Coffin Fit (The Grateful Undead series Book 4) (13 page)

The man in the plaid shirt dissolved around Dorius's body in a sparkle of black flakes. The sprinkle remained only seconds on the floor under a swiftly forming cloud of smoke. Red eyes appeared and a circular, suction-cup shaped mouth opened and closed, hiding and displaying needle-like teeth.

The creature moved like windblown smoke from a campfire in a room as still as the belly of a coffin. It hovered over Antoinette.

Marcus and the twelve council members were on their feet circling the immortal woman before the doppelganger's mouth could latch onto Antoinette. Instead, the thing bit Dorius on the neck, and swiftly changing, the creature threw back its upper half in laughter and floated into a dark corner on the ceiling. It became a flickering shadow in a room full of quivering candlelit shadows.

The laugh echoed as the shadow slid over the manmade blocks and hugged every crevice until the remaining smoke melted into the cracks of the sealed off section that once was a window. "I will be back, Antoinette. I desire to wear you, because it is a deliciously decadent way of destroying your brother."

* * *

"Where the hell did my asshole go?" my mother grumbled as she trudged up the stairs from the bathroom later that evening.

"Excuse me?" I said around a bag of blood. It sounded like
Effooes E.
I backhanded a trail of type-O dribbling down my chin.

"I can't wipe my ass from the front, and can't reach it from the back. Look at this stomach." Mom rubbed her globular midsection. It was holding up her breasts. "My stomach sways when I walk for Christ's sake."

"It's called waddling." I looked down at my belly.

I had a sports bra on. It held my tits above my navel, but it accentuated the donut roll underneath. I hadn't worn a bra since Christopher bit me, and my senior flab and sags turned to muscle and taught flesh.

"Who is going to be here for the hunt tonight?"

Mom picked up a pamphlet stuffed in a basket at the end of the picnic table. After giving me tired eyes, she leafed through it as she said, "Resi, Zaire, Jake, Gibbie, Christopher, me, you, Betty, and Sonny. I'm guessing JoAnn is going to be on the computer since Jeni is MIA again tonight. That's all I know for sure."

"Paul?" I unrolled my elastic waisted jeans and pulled them over my navel with a grunt.

Mom worked heavy eyes up to mine. She had a pissy grin on her face. She was amused about something, but she still looked tired and old. "Gibbie said if Paul doesn't get here by the time the hunt's over, he's heading to the wolf's house in the morning, anyway, so he'll fill him in after we've all coffined up."

I heard Resi climbing up the stairs from the garage, and turned toward the kitchen.

"Mom, we have the cage made for JoAnn's raccoon. Gibbie and Paul are going to set it up near Aunt Jo's coffin tomorrow afternoon while she's sleeping, and then open the bedroom window so the raccoon can get in. When it tried to climb the cage to the coffin lid, it will fall through the spring loaded door. Once it snaps shut, the little guy is stuck inside."

Mom slapped the oak picnic table, skin wobbling on her saggy arms. "And you expect the ringleader of the fanged animal world to just waltz right on into JoAnn's bedroom and lock
himself
in a cage?"

Resi tsked. "What do you think we've been doing in the garage all night, Nanna?"

"Building a cage that isn't going to work," Mom snapped, but her eyes twinkled.

One corner of Resi's mouth tilted upward, and she shook her head. "It's going to work. I've been mind-manipulating the three alphas we got earlier, and that worked. They obeyed orders so well that we're down to two alphas. One cut the head off its brethren's shoulders. They're going to lead the raccoon over a spring loaded door on top of the cage. I've ordered the two alphas to tell Zaire when the deed is done."

"Ho-boy," Mom said. "This, I gotta see."

"Sorry," Resi said. "We don't do daylight anymore, remember? You'll have to wait until sundown like me, Nan."

"And you're sure this will work?" I asked. But I was thinking I needed another coffin. The image of my sister sexting flashed through my mind and I shuddered.

"We'll find out," Resi said as she turned to go back downstairs. "Sonny is gonna phase and go with the alphas to be sure it doesn't backfire on us."

Jeni skipped into the kitchen from the front door, hung her keys on the wall rack, tossed her purse on the counter, and turned to us, all glowing energy. Before I could suck some of that vim-and-vigor right out of her smile, Jeni sniffed the air in front of my mother, and then her nose grazed Mom's neckline. "You smell good, Nan. Is that a new perfume?"

"No. That's my odor-lock mini-pads. I found an unopened package in the back of my closet. I had to put one on because I ate some of your brownies and fudge ripple ice cream before I hit the coffin yesterday. It was running through me all day—up down, up down—look at the sun rash I have on my forehead." She lifted her bangs. "Thank God I put up those heavy wooden blinds before bed."

Mom raised her right hand and shook her head at the ceiling, eyes rolling back under her lids. Her chin wobbled as she dropped her hand back to her side. "Could've been worse."

"Really glad I put those heavy curtains up in my bedroom," I mumbled. I needed to take down the cross over the bed.

Mom rocked an index finger at Jeni, and then slapped the pamphlet against the picnic table. "You need to get your newly entertained butt in front of the surveillance equipment tonight. Your Aunt cannot be trusted lately."

"I planned to, Nan." Jeni wrapped her arms around my mother and hugged a fart out of her.

"
Oh
, that was a wet one." Mom winced, and got up from the table.

Jeni laughed. "I love you, Nan. You always make me laugh." She snagged the pamphlet off the table and then smiled at me.

"Paul will be joining the hunt tonight, Mother. Play nice." Jeni jogged down the stairs to her bedroom.

As JoAnn staggered into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, any hope of discussing Jeni's date with Paul vanished.

The odor of poopy-floral wafted off Mom's mini-pad as she walked by. Damn our extraordinary senses.

JoAnn wrinkled her nose.

Mom slammed the refrigerator door shut. "You've already stocked up twice tonight." She waggled her finger at JoAnn. "Stay out of the stash until we get our delivery later today."

JoAnn had a left eye tic and it bounced her cheek. She scratched her arms and rubbed her shoulder on her chin. "I'm drowning my sorrows in the blood of our savior, y'all, and chasing it with heavy prayer. I'm a fat, aging, lonely vampire, dying to get her family back together. Raphael wouldn't answer my calls today. God is smiting me with demon parasites running rampant under my skin. They're driving me crazy, y'all."

Red circles rimmed her lower eyelids. She looked at me for help; I didn't have any.

"The blood quiets the itching, so back off lady!" JoAnn told Mom. "The blood is my savior!"

"The blood of your savior is probably from some street guy who needed twenty bucks for a half-gallon plastic bottle of
Rotgut
vodka from
Walgreens
." Mom turned on her heels and hobbled down the stairs to the bathroom.

"The meek shall inherit the earth!" JoAnn yelled after her.

"And the stupid shall kiss my floral scented ass!" Mom yelled back.

JoAnn grabbed two blood bags, tore a corner off one with her teeth, and tapped white powder out of a tiny zip lock baggie into the blood bag. She wet her finger, cleaned the baggie of trace powder, and rubbed it onto her gums. My sister tossed the baggie into the trashcan at the end of the breakfast bar, reached into her elastic waist shorts, and pulled out a spice jar with red powder in it. She opened the little jar, bit the paper seals off, and poured the red spice into the same blood bag. Shaking it vigorously, and before any of us could get past her off-the-wall performance, my sister chugged the whole mess.

Shuddering, she gagged a few times, belched and gagged some more. JoAnn backhanded her nose, and her shoulders jerked in time with her eye tic. Talking too fast to understand, she tossed the bag in the trash, zipped to the pantry, and zipped back while fastening her cleaning apron.

In a flash of immortality, JoAnn cleaned every shiny surface in the living room while I watched, dumbfounded, mouth open, and fangs hanging.

~~~

ELEVEN

~~~

It was sundown, and I was ear plastered against the bathroom door listening to my mother alternately talking on the phone and shitting into the toilet.

"That's right. I want those aluminum jobbies that are electric," my mother said from the other side of the bathroom door. "How the hell am I supposed to know that? Send out a guy to count and measure. And I want it done by the weekend. Money is no object."

I heard the beep-beep-beep of Mom punching in another number on our landline. I could even hear the phone ringing, and then a woman answering on the other end.

"Yeah, hello," my mother grunted.

I cringed and hoped the woman couldn't hear Mom's bathroom noises.

"This is Concetta Angelina Stech," she continued. "I live at 76667 Joy Haven Road in Leesburg, Florida. Can you look up my order? The order number is . . . Hang on. . . 012DWC000348. You got it? I want to know why they aren't here yet." She paused; I heard the sound of watery diarrhea breaking water in the toilet. My mother sighed. "Yeah, I can hold."

I wondered what the old lady was up to. Electric aluminum jobbies? It didn't sound like she was purchasing another dildo.
Don't ask
, I told myself.

"Oh." Mom's voice sounded strained. "So how long does it take to line a doublewide with asbestos for crying out loud?"

I lifted my hand to knock.

"Fine! Did you find the pink camo double?"

I knocked.

"So you'll send all three when-"

"Mom, open the door before I break it down."

"I'm shitting my brains out!" my mother yelled. "And I'm on the goddamn phone. Can it wait?"

"No, and you wouldn't be on the toilet if you'd stop eating Jeni's brownies and ice cream," I said, drawing out the o in no. "I need to know why you're ordering four caskets, and what those aluminum jobbies are that you were talking about. And I need to know right now!"

"Jesus," Mom grumbled. "Hold on lady, my kid is banging on the door and I gotta wipe my ass."

"Anybody home?" Paul yelled from upstairs.

"Down here!" I shouted back. "Mom get your butt upstairs. You got some explaining to do," I told the bathroom door, and hit the stairs up to the kitchen.

My stride slowed as I walked into the living room and found Paul sitting on my sofa, staring at the wolf mounted on the wall by the fireplace. It was on the wall the day I had walked out my front door and met Paul in wolf form. Then the black wolf had scampered into the house and shifted into a naked man in front of all of us.

Paul was tall with long black hair, striking blue eyes, a chiseled chin, sexy smile, and a well-endowed, rock hard body. My mother, a spanking new vampire at the time, had embraced her second chance at being a single twenty-year-old with enthusiasm. Paul had been amused by Mom's lewdness—the rest of us were pretty embarrassed—which came across as boisterously lascivious. Still, none of us except Zaire could take our eyes off his extremely sexy nakedness. However, even then, Paul only had eyes for Jeni, and she was definitely into him.

"Look, you know I've been against you dating my daughter from day one." I placed myself in front of the werewolf. "And since you don't seem to give a shit what the hell I think, I want to know just how far you plan on taking this?"

Paul smiled. "Do you want my intentions, or your daughter's?"

I opened my mouth, had no idea what was going to come out, but Resi and Zaire busted through the front door and I was shit-out-of-luck to find out.

"Trap went off," Zaire said on the run. "Alphas just snagged us. JoAnn must be a late riser. Can't you guys hear the raccoon hissing? Jeez, JoAnn's even banging on the coffin, screaming like a B-horror-flick chick. We gotta get up there and shut the window before she wakes the whole neighborhood."

Resi and Zaire ran by us, skid through the kitchen, and clambered up the stairs.

I answered Paul's question, "I'd like to hear my daughter's intentions, and yours."

"I want to marry your daughter." Paul's smile wavered, and his eyes took on a serious clarity. "But I want to move slow, be sure Jeni understands all of the ramifications that come with a commitment . . ." His voice trailed off, and he stared at me long and hard before he continued. ". . . Before we add sex to our relationship."

Paul's posture relaxed, and there was humor in his voice as he said, "Jeni on the other hand, wants sex first, followed by commitment negotiations—and I quote—post-coital." He smiled.

"
Need some help up here
!" my daughter, Resi, yelled from upstairs.

I caught Paul's eyes as he jumped up. "You and I? This conversation?" I pointed at him and then me. "It's not over."

"No, it's not, and I fully intended to talk with you before this went any further. It's just not the right time. I have news from Italy, and we have more serious issues to address."

"It better be more important than my daughter doing something she will regret for the rest of her human life," I said, taking the stairs two at a time.

"Yep; it definitely trumps that," Paul said. He was right behind me. "And I promise you, Susan, I have no intention of bedding your daughter until I get both your and the council's approval."

"Get up here,
now
!" Zaire screamed.

As we skidded to a halt in front of the upstairs door across from my bedroom, the smile on my face melted into a frown.

JoAnn was cussing. My sister didn't cuss unless she was really pissed. We pushed her bedroom door open—she was still inside the casket—Resi and Zaire were wrestling her for control of the coffin lid.

"Get the hell out of my goddamned room!" my sister was screaming. "How dare you try to catch that godforsaken raccoon in a cage by my coffin!"

"Aunt JoAnn, sweetie, what did you do with the raccoon cage?" Resi asked.

"I'm not telling! You will all pay for this! The minute y'all find out you're not finding that cage, and y'all finally leave, I'm ridding myself of that monster permanently. So let go of my damn casket, and get the hell out of my bedroom! NOW!"

I could see JoAnn's face as the coffin lid bounced up and then down. It was beet red.

"Honey," Resi coaxed, "you can't kill him. Dorius wants him alive. We needed you, Aunt Jo. The only way to accomplish catching the little guy was through you. Dorius has wanted us to capture that raccoon forever. Please tell me where you put the cage."

JoAnn's eyes got small, and her mouth tightened. "You used me as bait, goddamn y'all? Me? Knowing how I feel about that hell-dog creature?"

JoAnn didn't wait for an answer. She was still white-knuckling the lid with both hands "Let go of the casket so I can lock myself inside, and I might tell you."

"You installed a lock on the inside of my casket?" I asked, foot-tapping the cream colored carpet on her bedroom floor.

"No!" JoAnn yelled, and pulled the lid down further.

"I did," Paul said.

We all glared at him.

"Well, she asked me, and I didn't ask why."

"You could've at least found out if the damn coffin belonged to her!" I stood there grinding my back teeth level.

Paul ignored my question, leaned over the half closed coffin lid, reached under, and I watched his biceps bulge rock hard as he put his weight into lifting the lid. He grunted, gritted his teeth, and gave it his all. In a flash of movement, the lid flew upward. JoAnn popped like a Jack in the box, grabbed Paul by his t-shirt, and tossed him through the large window over the front yard.

Zaire yelped and jumped aside, dodging glass shards as Paul rolled to the edge of the short roof under the window. Her eyes flashed cold, hard, silver as she glared at JoAnn. Paul's neck veins bulged with a nasty growl from outside.

Turning away from the window, Zaire hissed, "JoAnn, where the fuck is the cage?" She strutted toward the casket, latched onto the lid, nose to nose with my sister. "It's not on the roof or in the driveway."

We all just stood there, waiting, eyes stealing glances around the room. Paul pushed glass off the ledge and climbed back into the room. The cage wasn't big, but it would only fit inside a few things in my sister's room. There was a hutch, a cedar chest, and the closet.

We all sidled toward the cedar chest.

The bedroom closet snarled.

All heads turned toward the closet.

"Let go of my damn casket top!" JoAnn screeched from inside the coffin.

Zaire pushed the lid on the coffin higher and locked her arm.

Resi leaned toward the closet, let go of the lid, and edged closer. "Aunt JoAnn, you know you're going to have to drink from the raccoon, right? Just once, so I can try mind-control."

"Y'all can go straight to hell if you think I'm getting anywhere near that raccoon!" JoAnn yanked the lid down on Zaire's fingers so hard the whites of Zaire's eyes turned black as she jumped two feet in the air.

"F'n Christ, you crushed all the bones in my fingers, you bitch!" Zaire snapped at the casket.

The lid popped up. "Don't you dare use the Lord, my savior's name in vain." The lid closed with an audible click.

"Hey, you just goddamned him all to hell a few seconds before you broke my goddamned fingers!" Zaire put both hands between her knees, blood tears trickling down her cheeks."

"Oh, shut up!" JoAnn's voice echoed from inside. "Your fingers will heal, but my heart won't!"

"Your heart is dead," I said.

"I won't forgive y'all for using me for rabid raccoon bait," JoAnn whined. "Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves. All y'all …
Susan
!"

I hissed and kicked the casket.

Resi opened the closet door.

Paul shut JoAnn's bedroom door, and then took a goalie stance in front of the window.

Guttural growls emanated from one of three large, brown boxes stacked in the corner of the closet.

Paul sucked in a breath. The rest of us didn't.

Resi knocked on the casket. "Jo, is it still inside the cage?"

JoAnn harrumphed. "Give me one good reason why I should help y'all? Y'all used me for
bait
!" She half-screamed, half-growled the last word.

Zaire coaxed a box off the top of the pile and onto the carpet. "This one's pretty heavy."

Paul gave it a shake. No noise from inside the box—in fact, not a sound from the closet at all. Paul ripped the box open.

"I hear that!" JoAnn's voice came from the coffin. "Y'all are gonna pack everything you unpack. I have a husband in Hell, and he has tattoos."

"Yeah, you might want to pull the badass demon card on someone else," Zaire mocked. "Sh—yeah, tattoos. Really? That's all you got? Maybe Resi and I will do a you-show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine when demon guy gets here—right before we send him back to Hell like the last time."

We did send him back to Hell with a sorcerer and a vampire-bitch ... only, he took JoAnn with him.

Resi sneezed, nose deep in the box. "Aunt JoAnn, why do you have nine coffee makers?" A white cloud of fine powder hung in the air around my youngest daughter.

"That's none of y'all's business," JoAnn snapped. "And when you
repack
them, you better not break anything! Especially the
Cuisinart
. I promised Ralphie I'd send that one with Lilith on her next scheduled Hell-visit."

I was lost for words. We couldn't even drink coffee. I didn't know JoAnn's demon ex could, either.

"This one's way too light." Zaire passed another box out to Paul.

Paul looked inside the box. "Unbelievable." He tipped it over and emptied straws and condiments from every hamburger franchise in Florida onto the carpet.

Back of her hand over her mouth, Zaire coughed. "What the fuck is all this white shit, Aunt JoAnn?"

"D E," JoAnn's coffin said. "It protects against bugs. You can drink it. I did. Y'all should try it. It detoxes your body. Yep, D E helped with my irritable bowels syndrome."

"D E?" Resi said.

Zaire was flexing her fingers. They were almost healed, but I could still hear them crack.

"Diatomaceous earth," JoAnn said, her voice muffled by the walls of the casket. "Look it up . . . after you get your butts out of my room!"

"And the straws?" I asked the closed coffin. "You actually stole all these straws? What the hell?"

The lid on the coffin clicked then popped up a half inch. Horror-flick gold eyes peeked at me.

"That was when you told us to practice mind-pushing. I got people to load them into trash bags, even people eating. They put down their quarter pounders and obeyed me. I keep them, because sometimes I need to remind myself how powerful I am."

The lid went down and the latch clicked. "Now pack them back up. And forget the next box. The stupid cage, with the raccoon locked inside, is under a pile of clothes on the floor behind the boxes."