Autumn Bones (Agent of Hel #2)

Autumn Bones (Agent of Hel #2) Page 49

Funny how different things are when you’re an adult. This year, the remaining days of September fled.

It’s not like anything of note happened. I spent most of my time going through the X-Files, inputting data into the Pemkowet Ledger. It gave me a sense of satisfaction to see the database growing from a vague inkling of an idea into a useful, searchable tool. Plus, I was getting paid for doing the work.

I’m happy to say that I also helped Jen move out of her parents’ house. After a lot of soul-searching, several long talks with her brother, and a visit to Sinclair’s place to get a tour of his spare room and the battery of magical protections Casimir and his coven had implemented, she decided it was time. When I reminded her that dear Emmy’s return was just around the bend, she shrugged.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I plan on making myself scarce. But if that doesn’t work, right now I figure when it comes to hostile sorceresses, Sinclair’s is now officially the safest place in town.”

She had a point.

I would have spent time helping Mrs. Hastings, Lee’s mom. At the emergency room the night of Bethany’s rising, it turned out that Lee had a broken ulna. It was a simple fracture and the orthopedist on call assured him that he’d be fine after six weeks in a cast, but it meant that it was difficult for him to assist his mom with some of her household chores, which was his whole purpose in moving back to Pemkowet.

Of course, I volunteered, thinking that an elderly widow—actually, she was only in her late fifties, but she was one of those women who’d seemed old and crabby her entire life—half-crippled by rheumatoid arthritis would be grateful for the offer. I mean, you’d think so, right?

Not a chance.

She informed Lee in no uncertain terms that no spawn of Satan would ever darken her door and that he should have nothing further to do with me, and hinted broadly that he should move back into her house while his arm healed, which would make it easier for him to wait on her.

Lee refused in equally uncertain terms. Maybe he’d been a bit of a mama’s boy in high school, but no matter how strong a sense of filial duty she’d instilled in him, there was no way he was going to let himself slip back under her thumb.

No wonder he bought his own place. I found a solution by volunteering Jen in my stead, which turned out to be perfectly acceptable to Mrs. Hastings. Since Jen felt we all owed Lee for his successful artificial-sunlight intervention, she was amenable as long as I agreed to help her pack up her stuff.

Other than clothing, there wasn’t that much of it. Granted, the LeBaron had a big trunk, but come moving day, it only took us two trips.

“Oh, my God.” Jen stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the contents of her new room. “My life to date is pathetic.”

I perched on the edge of the sagging mattress. “At least it’s furnished.”

“I don’t have sheets.”

“We’ll get you sheets,” I said. “You can buy them at the dollar store now, remember? And socks. And underwear.”

It was an old joke in Pemkowet—you could buy a ten-thousand-dollar painting here, but there was no place to buy socks. Until the Dollar General opened on the outskirts of town a few years ago, it was true. Not a particularly funny joke if you grew up without a lot of money and had to worry about filling your tank with gas to drive to Appeldoorn to shop for sheets and underwear. There are downsides to living in a beautiful resort filled with boutiques and galleries.

Jen smiled reluctantly. “Probably pretty crappy sheets.”

“Probably.”

She sighed. “I should have done this years ago, shouldn’t I?”

I shrugged. “Jen, if you hadn’t been there when Brandon ran away to hide in the swamp earlier this summer, Meg Mucklebones might have eaten him. So who knows?” I paused. “He has promised not to do that again, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And he’s okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “As much as he can be. Playing a lot of video games.” She smiled again, her expression softening. “He and some friends are working out some big pseudo-military strategy for the annual Easties vs. Townies Halloween battle. Something about an industrial-strength water-balloon launcher.”

I raised a fist. “Go, Easties.”

The front door opened and closed, and a few seconds later Sinclair poked his head into the spare bedroom, his dreads rattling faintly. A local glass artist who dabbled in talismans had made specially sized blue-and-white evil-eye beads for him. “Hey, roomie,” he said to Jen, hoisting a six-pack of beer. “Would you two care for a welcoming libation?”

“Sounds great.”

Okay, even though this was entirely my idea, I admit it, I felt a pang of jealousy. Sinclair looked good. He smelled good. Well, mostly he smelled like rosemary, which might just have been his weekly hair treatment but could have come from working in Warren Rogers’s nursery, which specialized in herbs and perennials.

Oh, well. I didn’t regret my decision, but I figured I was allowed to feel a little proprietary.

The weather had taken a turn for the warmer to usher out the month of September. The three of us sat on the back deck on rusty patio furniture, drinking our beers while Sinclair outlined the plans for the garden he intended to plant in the spring. It would be a combination of herbs for both magical and culinary purposes, a small but dense vegetable garden, a few perennials, and plenty of naturalized native species to beautify the place. He’d already gotten the go-ahead from his landlord.

We talked about improved home furnishings and the best places to salvage decent stuff at a good price—I had a lot of experience in that area. We talked about Lee’s offer to hire Jen on a more permanent basis as a caregiver to his mother, and whether or not dealing with a cantankerous old biddy was worth getting out of the Cassopolis family business of housekeeping. We confessed to the worst guilty pleasures in our television-watching lives—Sinclair’s was an outrageous Japanese game show neither of us had heard of, Jen’s dated all the way back to Dawson’s Creek, mine was Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. There’s just something so cathartic about the furious way Gordon swears when he’s worked up.

Eventually, it became obvious that there was one major topic we were deliberately avoiding.

It was Sinclair who broached it. “So I’ve been thinking about Emmy,” he said in a casual tone. “And I wonder if maybe we aren’t overreacting a bit.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve been talking it over with my dad,” he said. “It really reminded me that this is a family matter. And he wants to be involved,” he said. “He’d like a chance to talk to her before we assume the worst.” He took a drink of beer. “I’d like that, too.”

“Your sister issued a pretty clear ultimatum,” I said. “Does your dad think he can talk her out of it?”

Sinclair shrugged. “Like I said, he’d like the chance to try. It can’t hurt. No matter when she shows, he can be here in within the hour.”

I looked at Jen.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “If I’ve learned anything this month, it’s that I know fuck-all about sisters.”

“See, here’s the thing,” I said slowly. “Your sister crossed a line when she went after me. I’m not just some girl, hell-spawn or not, you happened to be dating. I represent Hel’s authority in Pemkowet.”

Sinclair glanced at me. “You don’t think Hel would appreciate a peaceful resolution to this?”

“It’s not that.” I shook my head. “When I told Emmy to leave town, I also told her she wasn’t welcome back here. I can’t back down on that at the eleventh hour. I can’t totally abdicate my authority.”

“No one’s asking you to.” He looked away, picking absently at the label on his beer bottle. Jen murmured something about getting another beer and made a discreet exit. “I’m just asking for a little time for my father and me to negotiate with her before we send in the cavalry. Is that so unreasonable?”

I sighed. “I guess not. But I do think I should at least be there as an official presence. And I want the, um, cavalry in shouting distance.”

“Deal!” Sinclair said promptly.

“Why the change of heart?” I asked him. “Was it just talking to your dad?”

“Mostly.” He took another pull on his beer. “With him on board, I really do think it might be our best chance of talking Emmy out of doing something foolish. But do you remember me saying that magic was more powerful here in Pemkowet?” I nodded. There was a rustling in the overgrown patch of wildflowers along the fence at the back of the yard. A chicory fairy’s head poked over the top, her blue hair—if you could call it that—looking like a chicory-flower-shaped cap. “Hey!” Sinclair smiled. “Quit spying, you.” Reaching down, he picked up an acorn that had fallen onto the deck from the big oak in his neighbor’s yard and shied it at the fairy. She dodged it with a high-pitched trilling giggle, translucent wings blurring like a hummingbird’s, then blew him a kiss and vanished in a puff of glittery dust.

I’m telling you, those fucking fairies really love Sinclair.

“So you’re afraid Emmy’s going to be too strong to handle here?” I asked him. “Even for the whole coven?”

“Not exactly.” He frowned. “Island magic is unpredictable anyway. The coven asked me what would happen if Emmy tried to unleash a duppy here. Truth is, I don’t know. And I don’t want to take a chance on finding out. She might set loose more than she can handle.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Sinclair repeated. “I just know there could be repercussions. On a primordial level, everything’s connected.”

Catching sight of Jen hovering behind the screen door, I beckoned to her. “It’s okay. We’re just talking about what would happen if Emmy succeeded in turning a duppy loose in Pemkowet.”