Romancing The Dead (12 page)

I leaned against the stained Formica counter, and asked, “What’s the deal with Micah?”

William laughed. He reached around me to grab a bread knife. “Jeez, Garnet, just because the guy’s a Native American doesn’t mean he can’t be into Wicca. For all we know, he was raised a Lutheran.”

I stared at William as he cut the bread. Wasn’t he as surprised as I that Micah was here
at all
? “No, I mean, who invited him?

How did he get in?”

William stopped and gave me a hard look. “What are you talking about? He walked in the door, like everyone else.”

It suddenly dawned on me that somehow William thought Micah had been part of the group from the beginning. “He’s the wolf!”

“Yeah, he
is
kind of a fox, and I don’t even mostly go that way.”

I gave up. Clearly, Micah was using Jedi mind tricks on my coven. Enough with trying to convince William otherwise; I was going to the source. Ducking under the sheet, I burst into the living room and made a beeline for Micah. He saw me coming; I heard him make excuses to Marge. Turning away from her startled face, he met me halfway. We faced off over the card table full of crackers with signs of the zodiac done in Easy Cheese.

“I know you’ve been following me,” I said.

A smile quirked at the edge of his lips, like he found my anger amusing. He failed to sound entirely innocent when he said, “Me?”

“You, your wolf, whatever.”

Standing this close to him, I discovered that I was mostly looking into Micah’s chest, which, thanks to the muscle shirt, I could see most of. I pulled my eyes away from the broad, strong line of his collarbone; it distracted me from my anger.

“Coyote, actually.” His maddening smile widened. “I’m used to a lot more denial before we get to this part.”

“Yeah, well, I’m special.”

His look turned lascivious. “Yeah, I can see that.”

I tried really hard not to blush. I didn’t want to respond this way and I really didn’t want Micah to notice that I was. So I blurted,

“Well, I’m used to you supernatural types. My fiancée is a vampire.”

Turns out he had slight dimples when he smiled sarcastically. “You’re just full of surprises.”

“So come clean,” I said. “Why are you following me?”

He looked me over from head to foot. “Is everything always about you?”

I thought I was ready for anything he might say, but I wasn’t expecting to be accused of being a drama queen. My resolve faltered. I started to wonder if he was right. Maybe I was overreacting; maybe it was all just coincidence, maybe . . . Maybe he looked awfully smug right now.

My brows drew into a deep frown, and I planted my fists on my hips. “Artful dodge,” I said. “But I’m not falling for it. You infiltrated this group. You’ve fooled everyone into thinking you’ve always been here. You’re after something. If it’s not me, why have I run into you on three separate occasions?”

His expression grew serious and the muscle of his jaw twitched. “I want something you have. And you’re going to give it to me.”

Marge suddenly stood just at my elbow. “Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

Micah and I both gave her the hello-we-were-talking-here glare. Couldn’t she see we were in the middle of something? Then, I remembered that this was Marge. If it was social, she had no clue.

“My grandmother says we have Native American somewhere back in the family tree,” Marge told Micah. I pinched the bridge of my nose in sympathetic embarrassment.

“Cool,” Micah said without any trace of irritation. Reaching down, he picked up the tray of cheese and crackers. Without a second’s hesitation, Micah strode to the kitchen as though he’d been on an errand to refresh the plate all along. Smooth exit.

I envied him.

Suitably encouraged, Marge began to tell me her entire family history. I tried to move away, but Marge followed me, talking the whole time. I was pinioned between two sofas when I caught sight of Micah coming out of the kitchen munching on fresh bread. He gave me a little “gotcha” wink.

Luckily before Marge got too much beyond Great -aunt Tillie or whoever, William called everyone back to order. The seats shuffled and I ended up on the floor with my back against the bookshelves. Micah sat in his spot on the couch directly across from me and smirked. Marge and her friend Max had settled in beside him. I noticed Marge taking surreptitious glances at Micah ’s physique. She shifted, as though to snuggle closer. Our eyes met, and I gave her a you-go-for-it-girl smile. Marge’s eyes widened, like she’d been caught doing something illegal. I glanced at Max, who was taking notes on what William was saying. He seemed oblivious or unconcerned or both. When Marge shrank back from Micah guiltily, I figured she and Max must be more than friends. When William started in on meeting schedules and volunteers for snacks, I decided it was time to give Micah the aura squint. Light exploded everywhere. Instinctively, I turned and ducked. I probably made some kind of noise. All I know is that for a moment I thought that the sun had gone supernova or the apartment had been engulfed in flames. When my body didn’t atomize, I pulled myself upright. Everyone stared at me. Micah’s head cocked to the side curiously.

“Uh, Garnet?” William asked. “So, you think Sebastian will have some problem hosting at his place next time?”

Is that what we’d been talking about? I rubbed my eyes. I felt like I should have spots dancing in front of my vision, but, of course, there had been no real explosion of light. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, if he’s back. Thing is, I’m not exactly sure where he is.”

I don’t know why I’d added that last part. Maybe I hoped someone in the room might have a clue as to Sebastian’s whereabouts, or maybe I just wanted a little sympathy.

I got it. Everyone was very concerned. They asked all the right questions about when I’d last seen him and whether or not he did this sort of thing a lot. I told the truth, even mostly explaining my surprise visit with Larry and Walter. I wasn’t quite up to confessing my fear that Sebastian was off with a ghoul, because I didn’t want to seem petty, and anyway, that seemed a bit like airing our dirty laundry. Not to mention that no one believed he was a real vampire.

Marge, the ever socially awkward, pointed to my bandages and said, “Did you two have a fight or something?”

I supposed it was a reasonable question, but I was getting tired of people looking at me like I was some kind of abused wife. “I know you won’t believe me, but this was totally unrelated. A wind chime tried to choke me.”

People looked away. Marge shifted in her seat, and nervously adjusted her glasses. Xylia seethed.

“It’s true,” William said in my defense. “I was there. It was the strangest thing.”

William took the floor and regaled the coven with the story of the amazing choking chime and how Lilith had come to the rescue. After he finished everyone stared at me again. I nodded confirmation. “Yeah, it was weird.”

“Sounds like a magical attack.” Griffin said. As usual, Griffin had ensconced himself in a darkly lit corner. William had a high-back chair that had dark red curtains festooned around it, and Griffin sat in it like a Viking on a throne. He even held his ice tea as though it were a goblet. “Does Lilith have any enemies? Do you?”

Now that Griffin mentioned it, I remembered Lilith’s growl just before the wind chime fell. Had Lilith been trying to warn me of a magical assault?

“There’s the Vatican,” William said. “You said Mátyás was back, Garnet. Do you think he’s still working for the order?”

At the mention of the order, the tension in the room spiked. “We haven’t been very careful,” someone muttered. “We’ve only been using first names, but we’d be easy to find,” Xylia agreed.

I had to raise my voice to be heard over the murmuring. “I don’t think it was the order. The attack was too subtle, too magical. They don’t like to use their sensitives as offense, only for defense. It’s very unlikely they’d engage in supernatural warfare.”

“If you’ve been a target before, you can’t rule them out,” Griffin said.

“My case is closed,” I explained. “They think I’m dead.”

I ended up having to explain how Sebastian and I had used a blood-binding spell to fool the order into believing they’d killed us, so it was a while before we got back on track. Micah, I noticed, sat silently through my entire explanation, as had Marge. William, with his ever-present agenda, steered the conversation back. “What should we do about the next meeting? What if Sebastian is still missing?”

Micah surprised me by saying, “We should plan to meet at his place regardless. You’ve got a key, right?” he asked, and I nodded.

“If he hasn’t turned up, we could perform a spell of finding. His house would make a great focus.”

“It would,” I agreed, somewhat surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself.

“Are you sure we should try something so complex first?” Griffin asked. “The group cohesiveness isn’t really formed yet.”

“Nothing like a baptism of fire, I say,” Micah interjected. That wolfish grin held a touch of challenge. Griffin—none of us, really—could resist. “You’re on.”

After a few more administrative details had been ironed out, like the fact that we’d need a preritual meeting at my place, the formal meeting broke up. Even though it was well after midnight, everyone was too keyed up to leave. At some point pizza got ordered and beer materialized. Someone, perhaps Xylia, started mixing Long Island ice teas. People had broken up into groups, and laughter blended with the fusion jazz William had tuned in via satellite radio. I wanted to stay—in fact, I felt sort of like this was one of those bonding moments for the coven—but I was exhausted. The last thing I wanted was a repeat of last night’s hangover, plus Griffin’s question about enemies had put me on edge. Could Mátyás be playing me? Was all his niceness an act to lure me into some kind of trap with the order? Had they already nabbed Sebastian?

That last thought made my mind race. What if Sebastian was in real trouble? I ’d been all too willing to believe a ghoul might be involved, but what if it were something even more sinister? The order knew how to transfix Sebastian. They’d done it before. There was still a sawed-off hunk of crossbow bolt stuck in my apartment wall to prove it. The image of Sebastian hanging by a stake completely at the mercy of those creeps from the order freaked me out. I needed to go home and try the astral plane again, anything to see if I could figure out where he was and if he was okay.

So I quickly made my good-byes to William and the others. Stepping out into the darkness, the heat of the summer settled in close after the cool of the air-conditioned apartment. I gripped the two-by-four railing and began picking my way down the steep steps.

“Let me walk you home,” Micah said, coming out of the door a moment behind me.

He loped down the steps two at a time, making the whole structure shake. I fearfully scurried down the last few steps to avoid a collision.

“I’m okay on my own,” I said, though it was the time of night when it was definitely friendlier with two. Then, I halted midstep as he came up beside me. “Hey, how did you know that I walk home?”

The streetlight that threw harsh light between the houses revealed Micah’s wry expression. “I’m stalking you, remember?”

“Yeah, tell me why that is again?”

He turned his head so that he kind of looked at me out of the corner of his narrowed eyes. “You’re stuck with a Goddess you don’t want, and I can take her off your hands.”

5.

Ceres

KEYWORDS:
Creativity, Politics, and Family Bonds

I’d never had an offer quite like that one, and I didn’t know what to say to it. “Uh, what do you mean? And, er, how?”

“So you’re interested?”

Was I? I’d often said Lilith was a curse. Having Lilith meant always having to watch my temper, lest she escape and kill someone. I put my hand over my stomach, as if I could cover Lilith’s ears. “I don’t know. Could you really do it?”

Micah jerked his head in the direction of the street, toward which neither of us had made a move. In fact, we ’d stood still long enough that a cloud of gnats had found us. “Why don’t I explain it as we walk?”

Even this close to the university, most houses were quiet and dark at this hour. Crickets hushed as we passed, resuming their song at our heels.

“I could do it,” Micah said after we’d walked a while. “Though it depends. Have you bonded with Lilith yet?”

We walked up a slight hill. The houses on this block were a mishmash of Victorians and more simple turn -of-the-century four squares. The level of upkeep varied, as well. In the darkness, battered gables, torn screens, and listing porches loomed like haunted mansions. I quickened my pace.

What did that mean? Was Micah asking if Lilith and I had traded wacky stories about ex-boyfriends and pets over lattes? “Um, I don’t think we have.”

“You would know,” Micah said cryptically.

It almost sounded like he had experience with having a resident Goddess. Giving him a sidelong glance, I remembered the blast of pure white light of his aura. “What are you exactly? What’s the deal with the coyote? Are you a werewolf?”

“Coyote. And, no, among my many talents, I’m a skin walker.”

A freight train whistle sounded in the distance. The muffled clack of the rails echoed under the canopy of shadowed leaves.

“So, you shape-shift? How can you”—I waved my arms along the long, lean length of his body —“become something half your size? Where does the rest of you go? Doesn’t that violate the law of conservation of matter or something like that?”

He gave a snort of startled amusement. “It probably would, if it weren’t magic.”

The moon had begun to set. Round and full, it hovered above the leaves of a sugar maple. Lilith shivered across my belly. If there was a true believer, it was me. Still, I had a hard time with the idea. “Seriously?” I asked him. “You shrink down and sprout fur?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t shrink. I am Coyote.”

This was deeply Zen Native. He “became” coyote in some metaphorical, yet not, way. We’d come to my place. I stopped in front of the concrete steps that led up the hill to the short walk in front of my front door. Mulberries from the neighbor’s bush left pungent purple splotches on the pavement. A light had been left on in the kitchen, and I could see Barney ’s plump, furry silhouette in the tower window.