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“I’m happy, too. ” At least, I thought I was. It felt so right to be close to Kane, surrounded by his strength, his warmth. Feeling his lips brush my skin, then press harder. Breathing his scent that always sent a shiver through me. Feelings I loved, that I never wanted to end.
But somewhere inside all that, a tiny voice whispered, “What have you done?” I wasn’t a werewolf. I didn’t want to pretend to be one.
I shook off my doubts and reached for him.
For the first time since I’d known him, Kane said his work could wait. We went out for a celebratory burger. Well, he had a burger; I had coffee. It was too early in my day for a heavy meal. The whole time, he talked about what to expect at Princeton. Picking me up and traveling there together. Checking in. How the day cabins were arranged. How packs were based around family units, and who belonged to which pack.
“What about Simone Landry?” I asked, trying to sound disinterested. “Does she have her own pack?”
Kane shook his head. “Simone is still part of the Landry pack, her family of origin. The oldest daughter. She hasn’t gone solitary, and she hasn’t mated. I guess she’s content where she is. ”
I wanted to ask what happened when a werewolf chose a mate, but I couldn’t think of a way to phrase the question without sounding like either (a) I was paranoid about Simone, or (b) I was dropping hints about our own relationship. So I let Kane talk.
Finally he checked his watch. “I’ve got to get over to the Back Bay for Simone’s talk. Where’s your job tonight?”
“Cambridge, near Porter Square. I’m getting rid of a little old lady’s nightmares for her. ”
“It’s a pity we didn’t have time to celebrate properly tonight. What about tomorrow? How about we get together at Creature Comforts and pop open a bottle of Axel’s finest champagne?” He grinned.
“Champagne?” I made a face.
“Okay, then, we’ll unscrew the cap of your favorite lite beer. Whatever you want. Simone has another fund-raiser, but she can manage without me. It’ll be our night. ”
Our night, with no Simone to be seen? “Sounds perfect. ”
We arranged to meet at ten the next night. At the door, Kane swept me up in an embrace that turned heads throughout the room. He was whistling—actually whistling—as he walked along the sidewalk toward the parking garage.
I watched him recede into the night. Half of me felt like I’d scored a major triumph. The other half felt like I was standing on the high dive, eyes closed, toes curled around the edge, taking a last breath before I plunged into the deep end.
6
I NEEDED TO STOP BY THE APARTMENT TO PICK UP MY equipment for tonight’s job. When I walked in, the television was on, but the volume was below its normal ear-shattering level. Juliet was just hanging up the phone. Oh no, don’t tell me my one remaining client has canceled.
“That wasn’t for me, was it?”
“Feeling a little self-centered tonight, are we? Why would it be for you?”
“Clients have been canceling right and left, and I’m about to leave for a job. ”
“Oh. Well, in that case, don’t worry. Your little old lady—what was her name?” She hunted through scraps of paper strewn across the coffee table.
“Phyllis. ”
“That’s right, Phyllis. You’ll be happy to know that Phyllis is still tormented by nightmares. She called to confirm that you’re coming tonight. ”
“You told her yes?”
“Do I look like a secretary? I told her you’d call her back. ”
I put out my hand, and Juliet tossed me the phone. I wasn’t exactly happy that the poor old thing was having nightmares, I thought as I dialed; I was just relieved to have a job. Phyllis sounded thrilled to hear from me, and I reassured her I’d be on my way within half an hour.
“Ooh, give me the phone—quick!” Juliet, her eyes fixed on the TV, was almost shouting as I hung up.
“Why, what’s so urgent?”
“If I call right now, I’ll get a free apple corer in addition to the food chopper and extra bonus knives!” On the screen, a smiling woman mercilessly sliced the heart out of a juicy-looking apple. A toll-free phone number scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
“Um, Juliet, when was the last time in your six-hundred-fifty years of existence that you needed to core an apple?”
She sent me a withering look. “If I had needed to core one, I’d have been completely unprepared—‘as one that unaware / Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood. ’”
Shakespeare again. She regarded me as though she expected me to respond in kind. No, uh-uh. No Shakespeare game for me tonight. Juliet always won, anyway. I knew maybe half a dozen lines of the guy’s work, the same ones everybody knew, like “To be or not to be” and “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” I hadn’t had several centuries to memorize every word he ever wrote. And if I’d been around as long as Juliet had, I like to think I’d have found other things to do. I ignored the quotation and offered her the phone. She took it but set it on the coffee table without dialing.
“So that’s what you were doing when I came in—adding more stuff to your ‘as seen on TV’ collection? What did you buy tonight?”
“Not much. Well, I did get one of those little gizmos that scramble an egg inside the shell. Don’t look at me like that, it’s clever. I want to see how it works. And I ordered a dozen microfiber dust cloths in assorted colors and sizes. ”
“Dust cloths? You don’t dust. ”
“I don’t cook meatloaf, either. But if I want to get two self-draining meatloaf pans, complete with recipes and a guide knife for cutting perfectly uniform slices, for only nineteen-ninety-nine plus shipping and handling, that’s my business. I can afford it. I— Oh, wait. I forgot to tell you the best thing I bought. A pair of slippers, fuzzy blue ones, with working flashlights built into the front. So you can see where you’re going without turning on the lights! Isn’t that brilliant? I’d have bought a pair for you, too, but I wasn’t sure of your size. ”
“That’s okay. ” I grinned as a relevant line from Shakespeare popped into my head. “Romeo would love it: ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?’”
“‘It is the east, and Juliet’s fuzzy blue slippers are the sun!’” She collapsed in a fit of laughter. When she sat up, wiping tears from her eyes, she said, “Don’t you think if Shakespeare were alive today he’d be writing infomercials?”
“I think I need to get our cable company to block any and all shopping channels. And I also think you need to get out more. ”
“That won’t be a problem tonight, thank Hades. I’m working. My Goons will be here shortly to escort me to Colwyn’s prison cell. ”
“Let me know if anything related to Pryce comes up. ”
She nodded. “I will. Anyway, after we’re done questioning that old fossil, I plan to eat out. I just have to convince Brad and his partner to stop at Creature Comforts on the way home. ” She smiled, showing her fangs. “So don’t wait up. ”
PHYLLIS’S SMALL, TWO-STORY HOUSE STOOD IN A NEIGHBORHOOD of triple-deckers on a side street north of Porter Square. The house looked modest, with gray shingles and white trim behind a chain-link fence, but given the explosion in Cambridge real-estate prices, it was probably worth more money than I’d see in the next nine or ten years.
Carrying the duffel bag that held my demon-fighting gear, I let myself in through the gate, went up the short walk, and rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a tiny woman wearing a pink terry cloth bathrobe. Her white hair was rolled in curlers, and she held the biggest cat I’d ever seen. With long gray fur and a lazy expression, he was nearly half the size of the small woman who held him. The animal was so large I could almost imagine Phyllis saddling him up and going for a ride—not that any cat that ever lived would suffer such an indignity.
“Come in, dear, come in,” Phyll
is said. “Close the storm door quickly. I don’t want Pookie to get out. ”
Pookie. Okay. Currently Pookie was lounging in Phyllis’s skinny arms with half-closed eyes, looking like a nap was way higher up on his feline to-do list than an adventure in the streets of Cambridge. But I stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind me.
Phyllis poured Pookie from her arms. He lay at her feet where he’d landed, adjusting his position a little, then started snoring. She watched the cat with the fond expression of a mother watching her sleeping child. Then she looked up at me, her eyes large behind her glasses.
“Well, dear,” she said, “let’s go slaughter some demons. ”
UPSTAIRS, PHYLLIS SAT IN HER BED, PROPPED UP AGAINST SEVERAL pillows and tucked under a frilly pink coverlet. Her bathrobe hung on the door, and her fuzzy pink slippers (no flashlights in the toes) waited beside the bed. She watched me through her glasses as I plugged in the dream portal generator and flipped it on. “Oh, my,” she murmured when a beam of multicolored, sparkling light lit up the room.
“This is how I’ll enter your dreamscape,” I explained. “It opens a doorway between this plane of existence and the one where dreams occur. It’s password protected, which means I have to say the password to step through the portal. That way, no demons can sneak out of your dreams to bother you while you’re awake, okay?”
She nodded, her eyes wide.
“The colors you see are like coordinates; they automatically key themselves to this location. Put your palm here, on this plate. ” She did, and I fiddled with the dials until the machine beeped. “Right now, I’m calibrating the machine to your vibration. Every human has a unique vibrational signature, like a fingerprint. The calibration makes sure I go straight into your dreamscape and no one else’s. The colors make sure I come back here. Okay, I’ve got it. ”