Dead and Loving It (14 page)

D
rake. Seriously. How many T-shirts do you think I need?”

“But they're
so
versatile,” the Gap saleswoman piped up.

“Not to mention fragile,” Drake whispered in her ear, and was gratified to see her blush.

“You go away,” she ordered the woman, smiling. “You're helping him spend way too much money as it is. And you—put that down. Khaki—yech.”

“But this is the Gap,” the saleswoman said (“Ask me how to save 15%” was emblazoned in hysterical red ink on her lapel button), obediently retreating.

“What, so
I
have to wear the uniform, too? Keep going.”

“I'm offering you any woman's dream,” he said, “and you're still making mischief.”

“A) Chauvinist much? Any woman's dream? Shopping at Faneuil Hall? And B) put those
down.
I already picked out pants.”

“You'll need more than two pairs.”

“Not according to some,” she said, arching an eyebrow.

“Hmm,” he said, advancing on her, momentarily slowed by a whirl of khaki as she threw the pants at him.

“Forget it, pal. Neither the time nor the place. Excuse me,” she added, bumping into a silver, headless mannequin. “Oh, gross! I hate when I think they're people.”

“That's some empathy you've got at work there,” he commented.

“Off my case, Dr. Furball. What, you never ever made a mistake?”

He thought hard. “Nothing springs to mind.”

She let out a yelp of anger, and he could tell she was sorry she had nothing in her arms to toss at him any longer. “Dude, I hate to point this out, but you can't see. You must have screwed up something. Clashing tie, maybe?”

He tossed her a blouse the color of her eyes and said in a low voice, although the saleswoman was across the store, “
Homo saps
are more handicapped than I, dear.”

“Oh, sure, the one-eyed man in the country of the blind and all that.”

“Essentially.”

“We're not that bad.”

He shrugged. “I can smell an iron deficiency. I can hear a heart murmur without a stethoscope.”

“Well,
I
can tell this blouse doesn't go with those pants, so put it right back on the rack, pal. God, aren't you bored? These are all for me, and I'm just about bored out of my tits.”

He grinned. “Thanks for the visual. I'll make a note to catalog order for you from now on.”

“Well,
thank
you. Not that you need to keep buying me clothes.”

Want to bet?

“I suppose taking you to Anne Klein to look at dresses would be a complete waste of time?”

“Barf out! Jeez, look how late it's getting! The sun's actually gone down. God, how long have we been doing this?”

“Since supper. Stop complaining. We're almost done.”

“Well, I'd like to see you make me,” she said pertly.

“Done and done. If you're quite—” He paused suddenly. Was that a whiff of pack? Sure it was. Hmm, two in one week. It wasn't often he ran into one a year. That was interesting. Now what to do about it?

“Dick, I swear to fucking God, if you don't stop bitching I'm going to pull out your eyeballs and shove them down your pants.” The voice was strident, loud, and female.

“That could be fun,” a low-pitched male voice he didn't recognize said cheerfully. “And who's bitching? I just got up. What are we doing here? I didn't know you liked the Gap, m'dear.”

“I fucking well hate it, and you damned know it. But they're having a sale, and I can stock up. I fucking hate shopping!”

“A woman after my own heart,” Crescent muttered, holding up a sleeveless sweater the color of mucous.

Drake moved to get a closer look. Was that…? No. It couldn't be. And with a man? No. It had been too many years; he was mistaken. Still, no one else he knew packed that many “fuck”s into everyday language.

He stepped around the stack of red miniskirts. “Janet Lupo?”

She dropped the pile of clothing and stared at him with her jaw sprung wide. Despite her completely flabbergasted expression, he could see she looked good—great, in fact. Very healthy, almost glowing, with a vitality about her that had been lacking in the girl he'd once known. No, wait, that wasn't vitality—she was
smiling,
that's what threw him off.

Interestingly, he had no sense of the man with her except as a bundle of formidable power. No real scent, but pale, really very pale and tall. Blond, with a swimmer's build, and—

“Fuck a duck,” Janet said.

“Hello, Janet. It's nice to—”

Drake had an impression of blurred motion and then he went sailing through the windowfront and bounced onto the cobblestones. Broken glass rained down everywhere.

C
rescent worked very hard on not shrieking. It wasn't easy. There they'd been, minding their own business, when this bitch came out of nowhere and threw Drake through a window—
through
the damn window!—and now the two of them were rolling in the street like a couple of alley cats—or wolves, probably, wolves would be more accurate. The place was emptying pretty quick as the stampede started, and Drake was down, was on his back, and—

“Get
off
!” Crescent leapt forward, but a brick fell on her shoulder and yanked her back.

“I wouldn't,” the blond hottie said mildly. He was a yummy one, all right, and towered over her almost as much as Drake did. Skinny drink of water, though. She observed that the brick was his hand. Strong drink of water, too. “I think it's a family thing. Better let them—ow.”

She'd never hit anyone in the face before, and she was disappointed. Blondie just sort of shook it off and rubbed his jaw. “Now don't
you
start. There's only one woman permitted to smack me around, and she's currently rolling in a mud puddle with your friend.”

Show him your necklace.

Obeying the inner voice that was never, ever wrong (but which didn't speak up nearly often enough), she fumbled for one of the three necklaces around her neck, broke the chain, and thrust it at him. To her amazement, he stumbled backward and threw a hand over his face. Just like in the movies!

“Now you're just being mean,” he said reprovingly, groping for her. “Put that cross away before you hurt someone. Like me!”

She ignored him, turned her back, stuffed the cross down her shirt, grabbed the cow around the waist, and pulled. “Get
off
,” she huffed. Grabbing her lover's attacker was not unlike trying to stop an army tank—the woman absolutely did not budge. But she shrugged—nearly dislodging Crescent—and punched Drake in the eye for good measure.

“Your monkey's bothering me,” she told him, and punched him again.

“Crescent,
don't
,” Drake said sharply. There was a rill of blood trickling down his chin, but other than that he looked unharmed. Anybody else would be spurting blood from about six different arteries after sailing through a plate-glass window. Thank goodness for werewolf constitution! “Get back. Get out of the way. Don't worry about me.”

“Yeah, short stuff.” Bam! Another punch. “He'll be just fine. Why don't you go get a Frappuccino?”

She ignored them and stubbornly tugged again.

“Crescent,
get away from here.
In a minute I'm going to forget to be a gentleman—Goddammit, Janet, if you hit my jaw again I'll put you over my knee!”

“It's a date, gorgeous.”

“Oh no you don't!” Crescent tried a new grip and pulled harder. “Nobody's getting spanked but me.”

“Really?” Hottie said from behind her.

“I said get off him!” She suddenly felt her forearm clutched in an unbelievably strong grip and then she was sailing over the woman's head, only to hit the sidewalk ass-first. The shock went all the way up her spine, and she yelped.

“Unwise,” Drake said, shrugging out of his coat.

“Oh, please. Nothing personal, Blind Man's Bluff, but you're fucked. Can't have anybody ratting me out to Mikie Boss Man, so sorry, sit still and die now, okay?”

“I'll pass. And I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Really, Janet. Can't you two solve this a little more amicably than introducing death into the equation?”

“Pipe down, Dick. No one hit your buzzer.”

Crescent bounced up from the pavement. All three of them looked surprised to see her still in the game. “I
said,
” she growled, “keep your hands off my man, bitch!” Then she punched the cow in the jaw.

This was infinitely more gratifying than when she'd hit El Hottie. The woman rolled away from Drake like a bowling ball and slammed up against the Gap's front door, cupping her hands beneath her chin to catch the blood, and Crescent felt the shock of the blow race all the way up to her shoulder.

The woman spit a tooth into her palm. “Hey, that actually hurt, you little cunt!”

“Now
that's
interesting,” El Hottie said approvingly. He was the most detached man she'd ever met. What a weirdo! “You don't smell like a meat-eater.”

“Crescent!” Drake was utterly shocked. It was almost worth getting jumped just to see the look on his face. “How did you manage that?”

“Do we have to talk about it now? Or do I have to keep kicking the shit out of what's-her-cow?”

“Hey, hey,” she said warningly. “Watch the language.”

“You have a problem with
cow
? You put your hands on him again, I'll kick your ass up so high people will think you have a second head.
Cow.
”

“Says the midget.” But the woman's lips were twitching—like Drake's did when he was amused and trying not to show it.

“For heaven's sake, Janet,” Drake was saying, limping over to her and helping her out of the dirt. “What's the problem? I haven't seen you in—what? Fifteen years? And you attack me?”

“I don't suppose we could talk about this over a drink,” Hottie commented. He grinned, and Crescent nearly screamed. He had about a thousand teeth, and they all looked very sharp. “So to speak.”

 

“So now we're sort of…uh…in love and stuff. And I'm not going back,” Janet added defiantly.

“You don't have to sell me on the advantages of going rogue,” Drake said.

“What, so, you'd get in trouble with your boss? The what-d'you-call him? Pack leader?” Crescent dumped a third packet of sugar into her coffee. “What's he care?”

“He probably wouldn't,” Janet replied. “But it's not worth it to me. The risk, I mean. He could order me to stay on the Cape and I—I would have to obey, or disobey.”

They were sitting in the corner of the Starbucks on Park Street, speaking in low voices. Although Crescent wasn't sure why they bothered. This was Boston, after all. Nobody gave a shit.

“Well, you don't have to worry about me. You're only the second pack member I've run into in the last year. And even if I were to run into Michael—which isn't likely—I certainly wouldn't mention you.”

“Well, thanks. I guess I shouldn't have. Uh.” Janet coughed. “You know. Kicked the shit out of you without asking questions first.”

“That's all right,” Drake said kindly, ignoring Crescent's and Richard's snickers.

“You might think about moving,” Crescent suggested. “If your boss and all his lackey werewolves live on the Cape. I mean, you're only ninety miles away. If you lived in—I dunno, Argentina? That would be better.”

“Our home is here,” Janet said stubbornly. “Besides, we're all over the world. Might as well stake out a small claim and defend it here as well as anywhere else.”

Crescent noticed the hottie—Richard—hadn't touched his frozen coffee. “Aren't you thirsty?”

“Yes.”

“So what's your story, Blondie?” Janet asked. “Getting smacked by you was like getting smacked by a two-by-four. What do you have for bone marrow, steel ball bearings?”

“Well, I think I—”

“—might be part fey.”

Richard's eyebrows arched. “Really? I thought your kind died out years ago.”

“It's fairy, not fey, and most of us have—at least, I've never been able to find anybody else like me, and Drake, how the hell did you know that? I never got around to telling you!”

“I guessed yesterday, and when you smacked Janet, I knew for sure.”

“Whoa, back up.” Janet put her palms out like a traffic cop. “You're a fairy? Like Tinkerbell? With wings and shit?”

“Do you see any wings?” she snapped.

“Jeez, nobody told me fairies had such rotten tempers.”

“She's just mad because I figured it out,” Drake said with annoying smugness. “She was saving it for a surprise.”

“You're so insufferable!”

“Yes.”

“It runs in the family,” Janet added with a grin. “The men especially.
So
annoying.”

“Oh, yes,” Richard said. “
Male
werewolves are the annoying ones.”

“You shut up. Listen, I always heard fairies were these little delicate things. You hit me like a bulldozer.”

“Dense bones,” Drake said.

“Difficult to break,” Richard added. “I ran into one of your kind about seventy years ago, and he nearly killed me. He was quite old even then, dear, so don't get your hopes up. I'm sure he's dust by now.”

“Oh.”

“Don't sound so disappointed. He was a nasty old man.”

“This explains your fixation with flying,” Drake said, thinking out loud.

“Dense bones
and
she can fly?” Janet snorted into her Caramel Mocha Frappucchino. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“You ever see an airplane take off?” Crescent asked. “You look at it and wonder how something that heavy can ever get off the earth…and then it goes…and you're left on the ground.”

“Well, of course you can't fly with all those accessories.” Whip-quick, Richard flicked his spoon at his whipped cream and a dollop appeared as if by magic on the end of Janet's nose. “But you knew that.”

“What?”

“Dammit, Dick! Quit throwing whipped cream on me. You
know
I hate that.”

“What?” Crescent nearly yelled.

Richard looked startled. “All your piercings. You probably set off metal detectors in airports. And of course your kind can't tolerate certain metals.”

Drake's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. Crescent knew exactly how he felt. How had she never thought of this before?

“What are you guys talking about? Drake, you look like you just crapped your pants.”

“I—um—I want to fly, but I can't. But I never made the connection—”

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Fairies have a legendary fear of metal, especially iron,” Richard explained. “In Crescent's case, I would guess that translates into being unable to get off the—what are you doing?”

Tearing out all her goddamned earrings and rings, that's what she was doing. Between her ears, nose, and belly button, she had more than a dozen.

“I guess we're done talking,” Janet commented when Crescent stood up so quickly her chair fell over.

“There's a back door behind the second coffee machine,” Drake said, “but I'm not sure now is the appropriate—Crescent?”

She ran for the door, and it was right where he told her it would be. She was through it in a flash and bounding up one, two, three flights of stairs, and praise all the gods, the door to the roof was propped open. And then she was out in the open.

She dove off the roof. At the last moment, she closed her eyes—she'd been disappointed too many times not to feel a twinge of anxiety. She knew she wouldn't break any bones, but landing hurt all the same.

Except she wasn't landing.

She cracked open one eye and saw Janet, Richard, and Drake standing on the roof, looking at her. Except they were upside down.

Correction:
She
was upside down. In midair.

“There we go,” Richard said cheerfully. “Problem solved.”

“Uh.” She could feel the grin split her face. “Can somebody reach my foot? I have no idea how to get down.”