“Kitten, what are you doing up?” I headed over to her side and situated myself next to her on the sofa. She was in her Hello Kitty nightshirt, with an afghan wrapped around her legs.
“I couldn’t sleep. Lash told me she’s going home in the morning. That she’s not going to interfere with my relationship with Shade. She said she had a long talk with you. Thanks… I was afraid she might try to break us up.” She was clutching a bowl of Cheetos, staring at the TV.
I glanced at the set. She was watching The House on Haunted Hill. Vincent Price was looming in the foreground, and the music was cueing up for an ominous scene. I leaned against Delilah’s arm, wrapping my own through the crook of her elbow.
“Lash won’t bother you.” I paused, then added, “Speaking of talks… I just saw Shamas outside. He left for Otherworld tonight, Kitten. He’s going to enlist in King Vodox’s army of sorcerers to try and stop the storm.”
She stopped, her hand midair, still clutching a handful of the orange cheese puffs. “Wow. I didn’t expect to hear that.”
Stuffing the snacks in her mouth, she tried to say something else but just showered the afghan with a sputter of crumbs. I snorted and handed her the glass of milk that was on the coffee table and she took a long sip, clearing her throat.
After she’d wiped her mouth, she muted the sound on the TV. “So what do you think Camille will say about him leaving?”
“I don’t think she feels the same way he does. I finally got him to admit that he’s never stopped loving her, and to be honest? I think maybe it’s a good thing he’s going away. I doubt if he’ll ever shake his infatuation with her, but maybe if he’s not around her all the time, he can move on.”
“There’s one little problem with that.” Delilah frowned, shaking the crumbs off the blanket. “Suppose he goes over there and gets himself killed? You know how dangerous it is there. How is Camille going to feel then? If she even so much as suspects that he went there to get away from her, she’ll blame herself.”
It hit me that, at times, Kitten was much more astute than I was. Both of my sisters were. I didn’t see the world in the nuances they did, and for me, life seemed like it should be more straightforward than it really was.
“Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that. I guess then we have to stress that he went home because he wanted to help in the war efforts. Leave her all the way out of this one. Tell her that… well… tell her the truth. He told me he felt like he needed a cause to work for—to believe in.” While that wasn’t quite the truth, it would do for now and it was close enough to what he’d said that I didn’t really feel like I was lying.
Delilah nodded. “Makes sense to me. I know he’s been basically just putting in time with Chase. I don’t know if he really liked the job or not.”
“Okay then, we tell Camille that Shamas felt like his talents could better be utilized back in Otherworld, so he went home to help.”
With that, Delilah turned up the sound again and I sat beside her in comfortable silence, snuggling a little, as we watched Vincent Price and the forces of the dark. As the movie droned on, Delilah fell asleep and I covered her with her afghan and turned off the television. It was still an hour or so till dawn, but I decided to go curl up next to Nerissa and rest my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until dawn, but as I crawled into bed and felt her gentle pulse next to me, and the warmth of her body, I was able to drift in the comfort of being next to the person I loved most in the world.
The next evening, I awoke to find that Nerissa had left me a little love note on the pillow when she’d headed out for work. I kissed it, then tucked it away in my memento box, and headed upstairs. As I entered the kitchen, the first thing that hit me was that tomorrow night was Samhain Eve—October thirty-first. The second thing that nearly hit me was Hanna.
She was bustling from the fridge to the counter, her arms full of vegetables. A thick pack of steaks sat on the other side of the stove, and I could see Trillian on the back porch. He had fired up the grill and by the Kiss the Cook apron he was wearing, it was my guess he’d been dubbed the grill master for the evening. As he watched over the crackling flames, Bruce was sitting on the counter next to him, and they were talking.
Then I remembered: Our cousin Daniel was coming over for dinner. I glanced at the clock. He was due here around six, and it was a little past five now, so we had an hour.
“Excuse me,” Vanzir darted in front of me, a basket on his arm. It was filled with fresh herbs from Iris’s greenhouse. Camille was chasing after him, waving a trowel.
“You give those back! I was going to bundle them up to hang dry!”
“Only when you say please! I helped you harvest the damned things and then you turned around and squirted me with the plant mister.” Vanzir held the basket over her head, just out of her reach.
At that moment, Smoky swooped in from behind him and plucked the basket away. He gave Vanzir a guarded look. “Don’t trifle with my wife.”
Vanzir snorted. “A little late—we trifled some time ago, but I don’t intend to do so again. Now teach your wife some manners and maybe I won’t go swiping her herbs.” But he was laughing, and—after a tense moment—Smoky let out a chuckle and handed the basket back to the demon.
“Very well. Camille, say thank you to the demon for his help.”
Camille glowered at him. “Big lizard. Okay, okay… thank you and I’m sorry I squirted you with the mister. It just seemed the thing to do at the moment.”
The phone rang, interrupting the chaos, and since I was the closest, I answered. A male voice I didn’t recognize came on the line, but I knew his name when he introduced himself.
“This is Tanne Baum. Am I talking to Delilah or Camille?”
It was Violet’s boyfriend. He was from the Black Forest Woodland Fae in Germany, and according to what Camille and Delilah told me, he had some sort of bond with Violet that allowed him to know she was still alive.
“Hi, and no. I’m Menolly, their sister. What can I do for you?”
A pause. Then, “I have some news on Violet—I performed the ritual I told your sisters I was going to do. I don’t know exactly where she is, but I did come up with some information that might help find her. Can you meet me tonight?”
I glanced at the clock. Dinner with Daniel would probably take a couple of hours, at least. “It will have to be later tonight. Ten P.M. okay for you?”
He paused, then, with a resigned sigh, acceded. “Yes, if we have to wait till then, that will work. I suppose she’s been missing so long now that another couple of hours isn’t going to hurt anything. Where shall we meet?”
I frowned. “What about the Starbucks on Blackthorn Street? It’s on the corner, cross street Wales Avenue. They’re open half the night.” Also, the coffee shop was on the outskirt of Belles-Faire, which meant a shorter drive for us.
Tanne grunted and I heard the scribbling of pencil on paper. “I’ve got it noted down. I’ll see you at ten. And, Menolly, thank you. And your sisters.” And with that, he hung up.
“Who was that?” Camille had her basket of herbs and was sitting at the table, tying them up in bundles to hang from the ceiling out on the back porch.
“Tanne Baum. We’re meeting him at ten tonight, at the Blackthorn Starbucks. He thinks he has a lead on Violet—said something about a ritual he told you he was going to do?”
“Oh thank gods.” Delilah stopped in the middle of frosting cupcakes. She set the piping bag down and turned. “I hope he’s right. This whole mess with Lowestar Radcliffe and Violet has gotten shoved to the side by everything else that’s been happening, and I keep thinking, where is she? Is she all right? What must she be thinking now?”