Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (49 page)

Harry's did. Harry's made an angry, warning growl. “You made a plea to the Overlord?”

“Just a teensy tiny experimental one.”

“Aloud?” Harry thundered, seeming to loom in the back seat of the SUV, filling it with his unearthly presence, radiating cold heat. “Did you call out to Him aloud, by name?”

“Well that's how you talk to demons. How's He supposed to know you're talking to Him specifically if you don't name names? Like during a spell when I call upon Aradia, I always say Her—”

“Well, He may very well accept,” Harry cut me off, dropping the invitation with a tiny paper slap on the bench seat. “I hope you're happy.”

“He can't come here!” I cried, flapping a hand. “Not to the cabin. I don't need Him now. He's too late. He'll have to go away!”

“You cannot tell the Overlord to ‘go away’,” Harry sighed, retreating into his coat. We pulled into the driveway and he made a slow stream of soft shell-shocked expressions under his breath, like a man finally returning home from war.

The wheels were turning in my head. “Suppose He did come.”

“I would really rather not.” Harry closed his eyes.

“Asmodeus could track Ruby Valli and punish her. He could find Dead Kristin and Dead Danika. He could find ole Gregori and talk some sense into him. Maybe a visit from the Overlord isn't the worst thing that could happen.”

Three sets of incredulous eyes turned to me. I banged my door open and flung one leg out to the cold night air. “Then again, I've been wrong a coupla times…”

*   *   *

Wesley was waiting in the doorway for us, his big hair cranked back in a guy-tail under a ball cap facing sideways. He'd draped Harry's black silk robe over his bony frame. If he wasn't wearing something under it, Harry was gonna plow him one. My brother's bright blue eyes were wide with anticipation. I didn't even ask. At this point, whatever his problem was, it was going to have to wait. It didn't even matter. I'd summoned the creator of the revenant lineage to some sort of soiree, and apparently the demon king was considering it. Yippee!

On top of that, I had a crazy-ass old lady in the wind, but presumably still wanting me dead. Check that, an invisible crazy-ass old lady. Those were the best kind. I had not one ghoul, now, but two on the loose, with few ideas about how to catch them, or what to do with them once I did. I had a fourteen hundred-year-old French revenant (according to Harry, the Frenchness was the very worst part of it, though I wasn't sure why) infatuated with me. The hot guy I wanted to screw was moving to Michigan. My brother was undead. And I'm pretty sure I officially ruined my chances of having a steamy first sexual encounter with Harry. The weighty condemnation in his voice and the rolling of his eyes promised it would be brief and perfunctory, a wham-bam-thanks-for-the-Bond thing.

I had to fix at least one of these problems before Asmodeus decided to drop in for milk and cookies.

“Get out of my face, Wes, I swear,” I mumbled on my way to the fridge. I popped a Dr. Pepper. “You have no idea how bad I wanna punch someone right now.”

“Actually, that's what I want to talk about,” Wes whispered, eyeballing the Feds out of the corner of his eye. “In private. Now.”

“What, me punching you? We can do that here.” I chugged Dr. Pepper and coughed on the carbonation burn. The fang wounds in my tongue stung, making my eyes water. Harry moved past me to the pantry and slipped into the stairwell going down to his chambers, not speaking, not looking back.

Wes made an unhappy noise and I looked back to see his eyes had wilted to pansy purple again. It reminded me of the goetic summoning candles, as though they were dancing inside my brother's skull.

“Have you figured out how to not do that, yet?” I asked.

“Do what?”

I wanted to cry with exhaustion. “What do you need Wes?”

“I really need to talk to you in private,” he stressed, wringing his hands. I'd never seen a guy do that before. I couldn't think of anywhere outside of golden age cinema flicks that I'd seen anyone do it. “Before it gets too weird in here.”

“Gosh, why do you think it's about to get weird in here?” I asked him flatly. “Because your sister is radiating homicidal rage?”

Batten interrupted us. “Hood just called. Dunnachie is missing.”

I blinked. “Missing how?”

“As in, he hasn't been seen by his wife or anyone in his precinct.”

“Dunnachie has a wife?” It occurred to me that this wasn't supposed to be the shocking part. “Missing since when?”

“December 8th, went out to buy bread and never came home.”

I threw up my hands. “I have enough to worry about. I don't have time to keep track of Mundanes. I'm tracking ghouls and goetic witches and demon kings. Dunnachie's a big boy. He can take care of his own problems!”

Wesley had gone very quiet and still. I diagnosed this to be the same don't notice me stance he had tried when he found my stash of Playgirl magazines in 1996 and ratted me out to Mom. Now, he also had the stillness of the undead. The guilty silence was the same. I don't know how Batten missed it while he grabbed a soda, mumbled something about my failure to buy beer, and then joined Chapel in the office, where Chapel was talking heatedly on his phone.

Wes said quietly, “Batten thinks I killed that cop.”

“He doesn't think that,” I assured him.

“Oh yes he fuckin’ does,” Wesley hissed, and grabbed for my elbow. He'd only touched me for a second, a brush of fingertips, when he pulled back. His whole body shrank away from me.

I studied him, setting my can down. “What the hell is your problem?”

“Your Talent. I don't want you to, y'know,” his lip curled, “know all my stuff.”

I stared him down. “I know stuff without my Talent, too. Because I know you. Go to my room.” He started to speak and I pointed hard. “Now.”

We shut the door behind us and I watched as he went to my bed, crawled into it, pulled a pillow into his lap. There were more problems on his face than I could handle. I let my head fall back until my shoulders screamed that they weren't going to hold its weight like that much longer; my breath left in one long sigh.

“Wesley, in ten minutes, I'm going to bed. Alone. I am going to sleep. All night long. I don't care if ghouls come a'knockin'. I don't care if a lovesick immortal howls at my window. If a demon king descends upon my front porch, He can just fucking wait there until I'm ready to host Him, cuz I have earned some goddamn sleep and I am going to have it.”

Wesley nodded as I spoke. I don't think he actually heard any of it; he was rapidly agreeing to whatever I said. I should have told him to go clean out the entire shelf of cookies at Mum's market in Ten Springs and bring them home to me.

I said calmly, “So you have ten minutes, Wes-Wasp, whatever your name is. I am only giving you ten minutes because, even though you are a soulless fiend now, you are still my brother. Speak now, and then get out.”

“Harry said time is different for revenants.”

“Harry doesn't like other guys’ privates getting near his stuff.” Clothing, towels, DaySitters. He was sort of territorial that way. “So I hope you're wearing something under that robe.”

“He said that I have to be two hundred fifty before I'd be strong enough to offer the Bond and get a DaySitter of my own. And he said that I have to be about six hundred before I could turn other revenants. He said I probably wouldn't develop my Talent for a year or two. That it takes that long for, uh, UnDeath to really settle in.”

I said tiredly, “He's the expert. Are you thinking I have information contrary to that? Information that you wanna hear?”

“He also said that sometimes young revenants go crazy. That UnDeath has mental health complications for some people, if they have a pre… per .. propensity? Predisposition? Like, if they have crazy people in their family tree.”

I narrowed my eyes. “If you're talking about me, buster, you better watch your mouth. You're already on thin ice, showing up here all glowy-eyed.”

“Marnie, either Harry's wrong about the Talent, or I'm going crazy.”

“Eat someone, you'll feel better.” I nodded thoughtfully. “Shit, drain me. I think that would maybe solve all my current issues.”

Wesley was shaking his head slowly, his eyes full of moisture, glossy with welling tears. Shit, another crying immortal. “You don't believe me.”

“It's not that I don't believe you,” I said, lowering myself to the bed beside him and letting exhaustion pull me right down into a ball. “I love you. You're my blood. But I just can't focus on this right now.”

“Why not?” His eyes flickered, like a candle wavering precariously in a drafty room. The Husky-blue intruded through the violet but only briefly, and together they made an inky mess of his pupils.

I hadn't explained all of the problems I was having. I doubted Harry had either. And certainly neither of us had talked about my sex life or lack of it, or my unfortunate not-so-secret not-so-professional attachment to Batten.

“So you are sleeping with him,” Wesley said quietly. “I thought it was just his fantasies. Not memories, not actual… God, gross. So, you guys actually fucked so hard you nearly broke a motel door? No, don't tell me, I really don't want to know if this shit happened or he just wishes it would.”

I sat bolt upright, shedding my tiredness all at once. “Who said so?”

“Other than him? You. Just now.” Wesley aimed a forefinger at his temple like a gun and pulled the trigger. “I can't not hear you. Right here. Everyone's thoughts. They're scrawling across my brain like stock market quotes.”

I let out my breath. “Holy shit. Telepathy?”

“Maybe,” Wesley said uncertainly. “If it's not my imagination. Think something at me.”

My eyes cut to my nightstand drawer and I thought, my vibrator is neon green and six inches long.

“No it's not, it's purple, I peeked,” Wes said, his grin lopsided. “And it's more like nine inches. Friggin’ horse cock if I ever saw one. Do you gals really need that much? Jesus.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, grinning. I don't know why. It should have been bad news. But it wasn't; true telepathy was beyond rare. Excited, I tried again. How much of this are you hearing?

““How much of this are you hearing?” All of it. Exactly. And I'm hearing the shit you aren't trying to think at me either. Like, you have nervous gas and you're holding in a fart, wishing I'd go away so you could let it out. Which is kinda stupid, since I'm your brother. I've heard you fart like a million times.”

I threw my arms around his neck. “This is so cool, Wes!”

He laughed into my shoulder. “I guess this means I'm not crazy.”

I wouldn't go that far, I thought in his direction.

“Hey,” he poked me in the ribs, then hugged me back, harder. “If you're happy does that mean I'm going to be okay?”

You don't touch me because you don't want me to know… what, exactly? I thought at him.

Wesley tensed like he was considering pulling away. “Sort of hypocritical, eh? Since I can hear all your thoughts now.”

“My hands form the stronger psi-bridge,” I explained, showing him my gloves. “Hugging me probably isn't going to open the lock on your mental diary.”

“Good to know.”

“You, however, now have an unfair advantage over me,” I informed him. “What can I hide from a telepath?”

“I really wish you'd hide something,” he said frankly. “Like maybe you could stop having sex thoughts. Altogether. Forever.”

I let out a sharp laugh then realized he was serious. “I'll make you a deal. I'll try to stop thinking along those lines, if you tell me every time you overhear Batten thinking along those lines.”

“You mean every time he thinks about nailing you?” Wes scrunched his nose up, and his perfectly angelic face crumpled. “Sick.”

“Fine, then I'll daydream about every guy I see, in vivid, perverted detail.”

“Ugh, okay, okay.” Wes mock-shuddered with disgust. “You have a deal. How do you want me to signal it?”

“Scratch your nose?”

Wes's shoulders quaked as he laughed and shook his head at the same time. “Fine. Man, you've got it bad for this dude. Weird, right, cuz he's a vampire hunter, and you're a revenant's midnight snack? I don't see how that would work, with Harry. Good thing Batten's moving away.”

My smile died. “Did you hear that in his head?”

“Chapel's. And yours.”

I nodded. “Your ten minutes is up.”

“I know,” Wes said, his grin widening. “You were just thinking how you couldn't wait to get rid of me so you could dive under your pillows and have a nice, long cry.” He paused at the bedroom door, cinching Harry's robe tighter. “I'm not going back to Mom and Dad's.”

“Oh yes you are,” I said tiredly, guessing that I'd been thinking that too, in the bowels of my brain where things bounced along without my knowledge. I stripped off my socks, wriggling my toes in the cool air. “As soon as possible. It's gotten nuts around here. I can't see how I can make sure it doesn't get worse. I need you somewhere safe.” When he squawked I put a hand up to silence him. “I mean it Wes. I need you to be safe.”

He leveled a long look at me. The shade of his pupils had slipped back to blue and softened around the edges. Staring into them was like gazing at Portland Bight on the coast of Jamaica on a bright spring morning. “Hey, I wanna be safe, too, Marnie-Jean. Why the hell do you think I came to you?” He pointed at my nightstand, where a familiar bottle of multivitamins rested. “Picked you up a new bottle, your other one felt light.”

He closed the door without a sound, and I checked the mirror behind me. The black-watch spell notified me of two intrusions: Ajax and the second debt vulture, assigned to Wesley, both high in the trees, both sleeping with one eye open. No ghouls, no invisible crazy ladies (I think), no legions of demons or a fat demon king. The crypt beetles must have found some dead thing to chew on elsewhere, because they weren't on my property. I saw no spitting carrion spiders slinking around in the dark. All was quiet.

Picking up the vitamin bottle and wrangling with the child-proof cap, I guessed Harry was going to have to reign in his temper before he came to fix our Bond. With no one to impress, I could throw on
my grandfatherly plaid pajamas and big furry socks, and bundle myself up under extra quilts. My body begged me to do so as soon as possible. The cap finally screwed off and I shook a couple pills into my palm.