by Lish McBride
Ramon looked closely at the little guy as he ate. “Maybe he’s Jewish. I mean, if Sammy Davis Jr. could convert to Judaism, why not a chupacabra? We should name him Harry Mendelbaum.”
I held up my arms in protest. “You’re all racist. Now shut up. We’ll call him Taco von Precious of Svenenstein. There, everyone happy?”
“Isn’t von the same thing as of ?” Frank asked. “Wouldn’t that be kind of redundant?”
“You’re redundant,” I said. “Besides, I’m basing it solely on the fact that it’s fun to say, so I’m keeping it.”
Ramon sniffed. “Just for all that, I’m calling him Stalin.”
“You want to call everything Stalin.” I tossed a chicken bone onto the plate. Taco eyed it hopefully, but I wasn’t sure if it was good for him or not. “No bones for you yet, my precious.”
“If you start baby talking that thing, I’m going to hurl.” Ramon, apparently, was completely immune to Taco’s preshie charms.
“Quiet, you,” I said.
His belly bulging, the chupacabra finally looked sated. A pink—and slightly forked—tongue came out to lick the remaining chicken grease off his lips. I knelt down to see if he’d let me pick him up, and he skittered up my arm and onto my shoulder. He was, well, I’m not sure if the term is entirely appropriate, but he was purring. More of a hum than anything else, but he was obviously happy.
I took Taco back to the bathroom, making Frank grab him some old blankets and a water dish. He seemed curious at first as to what we were doing, but once he understood, his ears perked up. I coaxed him back under the bathroom sink for now, figuring he’d be more comfortable there, since he was used to it.
“This house is strange,” Frank said as I closed the door on the happily curled-up Taco. “Do you think we need to get him a litter box?”
“What, your parents’ house didn’t have a chupacabra?” I asked. Frank gave me a withering look. I punched him on the shoulder, but in a friendly way. “Hey, beats working at Plumpy’s, yeah? They just had rats there.”
“Beats living with my parents, too.” Frank frowned. “I wonder where he came from. I better ask around. Hey, weren’t you supposed to meet Haley today?”
I looked at the clock. “Oh, crap, is that the time? I was supposed to pick her up thirty minutes ago!” I ran and grabbed a car before anyone could say anything. No one had slashed my tires, and the bushes only took a halfhearted swipe at me. Things were beginning to look up.
Haley was seated on a brick half wall, swinging her legs and reading a book when I pulled into the library parking lot. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been until I saw her. The entire drive I’d been picturing worst-case scenarios, so it was a tremendous relief to see her safe.
She looked a little goth today—dark hair braided on each side of her head, black boots, black and red skirt, skull tank top. I used to think that was the scene she was into. Finally it occurred to me that she was just being Haley. She wore exactly what she wanted to wear, completely incognizant of where those clothes put her on the social spectrum. My sister was one of those rare high school kids who simply didn’t care. She didn’t need extra definitions to feel whole: cheerleader, jock, punk, whatever. For her, being Haley was enough.
It was pretty obnoxious.
She didn’t look up from her book as she opened the door and climbed in. The bookmark hit the page only when she put her seat belt on.
“Nice ride, Latey McLaterson. What happened to your Subaru?”
“I’m a jerk. Jerks are late. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
She stowed her book and turned in her seat to glare at me. “I could have taken a bus there by now.”
I nodded as I turned the car onto the road. “Yes, you could have. But would a bus pay for the flowers we’re going to get and buy you an apology coffee?”
Haley relaxed farther into the seat. “You are forgiven, especially if the apology coffee comes with a groveling pastry.”
“Of course it does. The two are practically inseparable.”
Haley picked out an arrangement that she deemed suitable, and we drove to the cemetery. I’ve always felt oddly at ease in graveyards, but over the last few months, that feeling of comfort has deepened. Now it’s more like the sensation of homecoming. Nothing quite like the knowledge that death welcomes you with open arms to give you the warm and fuzzies.
Haley put the flowers next to Haden’s grave, and we sat down on the grass and stretched out a bit in the sun. We didn’t always talk. Sometimes we were silent, sometimes we chatted to him, sometimes we just said “hey, Dad,” and then chatted amongst ourselves. We felt he didn’t care. He was just glad for the company.
Haley and I were silent for a while. It was nice to sit out in the sun and listen to the birds and the bugs and the muffled sounds of the city. It was the best I’d felt all day.
Haley flopped onto her side. “Have you ever wanted to, you know.” She wiggled her fingers at the grave.
I plucked a piece of grass and shook my head. “I don’t feel ready for that. Besides, it doesn’t really seem right, calling him up for no reason. Kind of, I don’t know, disrespectful. Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah, it does.” She leaned her head in her hand. “I want to picture him happy and content where he is, and I don’t want to interrupt it to say something stupid like hello.”
I pulled my T-shirt up a little to get a breeze. It was getting on in the day, but still pretty hot. “I miss him. I know that’s a stupid thing to say—I mean, of course I miss him—but I wonder if things would be, you know, easier if he was here right now.”
Haley nodded. “Do you ever wish he was your actual dad?” She winced. “Wow, that sounded cruel. I meant in the biological sense.”
My sunglasses slid down my nose, and I pushed them back up with one hand before I answered her. “Yeah.” I didn’t add on that it would be nice to fully belong somewhere. Or that I’d have liked to have had Haden my whole life, not just a handful of years. She knew that. Besides, it seemed selfish. I should be grateful that Haden had come into my life at all.
My sister put her hand into the grass, letting a ladybug crawl up onto her index finger. It sat there, content to be close to her.
“I’m glad he wasn’t. I know that sounds selfish and makes me kind of an ass, but if things hadn’t happened how they had, you wouldn’t be you. You wouldn’t be Sam. Sure, you might have looked more like me, and you might have been nice enough, but I like who you are now. I like my weirdo brother who talks to ghosts.”
“I’m not sure whether I should say thank you or punch you in the face.”
Haley blew on the ladybug, and it took flight. I watched it fly lazily up until I lost it in the glare of the sun.
“You should thank me,” she said. “And then you should buy me my apology coffee. I’d like my apology iced and my groveling to have cherry filling.”
“As soon as you describe the knife found in your door.” I smacked my hand on the ground. “Damn it, Haley, your door! You deliberately let me think it wasn’t as serious as it is.”
Haley cursed. “Mrs. W ratted us out, huh?”
“Yes,” I said. “But that’s not the point. I thought we all agreed. No more secrets, wasn’t that what we said?”
Haley fixed me with a stare. “No, I think that’s what you said.” She heaved a sigh. “I get why you’re pissy, but honestly, it’s no big deal. It was probably just my friends pulling a prank. Didn’t seem to make sense getting you all worked up over it.”
I sat up and tipped my sunglasses onto the top of my head. “You don’t really think it was your friends, do you?”
Haley deflated a little. “No, not really. But we can handle it, Sam. There was nothing special about the knife. Just a basic, cheap, plain athame. No scrollwork, nothing. It’s not a big deal, and it seemed silly getting you involved in it.”
I scowled at her. “Uh-huh, and how do you know it’s not directed at me?”
“M
y door, big brother. My name written in blood, not yours.” She tossed a clump of grass at me.
“My baby sis, baby sis.” I threw the grass back at her. “Fine, what’s done is done, but at least let me send James over to check your security or something.”
Haley gave in with a shrug. She seemed a lot less worried than I was about the whole thing, but then again, it was Haley. Even if she was as freaked out as I was, she’d never show it.
*
Iced coffee, on a hot day, can perform miracles. So can talking things out with your little sister, if she is anything like mine. You know, too smart for her own good.
“So,” Haley said around a mouthful of Danish. She took a sip of her coffee to wash it down. “What you’re saying is that on top of Brannoc being murdered, the pack is a mess, they’re seemingly angry with you, Brid dumped you, you’ve been drugged with magic or something, and there’s an insurrection at your house?” She ticked these things off on her fingers. “My, you have been busy. No wonder you were late.”
I threw my straw wrapper at her head, which she dodged. “No reminder of transgression after consumption of apology coffee.”
She held up her hands. “Fair enough.” She gazed thoughtfully out into the café for a few moments. “Well, it sounds like the insurrection has been quelled for now, yes?”
“If by quelled you mean they aren’t openly trying to bite my face off, then yes, it has.”
“We’ll put the strange whacked-out experience you had on the back burner for now as well. Interesting, but maybe not quite so relevant as the rest of it. And I think the pack will calm a bit once they get some sort of answer, so what you really need to do is make headway on the whole Brannoc thing, yeah? And then maybe your girl will take you back?”
“I guess. I mean, I’m no detective or anything, but I feel bad because they do need help and they came to me—”
“And you blew it.”
“Hey, now.”
Haley held what I refer to as her shushing hand out at me and took a long sip of her coffee, biting the end of her straw in thought. “Don’t you know a detective?”
“Yeah, sort of.” Detective Dunaway had been assigned to Brooke’s murder. Because of which he now knew what I was. It had thrown him a bit, to say the least, but overall, I think he was happy to get an explanation for all the weirdness in her case. Sometimes finding out you’re not insane is enough, I guess. I wouldn’t classify him as a friend—an ally maybe. He’d threatened to lock me away if he found out that I had anything to do with Brooke’s murder, but I don’t think that him being angry at her death and his willingness to punish the perpetrators was necessarily a bad thing.
I grimaced. “It’s not a bad idea, but I don’t think the pack would be too hip on me bringing a human police officer onto their land.”
“Well, they probably won’t like my other suggestion, either.”
“Which is?”
“Bring your Council.”
I choked on my coffee. “Oh, man, Haley. They’d like that even less.”
“That seems unlikely. Brannoc was Council, wasn’t he?”
I wiped my mouth with a tiny café napkin. “Wouldn’t it be a bit like showing up with a whole posse instead of just a deputy?”
Haley rolled her eyes. “Not if you play it right. They want to be reassured, and showing that you’re bringing in all the big guns to find Brannoc some justice, well, why wouldn’t that soothe them? Sam, you need experts on this, and I love you, but—”
“I’m so new I have that new-car smell about me?”
“Yeah. Plus, isn’t it, like, their job?”
I opened my mouth to shoot her down, but had to close it. She was right. It was their job. Besides, Brannoc was Council. It would look bad if we did nothing, right?
“You’re right.”
She snorted. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not.” I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the cold damp where my sweat had chilled. Gross. I wiped my hand on my shorts. Haley watched with amusement but said nothing. “But I have no idea how to get ahold of everybody.”
“How do you usually?”
“I don’t. We have set meeting times, and I just show up. They haven’t really called me in for too much yet.” I had a feeling they were waiting to see if I could handle it before they did.
“Don’t they have a phone tree or something?”
“Haley, that’s ridiculous. This isn’t the PTA.”
She swirled the ice in her cup, a skeptical look on her face. “Fine. Why don’t you ask Ashley, then?”
I mumbled at her, then shut my eyes. I tried to not think about how silly I looked and relaxed. Breathing deeply, I let the sound of the café die away. With each breath, I pulled in the quiet and then let it out, taking my anxiety with it. Once I felt calm, I pictured Ashley, right down to the inky ponytails and the gray eyes and the grin she got when she was making fun of me, which was always. Then I pushed that thought out. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. That’s how it feels, like you put an image into a little boat and shove it out onto the air.
The bells on the door tinkled, and I opened my eyes. Ash, in her usual Catholic schoolgirl attire, slid into an empty seat next to us.
“You rang, Master?”
“Shut up. I get enough of that from James.”
She looked at me, then she looked at the empty spot in front of her, then she looked wistfully up at the menu.
I sighed. “Fine, I’ll go get you something. Haley, fill her in.”
By the time I came back with Ash’s drink and scone, Haley was wrapping it up. Ash settled her snack in front of her and put a little paper napkin on her lap. I guess you can be dead and still care about getting crumbs on your skirt. She smoothed out the napkin. “Why don’t you just call the phone tree?”
Haley didn’t say “I told you so,” but she didn’t have to—I could see it on her face. I ignored her, of course.
“Fine,” I said, “where is it?”
“James probably has it. Call a meeting and ask about your human cop then.”
I frowned. “You don’t think they’ll nix the idea?”
She broke off a piece of her scone, examining it while she thought. “There’s no harm in asking. Dunaway hasn’t gone running to the papers about you yet, and he might have ideas that we won’t.” She popped a bit of scone into her mouth. “The Council is full of experts, but none of their expertises are detecting. Maybe you can sell it like that.” She broke off another chunk of scone. “If you play it right, it might actually help soothe some of the pack’s ruffled … well, I was going to say feathers, but maybe I should say fur.”
I leaned back in my chair, which wasn’t easy in the scrawny wooden thing I was in. “You think?”
She nodded. “It will make it clear that you’re trying everything you can think of. That you’re putting yourself at risk by revealing to the Council as well as the human authorities a weakness—that you can’t do this on your own. It will show that finding out who killed Brannoc is more important.”
“Of course it’s more important.”
“Yeah, but this will show it.”
Haley leaned in and held out her hand. “Give me your phone, and I’ll call James.” I did as she said, watching her walk outside to make the call, thankful that while I seemed really good at getting myself into messes, I appeared equally good at surrounding myself with people who would help me out of them.
*
I dropped Haley off at home. I couldn’t exactly take my little sister to a Council meeting, now, could I? Ashley vamoosed as soon as we’d hit the car, but promised to come back later. For about five minutes, I drove in silence after Haley got out. But the quiet allowed too much time to think about what might go wrong and what already had. I turned up the stereo after that, too loud for ruminations, but not so loud that blood came out of my ears.
The gnomes were watching Walker, Texas Ranger when I walked in. They were getting popc
orn everywhere, which was going to send James into fits. Frank was with them, though, and monitoring their behavior somewhat, so I didn’t say anything. I needed to shower and change. I couldn’t go to a meeting in a T-shirt and shorts—it would give James an embolism.
On the way, I stopped by his room to check in. He had curled his long frame into a chair and was clutching a throw pillow to his chest. Oddly enough, he was also watching TV. It looked weird. I guess I’d always assumed that James listened to opera and read classic novels on his breaks. He seemed like that kind of person. I didn’t even get a chance to knock before he waved me in without looking in my direction.
I hadn’t really spent a lot of time in James’s room, but I had noticed that, more often than not, he was human when he was in there. He didn’t go into kitty default mode until he left. Maybe it was a comfort thing?
His room was cozier than I had imagined. I think I’d expected antiques and hard Victorian furniture. He did have a four-poster for a bed, but the blankets were broken in and comfortable looking, a patchwork of inviting blues, reds, greens. The room was tidy, but the shelves were full of books, knickknacks, and random odds and ends. The furniture was some kind of warm-looking wood, again looking old and broken in. And though he didn’t have any posters, the walls were all painted in mural fashion. Trees around the bed, their branches reaching up onto the ceiling, where a night scene was painted very Starry Night style. His room was beautiful and functional, and when I sat on the bed, I realized that I didn’t know very much about James.
He didn’t say anything right away, so I remained quiet and continued to look. A small framed picture stood on his nightstand. Without thinking I picked it up. What could only be a young James—who else had silver eyes?—stood under the branches of a weeping willow. He didn’t look more than twelve, but he was dressed smartly even then, though a trifle out of date. The photo looked like the early versions of color photography I’d seen. Douglas was next to him, a hand resting on the boy’s shoulders. Douglas was smiling a little. It was creepy. James wasn’t smiling. I guess he’d perfected his somber face at a tender age.