Red Delicious(28)

"She's no one who'll be missed," Amity said. "Besides, it's nothing I can't fix, if I so desire. Now, about Harpootlian-"

"I got the impression she wants you two way worse than dead," I said, finding it hard not to stare at those teeth. "Plus, you've got Drusneth, of whom I'm sure you've heard, on your ass. Then there's B, who's not so happy about Shaker Lashly. By the way, was that really necessary?"

"You think we had him killed?"

"Sure do. B, he thinks it was Harpootlian. But I'm guessing what really happened is the poor son of a bitch got too close to figuring out your game, yours and your sister's. That your being missing was just a cover story to suck us in. You were afraid Shaker would tattle, and B would decide to cut his losses and drop the case. Which shows how little you know about the bastard. By the way, I'm not a goddamn detective."

Amity raised an eyebrow. "You solved the mystery of your colleague's death easily enough."

"I'm also not an idiot. Though the two of you-"

"We know what we're up against, Siobhan."

The way Amity said my first name, the way she spun it, like cotton candy, between her tongue and lips, those jagged teeth and her palate, well . . . I didn't tell her how much I hate being called Siobhan. I sorta just wanted to hear her say it again.

I swallowed. My mouth had gone dry. I somehow managed to work up enough spit to talk.

"Really, Amity? 'Cause I saw Harpootlian up close and personal, and you're not dealing with some cut-rate succubus. We're talking archfiend, hard-core mojo, eats the likes of me for breakfast."                       
       
           



       

"You're scared of her?"

"Lady, I'm scared of Drusneth, and let me tell you, even on her best days, Madam Calamity can't lay claim to as much evil as this Harpootlian character has in her left kidney. If she has kidneys. Regardless, the two of you, by my reckoning, are shit out of luck. At best."

Amity took a deep breath and glanced at her sister, then back at me. She exhaled, and her breath, it smelled like dead roses. Like something you'd find out back of a funeral parlor.

"If Yeksabet Harpootlian is everything you say she is, why'd she let you walk? If you're right, why hasn't she already simply killed us herself and eliminated the competition?"

"Frankly, I've kind of been wondering the same thing myself," I told her, and I was trying hard to concentrate through the lingering rush of murder and the siren song of Amity's voice. Because here I was, having made a deal with this Auntie H, while conspiring with Mean Mr. B and-fuck me sideways, Boston Harry's goddamn brother-to double-cross the Maidstone sisters, all the while pretending I was still in their employ. Also, B had entirely neglected to explain how he intended to keep Drusneth from discovering what he was up to, or how he planned to make nice if she did find out. Maybe Amity thought I was asking her if she fully comprehended who and what she was up against, but I was really, truly asking myself.

"Berenice, would you please leave Siobhan and me alone for a bit?"

"Amity-" Berenice began.

"Please," Amity said again, and I heard Berenice Maidstone promptly stand and walk quickly to the door. I heard her open it and slam it shut again. So, there we were, alone in that musty, garlic-scented room above the deli on Atwells, just me and this mortal teenager who'd probably make Jeffrey Dahmer shit his tidy whities. I should have followed Berenice, but that's precisely what I didn't do.

I don't think I need to explain why.

"If we work together, you and I," said Amity, "we can find the unicorn. And when we do, there will be no one we need fear, not ever again. I have faith in you."

Liar.

She kissed me, and her mouth tasted the same as her breath. Dead roses. Which actually didn't seem so bad up close, not sliding up my nostrils and down my throat. She slipped her right hand into my jeans and . . . let's just say I'd descended to that level of stupid where my clit had seized control of all my cognitive functions. Let's just say that and tastefully fade to black. The sordid details are sorta hazy anyhow.

Actually, no. Quite a few of the sordid details aren't all that hazy. And some of the "plot" to come hinges on one particular revelation-let's say a rude awakening-I gleaned from the right and proper fucking I got that afternoon from Amity Maidstone. But I don't want to bring the "story" to a grinding halt with a protracted scene of heaving bosoms and crazed supernatural monkey sex. So I'll get back to that shortly.

But first.

It was dark by the time I pulled myself together, left Amity sleeping on that trashed sofa, and left the room above the delicatessen. The afternoon had faded past twilight to dark. When I took my leave, there was no sign of Berenice, and I did wonder what had become of her after her sister had not so subtly told her to take a powder. Lenore still lay crumpled against the wall, and maybe some small sliver of me wished I hadn't done that. Maybe. Out in the cold, the very almost full moon was almost bright as a spotlight, and I couldn't bear to look directly at it. I'd officially reached that part of the month where all of my concentration was required to avoid going loup and sinking into the blackout oblivion that accompanied those murderous transformations. I was too busy and everything had gotten way too complicated to risk the Beast screwing the pooch with an indiscreet rampage.

So I kept my eyes on the icy sidewalk and asphalt and the litter. I kept my eyes off the moon, and I didn't meet anyone's gaze. The loup was hammering at my senses, and getting banged for the first time in months hadn't helped. Sex, death, the animal in us all. Only in some of us more than others. Way more.

The Econoline was dead, you'll recall, because Harpootlian had seen fit to kill it. Which meant I was on foot, and I'd just crossed the interstate back to College Hill and decided to take a shortcut across the Brown University quad when I blundered into the next bullshit misadventure in a week of bullshit misadventures.

I wasn't far from the spot where Lenore and I had sat on the park bench three days before, not far from the redbrick monolith of Carrie Tower. Not much light-the streetlights back the way I'd come, and the white pools from the lamps spaced out along the quad. Well, and the moon. Not that I needed electric lights, not with these eyes of mine, which loup season had made even more sensitive than usual. So I had a perfectly clear view of the big-ass hat who stepped out from behind a tree, clearly intent upon blocking my progress. It was one of the Drusneth's se'irim bouncers. Skin black as the night to mortal eyes, porcupine quills, tall impala horns, and eyes like glowing crimson Christmas lights. The fucker was at least seven feet, hooves to the tips of those horns, if it was an inch. Its matted fur gleamed, vaguely iridescent.

"Twice-Damned," it grunted, "Twice-Dead, where you bound on a winter's eve?"

I stood there staring at it a few seconds. "What's it to you, goat?"

It snorted, and twin jets of steam billowed from its nostrils. "Better to ask yourself how it concerns Madam Calamity. Better to ask yourself that, Twice-Damned."

"I'm going home," I replied. "And you'd better get out of my way, and run back home to tell Drusneth to go fuck herself. From what I hear, she's very good at that."

I should have heard the second se'irim coming up behind me. But I was tired, fighting back the loup, and still, admittedly, stupid from the sex. First thing I knew, a razor-sharp claw was pressed against my jugular.

"How about I take her your head, instead?" asked Thing Number One. "Would you prefer that?"

"Would she? Is this a dead-or-alive job, or are you trying to improvise with that shriveled cranberry you call a brain?"

The claw of Thing Number Two applied just enough pressure to break the skin and draw a few drops of blood. I knew the se'irim knew better than to stop at slitting my throat. I knew, if it came to that, they'd take my head off, clean as a whistle, just like Thing Number One had suggested.

"What does Drusneth want?"

The se'irim snorted again. "She wants the unicorn."

"And she thinks I have it?"

By the way, it occurred to me right then that no one mixed up in this game of button, button, who's got the button had any idea where the dildo was. Or even could be. Or had last been seen. Presumably, someone had stolen it from Yeksabet and smuggled it from one universe to another, but then what? Why did they seem to think it was in Providence? What did they know that no one had bothered to share with me? Now, yeah, odd time to be asking myself these questions, but I was getting accustomed to impending doom, and don't our sudden realizations always come when we least expect them? Whatever.

"That's between you and her, Twice-Damned, Twice-Cursed," Thing Number Two grunted. His breath stank like a rotting skunk. "Nothing for us to know."                       
       
           



       

"Well, I don't have it, and I don't have the foggiest where it is. I don't even want to know where it is. And you two can tell her that just as well as I can. Now, get outta my way and get lost."