So I needed a ride to Jack’s Apothecary Shack.
Agnes had left before me, perhaps to deal with another one of Aldric’s trouble-making clients. Somehow, even though he employed a legion of assholes, I was now the most distinguished “criminal,” on his roster. What an honor. If he got a certificate printed up, maybe I’d tack it to the villa’s wall.
While my lawyer hadn’t booked me a ride home, she had gotten my cell phone and Reaper’s Switch returned to me, and handed me a little walking around money to get myself “sorted out,” as she had derisively put it. I was happiest about the blade, since that meant the wolf I actually had killed had been swept out to sea. This meant the blade was deemed unrelated to the Roan Kelly case. That was good news for me, since my livelihood—quite literally—depended on keeping the knife in my possession. It was my little scythe—more portable, but with less theatrical flair. Bottom line: no Reaper’s Switch, no harvesting of souls. Seeing how my quota went up, that would’ve been a bad start to this week’s performance review.
As I stood near the former Golden Hind Hotel, waiting for a cab on the corner, I felt fingers brush against my jeans. An old pickpocket trick—a lift, and a good one. Something I wouldn’t have noticed had I not executed my fair share.
I spun around and caught sight of a stocky dark-haired woman sprinting across the street.
“Hey!” I took a step out into the road, but a blaring honk distracted me. A cab, as if summoned from the depths of time and space, flashed its lights at me. I took one last glance at my escaping adversary, and then sighed, considering my priorities.
First, survival.
Then, answers.
I got into the cab. The cabbie gave me a funny look, but I waved a couple twenties in his face, and he was more than happy to take me where I needed to go. Tentatively, I reached into my other pocket. But nothing was missing.
Instead, a small piece of paper—red and shiny on the exterior—was inside.
I began to unfold its edges, and much to my surprise, it sprung open, into a flapping bird.
“Meet me at The Loaded Gun at midnight, Eden Hunter.” The paper bird’s beak jawed at me. “And come alone.”
Then the enchanted paper crumbled, dusting my jeans in ash. I was familiar with the Loaded Gun. I’d drank there a couple times when I was out of whiskey and the liquor stores were closed for the night. A hipster dive, the kind of manufactured shit show where your feet were glued to the floor in twenty dollar beer. It was only a couple blocks away from the new FBI field office—where things started to get seedy, and the nice part of town became just a memory.
“Hey, you gonna clean that up?” the cab driver asked, his stubble-coated jaw twisted in an annoyed grimace.
“No.” I fed another twenty through the glass divide, and we enjoyed a blissful silence the rest of the way to the apothecary shop. I could hear the wind pick up outside the closed windows as we headed up the incline, toward the bluff where the store sat alone. While it was technically on the northwest part of the island, in the suburbs, most of the surrounding half-mile or so hadn’t been developed. That meant a lot of sparse shrubs and fragmented rocks lying about like a giant had gotten bored of playing with them. Most people didn’t want to be exposed to the elements right out on the cliff. But Jack wasn’t most people, and Jack’s Apothecary Shack wasn’t a traditional store. Well known among the supernatural element on the island, to a human—or anyone not in the know—it merely looked like your basic ramshackle ranch house painted a rather garish shade of emerald. Home to a few surfers and stoners, maybe the occasional late-night party.
But the rest of us knew better. While not an apothecarial warlock himself, Jack had procured the best collection of herbs, magical augments, creatures, and other oddities this side of Chicago—or maybe even Chicago itself. And that was saying a lot, because Chicago was practically supernatural Mecca.
If there was an island to be framed for murder on, this wasn’t the worst one, I guess. I might not have had allies, but there were resources and contacts I could exploit to my advantage. A supernatural latticework that snaked through the jungles and tributaries, up the snowy peaks, down in the hearts of the volcanoes, into the city, past the suburbs and beyond. It was everywhere, and I needed to tap all that knowledge to find out just what the hell was going on.
My ex-boyfriend was dead.
There was a new Reaper in town.
And the FBI had shown up.
That would’ve been an eventful year.
The cabbie kept the meter running as he pulled in across the street. “You gotta pay by the minute if you want me to wait around.”
“It won’t take long.”
“As long as you pay.” He got out with me and lit up a cigarette as he leaned on the hood. “You pay, we ain’t got no problems.”
Capitalism. How refreshingly simple it made things. I could dig this guy’s attitude. If I still had any real friends, they’d probably tell me that was an indication of deeper issues. Whatever. Lone wolves can’t lose their pack. I’d ran with a crew before, and it’d cost me everything. Better just to leave things alone.
I approached the ranch home’s front walk with caution, following the map I’d memorized. Two steps over by the rose bush, four to the palm tree, spin around the rock circle a few yards from the front door. Not that anything bad would happen if I just waltzed up—Jack couldn’t just drop a lightning bolt on the mailman, after all—but the silly hoops would deactivate the wards, and let Jack know I was on the right list.
I mean, we knew each other, but the guy was like eighty going on a million, and his memory wasn’t the greatest. Plus, I had the suspicion that, in addition to his apothecarial supplies, he was growing some high grade hydroponic weed and shrooms somewhere in the basement. Most likely magically augmented. You think the regular stuff gets you paranoid, well, let me tell you, you’re in for a very unpleasant surprise if someone at a party ever tricks you into smoking that shit.
I completed the little song-and-dance by rubbing a tortoise shell on the concrete porch. Except, unlike the other times I’d been there, I didn’t feel the wards release. Usually there was a little magical chime to let you know you’d passed.
I furrowed my eyebrows and rubbed the tortoise shell once more for luck.
Still nothing.
After throwing a glance back at the driver—who had apparently been watching the whole charade, and was now looking at me like I’d just escaped from the asylum—I decided there was really nothing else to do but knock. I needed to peruse Jack’s wares and fix my various wounds so that I could find the real killer. After wiping some stray orange dust—a vestige of the reverse-pickpocket’s cryptic message—from my tattered shirt, I knocked on the wind-beaten aluminum door.
“Who’s there?” The voice buzzed through an intercom that hadn’t been previously installed. Given the crackling low-fidelity of the transmission, it was hard to tell who I was talking to.
“Jack? It’s me.” When I didn’t get a response, I added, “Eden.”
“Last name?”
I clenched my fist and resisted the urge to say something snarky. “It’s Eden Hunter.”
“Fascinating.” There was a long silence. “Did your parents name you that, or—”
“Let’s skip the twenty questions,” I said. “I need to come inside.”
“The place is kind of a mess. Renovations.”
“I’m not picky.”
“Then enter at your own peril.” The lock clicked open, and the weathered door popped slightly ajar. I nudged it open with my low-top sneaker, expecting Jack to be waiting at the entrance. But all I saw was the kitchen, where there used to be a solid wall. Everything else was empty, save for the box of cereal on the dusty countertop. He hadn’t been kidding about the renovations.
A slender man wearing no shirt glanced over, half his body hidden by an exposed beam.
“Hello, Eden.”
“You’re not Jack.”
“
Interesting observation.” He brought the bowl of cereal closer to his face and took a few bites. Milk dribbled down the blond stubble gracing his attractive face. He wiped it away casually and kept chewing. His golden brown eyes examined me with a strange combination of detachment and intense curiosity. They glittered like gold in the late morning light. “I’d have to agree.”
I took another step into the house, and the door shut on its own behind me. Jumpy from the day’s previous escapades, I let out a small yelp. My cheeks flushed almost immediately.
The slender man stared, eyebrow half-raised, like a zoologist studying a new breed of chimpanzee. His skin was the sort of deep bronze one can only attain from not caring about skin cancer at all. Thick sandy brown hair, bleached by the sun, sat in a pleasant mess across his head. Upon closer inspection, the stubble gracing his strong jaw was just the right amount that pretended to be uncultivated, but took a razor to maintain.
I knew a bullshitter when I saw one.
The man finished half his cereal before saying, “You’re staring, Eden.”
Like a third grader, I said, “Am not.”
Which only made my skin feel hotter. Suddenly, wearing pants on a tropical island seemed like a horrible move. I was thrown off, but not by his charm. When I finally took a deep breath, tasting the little flecks of his soul that danced around the house like confetti in a snow globe, I understood. This guy was old—and complicated. Feeling his soul made me shiver as I processed the various layers. Human, but time had a way of sanding away certain features of the soul and rendering others in stark relief.
“You’re a Reaper.” He took another bite of cereal. I could see they were some sugary concoction, Cocoa Puffs, maybe, which was amusing, given the depth of experience woven into his being.
Finally regaining my wits, instead of saying how’d you know, I said, “So you must’ve bought Jack’s place.”
“Actually, the old man kicked it.” He made a kind of clicking sound with his mouth and shrugged, but his eyes glowed with an unspoken epitaph that I could feel. “And I inherited the business.”
“So, what, you’re his son?”
This elicited a wry smile. The man dumped another mountain of breakfast cereal into his bowl and said, “More like an old friend.”
“And he just gave you the place.”
“I helped him through a rough spot once.”
“Not sure I follow.”
“You’re a little uptight, you know that?” The man set down his cereal and placed his slender elbows on the dusty countertop. “You gotta relax a little.”
“How about you sell me something for this,” I said, pointing at my infected shoulder, “and then I’ll go relax somewhere else?”
“Damn, that’s pretty nasty. Wolf?”
“Are you a healer or something?”
“Been around awhile, Eden, and no one’s accused me of that.” He emerged from behind the countertop. A pair of loose sweatpants hung from his v-shaped torso. The man moved with the deliberate ease of someone who had seen many years slip through time’s hourglass—a man with no place to be in a hurry. The old floorboards creaked as he extended his hand.
“Dante Cross.”
I clasped his hand, and he shook it firmly, for just the right amount of time. Our hands drifted apart, and I looked at his abs.
“So, is this your move?”
“Only when there’s an attractive woman outside.” He held my gaze and took a bite of cereal. This time, however, I didn’t blush or blink. Nope. My shoulder hurt way too bad for that, and his devil-may-care charm was starting to feel a little forced. Not that most girls would have noticed. But most girls couldn’t sense the blood and the gold and the cannon shot that seemed to swirl around the fractured shards of his ancient soul.
“Nice one, Romeo. You must say that to all the girls.”
“Only the—”
“Attractive ones. Got it.”
“Hasn’t failed me before now.” He raised one eyebrow ever so slightly. “So, Reaper, why have you been battling werewolves?”
“Never needed a background check to shop here before.” I craned my neck to better assess my surroundings. The wide entrance room branched off three ways—into the kitchen; to the left, which looked like an old library; and to the right, where there were a couple of bedrooms and a stairwell at the back of the house that led into the basement. I knew all of this by heart, having been here before. It didn’t look like anything had changed, other than the wall to the kitchen. An idle plaster-covered sledgehammer looked responsible for that.
“Hey, I’m not trying to pry.” Dante held his hands up high in surrender. “We all need a few secrets.”
“Werewolves are an occupational hazard.” I walked past him and stared into the room to my left. The musty aroma of vintage books wafted past. Jack’s many rare volumes were still stacked floor to ceiling, the overflow covering the bare hardwood after the thick, tall book cases had been filled. A faded leather chair sat in the corner, the upholstery frayed to its wooden frame in a few spots.
“See anything you like in there?” Dante asked, his tone playful.
“How’d the old man kick it?” I looked at the ceiling, which was water warped and beaten by the harshness of the elements. Atheas was notorious for its wild weather swings, even in the regions which had stable climates. In the northwest, the temperature didn’t drop to freezing, but ferocious storms were an omnipresent possibility.
“You think I killed him.” A statement, not a question—one with a little bit of an edge.
I slipped my hand into my pocket, gripping the Reaper’s Switch just in case. “I’m just trying to get the facts.”
Dante brushed past me and extended his long arms to grab a small paperback on a high shelf. He shook it off as he walked back. Before I could read the title, he flipped it open, and two folded sheets of paper came out. One was a last will and testament belonging to Jack. Sure enough, the old man had left his home and the assets within to none other than Dante Cross. The other was photocopy of a biopsy scan.
“Throat cancer,” I said.
“He went quick. Tough bastard until the end. But the abyss comes for us all, one way or another.” The darkness writ large on his face indicated that Dante understood that better than most.
Suddenly, I felt bad for asking. Still, considering how many people were out to get me these days, a little prudence didn’t hurt. I handed him back the sheets of paper, and he returned everything to its rightful place.
An awkward silence settled over the room.
“Was there a cat in the will?” I asked, suddenly recalling Jack’s pet. It was all black, except for a big white streak running down from the center of its head to his tail. Which kind of made him look like a skunk.
“No cat,” Dante replied. “Just the house and whatever was inside.”
The awkward silence returned. I considered heading back out to the taxi—the meter was running, after all—and finding an alternative way to treat my wounds. True, that would cost me more than money, but this was looking like a dead end. Besides, while Dante had inherited the business, I still didn’t trust him very much. He was a slick talker, ready with a clever quip or line to distract you from his fingers snaking in to take your wallet.
I knew the type well. I’d hung out with them for years.
Finally Dante said, “Don’t Reapers usually hunt, I don’t know, dead things?”
So much for leaving the werewolf topic alone. But Dante was the kind of guy who attacked a problem from multiple angles, getting his answers anyway he could.
“Wouldn’t that make us scavengers?”
“Just wondering how you get tied up with a werewolf trying to rip out your throat.”
“It’s a long story.” My shoulder pounded, reminding me that I needed to get this show on the road. “I brought money.”
“Well, about that.” Dante leaned against the arching doorway that led to the library. “The shop isn’t quite where it was.
”
“You didn’t maintain the storeroom?” My heart suddenly picked up the pace, accelerating into a panic. I was hosed if he didn’t have a poultice or a compress to help the wound heal. Naturally, the idea of dying—again—didn’t thrill me, but my main concern was the body I’d dropped on the beach. Sooner or later, Lucille would find out I’d broken my pact with her. And that would have consequences for my little sister.
“Not really my thing, Eden.” Guess we were on a first-name basis, now.
“What the hell have you been doing besides eating and running around with your shirt off?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Dante replied with a masterful wink, which—despite my best intentions and resistance—made my mind briefly venture to places I didn’t really need to visit right now. I stuck my tongue out, but the rest of my body had already given me away.
I needed to get out more. Well, life was now calling on me, and I had no choice but to answer its bell. So that wouldn’t be a problem. With any luck, I’d stop acting like a middle schooler who had just discovered the invention of boys.
“I would like to know,” I said. “That’s why I asked.”
“I’m not a businessman. Commerce isn’t really my thing.”
“Too many big numbers?”
“Too ephemeral.” Dante disappeared into the kitchen to root around in one of the drawers. With a big smile, he showed me his find: a keyring. The metal jangled as he approached. He nodded toward the first bedroom. I followed him to the fake fireplace—the most elegant of hidden entrances, since no one in their right fucking mind would need a fireplace in Hawaii, but whatever. The old man had always been eccentric.
Agnes had called me that. Was I becoming eccentric now? Jesus, I really did need to get out more.
“I’m not sure you’re going to be happy with the state of things, Eden.” Dante inserted the key into a hidden notch in the brick. A hidden gear clicked, and the transformation started. “But you’re welcome to look.”
“What a ringing endorsement of your wares.”
The bricks groaned and shifted, revealing a steep set of stairs into the hidden basement shop. From the smell alone, I already knew something was wrong. It’d always been fresh and eclectic—maybe not quite pleasant, but alive. Now, it just smelled musty and kind of rotten, like moldy cardboard after a rainstorm.
Rain Dance (Sunshine & Scythes Book 1) Page 6