Autumn Bones

Five

Sinclair’s place was a ramshackle house in the countryside just north of town, where he was doing some fixer-upper work in return for reduced rent. You couldn’t miss it, since his renovated double-decker bus, painted bright yellow, red, and green with PEMKOWET SUPERNATURAL TOURS on the side, was parked in the driveway.

I pulled in beside the bus and sat for a moment, listening to the music spilling out of the house and wrestling with my conscience. That beribboned box of desire was straining at the seams, practically rattling. If I went in there, I wasn’t going to be able to keep it contained.

And if I didn’t?

I’d understood exactly what Cody meant when he said he was going to go home and kill something. It was that strong a drive, and it needed to be vented somehow. As far as the Seven Deadlies went, I was probably better off sticking with lust than letting it turn to envy or anger. So I went inside.

All four members of the Mamma Jammers were there, jamming, because apparently a three-hour-long jam session at Union Pier wasn’t quite long enough. They’d set up their gear in Sinclair’s living room.

Sinclair was messing around with them, banging on a cowbell with a pair of grill tongs. It was a warm night and he was shirtless and barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of khaki cargo shorts that sat low on his hips.

Ka-pow. My mental image of the gift-wrapped box exploded. I felt the air pressure in the room change, lifting my hair with an electrostatic charge. Huh. That sort of thing usually only happened when I got angry. There was a long squall of feedback before a tube burst in one of the Mamma Jammers’ vintage amplifiers with a brief shower of sparks.

In the silence that followed, everyone stared at me. Sinclair took a long breath and blinked a few times. “Daisy? Are you okay? Is everything . . . okay?”

“Yeah.” Realizing I still wore dauda-dagr belted around my waist, I touched the hilt, taking strength from its bracing coolness. Okay. I could make myself walk away from this if I had to. “Is this a bad time? I can go.”

“What? No, of course not. I invited you here.”

I shifted restlessly from foot to foot. “Then can we talk alone for a minute?”

Sinclair gave the Mamma Jammers an uncertain look. “Are you crazy, man?” one of them said. “Go!”

Inside his bedroom, Sinclair closed the door behind us. I unbuckled my belt and let it fall to the floor with a heavy clunk. I didn’t want him to get frostbitten.

“Daisy.” He laid his hands on my shoulders. Unable to help myself, I traced a line on his bare torso with one finger, between his pecs down toward his navel. He caught my hand and removed it, although he laced his fingers through mine. “Whoa! Slow down, girl. Mind if I ask what happened out there to turn a night hanging with the boys into a booty call?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Rutting satyr-funk. It set off an orgy. But it’s okay. We defused it.”

“So this is about some funky satyr?” he asked slowly. “Not you and me?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.” Sinclair’s face was unreadable in the dim light. “This isn’t how I wanted it to go down between us.”

“Yeah, me either,” I said. “This was a mistake. I should go.”

“Probably.” There was a certain lack of conviction in his voice. “I guess.”

Neither of us moved. “So . . . do you want me to go?” I asked him. “’Cause if you do, I think you’re going to have to tell me. Like, in no uncertain terms.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Okay, well, before you make up your mind, there’s one other little thing I haven’t told you.”

Sinclair raised his brows. “What?” I shifted his hand around to place it firmly on my butt, untucking my tail in the process and letting him feel it wriggle. His eyes widened and his body went rigid, but he didn’t pull away from me. “What the fuck?”

I watched his face, trying to gauge the degree of freak-out. “Look, as tails go, it’s pretty small. You should have seen the satyr’s.”

He gave me a blank look. “How is this something I never noticed?”

“I tuck.”

“You tuck.”

“Yeah.” I laid my palm flat against his chest, feeling it rise and fall. His dark brown skin was warm, as though it retained the heat of the sun on the docks. Afraid of seeing rejection in his eyes, I lowered my gaze and kept it there, centered on the groove between his pecs. “Look, I really do like you. I like you a lot, Sinclair. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. As strange as it might sound, I wouldn’t trust myself with someone I didn’t care about right now. And I wanted to try the whole normal boyfriend/girlfriend thing. But the truth is, my father’s an incubus, I’m a hell-spawn and Hel’s agent, and this is Pemkowet. Normal’s not really in my wheelhouse. There’s always going to be an element of weird. Maybe a lot of weird. So—”

“Daisy.” Sinclair interrupted me. Removing his hand from my ass, he reached for the pendant I wore.

It was a silver whistle in the shape of an acorn and it had been given to me by the Oak King, a member of genuine old-school eldritch pagan royalty, as a means to summon him at need. Sinclair had been there when it happened. Both of us had been touched by the wonder of it.

And then I’d been stupid enough to leave it at home in my jewelry box when the ghoul rebellion went down, which is why after that I’d had it strung on a chain of dwarf-mined silver so I could wear it around my neck.

Anyway.

“Remember?” Sinclair asked me.

I nodded. “Of course.”

He smiled. “For a memory like that, I can handle a lot of weird.” He slid one arm around my waist, pulling me closer. “So I guess what I’m saying is, what the hell. If this is what you want, let’s do it.”

It wasn’t the time or the circumstances I would have chosen, and it shouldn’t have been good, but in fact it was good. Even knowing what had almost happened with Cody that same night, even knowing that the Mamma Jammers were right outside the bedroom and that sooner or later I’d have to face the walk of shame past them. It was still good.

“Let me see it,” Sinclair said after he’d undressed me, his voice low and husky with a mix of desire and trepidation. He sat on the edge of the bed, his knees spread. “Go on, Daisy. Show me.”

Obediently, I stood between his knees and turned around. I felt him draw one finger down my spine, lingering at the base of my tailbone, at the root of my tail. I shivered.

“Is it sensitive?” he asked uncertainly.

“Yeah.” I fought the urge to coil it around his fingers, pretty sure that would send him straight into freak-out territory. In all honesty, I don’t think anyone had touched it since my mom when I was in diapers, and the fact that Sinclair was doing it now brought tears to my eyes. “Very.”

“Huh.”

I turned around to straddle his waist, lowering my head to kiss him until both of us were breathless. “Let’s not talk any more about my tail tonight.” I reached for the zipper of his khaki shorts. “Okay?”

Sinclair gave me a lazy grin, lying back to grab my hips and pull me atop him, my hair spilling around his face. “Definitely.”

Somewhere outside the bedroom door, the bass player for the Mamma Jammers struck up a bom-chicka-wow-wow groove. Apparently, that wasn’t his amplifier I’d accidentally blown. I don’t know if it was meant to be funny or thoughtful, but either way, it was effective.

So, yeah.

Bom-chicka-wow-wow.

Afterward, exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds apiece, and the thought of trying to make polite conversation with Sinclair’s friends made me want to hibernate.

“Is it okay if I just crash here?” I mumbled into the pillow. “For a little while anyway?”

“Yeah, of course.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, Sinclair fished for his shorts. “I promised you pancakes, didn’t I?” He stood. “I’m just going to go out and explain things to the guys.”

I cracked open one eye to peer at him. “What are you going to tell them?”

He shrugged. “Guess I’ll go with the truth.”

“Oh.”

I wanted to stay awake long enough to find out how that went, but all I remember is hearing a brief, low murmur of male voices before I was spiraling down into sleep, the memory of bom-chicka-wow-wow sex with Sinclair blurring with the memory of kissing (and yes, okay, grinding on) Cody, the satyr’s grin, and the shocking jolt of hunger in Stefan’s gaze. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I heard a deep, resonant chuckle of pure demonic amusement and entertained the fleeting thought that if my father, Belphegor, was pleased, I definitely shouldn’t have done what I did tonight.

Screw it. I’d feel guilty in the morning.

And if real life was like the movies, I would wake up in the morning to realize I’d blown things with a nice guy I actually liked by rushing into something neither of us was ready for, just like Kristy McNichol in Little Darlings. Which, in case you’re not familiar with it, is an old movie where Kristy and Tatum O’Neal make a bet at summer camp about who’s going to be the first to cash in her v-card, only they don’t call it that because . . . well, it’s an old movie. Like, an eighties movie before John Hughes made eighties movies a thing. When I was growing up, Mom used movies to teach me important life lessons, and she used the movies she knew best. Also, the movies that we could rent for free from the Pemkowet District Library, because we didn’t have a lot of money.

Anyway, I should have felt awful and this should have been a disaster. In fact, I woke to early-morning sunlight and Sinclair sprawled in the bed next to me, one arm flung carelessly over me. And I felt pretty damn good.

I held still for a moment, listening for the echo of demonic laughter. Nope. Either I’d imagined it, or dear old Dad was amused by something more complicated than the fact that his half-human daughter had thrown caution to the winds and given in to licentious behavior. Which . . . wasn’t entirely reassuring, but I’d take it.

“Hey.” Sinclair roused himself sleepily. His head was on the pillow beside mine, and his dark eyes gazed into mine at close proximity. Like, so close I almost felt cross-eyed looking back at him. “You okay, Daisy?”

I wasn’t used to this kind of intimacy. All of the sexual encounters I’d had had ultimately ended . . . well, awkwardly. This morning-after business was new to me.

“Yeah.” I tried the sentiment on for size. It fit. “You?”

“Uh-huh.”

My stomach rumbled.

Sinclair laughed. “Come on. Let’s make some breakfast.”

Okay, time to suck it up and take the walk of shame. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’d endured in my life. I’d grown up in a small town where everyone knew my story, and I was used to curious stares. At least Sinclair’s friends were polite and didn’t make any jokes about what was obviously a total booty call or ask if I filed my horns down like Hellboy. I got that a lot back in high school when the first movie came out. I kept my tail tucked and did my best to make a good impression, memorizing their names and asking them questions about themselves.

They seemed to be good guys, laid-back and easygoing. Over a mountainous stack of pancakes—Sinclair hadn’t lied, he made them from scratch with buttermilk, and they were probably the best pancakes I’d ever had—I learned that Roddy, the drummer, was also of Jamaican origin. His mother had a Caribbean restaurant and his uncle owned the custom auto shop where Sinclair’s dad worked.

Under the guise of making small talk, I asked him why his family had left Jamaica, secretly hoping to gain some insight into Sinclair’s situation.

“Poverty,” he said simply. “Unless you have the right connections, there are no real job opportunities, no way to change your lot in life.”

“Is that why your dad left?” I asked Sinclair.

“Dad knew Roddy’s uncle Joseph.” He set a platter of bacon on the table. “He knew there would be a good job here for him.”

Huh. As an answer to a direct yes-or-no question went, that was sort of a nonanswer. “Why Kalamazoo?” I asked curiously, reaching for a piece of bacon. “I mean . . . why Michigan at all?”

As it transpired, apparently Kalamazoo, Michigan, has been host for many years to a world-class reggae festival, one of the largest in the United States. Hence, the long-standing connection to Jamaica from whence many of the festival’s headliner acts have come. I felt a little silly for not knowing this about a city only an hour away.

“Damn, girl! You need to get out of Pemkowet more often,” Ben, the bass player, teased.

“I guess,” I said. “But there’s no underworld there.”

Oops. A little silence settled over the crowded table in the breakfast nook. “You mean . . . hell?” Roddy inquired cautiously.

I shook my head. “No, I mean an actual physical underworld that exists on the mundane plane, ruled by a deity of a non-apex faith.”

“That’s what allows an eldritch community to exist and thrive.” Sinclair rescued me, sliding into the seat beside me. “Here in Pemkowet, they call it Little Niflheim. Right, Daisy?”

I nodded. Little Niflheim was where Hel held court, beneath the shifting sand dunes that had buried the lumber town of Singapore—the very dunes said to be haunted by the ghost of Talman “Tall Man” Brannigan, the lumber baron responsible for the deforestation that caused the dunes to swallow Singapore. Tall Man Brannigan, who slaughtered almost his entire family in a fit of madness and despair.

It was a typical urban legend. No one I knew had ever seen the Tall Man’s ghost, but everyone knew someone who knew someone whose cousin or brother claimed to have done so—and then died after the sighting. But Little Niflheim was real. I’d been there on a number of occasions.

“I’ve seen the world tree,” Sinclair added, cutting into his pancakes and stabbing a forkful. “Yggdrasil II.”

For the next half hour, he entertained the Mamma Jammers with the kind of patter he used to entertain the tourists, a blend of history, conjecture, and fact, all extolling the wonders of Pemkowet.

“Speaking of . . .” Sinclair glanced at the watch on his wrist. “It’s almost showtime. I’ve got to get ready for the first tour of the day.”

The Mamma Jammers packed their gear and beat an efficient retreat, thanking him for the gig and the place to crash.

In the kitchen, I helped him do a quick washup of the breakfast dishes. My body still felt languid and relaxed, but my mind was buzzing. “Hey, Sinclair?”

He shot me a sidelong look. “Uh-huh?”

I scrubbed diligently, declining to meet his gaze. “How come you never talk about your mom?”

More silence.

I snuck a sideways peek of my own. Sinclair reached over to turn off the water faucet. “My mother is a very powerful woman, Daisy.”

I remembered what Cody had told me. “Oh, yeah? Is she an obeah woman?”

“She’s a judge.” His voice was flat. I felt a powerful surge of white-girl guilt. Yeah, given the first opportunity, that’s where I’d gone. Ooga-booga island voodoo. But then Sinclair’s full lips compressed to a tight line. “And yeah, she’s an obeah woman,” he admitted. “A very, very powerful one. Dangerous, too. It’s in our bloodline. If you really want to know, that’s why my father left Jamaica. My mother worked some shady magic. In her legal dealings and her personal dealings, too. He had his doubts about her intentions. He felt he might have been compromised in their relationship and didn’t want me further exposed to it. That’s why we left. And that’s pretty much the whole story. I don’t like to talk about it because I don’t like to think about it. Okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Sinclair leaned over to kiss me. “Cool.” He glanced at his watch again. “Look, I really do have to run. Call me later?”

“You bet.”