Coffin Fit (The Grateful Undead series Book 4) (17 page)

Hands now behind her back, Lily rocked in front of my mother. "I think I like you better this way, Great-grandmother. Has my mother aged as well? I certainly hope so. That would be delightful."

"Send her back," Mom said, arm up, finger pointing at the place on the ceiling where the black hole had been. "JoAnn's right upstairs, and we all know she can't keep a secret. Dorius will know Lily's here before that cuckoo cuckoos again."

* * *

"And you trust your team of
carnevale
sideshow freaks to take on a mission of this, this Grandezza of importance?" Karl asked.

"Explicitly," Dorius said. "Their quirky comportment leads to a mistaken disregard on the part of our targets. Their unique eccentricities have worked in our favor thus far. I will admit the newly acquired curse could be misconstrued as being more human Down Under, therefore gaining them unwanted attention. For that reason, some of the team will take a less aggressive position."

"
Al diavolo questo
!" Razzo shouted, arms flying and fist pounding. "I'm'a no,
how you say, no gonna backup no sideshow! I use'a tokens, an' into the
fogne
we go, eh? I give mine for United States
viaggio
an'a the good of the
missione
."

"You will be making a big mistake," Marcus said. "If I am correct, you have all been Down Under in my country, and in Florida specifically, many times,
gentiluomini
, in both human and wolf form. It is said that you
frequente
Purgatory. You seem to enjoy the . . .
atmosfera
in the bar, si?"

"Why should this have anything to do with our ability to find the doppelganger and get justice for Karl's son?" Randy asked.

Before Marcus or Dorius could answer, Karl reigned in his wolves with very little pomp. "What Marcus is trying to say is we'd be recognized
subito
. The doppelganger has lived among us. He would be smoke in the wind while we chase our tails. We can't head the search, but we
can
," Karl locked eyes with Dorius, "and we
will
participate in the battle."

Dorius had been running fingers down the side of his goatee, twirling the tip between his thumb and index finger with each pass. "
Assolutamente
!" he said, and adjusted his bolo. "I will be telling my team to stand down, report only, and then follow without engagement until we arrive. We will all be participating." Dorius smiled at Karl. "But our participation will be limited. Not one of us, or all of us collectively, is capable of destroying the doppelganger. This can only be accomplished by its elders."

Dorius paused, letting that sink in, then continued. "Fortunately, for us, Marcus and I have a history with a doppelganger elder. Therefore, I feel it's of great significance my brother is the first to go Down Under to speak with this ally. His task will be to schedule a meet, which will include the rest of us, so we can all take part in deriving a plan of attack. Destroying the doppelganger is of the utmost importance to all of us."

Dorius's eyes circled the four men and one woman scattered uncomfortably around the parlor. "Need I remind you, we may never get a chance like this again? I do not wish to make unnecessary mistakes which could put others in jeopardy should we not handle this correctly.

"I am well aware, as we all are, that it is unsure how any of this will go down," Dorius paused only a second before adding, "but I think we all agree this creature must be destroyed. It is not the first time our family has had run-ins with it."

Dorius turned to glance at Antoinette, and Marcus seized the opportunity to explain further. "This doppelganger seems to be fond of our sister, and has tried to possess her several times in the last seven hundred years. To what end we do not know. We do know that it prefers doubling up on men, and often does the original human no harm. It favors killing human women while wearing its male hosts."

* * *

"Well, hey there, sweet thang," Betty said from the kitchen. "I was born and raised in the south, sugar, and I can honestly say I ain't seen nothin' as sweet as you. That smile of yours is gonna break some hearts darlin'. Come on over here, sugar', and let your Aunty Betts get a good look at ya."

Lily tilted her head, forced a smile, and lowered her chin. "
Elizabeth
," Lily said, and then forced another smile. "We are not actually related. However, I can understand your thinking we could be. I am acutely mindful my mate imbibed the blood from your veins and pleasures from your body. While my ability to understand your amusing mentality
is
quite entertaining, I will not contribute to your delusion. We are not ancestrally related. Also,
Elizabeth
, although I know your education is excruciatingly limited, I feel a desire to mention it is quite impossible to break a heart with a smile."

"Well, hell," Betty said. "You go right on and think that, darlin'. You don't know nothin' about worldly things, and y'all are probably too young to know, anyhow." Betty laughed and addressed the rest of us in the room. "Damn right adorable, with a capital A. Mind-blowin', am I right?"

"Not essentially as astounding as Dorius's awareness of my presence from the minute you entered the room,
Elizabeth
," Lily said.

~~~

Fifteen

~~~

Joe's Marina
was a bar/restaurant/fish camp with cabins on Lake Harris—a straight shot across the lake by boat from the Stech house. They mostly rent out to locals who want to get away from the wife and kids, go on a weekend binge, and drive boats around the lake, fishing poles forgotten in a drunken stupor. On the weekends, you really needed to motor around the area with care, so as not to get involved in their aquatic rendition of bumper cars.

Paul and Jeni's table was close to the arched entrance of the bar area. And the crowd, mostly bikers, a malodorous group, frequently exhibited robust conversation laced with obnoxious platitudes.

Jeni's eyes squinted with each enthusiastic parlay. Her voice raised to be heard. "Just the fact that you plan on asking my mother where
we
can go with
our
relationship before taking my suggestions into consideration, ludicrous as it is, is unacceptable." Jeni glanced over a plate of grilled flounder, French fries, and coleslaw. She picked up her glass of Chianti and chugged. "I can understand the council. I don't like it, but I get it." She placed the wine glass on the table, hard enough to slop Chianti into her coleslaw bowl.

Paul pushed the slice of lime hanging over the neck of his
Corona
into the frosty bottle and squished it on the inside of its lip before taking a sip. He set the bottle down softly on the table next to his fried grouper basket and studied Jeni's glaring eyes for several seconds before answering.

A round of laughter that lasted as long as Paul's pause had Jeni rubbing her temples.

"Jeni, we've been over this enough to let you know the severity of my demands. So, if swift, noncommittal intimacy is the road you are bound and determined to take—" Paul took a deep breath and sighed. "—I'm afraid this relationship is not going anywhere. We can't keep toying with our sexual desires and personal feelings if there is no future for us. I don't do casual sex, especially with humans, for reasons I've already disclosed. I will not risk your life and mine by being any more of a rogue than I already am. But most importantly, I will not take you into a romance that is destined to end tragically, or at the very least, with someone's feelings hurt."

Jeni caught her breath, calm and as real as his statement. She laid her fork down next to her plate and slowly sipped her wine, signaling the waitress. "Maybe we should just step back for the time being. Let me do my research, and you do your job with everything that's going on both here and in Italy." She chugged Chianti from her wineglass, forked a mouthful of salad, munched, and swallowed.

The waitress, a woman named Stella, sauntered up looking like she needed an introduction to a bar of soap. Her hair was ratted into something piled on her head that looked like a cat might hack up after having a personal hygiene moment. She smelled of fried fish, sour grease, cigarette smoke, unclean undies, and stale beer. Her nail polish was peeled back robin-egg blue. What was left of her lipstick filled in cracks above and beside a plastic smile. "How's the food, y’all? What else can I getcha?" she asked, pencil poised.

"Nothing for me," Paul said, and lifted his brows at Jeni.

Jeni lifted her almost empty glass of Chianti. "A carafe this time, please."

Without a word, the waitress scribbled on their bill, did an about face, and headed into the noisy bar.

As Jeni buttered a garlic knot, dripping in oil and still warm from the oven, she continued. "What say we promise, at this moment, to agree to disagree? That may change after time. It's been less than a year since I accepted my mother, aunt, sister and grandmother are vampires, who drink blood, and answer to a bunch of alabaster immortals that have been around longer than Jesus."

A drop of butter melted down the bread and onto her fingers, and Jeni caught it with her tongue and then took a bite of the garlic roll. Inhaling a slow breath through her nose, she chewed with her eyes closed. "Um, dinner is delish. Eat Paul. We're good. Maybe I just need an attitude adjustment. I have never been good at being under my mother's thumb. It sticks in my craw, rankles; it's too personal, too chastening to take on right now."

The waitress was heading toward the table, and Paul turned her way.

Jeni's eyes scanned Stella's dirty white pumps, snagged pantyhose, and black short shorts.

She was carrying a metal tray with Jeni's wine, a stack of clean ashtrays, a pile of small square napkins, and her ticket book. She refilled Jeni's glass and then set down the carafe. "Anything else, y'all?"

"Thank you, Stella," Jeni said. "I think we're good."

"Well, alrighty then," the waitress twanged, shoulders back, breasts extended, her eyes on Paul. "You let me know when you need another, sugar." Stella tapped Paul's
Corona
.

Jeni smiled.

Paul grinned. "What?"

"So can we agree to disagree?" Jeni asked.

"I know what you mean," Paul said.

"About what?" Jeni asked.

"I'm a rogue, remember?" Paul picked up his grouper and took a huge bite. A third of the sandwich was missing when he put it back into the basket.

Jeni laughed as he chewed. "At least I haven't spoiled your appetite," she said, and pricked several French fries with her fork.

"You know I left my family for much the same reason." Paul followed his recent swallow with a chug of beer. "They had my mate picked out for me. A bit more personal, wouldn't you say? I couldn't swallow my pride, either."

"Really?" Jeni asked, pushing a clean plate away so she could lean an elbow on the table. "Do they have a desert menu behind that napkin holder?"

Paul laughed. "For you, I might've been able to hold my nose, swallow hard, and stay."

"You think?"

"I think there's a desert with your name on it in this menu, is what I think," Paul said, and handed her the menu.

* * *

"Damn it, Marcus," Dorius said, "I've just received a vision through Elizabeth's eyes. Christopher—most likely with assistance from your mate—has somehow finagled Lily's extraction from Hades. The little half-demon is standing in the Stech's living room at this very moment."

"Would you leave your mate in Hell?" Marcus calmly asked, and took a sip of warmed blood from a china cup. He uncrossed his legs, settled further into a tapestried winged-back chair, and stared at his brother.

Dorius paced the small sitting room adjacent to a more common living room with a massive rock fireplace. Fire crackled behind a gilded screen in a much smaller fireplace carved into one of the walls in the small sitting room. The fires in both rooms warmed rock floors, painstakingly hammered into squares and laid on leveled dirt hundreds of years ago. Ancient, hand-woven rugs absorbed the dampness in both rooms and gave off a somewhat pleasant moldy musk. Dorius flopped onto a velvet settee and surrounded himself in hoary of stale fragrance and dust.

"It's not the same, as you are well aware," Dorius said. "JoAnn's child is a fledgling, and still under her father's supervision."

"And in the eyes of our council and the laws of Otherworld, Lily is no longer beholden to anyone but her mate." Marcus gently placed his cup on a china saucer sitting on a small wooden table in front of him. He smiled at his brother and then added, "As you well know."

"There is a binding contract, brother, and Lily's father still has control of his daughter. Christopher is breaking that contract. Your wife, as well, if she has summoned the demon for Christopher."

"Have you heard or seen anything that would indicate your suspicions are valid?"

Dorius's cheek twitched. "No. None-the-less—"

Marcus waved a hand to silence Dorius. "Then let's get on with business." He picked a small ceramic pitcher off a trivet sitting on the table and poured more blood into his teacup. "Are you trying to avoid the inevitable? We were addressing an immediate need to send a team Down Under, were we not?"

Dorius sighed. "Yes, and I now feel sending Christopher and Susan Down under, with Lily here, is unacceptable. We need to pick another team. I was purely setting the stage for that announcement."

"Fine." Marcus sipped his blood enthusiastically. "Having my wife Down Under—for the first time, incidentally—without my supervision has always been unacceptable to me. Who do you suggest we use to replace them?"

* * *

"So, anyway," Mort the troll told Gibbie in a slow, deliberate voice, "Ajax, uh, the fairy ringleader—Get it? A
fairy ring
. . . leader
.
Ha-ha-ha. Anyway, the leader reported, um, his findings . . . right after . . ."

The troll paused, scratched his globular stomach, and then poked a pinky finger into his navel. He wiggled his finger a bit and pulled it out with a piece of moist algae on the tip. Mort brought his finger to his nose, sniffed, and then his tongue slithered the tip of his pinky and captured the green slime.

"Jeez," Gibbie squawked. "Do you have to eat navel jam while we're talking?" His heart-shaped face was wrinkled in disgust. Carrot-colored hair vibrated against plump cheeks as the fairy shivered.

"Sorry," Mort said, shifting from foot to foot, waist deep in lake water by the dock behind the house. The water rippled on his tummy, shading it from powdery gray to dark slate. "Waist not, ah, uh, want not."

"I freaking hate Ajax," Gibbie said while pacing the dock. "That fairy's not dependable. How do we know he's not pulling Dorius's leg? He's a big practical joker."

"Uh, not an issue," Mort said, "um, because of the case of Turkish honey . . . promised
after
verifying validity."

The troll, all dry rock and mortar from lower tummy to skull, submerged.

"A frigging
case
of Turkish honey?" Gibbie warbled as the troll resurfaced. "You have got to be kidding me!" The fairy hovered eye level in front of Mort and stared at water dripping from the troll's nose holes. "I have never been freakin' rewarded with even one bottle of Turkish gold for anything I've done for Dorius—the bastard. You know it's the best honey in the world, right?"

"Yeah," Mort said, and snickered. "I guess you get what you pay for."

Gibbie snorted anger, his jaw tight. "So, according to Ajax, the doppelganger that killed the wolf's son is in the wind?"

Mort nodded. His black eyes reflected the overhead dock lights as Gibbie went on.

"But the other doppelganger, the one Dorius has a history with, just happens to be hanging out in Purgatory, and willing as hell to help us?"

"Uh, yup," Mort said. "That's what the
ringleader
said."

Gibbie's shoulders tightened after hearing the title, but in a stoic, high-pitched voice, he said, "How do we know that one isn't in cahoots with the wolf killer?"

"Ah, maybe because, um, Dorius's doppelganger friend's contracted fledgling had an episode with the murdering doppelganger, uh, right before it tried to attack one of the fledgling's female hosts?"

"Shit," Gibbie croaked, "those smoky monsters have been killing for centuries. And their brethren have never cared who they killed to wear."

Mort drew out his comment. "Sure, but this killer always chooses a male host to kill human women it stalks and does not wear, ever."

"Yeah, and tell me his kind hasn't been looking the other way for centuries."

"Yup, they have," Mort said. "But this time . . . this time, uh, it killed another Otherworld creature, Karl's son, and the council is pissed."