Autumn Bones (Agent of Hel #2)

Autumn Bones (Agent of Hel #2) Page 18

In light of the arrival of Sinclair’s stylish sister, maybe it was time to take Mom up on her offer. At least I could afford to pay for materials now. Probably.

I was still contemplating the idea when my phone rang.

“Hey, cupcake!” Lurine greeted me, sounding languid and pleased with herself. “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you.”

“No problem.” I shifted the phone under my ear. “You warned me. Is everything okay?”

“Oh, sure. What’s up?”

After the scene at Rainbow’s End, I needed a little more concrete assurance. “So he . . . I mean, the satyr . . . isn’t in rut anymore?”

“Nico? No, he’s fine for now. It’s run its course.”

So the satyr had a name. Who knew? “Good, that’s great. I was hoping you might have some advice on making sure it never happens again.”

“Well, of course it’s going to happen again,” Lurine said mildly. “He’s a satyr. You can’t fight nature, honey.”

“Um . . . yeah. I mean the part where it sets off an orgy,” I said. “A human, public-health-hazard-type orgy.”

“Oh, right.” There was the sound of a champagne cork popping in the background. “Are you okay, Daisy? You sound a little distracted.”

“I’m fine. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Mmm.” Lurine wasn’t buying my dismissal. “You’re not working today, are you?”

“No,” I admitted. “Not unless I get called in on a case.”

“Well, then, here’s a suggestion for you. Why don’t you put on your bikini and get your cute little behind over here? It’s a perfect day to lay out by the pool and discuss orgy prevention. Oh, and stop on your way and pick up some peach nectar, will you?” Lurine added. “Tell Edgerton I feel like Bellinis.”

She hung up before I could answer, which annoyed me for a second or two before I realized that I really couldn’t imagine a better way to spend this particular day.

Lurine lived in a mansion on the lakeshore. The property came with lakefront access, but it was situated inland, nestled in the woods for maximum privacy. It was big and ostentatious and new, and a very far cry from the mobile home in Sedgewick Estate where Lurine Hollister née Clemmons had been my neighbor and babysitter when I was growing up.

Honestly, I can’t say the fabulously wealthy B-movie starlet and infamous widow Lurine Hollister was any happier or more content than simple, small-town bombshell Lurine Clemmons had been, or vice versa. They were just masks to her, and I don’t know that she preferred one to the other.

She probably had more fun being the notorious Lurine Hollister, but it was as Lurine Clemmons that she’d forged a genuine friendship with my mom and me, and over the course of this summer I’d come to realize that it meant a great deal to her, because it didn’t happen often to an immortal monster like her.

All credit goes to my mom on that score. Apparently raising a hell-spawn baby gives you a special knack for caring about monsters. Oh, and to put it up front, Lurine has made generous offers of financial support to both of us. Mom’s always been adamant about refusing, and I don’t want to undermine her decision on this.

At any rate, Lurine’s butler buzzed me through the gated drive and greeted me at the door. “Ms. Hollister is expecting you.”

“Great.” I handed him the jar of peach nectar I’d purchased on my way. “She said she wants Bellinis.”

He inclined his head. “Of course.”

Lurine was lolling in a lounge chair beside the pool in a gold lamé bikini and sunglasses, looking every inch the Hollywood movie starlet. “Hey, sweetie!” Reaching over, she patted the lounge chair nearest her. “Grab a towel and come soak up some sunshine.”

Realizing that she wasn’t alone, I hesitated. Nico the satyr was diligently wielding a long-handled pool skimmer, clad in a pair of loose-fitting board shorts with a sizeable hole cut out to accommodate his flowing horse’s tail.

“What?” Lurine followed my gaze. “Oh, it’s fine. Don’t worry, he’ll behave himself now. Won’t you, Nicodemus?”

The satyr gave her a surprisingly sweet smile. “Yes, kyria.”

I have to admit I still felt a bit self-conscious stripping down to my bathing suit with the memory of Nico’s ginormous schlong bobbing in the air—not to mention my own response, along with everyone else’s, to his funky satyr pheromones—but true to his word, he ignored me, concentrating on his task. I took a neatly folded towel from the cupboard beneath a pergola that looked like something from the set of a Pottery Barn photo shoot and went to join Lurine, who lifted a mostly empty champagne bottle from an ice bucket beside her and regarded it with a critical eye.

“Nico!” she called. “Go see if Mr. Edgerton’s got the Bellinis ready, will you?”

“Yes, kyria.” Setting down the pool skimmer, the satyr trotted toward the French doors, his tail swishing amicably.

“So . . . you’re keeping him?” I asked Lurine. That didn’t sound right, but I wasn’t sure how else to phrase it.

“Oh, for a while. He doesn’t know anyone else in the area.”

“How did he end up here?”

Lurine shrugged. “Most places with a functioning underworld tend to be pretty metropolitan these days. Cities built atop the ruins of cities. He heard that Pemkowet’s a better fit for pastoral types and decided to check it out.”

“Nice timing,” I said sardonically. “Jesus, I didn’t even think he could talk the other night.”

“Oh, he couldn’t,” she said without irony. “Satyrs in rut revert to a preverbal state. But don’t worry, it only happens every twelve years.”

“Really?”

“Immortals live long lives, cupcake. And it’s not like satyrs are impotent between their cycles.” Her lips curved in a smile. “They’re just not hyper-potent.”

The satyr returned, balancing a tray with two champagne glasses filled with sparkling wine and peach nectar. After delivering them, he went back to skimming the pool. I sipped my Bellini thoughtfully, watching him. “So I don’t have to worry about Nico going into rut for another twelve years?”

“Right.”

“But I need to be prepared for it,” I said. “I mean, assuming he stays and Hel doesn’t fire me for not knowing what the, um, hell I’m doing half the time. Which means I need to keep track of his cycle.” I glanced over at Lurine. “Do you think he’s staying? Does he like it here?”

“Well, he’s not thrilled that I made him put on shorts,” she said. “But that was just for your sake.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it. But that’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” Lurine gave me an amused look. “Yes, he likes it here. I don’t know if he’s staying. But if I were you, I’d err on the side of caution and assume so. And I’d assume there may be others that will follow.”

I thought about that, and about the warning I’d given Tuggle the hobgoblin, and the myriad other instances where members of the eldritch community had violated mundane laws. Sure, there were reports in the X-Files, but that wasn’t exactly what I needed. “You know what I should do?” I said, thinking aloud. “I should create a central database with information on the entire eldritch population of Pemkowet, or at least as much as I can gather.” Lurine sipped her Bellini without comment and I began to second-guess myself. “You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“No.” She took off her sunglasses. “I do, actually. It’s just a measure of how quickly the world is changing, and how much it has changed in the past century.” She smiled again, but it was a wistful smile. “I’ve been the subject of myths, legends, and poems. I’ve never been an entry in a database.”

“I didn’t mean you!” I said quickly.

Lurine cocked her head at me, and I fell silent. Of course it would have to contain an entry on Lurine, and Cody, too, and all the rest of his clan, including his two rambunctious nephews. Stefan and all his ghouls. And Mrs. Browne from the bakery, and Gus the ogre, and any other members of the eldritch community I considered friends. Me, too, for that matter.

“Maybe it’s a bad idea,” I said.

“No,” Lurine said quietly. “It’s not. It’s an idea of its time, that’s all. It would help you do the job Hel appointed you to. And that’s important, Daisy. All of this . . .” She made a gesture that somehow included not only the mansion and the surrounding trees, the satyr skimming the pool, and Lake Michigan in the distance, but all of Pemkowet. “It’s a lot more fragile than it looks.”

“I know,” I murmured. Things had gotten ugly with the Vanderhei case earlier this summer, reminding me just how delicate a balance existed between the eldritch and the mundane, and how the latter far, far outnumbered the former.

“So!” Lurine tilted her champagne glass and drained the remainder of her Bellini. “Problem solved. No more unplanned rutting satyr orgies. Henceforth, they will be anticipated, and appropriate safety precautions will be taken to protect the mundanes.” A mischievous sparkle returned to her blue eyes. “Now I’m going for a swim, and you’re going to tell me what’s really bothering you.”

I made a noncommittal noise. Ignoring me, Lurine rose and stripped off her bikini before diving into the pool.

The shift into her true form was spectacular and instantaneous. It would probably look incredibly cool in slow-motion photography, but in real time it flowed so swiftly that the naked eye couldn’t quite follow it. Lurine’s human figure cleaved the water and before the ripples could begin to spread, the lamia’s undulating coils filled the pool, shimmering blue and green in the sunlit water, crimson spots scintillating. She swam the length of the pool and back underwater, diving below and above the serpentine coils of her own lower half in a complex, intertwining ballet.