Romancing The Dead (18 page)

That
did not seem good.

I wrenched the knob on the back door and nearly pulled my arm out of its socket before I realized the door was locked, and I’d left my keys in my purse. I could go around to the front, but the tornado was imminent; there was no time. I rattled it several times uselessly. “Barney,” I yelled. “Oh Jesus, Barney!”

I knew I was freaked when I reverted to my pre-Wiccan oaths. My verbal slip jolted me out of my panic momentarily. I felt I couldn’t run back down and around to the front door in time. I had to break down this door. Lilith had helped me crack locks before. She could do it again.

Trying not to hear the sound of tree limbs splitting from the force of the gale, I closed my eyes and reached deep down for the familiar strength.

Nothing.

My hand stroked my abdomen. “Come on,” I whispered. “I know you’re in there.” But suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. A cold fear settled in my guts in Her place.

A sound came like someone emptying a gigantic bag of ball bearings onto the roof. Hail exploded against the landing window so hard I thought the glass would shatter any moment. Barney cried pitifully somewhere beyond the door. Fuck Lilith. I braced my back against the half wall of the stairwell and gave the spot just above the doorknob a swift kick. Dumb luck and a cheap lock conspired in my favor for once, and the door burst open with a bang.

“Barney!” I shouted once I recovered my footing. I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting—my cat had never before come when I called. Despite the danger, she didn’t this time either. I raced through the apartment checking all her favorite hiding places. Under the bed? No. Behind the couch? Damn it all, no.

“Where are you?” I shouted, as menacing white clumps of hail burst against the windows. I checked behind the fridge, grateful she hadn’t squeezed herself back there. I’d moved one mountain for her already today; I didn’t think I had enough muscle to move another. Just when I was beginning to think I’d have to abandon her, I remembered my bedroom closet. I found her wedged on top of the boxes of my winter clothes. I grabbed her, despite her protests, and scrambled for the basement. Downstairs, three skanky-looking guys sat huddled around a flickering tea candle. One with greasy curls drooping from underneath a dirty stocking hat cradled a bag of Doritos like a teddy bear. Another, whose shaved head showed off blue-ink, abstract tattoos, drank deeply from amber liquid in a Mason jar. The last had a blond Afro and a soul patch on his chin. Soul Patch waved at me.

“Fugitive girl,” he said.

I let Barney slip out of my arms, and she disappeared into the shadowy corners to hunt up spiders. To Soul Patch, I said, “Sorry?”

“That’s you: fugitive girl,” he said, emphasizing the last as though it were my superhero moniker. “Running from the FBI and stuff?”

His tone shifted as though he suddenly didn’t trust his memory.

I probably should have denied my past dubious involvement with government agents, but I felt sort of sorry for the guy. Besides, he was my neighbor, and it was the one bit of shared history we had in common. “Yeah, that’s me.”

He broke into a loopy grin. “Dude!”

My eyes strayed to the plant stalks whipping frantically in the wind outside the basement window. The stems bent this way and that, and suddenly stood straight up. When a tree branch crashed somewhere outside everyone ducked in sympathy.

“Man, I hope that didn’t bust up the house,” Tattoos said, taking another swig and passing the jar to Doritos.

“Dude, you don’t even live here,” Soul Patch said.

“Right,” Tattoos said, as though the fact had only just now occurred to him.

Leaving the brain trust, I started searching the room for a radio. Last time I did laundry I thought I remembered seeing an AM/FM

radio stashed along one of the shelves above the washing machine. Instead, I found a flashlight missing its batteries, two dead sow bugs, a jar full of coins, and a lot of empty bottles of detergent.

My hand rested on the wet fabric of my shirt near my tummy while I scanned the shelves. Could Lilith really be gone? I hugged myself tighter as water sluiced from my soaking clothes.

“Are we supposed to leave the windows open or something?” Doritos asked around a mouth full of chips.

“Southeast corner,” said Soul Patch. “I think we’re supposed to go to the southeast corner.”

I smiled to myself listening to their chatter. Honestly, I was surprised they had made it to the basement, what with the state they were in. I continued shuffling though the shelves, automatically cleaning and organizing as I moved along. I unearthed a single ice skate, a terrarium with a dusty rodent wheel, and a roll of paper towels.

Pushing a clump of dripping hair from my eyes, I shivered. I found myself still clutching my abdomen, as though protecting an open wound. I hadn’t been without Lilith’s presence for over a year and a half. She was part of me. How could She disappear?

“Under the doorway, I think. Or is it a staircase?” said Tattoos.

“I think we’re supposed to get in a bathtub.”

“Man, that’s only if you don’t have a basement.”

“Ditches are bad.”

“No, ditches are good. Bridges are bad. And mobile homes, nobody wants to be in a trailer. You’re doomed.”

They all bobbed their heads in agreement to that. As the wind made a sound like a jackhammer, I rubbed my arms. My clothes clung to me, cold and soggy. Where had Micah run off to? Did he take Lilith with him? A crack of thunder made me jump. Was this weather a result of our magic somehow?

My dream/vision had left me more certain than ever that Sebastian was in trouble, possibly even being held captive somewhere. I wanted to go out to find him, but I was stuck in a basement with a bunch of stoners desperately trying to remember their weather safety courses from sixth grade.

“This is kind of weird, right?” Soul Patch was saying. “I mean, ten minutes ago it was sunny and shit, and I didn’t think this part of Wisconsin had that many tornados. You know, because of being on the edge of the Driftless Zone and that.”

Everyone, including me, stared curiously at Soul Patch.

“The Driftless Zone?” He seemed to ask us for confirmation, but no one said anything, so he continued hesitantly. “You know, where the glaciers split during the second Ice Age. It’s why we have standing rocks and the Dells and stuff.”

“Man, you’re like a geologist or something,” Doritos said in awe.

“Dude, it’s my major.”

Okay, so I was impressed too. Thunder crashed, but the wind seemed to push the grass around less frantically now. Hail turned back to rain.

“What we need is a meteorologist,” Soul Patch said.

“Or a radio,” suggested Tattoos.

“Don’t you have one of those weather-alert radio things up in the bathroom, Tom?” asked Doritos of Soul Patch.

“Yeah,” he said, and so they all decided to head back upstairs to fetch it. I pressed my chin up against the crumbling, wet basement wall to try to peer up at the sky through the window well. All I could see was crabgrass and gravel and lots of rain. Still, I thought the stoners’ instincts were correct; the danger of the storm had passed.

A quick search found Barney asleep on top of the dryer in an empty plastic basket of mine. I scratched her head, and she gave an annoyed chirp at having been awakened and laid her head back down as if to say, “Five more minutes.”

“Now,” I said.

“M-now?” she repeated, sounding unhappy about the prospect.

“Yes, now.” I was anxious to figure out what had happened to Lilith and Micah. “We have a dog to track down.”

Barney squiggled as I held her against my wet shirt and headed up the stairs. I snuggled her tightly as I stepped gingerly around the shattered remains of the backdoor. The apartment was dark, though from the blinking, red twelve o’clock on my kitchen radio and microwave, I guessed that the power had come back on at some point. Letting Barney leap from my arms once I got to the dining room, I felt for the wall switch.

The light revealed a figure sleeping on my couch in the living room. I screamed, thinking it was an intruder, which it was, but as he sat up in alarm, one I recognized, “Mátyás?! What are you doing here?”

He reached over to flip on the floor lamp near the couch. It was an overly-familiar-with-my-stuff kind of gesture, especially given that I’d never, ever invited him into my home before. Rubbing his eyes, he stretched. “I let myself in. Your door was wide open. You really should be more careful. Anyone could wander in.”

He’d said the last bit sarcastically, and I rolled my eyes. “Clearly. Seriously, why did you come all the way here?” Then, fear seized my stomach. “Has something happened? Have you heard from Sebastian?”

“In a way,” he said, though he looked strangely embarrassed about it.

“Tell me,” I demanded. “Or are you going to spout a bunch of malarkey about hell again and go all cryptic and silent on me?”

With a sneeze, Barney shook the water from her fur onto Mátyás’s crisply pressed pants. He crossed his hands in front of his chest. “I have information about Sebastian. Do you want it or not?”

“I do.”

“Then you should put on a kettle for some tea and while you’re at it may I suggest that you change clothes?” he added dryly. “I can see right through your shirt. Not that I’ve never seen you in the buff before, but, well, it’s distracting.”

Ew! Nothing like having your lover’s son point out that he’s seen you naked before. I crossed my hands over my chest; I wasn’t wearing a bra. I rarely did, since I was small enough that major support wasn’t an issue. Trust Mátyás to take this opportunity to remind me that when we first met, I was sitting naked in Sebastian’s kitchen. I stomped off to my bedroom, wondering once again why I bothered being nice to him.

Once safely behind closed doors, I slid out of my wet clothes and dumped them in a pile near the foot of the bed. While raiding my drawers for a sports bra, I came across the clothes Sebastian had left at my place. I unfolded one of his T-shirts—a black one, a souvenir from an Iron Maiden concert—and buried my face in it, trying to catch his scent. Pulling the shirt over my head, I snuggled into it, hugging the fabric close. I stomped into a pair of bright red, cotton underwear and loose-fitting black jeans with wide cuffs. I found red, fuzzy socks accented with glittery, silver metallic thread and put them on. I was chilled enough from the wet that I almost considered unearthing my winter sweater box and finding something woolly to throw over my shoulders, but I knew the temperatures would warm up again soon enough. After a quick stop in the bathroom to fix my makeup and run the blow-dryer over my hair, I felt ready to face Mátyás again.

Almost. My fingers brushed my belly again. I felt strangely unarmed, like I should have a gun at my hip and suddenly didn ’t. The absence of Her presence, Her missing weight was its own kind of sensation.

Taking in a deep breath, I squared my shoulders. I was still a Witch. I’d called a Goddess to my side once, I could do it again need be. Right?

Right. Too bad I couldn’t quite convince myself.

I found Mátyás in my kitchen. He’d located my teakettle, filled it, and put it on the left front burner—the one that sputters. Mátyás fiddled with the knob, trying to make the flames come out evenly.

“That one needs to be cleaned or something,” I said, frowning to myself at the general state of the kitchen, as I took the kettle off that burner and put it on the right. My astrology stuff cluttered the table, and morning coffee cups littered the sink. “The whole stove should probably be looked at.”

“Or thrown away. It’s got to be twenty years old, if a day.”

I bristled. “It’s okay for what I need.”

“It’s dangerous. You’d be well rid of it.”

“I can’t just throw it away. Besides the fact that I can ’t really afford to put in a new gas stove, I think my landlord would have something to say about it.”

“I meant when you move in with my dear papa.” Mátyás leaned casually against the counter, giving me a curious, yet judging look. Despite the change of clothes, I felt much more naked without the security of Lilith ’s presence. It made me prickly. “What?” I snapped.

“You have cold feet,” he stated. “I hope you’re not planning on doing a runaway bride, jilting my poor father at the altar.”

“He’s the one who’s disappeared, remember.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Mátyás said solemnly, and giving me a look that suggested perhaps I had. “So, about the dream,” Mátyás said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him over the drumming beat of the rain on the gutters.

“Yeah,” I said suddenly remembering the strange images that flooded my mind before the storm. “It was weird. More of a vision, I guess, while Micah ran off with my Goddess.”

The teakettle whistled. I brought down two mugs from the cupboards. Handcrafted and uncommonly wide, each had a pale pear painted in the center which, in the wrong light, looked a little like a vulva. I liked the cups anyway, because you could pour nearly three normal-sized servings in each, making them the perfect companion for long conversations or lazy Sunday mornings. I had a feeling this might be the former. I handed Mátyás one. He peered at it skeptically and smirked at the pear. Only when I went to get myself some honey from the cabinet did I realize Mátyás hadn’t responded. He was filling up his cup and giving me the are-youcompletely-insane? eyebrow lift. I rested my hand against my stomach, but I still felt only emptiness. “He did, you know,” I said to make the whole thing a joke, despite the shiver racing up my spine. “That skinwalking so-and-so absconded with Lilith.”

“Garnet, what the hell are you talking about?”

I shook my head. “A were-coyote from my coven talked me into doing a spell to try to find Sebastian. But I think it was a ruse to waken Lilith. I think he convinced Her to run away with him.” And I was a little freaked out about the prospect. Scratch that, make that a lot. I felt so empty without Lilith’s warmth coiled around my belly, like a sleeping snake. Her power frightened me, but it was always there, ready to protect and defend me.

Mátyás poured himself tea and added a dash of milk, just like Sebastian liked it. “Coyote steals fire,” Mátyás said as he settled into my chair. “How very mythical.”