She swallowed—inaudibly, she hoped—and lifted her hand.

Ah.

Her lips pursed as Jacek’s curled a bit wider. Light caught in the bright hazel of his eyes before he blinked pointedly, making her close her own with a resigned huff. She tried to ignore the weight of his stare and the steadily increasing feeling that she’d waded out into dark water.

Decan flinched when her fingers met the rocks. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting—for them to turn into teeth, maybe, or for a sudden, inexplicable burst of agony as her hand was engulfed in some awful trap. Something wicked. Something painful. Because that’s what magic was for—to hurt in all the wrong ways.

She was surprised, then, when she reached into the bowl and felt only stones. She failed to hold back a small breath of relief. They were warmer than she expected. She’d anticipated little edges, but instead she felt only gentle ridges, rounded slopes, and gradual curves as one stone rolled to the next and to the next.

She tensed at Jacek’s soft sigh. What was he doing? Was he laughing at her? Just impatiently watching?

She lifted her chin.

I don’t care what Jacek Lorde thinks.

Decan plucked out a cool, smooth stone that stuck out against her thumb. She blinked her eyes open, squinting at the way light bent around the pitch-black pebble, shimmering with a sheen of gold. When she turned her focus back to Jacek, he was still smiling.

But not laughing.

She held it up to him using only the very tips of her fingers, as if that would keep his superstition off her. This mean I’m cursed?

Phrased as a question, though this, at least, was an answer she already knew.

Not yet.

Decan wanted to ask what the hell that meant, but she caught movement over his shoulder. Adler was back, mop in hand. He’d fallen still, watching the conversation between her and Jacek unfold. When had he gotten there, exactly?

And why was she suddenly embarrassed, the tips of her ears prickling? Whatever nebulous crush she’d had on Jacek’s reputation had long since burned out. It was no more real than the strange pull of softness she’d felt watching Adler smile in the sunlight. She didn’t even do this anymore. No fucking, no dating, barely even socializing. Even she could admit she was practically feral.

Then why did the air feel heavier somehow? Why could she feel their attention like the slide of skin against her?

She dropped the stone back into the bowl, louder than she intended, hand snapping to clutch the strap of her bag. She winced as two sets of eyes clocked the movement.

I’d like you to keep it. Jacek pointed to the bowl. It was destined to be yours, after all.

Decan glanced down, not sure what to do with this squirming feeling in her gut. Of all the things she needed today, a rock wasn’t one of them. She didn’t need this attention, either. No.

Please?

Had he not heard her answer?

Adler looked at Jacek as if waiting for what might come next, but all Jacek did was shrug. All right. Suit yourself.

Jacek wasn’t the type to let people just suit themselves, but she couldn’t worry about that. She was here on business, and she’d let them rattle her more than enough already.

She’d focus on that. Not on Adler, and not on Jacek. On the job. That’s all this was, after all—another job. She ignored the nearly-skeptical pulse in her scar, a mimicry of her heartbeat shuddering just beneath it.

I’m not shopping for rocks, she said finally. I’ve heard that you appraise weird stuff. What’s the process for that?

She’d been aiming for condescending. The smirk on Jacek’s face pricked her with irritation, telling her she’d landed somewhere between amusing and, god forbid, ignorant.

We evaluate magical artifacts, artwork, idols, and other paraphernalia, he said, far too smoothly. We don’t resell haunted objects, and we don’t buy them either. And I doubt your childhood doll is possessed. What did you bring me?

Me. Not Us.

Other paraphernalia.

He had a soft laugh, at odds with the sharpness of the rest of him. Appraisals are by appointment only. Objects are fickle. The wards are stronger upstairs. He flicked his eyes up, as if that explained anything. His smirk split, revealing very shiny teeth. Come back tonight. Adler is an excellent cook.

You don’t know what I have.

Don’t have to. Whatever it is, it’s making you nervous. It brought you here, even though parts of you want to be anywhere but here. He paused, looking her over in a way that had the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Your need to know is stronger than your fear, though, isn’t it? Let’s simplify this. Say yes. Eat with us.

Was Jacek excited?

Cold slipped through her veins and deep between the slats of her ribs. Between parlour tricks and death rituals, magicians saw excitement. She cast a quick glance at Adler, who watched their interaction with an intensity Decan felt like physical pressure. She steadied herself, squaring her shoulders and shoving her bag so it hid behind her back. Fine. Tonight, then.

Jacek Lorde smiled his bright smile. Eight? Knock on the residential door, one of us will let you in.

Bit informal for an appraisal, she thought.

She took a sharp breath and turned on her heel, suddenly desperate for the chilly autumn air and the cranky nightjar. To her credit, she didn’t actually lunge for the door.

Yeah, eight, sure. I’m allergic to onions, so make sure you don’t kill me by mistake.

Wouldn’t dream of it, Miss...?

Decan. Just Decan to him.

And I’m—

I know who you are! Maybe she did lunge. A little. And once she was back outside, with a little distance between them, she wasn’t entirely sure if the hitch in her breath was from relief, agitation, or disbelief that she’d actually agreed to go back.

I’m out of my goddamn mind.

Her scar pricked as if in agreement, and she fought the urge to dig her fingertips into the raised ridges of tissue hiding just out of sight.

Across the street, the shadows moved, and the nightjar let out a wail.

Chapter 3

DECAN WAS TIRED OF walking. She’d been moving since she left The Goat, wandering like some lost wraith from the coffee shop to the grocery store to the stationery shop to the bookstore (the one that traded in romance novels and crime thrillers rather than grimoires and spellbooks). And now, finally, through Beryl Park, named for its proximity to the abandoned gem mine, though more optimistic residents said it was because the park was so green in the spring and summer.

It wasn’t green now. This late in the fall, it burned. Riots of red and orange leaves gave way to singed, dry brown, lending the whole park the feeling of an old photograph set aflame. Now, as the late afternoon sun bathed the park in gold, the place seemed otherworldly, drenched in light that was made all the brighter by the darkness creeping in around its edges.

All around her, shadows seemed to solidify, black shapes cast in coincidental patterns that loomed close enough to feel threatening.

Decan looked over her shoulder. She knew it was sloppy, and if she really was being followed, if it wasn’t just a trick of the light, she’d definitely just told her would-be stalker she knew they were there.

Still nothing. Still no one.

All the more reason she had to keep moving. Couldn’t go home, couldn’t go anywhere for more than a few hours. Not with this anxiety buzzing in her gut.

She pulled her jacket tight, hunching her shoulders to her ears and taking up a pace too brisk to be casual. That had more to do with the crowd. The park was full, even during the week. Kids, families, assholes on dates—all of them clogging up the walking paths, taking up every free bench and picnic table. She had no choice but to burn off her nervousness with uneasy laps from one end of the park to the other.

The breeze was nice, at least. Steady and just a shade too cool, it carried the smell of fall and the sweet-crisp scent of apples. This wasn’t even an orchard, and still, the scent lingered, verging on too-much, too-sweet. If it wasn’t for the edge in the breeze, it might be sickly.

Decan shoved her hands in her pockets, kicking at a rock and thinking about how if she was at home, she could crawl under the blanket that lived on her couch instead of the bed these days. Could shut all the blinds and order from Rikki’s. They were the only pizza shop in her vicinity that didn’t burn the crust. Well done, as it was called here. She shook her head. There was a lot to love about Nearing. The dedication to burning pizza wasn’t counted among its favors.

Her stomach rumbled, loud enough for the women passing by with strollers to look up. Decan made a face. Immature, absolutely, but she was in a sour mood already. Being hungry and at the mercy of magicians was enough. She didn’t need judgment from strangers, too.

God, what was she doing? What was even the point