It Never Rhines but It Pours
Read It Never Rhines but It Pours Online
Authors: Erin Evans
| It Never Rhines but It Pours | |
| Rhine Maiden [2] | |
| Erin Evans | |
| (2011) | |
| Rating: | **** |
Rhine maiden, Piper Cavanaugh, is on the job as a Guardian hit-man, but can she execute an innocent witch? When she discovers her target has been framed, Piper has to find the true killer or risk losing her job – and her life. As she sorts through a dwindling number of suspects, Piper tries to keep her trigger-happy vampire friend in line, fix a back-fired spell, deal with some unwanted house guests, and still find time to mother her two toddlers. With every use of her power of command bringing her closer to immortality, Piper soon realizes, it never “rhines” but it pours!
It Never Rhines but It Pours
A Rhine Maiden Novel
By Erin Evans
Copyright 2010 Erin Evans
For my mother,
who not only taught me the way to Neverland, Narnia, Middle Earth, and many other worlds, but also taught me how to write, dream big dreams, and, most importantly, how to be a good mother myself.
And for Katie,
who created incredible cover art, proofread, and pointed out glaring plot problems. Any mistakes and typos are all mine!
Chapter 4: The Human Lie Detector
Chapter 5: Fixing the Memories
Chapter 9: Diapers, Santa, and Visiting Relatives
Chapter 10: Guess Who’s Coming to Lunch
Chapter 12:
Not
a Walk in the Park
Chapter 15: Words We Don’t Say
Chapter 16: Sherlock Holmes and Pookas
Chapter 17: Rednecks at Subway
Chapter 22: Babies and Billboards
Chapter 26: Things Go Horribly Wrong
Chapter 30: The Girls are Gone
Chapter 31: Never Trust a Witch
Chapter 32: The Final Dead End
Chapter 33: Laying Things to Rest
Guardians
I stared at the carnage before me. Broken, mangled bodies were everywhere. Some were still feebly moving, clinging to life as they slowly slid into oblivion. They had mostly died in pairs, although some had died alone. There were hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands. Slaughtered for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When something hits you at seventy miles an hour you don’t have a chance. I frowned and made a face. I detest lovebug season.
At least the car was a rental. I would hate to have to clean this mess off
my
car. Lovebugs, in addition to being worthless nuisances that plague our state two times out of the year, like to hang out on the highway and other roads. Their bodies are slightly acidic and, when splattered across the front of your car and then slowly baked in the hot Florida sun, can eat through your paint. Not to mention how hard it is to clean them off the windshield so that you can see to drive.
Urban legend says that they were genetically created in hopes of controlling the mosquito population. Instead, a non-biting, non-mosquito eating, constantly mating, and inedible bug was created that swarms twice a year. I doubt that is true. I don’t think scientists are capable of creating something so heinous. If they were, entomological warfare would be all the craze, and it’s not.
The rental car had started out white. It was more of a speckled black and white now. Lovebugs show up wonderfully on a white car. I guess the idea is that the color white will keep the car cooler in the heat. Ha. Nice thought, but no. We had totally skipped winter this year and had gone straight from summer heat, to slightly cooler fall, right back to summer. Just stepping out of the air-conditioned car had made my sunglasses fog up. I took them off and squinted in the bright light as I cleaned them on the corner of my shirt.
“Ugh! It’s hotter than an oven out here!” My little sister Sarah was climbing out of the car. She was barely dressed at all in a skimpy tank top, cut off shorts, and flip-flops. I was also pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. She was sixteen and had the figure of a runway model. I was more conservatively dressed in light weight slacks and a sleeveless blouse. I could feel sweat pooling up inside my bra and wished that I was at home, drinking ice tea and enjoying the air-conditioning.
Sarah was finishing off her large DQ blizzard which was another source of contention between us. It wasn’t fair. I was only ten years her senior, but, as a mother of two, I had to carefully watch every bite I ate. Instead of ice-cream, I had ordered a diet coke which I was leaving in the car to turn into a watery mess. I was still a little ticked that my traveling companions were both wolfing down sugar and fat like they would never grow old.
In the case of Cecily, it was true. She was frozen forever at somewhere in her mid-twenties. She could eat ice cream all day long and not gain a pound, and she was dead. As in vampire dead. Contrary to popular beliefs, she could walk about in the sunshine, she just looked like sleep deprivation with a hangover. When the sun set she would revert back to her usual cheery state. I didn’t know a lot of vampires, but I thought she was unnaturally cheery. It got on my nerves sometimes. That and the blood drinking. I tried to avoid anything that had to do with blood.
She was wearing her favorite combo of gauzy, asymmetrical skirt with matching color top, and strappy high heel shoes that I would break my neck just trying on. The heat didn’t seem to bother her at all, a fact which I added to my list of complaints. I was grumpy, Sarah was teenage sullen, and Cecily was exhausted. We made a great team. Just call us the PMS girls.
“Are ya’ll finished?” I snipped, still mad that I wasn’t eating a blizzard. Who cares about being thin? Oh, yeah, I do. I just wanted to have my cake and eat it too, literally.
“Yumm,” Sarah sighed, overacting. “Don’t you wish you had one of these?” She waved her spoon under my nose.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “Just wait,” I answered maturely, “When you get older it’s all going to hit you and you will turn into a blimp.”
“Whatever,” Sarah rolled her eyes. Her silver bracelet gleamed in the sun as she raised her arms over her head in an exaggerated stretch.
It was my turn for the eye roll. “Great, Sarah. If there were any teenage boys around I’m sure that pose would be very effective. Try to be a little professional!”
Cecily slid out of the car and added a large brimmed hat and dark sunglasses to her ensemble. She looked like Audrey Hepburn, if Audrey had been taller, curvier, and had midnight black hair. The large claymore she was wearing sheathed across her back somewhat detracted from the overall look.
“Do you have to bring that thing?” I hissed.
She glowered at me, “As Wielder of a Sword of Justice it is my job to be ready at all times. Besides,” she grinned, a killer whale sort of grin, “I might get to use it today!”
I groaned and tried to wipe sweat off my face without removing all my makeup.
“Remind me again why
you
get to be the Wielder?” Sarah asked petulantly.
“You want to cut someone’s head off, slurpee?” Cecily snarled.
“Maybe I’d start with yours,” Sarah shot back.
“Cut it out, you two!” I cried. “We’re all cranky and nervous and the last thing we need to do is fight with each other!”
“Yes, Mom,” Cecily and Sarah said at the same time. They laughed. Apparently mocking me united them. The enemy of my enemy and so forth.
“You’re sure that no one can see that thing?” I was highly skeptical. After all, it was huge, and
I
could definitely see it.
Cecily yawned, “We’ve been over this, Piper. Only magical beings can see the sword. Humans won’t even know I have it.”
“Non-magical humans,” I corrected her. I had fought too hard to join the United Supernatural Beings as a human to let that one slide. Until Sarah and me, humans had been completely in the dark so far as supernatural beings were concerned. Vampires, werewolves, Fae, and all the others kept themselves out of human knowledge. In fact, the one law instantly punishable by death, with no trial, was to do something that might even
risk
humans finding out about the rest of the beings that share their planet.
The only reason Sarah and I were hanging out with a vampire was because we were not exactly normal ourselves. In college I had discovered the ability to command anyone to do something and they would have to obey. After abusing my gift, I had decided to never use it again. Forcing someone to act against their will is a horrible violation. I’d gotten married, had two beautiful little girls, and thought that I could live the rest of my life as a normal human, when I slipped up. It was all Sarah’s fault. If she hadn’t been such a rebellious pain in the butt, and if my parents hadn’t gone out of town and left me in charge, nothing would have happened.
I used my Voice in a public place, and was visited that night, not by one of the spirits of Christmas, but by my own personal vampire. I had previously known her as my friendly next door neighbor who worked the night shift at the morgue. I was understandably a little surprised when she saved my life from a Guardian hit. See, I had broken that one important law and was a free target. Cecily saved my life that night by taking the bullets herself. In retrospect it was a good thing. I would have had a much harder time believing that she was a vampire if I hadn’t seen her body magically heal after the bullets were pulled out.
Cecily had been assigned to watch me after they tracked me down from my wild college days. I had, unknowingly, been on probation. Allowed to live as long as I never used my ability again.
To save my life, I had to appeal for membership in the USB. The United Supernatural Beings. They remind me of a magical version of the United Nations. They probably based themselves on the UN but they would never admit that. Humans are the lowest of the low on the totem pole and copying anything a human created is embarrassing for a supernatural being.
Long story short, I was allowed to join as a human if I could find another human with mental abilities. Enter Sarah. I should have known she had a gift. There was no way that someone as wild as she was could have my parents totally wrapped around her little finger. I had thought that my parents were just getting tired in their old age. There is a ten year gap between us, and Sarah was allowed to do things, go places, and dress in ways that would have had me grounded for a year.