Coffin Fit (The Grateful Undead series Book 4) (26 page)

"Yes," I meekly said.

He pulled it off and walked it over to me. As I ran it through belt loops, Dorius hugged his brother.

Christopher turned away from the conversation he was having with Antoinette. "You sure know how to be the life of a stakeout, Susan."

I growled at him and synched the belt tighter.

It was about forty-five minutes until daybreak, and I was expecting my body to go into daylight sleeping mode.

"Do we have an ETA on Jake and Gibbie?" Marcus asked again.

"Yes." Paul had walked into the alley from the street. Mom was with him. "They're still in the sewer, taking last minute instructions from Jane." He took out a plastic baggie full of surveillance ear buds. "Everyone hook up. Jeni is on the computer. She has a copy on the three."

"Where is my mate?" Dorius's voice was guttural and nasty as he inserted an earbud and passed the baggie to me.

I dug into the bag and passed it on. "Um, she's supposed to be with-"

"I ain't
with
no one. I used my token wish to bring me to my mate. Them tokens are worth their weight in gold." Betty bounced her eyebrows at Dorius. "You need to get me some of these, sugar. You know how I like to travel. I'll save you boo-scoo bucks in jet fuel. "Damn, I can be shoppin' in Italy in seconds, and back in a flash, honey-chile, " she said with a soiree of attitude, hand waving and head shaking. "This is a dream come—"

"Elizzzabeth," Dorius hissed. "Can you tell us anything about what plans the doppelganger wearing Jane has that might help us with our mission?"

"Nope; that Jane bitch got all pissy the minute I told her I was your mate. She made me stay out in the sewer. So excuse my ode de toilet water perfume."

Everyone turned to Dorius.

Dorius cringed—I'm sure it was Betty's Eau de toilette cologne—and pulled a red token out of his pocket. "All right, thank you for relaying that information. Now, take this token and wish yourself to the Stech home. This is no place for you at the moment."

Everyone turned to Betty.

"Shit you say." Her eyebrows reached for each other at the center of her nose. "I'm here to do my Hawk thing. Now move aside; there's a rafter in that there building across the street with my name on it. Tell me that doppelganger'd wanna suck the life out of a hawk. Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. That ain't gonna happen, sugar."

"Jesus, Betty," Mom said. "Can you shut the fuck up and get the hell over there before Jake and Gibbie beat you to it?" She popped her earbud in and handed the bag to Marcus.

"Chickie!" Betty squealed. "I didn't see you, girl. Bring your ass on over here," Betty twanged. "I need a hug. You're lookin' good, honey. Whaddaya gone an' done? Whomped some demon ass?"

Dorius stuffed the red token into Betty's palm, put his arm around his mate's waist, and guided her toward the street.

"Sugar, welcome home sex is gonna have to wait," Betty said. "We got us some business to take care of. Namely—"

"Hey, you guys." Luna stood and walked toward us. "The real Gracie Jean just communicated with Nan. The doppelganger wearing Jane is about to head our way. And Lily, Nan, and her friends have just arrived at a tunnel near where the elders are waiting to meet with them. She's going to get back to me as soon as she can."

"Hang on, Luna," I said, drawing attention from the others. "Everyone got your buds on? Jeni has something."

Razzo passed the baggie back from the wolves to Marcus, and he handed the last earbud to Luna. It was a good thing the doppelganger was dressed in Gracie Jean, or she would've never been able to wear it.

We all stood huddled together behind the dumpster when Dorius came around the corner without Betty. I pointed to the bud in my left ear. Dorius reached up and turned his on. "Go ahead, Jeni."

"Hey,
Mommy Dearest
. Heard your tight ass and firm tits are back. Also heard Lily took care of it. Gotta love that little demon. Am I right?"

"Did I gather everyone just to hear you give me some shit? Because you are already on my-"

"Yeah, yeah. Every chance I get. Ya know." Jeni's laughter filled my ear. "But I do have some vital info. The threesome just disappeared from an underground tunnel behind the Winn-Dixie strip mall in Tavares, and then reappeared in that warehouse across the street from where you are standing. Hold on, I have another immortal entering the premises."

I heard the clicking of Jeni's keyboard as we all stood silently waiting.

Jeni spit a laugh on her end, choked, and then laughed again. There was loud scratching like she was adjusting her microphone or raking something across it, and then she asked, "Is that Betty in the rafters over their heads? Gotta be—the bird is large enough and it just pooped on the sexy chick's, well, not really her, the doppelganger's head. Made me spit my coffee all over the screen." Laughing filled the earbuds, again.

"Jen, hon," Paul said in a soft voice. "I just wanted you to know, on the screen, a doppelganger is probably going to be red like a demon when it is not dressed in a human."

"Yeah, I got that, sweetie. A red glow, like a flashlight stream, is shooting out of the doppelganger host's eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ear holes. It's awesome, Paul."

Paul smiled. "Time to get my pack mark. Can you see me?"

"Yes," Jeni said.

Karl turned to Dorius. "It is not what you think."

Marcus said, "This is not something we should be discussing at the moment." He locked eyes with his brother. "Suffice it to say, Karl needs to bite Paul immediately."

Dorius nodded. But I could hear his teeth grind. I wondered if his jaw hurt as bad as mine sometimes did.

Karl walked up to Paul. "Are you ready?"

"As I'm gonna be," he said, and pulled his shirt up and off one arm to bare his left shoulder.

"It should be your right," Karl said.

Paul bared his teeth.

Karl waited patiently.

Man, I didn't want to get into this. "Give him your right shoulder, Paul."

Marcus smiled.

We all heard Jeni's intake of breath.

When Paul turned to me with a grin, I realized that by giving him the order, I pretty much accepted the situation.

I grinned back.

"Yes, ma'am," Paul said, took off his shirt, bowed his head, and turned his back to Karl, exhibiting trust and submission.

Dorius's posture relaxed. He nodded at me in resignation and understanding.

Karl put one hand one Paul's right shoulder and tilted his head to the right with the other. And then he bit savagely into the meat on Paul's back just under his shoulder. When Karl let go of Paul, the rogue did not move. Karl bit his own wrist and placed his bloody arm over Paul's bite.

Razzo, Randy, and Marcus knelt on one knee.

I felt like I needed to do the same, but Dorius stood tall, fire in his eyes, but acceptance in his relaxed facial features. At that moment, I felt a profound trust for my brother-in-law for his confidence in Marcus and Paul. I moved over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. He looked down at me.

"Karl really went to bat for Paul—hell, all of us," I said. "He gave you as much respect as you're showing him right now."

He covered my hand with his. "I know."

Together, we watched Paul put his shirt back on. Not before I saw the tattoo appear where only seconds ago, there was a grisly bite. It was a moon sliver with a single circle that fit into the moon cradle to complete a full moon. A howling wolf filled in the small circle. I wanted to examine it closer. The detail, even from a distance, was extraordinary.

"Hey, cool tat, babe," Jeni said through our earbuds. "Do I get one on our wedding night?"

The wolves laughed, breaking the tension of the moment. Even the Morizzio brothers wore a smile.

*

Dorius and Karl were glaring at the warehouse across the street minutes later.

"How long do you have to wait?" Karl asked.

"As long as it takes for the elders to arrive," Dorius said, "unless you're not interested in putting an end to the doppelganger. If all you want is to make it bolt, we can both make our move right now."

I turned to Luna with a nod and a question in my eyes.

Gracie Jean's face crumbled. "Nothing yet."

I know the wolves and other immortals heard her as well as I did. Both had exceptional hearing.

Karl pulled a cell out of his pocket. The light that illuminated the screen lit his face. "Five minutes, no more, and the rest of you will be hard pressed to stop me."

Dorius gave Karl one sharp nod.

~~~

Twenty-six

~~~

"It's four minutes past the five-minute wait," Karl said with a fair amount of impatience. "What if they leave?"

"They haven't left yet," Jeni's booming voice came through my earbud. "They're all standing in the middle of the main showroom, and facing the street. But nothing in their behavior says they know you guys are out there. Something kind of oozed out of a drain in the room behind them. It's got a red glow, but no white shine like the doppelganger wearing Jane. It's small, too. So it's either Lily or another doppelganger."

Luna was leaning against the wall behind me, eyes closed, Gracie Jean's fingers in her ears.

"I will follow you inside and defend your son's death with my life, but only if you agree not to put the others at risk by going at the thing verbally." Dorius faced the warehouse, standing shoulder to shoulder with Karl in the shadow cast by the alley wall across from the dumpster. "It will just give it the ability to taunt you.

Randy and Razzo were already with Karl, and they didn't need to say a word. They were following their leader.

Karl turned to his men. "We wear our fur inside."

"
Si mio capitano
," Razzo said.

Randy had a sexy grin. "The kill is always better with the wolf."

Karl laughed. "That it is."

Marcus ran his fangs over my neck. I tingled all over. Damn, I liked him all puffed out and ready for a fight. He chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. "Later," he whispered in my ear. Her rose before I could snag a kiss.

Paul stood between the wolves and immortals—six handsome men. I wanted to watch the wolves phase, but Karl said he wanted to wait until they hit the back alley.

My mother looked like a little girl standing next to Antoinette near the wall on the other side of the alleyway. Both dropped their hands from their hips as they headed for the men.

I almost yelped as Gaire loped by. At least seven feet tall, the wendigo's white hair caught the lamppost light and wreathed its head like a halo. It strutted toward the wolves on two hind legs, its body all bone, muscle, and sinew. Long, sharp claws on his hands and feet looked like lethal weapons. He had a bizarre, wolf-like face and a set of red, manic eyes. The bottom of his jaw protruded, so the teeth on the bottom didn't quite fit into the wendigo's mouth and dripped musky smelling saliva. It sizzled as it hit the concrete.

I was real proud of Marcus and Dorius; they didn't even flinch when the wendigo stepped beside them. He had walked to the back end of the alley when Karl and Dorius moved up beside the dumpster. I had put him out of my mind, thinking it was a guy thing, like when Dad pissed in the bushes around the side of the house instead of using the bathroom inside.

"I think we should go down the back alley," Gaire said, "and around the building to cross the street on the other side of the road. We should hit the warehouse from the back
and
side doors where there are no windows. I'll even up the odds and follow the vampires."

Karl nodded, his eyes glittered gold, jaw so tight I could hear his teeth grind, but the look of respect on his face was very discernable behind the gruff exterior.

I cleared my throat, and all heads turned back to us. I could see the objection in Marcus's expression and beat him to it. "I'll stand down with my partner, but—"

"Hell, you say," Christopher said. When he stood beside me, our eyes were level only because I was still squatting behind the dumpster.

I stood and looked down at him. "I don't know why the fuck I'm still squatting. Jesus, the frigging dumpster is inches taller than me."

He smiled up at me. "We're going in, right?"

"Wrong," I said. "Someone has to stay out here with you and Gracie until we hear from Nan or your mate. And the way I figure it, that's me. I always hang with you, for better or worse." The corner of my mouth wiggled to rise.

"I can see what Lily's doing, and you know it. She's just not answering me."

"Bullshit."

"What the hell?"

"You haven't been able to reach her since they met with the elders, have you? Can you even say for sure that the red glow Jeni is seeing is Lily?"

Christopher kicked a
KitKat
wrapper and glared at me. "It's making me crazy!"

Dorius smiled at me. I smiled back, and immediately, my cheeks heated up. Since when did I give a shit what Dorius thought?

Antoinette broke the tension. "I know I'm going in. Jane is expecting me." She chuckled. "Either of you have an objection to that?"

"I'm going, too," my mother said. "I can make the doppelganger shed Jane from twenty feet."

"Can she?" Karl asked.

"Yes," Dorius said.

I swear he was puffing up like a peacock; so was Mom. I wondered how she knew what it took to make a doppelganger shed a host. I was going to ask Luna the minute she opened her eyes.

Dorius slapped Marcus's back. "We have our team. No one gets near the doppelganger. We spread out, circle it, and I do the talking." He looked straight at my mother. "You stand down and wait for orders."

Mom's nod looked reluctant.

The four immortals, four wolves, and a wendigo walked past us on their way to the back alley.

* * *

"Luna?" I asked.

"Nothing yet," she answered.

"Jeni is talking to us through these. Put one in." I handed her an earbud. "She just told us that something came through a drain on the other side of the wall behind the main showroom. She said it was either a doppelganger or Lily. But I doubt it's Lily. She'd've contacted Christopher."

"I'm not worried for Nan," Luna said. She looked so different in Gracie's body. Talking to her like this was so much easier. "I'm more worried for Gracie Jean. She's probably still in the sewer. I'd know if she were dead; my double would start to age as quickly as any corpse. But still..."

I remembered my mother's comment to Dorius. "What makes a doppelganger shed its host?"

"Attacking it," Luna said. "Anything that would kill a human would destroy a double."

I nodded my head at Luna about the same time Jane crashed through the front window of the storeroom, and my mother let loose with a war whoop inside.

We all jumped a good foot in the air as the doppelganger rolled and bounced to Jane's feet. She didn't even look our way.

"Eh, bitch!" she shouted, arm swinging at the window. "You do that shit again, I drop the hooker an' youse guys get to see the real me. That beam of push will go right though the real me, bitch. You want a piece of me? You really wanna see what I'm made of?"

Jane reached down and pulled something from her boot. "I'm comin' back in, and I'm bringin' the twins. Let me introduce them." Small rapid puffs filled the air. I could hear bullets ping off shit inside the room. Jane was shooting something with a silencer attached. She pulled the clip and inserted another. "That there's,
Smith and Wesson
. Any questions? If not, back the fuck off!"

"Party time!" Christopher said as Jane hurtled the window frame back into the silent showroom.

As everyone ran toward the building, I took a second to listen for sirens—nothing yet. I sprinted after them.

Christopher ducked and darted when a sofa, two chairs, and a loveseat hit the street from the end of Mom's telekinetic beam of light.

"Hang on, it looks like my mother is clearing the fighting ring." I pulled Luna away from the window as another chair, three tables, and a bookshelf were added to the mess in the street.

"Boy, we are gonna have some mind manipulating to do tomorrow," I told Christopher, as I once again scanned the street. "We need to get out of sight. Are there street camera's around here?"

Christopher snorted. "This is Lake County. Like they so have a budget for that kind of shit."

"Well, I didn't know," I said, as the three of us slinked down the alley beside the warehouse.

There were a few fleeting shadows along the street. I wasn't really worried about them calling the police. Hell, half of them probably had a rap sheet three miles long.

"I can't tell you how happy I am that you guys are back to normal. I'd hate to do cleanup on my own."

When we entered the back room and made our way through the actual warehouse area behind the showroom, nothing jumped out at us. I was thinking about Jeni and the thing floating through the drain.

I put out my hand to slow Christopher and Luna, covered my earbud with my hand, and whispered, "Jeni, do you still have a copy on the red thing that oozed out the storm drain back here?"

"Nope; it disappeared as fast as it appeared, and I haven't seen it since. Weird, because it looked solid and then dispensed to nothingness, almost making me think I'd imagined it."

"I don't think you imagined it," the doppelganger wearing Gracie said. "It could have been one of my kind, but I have no idea which one would come alone."

"Any news from your Nanna?" Jeni asked.

"No," Luna answered. "Can you lock onto Gracie anywhere around here? She looks like me, only human. She was following your friends who are inside."

"Yeah," Jeni told us through the earbuds, "she's out in the alley behind the building. The wendigo told her to stay there."

Luna grabbed my arm. "I'm going out to protect my host's human. I may also be able to find out why she hasn't communicated with her nanna. There has to be a reason."

I nodded and watched her trot toward the back wall.

"What's going on inside, Jen?" Christopher asked.

"The team is in an arc around Jane. She keeps turning slow half-circles while inching backward to get closer to the east wall behind her. Their lips are moving, but I don't have sound inside because Jane made them take the earbuds out and toss them on the floor. She crushed them with her boots."

"Crap," I heard Christopher say. "That was going to be my next question."

I hand flagged Christopher to follow and we made our way to a door, which probably led to the showroom.

"Can you hear anything now?" I whispered into my microphone.

"I can only hear mumbles," Christopher said. "I doubt Jeni can-"

"You're right, little man. I can't hear anything."

"We need an advantage," I said.

"You forget," Christopher said, "Lily can see and hear us even if she's freezing me out. She's got our backs. They can't kill her. She could drop her shield at any moment to contact me."

"Hey, Jeni," I softly asked. "Where are Sonny, Zaire, and Resi?"

"Critter round up with the Alphas."

Christopher's eyes narrowed. "Where's JoAnn?"

Silence.

"Jeni?" I asked.

"She's in her coffin, stoned, talking to Raphael. I am not going in there again."

Her words brought back the buzz of a dildo and an image I really didn't want to revisit.

"Okey, dokey," I said. "We're going in."

"I say we stay out of Jane's vision," Christopher said. "At least we can keep Jeni in the loop. No doubt, when we open this door, she'll be able—"

"We're not opening the door." I grinned. My partner frowned. I pointed up. "You and I are going to do some duct crawling."

"Great idea, Mom," Jeni said through the earbuds.

*

"Can you see them?"

"Yes," I told Christopher. "Wiggle up here by the air vent."

My first thought was, oh my God, the wolves are beautiful. The black one was the biggest, that had to be Randy. Absolutely jet, head to paws, and that included big black eyes. Karl stood out with striking blue eyes, a lanky, long body, thin, muscular legs, and tawny fur. Razzo was thick and squatty with a dark gray coat. His chest was twice as bulky as the other two wolves. Paul was still in human form, but I knew the wolf under the mortal was a brute with blue-gray eyes and black fur—the same color as his human hair—and a white diamond-shaped tuft on his chest.

The room was large, old pine flooring, and maybe forty-by-forty feet. Half empty, the furniture was piled in the middle of the street out front of the building. I could hear scavengers outside doing cleanup for us.

Betty, still in her hawk form, swooped; her claws extended and brushed Jane's hair with a small tug.

"Eh, what the fuck?" Jane's arms swung wild. "I grab your ass, I'll pluck you bald!" Shaking a fist at the hawk now in the rafters above, Jane pumped a fist. "You shit on me again, you're gonna be somebody's dinner."

The hawk bobbed its tail. Jane jumped to one side, avoiding nothing but squawks from above.

"Oh, come off it," my mother was saying. "We all know you're working with Raphael. You really shouldn't settle for Antoinette, because she won't pacify the demon. And demons know how to build loopholes. You'll be in a corked bottle like that
I Dream of Jeannie
chick or something. He wants Erzsebet back, right?"