Honeymoon of the Dead (15 page)

Because that felt far too true, I got mad. “You think I’m an irresponsible witch.”

“That’s not what I said,” Sebastian shot back quickly. “I hate that you always jump to conclusions.”

This fight had clearly been brewing under the surface. “Well, you always have to be right.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed to angry slits, and I had to resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him like a petulant child. We drove the rest of the way back to the hotel in stony silence.

 

 

I was so upset about our fight that I had nearly forgot
ten about the state I left the hotel room in. Sebastian stood staring at the ragged carpet and torn curtains, his face slowly turning purple with rage.

“Uh,” I said. “Lilith was really upset when you left.”

“Of all the stupid, irresponsible things . . .” There was that word again, the one I’d been brooding on. The blush on my face deepened in shame as he continued. “How could you let Her out?”

Irresponsible
was becoming one of my least favorite words in the English language. Especially since, in this one case, I thought it was undeserved. “You have no idea how hard it was to keep Her from killing those Homeland Security guys.”

“Oh, well, thanks for that.”

His snotty tone had me seeing red, and I got the distinct impression that Lilith would be more than happy to explain Her actions to him directly. I gritted my teeth. Despite what Sebastian might think, unleashing Lilith was a responsibility I took incredibly seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I wasn’t about to let Her at him, no matter how satisfying it might seem in theory.

When I spied my swimsuit hanging on the closet-door handle, I grabbed it and stomped off in the direction of the hotel’s pool. “We can talk about this later,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m going away. Swimming. Or something.”

“Typical,” I heard him mutter as I jabbed my finger on the elevator button. Over his shoulder, he said louder, “I’ll just take care of everything, shall I?”

The elevator doors swooshed open. “You do that,” I shouted, stepping in.

“Fine,” he said.

“Fine,” I agreed as the doors closed with a ding.

 

 

Our first fight as a married couple had put me in a
foul mood. I figured after a good soak in the whirlpool, I could head back upstairs and see if Sebastian had calmed down enough that we could have a reasonable discussion. In the public changing room near the pool, I slipped into my swimsuit.

Since I didn’t have a lock for the locker, I decided to bundle everything under my arm and carry it with me, except my sparkly underwear kept slipping out and falling on the floor. And when I went to pick those up, I dropped my shoes.

Worse, when I accidentally brushed against someone’s extended foot, I discovered the Sun God Apollo seemed to be lounging poolside with me. As I got up to head to the Jacuzzi for a long soak, feeling rather exasperated, I said to him, “Don’t you have a golden chariot to ride or something?”

He glanced at me over the rim of his glasses with a look of pure arrogance. With a strong Italian accent, he said, “Listen, sister, sun’s down, if you haven’t noticed.”

I stopped in my tracks. I hadn’t expected a response, and certainly not one that seemed to confirm that my visions weren’t just the hallucinations of a crazy lady. I probably should have taken the opportunity to ask him how it was that I could perceive his holy presence, but instead I blurted out, “You speak English? What are you doing in Minnesota, anyway?”

“I am everywhere and nowhere,” he said in a voice that sounded like a thousand people speaking at once. “Part of everyone and everything, and yet not.”

Surprised by the voice, I stepped back. The image of the gorgeous, golden-haired God shimmered, like heat coming off asphalt in the summer. Then he vaporized. A portly guy with wiry black hair and blue and white striped swim trunks sat blinking at me in confusion. He said in a harsh Boston accent, “Can I help you, lady?”

“Sorry,” I murmured, scurrying to the Jacuzzi. The former God’s eyes followed my progress into the foamy water. Then, with a shake of his head, he returned to the book he’d been reading, some spy thriller from the look of the cover.

I sank into the superheated water and tried not to keep looking over at the guy who once was Apollo. I had a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because, thanks to the God’s words, I was beginning to understand my second sight. The answer lay deep inside my religious beliefs. I was seeing the “divine spark” that existed in everyone.

There was a story that was told about how the Goddess, desiring to experience and merge with the world, broke Herself into a million pieces and fell to earth. Everything living contained a bit of that divine spark, which, in turn, longed to be reunited to the Goddess.

I’d always believed that story because I liked the empowering idea of being one with the Goddess, but I’d always thought of it as, well, a metaphor. Maybe it still was, I told myself. I mean, just because when I touched someone I could see the God or Goddess within them, it didn’t mean that image wasn’t just their ideal core manifesting itself as a vision to me.

Of course, that whole they’re-just-metaphors idea might be easier to buy if the God hadn’t just spoken right to me.

I sank deeper into the bubbly water, trying to hide from the truth.

Despite living every day with a Goddess, I tended to mentally distance myself from the idea that, well, you know, all that was really real. It was, I suppose, another veil my mind just wasn’t quite ready to cross. Vampires and ghosts and zombies seemed easier to accept, I think, because they were part of the darker side of nature.

It’s like that personality test. It’s always far easier to list the things about yourself that you hate. You can come up with five without even batting an eye. But when the tables turn and you have to list a similar number of positive attributes, the brain seizes up. You sputter. You realize this is hard, and it shouldn’t be.

That’s how I felt about acknowledging the divine presence.

It shouldn’t be so difficult. I was on a first-name basis with at least one Goddess who, quite literally, was within me. But, see, that was the crux of the problem.

What if Lilith came to me that night when the witch hunters attacked and I called to any Goddess in desperation because like attracts like?

What if She, the Mother of Demons, was my personal inner reflection of the divine spark?

What did that say about who I was at the core of my being?

A few days ago I would have replied nothing and made the case that Lilith and I were like dark and light, polar opposites. But I was beginning to suspect that I didn’t really know myself as well as I thought.

I’d certainly come face to face with a past I wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

As if on cue, I saw Larkin waving at me from across the pool.

What was he doing here? I wondered, lifting my hand in a halfhearted return wave. Larkin took my response as an invitation, and he came over to the whirlpool. He wore a sporty red and blue ski jacket, like he’d just come to the pool from outside.

“I heard about the ritual. Are you okay?” he asked, crouching down on the concrete edge of the pool.

“Uh, yeah, fine. Although thanks for nothing. You didn’t tell me Liza would be there,” I said.

“Yeah, you know, it never occurred to me. She’s been kind of out of the pagan community since everything went down. Talk about bad luck.” He stared at the bubbles of the Jacuzzi’s water for a moment, and I sensed he had something more serious on his mind. Finally, he looked up and asked, “Can I buy you a drink? I’d really like to talk.”

“About what?”

“Some closure?” he sounded doubtful that it was even possible. “That whole thing between you and me was so long ago. I thought maybe it might be time to bury it.”

Bury? That sounded ominous, but he seemed to be struggling for the right words. I saw a range of emotions play across his face. It would be nice to put the past behind us. I’d like to show Larkin the kind of woman I could be, given a chance.

I was about to agree when he added, “Or I bet that new husband of yours would love to hear about your casual infidelities.”

My mouth hung open. “You can’t threaten me with exposure. I already told him about you and me and Liza.”

“But does he know you had a boyfriend at the time?”

Was that true?

“Sebastian wouldn’t care,” I said, even as I pulled myself up out of the superheated water. Goose pimples rose on my skin from the temperature difference, and I grabbed my nearby towel.

“Are you sure about that? Because I’d be happy to fill him in on every little detail.” Larkin stepped closer to me. I thought I caught a whiff of cheap beer.

“Are you drunk? I thought you came here to make amends.”

He seemed to find the idea amusing. “I came here because I have some things I want to say to you that you need to hear.”

The guy-who-was-also-Apollo watched us with a nosy, annoyed expression. We must have looked quite the sight with me in my yellow one-piece and Larkin in his puffy ski jacket. He had the look of a guy who might call security on Larkin and me. I didn’t want to cause any more trouble with the hotel. Sebastian and I were already in it deep thanks to Lilith.

“I’ll meet you in the bar. Just give me a minute to change.”

“You’re not ditching me that easily. I’m coming with you.”

“Not into the women’s locker room you aren’t.”

“Just put your clothes on here—over your suit.”

I snuck a peek at the Apollo guy, who seemed to be hunting around for his cell phone. “Okay, okay!”

I quickly pulled my shirt over my head and shimmied into my jeans. They stuck to my wet hips and I had to tug at them, all the time Larkin stood there. That left me holding my lacy bra and my thong underwear. Larkin seemed ready to smirk, so I wadded them into a ball and hid them under my towel.

“Let’s go,” I said, sliding my bare feet into my tennis shoes. The insoles squished uncomfortably as I walked, and water instantly soaked through my shirt at my breasts.

When we came to the bar, the waiter took one look at my damp breasts and sneered at me like I was the tramp who wandered in off the streets instead of Larkin. He had the kind of darkly handsome, haughty look of someone who might be a waiter but really an actor. I thought he might actually turn us away, so I showed him my key card and said, “We’ll start a tab. Put it on my room.”

The waiter’s attitude changed the instant he realized exactly what room I was staying in. He showed us to a very private booth with a view of the park and all but bowed and scraped his way back to the bar.

“This place sure is fancy,” Larkin said, looking a bit wonderstruck. For a moment he reminded me of the guy I used to like.

That made me irritated. I didn’t want to like the guy who had basically blackmailed me into having a drink with him—for what? Closure? Yeah, could we get on with getting to the end of this? “What did you want?”

“To buy you a drink,” he said, standing up. “I’ll get something from the bar.”

I was about to explain we could just sit tight because the waiter would pretty much bring us anything we asked for short of the Taj Mahal. But Larkin was already halfway across the room. Hopefully he would make a complete fool of himself as well as forget to charge it to my room.

I drummed my fingers on the linen tablecloth while my swimsuit soaked through the seat of my pants, probably staining the satin seat cover. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten that I was dating someone during the whole Larkin/Liza scandal. But I couldn’t have told you his name right now if my life depended on it.

I guess that just proved what a heel I used to be.

Across the street in the park, ice-skaters swished and swirled under a brilliant floodlight. My eyes tracked their graceful movements, but my mind whirled. What would Sebastian say about it all? I’d like to think he’d laugh it off and tell Larkin where to stick it because he knew he had nothing to worry about.

But if I was honest with myself, I’d have to admit monogamy wasn’t my strong suit. I like men. I’m a shameless flirt. And I tended to have trouble with “good- bye.” My relationships always had some residual entanglements. Even though we broke up, Parrish kept showing up in my living room, declaring his undying affection. Though I shattered the love spell with Dominguez, he claimed to still love me. Much like Larkin, actually.

Sebastian might make that connection too and see a pattern. It would not be a favorable one either. What if between this disastrous honeymoon, the hotel, and what Larkin might say about my past behavior, Sebastian decided I wasn’t worth the hassle?

Here I’d been worrying about what Lilith was doing to my marriage. Perhaps I should have been worrying about my own contributions.

Larkin returned to the table with two crystal glasses full of amber-colored liquid. He must have been able to persuade the waiters to let him bring over the drinks himself.

“I’m usually more of a beer girl,” I noted unhappily. The lights in the restaurant were dimmed, and a candle in a cut-glass holder flickered softly as Larkin slid into the seat opposite me. A few men in business suits sat at the bar, but otherwise the place was quiet.

“It’s the happy hour special.” Larkin shrugged.

I noticed the others at the bar seemed to be drinking something similar, so I nodded and took an experimental sip. The alcohol was smooth, rich, and warmed my throat. “Good stuff,” I said. I wasn’t much of a hard liquor connoisseur, so I asked, “Brandy?”

Larkin nodded. His head was bowed and his fingers wrapped tightly around the glass, as though he were praying to it.

Larkin took a long swallow and then began. “It’s like this,” he said. “When I found out that you were supposed to be dead, I thought you’d gotten off lightly.”