by P. R. Frost
“No. It didn’t break the skin.”
“Irritability? Sensitivity to light? Overwhelming desire to get lost in the woods alone?” I added my own questions.
“No.”
“He’s clean.” I sat back and sighed with relief.
“Not entirely.” Donovan maintained his hold on Mike.
I suddenly wished I had the comb. Then I could read Mike’s aura clearly and know for certain who, or what, he was.
“How well do you know my father?” Donovan continued his interrogation.
Mike gulped hard. I watched his Adam’s apple bob and his tanned face pale a bit. “Hardly at all. I’ve barely met him.”
“Perhaps I should ask, how well your family knows Darren Estevez.”
Mike yanked his hand free and sat as far back in the corner as he could squeeze his slender frame. He reached for his glass of water and downed the remainder of it in one gulp. Then he signaled the waitress to bring him more. She refilled his glass and my coffee cup then retreated a bare few feet, cleaning an already clean table.
I jerked my head toward her to make certain the two men were aware of her eavesdropping.
“So, there is a connection,” I said quietly.
“A loose one,” Mike admitted. “Look, I’m just an average guy trying to get by, do my job, and go home at night with a clear conscience.”
How should I read the emphasis of that statement? Or his body language? Or Donovan’s for that matter?
“In other words, your family owes D something. He pulled strings to get you sent here as his spy as repayment, ” Donovan spat.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Mike insisted. “But I had to, or stand by and watch . . .” He shuddered and downed another glass of water.
I shoved mine toward him and he gulped that, too.
Donovan looked as if he wanted to strangle the man.
“I’m not one of his followers,” Mike insisted. He drank Donovan’s water and looked as if he needed more.
Our helpful waitress showed up with a pitcher. She poured water and ice ever so slowly. Watching the three of us more than the tall glass, remembering what she was doing, just before the glass overflowed.
“I know how D can manipulate things, make you feel as if his agenda is your own idea, then leave you to face the consequences alone,” Donovan admitted once the waitress had retreated. “Believe me, I know. He’s a master at making other people take the blame for his actions. So what are you supposed to report to him?”
“Anything I can find out about Tess and her family. But I haven’t said anything yet. I haven’t told him about . . . about . . .” he looked around cautiously. “About the Celestial Blade.”
“And you won’t,” I whispered.
“Ever,” Donovan emphasized.
“Ever,” Mike repeated, almost mesmerized by his gaze.
“And you’ll run by me anything you tell Darren before you tell him,” I insisted.
"O ... kay.” He licked his lips. “Okay. I can do that, let you help me frame the words so I don’t tell him anything of value while making it sound like some deep dark secret.”
“Good man.” I patted his shoulder. “You watch Allie’s back and do as you’re told, and we’ll all be best friends before this is over.” I slid out of the booth. “Oh, and remind Darren that I have killed before. I don’t like doing it, but I can and will to protect my family and friends. I just added you to the latter list.”
At least I wouldn’t have to kill him forty-eight hours from now.
Mike nodded, looking relieved and grateful.
Donovan followed me. He tucked a generous tip in the waitress’ pocket to buy her silence.
“What kind of demon is he?” I whispered once we were safely locked inside Donovan’s car.
“Doesn’t matter. He wants to be mostly human. How’d you guess?”
“If he weren’t already a demon, the Windago tag would have turned him. I’m almost glad he’s Kajiri. I like him.”
“He’s the kind of guy I’m trying to help. The trapped ones who don’t belong on either side of the chat room.”
Admirable. If that was all Donovan wanted for the halflings, I might learn to trust him.
I really wanted to. My body cried out for his touch. My mind longed for the mental intimacy of long heartfelt conversations with him.
I’d get none of that until he told me the truth. All of it.
Chapter 22
Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, and the cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon.
"WHERE’S MOM? I don’t see her car,” I said the moment Donovan and I entered my mostly dark house. A new nervousness felt like a lead weight in my stomach.
The light over the stove and a dying fire in the hearth showed an empty kitchen. Clean dishes in the drainer. I opened the fridge to find remnants of the cod in wine and lemon sauce. Someone had cooked and eaten dinner.
Both Dad and Bill were decent cooks. I snitched a bite. Even cold it tasted wonderful. MoonFeather must have supervised.
“D said they’d be back about an hour after he called me, and that was three hours ago,” Donovan mused. He whipped out his cell phone and punched a number. After an endless ten heartbeats he shook his head and pocketed it. “Either the phone is off, or they are in an area with no service.”
“I don’t like this.” I stalked through the house, checking for signs of invasion.
We found Dad, Bill, Josh, and MoonFeather playing Scrabble in the dining room. The four of them plus WindScribe could have polished off the fish easily. Bill would have washed the dishes even if he hadn’t eaten.
“You are supposed to be in bed,” I greeted my aunt. She looked pale and drawn, but better than I expected.
She grimaced. “I’m getting bed sores from that mattress, ” she grumbled. At least MoonFeather had her leg propped up on a pillow on one of the extra chairs. A small concession to her injury.
“Where’s WindScribe?” A bubble of panic threatened to burst in my throat. I hadn’t counted the mounds of garden gnomes in the yard when we came in. They’d promised me two more days to prepare.
When I thought with my head and not my hormones, I realized I didn’t totally believe Gollum when he said the Orculli trolls would honor the temporary truce until the declared day and time of battle.
“She’s in there.” Bill jerked his head toward the sitting room, now MoonFeather’s bedroom. He looked a little disgusted.
Then I heard the faint strains of a TV show theme song. I grimaced when I recognized a slightly obscene and totally inane animated feature of a science fiction show. It had a big cult following, but I refused to watch more than the first five minutes of the first episode.
WindScribe laughed loud and long at some piece of dialogue or slapstick action.
I grimaced.
“How did the reunion go?” I asked MoonFeather. “Did she deign to recognize you?”
“Hmf,” MoonFeather grunted concentrating on her letter tiles.
"WindScribe called her old and the puppet of male politicians, then turned up the volume on the TV,” Dad grumbled.
MoonFeather wouldn’t say anything bad about our guest, even if she deserved it.
“Any phone calls?”
“Just James Frazier of the Gazette. We told him wrong number,” Bill said, not lifting his eyes from his tiles.
“Good. I don’t want him talking to WindScribe yet.”
“Actually, she refused to speak to him,” Dad said. He quickly rearranged his tiles, his eyes glowing with triumph.
“Any word from Mom?”
Dad shook his head. “Haven’t see or heard from them,” He yawned. He didn’t look overly concerned, engrossed in compiling ever more complicated words out of his tiles. A peek at the score sheet at Dad’s elbow showed that Bill was winning for a change. Probably MoonFeather’s pain meds and Dad’s concern for his only sister were interfering with the
ir concentration. Josh looked like he’d rather be holding MoonFeather’s hand than playing a game.
“I don’t like the idea of Genevieve marrying a man she just met,” MoonFeather said quietly. “We know nothing about Darren Estevez. He gives off a strange aura that makes me suspect they are not compatible.” The closest I’d ever heard her say anything negative about a person.
“I’ll say they aren’t compatible,” I agreed. “Maybe I should call Allie and see if there are any accident reports . . .” Then I remembered that Allie was in Boston with Gollum. I didn’t expect them until after midnight. Another three hours from now.
But I could call Mike or Millie if I really wanted to know. Could I trust them to keep my anxiety a secret. Not Millie. Maybe Mike.
“Your mother is a grown woman, and I presume her fiancé is a responsible adult as well. Let them worry about themselves,” Dad said. He placed three tiles on the board. “That makes your ‘vamp’ my ‘vampire’ with the e on a triple word!” he chortled, adding up his points.
I nearly choked. I’d had too many reminders of vampires and other undead creatures in the last twenty-four hours. I edged away from Donovan. Before I knew it, I had the entire length of the dining room table between us.
A car door slammed. I gasped and started.
“That’s probably them now,” Dad said. He stretched his back and added up the score again. “I’m ahead by ten points.”
“I think I’m done in. Can we evict the little . . . lady from my room now?” MoonFeather asked. “Even the ghosts don’t like that TV show. They’re hovering outside their usual places,” she whispered in an aside to me.
“I’ll persuade WindScribe to find another entertainment, ” Donovan said and retreated into the sitting room.
I left them to turn on the kitchen lights and start a new pot of coffee.
A second door slammed. Masculine and feminine chatter. I turned to face my mother, trying desperately for a smile and a welcome. Instead, a stern frown overrode my emotions. I felt like the disapproving parent with an errant daughter who’d broken curfew.
I wasn’t ready for the role reversal.
Gollum and Allie wandered through the mudroom into the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.
Gollum blinked behind his glasses. I couldn’t read his eyes, but his posture screamed surprise. “The lecture was from six to seven,” he said blandly.
“Oh,” I said flatly. I sagged. All my righteous indignation flew up the chimney. “I thought you didn’t go on until eight or so and didn’t expect you until midnight.”
“What’s wrong?” Allie asked. She stepped lightly, almost warily, eyes searching the shadows.
“Mom and Darren aren’t home yet. They’ve been gone since early morning and they aren’t answering the cell phone.”
Gollum’s eyes opened wide, and his glasses nearly slid off his hawkish nose. “You don’t think . . . no, he wouldn’t . . . would he?”
“Would he what?” I snapped.
“Kidnap her. He must want something from you. Maybe he figures holding your mother for ransom will be more effective than marrying her to get to you.”
I gulped. “She had her heart set on a church wedding . . . Could he be so cruel as to crush her hopes like that?”
“He’s Kajiri.” Gollum sounded so matter-of-fact and emotionless I almost slapped him.
This was my mother we were talking about.
“Scrap, can you find Mom?” I called into the ether. I had no idea where the brat hid. With Donovan occupied with WindScribe at the other end of the house, my imp should be able to come to me.
No need, dahling. Scrap appeared in front of me, hovering on his tattered wings, sporting a fair amount of iodine on his bum and streaked lavishly around his eyes in a weird makeup job. He waggled the end of his pink feather boa at me.
I had to bite my cheeks at his garish appearance. Then I had to pinch my nose as he farted and blew black cherry cheroot smoke in my face.
“You’ve been into some milk,” I gagged.
Whatever. The cat didn’t want it. At least not after I painted his nose with iodine. Scrap flashed his bum toward me and waggled his barbed tail. Mom and Darren are driving down our street as we speak. They should be pulling into the drive about . . . now.
Sure enough, I heard the crunch of gravel under tires.
Again, I sagged. This time in relief.
“Tess, sweetie,” Mom gushed as she practically flew through the door.
“Mom?” Was this young, vivacious, attractive woman with short, highlighted hair and a new stylish suit with— gulp—slacks really my mother?
Mom always wore skirts and pearls and kept her hair in a tight French roll.
“Mom?” I choked out again.
“Oh, sweetie.” She lapsed into the slight lisp of her French-Canadian accent. “You’ll never guess. We drove to Maine and got married!”
Chapter 23
The word lunatic comes from the Latin lunaris for Moon. A lunatic exhibits the kind of insanity that waxes and wanes with the phases of the moon.
El Stinko comes into the kitchen, but he does not eject me. The presence of Darren, a true demon, overrides Donovan’s power. Just like when we fought the Sasquatch last autumn.
I turn a bright vermilion. I lengthen and twist. My need to slay Darren consumes me. Only when he is gone from this life will Mom and my beloved Tess be safe.
Yet Tess does not command me to transform. If we attack Darren, he can only defend himself by becoming a giant bat. That would appall Mom. But would she believe that her new husband could actually be a demon? Would she trust her own eyes? Her faith would not allow her to believe the truth.
Then again, Darren might remain in human form and allow Tess to kill him, forever driving a wedge of unforgiveness between her and her mother. Is that his goal? Weaken Tess by separating her from her family.
Or, worse, having her condemned as a murderess.
Her wise head prevails.
Still, the need to become a weapon, to taste his tainted blood on my blade becomes a burning ache. If I do not change soon, I will burst into flames and consume us all in the fires of the six hundred sixty-six levels of hell.
I must duck into the chat room to douse the flame within me.
“Married! How could you be so stupid?” Donovan yelled from the butler’s pantry entrance.
Scrap was nowhere in sight.
“Marrying Genevieve was the smartest thing I could do.” Darren smiled in a sickly-sweet sort of way that told me he didn’t mean a word of it.
Mom, however, drank it in like iced sparkling water in the desert. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, as if she needed his direction to breathe.
“That tears it. I’m going to a motel.” Donovan plowed through the kitchen. “Let the lovebirds stay in the cottage. I’m out of here. It’s been fun, Tess. L’akita. We’ll talk tomorrow.” In a flurry of cold air and slamming doors he was into the mudroom.