Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(48)

Michael said my father was the only crosser left. Either he was lying, or something worse than a crosser was coming after me.

“Oh, and that was a good touch, using Doc to poison me. I actually trusted him, so you shattered that faith. But then again, I guess that’s what you’re best at.”

He smiled. He actually fucking smiled at me. “I hope you can see past all of the difficulty and appreciate what I’ve done. I could have sat here in Purgatory, minding my own business, but you don’t know what it was like before. Purgatory was not a resting place, as I’m sure the angels tried to feed you. It was a lesser step up from Hell, and not a far one. Souls were being tortured.”

“They still are, from the looks of it,” I said, staring in the direction of the Meat Market. It was truly sad. All of it.

“There are problems, but nothing like it was before. Demons ruled this place, while the angels turned their heads and let them break souls, bit by bit. When the veil was torn, I saw an opportunity and took it. A few others did, too.”

“Where are the others?” I asked.

He stood up straight and adjusted the lapels of his jacket, answering in a disinterested tone, “I ended them.”

“There isn’t room for more than one ruler, right?”

“Precisely.”

“So do you plan to end me, too?”

He shook his head slowly. “If you don’t give me a reason to, then no. Let me explain. I don’t want you to succeed me; I want you to rule beneath me. When I win the presidency on Earth, I’ll have to be gone for long periods of time. However, I can’t risk losing all I’ve built here. I need you to manage it in my absence. You’ll have just enough power to help, but not enough to hinder. I know you. You only care about yourself.”

Oh, I wanted to hinder. I wanted to hinder him six feet into the soil. Wondering who in their right minds would be stupid enough to vote for a man like him, I remembered the crowds who came to hear him speak, to hear the lie-filled rhetoric. He told them what they wanted to hear. He would make sure they had jobs. He would make sure the country was secure, that their families would thrive and be safe. Promising that the government would help them with their every need, he ignored the questions about funding, his background, and his stances on turbulent issues, and charged ahead with empty promises, never answering how he would actually make them come true. And the people loved him for it. They loved hope, and that was what my father gave them. He was hope in a handsome suit, with sparkling white teeth and a boldly colored tie. If he could drag himself from the lower-middle class and come out on top of a multi-billion dollar industry, they could trust him to better their stance as well.

He would wave and kiss babies, pose for photo opportunities, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the average working-class man and woman. All the while, he hammered my mother into the ground, drugged her and programmed the detonator, waiting for her to self-destruct. He did the same to me.

There was no shortage of casualties where my father was concerned. If someone got in his way, they mysteriously disappeared. Did he drag them here? Enslave them? The blood pulsed angrily along the column of my throat. I clenched my hands and stared at the sky as it darkened, angry clouds building overhead. Then the crows came.

“You must have made quite an impression on the Keeper, Carmen. I’m pleasantly surprised. I’ve been trying to lure him here for years.”

There it was. He was using me as Keeper bait. I wanted nothing more than for Michael to run as far from this man, this castle, and this city as possible. I never wanted him to stop or look back. He might turn into a pillar of salt. If I could keep my father from hurting him…

“Will I be able to cross the divide, too?” I asked.

“What?” He looked at me, his attention diverted from the circling birds above.

“When you give me power, can I cross back and forth?”

He crossed his arms, the suit jacket he wore bunching around his biceps. “You would stay here.”

“What if the press asked where I was?” He loved media attention. My father prescribed to the ideal that there was no bad press. My car wreck? Everyone had problems. Send her to rehab and fix her. His affairs? He was trapped in a loveless marriage with an alcoholic. Why shouldn’t he have the chance to be happy? Spin, spin, spin. It was all about the spin of things.

“Do you intend to keep my body alive on Earth?”

The crows descended slowly. Michael was in the city, but not in the castle yet. I couldn’t feel him, his electricity.

“No, your earthly body will die. Your soul will then be free to remain in Purgatory.”

“What if I want to see my friends?”

He smiled pityingly. “You have no friends, Carmen. You never have.”

Unfortunately, he was right, and I had nothing to distract him with. Except for my mother.

“Why did you hurt Mom? Did you know she would kill herself? When she ended up here, why did you make her a slave?”

“I’ve lived for so long, and I’ve had many women, but your mother was the most difficult. Once the addictions kicked in, it was easier to manipulate her, but she determined her own fate by betraying me.”

“You killed her! How could she possibly have betrayed you?” my voice rose, shaking with rage.

“She mailed information to the press – confidential documents she stole from my office, mind you – but I paid the newspapers enough to cover it all up. But none of that is important now. You need to decide whether you are with me or against me, Carmen. With one choice, your soul lives, and with the other, I dispatch it. Only angels can dispatch souls to either Heaven or Hell. I have no power over Heaven. I can only send you to be with your mother.”