Chapter 9
Felix drove away from the impound lot with the urchins in the back, beyond thankful his car had started.
The last thing he needed it to do was to prove what a piece of crap it was in front of Liam.
Though Felix expected he had it coming after all the shade he’d thrown at Liam’s Jeep back in the day.
Karma, you are indeed a bitch.
Whatever. It got Felix from point A to point B—most of the time. He glanced in the rearview at the two urchins whispering. Plotting against him, no doubt. “So, you guys okay with Liam hanging out with you tonight? It’s okay to say no.” Oh my God, please don’t say no.
“Yeah!” Axle said with the same feral glimmer in his eyes that he’d had decapitating gingerbread. “He said I can go back and play with those dogs again.”
“Then I hope he plans on being the one to take you,” Felix muttered. Dogs freaked him out. Especially big dogs, and he could thank Beverley Stinson’s Dalmatian for that, thank you very little. Lord only knew why weres didn’t bother him. Psychology was bizarre.
“Liam said he would, and that his dad has dogs, too.”
“Mmm. He does, and they’re huge slobbery things.” Felix shivered as he glanced in the rearview again at the abrupt silence that had descended. Axle’s face had fallen, and Sway was hugging his arm. What the hell had just happened? “Is that a problem?”
Axle shook his head and stared out the window.
“Mommy says we’ll do things, too,” Sway piped up. “So do Gran and Gramps, but they don’t really mean it, it’s just to get us to eat peas. I hate peas.” She scowled, and beside her, Axle hunched lower in his seat.
“Noted.” Felix drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.
Telling them to get used to it because people sucked didn’t seem like an appropriate response.
He wanted to tell them that they were wrong about Liam, but Felix wasn’t totally convinced they were.
He buzzed his lips. “How about this: I promise I won’t ever lie to you guys, and if an answer’s going to be no, I’ll tell you no then and there, okay? ”
Felix took their extended silence for assent and kept driving.
He needed to get back to the house and get them settled.
Liam had gone home to clean up and would be back in a couple of hours, which gave Felix just enough time to deal with Cruze.
Somehow, he didn’t think that would go as smoothly as picking up the urchins had.
He hadn’t spent a lot of time with his eldest niece, but what he had was enough to convince him that angsty, tween girls were not his forte.
Felix sighed and raked a hand through his curls as he pulled into the driveway.
The lights were already on. Damn it. She’d gotten there before them and had the high ground.
The urchins tumbled from the back, and Felix grabbed Axle’s arm as he tried to bolt past him. “You need to finish shoveling that walk.”
“I did shovel that walk,” he grumbled.
“No, you traced it. Finish the job, or your dog privileges will be suspended, and you’re showering after. You smell like a wet Pekinese.”
Axle shot him a look that guaranteed Felix would be sleeping with one eye open for the foreseeable future and stalked to the garage. Right, that settled—on to the main event.
The kitchen was a balmy seventy-five when he opened the door. Felix pulled off his parka, setting it onto one of the low-backed captain’s chairs. Sway was sitting at another, somehow already stuffing her face with store-brand cookies.
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. Whirling Dervish. Tasmanian devil. He mentally added landshark to the list of possible sperm donors responsible for seeding Hurricane Sway. “You do know I’m ordering pizza, right?”
“We always get a snack after school.”
“A snack isn’t half the bag,” Felix said, tugging it from her grip. “You can have more for dessert. Go wash up, hands and face. You look like you were on ground zero of a booger factory explosion.”
She scowled at him and stomped off. Two for two. Fantastic. “And use soap!” he called after her, putting the bag back on top of the fridge. How she’d even gotten up there—
“Where’s Gran and Gramps?”
Felix turned at Cruze’s voice. She stood with her arms crossed in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, glaring at him from beneath the rolled edge of a slouchy beanie like he was an intruding vagrant.
Her dark liner winged out, accentuating her already huge hazel eyes, narrowed with suspicion.
Only a light dusting of freckles smattered across her delicate little nose, and her pin-straight blonde hair was waist length.
He knew she was slender, but you’d never guess it by the baggy, black skater-chic clothes she was always swathed in.
Basically, she was Skipper, if Skipper identified as a goth—or was it emo now? Felix put a hand to his temple. God, he was old. Whatever. Her brow arched.
Shit, Felix, focus or she’ll eat you.
“Great Aunt Helen had a fall,” he said. “They went to take care of her until they can get her into assisted living, and took the screamer with them. You’re stuck with me for two weeks.”
“Of course they did,” Cruze snorted, her mouth screwed up, and she shook her head.
“This always happens! Every time I finally—I’m not quitting, and you can’t make me!
” Her eyes flashed with the barest glow of karma.
Oh, fun, her powers were coming in. Good to know.
By the look on her face, Axle probably wasn’t the only one who needed “the talk.”
Felix flicked a curl from his eyes and made a mental note to ward for poltergeists with the amount of menacing angst projecting from her. “I’m assuming you’re talking about the pageant, and no, that wasn’t my intention, unless you keep acting like a rude little brat.”
She scowled at him. “Whatever. I’m going to Sarah’s.”
“Uh. No. You’re not going anywhere,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m supposed to check your homework, then you have a Caesar salad coming from Pizza Palace. I have to run some errands in another hour, and my friend Liam is going to hang out with the three of you while I do.”
She started at the name, and Felix’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a problem?”
Cruze shook her head and fiddled with her long sleeves. “Um…no, and I-I’m sorry. I just…” She looked up and blew out a breath. “If I can’t go over Sarah’s, can she come here? There’s a biology test tomorrow, and we were going to study for it.”
Her one-eighty in attitude was suspect, but Felix couldn’t quite put his finger on why. God, he was so not cut out for this. “You want to study?” he asked slowly.
She nodded, looking far too innocent, eager even.
Felix clicked his tongue, assuming there was a catch, but his marching orders hadn’t said anything about them not having friends over.
Oh, he was going to regret this. “Her parents have to agree that it’s okay,” he said, ticking off fingers.
“You study here, in the kitchen. The rest of your homework needs to be done, and I want those dishes washed and put away before she gets here.” No way was he doing it, and the urchins would probably use them for target practice if he asked them.
Cruze frowned at the over flowing sink. “Fine. I’ll get my bag,” she muttered, sulking away.
“And you,” Felix said to Sway lurking in the living room by the Christmas tree. “Laundry.”
Her lip stuck out. “I don’t know how to do laundry.”
Felix put his hands on his hips, mirroring her stance. “If you’re advanced enough to learn about Darwin, then you can figure out darks and lights. Away with you, peasant,” he said, fluttering a hand. “Gather it up and meet me by the machine.”
Sway narrowed her eyes at him, the resemblance between her and her sister uncanny. “But Gran doesn’t make us—”
“Gran isn’t here, and I’m not about to wash the crusty skiddies out of your underpants for the next two weeks.” It already smelled like a locker room in here.
She gasped. “I don’t think I like you very much, Uncle Felix.”
The affront on her little face was almost worth getting guilted into watching them for two weeks. “Keep it up, and the feeling might very well become mutual.” He flicked his fingers. “Chop, chop.”
As soon as she was out of sight, he raided the cabinet above the stove and downed a trio of off-brand aspirin, a decade past expiration. Jesus, better make it four. His headache was back in spades, and the urge to use his karma fierce. Save it for the spell, Felix. Almost there.
Cruze came in and dumped far more out of her bag onto the kitchen table than it should’ve been able to hold with a loud thump. He winced. Nope. That didn’t help.
“How the hell did you fit all of that in there?”
“Gran spelled all our bags,” she muttered.
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. Right.
That made sense. She’s done the same for him and Felicia a billion years ago.
Triple the capacity, a fraction of the weight, and so durable that he’d had his mom sew patches over the smiling trains when he hit fifth grade.
Felix was actually surprised Axle wasn’t toting it around. Stupid thing had been indestructible.
Cruze yanked out a laptop from the pile, and his brow rose. It should be in a military grade case if she was swinging it around like that. No wonder the school’s technology budget was so obscene.
He pulled out a chair as Sway hauled a stinky basket of laundry past them, glowering. “What’s first?”
“Elvish,” Cruze said with a wicked gleam in her eye, handing him a book.
Felix took it and blinked blithely back. “Okay. What are you working on?”
Cruze gave him a funny look and opened her laptop. “Chapter six. Conjugations.”
“And the assignment?” he asked, flipping through the section.
“Here.” She showed him the screen.
“You’re close,” he said after a moment’s perusal. “But you keep getting tripped up with the subordinate form. It comes before the subject and then the verb in the subjunctive mood. You’ve got it backwards in most of these.”