“Hey, buddy,” the gingery asshole near the vodka piped up, “she givin you trouble about drinkin?”
Jozzie’s chin turned towards him, slowly, and the shifter cocked his head. His jaw worked, once, his long nose twitching a bit. From that angle, you could see a faint oddness in his facial structure, the bones almost human…but not quite. “Whuzzat, mate?”
“Bitches,” Ginger Vodka muttered, not making much of an attempt to keep it low. “Always doggin’ you to stay away from the sauce.”
Jozzie’s shoulders hardened.
I hauled on his arm, my fingernails sinking in. Not enough to hurt, just enough to push my point home. “Stop it,” I hissed, low and fierce. “That’s not what we’re here for either, for Chrissake.”
It was looking like he had a temper to match mine. We were going to have fun, I could tell.
“Blokes round here have filthy mouths,” he said, and stared at the redhead motherfucker. “Eh, Miss Sugar, there an import aisle? Like, maybe have a bit of stuff from the old homeland here?”
I took a moderately deep breath and prayed for patience. I’ve worked with some infuriating men—you find them in strip clubs and tattoo parlors as a matter of course—but he was something else. He’d even eaten all my bacon, for fucksake. “Yeah, aisle eleven’s international. Why?”
“Just wanta check a bit. We got time, eh?”
I had to stop rolling my eyes; I was afraid I was going to evil-eye one of the bottles and cause a massive shelf failure. “Sure, it’s not like we’re on any schedule here with the end of the world in a day or so and you with that item you want to find posthaste. Let’s take the scenic route.” I let go of his elbow and stepped back. “Hell, let’s go out for dinner and dancing too, while we’re at it.”
“Killa.” He grinned, a slow, sleepy expression. “That’s a promise, then. One quick trip to elevenses then we’ll do yer bit o’nicking. Whatever it is y’want carried, I’m yer fella.”
“Oh, for the love of…” I ran out of words and trailed after him as he set off, using his height to good advantage, looking for eleven.
The redheaded asshole smirked and went back to perusing his vodka. I almost, almost flicked a curse his way, but decided not to. From the reek of bile and splashes of even worse on his baggy cotton pants and heavy coat, I figured life had already done enough.
Most of the international foods aisle was overpriced grape juice and matzos, some Italian canned tomatoes, a boatload of Asian bottles and noodles you could get cheaper and better literally anywhere else, plus lemon curd and McVitie’s Digestives, which are actually pretty good dipped in coffee. But it was something else that stopped this crazy kangaroo fellow in his tracks, leaning back on his heels like he’d been pushed and, dear God, bouncing a little at the same time.
“Bloody hell,” he whispered in tones of reverent awe. “You have Blend 17.”
I looked at the shelf, trying to figure out what he was so enamored of. “Vegemite?” My eyebrows practically met in the middle, I was so puzzled. “Am I even saying that right?”
“You have Blend 17,” he repeated. “Er, Miss Sugar Belle, not to put too fine a point on it, but…” His pupils swelled and his breath caught. “Can we do a little extra nicking, while we’re here?”
Nine
"Super" Market
* * *
Super market, the witch said. Well, from what Joz could see, it was only American-big, and the only thing “super” about it was the liquor aisle. They had their eggs in freezers, too, looked like. Which was bloody strange, but who was he to throw stones? Live and let live, his mum always said.
Still, they had Blend 17, food of the gods, so it wasn’t exactly a waste of time. A bit of toast with it would go down right well, and a couple beers too.
It wasn’t quite as air-conditioned through the swinging doors to the employee section, and the flooring changed from lino to concrete. Other than that, it smelled faintly sour, like every other grocery store he’d been behind the scenes at—precisely one, now that he thought about it, the summer he went walkabout and worked in Brisbane. They wanted him to wear an apron, for God’s sake, but no Shale would do that, not even Mum.
His mother was probably worried if she’d found out he was gone. He should call her, just as soon as he found his, er, his…well, his bits. Come to think of it, he was a little hazy on how this was going to help find them, but watching the witch’s hips move inside those jeans was dead distracting and she seemed to know just what she was about.
Mum would like her. Dad, well, he hated witches, but Jozzie was fairly sure he’d put his manners on for a stranger. If not, Mum would thump him one. Oh, yeh, Da was king, but anyone with any sense talked to Mrs Daniela Hart-Shale first, about clan business or any other.
If someone had found Jozzie’s Ute, blood splashed all ’round, there might be a few assumptions made. Now that he wasn’t drunk, Joz was coming round to thinking maybe he should have given himself a bit of a pause before rushing off to rescue his bits.
“Dairy cooler,” the witch muttered. “Okay. Come on.” She beckoned, a wave of those crimson-lacquered fingertips, and Jozzie figured all told, he was lucky to have fallen into this particular witch’s orbit. Even if she had given him a girl tattoo. That was going to take some explaining to his Mum. “They’ve remodeled. Go figure.”
“You used to work here?”
“Dated a guy who did.” Her black, black hair swayed too. Oh, she was a work in motion, and Jozzie had to stop for a moment to let the red cloud in his head clear out.
Go figure. Even without a dangling pair, a ’roo could still get jealous. Not that he had any call to, really, he’d just met her. Just reeled out of a cab and into her arms, like.
But still, it bothered him. “What happened?” He tried to say it casual-like.
“He moved to Utah.”
“You break up, then?” He followed her around a stack of cardboard boxes. It was oddly deserted back here, but of course she was a witch, and capable of making sure they weren’t seen. They generally worked with the natural flow, so the world often arranged itself around them.
It was when they got upset and started cutting across the waves that you had to watch out.
“I did.” She paused, turned, and grabbed at a metal handle, tugging at a door three times her size. It looked heavy and he moved to help, but it opened before he could get his hands close. “Not sure about him.”
Well, that sounded like a story and a half. Jozzie wrinkled his nose as more turned-milk sourness rode a raft of cold air out, enveloping them both. Ugh. How did the meatsacks stand it? “Did he, uh, ever come back?”
“Of course not.” A shake of that pretty head, her hair swinging afresh. “Even if he did, he couldn’t find me. Anyway. Look for cheese, all right?”
“Cheese.” His bafflement must have been clearly audible.
She slanted him an amused, very blue glance. “Rat shifter. Loves it. I’ve offered him peanut butter and lemon candy, but I guess he watched too many cartoons growing up, because cheese is his currency.”
That made sort-of-sense. American rats would be a bit dim, not like the canny fuckers back home. “Right. So, where would the—”
“Your weird stuff will be in dry freight, which we’ll hit on our way out. Come on.”
He’d bring some back to Mum, well-traveled Vegemite. She wouldn’t even worry unless they found the Ute. He could say he met the witch somewhere, or—
“Hey.” Sugar Belle looked over her bare shoulder, thin threads of steam curling off her pale skin and her breath a puff-cloud. “You all right?”
Just thinkin about me mam. “Yeh. Where’s the cheese?”
She pointed. “This pallet, here. I can handle a crate or so, but—”
“No, Miss. Can’t let you carry a load. Me mam would kill me.” He eyed the plastic sheeting wrapping two crates of yellow rectangles, all the same size but in different shades. Colby jack, cheddar, Swiss, and a particularly vile yell
ow set of packages. “What’s Valveetah?”
“Don’t ask, it shouldn’t even be in cold freight. Just bring as many as you can.” She brushed past him on her way out of the cooler, and Jozzie got a whiff of that lovely strawberry TimTams with the musk underneath it.
It wasn’t possible for a balless man to get blued up, was it? She seemed fair to drive him that way, nevertheless.
He decided he could heft quite a few of the rectangular boxes if he clawed a bit of the plastic wrapping, and set to work.
It was a lot heavier than it looked, or he was getting weaker despite the testosterone patches. Sugar Belle, her arms full of a cardboard case of Blend 17, rough corners and edges against tender paleness, all but staggered down the aisle full of beans, rice, and corn husks. At the end she paused, closing her eyes. Sweat dewed the soft sloping side of her neck, and Jozzie longed to say put the damn thing on mine, but he didn’t have any energy left over at the moment.
“That’s a lot of cheese,” she whispered, grinned like a madwoman, and darted forward just as glass shattered elsewhere. Nobody was looking their way; the vomit-smelling dero bloke from the liquor section dropped another bottle and yelled something at the far end of the checkouts, immediately clustered by uniformed employees. A lovely bit of distraction—when you were with a witch, you were generally in the right place at the right time.
He wanted to tell her he could go back for the rest of the pallet, but he didn’t have the breath. Jozzie heeled after her, weaving badly, and the heat outside wasn’t quite like home, but it was bad enough. The dash to her tiny little car was miles of hot asphalt, not even a whisper of the thin spiny shade you could get sometimes in the bush. Then he had to stand there with his arms trembling while she fought with the boot, and only the embarrassment of dropping what should be an easy bit of hefting all over a parking lot kept him from letting go.
He was also wishing he hadn’t decided to pick up half the pallet.
“Fuck,” she almost yelled, and finally got the hatch open. “Thank you. Jeez.” Then, the little slip of a girl turned around and tried to take some of the plastic-wrapped load. “What did you…oh, my God, you wrapped it all up?”
“Just like a Christmas present.” His temples began to throb, and Jozzie began to feel, well, a bit off his head.
“How am I going to fit…oh, God, just set it down.” More than half a pallet of cheese hit the asphalt, and Sugar Belle put her hands on her hips. “Well. You certainly don’t do anything halfway. Help me load the car.”
“Yesmum,” Jozzie said, and staggered. The heat filled his head, and the next thing he knew he was on his back, American pavement simmering against his hair, looking at a cloudless, smog-hazed, infinite sky.
Ten
Cooking Cheese
* * *
For the second time in two days, I had a woozy Australian in my car. This time, though, I also had a load of cheese heavy enough to make the muffler spark on speedbumps, a case of foul-looking brown jars of something-17, and the beginnings of a serious headache.
I don’t often get caught in traffic, but LA is…well, sometimes unruly. We crept along, the air conditioning not really doing much and the engine temperature gauge click-climbing bit by bit, and I was seriously considering leaning over to open the passenger side door and chucking the damn shifter out onto the freeway when he finally figured out I was pouring a half-bottle of Evian onto his head.
The upholstery in my beloved black Rabbit was never going to be the same. At least it was water, and not biological waste.
“Wot?” he groaned, and feebly rubbed at his wet face.
I set my jaw, shoving the bottle at him and hoping the engine wasn’t going to overheat. “Hydrate. You idiot, why did you take so much?”
“You said all I could carry.” He chugged a few mouthfuls of Evian and coughed, spluttering. Droplets shone, each one a little rainbow, on his stubble.
Oh, no. He was not going to pin this one on me, even if he was cute. “I didn’t mean so much you’d pass out, for God’s sake.”
“Just had a bit of sun. I’ll be all right in a bit.”
“Isn’t it hot in Australia?”
“Sometimes, yeh.” He fumbled in a pocket and dragged out a flat white square. At first I thought it was a Band-Aid, but it turned out to be a patch, and I thought he’d picked a helluva time to stop smoking.
Then I saw the brand name, and my forehead wrinkled. Testosterone. Was he on steroids? Shifters didn’t need them, for fucksake. They were already stronger, faster, with big old teeth and claws.
He pulled up his blue shirt and found a tiny island of un-hairy skin along his left ribs, slapping the patch on. I set my chin, staring at the bumper of the exhaust-belching tow truck in front of us. The ripples off the pavement and the dust-slither over the hood told me someone up ahead was having a Very Bad Day, and the tow driver was probably cussing because he hadn’t gotten onsite first. It was the same feeling that warned me not to swing out into the shoulder and take matters into my own hands despite the way goosebumps ran down my back and my fingers started to go numb.
About twenty minutes later I saw why—three car pileup, two still burning and the third with a bloody handprint on the inside of the crash-starred windshield. We inched past, my hands shaking on the wheel, a thick pall of grief, smoke, shock, and freezing mortality turning my bones into icy spars and my breath into a cloud despite the sunshine.
“Oy.” Jozzie the shifter put a hand on mine, and I flinched. His skin was a live flame. “Christ, you’re freezing, you are.”
“I’m f-f-f-fine.” My teeth chattered. “J-j-just…” Explaining would take too much effort when I was trying to pilot a cheese-laden automobile. Traffic eased, I flicked the AC off and rolled my window down. The slipstream was like opening an oven, but it didn’t do much for the chill until we were about a mile away.
At least now I was sure the engine wouldn’t overheat. It was really time for a new car, but I loved that zippy little beast.
“That happen a lot?” he finally shouted over the wind-roar. He was damn peppy for a heatstruck kangaroo.
Only when I come across sudden accidents. I’d have to avoid that part of the freeway for a while, if I didn’t want an unmoored soul-echo latching onto me. Those fuckers are nasty, and you can’t even be too angry at them—they’re just confused.
But they can kill you just as easily as pure evil can. So, like any witch, I avoid or I go in fighting to win.
It took a while to get out to Rancho Cucamonga, and then we had to get up into the canyons. The engine cooled, but the interior didn’t. About halfway to the Rat’s country place—I knew better to think he’d be down by the river since Juan had probably spooked the piss out of him—a strange, simmering smell rose that wasn’t indifferently-washed kangaroo or my own sweet self.
It was a hot day, and the cheese was cooking.
The Rat’s ramshackle, grey-weathered country cabin was up on stilts like he expected a flood; a roostertail of dust rose sky-high in our wake, drifting gently forward to swallow the car as soon as I cut the engine and heaved a not-quite-entirely relieved sigh. Thankfully, Jozzie had refrained from opening his big mouth again, probably because I turned the radio on and twisted the dial to a heavy-metal station, and I turned that fucker up.
I was not, at that point, having a very good day.
So I threw my door open, escaping from a car that reeked of sweating kangaroo and cooking cheese dribbling through claw-holes in plastic sheeting and packaging—I found out that last bit a little later—and I did not check the surroundings before stretching and taking a deep breath of simmering, dust-laden air.
I should have been a little more cautious. Yes I should’ve, ma’am, surely. And why?
Because the Rat, bless his pea-picking excuse for a dickhead heart, had hired security.
Well, sort of. You don’t really “hire” a chupacabra.
You just feed it.
Eleven
Fluff
y
* * *
Driving on the wrong side of the road that day was only slightly less harrowing than the end of the trip.
Jozzie’s nose should have warned him, but it was stuffed with the odor of almost-fried cheese and the witch’s maddening, distracting, beautiful scent. Without her, the cheese-reek was nauseating, and his wrinkled cargo pants were still damp from her dousing him with bottled water.
Which meant that when the slumped creature under the shadow of the stilted, weatherbeaten shack opened its fever-red eyes, the spines along its back flexing upright and a gleam of teeth showing under a snarling lip, he was still tangled in his seatbelt and blinking. When it rose, making a low, thundering, definitely not friendly noise and that feverish glare settling on the driver’s side of the car—and not so incidentally, the witch herself—Jozzie had to choose between going out through the windshield or his door.
The thing dug heavy-clawed feet into the dust, shook its spines, and charged.
“Oh, feck,” Jozzie blurted, and erupted into motion.
Or, he tried to. The shift denied him, pouring him out of the passenger door with a scream of tortured metal and a rain of shattered safety glass as his claws shredded upholstery, seat belt, and bodywork. He landed almost on his head, kicked free of the rest of the car, and scrabbled onto all fours, trying to account for the lack of a tail and the awful, deep, grinding ache between his legs.
Who knew balls were integral to growing a proper tail? You learned things all your life, Mum said.
He didn’t have time to wonder what else he might learn on this trip, because Sugar let out a high sharp cry and everything inside Joz ignited, petrol tossed on a bonfire for a lark.
Jozzie & Sugar Belle Page 4