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Rodney paused in mid-step. “Oh please, let me have her. Just for an hour. You two are the most kinky pervs I know. Let me play with the Faerie slut? Pretty please? You can watch—”
Morio pushed me out of the way and strode over to Rodney. He didn’t look happy. “Why didn’t you tell us you could grow like that?”
Rodney shrugged. “You never asked.”
“How often can you do it?”
“All night long. Want to find out, youkai bitch?” the skeleton said, snorting. “Oh, this.” He swept one bony hand over his body. “Like it? The things I can do with these fingers . . .” At Morio’s scowl, he cleared his throat and said, “Okay, okay. When I’m recharged enough, I can hold this size for an hour or two. Then I revert.”>“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.
Morio crossed his arms. “Open it.”
“But—but—” Rodney was serious now. “It’s cursed. I could be killed.”
“You can’t die because you aren’t alive. You’re a golem who happens to have some sentience attached to you. I guarantee you, I am far more dangerous than anything attached to that box. Open it.” Morio took one step forward.
Rodney let out a shriek and raced back to the box. As the skeleton flipped open the lid and jumped back, I covered my eyes and waited for a moment, then peeked from behind my hands when there was no immediate flash or explosion.
“Nothing happened.” Rodney sounded confused.
“Faulty hex,” I said, edging my way forward again.
“What’s inside the box?” Delilah asked, coming out from behind the tree where she’d been hiding.
“A couple of crystals and a pouch. That’s all. You want I should open this thing? It’s pretty full.” He held up a black felt pouch.
“Do it,” Morio said.
I decided to let my suddenly badass lover handle this. That way, if Rodney got smashed to smithereens, he’d be the one answering to Grandmother Coyote, not me. And seeing that they were related in a weird kind of extended family way, she might be nicer to him if he screwed up.
Rodney opened the pouch. Nothing happened again. He slowly upended the contents into the box and I heard the clink of metal on metal.
“Well, well, well,” the skeleton said. “Lookie what we have here!” He held up a necklace.
I edged forward another step and peeked in the box. A scattering of jewelry littered the tray. But there were other things in the pouch, as well. Not so happy things. Bones, to be precise, intermingled with the rings and pendants and earrings. Finger bones. Knuckle bones. Despair radiated off them in concentric waves, rippling out of the box, hitting me in the gut and making me queasy.
“These belong to women. To the women who disappeared here. Holy fucking hell,” I whispered. “Harold and his pervs were keeping souvenirs from their kills.”
Morio and Delilah joined me and we stared into the box, at the macabre treasure that lay scattered before us.
“No wonder a goshanti formed here,” Morio said, squatting to poke through the items. “The quartz spikes amplified the energy surrounding the trinkets and bones, rather than protecting them from discovery. Once again, Dante’s Hellions fucked up. I’ll bet you anything the rune for hexing is actually a rune to ground the energy and keep it right here. We aren’t going to be able to cleanse the goshanti devil from this lot until we disperse the items and put these bones to rest.”
