Autumn Bones

Two

Approximately six minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of Rainbow’s End alongside Cody’s patrol car.

From the outside, everything looked normal. The lot was already packed, which was a little unusual before sunset, but it was a holiday weekend. Bart Mallick’s patrol car was sitting empty and abandoned before the entrance, bubble-gum lights flashing. The place was definitely jumping. I could hear the thumping bass of techno music so loud it seemed like the entire building was vibrating. Again, not unusual. Rainbow’s End averaged five or six noise complaints over the course of any given summer.

Cody got out of the cruiser looking twitchy. Okay, that was unusual. “Hey, Pixy Stix.” His nostrils flared. “Ready to go?”

Oh, gah. One time—one time—someone called me that, and Cody decided it was a permanent nickname. Serves me right for calling him Officer Down-low, I guess. “Hang on.” I reached into the front seat to retrieve my belt and sheath. “Might as well go in prepared.”

So, um . . . yeah. About that. I have a magic dagger. Hel gave it to me herself with her left hand, the hand of death. When I’m not on her official business, I carry it in my leather messenger bag with the special inside sheath. Cody, who does leatherworking in his spare time, made it for me. He made the belt, too.

“So are you still dating the fake Jamaican?” Cody asked as I settled the belt around my waist and buckled it.

“He’s not a fake Jamaican,” I said, annoyed. “He was born there. He has dual citizenship, okay?”

“Defensive.” He grinned, a hint of phosphorescent green glinting behind his topaz eyes. “You must like him.”

“Jealous?” I retorted.

Cody shrugged. “His shtick just seems a little phony. I hear he gives his tours some big spiel about how his grandfather was a famous obeah man. That’s what gives him his ‘special connection’ to the eldritch community.”

I eyed him sidelong. “Did you just use air quotes?”

“Maybe.”

I eased dauda-dagr out of my bag. It shimmered beneath the patrol car’s lights and the bar’s neon signs, runes etched along the blade flaring silver-blue. Its name means “death day,” and it’s capable of killing even the immortal undead. “So he tells people what they want to hear. Big deal. It’s a business, Cody. Everyone does it.” I shoved dauda-dagr into the sheath. “Ready when you are.”

He nodded, his nostrils flaring again. “You really can’t smell that?”

I sniffed the air. “No. What, pheromones? What does it smell like?”

“Sex.”

Cody wasn’t kidding.

I might not have wolf-keen olfactory senses, but the reek hit me like a ton of bricks the instant we walked through the door of Rainbow’s End: a deep, rich, redolent funk of sex. And not shampooed, deodorized, minty-fresh-mouthwash-and-clean-sheets sex, but down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred nastiness.

It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting inside the bar. As soon as they did, I saw the reason for the odor.

There was an orgy under way.

I couldn’t make out exactly what was going on because it registered as a sea of sweat-glistening, writhing flesh, entangled limbs, and heaving parts. I’m not talking about a little hanky-panky on the dance floor. I’m talking about a full-blown orgy. The majority of Rainbow’s End’s clientele were gay men, but there were knots of women here and there, and what appeared to be a few indiscriminate free agents of either gender eager to avail themselves of whatever was closest at hand. Beneath the pounding bass beat making the speakers tremble, there was a symphony of moans and groans of pleasure, resonant and weirdly melodic, like some kind of universal mantra to sexuality.

“Holy crap!” I’m pretty sure the words came out of my mouth, although I could barely hear them beneath the techno music and the om-mani-fuckme-hum.

Cody tapped my shoulder and nodded toward the dance floor, which seemed to be the orgy’s epicenter. His teeth were clenched so hard I could see the muscles along his jaw twitch. That should have warned me.

We got halfway there before the second wave hit us. Not the funk, but the effect of the pheromones.

Cody and I exchanged a glance. There was a hectic sheen in his eyes. I’m pretty sure there was in mine, too. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around, shoving me against the edge of the bar.

My last conscious thought was, “Damn, I wish this had happened a month ago.” And then there was no thinking, just a deep, primordial desire to copulate, to be a part of the whole wet, slippery, thrusting celebration. Cody’s mouth covered mine, his urgent tongue pushing past my lips. His hands dropped to my hips, jerking me against him.

My tail shivered with pleasure. I wrapped my legs around his waist and slid my hands up his arms, lacing them behind his neck and pulling his head down. There was definitely too much fabric in the way, not to mention his utility belt.

Not good. I wanted bare skin. I wanted more. My fingertips trailed over the bronze stubble of his cheeks, finding the collar of his dark blue uniform shirt. I yanked it open with strength that would have surprised me if I’d been capable of rational thought, buttons flying. Cody reached between us to unbuckle his utility belt, letting it fall before pulling me against him again.

Yeah, better; much better. I could feel his erection straining beneath his trousers, pressed hard against my core. My hips thrust involuntarily as I ground against him. Cody was kissing me again, and I found myself moaning into his mouth. Om-mani-fuckme-hum, baby. He pushed up my tank top, hands gliding over my skin, fondling my breasts with an eager roughness that made me arch my back. . . .

Against my waist, I felt a rill of pure cold so intense it jolted me into awareness. Cody made a strangled sound deep in my mouth, jerking away from me.

“Shit!” he said fervently. There was a scorched-looking patch of skin on his bare torso, faint wisps of frost rising from it.

Dauda-dagr. I dropped my hand to its hilt, the hilt of the dagger no one but one of Hel’s agents could touch with impunity. Its coolness was bracing, further clearing my thoughts.

Cody, on the other hand, was beginning to look glassy-eyed again. He shook his head and started back toward me.

“Whoa! Down, boy.” I drew dauda-dagr and held it between us, surreptitiously tugging my tank top down over my exposed breasts. “Cody!” I shouted over the music. “Take my hand. Just be careful not to touch the dagger.”

With a shudder, he reached for the dagger’s hilt, wrapping his fingers around mine. The glaze lifted again. “Daise? What the hell’s going on?”

“I wish I knew.” My wits more or less functioning, I glanced around the bar.

Whatever was going on, it definitely centered around the dance floor, and around one guy in particular. Tall, well built, strongly etched features, a pointed tangle of beard, a grin plastered to his face, and . . . well endowed.

Like, really, really well endowed. His glistening, um, endowment jutted forth from his crotch, bobbing above the dance floor before an enthusiastic orgiast dropped to his knees before it, obscuring my view. There appeared to be a waiting line for the privilege. Staring at the grinning recipient, I felt the telltale tingle that identified him as a member of the eldritch community.

Cody leaned forward, his lips brushing my ear. “He’s one of ours.”

It was enough to set me abuzz with lust all over again. Clutching dauda-dagr’s hilt, I suppressed it. “Yeah, I know. But I don’t know what he is or why this is happening. Do you?”

“No,” he admitted. “Not a clue.”

The kneeling orgiast backed away, a long strand of . . . Okay, never mind. Part of my brain said, “Eww!” Another part . . . didn’t.

“Daisy.” Cody’s fingers tightened over mine. “We’ve got to put a stop to this. Any ideas?”

“One,” I said. “But you won’t like it. Any sign of Bart Mallick?”

“No.” He looked around the bar. “Oh . . . shit. Yeah.”

I followed his gaze. “Oops.”

Longtime patrol officer and family man, married father of three teenaged kids Bart Mallick was . . . You know what? It’s not important. Suffice it to say that I doubt his wife would have approved.

Taking a deep breath, Cody let go long enough to retrieve his utility belt and buckle it feverishly around his waist before grasping my hand again. “Can you get him out of here?”

“I think so.”

We edged our way through the orgy toward the dark corner where Bart Mallick was . . . doing what he was doing. With, let me add, a very willing partner.

“Bart. Officer Mallick?” I touched the tip of dauda-dagr’s blade to the nape of his neck. His spine straightened with an involuntary jolt. He turned his head, glazed eyes clearing slightly. “It’s Daisy Johanssen and Cody Fairfax. Can you hear me? I need you to pull up your pants, take my hand, and come with us, okay?”

He nodded.

With their hands atop mine and mine wrapped around the dagger’s hilt, I managed to haul Cody and Bart stumbling over myriad writhing bodies into the parking lot, away from the immediacy of the driving, incessant beat and the pervasive, compelling funk.

Officer Mallick slumped against his patrol car looking dazed. “Oh, Jesus, fuck me. Fuck me sideways!”

“Bart!” Cody took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “Whatever happened in there? Not your fault. Right, Daisy?”

“Right,” I agreed. Total lie. There are rules governing the eldritch world, and one of them is that desire, genuine desire, can’t be compelled. Pleasure and infatuation, yes. But genuine desire? No. It’s like true love. “Everyone okay? I have to make a call.”

Cody eyed me suspiciously. “You’re not calling—”

My finger hovered above my phone’s screen. “Look, I told you that you wouldn’t like it.” I jerked my chin toward the door. “It would take all night to use dauda-dagr to escort everyone in there out here by ones and twos, and we still wouldn’t have any way to contain patient zero in there, or the first notion of why this is happening. Do you have a better idea, Officer Down-low?”

He shook his head, and I hit the CALL button.

Although I hadn’t talked to Stefan Ludovic in more than a month, he picked up immediately. “Daisy. What is it? Are you . . . all right?”

A wave of self-consciousness washed over me. Of course, Stefan would suspect. He was a ghoul, or as they call themselves, one of the Outcast, condemned for eternity to exist on the emotions of others. And because I’d given him permission to taste mine, he was attuned to them. He couldn’t have missed that giant preternatural spike of pure lust.

“Um . . . yeah, I’m fine, but we’ve got a situation. Do you have enough people you trust to defuse an orgy without losing control?”

Stefan didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be right there. You’re a mile or so to the north?”

“Rainbow’s End,” I confirmed. “Parking lot.”

“I’m on my way.”

Not that long ago, ghouls and biker gangs were two things I’d go out of my way to avoid. That was before Stefan Ludovic came to town. He’s done a lot to improve the image of the Outcasts, which, by the way, is the name of the biker gang—or motorcycle club, to use the polite terminology—to which most of the local ghouls belong, and related to but not entirely synonymous with being one of the Outcast. Okay, it’s confusing.

Anyway, after taking over Pemkowet as his turf, one of the first things Stefan did was issue a ban on selling drugs, particularly crystal meth. Since that had been a big component in establishing a cycle of human dependency and misery that sustained a lot of ghouls, what he did was actually pretty huge. Of course, it touched off a rebellion that led to a great deal of unpleasantness, but again, long story short, Stefan came through.

So why had I been avoiding him since? One, he held out an offer so tempting it scared me, a promise that he could show me ways to experience the full intensity of my super-size emotions without risk.

Two, I’d seen him die. And not just die—die and come back. That’s what happened with the Outcast. They’re condemned to the mortal plane because neither heaven nor hell would have them.

It’s complicated, and I don’t pretend to understand it. Even Hel—that’s Hel the goddess—admits it isn’t her purview. Different cosmologies and all. But the fact is, I watched a gunshot, crippled Stefan Ludovic impale himself on his own sword so he could die and come back whole and intact, and I’m still a little freaked out by it.

Nonetheless, when Stefan and five other bikers roared into the parking lot, I was glad to see them.

“Daisy Johanssen.” Stefan greeted me formally, removing his helmet. His ice-blue eyes caught the neon light. Did I mention that he was ridiculously good-looking? Consider it mentioned. He glanced toward the door of the nightclub, his pupils waxing large before shrinking to controlled pinpoints. “I think this no ordinary bacchanal. What passes within the nightclub?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But it seems to center on a naked eldritch dude with a huge schlong.”

Stefan frowned. “Could you identify him?” I shook my head. The eldritch always recognize one another, but we can’t necessarily put a name with that recognition. “I’ll have to see him for myself.”

“No ravening, right?” Cody interrupted him. “We don’t want to make the situation worse.”

Stefan’s gaze shifted to him. Without a word, he took in Cody’s disheveled hair and ripped-open uniform shirt. “No. No ravening, Officer.”

Ravening was what happened when a ghoul lost control. As far as I could tell, that never happened to Stefan.

“You vouch for your men?” Cody pressed.

Stefan hesitated. “Under ordinary circumstances, yes. But if you succumbed to the creature’s spell, we are also vulnerable.” His pupils waxed. “We do have ordinary mortal desires, too. How were you able to break free?”

“Dauda-dagr’s touch,” I said, showing him the blade. “But don’t ask me why.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Death’s touch offsets the drive toward life. Perhaps you and I should investigate alone, Daisy. If we can contain the source, my men can assist with the others.”

His men stood silent behind him in the parking lot, pupils glittering. I recognized one of them, his loyal lieutenant Rafe. The others were either vaguely familiar or new to me, including a blond-haired boy who didn’t look older than seventeen. But among the eldritch, looks could be deceiving. For all I knew, he was centuries older than me.

“Hel’s liaison?” Stefan inquired courteously in his faint, unplaceable accent, inclining his head in my direction.

I took a deep breath, suddenly acutely aware that beneath the thin cotton of my tank top my nipples were still jutting and hard, and I could feel the thumping techno beat pulsing between my thighs. Nonetheless, I had a job to do.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”