“Oh hell, I wish I’d been here to see that,” I said, laughing and kissing Maggie again. She was child and cat all rolled into one. The best of both worlds only with wings and really big ears. “Do you think it’s okay she ate pizza?”
“I got pictures,” Chase said, a grin on his face. “I found her when I wandered in to make coffee while Delilah was sleeping off her escapades. I stayed here, by the way, to help Menolly keep an eye on things. And no, I do not think you should feed her pizza. She threw up on my feet right after I snapped the shot. I did not take a picture of that.”
“Well, she seems okay now. By the way, where were Rozurial and Vanzir when you needed extra hands?” The pair had been making themselves scarce lately and I wondered what was up.
“They were scouting around, trying to dredge up more about this Bonecrusher woman.”
“She’s a demon,” I said automatically.
“Demon. I haven’t heard from them since they left last night around ten o’clock.” Chase glanced at his watch. “Should we be worried?”
“Maybe.” I crossed to the window and stared out at the blustery afternoon, my hands pressed against the glass. Autumn was in full swing, the rain was pounding down, and I dreaded hiking through the cemetery in this weather, in the dark of night. The Moon might reflect light through the clouds, but this wasn’t going to be a Sunday picnic, by any means.
Delilah joined me and placed one hand gently atop my own. “You had a rough night, didn’t you?” she asked softly.
“That’s the understatement of the year. Wait till you hear the whole of it. We’re in for one hell of a ride. And Venus the Moon Child is wrapped up in it all now. I’m afraid we’ve got some hard decisions coming up. Also, Father’s right in the thick of it.”
She wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “We’ll make it through. We always do. The odds are getting steeper, but so far, we’ve lucked out.”
Yeah, I thought, so far. But how long could our luck hold? How long before one of us went tumbling over the edge, onto the wrong end of a sword or in the path of a nasty spell? Shadow Wing could throw demon after demon our way, working up the ranks of his thugs until he found one that could match us, one we couldn’t stop. And then where would we be?
Suddenly gloomy again, feeling lost in a very big world, I rested my head on her shoulder, wishing for once that I could be as optimistic as she was.
CHAPTER 17
I crashed for a few hours until Menolly woke up. Trillian and Morio joined me, and though it felt incredibly good to have both of them in my bed, with us all together again, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with Smoky, but was too exhausted to dwell on it. This Hunt had been the hardest one I’d ever endured, save for the first, and my body and mind needed time to recharge. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the luxury of downtime, not with the work that waited for us in the cemetery.
When the alarm buzzed, Morio silenced it, and we all struggled out of sleep. I yawned and scrambled out from under the covers. Trillian handed me my robe, while Morio headed toward the bathroom. I blinked, gazing in the mirror on my vanity. I’d forgotten to remove my makeup and now it was smudged, but with five minutes, a little makeup remover, and the M.A.C. bonanza that filled the drawers of my vanity table, I was presentable again.
Morio slipped into a pair of indigo-wash jeans and a turtleneck, while Trillian chose a pair of leather pants and a turtleneck. They both washed up good, though Trillian had a faraway look in his eye that made me pause. When I asked, he shrugged, giving me a faint smile.
“I guess we’d better get downstairs,” I said when I realized I wasn’t going to get an answer. I slipped into a calf-length rayon skirt and a cowl-neck purple sweater. The night promised to be both cold and bloody. I wasn’t about to wear my best bustier into combat. I made sure my earrings were small—chandelier earrings were bad in battle; I’d found that out the hard way—and laced up my granny boots.
We trundled down to the kitchen where Chase had prepared dinner. Iris appeared, yawning, still in her bathrobe.
“Thank you for cooking, Chase,” she said. “I was worn through from the journey.”
I leaned over one of the pots and sniffed. “What’s that?” Whatever it was smelled good.
“Chicken and dumplings.” He spooned up one of the doughy blobs. The broth was steaming, heaven in a ladle, filled with shredded carrots, onions, celery, and meaty slices of chicken.
“What’s a dumpling?” I started to ask, but then stopped. “That’s right, Mother made them once in a while. Only she made sweet cinnamon dumplings in a big pot of applesauce.” I leaned in and spooned up a little of the broth.
Bad idea!
“Hot! Hot! Hot!” Pressing my hand to my lips, where a small blister was forming from the scalding spoon, I still couldn’t refrain from taking another taste. “But, oh, that’s good. I didn’t know you could cook like that.”
He winked. “Oh, I can cook all right. I learned early, if you’ll remember the things I told you about my childhood. It was either that or eat sandwiches all the time. Now get over to the table and I’ll bring you a bowl.”
As Delilah and Chase brought steaming bowls of the stew to the table, Menolly strolled in from the living room with Rozurial and Vanzir behind her. The demon twins looked beaten down. In fact, Roz looked like he had . . . shit, he did. His right eye was black-and-blue.
“What the hell happened to you?” I blurted out.
He shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t your maniac husband this time, at least.” With a sniff, he added, “I need some of whatever that is.”
“Sit. I’ll bring you some.” Delilah took his coat.
Vanzir straddled a chair next to the table and shook his head when Chase offered him a bowl. “Not hungry, thanks.”
Menolly slipped up behind me and gave me a quick hug. “Good to see you back, and Trillian, too,” she said.
“Hello, O Fangstress.” Trillian waved a knife in her general direction as he slid a thick pat of butter into the soup. “How’s tricks?”
“Getting trickier,” she said. “Put that away before you hurt someone. And welcome home.”
“We’re all glad you’re back,” Roz said to Trillian. “We need all the help we can get.”
“Good to see you.” Trillian nodded back. He stared at Vanzir. “You’re demon, aren’t you?”
“That’s Vanzir,” I said. “Remember, I told you about him?”
“Oh.” Trillian gave him a long look, then went back to his soup.
Vanzir coughed. “Yeah, and I can imagine what she said.”
“You’re being paranoid again.” I let out a long sigh. “Don’t always be so defensive. I gave you more than enough kudos in my description. Back to the matter at hand. Roz, where the hell did you get the shiner?”
Rozurial frowned. “Nothing we can fix right now, but nothing we should ignore, either.”
I put my spoon down. He’d just yanked me away from the happy place I’d found through Chase’s dinner. “What happened?”
“The Bonecrusher has spies out and about. Tregarts. Not that bright, but loyal. They’re insanely strong, too. I found out the hard way. And I gather she’s trying to start up a training camp in the woods somewhere.”
“Training camp? For what? Demon Army Brigade 101? Holy hell. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. So do you know anything else? And just what went down to net you the black eye?”
“How about one question at a time? I tried to pry more information out of our informant than he was willing to give. Damn creep sucker-punched me, then kneed me.” Roz blushed and Vanzir let out a sharp laugh. “Yuck it up, buddy. You weren’t on the receiving end. His knee felt like solid steel. My balls are so black-and-blue it’s going to be a while before I take them out for a spin.”
Menolly let out an audible sigh. I flashed her a snarky look and she quickly sobered.
I sobered, too. “So does he know who you are? We have to be discreet. We can’t maul suspects and then let them go free.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Vanzir answered for him. “He’s gone. I got him before he hit the door.” He gave me a little bow with a snarky flourish on the end.
“Good,” I said, feeling altogether too bloodthirsty. That was Menolly’s department, not mine.
Rolling his eyes—whether in disgust or amusement, I didn’t know—Trillian said, “So tonight we’re set for cemetery duty? We need to know what we’re facing. Anybody have any idea?”
Chase frowned. “I’m not the best person to ask. I don’t know what all of these creatures are, or how to differentiate ghosts from spirits from . . . whatever.”
“From what Chase told me before you meandered down to dinner, we’ve got a mixture of walking dead and spirit activity out there.” Menolly sighed. “No vampires as far as I can tell, which is a good thing. But with so much spiritual turbulence, we’re going to need more than just fighting gear. We have to be able to repel them. And if there are any creatures like shades . . .” She left the thought unfinished but the conclusion was easy to reach and it wasn’t a pretty one.
“Or revenants,” Delilah added.
“I think we’re going to need more spell power than Morio and I can provide. And Smoky’s not back yet.” I stared at the table. The vampires wouldn’t help us, what with Wade and Menolly still on the outs, so we couldn’t ask Vampires Anonymous to come to our aid. And the Supe community wasn’t exactly rife with magical personnel, other than their innate powers.
“Wilbur,” I blurted out, jerking my head up to stare at the others. “We’ll ask Wilbur. He’s a necromancer.”
“What makes you think he’ll help us? He’s not exactly buddy-buddy with us.” Menolly grimaced. “Every time I run into him, I want to fang him one—and not for fun. He’s too interested in women as cock fodder.”
“Yeah, I know, but there has to be something we can offer him to help us. Maybe a couple dead bodies to play with?” I glanced around, stopping as I came to Chase’s gaze. He was staring at me, almost sadly. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head.
“No, tell me.”
“It’s just . . . you’ve changed. You’re tossing around dead bodies as payment now? I know you have to practice raising the dead for your magic, but remember—these were people at one time. Living, breathing humans who had lives, loves, families.”
Feeling unjustly attacked, I blinked back a sudden spate of tears. “No, you listen. I don’t like it. I don’t like desecrating graves. I don’t like dabbling in decay. But if I don’t learn how to work this magic, then we’re at even more of a disadvantage. Maybe I am becoming a fiend. Maybe I’m turning into a monster, but if that’s what it takes, I’ll do it. And who said the bodies had to be human? I’m sure we can find a couple of goblin corpses somewhere. He might have fun raising something else besides people.”
Delilah whispered something in Chase’s ear and he winced.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t like this,” he said, lifting his hand to stare at the missing fingertip. “I guess this is my reminder of why you do what you do. Why we do what we do. I never served in the military, Camille. I wasn’t brought up in a military household like you were. I had a rotten childhood, so I tried to make up for it by going into police work, but all that happened is that I encountered a seamier side of society than I ever did when I was a kid. I suppose I’ve had my fill of being on the front lines against creeps and losers and psychos. But there’s no discharge in sight.”
Menolly surprised everybody by walking behind the detective and ruffling his hair. She placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned down to stare in his eyes. “Quit sweating, you know I won’t bite you. And I’m sorry you’re feeling torn. But, Chase, I guarantee you, you haven’t seen anything yet. Whatever Karvanak did to you, it will be a thousand times worse if we can’t stop Shadow Wing. If we have to break a few eggs in the process . . . or raise a few bodies . . .”
“Speaking of worse,” I broke in. “I’ve got worse for you. Or it seems like it to me. I wish Grandmother Coyote was around, because we need her advice.”
“What happened? Does this have anything to do with the Black Unicorn?” Delilah asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said slowly. “I can’t be sure the two events are connected, but yeah . . .” Sucking in a deep breath, I slowly exhaled and told them everything. Told them about sacrificing the Black Unicorn during the Hunt, about the fact that I was now a priestess for the Moon Mother, about the Keraastar Knights and how Tanaquar and Asteria were planning on using them to stabilize the portals, about the sorcerer’s attack in King Upala-Dahns’s court. And lastly, I added, “I no longer feel comfortable asking Father’s opinion of things, either.”
“Why?” Menolly asked, her gaze catching mine. I could see the wariness lurking within. She believed every word I was saying.
“Because I’m positive that he’s sleeping with Queen Tanaquar,” I said.
“What?” Delilah jumped. “But Father wouldn’t . . . the Queen? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. As sure as I am of anything at this moment. He finally took our advice and found himself a girlfriend. But even though Tanaquar is a damned sight better than Lethesanar, I don’t fully trust her.”
