Coffin Fit (The Grateful Undead series Book 4) (16 page)

When the servant closed the dressing room door behind him, Marcus took up the conversation. "It took me a year to find you after you followed that witch down there. What was her name?"

"Penelope," Dorius reminisced.

"A dreadful woman," Marcus said, drawing a leather belt through the loops on his dress pants. "As I recollect, the demon would not have won you had she not bet your servitude in that cage fight you lost to her sorcerer friend."

"Enough," Dorius hissed. "I am not the same capricious rogue I was then."

"Still," Marcus said, standing after tying his shoes. "I'm going with you."

"Karl is accompanying me," Dorius growled.

"Exactly, and yet another reason why I will be tagging along." Marcus opened the door and swung an arm at the hallway. "Shall we?"

"
Do not
disrespect me in front of Karl this evening."

"Fine," Marcus said. "As long as we understand each other."

~~~

Fourteen

~~~

I was sitting on the screened in porch watching a ray of halogen light fall from a pole at the end of our dock and flicker on the slow, rolling water. Inside the house, everyone was just beginning to wake. The local newscaster on the television made it harder to hear Christopher and Lily's hPhone conversation in the living room. It was one-sided. I could hear him just fine. At least my immortal hearing wasn't totally failing me.

"Can I use the passport thing right away?" Christopher said. "Like, right after you bring it to me?"

I leaned closer to the pass-through window opened a crack over the kitchen sink. 'Bring it to me?' I thought. That was definitely not going to happen anytime soon.

The television newscaster got my attention as the volume went up, and I peered into the living room to see the screen.

"... caught what they believe was an old woman in the act of climbing into bed with male residents—four of them, Marty. The tapes are vague because the image of the woman fades in and out, but at this time, they believe all she did was bite the male residents on the neck,"
the newscaster said.

One hand covering her ear and the other holding a microphone to her lips, the reporter continued.
"None of the gentlemen are injured, and all of them are unable to remember what happened to them. Although there are small amounts of blood splatter on their bedclothes, there are no wounds on their necks. Security tapes and blood stains are being analyzed by a forensic team in the Mobile Crime Unit stationed on the scene."

The camera panned the area behind the newscaster to show a sign—
Shady Pines Nursing Home
—as the blond woman on site tilted her head to listen to the newscaster at the news station.

"No, Marty, the nursing administrator does not believe the woman is a resident. And the buildings have been thoroughly inspected. The old woman is not on the premises. The Lake Count Police Chief told me moments ago that the mobile lab could possibly have an identifiable picture of the intruder by this evening's late night news. But he reminded me the image of the woman is ghostly on the security video."

I wanted to run inside and check on my mother, but the volume on the television went down and Christopher's voice became louder. "How long do we have?"

'Have
' for what? I wanted to know.

"I can live with that," he said. "You?"

As Christopher giggled, I pulled my mind away from visions of my mother or sister sucking on residents in the local nursing homes.

"I
know
I'm dead, Lily," he said. "Do you always have to correct me? Anyway, I think it's a euphuism like damned if you do, damned if you don't. Maybe those are similes or metaphors. I don't know. Anyway, it really doesn't mean I'm alive. It means I'm alright with you being here for only twenty-four hours, our time. Do your Dad and Mom know?"

Christopher gurgled with amusement. "Aw, hell, girl, hopefully, we won't have to deal with that," he said with humor in his voice. "So when do you get here?"

"You mean all you have to do is stand there and wish it?"

"Damn, I'm gonna love this shit," Christopher said. "How'd they get my fingerprint?"

"You've got the power to do that?"

I was almost cheek to the window and there should've been a reflection, but there wasn't. I hated not knowing what I looked like. It sucked. A smile curled my lip as I thought how much harder it probably was for Resi. The girl romanced her mirrors. As I tossed my head this way and that, trying to catch something in the glass, I heard Resi and Zaire enter the garage downstairs. They were talking about the guy with the gun that showed up a couple of hours before sun up. I was in my coffin before they got back from 'taking care' of him, and hadn't found out how it went.

The cuckoo over Mom's mini-altar in the living room chirped seven times as Christopher said, "Okay, gotta go. Everyone is finally crawling out of their coffins. Talk to you up close and personal in thirty." He paused and then added, "Right, but it's seven here. I'm talking our time. Be careful, and, uh, thank Lord Rahovart, Tormentor of the affluent, blah, blah, blah for making this happen."

He pulled the hPhone away from his face, forehead wrinkled, then said, "Huh? Yeah, we have
Wi-Fi
. Why you asking?"

"Who wants to know if we have Internet, Christopher?" Resi asked as she crossed in front of the window over the sink.

I ducked below the pass-through counter and cozied up between a tall ficus and the massive trunk of an elephant plant. Long, curly leaves fought with my messy curls. When I heard the girls hit the stairs to the kitchen, I wrestled myself free from the foliage and headed for the sliding doors.

"Later, babe, gotta go," Christopher said as I pulled open the sliding glass door and stepped into the dining room.

My partner stuffed his cell into the cute little pocket on the back of his
Oshkosh
jeans as he shot me a look full of questions. "What the hell happened to your hair?"

"Really, Mom," my daughter said, "it looks like you took an egg beater to it."

"Don't be a smart-ass," I said.

"Sorry," Resi said. "I didn't sleep well. Nanna had workmen putting in aluminum shutters all day. My room was pitch black when I got up.

"Not mine," I said. "I guess she thought putting metal doors over my French doors would attract too much attention. I didn't sleep either. They made one hell of a racket—love the doublewides, though. You?"

"Hell yes!" Zaire said. "If Chick hadn't dragged in the workers to batten down the fort, I could've woke up next to my girl." She dragged Resi close and playfully bit her neck.

Resi giggled, pushed Zaire away, and brushed her hair back into place. "Tonight, sweetie."

"Yeah. I see she didn't do the kitchen pass through either," Christopher said, his gaze moving to me. "But the front windows are air tight. I bet JoAnn sleeps all night."

My partner was still fishing for where I was when he was conspiring with Lily.

"Yeah, I got up at the crack of darkness. Thought I'd do a little hunting. I miss it." I looked longingly at my compound bow mounted by the fireplace. "Snagged a doe, did the suck and release thing—nice breeze on the lake—heard you guys up here and decided to come in from the dock. Mort says hello," I lied, but it bought me a smile from Christopher.

I casually turned to see myself in the glass door, but there wasn't enough of an image. Randomly raking the carrot-red tendrils of mass hysteria into what I hoped was an assembly of order, I said, "So, who was asking about our internet?"

Without a blink, Christopher answered, "Lily. She's hoping her hPhone works as well here as it does in Hades. They just got high-speed Abyss to Earth there."

When I turned back to him, Christopher glanced toward Resi and Zaire.

"Is she coming up soon?" I prodded.

I could tell by the twitch of his jaw that the snarky pitch of my voice gave me away, but Christopher held it together. "Hope so," he said without turning to me, then asked the girls, "So what happened with the idiot and his gun this morning?"

Resi lit up and started to answer, but Zaire beat her to it. "Stupid fucker. He saw JoAnn sell a bag of white pills, and then bite the guy and drag him into the
Ford Explorer
. Said he wanted a piece of Aunt Jo for fucking with his friend, but I'm thinking he wanted a big chunk of Jo's stash—pissed me off. Fucker shot me close range with a .22 caliber handgun, and stood there, mouth open, as the big hole from his hollow point healed. He freaked like he was trippin' on acid."

While Zaire laughed—I loved her laugh: rich, heavy, and sexy—Resi jumped in.

"He might've been high on meth—who knows? No one sane walks blind right into another person's garage," Resi said. "Anyway, long story short. I was able to wipe his mind clean of the event, and I tossed in some education and morals after hearing he has three sisters under twelve counting on him, and a mother getting out of
Life Stream
after an overdose ten days ago. Our boy will not only be turning over a new leaf but staying at the family apartment off Orange, in Eustis, to take care of things. I think JoAnn saved his life—maybe his mother's—by leading him back here."

Zaire had been standing next to Resi, tongue in cheek, black biker boot tapping the oak floor while waiting her turn. She was wearing her usual attire: tight jeans, black wife-beater, and a thick leather belt. Her ebony hair, silky smooth, framed her face, and cloud-gray eyes stormed under long black lashes. Zaire was a beautiful black-skinned woman in her mid-forties when Resi turned her into an immortal, and, unlike us, she was still looking twentyish. Raphael's curse was not affecting her immortality.

Zaire pulled her eyes off Resi, and sarcastically, and nasal-like, said, "Like I was sayin'. The stupid fucker—crying like a second place beauty queen—snot blabbed all that information as we tied him up and tossed him in Aunt Jo's
Explorer
. After he had hit us with the Eustis address, I drove while Resi cleaned house." She chuckled. "Boy had a real epiphany."

"What boy had an epiphany?" my mother said as she came in the front door. "Tell me it was Paul, and he's decided to jump Jeni's bones."

"How long you been up, Mom?" I asked, and glanced at Christopher to see if the morning news would generate a reaction, when I added, "And where have you been?"

Christopher didn't seem to care at all that my mother could have been the neck-sucking old woman at
Shady Pines
in the wee hours of the evening.

"I've been up long enough," Mom said, "and it's none of your business where I go—girl's gotta eat."

"You mean an
old
lady's got to eat, right, Chick?" Christopher said.

I sneered at him. He'd heard the news report. He'd even turned it up during the conversation with Lily. The two of them had become really chummy since they went on that road trip to New Orleans together to find our last rogue. I don't think any of us knows exactly what went down between them, but they sure did respect each other's needs now.

My mother snorted at my partner, and then asked, "So, what boy was epiphanying all over the place earlier?" Mom asked Zaire again.

"Epiphanying is not a word, Mom," I said. "I just heard an early evening news report about a neck-sucking old lady at Shady Pines. That wouldn't have been you, would it?"

"The guy was some druggie that came snooping around last night, Chick," Christopher interrupted. "Resi and Zaire took him home and erased his mind."

"Whoever it was, whatever you did," Mom said, totally ignoring the question I'd asked and my partner had so cleverly misdirected, "you better not have fucked the pooch. I have enough to worry about with half my team going into some underworld sewer place this week."

"No problem, Chick," Zaire said. "It went as smooth as your
Walmart
trip."

"Speaking of
that
trip, you didn't make another stupid
trip
this morning, did you?" I was getting pissed. "I think we all need to watch the eleven o'clock news to see if you made the most wanted list."

Christopher smiled at me.

Mom didn't even look in my direction. She shook a finger at Zaire and opened her mouth to refute Zaire's remark, but the clock in the living room cuckooed once, marking seven-thirty, and our ceiling in the living room opened a portal right over our heads.

We all stepped back a couple of feet.

Black and churning, a funnel slowly appeared beneath the black hole, flipping the pages of a stack of magazines on the glass-top coffee table mounted above our stuffed gator.

Red curls beating my cheeks, I looked up as Lily glided from the mini-tornado and onto the center of our living room floor. The small funnel whooshed back up into the black abyss, and the ceiling mended itself behind it.

With really angry eyes and arms flying, Mom turned to Christopher. "That little devil's father and mother
and
Dorius better know she's here."

"She's only visiting for twenty-four hours, Chick." Christopher's words were rushed. "Her father won't be around to find out she's been gone. Lord Rahovart, Tormentor of the Affluent and Companion of Satan, sent Raphael on a mission for about a week, Hell time, and Satan's companion is supposed to be demon sitting Lily. Lord Rahovart assisted us with our Earth-to-Abyss passports so we could try them out. We're good."

Lily smiled brightly, violet eyes shimmering. She walked across the living room toward my mother, and her movements were fluid, graceful, agile, and enchanting. The layers of the little demon's gauzy dress caressed her thin legs to mid-calf. Leather-soft Mary Janes made no sound as she approached. Her dark hair was pulled up over her ears and flowed in soft waves across her shoulders and back. Lily was about an inch shorter than Christopher and had a child-like beauty that turned heads.

As she stepped up to my mother, Lily asked, "How is the visually stimulating octogenarian in the family doing this fine, earthly evening? You look grand, Nanna." On her toes, she tugged my mother's arm until Mom bent over and Lily kissed each cheek.