“Tuck me in.”
He walked her upstairs. Vinny stripped off her clothes without even thinking about it, then slipped under the covers. Dom pulled the blanket up to her chin.
“Dom,” she said, catching his hand before he could step away, “Stay.”
“You’re perfectly safe now.”
“It’s not about safe. Please. Just sleeping. Just to not be alone…after that.”
He hit the lights, and a second later slid into bed beside her. Vinny curled up on him the second he lay down. “Can I ask you something?”
“You just did.”
“Smart ass,” she said. “I’m serious.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tonight, when all that happened. When that thing showed up. Were you scared?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“You didn’t act scared.”
“Well, I was. It’s always smart to be scared around the supernatural. The universe is way bigger and meaner than most people dream of.”
“I was terrified,” she confessed. He tightened his arms around her, and Vinny sighed with contentment.
“Terror is a rational response,” he said then.
“Dom, I don’t want to be terrified if it happens again.”
“How many friends of yours made a deal with a demon?”
“I mean running into any of your supernasties. I want to be prepared.”
“It’s not that simple. But it’s also not that likely. Most people live their whole lives without ever having an encounter.”
“Yeah, well I seem to be an outlier.”
“Maybe just because you’re around me.”
“Or maybe the only reason I got more than one encounter to my name is because you were there to save my butt,” Vinny said.
“You have a butt worth saving.”
She smiled in the darkness. “You think?”
“Pretty sure.”
She thought about what happened, then said, “If Piewicket eats demons for breakfast, then why didn’t she just eat this one? Wouldn’t that have solved everything?”
“No. First, the demon’s death wouldn’t necessarily have saved Jonas’s soul—we had to sever the contract to do that. And second, Pie says this type of demon tastes really bad.”
“I can never tell if you’re joking when it comes to Piewicket.”
Dom laughed softly. “She’s a cat, and therefore transcends human understanding.”
Vin nestled closer to him, breathing in the smell of him—not exactly glamorous, just sweat, and smoke, and something else she could only label as Salem. She didn’t want to let him go.
“Stay all night,” she whispered.
“You didn’t even have to ask.”
She drifted to sleep while listening to him breathe. She’d never been so happy in her life.
* * * *
Despite the late night, despite his exhaustion, despite his fear that he’d lose Vin and her soul to some demon, Dom slept great. It was because he had Vinny right next to him. Naked, yes, which was nice. But more importantly, alive. That was what he liked best.
He drifted in and out of sleep until the morning sunlight got too bright to ignore. He picked up his phone and suppressed a snarl. Dom saw a string of texts from Mal, all basically saying we need to talk. He sighed. He really didn’t want to know what happened, because chances were he’d have to leave this place fast. And that meant a very uncomfortable talk with Vinny.
She was asleep, though. If he kept it quiet, he could talk without waking her, and without leaving the bed.
He dialed Mal.
His brother picked up instantly. “Hey, where the hell have you been? I texted a million times. Are you done out there? How’d it go?”
“Fine. The client nearly died, though, so it might be hard to get referrals.”
“What? What did you do?” Mal demanded.
So Dom explained everything that happened. Mostly. He scaled back all the events with Vinny.
Mal said, “Why aren’t you on the road back already? What’s the hold up?”
“Um. I thought I’d stay to help Vinny get things under control.”
“Who’s Vinny again? I thought the client’s name was Jonas.”
“It is. And I did get paid. So it’s okay.”
“So who’s this Vinny dude?”
“Vinny’s not a dude. She’s a girl. Woman. Lady.”
His brother pounced on that info. “Are you into her?”
Dom squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could shut out his brother’s questions. “Yes,” he ground out.
“Is she a vampire?”
“No.”
“Holy shit. You got paid beaucoup bucks for a job that nearly killed our client, and you got tangled up with a chick named Vinny, which believe me we’re going to talk about, and you’re just hanging out there like you’re on vacation. What the hell, bro? Explain.”
If there was one thing Dom really didn’t like talking to his brother about, it was anything to do with women. “You didn’t call to give me dating advice. What’s happening back home?”
That worked. Mal burst out, “Oh, man. That hellhole across the street—it’s suddenly crawling with people. Workmen, county inspectors, utility workers. Whoever owns that place is no longer content to let it crumble away. It looks like a full restoration. From the outside anyway. Who knows what’s going on below the house. Behemoth says he can feel the hellhole now. Something in the otherworlds is waking up, right underneath that house.”
“Ok. I’ll get on the road and come back as soon as I can. Do whatever you have to in the meantime.”
He hung up and then saw Vinny watching him. She’d heard his side of the conversation, and she knew what was coming.
“Vinny,” he said. “Listen, I need to get home.”
“I was wondering when you’d say that.”
He’d been dreading this moment. As long as neither of them said anything, he could pretend it didn’t matter. But it did matter. They didn’t live here, and their home bases were hundreds of miles apart.
“Can we talk?” he asked, feeling absurdly nervous.
“Hope so. We’re adults, yeah?”
“I can play one pretty well,” Dom said.
Vinny said, “Depending on what you want, it’s either going to be a very short conversation, or it could go longer.”
He took her hand in his, flipping her palm up. “I was not expecting you, Vin. Not picking you up on the road, not letting you know what I do, and definitely not getting into a relationship with you. But I’m not sorry I did any of those things.”
“Good. Neither am I.”
“So,” he said, “this is where it gets awkward.”
She said, very quickly, “I really like you. Let’s get that out of the way.”
“Okay.”
“I need some time to think. About everything. But I really like you.”
“It’s mutual,” he assured her. “You should take as much time as you need.”
“I mean I’ll need days. Maybe weeks. You’ll be long gone before I know what the hell I want.”
“But you’re smart enough to use a phone, yeah?”
She laughed. “Yeah. We can talk later. Assuming you’re not locked in battle with an undead wereferret or something.”
“Unlikely.”
“You said that like there was still a slight possibility. Wereferrets aren’t real, right? I just made that up.”
“I can research it. I promise that most nights, chances are way better that I’m doing research instead of kicking ass. Sorry.”
“No, that’s good to hear.”
“Vin, I want you to be happy.”
She waited, her eyes bright. “Was that the beginning of something?” she finally asked, when he didn’t say more.
“That was it,” Dom admitted. God, he was crap with words around her. “I want you to be happy. You have to decide what will make you happy. I’ve got a few opinions, but it�
��s your choice.”
“You’ve got a choice too, you know.”
“I already made mine,” he said.
“And?” she asked pointedly.
“Understand me here, Vin. You are amazing. In every way I can think of, you’re amazing.”
She frowned. “But?”
“I’ve got a steady job, a vocation, even if it’s a strange one. I have a life and house and family around me. I’d say that I’d give all that up, but I’d be lying. I can’t give all that up. It’s part of who I am. So the person who has to decide what you want is you. I’m not pretending that’s an easy decision. You value your independence more than anything else. And accepting me…for whatever…would mean accepting a lot more than just me. It’s the job, the strange, the Salem clan—which is its own brand of strange. I’d never blame you for choosing another path.”
“A path without you,” she said. Her words sounded a little clipped, a little too precise.
“If that’s what you want,” he said, fumbling over the words. Those sounded like the right words, but he got the order wrong. Or something. If this were a spell, he’d be in trouble right about now.
Vinny looked him over, her expression cooling by the second. He’d stood under a solar eclipse. The air went cold all at once, the moment the sun went away. This was the same feeling, but worse. Because after the eclipse, the sun came back.
Vinny wasn’t going to do that. She pulled away from him in her own mind. She was right next to him in the bed, but a million miles away. She was the aloof, untouchable woman he’d met the day he pulled to the side of the road to pick her up.
“At least you’re honest,” she said. “You never pretended this was anything besides…what it was.”
“Vin.” He didn’t know what to say, and he knew it was already too late.
“I still like you,” she said, without cruelty, even though it hurt to hear it. “But you’re right. You have a path. You should follow it.”
Chapter 28
Dom drove fourteen hours the first day, and another six the next. By the time he got home in the early afternoon, he could barely see straight and he still felt the road under him, the miles passing one by one.
When he pulled into the driveway of the Salem house, Lily was the first person to see him.
She’d been sitting on the porch, and now walked down to the crumbling concrete front path. “Wow. You look like hell,” Lily said by way of greeting.
She did not look like hell. No matter what, Lily always looked neat as a pin, thanks to a super-strict upbringing by her Chinese-born parents. Long, perfectly straight hair the color of midnight—except for the purple-dyed ends—framed her face. Her brown eyes missed nothing, particularly not the way Piewicket bounded out of her confinement at the side pannier of the bike. The cat sashayed toward the house without a glance back at Dom.
“You made her mad.” Lily bent down to pet Pie as she passed by.
“I’ve been making a bunch of people mad,” Dom said after he got off the bike. He stretched, relieved to be done with the road trip. “You’re staying here?”
“For a bit. I need to go back to the library again for the research I’m doing. This is as good a place as any to get some work done.”
“You’ll get mad at me too, before you leave.”
Lily shook her head. “Whatever, Dom. You guys already had plenty of chances to offend me. I’m sticking around.”
“Thanks.” He meant it. Lily was good people. “Your research helped with getting rid of that demon. It helped a lot.”
“Good, though I bet you being a badass spellcaster helped more. Why don’t you come inside? It’s your house, after all.”
Dom followed her in, wishing the house felt more like home.
Seeing his youngest brother helped Dom feel a little better. Lex leaned through the doorway of the room they called the study—which was jam-packed with boxes of books and other materials they hadn’t managed to unpack yet. “I heard you like a girl.”
“Shut up.”
“Is it true?” Lex looked sweet, but he was implacable when it came to getting info out of people.
“I’ll tell you the story if you do a lookup for me.”
“Eh.” Lex paused, considering. “What’s the lookup?”
“Wereferrets.”
Lex shifted his gaze to Lily, who merely shrugged. “Got me,” she said.
“You want a lookup,” Lex said slowly, “on wereferrets. Were. Ferrets.”
“Just find out if they’re real or not. And if they can be turned undead.”
Lex narrowed his eyes. “Is this a hazing?”
“Nope. It’s a lookup.”
“Things I do for a story,” Lex muttered. “All right. Lily, are you in on this? I might need someone else around, if only to remind me that I’m doing a lookup on wereferrets.”
“Sensible,” Lily said, with a sharp nod. “I’m in.”
Dom left them arguing about the best way to start a lookup on wereferrets. Once he reached his bed, he crashed, sleeping five hours on top of the covers, still fully clothed.
He woke up when a heavy weight landed on his back.
“Ugh,” he grunted. “Get off me.”
Dom managed to knock the massive black cat off him as he flipped over. He blinked, utterly disoriented. The light in the room was strange. “What time is it?”
Time to eat, Behemoth told him, his green eyes gleaming. Past time, in fact. You are summoned.
“All right, all right.”
He changed his clothes and stumbled downstairs, where everyone else had already gathered for a late meal. He sat at the long table in the dining room, surveying the action in the kitchen. Mal yanked out a chair on the other side, sitting down.
“Watch the floor,” Dom muttered. “You’ll scratch it.”
“Have you seen our floor?” Mal responded. “It’s made of scratches.”
Lex pulled the big ceramic crock out of the oven and put it on the table. Lily leaned over and removed the lid, releasing a cloud of fragrant, savory steam that smelled better than any magic ever could.
“Cheesy Beany!” she declared, with a hopeful look on her face.
Dom knew the two of them had chosen to make Cheesy Beany specifically to cheer Dom up. It was the Salem family meal for all the brothers, something that their parents used to cook, and something all the boys clung to in that dark time afterward when they struggled to hold onto any sort of normalcy. Essentially it was a very bastardized, mashed up version of frijoles charros and masa harina cornbread. Over the years Cheesy Beany had never failed to make Dom feel better.
In addition to Cheesy Beany, there was rice, grilled corn on the cob, fresh pineapple, a green salad, rolls…basically enough to feed all of them twice with plenty of leftovers.
“Thank God. I’m starving,” said Mal, who’d never skipped a meal in his life. He reached for a roll, only to have it slapped down by Lily.
“Grace first,” she said. “Barbarian.”
“Jeez,” Mal muttered. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine,” said Lex, his hands already folded. “May this meal feed us and bless us, and give us the strength to fight evil and stand for those who cannot fight for themselves. Those we love who cannot be at this table in the flesh, may your spirits always be welcome. Amen.”
“Amen,” Dom echoed.
“Amen,” said Mal. “Now eating.”
They all dug in. Dom was hungrier than he thought, shoveling in nearly as much food as Mal. He’d only had coffee and eggs for breakfast.
He looked around the table, at his brothers, at Lily, who was family in every sense but blood, at the two cats who had been around his whole life. They were family too. Everyone was here, all safe, and well fed. And it was all happening here in their own home. It wasn’t quite Dom’s dream, but it was pretty close. So why didn’t he feel happier?
Because Vinny was over a thousand miles away, and not getting any closer.
There
were several minutes of near silence, punctuated only by someone asking for more of a certain food. Dom ate a lot of Cheesy Beany. The meal did help him feel marginally better. The combination of three different kinds of beans, baked with massively spiced tomatoes, mixed with a metric crap ton of cheese and topped with cornbread…unequivocally his favorite food.
Mal finally stopped stuffing his face. He leaned back in his chair. “So. Let’s hear it. You like a girl. A real, live, corporeal girl. There’s hope for you!”
“Please shut up.”
“I mean, not a lot of hope,” his brother went on. “After all, she’s not here, is she? And you look like you lost a puppy. So what went wrong?”
“Nothing. She stayed to help her friend get her life back on track. It’s called priorities, bro.”
Mal’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit. You really like her.”
“Yes,” Dom admitted. “And no, I don’t know if I’ll see her again.”
“She’s got your number, though, right? Don’t just ride off into the sunset and forget that part. The giving of the number is pretty important.”
“She’s got my number. She’s got my everything.” He did ride off into the sunrise, though.
“Right, right, right. As the Salem who understands ladies, I am going to offer you some advice.”
Lex and Lily both broke out laughing. Even Behemoth gave a suspiciously timed meow.
Mal glared at them all, then turned back to Dom. “The laid back approach is bullshit in this case. Don’t wait for her to come around. She’ll just come up with reasons why she shouldn’t. Let her know you’re thinking of her. Especially if there’s shit going on in her life.”
“That’s actually not terrible advice, Mal,” Lily said.
“Try not to sound so shocked,” he retorted.
Dom just shook his head. “I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Believe me, she wants you to get in the way,” Mal insisted, leaning over the table. “Or at least, she’ll want a tiny bit of a distraction from the shitty part of cleaning up after Senor Demon Deal.”
“All right. I’ll think about it.”
Lex scooped a bit of the Cheesy Beany into a small, blue-enameled bowl that had sat empty until then. He wordlessly handed it to Dom.
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