Coffin Fit (The Grateful Undead series Book 4) (22 page)

~~~

Twenty

~~~

"Where is Antoinette?" I asked.

"Probably in Miami." Christopher paced.

"Crap," Gaire said. "We need to do something," He grabbed a black t-shirt and forced it over his head. "I'm going out to the bar to have a talk with Mommy."

"Not yet!" Luna said. "And surely not like that! Let's go get Gracie Jean. We have to be sure it's just a bleed over and not the real serial doppelganger before we go to the elders."

"But if we go to your elders, you and your mother will be held responsible for all of this," Gaire said.

He was doing this Jekyll—Hyde thing. It was freaking me out.

"It doesn't matter. I can't let that monster destroy my mother." She unwound her ever changing body from his. "You are absolutely not going. I want to make this right." Luna floated in front of Gaire like a hovercraft.

"Like hell I am! You're not doing this alone." Gaire's skin popped and contorted. Bent at the waist, he moaned as body parts shifted.

"Rogaire, stop it! Right now! This second! Do you hear me? You are not leaving Purgatory a wendigo. It will be the death of you. Remember the last time."

Gaire fell to the floor between the bed and wall on the other side of the room.

I really didn't want to hear about the last time. I backed away from the bed and pulled Lily with me. Christopher moved in front of us, arms spread. "Don't move," he said, like all three feet, eighty-five pounds of him was a good cover for us. I pushed him aside.

"What exactly is a wendigo?" My voice shook.

Lily pulled her hPhone from her pocket and turned it off, but left the earbuds in. "Folklore says: A wendigo is a cannibalistic giant; a person who has been transformed into a monster by the consumption of human flesh. However, lore says vampires were also humans turned by the ingesting or spilling of human blood, of which death is the final outcome. His body is much more impressive than yours, though, don't you agree?"

A loud, furious growl whipped my attention from Lily. A skeletal body rose from the floor on the far side of the bed and strutted back and forth on two hind legs. Stark white hair billowed around bony shoulders like white fire. All muscle and sinew, it stretched and bent, raking long claws over the duvet cover, slashing it to shreds as he crawled to the other side of the bed. It leapt onto the floor inches from me. I could feel its fetid breath on my skin.

A bizarre, wolf-like face wore a set of manic eyes, bright red with anger. His teeth didn't quite fit his mouth, and a protruding jaw drooled musky smelling saliva that sizzled as it hit the spread.

"Damn it, backup, Susan," Christopher said. "That shit dripping from its mouth is deadly."

Luna's body shook with anger. "Gaire, if you don't reel it back in, I'm going -"

"I'm not going out into the bar like this, Luna." His voice was gruff and burly, but calm and collected.

The wendigo rocked back on springy hind legs. He was watching us.

"What a fine specimen." Lily stepped forward. "He is quite the alpha male of his breed, now isn't he?" She was looking at Luna. "You must be proud."

Gaire's face darted to Lily's. He was nose-to-nose with her. "I'm not letting Luna meet with the elders alone."

Christopher was stiff as I pushed by him and up to the beast. "Look, we could talk to the elders without getting either of you involved. This really isn't your issue."

Slowly, the wendigo turned away from Lily's smiling face and stared at me. "It is inside of Luna's mother. I believe we have as many issues as you."

"Aunty Susan, I wager, at this very moment, you are thinking how ghastly the wendigo's breath is."

Gaire reared back and laughed so loud it shook the walls. I was surprised when no one knocked on the door at my back.

Luna moved across the tattered bed like a shadow. "Gaire, I think we should go find Gracie Jean."

Gaire turned to me and drooled. I jumped back and watched its spit burn a hole in the floor. "Gracie sees ghosts. She's a witch and a necromancer. Her mother is dead and she and her ghost friends can follow the doppelganger dressed in Jane,
and
find the elders. When they do find them, I'll escort you-"

"Uh-uh, not going to happen. We're all going," Luna told Gaire.

"None of you are going," Lily said from the other side of Christopher. "I am going to meet with your elders."

Lily's words soothed the wendigo. The hair that was standing on end all over his body laid down softly against his skin.

Christopher, on the other hand, was not pleased. "What the hell are you suggesting? Are you nuts?"

"On the contrary," Lily said. "Do you wish to tell them why, Luna? Or should I?"

Luna shared a smile with Lily. "Her brethren are the entities that make us. The elders can't touch her. Hell-Demons are the only beings we can't duplicate."

"This is so not going to happen," Christopher said.

Lily sighed. "Mate, do you deny my wishes?"

Christopher puffed anger. "Hell yes, I deny you. You're not going willy-nilly into a den of doppelgangers without me."

"And what purpose would you serve? Can you defend me? Will you purchase a magic shield and sword like
Link
in one of our
Zelda
games, and become a powerful doppelganger slayer? Will I lose my demon genetic factor and turn into a mortal child? Will we wed someday and grow old together?"

"I get it," Christopher said. "You don't have to be a bitch."

"I am a demon, Christopher. I am not a bitch. Perhaps you have me confused with one of the werewolf mates in the other room?"

Dang, the little demon could hold her own. "Look, Lily, your mother would kill me a second time if I let her only kid go off to some doppelganger camp. What say you let us tag along, just in case? We can stay underground. Maybe Luna and Gaire would like to babysit us."

Lily said, "Christopher, did you just use the phrase willy-nilly?"

"Yeah." My partner stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants, rocked his head, and smiled.

Lily giggled. "Nothing about me is such. I am a calculated individual."

* * *

Dorius paced the floor in the drawing room. His brother and the three werewolves sat listening to a one-sided cell phone conversation he was having with Paul.

"No. I would rather Chick and her team continue to draw out locally infected animals and destroy them. I'll be dispatching the whole team to New Orleans when the local work is complete. If the situation is still severe here, I'll expect you to deliver the plan to Concetta. After clearing New Orleans, Chick is to have the team expand, using three groups led by Sonny, Resi with the alpha raccoon, and my mate, Elizabeth. They will begin a reconnoiter and destroy mission within a two hundred mile stretch north of New Orleans to the Eastern border of the United States, around Miami and up the Gulf until the circle is closed and all the immortal animals are destroyed."

Dorius nodded at Karl as he passed. "Yes, tell the fairy and dragon I understood the delay in contact." Dorius's jaw tightened as he paused to listen. "Send the troll Down Under to retrieve the rest of the team. Contact me immediately when
all of them
are above ground."

Dorius thumbed the cell off, slid it into his jacket pocket, and locked eyes with his brother. Marcus blinked his understanding, relaxed his shoulders, and turned toward the wolves with his brother.

"They found the doppelganger," Dorius said. "It was difficult to contact me in the bar while they validated its prior relationship with me. The doppelganger was wearing a woman with a very colorful background." Dorius smiled. "My doppelganger friend was always a clever one. I would imagine her host is not attracting a counterproductive type of attention."

Marcus leaned back, picked up a crystal decanter, and poured thick red liquid into a crystal glass. His fingers firmly around the glass, Marcus smiled. "And you heard the rest. The Stech cartel is working to expedite things in as timely a manner as possible."

"I want to privately check on my wife and then call the compound in Miami to be sure Antoinette has settled into one of our airtight rooms. I will be right back, gentlemen. I'd like us to be together when I hear from Paul again."

* * *

Paul blew through the front door seconds after Zaire and Resi.

"I'm changin'," Zaire said, and bolted straight down the hall toward the stairs leading to her bedroom, Resi in hot pursuit.

"Hold on!" Paul shouted at the girls, his cell phone pressed to his ear. "I'll handle it, boss. But the rest of the team here is going to be hard to contain. Christopher hasn't contacted them, either."

Chick came through the door, huffing and puffing. Paul used his free hand to signal her and the girls to stay put and be quiet. "Yes, I have it. Mort will be on his way in minutes." He thumbed the off button and pocketed the cell.

"You aren't fucking containing me and sending a block of mortar south to handle this. I'm going Down Under!" Zaire turned to Chick and Resi. "You two with me?"

Chick bounced her shoulders at Paul.

Resi nodded a yes.

Zaire tossed a snarky smile at Paul.

The wolf's chest rose and fell as he shook his head at Chick.

"My kid's down there, and so is my granddaughter; the little devil." Chick was bent at the waist, noisily taking in and expelling lungsful of air. "And so is Dorius's mate. Screw the troll,
we
need to find them."

"Nan, why are you sucking in air?"

"I can't breathe, Resi. I just ran all the way from the lake, for Christ's sake!"

"You're dead," Zaire said. "You don't need oxygen."

"Then why the hell," Chick said in between wheezing breaths, "do I feel like I can't breathe?"

"Look, I need to go out back and find Mort," Paul said. "Dorius wants him to go below and contact Gibbie or Jake. So that's who is going. The Italian shifters are getting restless."

"I told you," Zaire belligerently said, "I'm going Down Under. Betty is my friend—"

"None of you are going anywhere near Purgatory, because none of you know how to get there, and I'm not taking you. I'm a rogue, remember? And while that should make no difference in the Otherworld, there are always a ton of shifters at Purgatory. My blood pack frequents the place, and my appearance is always a threat."

"We'll hitch a ride with Mort." Zaire was just not giving up.

"Fine. Do whatever the hell you want. You've been warned." Paul threw up his arms and headed for the screened porch. "Keep in mind, Dorius is not in a place to be reckoned with. If you're still here when I get back, I'll give you the rest of his plan—the part that involves all of you."

When the screen door slammed seconds later, the three immortals stared at each other, and no one moved.

~~~

Twenty-one

~~~

"How's Zaire doing?" Chick was at the picnic table with Susan's hPhone and her own cell phone sitting side-by-side in front of her.

"Disappointed." Resi slid onto the bench opposite her grandmother at the picnic table. "She went out to the lake, but Paul and Mort were already gone."

Chick nudged the cells closer with her thumbs. "Well, that's good; I don't think we should be pissing Dorius off right now."

"Mom is in big-time trouble, Nanna." Resi shook her head. "She should have never taken Christopher and Lily into the sewers, never mind Betty. What was she thinking?"

"If we couldn't go down there alone, how could your mother? This is Christopher."

"She didn't have to join him." Resi laid her forehead on folded arms.

"Is that gray roots I see at your scalp?"

Resi shot straight up. "Yes. Damn it, this getting old stuff is getting..."

"Old." Chick grunted. "Why am I feeling more human every minute?"

"We're not human, Nan. You're just acting human."

* * *

We stepped out of the back room at Purgatory, and no one was at the bar. Well, not nobody, just not Gibbie, Jake, Betty, and Jane.

Christopher did an about face. "Stand right here. I'm going to run back and tell Luna and Gaire Jane's gone and they can leave now."

My partner didn't wait for an answer. Even over the rowdy crowd, I heard the backroom door close.

"Should I go out into the sewer to see if they're all still out there?" I asked the six-year-old demon standing patiently beside me.

"I don't think so, Aunty. I do not
feel
the other doppelganger close."

I stared down at her. "What do you mean, exactly?"

"When I asked Luna to pass over me, I developed a connection," Lily said calmly. "And through that association, I seem to be able to detect her guardian."

I was about to tell her I was going to check, anyway, but Mort got up from a corner table and pounded his way toward us. Crap, I knew Dorius sent the troll—busted. "Damn it."

I was grinding my molars when Lily tsked. "You really should have contacted your mate to assure him you are all right. I have found, in most cases, when a human is forcefully removed from a situation by another, they are more likely to have the same reaction the obstructive human fears most. Good planning by covering all angles of consequence is significant when it comes to being devious, Aunty Susan."

Why did I always want to slap this child?

"Did you see Gibbie and Jake?" I asked Mort as he approached.

"Yes," the troll said as Christopher, Luna, and Gaire, in human skin, stepped up behind us. "They just left the bar with Dorius's pleasant doppelganger."

"Who sent you?" Christopher asked.

"Dorius." Mort leaned against the end of the bar and signaled the púca. "Jake called him right after you guys arrived—loyal dragon. He did tell me to apologize."

The bartender bounced toward us. It was a circus clown now. I hated clowns. "Great, just great. Is Dorius mad at us?"

"Who cares?!" Christopher pulled out his cell phone.

"Are you contacting him?" Gaire asked.

"Hell yes," Christopher said. "He can't take Antoinette anywhere near that doppelganger."

"Why?" Mort asked.

"Because the thing under Jane's skin is not a friend!" Christopher was punching numbers on his cell phone.

"It
is
my mother, though," Luna corrected Christopher. She looked around the room carefully before continuing. "But the doppelganger who killed the wolf's son has somehow taken charge of her."

"It's a long story," I told Mort.

The troll picked up a long-stemmed glass filled with smoking green liquid and bounced the drink in my direction. "Green steam, a favorite down here; you should try one."

"I'm a vampire, remember? I puke coffee. I'd rather not puke green."

"Damn it, Dorius's line is busy and Marcus is not answering his."

"Should I open my mind to Marcus?' I asked.

Mort swallowed another sip and then said, "Dorius is already angry with Gibbie. They were all drinking, including Dorius's mate. Maybe you—"

"I know they were drinking. I don't think Gibbie was drunk, but I can't vouch for Jake or Betty." I hoped I was right about the fairy. "Where are they now?"

"Is anyone listening to me?" Christopher wanted to know. "I can't reach Dorius!"

"I heard you," I said. "Should I mind poke Marcus, or what? Do we have a few minutes to see if we can find Betty before trying Dorius again?"

"Good idea." Christopher glared at his cell phone.

"Maybe not," Mort said. "Gibbie and Jake left with the doppelganger to set up a meet with Dorius and Antoinette."

Even though Mort was a slow speaker, I still needed the time to absorb the severity of our situation. Thank God Lily didn't.

"Christopher, try now, and if you don't reach Dorius, Aunty Susan
must
contact Marcus immediately." Lily turned back to Mort. "Did Elizabeth leave with the others?"

"You mean Betty?" Mort shook his head from side to side. His damp dreadlocks swung sewer water over all of us. "Betty was outside when I got here; said she was going to use her token to get closer to Dorius. I tried to discourage her."

Christopher, cell to his ear, barked a laugh. "She isn't going anywhere. She only has one local token. She'd need a world token. Even Dorius has a hard time getting his hands on one of those here in the states." He shook the cell. "He's not answering—time to poke Marcus—but let's see if Betty is still outside trying to get to Italy."

"I think it might ease the conversation if Dorius knew Betty was with you," Mort said.

By the time the troll finished his sentence, we'd sidled around wolves, vamps, and other more colorful creatures to get to the exit.

The bouncer, a berserker—I didn't see the troll leave—eyed us. I smiled at him while he eyed Mort. His hair was pure white and tied in a knot on top of his head. His skin was swarthy, and his body pumped with steroid type muscles.

"Maybe when Jake and Gibbie left, Betty asked about the token," I said, and opened the exit door.

I wanted to get out of the noise filled the room. When I stepped into the sewer, I could still smell stale alcohol, sweat, mingled pheromones, and other bodily odors I didn't care to analyze. I didn't think I could be that happy to smell the sewers again.

"If that were true," Luna said, "it might have changed her mind about tagging along."

"There's no one out here." I glanced up and down the dark tunnel for the second or third time. "I hear nothing but scurrying vermin and a babbling stream of death and decay."

"Gaire and I should go get Gracie Jean and Nan. I have to admit, it's going to be great to dress in a human again."

"We can meet back here in fifteen minutes," Gaire said. "Gotta love these." He bounced two coins in his hand.

"I'm mind poking Marcus."

I let down my inner shield. I could drum up an outer shield, too, though I hadn't used it in months. But it sure came in handy in a tight spot. Not even Raphael could penetrate it.
Maaaarcus!
I mentally screamed.

* * *

Marcus sipped his blood, studying the three shifters. The air was beyond tense. Everyone was ready to make a move. When he felt Susan's poke, it jolted him enough to spill blood on the jeans covering his thigh.

Are you alright?
he poked back.
Other than making the grave mistake of—

I'm fine!
Susan pushed
. Your brother? Not so much.

Can you be more specific? Dorius just left me and I can assure you he is fine.

Yeah, right. You better hold on to your drink. I'm about to rock that cool exterior you're wearing,
Susan pushed.
The doppelganger with Jake and Gibbie
is
Dorius's friend, she
did
kill the serial-killing doppelganger,
but
we think when she absorbed the murdering bastard, it started to bleed into Dorius's friend's persona.

And you feel this because?

Marcus chuckled aloud and it attracted the attention of the wolves. He smiled at them. "Sorry, my wife has just let down her shield to share information on our mission. Give me a minute."

He closed his eyes and mentally pushed,
Susan
,
I need you to immediately explain how you came to this conclusion.

I'm standing in the sewer with her daughter, the doppelganger who helped your friend kill the scumbag demon piece of shit. They, her and the wendigo, have been concerned about your friend, Luna's guardian. And get this: mainly because your friend went to Italy about the same time Karl's son was duplicated and murdered. Luna, your friend's daughter, said her guardian NEVER left stateside because she hated to travel abroad.

Excuse me a moment, love.

Knowing Susan could see through his eyes, he scanned the faces of the unhappy company he was keeping.

"Gentlemen, we must find my brother immediately. The doppelganger with our team is not to be trusted. The fairy and dragon would not know this; neither would my brother because
it
is
Dorius's friend. However, after my brother's acquaintance destroyed the menacing doppelganger, its evil bled into Dorius's contact.

"My wife is with the daughter and wendigo who assisted in the creature's demise. They will be contacting the elders—"
Tell me you are doing so, darling.
"—and getting back to us. We just need Dorius to stall the meeting."
I assume this is what you are expecting me to do, Susan?

Absolutely!
she pushed.
You rock, sweetie.

Yes, well, this is one of those times when you did just what I asked you not to do and the ramifications could have been—

Yeah, yeah, tell it to the blood on your jeans. I have a job to do.

Hold on. Tell me you intend to leave your mind open?

Only if
you
don't
block
me from
yours
. This one-sided stuff has to stop. Have I made my point, Fangboy?

You are a nasty little vampire, and I when I get home—

Ah, sweetie, go find your brother before he makes an appointment he can't keep. I hate deadlines! I'll let you know when we have the elders in place if we get them to oblige.

Make them!
Marcus pushed back
.

Oh, I forgot to mention,
Susan poked,
we think Betty is with Jake and Gibbie and the bad guy.

What do you mean, 'You think?'
Marcus sat up straight and stiff in his chair.

We can't find her. Last we heard, Betty was trying to use a statewide token to get to Dorius. And hon, wolves are sensitive creatures. Just look at their faces. You might want to sit back and relax a bit.

Marcus cleared his throat. "Mates! Can't be dead with them, and can't be dead without them." He chuckled, pulled his cell out, stood, chugged the rest of his blood and set the glass back down. "Excuse me, gentlemen, while I contact my brother."

"Sit back down. Put the phone on speaker, and make that call." Karl growled.