It Never Rhines but It Pours (18 page)

“Steeler?” Cecily asked, puzzled. “As in thieves?”

Sarah snorted, “No, oh ancient one, as in the football team.”

I kept my mouth shut. I had known that the Steelers were some sort of sports team, but I might have guessed baseball if asked. I’d never been big on sports and, thankfully, Mark wasn’t either. He loved to go out and play paintball, but he had zero interest in watching a football game on TV. I’ve seen one Super Bowl game, or at least, part of one. I had no idea what was going on. It seemed to be a lot of starting and stopping and commercials. The commercials were kind of fun, and it was definitely more interesting than watching, say, a golf game, but still: yawn. Why not just check the score after the game to see who won?

I parked the car and took a quick look around the lot. We were the only car there. Most of the spaces were occupied with motorcycles, Harleys seeming to be the favorite. If it wasn’t a motorcycle, it was a truck. Raised, camo-ed, muddied, painted with the Confederate flag, there was great variety in truck decor. I wondered if we would stand out as badly indoors as we did outdoors. Sarah was wearing blue jeans, but not the kind that a country girl would be caught dead in. Hers were skin tight, covered in skulls and bones up each leg, and had a couple of chains hanging from the pocket. Her black tank top was cut high on the bottom to reveal midriff and low in the neckline to reveal the lacy top of a hot pink bra. I seriously hoped that Sarah had used her ability to make my mother forget what her youngest daughter was wearing. I wouldn’t want Mom to have had a heart attack as soon as we walked out the door.

Cecily was the exact opposite. Flowered chiffon skirt, boat-neck blouse, and strappy stiletto heels. I was a little more normal looking in my jeans, flip-flops, and solid-color tee. Of course, that was normal for back in Melbourne. Here in the middle of the Ocala National Forest I had a feeling that normal might run more to bike leathers, or cowboy hats. Oh well, we weren’t trying to hide, so it didn’t matter if people stared.

“I’m not staying in the car,” Sarah said, pouting.

I watched a group of bikers swing off their Harleys and enter the
Tavern
in a loud, raucous group. “Yeah,” I agreed. “I don’t think you should stay in the car either.”

“What?” I had clearly taken the wind out of her prepared complaint.

“We’re all going in,” I said, and gave the best smile I could muster up for the moment. “We’re looking for Rainey, the bartender. We’d like her to point out Floyd to us. Clyde sent us.”

“Yeah, we were there too, Piper,” Sarah snipped. “You don’t have to spell everything out a gazillion times.”

I closed my eyes and briefly tried to imagine my happy place. A beach, with a lounge chair set up in the shade of a huge umbrella, waves lapping at my toes, good book in one hand, pina colada in the other … No nagging sister back-talking me. Heaven.

“Piper?” Cecily asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Let’s go in.”

As I reached out my hand for the door knob I could already hear the noise from within. I still wasn’t prepared for the wave of sound that crashed over us as I opened the door. The place was packed with people, mostly bikers, but quite a few cowboy hats as well. A band, consisting of lead guitarist, bass, drums, fiddle, and vocalist, was crammed up on a tiny stage, speakers blaring so loud it almost didn’t sound like music. A crush of people swayed and moved on what must have been a dance floor, and small tables littered the scene, covered in bottles and glasses, and surrounded by thirsty people. The bar ran along the back wall. Shelves of bottles lined the wall behind it and a large mirror gave it an old-timey feel.

I caught a glimpse of the woman working the bar as she poured foam off the top of a beer mug and topped it off. She was tall. Amazon tall. Six foot at least. She was far too curvy to be a supermodel, and was wearing clothing that could have been spray painted on. Her boobs were so firm and round that they had to be fake. Or at least, that’s what my jealous brain wanted to believe. Fake or not, the men clamoring for a drink didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they seemed to be looking for a smile and a word just as much as a beverage. Hopefully this was Rainey, although how she going to point out anything in this hubbub was beyond me.

Cecily started pushing through the crowd to the bar. She may look willowy, but the path cleared rapidly before her. Maybe it was her sharp elbows and heels, or maybe people’s instinct warned them to move when a vampire glared at them; either way, she got the job done. Sarah and I followed closely in her wake and arrived at the bar only slightly out of breath. The noise level was making my eyeballs quiver and I fervently hoped that we would be out of here quickly.

Per usual, Cecily waited for me to begin. I raised a hand tentatively. It had been years since the last time I had been in a bar, and that time had been pretty off-putting. I wasn’t quite sure how you got the bartender’s attention. Lucky for me, I had help.

“Well looky there, Loraine!” the speaker was a man dressed in a leather jacket with a … no, it couldn’t be. Yup. Okay, he really did have a naked woman spreading her legs on the back of his jacket. Nice. “Some city folk have graced us with their presence.”

The Amazon bartender, who must be Loraine, turned and stared straight at me. No doubt about it, we didn’t fit in. I gave her a slight finger wave. “Um, hi! Clyde said we should come talk to you.”

She gave me the one eyebrow lift. Dang it! I had to learn how to do that. It was so cool looking. “Did he now?” she drawled, not stopping in her drink mixing dance.

“Are you Rainie?” I asked after a suitable pause in which the woman filled a half dozen drink orders and the biker man moved from leering at me to leering at my kid sister.

“Who wants to know?” she asked.

“I’m Piper Cavanaugh, and I’m in town looking for Floyd,” I stuck my chin out a bit as I spoke. I was not going to be intimidated by some country hicks. At least, not any more than I already was.

“Floyd!” the biker laughed so loud he spewed beer from his nose. “Who’d want to find Floyd?”

I gave a patient smile, “Me. I said that already.”

There was a lull in the drink orders and Rainie pulled out a cloth and starting wiping down the counter. “What it’ll be?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“What it’ll be?” she said again. “You’re in my bar, taking up space. You’d better be ordering something.”

“Oh,” I looked helplessly at Cecily. I didn’t drink much. I had a very low tolerance for alcohol and a shot of vodka worked the same on me as a couple of sleeping pills. It was going to be a long night and I didn’t want to be falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home. Cecily shrugged, no help there. They probably didn’t serve blood here and I didn’t know what else she drank.

“Could I have a Diet Coke?” I asked, failing to remember the names of any cool sounding drinks I could order. What did it matter at this point? Blending in was not going to happen.

“Diet Coke?” Rainie repeated.

“Yes,” I said firmly.

“What’ll the jail bait have?” she asked.

Huh? I looked over my shoulder. Who was she talking about?

She tapped my arm. “The underage kid. What would she like?”

I felt Sarah bristle. I tried to quell her with a glance. She
was
underage. No sense in getting offended by the truth.

“She’ll have a regular Coke,” Sarah said snidely.

“All righty then,” Rainie filled our glasses smoothly. “You have five minutes to drink those and then I want you out of my place. On the house.”

I stared at her, unable to read the situation. Was she kicking us out? Or buying us drinks? What in the world was going on?

Rainie crossed her arms across her perky bosom and leaned forward across the counter. “I ain’t seen Floyd in here today, so I can’t help you there. But I can give you a friendly word of warning, if you’re of a mind to listen. Floyd is trouble. He’s dumb as a skunk and gets people riled up about as fast. Always spouting off crazy ideas and causin’ trouble. You want to steer clear of him if you can. And that’s my last word.”

I was at a total loss. Our one lead, flimsy though it had been, had just petered out and we had nothing. Fortunately, Cecily had brought a back-up plan.

“One more question, and we’ll be out of your hair,” she said, stepping forward.

Rainie gave her the once over and obviously found her amusing. She was probably classifying her as a prissy, city girl. Hopefully Cecily’s lethal side would have no reason to emerge here in the bar, so Rainie was welcome to her misjudgment. “What’s your question, princess?”

Cecily smiled, “Have you ever seen this man?” She pulled out a photograph and placed it gently on the bar top. I glanced over her arm and recognized Pravus.

Rainie picked up the photo and made a big show of studying it. “Now there I can help you,” she said. “This here is Richard. He’s got some kinfolk up off Airport Road. Comes in about once a year or so to visit. Nice man.”

Nice man! I choked a bit on my coke. She was a lousy judge of character!

“Cousin Richard has family here?” Sarah broke it, with a girlish giggle. “Imagine that! You wouldn’t happen to know their names would you?”

“The Peersons. Mom and a little boy. Keep to themselves mostly. Quiet folks but seem like real nice people.” Rainie was quickly losing interest in our conversation. “Now, if you’re finished I’d thank you for leaving. I don’t want no trouble with the police here. And you,” she pointed at Sarah, “next time you come in here I want you to be twenty-one.”

I was completely happy to get out of there as fast as possible. The door shut the noise behind us and the sounds of crickets and frogs could not have been more welcome.

“That went well,” Sarah frowned.

I made a rueful face. “Actually, I think it went better than it could have.”

Cecily nodded, “Then we are agreed on the next step.”

“We didn’t find Floyd!” Sarah pointed out in exasperation. “How are we supposed to discover what the suspicious sightings have been?”

Cecily smiled. “The Peersons. They have to be the supernatural creatures.”

“Why else would Pravus be visiting them?” I asked.

“Yes. He’s not here for his health. You really think that he has family living here, and that, even if he did, he would be stopping by for a visit?” This last was addressed to Sarah.

“Oh,” she said shortly. “Right.”

“Leave the detecting to your elders!” I said cheerily, slapping her on the back and getting a snarl in return. “The game is a foot!”

We were all grateful for the car’s air conditioning after the brief mugginess of the parking lot. Cecily entered Airport Road into the navigational GPS and it showed up as a few miles back the way we had come. It was full dark now, and dark in the country is a completely different dark than in the city. I had always thought that Melbourne was a rather small town. Now, I couldn’t wait to get back to street lights, and store lights, hey, even headlights. There was nothing out here, and nobody around.

We made the turn onto a smaller two lane road that dropped us onto Airport Road. It was an even smaller road, covered in pot holes. I suppose I should have been grateful for the lack of traffic, for if we had met someone head on we might have brushed side mirrors with them trying to squeeze past. If possible, this was even more remote and dark than the road we had left.

“Uh, Cecily,” I said nervously, as a large shape swooped across the road in front us. “We don’t really have an address.”

She peered through the front windshield and I wondered if she was capable of seeing more in the dark than I could. “Do you think an address would help?” she asked.

“They are usually beneficial when trying to find a house,” I snipped.

“Yes, but look around. Do you see any other address that would give you a frame of reference to know whether you were traveling the correct way?”

She had a point. Without other houses or buildings around an address would be pretty useless. “Then how do you know that we
are
traveling in the right direction?” I asked. So help me, if we came around a bend in the road to have my headlights light up some figure standing there waiting with a machete in its hands, I would … I don’t know what I would do. Probably scream. Screaming is always good.

“Why are you nervous?” Cecily asked, genuinely puzzled.

“Oh, come on!” Sarah was clearly nervous too. “They could have filmed the Blair Witch Project here!”

“And that’s bad?”

“No, that’s creepy. This is a creepy place.”

I was glad that I wasn’t the only one having horror movie flashbacks.

Cecily rolled her eyes. “The place is not creepy. It is merely dark. You humans are always afraid of that which you cannot see.”

“With good reason, turns out,” I muttered.

“Hey!” Sarah leaned between the seats, pointing. “Is that a house?”

Through the trees and brush a faint light could be seen, illuminating what looked to be the side of a building. We drove a little further looking for a driveway. Nothing.

“Maybe we passed it,” I guessed and spent the next five minutes attempting to do a three point turn which turned into more like a fifteen point turn. Finally pointing back the correct way, I drove slowly, trying to watch both sides of the road at once.