Obsidian Curse (11 page)

Chapter 20

After Frieda left, we finished lunch and I paid Iris while Monique phoned Tony to ask him to replace her flat tire.

I wasn’t certain if the dress with the skulls really meant anything, but it lit a spark in me. I needed to talk to Blade. He was the next interview Gladys had set up, but that wasn’t for another hour, so I decided to drive Monique to get her decorations. Hopefully that would stop her squawking.

It didn’t.

“Can’t you drive any faster? I want to pick this crap up and get back to Down and Dirty so I can meet the liquor distributor,” she said.

“Doesn’t he just drop the shipments off through the back door? That’s what Cinnamon arranges when she can’t get to the bar.”

Monique snapped. “Yes he does, but he’s hot and I’m trying to get him to take me to the reunion. So get the lead out, grandma.”

I wondered if the United States government paid for privatized weapons. Because I was pretty sure even the most stubborn terrorists would crack if they had to spend five minutes in a car with Monique.

I sped the car up and we arrived at the party store a few minutes later.

We both got out of the car and Monique said, “I don’t need an escort.”

“I thought you might need help carrying whatever crap it is that you bought.”

“Huh,” she said.

She walked through the door and I followed her, thinking that no other man on earth is worth all this but Chance.

The cashier rung up streamers, balloons, a large banner, a bunch of fake flowers, and several cardboard crowns like they pass out to kids at Burger King.

“What are those for?” I asked.

“For awards. Duh. You know. Most changed, most successful, who came the farthest, who got the fattest, stuff like that.”

She shoved a box in my hands and we were out of there after fifteen minutes. I popped the trunk and we loaded the party supplies inside. Monique’s phone made a whistling sound and she extracted it from her pocket. She tapped the screen a few times and said, “Tony says the car will be done in an hour.”

“Good,” I said. But I was really thinking,
Now how am I going to keep tabs on her
? I could always slip a tracking device under her bumper, but Birdie said I had to watch her like a dog watches a bone.

The next stop was Down and Dirty and the whole ride there I was trying to come up with another plan.

Monique checked the time on her phone. “He should be here any minute. Make yourself scarce. I don’t want you cock-blocking me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I parked the car in back of the building. I watched her get out, take her keys from the side pocket of her purse, and unlock the door. I figured she couldn’t get into too much trouble flirting with the delivery man.

When I heard the blood-curdling scream a few minutes later, I knew I was wrong.

I grabbed the gun out of my bag, jumped out of the car, ran to the back door, and shoved it open. Water came gushing out as soon as I did and I leapt back, tucking the gun into the waistband of my pants.

Monique was standing there, looking like she’d been attacked by the Loch Ness monster. Her hair was plastered to her head. Literally. There were bits of plaster and soggy wallpaper covering her top half. Her bottom half was standing in knee-deep water, women’s toiletries floating downstream toward the front of her bar.

I looked up to find a good portion of the ceiling—and also the floor of Monique’s upstairs apartment—missing. She must have dodged just in time before it collapsed. Broken tile and crumbled plaster had crushed the boxes that the liquor distributor had, unfortunately, already delivered. The smell of scotch, beer, and tequila was strong, but it was overpowered by the stench of sewage.

There was a crack above our heads, then a snap, and I looked up just in time to see a live wire disengage from what was left of the ceiling.

I reached in, grabbed Monique’s arm, and yanked her out of there, then slammed the steel door shut.

As I turned around, I saw Pickle disappear behind a dumpster. He gave me a thumbs-up and I smiled, thinking he must have received my note requesting help with Monique along with the offerings and that I was now forgiven.

“It’s not funny, Stacy!” Monique screeched. Her chest heaved in anger.

“Of course it’s not. I’m not laughing. I’m just happy we didn’t get barbecued.”

Birdie always kept a towel in the back of her Buick so I went to fetch it and handed it to Monique.

“Here.”

“Screw you!”

“Calm down; this is nothing that can’t be fixed.”

She flailed her arms. “All the liquor for the reunion was in there. What am I supposed to do now? I spent all the cash on product. Everyone’s going to be pissed at me when there’s no booze.”

“It’ll get worked out. Don’t worry about it.”

“Sure, easy for you to say. It’s not your business on the line. This was going to be the event that gets me out of the red.” She plopped herself on top of a wooden crate and started bawling.

I had no idea Down and Dirty wasn’t doing well, but with the money she must have spent to get the place looking like the set of
Moulin Rouge
, I can’t say I was shocked.

The towel was still in my hand, so I offered it again. This time she accepted. She wiped her head and then blew her nose in it.

“And where am I going to live?” she wailed up at me. With all the makeup she had on, her face looked like a Picasso left out in the rain.

“My mother was right. I am a loser.” She sniffed.

It never occurred to me that Monique had a mother, let alone a terrible one. I had always assumed she was built in the basement of a horny teenager.

I sat down next to her. “You’re not a loser, okay? Besides, you still have a job at the paper.”

“Yeah. Thanks to you.”

Well, not really, but okay.

Suddenly she tensed. “Thanks to you,” she said slowly. She shot up off the crate and pointed. “You. This is all your fault!”

Here we go. One moment of humanity and she was back to her old self. Although she had a tiny point. But she didn’t know that.

I got up too. “How is this my fault?”

She wagged her finger at me. “I’m not sure, Stacy Justice, but shit like this doesn’t happen to me. It happens to you all the time, though. You’re like, like…” She struggled to find a word.

“Kryptonite?”

She snapped her fingers. “Exactly. That’s exactly what you are. And I’m not staying here another minute with you.”

Monique tried to storm off, but she busted her left heel in the process and it slowed her down. Then she launched into a fresh crying jag.

I caught up to her and reached for her elbow. “Come on, let me at least drive you to your car.”

She reeled on me. “Don’t touch me. I mean it. I never want to see your face, your cousin’s face, or this stupid town again!”

“Monique, you can’t just walk all the way to Iowa with a broken shoe, smelling like tequila and urine.”

“Why not?”

“Because the only action you’ll get is from the hobo on Station Road and that’s just because he smells the same.”

She spun around, nearly lost her balance, but recovered gracelessly.

She pointed again. “That’s another thing. You’re always making fun of me.”

“Only because you make it so easy.”

Monique flipped me off then tottered back around. “I want you out of my sight.” She waved a fist in the air.

I sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t let that happen, Monique.”

She sent me another bird and kept walking.

I pulled out my tranquilizer gun and shot her.

Chapter 21

Monique landed face-first on a soiled mattress that someone had thoughtfully tossed in the alley. I plucked the dart out and called to Pickle. He helped me load her in the back of Birdie’s Buick, before he disappeared again. Then it was straight to the Geraghty Girls’ House.

I found an old wheelbarrow in the shed behind the house and jogged it to the car. A quick scan of the area told me no one was watching. I opened the driver’s-side door, reached in, and clutched my bag. I slung it over my shoulder, shoving the tranquilizer gun back inside. Then I opened the back door of the car and dragged Monique out by her armpits. She was heavier than she looked, but that could have been because she was waterlogged. I hoisted her into the wheelbarrow just as a soft rain began to fall. I carted Monique up to the back door of the inn while the sky darkened and thunder boomed. I twisted the handle, but it was locked, so I rang the bell that only sounded in the private quarters of the house.

Birdie was the one to answer.

“Special delivery.” I wheeled Monique past her and set the wheelbarrow down in the kitchen.

Her eyes widened.

“I tried, Birdie, I really did, but it got to the point where she just wasn’t going to play nice.”

Birdie looked at Monique, then at me. “So you killed her?”

“Of course not.”

“Is she drunk?” Birdie lifted her nose, sniffed the air. “She smells like a Dublin distillery.” She looked closer at Monique. “And Temple Bar at four a.m.”

I decided to stifle my question in regards to Dublin’s nightlife. Some things a granddaughter shouldn’t know.

“She’s”—I searched for a word that would make me sound more like a great Seeker and less like a sociopath—“sleeping.” I grinned. “Where do you want her? Because for the rest of the day and hopefully the better part of the evening, she’s your problem.”

Birdie looked around the kitchen as if someone had just delivered a sack of potatoes and she didn’t possibly have any room left in the cupboard for it. She made a face. “She smells bad.”

“Little issue with some busted pipes in her bathroom. She’ll clean up all right.”

Lolly came into the room then. “One more for supper?” she said when she saw Monique slumped in the wheelbarrow, tongue dangling out of her mouth. Lolly was drinking champagne from a crystal flute, wearing glass slippers, a white leotard, and a blue veil.

“Yep. And not just tonight. I hope you have a vacancy, because it’s sort of my fault that her apartment was washed away.”

In my note to Pickle, I had asked him for his assistance in helping me guard Monique. I didn’t anticipate that he would destroy her apartment to accomplish that goal, but I had to admit the fairy was effective.

I didn’t hear Fiona come in but suddenly she was behind me. “We have one room left. That Blade Knight rented two.”

“Two?” I asked. That was strange. Why would Blade need two rooms?

“Celebrities,” Lolly said as if she had read my mind, and when hers was sharp, she sometimes could.

Birdie stared at Monique. “How long will she be asleep?”

“A few hours, maybe more. I figured this was the safest place to bring her. Plus, it’s kind of your fault she’s in this mess.”

Birdie shot each of her sisters a glare, clearly indicating that this conundrum was all their doing. “Still. The state of her.” She crinkled her nose.

“Yes, well, it’s a messy business being a witch.”

“Did you at least find the Leanan Sidhe?”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, Birdie. I did that before lunch. It was a snap.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

“Well, give me a bit more to go on here. It’s not like I can take out a want ad for a blood-sucking sexpot with big knockers. Which reminds me. When I find her, how do I catch and bind her for transport?”

“There’s a magic lasso in the upstairs chamber,” Birdie said.

“Seriously?”

Birdie smiled. “No. I can be a smart-mouth too.”

I high-fived her. Then I gave her my house key. “The Blessed Book is in the Seeker’s Den. Since the Leanan and the curse are a part of the Geraghty history, there must be some sort of contingency plan in there if she were to escape. Hopefully, it will tell us what to do.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but you must bear in mind that Samhain is fast approaching.”

“I know.”

Samhain, when the dead pass through the veil and the fairies cross through the worlds. It was a day when anything could happen.

Lolly, always excited by any project that involved dressing someone up, accepted the challenge. She grabbed the wheelbarrow and said, “We’ll take it from here, dear. You’ve done well.”

“Great, because I have to get to my next interview.” I put my hand on the door that led through to the common areas of the house.

“It’s here?” Birdie asked. “Why?”

I turned to her and shrugged. “Celebrities. You want the goods, you have to go to them.”

The lock clicked behind me and I passed through the hallway and one other door that fed into the parlor. There was a key under the carpet that I used to lock it behind me.

I set my bag on the piano and went to wash Monique’s stink off me. When I returned, Blade Knight was standing in the living room looking as if he’d just witnessed a book burning.

“What is it?” I asked.

“We have a problem,” he said.

“Well, that won’t do, Blade, because I’ve met my problem quota for the day.”

“Look at this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

It was a note, the words comprised of letters cut out of magazine articles and pasted together.

It read:

Stay away from the girl and no one gets hurt.

I lifted my head to meet the author’s eyes. “What girl? Who is it referring to?”

Blade tilted his head and said, “I think it means you.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense; why would someone want you to stay away from me?”

He shrugged. “Maybe we’re getting close.”

“Close? We haven’t even started yet.” I looked at the note again. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The paper? The letters? It looked just like plain white paper. But still. There was a trace of recognition in my mind as I held the paper. “Where did you find it?”

“On my car.”

“And since you’ve pretty much talked to half the town already, anyone can know what you’re driving.” Not to mention there weren’t too many $80,000 cars roaming around Amethyst.

He nodded.

I hated to admit it, but I felt there was no other option. “I think it’s time we talked to Leo,” I said.

Blade started to protest and I lifted my hand. “We need to see the police report from the day your parents were killed anyway. I think you should also show him the note, but that’s up to you.”

“But last night, you said—”

“I know what I said, but I can’t be responsible for your safety, Blade. If anything happened to you and I could have somehow prevented it, I would feel terrible.”

He sighed. “Okay. If you think that’s best.” He sounded doubtful.

“I do. But first, I have a couple of questions for you.”

“Shoot.”

“My aunts said that you rented two rooms. Why?”

“My agent’s coming in tonight for the book signing.”

“So the second question is why was my life the subject in
Stone Col
d
?”

Blade gave me a confused look. “What are you talking about?”

“The car in the ice, Blade, that happened to me.”

He still looked as if I were off my medication. Then slowly, realization spread across his face.

“That’s just how fiction authors operate, Stacy. We read something, hear something on the news, see something on a television show, hell, even quirks from kids I went to grade school with—it all gets programmed into our brains and somehow, often completely subconsciously, the pieces get regurgitated into a novel.”

I said, “So I’m literary vomit, then. That makes me feel better.”

He walked over and grabbed my bag, handed it to me. “You’re not a special snowflake. In fact…” He drank in the parlor with its antique furniture, flowery wallpaper, and woodworking details that weren’t present in modern homes. “This house might pop up in my next novel.”

“So long as I don’t.”

He held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“Why do I get the feeling you were never a Boy Scout, Blade?”

He smiled and opened the door, standing off to the side to let me pass through first. “I guess it’s time to write the next chapter.”

Those words triggered something in me. An ancient spark, a primal instinct. It was a niggling that wormed through my brain, my conscious, telling me that I should be picking up on a whisper planted inside me long ago. That there was a truth about Blade Knight that I had known all along, but failed to recognize. Something that, once it surfaced, would have a lasting impact on both our lives.

Only I couldn’t grasp it.

But I knew one thing for certain. Our paths were destined to cross, no matter what the outcome.