19
Remember, you’re much more flammable now than you were in life. So live every day as if you’re soaked in gasoline.
—From The Guide for the Newly Undead
Sometime between my sustaining multiple gunshot wounds and losing my panties, Dick had called my cell phone to leave me a cryptic voice-mail message.
“Hey, Jane, it’s Dick,” he said, his voice unusually quiet and subdued. “Do you think you could stop by my place sometime tonight? I need to talk to you.”
It was almost four by the time I heard the voice mail. And Dick wasn’t answering his phone, so I risked some early-morning exposure to drive to his trailer. Because if I was at home, I would be cleaning up broken glass and thinking about what I had decided to call “the incident.”
My phone rang as I jogged up the steps to Dick’s trailer. The caller ID said it was Gabriel. I debated picking it up but finally hit the ignore button. I knocked on the door and—
WHHHOOOOOMMMMMMPPFFF
Red and gold stars exploded at the base of my skull as I was blown off Dick’s porch and onto the hood of my car. My frustration at being thrown through yet another windshield was superseded by the fact that my sleeves were on fire. It seemed to be a more pressing concern. I slapped them out just before a secondary explosion knocked me back again. The blast threw me off the car, thwacking the back of my head against the cement blocks supporting a nearby El Camino. The flames burned orange behind my eyelids. I slipped into a soft black place where the burns on my arms didn’t leave me screaming.
I was still able to be knocked unconscious. That was comforting. What was not comfortable was the cot I was currently chained to. I was lying in a dimly lit room that smelled of bleach and cement dust. Someone had taken the time to remove my smoldering clothes and put me in blue hospital scrubs. I jerked at the handcuffs binding my wrists and shrieked. Though healing, the burns on my arms were the color and texture of barely cooked hamburger.
“Agh, I am fortune’s bitch,” I moaned. Not exactly Shakespeare, I’m aware, but I was operating with a concussion. I sniffed at the chains. Under the tang of steel, I smelled something stronger.
“They’re reinforced with titanium,” a smooth, young female voice informed me from the darkness.
“Fortune’s bitch,” I said again.
Ophelia was sitting in a folding chair in the corner. Her fangs glinted as she offered a thin smile. “You do have a way with words.”
“What is going on?” I asked, trying to sit up. My very sensitive equilibrium told me this was a bad idea. “Who let the mariachi band loose in my head?”
Ophelia, who I could now see was wearing an obscenely short plaid skirt and a schoolgirl blouse, crossed to the foot of my bed. “I told you to behave yourself. I told you to stay under the radar.”
“I did,” I protested, the slightest hint of a whine creeping into my voice.
“Then how do you explain your being found unconscious outside a burning trailer belonging to one of the oldest vampires in the region?”
Not that again. “Look, for the last time, I didn’t do anything. I walked up to the door, and the trailer exploded. Wait! Was Dick inside? Is he dead?”
There were the shark eyes again, which were even scarier when they were flashing at me from the dark. “Considering the hour, we’re assuming he was inside. Of course, we wouldn’t find him if he was inside. The fire would reduce him to dust. The question is why you were stupid enough to knock yourself out before you were able to leave the scene of the crime.”
The terror was giving way to anger, which I assumed was a good sign. I demanded, “Why would I set Dick on fire?”
“Why would you set Walter on fire?” she asked.
“I didn’t set Walter on fire!” I shouted.
“Give me an explanation, Jane. Give me something to take back to the other council members, to the vampires who will demand justice. Give me some plausible reason for two men you are rumored to be involved with—whether that involvement is real or imagined, it won’t matter to the community—having both been set on fire. Explain why you were found outside Dick’s burning trailer after you were recently seen having a lovers’quarrel with him at a party.”
“That wasn’t a lovers’ quarrel! That was a friendly conversation!”
“You were seen hitting him repeatedly.”
“It was a friendly conversation that involved me hitting him repeatedly.”
Ophelia did not look convinced.
I sighed. “What’s going to happen to me? Is a vampire detective going to come in here and question me with a phone book and a rubber hose?”
I could see the amusement reach her eyes, but she refused to smile. “A tribunal has been called to discuss your case. Depending on the outcome of that discussion, you may have a trial tomorrow.”
“A trial,” I repeated before realization dawned. “The trial? Wait, don’t I get a lawyer or a phone call or something?”
“No,” she said, uncuffing me. I sat up slowly. She was across the room and out of my reach in a glimmer of movement. Where was the trust? “You’re accused of immolating two of your own kind. The Bill of Rights no longer applies to you.”
She turned toward the door, then whirled back on me. She stood by the cot, peering down at me with those glowing black eyes.
“I regret this. You seem to be an interesting vampire.”
“Then don’t do this!” I yelled. “Stop making an example of me for other young vampires. I’m a terrible example. More weird stuff happens to me in a week than is foisted upon the average person in an entire lifetime.”
“I regret this,” she repeated. “But I also regret the loss of Dick Cheney. Once upon a time, we were…close acquaintances.”
“Am I the only person in the Hollow who hasn’t slept with Dick Cheney?”
“Possibly,” she admitted.
“Sorry,” I said. Shrugging my shoulders was a painful gesture that let me know there were bits of glass embedded somewhere near my shoulder blade. Gabriel was right, it itched.
Gabriel.
“My sire, Gabriel Nightengale, does he know I’m here?” I asked as she opened my cell door.
She nodded. “You’re not allowed visitors,” she said, shutting the very solid door behind her.
And for the first time since being shot and left for dead, I was truly frightened.
Whenever those horrible “women in prison” movies were played on Lifetime, I thought, what’s the big deal about prison? I could handle solitary. Even if I couldn’t read, I could daydream. I could write. I would take naps.
Well, like many of my predeath preconceived notions, that one was destroyed. There was no window, so I couldn’t tell whether it was night or day. There was no clock, so I never knew what time it was. I couldn’t sleep, because the healing burns on my arms itched like crazy. And my daydreams were interrupted by pesky questions such as, “Where is Gabriel?” “Why does this keep happening to me?” “Am I going to die for real this time?”
I spent half my time trying to figure out where the hell I was. When I pressed my ear against the wall, I could hear traffic. I heard voices at least twenty feet above my head, but I couldn’t make out any actual words. And there was a rat somewhere in the plumbing.
The only good thing I could say about the clink was that the blood (served in a paper cup shoved through a slot in my door) was fresh and tasty. It was also of an indeterminate origin, but I decided not to ask questions.
I was halfway to drawing “LOVE” and “HATE” on my knuckles, when Ophelia returned. She was wearing black silk pants and a top that may, at one point, have been a handkerchief. I stood up, grateful for any sort of interaction, even if it could mean I was facing a spookily titled punishment.
“Are you comfortable?” she asked, not sounding as if she actually cared.
“Bored, mostly. How long have I been in here?” I asked. “Two days, three days?”
“Nine hours,” she said, looking as if she were suppressing a giggle.
“Well, that’s embarrassing,” I muttered, scratching at my arms.
We sat there and stared at each other. It was like a staring contest with a really hot statue.
Finally, she said, “The tribunal has voted against a trial.”
I sat up, feeling something like hope rising. “Really? That’s good news.”
“They voted against it because Missy has challenged you to trial by battle, which is her right as Dick’s consort.”
“You guys are just making this up as you go along!” I cried. “Dick and Missy weren’t even in a real relationship. Hell, if everyone he slept with could challenge me to a duel, I’d be fighting half the county. You could challenge—”
She crossed her arms and glared at me. Probably not good to give her ideas.
“Never mind,” I said. “Is it going to be pistols at dawn? Swords at sundown? How does this trial-by-battle thing work?”
“The last battle was fought with sharpened snow shovels,” she told me.
“Now I know you’re screwing with me.” I snorted. Her expression didn’t change. “Oh, come on!”
“Missy will choose the weapon,” Ophelia informed me.
“She’s going to accessorize me to death?”
“Or she can choose hand-to-hand combat.” Ophelia nodded.
“I stand by my statement,” I deadpanned.
My arms finally healed up about an hour after Ophelia left me. She said she would come back an hour before my appointment with Missy the grieving ex to let me feed and update me on the duel arrangements. She even promised to serve as my second. How did I get to a point in my life where I needed a second?
Semierotic fisticuffs with Gabriel aside, I didn’t have any faith in my fighting skills. Walter had nearly splintered my skull with his bare hands, and from what I heard, he’d spent most of his time watching Battlestar Galactica in his mother’s basement.
After pacing, humming, yoga, and playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the entire cast of Good Times, exhaustion finally got to me, and I managed to fall asleep. I dreamed that I was walking along that long, dark country road and felt the pain of Bud McElray’s bullet all over again. Only instead of finding me and turning me, Gabriel drove by in a big black Cadillac. He laughed and pelted me with cigars and drove away. Anyone care to interpret that?
I jolted awake, yelling, “Freud!” Dick was sitting in the corner of my cell, smirking at me. “I can’t leave you alone for two seconds, can I?”
“Dick?” I said, wiping an alarming amount of sleep drool from my cheek. “Wait, are you a ghost?”
He sat on the cot and grasped my knee, so I could feel he was substantial. “Nope, still as undead as ever.”
I removed his hand and put it back on his own knee. He gave me a blithe grin, which, Lord help me, made me hug him. He was clearly caught off guard by this and, after hesitating, gave me a completely innocent squeeze.
“Hey, you’re not trailer dust!” I exclaimed. “And your hand is on my knee again.”
“Sorry,” he said, not looking the least bit so. “And no, I’m not dust. I had a fireproof sleeping compartment built under the trailer a few years ago. I smelled the gas and jumped into it just in time.”
“Your sleeping compartment is fireproof?”
“I have my reasons,” he said, feigning indignation. “I just figured my place got torched by one of my less than civically minded associates. I laid low for a while. I didn’t know you’d been blamed for the whole thing until this evening when I heard about the duel. I couldn’t leave you locked up. With the public showers and the shackles—”
“Shh,” I said, holding a finger to his lips. “I’m glad you’re OK. Let’s not ruin that.”
He kissed the fingertip, which I then used to tweak his nose. He caught my hand and smelled my skin. He cocked an eyebrow and smirked, then rolled his eyes. If he could smell Gabriel on my hair before we had sex…
“If you say what is in your head right now, I will rescind my previous statement and kill you. For real this time,” I told him.
“Speaking of that, how about I give you a ride home?” he said. “There’s some stuff we need to talk about in private.”
“The stuff you cryptically referred to during your call? How did you get my cell-phone number, anyway?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said, dragging me to the door.
“Dick, they’re not going to just let me walk out of here. They think I tried to kill you. It’s apparently one of the big no-nos.”
“And obviously, I’m not dead. No harm, no foul,” Dick said.
“That doesn’t change the fact that someone tried to kill you and I’m still a prime suspect. I’m actually the only suspect, which I find insulting and surprising.”
“Look, I vouched for you, OK? I said there was no way you could have done this. It took some convincing, but Ophelia has agreed to release you into my custody. They figure if you really did try to kill me and somehow you end up mysteriously disappearing, it’s a wash.”
“I don’t want to know what you did to convince Ophelia, do I?”
Dick smirked.
Ophelia, Sophie, and Mr. Marchand were waiting in the hall, ready to offer me an apology on behalf of the council. Well, Sophie and Mr. Marchand were apologizing. I didn’t need telepathy to know Ophelia would not bother with a “trial/no trial” vote the next time I got into trouble.
Dick managed to speed the process along and practically launched me through the entrance to the council office—which was actually a Kinko’s. I felt silly walking through a weeknight crowd of people copying their tax records in hospital scrubs and bare feet. But the patrons seemed used to this sort of thing.
Dick threw me into the front seat of his car, an old beat-up El Camino, and pulled out of town as quickly as our two stoplights would allow.
I crossed my arms and spoke with overly sweet clarity. “OK, I’m getting tired of being thrown in and out of shitty situations because people withhold information from me. What were you calling to tell me about? And why couldn’t you talk about it at the council gulag?”
I glared at my sister, who refused to meet my gaze.
Missy sneered. “Get a couple of margaritas in her, and she becomes quite the Chatty Cathy. She’s been coming to me for advice on how to whisk that house out from under you, what with my real-estate expertise and all. She came here tonight thinking I’d come up with some way of forcing you into signing it over for tax reasons. You know, she’s been feeding me information about you for months. Your schedules, your habits, your friends’ names, your favorite foods. Of course, she didn’t realize all of that had changed, because she’s too damn dumb to figure out you’re a vampire, but it was a good start.
“And now, it’s time for the final act, Jane. I tried playing nice. I tried playing dirty. And now I’m going to play rough. I’ll say you came after me in a jealous rage over Dickie, and I had to kill you in self-defense. And if the council doesn’t believe that, I’ll just keep talking until I find a story they do believe. You’d be amazed at what I can do to sell a story.”
For a long time, I stared at Missy, unable to absorb what she’d said. “Let me get this straight. You tried to kill me so you could build a tacky planned community? That is just evil. I’m so going to kick your ass…just as soon as I’m untied. And then, maybe, I’m going after Jenny.”
“It’s not tacky,” Missy hissed through clenched fangs. “It’s innovative.” She gripped her drink until the glass shattered in her hands, but she seemed to recover her composure as she flicked the shards away. “And technically, darling, you’re chained.”
Missy stepped over to my parents to adjust their bonds. She pinched my father’s cheek until I thought blood would well from under her nails and then slapped him lightly. I growled, but she ignored me.
“Here’s the deal, Janie. When I dust you, I’ll gain control over River Oaks and everything you own. And then I’m going to kill your parents and your sister. And then I’m going after that boring ass of a husband and her imbecile children so there are no living heirs to claim River Oaks. That’s the difference between you and me, Jane. I don’t sit around whining and waiting for something to happen. I see what I want, and I take it.”
“Look, this entire deck is made of wood. Just stake me and get it over with so I don’t have to listen to any more evil-overlord speeches.” I grumbled under my breath, “Two-bit dyed-blond social-climbing huckster.”
Missy whirled on me, her face twisted with rage. “What did you say?”
She took a step toward me. Seeing that, I said, “Bottled blonde.”
“No, not that.” She snarled and took another step away from my parents.
“Nouveau riche.” I smiled nastily, watching her move farther away from my family. If I could distract her long enough, maybe Dick could sneak around the building and release them.
When Missy’s fangs glinted, I added, “Pretentious. Megalomaniacal. Two-faced. Cheap. Gigantic skank. About as real as Jenny’s tan.”
“No, that last part,” Missy seethed.
Cheerfully, I said, “Oh, huckster, con artist, snake-oil peddler. If you were any good at sales, you wouldn’t be in this position, would you? Aunt Jettie would have packed up for Florida and sold out to you. You’d be sitting pretty in River Oaks, and I would be—”
Missy let loose a guttural scream and kicked me square in the chest with her knockoff Jimmy Choos. Still chained to a lawn chair, I was launched through the deck railing, landing about twenty feet away. I left an ankle-deep rut in the recently sodded yard, my head pillowed on the mound of dirt. Spitting out grass and mud, I felt a grinding throb in my shoulder. I looked down and saw a chunk of the deck jutting through my collarbone.
“That is just gross,” I heard Zeb say. I looked up to see him, Dick, and Gabriel standing over me. While this was touching in a “The cavalry is here!” sort of way, it didn’t change the fact that my parents were now alone with an over-lip-glossed psychopath who planned on killing them. I looked up to the deck and saw empty chairs. Great, my parents were now hidden from sight by an over-lip-glossed psychopath. That was so much safer.
Dick shook his head. “This is what happens when you roughhouse. It’s all fun and games until somebody gets impaled.”
Wearing his grim expression, Gabriel knelt next to me. He said, “This is going to hurt.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked as Gabriel yanked the offending lumber from my clavicle. “Ow!”
“I told you it was going to hurt,” Gabriel said, shrugging.
“I called him,” Dick said, looking sheepish. “I thought you could use some help, or at least another witness. I would have called Andrea, too, but you never gave me her number.”
“And you?” I asked Zeb as Gabriel yanked my shirt away from the wound and inspected it.
“I called him,” Gabriel told me, peering up at Zeb. “Though I remember asking for Jolene.”
Zeb’s clever reply was interrupted by Missy racing across the lawn, looking to wrap her arms around an unmoving Dick. “Dickie! I’m so glad you’re all right. I was so worried.”
“Now, why would you worry about me, darlin’?” Dick asked, his smile nasty. “Just because you torched my trailer, with me inside? Why would that make you worry your pretty little head?”
Missy’s mouth formed a slick, astonished O. “Now, Dickie, honey, you know I’d never—”
“Missy, we’re going to have a little talk, you and I,” Dickie growled.
“Now, Dickie, Gabriel, you know you’re not allowed to interfere once a challenge has been made,” she cooed, toying with the hem of Dick’s “Federal Bikini Inspector” T-shirt. “And I issued a legal challenge to Jane at the council office days ago. It doesn’t matter that Dick is alive—the challenge stands.”
“Suddenly, we’re concerned with the rules?” Dick asked in the same saccharine tone.
“Only when they work to my advantage.” She smiled.
That meant I still had to fight. Dang it. While Dick had Missy distracted, I had a small panic attack.
“I haven’t been a vampire for very long, but I’m pretty sure I can’t toss someone like that,” I said, wincing as the wound in my shoulder closed. “I want her tested for steroids.”
“She’s been drinking the blood of older vampires for years. It makes her the equivalent of an East German gymnast,” Dick called over his shoulder. He glared at Missy. “Trust me, I know.”
This prompted more indignant chatter from Missy. I groaned, clutching Gabriel’s arms. “Gabriel, I don’t want this to be the way you remember me. Just leave now, before I get my ass handed to me by a sorority reject from hell. I’m sorry I dragged you into my weird, drama-ridden existence. I’m sorry I screwed things up so badly with you and me. I’m sorry I have the emotional maturity of a grapefruit.”
He grinned, his fangs glinting. “You don’t have the emotional maturity of a grapefruit. A tangerine, maybe, but I think you’ve got to work your way up to grapefruit.”
I smacked his chest. “You’re joking. I’m going to be beaten to death with a hot-pink faux-alligator handbag, and you pick now to develop a sense of humor.”
“You’re not going to be beaten to death,” Gabriel said in a bemused, soothing tone. He held his wrist to my lips. “Drink.”
Sensing Gabriel’s maneuver, Dick began arguing in a louder, more demanding tone, casting aspersions on Missy’s character, business acumen, and sexual prowess. She screamed back that she faked something a lot. I didn’t catch what, but I think I can guess.
“I don’t think now is the time for naughty blood-swapping fun,” I said, shoving Gabriel’s arm away. “Besides…” I jerked my head toward Zeb. “He’s watching.”
Zeb waved my concerns away. His eyes were glued to Dick and Missy baring fangs and snarling insults. “I can’t tear myself away from the most frightening breakup fight I’ve ever seen.”
Gabriel nudged his wrist toward me again. “You’ll absorb some of my strength. It will help you.”
“It’s just that, drinking your blood, it’s kind of what got me into this mess,” I said.
“I didn’t see you complaining when you were dying along the roadside,” he huffed. “Or when we were making love.”
“What?” Zeb shouted.
“Zeb, shut it,” I warned.
Gabriel ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end in a wild Beethoven that would have been hilarious under different circumstances. “Would you please just accept help from me and stop being so, so—”
“So Jane?” Zeb suggested.
“Zeb!” Gabriel warned.
“OK, you need to back off,” I said, poking Gabriel’s chest. “You’re suffocating me. You never tell me anything unless it’s your ‘listen to Daddy’ voice, which is incredibly annoying in someone you have feelings for. I never know how you feel about me, about anything, except that you like to see me naked, and you have caveman ‘must protect Jane’ impulses. I’m not a mind reader.”
“Technically, you kind of are,” Zeb volunteered.
We both growled at Zeb, our fangs bared.
“Shutting up!” Zeb said, throwing up his hands and backing away.
“I don’t write love poems,” Gabriel said. “I don’t cuddle. I don’t spend hours on the phone, cooing, ‘No, you hang up first.’ I was raised in a time when if you had feelings for a woman, you proposed or you made her your mistress. I think, given the circumstances, you should give me credit for being as evolved as I am.”
Damned if he didn’t have a point. But I would have to hand over my womanhood membership card if I ever admitted it.
“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
I threw my arms up. “I don’t even know what it is.”
He sighed, a short snort of impatience. “I like you. You’re unpredictable, and you always say what you think, even if it would be better if you didn’t. You get yourself into situations that Moliere couldn’t think of.”
“OK, OK, so you like me.”
“Yes, I think we should see each other on an exclusive basis,” he said. I stared at him. “I am your sire, and we’ve made love.”
“I’m familiar with your résumé,” I said, shushing him with another furtive look at Zeb. “This is not a good time for this.”
“I doubt we’ll ever find a good time,” he muttered, thrusting his arm against my mouth. “Now, drink, before Missy figures out what we’re doing.” With nothing else I to say, I chomped on his wrist. Gabriel yelped, prompting a smile against his skin. Unusual for me, I knew, but I could hear Missy and Dick’s argument winding down. Gabriel winced as I drew huge mouthfuls of his blood.
Zeb watched, coming closer and closer. “Is it going to be a Popeye thing? She eats her spinach and has the strength of twenty squinty sailors?”
“How have you survived this long without someone hurting you?” Gabriel asked as I finished feeding. I wiped a drip from my chin and offered Zeb a red-tinged grin. He recoiled, clearly grossed out.
Gabriel pulled a handkerchief from nowhere and dabbed at my mouth.
“I love it when he does that,” Zeb said, looking Gabe over for hidden pockets. “Why can’t I be a cool sleight-of-hand guy?”
“You’ve got a huge man crush on him, don’t you?” I said, shaking my head.
Zeb measured “this much” sexual confusion with his fingers.
The sudden drop in volume signaled that Missy had finally noticed us.
“Gabriel, I do believe what you just did could be considered cheating,” Missy said, her voice teasing and pouting.
“Do not attempt to explain the ancient codes to me,” he growled.
Missy ignored the chill in Gabriel’s tone. “Then I can count on you to mind your own business and let us girls sort this out.”
“You can count on me to keep this farce as close to the codes as possible. And if by some misfortune you happen to kill my bloodmate, I will make you wish for dawn.”
Bloodmate? What was that, exactly? It sounded like something I didn’t necessarily want to be. But the term seemed to have an effect on Missy. The supreme Tony Robbins-bred confidence melted away for a second before she flashed a guileless grin. “I’ll just let you two say your good-byes.”
“She’s really good at that intimidating smack-talk stuff,” I said, watching her flounce away. “Any advice?”
“Keep your hands up,” Gabriel said. “Protect your neck and chest at all times. And don’t try any of those fancy women’s self-defense tactics. She probably took the same classes when she was alive, and she’ll be expecting them.”
Before I could retort, Gabriel crushed me close and gave me a bloodless, friendly smack on the lips. He smiled. “For luck.”
“Idiot,” I said, before grinning broadly and crushing his mouth to mine.
“We need to pick new pet names for each other,” he muttered as I hefted myself up from the ground.
Honestly, how did someone who never once got into a fight in school end up getting into so many of them as an adult? Missy was standing in the middle of the yard, in a worn circle of dirt. I felt like that first anonymous fighter who gets killed off in the Jean-Claude Van Damme cage-fighter movies. Missy smiled, and I circled.
“I guess we’re going to get to have that little catfight after all,” Missy said, rolling her shoulders.
“I’m not worried. If you kill me, my dead great-aunt will fix it so you spend eternity looking for your car keys,” I said.
I felt the power of Gabriel’s blood coursing through me, warming me, giving me that drunk driver’s confidence that maybe I could make it home. The burns on my arms had finally healed over. And the wound in my shoulder was a shiny, slightly sore memory.
“Question. Did you actually wear that Juicy Couture track suit with this in mind?”
Missy scowled. “If we’re going to talk fashion, shug, I think we need to start with those Payless specials you wear.”
“Ow, I wear cheap shoes, you got me,” I deadpanned. “Let’s just cut the banter and fight. I feel the need to warn you, I’m a hair puller.”
“I feel the need to warn you,” Missy said, before simply punching me right in the eye.
I responded by collapsing to the ground. That’d show her.
Can someone punch you in the head so hard that it actually decapitates you? Because Missy came close.
From my position on the ground, I could see the heel of Missy’s shoe on a collision course with my throat. I rolled, ramming into her shins and knocking her off balance. She fell on her butt with an outraged “uhff” and kicked up, launching me about twenty feet in the air. Giddy from the fall, I landed on my feet but didn’t have time to avoid the crushing kick to my solar plexus. I stumbled back, making a sound not found in human language, and struck out, punching her in the eye. She swung blind, dragging her frosted-pink nails down my chest. I swiped my fingers under my shirt and found blood streaked across them.
I grunted and stomped on her foot. She screamed and kicked me in the shin. I had no choice but to pull her hair, which was remotely shameful, even though I’d warned her. But it was surprisingly effective. Missy squealed and snaked her hands against my scalp, yanking hard. And soon we were just rolling around on the ground, cursing and screeching and ripping out handfuls of hair.
Without super hearing, I wouldn’t have heard Zeb whisper, “This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.”
“Maybe they’ll get muddy,” Dick said. “Please, Lord, let them get muddy.”
Gabriel turned on them. “You two do realize this is a battle to the death, yes?”
Neither seemed particularly embarrassed.
After several ringing blows to the head, Missy tossed me in a limp pile at the feet of Dick, Gabriel, and Zeb. Gabriel helped me to my feet and gave me an encouraging slap on the back. Dick, however, took a hint from Burgess Meredith’s performance in Rocky.
“Would you kick her ass already?” Dick said, shoving me back toward Missy. “Come on, Stretch, man up. You can do better than this! Get mad.”
I nodded, rolling a dislocated shoulder back into place with a grunt and staggering back toward my opponent.
Behind me, Zeb yelled, “She tried to hurt Fitz!” He turned to Gabriel and Dick. “That’ll get her mad.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “She’s been framed for murder twice over, shot in the back, her arms were set on fire, and her parents are being held hostage. You think tampered dog water is what’s going to make her angry?”
“You tried to hurt my dog!” I wheezed as I lurched toward a grinning Missy.
“Oh, big deal,” Missy huffed. “It’s the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.”
“You tried to hurt my dog,” I said again.
“I would have been doing you a favor.” Missy sneered.
“Nobody. Screws. With. My. Dog.” I growled, punctuating each word with a punch to Missy’s face. I gave an upper cut to the chin that sent her flying back into a pile on the ground.
Zeb grinned at Dick and Gabriel. “Told you.”
I took a running start at Missy, hoping to drive my elbow into her chest. But she rolled out of the way, kicking me in the back of the head when I face-planted into the dirt. Ow.
I pushed up to my knees, but Missy tackled me, throwing me to the ground, cursing, and pulling my hair. I tried every move I’d ever seen on the rare evenings Zeb got me to watch wrestling: head butting, eye gouging, ear pulling. But nothing would get Missy off me.
Still rolling in our cartoon fight ball of flying fists and cat yowls, we knocked into the storage shed, popping the door open. A slew of Missy’s old Realtor signs spilled out, their pointy wooden stakes glinting like a dozen golden opportunities.
We glanced at the stakes, looked at each other, and dove. I landed first, with Missy grabbing my ankles to pull me away. I managed to snag one as she dragged me facedown over the grass. Spitting dirt and grass and a couple of foul words, I sprang to my feet. Missy was still on her back, hate and surprise radiating from her eyes as I lunged and drove the sign through her chest. Missy howled, wriggling to free herself from the spike pinning her to the ground.
“The heart, you moron!” she screeched, clutching at the stake. “It has to be the heart!”
“Oh, right, thanks,” I said, grabbing another sign. I screamed as I drove it home, aiming more carefully this time.
She looked down at the wood pinning her heart, disbelief flickering over her features before they crumbled away to dust. It happened in a wave, first the skin, then the musculature, then a bare skeleton that exploded in a cloud of particles. The sign swayed once, twice, then fell flat, pushing Missy’s smiling photo into the mound of her dust.
“Get the point?” I asked, offering the boys a triumphant smile.
Gabriel, Zeb, and Dick stared at me, aghast.
“What? Sarcastic postkill comeback. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in situations like this?
“Too harsh?”