He scrambled upright and staggered forward, his boots dug into dust and small scrabble-stones, and he went across the car bonnet in a scratch-heaving rush, his claws leaving long furrows in the paint and the metal underneath. Jozzie ended up landing on his side in front of the witch, her long black hair rising on its own personal breeze and her red-tipped fingers spread as her hands, upflung, vibrated with invisible force.
The thing—it looked a little like a wild boar, and a whole lot like a dingo with spines—hung in midair, slavering and straining. The witch made a spitting noise, and her baby blues had turned to ice.
She was gorgeous. She pitched forward, her boot catching at the small of Joz’s back because he’d misjudged the leap and landed hard enough to rattle his chimes but good.
“Sonofabitch!” she yelled, and her hands snapped aside. The spiny thing whipped aside too, trailing a long howl and spatters of rank foam, and crashed into a thicket of stunted, water-starved trees crowding down from the canyonside. She went down heavily, and at least Joz was quick enough to get most of himself underneath so she landed on him instead flat on her face in the dirt.
Her head bounced against his chest with a hard cracking noise that might’ve been funny in other situations, and she didn’t waste any time. She was a little thing, but pure spitfire; her knee sank deep into his groin and Joz had a split second of being almost-glad there was only the rasher to get in the way, instead of bacon-and-eggs, before the thing in the trees howled and wood splintered. Joz’s ears told him it was scrabbling and getting ready for another charge, and he had to get the witch out of the way.
“Fluffy!” someone yelled from above. “Heel, god damn you! Heel!”
“Motherfucking cocksucking fucknutting shifter trash!” Sugar Belle yelled from on top of Jozzie. Her knee sank deep again, her fingernails bit into his chest through his T-shirt, and she scrambled mostly-upright, kicking him in the hip for good measure.
Joz thrashed, gravel sliding down the back of his jeans, and made it up on all fours, still trying to shift but losing the change halfway. The next few moments were extremely confused, but they ended with Sugar Belle standing arms-akimbo in front of Jozzie, her head tilted back and a sweet furious caramel-draft wafting off her. The spiny thing skidded to a halt when she flung out her left hand, fingers spread, and she glared up at the skinny man clinging to an indifferently nailed railing hanging off the shack’s porch.
Sugar’s fingers tensed as Jozzie made it to his feet. The back of his shirt and his jocks were both filthy with gravel, and he had the unwelcome, uncomfortable idea he had perhaps been a little hasty.
“Sue,” the witch said, much more calmly but with venom dripping from each syllable, “are you gonna calm this big ol’ thing down, or am I going to have to teach it some manners?”
“Hi, Sugar.” The skinny man’s lips peeled back, exposing strong yellowed teeth, and the shift ran under his outline. A pointed nose, a plated, loathsome tail, and beady eyes submerged, and the fellow rolled his thin shoulders under a dust-colored corduroy jacket. His nose twitched once, twice. “You shoulda called.”
Sugar’s fingers tensed again, and the huge beast to her left hunched cowering under an invisible weight, its spine-spikes flattening and its ears going back. Seen like this, with its tail tucked, it didn’t look quite as fearsome. “Go ahead, Sue. Fuck with me. I’m not having a very good day.”
“All right, all right. You woke him up, that’s why he’s cranky. Fluffy!” The rat shifter whistled, a peculiar glass-shivering trill, and the beast whined. “He’ll be all right now. Scratch behind his ears, he likes that.” He laughed like he found himself very fecking funny, this fellow.
“Come down here.” Sugar’s fingers didn’t relax. “Now.”
“Awww, Sugar, I’ve got a bad back—”
The witch’s other hand lifted, a short, graceful motion. The shack swayed, and the skinny man blanched.
“I can take out the support struts and jam them right through your twitching little body, jackass.” Quiet, flat, and unconcerned. Dusty wind scraped over the canyon, roughening Joz’s hair and rasping at his nape.
His jaw was suspiciously loose. She had a lot of raw power, this sheila.
“Fine, fine.” The little fellow gathered himself and shuffled to the edge of the porch, hopped, and landed a good twenty feet below with a thud more solid than his frame should have produced. He pitched forward on his toes, and Jozzie stiffened. “What’s this? You look related, coz.”
“I ent no cousin of yours,” Joz replied, stiffly. The beast whined, and Sugar’s left hand dropped, fractionally. She loosened her grip, little by little; the released thing slunk behind its master, back into the shade under the stilt-shack.
“Hmmmm.” The man’s nose twitched again. “Well, my good man, you shouldn’t hang around her. She’s got a nasty temper.”
So I noticed. Joz shrugged. “Take my chances, mate.”
“If you’re finished measuring dicks,” Sugar said, icily. “I brought trade, Sue. Let’s talk.”
Twelve
Rat Named Sue
* * *
Sue, as usual, was whining. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”
My headache was spreading down my back, the passenger side of my beloved Rabbit was in ribbons, and it was painfully obvious the goddamn kangaroo shifter was having trouble, well, shifting. If he wanted me to help him find the shift, there was little I could do except throw some life-threatening shit in his path and hope it triggered.
The idea had some merit. I could even toss him under the stilt-legged cabin and sit back to enjoy the show. However, I was on a schedule, and the bigger problem was Sue the Rat thinking he was dealing with Jozzie instead of me. “Wrong answer.” I glanced at the stupid kangaroo and made a shooing motion. “You could be useful and get the cheese out of the car.”
Jozzie didn’t look away from the Rat. “Ent sure I should leave you with this bloke, mum. Seems a bit unreliable.”
I am perfectly capable of handling one cowardly rat shifter. My nape was sweating, and so was my lower back. The thick layer of sunscreen I’d applied was probably going to slide right off me despite all the charms. “Thank you for your concern. Either do what I tell you or you can fucking walk back to town.”
“Man, where did you find him?” Sue rocked back on his heels, lip lifting to expose his teeth. He could have whitened them, but he liked the nicotine stain. “He looks like one of mine, but on steroids.”
Testosterone patches count, right? I pushed my hair over my shoulder and quelled the urge to fold my arms. “He’s not your problem right now. I am. Where’s it going down?” That really wasn’t my question, but it would tell me exactly how much he knew.
And it did. “You think I’m in Quent Wheddon’s pocket? I told you, I don’t know where it’s going down.” He realized what he’d given me a split second after he said it, and I smiled as sweetly as possible with my head pounding and my throat full of dust.
People always tell me more than they intend to. It’s a constant, like the speed of light.
There was a tang of burning to the wind out here. The wildfires had started. Soon everything in the city would reek of smoke.
It wasn’t a surprise the hottest director of the past five years had found the Book. It wasn’t even a surprise that the asshole had probably been using it to stay at the top of the heap. The only surprise would be if it had taken him that long to get to the inevitable endpoint of using the biggest, most powerful necromancer’s tool—bound in human skin—which was, of course, apocalyptic.
Oh, sure, the book was probably whispering in his ear about power, luxury, women, fame. If he was stupid, he believed it; if he wasn’t, he was addicted to the rush of using the damn thing and didn’t care that the last few chapters would suck out his humanity and turn him into a spreading blight-stain capable of draining the entire planet dry if left unchecked.
Which is pretty much how a lot of Hollywood stories end, but they all thi
nk they’re special. “So Quentin Wheddon got his hands on the Book, and the last few years have been his swan song? Probably with the usual sacrifices.” I tapped a fingernail on my lips and stared at the bridge of Sue’s very long nose.
If you do that, people think you’re staring into their eyes, and they get nervous.
He shrank under my gaze. “He only got really serious about six months ago.” Sue’s tongue flicked nervously. It was far too long and far too pink to be really human, but he was excited. “Say, is all that for me?”
“If you end up pleasing me.”
That made him leer. “I’d like to. I really would. Witches make great breeding stock. I’d bring you plenty of shinies.”
I suppressed a shiver of loathing. “How romantic. Two things, Sue. I want to know where, and he’s missing something. You do your thing and tell me both, and all that is yours.” I tipped my head back at the Rabbit, which was damaged but obviously stuffed to the gills.
His nose twitched, pink nostril rims wetting in anticipation. “It smells cooked.”
Think fast, Sugar. I gave him a very pretty smile. “I decided to go the extra mile for you, since I’m asking you for two things instead of one.”
Only partly mollified, the Rat pointed at Jozzie with one long, sharp fingertip. “And what does he want?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Not like you to bring me friends to play with, Sugar.”
“Not like you to have a fucking chupacabra sitting on your doorstep, Sue.”
“So I’m a little concerned. What with recent events and all.”
“Aren’t we all.” I could have cheerfully cussed him out for the whole dick-measuring restaurant thing, but what would be the point? If it hadn’t been that, Sue would have gotten skittish over something else. He was just that type. “You gonna do this, or am I going to smash your vacation home?”
“Nasty girl.” His tongue flickered again, but he turned and his legs swelled inside his jeans as he bent his knees a little. “Okay. Come on up.”
Rats can jump. You don’t want to know how high. I was kind of hoping I could see my new Australian friend do the same, but he followed me up the splintery, rickety ladder Sue lowered, shaking his head and muttering something about construction work.
At least I wasn’t wearing a skirt.
Thirteen
Bogan Cottage
* * *
It was a bogan cottage, right down to the frayed throw rugs and ancient, listing woodstove. The windows had screens, but they were full of claw-holes, frayed netting floating on the dusty wind beginning to carry smoke on its back. A slumped, verminous orange couch sat in the precise middle of the shack’s one room, and Joz bet the bastard hung his ass off the back porch to shit.
Still, the rat shifter—smelling of iron-tang water and dark corners, sleek fur and dead fleas—knew his business, because he stalked to the side of the couch, where a brand-new, very shiny red barbie stood. Plain charcoal, no propane, and its sides shimmered with heat despite the weather. He wrenched the lid off, digging underneath his shirt to scratch luxuriously at his ribs, and spat onto the glowing coals. “Make yourself at home,” he tossed over his corduroy-jacketed shoulder.
Sugar crossed to the nearest window, taking off her floppy sunhat and swinging it gently. “You’ve done wonders with the place.” She sounded amused.
Joz was covered with dust, there was still gravel in his undies, and she wouldn’t look at him. It was not a comfortable state of affairs.
“Fuck your mother.” The rat shifter—she kept calling him Sue, Americans had the strangest bloody names—crossed to a cheap wooden hutch in the furthest, darkest corner. He flung open two doors and began rummaging in its depths, his triangular back swelling like a cobra’s hood.
“I’d pay to watch the attempt.” Flick-flick went the sunhat, and muscle moved smoothly on Sugar’s shoulders. “You think I have a temper, you should see my mama.”
“One day I’m gonna write to your family, Sugar.” Something clinked in the hutch’s deepest recesses, and the rat shifter wriggled a little, reaching further back than he should have been able to.
“That would be a very bad idea.” She tapped the hat against the windowsill; dust rose golden and cloudy. “Hurry up, will you?”
“You rush a totem sniffer, you get lousy information.” Whatever he was digging up reeked of nasty, nose-stinging herbs and old blood. Jozzie’s hackles were up, and the thought of the damn thing downstairs dozing in the shade and whining every once in a while just made them rise further. “So, my man—what’s your name?”
“Shale,” Joz said, finally, after glancing at the witch. She stared out the window, pointedly ignoring him.
Bloody hell.
“Shale. Nicetameetcha, I’m Sue. You gonna ask?”
“Ask what?”
“I don’t think he knows that song,” the witch said.
“What song?” Jozzie was beginning to get a bad feeling. This place would go up like a match if the barbie spilled. And since he couldn’t shift, well. That ladder out front was a bloody insult.
“He’s the only person in the fucking world who doesn’t. This just gets better and better.” The rat shifter whirled, his nose twitching and his lean flour-pale hands full of gnarled plant matter and something that looked like a mummified chicken. “What are you looking for, Shale?”
Oh, Lord in heaven, as his Aunt Mary used to say. Usually when Mam had her knickers in a knot over something, and wasn’t gonna calm down anytime soon. “Rather not say.”
“Oh, he’d rawther not say.” The rat sneered, showing his teeth. “Well.”
“Does it matter?” A soft chiming sound threaded through the rattle-brush of wind against the shack and the sandpaper hiss of dust. Sugar fished a sleek black-cased phone out of her back jeans pocket, which just made Jozzie want to stare at those jeans even harder. “Huh. You have coverage out here. Who knew?“
“All the comforts of home, while getting away from it all. Take that outside, rude girl.”
“I’ve got to answer it anyway. Play nice, boys.”
The rat shuffled back to the barbie and tossed his burden in. Sugar passed Jozzie, still not bothering to give him a glance, and it shouldn’t have made his stomach drop.
But it did.
Sugar tapped at the phone’s face. “Motherfucker,” she said, pleasantly, to whoever it was. “Talk fast.” With that, she was out the door, only a lingering ghost of candy-sweat and strawberries touching the air like a gift.
“One sweet piece, huh? Smart, too. Wasted on this town.” A nasty puff of smoke rose, and the rat poked at the barbie’s inside, heedless of burns. “So, my British compadre, what are you looking for?”
“I ent British.” What was it with everyone thinking he was a pommie? “And I’m looking for somethin personal-like. Just tell me where it was sent.”
“Hmmmmm.” The rat peered through the smoke, his beady eyes reddening. “Oh, yes. Hm. I see.” Those eyes half-lidded, and the barbie began producing gouts of that sickish, ugly smoke. “Personal. Persssssonal.” A long hiss, then the rat choked and rocked back on his heels.
Jozzie was beginning to think maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have menaced Petey the Echidna and set off all by his lonesome. Too late now, though, and really, it wouldn’t do for Gary to be able to laugh at him—
Sue the Rat choked again. His hands spasmed, the mummified thing writhing with flame, and he began to cackle.
Fourteen
Reliable
* * *
It was a miracle I got any cell reception out there, and I was beginning to have a very bad feeling about this whole deal. Everything was just lining up too easily, irritating but not truly unpleasant, difficult but not impossible.
That’s the surest indication that something huge was waiting around the corner to chomp me on the ass.
I plugged my other ear as Sue began to screech with laughter inside. I couldn’t worry about Joz and
Sue getting along right now; besides, if the big dumb kangaroo didn’t want me knowing what he was looking for, I shouldn’t pry.
Unless, of course, he was looking for the Book. That would put a whole new wrinkle on things. It would be just like the family curse to slip me something like that.
“Where are you?” Mel Wray asked, her voice thin and tinny. “It sounds awful.”
“I’m up in the hills.” I hunched my shoulders and wrinkled my nose at the smell beginning to drift out of the cabin. Totem sniffers have their own magic, and it’s highly, uh, fragrant. “Speed it up, honey. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing, except I’ve got a big old fucking event tomorrow night and I need you.”
“Mel…” Catering work paid well, at least when she was in charge. Anyone else, I would have told to go fuck themselves. But she was the first person I’d really met in LA, she’d seen me fresh off the bus at the labor exchange and let me sleep on her couch for a week while I got things going.
That was worth a little inconvenience. Plus, she was a reasonable human being. You learn to cherish those types when you move around a lot. Seeing the underbelly of humanity—and other-than-humanity—gives you a taste for just how rare reliability truly is. In return for her taking a chance on me not being a psycho, I did everything I could to get her big dream—her own catering company—off the ground.
She hadn’t done half badly. When your subject is used to hard work and preparation, a spell to help them goes a long, long way.
“Come on. It’s big, Sugar. You know Quentin Wheddon?”
Gooseflesh crawled down my back. Oh, wasn’t this always the way things went? The universe just had to plop this in front of me while I was working on my seventh.
“Get out,” I said. I didn’t even swear, I was that irritated.
Bless her heart, she thought I was pleased for her, or envious. “Nope. I’m catering a shindig in Beverly Hills for him. Afterparty, for the Ballsy Awards.”