Bones wasn’t here. He’d dropped me off with a comment that he had business elsewhere. It had been all I could do not to yell, “Why did you risk your life taking me from Vlad’s if you still can’t stand to be around me?” But that would let on about how much I cared. So I didn’t say a word. I watched Bones leave without once asking when, or if, he intended to come back. Would I rather rot under a huge trash heap than admit how much it hurt to see him again, let alone see him walk away? You bet.
After three days at Trash Castle, I decided it was the perfect place to be if you wanted to go crazy but had a limited amount of time to do it in. Being fifty feet under a dump locked in the equivalent of a cellar with a listless ghost and an outspoken mother, all while thinking about the man who’d left me, was bound to bring on insanity faster than any circumstance I’d experienced before. Soon the idea of banging my head against a wall seemed like a fun way to spend ten minutes, and I fantasized about near-death experiences like they were a chocolaty dessert. Puberty had been an aromatherapy session compared to this.
Despite the smell, I took to going topside and clearing out sections of the junkyard just to do something. Fabian had his own way of dealing with the situation. He watched endless TV. My mother read or did crossword puzzles, in between comments about how if I would have listened to her, I wouldn’t be here today. Was it any wonder I preferred spending my time around stinky garbage?
I’d been sweeping up the far section of the dump when I heard the thrum of the automobile. Even though I knew it couldn’t be a lost tourist, since it was clear that we were on the ass-end of nowhere, I hadn’t waited to see if it was friend or foe before climbing to the top of the nearest garbage heap. Death? Didn’t scare me. It would be a vacation from Smell Central.
“Who came up with the password Quasimodo?” Spade muttered as he got out of his car.
“Hello, Spade,” I called out, shaking the debris off the rake I’d made from thin strips of metal and a truck axle.
Spade stared up at me, revulsion and disbelief competing on his handsome face.
“Lucifer’s hairy ball sack. You’ve become a Morlock.”
Seeing Spade looking so suave in his white shirt with his shiny black shoes and creased pants reminded me that I was covered head to toe in dirt and probably smelled like a bad case of flatulence.
“I’ve been buried underneath a junkyard for days, what did you expect?”
Spade slammed the door to his car. Just looking at it, I fought an impulse to jump in and drive until I passed out at the wheel.
“I can’t sit back and watch you and Crispin drown in your own stubbornness any longer. Good Christ, Cat, just die already and be done with it.”
I blinked. “Fuck you too, pal.”
“Move back to your vehicle, you’re not expected,” Techno, one of the vampires stationed there, said. He’d come around from the side of the building and had an Uzi that was loaded with silver bullets pointed at Spade.
“I’m on the list, you imbecile,” Spade barked. “Now turn around before I break that toy off in your arse.”
Spade’s back was to me. I grabbed a nearby tire and chucked it at him, smiling to see tread marks ruin the perfection of his white shirt. “Don’t talk to him that way, he’s doing his job.”
Spade recovered from the tire beaning him in the back and was in front of me with nosferatu swiftness.
“For God’s sake, Cat, take the leap, what are you waiting for?”
For a second, I wondered if I’d really lost it. It sounded like Spade was trying to taunt me into killing myself.
“Did I do something to piss you off?”
Spade spun around, balling his fists. Techno looked at me in confusion, as if questioning whether I was in danger.
“Want me to shoot him?” he inquired.
“Do you want to incite things? You’re barely human now; why do you persist in clinging to your last useless, mortal shred?”
“Don’t shoot,” I said to Techno, who’d raised the Uzi with purpose. “In fact, go away.”
“He’s not—” Techno began to sputter.
“Not what?” Spade asked. “Not supposed to tell her about it, I’ll wager? That’s why she’s looking at me like I’m barmy, right? Because she doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about.”
My jaw clenched. Techno’s face confirmed it all. Son of a bitch.
“Is it the ghouls again?” I asked, inwardly cursing that I’d been so wrapped up in my own problems, I hadn’t been suspicious about the lack of word on that front.
Spade gave Techno one last threatening look before folding his arms.