Autumn Bones

Fourteen

Somehow I got through the evening.

The music helped. Ironically, it also helped that Emmeline was so adept at being two-faced, falling back on the easy, self-deprecating charm that had lured me into complacency in the first place.

Sinclair wasn’t fooled, at least not by me. He knew I was on edge. When I first returned to the table, he gave me an inquiring furrowed-brow look. I replied with a barely perceptible headshake that meant I didn’t want to talk about it now.

So we didn’t.

We listened to the rest of the set, and when the band took a break, Emmeline asked if we’d mind making it an early night since it had been a long travel day for her. I don’t think I’ve ever cleared out of a bar faster in my life. I was in such a hurry I almost forgot to leave a tip for the band in the fishbowl atop the piano. I hustled out the door into the parking lot—and then stopped abruptly.

A solitary figure was awaiting us under the lone floodlight that illuminated the lot, leaning against the pole, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. There was a motorcycle alongside him, a pared-down vintage model that looked like a prop from an old World War II movie. The light spilling from above highlighted his fair hair and the unnatural pallor of his narrow face and his skinny bare arms.

“Cooper,” I said aloud.

“Evenin’, m’lady.” He freed one hand to tip an imaginary hat to me. “Everything all right?”

I should have realized that Stefan would sense the barrage of fury I’d very nearly unleashed. “Everything’s fine. Did Stefan send you?”

“He did.” Cooper levered himself away from the pole. “The big man himself. Said he felt a surge in the Force or somewhat and sent me to have a look. I had a peep through the window.” He sauntered closer, hands back in his pockets. “Looked amiable enough to me, didn’t it? A few chums having a pint. So I reckoned I’d wait out here.”

Sinclair stepped forward to block him. “Daisy, do you know this guy?”

“Yeah.” I put one hand on Sinclair’s shoulder. “He’s okay.”

Cooper sniffed. “Faint praise, Miss Daisy!” Rocking back on his heels, he studied Sinclair. “This your bloke?”

“That,” I said, “would be none of your business.”

“Touchy touchy!” He gave me a crooked sideways grin. Neon light from the bar signs glittered in his pupils, which waxed as he turned his attention to Emmeline, and just as swiftly contracted to pinpoints. “Hello! What do we have here?”

“Emmeline Palmer.” She extended one hand to him, cool as a cucumber. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Mr. Cooper, is it?”

Cooper kept his hands in his pockets. “You’re wearing a ward, aren’t you, darling? Quite a powerful one. Don’t think I fancy a taste of it,” he added thoughtfully. “Afraid of the local hobgoblins and bugaboos, are we?”

“I’m a lawyer, Mr. Cooper.” Emmeline gave a faint shrug. Light glinted on the polished leopard-spotted surface of the cowry shell and gold chain strung around her neck. “We like to be prepared.”

He eyed her. “Right.”

I glanced at Sinclair. He looked like he’d had as much covert tension and subterfuge as he could stand and was ready to blow. “Cooper! Will you thank Stefan for me and tell him everything’s fine?”

“I will,” he said. “He said to tell you to be in touch. He’s got somewhat that might help out with your little project.” With that, Cooper sauntered back toward his bike, straddled it, kicked it to life, and roared out of the parking lot.

Sinclair turned to me. “You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?”

I really, really didn’t. Not here and now, not in front of dear Emmy, who was glancing back and forth between us with interest, waiting to see how this was going to play out. I, um, hadn’t exactly been forthcoming yet about my bond with Stefan Ludovic. “It’s nothing. Like Cooper said, he was just checking things out.” I gave Sinclair my best puppy-dog eyes, pleading silently with him to let it go.

“All right.” He sounded reluctant, but he agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

Emmeline slid obligingly behind the wheel of her rental convertible. “What a peculiar young man,” she remarked, pulling onto the rural highway. “Is he even old enough for a driver’s license?”

“Cooper?” I met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, you could say so. He’s more than two hundred years old. He was hanged to death in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.”

Funny how those kind of details stay with you.

Her eyelids flickered slightly. “I see.”

“He’s not a duppy, Emmy,” Sinclair said. “He’s a ghoul.”

Duppy. It seemed like I’d heard that word before. I wanted to ask what a duppy was, but I kept my mouth shut on the question for now. It was worth noting that Emmeline hadn’t been able to recognize a ghoul on sight. That, I thought, was why she’d offered to shake Cooper’s hand; she was trying to get a read on him. It was also worth noting that she’d done it without the slightest trace of fear, and Cooper had been wary enough to refuse.

Okay, duly noted. Dear Emmy was packing some serious mojo and should not be underestimated.

By the time they dropped me off at my apartment, my head was aching with the effort of containing my various emotions. It was about half an hour later, around ten thirty or so, that Sinclair called. I’d thought he might. I was sitting on my screened porch listening to Billie Holiday, a few candles lit, a glass of scotch in my hand and Mogwai on my lap, kneading and purring. I was as calm as I was going to get.

“So what’s up, Daisy?” Sinclair asked without preamble. “What’s going on?”

“Is your sister there?”

“No,” he said. “I offered, but she’s staying at a B and B downtown. Why? What did she say to you?” He hesitated. “Does it have anything to do with that rat-faced little ghoul checking up on you?”

I stroked Mogwai’s calico fur. “Do you know why she’s here?”

“Yeah.” Sinclair let out a sigh. “To try to talk me into coming home. Home to Jamaica. At least during the off season. But you know . . .” There was a faint wistful note in his voice. “I think she misses me, too.”

“You must miss her,” I said.

“We’ve spent most of our lives missing each other, Daise,” he said. “But we’re on different paths.”

According to his sister, the path of obeah was a path of balance, a path between light and dark. That was one of those things that sounded good on paper, all profound and mystical, until you started wondering exactly what the hell it meant, what the real-world ramifications were for mundane and eldritch alike.

And I didn’t know. I had no idea. All I knew was that Emmeline was on it and Sinclair wasn’t, but she and their powerful mother thought he should be.

“Daisy?”

“Yeah.” I shifted Mogwai’s bulk into a more comfortable position. “Look . . . I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

“What did she say to you?” Sinclair repeated.

I gazed out into the night, listening to the sounds of Pemkowet. It was quieter than it had been in months. It would get even quieter in the months to come. “Do you ever regret not following the same path as your sister?”

“No.” His reply was prompt and sure. “Daisy . . . listen, it’s a long story. It’s part of the conversation I promised you. But the short answer is no. A definitive no.” He paused. “Are you going to answer my question?”

I scratched Mogwai under his chin. He lifted it to allow me access, curling his lip with pleasure to reveal a sharp eyetooth. “Emmeline asked me to stop seeing you. To call off the fairies, use my influence in the eldritch community. To give you a reason not to stay here. To go home.”

There was a short, shocked silence. “She what?”

“Yeah.”

Sinclair laughed. “Oh, hell, no! Emmy, Emmy! I know she only just met you, but what in the world made her think you of all people would agree to it?”

See, here’s where it got tricky. Vague, creeping menace does not a coherent threat make. And I might be entirely in the right here, but I was also the outsider in this equation. Families, even dysfunctional families—hell, maybe especially dysfunctional families—tend to turn on outsiders who slander another member of the clan. I’d seen enough of it with the Cassopolis family to know that. Jen could bitch about her abusive father, her passive mother, and her blood-slut sister, Bethany, all day long, but heaven help anyone else who did the same. That right was reserved for family.

So I temporized. “Oh, I think she thought I’d be swayed by her formidable nature. She is pretty formidable, isn’t she?”

“Mmm.” He made a noncommittal sound. “What about the ghoul?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What’s a duppy?”

Again, Sinclair hesitated. “It’s . . . sort of like a ghost, only not a ghost. A spirit. A duppy’s what happens when someone dies and their earthly soul gets loose instead of going where it belongs.”

“Okay.”

“Sometimes they look like animals,” he said. “But mostly like dead people. Daisy, did my sister threaten to set a duppy on you?”

“Um . . . no?” At least I didn’t think so.

“Good.” He sounded relieved. “Look, let me talk to Emmy. She’s headstrong and she’s used to getting her own way. But if I ever do go back to the island, it will be on my terms, because I decided it, not because my sister decided it was time. I’ll tell her to leave you out of this, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed. “But as long as she’s here, I’m staying out of the way.”

“Fair enough.”

After a few more innocuous comments, we said good night and ended the call. I sat on the porch for a while longer, petting Mogwai and thinking about the conversation while the candles guttered into wax pools. On a Daisy-and-Sinclair basis, I felt good about it. I’d taken Lurine’s advice and cut him some slack. Other than dodging the whole ghoul issue, I thought I’d handled it pretty damn well from the standpoint of a supportive girlfriend, especially considering that the whole secret-twin-sister thing had just been sprung on me this morning.

As Hel’s liaison, I wasn’t so sure. Emmeline Palmer hadn’t just threatened me. She’d threatened my town. My territory, my turf, my responsibility.

I hoped that it was all just posturing, that dear Emmy would back down when Sinclair confronted her.

But if she didn’t . . .

“Bring it on, bitch,” I said aloud.

Okay, so I wasn’t entirely sure what it was or what I’d do about it if she did, but it felt good to say it.