Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (38 page)

“At a little after six thirty pm, I was sitting in the chestnut tree in the backyard watching you through the kitchen window.” He smiled, shrugged, as though he did such things every day. “The smoke got so thick in the kitchen that you had to open the screen door and fan the air with a dish towel. I remember.” He pressed his long pale fingertips to his smiling lips. “That the towel had ducks, little yellow ducks, embroidered on its hem, as did your mother's apron, draped around your bony little waist. Do you remember, dearheart, what you said as you pulled the pie out of the oven?”

“Of course not,” I said, beyond confused. “God, it was more than ten years ago. I think I was only fifteen that year, when Vi came. Why would I…”

“Of course you wouldn't, my love, because as I would come to find out, every other minute of your day is spent cussing a seaman's blue streak at someone or something.”

Baffled, I answered his growing smile with one of my own. “I don't get it, Harry. What did I say?”

“What I heard was fragmented, punctuated by angry snapping of your dish towel and soft exasperated muttering, but I quote: “dickshit ratfucker!””

Sounded like me. “Yeah, and…?”

His smile broadened. “Bezonter me! I laughed so hard, I fell out of the tree and cracked my tailbone. Though the dead may heal quickly, allow me this: it hurt like a cattle prod in the bullocks.” His eyes sparkled. “That very moment, in the hard October night, holding my arse in agony and trying not to laugh so loud as to startle you at the kitchen door, I fixed my fancy upon your saucy heart in a way I cannot describe. There would be no other member of the Baranuik family for my future partner. I wanted you, MJ, only you.”

My heart softened as the corners of his eyes turned up.

Harry continued, “I told Vi so when she came back to the hotel.” He touched his smiling lips again, a naughty boy with a guilty secret discovered. Then he reached out and traced his thumb over my bottom lip fondly, wistfully. “Was she ever angry with me, Lord and Lady, but I would not be dissuaded. I know what I want, and I always get it. Someday, my impatient little imp, I am determined to enjoy you fully. I will reward your fortitude, this I swear.”

That sounded promising; the intensity with which he said it made me blush. All of the sudden I couldn't sit still; restless, I needed to be in motion. I swung out of bed and padded into the kitchen to draw a shot of espresso. Harry followed close behind, the weight of him more substantial now, the promise of someday lingering in my mind. Making sure the counter was clean of putrid yellowish blobs of ick (thankfully the kitchen looked relatively untouched) I doctored a cup of espresso with a shot of brandy and promptly forgot about it on the counter top.

“So what are you waiting for?” I asked.

He steepled his fingers, dancing the fingertips together gently. “A sign.”

“How irritatingly mysterious of you,” I dead-panned.

“If I tell you, you'll only ruin it.”

“Another vote of confidence.” I lifted my fingers and wiggled them in his face. “I'm just supposed to wait until I somehow pass this indefinite, indecipherable test and mystically signal the beginning of a new era in our relationship?”

“That is not even sensible conversation.”

“It's entirely senseless, that's my point.” I pointed at him. “We're the least sensible couple in revenant-DaySitter history.”

“Perhaps there are things I can do to make the waiting easier for you?” he proposed.

I almost made a very filthy suggestion involving his fangs, my underpants and the table behind me, but clamped my lips together to prevent it from escaping. Harry would not approve.

Or would he? He stared at me, unblinking, waiting. When I remained still, silently blushing, he reached out one pale finger and swept the back of my hand, making contact. The Blue Sense flared between us with the heady snap-spark of burnt sugar. Unfortunately, my filthy suggestion was still rattling around in my vivid-red imagination.

His eyes gathered heat until his power ruptured into the close space between us in a breathtaking wave. He moved too fast to see, too quick to react, shoving his hand around me to cup the small of my back, thrusting me up against the hard plane of his body. He laid his face against mine, the familiar rough scratch of his evening beard pressed my cheek. The entire length of my back where he touched me was twitching, pricking with goose bumps and the thrill of being taken fast and hard and held in place by this new sweeping, possessive clutch. This was not at all like when we danced; no, the courtly gentleman had taken his leave and in his place crept a rogue, a fresh face I'd never seen. Harry's chin dipped to my throat and his mouth on my skin was a cool shock as the hard hint of fang pressed against the thudding pulse there. I let my head fall back, a sigh escaping me. His hunger tore through me, tinged with the unfamiliar tug of lust, and I reached for his hand to encourage him.

He didn't wait for my signal. Up against the complaining kitchen table he took my throat roughly in his mouth, bearing down hard enough to draw a ragged cry. His body pressed forward in one sinewy motion, moving in a slow progression like an army across a battlefield, inch by inch claiming space above me, until I found myself on the creaking table. He dominated the space and everything in it. One of his lean thighs pressed between mine, jerked my legs apart so he could settle his weight along my core.

Drawing back to look down on me, wedged hip to hip, master of the territory, lord of his property, Harry seemed immensely pleased with his new throne. I watched his pupils rapidly expand until his irises were only thin silver threads around two deep black holes and I felt like I was wavering very dangerously on the edge of an abyss from which there was no escape, about to plunge headlong into the watery alien crevice. What could be in there, waiting to sharpen its teeth on my sorry bones? Dizzy with surprise, I reached for the comfort of his familiar face, stroked him with my palm, felt the stirring of our Bond, that precious primal link to my immortal partner. It had only been days since I broke our Bond but its absence hurt, and as it trickled back in to fill the void, the push wrung my insides. The glass prick wound in my finger left a faint red smudge of blood on his cheek; his head darted to take my finger in his velvety mouth, suckled at it tenderly. I couldn't help but imagine his mouth suckling elsewhere. Keeping me captured in his gaze, Harry's unflinching stare made my core twitch to life. Empathically, I felt the window to his emotions thrown open and for a moment I was bombarded by the avalanche of the revenant's pent-up desire, frustrated need of a nearly terrifying grade. Harry felt it too, his eyes widening with surprise.

“I do believe we may have breathed new life into the Bond,” he said, his voice husky with desire. All at once, his eyes swam from battleship grey to faint chrome ringed with pitch streaks I'd never seen before cutting the luminous glow. So this is Harry, horny, I thought happily. Hot damn. His proper manner slipping, his dignity shrugged off like an inconvenient burden, he gave me a look that was all male, a predatory thing deeper than lust, an eternal hunger entirely different than human love.

“Maybe I'm getting the Bond back,” I said, surprised that I could still make sound. The unsteadiness in my own voice was foreign. Rather than running from it, I dared myself to turn up the heat. “You should put yourself between my thighs more often.”

“Do you suppose it is as simple as that?”

“Oh no,” I said, offering up my open mouth for a kiss. “Probably to fix it totally, you'd have to nail me. Let's test that theory, shall we?”

“Always a lady,” he said benevolently, no disapproval in his voice now.

“Well if you're not going to do me on this table, Harry, then just what are you planning to do with this impressive erection?” I challenged. Heart an avalanche in my chest, I tilted, my core wriggling against him. His unearthly eyes sank closed in helpless pleasure, dusky lashes fluttering against his pale skin, he groaned, rested propped on his palms like he was doing a push-up above me. He rolled one shoulder as though resisting his urges was causing physical pain, but all I felt radiating off him was the heavy urgent need of a man growing hard.

His mouth sank again to nuzzle under my chin, and his warming tongue darted out to play with his favorite spot along the length of my throat before sinking enamel for more. I heard his lungs rattle to life and he inhaled suddenly, deeply, with pleasure as my hips ground against him again. My hands, always having a mind of their own, wove down the front of him until they found his belt, then ducked along the front of his grey flannel pants to squeeze between our bodies, seeking the exciting new development throbbing there.

He drew back, his eyes soft around the edges, and given the chance I'm sure he would have told me that we'd find middle ground, deal with everything together, as we always did, as a team. That nothing had changed. That he cared for me as much as his little dead heart could.

But at that moment, the kitchen window exploded in a shower of glass shards, tinkling across linoleum, and I was left staring down at the fiery rush of a sizzling Molotov cocktail.

THIRTY-FIVE

I barked, “Code 6!” but Harry was already bolting to the bathroom, head down.

The stench of burnt sugar meant the blaze had been strong enough to singe him somewhere, causing his revenant healing to flare. I dropped hard to my knees in front of the sink, fished underneath in the cabinet between a box of empty cans for recycling and a bottle of Clorox bleach for the fire extinguisher. Panic made my fingers slippery and fumbling. Not remembering exactly how the damn thing worked I pulled a pin, whipped around, aimed, hoped and sprayed. Foam blasted out.

Another window burst and this jar broke on the bubbling, blistering linoleum, spilling flaming alcohol into the kitchen and belching black, burnt plastic smoke in the air. “Stay down Harry!”

The second Molotov took a lot more work to put out, especially since its flames had caught the rough chipboard underside of the Formica table. The reek of melting plastic singed my eyes and nostrils.

Distantly, the hollow sound of water running into the bathtub told me Harry had taken the precaution of sinking underwater. There he would stay until I came to give him the all-clear.

The kitchen seemed to waver and blur as my eyes filled with tears. Just the smoke, I told myself, scrambling on hands and knees, choking on chemical fumes, while another part of me whispered, Nooo I was getting LUCKY you bitchass motherfucker! My crawl was clumsy with the fire extinguisher clutched in one hand. I took cover in the walk-in pantry where the doorway to Harry's basement bed chamber was, and my resting baby brother. I made sure the door was shut tight and sprayed a line of foam along the bottom to protect him. Then I tentatively reached out and poked at a hot shard of
glass, to see if I could get a quick trace on who made the thing and who was pitching it into my home.

I got nothing. Closing my eyes, I forced up the Blue Sense, pulling an extra boost from my submerged companion. I started to taste it, but my heart was drumming too hard and my hands were shaking. Dizziness interfered, the psi-bridge dissipating like smoke from damp-lit wood. On the plus side my frustration was brushing away fear, and irritation was setting steel into my spine.

At the front of the house another window shattered. My jaw tightened and I thought of Batten's jaw, and then I thought of my cell phone in the front office. Mark! I hauled myself up and skidded to a halt just in the threshold of my office. My desk!

Ducking to keep my head out of range of any more flying objects, I aimed a long foaming stream at the flames arching across my rug, the length of my desk, my blackening Sudoku book, my gutted laptop. My book of shadows lit with a flare. Stray No. 2 pencils became perfect kindling, rolling onto the carpet trailing white sparks in their wake.

“Shit shit shit…” I layered the foam heavily on the carpet, almost as heavily as the swearing and cursing. I'm definitely letting Harry buy me a bigger fucking gun now. Maybe an Uzi. Screw it, maybe a couple of big ole cannons mounted on the roof, fore and aft.

Another Molotov smashed into the office but didn't break. I grabbed the jar, yelled, “Fuck you!” and quickly pitched it back out.

Fire raced along the floor toward my book case. Alarmed, I let out an unladylike grunt-choke and aimed the fire extinguisher at the licking flames. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep this up without help. I jerked open the top drawer of my desk, dug out my cell phone and with a shaking thumb dialed Mark's number, hoping their late night ride (read: uncomfortable escape from the Bickersons) hadn't taken them too far away from Shaw's Fist.

“Batten.”

I heard a noise behind me in the hall and spun with the fire extinguisher aimed to kill. A very angry, very drippy revenant glared at the damage around me. A bang preceded Wesley into the hall, dry but fully vamped-out, prepared for a brawl. The corner of Harry's lip curled back to reveal full fang.

“Harry, don't!” I begged but he was flying out the back door with a growl. Wesley was his shadow and an echo, seconding his unearthly noises.

“Marnie!” Batten yelled on the phone but his voice was distant, breaking up.

I cried out, “Stay back! I'm warning you! Dammit.”

I darted after them, picturing Molotov cocktail meeting dry old revenant and new revenant and going kapoof all together in a massive fireball on the back lawn. Faster than the human eye could track, Harry's wet form zigzagged, jerked and shadow-stepped, slipping and curling along the icy darkness at the edge of the lake. Wesley was nowhere near as graceful but the speed and sheer physicality of him took my breath away. I hurried after them, sloppy in the snow in my sock feet, the extinguisher thudding on my thigh.

Harry took a running leap, bounded up the side of the boathouse, a gymnast from the grave. Wood cracked from the impact. He lunged up and through the air and he was gone. I blinked, staring against the gloom of the heavy forest for signs of him or his prey, swinging the fire extinguisher impotently. I heard the roar of an unfamiliar motor across snow. Wesley put his head down into the wind and pole-vaulted without the pole into the forest gloom.