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“I’m serious. You smell like a trash can.”
“Not like trash?”
“No. You smell like the thing that trash lives inside of. Go take a damn bath.”
“Only if you wash me.”
Herald pulled his apron over his head, cracked his knuckles, then rolled his shoulders, his joints popping. “That can be arranged.”
Chapter 23
The Dark Room couldn’t spoil food, as it turned out. I shadowstepped home to the Boneyard from Herald’s place the next morning – he had a job to go to, after all – and I arrived in our living area weighed down by two beautiful apple pies. They were lovely, with a good crumb on the crusts and a sweet, succulent filling. Most importantly, none of us had fallen over dead from eating them just yet.
I don’t mean to be so flippant. Carver did examine them extensively before he allowed anyone to touch them, somehow using his false eye to determine that food could indeed pass through the Dark Room without being infused with anything strange or sinister.
“Maybe you can pop out and grab us some pizza, next,” Mason said, smirking through a mouthful of pie.
“Don’t push it,” I said. I knew he was joking, but all that time being away from the Dark Room made shadowstepping just that little bit more taxing for me. I was just out of practice, that was all.
“It is not a bad idea,” Mama Rosa said, standing over us at our dining table, her fork and plate of pie looking diminutive in her massive fists. “We could start a service. You will be my delivery boy.”
“Carver,” I whined. “Make them stop.”
“They’re only joking,” Carver said. “One hopes. Sit, Banjo. No. No pie for you.”
He scratched Banjo behind the ear, trying to get him to settle, then produced a treat from somewhere within his sleeves. Banjo froze in place at the sight of the Puppy Yum biscuit, transfixed.
“There’s a good boy,” Carver said, dropping a few more of the treats in a corner of our kitchen, a good distance away from all the pie. “Daddy’s Little Murderer.”
It was a really nice morning, in all, just Carver, Mama Rosa, and their many misbehaving sons gathered around the table for some good eats. Asher was stuffing his face full of pie and had little to contribute to the conversation. I almost thought of asking him about any results with Agatha and his gravesight, but hesitated. He looked so happy. I didn’t want to change that.
Gil must have stayed over at Prudence’s, and Sterling had, in all likelihood, slunk off to bed long before the sun came up. He liked to sleep in these days. Mama Rosa was dissecting her slice of pie cautiously, like it was a bomb waiting to explode, mumbling something about making a coconut cream version.
It was pleasant in the Boneyard. Nice, and calm, and quiet.
And as my damn brain liked to do in these moments, it gave a little input on the situation.
Too quiet, it burbled.
Then a second voice spoke in my mind, this one real, and not just an argumentative fragment of my personality.
“Dust? Where the hell are you?”
I clutched at my temples, an alarming stab of telepathic pain sending me reeling. “Vanitas? Jesus, what’s happening? No need to nudge me like that, buddy.”
“Emergency. Something’s wrong. Get your ass ready. Someone’s trying to break in.”
I frowned as I answered out loud. “What, break into our bedroom? Why? I keep the door unlocked.” I slammed my hands on the table and stood up, knocking my chair over. Everyone turned to me, staring in cautious silence. “Is it Mammon? Are they back? Damn it to hell.”
Carver rose to his feet, hissing as his false eye burned a pale amber. He looked around, scanning the Boneyard.
“No, it’s not that,” Vanitas answered. I heard the whistling long before I saw him flying down the corridor towards me. What the hell could possibly ever have him so spooked that he wanted to be in our vicinity so badly? “I can’t tell what it is, but it’s – ”
That was when the howling started.
I clapped my hands over my ears, as did the rest of the Boneyard. It sounded a hell of a lot like that bizarre vocalization Banjo was making at the ritual to the Great Beasts, his voice joined by so many others. Even with my ears covered I could hear them, dozens upon dozens of baying dogs.
Most telling of all, however, was the fact that Banjo’s eyes had turned a bright blue – the same color as the rune glowing on his forehead.
