Friends without Benefits (Rise of the Discordant Book 4)

by McMullen, Christina

  She trailed off, turning away from me under the guise of fussing over the cat food, but it was clear the death had upset her more than she had expected it would. I did not press the issue. Instead, I turned back to the sink and continued sifting carefully through the ash, looking for anything that might hold clues as to why the spirit walker was in contact with the incubus who impregnated Myrna. The task would have been much easier if I could have used magic, but more often than not, correspondence from the incubi had their own counter curses. I didn’t want to take the risk of not just destroying any potential evidence, but unleashing some nasty hex in the confined space.

  “I hated her.”

  I stopped what I was doing and turned. Myrna was sitting at the small table, one cat on her lap and another sniffing around the bowl of kibble by her feet. For a moment, I wondered if I hadn’t misheard, but then she spoke again.

  “I hated her and yet, I loved her. There were times when I wanted to curse her with everything I had, but Desmond, I never did. Yet… I can’t think of any other reason for this…” she trailed off, shaking her head and gesturing around the small trailer. “The wasted, booze-soaked, husk of a woman lying in that bedroom is nothing but a shadow of the woman I once knew.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t suspect foul play?” I asked, sifting more carefully now.

  “In her death, no,” she said with a tired shake of her head. “Too much drinking and not enough concern for her own health is what killed Taffy, but what led her to this… Well, it’s been a slow decay, but yes, I suspect that something drove her to drink away her considerable savings.”

  This was definitely interesting.

  “I didn’t want to pry, but I couldn’t help notice the wedding photos.”

  Myrna sighed.

  “Taffy was a gold digger, plain and simple. She always had been. Leon, the man she snatched out from under me, was quite well off. Of course, I know now that Taffy or no Taffy, Leon and I were never meant to be. But by the time she got to him, Taffy had already earned the nickname of Black Widow. Leon was her fourth husband.”

  “You aren’t saying she…”

  “No,” Myrna shook her head. “Though she did indeed use her abilities. As a spirit walker it was a simple matter of looking for patterns. She could easily find men who were both wealthy and susceptible to issues of poor health and poorer decisions. All of her husbands, six in total, died of natural causes, leaving her a considerable estate. When Frederick died, going on thirty years ago, she didn’t bother looking for a replacement. She didn’t have to. She was already in the lap of luxury.”

  “Is that when she began drinking?” I asked.

  “No. If anything, she almost seemed at her clearest. She reached out to me and extended the proverbial olive branch. For a spell, our friendship had returned. It wasn’t until after… oh, dear.”

  Myrna put her hand to her mouth and paled visibly.

  “Oh Desmond…” she sighed, hanging her head, shoulders slumped. “It was me.” Her voiced cracked and I noticed tears welling in her eyes. “I did this.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Before she had a chance to explain, there was an insistent knock on the door. The police had shown up. I only hoped they would see Myrna’s tears as grief over the loss of a friend and not something else. I slipped out of the Cycle, but stayed where I was. No sense in causing any more suspicion than necessary, though the sudden hissing and spitting in my general direction was disconcerting. I’d forgotten that for reasons known only to the Creator, cats could see beyond the Cycle. Despite its claims to the contrary, I am certain the foul creatures are the bastard spawn of Chaos.

  After the body was removed and Myrna had gathered up all of the cats she could find, she came back into the kitchen and informed me that the officers were gone. I popped back into the Cycle just long enough to tell her that I would meet her back at her house, using the excuse that I did not want to raise suspicions in the event that any neighbors saw me. In all honesty, I simply didn’t want to spend the next fifteen minutes dealing with both Myrna’s driving and a car full of cats. Unfortunately, I think she knew this.

  * * *

  As soon as the cats were settled in, Myrna and I once again sat in her sunny yellow kitchen, a glass of tea in front of each of us, and the silence hanging awkwardly. I did not want to upset her by bringing up our unfinished conversation, yet I found my curiosity was winning over tact.

  “Myrna, you were-”

  “Desmond-”

  We spoke up at the same time, causing a small chuckle.

  “Please,” I said, indicating she should go first.

  “I just wanted to explain,” she said, looking down at the worn wooden tabletop and tracing the grain absently. “It was right after Donna broke the curse that Taffy’s downfall began. Within a year, she’d lost the house, her car, nearly all of her savings. Were it not for social security coming from so many husbands, she probably wouldn’t have had the trailer either. I just… I can’t believe I didn’t see it. I feel so… I don’t know. Guilty isn’t quite the right word. Responsible, definitely, but something else.”

  At last, I understood what it was that Myrna was saying.

  “Myrna, did you ask Taffy to use her abilities to create a puppet?”

  “I asked for her help.”

  “But did you specifically ask her to create a puppet by removing someone’s soul for the purpose of breaking your daughter’s curse?”

  “No,” she said with a sigh. “Desmond, I know what you’re trying to do and I appreciate it, but you have to understand. Even though her actions were her own, Taffy did what she did to help me, but she had to live with that on her conscience. No wonder she took to drinking.”

  “I’m not entirely sure about that,” I said cautiously. “Myrna, just before her death, Taffy was trying to get rid of something. A letter, or letters, that I’m guessing she didn’t want you to find.”

  “Is that what the mess in the sink was?”

  “It... was…” I drawled, debating my next action. At last, I drew the seal out of my pocket. Myrna deserved to know everything, even if it wasn’t much. “I found nothing of the letters, but there was this.” I set the jar with the seal in it on the table. Myrna picked it up and peered closer, frowning at first, but she looked up at me with wide eyes when she realized what she had.

  “Why, that’s his seal, isn’t it?”

  “Arkady confirmed that it is indeed the seal of the House of Fa Be’yoh.”

  She sipped silently at her tea for a moment, a frown of concentration on her brow.

  “Of course, she could have simply been trying to steal yet another man from me,” she said with a derisive snort before setting down her glass and giving me a pointed look. “Regardless of the reason, and whether it’s significant or not, I think Donna has the right to know…. Everything.”

  I was inclined to agree, but I could not in good conscience dismiss the seal or the fact that Taffy had been deliberately trying to hide the letters, most likely from Myrna.

  “I understand that you probably don’t want to think about this right now, but if you can think of any reason why she might have been in contact with Donna’s sire, it would help us tremendously. I do not want to have to attempt communication with the incubi while Blackbird is so unstable.”

  “Honestly, Desmond,” she said, taking another sip of tea. “I can’t think of anything. She was certainly no virgin and I can’t for the life of me think of how she might have profited from any arrangement with a morphael Discordant.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to go back and sift a little more. That is, if the police aren’t still there investigating.”

  “They shouldn’t be,” she said before narrowing her eyes in thought. “Wait. She burned the letters and then put the fire out with water?”

  “It appears so.”

  “We might just find out what they were discussing after all,” she said, getting up and going out the back do
or. I followed her through the small back yard, littered with current pottery and art projects, to the edge of the forest, where Myrna surprised me by getting down on her hands and knees, muttering as she dug her fingers into the muddy ground. A moment later, I felt a slight shift in energy and she held out a clump of dirt to me.

  “And now we just need wind,” she muttered, heading back into the house, but not before dumping the dirt into my palm. I reached into my pocket with my free hand for a jar to hold the dirt. From the energy signature coming off of it, it was clear that Myrna had done something, although what, I wasn’t sure. I was even less sure of her sanity a moment later when she came back outside, brandishing a portable hair dryer in her muddy hands.

  “I admit, you have stumped me,” I said, taking the hair dryer gingerly.

  “Earth,” she said nodding toward the jar of dirt. “Wind,” she added, emphasizing the hair dryer. “Fire and water have already been taken care of.”

  “Elements, yes, I got that part,” I said. “But I do not understand what you are suggesting.”

  “Oh Desmond,” she huffed and shook her head at me. “Earth, wind, fire, and water are the elements of the substantial world. They are tangible and the incubi are not. By imbuing the ashes with each element, you should be able to reverse the damage and protect against any insubstantial Discordant protections. Sprinkle the earth over the ashes and dry it with the hair dryer. Gently though,” she added. “Otherwise the pieces will scatter and we’ll never get it back.”

  Admittedly, I was skeptical, but a quick consultation with Arkady confirmed that Myrna had not yet lost her faculties.

  “Worth a shot,” I said with a shrug and exited the Cycle. When I returned moments later to the trailer, I stayed just outside until I was certain that I was indeed alone. A sudden and insistent hissing made me realize that I wasn’t.

  We had missed a cat.

  Satisfied that there were no humans about, I entered the Cycle and eyed the slender gray and tan speckled creature warily before continuing on to my assignment. From the looks of the mess in the sink, no one had been back to fuss with anything. At least not in the kitchen.

  I sprinkled the dirt over the ashes and plugged in the hair dryer, saying a quick shielding spell to ensure that the small device didn’t short out the trailer’s electrical. Surprisingly, as the pieces of ash dried, the gray and blackish color lightened to the soft cream and gold of the unnecessarily ornate paper used by the incubi. Even more surprising, they began to separate out into distinct piles. I held the dryer on them for a few minutes more, but apparently that was the best the spell could do. Four piles remained unmoving despite the air being blown in their direction. Taffy must have torn them before setting them on fire.

  I found a box of sandwich bags in one of the cupboards and placed each pile into its own bag. I stowed everything in my pocket and was about to return to Myrna’s when I heard a soft mewling cry. The cat. Of course. I knew that I could not leave the creature alone to waste away from neglect, but taking it out of the Cycle was just asking for trouble.

  “Any chance you’ve got a cat carrier over there?” I asked Arkady. A second later, my hand closed around something small, puffy, and definitely not big enough to hold a cat.

  Catnip. Like most everything that came from Laboratory Q, I read the attached instructions instead of assuming this was ordinary catnip.

  Use Sparingly.

  Of. Course.

  Already the small feline was trying to climb my pant leg to get to the bag of kitty dope. As soon as she was good and high, I slipped out of the Cycle and returned to Myrna’s place.

  “Oh dear,” she said as soon as she saw the sleeping creature in my arms. “I knew there had to have been more than four of them. I suppose I’ll have to go back and check again. I’m going to have to go back to clean it out anyway. I already know she named me next of kin.” I could have sworn I heard her add under her breath, “Had to get the last laugh, didn’t she?”

  “Anyway,” she continued after making sure the cat, who was still pretty groggy, was comfortably curled up with the others. “Were you successful in your endeavor?”

  “Mostly,” I said and pulled out the bags of paper. “It appears she tore them up. The spell separated them into neat piles, but could not put Humpty Dumpty together again.”

  She raised her eyebrows at my attempted humor and took the bag, eyeing each one in turn. “Well, I always enjoyed putting together puzzles,” she said with a grimace that belied her words. “This will likely take some time. I don’t suppose you’d like to stay and help?”

  “If I could, I would,” I said with a glance at the setting sun. “But it is nearly time to begin the nightly hunt. Do not stay up too late puzzling over this. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to help.”

  “Puzzling over this? Cute,” she said, laughing.

  “So my jokes are only funny when they are unintentional?”

  “It’s an endearing trait, trust me,” she said with a wink.

  * * *

  Just traveling from Myrna’s back to our home, I sensed enough Discordant presence that I knew it was going to be a long night. That there was another quake just moments before I left didn’t help. By the time I’d checked on the barrier, followed the scent of three wolf packs, and sent a group of vampires packing, Seth had already come home from work and left again. I wasn’t deliberately trying to avoid him, but I knew how it looked when I didn’t make an appearance at the bar until it became too busy for casual conversation.

  Unfortunately, this also meant I did not have a chance to speak to Donna either. After all that Myrna disclosed to me, I had reason to worry. It was certainly not my place to tell her, but I did feel as if I was somehow responsible for her well-being, considering what I knew. And it was clear that something was eating her. A couple of times I noticed Bogie trying to break through whatever barricade she had erected to no avail. I didn’t kid myself into thinking that I could do any better, so I gave her the space she obviously wanted.

  It was not until the following evening that I saw Seth again. Myrna had sent a rather cryptic message claiming that she’d pieced together the letters, but that she planned to speak to her daughter before revealing their intent. I would have preferred taking a look at them before involving Donna, but I understood Myrna’s reasons. After all, I imagined it would not be easy for Donna to hear the truth about her curse. Still, until I knew what was in those letters, I was going to be just as on edge.

  I decided the most productive use of my time would be to work on weapons. I had not given up hope on keeping the barrier closed, but I was realistic enough to realize that my time was better spent preparing for that which we could only put off and not stop. In addition to the hundreds of wolves that I saw in Donna’s vision, I wanted to be prepared for anything, even Discordant that were not native to the area. I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  I’d been so engrossed in my work that I hadn’t realized how much time had passed until I heard the back door open and shut. I figured that the Guardians had come home from school. When the door above me opened, I expected that Nai was coming down to see what I was working on. Despite the fact that she’d reluctantly accepted the role as Guardian, Nai was still just a bit too interested in the work of the Warrior. Though thinking about it, maybe training both her and her brother with some basic weapons may not be a bad idea.

  What I did not expect to see was Seth hovering on the landing, gripping the railing as if it was the only thing keeping him from bolting back up the stairs.

  “Hello Seth,” I said after what seemed like an excruciatingly awkward pause.

  “Hey,” he said with no small amount of nervous hesitation. “Can I…um… that is, can we talk for a moment?”

  That he had to ask got to me and I decided it was time to stop dancing around the issue.

  “Certainly, if you want to talk about the new renovations.”

  “Renovations?” My comment clearly threw him. “But
we just updated everything a few weeks ago.”

  “Yes, but I’ve been thinking we might as well rip out the hardwood and replace all of the flooring with eggshells.”

  He flinched and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. I almost felt bad for the show of attitude, but I’d had enough of this dance. After all, it had been several days since we’d said more than a couple of words to each other. Admittedly, this was my fault, but with the situation becoming more desperate by the day, communication was going to become key.

  Finally, with a long sigh, he sat down.

  “I guess I deserve that.” He looked up with a wry smile. “I’m um… apparently insecure and a little too macho for my own good.”

  I raised my eyebrows. That was certainly not what I expected to hear.

  “It’s kind of funny,” he went on with a short laugh. “Well, maybe not funny, but interesting, I mean… given the difference between us…”

  I had no idea where he was going, but I held my tongue and waited for him to sort out his thoughts.

  “I mean, you’re huge. You’re a Warrior. You’re the…um… I guess the term is alpha male.”

  I winced at the use of the wolf terminology.

  “Yes, I am a large man and I am a Warrior, but I’m not a werewolf, Seth,” I corrected, still confused as to his meaning.

  “Sorry,” he said with a small chuckle. “You can blame Nai for introducing me to a different definition of that term, but that’s neither here nor there. What I’m trying to say is that you are by all definitions of the word, a man. I, on the other hand, well, I’m not as much a masculine ideal and I… well to be honest, you intimidate me…”