Unbearable Read Free

he’ll be found in the woods. It’s the only way to explain his…condition.”
    I saw her jaw ripple as she absorbed that. Her eyes closed for a moment. Then she turned to look at me directly. “Will you help me?”
    “Find Lirgon and Valdeg?”
    She nodded.
    “Yes. Whatever it takes,” I promised her.
    “Good.”
    I had no idea I’d come to regret that promise.

February, 1983
    Eventually, Connors’ body was found and an enquiry determined that he had been killed by misadventure—that an unknown natural predator had taken his life. They didn’t name the predator. They couldn’t, of course, because the forensic medical examiner would not have been able to match up the wounds with the patterns of known predators.
    The enquiry and the determination of cause of death meant that the year had evolved into February before his body was released and he could be buried. The funeral was held in late February.
    Tally and Carson had a neighbor, Mrs. Washinsky, who was relentlessly human and narrow-minded. She came to the funeral, possibly thinking that the new widow next door needed the moral support because they had been such an odd couple, such a strange couple, that there would be too few mourners. I watched her expression change to one of puzzled astonishment when more and more people quietly filed to the graveside.
    They came from everywhere and all of them were in the business, or involved peripherally, or were the human partners of hunters. Donna and Oscar flew in from California. Oscar looked as though he was losing weight. Lots of it. Donna didn’t speak to anyone, including Oscar. Her jaw held tight the entire day. She was learning to live with the fact that it was the map she had found that had led Connors straight to Lirgon’s lair, where the last two gargoyles had been waiting for them.
    Miguel had slipped into New York that morning. He had been forced to disappear and stay off the radar, as he was a person of interest in the investigation into Connors’ death and his lack of documentation would be discovered if he let himself be officially processed in any way. He took the risk to return for the funeral.
    Joy and Connie were moving to San Francisco. The old Continental they had inherited from Jimmy was packed to the window sills and they were leaving straight after the funeral.
    There were others. Many others. I knew almost all of them and knew that many of them had never met Connors but they were there because it was one of their own. I think Connors would have been surprised by the people who attended. Surprised and quietly pleased. He had always considered himself to be an interloper in the business of hunting, someone who had forced his way in because of bad luck and circumstances, unlike Tally, who had been born to it. The people at his funeral said otherwise.
    Tally stood stiff and straight next to the casket, her gaze straight ahead. Afterward, at the tiny house where they had lived, she spent all her time speaking to hunters, questioning them about activity in their area. She took phone numbers and contact information.
    I kept an eye on her and on Riley, who slept in the basket at Tally’s feet or on her arm, when she wasn’t writing things down. Tally had adapted to being a mother seamlessly, incorporating feedings and diaper changes into her life, which had narrowed down to a single, fierce focus. Riley never left her side, except when Tally picked up the katana.
    Since Riley’s birth, the only time Tally had wielded the katana was for training. She and Nick became obsessive about refining their techniques, gaining the sliver of an advantage from split second timing and honing their speed.
    The gargoyles were nowhere to be found. In the seven weeks since Connors’ death, everyone had been hunting for traces of them. The lack of news was the reason Tally spent her time after the funeral cross-examining hunters from all over the country.
    So I watched the pair of them, but didn’t intervene. I