A Date with Death, page 6
“I hope you like mint,” I said as I handed her a grasshopper a few minutes later.
She took a sip and smiled her pleasure at the drink.
“Let’s try to get a handle on what Bad Bones is before Hector decides what he’s sending with us,” I said. “I suspect he’s eating dinner—slowly—while he decides what precious object he can loan out for a few hours.”
“Yes.” Sylvie frowned. “He was a little grumpy when he left, and he does hate loaning out his cursed gizmos.”
“Maybe we should start with other accidents in the area. If there have been other car accidents, then maybe there’s a pattern and that will tell us something about Bad Bones.”
Clarence must have been listening at his door, because no sooner had the words left my mouth than he appeared in a flash of tawny fur. “Did someone say research? I might have been doing some research.” His nubby tail flicked back and forth. “Maybe I’ll share.” Twitch. Twitch. “For some decent food.”
Research I’d done on appropriate diets for wildcats claimed Clarence wasn’t being adequately served by domesticated-cat kibble, but I wasn’t about to let on that all the extra-tasty treats he bargained for were actually a necessary part of his diet. So I hemmed and hawed briefly, before saying, “I guess, but only if you found something useful.”
“Ha! Useful.” And there went his tail: twitch, twitch. Either he was bluffing and had nothing or he’d found something good. “I’ve got something for you, and it’ll take Sylvie three times as long to find it.”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug, admitting he was probably right.
“Done,” I said. “What have you got?”
Clarence blinked. “Treats first.”
“Half the treats now and half on delivery.” Our bargaining had become ridiculously routine, but it seemed to grease the wheels of our relationship.
“Done.” He licked his lips, flashing a hint of fangs. But then he made a mistake. As we both moved into the kitchen, he started to spill—before he’d gotten a single piece of liver. My fluffy buddy was really worried about Sylvie and me. “You know, we’re the land of immigrants, so I had to do some in-depth cross-cultural research.”
That made sense. When people moved, they brought their cultural experiences with them…and their creepy supernatural beings.
“But amidst all this in-depth research—that took you less than twenty minutes—you found something.” I scanned the fridge for the little thawed packet of liver that was Clarence’s daily ration. Too much of the rich stuff and neither of us would be happy campers.
“I found the mother lode.” He paused, probably for dramatic effect, or maybe he was considering the fact that he hadn’t a bite of liver yet. But then he said, “Kichkandi.”
13
When Clarence didn’t get the reaction he expected—astonishment, amazement?—he said it again. “Kichkandi.”
Sounded like a stubborn hairball to me.
“Sorry, I still didn’t get that,” Sylvie said. “Kick-something?”
The packet I’d put in the fridge to thaw this morning was remaining stubbornly hidden. I buried my head deeper and dug around until I heard Clarence clear his throat. When I turned to see what was up, I found a guilty-looking feline staring back at me.
“If you’re looking for the tiny little pouch of liver you stashed in the back, I might have snacked on that before the nachos.” Before I could issue a single recrimination, he bounced around to face Sylvie and said, “Kich-kandi. It’s a female spirit…that is anchored to one or more of her corporeal body’s bones.”
If a cat could waggle its eyebrows, Clarence was doing exactly that.
“Really?” Sylvie cocked her head. She was either intensely curious about Clarence’s find or was as stupefied as I the first time I’d seen that disconcertingly human expression. She shook her head and said, “That would explain why Belle calls her Bad Bones, but why do you think it’s a kichkandi? And what is that? And how in the world did you ever figure that out?”
“The internet is a beautiful thing.” At the sound of crinkling paper, he quickly added, “Uh, I found some other deaths near Belle’s treehouse.” He flipped around to find me holding aloft a packet of chicken hearts. “You’re such a tease, Geoff. A mean, evil tease.”
Treehouse? Her tree was her house, but… No, it wasn’t worth the discussion. And who was a tease? Me? I crinkled the paper again, then lifted the wax paper bundle. “I’ll thaw these in the microwave for you, but you’re only getting half.”
After some muttering, he capitulated, because what choice did he have? I had the car and the bank account. Which reminded me: Clarence was rather adept at stealing my debit card information. I had great hopes he wouldn’t discover grocery delivery anytime soon. Fingers crossed. The balance of power that existed between us was a precarious thing.
“I looked for a pattern, and guess what I found, Geoff? You gotta guess. It’s so great.” He turned his nose toward the microwave, where a distinctly meaty odor was emanating, and inhaled, but then he bounced on his toes and looked at me expectantly. “Guess.”
His enthusiasm was catching, and I had to bite back a smile.
A grin stretched across his face. “You’ll never guess, so I’m going to tell you because it’s awesome.” In this moment, Clarence sounded just like the teenager that Sylvie suspected he was. “Mummies!” Clarence cried out gleefully. “They were mummies, Geoff!”
“Oh, wow.” Sylvie placed her drink on the table and gave him her full attention. “Like in the movies, with the rambling walk and the rotting bandages?”
“Well, not exactly. But really close. You can check it out yourself. I emailed you the links earlier.”
I peered over her shoulder while she brought up two different articles, one of which was on a site for paranormal and alien sightings that looked a bit dodgy. “Really, Clarence?”
He stood on his hind legs to get a look at Sylvie’s phone. “The second article is legit. And the blogger who wrote this one isn’t a total crackpot. He just caters to a specific audience. Look, he’s connected the two bodies. The mainstream news people didn’t even make that connection and it was so obvious. And he has a picture.”
“Ugh,” Sylvie groaned. “You could have warned me a little sooner about the picture.” She averted her eyes and then looked back again. “Wait, how is this a mummy? No bandages… Oh, I see. That’s so sad.”
I got a glance at the picture before she flipped to the more mainstream article. “‘Malnourished and desiccated corpse,’” I said, reading part of the headline aloud. “That’s not exactly a mummy.”
“You two have no imagination.” Clarence plopped down on the floor. “You say tomato, I say to-mah-to.” Then he lifted a hind leg and proceeded to clean his privates. He knew exactly how much that annoyed me, but I was getting tired of telling him to save for the privacy of his room. At least he didn’t try to give me the you’d-do-it-if-you-could-reach-it speech any more.
“This blogger might be a little looney, but he has great visuals. He’s even got a map. Look at the location he has marked, Geoff.” Sylvie expanded the map and then pointed to a circled location. “They were both found just east of Belle’s tree. It seems no one thought much of the state of the bodies, because they were both found at the height of summer in deep drought. And since they were three years apart, it seems most people didn’t make the connection—except for this blogger.”
“Mummies.” Clarence narrowed his eyes. “Without bandages, but still mummies, and a female supernatural baddie that likes to suck the life juices from young men. Then you’ve got the name Bad Bones, and the kichkandi ends up the best fit for the facts.”
“That you could find in less than twenty minutes,” I replied. Clarence was good, but was he that good?
“Oh, my.” Sylvie pointed to her phone. “The kichkandi fits the bill. She leaves her victims thin and drained of life. The part about the bone is right.” She scanned her phone. “And female. But it looks like she’s a spirit, so how could she have made Keaton’s car crash? And why? And she didn’t feed on him, and that seems to be the kichkandi’s MO.”
“Or there could be three supernatural nasties occupying that one little chunk of land.” Clarence sighed when he saw the look on my face. “I’m kidding, people. There are not three. You guys went on and on earlier about border disputes—”
“We mentioned it,” I said with a dryness I couldn’t mask.
“Pfft.” Clarence assumed a deeply disgruntled expression. “Anyway, she couldn’t suck anyone else dry without letting the world know she was there. And she still got to sink her nasty spirit claws in a young hunk of love while simultaneously attacking her hated neighbor. Win-win.”
“Actually”—Sylvie looked up from her phone—“it looks like she might not be due for another life-juice-sucking until next summer, if there’s any significance to the timing of the previous two victims. Either the three-year spread is important, or the drought, or the season. It’s not summer, and we’re not in drought.”
“So the condition of the bodies would be harder to explain.” I could see where she was going with this.
Sylvie nodded. “And it’s only been a little over two years. This next summer will be three.”
“Any way you look at it, I say the kichkandi is the best fit. I’m due some shut-eye now, and I recommend that you two do the same.” Clarence had long since finished the last of his negotiated tidbits, but he checked his bowl again in case he’d missed a juicy morsel. Once he’d licked his bowl, he belched with a satisfied smirk and retired without mentioning cocktails.
That had to be an indication of how much he’d eaten today, because he’d normally wheedle me for a sip. He’d eaten his regular kibble, his daily ration of liver, nachos, and whatever else he’d scrounged while Sylvie and I had been gone, and the late-night snack I’d just given him.
That was a disturbing mix of overeating and disagreeable foods. I swallowed a groan. If only he could clean his own bathroom. I’d been encouraging his use of the outdoor facilities—a.k.a. the sandbox in the yard—and I was holding hold out hope he’d use it, because he could create some extremely foul stenches. I put those noxious thoughts out of my mind and turned to the mystery that was Bad Bones.
Sylvie and I discussed the possibilities—that our Bad Bones wasn’t a kichkandi, that there were in fact three supernatural creatures housed on a single acre of land, or Clarence was right and Bad Bones was a kichkandi or some similar type of creature.
Three supernaturals on one acre. My instinct hollered a definitive “no.” Not when the wilder supernatural creatures tended to enjoy their space and frequently were territorial. Exhibit A, the territory dispute between Belle and Bad Bones.
I didn’t buy three creatures, and neither did Sylvie. Two was much more likely. And when she tried to find some other type of creature to fit all the facts, she came back to the kichkandi. It was a spirit—in other words, noncorporeal—but she found stories of them taking physical form for short periods. And it wouldn’t take long to wrench the steering wheel from the hands of an unsuspecting victim.
Kichkandi it was.
Now that we had a name, it was time to hit up Hector for that help we both hoped he was still willing to give us.
Sylvie volunteered. If he was currently enjoying that good red he’d mentioned earlier, she was likely to have better luck.
Not ten seconds after she’d tapped “send,” Hector called.
Sylvie answered and announced he was on speaker.
“I’ve got general protection charms for you,” Hector said, “but no idea if they’ll help against one of those. They’re spirit beings. More up a necromantic mage’s alley than mine.”
Sylvie closed her eyes. That’s what she was, technically—a necromantic mage.
She had to be frustrated. She had a lot of magic, but very little idea of what to do with it. That happened when you grew up in ignorance of magic and then inherited pots of it from your gran. No training, no preparation at all, and then wham! Here’s a very large quantity of magic that now belongs to you and has no user’s manual. My heart went out to her.
“Thank you, Hector,” I said. “When’s convenient for us to pick up the charms?”
We discussed pick-up details. Hector would never leave his precious darlings out on the porch. There would be an official hand-off, complete with handling instructions, use warnings, and a list of dire consequences should we allow one of his borrowed cursed items to leave our possession.
“One thing I can tell you,” he said, “though I’m not sure how helpful it is. Break your kichkandi’s tie to this earthly existence, and you’ll be rid of her. It’s the same strategy she used in damaging Belle’s tree; she just didn’t make a big enough bang.”
Bang…explosion…fire? The word association happened in a split second, and I couldn’t help wonder: was that what Bad Bones had hoped for? A fire to wipe out Belle’s home? Or had she simply hoped to weaken Belle’s hold on this world and then swoop in to eviscerate the weakened wood nymph?
I thanked Hector, then Sylvie ended the call.
A final confrontation between Belle and Bad Bones wasn’t far in the future, if Belle’s condition was any indication. We’d felt pushed to solve Keaton’s murder and absolve his brother’s guilt before Keaton faded away, but now there was also Belle’s poor condition to consider. If Bad Bones usurped Belle’s territory, would she grow in strength? Either way, she’d murdered one human, likely three. There might even be more deaths that we hadn’t yet discovered.
Sylvie settled into one of my kitchen chairs, looking as distracted as I felt. She finished the last of her drink, and I was about to offer her a second, when she sat bolt upright.
“Keaton!” She set her drink down and reached for her phone to check the time. “It’s been hours since we’ve seen Keaton. Do you think he’s all right?”
That was a tricky question. Ghosts faded over time. Most of them quickly. A few managed to linger for months, some even years—like Ginny—but that was unusual.
Before I could come up with something reassuringly vague, she said, “You know, it doesn’t really matter. Whether he’s here or not, we still have his killer to deal with, and also the problem of his brother’s misplaced guilt.”
“True. You’d see him if he were here?” One of the perks of being a necromantic mage, I thought. I wasn’t sure of the specifics, but now that she’d fully accepted her magic, I believed that she could see ghosts, much as Clarence did, whether they wanted to be seen or not.
“I think so.”
“Well, like you said, his presence isn’t required,” I said. “We’re handling his case as best we can, whether he’s left the physical plane or not. But I bet his brother is just working downtown or away from home.”
Then a thought struck me. If Keaton was unable to pop in—for whatever reason—and we truly did have some privacy, I might be able to salvage the tail end of this date after all. And Sylvie had just finished her drink. So, naturally, I did the gentlemanly thing and asked, “Can I walk you home? We should probably get some sleep, since we’re going to have a big day tomorrow.”
She said yes.
To the walk home—my idea.
To one more drink at her place—her idea.
And to the kiss that began as a goodnight and became just a bit more—that one was a shared moment of brilliance.
14
Bright and early. That was what Sylvie had said as we’d parted company the previous evening. But when I’d offered a seven a.m. pick-up time, she’d quickly requested midmorning. It seemed Sylvie was not a morning person. We eventually agreed on a compromise of nine.
So here I was at nine o’clock sharp, knocking for the second time on her front door.
Maybe she’d overslept…or maybe whatever had killed Keaton wasn’t as tied to a specific territory as we’d thought and had followed us home.
I pounded on her door.
“Hey, now. Don’t bust the door down. I’m coming,” Sylvie called from her driveway. She must have come from the garage, because there was no door on that side of the house.
Definitely from her garage. She was toting a small gas can in one hand and a duffel bag in the other.
Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was dressed casually in faded, ripped jeans, a clingy long-sleeved T-shirt, and tennis shoes. She looked tired. Smudges under her eyes attested to a restless night.
“I’m sorry. When you didn’t answer, I, ah, I—”
“You thought the boogeyman had come for me.” She shifted her grip on the gas can, which prompted me to quickly relieve her of the burden. “I’m fine. A little tired, but fine.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well.”
She laughed. “Oh, I slept just fine, what little I got. Clarence and I were up late last night doing research online.”
I felt my eyebrows creep higher.
“Virtually. He didn’t leave the house, scout’s honor. But…”
I sighed. “Yes? What does Clarence want for his help?”
She pinched her lips together to hide a smile. “No, nothing like that. Well, not exactly. It’s just…Well, I think we need his help. On scene, so to speak.”
“You want me to bring Clarence with us?”
She nodded eagerly. “I think we might need his nose. He swears his sense of smell is much better than any human’s.”
His mysterious absence this morning was making more sense. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of him, even as I’d cooked a few strips of bacon. Allowing Sylvie to make his case had guaranteed success, and he was clever enough to know that.
I stowed the gas can and duffel in the trunk, and stewed as I rounded the car to open Sylvie’s door. I wasn’t unreasonable. I wouldn’t have refused a rational request.
But Clarence’s antics and stratagems were unending, even when unnecessary to his final goal. Maybe he derived some satisfaction in the scheming and finagling itself.
