“Thank you. Be right out,” I say, as I finish scrubbing my body with the other fluffy white towel.
“You’re not going to answer me?”
“Well, it’s a very open-ended sentence,” I calmly say and then wing the rest of the answer, because there is no need to make him anymore tense about my biggest concern, at the moment.
“I mean, you could be asking if I’m afraid of ghosts—that answer would be no. You could be concerned that the ghost hears, and most of all, sees everything we do. Now I can see where that might make you uncomfortable with intimacy, so I just didn’t mention Nan right away.”
There, not actually a lie. Damn, I’m getting really good in a tight situation—thank you CeCe and Jane!
I step from the shower, robe cinched around my waist and a towel wrapped around Gracie’s long brown hair.
Gaire is across the room, standing in front of the bedroom windows, staring out into the back yard.
While I slather lavender body lotion on my legs, I cautiously change the subject. “I hope Mother is Down Under. I really should have checked in with her sooner. Making her worry is not nice.” For the love of a still warm body, I sound like and adult trying to teach her child a lesson.
“I don’t see why you feel the need to do this at Purgatory,” Gaire says mulishly, as he struts across the bedroom, and opens the bathroom door wider.
I grab a blow-dryer off the wall and flip the switch to high.
“Come on, you know I have to hit the sewer to check in. I meet Mother there all the time. And putting it off will just attract attention,” I shout at Gaire as the blow-dryer tosses my host’s hair around. “Besides, we agreed, Purgatory is the perfect place to tell Mother, and anyone who will listen, that you died in the fire with Vuur.”
I flip my head over to reach the last of the dampness, fingers raking hair forward until I feel it’s dry, and then thumb the off switch and hang the blow-dryer back on a hook by a shell-shaped sink. Hiking Gracie’s terrycloth robe above my hips, I struggle with a pair of tight jeans.
“What if he isn’t dead?” Gaire stands rigid in the bathroom door. “What if the dragon is out there waiting for you?”
Gaire’s eyes are locked on my face, not Gracie’s pristine-white bra peeking out of the unruly robe. I pause for a second to choose my words. “Look, I was born nineteen years ago looking just like I do today. I’ve been below and above the sewers doing what I do, and never—”
“I don’t want to hear what you did. I’m more interested in what you’re about to do. What if you run into the assassin, you know, the dragon-guy you partnered up with to find me and then totally pissed off by helping me get away?”
“You haven’t called me Luna once since I got out of the shower,” I coyly taunt.
Gaire rests his hip against the door frame, right jawbone fighting anger, blue eyes looking stormy, and fisted hands stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans.
Trying to make light of the matter is not working. I use Gracie to blow a long calming breath, and then smile at him.
“Sweetie,” I use the word sarcastically, “I’m a doppelganger. I can deal with Vuur. He’s a dragon—all hot air, fire, and steam. You can’t fight smoke with fire. And I do believe I mentioned, several times, there isn’t a Down Under creature that can kill me, only destroy my host. Worst scenario, I lose Gracie.”
I grin, zip the jeans, and shuck the robe for a black, short sleeved polyester tee. I don’t know what he’s thinking.
“What about the raping, murdering doppelganger? The one we know is still out there,” Gaire says. “You know, the only creature that can kill you, Luna.”
I raise my eyebrows and, while Gaire is grinding off molar enamel, pick up discarded clothes, use them to wipe condensation off the bathroom mirror, and then toss the shorts and shirt into a wicker clothes hamper by the tub. My eyes can’t help but wander to the crystal balls clutched in the clawed feet on the tub. I smile a Gracie smile.
I hang the terrycloth robe on a hook behind the door. “I doubt the jerk would try to kill me—strict rule, no doppelganger can off another without approval. While the elders won’t do a damn thing about what, why, and how he kills humans, he’d be the one with a price on his head if he attacks me, so chill.”
“They’d have to find him first, Luna,” Gaire rumbles with the tenacity of a Chihuahua.
“Believe me, if they have to call in a ticket to find him, he’s toast.” Gathering Gracie’s long hair, I wrangle it into a hair-tie. “And they will find him, Rogaire.”
Completely ignoring the usage of his full name, Gaire paces in front of the bathroom door. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not,” I carefully say. “My mother smelled you all over me the night I … um, tried to seduce you.” I scratch a payback mark on my mental notepad.
“And she didn’t warn you?” he asks.
“She was very vague.”