Every Which Way But Dead

The magnitude of what I might have done with my silence fell on me, and I felt my face go cold. “Nick, I’m sorry,” I breathed.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, his brown eyes full of forgiveness, unaware of my thoughts. “I was the one that told him he could have the book.”

“No, you see—”

He took me in a hug, silencing me. A lump formed in my throat, and I couldn’t say anything as my forehead dropped to his shoulder. I should have told him. I should have told him right from the first night.

Nick felt the shift in me, and slowly, after a moment’s thought, he gave me a tentative kiss on the cheek, but it was a tentativeness born from his long absence, not his usual hesitancy.

“Nick?” I said, hearing the coming tears in my voice.

Immediately he pulled back. “Hey,” he said, smiling as his long hand rested on my shoulder. “I’ve got to go. I’ve been up since yesterday and I have to get some sleep.”

I took a reluctant step back, hoping he couldn’t tell how close to tears I was. It had been a long, lonely three months. At last something seemed to be mending. “Okay. You want to come over for dinner tonight?”

And finally, after weeks of quick refusals, he paused. “How about a movie and dinner instead? My treat. A real date … thing.”

I straightened, feeling myself grow taller. “A date thing,” I said, moving awkwardly foot-to-foot like a fool teenager asked to her first dance. “What do you have in mind?”

He smiled softly. “Something with lots of explosions, lots of guns …” He didn’t touch me, but I saw in his eyes his desire to do so. “… tight costumes …”

I nodded, smiling, and he checked his watch.

“Tonight,” he said, catching my eye as he headed back to his truck. “Seven o’clock?”

“Seven o’clock,” I called back, my good feeling growing. He got in, the truck shaking as he slammed the door. The engine rumbled to life, and with a happy wave, he drove away.

“Seven o’clock,” I said, watching the taillights flash before he jostled onto the street.

Five (#u501e15e7-86a2-5b87-8582-3daeb4ea34d7)

Plastic hangers clattering, I stacked the clothes on the counter beside the cash register. The bored, bottle-dyed blonde with ear-length hair never looked up as her fingers manipulated those nasty metal clips. Gum snapping, she pointed her gun at everything, adding up my purchases for Ceri. She had a phone to her ear, head cocked, and her mouth never stopped as she chatted to her boyfriend about getting her roommate fried on Brimstone last night.

I eyed her in speculation, breathing in the fading aroma of the street drug lingering on her. She was dumber than she looked if she was dabbling in Brimstone, especially now. It had been coming in cut with a little something extra lately, leaving a rash of deaths spanning all the socioeconomic brackets. Maybe it was Trent’s idea of a Christmas present.

The girl before me looked underage, so I could either sic Health and Inderland Services on her or haul her ass down to the I.S. lockup. The latter might be fun, but it would put a real crimp in my afternoon of solstice shopping. I still didn’t know what to get Ivy. The boots, jeans, socks, underwear, and two sweaters on the counter were for Ceri. She was not going out with Keasley dressed in one of my T-shirts and pink fuzzy slippers.

The girl folded the last sweater, her bloodred manicure garish. Amulets clanked about her neck, but the complexion charm hiding her acne needed to be replaced. She must have been a warlock because a witch wouldn’t be caught dead with a bass-ackward charm like that. I glanced at my wooden pinky ring. It might be small, but it was now potent enough to hide my freckles through a minor spell check. Hack, I thought, feeling vastly better.

A hum rose from nowhere, and I felt smug that I didn’t jump like the register girl when Jenks all but fell onto the counter. He was wearing two black body stockings, one atop the other, and had a red hat and boots on against the chill. It was really too cold for him to be out, but Jih’s leaving had depressed him, and he’d never been solstice shopping before. My eyes widened as I took in the doll he had lugged to the counter. It was three times his size.

“Rache!” he exclaimed, puffing as he pushed the black-haired, curvaceous plastic homage to adolescent boys’ dreams upright. “Look what I found! It was in the toy department.”

“Jenks …” I cajoled, hearing the couple behind me snicker.

“It’s a Bite-me-Betty doll!” he exclaimed, his wings moving furiously to keep himself upright, his hands on the doll’s thighs. “I want it. I want to get it for Ivy. It looks just like her.”

Eyeing the shiny plastic leather skirt and red vinyl bustier, I took a breath to protest.

“Look, see?” he said, his voice excited. “You push the lever in her back, and fake blood squirts out. Isn’t it great!”

I started when a gelatinous goo jumped from the blank-eyed doll’s mouth, arching a good foot before hitting the counter. A red smear dripped down her pointy chin. The register girl eyed it, then hung up on her boyfriend. He wanted to give this to Ivy?

Pushing Ceri’s jeans out of the way, I sighed. Jenks hit the lever again, watching in rapt attention as red squirted out with a rude sound. The couple behind me laughed, the woman hanging on his arm and whispering in his ear. Warming, I grabbed the doll. “I’ll buy it for you if you stop that,” I all but hissed.

Eyes bright, Jenks rose up to land on my shoulder, tucking in between my neck and my scarf to stay warm. “She’s gonna love it,” he said. “You watch.”

Pushing it at the girl behind the counter, I glanced behind me at the tittering couple. They were living vamps, well-dressed and unable to go thirty seconds without touching each other. Knowing I was watching, the woman straightened the collar of his leather jacket to show off his lightly scarred neck. The thought of Nick brought a smile to me, the first time in weeks.

As the girl recalculated my total, I dug in my bag for my checkbook. It was nice having money. Real nice.

“Rache,” Jenks questioned, “can you put a bag of M&M’s in there, too?” His wings sent a cold draft against my neck as he set them vibrating to generate some body heat. It wasn’t as if he could wear a coat—not with those wings of his—and anything heavy was too limiting.

I snatched up a bag of overpriced candy whose hand-lettered cardboard sign said the sale would go to help rebuild the fire-damaged city shelters. I already had my total, but she could add it on. And if the vamps behind me had a problem with that, they could curl up and die twice. It was for orphans, for God’s sake.

The girl reached for the candy and beeped it, giving me a snotty look. The register chirped to give me the new total, and as they all waited, I flipped to the check register. Freezing, I blinked. It had been balanced with neat tidy numbers. I hadn’t bothered to keep a running total as I knew there was tons of money in it, but someone had. Then I brought it closer, staring. “That’s it?” I exclaimed. “That’s all I have left?”

Jenks cleared his throat. “Surprise,” he said weakly. “It was just laying there in your desk, and I thought I’d balance it for you.” He hesitated. “Sorry.”

“It’s almost gone!” I stammered, my face probably as red as my hair. The eyes of the register girl were suddenly wary.

Embarrassed, I finished writing out the check. She took it, calling her supervisor to run it through their system to make sure it was good. Behind me, the vamp couple started in with a snarky commentary. Ignoring them, I flipped through the check register to see where it went.

Almost two grand for my new desk and bedroom set, four more for insulating the church, and $3,500 for a garage for my new car; I wasn’t about to let it sit out in the snow. Then there was the insurance and gas. A big chunk went to Ivy for my back rent. Another chunk went to my night in the emergency room for my broken arm as I hadn’t had insurance at the time. A third chunk to get insurance. And the rest … I swallowed hard. There was money still in there, but I had enjoyed myself down from twenty thousand to high four figures in only three months.

“Um, Rache?” Jenks said. “I was going to ask you later, but I know this accounting guy. You want me to have him set up an IRA for you? I was looking at your finances, and you might need a shelter this year, seeing as you haven’t been taking anything out for taxes.”

“A tax shelter?” I felt sick. “There’s nothing left to put into it.” Taking my bags from the girl, I headed for the door. “And what are you doing looking at my finances?”

“I’m living in your desk,” he said wryly. “It’s kind of all out there?”

I sighed. My desk. My beautiful solid-oak desk with nooks and crannies and a secret cubby at the bottom of the left-hand drawer. My desk that I had used for only three weeks before Jenks and his brood moved into it. My desk, which was now so thickly covered in potted plants that it looked like a prop for a horror movie about killer plants taking over the world. But it was either that or have them set up housekeeping in the kitchen cupboards. No. Not my kitchen. Having them stage daily mock battles among the hanging pots and utensils was bad enough.

Distracted, I tugged my coat closer and squinted at the bright light reflecting off the snow as the sliding doors opened. “Whoa, wait up!” Jenks shrilled in my ear when the blast of cold air hit us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, witch? Do I look like I’m made of fur?”

“Sorry.” I made a quick left turn to get out of the draft and opened my shoulder bag for him. Still swearing, he dropped down to hide inside. He hated it, but there was no alternative. A sustained temp lower than forty-five degrees would throw him into a hibernation that would be unsafe to break until spring, but he should be all right in my bag.

A Were dressed in a thick wool coat that went to his boot tops edged from me with an uncomfortable look. When I tried to make eye contact, he pulled his cowboy hat down and turned away. A frown crossed me; I hadn’t had a Were client since I made the Howlers pay me for trying to get their mascot back. Maybe I’d made a mistake there.

“Hey, give me those M&M’s, okay?” Jenks grumbled up at me, his short blond hair framing delicate features reddened by the cold. “I’m starving here.”

I obediently shuffled through the bags and dropped the candy in to him before pulling the ties to my shoulder bag shut. I didn’t like bringing him out like this, but I was his partner, not his mom. He enjoyed being the only adult male pixy in Cincinnati not in a stupor. In his eyes, the entire city was probably his garden, as cold and snowy as it was.

I took a moment to dig my zebra-striped car key out from the front pocket. The couple that had been behind me in line passed me on their way out, flirting comfortably and looking like sex in leather. He had bought her a Bite-me-Betty doll, too, and they were laughing. My thoughts went to Nick again, and a warm stir of anticipation took me.

Putting my shades on against the glare, I went out to the sidewalk, keys jingling and bag held tight to me. Even making the trip in my bag, Jenks was going to get cold. I told myself I should make cookies so he could bask in the heat of the cooling oven. It had been ages since I’d made solstice cookies. I was sure I had seen some flour-smeared cookie cutters in a nasty zippy bag at the back of a cupboard somewhere. All I needed was the colored sugar to do it right.

My mood brightened at the sight of my car ankle-deep in crusty slush at the curb. Yeah, it was as expensive as a vampire princess to maintain, but it was mine and I looked really good sitting behind the wheel with the top down and the wind pulling my long hair back… . Not springing for the garage hadn’t been an option.