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I knew they’d want to meet him. And if that happened, there was no doubt in my mind that Delilah would end up in puddy-tat form and Menolly would end up crushing Rodney into bonemeal. Then we’d have to pay some enormously nasty debt to Grandmother Coyote for breaking her toy. The scenario was all too real in my mind and I just didn’t even want to go there.
I sighed. “Rodney is a gift. Actually, he’s an albatross. Grandmother Coyote gave him to Morio. He’s rude, he’s crude, he’s lewd, and we’re stuck with him. Just ignore him if he starts in badgering you, okay?”
Her cat instinct took over and Delilah perked up her ears, looking more curious than was good for her. “Let me see.”
Morio cleared his throat. “Remember, we warned you. Don’t start whining if he gives you the finger.” He opened the box and whispered a low incantation over the miniature skeleton. Within seconds, Rodney sat up, looking around. I shivered. The fire in his eye sockets gave me the creeps. Everything about him gave me the creeps.
Rodney fastened his gaze on Delilah and let out a long whistle. “Hot damn! Another broad! Well, fuck me with a swizzle stick. You’re a scorcher, bay-bee. Anytime you need a boner, just call on me. I may be small but I can travel to places no man can reach. At least not with his entire body—”
“What did you say?” Delilah gaped at him, a bright flush running up her neck to spread across her face.
“I told you,” I muttered. “Just ignore him or he’ll get worse.”
“I’ve got a thing for the schwing—” And Rodney was off, humming and dancing a rather twisted version of the “Time Warp,” his focus being the pelvic thrust, of course. Which was just so wrong. I felt like we’d been forced into some nightmare vaudeville of the damned.
“Enough!” Morio glared at him as I resisted the urge to backhand the little creep right into the hole we’d just dug.
“Why the hell do you keep him around?” Delilah sniffed, looking away. I saw a faint shimmer in her aura, which could mean only one thing.
“Curb it, Delilah. You need to stick with us and not go—”
But I was too late. The next minute a lively golden tabby stood in her place and before either Morio or I could stop her, she gathered herself and leapt, knocking Rodney out of Morio’s hand as she threw him off balance.
Rodney hit the dirt running. Apparently the creep had enough sense to know when he’d pushed it too far. Delilah was hot on his heels, her tail swishing from side to side, with a suspiciously happy look on her face.
Uh-huh, I thought. Her transformation wasn’t really an accident. She’d never ’fess up if I pressed her on it, though. I knew her well enough for that. Accidental shapeshifting had become an easy excuse over the years. When she wanted to get out of doing housework, when she wanted a nap and we were busy, when she wanted somebody to give her a good rubdown . . . oh yeah, my sister wasn’t above using her faulty powers for her own gain.
“Delilah! You come back here! Don’t you—oh cripes, stop her!”
Delilah had managed to leap over Rodney’s head and land on the other side, and now she swatted him a good one with a big old furry paw. Rodney went flying into a pile of dirt.
He leapt up and motioned to her with one bony finger. “Come on, baby, come on—you just try it again, you goddamned fleabag.”
Morio was closer to her than I. He took one quick leap and stood towering over the pair. His eyes flashed with flecks of topaz and he suddenly started to grow, morphing into his fox demon shape.
I caught my breath. Even when he was in full demon form, he was hot as hell. At least in my eyes. At eight feet tall when he was fully transformed, Morio was huge—in all ways. I knew that from a very personal and pleasurable vantage point. As his face began to lengthen, his muzzle appeared and his long black nails grew into long black claws.
Before he’d finished shifting, he leaned over the squabbling pair and let out a low growl. “Stop now or I’ll eat you both.”
Delilah and Rodney froze in their tracks and stared up at him. Delilah slowly backed away, hissing with her tail fluffed up, but she made no move to run or fight back. Rodney glared at Morio, hands on his pelvis, looking put out. Morio waited till Delilah had moved out of range, then scooped up the skeleton. Within another moment, he’d shifted back.
I stared at all three of them, shaking my head. “Good gods, we might as well slap signs on our backs that read KICK ME. Delilah, turn your fluffy butt back into your normal form. Rodney . . . you’re just a stupid ass.”>As the pavement passed beneath our wheels, fat drops of rain began to splatter down and then the skies opened up and a bone-drenching downpour pounded the road. I slowed, careful to avoid hydroplaning so we didn’t go sailing into any other cars. Driving in Seattle was crazy enough, but the rain created hazards I’d never thought of back in OW.
Of course, back home I’d never ridden in a car, either, or had to learn to drive anything more complicated than a cart. Riding horses came second nature to me. And horses and carts didn’t usually go fast enough to skid on the roadways there. We didn’t do concrete back in Otherworld. Though cobblestones presented their own problems when wet.
“Wouldn’t you know it? We’re going to get soaked to the skin.” I frowned, wondering if I should try a little weather magic, but a flash of the deluge I might create if my magic backfired nixed any further thought in that direction.
Delilah snorted. “So what? In the past months, we’ve been covered with demon blood, viro-mortis slime, venidemon guts, mud, sludge, and who knows what else? What’s a little rain?”
“Don’t forget pixie dust.” I grinned at her. “And I’m sure we’ll be nose deep in oozing green ichor before we’re done with the job. I’m just glad I found a talented dry cleaner.”
I turned left onto the street leading to the ruins of Harold’s house. The morning had taken on a gloomy presence and the last place I wanted to be was here, but if Morio was right and the goshanti devil usually didn’t come out during the day, we’d better use the daylight while we had it.
I pulled next to the curb behind a prowl car. The uniformed figures of Lethe and Finias, two OW Fae who had been assigned Earthside to help out with the FH-CSI—the Faerie Human Crime Scene Investigation team—were standing guard. As we climbed out of the car, Finias strolled over to greet us.
“You’re here to clear the land?” he said, his eyes the most arresting shade of green I’d ever seen. He wasn’t particularly tall, but his golden hair glimmered like Delilah’s, falling to his shoulders, and the scruff of beard that lightly shaded his jaw made him look rugged. Yet he reminded me of one of the golden boys. An Apollo in training.
I nodded. “Mind if we head in?”
