Autumn Bones (31 page)

“I would never even have thought of that,” I admitted. “Damn, Lee! You really are a genius.”

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled, getting up from his chair. “Go ahead, log in to the admin panel and take it for a test-drive.”

I spent half an hour playing with the database. It felt more like ten minutes. It was just so easy—easy to navigate, easy to enter data, easy to search. And frankly, the graphic element made it fun.

“You’ve got it, Daisy,” Lee said, returning from his kitchen to peer over my shoulder. “I did my best to make it idiot-proof.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No offense.” He proffered a bottle of what looked like iced tea, keeping another for himself. “Kombucha?”

“Sure.” I accepted it, twisted off the cap, and took a sip. I wasn’t about to tell him I had no idea what kombucha was. It must have been something else Lee got into in Seattle, since it hadn’t made inroads into southwestern Michigan yet. In case you’re wondering, it’s basically tea, only it’s fermented with a mass of yeast and bacteria. I looked it up later. For the record, it tastes like a lot like iced tea, only sort of fizzy and tart, and I’m glad I didn’t know more at the time. “So, hey! How come other developers don’t make software that looks this cool?”

Lee shrugged. “It’s not cost-effective in terms of R and D, not to mention the amount of memory and bandwidth it takes to run. But since that wasn’t really an issue, I approached this like I was designing a game. Database programmers usually don’t think like artists or storytellers. That’s the beauty of video games. They combine the best of all those elements.”

“Did you design the graphics yourself?” I asked him.

“No.” He took a swig of kombucha. “I used an illustrator I’ve worked with before. I didn’t tell him anything about the project,” he added. “I just sent him the specs. But if you need additional graphics, just let me know.”

“I will.” It occurred to me that between the designing and the outsourcing and the hosting, Lee really had invested a lot in this project. “You really went above and beyond, Lee. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, I promised,” he said. “And you delivered.”

“Just don’t ask again,” I said. “That’s not a favor I can grant twice. Hel’s tolerance only goes so far.”

Lee nodded. “Oh, believe me, I won’t. But . . .” Looking down, he fiddled with his bottle of kombucha. “There might be other ways I could help you, Daisy.”

“Oh, yeah?” I was skeptical but curious. “Like what? No offense.”

Lifting his head, he gave me a wry smile. “Fair enough. Can I show you something?”

“Sure.”

“Back in a sec.” Lee bounded out of the room on gangly limbs, returning a few minutes later wrapped in his black leather duster.

I did my best to raise one eyebrow at him, settled for two. “I thought we talked about this, Lee.”

“I know, I know. But there’s a reason for it this time.” Undoing the buttons, he opened his duster like a flasher to reveal a square white box strapped to his chest, then thumbed a switch on his belt. “Check it out.”

A blast of intensive white light blazed forth from the box, bright enough that I shielded my eyes involuntarily. “Gah!”

“It’s full-spectrum lighting!” Lee shouted, as though he needed to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the light. Which didn’t make sense, but I totally got where he was coming from. “The kind therapists recommend for people with seasonal depression!” He switched it off. “Artificial sunlight, Daisy. Think about it! It’s a great weapon to use against vampires.”

Damn, that really was kind of brilliant. I couldn’t believe no one had thought of it before. Or maybe they had, but if so, I’d never heard about it. Or it didn’t work, which was also a distinct possibility.

“Have you field-tested it?” I asked Lee.

“Are you kidding?” He shot me an incredulous glance. “By myself? Hell, no. I thought maybe you could use it.”

I thought about it and shook my head. “I’m pretty sure that would be a violation of protocol.”

Lee looked confused. “What protocol?”

“Yeah, exactly.” I took a deep breath, exhaled. “See . . . it’s hard to explain, but there’s a set of understood rules that apply to the eldritch community. None of them are clear and some of them are arbitrary. It’s . . . complicated. But honoring them is part of maintaining Hel’s order, as is weighing them against what mundane law dictates. The House of Shadows is a sort of sovereign territory. Going in there armed with
dauda-dagr
means taking a firm stance in my role as Hel’s liaison. But if I were to go in armed with artificial sunlight . . .” I shook my head again. “That’s like a declaration of war. And there’s no war, Lee. All of us here in Pemkowet are doing our best to maintain a peaceful coexistence. And I’m doing my best to facilitate it.”

“Oh.”

“It’s still a great idea,” I said.

“Well, what about me?” he asked. “What if I wore it out on patrol with you sometime? I could be your backup. Would that be a violation of protocol?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to suppress an involuntary smile. “Lee, I don’t want to imply that you watch too much TV, because that would totally be a pot-kettle situation, but I don’t patrol the town. That’s what the active-duty police officers do. I only get involved if there’s a reason for it.”

“Okay, now I feel like an idiot.” Lee slipped out of his duster, revealing the harness and battery pack that held the light box in place. “It’s just . . . growing up in Pemkowet, surrounded by the eldritch community, it’s like I’ve always been in it, but not entirely of it.” He unsnapped the buckle on the harness. “It’s always there, but you only ever catch sight of it in glimpses, out of the corner of your eye.”

“Hello?” I turned my hands palm up. “You went to high school with me.”

“Yeah, but you don’t count.” He backtracked. “I don’t mean that, I mean . . . you only ever showed your human side. Ahh . . . mostly. At least I had the impression that’s what you tried really hard to do.”

I shrugged. “It’s safer that way.”

Lee nodded. “Okay. All I’m saying is that since the other night when you took me to Little Niflheim, since I saw Hel herself, I feel like I’m
of
that world. And I like it. I don’t want to lose that feeling. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rain on your parade.”

“That’s okay.” He gave me another of those wry, genuine smiles. “I got a little carried away. So no patrolling the local graveyards, huh?”

“Nope.” I smiled back at him. “Most of what I have to deal with is capricious, chaotic, and unpredictable, although I’m hoping the database will help. When it comes to vampires, Lady Eris actually keeps her brood on a pretty tight leash. There hasn’t been a rogue vamp since years before I became Hel’s liaison. There was, um, a little misunderstanding out at the House of Shadows last week, but it’s been resolved. I don’t expect to be going back out there for a good long time.”

We talked for a while longer. Lee reminded me not to use free Wi-Fi to access the database, and I assured him that the guys from Comcast had gotten me hooked up with my very own Internet service two days ago. He offered to stop by and check it out just to make sure everything was secure, which I chalked up to his paranoid streak, but accepted anyway.

I thanked him again and left. Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to doing database entry. I’d probably change my tune after the first few hours, but at least Lee had managed to make the prospect of it fun, and the idea of having my very own digital ledger was empowering.

Unfortunately, that part where I’d said I didn’t expect to be going back to the House of Shadows for a good long time?

Turns out I was dead wrong.

Twenty-nine

I
got in a solid d
ay’s worth of data entry before Jen called me in hysterics the following morning. And Jennifer Cassopolis was
never
hysterical. Jen was tough. Not razor-blades-in-her-hair, she’ll-cut-a-bitch tough, but she grew up in an abusive household, and it made her tough enough.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said when I could get a word in edgewise. “Slow down! Take a deep breath and tell me again. Who did what now?”

On the other end of the phone, Jen took several ragged gulps of air before swallowing convulsively. “Fucking
Geoffrey
!” she said, her voice thick with tears and rage. “He’s fucking turning my sister!”

Oh, crap. I closed my eyes. “Shit! Okay, let me think. Maybe we can put together an extraction team. Stefan—”

“It’s too late, Daise,” Jen interrupted me. “It’s already done. We got an invitation to the rising this morning. A fucking
engraved invitation
, like it’s a fucking
wedding
, for Christ’s sake! One of their minions hand-delivered it!”

I felt sick.

Turning a mortal into a vampire isn’t a spontaneous decision. It’s a process. Over the course of a month’s time, the mortal ingests small amounts of his or her blood-bonded vampire mate’s blood until it reaches the critical threshold necessary to keep the mortal’s flesh from corrupting during the three-day period between dying and rising. And yes, in case you’re wondering about the biblical echo, there are undead sects that claim Jesus was a vampire.

Anyway. It meant that Bethany Cassopolis was already lying dead in the House of Shadows, drained of mortal blood. And it meant that the process of turning her was already under way when I was there the week before.

That’s why she didn’t look as strung out as usual. And that’s probably why Geoffrey gave her permission to recruit an acolyte, so they’d have their very own playmate and blood source on hand for her rising.

And like a good little half-breed clinging to my mundane human morals, I’d passed up the chance to plant
dauda-dagr
between Geoffrey the prat’s shoulder blades and make an end to him.

“Daise?” Jen asked.

“I’m here.” I was pacing the living room in a fury, my tail lashing, but I had no one to be furious at but myself, and it wouldn’t do Jen any good to tell her about it. Not now. “Are you serious? They sent an invitation?”

“Oh, I’m serious!” A gasp veering back toward hysteria escaped her. “Apparently it’s traditional. Nice heavy cream-colored stock, a deckled edge . . . you should see it!”

“Okay, girlfriend,” I said in my best calm, take-charge tone. “I’m sorry. I’m
so
fucking sorry.” Sorrier than she knew, that was for sure. “But we’ve talked about this. Bethany’s an addict, Jen. She didn’t want to be helped. You tried. We both did. We did our best, but we always knew this day might come.”

“I know. It’s just . . .” She sighed.

“I know.”

It might not sound like much, but when you’ve been friends for as long as Jen and I have, you develop your own shorthand.

Jen took another deep breath. “Beth wrote a note on the invitation. They must have had it printed . . . before. She wants me there.”

“For the rising?”

“Uh-huh.”

I sat down on the edge of my futon. Mogwai wound around my ankles, not purring, just pressing his reassuring bulk against me. I reached down to pet him with my free hand. “What do you think?”

Jen was silent for a long moment. “You’d come with me?”

“Duh.”

“Then I’ll go.” Her voice was grim. “And if anything goes wrong . . . I really, really hope there’ll be hell to pay.”

I shifted the phone to my other ear. “Oh, there will. I promise. And if it’s okay with you, I’d like to ask Cody Fairfax to come with us. Because if anything
does
go wrong, we’re talking about murder. And if that happens . . .” The words trailed away as it came home to me that I was talking about Jen’s sister being irrevocably dead. I cleared my throat. “As Hel’s liaison, I would say it becomes a matter for mundane authorities.”

“Good,” Jen said. “That’s fine. I’d be glad to have him there. Daise . . . ?”

I waited. “Yeah?”

“I don’t know which would be worse,” she whispered. “Even though it’s been awful, Bethany’s still my sister. If she didn’t rise, at least it would be over, you know? If she does . . . I don’t know if I could ever consider her family again.” She paused. “Am I a terrible person for thinking that way?”

My heart ached. “Not for an instant.”

Bethany’s rising was scheduled for midnight two days from now. Very clever of the House of Shadows to wait until someone was actually freaking
dead
to send out an invitation to the resurrection.

I spoke to Cody, who readily agreed to attend in his capacity as an officer of the law. He was still pissed off about what had happened with Heather Simkus.

I talked to Stefan, too.

Well, actually, it was Stefan who contacted me, calling to suggest that he evaluate my progress in the art of conjuring and raising a mental shield. “Cooper tells me you think I was holding back on you,” he said to me.

“No,” I said. “I
know
you were holding back. But I’ve been getting better.”

He laughed. “Come to my apartment. We’ll spar. This time I won’t hold back . . . as much.”

Frankly, I was grateful for the offer. I was in a foul mood and sparring with Stefan might help take the edge off it.

True to his word, he came at me harder this time. I’d become accustomed to the wild, surging attack of Cooper’s beast. By contrast, Stefan’s approach was deadly and disciplined. He wielded his hunger like a sword, battering straight at my mental shield, then sidestepping deftly to come at me from a different angle. We circled each other in his living room. I held
dauda-dagr
in my right hand, and the sunlight sparkling on the river beyond his window gleamed along the edges and runes of its blade. I let it fill me, pouring light and anger into my shield, letting it blaze. Stefan’s pale blue eyes were like sun-shot ice, his pupils waxing and waning as his desire warred with his discipline.

There was a part of me that
wanted
him to lose control, that wanted to fall into him, to spill my anger into that cool, deep well of stillness within him. And another, darker part that wanted to explore what lay beyond that stillness, to unleash the full extent of the emotions I tried so hard to keep in check, to allow Stefan to unleash the full extent of the ravenous hunger he kept under ironclad control.