2 Death Rejoices (12 page)

“Fuckanut,” I said, my shoulders falling. Hood's laughter doubled him over, and he put both hands on his thighs to steady himself. “Knock it off, you lip-diddling ninny, and help me out of here.”

“Sorry,” he said, still letting out windy half-giggles. “I'm sorry. Here.”

He braced his tree-trunk legs on the bank, mud spattered in his blond leg hair and streaking up in slashes along his white socks. No ankle holster, I noted. Hood offered the large capable hand again, beaming hundred-watt glee down at me.

I said, “Hey, you're not armed?”

“Not when I run,” he said.

“Oh no? Good.” I grabbed his hand, ignored the flash of Hood's surprise offered up by the Blue Sense, and yanked as hard as I could.

Hood teetered on the brink, hissing like a throttled snake; his sturdy legs quickly compensated and a knowing smile split his mouth. He hauled me up by one arm and set me on the road in a sloppy pile.

“Nice try,” he said, “and nice underwear. Are those frogs? This is so going on Twitter.” He mocked taking a picture with his phone, but smirked and put it back in its bicep sheath without doing so.

I grumbled, “So much for running. What's next?”

He crossed his ample arms across his chest and considered the sad mess of woman splay-legged and covered in muck on the path before him. “Dare we clean you up and try some kick boxing?”

“You don't value your testicles at all, Robin Hood?”

“Brought my cup,” he said. “I
have
met you.”

I laughed weakly and looked around for where I'd tossed my gloves.

“Come on.” He offered me his hand one more time. “This Prince of Thieves is not the giving-up type.”

C
HAPTER
8

A QUICK CHANGE
and half an hour of kickboxing later, Hood had settled into a repetitive routine of showing me how to get out of a wrist-grab. When I spazzed and forgot how, he called a full stop and showed me again. When I tried it backwards and nearly clobbered him in the nuts, he danced nimbly aside and, with indefatigable patience, came back at me. His able body next to mine was reassuring and intimidating at the same time, moving with easy experience, treating my limbs like they were parts of a malleable clockwork doll; he wound me up and watched me unwind, anticipating what I'd do, his trained eyes calculating minute muscle movements and intentions with daunting accuracy. I didn't like the odds of anyone mortal going hand-to-hand against him.

With a promise to continue the following morning that sounded more like a threat than a reward, Hood jogged in the direction of my shower without asking — his new annoying habit — and I dragged my sorry ass into the kitchen for caffeine. It occurred to me that Hood had become entirely too comfortable in my home in the last couple of weeks; he helped himself to towels from my bedroom closet like he owned the place.

I found my Cold Company already at the espresso machine, whisking foam and pulling his cinnamon duster from the overhead cabinet. I could set my Michigan J. Frog watch by Harry's service; he felt my need through our Bond, and within minutes, there was espresso brewing. Even I found it hard to kvetch about having a psychic barista. Down in the cellar came the sound of electric tools whirring and buzzing; my brother Wes had thrown himself into mucking about
with modifying household items, and as long as it kept him out of trouble, I didn't care enough to stop him. Harry would, grudgingly, gleefully (or at least generously) replace anything Wes fixed to the point that it no longer worked properly.

I tried my flex and finger gun routine on Harry. He cocked his head curiously, the piercings in his eyebrow twitching upward. “Did you have a lovely lesson?”

“Grab my wrist, Harry.”

“Certainly not. You stink of dirt, insect repellent, and that ridiculous body spray Sherriff Hood insists on using.”

“Don't be a priss. Grab me and see what happens.” I shoved my arm in his face.

He frowned and watched me for a beat, then obliged; his cool hand circled my wrist with unearthly strength, clamping down like an iron cuff. I had a brief but very hot memory of some iron cuffs elsewhere in the house, and then spun into action. I twisted like Hood showed me. Nothing happened. My hand started turning white. I twisted outward again, grunting. Harry studied me impassively, as if I were a bonsai tree in need of subtle pruning.

“I'm supposed to be able to get out,” I said.

“Of course you are.” He looked roughly as impressed by my escape attempt as the dish towel that hung over his free arm did. “Your trainer has much work to do.”

“If you weren't an immortal, I'd have freed my hand and punched you right in the schnozzle.”

“Assuredly, you would have done,” he allowed with a smile and released me. With one hand, he passed me a demitasse cup, while the other motioned to the kitchen table. I rubbed the circulation back into my arm and sat.

Harry's mind swept mine; the weight of his attention on the front of my brain felt like the heavy-headed moments before sleep. It made me wonder how any human could possibly bear being the DaySitter of someone like Gregori Nazaire, the fourteen hundred-year-old poet with an intensity that had been at once terrifying and inescapable. Six months earlier, I had dodged that honor, though I had rescued, fed, and inadvertently offered the Bond to him, freeing him from his cruel and power-mad DaySitter. He had turned his
muddled passions on me, forcing me to stake him. I hadn't been able to rid myself of him completely: Gregori's ashes remained in the Kermit the Frog cookie jar on top of my fridge. So few ashes for such a big personality and so much history.

When Harry sat, warming his hands on a cup of espresso he wouldn't drink, I noticed dark circles under his eyes, making them look eerily recessed.

“Darling …” he started hesitantly.

“Okay, I won't flex anymore,” I said, “but I can't promise about the finger guns.”

“As disconcerting a sight as that may be, it is not my principal concern at this time,” he said, his accent not nearly as crisp as usual. “We need to talk.”

I sipped, licking foam off my upper lip. “You breaking up with me, Harry?”

That earned me a weak smile. “Heavens, no, my fawn, never that. Alas, I am afraid it may be that time.”

“That time of the month?” I asked. “Want some Midol?”

“Sweetheart …”

“Time to get your fangs polished?”

He waited me out, tucking the hot cup close to his chest.

“Time to defrost the freezer? Time to get your oil changed?” I warned him, “I've got a million of ’em.”

“Have you not conjured any new ones?” He sounded disappointed. “Surely, you have had ample time.”

I studied his worn-out face; was it just me, or were his lips extra-pale today? Though he was only thirty-five when turned, his eyes, gone from their usual cashmere grey to a more forbidding battleship hue, showed every day of the four centuries since. The slump of his shoulders said that this year had been harder than most.

“What's the problem, Harry?”

“If only there were just the one,” he murmured. “Your brother is not eating.”

“Could have fooled me. Every time you make brownies, they're gone before I get one. He's going to have to start shopping for his plaid shirts in the Husky Logger section.”

“I've only just returned from overseas and already he is leeching my energy, and by extension your own, by refusing to drink blood as he should.”

“Is that why I have this stupid fever? I'm still tired. I've been tired since yesterday.” I thought about it. “No, it was even before last night. Must have caught a cold from the crowd at Fur Con. Among that many folks, who knows what kind of germs I was wandering around in.” I spared a brief moment of sympathy for Agent de Cabrera, who had to de-snot my squirrel suit, and hoped he'd been taking his Vitamin C.

“There is a place he could go, a center for revenants with medical issues.”

“Are you saying my brother needs to go to fat camp?”

“You must have a serious talk with Wesley. I have tried. The lad stares right through me.”

“He's too young for Eternity Blues. He only died six months ago.”

“In time, his memories of life will soothe him; for one so young, one who has not yet truly lived, to die so soon….”

“I'll talk to him.” I watched Harry's face and saw a line run above his brow, the one that meant trouble. “There's something else. You said it was ‘that time’?”

“It is time for you to release your good man Agent Chapel from his role as
dhaugir
,” he chided, but even this was tiredly done. “How unseemly it is for you to keep him linked to you in this fashion.”

“Whoa, whoa; you don't get to blame me for this. You did it. You and Gary.”

“And only
you
may un-do it, my doe, as he now belongs to you. I could tell by the set of his winbrow how unfairly you have treated your own body in my absence, knowing as you do that the pain will be absorbed by another.”

Six months ago, the head of the PCU had got the dumb idea to become my
dhaugir
without asking me; behind my back, Harry had facilitated this rare bond, and now Gary Chapel was a destination for a large portion of my physical pain. Not that I didn't feel pain, but it was whisked away to him quickly. Sharing pain with someone isn't something to take lightly. Every month, Chapel sent me chocolates for my PMS cravings, and I took Midol to lessen his discomfort.

I could tell by the way Harry was clipping his sentences that he thought saving words could somehow give him strength, his usual loquaciousness flown. Mine was one very tuckered-out revenant. Arguing with a tired revenant is not bright; I like to think I'm a wee bit smarter than that, so I didn't question the
winbrow
thing. I assumed he meant eyebrows and nodded in agreement, but couldn't promise out loud. I had no idea how to release Chapel.

Harry set his drink down, and propped his chin tiredly in one cup-heated palm.

“Okay, I have a plan,” I lied.

Harry blinked at me, once, slowly. Since revenants do not require the act of blinking, I took it as the insult it was meant.

“I really do have a plan,” I assured him, “and it's genius.”

“‘Genius’ as in: the act of challenging a revenant to a tug of war for your wrist?”

“Even better.”

“‘Genius’ as in: the act of burning ghouls in a pit of petrol not three meters from my precious Bugatti?”

“Hey, that worked.” I pointed my spoon at him. “Look, I'm sick. It's early. Don't tick me off or I'll toss your salad.”

He stopped short, and I could tell he wanted to gape at me, but was too tired to bother. “Whatever could that phrase mean, my darling?”

I shrugged. “Heard it in a movie once. It's something they do to each other in prison, so it's gotta be bad.”

“Perhaps you ought to ascertain the true meaning before you threaten people with it?” he suggested.

“Who needs Google? Prison lingo is the new black,” I informed him with a super-serious nod.

His lips turned into a reluctant smile. “Clearly, you need a vacation as well as a vocabulary lesson. Where would you like to spend your morning, ducky?”

I tapped my cheek in thought. “Jamaica is always nice.”

He swept out of his chair and went to the fridge, producing a coconut from the fruit drawer. Amused, I echoed him by propping my own chin in my palm and watched him fiddle with the stereo until Bob Marley came on. He made a show of aiming his forefinger at the coconut and jabbing a hole in the top.

“Wow,” I approved. “That's one mighty finger, revenant.”

He gave me a suggestive smile-and-wink and popped a straw in the coconut before putting it in my hand. “I hear the growl of a familiar engine. I believe you have company. I shall retire to my chambers.”

“Without feeding?” I frowned. “It's almost eight.”

“The night does endue to me the sweet blessing of your submission, my delightsome partner. Until that time, I bid you adieu. T-minus twenty-five.”

Just then, Hood padded in from my bedroom, barefoot, and I was treated to an eyeful of half-naked sheriff. A green towel hung low on his athletic hips, showing the cut V of hard-earned obliques. His chest was still damp and he carried with him the incongruous scent of my not-at-all manly peaches and cream soap. There was a faint brush of pale hair trailing down from his belly button, a tight little innie. I felt an unexpected flare of hunger, focused on the prominent veins in Hood's lean arms, push through the Bond from Harry, just as quickly whisked away by the revenant's masterful self-control.

Hood reached up into the cupboard for a mug, filled it with a pull of espresso, and sipped. He glanced at Harry, then at me, and bobbed his head to Marley's “One Love” for a minute before slipping back into the bedroom, hopefully to get dressed.

When I recovered from the unexpected mindgasm, I noticed Harry waiting for an explanation. “It's not what it looks like,” I said.

“Of course it isn't, don't be absurd,” Harry murmured. “Only, I do believe the lad displayed himself on purpose, though for which one of us, I should not like to guess.”

“It wasn't on purpose. And if it was, it wasn't for you.”

Harry gave me another long look, followed by a full-on grin brimming with fangs and amusement. “Well then, sound the hunts-up, my impious harlot, my indomitable flirt-gill, my intrepid little hussy. Have at him! I wish you Godspeed.”

“Hey!” I yelped. “I could get lucky if I wanted to.”
If I had ketamine or some roofies.

Even fatigued, all of Harry's movements were graceful, including his tired eye roll. He swept into the sheltering shadows of the pantry and disappeared behind the shelf. When his footfalls on the stairs ended, I went to the front door to peer out the peephole.

*   *   *

Darth Vader's midlife crisis sat in the driveway, reflecting early morning sunbeams alongside Harry's carefully covered sport bike. The limited-edition, black on black on blackity-black Bugatti currently owned by Special Agent Mark Batten, had once, until one baffling morning of private trade-offs in mid-December, belonged to my Cold Company.

The FBI's second-most highly respected preternatural investigator and the nation's most prolific vampire hunter, Batten was in demand all over North America, but he'd recently chosen to settle in Boulder. Now he squatted in my driveway next to his hyper-exotic toy and spit-shined the road dust off the rims using the bottom edge of his white t-shirt. His butt looked unfairly appetizing in broken-in jeans; probably he should register it as a lethal weapon.