Coffin Fit (The Grateful Undead series Book 4) (27 page)

"How the hell did my mother know that?" I asked Christopher

Jane tossed her right arm up in the air. "Who told youse that shit? Eh? You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about." Jane blinked rapidly, and then seemed to compose herself.

"My granddaughter—Raphael's kid—told me," my mother said. "She's been talking to me all night." Mom thumped her index finger to her temple. "Right in here.

My mouth fell open. The look on Christopher's face was priceless.

"It doesn't matter. What do you think you will gain from this information?" Jane spoke in an entirely different voice. "I will not dicker with you. My intention is to shed this crass woman and make a double of Antoinette." Jane turned to Antoinette. "I will not kill you. You can remain here if you like, although I wish you would join me in Hell. It would be less of a chore. The demon did not specify I bring the original in our contract." Jane was glaring at my mother. "You see, I am aware of the term
loophole
. Raphael merely said I was to bring him Antoinette and I would receive sanctioned refuge in his abyssal kingdom. Once there, the contract fulfilled, I will shed Antoinette's double and flee from the demon. He is no match for my cunning nature. And he cannot destroy me, no more than I can destroy him."

"You're as smart as a skid-mark on the inside of Puck's undies." Gibbie darted around Jane, making abrupt stops here and there like a dragonfly. "If Chick can hear Lily, I'm betting the demon just heard your self-ejaculated rant. You know Lily has a direct line to her father, right? You still feeling like the powerful and cunning OZZ on the other side of your quickly fading rainbow?"

~~~

Twenty-six

~~~

Jake stood behind Marcus. "None of what you are saying is going to happen. We're all here to see to that. Why are you stalling?"

"Eh, dragon-breathe, read my lips. I ain't stallin'." The doppelganger's risqué side was back. "Youse guys are stallin'." Jane thumbed her chest. "This bitch wants to know why. You expectin' someone important?" Jane looked around. "I don't see no one special 'round here."

Karl crouched. The growl that emanated from deep inside his throat held back by a set of really impressive K9s, was extremely threatening—with feral gold eyes, even more so.

When the other two wolves padded up beside their leader and took the same
ready to leap
stance, Dorius and Marcus cut hard and fast to the left. The wendigo pounced and was nose to nose with Jane in a human heartbeat. Gibbie rode Jake's shoulder as the shifter shot a flame that ignited the sales desk behind the Jane.

"I have an idea," I said to Christopher. "Jane is right underneath this air vent. I'd slide right down the doppelganger's body, pull my shield, and trap the bastard."

"That's fucking butt-ass stupid. What are you gonna do; bitch-fight Jane into shedding, and then let the doppelganger double up on you?"

"You could come with." I smiled at him. Damn, he was right. "We need to trap him inside with a demon."

"If Lily were—"

"Yeah, something important is coming," Mom said. "Hell's fire! That's what's coming!" She raised her hand.

"Aw, crap!" I shouldered the vent screen.

"Jesus!" Christopher said, a smidgen too loud as it popped open.

The three wolves became airborne. Paul and Dorius moved to stop them.

"Everyone get the fuck back!" I yelled as I tumbled from the ceiling above them. "Fast!"

"Fall back!" Dorius ordered in a voice that left no room for insolence.

Paul, Marcus, Antoinette, a dragon, a fairy, and my mother froze. Three wolves skidded sideways on the shiny, waxed, pine floors, paws scraping, bodies twisting; Paul and Marcus dove and blocked their paths to the doppelganger. My mother stood alongside Dorius, inches from the wendigo. I hit the floor yelling, "Get the fuck out of the way, Gaire." The wendigo sprang into the air and landed on top of the wolf pile. I rolled, pulled power from the lines beneath me, and up went my shield to form a neat tight six by six feet sphere around Jane.

The doppelganger had not moved an inch the whole time. A baritone laugh fell heavy from Jane's lips and rocked the bubble.

"Screw you, you fucking asshole! Just fuck you!" I screamed, adrenaline pumping through my body. "Now, what are you going to do? Huh? Come on, dickhead!" I pressed my face against the bubble as Christopher fell from the ceiling and bounced off the dome and onto the pine floor beside me."

I looked over at him in time to see the wolves going through the last phase of shifting back to humans, and Paul spraying the fire in the sales area with an extinguisher.

"You look like a gerbil in a plastic ball," my mother told Jane as she stepped up beside me and gave me a hand up.

I slapped it.

Marcus's arms folded around my waist and chest.

"Either you give me Antoinette, or I am going to exit this place right now," Jane said with a voice that was totally not appropriate to her stature. "I have forever to taunt you. And a burning desire to watch you wait, knowing I will be back." He turned to Paul and his fire extinguisher and laughed before glaring at me. "And each time I will take someone from each of you. Someone you will grieve for as much as the Wolf laments his only son."

Karl walked up to the sphere, pushed his face into it, fingers scraping its surface. "I will see you dead first."

Jane spit at the shield. Karl did not move as her saliva dripped in front of his face.

Dorius stood next to the pack leader, hand on his shoulder.

Jane touched the shield with the tips of her fingers and smudged her spit over the wolf's face. She pushed the translucent skin. It moved Karl's head, but the wolf only smiled.

I put my hands on my hips. "Having fun? I think you could do better than that." I pulled Karl from the shield. "Give it a try, big bad doppelganger. No one has made it out, asshole. You're as helpless as everyone else."

Jane roundhouse kicked the bubble, head-butted it, and punched it like a seasoned street fighter during heavy bag training at the YMCA.

I was impressed with her roundhouse combos. But she was bouncing off the bubble like a fly on the inside of a glass window. I smiled big.

Paul and the shifters were laughing. Dorius stood silent, arms crossed on his chest.

A scream of anger erupted from Jane. She pulled
Smith & Wesson
from a pair of really cool, leather, hip-boots and rapid-fired rounds at the sphere. We watched rounds ping off the shield in every direction. Several hit Jane and she sprinkled down the doppelganger like glitter trying to hang onto an
Elmer's Glue
art project until nothing remained but a black cloud with red circles for eyes and a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth.

"How long do you expect to keep me here?" The doppelganger slithered around the inside surface, spreading like a shadow on the street, constantly moving with the light of oncoming traffic.

"What will stop me from taking any one of you I choose when you release me?" It rose and separated like bubbles in a lava lamp until half of the dense cloud was hanging at the top of the sphere. "You cannot keep me in this trap forever—the sun is rising." The top section plopped like an oversized raindrop into a larger puddle of smoke on the floor.

"In a matter of minutes, this game will be over." The smoke started to swell. "I will leave, and come back over and over to slice and dice each of you until you bleed death." It was getting larger, more transparent. "Have you ever taunted a woman with pain, listened to her scream for her life? Have you, Marcus? Dorius? Because your mates will be first—I no longer have a use for your sister. I will be sure you are there, in her mind, Marcus, when I stake the organ that would render Susan truly dead."

The thin, billowy creature spread to fill the bubble, condensing in small areas and rubbing against the bubble as it roiled inside.

In the very center of the sphere, a circular mouth opened, clicking needle sharp teeth. The doppelganger's voice vibrated the shield with its volume. "Would you like that?" Red eyes sparked over the mouth. It yelled again, "Well, will you? Answer me!"

"You done?" I asked. "Nice show, very entertaining, but if you're looking for a way out, there isn't one, ass-wipe."

"Susan," Dorius warned. "To what end will you taunt him? He's right; in minutes, the sun rises, and we will be—"

"Actually, Uncle Dorius, that is exactly what I have been waiting for." Lily walked in through the only door in the back of the room, accompanied by two Gracie Jeans, Nan, a herd of ghosts, and enough smoke to make anyone who passed by believe the place was still on fire.

Thank God it hadn't been.

"Aunty Susan, can you move your shield?"

"Uh, I don't think so. It breaks when I touch it."

The doppelganger inside the shield snickered. "Try. Then all of you will witness a real fight." It turned to the massive smoke cloud separating into six individual forms.

"I can move it without breaking it," Mom said.

"Oh, yay!" Lily said. "Move it outside through the broken window, please. And don't worry about mortals gathering. I have been all over the area; it is the safest place. It was I who entered the drain in the other room."

I felt a slight fear in the back of my mind vanish.

Mom had both palms up, and was casting a ray of gold that encircled the sphere around the doppelganger. As she moved her hands, the bubble followed.

"Now what?" I asked Lily. "The sun's coming up and we're about to display a doppelganger in broad daylight."

"Exactly!" Lily clapped her hands. "Please don't worry about mortals, Aunty. I cast a repel spell and no one will enter the area for three blocks in any direction."

Dorius was still standing by Karl. "Very shrewd, Lily. And you brought the elders to help."

"I did," she said.

Christopher stood next to his mate, beaming.

We all ran out the front door and gathered in the street as the bubble floated through the broken window. There were so many of us, it reminded me of our trip to Vegas.

The bubble settled inches from the sewer drain.

"The elders should take shelter Down Under through that sewer drain." Lily pointed at the corner of the street where the drain was. "The sun will rise in thirteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds. We wouldn't want any casualties, would we?"

As usual, I wanted to thwap the kid.

"You're a big tease, youngin'," Betty said from a lamp post directly over Lily's head. "Spit it out. What's gonna happen after we go sewer divin'? Don't tempt me. I feel a shit coming on."

"I wouldn't do that, Elizabeth," Lily said. "I do believe we've established my superiority to you. It would be foolery to attempt such a retort with an assurance your penitence would be very unpleasant."

"The sun will take care of our doppelganger," Dorius said, and ended the issue. "It will be ashes in a matter of seconds after it rises."

The doppelganger in the shield didn't look worried. In fact, it had been smiling at me the whole trip out into the street, and its ghoulish mouth was still turned up with a smile. "I have been in this situation before. I assure you. I will survive."

"I am sure that is true," Lily said. "However, not this time. I am aware doppelganger ashes can lay dormant all day and rise at sundown. But I intend to scoop you up and place you into this airtight box; a doppelganger coffin, actually."

The doppelganger did not even blink. "We will see."

Lily held out what looked like a large glass bullet. It had a red rubber seam around the length. Still, the doppelganger did not react.

Nan moved forward. "My friends and I better go into the sewer, too. Not like we can't haunt in daylight, but I don't feel you need us anymore."

While we all hugged and said our thank yous, promising to keep in touch, the sky above became more visible.

I looked around for Luna or Gaire. I didn't see either of them. Nan shook her head at me, and that's when I remembered the two were rogues and on the run from the elders. I just smiled.

"I'm not leaving until that thing is in the coffin you have, demon," Karl said.

Dorius nodded as Paul lifted the sewer grate for the elders, although he didn't really need to. They wafted down below to wait for Lily to bring them the little coffin.

"I will let you know when to take the shield down, Aunty Susan."

I nodded at Lily, Dorius, and Marcus over my shoulder.

"Where's Antoinette?"

"Back here, under the furniture awning with Karl and his men," Antoinette said.

While we were waiting for the big event, and I was watching Betty take flight in the direction of our house, Zaire, Resi and Sonny came running up behind us from the side street.

"Raphael just snagged Aunt JoAnn from the house!" Zaire yelled as she skidded to a stop at the corner of the building.

"And he's really pissed," Resi said.

"How do you know this?" Dorius demanded.

"We saw him pull JoAnn through the wormhole in the living room ceiling," Zaire said. "Coffin and all. JoAnn was inside. She kept screaming, 'I didn't think my summon would work'."

"You should really fix that wormhole, Mom," Resi said. "Especially since Aunt Jo seems to have learned something during her last visit to Hell."

"Why take JoAnn?" Christopher asked. "He wanted Antoinette."

Jake and Gibbie walked out into the street.

"We did the best we could in there," Gibbie said.

"It looks like someone broke in, tried to burn the building down, and then looted the place," Jake added.

Wings beating overtime, Gibbie whizzed around us. "You should've seen—"

"Raphael took my sister," I told Gibbie.

Gibbie stopped short. I felt dizzy after trying to keep up with him.

Sonny said, "We'd just come up from the barn—quite a load of critters to burn—and Jeni and JoAnn were both screaming."

"Is Jeni alright?" Paul became rigid.

"Oh, my God!" My hand flew to my chest like I'd seen Mom's do hundreds of times "I haven't heard her since I dropped the shield."

In a flash, I was standing in front of Sonny, Marcus at my back.

Paul grabbed my hand.

The three werewolves stepped up beside us; deep throaty growls emanated from them.

"Chill, everyone," Resi said. "Jeni's okay."

I almost puked.

Paul was shaking.

I let his hand go.

The three shifters were still rumbling.