His eyebrows went up. “I don’t think sarcasm is called for.”
Norah, my roommate, strolled into the kitchen, hair disheveled and a pillow crease across her cheek. “She always thinks sarcasm is called for.” She made straight for the coffeepot and poured herself a cup.
I attempted not to let my jaw hit the floor. Norah hadn’t been herself lately and poisoning her body with the evil drug caffeine was one more hint that all was not right in the sunshine and rainbow-strewn world of my yoga-loving BFF. “You want some cream or sugar for that?”
She shook her head. “Black is fine.”
I looked at her closely. Had she been possessed by some other being? Would I find a Norah-shaped pod in the basement of our apartment building if I ever got up the guts and energy to go through it? Stranger things had happened and some of them had happened right here at our apartment. My Norah had a sweet tooth and I couldn’t imagine her drinking coffee without girlying it up at least a little.
“Hey, Ted,” she said, and gave him a weak smile.
No, my Norah was not herself at all. She likes cops less than I do, or she had until Ted saved her soy-bacon last summer when we were fighting off Chinese vampires as they rose out of tunnels beneath Old Sacramento.
Now? Now she not only tolerated him but often seemed happy to see him and not in an icky I’m-going-to-steal-your-boyfriend way.
“Hey, Norah.” He smiled at her but then turned directly back to me. “Who gave you the delivery?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The box was sitting on the hood of my car when I came out of the dojo one night.” Which was pretty much exactly how the package for Kurt Rawley had come my way, come to think of it.
“Was there a note?”
“No. Just the box with the address marked on it.”
“That was it. There was a box on your car, so you drove it all the way out to Elmville and ...” He hesitated. “What did you do with it once you got there?”
“I left it on the doorstep.”
Both times
, I added silently.
“And then hung out long enough for someone to notice your car.” His eyes narrowed a bit.
“I hung out on the street for a little while and watched to make sure some guy who at least looked like he could be Neil Bossard picked it up. I don’t exactly ask for ID.” Again, contact with message recipients might constitute some kind of caring beyond fulfilling what was basically expected of me. Not my thing.
“Did he open the box?”
I was so done with the third degree. I threw up my hands. “How the hell should I know? And if I did know, what difference would it make? Someone needs something taken someplace, I take it there. End of story.”
“Until someone ends up dead.” Ted’s eyes narrowed.
Norah’s head shot up. “Who’s dead?”
I shot Ted a nasty look. Now he had upset Norah. Who knew how long it would take me to calm her down? “No one you know. No one I know. Some guy that I happened to deliver a box to last week got hit by a car.”
She blinked at me, her eyes big and round. “That’s it? No undead creatures ate him or anything?”
“Not according to the
Bee
. It was a simple case of man versus semi. The semi won. They pretty much always do.” I’d seen that a few times in the Emergency Department of Sacramento County Hospital where I work. It was never pretty.
“Well, okay then.” She went back to swirling her coffee.
“It’s a coincidence,” I said, with way more confidence than I felt. Ted started to open his mouth, but I shook my head at him. “Not now,” I mouthed at him and tipped my head at Norah.
He pressed his lips together in a tight line and headed back toward my bedroom. As he brushed past me, he whispered, “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
I didn’t bother telling him that I didn’t either.
TED LEFT AND NORAH SETTLED IN ON OUR FUTON COUCH WITH a bowl of Cocoa Krispies, making me increasingly convinced that an intervention was in order. I headed off to River City Karate and Judo to teach the Saturday morning Little Dragons classes. Out on the street, the Buick awaited me. It’s not an entirely good thing when the place a person feels most at ease is in their car. It used to be the dojo for me. I’d walk into River City Karate and Judo, my feet would hit that slightly scratchy gray mat and all my troubles would drain away. Or if they didn’t, they would seem more manageable. Like maybe I could roundhouse kick them into submission. I knew who I was there, what was expected of me and how to meet those expectations.
Now the dojo caused as much stress as it offered solace. In a move that had both honored and terrified me, my mentor Mae had left her karate studio to me in her will. I’d practically lived at the dojo before Mae’s death. Now it seemed like I really did. Small business owner was not a title I’d ever aspired to. My mother was inordinately proud and it wasn’t terrible to throw her the occasional bone, but it was a lot of freaking work.
I’d had no idea what kind of crap Mae had dealt with for all those years. It wasn’t only scheduling classes and training people and shaking hands. There were bills: ones that had to be paid and ones that had to be sent out. There were cranky parents and hyperactive second-graders and everything in between. There was insurance and business licenses and forms to fill out. The responsibility for making it run was all mine now. I’d always thought of myself as Mae’s apprentice, but apparently that was only true when it came to the actual martial arts part of the equation. The business-running part had escaped me completely.
I didn’t think there was ever going to be a day that I didn’t miss Mae, that the thought of something she’d said or taught me or done wouldn’t catch me unawares and startle me into missing her again. Walking into the dojo and having her not be there brought a special kind of pain, though, something both sharp and sweet.
I rubbed at the cold spot under my breastbone that formed whenever I thought of her, and pulled into the strip mall parking lot in front of the building.
I wondered if I should just close the studio, but I couldn’t bring myself to imagine that. Mae had spent so much of her talent and time building it. I felt that I would be dishonoring her memory if I didn’t keep it open.
Plus, without the dojo, what would I do with Sophie?
The question was ever present in my mind, but only more so at the moment as she opened the door to the dojo and greeted me. I’d made it her job to get to River City Karate and Judo by eight fifteen every Saturday morning to open the studio, make a pot of coffee and sweep. I figured if nothing else, it meant she’d be getting home early on Friday nights and maybe it would keep her out of trouble.
Plus, it had been my job at the studio for years. I really didn’t know what more to do with her than what Mae had done with me, since I’m pretty sure Sophie is my replacement.
She’d shown up at the dojo this past summer, the scars on her face and neck from the car accident she’d been in nearly healed. She wasn’t entirely sure why the odd things she’d been seeing were telling her to come to River City, but Mae and I were pretty sure we knew.
Like me, Sophie had died for a few minutes and then been brought back to life. Like me, she’d started seeing and hearing things that no one else seemed to see or hear or sense. Like me, she was a Messenger.
Unlike me, Sophie was sixteen. I’d only been three when I’d drowned in the backyard. Her learning curve was going to be different. I’d barely figured out my own, so trying to figure out hers was a bit of a problem for me, especially since the only person I’d ever gone to for advice on matters of the Arcane had died.
I stepped in the door and immediately felt a buzzing in my skin. The hairs on my arm lifted ever so slightly.
“Good morning, Sophie. How’s it going?” I glanced around. I didn’t see anything that would set off my freaky radar, but there are many more senses than sight. I’d been working on mine, honing them and developing them. Or maybe I was just paying more attention to them. It used to be as if I had only one channel and it was either on or off. Something was out there or something wasn’t. Suddenly I’d gone cable. My supernatural palate had become more sophisticated. I’d started to notice subtle differences between, say, the feeling I got when a vampire was lurking around the corner and the feeling I got when a troll was hunkered down under a bridge. Being able to differentiate was helpful. Not everything out there is out to get me, but some things definitely are. It was good to be able to sense the difference.
“It’s great.” Sophie gave me a big beaming smile.
See how different from me she is? A big beaming smile at eight forty-five in the morning? I would never in a million years have done that. I’d loved Mae with all my heart and soul and the best I could usually produce was a lack of scowling.
I did feel like I’d made some progress, though. Sophie no longer wore her hair hanging down over her scars. Right now, her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail at the back of her neck. The high pony might be cute and swingier, but it was also a potential handle hold for your opponent in a fight. It was unlikely that any of the Little Dragons that Sophie would help me teach this morning would grab her by her hair. It was actually unlikely that any of them would be able to reach it. The oldest Little Dragon in the beginning class was only seven and less than four feet tall. As Messengers, however, we had to be ready for a fight at any time. It wasn’t like we got to choose the times and places of our deliveries. We never knew where we were going or whom we were going to meet there. Speaking of which . . .
“So,” Sophie said. “There’s, uh, someone in your office.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Someone? Like a parent? Or a student?” I wouldn’t say I was a disaster with the administrative side of things, but that was because I was usually very generous with myself.
“Not exactly.” The smile stayed fixed on her face.
I stopped for a second. That must be the source of the buzzing. Whatever was in my office wasn’t particularly powerful, but it had some magic to it. It felt . . . earthy. “What exactly is it?”
“I’m not positive. I think it might be a Basajaun.” She paused and scuffed one bare toe against the tile floor of the foyer. “At least, I think that’s what it is. I’m still getting confused between Yetis and Basajauns.”
Totally understandable. Every time I thought I’d learned most of what was out there in the universe of the Arcane, something came along and bit me on the butt. Occasionally literally. I had the scars to prove it. It could have been worse, though. I never really liked wearing thongs anyway and I did learn to never ever turn my back on a Tailypo. Never ever turn your back on something that’s demanding the return of its tail. It may well take a chomp out of yours.
“So whatever this thing is, it’s in my office?” I asked.
Sophie nodded.
“And fifteen seven-year-olds will be here in ten minutes?”
She nodded again. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Definitely.” I walked into my office and shut the door.
The Basajaun sat behind my desk, running its long hairy fingers up and down the shaft of a hefty looking axe.
“Hey,” I said. I’d read about Basajauns, but this was my first in the incredibly hairy flesh. He—at least I think it was a he, it’s a little hard to tell with all that reddish brown hair hanging down to its knees—was close to seven feet tall. Or would be if it stood up straight. Still, when it rose from behind my desk, shoulders hunched and shambling, it was easily a foot taller than me.
It nodded and held out the axe, handle first. Lovely, a Basque Lord of the Woods who believed in Safety First. I took the axe. “Thanks.”
It nodded and headed toward the door. “Whoa, big fella! Where am I taking this?” It was one thing not to look a gift Basajaun in the mouth; it was another to take its axe without knowing what I was supposed to do with it.
“Ginnar.” It turned back toward the door.
“Help me out, big guy. Is that a place or a person?”
“Dwarf.” So, a supernatural creature of few words. I was down with that.
“You want a return receipt?”
It stared at me. At least, I think it did. It was hard to tell with the hair. It shook its head slowly and opened the door to my office.
I heard a high-pitched scream from the other side of the door and ran.
I was too late.
The Basajaun was backed into a corner, hands thrown up in front of its face. Advancing on it was all three foot two inches of a very determined Parvinder Gundar. I’d be frightened, too, if she was going after me. That is one resolute seven-year-old.
I jumped in front of her. “It’s okay, Parvinder. He’s with me.”
“What is he?” She scowled up at me.
“Yes. What is that thing?” Parvinder’s mother demanded from on top of the chair that she’d apparently jumped on.
Think fast, Melina. Think fast.
“He’s, uh, a character I’ve been thinking of hiring. You know, for birthday parties. Too scary?” I mustered up my brightest smile, which didn’t hold a candle to Sophie’s, but you had to go with what you had, right?
“He smells funny.” Parvinder stopped advancing.
I sniffed. She was right. He smelled like the slightly rotten layer of pine needles that lay on most forest floors. “Good point.” I turned to the Basajaun and pointed toward the back door. “Go out that way. Next time you come for a job interview, take a shower first.”
It shambled away across the mat. I took a deep breath and tried to relax.
Mrs. Gundar stepped down off the chair and smiled at me. “You’re going to do birthday parties? We were just wondering what to do for Parvinder’s party next month. What do you charge?”
Please, someone, kill me now.
A LITTLE OVER TWO HOURS LATER, SOPHIE AND I HAD USHERED out both the Beginning and Advanced Little Dragons. We had about two hours for lunch and then the sparring classes for teenagers and adults would start. Saying good-bye to the parents and kids, I felt yet another jab. I used to stand where Sophie stood now, a step back from Mae. Now I had to stand in Mae’s place.