Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
All the bad news hit at once: Breakfast was savory oatmeal, death gods were in attendance, La Croix was en route, and Penny had just stabbed her husband in the throat.
“Don’t make that face,” her mother coaxed. “Try it.”
“I’m making that face because I’ve tried it. Brown sugar and cream, Mom. That’s what belongs in oatmeal.”
The kitchen could have been out of a high-end restaurant, huge and all shining chrome and gleaming counters, a spotless floor and meticulously organized pantry.
Brass pans and handwoven baskets hanging overhead.
An industrial-sized fridge and freezer. Three stoves with six burners each. Sinks deep enough to bathe a calf.
“Maaaaaybe blueberries,” Amara allowed. “Or strawberries in season. That’s what belongs in oatmeal. Kale and a fried egg and mushrooms, not so much.”
“Amara doesn’t speak for me,” Gray said, on her heels as always.
He was the one person she didn’t mind almost tripping over.
“Bring on the weeds and fungus.” He was barefoot, his hair still damp from the shower, sporting one of several pairs of knee-length cargo shorts and a long-sleeved polo shirt (sunshine yellow this time).
How does he never get sick? she marveled. Not even a head cold? She’d asked him, once. He’d just laughed at her and pointed out that she never got sick, either. Except for the migraines.
“Everything smells so good, Hilly. I can’t wait to—Jesus Christ!”
“He’ll walk it off,” Penny snapped. She’d been straddling her husband’s corpse and now yanked the knife out of his larynx and stood, her insteps pressed against each side of his ribcage.
She showed her teeth in a grin and extended a hand.
“Lovely to see you after all this time, Amara, but who is your friend? I confess I’m surprised to see you— Child, what are you doing? ”
“Calling nine-one-one!” Gray screamed. “What the hell else would I be doing?”
“This is my friend, Gray. He’s, um.”
“gak.”
“Why am I the only one freaking out right now?”
“agh ack.”
Gray saw their bemused expressions, cleared his throat, and continued in a calmer tone, “And FYI, just to throw that out there, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. I can’t get a signal.”
“And won’t. Or at least not consistently, and not for very long,” Amara said. “I warned you last night, there’s a reason the homestead is so isolated.”
“Yeah, but I prayed you were exaggerating or that your folks took a few hours sometime in the last decade and upgraded.”
“Ahem.”
“So if we can’t call anyone, should we, um, put him somewhere? I mean, it’s still a crime scene, even though I’m guessing it’s a crime scene the cops will never hear about. Not sure how I feel about that . . .”
“Where do you suggest we put him?” Penny asked, seeming honestly interested in the reply.
Like most of her ilk, she hadn’t aged in any noticeable way.
She could still pull off cropped sweaters and leggings and an eyebrow piercing.
And she’d always been petite—not much taller than five feet—and slender and fine-boned.
The kind of woman who looked like she could break if you glared at her too hard.
Her concessions to the modern world were chopping her titian hair (it really was the best word to describe her riotous red waves) severely short on the sides and disdaining a bra.
She looked like some people’s idea of a forest fairy, if forest fairies could rock a buzzcut and routinely stabbed their spouses.
“I should like to hear your suggestions.”
“Ahem.”
Gray blinked. “Oh. I dunno, drag him out of the kitchen? And into . . . a ditch? No, that’s cold. Literally and figuratively.”
“Also unnecessary,” Amara replied, “as you’ll see in a minute. Do you want a gloppy pile of oatmeal loaded with mushrooms and kale?”
“I know you’re trying to calm me down while also making it sound gross but it sounds pretty great.”
“You’re a good boy,” Amara’s mother said with an approving nod. “And you’re handling this quite well, considering.”
“Sorry, I’m new to all this stuff,” Gray said as the corpse began to stir. “Amara told me some of it but it’s still oh fuck!”
The corpse was sitting up. “Dak! Ack! Da—darling, I swear.” Hank coughed up a little blood and took Hilly’s proffered napkin with a nod of thanks. “She—ack!—was nothing.”
“Don’t you ‘nothing’ me,” Penny snapped while her husband blotted his blood. “You went to such lengths to gain my hand, you wooed me like you were getting paid and broke my dear mother’s heart to have me—”
“With all respect and reverence, love, your mother overreacted. Punishing the entire planet for the actions of one—”
“Scoundrel! One ass, one kidnapping wretch! One faithless dog! And now you’re tired of me—”
“Never!”
“—you’ll abandon me for an ordinary skink?”
The corpse seized her ankles and pulled; Penny landed on top of him and they groaned in unison. “Aggh, my ribs . . . it’s ‘skank,’ dear one, and of course not.”
“And this is Penny’s husband, Hank,” Amara finished.
“There’s—there’s no way those are their real names,” Gray managed.
“They are now. But they used to go by Persephone and—”
“Hades.” Gray nodded, trying (and failing) not to stare. “Sure. Of course. Makes perfect sense. Yep.”
“Well, it does, kind of,” Amara replied, then shoved a heaping bowl of savory oatmeal at him. Gray instinctively grabbed it, dropping his phone as he did so. Amara moved quickly; it slapped into her palm and she tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Penny, Hank, this is my friend Gray.”
Hank blinked up at them with eyes that were unrelieved black. Looking into Hank’s eyes was like staring into a couple of miniature tar pits. “Friend? Huh.”
“I have friends,” Amara mumbled, resisting the urge to scuff the tile with her toe.
Gray was still goggling down at the couple. “I’m sorry for your loss?”
“No more so than I,” Penny huffed. She was wriggling and trying to get back to her feet, but Hank wouldn’t let go. “Unhand me, you rutting cretin!”
“She was nothing,” Hank soothed. “All of them, nothing.”
Gray nudged Amara and mouthed, All of them?
Amara shrugged.
“So you keep saying. And yet inevitably I’ll catch you following the wrong pair of panties down the lane.”
“Dalliances!” Hank protested. “Fripperies! Ouch!”
Penny had somehow gotten the leverage to jam a bony elbow into his side.
“I’ve had enough. You may return to your solo rule of Hades, that cold and dreadful place; I shall return to sunlight.
” She looked up and glared out the kitchen windows.
“Somewhere warm. Somewhere the sun is up more than six hours a day.”
“Now, Penny, that’s an exaggeration,” Hilly soothed. “Next month the sun will be up for a good seven hours. On your feet, both of you. There’s quite a bit of food, and our other guests have arrived.”
Then: the cacophony. Shrill yapping and the brittle sound of claws on ceramic tile.
“Swell,” Amara said dourly even as Gray squeaked in alarm as the claws skittered closer. “Must Arawn always be preceded by his trio of hellhounds?”
“Hellhounds? Oh shit, oh shit, what do we d—awww!”
Amara groaned. He got rid of those magnificent blue Labs for . . . for . . .
“Wieners!” Gray said, delighted. The hellhoundlets had bowled him over, and all three were frisking about on his chest and legs. “Oh my God, the cutest hellhounds ever!”
“Still hellhounds, Gray,” Amara pointed out. “However, in this house at this time, if you’re not a badger, you should be fine.”
There was a low chuckle from the hall, and then a familiar and uncomfortably deep voice: “I find the smaller breeds to be much more vicious.”
“And lame, Arawn,” she pointed out as the Celtic god of death swept in. “Deeply lame.” She gestured at the tiny horde. “First, who replaces awesome blue Labrador retrievers with long-haired wieners?”
“But they’re so silky and shaggy and cute,” Gray protested from the floor. Then: “Gargh!” as a hellhoundlet jumped on his balls.
“All the annoyances of a small, yappy dog,” Amara continued, “without the convenience of the short coat. Be ashamed, Arawn.”
“I decline.” He dropped a casual bow. “Always a pleasure, Amara Morrigan.”
“I, um, like your dogs, Mister . . . um . . .”
“My thanks, you poor child,” Arawn rumbled.
“Poor child?” Gray asked. “Aw, c’mon. I’m old enough to vote. And rent a car, even, mister . . . um . . . death god.”
“Arawn.” He was as tall as Hades, but not nearly as gaunt, and sported his usual black long coat with the bristly black fur ruff that looked like glossy raven feathers.
His leather gloves were bright red, and when he stripped them off, his hands were, too, with unnaturally long fingers and the nails filed to points.
“A-R-A-W-N. But when Amara was wee, she pronounced it Arwen. And so.”
“There are worse nicknames,” Amara said. “Also, I might have been obsessed with Lord of the Rings when I was a kid. Thank God Tolkien eventually had a daughter, or it would have been more of a sausage-fest than it already was.”
“Ah, I hear the dulcet tones of Amara on another feminist rant.”
Amara ignored the annoyed shiver that La Croix’s familiar voice brought on. “Swell. The gang’s almost here.”
“Hi, La Choy!” Gray called, still on the floor being harassed by hellhoundlets. “Have you seen these awesome dogs?”
“I could hardly miss them. You got rid of the Labradors?”
“They died, La Croix.” Arawn spread his red, red hands. “Even our abilities have limits.”
“And replaced them with—ah—well, friend Gray seems to like them.”
“I love them!” Gray cried from the floor. “They must be magical hellhoundlets because I never cared about dachshunds until this minute.” To Arawn: “Sir, if you ever need a dog-sitter, call me.”
“That’ll add some pizazz to your résumé,” Amara observed.
“And my new business cards! Please remind me to get new business cards.”
Amara giggled in spite of herself even as Hades said, “Your friend remembers his manners when he’s not shrieking profanity in your lady mother’s kitchen.”
“Sir, when I met you, you had a knife planted in your jugular. I’m just saying.”
“That’s still no excuse to swear in front of a lady.”
“Disagree. I think that’s the perfect time to swear in front of a lady.”
“All of you, shut the hell up and go sit down and eat all this food I’ve made,” the lady ordered and, to her credit, no one wasted time arguing.