“Or a pack rat,” Cassandra suggested as she sank down beside him, pointing out a shelf running all the way around the room about twelve inches below the ceiling. It sagged so badly under its load of fake plants, old tins, and cracked china that I was glad I’d chosen a middle-of-the-room chair.
Cole pulled a napkin from the dispenser and wadded his gum up in it. “If you could collect anything, what would it be?” he asked. Raising his hand like he meant for the teacher to pick him next, he twirled it around in the air a few times before pointing it at Bergman.
He answered instantly. “Girls’ phone numbers.”
Cole grinned. “I might be able to help you there. How about you, Lucille?”
“I don’t see the point,” I said. “Whatever it was would sit there gathering dust I’d never have time to wipe off.”
Alice’s mum came to take our orders. Her round, cheery face lifted my spirits instantly. I searched her with the extra sense that had come after my first death. Nope. No powers on her. She was just naturally fun to be around.
“G’day!” she said joyfully in that broad accent so many Americans confused for British. “It’s too bloody cold for camping. Tourists?” she guessed.
Vayl gave her his tight-lipped smile. His accent was so slight you hardly even noticed it unless he was upset. But as soon as he began talking I could see her trying to place his origin. “We are from Hollywood,” he said. “Our company, Shoot-Yeah Productions, is planning to do a film here next summer. Perhaps you have heard of us?”
As she shook her head, her mouth ratcheting open in a suitable show of awe, Cole added, “We specialize in action films starring some of America’s hottest new stars. And we’re always looking for fresh new faces.” His grin told her she might just be the freshest he’d seen yet. He stuck out his hand. “My name’s Thor Long-fellow.”
“Well, isn’t that exciting?” she said as she gave it a dainty shake. “I’m Polly Smythe. Are you looking for extras? I can scream like bloody murder. Wanna hear?”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Cassandra. “Unfortunately our casting director had to stay back in California. He’s deathly afraid of wallabies. Oddly enough, he has no problem with crocodiles. But the wallabies make him crazy. Poor thing.”
All during Cassandra’s comment, delivered in a serious but angelic manner, Cole’s face had brightened to Jonathan-apple red as he struggled to hold back his laughter.
“Crazy, huh?” said Polly, frowning at the eccentricities of western Americans.
Cassandra nodded her head gravely. “He saw one at the zoo last year and spent the next week in the hospital. ‘Giant hopping rats!’ he kept squealing, rather like a Tourette’s patient. Only he doesn’t have Tourette’s, does he?” she asked Cole.
“No,” Cole squeaked, shaking his head rapidly as little gasps of overripe giggles escaped his quivering lips.
“Oh. Well, that is too bad.” Polly glanced down at the pad in her hand, remembered why she’d come to the table in the first place, and said, “What can I get for you today?”
A diaper for Cole, because he’s not going to be able to hold it in much longer.
“You going to be all right there, dude?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“Do you want me to order for you?”
Another nod.
So I did. And after Polly left, Cole buried his face in a pile of napkins and leaned under the table, leaving the rest of us to pretend that our companion made a habit of howling into paper products before every meal.
The food sucked less than the music, though it left me with such a greasy-spoon aftertaste that Vayl suggested a walk might settle my stomach. Leaving a few bills on the table he told our desserting crew, “We will meet you at the rental house.”
Within moments we’d left Crindertab’s and he’d pulled me around the corner into an empty side street. He pressed me up against the stone wall. “It has been too long,” he breathed as his lips grazed my nose, cheeks, chin. His cane began a slow slide up my leg.
I swallowed a burp. My breath tasted like fish and chips. Great. I didn’t even know if he liked Murray cod. And I’d run out of mints somewhere between Sydney and Canberra. Also my chest itched like I’d dipped the girls in formaldehyde before strapping on a wool bra for the evening. I hadn’t felt less sexy since I’d broken my ankle in ninth grade and watched them pull the cast off to reveal—ugh. I still shudder to remember that moment. Me, sitting on the patient’s table hiding my face while Dave (who’d come for moral support) laughed like a wind-up clown and yelled, “Oh my God, it’s outta control! Quick, somebody call Gillette!”
I directed my words into Vayl’s chest, trying to ignore his roving hands, not to mention that tiger-carved treasure tickling my calf, as I said, “It’s been less than twenty-four hours, you nympho.” But I missed it like crazy. And I couldn’t help comparing that setting to this one.
His island, which office gossip had branded as a working gold mine, was a private paradise in the Philippines with a white-sand beach, a redbrick house fit for a family of ten, and a series of orange groves, which Vayl laughingly said brought him a more preferable income than ore, since at least the fruit grew back. If I closed my eyes I could still feel the warm ocean breeze brushing over my skin and through my hair, following the path of Vayl’s kisses.
We’d have been there still if Pete hadn’t interrupted our bliss with his urgent, only-you-can-pull-this-off, mission and then dropped the bomb that he’d already sent our regular crew in ahead of us so no way could we refuse to go. The son of a bitch. I might’ve begun to get mad again, thinking of the danger he could’ve put my people in. But he had taken major steps to appease me. Plus, Vayl, close and real, made it tough to hold grudges.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held him tight. Because it felt like floating to snuggle with someone who cared that much. And rubbing against his buttons was even better than scratching. He seemed to like it too.
“To the house,” he said hoarsely, taking my hand.
“To the car first,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere without my weapons bag.” And once we got there, Jack did such a pathetic you-should-walk-me tail drag that we decided to take him and Astral too.
Night had fallen while we’d eaten. And enough streetlamps had been broken or left bulbless that it was easy for us to move through the shadows without being seen. Because of that, Wirdilling should’ve felt like a sheltering hand, hiding us from unwelcome eyes. Except its bones were shattered. And maybe its spirit too. Plastic bags and dented beer cans littered the street outside the single row of stores that passed for downtown.
To the left of Crindertab’s sat a beauty shop called JoJo’s with a sun-bleached picture of Hugh Jackman taped to the front window to encourage guys, as well as gals, to take advantage of their no appointments needed! policy. The organized client could stop into the library adjacent to JoJo’s first to pick up a dust-covered book, or maybe an old issue of New Idea magazine from the stack I saw teetering by the front door.
Completing the set of businesses south of the main drag, or Wirdilling Drive as the city father had named it, was a mobile home with bright green siding and a six-foot sign that yelled kippings general merchant to ignorant shoppers. Kippings sat just across from our side street, which allowed drivers access to its two white gas pumps. At one end of the building a red box with the word post painted on it also reminded them where they could drop their letters if their schedules demanded a drive-by. Less stressed individuals could follow another sign inside to the actual post office.
A third marker, standing by the edge of the road like a wary hitchhiker, pointed proudly to the sky as it announced: Historical Site! Wirdilling’s oldest standing structure, the wooden water tower was built in 1811 and used continuously until it was replaced by the new tower in 1939.
North of Wirdilling Drive, another stretch of storefronts advertised an insurance broker, antique dealer, Fooboo’s Bar, and a hardware
store. An alley separated this row of businesses from a small doctor’s office whose window was so caked with dust it was clear no one had practiced there in years.
East of this stretch of capitalism, separated by several houses that all looked like they’d melted slightly during the hottest days of the previous summer, sat a school so nondescript it could’ve doubled as a warehouse. Two large signs nailed to the white picket fence that marked its border informed us that kids weren’t allowed inside anymore. But the building looked better maintained than the rest of the town put together. Because it had been purchased by Canberra Deep Space Complex and converted into guest housing units. Not that big a deal. I’d seen churches at home done the same way. And yet I’d never witnessed anything as sad as a school that couldn’t hold its kids anymore.
“Shouldn’t we stop?” I asked, looking over my shoulder as the school disappeared behind a row of evergreens. NASA had informed us that they’d offered the Odeam team the chance to bunk at the school, and they’d jumped at it.
“Not until the entire crew is with us. And right now I am trying to beat them back to the house.”
I felt a giggle spill out of my lips. “Vayl? Are you suggesting a quickie before the kids get home?”
The look he slanted me held just enough heat to make my boobs stop itching. “If I promised you satisfaction, would you be willing?”
I sighed, feeling my smile stretch toward my ears. “I have a feeling the answer to that one’s always going to be a yes.”
After that nothing could depress me. Not the tennis courts with their cracked surfaces and rotted nets. Not even the gray pole barn that sat next to them, a rectangular extension sticking out of its side like a malignant tumor. The sign on its door read wirdilling hall, but it reminded me more of an illegal drug dump than a meeting place for clubs and social events. Especially since someone had used roofing paper to repair the spots where storms had torn off parts of the siding. It seemed appropriate for Jack to pause there to pee on an electric pole.
“I wish we were back on your island,” I whispered as we continued into a residential area. “This place blows.”
“I feel the same. But perhaps you will change your mind about Wirdilling once we have”—Vayl paused, gave me his spine-tingling smile—“familiarized ourselves with it.”
“How is it that you can say a totally innocent word and seem to talk dirty?”
He shrugged. “I suppose it is one of the talents I learned living in the eighteenth century.” He slid his hand around my back, leaving a trail of awareness that made me feel like I’d just stepped onto the battlement of an impossibly tall castle. I caught my breath as his palm moved down to my hip. It was actual work to distract myself from his touch when he pointed ahead of us with his free hand and said, “Look, we are approaching the house.” He gazed down into my eyes, his own a sparkling green I began to lose myself in. “Shall we make a good memory out of a bad circumstance?”
I couldn’t have spoken a clear word if I’d tried. So I just nodded and let him lead me past an open metal gate down a driveway that was more grass than gravel. The home, whose owner had happily vacated for five hundred bucks a week, hunched behind overgrown bushes that nearly hid its narrow front porch, which was supported by three thin beams. Two floor-to-ceiling windows might’ve given living room watchers a view if they hadn’t been blocked by blinds and shrubbery, but the yard had turned bummer-brown, so I called the loss minimal. Bricks of various shades of red tried to provide some architectural interest, but they couldn’t hide the fact that it was just a boring old ranch with a roof that needed replacing in a setting that had seen prettier days. Not much jumped into view at night, but I’d seen the Realtor’s pictures attached to the rental agreement. They, along with satellite shots, had revealed a help-me-I’m-dying neighborhood on the edge of town with this house at its western tip. A thin stand of acacia surrounded it, and beyond that a series of roo-chomped hills led up to the tree-dotted slopes of Mount Tennent.
No surprise, I guess, that Vayl couldn’t make the home’s old lock cooperate. He jerked the key back and forth so violently I said, “You’re about to snap that, you know.”
“The door will not open.”
“I noticed.”
He jerked the key out, looked over his shoulder as if to see whether or not our crew had caught up to us. And then he kicked the door in.
“Vayl!”
“I will replace it before we leave.” He handed me his cane and swept me into his arms, which would’ve been sooo romantic. Except I was also holding a leash and carrying a bag full of lethal over one shoulder. Plus, I knew my feet would make it through the doorway but my head would bang the frame like an oversized dresser. So, uh, I’ll admit to some flailing on my part before I finally decided to drop the leash. At which point Jack chased Astral straight into the dining room, Vayl slid us into the house without braining me, and I readjusted my weapons bag. Except I miscalculated my allotted space and ended up hitting him in the jaw. Probably with my sawed off shotgun.
“Shit! I’m sorry! I was just—”
He shook his head. Worked his chin back and forth a couple of times. “It is fine. Just”—he glanced down at me—“do not move. All right?”
“Okay.” I searched his face for bruises, thought I saw a line of purple rise, and just as quickly fall. “Good thing you’re a quick healer,” I said. “I mean, seeing as you’re with me now. You probably didn’t have to worry about bumps and scrapes with your other girlfriends, huh?”
He kicked the door shut, strode past the living room, turned left down the hall, and took another sharp left into the nearest bedroom. He didn’t touch the light switch because we could both see fine in the dark.
“I once took up with a ballerina,” he said as he sank onto the fringe-framed bedspread and pulled the bag off my arm. I heard the clunk as it landed in the big wicker basket at our feet that they probably used for dirty laundry. The cane went next. Smaller clink as he leaned it against the dresser that stood right next to the bed.
“Oh. Ballet. That’s… artistic.”
“She was very flexible.”
“Ah.”
“And incredibly devoted. To dancing. I prefer not to feel like anyone’s plaything.”
“How do I make you feel?”
He lowered his head, his lips so close to mine that his breath whispered into my mouth. “Like a man.”
I wasn’t sure how Vayl defined “quickie.” But even with an agreed-upon slam-bam in our future, I was practically writhing in anticipation by the time he’d lifted my T-shirt. When his hands hovered over my abdomen instead of continuing their usual magic, I quit debating whether or not to rip his shirt open (damned buttons!) and said, “What is it?”
He rolled off the bed and turned on the light. “Have you eaten anything odd lately?”
“You mean besides that mysterious sea creature that might’ve been related to the Loch Ness monster in Crindertab’s? No. Why?” I dropped my eyes. Holy shit, I’m covered in bumps! I jumped off the bed. Pointing to the bedcover I asked, “Have I been bitten by mites and fleas and crap?” As I asked, my midsection began to itch uncontrollably. I jerked my shirt down and scratched until the urge stopped.
Except it didn’t disappear. It moved to my thighs. Then my back. Arms. Behind the neck…
“Jasmine,” Vayl asked grimly, “is the first-aid kit still in your weapons bag?”
Half an hour later, fresh from the shower, covered in calamine and a ratty pink robe I’d found in the master-bedroom closet, I stared glumly at Vayl as he sat on one edge of the living room’s plain brown sectional, spinning his cane between his fingers. Too keyed up to join him, I left my spot by the fireplace’s narrow mantel and, followed faithfully by Jack, paced around a block of polished walnut that worked as the room’s centerpiece and its coffee table. The only lovely item in the house, it threatened to scrape my shins every time I turned the corner. Astral stared at me from its center, having taken her pla
ce there as if so offended the homeowners hadn’t provided some sort of decoration for it that she’d decided to temporarily volunteer her services.
Why is it that the things I find most beautiful are always the most dangerous?
The table, which would scar an awkward toddler or break an old woman’s hip, was the perfect example. All the demons I’d dealt with were gorgeous. And Vayl, who’d benefited from one of God’s better moods, only had to look at me with those wide, you-touch-my-soul eyes, and I totally forgot that he craved my blood like a junkie needs meth. Could take it too, whenever he wanted, if he ever decided to veer off the civilized track.
“And you have no idea when this began or why?” he asked.
I shrugged. Now that my whole sex-distraction-plan had caved like an old grave I could confess that I’d been possessed. That the rash had to be related. But he’d bolt, leaving me with a single week of heaven to cling to as I tried to keep my head above the massive whirlpool of sewage that was my life. Unacceptable.
Maybe he won’t—
YES, he will!
Whose voice was in my head now? Mine? Or… “Maybe it’s stress related,” I said, rubbing a knuckle against the sudden pain in my eye. Geez, maybe I should see an optometrist when I got back to the States. “That vacation was doing me a lot of good. We don’t just work, you know. We work our asses off. Lay our lives out there day after day…” Wow, no way could he be buying this bullshit. Could he?
I stared around the room. Two chairs sat at the walnut block’s non-couch corners, extras from the dining table made comfy with tie-on red plaid cushions. Behind them, lining the wall like a mini-kitchen, a series of kiddie appliances in bright pink plastic invited the younger set to come in and play. And what a choice. The fridge, stove, sink, and table came complete with fake pots, pans, food and, quite possibly, dirty dishcloths laced with salmonella.
Good grief, brighten up, will you? You’re not dead yet! Granny May chided me.
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