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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.”
“I’d like to make close personal friends with your stupid ass—” he started to say but stopped when Morio began to squeeze.
“Talk to my wife like that once more and I’ll break you in two. I no longer give a rat’s ass that you’re a gift from Grandmother Coyote.” His voice was dangerously low and I knew that he’d reached his breaking point. It took a lot to push Morio into a corner but the moment he got there, he lost it and all hell broke loose. In a way, he was more dangerous than Smoky because Morio was more unpredictable.
Rodney squeaked and shut up. Delilah chose that moment to shift back to herself. I gave her a withering look. She scuffed the ground and muttered, “Sorry,” and looked the other way.
“Can we puh-leeze get on with this?” I wanted to launch into a diatribe but it was useless. “Rodney, get your bony butt in that hole and drag out the box.”
Morio set him down on the ground and, as the skeleton flashed me the finger and headed for the hole, the three of us began to back up.
Rodney noticed our retreat. “Where you bitches going? Why—” He stopped, peered in the hole, and groaned. “You can’t be serious? You want me to drag a cursed box out of the ground? I get it! You think I’m expendable! Let the bony guy get it. If anybody’s going to fry, it’s me, is it? Well, I tell you bitches, I’m not—”
Morio’s voice ran a timbre lower than scary. “You are expendable. At any time, whenever I choose.”
Rodney shut up. It was only for a moment, but right then I knew that, beneath the surface, he was terrified of Morio.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re the big bad youkai and I’m just your pip-squeak love bitch. Fine, leave it to me. But if you blow me up, I’m quitting!” Still muttering, he climbed down in the hole and after a couple of minutes, he huffed and puffed his way out, dragging the box behind him. We all took a simultaneous step back.
“What now, boss?” Rodney edged away from the box as he glanced up at Morio. Even without skin and flesh to cover his skull, I could see the worry on his face. Or what would have been his face.
