Autumn Bones (5 page)

“Deal,” I said gratefully. “Thanks, Lurine.”

She blew me a kiss. “Go home and take a cold shower.”

I watched Lurine lead the satyr into the parking lot, where her unflappable driver stood waiting to open the door to the Town Car. They disappeared into its depths. I couldn’t help but think about it, at least a little bit. Lurine would wait to get him home before she shifted, probably into the swimming pool, wrapping him in those shimmering, rainbow-hued serpent coils. . . .

“Daisy.” Stefan’s taut voice made me jump. “The situation appears to be under control. Your intervention was timely, and I do not sense that anyone here sustained great harm tonight. But I think it best we leave now.”

Oh, right. I took one look at him and made a shooing gesture. “Go, go! And, Stefan . . . um, thanks. I appreciate it.”

With an obvious effort, he gave me one of his courtly nods. “You did well, Hel’s liaison. I thank you for your trust.”

Stefan beckoned, and one by one, his ghouls trooped past me and out the door, clad in denim and leather. His two-hundred-year-old teenaged lieutenant, the one he’d called Cooper, was the last to pass. He gave me a broad wink with one glittering eye, tipping an imaginary hat in my direction with an engaging, crooked grin. He had a narrow face with a spray of freckles over the bridge of his nose.

Hell, I hadn’t even known there was an Irish Rebellion of 1798.

For the next forty-five minutes or so, Cody and I dealt with the aftermath, Cody having sent a shell-shocked Bart Mallick back out on patrol, which may or may not have been a good idea.

An EMS vehicle sat in the parking lot. A few of the participants got themselves checked out for minor cuts and bruises, but as Stefan had said, no one seemed to have been seriously injured. Most were content to gather their clothes and slink into the darkness. No one was especially eager to give a statement, which was fine, since we weren’t especially eager to take one. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t like we were going to be charging anyone with public indecency. Obviously, Rainbow’s End would be closing early this Friday.

Okay, so, crisis averted.

That left the unspoken.

After the last patron had departed, I glanced sidelong at Cody. “So . . . about what happened between us?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Nothing happened, Daisy.”

“About what
almost
happened?”

He lifted his head, phosphorescent green flashing behind his eyes. “What about it?”

I looked away. “Nothing. It’s just . . . you know genuine desire can’t be compelled, right?”

Cody was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Daisy, I never said I didn’t find you attractive. But attraction’s easy.” He gestured toward the nightclub. “You saw what happened in there. Most of those people were strangers. And I have an obligation to my own clan, to my own people. You . . . you’re not a potential mate. You know that. And I care about you too much to mislead you, okay?”

My eyes stung. Goddamn werewolves.

“Daise?”

My phone rang. I fished it out of the pocket of my skirt. It was Sinclair. I let the call go to voice mail and then listened to it. “Hey, girl!” He sounded affectionate, only a little worried. “Hope everything’s okay. Stop by, all right?”

Cody may have wanted me, but he didn’t
want
to want me. And that made all the difference in the world.

“The fake Jamaican?” he asked, a slight edge to his voice. Well, too bad.

“Ha ha.” I put my phone away. “Look, if we’re done here, I have a date to get back to.”

“After this?” Cody raised his brows. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

No, of course it wasn’t. I’d just been dowsed with satyr-funk and had a brief, intense make-out session with my lifelong crush, who was standing in the parking lot eyeing me skeptically, his uniform shirt half undone because I’d torn off buttons when I ripped it open. “I don’t think it’s any of your business,” I said, walking past him. “I’ll let the manager know we’re leaving.”

“Daisy!”

“What?”
I turned around to glare at Cody.

“Just . . . be careful, okay?” He gave me a wry smile, resting his hands on his utility belt. “Because I know when I get off duty, I’m going to go home and kill something.”

Sure, that’s healthy. And yet the thought of Cody hunting in wolf form gave me a shiver. Go figure. “Duly noted.”

Inside the nightclub, the staff were making a cursory effort to clean up. Now that the place was empty, you could see how trashed it was. There were spilled drinks, crushed cups, and broken glass everywhere, abandoned flip-flops, discarded boxers, briefs, and panties that no one had wanted to reclaim.

The manager, Terry Miller, was still in a state of shock. He nodded absently when I told him we were leaving. “I just don’t understand what happened,” he murmured. “What am I going to tell the owners?”

I patted his arm. “Tell them the truth. It wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t anything you could do about it.”

He turned his stricken gaze to me. “But what
was
it?”

“A satyr in rut,” I said patiently. I’d already explained it to him twice, but apparently Lurine was right. Most mundane humans’ memories were sketchy about the events of the night. “Big naked guy?”

“Right.” He sounded uncertain. “What if there are lawsuits? Are we liable?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I doubt it. You can’t insure against eldritch influence, can you?”

“Nooo . . .”

See, that’s the problem with paranormal tourism. Tourists flock to Pemkowet expecting sparkly fairies and frolicking naiads, or maybe the covert thrill of glimpsing a vampire or a ghoul, but the fact is it can be downright dangerous here. And there’s no way to anticipate or control a wild card like a rutting satyr. Although I bet I was going to get an earful about it from Amanda Brooks at the Pemkowet Visitors Bureau anyway once the story—or at least the rumors about the story—got around.

I gave Terry the manager another pat on the arm. “Look, I’ve got to go. Good luck. Officer Fairfax and I will give Chief Bryant a full report. If the owners give you a hard time, have them call the chief.”

“Okay.” That seemed to make him feel a bit better.

I ducked into the ladies’ room to wash up before I left, scrubbing my hands and face and basically as much bare skin as I could reach with soap and cold water. I felt a lot cleaner when I was done, but the effects of the funk lingered. In the mirror, my eyes looked dilated and fever-bright.

Outside, the parking lot was mostly empty. I got into my Honda Civic, knowing I should go home.

Go home, and take a cold shower like Lurine had told me. Pour myself a drink, feed the cat, curl up on the couch, and listen to someone like Billie Holiday singing plaintive songs of heartbreak, not down-and-dirty blues.

My phone buzzed. Glancing at it, I saw it was a text from Sinclair.
WHERE U AT GIRL
?
:)

It was the smiley face that got me. I really, really didn’t want to go home alone right now.

So I drove to Sinclair’s.

Five

S
inclair’s place was a r
amshackle house in the countryside just north of town, where he was doing some fixer-upper work in return for reduced rent. You couldn’t miss it, since his renovated double-decker bus, painted bright yellow, red, and green with
PEMKOWET SUPERNATURAL TOURS
on the side, was parked in the driveway.

I pulled in beside the bus and sat for a moment, listening to the music spilling out of the house and wrestling with my conscience. That beribboned box of desire was straining at the seams, practically rattling. If I went in there, I wasn’t going to be able to keep it contained.

And if I didn’t?

I’d understood exactly what Cody meant when he said he was going to go home and kill something. It was that strong a drive, and it needed to be vented somehow. As far as the Seven Deadlies went, I was probably better off sticking with lust than letting it turn to envy or anger. So I went inside.

All four members of the Mamma Jammers were there, jamming, because apparently a three-hour-long jam session at Union Pier wasn’t quite long enough. They’d set up their gear in Sinclair’s living room.

Sinclair was messing around with them, banging on a cowbell with a pair of grill tongs. It was a warm night and he was shirtless and barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of khaki cargo shorts that sat low on his hips.

Ka-pow
. My mental image of the gift-wrapped box exploded. I felt the air pressure in the room change, lifting my hair with an electrostatic charge. Huh. That sort of thing usually only happened when I got angry. There was a long squall of feedback before a tube burst in one of the Mamma Jammers’ vintage amplifiers with a brief shower of sparks.

In the silence that followed, everyone stared at me. Sinclair took a long breath and blinked a few times. “Daisy? Are you okay? Is everything . . . okay?”

“Yeah.” Realizing I still wore
dauda-dagr
belted around my waist, I touched the hilt, taking strength from its bracing coolness. Okay. I could make myself walk away from this if I had to. “Is this a bad time? I can go.”

“What? No, of course not. I invited you here.”

I shifted restlessly from foot to foot. “Then can we talk alone for a minute?”

Sinclair gave the Mamma Jammers an uncertain look. “Are you crazy, man?” one of them said. “Go!”

Inside his bedroom, Sinclair closed the door behind us. I unbuckled my belt and let it fall to the floor with a heavy clunk. I didn’t want him to get frostbitten.

“Daisy.” He laid his hands on my shoulders. Unable to help myself, I traced a line on his bare torso with one finger, between his pecs down toward his navel. He caught my hand and removed it, although he laced his fingers through mine. “Whoa! Slow down, girl. Mind if I ask what happened out there to turn a night hanging with the boys into a booty call?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Rutting satyr-funk. It set off an orgy. But it’s okay. We defused it.”

“So this is about some funky satyr?” he asked slowly. “Not you and me?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.” Sinclair’s face was unreadable in the dim light. “This isn’t how I wanted it to go down between us.”

“Yeah, me either,” I said. “This was a mistake. I should go.”

“Probably.” There was a certain lack of conviction in his voice. “I guess.”

Neither of us moved. “So . . . do you
want
me to go?” I asked him. “’Cause if you do, I think you’re going to have to tell me. Like, in no uncertain terms.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Okay, well, before you make up your mind, there’s one other little thing I haven’t told you.”

Sinclair raised his brows. “What?” I shifted his hand around to place it firmly on my butt, untucking my tail in the process and letting him feel it wriggle. His eyes widened and his body went rigid, but he didn’t pull away from me. “What the fuck?”

I watched his face, trying to gauge the degree of freak-out. “Look, as tails go, it’s pretty small. You should have seen the satyr’s.”

He gave me a blank look. “How is this something I never noticed?”

“I tuck.”

“You tuck.”

“Yeah.” I laid my palm flat against his chest, feeling it rise and fall. His dark brown skin was warm, as though it retained the heat of the sun on the docks. Afraid of seeing rejection in his eyes, I lowered my gaze and kept it there, centered on the groove between his pecs. “Look, I really do like you. I like you a lot, Sinclair. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. As strange as it might sound, I wouldn’t trust myself with someone I didn’t care about right now. And I wanted to try the whole normal boyfriend/girlfriend thing. But the truth is, my father’s an incubus, I’m a hell-spawn and Hel’s agent, and this is Pemkowet. Normal’s not really in my wheelhouse. There’s always going to be an element of weird. Maybe a lot of weird. So—”

“Daisy.” Sinclair interrupted me. Removing his hand from my ass, he reached for the pendant I wore.

It was a silver whistle in the shape of an acorn and it had been given to me by the Oak King, a member of genuine old-school eldritch pagan royalty, as a means to summon him at need. Sinclair had been there when it happened. Both of us had been touched by the wonder of it.

And then I’d been stupid enough to leave it at home in my jewelry box when the ghoul rebellion went down, which is why after that I’d had it strung on a chain of dwarf-mined silver so I could wear it around my neck.

Anyway.

“Remember?” Sinclair asked me.

I nodded. “Of course.”

He smiled. “For a memory like that, I can handle a lot of weird.” He slid one arm around my waist, pulling me closer. “So I guess what I’m saying is, what the hell. If this is what you want, let’s do it.”

It wasn’t the time or the circumstances I would have chosen, and it shouldn’t have been good, but in fact it
was
good. Even knowing what had almost happened with Cody that same night, even knowing that the Mamma Jammers were right outside the bedroom and that sooner or later I’d have to face the walk of shame past them. It was still good.

“Let me see it,” Sinclair said after he’d undressed me, his voice low and husky with a mix of desire and trepidation. He sat on the edge of the bed, his knees spread. “Go on, Daisy. Show me.”

Obediently, I stood between his knees and turned around. I felt him draw one finger down my spine, lingering at the base of my tailbone, at the root of my tail. I shivered.

“Is it sensitive?” he asked uncertainly.

“Yeah.” I fought the urge to coil it around his fingers, pretty sure that would send him straight into freak-out territory. In all honesty, I don’t think anyone had touched it since my mom when I was in diapers, and the fact that Sinclair was doing it now brought tears to my eyes. “Very.”

“Huh.”

I turned around to straddle his waist, lowering my head to kiss him until both of us were breathless. “Let’s not talk any more about my tail tonight.” I reached for the zipper of his khaki shorts. “Okay?”