And, oh, the look he gave her.
“You have my attention,” I said, dragging his back to me. I did not need a pissed off Valkyrie in my station. “What?”
“Is he going with you?”
I frowned. “Who?”
“The demon.”
“Where else would I go?” Bathin taunted. “I own her soul, and I find her interesting. We’re tied at the hip, Ryder Bailey, and will be for years and years and years. I’m quiet enjoying the sensation of knowing your woman so intimately.”
Oh, shit.
Ryder did two things simultaneously. He pushed me to one side and punched Bathin in the face.
“Whoa!” Hatter yelled, rushing forward.
I was rushing forward too, grabbing Ryder’s arm and pulling him back before he could settle in and pound the salt out of Bathin.
Not because I was friends with the demon. Because I wasn’t sure what the demon would do to Ryder.
“Back off!” I forced Ryder out the door, which was no easy thing, then spun on Bathin who had been surprised enough by the hit to the face that he’d lost his footing.
“You will not retaliate. This is your fault. You pushed him. You were trying to make him angry. Well, congratulations, asshole, you did it. If you touch him, if you hurt him, I will find out just how deep this tie between us runs and I will make you pay.”
His eyes flashed red. For a second, I could see the ghostly after-image of horns curling toward his shoulders and fire licking across his skin. In a blink, that vision was gone and he appeared to be just a guy in business casual kneeling on the floor of a police station lobby, with hatred in every line of his body.
I heard the engine to Ryder’s truck growl to life as he gunned it out of the parking lot.
Great. He’d cut and run before I could call him on this.
“Isn’t that what you wanted, Delaney?” Bathin practically purred. “You told him you needed time to think. You told him you don’t want to be with him. You want space. And now you have your wish. You’re welcome.”
“I hate you.” I knew it was true. Even if I couldn’t feel it. I knew I hated him.
He rose fluidly to his feet, gaze locked on me. He closed the distance and stared down.
“No. You don’t.” His words were hot against my skin and I felt like I was frozen, caught
in a blizzard, and he was a fire beckoning, burning brightly.
He leaned in slow, smooth, fitting us together even though we weren’t even touching.
I wanted to move. I needed to move. I didn’t want him any closer. Didn’t want him this close to me.
“You know I’m a necessary evil. Everyone loves a man with a little evil in his soul.” He pushed forward, and I shoved his chest and backed up fast. Thought I’d hit the door, but the door was open.
Because he’d pushed it open when he was crowding me.
He deftly took my shove like it was nothing, and from the rock-hard feel of his muscles, it probably was nothing, and stood to one side, a parody of manners, holding the door open for me and Bertie.
“Ladies.”
Well, the one good thing about not being able to feel any emotion was that I didn’t blush at the fool I’d just made of myself.
I wanted to hit him until my hands were broken. Instead, I turned around and walked out that door, the Valkyrie on my heels.
Chapter 13
For a little town, we had a large grocery store that was part of a national chain. Since it was the biggest market and served not just the locals, but most of the tourists, it carried everything from flip-flops and beach towels to one of the largest wine selections on the coast.
It also had a staffed deli counter with plenty of hot lunch and dinner options, a full-service bakery, a pharmacy, and a Starbucks kiosk. Next to that kiosk was an open dining area decorated à la high school cafeteria, with uninspired fiberglass chairs and tables and mediocre lighting. But it had free Wi-Fi and air conditioning, which made it weirdly popular.
At full capacity, the little dining area could hold about two dozen people.
Even though there were at least twice that number of people in the space right now, it didn’t feel all that crowded.
That probably had to do with the relative size of half of the people, which was small, and the average age of those same people, which was ninety.
It was an eclectic group of septuagenarians. A few white hairdos in tight curls, but the majority had died their plumage in neons and pastels, a virtual who’s who of Manic Panic on display.
The preferred clothing of the day was a mix of stretchy slacks and long skirts and sleeveless tops.
That was probably why all the tattoos caught my eye. The tattoos. So many.
Some were a little hard to distinguish through the wrinkles and sags, but the K.I.N.K.s all had some version of yarn, knitting needles and a banner of words across it on their shoulders, and the C.O.C.K.s all had similar ink on their arms, except there appeared to be a red rooster and hook theme mixed in.
The remaining members of the crowd were a mix of ages, men and women, mortal and monster. The youngest on each side was a girl about ten years old brandishing a neon yellow crochet hook and half of a crocheted turtle corpse, and a boy about twelve gripping two slick silver knitting needles that carried an almost finished Pink Floyd THE DARKSIDE OF THE MOON flag.
As a matter of fact, everyone was not only standing and yelling (except the kids, who were sitting and watching it all with wide eyes), they were also all shaking handfuls of whatever craft they were crafting at each other like two armies banging swords against shields.
The K.I.N.K.s and C.O.C.K.s were about to rumble. They’d even drawn a line in the sand, which was a ball of yarn rolled out to divide the two halves of the dining area with one fuzzy strand of blue.
The group on the left all had needles, the one on the right all had hooks, so K.I.N.K.s to the left, C.O.C.K.s on the right.
Bertie marched up on one side of me, and Bathin lingered behind, looking overly interested in a stack of fire starter logs and bags of organic coffee beans.
It was hard to tell, even as I paused on the edge of the dining area, exactly what was being argued. But it was clear that there was no backing down on either side, and the volume was steadily growing.
Mob violence. Finally. Something easy.
“I want everyone to settle down.” I pitched my voice to carry over the argument.
All heads turned, all eyes landed on me and the badge I’d stuck on my hip. They knew me, I knew them. We all lived in this little town together. Went to all the community events and fund raisers Bertie forced upon us, slogged through the four Oregon beach seasons of cold rain, freezing rain, windy rain, and raining tourists.
We even all shopped here in this big, overpriced, under-friendly supermarket.
We were a team. A town. A people. We weren’t going to let a little whatever-they-were-arguing-about push us apart.
“I need one person from each side of the yarn to step over here and tell me what’s going on.”
Two sturdy looking ninety-year-old women who were all nose and big watery eyes behind heavy plastic-rimmed glasses broke off from the front of each group and chugged over to me.
They looked like twins, because they were. The Macy sisters, Willie and Chester (their parents had planned for boys, and didn’t let a little thing like daughters divert them from going forward with their plans) wore bright tank tops, loose skirts and striped socks. All of their clothing was knit (Willie’s) or crocheted (Chester’s).
It should have looked tacky and old fashioned. Instead they wore those clothes with a sort of vintage mod style that made it look trendy.
And yes, they each brandished a shoulder full of ink with the acronym K.I.N.K. and C.O.C.K. emblazoned brazenly over the lion’s share of their crinkled real estate.
“What seems to be the problem?” I asked.
“This,” Willie jabbed a needle with the softest gray gossamer lace floatin
g off of it at her sister, “harridan swooped in with her jolly band of hookers and took our meeting space.”
“It’s a free country!” Chester warbled. “Those tables are first come first serve. We were first.”
“You know we meet here every Thursday. This is K.I.N.K. territory and the lawman, well, woman, is here to drag you away.”
“On what charges? Making better looking scarves with luscious drape?”
“Oh, you did not just say that. My scarves have drape for miles!”
“Crocheting is faster and easier than any snooty travesty you stab to death with those needles.”
“Fast and easy. There’s two words you’ve heard a lot over the years. Some things are more enjoyable done slowly–not that you’d ever know.”
“Oh, blow it out your bonnet you two-needle hack. A real yarn thrower doesn’t need two tools to create her craft. All she needs is a hook and her own two hands.”
“Tell that to my slim, perfectly fitted socks and lightweight fitted sweaters you single-stitch derelict. Two needles are better than one.”
“Ladies. Let’s get back to the problem at hand,” I said.
“A crochet hook won’t get you kicked off an airplane. Do you remember what happened to your monogrammed Signature needles in LA?”
Willie blanched a little paler, which I wouldn’t have thought possible with our recent lack of sun. “My babies.” Her voice wobbled and her eyes actually watered. “I can’t believe you brought that up. You monster.”
Chester looked momentarily chagrined, and she stuck out her free hand to pat her sister’s shoulder. “That was a bit below the belt. I apologize.”
“Aircraft quality aluminum, Ches, aircraft.”
“I know dear.”
“Stiletto points and teardrop end caps.”
“There, there.”
“They were hand-crafted. By hand. And monogrammed!”
“Steady now, Will. You know, I think maybe it’s time you replace them with a new pair.”
Willie sniffed. “But the roof needs some patching and that back fence is on its last legs, and you always say I have too many needles already.”
“Oh to hell with the fence. We have enough to deal with the roof and get you an entire new set of Signatures with savings to spare.”
“And circulars?” Willie sniffed, but there was a glint of something in her eyes. Something wily.
“Of course we can—wait. Did you just try to hornswoggle me?”
“What?” Willie’s eyes were comically large. “What are you saying?” She tapped her ear like her hearing aid had just kicked the bucket.
“You did! You tried to play me.” Chester’s face closed in like a shriveled walnut. “Forget the needles. We’re putting in a new fence. All the way around the house! Twice!”
“You wouldn’t.”
“You bet your teardrop end caps I would.”
“Ladies,” I said sternly. “That’s enough. What you do with fencing and monogrammed needles is your business, but your groups are going to be pulled in on disturbing the peace charges if you don’t disassemble and move your gathering to a venue with appropriate capacity.”
“We’re not moving,” Willie said. “We meet here every week at ten o’clock, and we’ve been doing it for six months.”
“Well, we’re meeting here at nine o’clock,” Chester said. “You’ll just have to find somewhere else to go. Bye-bye.”
“There are other meeting options,” Bertie said. And she would know.
“With coffee and pastries?” Willie challenged.
“There’s the Perky Perch. It has a loft you can reserve for a small fee.”
“We can’t,” they chorused.
“Oh?” Bertie asked.
“We were kicked out,” Chester muttered.
“And banned,” Willie said.
“Why?” Bertie asked.
Willie mumbled.
“I’m sorry, could you say that again?” Bertie asked with extra sugar on top.
“We were throwing balls of yarn at each other and broke a display stand.”
Bathin barked out a laugh from where he stood next to the sunglasses display.
“There are other coffee shops in town,” I said.
“Banned.” Chester nodded.
“Same reason?” Bertie asked.
“Some variation of it, yes,” Willie said. “The details aren’t important.”
“Then you have two choices.” I gave them each a hard look. “You can either move your club meeting times to different days so you can both use this space and enjoy the last coffee and pastries available to you in this town, or you can both move your operations to a different space.”
“But we were here first,” Willie said. “We should get to keep our time, keep our place, and they should just get out of our mohair for once.”
“Is that a possibility, Chester?” I asked.
“We always meet at nine o’clock,” she grouched. “Some of us have things to do later in the day.”
“No one wants to hear about your genealogy research, Chester. Find somewhere else to meet. Like the library.”
“Can’t have food and drink there. Crocheters need coffee too. And we tip higher.”
“You don’t even drink coffee. You use the same tea bag and reload hot water for four hours.”
“Like you know anything. I drink the chai tea now, so get off my feathers, Wilbur.”
“Oh, shove off, Cheater.”
“I’m not going to stand here all day, ladies,” I said. “Make a choice. Either you change the day the C.O.C.K.s meet up, or you change the time the K.I.N.K.s get together.”
They glared at each other for long enough, even their gang members behind them got tired of waiting and started working on their projects again, needles and hooks and fingers and thread.
Seriously, why couldn’t they get along?
“I could move our bowling time to later in the day on Friday,” Willie offered. “You could get all the C.O.C.K. you needed in the morning and have time for a nice nap before we met up with the girls.”
Chester was still frowning, her face pinched and doughy, but the offer seemed to ease her scowl, though it would take an iron and steam to tell. “You said bowling is sacred time. You haven’t changed our alley time in the last twelve years.”
“Fourteen.”
“So Friday. I could do C.O.C.K. and balls?”
“What more could a woman ask for?” Willie said with a smile.
Chester snorted. “All right, then. Fine. You can have Thursdays. It was interfering with my hair appointments anyway.”
“Stubborn goat,” Willie muttered fondly.
“Pushy mule,” Chester replied. Then she turned to the group behind her. “All right, C.O.C.K.s, we’re going to have to move our meetings to Friday at nine.”
“Like it’s always been?” someone in the middle of her crowd asked.
“Really?” I asked. “Really?”
Bertie just sighed and tsked.
I wondered if Chester had been angling for the bowling match time change all along. “Anyone have complications with that time?” she asked.
“Classes start soon,” another voice said, this time a man.
“We’ll make sure we adjust our meeting time for the autumn when that happens. Now, let’s pack it up and roll it out. I’ll see you all here tomorrow, soon as the cock crows.”
That, apparently, was the signal for everyone to break out their best rooster-doodle-doos.
“Astounding,” Bathin, behind me, close enough I could hear his near-whisper. “Although I would have had more fun if a war had broken out.”
“This isn’t about you and this isn’t about fun.”
“Oh, that’s right. You can’t feel those kinds of emotions any more. Isn’t that sad?”
I considered throwing an elbow at his head.
“Is that a solution you can live with?” I asked Bertie instead.
“Yes, thank you, Dela
ney, but there is one more issue I need to address with the clubs. Have you noticed the yarn bombings around town?”
“Bombings?”
“Knitted and crocheted decorations in public areas?”
“Oh. Yeah, I’ve seen a couple.”
“I need to know if you’re going to allow those to remain.”
“It’s not like you to beat around the bush, Bertie. What are you angling for?”
“I’d like to encourage the C.O.C.K.s and K.I.N.K.s to explore their rivalry in a more public and useful way over the remaining weeks of summer.”
“A contest?” She must have noticed the fleeting horror on my face. I’d gotten roped into judging the annual rhubarb rally and had not enjoyed it.
While judging fiber craft might not make me want to wash my mouth out with sand paper, the participants were basically gang members armed with pointy and hooked weapons.
Nope. I wasn’t going to willingly incite violence among the fiber fiends.
“Yes, a contest. I’m shocked you feel that strongly about it, considering your condition.”
“Is there any other way you could have phrased that?”
“Yes. I chose not to. My proposal is that we challenge the C.O.C.K.s and K.I.N.K.s to decorate the downtown area along the main road. I’ll of course set boundaries. Anything I deem in bad taste will be removed immediately. Nothing will obstruct the flow of pedestrians, nothing will obstruct access to businesses or parking. I’ll vet it with the businesses too. Those that wish to opt out will remain untouched.”
“You’ve put some thought into this, I see.”
“It’s been on the back burner. But since they’ve already declared war on each other, I thought we could use the battle to Ordinary’s advantage.”
“I think we just ended the war.”
“Not the tussle over their meeting space, the yarn bombs. It started with the C.O.C.K.s making beautiful little bracelets for their members and allies.”
“Allies.”
“Once the K.I.N.K.s saw what was happening, they began recruiting their own allies with knitted bracelets.”
Okay, yes. I’d seen those on a couple of people in town. “They’re asking people to fly their colors?”
“Show their support.”