by Stec, Susan
Mom's back stiffened.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Nothing," Mom blurted as she struggled to get up. I grabbed the back of her tee and got a hand full of spandex underneath. She bounced back down.
"You sound like Aunt JoAnn, Nan," Jeni said and topped off her coffee.
"There is not a damn thing going on." Mom slapped my hand off her shirt. Her eyebrows teamed up with a hard stare. "Right, Zaire?"
Zaire snorted disgust, and Resi elbowed her.
"Oh, hell yes! Somebody's hidin' somethin'," Betty strummed. "I love shit like this. Don't you Chickie?"
Mom bared her fangs, and then her eyes swept around the table. "We got business tonight. Sonny just informed us of hundreds of infected animals wandering the property. I say we go out and—"
"What'd ya do, Chick?" Betty wasn't giving up.
"Mom! You better not have caused a scene at Bingo!" I slapped a hand over my lips before my fangs could drop.
Jake squealed and squirmed on his stool.
Everyone froze, their eyes on the dragon-shifter.
Sonny backed slowly away and onto the back porch.
Holding his mouth, Jake ran out the sliding door, past Sonny, across the porch, and through the door Gibbie had flown out.
Before the attention in the room moved from Jake, a strip of fire shot from our lakeside patio and flared the length of the dock. The lake reflected it beautifully.
I heard Christopher say, "You know something we don't?"
When I turned away from the back yard, I saw the question was directed at Zaire.
Zaire placed both hands on the breakfast bar and leaned over it. "Chick stole my car at Bingo during a fifteen-minute break, drove to Walmart, and then killed some senior guy in the butcher shop behind the two-way mirror."
"Holy shit!" I freaked out.
Everyone else was amused.
"He begged me to kill him, Susan. He was three steps away from death's door," Mom said, and then growled at Zaire. "You little twat tattler!"
"Supposedly dying of cancer." Zaire rumbled deep in her throat. "He was dead when I got there, so I don't really know, do I?" Her fangs dropped, and her eyes flashed a wicked storm.
"I'd lock myself in my coffin tomorrow morning, if I was you," I told my mother, my eyes on Zaire's anger. She was not aging like the rest of us, which meant she was able to walk around the house during the day.
Betty honked a laugh. "Twat tattler? Oh my God, girl, I love it! Get ready y'all, that's gonna be my new fav-O-rite word of the month."
"Where's JoAnn?" Sonny asked, but he was still watching Jake out by the lake.
"Up in her room doing God-knows-what," Zaire spat, eyes still shooting daggers at my mother.
"You want a piece of me?" Mom shouted at Zaire. "Bring it on. I may be old, but I'm still in charge. You got a problem with that?"
Zaire's jaw tightened. With a low, slow voice, she said, "Don't worry about me. I know who I take orders from. But you should look up the word respect."
Everyone turned to my mother.
"Maybe someone should go up and check on my bible thumping, demon loving, druggy daughter," Mom said. "You think you could handle that?"
"Better than I can handle someone taking my car for a joyride that ends with the death of a human."
Zaire strutted through the kitchen.
* * *
JoAnn was bustling around upstairs in her bedroom. She adjusted three pillows at the head of Susan's coffin that she'd moved up into her bedroom a few days ago. Glancing around the white silk lining, she took an inventory: blood bags, laptop, Earth-to-Abyss hPhone, a mirror, and a pad and pencil. She looked around the room to make sure she hadn't missed anything, and climbed in, closing the lid over her head at the same time Zaire knocked on the bedroom door.
"You okay in there, JoAnn?" Zaire asked after finding the bedroom door locked.
"Yep!" JoAnn shouted from inside the coffin. "Taking a short nap."
Zaire heard the beeps of the hPhone, smiled and trotted back downstairs.
* * *
"Resi, are you and Zaire using your coffins?" I asked as the girls wandered up from their bedroom to catch the scheduled meeting on the laptop with Dorius.
"Yeah, but we're looking for a double," Resi said.
"I hate going to bed without my girl at my side," Zaire said, and patted the ass of Resi's size twelve jeans.
"Do they make such a thing?" I thought it would be nice when Marcus was home, and roomy when he wasn't.
"Yeah," Zaire said. "And oversized is the way to go. The ones made for two bodies have a partition in the center. But the fatties-coffin doesn't."
"Google double size coffins," Resi suggested. "But they're expensive."
"Huh?" I said, and walked toward the stairs. "We'd need at least two. I don't think we can explain away another delivery. Maybe we can hit Home depot and make us some big pine boxes."
Mom had ordered the last five, and without thinking, had had them delivered here in the middle of the day. The delivery man and the few looky loo neighbors we had on this side of the lake had bought the excuse we needed them for a photo shoot since Jeni and I had been making film shorts for entries in film festivals previous to becoming immortal. Actually, if one of the neighbors hadn't just happened to be driving by when the coffins were being delivered we wouldn't have had an issue, but I didn't want to press our luck again.
"Mom!" I shouted from the foot of the stairs.
"I'm shittin'!" she shouted from the downstairs bathroom. "Do you mind?"
"Vampires don't shit!" I yelled back.
"They do if they drink tainted blood."
I looked at Resi. "What tainted blood?"
"Don't ask," she said.
"You don't want to know," Zaire added.
"Yes, I do!" I snapped. "Mom, where are you getting bad blood?"
"I did not get arrested or kill anyone," Mom said. "That's all you need to know."
Resi looked at Zaire.
Zaire looked at me. "She fanged a couple of druggies in downtown Eustis in an alley behind a vacant warehouse—I guess she sucked too much. No one died. She got sick."
I ground my teeth so hard I sounded like Starbuck's espresso machine.
"Are you using your coffin?" I shouted.
"I'm shittin'!"
"Not now!" I yelled. "Have you brought your coffin to your bedroom?"
"Yes! Why the hell do you wanna know?" Mom said. "I'm going like water for Christ's sake!"
"Never mind!" I told my mother. "I know where mine is!"
"Well, go get it!" Mom yelled. "Jesus, you stopped the flow! Now I got cramps."
"Sorry!"
"Shuddup!" Mom screamed.
I don't know why I hadn't kicked my sister out of my coffin the minute I knew she was using it. I headed toward JoAnn's room. "Shout if Dorius contacts us," I said loudly without shouting. "I'll be upstairs!"
"I'm getting my damn coffin back," I mumbled several times before I got to the top of the stairs.
Staring at my sister's bedroom door, I thought, I'm not sleeping in a dirt-covered coffin with a dead French poodle.
Tootles was my sister's dead dog, and my first immortal meal. We'd used JoAnn's pink coffin to bury the dog when we found out the sun wouldn't burn us and we really didn't need them.
I didn't even knock, just slammed the door open; it ricocheted off the wall, and I stopped it with my hand. I stared at my shiny black coffin. JoAnn and Resi's were pink, Mom's red, Zaire's Silver. "This is mine, damn it!"
Three long strides, some nasty words circling my brain, and I lifted the lid and looked in. "Bzzzzz." And then I shut it quickly.
"Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!" I gagged and bolted out the door.
When I arrived back in the kitchen seconds later, Resi asked, "So is she vacating your coffin?"
"I decided to order a new one." I walked into the dining room, shuddered uncontrollably, and took a seat next to the laptop.
; Christopher and Gibbie entered from the screen porch. "Jeez, you look white," Gibbie said, flying off Christopher's shoulder and landing on the table in front of me. "Well, whiter than a dead person, I mean. Like really white."
I ignored Gibbie's comment—in fact, I didn't even make eye contact with either of them—and instead, asked the fairy, "Did you talk to Paul?"
"Yes," Gibbie answered. "And so far, Dorius is behaving himself." His wings vibrated invisibly. "And it's a damn good thing, too. Because if he had ordered Paul to bring in the fae . . . Well, let's not go there."
The room was dead silent.
"Is Mom still in the bathroom?" I tried.
"Yep," Christopher said.
The laptop eerily tinkled to let us know we had incoming. Christopher climbed up on the picnic table next to Gibbie.
Eyes on me, Resi walked into the kitchen as she yelled over her shoulder," Nanna! Get off the toilet! Dorius is buzzing in!"
Zaire sat across from me. "Did you tell Aunt JoAnn to come down?"
I cringed. How did I answer that? "Um, she's . . . on her hPhone sexting Raphael."
Resi scurried around the breakfast bar and into the dining room.
"Sexting?" Zaire's facial expression was clearly exaggerated amusement.
"Did I say sexting? I meant texting."
"That daughter of mine is going straight to Hell—" my mother said, stumbling through the kitchen as she adjusted her left boob, which was falling out of her spandex top. After tucking it back in and mashing both boobs even, she sat next to Zaire. "—and Dorius is gonna be the one to send her there."
Resi scuttled over to the stairs and shouted, "Aunt JoAnn! Dorius is calling!"
"Resi," I warned, "the lid is down on the coffin, and I'd leave it down if I were you."
"Okay," she said, trotting back.
She took a seat on the other side of Zaire.
Christopher butt-scooted his way to the laptop, dragged it down the table, and pushed it back against the wall between the sliding doors so everyone could see the screen.
Sonny and Betty walked in the front door and sat down beside me.
Mom and Resi were the closest to the computer.
Paul came through the sliding door, smiled at me, and sauntered over to take a seat at the end of the table across from Sonny and next to Zaire.
I glared at him. "You and I?" I did the thumb-finger rock thingy, pointing in his direction, rocking the thumb in mine. "We need to talk."
"As much as your daughter would disagree, I agree," Paul said.
"You know what you're getting into. She doesn't."
"I'm working on it," Paul fired back.
"Me, too," I smiled smugly.
"Can we answer Dorius's call?" Christopher asked. "Or are you guys trying to crank him up before we talk and officially piss him off?"
"Let 'em rip, partner," I fired back.
I heard Zaire laugh, but kept my eyes on the wolf.
Gibbie flew up to his throne. This time, he didn't ask anyone to turn the ceiling fan on and rolled onto his tummy, fingers, and face hanging over the edge of the blade. He adjusted his itty-bitty sword so it ran alongside his knee.
"I'm talking first," Christopher said. He didn't wait for an argument—I could tell my mother had one—and clicked a button on the laptop.
Dorius filled the screen.
Trying to work a business-casual smile and failing horribly, Dorius said, "Good evening." His eyes searched for my Mother. "Concetta, I'll give you a brief update on our situation here in Italy, and then I expect an update from you."
"Same old shit here," Christopher said. "Before you get started, I'd like to impress you with a behind-closed-doors plan to—"
"Christopher," Dorius hissed, "either you pay attention and keep quiet, or I'll ask you to remove yourself from the room. I don't have time for you tonight." Dorius's hard stare left no room for rebuttals. "I have a more grievous gathering to attend shortly."
"Sure. No problem," Christopher said. "I was just trying to help."
Mom leaned sideways, and a small grunt escaped her lips. Her smiling eyes rolled off Christopher and landed on the computer screen. "Christopher, would you mind sliding down so everyone can see the screen?"
Gibbie hand-fanned his nose.
"Jesus, Mom," I said.
"I can't help it! I need real blood. The processed shit is killing me."
The girls and I were getting all cloak-and-dagger old school vampires, and I could hardly see my own reflection on the computer screen in front of Christopher. But my partner's reflection was very clear. He looked complacent—not a good sign—until he turned around and I saw he was wearing a snide smile. Blond curls bouncing, he slid to the other end of the table as far from Dorius's image as he could without falling off the edge. He was up to something, which usually meant trouble for me. I made a mental note to shake some answers from his soon-to-be-suffering-from-whiplash body.
Dorius was saying, ". . . black wolf the locals spotted is Karl's second in command, Randy. The ship it boarded was headed for Sardinia. Conjecture; the pack attempted to lure us for a confrontation. Although this would have been doable with Sardinia's vast unpopulated areas, I chose not to take the bait. Today, the council received word the human accompanying Randy has booked passage for himself and the mutt to Sicily."
Dorius studied our faces.
My partner wasn't watching Dorius; he was grinning at me. I tried to concentrate on the computer screen as our boss continued.
"It is still uncertain what their plans are. Sicily is unquestionably an unacceptable place for a confrontation; the mountains are inhabited by farmers. There are some castles with many uninhabited acres. Still, the high tourist trade would make it as unpredictable as the outskirts around New York City."
I snuck a peek at everyone at the table. Paul, Mom, Zaire and Resi were glued to the laptop and on my side so were Sonny and Betty. Christopher watched me, eyebrows bobbing. I turned back to the laptop.
Dorius stared back, lips tight, arms crossed over a red satin shirt unbuttoned to the bottom of his breastbone. "However," he said, "if the intention of the pack is not just a warning, and they fully intend to infect other animals, the city is the perfect place to create fear and panic. Especially if humans start turning up dead, or worse." Dorius glanced at Sonny, and then Betty, his mate. "The reason I am giving you this much information is because I may send the jet for some of the team to assist. There will be no grievances. If I call you, I expect you to leave for Miami and the company jet immediately."
I didn't hear any grievances. I didn't hear anything from anyone, not even Betty.
"We are meeting with the council this evening. This is a grave situation. Our only option would be to allow the abominations—Karl, and we now believe, Randy—to live among the pack if there is a promise of no further spread of the infection. There would be a discussion, a treaty, stated ramifications, and, bottom line: the need to monitor the pack to assure the infection is confined. If they do not comply and intend to spread the infection, it could cause a full-blown epidemic that would have a catastrophic effect on the human world. We cannot let this happen. Total annihilation of the pack would be swift and certain."
I was still concentrating on my partner. Christopher was sitting bare-footed, legs crossed Indian style, and hands folded in his lap. His blue eyes were crystal clear, and he was as quiet and attentive as everyone else at the damn table, including Betty and Paul. It was very odd. Watching him reminded me we still did not know what added power he had after trading blood with JoAnn's little half-demon, Lily. I pondered this for a second until I realized the conversation had turned.
". . .and after the three alphas were off chit-chatting with Sonny," my mother was saying, "Gibbie torched the rest of the critters while Betty helped Sonny into the cage with his hypnotized friends. It was a nice controlled burn. When the fire trucks got close, I dispatched the team. Betty and Gibbie hung in the woods until the fire department had everyt
hing under control."
During the last sentence, Dorius scowled. I was sure it was the thought of his mate being in the woods with Gibbie.
"Sonny," Dorius said, "that took a lot of control and trust for you to lead the infected alphas into a cage and lock yourself in with them. It rendered you helpless. You could have burned in that fire." I watched Dorius's eyes dart to Betty, and back to Sonny.
Sonny nodded. "I knew my partner had my back," he said, patting Betty on the shoulder.
"You know it, sweetheart," Betty told Sonny, but her smile was for Gibbie. "Just like Gibbie covered my ass."
It was scary-quiet for about five human heartbeats.
"Fairy," Dorius said through clenched teeth. "If you do not wish to be transferred to Wandermere in Howey-In-The-Hills and put on Fire fae duty, I suggest you continue to cover my mate's ass and not entertain it. Do I make myself clear?"
Ah, so this was what Dorius was up to with the fairies and elves. I could actually feel the temperature drop in the room as I turned from the computer screen and up to the blade of the ceiling fan where the others were staring.
Gibbie's wings fluttered, he gripped his sword, effortlessly slid off the side of the fan blade, and landed on his feet in the middle of the table, legs spread. He tucked the blade under the red sash hanging at his waist, but his fingers remained around the hilt.
Everyone's eyes followed as Gibbie strutted—little cowboy boots clicking on the wood picnic table—until he was inches from Dorius's image on the screen. He tucked his thumbs into the red sash, elbows out.
"Don't you ever threaten me again," Gibbie said, and his hand whipped up in front of Dorius's reflection. "And if you interrupt me before I am finished stating my case, or even look like you're refusing to take my words seriously, I'll take my leave and you'll never see me again. But you will know I am here." Gibbie turned and took several steps away from the screen, Dorius's image at his back. The fairy's eyes were so black, they filled the sockets. I'd never seen him that angry. He turned back to the screen, and with his voice a hissed whisper, he said, "Do I make myself clear?"
Dorius didn't answer, but respectfully nodded.
I was gobsmacked—everyone's eyes were glued to the screen. No one made Dorius respond like that.