“You have a lot of nerve showing up here, Littlefield,” Mr. Bossard said, keeping his voice low regardless. “You need to leave and you need to leave now.”
“Please,” Littlefield begged. “Listen to me. They’ve cursed us or something. You’ve got to see that. This can’t be a coincidence. I’m next. Don’t you see I’m next?”
“All I see is the person who ruined my son’s life now here tainting his funeral. Get out.” Mr. Bossard shoved the boy back. “Get out before my wife sees you. She doesn’t need your sorry ass here reminding her of what started all this in the first place. I knew I should have forbidden Neil to be around you. You’re nothing but bad news, Littlefield.”
Littlefield stumbled backward, holding his hands up in front of himself to ward off any more blows. “Please, Mr. Bossard. You gotta help me. Somebody’s gotta help me.”
“Like you helped my boy end up in prison? I said get out and I meant it, you little piece of shit.” Bossard advanced. The group of men around me closed ranks behind him. Whatever Littlefield wanted, he wasn’t going to get it, and no one from inside the house was going to help him.
He must have figured that out because with one last desperate look, he turned and fled.
My friend from the upstairs bedroom then whispered something in Mr. Bossard’s ear. He turned and looked at me where I stood, halfway down the stairs. The look he gave me was unmistakable. I’d worn out my welcome here.
I held up my hands in front of me and said, “I got it. Time to go.”
I headed directly to the door, walking past the line of men standing with their arms crossed and glaring.
Right before I crossed the threshold, someone gave me a little shove to send me on my way. I stumbled and righted myself.
Now I was on my way out the door. What’s more, I was doing it peacefully. That little shove was just plain mean and as far as I’m concerned, mean people suck.
I whirled. One of the men reached toward me as if he were going to grab me by my jacket. I knocked his hand to one side and gave him an uppercut to the solar plexus. He doubled over and gasped for air.
Another one tried to grab my arm. I twisted my arm around his and broke his grasp and then swept his legs from underneath him.
They hadn’t expected a girl to fight back. The other men backed away, their hands raised in front of them. I didn’t wait around for them to marshal their forces. I whipped the door open and ran down the steps.
The door slammed behind me and I fell directly into the arms of Officer Ted Goodnight.
I looked up at him. He looked down at me. In unison, we said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
4
“YOU FIRST,” TED DEMANDED, RIGHTING ME AS I STUMBLED on those damn kitten heels. I knew better than to try to be fashionable. I should leave that stuff to Norah.
“Why? Why don’t you go first?” I craned around him to see if I could get a license plate or something to identify the young man who was running away. I didn’t hear a car, though. The sun had already begun to set and the light was growing dim. It was often a good thing that I could see like a cat in the darkness, but if there was nothing to see, then it didn’t help much.
Ted put his hands on his hips and said, “Because I’m the law.”
I snorted and stood tall in front of him until we were nearly nose to nose or, more accurately, nose to chest. He had a solid six inches on me height-wise. “Not in these parts, you aren’t, Mr. Sacramento PD. I think you’re way out of your jurisdiction, in more ways than one.”
He looked down at me, not budging, and shook his head. “They’ll understand why I’m here faster than they’ll understand why you’re here.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Sometimes I could distract him, but not if I went into full confrontation mode. “Fine. I’m willing to make a deal, but first, did you see the kid who came running out of the house ahead of me?”
“The one who got tossed from the memorial service right before you did?” He squinted a little. It was his deep-thought face. He got the same look right before he picked a flavor of ice cream. Bless his heart, he almost always went with chocolate chip cookie dough, but he gave it serious deliberation before he did.
“The very one.”
“Why’d he get tossed?” He relaxed his stance a little. I was going to get my way. I rubbed my mental hands together with evil glee. I figured it was bad form to do it for real.
“I don’t know. He was ranting and raving about being cursed and they booted him out. They booted me out right afterward.” That little shove on the doorstep had been totally unnecessary. I wondered if Bouncer Boy was the one who’d done it. It seemed kind of petty for the grown men that had been surrounding the door.
“Oh, yeah. Why did you get the boot?” Ted squinted at me now, as if trying to make his mind up.
I sighed. “Someone caught me looking under the deceased’s bed.”
He pivoted toward the street and slung his arm around me. “Is it any wonder that I love you? Now, where are you parked? I didn’t see your car anywhere close.”
I froze. Unable for a moment to take a step forward, perhaps maybe to breathe. Had he just said what I thought he’d said? Was that a declaration of love?
In all fairness, the man had literally risked his life for me. And his job. And had been put in doubt of his very sanity. Those are all good indicators that a guy is pretty into you. Still, he had never used the actual
L
word. Like I said, long-term romantic relationships haven’t exactly been my forte. Did that count as an actual
I love you
? Or was that more something a person would say the first time they bit into my mother’s noodle kugel?
“Are you coming?” Ted looked down at me, bemused.
I was glad darkness had fallen, so he couldn’t see the expression on my face. Or, at least, I assumed he couldn’t. He did not see like a cat and I was glad of it at the moment. “Yeah, sure,” I said, and stumbled forward.
“So spill.” Ted kept his arm around my shoulders as we walked.
A deal was a deal. “You know how Bossard died not too long after I made a delivery to him?”
“You mean that coincidence thing you mentioned the other day?” His tone was more than a little sarcastic. I knew I deserved it, so I let it go.
“I was afraid that maybe whatever I’d delivered had caused his death somehow. I wanted to sniff around the situation and make sure I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
He stiffened but kept walking. “And do you think your delivery did have anything to do with it?”
“I’m not sure yet. I found the package I delivered for him unopened under his bed. Some guy—his brother, I think—caught me as I was fishing it out. I haven’t had a chance to open it and see what it is.”
He nodded. “And you were going to let me know about this when?” He picked up his pace a little.
His legs were a lot longer than mine and I was wearing heels. I took a few jogging steps to keep up with him. “When I knew if there was something to be concerned about or not. I mean, why get everyone all upset before anyone knows whether or not there’s something to be upset about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I thought we were intimate on more than a physical level.” He picked up the pace a little more.
I dug my heels in and came to a full stop. Darkness had fallen completely now and we stood in a pool of light from the street lamp. The shadows played over his face. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that we’re supposed to share things with each other. It means we’re supposed to trust each other. It means you’re supposed to let me into your little club.” He threw his hands in the air.
“What club? There is no club. There’s just me. It’s always been just me. The only other person there’s ever been was Mae and she’s gone. If there ever was a club, the membership card can apparently be deadly. So be careful what you wish for.” I poked his chest with my index finger.
“Wish for? You think I wished for this? You think I wished to fall in love with the girl with the craziest story I’ve ever heard? And don’t forget, I was raised by the guy who had me sleep in the aluminum foil hat so the aliens couldn’t read my thoughts, so my crazy-story rating system is pretty highly tuned.” He grabbed my index finger and held it.
I glared at him. “That is the second time in the last five minutes that you’ve alluded to being in love with me. If you don’t say it right the next time, Ted Goodnight, hand to God, I’m going to bitch slap you down this sidewalk.”
He was breathing fast and furious now, as if he’d been running hard. He grabbed me around my waist and pulled me to him. His breath was warm and sweet on my cheek, his chest hard against mine. “Melina Markowitz, I am head over heels in love with you. I am so crazy about you that I’m worried that you put me under a spell.”
“I can’t do spells,” I said.
He lowered his lips to mine and the rest of the world fell away. For a few moments, there was nothing but him and me and our bodies pressed together. Heat bloomed inside me and trailed fire from the very center of me to my toes.
Then, from the very edges of my perception, I heard a growling noise. I ignored it, hoping it was my imagination. Then the buzzing in my flesh made it clear that I couldn’t. Something was out there. Something nasty. I disentangled myself from Ted just as the dog lunged at us.
“WHAT THE HELL?” TED SWUNG AROUND AND INTO A CROUCH.
I peeled around so I was back to back with him. We both cautiously circled, keeping each other’s backs covered. It felt as natural to me as when we were front to front, but different. This had its own thrill, but I think I like the front to front stuff better.
The dog circled us, too. If it was actually a dog. At the very least, it wasn’t only a dog. I could tell that much by the electrified hum I felt from it. The glowing red eyes were the next dead giveaway.
It lunged again, snapping its teeth inches away from Ted’s throat.
“Bad dog,” he yelled. “Down.”
Unbelievably enough, the dog-thing backed away a little. “ ‘Bad dog’? Seriously?” I asked. “That’s all you’ve got? ‘Bad dog’?”
“Well, he’s not a good dog.” Ted took off his jacket and wrapped it around his left arm.
True that. The thing lunged again. This time at me. I smacked down on its snout with my fist. It whined a little as it backed away. I growled a little in the back of my throat. That close, I could smell the sulfur coming off it. “He’s not a dog, either. Careful, don’t look him in the eyes.”
“Got it. Any idea what it is?” He glanced over his shoulder at me.
“I think it’s a cadejo.”
He snorted. “I don’t think name-calling is going to help at this moment.”
“Not
pendejo
. Cadejo. It’s a demon that takes the form of a dog. This one isn’t quite right though.” I looked at it hard, something that wasn’t all that difficult to do since I was not going to take my eyes off it at the moment. “Sometimes the cadejos mate with regular dogs. This might be the offspring of one of those hook-ups.”
“You can tell just by looking?” The dog circled and we circled with it.
“Yeah, I’m getting a supernatural vibe off it, but it doesn’t have goat hooves or chains that glow in the dark.”
“Is that good news or bad?”
“Good. It means we can probably kill it.”
He made a funny noise in the back of his throat.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always hated killing animals.”
“It’s not an animal. It’s a demon.”
“It’s a hybrid. You just said so.” His tone was way too reasonable for someone being stalked by the son of a demon dog.
I felt myself starting to growl again. “Fine. It’s still going to come down to us or it.”
“Got it,” he said. “Give me your jacket.”
I took it off and handed it over my shoulder to him. He wrapped it around his arm on top of his own jacket. As the cadejo lunged at him again, Ted lunged forward with his left forearm braced in front of him like a battering ram. He practically shoved his arm into the thing’s mouth as it lunged toward him. Then he braced his other arm on the back of its neck and, with a quick jerk, snapped the dog’s head up.
I heard the crack as its neck broke and it fell slack to the ground before him. Smoke started to rise from the body. Then the body began to disintegrate, as if it were on fire from within. Within seconds, all that was left was a black oily stain on the sidewalk, with a horrible smell like rotten eggs.
I turned to Ted. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, breathing hard. “I’m okay.”
I unraveled the jackets and looked at his arm. The red stain on his sleeve grew. “No, you’re not okay.”
He looked down, looking almost confused as the blood began to drip from his hand. “Hmm. Guess you’re right.” And then his knees began to buckle underneath him.
TED LET ME DRIVE HIM BACK TO SACRAMENTO IN GRANDMA Rosie’s Buick. Officially, the Buick has been mine for three years now. Unofficially, it will never fully be mine. I like to think it’s inhabited with a bit of my grandmother’s feisty and tenacious spirit. Ted, on the other hand, views it as past its prime and prone to break down. I’ll grant the
past its prime
, but it has never failed me when I needed it. Regardless, it was a testament to how he was feeling that he allowed me to drive him at all, much less in my old-lady car.
“How will we get my truck back?” he asked.
“I’ll have Ben help me. Or Sophie. They both have their licenses now.” Ben was my downstairs neighbor’s kid. He and Sophie had a bit of an on-again/off-again teenage romance thing going, which I wasn’t entirely thrilled about. On the other hand, he’d gone from total screwup to a pretty responsible young man and I had to grant him that. Plus, it was handy to have someone around who knew a little about what was going on. I hadn’t approved of Sophie telling him who and what she was, and who and what I was by extension, but it had ended up being more helpful than not. Still, it was another blurring of the neat compartments in which I’d kept my life up to this point. I didn’t much like it most of the time.