“I think maybe you should focus your efforts elsewhere. This job—it just seems to exacerbate your vendetta against your family. It upsets your father.”
“I don’t have a vendetta against my family.”
“Then maybe stop acting like you do. You’re home now, Eden. Try letting go of all that virtue. See how it feels.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.” I went back to the living room with my tail between my legs. “I’m sorry I accused you of murder, Gustav.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “Water under the bridge. I’ve been accused of worse.”
Worse than murder? I decided not to ask.
“You’re going?” my father said. “No more accusations to throw around?”
“I promised I’d do bath and bedtime with Olivia and Ryan.”
My father snorted. “Good luck with that.” His tone was more ominous than I would’ve liked.
“It’s a bath and then a bedtime story,” I said. “How hard can it be?”
My father tried to cover his smirk with his cards. “For a talented agent like you, Eden? I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake.”
“Olivia, please get in the tub,” I commanded.
“I am not getting in there with my brother,” she insisted.
“Duck,” Ryan said. “Quack.”
“You’re little kids,” I said. “It’s a bath, not a marriage ceremony.”
Olivia shrieked in protest.
“Fine,” I huffed. “Give me a minute with Ryan, then you can take your turn.”
“Quack,” Ryan said.
“You want a duck?” I scanned the bathwater for a rubber duck but saw only an octopus, a mermaid, and a boat. At least they weren’t encouraging him to drown sailors by using the mermaid as a siren.
“I want a shower,” Olivia said. “And I can do it myself, thank you very much.”
I cast a glance over my shoulder. Olivia was naked except for My Little Pony underpants. Her arms were crossed and her chin was lifted in defiance.
“It’s hard to take you seriously right now,” I said. “But you can have a shower. Satisfied?”
Olivia snapped the waistband of her underpants. “I hate these. Mommy bought them and says I have to wear them. Friendship and magic? Ugh.”
I suppressed a smile. “What type of underpants would you rather wear?”
“Black, like my soul,” she said.
I turned back to Ryan. “Alrighty then.” Ryan laughed like I’d made the best joke in the world. “You’re a good-natured fella, aren’t you?”
“He caters to the masses,” Olivia said. “It’s pathetic.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” I felt something against my leg. I assumed it was the rubber duck and reached down to put it in the tub with Ryan.
It wasn’t a rubber duck.
My scream pierced the air and Olivia began to laugh hysterically.
“That’s Charlemagne,” she said.
I backed against the wall and stared at the enormous snake. “What kind of snake is he?”
“A Burmese python,” Olivia said. “He’s my best friend.”
“I can see why Pinky Pie isn’t your idea of a good time.” The snake was easily fourteen feet long with brown blotches and black borders.
Olivia dropped to her knees and stroked the snake’s body. “He won’t hurt you.” She paused. “Unless you try to hurt me.”
“You’re my niece,” I said. “I would never try to hurt you.”
“Anton says you used to hurt him when he was a kid.”
“That’s a complete lie!” What a rotten brother. “Your dad used to torture me with nightmares.” His demonic powers manifested early and he had no problem using them to practice on his little sister.
Olivia and Ryan both giggled.
The snake’s tongue flicked out and he licked my bare leg. I cringed. “Would you mind steering Charlemagne into a larger room? The bathroom is a bit crowded.”
“Let’s go, Char,” Olivia said. “Aunt Eden doesn’t want to play with you right now.”
Charlemagne ducked his head and swiveled around to leave, but not before opening his jaws to grab a squeaky toy that was hidden behind the wastebasket. The little round owl squeaked as the snake carried it out of the bathroom.
My heartbeat only slowed when Charlemagne was completely out of sight. I looked back at Ryan. “I hope you prefer hamsters when you’re older.”
“Charlemagne likes hamsters, too,” Olivia said. “As a snack.”
I choked on my own saliva.
Ryan spit water into the tub. “Fountain.”
“Yes, you’re a fountain. Congratulations.”
“Will you show me your wings, Aunt Eden?” Olivia asked. “Pleeeease.”
I jerked toward her. “Who told you about my wings?”
“I heard Great-Grandma and Mom-mom talking about it. They said you were ungrateful.”
I turned back to shampooing Ryan’s head. “I suppose I am, from their point of view.”
“I would love wings,” Olivia said. “But no one thinks I’m a fury.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Furies seem to be few and far between.”
“I’ll trade you,” Olivia offered.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I said.
“Well, if you decide to fly one night, can I ride on your back?” Olivia asked. “I’m so small. No one will see me.”
I glanced over my shoulder. My niece was so young, yet so eager to embrace the supernatural. I had no idea why I was so different, but I was.
“Sure,” I said. I thought of my effort to rescue Chief O’Neill from the water. “I should probably practice using them anyway, just in case I ever need them in an emergency.”
Olivia jumped up and down and clapped her hands. “I promise I’ll stay quiet and out of sight.”
I laughed as I rinsed Ryan’s hair. “We’ll both have to do that. We can’t let humans see me with wings, remember?”
“If I had wings, I’d wear them for show-and-tell,” Olivia said.
“You’ll have to settle for a painting you drew over the weekend, I’m afraid.”
She scrunched her nose, weighing the unfairness of my statement. “My turn for a shower.”
I leaned over the bath to drain it. “Your sister’s right, little man. Time to dry off.”
Ryan stood up and by the time I reached for the towel, he was already dry. I blinked.
“How’d that happen?”
Olivia giggled. “Just a little magic, Aunt Eden.”
“You can do that?” Wow. We were going to have to keep an eye on this one.
“I can do a lot more than that, but Mommy says I need a dope supervision.”
“Adult,” I corrected her.
“That’s what I said!”
I lifted Ryan out of the tub. “Come on, Ryan. Let’s get you dressed and give your sister some privacy.” Something my brother never gave me when I was younger.
“I’m glad you’re here, Aunt Eden,” Olivia said. “Mom-mom says you’re a crap apple, but I like you.”
“You mean a crabapple, and I like you, too.” Maybe Clara was right. Maybe part of being here meant I could be a guiding light for my niece and nephew.
I picked up Ryan and began to exit the bathroom. Olivia swung the door closed too soon and it smacked me on the bottom. From the other side of the door, hysterical laughter erupted.
“Oops, sorry!” my niece called.
I rubbed the sore spot on my bottom and kept going. If I had any hope of influencing Olivia, I had a feeling my guiding light was going to need to shine like a supernova.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning I decided to head into the office and discuss my theory with Neville. While we chatted, I set to work trying to tidy Paul’s desk. No easy feat. The place was a mess.
“What’s this, Neville?” I showed him a long stretch of paper with names, faces, and dates that was buried underneath a few folders.
Nevill
e peered at the discovery. “The alerts from Otherworld. Our equivalent to the humans’ wanted posters. Be on the lookout for any of those supernaturals. If you see them, you need to arrest them and send them back to Otherworld post haste.”
I scanned the faces. No one looked familiar. “How often do these come in?”
“Every morning at ten,” Neville explained. “No one’s looked at them since Paul died, though.”
“You didn’t think this was important to mention?” It seemed like a necessary part of the job.
“I mentioned it now,” Neville said.
I began tracking them back to the week of Paul’s death. “Are you sure they come every day?”
“Yes, like clockwork. Sometimes Paul used the latest one as a dartboard. Chipping Cheddar isn’t exactly a haven for demon fugitives. They’re more likely to go somewhere they can blend, like a large city. Here, they would undoubtedly stand out.”
Neville made a good point. “There’s a date missing,” I said. “The fifth. Any reason why it wouldn’t be here?”
Neville’s face turned ashen. “That’s the day before Paul died.”
I double-checked the stash of papers. Yep, the fifth was definitely missing. “I don’t suppose you have any kind of security cameras set up in here?” Whichever demon was responsible, they knew enough to track down this office and hide evidence of their existence. Someone with a criminal track record made sense.
“No, infernal goddess,” he said. “My surveillance is used on others, not us.”
“You really ought to start locking the front door,” I said, though a demon with the right skills could easily bypass a human lock. “Or maybe add a protective ward.”
“I’ll create one this instant.” He moved to stand in front of the door and began to chant.
“Can we call a contact at Otherworld and get a copy of the missing alert?”
He stopped chanting and turned. “That should be easy enough,” Neville said. “I’m happy to oblige you.”
“Thanks.”
“There.” He dusted off his hands. “That should be sufficient.” He headed back to his desk and the sound of a whistle set my teeth on edge.
“What’s that, Neville?”
“I do believe the ward has been breached, darkest one,” he replied sheepishly.
I bristled. “Will you please stop calling me names like that? I’m Eden or Agent Fury, if you want to be formal about it.”
“But you’re a rare and wondrous fury,” Neville said, his voice a reverential whisper. “One that deserves the proper respect.”
“I’m not dark. I’m not infernal. I’m certainly not wondrous.” I clenched my fists. “I’m just a normal agent.”
“And a pretty lousy one at that.” My mother burst through the front door. “I breezed straight through your ward and nothing happened to me. Not even a little pinch.”
My jaw unhinged. “Mom! What are you doing here?”
Neville held up a finger. “I’ll make that call now.” He took out his phone and moved to the back of the office.
“Your brother is at work and your father is out of town on a vengeance request, not that I dare ask that man for anything except a divorce,” my mother said. “Anyway, I wanted to make tuna sandwiches for lunch.”
“So make tuna sandwiches.”
She thrust out a jar of mayonnaise. “I couldn't open this.”
I gaped at the sealed jar. “You came all the way to my office so I can open a jar?”
“Who else? The rest of the family lacks your oversized hands.”
“Mom, you can't just show up here. I don't work in retail. I'm an agent.”
“I didn’t come all the way here. I was planning to have a picnic nearby.”
“In the park across the street?”
“Of course not. In the cemetery around the corner. Ryan is in the car.”
My eyes popped. “You left a one year old unattended in the car?”
She waved a hand airily. “I put a ward on the car.” She glanced back at Neville. “And it’s a lot stronger than the one you had here.”
I groaned. “Mom. You can’t take Ryan on a picnic in the cemetery. People will notice.”
“What do I care what people think? I used to bring you and your brother there all the time. You loved talking to the ghosts.”
That was before I knew how weird it was for other people to see me talking to the air.
I opened the jar and handed it back to her. “Don’t do this again. I’m very busy.”
“Yes, yes. You and your important work eradicating evil.” She continued to stand there, holding the jar.
“What?”
My mother bit her lip. “You can’t date him.”
“Who?”
“The new chief.”
“Who says I want to date him?” I asked.
“Oh, please. I want to date him and he’s not even my type.”
“Handsome and funny isn’t your type?”
“Well, you’ve seen your father,” she replied.
“Not saying that I want to, but why would you possibly disapprove of the chief of police?”
“You know why,” she said pointedly. “He doesn’t do anything.”
“Doesn’t do anything? He’s the chief of police in Chipping Cheddar. A very young chief, I might add.”
She blew out a dismissive breath. “That’s nothing. Anybody can do that.”
“Mick O’Neill wasn’t just anybody,” I said. “He was our friend.
“Don’t put words in my mouth. You know that’s not what I mean. Chief Fox is pure, unadulterated human. Getting involved with someone like him is a recipe for disaster and you know it.”
“I’m not involved with him,” I said.
“Good, then let’s keep it that way.” She gave me a hard look. “You’d compromise your whole family in a relationship like that.”
“And I don’t compromise the family in a job like this one?”
“That’s to be determined.” My mother wiggled the mayonnaise jar. “Thanks for your help.” She turned around and waltzed out the door.
Neville waited until the door was closed to approach me. “A formidable woman, your mother.”
“An inherited trait.”
“I can see that.” He handed me his phone.
I squinted at the screen. “What am I looking at?”
“The missing alerts from the fifth,” he replied. “I was able to download them.”
I swiped through the faces. It was like Tinder for ugly people. Unsurprisingly, Gustav’s face was not among them.
“Recognize anyone?” I asked.
Neville studied the images over my shoulder. “No, O bright and fiery one.”
“I’m going to bright and fire you in about two seconds,” I threatened.
Neville ducked his head. “I will endeavor to be worthy of you.”
“You don’t have to be worthy of me. We work together. You’re my trusted assistant, as in I trust you to stop the worshipping. It’s weird.”
“As you wish.”
“I do wish.” I examined the alerts more closely. “A warlock with a racketeering conviction. A vampire with a bloody trail.” I shuddered, thankful that my own vampiric family member preferred her blood out of a bottle. “Great balls of fury!”
“What is it, my beatific…What is it, Agent Fury?”
“This guy.” I tapped the screen. He was as ugly as they come, with bumps and scales and two holes that passed for a nose. If Voldemort and a dragon had a baby, it would be this guy.
“He’d be impossible to miss in Chipping Cheddar,” Neville said. “If he were responsible for the murders, we most certainly would have seen him.”
“No, Neville, we wouldn’t have,” I said. “Read the fine print.”
Neville concentrated on the tiny paragraph at the bottom of the screen. “He was eviscerated. His shade escaped a maximum security holding cell.” He gasped. “He could be right here and we wouldn’t even know i
t.”
“He is here, Neville, and we do know it.” My jaw tightened. “And I think I know where to find him.”
“We’ve already been down this road, Eden,” my father said sharply. “Gustav had nothing to do with those murders.”
I stood in my father’s living room with a printed image of the suspect.
“I’m not here for Gustav,” I said. “I’m here for this guy.” I shook the paper. “His passenger.”
Gustav scrutinized me. “My what?”
“Your passenger. Also known as a hitchhiker. When you came through the Otherworld portal in New York, you didn’t come alone.”
Gustav shook his head. “Of course I did. I think I would know if I brought someone through with me.”
“Not if the hitchhiker wasn’t corporeal,” I said.
My father sucked in a breath. “A demon shade. How did you figure it out?”
I explained about the missing alert. “Once I saw that he was invisible, I realized what likely happened. Last night Olivia asked to go flying with me. She said she’d stay hidden on my back because she was so small. And the other day Grandma wanted to hitch a ride to collect Aunt Thora from her gardening meeting. She promised to stay quiet.”
My father’s laughter interrupted me. “I can imagine how that went.”
“That’s what made everything click into place,” I said. “She couldn’t be quiet if her life depended on it.” She even upstaged me at my own dance recital when I was nine. You would think she’d use her magic to help her granddaughter nail the moves, but no. My grandmother used her magic to help Grandma nail the moves—right in front of the stage for all to see. She stole the show. Clara and I spent the next week hiding in the bathroom at school so kids didn’t make fun of me. She was a good best friend, that Clara. I was an idiot for distancing myself from her all these years.
My father shrugged helplessly. “You know your grandma. She needs to be seen.”
“Why haven’t you seen him?” Sally asked.
“I don’t see shades or ghosts that don’t want to be seen,” I explained. “If Alice wants alone time, she disappears from my sight.” I sucked in a breath. “Anyway, he’s a fear demon. He used the victims’ fears against them.”
“That’s why there was no physical evidence,” my father said. “He didn’t lay a finger on them. He didn’t have to.” He looked a little in awe of the fear demon.
Great Balls of Fury Page 14