“Choked on spit. Hate it when that happens.”
“I see.” Still looking concerned, although her focus had shifted from concern for to concern about, she turned away.
The possibilities had shown two people in the bathroom. They’d already been there longer than they’d intended, and it seemed like they were going to be there for quite a while yet. Darkness had no intention of allowing a quickie, not when a delay would leave everyone involved so frustrated. Few things resembled a lynch mob quite as much as people waiting for a toilet.
As though Diana’s thoughts had been her cue, the first person in line, an elderly woman with deep angry lines dragging down the corners of her mouth, stepped forward and banged impatiently on the door.
Which broke the rhythm and looked to delay things even further.
There seemed to be only one logical thing to do.
A few moments later, the couple emerged looking too totally satiated to be embarrassed by the amount of noise the finale had generated. Muttering in disgust, the elderly woman pushed past them, slammed the door, and shot the “occupied” slide home with such force it echoed throughout the car like a gunshot.
Moving Samuel to her other shoulder, Diana followed the line forward, jerking to a stop at the sound of a happy moan from inside the bathroom, closely followed by a muffled “Oh, yes. Yes! YES!” from the cubicle in the next car. Blushing scarlet, she reached back into the possibilities. She’d only intended to bring the original couple to a conjugal conclusion, not everyone who had to relieve themselves between Toronto and Montreal.
Although VIA was trying to get more people to ride the train.…
Diana caught herself on the edge of the toilet as the train lurched around a corner, barely managing to keep her head from cracking against the outer wall.
“Better wash your hands when you finish,” Samuel observed from the sink. “You wouldn’t believe what this place is covered with.”
“I can guess.”
Hooking a paw around a tap, he braced himself as the car rocked from side to side. “No surprise really, I mean, how can a guy aim when he’s being flung around the room.”
“How about sitting down?”
“Not manly. Don’t put your hand there!”
“Eww. You’re not helping.” She erased the signature a Cousin had left behind and straightened. “It’s not a big hole, but it’s been here for so long it may take a while to close it down. I’ll have to keep coming back—do it a bit at a time.”
“You’re going to attract attention,” he pointed out, climbing into the backpack so she could wash her hands.
“As if. People don’t watch other people heading for the bathroom.”
“You think she’d try adult diapers or something.”
“Yeah. Adult diapers.”
Just past Coburg, heading into the bathroom for the seventh and hopefully final trip, Diana leaned down and smiled sweetly at the two young men who’d made their observation about adult diapers in carrying voices. “I’m on my period,” she purred for their ears only.
They leaned away from her, appalled.
“Lots of heavy bleeding.”
The blond turned green, his gold eyebrow piercing standing out in stark contrast to his new skin tone.
“Clotting even.”
The brunet swallowed three times in quick succession and clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Sloughing off big chunks of uterine lining.”
They exchanged identical expressions of horror.
“One more word out of either of you,” she promised, “and I’ll go into detail.”
“Was that nice?” Samuel asked, emerging from the backpack as the bathroom door closed. “I mean, they were just being guys.”
“Yeah, well, I am not an angel.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You’re not even a cat.”
“Look, it’s easy, stop the truck or I ruin the upholstery. Your choice.”
Claire rolled her eyes as Dean began looking for a place to pull over. “You went to the bathroom less than fifty kilometers ago.”
“And now I have to go again.”
“Austin, we’re in a hurry!”
“So am I.”
Since the truck was now stopped, there didn’t seem to be any reason to continue the argument. Opening her door, she watched Austin leap to the ground and disappear behind a young spruce.
After three minutes on the dashboard clock, she opened the door again and called, “Austin? Are you all right?”
“I’m old,” his disembodied voice reminded her. “It takes a while.”
“Be careful.” She closed the door and sighed.
“Worried about him?” Dean asked gently, brushing a few snowflakes off her hair.
“A little.”
“Seemed like some sigh for a little worry.”
Noting the sudden spray of snow from behind the spruce, Claire glanced over at the clock and sighed again. “I just can’t help thinking that there’s got to be a more efficient way to fight darkness. There’s a demon loose in the world and we’re waiting at the side of the road for a cat to pee.”
The certain knowledge that they were not going to be eating in his car gave Leslie/Deter the strength to hold his table against all comers. He looked up from two number fours, one supersized, a coffee, and a hot chocolate as Byleth approached, limping slightly, and demanded, “Are you all right?”
Byleth adjusted her jacket, smoothed her hair back into place, and shrugged. “I had to fight through a busload of old ladies to get to a stall.”
Above the line of the black turtleneck, Leslie/Deter’s pale face blanched paler still and he glanced toward the women’s washroom as though he expected to see a blue-haired horde emerge brandishing American-made toaster ovens. “You didn’t wait your turn?”
“As if. I’d still be in there.” She looked around the rest stop, noting the lineup of elderly men at all three of the fast food outlets. “I know the baby boom is aging, but this is nuts.”
“They’re on their way home from a holiday trip to Casino Rama.”
“You can tell that from looking?”
Byleth could feel him tottering on the edge of a lie, but in the end he shook his head. “No. It said so on their bus.”
“Oh. Well, when I unleash Hell, old people will be among the first to go—because they don’t run as fast,” she explained when he made a strangled, wordless protest. “I mean, even demons with no actual legs can move faster than some old fart using a walker.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.” He checked to make sure no one had overheard before squaring his shoulders under the black leather trench coat and meeting her…
…staring past her left ear. “I don’t like it.”
“Because of the God thing?”
“Yeah. Because of the God thing.” His stance softened as he slid her food across the table. “It isn’t funny.”
She grinned at him over a mouthful of fries. “I wasn’t joking.”
“Byleth.”
“Leslie. You know what I don’t get,” she continued. “You drive a really cool car, you’ve got that high-priced sort of Goth meets ’N Sync look going, you’re neither boxers or briefs so what is it with you and God? It’s like, so geeky. You don’t really believe you have a personal relationship with the big kahuna, do you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
She put down her burger and took a closer look. He really did. It was…unexpected. And disconcerting. Pushing her hair back off her face, she glared at him from under lowered brows. “In my experience, a so-called personal relationship with God mostly involves criticism of lifestyle choices.”
“Lifestyle choices?”
Her eyes went onyx. “I’m a demon.”
Leslie/Deter’s gaze skittered off hers, wandered the room for a moment, then slowly returned. His hands were trembling, but he swallowed and looked deep into the unrelieved black. “You don’t have to be,” he said.
And he believed that, too.
Byleth shoved her chair back hard enough to scrape the hard rubber legs across the tile floor with a noise that mixed fingernails on blackboards with the scream of a jammed fan belt. Half the people in the room winced, the rest put a hand to their better ear and shouted, “What?”