2 Death Rejoices (2 page)

Ah, cookies; I missed cookies like a dozen dead friends.

De Cabrera interrupted my thoughts. “What's taking so long? Are you bothering that author again?”

“No.”

“Because he doesn't need you hovering over his shoulder. Nobody does.”

“Elian, I shall give you an Emo haircut if you continue this dreadful whining,” I said, noting with some surprise that I sounded like Harry tonight. I brought back Genuine Marnie. “You wanna talk to this pig-fucker yourself? We can trade places. Slap on your jockstrap if you need one, and get your skinny Cuban ass in here.”

“What'd I tell you about the power of positive word choices?” de Cabrera said.

“I'm
positively
sweating my tits off while you're sitting in the van acting like your life's so—
wa-chooo
!” The mask caused a regrettable backwash, and I clamped my eyes and mouth shut, sputtering into silence.

“Just get the invite,” de Cabrera said, “and be positive.”

“Elian?”

“Yes?”

“I loooooove this stakeout,” I crooned. “This fursuit is the best thing I've ever worn.” After putting up with this much of my sass, the other partner in my life, Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt, would have been firing theatrical exclamations at me. I could nearly hear Harry's “God's bodkins!” and “stop arsing about!” in crisp Queen's English, the table-thumping demands “
tire-toi, tire-toi!
” exploding in my face like cannon blasts, and the irate “
merde a la puissance treize!”
, neither of which he'd ever translated for me. He hardly needed to;I knew when my Cold Company was exasperated long before the French started.

For a moment, I missed Harry with an ache that dragged through my midsection like a fistful of nails. He was one more week in England. I could manage one more week at home in Colorado without him, right? The psychic headache building in my skull begged to differ.

“Relax. We've got this,” I told de Cabrera, although there was no “we” at this point. I'd lost Chapel to the crowd a while back. He'd probably gone to scratch; his cat costume was sweaty as hell and the seam twisted his nuts:
scrotation
, my brain filled in helpfully.
Special Agent Swampass
. One more reason I wished I could keep Harry but ditch some of the ancillary psychic powers that the revenant's immortal presence granted me: knowing the state of my ostensible supervisor's junk.

De Cabrera clicked back, but what came over the com could barely be called communication: a doubtful half-grunt.

“Hey, where're your golden words, Mr. Positivity?” I teased. “Even
I
can track a six-foot-tall unicorn with a rainbow mane and a limp.”

And if I couldn't track our mark with my wits, I'd simply take off a squirrel paw, remove the leather glove from my hand, and Grope my way around the room, tracking him with one of my two psychic Talents, known as psychometry. I am, according to a media nickname that persisted like a bad rash, the “Great White Shark of Psychic Investigations.” More like the Great White Guppy if you asked me, but no one would take my word for it. Everyone loves a hero. Once a label like that is stuck, it doesn't easily peel off; no one wants to be wrong.

It's taking him forever to finish
, I thought, tapping my foot to the fancy-pants ear-worm I had going on. Harry had procured an old violin and, having had it professionally restored, begun playing various pieces from Vivaldi's
Four Seasons
in heart-thudding, toe-tapping
prestissimo;
his hands flying, the bow a blur, his preternaturally-pale eyelids fluttering with pleasure as the music vibrated under his chin. It had been decades since he'd played, he protested modestly, but you'd never know it. Muscle memory spilled the music forth with perfect clarity. Now I waited, and I tapped, and I pictured Harry playing before a crackling fire, omitting the part of my memory where I sweated through my t-shirt in the mid-summer heat while my chilly revenant stayed comfortable in the glow of the wood stove.

Who is this guy, the Viagra Pony?
Aloud, I told de Cabrera, “I hope the piglet he's nailing wasn't just down for the quick bizznasty. Miss Piggy's getting the full treatment.”

De Cabrera sounded like he might be choking on his tongue. “What kind of FBI squad hires someone like you?”

“The awesome kind,” I assured him. “Anyone ever told you, you do a bang-on Mark Batten impersonation?”

“Partner,” he said softly, “that's low.”

“Hey,” I heard the warmth in my own voice. “You finally called me your partner.”

“Don't get too excited, sweetheart, it's a one-time thing.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls. The guys? Sheep? I should have asked before assuming.”

He let my speculation pass unremarked. “So, the word is that Batten's a total asshole.”

The Blue Sense, the wave of psi upon which my psychic Talents ride, awoke with a tingle, offering up to my Empathy Elian's feelings of concern: he wasn't entirely sure how I'd respond.

“Asshole's pretty accurate,” I said. “Total
might
be an exaggeration.” I was surprised to find I missed Mark Batten, vampire hunter, ex-lover, and general pain in my ass; he'd been in South America for months with no contact and no ETA on his return. Most of the agents at the new Boulder PCU hadn't met him yet and rumors ran wild: he was a jerk, he was badass, he had a ninety-nine percent solve rate (the one that got away being
my
fault), he'd slain more revenants than anyone in North America, he was smokin’ fierce in the sack … Okay, I started that one. Black marker on the wall of the ladies’ room. The rumors, even the saucy ones, were all true.

“Is he worse than Agent Golden?” de Cabrera asked. “Or as I like to call her, the Frost Queen?”

“Oh, Elian Gutiérrez de Cabrera,” I purred, “you have no idea.”

“Goin’ all full-name on me, now,” he clicked back playfully. “Don't be like that.”

The door to the handicapped stall banged open without warning and a giggling pig spilled out, clutching behind her at the half-zipped unicorn. The unicorn's brilliant mane shook over enormous black plastic eyes as he laughed at something she'd said.

At my elbow, someone else inquired, “First time here?”

I jerked with an un-squirrel-like squeak and whirled, trying to steer my big head in the direction of the friendly voice. My mask offered practically no peripheral vision. There stood a second white unicorn with a rainbow sherbet mane and a name tag that said
BEN
, all caps. Did I have the wrong guy all along? The unicorn coming out of the bathroom was limping, but maybe he'd pulled something mid-tryst. Ben held a well-worn cane in one hand and leaned on it heavily.

“First time here,” I affirmed, quelling the urge to chase the other unicorn. Over the speaker's shoulders, I spotted Chapel's tall purple cat costume, and under my breath said: “Grey pig, two o'clock.”

“Sorry?” Ben's frozen, stitched-up smile tipped toward mine as he lowered his head. (
All the better to hear you with, my dear
.)

“I said, I should have come at two o'clock. I hear they had entertainment?”

“That's not until Saturday.”

“Oh. So, I'm not missing anything if I duck out early?”

He chuckled, the sound echoing hollowly inside his mask. “I wouldn't say that.”

If I hadn't been stuck in a squirrel, I'd have prompted him to continue that train of thought by lifting my brows. Instead, I was left with an exaggerated shrug of my shoulder pads. He gestured downward, dipping his chin with significance. The distinct rapid-fire of metal snaps made me not want to look; when I did, I stifled what almost came out as a horrified
urk!

Bobbing out of a custom-designed slit in his fursuit was a mammoth, crooked penis with an urgent, spot-speckled head surrounded by billowing, untrimmed white pubic hair; a hungry snake with an allergy to yak fur. The cloud of pubes matched the costume almost to the shade. This wasn't the first time I'd been ambushed by unrequested schlong; it
was
my first costumed, anonymous, fairly elderly, and alarmingly brontosaurian version. What does one say? My etiquette training, limited as it was, failed me.

“I don't have a slit,” I said, backing up. My squirrel tail, which now seemed puny compared to the substantial wang in front of me, got trapped under the side table. I'm sure Ben could sympathize; he probably got his thing tangled in furniture, too. I tried to extract myself with some dignity but couldn't turn without dumping the table over. I stopped trying.

“Did you rent the suit?” he asked, as though asking where I got my oil changed.

“Well, yeah, cuz I keep my personal giant squirrel suit at home.”
Doesn't everyone?

“Where's home?”

“Nowhere near here, that's for sure. In a whole other state,” I answered, mentally congratulating myself on my smoothness.
Point: Nutty Squirrel
.

His furry hoof peeled back with a loud Velcro rip to reveal a competent-looking hand, tanned along the knuckles and a lot bigger than mine, with which he fondled the seams of my squirrel body in a way that made me blush and cringe and my stomach roll.

“Marnie, are you okay? Do you need me?” Chapel's voice crackled urgently in my headphones. I spotted his lanky purple cat form hovering near the hallway not far from the chubby pig and the original unicorn. Ben's back was to Chapel, which I thought was a shame: everyone should have to see his disturbingly epic penis.

De Cabrera clicked in from his safe spot in the van. “She's fine. Baranuik, get the invite, stop pussying around.”

I bit back a sharp retort as Ben's hand pressed between my legs a bit firmer than was strictly necessary to explore more than the seams of the costume. I didn't want him to arouse any part of me, but his fingers played across my plush-covered female parts with the confidence of an older man who'd touched more than his share of clitorises. My brain piped up:
Sir Ben, Seeker of the Polished Pearl
. It was undeniably pleasurable, but that irritating unwanted pleasure that comes at a bad time, like the seatbelt rubbing a nipple while you're trying to merge onto the busy Interstate going eighty miles per hour. I shuddered; Ben took it for delight, giving the knowing chuckle of a man who knows exactly what he's doing. Again, I swallowed an
urk.

“Marnie?” Chapel checked. “Is he touching you? I'm stepping in—”

“No
! I mean, see? No opening,” I said, louder than I'd intended, cheerfully, before remembering I was not supposed to be happy about that. “Probably the stupid thing was made as a Halloween costume.” I tried to use my giant squirrel head to feign an eye roll. The table behind me rattled warningly.

De Cabrera interrupted, “Just keep him in your sights, boss.”

“Our mark has his hand between her legs,” Chapel yipped, unusually hyper for Mr. Unflappable. “I'm close, Marnie. If you need anything, raise your left hand.”

“Damn.” Ben's apologetic tone said he was sorry for me. “You're right. Nothing. I guess you won't be yiffing. I was going to invite you…”

I was very okay with missing out on whatever the heck yiffing was. Dark Lady bless this rented vagina-less squirrel suit.

De Cabrera burst my bubble. “That's it. You've got him. Accept the invite.”

Balls.
“I could come along,” I suggested. “You know, out-of-character?”

Ben waggled a hoof at me. “No humans in the furpile,” he chided, “you know that.”

“That's okay.” I tried to sound disappointed. “Sort of in the mood for something else tonight anyway.”
Now why the hell did I give him that opening?

He gave me an obliging, “Oh?”

Quick, think of something
. I heard myself say, “S and M is more my speed.”
Not THAT!

Inside my costume, I cringed. Chapel sounded like he was being throttled, his seal-barking noises interrupted by the long rush of the Cuban's audible fatigue. Or maybe it was a mouthful of coffee.

Ben, his rash-speckled hosepipe still proudly displayed, gave a sharp laugh. “I like a gal who's not afraid to speak her mind. Just how rough are we talking?”

I thought of something safer, mentally dog-paddling toward more familiar waters. “Erm, well, not with humans.”

“Can't help you there. I'm all man, myself,” the unicorn said.

“As one can plainly see.” I gave him a polite chuckle.

“But I think I know someone who could,” he said. “Do you like vampires?”

The surprise caused me to jerk upright. I forgot my tail was jammed under a table and turned, sweeping the entire thing over, spilling the black jelly beans all over the floor. They tapped and skittered, spinning across the tile.
Point: Ben, the Yiff-Master
.

“Piss on a shingle,” I said.

“Don't worry about it,” Ben said. “Hey, let me introduce you to my connection. He's a vampire, and he's naturally dominant. Aren't they all?” The crooked penis jutting from his suit twitched further to the right as it thickened distressingly. I hoped that if he got that monster fully erect, he'd pass out from lack of blood everywhere else. “He's going to be at this party tonight. I bet he'd let me, you know…watch.”

“Oh, I don't want to interrupt his party plans.” I could hear de Cabrera bleating at my rejecting the invite, whispering unfathomable
Cuban curses in my ear. I studiously ignored him while I backpedaled. “You know, it's Thursday, and nobody yiffs on a Thursday; it quite simply isn't done.” My mind boggled:
quite simply isn't done
?

Chapel heard it too, and something else. “Marnie, why are you speaking with a British accent?”

“It's no bother, I want to do him a favor,” Ben admitted with a shaky laugh, “smooth things out between us. It's been a rough week.”

“Go with it, this is it,” de Cabrera advised through his teeth.

“Are you crazy?” I said to my partner aloud, and then coughed to cover it. “I mean, are you sure?”

“Trust me, what Master Malas wants, Master Malas gets.” Ben grabbed his shaft in his exposed hand and gave it a long squeeze, turning the head an alarming shade of purple. “I'd do just about anything to get back on his good side.”

With the ease of much practice, the unicorn closed his cock away in his fursuit, and I was glad to see it go. I heard little snaps as he clicked the slit along the seam. When it was completely tucked away, I knelt and started rounding up jelly beans that scrambled away from my clumsy fursuit hands.