Autumn Bones (36 page)

“We will be there,” he assured me. “Cooper, Rafe, myself, and two others. I trust that will suffice?”

“Do you think I’m overdoing it?” I asked him.

“No,” Stefan said after a moment’s pause. “She challenged you on your own turf. I think a show of strength is wise.”

“Good,” I said. “And . . . thank you.”

“I owe you my life,” he said. “I remain in your debt. And it is your right as Hel’s agent to call upon your allies to defend her demesne.”

With that, he hung up.

If you like cemeteries, Pemkowet’s was charming. It dated back to the 1800s, when the town was founded, and featured lots of weathered headstones turning green with moss and lichen under somber pine trees and a few scattered maples. I arrived around seven o’clock, a good twenty minutes before the sun was due to set, steering my Honda along the narrow two-track that wound through the grounds, pulling off near the designated meeting place, which was in front of the elaborate Italianate mausoleum where the remains of axe murderer Talman “Tall Man” Brannigan were said to be interred. If you were to guess that it was a popular place for high school boys to bring girls to ply them with cheap beer and scare them with ghost stories, you would be correct.

But tonight it was Sinclair and his father who stood waiting before the sealed door of the mausoleum. The other members of the coven were arrayed on either side of them in a semicircle some twenty yards away. We nodded at one another.

“Daisy,” Sinclair greeted me. “Dad, this is Daisy Johanssen. Daisy, my father, Thomas Palmer.”

I held out my hand. “A pleasure.”

Mr. Palmer studied me, his eyes wary. He didn’t take my hand. He was a good-looking man, and I remembered Sinclair had said he was also a hardworking, God-fearing man. “So you’re . . .”

My tail flicked. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m the hell-spawn.”

“Huh.”

Apparently, he was also a man of few words. I hoped they would be enough to persuade his daughter.

Stefan’s posse arrived in a rumble of motorcycle engines. He directed Cooper and the others to array themselves around the cemetery in a loose circle, straddling their bikes and guarding the egresses, then parked his own gleaming Vincent Black Shadow behind my Honda and came to acknowledge me with one of his courtly half bows. He had a sword strapped to his back, and his pupils glinted in the fading light. “Hel’s liaison. I ask the honor of serving as your personal guard tonight.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That would be great.”

His mouth twitched ever so slightly, then he inclined his head and took a stance about ten paces away.

On the whole, I was feeling pretty good about our show of strength.

The sun hadn’t set yet, but it had sunk beneath the tree line in the west and dusk was deepening in the cemetery. Things stirred in the shadows—members of the fey, creeping closer to observe the coming showdown.

Sinclair’s father shuddered.

“It’s okay, Dad.” Sinclair laid a hand on his father’s shoulder. “They don’t mean any harm. They just want to see.”

Everyone waited. Cooper and the ghouls waited on their motorcycles. Casimir and the coven waited in their semicircle. I waited with Sinclair and his father, and Stefan not far away. Curious fairies, hobgoblins, bogles, and whatnot whispered and lurked in the shadows, also waiting.

In the distance, headlights.

There was a faint popping sound, and Jojo blinked into existence, her wings buzzing like a tiny helicopter. “They’re coming!” she shrilled, her narrow chest heaving. “They’re on their way!”

Wait a minute.

“Um . . . Jojo?” I said. “What do you mean,
they
?”

She shot me a disdainful look. “The sister and the other one, lackwit.”

“Other one?” My temper flared. “
Other one?
What fucking other one, Jojo? Why didn’t you tell me there was an
other one
?”

Backing away, Jojo bared her sharp, pointed teeth at me. “Because, you lumpish, hedge-born harpy, you didn’t
ask
!”

I gritted my own teeth. “I would have assumed—”

In midair, she folded her skinny arms and looked smug. “You know what they say.”

I did.

The rented convertible approached slowly along the winding cemetery drive. The top was down. I was guessing the car probably had heated seats. It stopped before us, headlights blazing. Two figures emerged, silhouettes in the glare of the headlights—one tall and slender and elegant, one stalwart and blocky.

“It’s Letitia,” Thomas Palmer said in a low voice. “It’s her.”

Sinclair swallowed audibly and shot me a single stricken glance before returning his gaze to the car. “Mom?”

It seemed the Right Honorable Judge Palmer had arrived.

Thirty-four

N
ote to self: When striking a bargain with fairies, be very,
very
specific.

I’d like to say a cloud passed over the moon and thunder rumbled as Letitia Palmer and her daughter approached our group. It didn’t happen, but it felt like it should have. Sinclair’s mother wore a lavender suit that looked like one of Hillary Clinton’s more ill-advised fashion choices. She carried a matching clutch purse in one hand and an empty glass jar in the other, and an aura of power surrounded her like a storm cloud.

Still, she wasn’t expecting to see her ex-husband. The sight of him brought her and Emmeline up short.

“Thomas.”

“Letitia.”

There was a whole lot of history in that exchange of names. Sinclair’s father gathered himself, standing taller.

“You’ve got no business doing this,” he said sternly. “The boy’s made his choice. You need to learn to respect it.”

“I did.” Her gaze swept around the cemetery, taking in the lurking fey, the waiting coven, Stefan, and the hovering fairy before coming to rest on me with an expression of profound distaste. “Until I found out what it brought him to.”

“Hey, don’t use me as an excuse,” I said, raising my hands. “We’re not actually dating anymore.”

Mrs. Palmer ignored me. “I’ve been patient with you, boy,” she said to Sinclair. “But enough is enough. Are you ready to come home where you belong?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Sinclair’s voice was strained. He cleared his throat. “This
is
my home.”

She let out a snort. “This? You’ve got no roots here, son. Home is where the bones of the past are buried. Home is where the soil is soaked with the blood of your ancestors. This place?” She shook her head. “This isn’t home. These aren’t your dead. And these most assuredly aren’t your people.”

“Just come home, Sinny,” Emmeline added in a pleading tone. Apparently she was playing good cop to her mother’s bad cop. “I
miss
you!”

“No.” Sinclair’s voice grew stronger. “I’m sorry, Emmy. I miss you, too. But you’re wrong. This is my place. And these are my people. Not because I was born here, not because they’re my blood kin. But because
I chose this
. And I’m not leaving.”

Casimir and the coven had drawn close, ranging themselves behind us. In the headlights, their faces looked stern and different. Even Kim McKinney’s, and I usually thought of sliced cheese and cold cuts from the deli counter when I saw her.

“Your son is under our protection, ma’am,” Casimir said, polite but firm. “And he’s given you his answer.”

Letitia Palmer gave him a stony look, but the Fabulous Casimir didn’t quail before it. She took in his height, his false eyelashes, and the crimson satin turban he was wearing. She took the coven’s measure, took in the hand-knitted scarf knotted around Sinclair’s throat, the evil-eye beads sewn into his hair. She took in the sight of Stefan leaning casually on his sword, his face almost vampire-pale in the headlights. She took in me.

“Letitia, go home,” Thomas Palmer murmured. “Sinclair’s a grown man. Let him live his life.”

“No.” She handed her clutch purse to Emmeline and grasped the glass jar in both hands. “Not like this. Not surrounded by imps and goblins and ghouls, she-males and demon-spawn.”

I had a bad feeling about that jar. Like maybe it only looked empty.

“Don’t!” Sinclair’s voice rose. “There’s no point in threatening me, Mom. I’m protected!”

She looked at him. “Oh, I’m not threatening
you
, son. This is for everyone else in town.”

He held out one hand. “Give it to me. You don’t know what you’re doing. Magic’s stronger here. You don’t know what you might unleash.”

“On the contrary, I know exactly what I’m doing.” Letitia Palmer stroked the empty jar. “This is my father’s spirit in here, your grandfather Morgan’s. I put the jar to his lips and caught it myself on his deathbed.”

Okay, this would be the time to get authoritative. “I don’t care who’s in the jar, Mrs. Palmer,” I said in a firm tone. “You’re not setting it loose in Pemkowet. Give it to Sinclair, or set it down and walk away.”

She gave me a scathing glance. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll take it from you myself,” I said, suiting actions to words without waiting for her response.

In a perfect world, I’d be rewarded for acting without hesitation, right? I took two swift steps toward Letitia Palmer, reaching for the jar to wrest it out of her grasp. Her eyes widened in surprise. She wasn’t accustomed to being defied, and she hadn’t expected me to act so quickly and decisively. And if Jojo hadn’t had the exact same idea at the exact same time, I’m pretty sure it would have worked.

A green blur streaked past me on translucent wings, then recoiled violently, colliding with my face in an explosion of sparkling dust.

Sinclair’s mother wore a cowry shell like her daughter’s around her neck on a gold chain. Apparently, the ward worked on fairies.

All around us there was shouting, chanting, and commotion, a sense of power thrumming in the night air. I scrubbed at the fairy dust in my eyes and swore at Jojo, who swore back at me. How the hell she’d ever thought she was going to get those pipe cleaner arms around the jar, I couldn’t say.

“Here.” Stefan’s voice, calm and steady. He handed me a clean bandanna to wipe my face.

When I could see again, whatever magical throwdown I’d missed witnessing had turned into a standoff. Letitia Palmer had positioned herself behind a headstone, and her daughter was guarding her back. Sinclair’s mother had the jar raised above the headstone, and her face was grim.

“Tell them!” she shouted at her son. “If I smash the jar, there’ll be
no
putting him back!”

“She’s right,” Sinclair said in a low tone. “Stand down. Don’t provoke her.”

Stefan gave me an inquiring look, his sword held lightly in one hand.

And I hesitated.

I don’t know if he would have killed her. I don’t know if he
could
have killed her, not with the ward she was wearing. Not without breaking the jar. Maybe. Or maybe Stefan was just testing me, testing the bounds of my humanity. It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t give the order. Obeah woman or not, Letitia Palmer was human and mortal. Killing her in cold blood would have violated Hel’s rule of order. And even if that weren’t the case, hell-spawn or not, I wasn’t a murderer.

I shook my head.

Letitia Palmer permitted herself a small, victorious smile. “I have spoken at length to your grandfather’s spirit,” she said to Sinclair. “The country needs you. Your sister needs you.
I
need you. I’m running for Parliament, you know. There’s a great deal at stake. Blood calls to blood, spirit to spirit. Your grandfather knows. He understands. When you’re ready, truly ready, to come home for good, you’ll be able to recapture his spirit and return it to Jamaica where it belongs. When you do, I’ll lay it to rest. Until then—”

“Mother, I am begging you,” Sinclair said. “Don’t—”

She did.

With a simple, deft twist, the Right Honorable Judge Palmer opened the jar. In case you were wondering, there wasn’t anything special about the jar. I don’t know what it held before it held her father’s spirit. Pickles, maybe.

An eddy of ice-cold air spilled forth from it, circling all of us. My skin prickled at its touch, rising into goose bumps, and I tucked my tail involuntarily between my legs. It smelled acrid and foul, like gunmetal and burning hair, with a powerful underlying note of death and decay, like meat left to rot. The stench of it triggered my gag reflex, and I came seriously close to throwing up. A handful of maple leaves rose in a flurry.

And then the wind died down as abruptly as it had sprung up. The maple leaves settled back onto the grass with a soft rustling sound. We all stood around waiting for something to happen.

“That’s it?” I said to Mrs. Palmer. “That’s your big, scary Grandpa Morgan duppy? A stinky breeze?”

She gave me a flat stare, but behind the bravado there was a hint of uncertainty in it. “Wait.”

“For what, exactly?” I returned her stare. “You don’t know, do you? Sinclair’s right. You’ve turned this thing loose on us with Little Niflheim underfoot, a functioning underworld, and you don’t have the faintest idea what’s going to happen.” My tail untucked and began lashing. “Right. Well, you’re not going to stick around to find out. As Hel’s liaison, I’m ordering you out of town. Now.”

“Or what?” It was the same response she’d give me before, this time dripping with contempt. Any trace of uncertainty in her eyes had vanished. They were hard, hard as the granite headstones around us. Her voice dropped to a lower register, laden with power as she uttered a word. Don’t ask me what word, but it was in a language that sounded like it dated back to the dawn of time, and every syllable of it tolled like a bell. “You don’t dare lay a hand on me, child.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but the word she’d spoken seemed to have lodged itself in my throat like a stone. I couldn’t talk. In fact, beyond opening my mouth, I couldn’t move. I wasn’t entirely sure I could breathe. Letitia Palmer’s eyes glittered in the headlights. Maybe I was human enough that her ward didn’t protect her from me, but I was also human enough to be vulnerable to her magic. The Seal of Solomon charm that Casimir had given me felt hot against my breastbone. Apparently it wasn’t doing shit.