Dead Reckoning (26 page)

“Why are you here?” I asked in the most neutral voice I could summon.

“I’m sorry,” he said, words that had been sorely lacking until now.

Though a knot inside me relaxed when he said those magic words, I wasn’t totally won over. “Why’d you let Claude do that?” I said. I was holding the door open, obliging him to twist around to talk to me. He stood and turned to face me.

“I didn’t think what he was doing was right. I didn’t think you could want Alcide when you seem tied to the vampire, and I didn’t think the outcome would be good for you or either of them. But Claude is willful and headstrong. I didn’t have the necessary energy to argue with him.”

“Why not?” It seemed like an obvious question to me, but it surprised Dermot. He looked away, over the flowers and bushes and lawn.

After a thoughtful pause my great-uncle said, “I haven’t cared very much about anything since Niall enchanted me. Well, since you and Claude broke the enchantment, more accurately. I can’t seem to achieve any sense of purpose, of what I want to be doing with the rest of my life. Claude has a purpose. Even if he didn’t, I think he’d be content. Claude is very human in his nature.” Then he looked appalled, perhaps realizing that in my clear-the-decks mood I might find his opinion a good reason to tell him to hit the road with the others.

“What’s Claude’s purpose?” I asked, because that seemed like a pretty interesting point. “Not that I don’t want to talk more about you, I do, but I find the idea of Claude with an agenda pretty interesting.” Not to say alarming.

“I’ve already betrayed one friend,” he said. After a moment, I realized he meant me. “I don’t want to betray another.”

Now I was even more worried about Claude’s plans. However, that issue would have to wait. “Why do you think you’re feeling this inertia?” I said, returning to the topic at hand.

“Because I have no allegiance. Since Niall made sure I was put out of Faery . . . since I roamed around crazy for so long . . . I don’t feel part of the sky clan, and the water clan wouldn’t have me even though I allied with them. While I was cursed,” he added hastily. “But I’m not a human, and I don’t feel like one. I can’t really pass for a man for more than a few minutes. The other fae at Hooligans, the cluster of them . . . they’re only united by chance.” Dermot shook his golden head. Though his hair was longer than Jason’s, shoulder length to cover up his ears, he’d never looked more like my brother. “I don’t feel like a fairy anymore. I feel . . .”

“Like a stranger in a strange land,” I said.

He shrugged. “Maybe so.”

“You still want to work up in the attic?”

He exhaled a long slow breath. He looked at me sideways. “Yes, very much. Can I . . . just do that?”

I went into the house and got my car keys and my secret stash of money. Gran had been a great believer in keeping a secret stash. Mine had been hidden in the inner zip pocket of my weatherproof winter jacket at the back of my closet. “You can take my car to Home Depot in Clarice,” I said. “Here. You can drive, can’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, looking from the money to the keys eagerly. “Yes, I even have a driver’s license.”

“How’d you get that?” I asked, absolutely taken aback.

“I went to the government office one day while Claude was busy,” he said. “I was able to make them think they were seeing the right papers. I had enough magic for that. Answering the questions on the test was easy. I’d watched Claude, so taking the officer for a drive wasn’t too difficult, either.”

I wondered if a lot of drivers on the road had done the same thing. It would explain a lot. “Okay. Please be careful, Dermot. Ah, you know about money?”

“Yes, Claude’s secretary taught me. I can count it. I know what the coins are, too.”

Aren’t you the big boy,
I thought, but it would have been unkind to say. He really had adapted amazingly well for a driven-insane-by-magic fairy. “Okay,” I said. “Have a good time, don’t spend all my money, and be back in an hour, ’cause I got to go to work. Sam said I could come in late today, but I don’t want to push it.”

Dermot said, “You won’t regret this, Niece.” He opened the kitchen door to toss his gym bag into the house, leaped down the steps, and got in my car, looking at the dashboard carefully.

“I hope not,” I said to myself as he buckled up and drove away (slowly, thank God). “I sincerely hope not.”

My departed guests had not felt obliged to do the dishes. I couldn’t say I was that surprised. I set to work and wiped down the counters afterward. The spotless kitchen made me feel I was making progress.

As I folded the sheets, warm from the dryer, I told myself I was doing okay. I wish I could say I didn’t think about Amelia, feel sorry all over again, decide all over again that I’d done the right thing.

Dermot returned within an hour. He was as happy and animated as I’d ever seen him. I hadn’t realized how depressed Dermot had been until I saw him actually lit up with purpose. He’d rented a sander and bought paint and plastic sheeting, blue tape and scrapers, brushes and rollers and a paint tray. I had to remind him he needed to eat something before he started work, and I also had to remind him that I needed to leave for work in the not-too-distant future.

Also, there was the summit meeting here at the house. “Dermot, is there any friend you can hang around with tonight?” I asked cautiously. “Eric, Pam, and two humans are coming over after I get off work. We’re kind of a planning committee, and we have some work to do. You know how it is with you and vampires.”

“I don’t have to go anywhere with other people,” Dermot said, surprised. “I can be in the woods. That’s a happy place for me. The night sky is as good as the day sky, as far as I’m concerned.”

I thought about Bubba. “It’s possible Eric may have stationed a vampire in the woods to watch the house at night,” I explained. “So could you be in some other woods kind of away from here?” I felt awful about putting so many strictures on him, but he was the one who’d wanted to stay.

“I suppose so,” he said, in the voice of one trying hard to be tolerant and helpful. “I love this house,” he added. “There’s something amazingly homelike about it.”

And seeing him smile as he looked around the old place, I was more than ever sure that the unseen presence of the cluviel dor was the reason my two fairy kinsmen had come to stay with me, rather than my own little dash of fairy blood. I was willing to concede that Claude believed that my fairy blood was the attraction. Though I knew he had a mellower side, I was also sure that if he realized I held a valuable fairy artifact, one that could grant his most ardent wish—to be allowed passage into Faery—he’d tear the house apart looking for it. I felt instinctively that I would not like to stand between Claude and the cluviel dor. And though I sensed something warmer and more genuine in Dermot, I wasn’t about to confide in him.

“I’m glad you’re happy here,” I said to my great-uncle. “And good luck with the attic project.” I didn’t actually need another bedroom up there now that Claude was gone, but I’d made a snap decision to keep Dermot on task. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get ready for work. You can sand away on the floor.” He’d told me that would be his starting point. I had no idea if that was the right order or not, but I was content to leave it to him. After all, considering the state of the attic before he and Claude had helped me clean it out, any work he did would be an improvement. I did check to make sure Dermot had a face mask to wear while he used the sander. I knew that much from home improvement shows.

Jason dropped by on his lunch break while I was putting on my makeup. I came out of my room to find him surveying all of Dermot’s Home Depot loot. “What you doing?” he asked his near twin. Jason obviously had very mixed feelings about Dermot, but I’d observed that he was much more relaxed around our great-uncle when Claude wasn’t there. Interesting. They clattered up the stairs together to look at the empty attic, Dermot talking all the way.

Though I was running seriously late, I fixed Jason and Dermot some sandwiches, putting the plate on the kitchen table with two glasses of ice and two Cokes while I hurried into my Merlotte’s uniform. When I emerged, they were at the table having a lively conversation. I hadn’t had enough sleep, I’d had to sweep my house clean of visitors, and I hadn’t gotten very far with Mustapha or his buddy. But seeing Jason and Dermot chattering away about grout, spray painters, and weatherproof windows somehow made me feel that the world was on some kind of even keel.

Because Merlotte’s was almost empty, my lateness wasn’t an issue.
In fact, Sam was so preoccupied I wasn’t sure he noticed. His abstraction made me feel a little better. I’d wondered if Jannalynn had spun Sam some kind of tale to cover her malice, in case I complained to him about her shoving another man into my bed. Sam didn’t seem to have any idea that Jannalynn had done her best to embarrass me by advising her boss to play peek-a-boo with my bedsheets.

Though it was easy to be angry at Jannalynn because I didn’t like her, when I thought about it, Alcide should have known better than to take such bad advice. If Alcide had been stupid for giving her idea credence, Jannalynn had been mean for thinking of it in the first place. I understood now that we were enemies. It was my day for unpleasant realizations.

Sam was absorbed in going over the books. When I discerned from his thoughts that he was trying to figure out how he could manage to pay his bill with our beer distributor, I decided that today he had more problems than he could handle. He didn’t need to hear that his girlfriend had embarrassed me.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was between Jannalynn and me, no matter how tempted I might be to inform Sam about his girlfriend’s true character. I felt like a smarter and better person after getting my head straight on that, and I hustled food and drinks with a smile and a pleasant word the whole shift. I had some good tip money in consequence.

I worked late to make up my time, and that was okay because Holly was late in turn. It was after six when I went into the office to fetch my purse. Sam was slumped at his desk, looking pretty bleak. “You need to talk about something?” I offered.

“With you? I figure you already know whatever I’m thinking about,” he said, but not as if that bothered him. “The bar’s in a slump, Sook. This is the worst patch I’ve ever been through.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be completely stale or practically untrue.
Something always turns up. It always seems darkest before the dawn. When God closes a door, he opens a window. All things happen for a reason. Into every life a little rain must fall. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
In the end, I just bent and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You call me if you need me,” I said, and went out to the car feeling troubled. I put my subconscious to work on a plan to help Sam.

I loved summer, but sometimes I hated daylight saving time. Though I’d worked late and was going home, it was still glaring sunlight and would be for maybe another hour and a half. Even after darkfall, when Eric and Pam could come to the house, we’d still have to wait for Colton to get off work.

As I got into my car, I noticed there was a chance it would be dark earlier than usual. An ominous mass of dark clouds seethed to the west . . . really dark clouds, moving fast. The day would not end as beautifully and brightly as it had begun. I’d just been remembering my gran saying, “Into every life a little rain must fall.” I wondered if I’d been prophetic.

I’m not scared of storms. Jason once had a dog that’d dashed upstairs to hide under Jason’s bed every time he heard a crack of thunder. I smiled at the memory. My grandmother hadn’t approved of dogs in the house, but she hadn’t been able to keep Rocky out. He’d always found a way when the weather turned bad, though that way had less to do with the dog’s cleverness than with Jason’s soft heart. That was one good thing about my brother; he’d always been kind to animals.
And now he is one,
I thought.
At least once a month.
I didn’t know what to think about that. While I’d been looking up at the sky, the clouds had been moving in closer, and I needed to get home and make sure my departed guests had left all the windows closed.

Despite my anxiety, after I looked at my gas gauge I realized I had to fill up the car. While the pump was working, I stepped out from under the awning at the Grabbit Kwik to look up. The sky was ominous, and I wondered if we were under a tornado watch. I wished I’d listened to the Weather Channel that morning.

The wind picked up, and bits of trash whipped across the parking lot. The air was so heavy and damp that the pavement smelled. When the gas pump cut off, I was glad to hang up the nozzle and climb in the car. I saw Tara going by, and she glanced my way and waved. I thought of her impending baby shower and her impending babies, with a little guilt. Though I had put everything in line for the shower, I hadn’t thought about it all week, and it was only two days away! Surely I ought to be concentrating on the social event rather than a murder plot?

It was a moment when my life seemed . . . complex. A few drops of rain splashed on my windshield as I pulled out of the parking lot. I hoped I had enough milk for breakfast, because I sure hadn’t checked before I left the house. Did I have some bottled blood to offer the vampires? Just in case, I stopped at the Piggly Wiggly and got some. Grabbed up some milk, too. And some bacon. I hadn’t had a bacon sandwich in ages, and Terry Bellefleur had brought me some early fresh tomatoes.

I slung my plastic bags into the front seat of the car and dove in after them, because the rain abruptly slammed down in earnest. The back of my T-shirt was soaked, and my ponytail hung sodden on my neck. I reached in the backseat and pulled my umbrella into the front. It was an old one my gran had used to cover her head when she’d come to watch me playing softball, and when I looked at the faded stripes of black and green and cerise, I felt a smile on my face.