Myrtle’s expression was tight with strain. “Dixie, you are twenty-one years old. I am two hundred and three. Janet is three hundred and sixty-one and Carl is one hundred and forty.”
“I’m a cougar,” Janet piped in as she giggled through her tears. Carl kissed the top of her head and grinned.
Myrtle rolled her eyes and tried to suppress her laugh without success. She regathered herself and continued. “My point is that we’ve been around for much longer than you have. We know what it takes to survive in Hell. Why do you think Carl and Janet and I gravitate together?” She waited. I was silent. “We protect and care for each other.” She lifted her head and her eyes bored into mine. “If you’re comfortable condemning us to death, then go. Have at it. Go to Hell and try to impart justice, but someday you’ll learn. There is no justice—no balance.”
I dropped into a kitchen chair. All the energy drained from my body. I was growing up fast and right now I hated it.
“I’m so sorry,” I told them as I stared at the burn marks on the tablecloth. I was too ashamed to look at them.
“You’ve done nothing wrong Dixie.” Janet gently rubbed my back.
“I want you to know that I love all of you.” I glanced up at their familiar perfectly imperfect faces. “And I want you to know that if anyone tries to hurt you again, Cole or whomever, I will kill them.” I knew for the first time in my life I meant it. They knew too.
Another piece of the puzzle clicked. Cole. Cole had randomly come up in my conversation with Grandpa. Cole was up to no good. Way to go, Gramps. Either I was getting smarter or I'd gone insane. I was leaning toward insane. It would take going nuts at the very least to be able to decipher Grandpa's ramblings. Whatever. I was going with it. I would keep an eye out for Cole.
The silence was loud and long. Janet broke it.
“Thank you, Dixie. You are a good girl.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek.
“Well.” Carl found his voice after my violent proclamation. “In that cathe we better get back to training.”
“I have to go to class,” I said. “I’ll meet you after.”
“No,” Janet said, trying to rescue the egg travesty Myrtle had created. “The community college is closed for three days.”
“Why?” I was surprised. Was there some human holiday I didn’t know about?
“Apparently,” Myrtle crowed as she grinned from ear to ear. “Fifteen hot pink, lime green and neon yellow skunks got locked in the school last night. They have to fumigate.”
"And how did that happen?" I asked her, already knowing full well how it happened.
"I have no clue," she answered.
She was so delighted with herself I didn’t have the heart to tell her how wrong that was. So I didn’t. I laughed. I laughed hard.
Chapter 23
"What the Hell is that?" Myrtle asked as we gaped at a huge manor exploding with foliage.
"I don't know, but this is the right address," I muttered.
"I think the GPS is smoking crack. No way your cousin lives in that," she continued.
"I have a bad feeling this is exactly where my cousin lives."
Three days off from classes meant I could finally visit my cousin Astrid. Carl, Janet and Myrtle joined me as they'd met her and loved her when she'd visited Hell six months ago. I'd had a horrific dream that Mother Nature met us there. Turns out it wasn't a dream at all. . .
We cautiously approached and pushed open a huge door covered in ivy and purple parrots.
"I can't find my ass with both hands," Ethan, my cousin's Vampyre mate, bellowed from somewhere deep in the mansion.
"Well, too bad," Astrid screeched. "I haven't seen my hooha in months because my stomach is the enormous house for our four-headed son that is going to live inside me for the next ten years."
"Help me, Jesus," I heard him mutter from somewhere in the jungle that I was sure used to be a gorgeous compound.
"Maybe we should come back another time," Myrtle whispered frantically as she tried to untangle herself from a vine with teeth.
"Who invited your grandmother?" Ethan shouted. "This is a fucking mess."
"I can hear you, Vampyre, and I don't like your tone," Mother Nature's voice boomed so loudly I winced. Maybe we should come back later. . .
"Mother humpin' shithats," my cousin hissed. "I think a flower just grabbed my boob."
I had no clue where we were. The mansion looked like a multi-level jungle complete with monkeys and waterfalls. I could hear Ethan, Astrid and my grandma, but had no real indication as to their whereabouts.
"I really really want to leave," Myrtle grumbled as she choked and beheaded the vine that was trying to eat her.